The failing light was casting long shadows. They would need to think about finding a place to spend the night.
“Won’t make any difference what I say,” Caine said softly. “Won’t be me telling the story. It’ll be a hundred kids if we get out of here. All those kids who mostly just kept their heads down all through this, they’ll be the ones telling the story.”
“Why do you say that?”
Caine laughed. “Sometimes you are so naive. You think you and me and the other big deals are going to be the only ones talking to whoever? The cops? The FBI? Don’t be stupid. You think the adults are going to listen to us? They’ll be afraid of us.”
“You think we’ll still have our powers? Even if we did—”
“It’s not about that, Sammy boy.” Caine turned his back on the mine shaft. It seemed to take a great deal of effort for him to do that, and once he’d accomplished it he nodded like yes, yes he could do it. “It’s not about the powers, man; it’s that we aren’t kids anymore. Look what we’ve been through. Look what we’ve done. Look at yourself, surfer dude. We’ve done something none of our parents have even come close to. We didn’t take over their boring world; we took over a world about a thousand times tougher. If we walk out of this alive, we won’t have to bow our heads to anyone. There’ll be guys who were in wars hearing what we did and thinking, ‘Whoa.’ You and me, we can say, ‘You got yourself some medals, soldier? Yeah, well, I lived through the FAYZ.’”
“I haven’t thought much past wanting to get out of here and have a pizza.” Sam was trying to lighten the mood, probably because what Caine was saying made Sam squirm.
But Caine wasn’t done. “They’ll be afraid of us, brother, not because we can shoot light out of our hands or throw people through walls, but because we’ll be the living proof that they’re nothing special just because they’re old. They’ll fear us and they’ll hate us. Most of them, anyway. And they’ll try to use us, make money off us.” He sighed. “You don’t know much about human nature, do you?”
At last Caine smirked and nodded his head, satisfied with himself and satisfied as well with the troubled expression on Sam’s face.
Sam said, “Yeah, well getting back to reality here, we should make sure the gaiaphage doesn’t come back this way. Let’s shut this place down once and for all.”
Caine spun on his heel, looked back at the mine shaft. “Now, that is an excellent suggestion.” He raised his hands, palms out. Loose rock from all around the mine entrance hurtled into the pit. Boulders rose and suddenly veered, fast as jet fighters, to crash into the hole. Pebbles and rocks and bushes and dirt and bits of broken timber all flew at the entrance.
The noise was a screaming hurricane.
“That outcropping up there, that big rock?” Sam pointed to a sun-bleached boulder about the size of a house. “If I get it to break loose, can you handle it?”
“Let’s find out.”
Sam aimed green beams of light at the rock and held them on target for several minutes. The rock went from orange-by-sunset to a deep, glowing red. There was a loud cracking sound, and half of it broke away, a single very big, very hot boulder.
Caine focused and stopped its slide down the hill. He swung it left and let it drop just to the side of the cave entrance.
“Break it up a little more,” Caine said.
Sam focused the killing light again and held it until the face of the rock began to melt. It fell into two uneven pieces, which Caine easily drew back and then hurled into the mine shaft entrance, blocking it completely.
Sam once again focused energy and held it for a very long time, lighting the mountain’s face with the green glow, until the rock softened into magma and crumbled wetly into the shaft entrance.
Finally he stopped. The boulder formed a welded plug that would have to be blasted out with a great deal of dynamite should anyone wish to dislodge it.
Without looking at Caine, Sam said, “Something we’re good at.”
“Yep. Something we’re good at. But listen to me, Sammy boy, I have one rule for when we throw down with the gaiaphage: Diana doesn’t get hurt.”
It took Sam completely by surprise. “We may have no choice.”
“You’re not listening. I’m going with you to kill what some would call my daughter, although I don’t think she’s anyone’s daughter. But if I suspect you’re going to hurt Diana, our peace treaty ends. We clear on that?”
Sam nodded. “We’re clear.”
“Deep down, she’s a good person, Diana is,” Caine said, and sighed. “Deep down, I’m not. But she is.”
NINE
64 HOURS, 25 MINUTES
AS SOON AS the lights came on, so to speak, Albert had known he had made a mistake. He had seen doom, nothing but doom coming as the dome went dark. But then, like something out of the book of Genesis, it was “Let there be light.”
And there was light.
Now as he stood sourly recalling his own failure of judgment, the sun, the actual sun, was setting out over the ocean, and Perdido Beach was touched with gold.
In this light Albert pretty much looked like he’d panicked. In this light he didn’t look like the prescient, cold-eyed businessman. He looked like a coward.
Standing on the southernmost point of San Francisco de Sales Island over these last three terrible days he’d seen that the wild, terrified mobs of kids had not, as he’d expected, burned Perdido Beach to the ground just to provide light as he’d expected. In fact, he was looking now through a very good telescope he’d found in the Brattle-Chance home, and while he could certainly not make out faces, he could see people in town. And he could see beyond town to the motels that had been built, and the fast-food restaurant, and the news trucks. Out there.