“I’m just guessing,” Mike went on. “But I think that tank contains a sample of the original PSS gas released during the Umatilla accident thirty-three years ago. The military brought in Fineman and their own scientist to get rid of it—to cover their asses now that so much public attention is centered on the depot. But obviously, there was a disagreement and Fineman won. Which means whatever that machine is doing, it isn’t good. I hate to say it, but we need to get Kaylee down there to take a look. She’s our best chance at stopping whatever it is doing.”
“The machine connected to the tank looks similar to a soundboard,” Samantha said. “And I could hear the resonance of the tank and notes that I think might have been the artifacts inside of it. With my ability to hear PSS and Kaylee’s ability to see it, we could experiment with the settings of the machine. We might be able to figure out how to shut it off, or at least how to counteract the effects it’s having.”
“No,” Marcus said. “We need to keep Kaylee and Olivia as far away from that thing as possible. Why risk either of them if we don’t have to?”
“Because I think we may have to,” Pete said, walking up with Reiny, a stack of papers in his hand. “These are the results from the tests we just ran.” He looked at Kaylee, then back at me. “Everyone’s PSS was normal, internal or external, except for Olivia’s, Kaylee’s, and Anthony’s.”
“What’s it doing to them?” Mike asked. “Can you tell?”
“We think so,” Pete said, putting his nurse face on. “It appears that their PSS is being extracted, much like what a minus meter would do, but more slowly. Our theory is that the machine and tank down there are siphoning the PSS straight out of their bodies. We can’t be sure how long that process will take, but we believe within the next twenty-four hours, the three of them may not be functional anymore.”
I didn’t know what to say. Despite my noble speech to Marcus earlier about not being The Chosen One and understanding that the world was always changing, I had not seen this turn of events coming. I wasn’t even feeling sick. Maybe a little tired and run down, but certainly not like I’d be bedridden in a day or so.
“What do you mean, ‘not functional anymore’?” Marcus demanded. “They’ll get sick?”
“Yes,” Pete nodded. “And if the process isn’t stopped and reversed relatively soon,” he paused, struggling to voice what I feared was coming, “they’ll die.”
“Then we need to get them out of here,” Marcus said, looking around at the group, his eyes gone wild. “We can sneak them out tonight and take them as far away from this compound and that tank as possible.”
“We don’t think that would help,” Pete said. “And by the time we were far away enough to know for sure, it could be too late. Think of it as someone losing blood from an internal injury. It isn’t enough to remove the person from harm and patch them up. You have to figure out the source of the bleeding and stop it, or they can’t heal.”
“What about my blood?” Passion blurted. “Couldn’t we give Kaylee and Olivia a transfusion or something?”
“Possibly,” Reiny said, sharing a dire look with Pete. “In fact, we believe the reason the tank isn’t affecting the rest of us is because we’ve had the vaccine made from Passion’s blood, and obviously Grant and T-dog aren’t affected because neither of them have PSS.”
So, T-dog was one of the rare people without PSS.
“But I never got that vaccine,” Marcus said to Reiny. “You said I didn’t need it.”
“Because you had a full transfusion of Passion’s blood in the ambulance after we found you,” Reiny explained. “That’s how we discovered the protective properties of Passion’s plasma in the first place. After we gave it to you, your chest could not be disrupted. I discovered that purely by accident when I dropped my stethoscope into your chest while you were unconscious, and you didn’t reboot. Your PSS remained stable. So, we ran some test and confirmed what we’d discovered. As soon as we were sure, your uncle insisted everyone at the farmhouse be given that vaccine, including Olivia’s mother when she arrived. I’m pretty sure everyone who worked for him got a dose, and I acquired one for Lonan, just as a precaution, which I gave him later back at the reservation.”
Marcus couldn’t reboot anymore? He looked as shocked as I was to find that out. His ability had been such a defining aspect of who he was: the boy who died repeatedly but always came back to life. Still, I was happy for him. Now he’d be even harder to kill than he’d been before, without all the inconvenient ten-minute death-naps.
“But that’s good, right?” Samantha piped up. “We can give Olivia and Kaylee the vaccine and it will protect them.”
“We’re afraid that won’t work,” Pete said. “The vaccine takes twelve to fifteen hours to become effective, and it would be similar to giving someone a vaccine after they’d already contracted the disease. Passion’s plasma protects against PSS extraction, it doesn’t prevent it once it’s already started. And again, there’s the urgency issue. The time it would take to see if the vaccine would work may exceed the time we have left.”
“You mean the time we have left,” I said, finally finding my voice. Shit. I was dying. Kaylee and I were dying. Well, and Anthony too, but I didn’t give a shit about him.
I looked over at Mike who had been way too quiet for way too long. His face was pale and he looked stunned.
“You’re sure you didn’t see the effect in Chase?” Mike asked in a hushed voice. “He hasn’t had the vaccine.”
“He hasn’t?” Pete said, shocked. He began shuffling through the paperwork in his hands, finally pulling one sheet out. He scanned it, then handed it to Reiny and she scanned it too.
“We’ll have to test him again,” Reiny said. “If he’s being affected, it hasn’t reached a level we can detect yet. We just assumed you’d given him the vaccine.”
“No,” Mike shook his head. “I didn’t have contact with him between the Eidolon and the displacement. And the extra vaccines I had on me in the compound didn’t displace with me.”
“Wait,” I stared at him. “You had this vaccine when Kaylee and I were captives here, and you didn’t give it to us?”
“I couldn’t,” he said, his eyes guilt-ridden despite his protest. “Alex believed the vaccine might disable Kaylee’s ability to pass through material objects. And I couldn’t give it to you, or Anthony wouldn’t have been able to sever your hand, which was the key to getting you and her out of the CAMFers’ grasp.”
“Well, that rescue may have been completely pointless if we’re going to die in the next twenty-four hours,” I said.
“You’re not going to die,” Marcus insisted, his jaw clenched. “We’re going to go down there and turn off that tank.”
“It might be the best course of action if it can be done quickly,” Pete said. “Anthony shows the most damage, we assume because he was near the tank the longest. Kaylee’s is not quite as severe because she was the second most exposed. And Olivia has slightly less damage than Kaylee because she was only downstairs briefly. That could explain why Chase is showing no signs. He’s been upstairs, mostly in the van, far from the tank. Based on that, we can assume proximity and duration of exposure play a significate role. Sending Kaylee and Olivia down there would result in more damage to their PSS. But if the end result was figuring out how to stop the process, I believe Passion’s blood could counteract it.”
“So, it’s an all or nothing game,” I said. “I suddenly feel very motivated to go down there and turn off that machine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marcus snapped. “You and Kaylee should stay up here where it’s safe. The rest of us can figure out what’s going on downstairs.”
No, Kaylee said. Mike and Pete are right. Olivia and I aren’t safe, even if we stay upstairs. I will go down and look at this thing. I was afraid before, and I’m still afraid, but if it could save us, I must do it.
“And I’m sure as hell not letting her do it without me,” I said, giving Marcus a l
ook.
“Then you’ll need to do it soon,” Pete said. “And I’d like to take some of Passion’s blood so we’ll have it ready, as well as give Chase a dose, just in case he hasn’t been affected yet. I could even give it to you and Kaylee in hopes that—”
No, Kaylee interrupted. Not until I’ve seen the tank. Olivia and I may need our powers. We can’t do anything that might impede us.
I thought for sure Mike would take over then, but he didn’t. He still appeared stunned. And the rest of them were looking at me.
“Okay,” I said. “Mike, Kaylee, Samantha, Marcus and I will go down to the tank. But I need to arrange a couple of things before we do.”
“And we should all eat something first,” Passion said. “It’s almost dinner time and I don’t think any of us have eaten since before the party. Sam and I will go throw some sandwiches together.”
The party. Had that really been this morning? It felt like days ago. This couldn’t still be my eighteenth birthday—the day I was born and the day I was given a death sentence. I needed to talk to Chase. If I was going to die, we had to release the movie tonight, and I had to sit down with him and Marcus and T-dog and outline the rest of my plan for them step-by-step. Fineman couldn’t win. I wouldn’t let him.
“Everyone meet in the kitchen in half an hour,” I said. “We’ll leave from there after we’ve eaten.” I turned toward the van and suddenly Mike was beside me.
“I can’t tell Chase,” he said. “He trusted me and this is my fault and I can’t tell him he might be dying because of me.” I had never seen Mike like this, and it scared me.
“We don’t know he’s dying,” Marcus said gently, coming up and gripping Mike’s shoulder. “And you freaking him out about it isn’t going to help. Pete will explain it to him when they give him the vaccine. Now, go pull yourself together because we need your head clear and in the game when we go down there.”
“Yeah, okay,” Mike nodded, focusing on me with clearer eyes. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep the three of you safe.”
“I know you will,” I said, hugging him impulsively. He stiffened at first, but he settled into it, patting me on the back like he was burping a baby. Then he pulled away, rubbing his hand across his face.
“I’m going to give Anthony a quick visit,” he said, returning to the hardened Mike I’d always counted on. “He deserves to know what that thing down there is doing to him.”
“Knock yourself out,” I said. “But he won’t believe you.”
“I can be very convincing,” Mike said, turning and walking back toward the dome.
38
JASON
“Jason, wake up,” someone said, shaking my shoulder. “The dome is doing something, and I think it might be a response to our message.”
I sat up in the camper bed and found Allie standing over me. She looked neat and well-rested. She’d obviously been up for a while and probably out telling everyone she was the newest secret agent of the PSS rebellion. I just hoped her story drew the heat to her and away from me.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“It’s around six. Get dressed and come outside.”
She tossed a shirt at me. “Hurry up.” As she opened the camper door, and I got a glimpse of people standing silently looking in the direction of the dome, light flashing across their watching faces before it closed behind her.
I pulled on my shirt, then threw on my boots.
By the time I got outsides and looked toward the dome, it was playing some kind of movie.
“It was running the sky stuff at first, but this is new,” she explained.
Once, when I was little and my old man and my ma were actually getting along, we went to an old drive-in, one of the last ones in Texas, before they’d closed it down. Tony and I had sleeping bags in the back of the truck, and my mom had filled a gallon bucket with popcorn and drenched it in butter. We each had our own two-liter of Coke too, and my parents drank beer after beer. I don’t remember what the movie was. It wasn’t the movie that was important. It was the excitement in the air, and us leaning over the top of the cab, shoulder to shoulder. It was my parents not fighting, and the sea of families just like us parked in their cars, enjoying that one night together.
That was the feeling in the air while the movie on the dome played.
Mostly, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, even though I knew it was true. The captivity of Kaylee. The torture of Marcus. The death of Danielle and everything Olivia had been through. It was almost too much to take in. But I had to hand it to whoever had created it. It was a kick-ass piece of propaganda.
Allie kept glancing at me through the whole thing, her eyes huge and full of understanding.
This was the exact fucking story I’d told her.
When the black screen appeared at the end, the crowd around us began to murmur and chatter, but then the final frame flashed up and their cheers erupted like thunder, rippling across the mob, as they took up the chant, “Come Home to the Dome. Come Home to the Dome.”
Allie joined in next to me, shaking her fist in the air as she chanted.
And I joined too, raising my own, a smile breaking across my face.
This was going to piss off my old man like nothing ever had.
After the euphoria of the movie settled down a little, Allie convinced me to meet with Matty and the rest of the bikers at the bunker to tell them I was part of the dome resistance. She was sure they’d want to help. She said many of them had PSS, small marks like hers, and all I had to do was show them my leg and they’d follow me.
I wasn’t thrilled with that last part, but I knew Palmer would want me to risk it. The CAMFers and The Hold might have gotten into Umatilla while I’d slept the day away, and I’d need all the protection I could get. Talking to Matty confirmed the worst. The locals had been monitoring the fences, and a group matching the description of my old man’s crew had breached the eastern fence around noon. Shortly after that, a group of black SUVs had been let through at one of the official road blocks. Mr. James must have pulled some strings, now that he was back on top of The Hold.
“Yeah, that’s not good,” I told Allie’s people. “Those are the two factions that once had control of the dome. They did all that bad shit you saw in the movie. Things are going to get violent fast, if we can’t squelch them.”
Even as I said it, we heard gunfire in the distance. They all turned and looked at me, expectantly. And I hadn’t even shown them my leg yet. “Do you know where they parked their vehicles and set up operations?” I asked.
“We can find out,” Allie said, signaling a couple of guys who quickly took off on dirt bikes. “What’s your plan?” She turned back to me.
“Well, they’ve come very late to the party,” I said. “And there are a lot of people between them and the compound. I say we set up various perimeter lines all the way around, and we don’t let them through, no matter what.” Of course, that would protect me too. The more people I could put between my old man and me, the better.
“We should tell my grandpa,” Allie said. “He served in the army and he has a big group with him. They’re pretty well armed and disciplined. He’d know how to set everything up and organize people.”
I was tempted to pinch myself. Maybe I was still back in the camper asleep and this was all a dream. People didn’t invite me to lead them and suddenly start taking orders from me. That was not my life.
“We can use the bikers to spread the word,” Allie continued. “They can go from camp to camp and recruit, and we can tell people to sign up at my grandpa’s tent. He’ll love to have more people to order around.”
“That sounds good,” I said.
And that was the beginning of my very short career as a rebel leader.
39
KAYLEE
The morgue had changed significantly since my knife-fight with Anthony. The hole in the wall was larger, the PSS glow emanating from it pulsing and more intense than before. There w
as a pile of stone and rubble pushed off to one side, and blood on the floor, wiped here and splashed there, various red footprints trodden through it. One of the morgue drawers was partially open, the corner of a crimson-stained sheet trailing from it, and I couldn’t help thinking that Major Tom finally had company.
Mike went through the wall first, stepping into the light, his gun out in front of him. My sister went next with me following in her shadow. She stopped at the first pipe, instinctively putting out her ghost hand to brace herself against the tank as she stepped over it.
Olivia, don’t—I cried out, too late.
Her hand went straight through, followed by her arm up to the shoulder and she pitched sideways, falling into the tank.
I lunged forward, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her back. We both fell against the pipes, panting and terrified, just as the tank pulsed back into material existence.
Don’t touch it, I warned, making sure we were both steady on our feet before I let her go. It’s phasing in and out, and I’m not sure what would happen if it went solid with part of you in there.
“Okay,” she nodded, looking shaken and eyeing the tank with renewed caution. “If it’s phasing, wouldn’t the gas just empty into this room? How’s anything even still in there?”
I don’t know, I said. I need to get a better look at it.
“Well, thanks for saving my ass,” she said, turning and maneuvering through the rest of the pipes ahead of us.
I followed, carefully, and Samantha and David came after me.
Once I stepped fully into the room, without the shadow of the pipes masking it, the pulse of the tank was almost blinding.
“That’s new,” Mike said, nodding at it grimly. “It wasn’t doing that earlier.”
I could barely look directly at it the way the rest of them were. It was like staring at the sun. And yet I tried, tried to see and understand what was before me. The tank was no longer a tank. That much was clear. What had once been a metallic man-made thing was now PSS itself, one minute material, the next ethereal, pulsing in and out of existence. And yet somehow it still contained the PSS gas inside of it. Not only that, just as Pete had said, I could see it pulling PSS into itself, like a black hole sucks in matter.