All told, about a hundred floats and balloons and several thousand performers would snake their way around the city over the course of the next three hours or so. More than a million people had crowded around the parade route the previous year, maybe twice that many had been expected this year. The city, and its reputation among tourists, was growing exponentially. If you took a trip to Tabula Ra$a, everyone knew, it was guaranteed you’d come back with a story to tell. There was no tourism board to advertise the fact. Blink did the advertising for them.
Over the summer, Zoey had been crushed to find out that her company would not in fact have a float in the Black Parade. Attending the event sounded like hell, but designing a truly mischievous float sounded like a blast. It turned out the parade organizers had banned Arthur Livingston from the event three years ago, after he’d rigged his float with an enormous catapult to fling whimsical projectiles at, and in some cases destroy, other floats along the route. The best Zoey’s team had been able to do was convince the organizers to allow her back in next year, if all went well.
It wouldn’t be a minor project. The average float in the Tabula Ra$a Devil’s Night Black Parade was wide enough to occupy the entire street and as tall as many of the buildings it would pass. There was bitter competition between float makers—creative teams sponsored by local businesses and plutocrats—and they kept trying to top each other. Zoey was told that last year, one float was around two hundred feet tall, a massive mechanical Grim Reaper that seemed to float along the route. In its bony fist was a headless corpse dressed as a police officer, referencing a real event that had happened months earlier when a policeman was beheaded and hung from an overpass. That incident and its aftermath (including the revelation that higher-ups had been bribed to destroy evidence) had caused hundreds of officers to walk off the job, their positions never to be filled. That was how the Black Parade worked: the floats depicted in graphic, often cartoonishly exaggerated detail some horror from the dark underbelly of the city. A chance, organizers had always said, for Tabula Ra$a to confront and exorcise its demons.
And now, apparently, Zoey’s mother was a participant. Somehow.
Echo was saying, “VOP ground units have now been dispersed along the parade route. Every outgoing surface street is being monitored.”
Zoey only half-heard her. If she were still the type to become hysterical about her mother’s safety, which she of course wasn’t because she had resolved not to be, but if she was, she’d easily be able to put together a nightmare scenario in her mind. Chobb’s thugs would have known Zoey’s mother would be at the parade, would have been watching her, would be ready at a moment’s notice to snatch her if they decided they needed leverage. Once they had done that, one of the creative, sadistic minds in Chobb’s employ could have their way with her, and displayed her body in one of the horror-themed floats.
Will, once again seemingly reading her thoughts, said, “By far the most likely scenario is that Chobb’s people picked up your mother and tossed her phone onto one of the passing floats, just so we’d have to chase it down while they moved her to another location.”
Andre said, “Isn’t it just as likely that some dude up on one of the floats spotted her in the crowd and invited her up there? They do that all the time, she’s probably giggling and dancing with a guy in a Will costume.”
“We just need to find a feed with the float in view,” said Echo. “Here … oh. Uh … well…”
Zoey leaned over. “What?”
It was a drone’s view of the parade, tracking a particular float that it turned out was actually very easy to spot. The float in question was a huge ball of flame, fifteen stories at least. The flames didn’t look holographic—Zoey wasn’t sure how they’d achieved the effect without the thing actually being on fire.
“It’s supposed to represent the Goldstone fire. The float is about four blocks that way,” she pointed. “Can already see the glow—look.”
Zoey started to picture her mother tied to that float, burning to death. She squished the thought before it could fully form. No. She wasn’t doing this. Fear was interest paid on money you didn’t even owe. She tried to remember where she’d heard that. Oh, right. It was on a framed poster Arthur had kept in the conference room. She’d thrown it away when they redecorated.
Zoey heard a text chime on her phone. She held her breath, and looked.
Hovering above the screen was a message from her mother. Or rather, from her mother’s phone. Two words:
COME ALONE
Zoey held up the phone, but didn’t say a word.
Will barely skipped a beat. “All right. We’ve always known this was a possibility. Here’s where we wish we had Marti to use as a trading chip, but—”
“Shut up, Will.”
“Zoey. We’ve been through this situation before. This is a move we knew was out there for Chobb to make. He’s made it. Now we make ours. This is exactly what you asked me to prepare for—”
“You think you’re some kind of expert at reading people. But I’m telling you, buddy, you are not reading me right now.”
Zoey looked out of the one-way glass bubble, at the crowd. All the giggling people, the dumb costumes. She tried to think of the last time she went somewhere and just enjoyed herself, drinking with real friends who made her laugh until she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even remember.
She met Will’s impatient eyes and said, “I’ve got to say, it’s a miraculous system you’ve built here. At one end you have an unthinkable act of evil, then the guilt for it gets chopped up and dispersed so that it comes out the other end as a cool breeze.”
It was only now that Zoey remembered she had been holding this entire heated discussion while wearing the stupid Bonnie the Bonobo monkey mask. She pulled it off and blew hair out of her face.
She said, “Everyone, get yourselves to safety. Wu, you, too.”
Zoey pulled up her phone and typed a response to the text:
I’LL BE THERE
Echo said, “You’re not going alone. I don’t care what you say. We stop, I’m getting off, too.”
“Why? Because you care about me? If you do, then listen. You people remind me to listen to you ten times a day, are you capable of doing it? Any of you? I have to do this because this is what Arthur would never have done. I’m going down there alone and I’m ordering you to use that distraction to get yourselves to safety. Take this cat with you. Wu, you’re relieved of duty. If I survive, I’ll leave you a good review.”
Zoey reached inside her costume, found a band in her pants pocket, and tied back her hair.
“Now, does somebody have a weapon I can borrow?”
Echo said, “I have something better.”