Fear

Diana glanced up at the sky. It was a habit now. A fearful habit.

It was a sphincter at the top of a black bowl. A fitting commentary on the FAYZ, Diana thought. A giant sphincter.

Justin held on to her as they walked, and she to him.

Which is worse? she wondered. To reach the mine shaft before darkness falls? Or not?

She had dragged her feet and stalled every step of the way on the theory that whatever the gaiaphage wanted, she was for the opposite. But then Drake reemerged and any slight delay meant pain.

He drove them forward with his whip. Like some ancient slave master. Like some long-ago Egyptian beating a Hebrew, or a not-so-long-ago overseer whipping a black slave.

But she saw that he, too, glanced up at the sky. He, too, was afraid of the coming darkness.

They had reached the ghost town. There wasn’t much to it anymore. Some sticks and boards. Suggestions of places where a saloon and a hotel and a stable might once have been. There was a better-maintained building set apart from the others, and it was from this building, through a creaky door, that Brianna stepped.

Diana almost fainted with relief.

“Hey, guys,” Brianna said. “Out for a walk?”

“You,” Drake hissed.

“Weren’t you expecting me?” she asked. She made an embarrassed face. “Wasn’t I invited?”

Drake snapped his whip and wrapped it around Justin. He jerked the terrified boy through the air and held him over his head.

“Move and I smash his brains out,” Drake said.

“And then what?” Brianna asked in a silky whisper.

“Then Diana.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Drake Worm Hand; I don’t think you brought her all this way to kill her.” Then, to Diana: “What do you think, Diana? Has he told you what he wants?”

She was stalling. Diana knew it, but did Drake? And if someone as headlong and impetuous as Brianna was stalling for time it meant she had an ally. Someone obviously slower than herself.

“It’s my baby he wants,” Diana said.

Brianna made a fake astonished face. “Is that true, Drake? Is it because you love babies?”

Drake shot a look to the path that led from town up the hill and to the mine shaft. He was only a few hundred yards away from the opening. He would be confident about finding his way that far in the dark. But he couldn’t be sure that Brianna would care about Justin. Even slowed down by darkness, Brianna could probably outrun him and cut him up.

“If you trip in the dark, Brianna, it’ll be all over for you. Trip at a hundred miles an hour, hit a rock? It’ll kill you. If it doesn’t, I will.”

He still held Justin aloft.

“Let me down,” the boy cried pitifully. “Please let me down. I’m scared up here.”

“Hear that, Brianna? He’s scared. He’s scared I might let him down too fast. Ouchie.”

Brianna nodded like she was considering this. Stalling. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Stalling.

Diana saw her eyes dart to her right. Who was coming? Who was she waiting for? Brianna must have passed them on her way here. She must have chosen not to take Drake on alone and instead moved to block his path while reinforcement was on its way.

That indicated someone a bit wiser than her. Sam. Or maybe Dekka. Not Orc. Sam or Dekka, they were the only two who could help Brianna in a fight with Drake and be smart enough and carry enough influence to convince her to wait like this.

Diana dared to hope. If it was Dekka, she could stop Justin from falling. If it was Sam maybe, at long last, he would rid the universe of Whip Hand.

There came a sound.

Coming from the gloom on the ghost town’s long-forgotten main street.

Diana saw the wicked smile of triumph on Brianna’s face.

Brianna drew her machete.

And from the darkness walked—limped—a small, barefoot girl in a sundress.

OUTSIDE

“PROFESSOR STANEVICH?”

“Yes.” The voice was clipped. Annoyed. Heavily accented. “Who are you? This is a private number.”

“Professor Stanevich, listen to me, please,” Connie Temple begged. “Please. We appeared on CNN together once. You probably don’t remember. I’m one of the family members.”

A pause on the other end. She was at an ancient, graffiti-tagged pay phone outside a gas station minimart in Arroyo Grande. She couldn’t use her own cell phone for fear of betraying Darius. She hadn’t used Stanevich’s office phone number for fear that it, too, might be tapped.

“How did you get this number?” Stanevich asked again.

“The internet can be very useful. Please listen to me. I have information. I need you to explain something to me.”

Stanevich sighed heavily into the phone. “I am with my children at the Dave and the Buster. It is very noisy.” Another sigh, and sure enough, Connie could hear the sounds of video games and clattering dishes. “Tell me your information.”

“The person who gave me this information is in very serious trouble if it gets back to him. The army has dug a secret tunnel; it’s on the eastern edge of the dome. It’s very deep. And security is very, very tight.”

“They are presumably drilling to see the extent of this recent change in the energy signature—”

“No, Professor, with all due respect. There are nuclear response teams here. And the tunnel they’ve drilled is thirty-two inches in diameter.”

Nothing but the sounds of Dave & Buster’s.