Fear

How would he get along with his brothers? They would ask him all the questions his parents wouldn’t. They’d ask him what he had done. They’d ask him if he represented. They’d ask him if he had stood up or wimped out. That was what brothers were like, at least his.

Whenever the barrier came down there would be all kinds of people talking to the media and telling all kinds of stories. And pretty quick people would realize they hadn’t just all sat around catching up on their homework.

People would realize it had been more like a war. And then all those questions. Were you scared, Mohamed? Were you picked on? Did you ever run into all these insane freaks we hear about on TV?

Did you ever kill anyone? What was it like?

He hadn’t killed anyone. He’d had a couple of fights; one of them was pretty bad. He’d had a nail driven into his butt cheek and broken his wrist.

Mohamed figured he’d change that story a little. Nail in the butt sounded funny. It hadn’t been, but if he ever got out, yeah, he’d change that story.

As for freaks, the only one he’d spent any time with was Lana. She had healed his butt and his wrist.

So, yeah, don’t diss all the freaks, not to Mohamed.

When it came time for the Big Split, Mohamed had been forced to commit, one way or the other. He had gone to Albert and asked his advice. Until then Mohamed had stuck to working in the fields, but Albert had seen something in him.

Albert had liked him for the fact that he had no real friends. No family inside the FAYZ. He liked the way Mohamed had managed to stay under the radar. All those things—plus Mohamed’s basic intelligence—made him just right for the job Albert had for him: representing AlberCo at the lake.

Mohamed still had no friends. But he had a job. An important one. Albert would want to know details of Astrid’s return. He’d want to know that she was measuring some kind of stain on the dome. Maybe he’d want to know about some weird, mutant animal Astrid had supposedly killed. And he would definitely want to hear what Mohamed knew about the secret mission Sam and Dekka had gone out on.

Mohamed walked down the familiar, dusty road.

He walked alone.

Howard was already en route to Coates. He had a long day of work ahead of him. Hopefully his contractors would have run some corn and assorted other vegetables and fruits up to Coates and locked them in the rat-proof steel cupboards in the kitchen.

Howard would have to chop the produce up as small as he had patience for, then carry it to the still. He had a little firewood in place, hopefully enough to get the cooker started. Then while the batch was cooking he would have to hack around the woods looking for fallen trees, which he would then have to cut.

All of this used to be Orc’s job. Orc could haul a lot of bottles. Orc could haul a lot of firewood. Orc swinging an ax was a whole different story from Howard’s doing it. Orc was like two swings and snap, the log would be cut through. For Howard the same job could take fifteen minutes.

This bootlegging thing was getting to be a lot less fun. It was a lot more like real work. In fact, Howard realized with a sudden shock, he was now working harder than just about anyone else. Kids picking veggies in the fields didn’t even work like Howard did.

“Gotta get Orc to be normal again,” Howard muttered to the bushes. “Boy needs to take a drink or six and start feeling it again.”

After all, Orc and him were friends.

Drake stood atop the rise. He’d just returned after a Brittney episode and was surprised to find that she had kept moving along with the coyotes.

“Human,” Pack Leader said.

Drake followed the direction of the animal’s intense gaze. A kid—Drake couldn’t tell who it was—was down below, walking steadily along the dirt-and-gravel road. “Yep,” Drake said. “There’s your lunch.”

SIXTEEN

22 HOURS, 5 MINUTES

“SO. WHAT IS it?” Sam asked.

The “it” in question had been carried to a picnic table not far from the Pit. A plastic tarp had been spread out over and under it—after all, kids still used these tables sometimes. The picnic area was inconveniently far from town but still had a nice view of the lake.

“It’s a coyote, mostly,” Astrid said. “With a human face. And back legs.”

He glanced at her to see if she was really as calm as she seemed. No. She was not calm, but Astrid could do that, seem totally in control when she was freaking out inside.

She’d managed to seem calm when she came back from her quick trip with Edilio. She’d been calm when she said, “The sun may come out tomorrow. But it may not. And unless something changes that will be the last sunrise.”

And he had put on a pretty good show of looking calm himself. He’d given Edilio orders to come up with a list of places where he could hang a Sammy sun. They’d had a very calm discussion of other ways to prepare: start food rationing, test the effect of Sammy suns on growing plants—after all, maybe his own personal light could trigger photosynthesis. Move to more use of nets for fishing; maybe a hovering Sammy sun would bring fish to the surface.

Plans they all knew were bull.

Plans that were about nothing but prolonging the agony.

Plans that would fall apart as soon as the kids in Perdido Beach realized the only light they were likely to see was up here at the lake.

Sam was going through the motions. Pretending. Putting on a brave face to delay the inevitable total social meltdown.

In the back of his mind the gears spun like mad. Solution. Solution. Solution. What was it?