No rest in dreams. My pinkie’s bandaged in an ER that’s as sterile as a monkey cage. Klot’s out there somewhere in the dark, hiding behind the stars, ready to take more fingers if I don’t find his toy. Here, Anthony is pissed at me. Can you believe it? He’s pissed at me, over whatever I said to Klot. My pal gives me the toy car, then dumps me, leaves me to wait for the finger-man to find.
My head bobs back and forth. I open my eyes. Mr. Schapiro is shaking me with one hand. He’s got a cup of coffee in the other.
Right. It’s morning. I’m at his house. On his couch. Part of the deal. Judith Wilson said I shouldn’t call or go home—it’ll be the first place they’ll look for me. And Mr. Schapiro’s place? Looks like Judith’s getting some heavy-duty alimony. It’s a cramped one-bedroom over a seedy diner in the only gross section of Rivendale. Funny how the collider that could end the world also ended his marriage.
“You sleep deep,” he says, as I struggle up to a sitting position. “Here. The good stuff.”
I’m still twitchy from the “bad” stuff, but I take the cup and sip. Tasty. I nod approval. If this is his only source of nourishment, I’m beginning to understand why he blinks so much. I’m starting to blink faster, too. Beats fainting.
There’s a manila envelope in his hands. “Judith sent this by courier.”
Inside is a building map, a badge, and a clear bag with a thick plastic oval inside. It’s sleek, like an iPod, and just about as big.
“Is that a terabyte flash drive?” I say.
“Two terabytes.”
An hour later I’m on a propane-powered bus packed with commuting Prometheus maintenance workers. I’m wearing overalls and a fake employee badge that should be good enough to get me into the building. Thanks to Mr. Schapiro’s “good stuff” I’m not only fretting like crazy, I’m also blinking so fast everything has a kind of strobe effect to it.
I sit in the back, trying not to look suspicious as I hold a cloth bag with Anthony’s laptop and the flash drive, now loaded up with the sim. I’m supposed to load the code, use Anthony’s webcam to stream a video of the proceedings, then e-mail the data results back to Judith. If I try to stream or send e-mail through Prometheus, they could track and block it. Not to mention figure out where I am.
If I didn’t already feel stuck in a bad end-of-the-world movie, when the bus reaches the peak of the hills outside Rivendale, I get a sudden, breathtaking view of Prometheus. Talk about Ahab and the white whale. It’s so huge my brain’s ability to do much of anything stops. The actual ring where the collisions take place is underground, but there’s an enormous mound of brown dirt right above it. A thirty-mile circle of dirt.
A smaller circle (Smaller? Maybe only three miles in circumference?) intersects the large one and there’s a tall, white building in the center of that. The building’s angles are sharp, its construction a series of rectangles, so it looks kind of like a giant house of cards. There are parking lots on either side and, at one end, a huge man-made pool, with a bronze sculpture of a stylized atom in the middle.
I’ve loved that sculpture ever since I saw photos of the installation. Almost makes me sorry I abandoned my own art: my music. It’s abstract, smooth and round, twenty feet tall. Wish I could remember the artist’s name. Some local who made it big. But big is relative. Next to the ring, the colossal statue looks like an ant.
We drive through a security gate and up to the building entrance. As the bus doors hiss open and I stand to exit, I feel totally numb. Good. Numb is good. No feelings, no passing out. I follow the workers. Doing good, heading inside. No brain, no pain.
Until I slam into a transparent door. Ow! The guy in front of me didn’t hold it open, and you can barely see the damn thing. Ow, ow, ow! Holding my throbbing nose, trying not to draw any attention to myself, I stumble into a vast lobby that looks almost as if it’s still outside. It’s not just the door. Everything’s made of some type of clear material, like glass, so there’s sky visible all around. Even the different levels are see-through. On the bright side, the simple shapes make it easy to match what I’m seeing with what was on the map in Judith’s envelope. I’m supposed to head down now.
The elevators are, thankfully, a little less twenty-third century. By the time we reach the basement and the wide access corridor that everyone uses to move quickly between sections, the color and construction are as bland as at Rivendale High, if slightly better lit. I was expecting a power hum, like from an electrical plant, but it’s only the same old fluorescent buzz.
At the intersection of B25 and C12 I pretend to tie my shoelaces, and let my “fellow workers” get ahead. They don’t seem to mind that they’ve never seen me. Judith said the lower-paying jobs have a high turnover rate, so there’s always someone new. Once the group rounds a corner, I try to head the opposite way but immediately trip on my laces and crash to the cement. Great. My laces really were untied. I was so nervous I didn’t notice.
Perfect. No one has to catch me. I’ll probably kill myself just trying to get to the computers. There should be a stairwell here, where I’m supposed to meet my “inside” contact, but where the hell is it? The side of the corridor looks like one big wall, heading off for a mile. If I can’t find it…
Phew. There. My eyes are still a little teary from slamming my nose, so I didn’t notice it until I was almost on top of it. The gray door’s designed to blend into the gray wall, making it harder to spot.
I step inside and trip on my shoelaces again. At least this time no one’s watching. I get up, brush myself off, and wait at the bottom of the stairs. And wait. And wait. Finally a door opens somewhere above and footsteps clack downward. A slim shadow appears through the railing, so I kneel, planning to pretend to tie my shoelaces again, in case it’s not my contact. Only since my shoelaces are untied, I decide to really tie them. Tightly.
Pretending to tie my laces was also in Judith’s instructions. She had a lot of those. Despite her lively demeanor, I can see where her paranoia might have driven Mr. Schapiro crazy. Right now, though, I find it comforting. She also made it clear that Prometheus isn’t a military base or a secret installation. They give public tours. Security’s good, but not insane. The most important thing is to relax and act normal. Act normal. Ever have a doctor tell you to breathe normally? How do you do that? Last time a doctor asked me to do that, I got so worked up from trying to figure out how, my blood pressure shot up. Act normal. Ha.
Whoever it is stops right in front of me and, frankly, she has really nice legs. Only, I’m not done with my laces just yet and I wind up working on them until she coughs impatiently. I look up into the sharp, pretty face of a brunette woman. I realize at once we have something in common: anxiety. She looks so tense she seems ready to burst into flame. I want to say something, but Judith’s instructions were “not a word.”
I give her my badge, she holds out another manila envelope. It shakes so much, I catch a breeze off it. Goody—we’re both amateurs. When I take the envelope, she skitters back up the stairs. Her nerves do not help mine. Not at all.
I wait until she’s out of sight before I strip off the overalls, revealing a now-crumpled shirt, tie, and dark pants. Of course I have to untie my damn laces again before I can get the overalls all the way off. Turns out I’m much more Maxwell Smart than James Bond.
Then I try to straighten the shirt and close the top button. Mr. Schapiro’s smaller than me, so his shirt is tight, suffocating even, but I manage. I roll the overalls into a ball, stuff them in the bottom of a garbage can, take the new fake ID out of the envelope, and return to the access corridor. So far so good. I think I’m about halfway through my instructions. Shoelaces? Check.
Now I have to find a hallway called E7 and follow it north to an intersection with a thinner white hallway that leads to the Special Computer Section. Everything’s clearly labeled, as if designed by, well, scientists, so it’s easy to make my way. Turns out E7 is a main artery for traffic. Beeping vehicles that look like golf carts carry white-shirted executives and scientists. LCD monitors hang every twenty yards, showing the latest Prometheus news.
I feel exposed, choking a little from the tight collar, but tell myself it’s easier to hide in a crowd. In fact, I repeat it over and over: “It’s easier to hide in a crowd. It’s easier to hide in a crowd.” All that handy numbness I experienced on the way in? Wearing off now. Could be the nose, the collar, all the tripping, could be my nervous contact, could be me, but fear trickles from my brain into my body, faster and faster.
Of course disaster strikes. Two of the three passengers in one of those beeping carts look familiar. A dreadlock dangles like an antler from one of their heads. Anthony. Seated across from him? Finley. This must be Anthony’s tour. Great. Perfect. I wish Judith had given instructions for this. Me? I stand there like a petrified squirrel.
Finley’s back is to me, but Anthony sees me. His eyes light up and a grin spreads across his face. For a second he looks like he’s going to wave and say, “Ahab! What’s up with your bad self?” I’m terrified he’ll actually do it. I can tell by the crazed gleam in his eyes he’s definitely off his meds again.
But I stare him down somberly, and his grin freezes. I can almost see his brain catching up with the situation. Slowly, the smile vanishes. The question is, will he turn me in? He’s made it clear he doesn’t believe in this silly end-of-the-world stuff. Will he keep quiet for friendship’s sake? Yesterday I trusted him completely. Today? Oh hell, he’s still Anthony. He’ll keep quiet. He’s got to. Without the Ritalin, in a few seconds he may just forget to tell anyone.
Even so, I move, racing against time and my own growing fright.
The farther north I go, the less traffic there is. When I finally turn off E7 into the narrower, white hallway, I’m alone. I tell myself that if Anthony had said something, there’d be alarms by now. I tell myself that, but my heart’s slamming against my ribs like a boxer beating a punching bag. Slick sweat gathers on the side of my face.
Oh God, what am I doing here?
Saving the world, remember?
Okay, I’m in the white hall. Almost there. Judith said I was home free if I got to the computer terminals. The main systems are upstairs. This room is a backup, what they call a redundant system. No one ever comes here, except for maintenance.
I make it to the door and swipe the ID card’s magnetic stripe through the electronic lock. Nothing happens. Is this the right place? The card has some sweat on it from my hand. I wipe it off and swipe again. The indicator turns green. The lock clicks back.
I step in and get my power hum, a low, deep vibration that I hear in my ears and feel through my feet. The room is long and narrow, a bank of computer terminals on either side of a central island. Circular lights hang low over each station, suspended from nearly invisible wires. The floor is gray linoleum, reflecting back the circles of light. It’s also empty, just like Judith said, and, I might add, pretty cool-looking.
One of the monitors is active, and it isn’t showing a simulation. I can tell from the readouts it’s displaying the actual workings of Prometheus, live. Wow. The images are slowed down, of course, to make the nanosecond interactions visible. Particles explode and vanish. No light green strangelets yet. Hey, if one shows up in the next hour, I’ll be among the first to know. Oddly enough, I find that soothing.
I pick a terminal that can’t be seen from the door and sit in a surprisingly comfortable chair. I type the log-in and password Judith gave me. The screen lights up. I’m in.
The rest should be insanely easy. I just have to set up the laptop webcam feed, connect the flash drive to the terminal port, and press the button on the flash drive—everything else is automated. The sim will run and even if they catch me and I can’t e-mail the data, Judith will have the video feed as proof. She and Mr. Schapiro will contact the press. I’m not usually very sensitive to romance, but they seemed a little happy about working together again.
Easy, right? But my hands shake as I pull out the plastic bag with the flash drive. I need both hands to pop out the USB plug and hold it steady enough to connect. Now for the webcam. I pull Anthony’s laptop out of the cloth bag and start it up. As it boots, to calm myself, I watch that other monitor, taking comfort in knowing that the world isn’t ending yet.
I feel even better as I’m able to get the video feed going. At least I think I’m feeling better until I point the webcam at the terminal and glimpse my face on the feed. Do I really look that scared? Denby’s right. I take things way too seriously. But now is not the time to stop.
Before I hit the button on the flash drive, I get the e-mail ready. The program opens and shows me Anthony’s draft folder. Geez, he keeps it full. What’s he got in there? Love letters? Was that what all the fuss was about? They’re all to the same address. So that’s why he didn’t want to date any of Denby’s friends. He’s got someone special on his mind. Wonder who he’s stalking.
They’re all to… Denby?
My inner voice stutters, “Uh-uh-uh…” The fate of the world vanishes. I scroll through his writing, catch a sentence here and there:
He can’t be thinking about you half as much as I do…
We laugh. You just make him tense.
Fear isn’t love.
He’d trash the whole town for the sake of his paranoia.
You feel sorry for him? Is that it? Feeling sorry isn’t love.
Just think about it. Once. Just once.
I don’t see any answers. Of course not, Denby couldn’t have written back. Could she? Could this be why she hasn’t answered about our engagement? No, she wouldn’t keep it from me… unless he’s right and she feels sorry for me. Unless she was waiting until the project was over? Yesterday I wouldn’t have thought Finley was a liar. Last night I wouldn’t have thought Anthony could turn on me. Even so, until just now I wouldn’t have thought him capable of this.
Denby! I want to call and ask her, but Judith said no calls.
I can’t… I can’t… I can’t think about this right now. I have to press the button!
He’d trash the whole town for the sake of his paranoia.
Would I? Oh God, what if he’s right? What if the code is still wrong? I’ll… I’ll page through quickly, it’s fast on the flash drive. An extra minute, that’s all, just a minute to focus on something else and get all this doubt, all those e-mails out of my mind. What if…
Focus! I do, and something catches my eye immediately, something basic, something simple, something that couldn’t possibly have been missed, the equivalent of spelling “the” as “teh” in a newspaper headline. A huge, obvious mistake. Not in Anthony’s code, in mine. Mine! Is that the mistake he sort of remembered, but couldn’t?
He was right. He was right about me, too. I’m paranoid. Crazy. Worse than Judith Wilson. My God, I’m working with her now, aren’t I?
It is there, isn’t it? I’m not hallucinating, am I? No, I see it. It’s not a dream. It’s simple to fix, but my fingers shake too much. The pounding in my chest morphs into choking. My neck swells against the tight collar. I’m strangling. I loosen the tie, fumble with the top shirt button and wind up yanking it off in frustration. It rolls across the floor. Cooler air hits my neck, but only makes things worse.
He’d trash the whole town for the sake of his paranoia.
How can I be sure it’s my only mistake? How do I know there aren’t more?
Fear isn’t love.
My field of vision shrinks, gets hazy at the edges. I look at the active terminal, see little dots of color indicating the particles inside Prometheus. No light green. Not yet. Then why does it feel like the world is ending?
A harsh, sharp sound whines in my ears. Three loud blasts that repeat. An alarm. Could just be a fire drill, but it’s the last straw for my shattered nerves. I can’t do this without knowing for sure. I grab the flash drive and the plastic bag, pocket them, and run.
When I make it back to the white corridor I see my name and face plastered on the hanging LCD monitor and realize three horrible truths all at once:
1. The alarm is for me.
2. Anthony’s betrayed me in more ways than one.
3. I’ve failed. I’ve failed to save the world.
Sorry, world. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Denby.