“Sure.”
They walked in silence. Their strides still fit because Javi made his longer and she made hers shorter. They weren’t even conscious of it, really. It just happened.
As they walked deeper into the forest, the mist seemed to sweep around them like a curtain. Molly could feel cold droplets on her hair and skin. The others were just shapes moving ahead of them in the shadows.
“I’m sorry for what I said yesterday … or was it last week?” Javi gave Molly a rueful grin. “I don’t blame you about Oliver. I really don’t.”
“Thanks.” Molly’s fingers went to the ridge on her shoulder.
“I don’t know why I said it. I—”
“It’s okay. I get it. Sometimes when we’re scared we say the wrong thing. I do it all the time, and I’m more scared now than I think I’ve ever been.” Molly grimaced. “Javi, something’s happening to me. Because of the bite.”
“I know.” He turned to her, warm eyes concerned. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s not that. It’s what it’s doing to me. I’m becoming … not me. I’m changing into something else. It’s why I can understand Cal. Cal said I was letting go of being human. I’m becoming like him.”
“Yeah, I figured that out,” Javi said.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I am, too,” Javi said.
“What should I do?” Molly asked. She winced when she heard the pleading note in her own voice. There was a difference between asking people for conjectures and theories and asking them for help. She wasn’t used to it.
Javi was quiet. They walked down the path as the leaves shivered with a chilly wind.
“Okay,” he said finally, and suddenly she felt a flood of gratitude for her friend. Deep and warm. It was how he’d been when her father was dying. She’d tell him the worst news, the saddest things, and he’d just … absorb it. Then he’d say, “Okay.” And that meant, just … okay. He got it. He’d carry it along with her. Bad things happen. I’m still here and so are you. That had pulled her through everything.
But this … could it pull her through this?
“There’s nothing you can do, so we just have to keep going,” he said. “Every time we apply logic to this place, what we think falls apart, right? So we can’t really know anything. Maybe isolating Cal like the Cubs did was a huge mistake. Maybe they should have been less afraid. Figured out a different way. Maybe the time jumps made it worse. We really don’t know. We can’t trust gravity here, or time. But I know this—we can trust each other. We’re going to hang on to Molly, okay? No matter what.”
She felt Javi grip her hand.
“I won’t let you go,” he said.
Molly took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said.
Yoshi looked behind him. Molly and Javi were yards away. Stu and Drew and Pammy were dragging, their heads together in close conversation. Dana trailed behind with Cal. He wished they’d hurry.
Other people. Always messing with your speed.
“Pammy is scared to come,” Hank said from beside him. “I know it seems like she’s a nuisance, but she’s actually the one who figured out how to make those seed cakes and set up the lean-tos. We wouldn’t have survived without her. Kimberly seems like she lives in a pep rally, but she’s super smart and keeps our spirits up. Crash is really strong, and he’ll keep going until he drops. Stu and Drew … they’re not leaders, sure, but they’ll do anything for the team. And Dana was the smartest kid in our school. I depend on her. We’re not just a burden.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Yoshi said.
Hank grinned. “Are you kidding? It’s written all over your face. It’s okay. I made a lot of mistakes. One of them was with Cal. I thought he was unpredictable. I thought he would smash things or get violent. I should have figured it out. Just because you can’t predict what he’ll do doesn’t mean he’s unpredictable.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Yoshi said. He wanted to sound gruff, but instead he sounded curious. Probably because he was.
“We just had to figure out what he was trying to say,” Hank said. “Molly saw that. Just because I couldn’t understand his words, doesn’t mean they were meaningless.”
“Molly was bitten by a triple D, too,” Yoshi said. “She’s lucky the attack wasn’t worse. She’s healed completely.”
Hank bit his lip and looked away, as if searching for predators. “Right. She’s lucky.”
“Shouldn’t we be at the stream by now?” Yoshi asked.
Hank frowned. “Yes. It’s always hard to tell, but we’ve been walking for a while. It must have changed course again.”
Yoshi looked down at his feet. The ground felt spongy. He knelt down and put his hand on the wet earth. “It didn’t change course,” he said. “It disappeared. I think the stream dried up. Or moved underground.”
“That’s good news, right? We can just head to the ridge.”
“Maybe,” Yoshi said. Something was bothering him. He squinted ahead. The mist was turning to sleet. It was the coldest he’d ever felt here. He waited until the others caught up. “Molly? It’s hard to tell, but I think I see—”
“Distortion,” Molly said. “I see it, too. There’s a time fold ahead of us.”
Yoshi felt the ground lurch. Somewhere deep in the woods a tree fell, its sound a violent cracking that made everyone jump.
Now they could feel it underneath their feet. The ground was vibrating, sometimes heaving in great jerks. Every few moments another tree would crash in the forest.
Then, ahead in the distortion field, the sleet suddenly hung in the air, as if it had frozen there.
“What … is that?” Dana said. She reached out her hand as if to touch it, but Yoshi grabbed her wrist.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said. “I think time just stopped in there.”
“Maintenance is in damage mode,” Cal said. “We’re breaking up. We have to restore!”
“Restore what?” Hank asked him.
“It can’t execute the code!”
Suddenly, Cal broke away from the group. He plunged wildly into the forest.
The Cubs and the Killbots dashed after him, leaping over fallen branches and wet leaves, weaving through the trees. He disappeared in the cold gray mist.
“Cal!” Dana called despairingly.
“I know where he’s going,” Molly said, panting.
“The cave,” Yoshi guessed.
Molly nodded. “You’re going to meet the apex predator after all.”
They caught up to Cal outside the upside-down tree grove. He had waited patiently for them.
“See anything?” Anna asked Molly.
Molly wiped the cold mist out of her eyes. “No distortions. I don’t think it’s a time fold anymore.”
“No time,” Cal said.
A jawbug flew out of the cave and zigzagged through the trees, heading toward them.
“It’s a scout,” Anna said. They stood at the edge of the time-suck grove, while the wind whistled and the trees groaned.
Another emerged and buzzed up high. Then another.
“We’d better do something soon,” Yoshi said, his katana held in attack position.
“I hope you’re right about the jawbugs being robots,” Hank said.
The jawbug buzzed closer, and Yoshi sliced it cleanly in half with what looked like a simple flick of his sword. He kicked at the metal and wiring that spilled out. “There’s your answer.”
Suddenly, a great cloud of jawbugs emerged from the cave, filling the trees with a hum that Anna felt in her teeth. Beside her, Yoshi lifted his sword, glaring at the swarm.
“Wait.” Hank handed his oboe to Cal. “Play the frequency,” he said.
Cal put his mouth on the oboe. The sound that emerged made them jump, more a screech of a bird or a wounded animal. Not music. Not noise. The sound traveled up and down and looped in and out. It had a pattern, somehow.
The bugs circled, curling through the air li
ke water spiraling in a whirlpool, then flew back in the cave.
Anna let out a breath. “That was amazing,” she said. “So the music really does control them.”
“Don’t get too relieved,” Molly said. “There’s still the Thing in there.”
Cal walked into the grove. Now Anna could see the cave opening, obscured by the thick, twisted roots. It had a dull, metallic shine.
Cal disappeared into the mouth of the cave.
“Let’s go,” Yoshi said, following.
Anna followed after Yoshi. He held his sword in a way that might seem casual, but Anna knew by now it was in readiness for a lightning strike. She shivered. The temperature seemed to be dropping fast. Hank held up one of the blue gels, and the light flickered on the walls. White-leafed branches snaked through the cave ceiling, looking like ghosts frozen in twisted positions. The cave walls were studded with interlocking nests, stretching one by one all the way back into darkness. Thousands and thousands of nests.
“This is spooky,” Pammy whispered. “Are the jawbugs in there?”
“Probably,” Anna said. “Let’s hope they stay put. Because in this confined space, we’d be chomped to bits in minutes.”
“Golly, thanks,” Pammy said. “You’re a real cheerer-upper.”
“Sorry,” Anna said. “I get that a lot.”
The floor of the cave was smooth and flat. Icy water dripped from the ceiling. The blue light drew Anna onward. There was an ominous silence only broken by the drip, drip of water and their footsteps.
“You’re right,” she whispered to Pammy. “It is spooky.” She was rewarded with a nervous smile. She was learning.
As Yoshi disappeared into the darkness, Anna suddenly realized why he’d been angry with her in the forest. It wasn’t because she’d talked to Kira about him. It was because she’d thought he’d take the device when he left. She remembered when they returned, how Molly had said matter-of-factly that she knew he was coming back, because he’d taken it with him. Molly had demonstrated faith in him that Anna didn’t have. What kind of a friend was she?
Oh, Anna thought. It’s the purple polka dots all over again.
This was worse, of course. She should have trusted him.
Apparently she was learning, but not fast enough.
“Yoshi!” she called, but he was swallowed up by the darkness, following quickly on Cal’s heels.
“Um,” Pammy said. “Is the water getting deeper?”
“I think so,” Stu said. “Don’t worry, Pammy. We’re going to get out of here.”
“Even if we have to swim,” Drew said.
“I can’t swim,” Pammy said.
Anna looked back at the mouth of the cave. Was water coming in? That didn’t make sense. But Pammy was right. The water was lapping at her shoes. Where was it coming from? It seemed to be flowing in from one of the passageways she could see on either side of them.
They splashed through the water, hurrying after Cal and Yoshi. The cave sloped downward, twisting and turning.
Anna felt a rumble underneath her feet, and suddenly she was pitched sideways. She grabbed on to Pammy. Her hand was so cold.
“There’s frost on the tree branches,” Anna said. “It’s getting colder by the second.”
They heard a loud cracking sound, and a fissure opened up in the cave floor under their feet. They jumped as it moved along like a snake, splitting the cave in two. A blast of freezing air took Anna’s breath away.
Anna bent down to examine the cleft in the floor. She could just make out an ice wall, and snow blew up into her face.
She looked up at Molly. “I think the biome itself is cracking. That’s ice down there.”
“We have to complete the circuit,” Cal said. “Hank.”
“What does that mean, Cal?” Molly asked.
He blew into Hank’s oboe. That strange sound again. Looping up, striking the air like a silver hammer. Anna heard click, click, click, the sound multiplying with every second.
Click, click, click, click.
“I think I know what the apex predator is,” she said as thousands of hives opened and the jawbugs emerged in an angry, clacking crowd.
The jawbug robots were everywhere. The air was thick with their pumping wings and glinting eyes. Their clacking jaws chomped onto Molly’s flesh. She felt one trying to crawl in her ear, and screamed as she tore it out.
“Cal, what did you do?!” she bellowed.
“Stay behind me!” Yoshi yelled. He held the katana out and slashed it through the air. Molly and the others crowded in behind him as he tried to shield them. But it was too hard, and there were too many jawbugs. Dana stumbled, a mantis bug chewing on her shoulder, and Hank ripped it off and threw it away. Stu and Drew went back-to-back, waving their arms frantically to keep the cloud away from their faces. Hank threw himself on top of Dana to prevent the bugs from attacking her, then tried to help her to her feet.
The cave was suddenly moving, wrenching one way, then another, tossing them against the walls. More cracks appeared and rained down dirt. The cave was collapsing.
“Stop!” Cal ordered Yoshi. “Don’t attack!”
“What are you talking about? They’re killing us!” Yoshi said, his sword moving through a line of jawbugs.
Cal took out Hank’s oboe and began to play. The music sailed over the noise of the cracking ground and the humming wings of the jawbugs. Their attack slowed, then stopped. The cloud rose slowly, buzzed around their heads without attacking.
“They want to complete the circuit, that’s all,” Cal said.
“This is a mainframe,” Anna said with wonder, pointing to the nests on the walls. “A computer hive. Think about it. It maintains the biome and controls the time-distortion fields. The worker robots, too, probably. Maybe it’s instructing the biome itself. That’s not an alien device you found, Hank. It’s a piece of code.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Hank said. “I don’t even know what a mainframe is.”
“Basically it’s just a computer with a huge brain,” Molly said. “It’s where all the processing happens. Or at least a big chunk of it. There’s no way to know if it’s the only mainframe in the valley. But it’s important enough that it programmed a massive protection device … thousands of jawbug robots. Am I right?” she asked Cal.
He nodded. “The Thing. You call it apex. It’s a brain.”
“Here’s a question, though,” Crash said. “Is this a good guy or a bad guy?”
Molly hugged herself, rubbing her arms. “I don’t know.”
“Kind of a crucial question, isn’t it?”
Cal blew into the oboe again.
The jawbugs aligned themselves into a V shape and flew down the tunnel.
“Come on!” Cal shouted, and ran after them.
The team followed, slipping on the icy ground. The jawbugs now hovered near the cave walls. Molly and the others walked closer. In the middle of the back wall was a blank, six-sided shape that was slightly torqued.
“Here,” Anna said. “That’s where the device goes.”
“Maybe if we click it in, it will stop the destruction,” Molly said. The floor gave another huge lurch.
“Or it unleashes the kraken,” Javi said.
“It’s worth a try.” Molly looked at everyone. “Agree?”
Slowly, everyone nodded. They were shaking with cold now, as the frost extended down the walls and whitened the floor.
Hank crossed to the wall with the empty hexagon. Carefully, he aligned the metal object with the space, then pressed it in. They all heard the sharp click, as if the hive itself was satisfied to have the chunk attached.
At first there was only silence, except for the lapping of water. The ground was still.
“Thank goodness,” Pammy breathed. “I thought we were goners. I—”
Then they heard a crack so loud it was as if the earth itself had split. The cave suddenly tilted, throwing them forward. The floor sloped, and they began to slide.
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“Circuit closed!” Cal cried gleefully. “Completion mode!”
The jawbugs winged their way back to their individual hives. The click of the hives closing was almost drowned out as water suddenly began sluicing down the cave floor. It drenched Molly’s legs, and the sharp cold of it stole the breath from her lungs.
“What’s happening?” Dana asked, panic in her voice.
“Malfunction of the maintenance mode,” Cal said. “Danger.”
“You think?” Javi yelled, holding on to the cave wall as the water swirled around him.
“Exit up,” Cal said. He wheeled around and headed into the darkness, pumping his legs hard against the slant of the ground.
“Are we supposed to follow him?” Javi shouted. The noise of the cave almost swallowed his voice whole.
They turned and ran after Cal, trying to stay on their feet while they sloshed through the freezing water.
They caught up to find him facing a sheer blank wall.
“We’re trapped,” Javi said, his voice desperate.
Another great heave of the cave nearly threw Molly off her feet again. The water was now almost up to her waist and was pouring through the cracks in the ceiling.
“Buddy,” Hank said. “If you can help us, the time is now.”
Cal took a breath and disappeared under the water. Molly saw him swimming toward the wall, just a blur of movement beneath the surface. Swimming toward …
“There’s an opening!” she said. “Come on.”
Molly sucked in a gulp of air and plunged under. Even prepared for it, the cold of the water threatened to overwhelm her. She could see Cal stroking through a smaller tunnel. Under the water, the sounds of the cave breaking apart were muffled. She pushed toward Cal, her lungs squeezing.
The tunnel angled sharply upward. In a moment Molly saw the darkness lighten. She was able to get her head above water. Gasping, she steadied herself as her feet found the floor. Cal was already pushing through the water, climbing uphill.
She moved a few steps and looked behind her. One by one, she saw everybody surface. Crash pulled the soaked and shaken Pammy behind him. They hadn’t lost anyone.