“They’d like to speak with you first,” she said to Will.
“That’s all of what Tiny just said to you?” asked Nick. “Take me to your leader? It was yapping at you for over a minute.”
“Come with me,” said Brooke, holding out her hand to Will. “I promise they won’t harm you.”
“Don’t do it,” said Elise.
“Or at least don’t hold hands with her,” said Nick.
“Ready?” said Will to something behind him.
“I’ll be right behind you, mate,” said Dave.
“Everyone else stay here,” said Will.
He winked at Ajay, then walked forward but didn’t take Brooke’s offered hand. Brooke withdrew it with only slight embarrassment and moved along with him. Will didn’t look at her once.
“I didn’t believe it at first either, Will,” said Brooke intimately. “I do so understand how you feel, but I’ve learned that they truly do wish us well and I believe them. Your grandfather was right about them—”
“You can stop talking now,” said Will.
For the first time, a flash of genuine anger cut through her moony, placid exterior; her cheeks colored and her eyes turned steely.
“You are a very naughty girl,” said Dave, appearing right behind and speaking in her ear.
Brooke didn’t react. And she covered her anger in a quick transition to hurt feelings.
“I suppose I deserve that,” she said.
Will paid no attention to her and kept his eyes on the chest of the Maker in the middle, ignoring the cowl. He blinked on the Grid as they slowly advanced. Then he looked at each of the Makers in turn. He noticed a couple of things he was expecting to see, and one thing he didn’t see that confirmed what he was thinking.
He stopped ten feet away from the one in the center. All of them swayed gently, like boats moored at a dock, bobbing in the water. The one in the center hovered forward a few feet and raised its arms grandly and looked like it was about to say something important, and so did Brooke—maybe to translate for it—but Will spoke up first.
“You’re probably wondering why I’ve called you here today,” said Will in a loud, clear voice.
Neither Brooke nor the swaying Makers responded; somehow, they looked surprised.
“I know, I know, you think you’re running the meeting, and why wouldn’t you? You’re used to having it your way; I get that. I mean, look at all you’ve done with this place. Amazing work, truly, an almost completely real fake reality. Populated with all these perfect idiot minions you’ve put together, hanging on your every word. Congratulations. Must be a really powerful feeling. Godlike, even. Well, not quite, but close, no doubt about it. You are definitely a force to be reckoned with.”
“I like where you’re going with this,” said Dave.
“Will?” asked Brooke.
“So, given that we’ve got a strand or two of your precious DNA wired into our systems, it’s perfectly understandable that you’d assume we’d be totally fascinated with what you’d want to tell us. That we’d be more than eager to help you with whatever you’ve got in the works. I understand why you’d feel that way. You’ve learned how to be extremely persuasive with most ordinary humans.”
“Will—” said Brooke.
He held up a hand to silence her. Will glanced back at Ajay, who was staring intently at the Maker, his fingers forming a funnel around his eyes. Concentrating fiercely.
Not yet, Ajay sent to Will.
Will summoned up a life-sized thought-form of the living snake astrolabe and projected it onto the ground between them.
“You found out, early on apparently, that sick little toys like this one can bend people’s will in your direction. And that showering humans with a steady stream of your technological ‘gifts’ just about closes the deal on buying their loyalty. So you decided, based on your experience—correct me if I’m wrong—that the rest of us must be easy marks, too: greedy, selfish, and stupid enough to hypnotize if you dangle enough bright shiny baubles in front of us. Make it Christmas every day of the year and we’ll go rogue and stab everybody in the back, even people we care about, and especially people we don’t—”
“Will, what are you doing?” asked Brooke.
“Shut up, Brooke,” said Will. “And I’m not going to tell you again.”
Her eyes flashed again as she dropped all pretense of civility and looked nakedly furious. She stormed toward him and her right hand shot out, glowing a poisonous shade of green, reaching to touch him. And hurt him.
Dave snatched her by the wrist—she still couldn’t see him—and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why her hand suddenly wouldn’t work.
“Can’t drain the life out of something that’s already dead, ducky,” said Dave in her ear.
Will turned to the Makers again. “But that still wasn’t enough to buy you the ticket home you’ve been looking for. So you thought, what if we give a few of these lesser beings the ultimate gift, a piece of us. Slot that software into some human hard drives and we’d grow up to be just like you. New and improved humans, more powerful and willing to do exactly whatever lamebrain thing you told us to, like your legion of homemade knuckleheads out here. We could have saved you so much trouble, if you’d only bothered to ask. Any parents would’ve told you that raising a kid doesn’t work out that way, nature over nurture. We’re all stubbornly, willfully determined to be nothing other than who we are. And we happen to be at an age where the absolute last thing we want to do…is what our parents tell us.”
Even if they didn’t understand all his words, Will could see that his intentions were getting through loud and clear: The lead Maker hovered in place, looking increasingly agitated.
“Are you crazy? Stop it! Stop it right now!” Brooke struggled and screamed like a banshee, but Dave had her by both arms now, and her strength was no match for his. “What are you doing?! They’re going to—”
Will summoned up a thought-form of an elaborate muzzle, sent it shooting toward her, and smacked it right over Brooke’s mouth, stifling her instantly.
Behind him, Elise couldn’t hide a smile.
“So, no, we’re not the least bit interested in whatever you want to tell us about your crazy-pants plans for taking over the planet again, or any part of what your reasoning behind all this twisted Shinola might be. We’re not going to help you with one damn bit of it no matter what you do to us or who you think we are.
“We’re not your children. You didn’t raise us. Our real parents weren’t close to perfect, but with the exception of the pretty one here whose parents washed her brains for you, they got one thing completely right: They taught us to think for ourselves. And that’s bad news for you boys from clown town.”
Dave chuckled. Brooke twisted and screeched but couldn’t free her hands or get a clear word out past the muzzle. Will glanced back at Ajay, who was still staring at the Makers.
Almost, sent Ajay.
Will walked back and forth in front of the Makers now, taunting them as he counted out the reasons on his fingers:
“You can’t buy us with money, and we don’t want power, not the kind you want, and we don’t care about eternal life, you morons. We’re kids; we think we’re going to live forever. We just want the freedom to be who we are. We wouldn’t even want to live in your pathetic idea of a world. It’s all fake anyway. We like ours just the way it is. So that’s the heart of your problem right there—we’re not buying anything you’ve got to sell.”
Behind him, Ajay lowered his hands from his face, breathing hard from exertion.
Got it, he sent.
Will pulled Ajay’s laser pointer out of his pocket and waved it around like a gun. For the first time, the Makers actually seemed frightened. When Will blinked on the Grid, he saw just what he expected to see inside the robes—swirling, agitated colors. A couple of them even started to edge backward toward the stairs. It was starting to make sense to him.
“We are, in fact, your wors
t nightmare.”
Will flicked on the laser pointer and the harmless red beam shot out of the barrel. He held on with both hands as if it were bucking around, pointing it at the ground in front of him—where the red line moved across the stone of the portico toward the stairs, slicing his own thought-form of the snake neatly in half, heading toward the Makers.
All of them raised the arms of their robes and emitted a series of high-pitched screams—apparently attack signals for the masses assembled all around them and in the plaza below. A cry rose up from both groups and they surged forward from every direction toward their position at the top of the stairs with a deafening battle cry.
“NOW!” shouted Will to his friends.
He summoned another thought-form in the shape of a hook and sent it shooting toward the Maker in the center. He manipulated the hook to grab the edge of the robe and yank back on it.
At the same moment, Elise sent a blast of sound toward the three Makers to the right of center, Nick launched himself toward two of the figures on the left, and Ajay fired a bolt from a small handheld crossbow directly at the last one on that side.
All four attacks landed simultaneously—Nick flew right through the two he’d targeted and landed, somewhat puzzled, on the stairs below—and all seven robes collapsed.
They were empty. No creatures or Makers. There was nothing underneath them but air. A loud gasp rose from the lines of monsters running toward them from below and behind them. The entire wave halted at once, in shock at the sudden disappearance of their leaders.
Everyone but Ajay and Will seemed surprised, but nobody looked more astonished than Brooke. She stopped struggling in Dave’s grip and stared at the last robe as it fluttered to the ground.
“Dude, we vaporized ’em!” said Nick, grabbing one of the robes.
“They weren’t even here,” said Will.
“What were they?” asked Elise.
“Thought projections. Like what I can do. At least now I know where I got it from.”
“No wonder they seemed so remote to me,” said Ajay, stepping to the nearest robe.
“Dude, how did you know that would work?”
“I didn’t feel threatened by their presence, not like we did by that one at the arc. And when they reacted to the laser pointer like it was a weapon, I got the idea maybe they weren’t actually seeing it up close.”
“So you weren’t even sure?” asked Elise.
“Not a hundred percent.”
“I’m confused,” said Nick. “But I’m used to that.”
“WHERE ARE THE REAL ONES, THEN?” asked Jericho.
“About half a mile from here,” said Ajay. “I was able to trace back the flow of mental energy from these shells to a building on top of that rise.”
He pointed toward a structure poking over the top of the ring of buildings around the plaza that looked like the Parthenon.
“That doesn’t even matter now,” said Will.
“It does if they decide to come after us,” said Elise.
“Oh, they will,” said Will. “We’ll just have to be quicker.”
“So, but wait, what do the real ones look like?” asked Nick.
“Oh, they’re hideous, mate, truly vile,” said Dave, appearing to them all again, still holding Brooke in a vise grip as he marched her over to them. “Trust me, some things are better left unseen—”
“MEANWHILE!” shouted Jericho.
He pointed back to the horde of guards and monsters who had regained their courage and slowly begun creeping toward them again across the vast portico and up the huge flight of stairs behind them.
“Get the horses,” said Will. “We’ve got to kill that portal.”
Elise whistled for the horses. They raced over and stopped beside them, and Elise grabbed their bridles.
“I’m going to need my hands free for this,” said Dave, glancing back at the army on the stairs. “What do we do with this one, then?”
Brooke looked up at Will helplessly, pleading, still unable to speak because of the gag. For the first and only time since he’d known Brooke, her elegant composure seemed completely destroyed. Something looked broken behind her eyes.
“Let me,” said Elise.
“No soup,” said Will.
“I wasn’t going to use my voice for this,” said Elise.
She walked over and punched Brooke in the jaw. Her eyes rolled back and her knees sagged, and as she fell over, Nick moved in to catch her.
“That wasn’t very nice,” said Nick.
“Neither is she,” said Elise.
“Well, we can’t just leave her here.”
“Bring her with us,” said Will.
The horde had crept within a hundred yards of them now, closing in from every direction. All of a sudden, they broke into a run, the sound of their battle cries rising into a steady din.
“MEANWHILE!” shouted Jericho, even louder.
Will pulled something from his pocket and tossed it to Dave. He caught it and looked at Will with a sly smile; it was the pair of black dice he’d given Will just before he’d been pulled into the Never-Was.
“Now we’re cooking with gas,” said Dave.
He shook the dice around and they transformed into a shining silver key in the shape of a lightning bolt. He “turned” the key.
His fearsome gleaming red Prowler instantly materialized around him, with Dave in the driver’s seat. Everyone stepped back as he gunned the engine and its unearthly throttle roared.
“Who’s riding with me?” Dave asked.
“I call shotgun,” said Nick.
He tossed the unconscious Brooke over his shoulder and jumped into the front seat. Her head bounced off the back of the seat.
“Oh,” said Nick. “Sorry.”
Elise and Will jumped onto their horses.
“We’ll ride behind you,” said Will.
“Aren’t you going to change back?” Ajay asked Jericho, holding the other bridles.
Jericho looked around at the advancing forces. “MIGHT BE BETTER IF I DIDN’T.”
“Shake a leg,” said Dave.
“But I can’t ride by myself,” said Ajay, looking nervously at the horses.
Jericho sighed and knelt down. “HOP ON, KID.”
Ajay glanced back at his horse for a moment and Jericho knew what he was thinking.
“I AM NOT WEARING A SADDLE.”
“I wasn’t actually going to ask,” said Ajay, and he jumped onto Jericho’s back.
“Stay close,” said Dave.
Dave gunned the Prowler, laid down a circular patch of rubber as he spun it around, and then roared straight off the portico, careening and bouncing down the endless flight of stairs. Will and Elise galloped down after him, close enough to feel the fiery exhaust shooting out of the Prowler’s tailpipes. Jericho lumbered along right behind them, Ajay bending low and hanging on like a jockey, clinging to his fur.
As they started down the stairs, Ajay looked behind them and saw the first line of attackers crest the stairs and pour down after them, hundreds of guards and creatures, trailing them by only twenty yards. Many threw weapons—knives and axes and tumbling maces—and Ajay ducked as they flew all around and past them. More than a few bounced off Jericho’s thick hide.
“I really shouldn’t be doing this without a helmet!” shouted Ajay in Jericho’s ear.
“LIVE A LITTLE!”
“Dump blondie in the back!” shouted Dave to Nick. “Then fasten your seat belt. I’m gonna need your help!”
Nick turned around and deposited Brooke into the tiny backseat, where she folded in neatly, her limp body jumping around with every violent bounce. Nick nearly flew out of the car as he turned back around, but he grabbed on to the windshield, flipped himself back into the seat, and strapped himself in.
“Dude, I just gotta say, awesome wheels!”
“They’ll do in a pinch!”
Dave pointed toward the dashboard directly in front of Nick and it dropped open,
revealing a panel of buttons and pulls. Dave pointed at one of the pulls.
“When I give the word, pull that gizmo there—Not yet!”
“Sorry—”
“What did I just say?”
“You said pull the gizmo—”
“When I give the word! And not that one, this one!”
“Sorry, Dave—”
“Hang on!”
The Prowler roared down toward the even bigger wave of onrushing attackers from the plaza. Dave gunned it again as they came off a step and grabbed some air, soaring up and then arcing down, directly toward the front of the crowd.
“Now! And don’t let go until I tell you!”
Nick pulled the lever. Twin blasts of frigid liquid ice flowed out of two nozzles that popped out of the Prowler’s front bumper. The substance hit the front line of the mob and instantly froze them solid. Then it kept pouring, freezing the monsters below and then laying down a thick layer of ice over their heads about the width of a two-lane road. Dave punched the accelerator, the twin exhausts spit fire, and they soared over the front line of the mob.
The Prowler landed on the ice with a jolt and skidded dangerously sideways into a full 360—spraying out a circle of ice around them—before Dave fought the wheel and brought the car back under control. He feathered the throttle again and sped along on top of the ice as the nozzles kept spraying and paving the way just ahead of them.
Just behind them, Will and Elise led their horses into a jump that carried them over the front of the army that hadn’t been frozen. They landed on the icy road, skidding and whirling for a moment, until they regained some traction and sprinted after the Prowler, their mounts’ hooves digging divots in the ice.
Jericho jumped last, and as he made the leap, the wave of attackers just behind them crashed into the wave of attackers in front of them. Jericho cleared the scrum and landed up on the ice, skidding for a good fifty feet and spinning around a few times, coming very near to the edge. Ajay closed his eyes and hung on, shouting like he was riding a roller coaster, until he felt the bear stabilize and start to run again.
“Are grizzly bears comfortable on ice?” he shouted into Jericho’s ear.
“NO. POLAR BEARS ARE!”