LIFE WAS GOOD. My dad was fine, the family was together, and I hadn’t killed anyone—in real life or in a video game—for 41 days, 17 hours, and 7 minutes.
We were at my great-grandfather’s cabin in the wilderness of southern British Columbia. Dad had argued it wasn’t the safest place to hang out, what with the bears and all, but Mom had insisted, particularly since Dad had never bothered to mention to her that the cabin existed. “No more secrets!” she’d demanded, and Dad had agreed. I think he meant it this time.
I had so many drawers packed with secrets that it would take a lifetime just trying to explain them all to Mom. A lot of them I didn’t even understand myself. At least not yet. So I didn’t make any promises like Dad had. It was a good thing, too, because Mom was pregnant and she didn’t even know it yet. How did I know? Well, let’s just say I’d learned an awful lot of things from the brief connection I had with Gualu the Overseer in the Brazilian jungle. I’d soaked it all in, especially when he’d used the power of the portal to heal me and Dad. After Gualu had sacrificed his life to save us from Frank and Trumak, I’d tapped into that same power to remotely heal my new friends from The Card Club. I wished I could’ve healed Deondre, too, but he’d passed on, and some things were impossible. In any case, now that the portal, the mini, and the mountain surrounding them were out there in space somewhere, I guessed my days as a healer were over.
As for an entire mountain launching into space? We’d expected to come home to nonstop news broadcasts about the event. Instead, there’d been absolutely nothing mentioned. The only people who knew about it were those of us who witnessed it firsthand. The stealth technology developed by Gualu’s people was way beyond anything our scientists could even imagine. When I took a peek inside one of my drawers to try to understand how it all worked, my head spun.
Thoughts of Brazil reminded me of Lucy and Mandu. We’d gotten word that Mandu had taken over Frank’s bar on the river. She’d given authorities in London the thumb drive containing Frank’s confession to murdering the billionaire’s kids, and had received word the five million-pound reward was coming her way despite the fact Frank would never appear personally in court. She was going to use the money to expand the village surrounding the waystation as a sanctuary for tribes who continued to lose their native lands to so-called progress. I was proud that Dad and I had helped to make that happen.
“Are you going to join in, or are you chicken?” Simon shouted from the shoreline. He, Ellie, Jazz, and Strawberry were there with Sarafina and Uncle Tony’s kids, Andrea and Tyler. Dad was showing them how to skip rocks, and they’d decided to make a contest out of it. What chance did I have? I was half their size.
“Show ’em what you got, Alex,” Ahmed said. He was sitting on the porch with Little Star. The two had become fast friends during my brother’s recuperation from his knife wound. He was moving much better now. He still had a ways to go, but Little Star had been working with him daily, incorporating movement techniques perfected over the ages by monks from his former monastery. But the real changes I noticed in my brother had little to do with his healing wound. He had a confidence that reminded me of my dad. He’d stepped up to save our family. If it hadn’t been for his courage in infiltrating the terrorist group, we’d have never known of Farhad’s plans. He winked at me and motioned toward the shoreline.
I turned to Simon and yelled, “I’m not a chicken. I’m a Bronson!” I knew I was going to come in last place in the contest, but that wasn’t going to stop me from doing my best. Uncle Tony’s big son skipped a rock nearly a quarter of the way across the lake.
Uncle Marshall and Lacey were lounging around the picnic table with Pete, Skylar, Mom, and Uncle Tony and his wife, Mel. Their two-year-old son kneeled on the bench between them. We’d all just eaten lunch, and the kid still had barbecue sauce on his face. Uncle Tony gave me a thumbs-up as I trudged toward certain defeat. Mom offered me an encouraging smile. She knew what I was thinking. She always did.
The Aussies, Becker and Jonesy, had shown up as well. They’d taken the big speedboat to pick up Doc and his family from Port Hardy airport thirty-five miles away. They’d be back before sundown. Ripper and Snake had passed on the offer to join us, and Walt and Sam and their teams couldn’t make it either. We’d see them soon enough, because once Dad made a friend, they were friends for life. I watched Ellie skip a stone across the water, and hoped my friendships would last as long as my dad’s.
Yes, today was an awesome day. The gang was all here, in person or in spirit. I’d heard there’d been a few raised eyebrows when the invitations went out and everyone realized the cabin was in the middle of nowhere. But when they learned it was an all-expenses-paid trip, including first-class plane tickets, they were more eager to jump aboard. The offer of a free trip, compliments of the United States government, had come as a shock when Doc told us about it. I guess that’s what happens when you save the president’s life, not to mention seventy thousand of his constituents. You get a few perks.
Obviously, there wasn’t enough room for all of us to spend the night in the cabin, but that was what the yacht was for. The 125-foot-long ship had used the deep intracoastal waterways to find its way to the lake. It was moored offshore, and had enough staterooms for the overflow. I stayed in the cabin on shore with my family. After all, if any bears came snooping around, I was the only one who knew how to handle them.
Following our stay here at the lake, my family and I were heading to Venice to see Grandpa Mario and the rest of our friends and family there. Grandma Milena and aunt Susie would be there, too, and I couldn’t wait to see them again. After Venice we planned to go back to our normal lives in Redondo Beach. We could do that now since we were no longer on the world’s Most Wanted list. The broadcast from the stadium had gone viral and Dad had been proclaimed a hero. On top of that, I’d been able to unlock Farhad’s backup drives from the cloud, where I’d discovered the raw footage that had been automatically backed up when the terrorists had connected Little Star’s hard drive to their network. After I uploaded all the raw videos to YouTube, most of them had gone viral, too, and our names were finally cleared. For good measure, I’d used the Spider to bring down every website on the darknet that had posted rewards for Dad’s head. I hadn’t told anyone about that, though I suspected Uncle Marshall had figured it out somehow. At his urging, I’d kept the Spider hidden ever since.
As for the government types who wanted to get their hands on me because of the rumors about my super hacking abilities, our ruse during the video chat with former president Jackson had paid off. He’d convinced the current administration I’d lost my abilities. I’d had a few interviews and played my “ordinary” role pretty well, if I did say so myself. I’d gotten a few sideways glances but that was about it.
Uncle Marshall had turned over Farhad’s backup cloud drive to Doc, and the government had used it to locate a drone manufacturing business Farhad’s team had set up on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Apparently, they’d been building attack drones there for the past three years. There were thousands of them. The government also located Farhad’s other safe houses across the country. There were thirty-two in all, and each contained drones, drone magazines, and plenty of homemade plastic explosives. Government agents had also found a number of larger drones, which we later learned were called Pelicans. Two had been used by Farhad’s team over the stadium, and they’d eventually landed on their own before running out of power. Homeland Security was still scratching their heads over the advanced programming on all the drones, and was probably hard at work figuring out how to defend against similar attacks in the future. I hoped so, because like it or not, drones were here to stay.
As I approached Dad and my friends at the shoreline, I thought a normal life sounded pretty good. Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make something of myself. Like father, like son, right? I wanted to make a difference in the world. Now that I was healed, I had a long life ahead of me and the possibilities were unlimited. Dad glanced over at me and smiled. His shoulder wound wasn’t bothering him anymore, and the scorch marks on his face had mostly disappeared, though the bruises on his chest and stomach hadn’t gone away yet. If it hadn’t been for the ballistic vest Mom had insisted he wear, he’d have been a goner. Still, the impact had cracked two of his ribs, so his hugs had been less than fierce lately. Anyway, our mental connection since we’d linked with Gualu was stronger than ever, and knowing how he felt beat getting a hug.
Our mental bond didn’t mean we still couldn’t put walls up when we needed to, and a part of me wondered what was secreted away in the drawers of his mind. Had he retained the information revealed to us during the mind meld with Gualu’s technology, like I had? Or had it vanished from his brain like Gualu said it was supposed to? Dad hadn’t brought it up, and I hadn’t, either, though we’d probably have to do it sooner or later. But not for a while, and definitely not today. Nope. Today was about family, friends, and fun.
I gave Ellie a smile, picked up the flattest rock I could find, and hurled it across the water.
It skipped nearly all the way across the lake.
Everybody turned and stared at me.
Uh-oh.
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