“I’m here because this land is rightfully mine,” Cowboy said. “It belonged to my family for generations and was forcibly taken from my grandfather by the government before World War II so they could turn it into a chemical depot.”
“Chemical depot?” my mother repeated, glancing around worriedly.
“So, wait, do we need hazmat suits or something?” Chase asked.
I had to admit, he and T-dog were doing an amazing job playing dumb. If hacking didn’t work out for them, they could definitely seek an alternative career in the performing arts.
“If you’ve put these kids in any danger—” my mother began.
“You’ll be fine,” Cowboy cut her off. “They destroyed the chemicals years ago, and they promised to give this land back to the people of Hermiston, but now, suddenly, they’re gonna charge us for it,” his voice grew passionate. “Never mind that our families have lived within reach of some of the most dangerous chemical weapons on earth for generations. Never mind that my kids grew up constantly in fear for their lives, carrying shelter-in-place kits to school every day and enduring the monthly evacuation drills. And then there’s our livelihood, our family farms gone to shit, because who wants to buy anything grown next to a chemical depot? I’ll tell you who. No one. They owe us this land, see.”
“That is obviously horribly unjust,” my mother said in her best therapist voice. “No wonder you’re up-in-arms about it. But I’m still not sure I understand why you rear-ended our van.”
“Well,” he said, “We’re not the only ones with a claim in all this. Now that the rights to the land are up in the air, everyone wants a piece of it. The natives. The military. The preppers. The tree huggers. That’s who I thought you were because of your hippie van and your drone. The tree huggers use them sometimes to get footage of the wildlife. And they’ve been rumors going around that certain groups are trying to get onto the land and use some kind of loophole in the Homestead Act to solidify their claim, so when I came upon your vans and saw the gate start to open—”
“You assumed that’s what we were doing,” my mother finished for him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, looking sheepish.
“Well,” she said, smiling at him, “I assure you we were doing no such thing. I’m Sophie Black,” she introduced herself. “I’m a psychologist from Illinois and this is my daughter, Olivia, and her friends. We’ve all been through an ordeal recently and we’re driving from Portland up the Gorge for some much-needed rest and relaxation. But it was late, and we made a wrong turn, and the boys foolishly got out to test their drone, at which point you damaged our vehicle and pulled a gun on innocent kids.” Man, she was really milking the “innocent kid” thing, and it was so NOT true, but it seemed to be working, so I certainly wasn’t going to stop her.
“And I’m mighty sorry about that, ma’am.” Cowboy tipped his hat, suddenly going all southern gentleman on her. “I’ll put this away,” he added, stepping back to the open window of his truck and setting his rifle inside on the seat. Then, he reached into his glove box and pulled out a card, crossing and handing it to her. “The name’s Wade Hermiston, and here’s my insurance information. But I’d sure appreciate you reporting this as an accident, you know, just like I’ll report that your kids here accidentally breached military security and trespassed on federal land.”
He wasn’t going to report this. What he’d just done to us would get him in a ton of legal trouble and hurt his court case.
“Of course, I’ll report it as an accident,” my mother said, “Just a minute,” she added, turning toward the van. “I think the rental insurance information is in the glove box.”
“No, that’s all right,” he said. “My truck is fine.” He was right. The old thing had a huge bumper with hardly a scratch on it. “Do you need directions to somewhere?” He offered politely. “I know this area like the back of my hand.”
“Yeah, about that,” T-dog said grimly, bending down and picking up a few more pieces of his pulverized drone. “I don’t think any of us is getting out of here anytime soon.” He stood, glancing at the gate. “That thing locked up again as soon as it closed.”
* * *
”So, can you open it?” I asked Chase and T-Dog, all three of us huddled around the control panel of Umatilla’s main gate.
“You’re never gonna crack that code manually,” Wade Hermiston called from behind us where he was leaning against his truck making small talk with my mom.
“Ignore him,” I told my new hacker friends. “You guys were made for this.”
“Sorry,” Chase said somberly. “No can do.”
“What?” I whispered. “Why the hell not? You’re telling me you brought an entire van of electronic hacking equipment and you can’t reopen a simple gate?”
“Oh, we can open it,” T-Dog said, keeping his voice low. “We can open it and close it. In fact, we can open all four security gates on this property and shut off their voltage, as well as intercept any new code changes that might be issued remotely. We could do all that the moment the drone linked to the control panel and uploaded the security information to our computers in the van. Not to mention, we have several more drones with us.”
“Then why’d you just say you couldn’t hack it?” I asked, totally confused.
“Because,” Chase explained, “if we open this gate, Wade Hermiston is going to be suspicious all over again. He’d probably insist on escorting us off this land at gunpoint, and then we lose access to the compound and he and his vigilante townspeople keep us from ever coming back.”
“Right.” I let out a sigh. “Good point. So, we pretend we’re trying and we fail, and then what?”
“We find the dome,” T-Dog said, shrugging.
“With him tagging along?” I groaned.
“You have a better idea?” Chase asked.
“You ain’t getting it, are you?” Wade Hermiston called to us loudly. “I told you, but you kids these days think you know everything about technology.”
“He seems harmless enough,” I said, glancing back at the old coot. “How far is the dome from here?”
“About fifteen miles due north,” T-Dog answered. “It’s pretty much smack in the middle of the depot.”
“Okay,” I said, racking my brain for a plan. “Do you have any video equipment in the van?”
“Sure,” Chase said. “We have a couple of hand cams.”
“Good. Here’s what we do. We want to get to the dome, right? And Wade Hermiston wants the world to know how the government is shafting him and his entire town. So, you guys act all interested and tell him you’re up-and-coming documentary filmmakers. That’s why you had the drone, for cheap aerial shots or something. Anyway, stroke his ego. Tell him this is the best underdog story you’ve ever heard and you want to film him and get footage of the entire depot. And, if he lets you do that, you’ll make sure when we all get out of here that everyone who’s ever used the internet sees his story.”
“That gives us an excuse to head north to the compound,” T-Dog said, sounding impressed. “But what about when we actually get to the dome?”
“I guess we act like we have no idea what it is, but it’s cool-looking, so you guys want to film it. That gives us an excuse to go inside. And Wade’s probably going to assume it’s all part of someone’s diabolical plot to take the depot from him, so that might play right into our hands.”
“You kids ready to give up yet and let a seasoned adult get us out of here?” Wade yelled.
“And exactly how are you going to do that?” I yelled back.
“I have a friend who lives just north of the depot,” he hollered. “If we can get his attention by flashing our headlights, he’ll come to our rescue.”
North of the depot. It was like the fates were playing directly into our hands. And that totally freaked me out because I wasn’t used to things going my way pretty much ever.
“Excellent,” I whispered to T-Dog and Chase, “He wants to head north, so l
et’s make him a movie star along the way. And when we get to the compound, we can send him further north to signal his friend while we stay back and get some extra footage.”
“Whoa,” T-Dog purred. “You’re good.”
* * *
The first part of our plan worked flawlessly. T-Dog and Chase gave an incredible performance. Even those of us who knew they were hackers began to believe they were also passionate part-time filmmakers. When they pulled the small, hand-held cams out of their van to back up our charade and filmed a short clip of Wade Hermiston telling his story, I could practically see tears in the old guy’s eyes. And best of all, I could tell my mother was completely convinced.
“Well, isn’t this a little surprise side-adventure?” she said, putting her arm around me while T-Dog and Chase showed Wade his footage. “Are you feeling okay? I know getting rear-ended like that was a little traumatic.”
“Mom, I’m fine,” I assured her. And yes, I still hadn’t told her about why we were really at the depot. But as T-Dog had pointed out, I was pretty good at winging it, so I figured when we drove up to the dome, the right words would come to me.
After T-dog and Chase had shot a few more dramatic scenes on location at the gate, we all piled into our respective vehicles and headed north, Wade Hermiston leading us. Mom even let me drive the van, despite the fact that it was against the rental agreement. But she was exhausted and frazzled and, let’s face it, I wasn’t likely to damage it any more than it already had been.
Driving through Umatilla at night was like driving through a strange apocalyptic world. The road we followed was just hard-packed dirt, so there was always a shroud of dust billowing around us. As our headlights cut through this self-made haze, bizarre forms rose out of the darkness on either side of us. Strange hummocks, covering the underground chemical storage barracks, flashed passed at perfectly spaced intervals. According to Wade’s earlier narrative, they were called igloos and there were exactly 1,000 of them. Originally, there’d been 1,001, but somewhere along the way Umatilla had experienced an unfortunate accident, an explosion that had left only a crater where one of the bunkers had been. That was why they’d been built spaced so far apart. So that one going off wouldn’t trigger a domino effect of Armageddon across the entire depot.
“This place is eerie,” Grant said from the back. “It’s giving me the creeps.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s kind of serene,” Passion countered.
Finally, about ten miles in, the scenery changed. The constant array of bunkers ceased, making way for an arrangement of abandoned buildings, looking like some kind of industrial ghost town.
In front of me, Wade’s truck sped up, passing between two huge, hanger-like buildings. I followed, foot on the gas, glancing at the building to my right with its large doors hanging open, revealing a hauntingly empty interior.
“Olivia!” my mom screamed, and I jerked my eyes back to the road just as something charged out of the dark and darted directly in front of the van.
Oh shit.
I swerved just in time and missed it, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t just one. There were hundreds of them, leaping and scampering across the road in a giant herd. The one I’d missed bolted away, flashing a big, glowing, heart-shaped butt as it went.
And then we were slamming into the next one.
7
DAVID MARCUS
I don’t know how long I’d been running in the desert, or how far I’d gotten from Reiny and Lonan’s. I wasn’t aware of the night, or the cold air, the sand under my feet, or the stars hanging above me. I might as well have not been in my body, as little as I cared for anything but escaping the anguish inside of me.
I’d held the crushing guilt and grief at bay for days, comforted by the presence and touch of Kaylee. But now that I was on my own, I had no choice but to face it. My one job in life had been to protect my sister, and I had failed. Not only that, I’d led her into danger. I’d practically handed her over to the CAMFers, and then I’d had the audacity to survive instead of her. She should have lived. She had been the good one. The one who could still love and trust people, despite everything that had been done to her. She could heal people. Of course, she’d never been able to heal me on the inside where it really mattered. I had been broken for way too long. We’d both known that. But she’d loved me anyway, even when I was angry and bitter. Even when I was terrified and paranoid. Even when my only power was the useless act of saving myself over and over again. Danielle had always understood me. She had been the one person who truly had. How could I go on without her?
Maybe I couldn’t.
Or maybe I could and I didn’t want to.
Miles of running later, I found myself on top of a sandy hill: sweaty, panting, and standing on the ridge of a tableland overlooking a large valley. The valley floor was black and barren, only a few twisted, burnt-out tree stumps peppered around the large, football-field-sized crater at its center.
My body had known exactly where it was going, even if my mind hadn’t.
This was where Danielle had died, where I had lost her. If she had a burial site, this was it, this giant gouge in the earth where the compound had once been.
I stepped over the steep edge of the hill and started to run down it. Toward the bottom, my feet couldn’t keep up. I was going so fast I pitched forward, head over heels, a rock pounding into my shoulder, dust filling my mouth, the earth and sky spinning out of control around me.
I bounced the last few yards, the wind knocked out of me as I landed at the bottom on the valley floor. My vision was blurred and my face was wet. There was blood on my hands and leaking from a tear in my jeans. It stung and felt good, all at the same time, the bruises and cuts protesting as I pushed up onto my hands and knees.
I got up and walked past dead trees to the outer rim of the crater, looking down into it.
Everything was gone. Danielle. The buildings and the dome. Everything and everyone who had ever worked there. The power to do that—to remove an entire building, all its sublevels, its foundation and systems as if they’d never existed—was both impressive and terrifying. Olivia Black, reportedly my girlfriend, had scoured the world clean of the CAMFers and The Hold. Whatever our relationship had been in the past, I certainly wouldn’t get on her bad side if we met again.
I don’t know how long I stood there. The stars cycled across the sky. The moon rose. Coyotes howled in the distance and the sound so perfectly encapsulated how I felt that I threw back my head and joined them.
The howling came closer, answering my own, at first hesitant and questioning, then more sure. I knew I was calling them to me, but I didn’t care that it was dangerous. I wanted to see them. I wanted to be seen.
I heard a noise behind me, the slightest sound, and turned to see the silhouette of a lone coyote on the ridge. Her eyes glowed, reflecting moonlight, as she inspected me. I don’t know how I knew it was a she, but I did. If Danielle’s spirit lived on, I would want it to look like that. Fierce. Free. Dangerous. Wild. All the things life had never allowed her to be.
“Hello,” I said, and the creature startled a little, obviously insulted that what she’d come to find was only an odd upright human. But she didn’t run.
“I don’t know what to do.” I told her, stepping forward, my foot sinking into the sand and hitting something solid that didn’t feel like a rock.
She darted away, her tail swishing at me as she ducked behind the hill and disappeared.
I reached down and felt the edge of something wooden and man-made jutting from the ground.
I crouched and dug around the edges of whatever it was, following the rectangular line the wood made. One corner was buried deeper than the others, but I eventually got it all pulled up, dirt cascading off of it to reveal a painting. The frame was black and burnt in places, and I couldn’t really see the picture because the canvas was caked in sand.
I shook it, knocking the sand away and slowly uncovering the dark painting
beneath. It was a portrait of Kaylee. Not just any portrait, but the exact one I’d remembered seeing in my uncle’s collection when I was a kid. Gordon would claim it as proof of his vision story. My uncle had used it in other ways. Everyone I knew had their own version of the truth about PSS, and I was getting a little tired of it.
How had the painting gotten here? Surely my uncle hadn’t kept one of his most prized art pieces at the compound. Yet, here it was. And for some reason, it had only displaced a few feet instead of miles like Kaylee and I had.
I glanced up to where the coyote had been.
I don’t know what to do, I’d said to her, and one step forward had landed me on a picture of Kaylee.
I didn’t believe in visions or signs. It had just been coincidence, a freak of chance.
Still, hadn’t I promised to help Kaylee? Hadn’t I vowed to protect her the way I hadn’t protected Danielle?
Gordon’s story about what he’d done with my mom and uncle didn’t change that. Reiny’s confession that she’d worked at the compound didn’t either. As for the whole thing about almost everyone in the world having PSS? I was still processing that.
“Okay then,” I said, taking a deep breath and hefting the painting of Kaylee onto my shoulders. I hadn’t been worried about her during my run in the desert, probably because I knew, deep down, I could trust Reiny and Lonan. But I wasn’t used to trusting people. Hopefully, they’d accept my apology for going off on them, and we could start again. Because the truth was I needed their help. And I wanted it.
* * *
When I stepped onto the porch, Lonan opened the door before I’d even reached for it.
He glanced at the painting on my back, then gestured for me to come in.
“I’m dirty and bloody,” I said, reluctant to mess up the house Reiny kept so neat.
“Don’t worry,” Lonan said. “We’ll get you cleaned up. But don’t be loud. Reiny and Kaylee are asleep.”