“If it can’t touch you when we’re connected, what harm is there if it can see us?” Jane was demanding now. “As long as we’re not in the dream and you’re controlling the communication, who cares if it’s blocked but knows we’ve connected? I’ll happily do it. And give it the middle finger in the process.”
“I do like her,” Quincy said, flicking his thumb towards her.
William looked back. As she had worn it since that first day in the hospital, Jane’s hair was pulled back in an efficient ponytail. Not a stitch of makeup allowed a scattering of freckles to show. Her eyes caught the light, showing gold and green among the brown.
“I don’t want to risk it,” he said, turning once again to the smoke. “Maybe it’s just holding back and now it can even penetrate our communications. Quincy, just look for a way to get in.”
They continued along, Quincy occasionally flooring the gas when it looked as if the smoke was about to conceal the road.
“Wait,” William said suddenly. “I feel him closer. He’s not far. He’s through there.”
“You mean through those miles and miles of black smoke? How are we supposed to get through that?”
Jane leaned forward. “Are you sure, William?”
He nodded once. “It’s almost like a scent. I know it’s him.”
“Quincy, stop the truck,” she said.
“What—”
“Just do it.”
As he hit the brakes, she opened her door and jumped out.
“Jane?” William asked.
He watched her scramble to the front of the truck, standing before the smoke.
Quincy tilted his head. “What is she doing?”
William felt it, the swell of her. “Jane!” he said, reaching for his door handle.
She turned back to hold up her hand in warning.
The winds rattled the truck, sweeping in with such force that Ryan and Lily rocked in the back seat. William braced himself, watching the winds tear at Jane’s shirt and blow her hair wildly.
As the wind rushed past her, the smoke cleared.
Stumbling, she fought against the gusts to make her way back. Ryan tried to open the back door of the quad cab, but the force outside was too strong.
She saw it too. With a single look in the direction of the winds, the force bent around the truck, calming while still pummeling the smoke. As she jumped in the truck, the torrents once against picked up outside.
“Drive Quincy!” she said.
Rain hit them, falling in waves. Quincy slammed the gas, turning down a split in the road and barreling onto the path through the smoke. The winds made it nearly impossible to stay straight.
“I can’t keep on the road!” Quincy yelled.
“I can feel him. We’re not far,” William said.
“Can you calm the winds or something?”
“It has to be strong enough to keep the smoke blowing away,” Jane said.
“Crap,” Quincy muttered, keeping the gas pedal to the floor, the smoke barely at bay around them as the winds cleaved a path. The rain was now falling so hard that the wipers couldn’t keep up.
William reached for Jane. She nodded.
“Are we clear?”
“Almost! OK! Now! Now!”
The moment he laid his hand on her leg, he felt it coming, like a freight train whose brakes had failed.
He felt it slam against whatever invisible barrier he and Jane forged together in their communication. As in those times isolated from everything but each other in the SSA’s confinement, he didn’t just see Jane, but the emitting brightness around them. He saw Lily and Ryan in the same manner, the outside world fading away in a tunnel created only for them.
He dared to look away from Jane for just a moment.
The blackness thrashed, a horde of thick, twisting strands of viscid oil. It pummeled against the barrier, hammering to get through. And from the distorted feelers began to emerge something from which the tentacles were born.
Once again, he was seven years old, his hand dropping from his grandmother’s fierce clutch in a dark hallway. He could barely see the creature ratcheting itself to its full height—
William yanked his hand off Jane’s leg, shattering the connection.
Jane gasped, her eyes blinking. “It was on us.”
William stammered for breath as Quincy righted the truck, the winds around them calming.
“Ok, we’re through,” Quincy said. “Fires haven’t gotten this far yet.”
“What is it?” Jane asked. Lily looked over at her in fear. “What is it?”
The girl then turned to William, sadness in her weary face.
The pull, the sensation of the other was immediately so strong that he jerked back to look out the window. “He’s right here. I can feel it. Wait, what’s that? Right there.”
“That’s a truck hauling ass,” Quincy said. “It’s coming right through that orchard. It’s headed for the road.”
“Get in front of it. He’s in that truck.”
The grayness had begun to dissipate, revealing lush, untouched orchards in the near distance. Quincy once again slammed on the gas pedal, easily reaching the beginning of the dirt road the other truck was barreling down. He parked, completely blocking the way.
William slid out to walk to the center of the road. As the truck came to a stop a yard away, the driver began to lean on the horn. William held up his hands. “I just need to talk to you,” he called out.
The driver waved at him to move the truck. William shook his head, yelling out again that he wanted to talk. He started to walk when he saw movement just above the truck’s roof.
A worker leaned on the metal, aiming a gun.
William felt the bullet whiz by, miss his shoulder by a breath. He cowered, waiting for the second bullet to strike.
Instead, he felt Ryan.
The man with the gun was tossed from the truck, hitting the ground hard. Two other men jumped from the bed, rushing to him as he tried to stand. One pummeled him in the face, the other punched him in the gut. The driver of the truck jumped out of the cab, walking towards the beating.
“Ryan, stop!” William yelled.
“You made me do it!” Ryan responded.
My God.
Just as he had done with Lily. With Jane. The instinct to protect himself, to kill or hurt, happened in a heartbeat.
He ran towards the fallen man, blocking Ryan’s commands. The three men stopped their assault and staggered back, clearly confused by their own sudden, unexplainable violence.
As William reached them, the man in the dirt scrambled for the pistol that had fallen a few feet away.
“No! I don’t want to hurt you!” William said.
“Diablo!” he gasped, clutching his stomach as he lurched for the pistol.
William scrambled to reach it first, sticking it in the back of his jeans. “Listen, please.”
“Mary, madre de la gracia,” the man responded, struggling to kneel. “Protegeme. Mary, madre del la gracia…”
Touch him. Just once.
William reached down and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. The man hissed at the connection between them. He scurried away from the shock, the electrical current that startled William at its intensity. “Diablo! Mantente alejado Diablo!”
“He saying to stay away, devil,” Jane said, she and the others cautiously approaching.
“Can you tell him we’re not here to hurt him?”
“No querer hacer dano,” Jane said.
“Diablo! Diablo demonio!” The man pushed himself back in the dirt.
“He thinks we’re all demons.…” Jane stopped, looking over her shoulder. “Do you hear that?”
“Mary, madre de la gracia,” the man continued, tears in his eyes.
“Hear what?” Quincy asked.
“That buzzing. What is that?” Jane asked.
“I don’t hear anything.”
The sound of tires tearing across dirt came from the near distan
ce. “Someone’s coming,” William said. “Jane, can you tell him—”
“William Chance!” came a voice on a bullhorn from deep within the trees. “Drop to your knees and put your hands on your head!”
They looked to the grove, seeing the shapes running. Soldiers in camouflage, their weapons out, barreling towards them.
A drone then buzzed over, just as the approaching vehicles grew louder and greater in number.
“Get behind that truck!” William ordered.
In the increasing noise came the sound of helicopters, lifting over the swell of hills nearby. From the road, Marauders came to a grinding halt, the doors flying open and more soldiers rushing out.
“William Chance! The entire perimeter is surrounded. Please put your hands on your head and direct the others with you to do the same.”
The soldiers in the groves were quickly approaching, the others that had swarmed around Quincy’s rented truck were lining up as well, their weapons fixed on them.
“Mr. Chance! This is your final warning. We do not want to hurt you or any of those people. Your family is here. They want you to stop this,” boomed the voice.
He saw it then. The soldiers waved four people out from one of the Marauders.
William’s heart dropped, seeing his aunts Kate and Stella surrounded by soldiers. He watched them both turn back to help two women out.
At the sight of Roxy and his grandmother, his chest tightened.
“No!” he bellowed.
They had them. All of them. Regardless of everything he did, everything he’d done, they were still in harm’s way.
“Mr. Chance! Now!” the bullhorn bellowed.
He saw some of the weapons turn towards his grandmother.
William closed his eyes.
Fire exploded, the very dirt erupting in fire, so tall it reached to the tops of the trees. The leaves caught fire next, the fruit exploding with the heat. As the soldiers near the grove stumbled away, the trunks sizzled and began to ignite.
The flames encircled William and the others, now rising so high that the sight of the hovering helicopters was lost.
William breathed, beginning to walk towards the flames, keeping his connection strong with the immigrant. The presence was there, again on the boundary, angrily trying to penetrate, knowing William was controlling another.
Burn, burn, burn, he could almost feel it commanding.
With the heat of the flames so strong that it began to singe his eyelashes, he again closed his eyes.
Like the sudden shutting off of a gas valve, the flames immediately died, and as if a downpour of rain suddenly fell and then evaporated, the leaves and charred trees smoked but no longer burned.
The only sound was the spitting of dying embers.
“Listen to me!” he yelled. “This can all stop! Right now!”
“Mr. Chance!” the voice on the bullhorn called out. “Your family wants you to turn yourself in—”
“You saw how quickly I put out that fire! Watch your satellites! Above the fires in California!”
“William! Do not move! Drop to your knees!”
William slowly began to step back, holding up his hands. “Are you watching? The fires? There were storms in Louisiana and we stopped them! There’s no more violence in Washington! Watch your satellites!”
He braced for the command to fire, the sting of bullets. The seconds it took to scurry back to the others felt like a lifetime.
The immigrant man cowered behind the truck, and William swallowed, compelling him to come towards him. With fear in his eyes, the man stumbled forward, straining to keep William from touching him.
The man stiffened as William reached deep within their connection with a simple command.
Stop. Stop the flames.
The man slumped, and William knew. All across burning San Joaquin Valley, the flames began to snuff out, as if a torrent of water had been tossed upon it. While he could not see it, William had no doubt that all that remained was scorched earth.
“Did you see? It’s over! The fires are out!” William called out.
He could see in the distance several of the soldiers clustered around large satellite phones, pointing excitedly.
Conferring with a soldier on the phone beside him, the man with the gray hair raised the bullhorn to his mouth. “William. No one wants to hurt any of you. You all need to come forward and surrender yourselves.”
“We can control it! All of it! No more people have to die!” William yelled.
“People are still dying, William!” the man responded.
“That’s impossible,” William whispered to himself. He then cupped his hands to his mouth. “It’s over! All of it!”
“William, whatever you’re trying to do, it’s not working. People are still dying! We just checked with the hospital at the edge of the hot zone!”
“Lily!” William called out, motioning for the girl. She cautiously approached as William let go of the immigrant, who staggered back, running for the truck.
He reached out and took her hand, feeling the furious dark, pounding just beyond their connection. William reached deeper within Lily, commanding her to stop the sicknesses.
Nothing came from her. The weapon inside lay dormant.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Lily say.
William looked to the girl. “Lily, I don’t understand.…”
“William, you have five seconds to get to the ground!” the bullhorn screamed.
Suddenly he knew.
It struck him like a hammer. Each time he entered the dream to see the sickness at the hospital, and looked beyond to the stone formations beyond, he would see eyes. Eyes still in the stone. Even though Lily was with him.
He kept his focus on Lily. “That isn’t you, is it?”
“I tried to get Ava out,” Lily wept. “But she was trapped. And I was so scared.”
“Lily, who is Ava?”
“William! Drop now! All of you, drop now!” the voice commanded.
“I don’t know how I got out. I promised her I would come back for her. I tried to tell you…” Guilt and anguish washed over Lily’s nine-year-old face. “My sister is in the mountain. With the monster.”
William wanted to ask more, but a red laser light from a high-powered rifle appeared on Lily’s forehead. He stepped in front of her, the light now squarely on his stomach, and dropped to his knees.
TWENTY-ONE
Through a child’s eyes, the mesas did look like mountains.
They’d arrived by helicopter at the military encampment at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park at dawn, in time to see the sky awaken the silver of the sage, the bluish gray of the sandstone, the gold of the clay. It would have been a breathtaking view: the morning sun on the expansive canyons where broken towers of stone loomed over the vast emptiness. The swath of all-terrain military vehicles, forming a barrier to prevent anyone from entering what the locals had come to call the death zone, was like a camouflaged stain on the earth.
William looked out the eastern window, the other helicopters sweeping in like a flock of blackbirds. As he leaned forward, the soldier in front of him stirred, his finger moving an inch or so closer to the trigger. The four other camouflaged men did the same, their eyes constantly focused on him and the girl beside them.
The fact that he and Lily were even allowed in the same space was an almost impossible feat.
As the military swarmed them in the orchard, William had reached out with his mind to the others: Show no aggression. I won’t let you be harmed. Before they were all ushered away at gunpoint, he could see the immigrant’s terrified expression at the voice inside his head. Jane tried to stay with Ryan, but they were quickly separated.
It cut deep to see Lily’s terrified face as she was surrounded by soldiers. Quincy swiftly lifted her in his arms, yelling that his only mutant ability was to eat a double quarter pounder. Not daring to actually touch Lily, the soldiers hesitated and then began to motion Quincy away with their rif
les.
William had been quickly directed towards a Marauder. He’d strained for any sight of his grandmother or family, but was almost immediately ushered into the military vehicle. Waiting inside was the tall gray-haired man who’d held the bullhorn.
“My name is General Mark Wolve, and from this point on, you’re going to do exactly as I tell you.”
William had listened to his furious berating: how he’d put the lives of countless people in danger, that he was an instrument of a kind of weaponry that was ripping the world apart, that the government had tried to protect them all and he’d undone everything on the whim of an immature twenty-two-year-old mind—
“We can kill everyone,” William had said quietly. “Everyone here. You. Every soldier. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I didn’t allow us to be taken because you had a sniper set on the girl. I did it because I needed a way to get to North Dakota as quickly as possible. Inadvertently, by separating us, you’ve positioned us in different locations within your military operation. Before you could put a bullet in my head, I could unleash all their weapons. No section of your soldiers will be unaffected. We will survive. You will not.”
The general’s eyes were furious. “So you’d unleash the weapon inside your grandmother? Knowing how it would destroy her? I’m supposed to believe that?”
“I wouldn’t have to. I have complete control over the weapons within the others. You saw the precision I had with the flames. I could activate all of it on your operation, and my family would be untouched. Speaking of safe, I need proof that Dr. Steven Richards is unharmed.”
The general’s lips had formed a thin line. “We offered to help him. Give him the medicine he needed. In the end, he refused assistance.”
“In the end?” William asked.
“Yes, Mr. Chance. The end.”
William fought the urge to launch across the helicopter at the expressionless man. “Now that we’ve established the rules, you’re going to order the helicopters to take all of us exactly where we need to go. I’d like to try and end this. And I need the girl with me.”
His directive had not gone over well, but the show of force with the flames was still fresh. After an hour of heated discussions, the helicopters had taken off. The general had even agreed to allow Lily to ride with William, but had explained that the rest of the Roseworth family would be on the helicopters carrying Jane, Ryan, and the immigrant. If William decided to activate any weapons while they were airborne, his family would perish as well.
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