IN THE BACK of the speeding ambulance, Sam Temple winced as the paramedic went to work on him, shooting lidocaine into raw flesh to dull the pain of the sewing needle. It still hurt, especially since the ambulance continued to hurtle through traffic at ridiculous speeds, causing the paramedic to jab her needle repeatedly in the wrong places.
“Sorry to have to hijack you this way,” Sam apologized.
The paramedic was intensely focused on her work. “You’re the Rockborn Group, right?”
“Gang, but yeah, that’s us.”
“Are you after that bastard from New York?”
“We are.”
The paramedic met his gaze. “Then no problem.”
Francis lay on her back opposite Sam, behind the paramedic. The paramedic had eased her broken fibula back roughly into place and had cleaned and bandaged it. But Francis would not be walking any time soon.
Armo had de-morphed out of necessity—the ambulance was capacious, but not enough for a shaggy nine-hundred-pound beast. He sat on the corrugated steel floor with Cruz, holding gauze to her forehead. She was the next in line for the paramedic. Simone was squeezed in a corner, nursing her wrist, morphed, with her coat of tiny wings buzzing but not enough to cause her to lift off.
Sam itched to ask Dekka what she was doing, what the plan was, but A) he was being sewn up, and B) he was not in charge.
Serves me right. I didn’t always explain myself to the troops, either.
He was feeling very much like a fifth wheel, lacking a useful power for combat, not really knowing most of the gang. He was painfully aware of his reputation as some kind of ten-foot-tall hero-demigod, but that had only been true, insofar as it was ever true, a long time ago. He was a passenger now, a hanger-on, an extra. He had one useful thing to offer, and it was looking increasingly unlikely to be helpful.
“How you doing, Simone?” he asked.
“The wrist hurts, but I’ll live.”
For how much longer? Sam did not say.
Suddenly the ambulance was fishtailing down the center lane of the turnpike as Shade stood on the brakes. Sam peered ahead through the windshield and saw a sleek, dangerous-looking helicopter landing right in the middle of the highway as traffic swerved past it or slammed on the brakes.
The ambulance doors flew open, and all of them—including the paramedic and her medical kit—ran or were carried to the helicopter, which took off immediately, leaving an abandoned ambulance parked across two lanes.
It was immediately clear that this helicopter was to the first one what a Formula One racer was to a Prius. It tilted sharply, nose down, and roared away, rotors and turbines deafening, and soon there was railroad track two hundred feet below them.
Dekka unbuckled her seat belt and stood up, steadying herself with a hand pressed to the low ceiling. “Listen up. Eliopoulos is trying to slow the train. We are chasing it. It’s going to be a very close call, even if the train is delayed a little. We may not have time to get any of the hostages off.”
“If we’re giving up on the hostages, why doesn’t Eliopoulos just blow it up? He’s got fighter jets and drones,” Simone demanded.
“You don’t kill bees by blowing up a hive,” Malik said.
“Then how . . .” Simone let the question hang.
Dekka nodded at Sam. “We’re hoping Sam can contain the swarm.”
Malik frowned. “How exactly would you do that, Sam, if you don’t mind me asking?”
The paramedic had finished stitching Sam’s face—nineteen stitches—and was smearing antibiotic ointment preparatory to bandaging.
Sam said, “May I borrow this?” He slid a pen from her blouse pocket. “I’ve often suspected that whoever, whatever is behind this rock madness has an odd sense of humor. Ever since the dome came down, I’ve been sort of, you know, lost, I guess. So after I took the rock . . .”
Sam tossed the pen toward Malik.
The pen flew and suddenly stopped in midair. Stopped and bounced and rattled a little, rolling back and forth slightly, imprisoned in a transparent sphere less than a foot across. The sphere floated like a soap bubble as Malik and the others gaped in amazement.
Sam flicked a finger, the bubble disappeared, and the pen fell to the floor. “Inside the FAYZ dome, I was a big deal,” Sam said, more wryly self-aware than self-pitying. “My fame came from a dome. And now, I can make domes.”
Malik’s eyes glittered beneath his sleepy lids. “How big can you make it?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Sam said.
“Does it go through solid objects?”
Sam bent down, reeling with dizziness for a moment, picked up the pen, and tossed it again. This time there was a snap! as a small sphere appeared, containing just half of the pen. The other half fell to the floor.
“Cool,” Malik said. “But anything trapped in one of your spheres would still have all its momentum?”
“Sorry?”
“I mean, if you threw a dome over the train, it would still be moving, right? It would smash into the inner side of the sphere?”
Sam shrugged and thought, Oh, good, I get a day away from my brainy wife, and now I’ve got Shade and this dude to make me feel stupid. “Seems so,” he said. “I haven’t exactly done a lot of testing yet.”
Malik thought that over, nodded, and said, “Interesting. Have you ever heard of multiverse theory?”
“I have not,” Sam said. In fact he had, but he was not interested in encouraging a long discussion. At times like these, visions of long white beaches and big, rolling waves came to mind, images of himself on his surfboard. . . . He wasn’t giving that up just to listen to a science lecture.
Dekka came back from speaking with the pilot and said, “They think we’ll intercept the train just as it reaches the Anacostia River, which is the edge of DC.”
“Ow!” Cruz yelped as the paramedic got to work on her.
Shade had pulled it up on her phone. “It’s a railroad bridge over a river, with what looks like marshes on both sides.”
“Good,” Dekka said, nodding. “That’s the place, then. But it’s just too close to the city to have any margin for error.”
Sam locked eyes with her, and in the course of a few seconds much passed between them unspoken. Sam knew what she was asking of him, and so did she. Both knew what Sam had asked of Dekka in years gone by. Sam felt a blush of shame, shame at being relieved that the decision was hers and not his.
And yet, when you do it, it’ll be you, not her, won’t it?
How many innocent people on that train? And how many would survive? What share of the blame would fall on Sam? How would he deal with it?
First see if you survive, then worry about that.
“As soon as we drop in on the train, Vector will know something’s up,” Dekka said. “He could disperse, and then we’re screwed. So as soon as Francis and I—”
“Francis can’t walk,” Armo said gruffly. “You still need one more person, and I’m it.”
Dekka nodded as if she’d been expecting this. “Okay, yeah, one to carry the shell, one to carry Francis. The three of us.”
Shade raised her hand. “Four. There’s some time between when we get there and when Vector can react, right? Not much time, but enough that I can save a few hostages, even if I have to de-bug them.”
“At risk to yourself?” Dekka’s fist clenched by her side, and the next words she spoke seemed to be torn from her against her will. “No. No, Shade, as much as I honor your courage, no. We’re risking Francis, Armo, and me. If something goes wrong, I need you, we all need you to survive.”
“But she’s saying she can save at least a few . . . ,” Simone protested.
Dekka lost patience. She erupted in all the despair and fear and self-loathing she’d managed to suppress. “Hey, thanks for pointing that out, Simone,” she snapped savagely. “I wasn’t quite clear on it you know? I wasn’t quite clear in my head”—she stabbed a finger at her own temple, startling her living dreads—“that I was condemning some innocent people to die. Maybe children. Yeah, never even occurred to me!”
Simone bristled at first, but then sat back, abashed.
“Listen,” Dekka raged on. “If anyone else wants to take over and make the decisions, be my guest. Because I am happy to let someone else do this.” She glared around, no doubt expecting an argument, but Sam saw around him only faces marked by pity.
“I’m so sorry,” Simone said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Dekka bit her lip and seemed to be heaving with every breath.
The pilot came on in their headphones. “Five minutes!”
Malik helped Francis to sit up, then stood back to let a morphed Armo lift her easily in his arms. Dekka squatted and hefted the artillery shell. “Malik, go ahead and set the timer. It can’t be as long as we were planning on for Grand Central. Make it for . . . I guess one minute. Hit it right before we go.”
Malik leaned forward and poked at the timer duct-taped to the shell.
“Sam? As soon as we jump back . . .”
“As soon as you’re clear, Dekka.”
“Francis?” Dekka asked. “Can you do this?”
Francis nodded. She was in obvious pain, held like a baby in Armo’s arms, grimacing, her voice shuddering. “I can do it.”
“Yep,” Dekka said.
“We’re passing the train,” the pilot announced.
Cruz, her forehead bandaged gruesomely, came to lay her head briefly on Armo’s bicep. “Don’t get killed.”
“You trying to tell me what to do?” Armo demanded archly.
Cruz smiled through tears. “Never.”
Malik slid the helicopter door open and was almost knocked down by the stiff wind. The noise of the rotors rose from merely deafening to overwhelming. They had run ahead of the train and come to a stable hover. The Acela raced at them like a bullet.
Armo moved Francis to the door and stood there, fur flapping, as Francis looked down. It was always better when Francis knew where she was aiming. Francis reached and took hold of Dekka’s hand.
“All right,” Dekka said to Malik. “Hit it.”
Malik leaned forward and pushed the button on the timer.
The helicopter hovered over the tracks.
The train rushed toward it.
Armo cradled Francis in his arms. Dekka held the nerve gas shell. 01:00 . . . 00:59 . . . 00:58 . . .
Sam leaned out the side door, face stretched back into a grimace by the wind, droplets of blood torn from his oozing wound.
“Ready?” Dekka’s voice was flat.
00:55 . . . 00:54 . . .
Francis nodded.
“Do it.”
“Wait!” Shade screamed, but it was a buzz that no one heard.