TWENTY-SIX

As Rex tried to get in touch with Sly, I told Claudia about our conversation. She agreed with our plan of action, but she was worried about her parents, especially her dad. She was going to stay behind this time, but she drove me to New Ground to meet Rex. He met us out front, leaning against Jerry’s truck holding two iced chai lattes.

She pulled up next to him and I quickly repeated the main points I’d been making on the drive: her folks were going to be okay, I’d call her when we got back, and I’d be around if she needed me for anything. I gave her a quick hug, then I got out.

“Hey, Rex!” she called out before I closed the car door.

“Hey, Claudia,” he replied. He looked vaguely embarrassed, like he knew he had probably come up in conversation once or twice during our sleepover. I made a show for Claudia of standing on my tiptoes to kiss Rex on the cheek, then flashed her a big grin.

She laughed and drove off, shaking her head.

I turned to Rex again, my face serious now, as I looked up into his eyes. “Hey,” I said softly.

“Hey,” he replied, his voice slightly croaky.

“I missed you,” I said, and I could feel my face light up, hotter than I could blame on the heat.

“I missed you, too.” He laughed and shook his head. “Kind of pathetic, isn’t it?” He looked at his watch. “Twelve hours.”

I laughed, too, kissed him again, then grabbed the chai he was holding for me.

“I figured you’d probably already had your coffee by now,” he said.

“Good figuring,” I said. “Thanks.”

We both sipped our drinks.

“Did you talk to Sly?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Left him a message to call me here if he didn’t reach me at home.”

“What do you think we should do?”

He shook his head again. “I don’t know. It’s only been an hour or so.”

“Dymphna definitely thought whatever we learned could be important, and that was before we saw that those idiots had gotten sick.”

He nodded. “Sly usually gets back to me pretty quick.”

I thought for a moment. “I think we should just go straight to Dymphna.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you think?”

I shrugged, unsure.

“Do you remember how to get there?” he asked.

“I think so. If we can Smartdrive it to the Little Egg Harbor exit, I think I’ll remember the way from there.”

“What about the submerged bridge?” he said. “Any idea how Sly got that to come to the surface?”

I winked at him. “I’ll guess we’ll have to”—long, dramatic sip of chai—“cross that bridge when we come to it.”

He shook his head and groaned, sliding around me as he headed for the driver’s side door of the truck.

“Come on,” I said, getting in the passenger side. “That was a good one.”

Rex drove manually through Silver Garden until we got to Broad Street, then he directed the truck to the Little Egg Harbor exit of the Garden State Smartway. He turned to me as we drove. “So. Alenka Bogdan, huh?”

“Ugh, I know, right? I used to think she was a badass. A serious journalist.”

“Apparently, she was just in it for the money.”

“You think that’s what changed her?”

“Probably. You don’t think so?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t just her questions, it was her attitude, her demeanor. She was like a different person. And she has a Wellplant now.”

Rex grunted. “You think that’s the reason?”

I nodded. “Claudia’s dad got spiked, too.”

“Seriously?” he said, his head swinging around so fast and hard that if he had been manually driving, I think we would have veered off the road.

“Yeah,” I said, realizing then just how distracted I’d been in the past couple of days. Normally, important news like that wouldn’t have slipped my mind. “She’s freaking out about it. Her mom, too. He’s acting different. Acting strange.”

“That’s creepy. And you think it’s the Wellplant that’s causing it?”

“I don’t know him that well, but I don’t see what else it could be. There’s no doubt in Claudia’s mind.”

“Weird,” he said. “I’ve known people who got Wellplants before. Not close friends, but people I knew. They didn’t change all that much, they were just insufferable gearheads becoming even less sufferable.”

“Well, that was before the 10.0,” I said. “I think this one’s different.”

He was quiet for a second, then he whistled.

“What?” I asked.

“Just thinking about all these politicians and celebrities and CEOs getting Wellplants. The idea of all these people in power being somehow changed by their Wellplants.”

“That is scary.”

We were silent for a while after that. A wall of clouds rose up behind us, to the west, as if it was following us from Philly. As we passed the first sign for the Little Egg Harbor exit, the clouds overtook us, and a salvo of fat raindrops pelted the windshield. It paused for a minute, then resumed as a steadier drizzle.

Rex leaned forward and looked up at the sky. “There’s a brush-fire warning today. Hopefully, some rain will help with that.”

As we approached the exit, we talked more about CLAD, and about Wells and his candidacy. Between the rain and the topic, by the time we took the exit and Rex switched off Smartdrive, we were both feeling somewhat subdued.

“A left?” I said at the bottom of the ramp.

Rex nodded and turned. We both scanned our surroundings, looking for landmarks. The rain started coming down harder, but we made our way without too much trouble, mostly agreeing on where to turn and when.

Before long, we found Dock Road, the narrow road that cut across the bay to the gate that led to the house. The water seemed higher than before, and I wondered if it was high tide, or if it just seemed higher because we didn’t know exactly what the hell we were doing.

We slowly drove around the spots where the asphalt had washed out, squeezing perilously close to the opposite edge of the road. As the road narrowed, the wind picked up, sending wavelets splashing across the asphalt, and making me nervous that the tide might rise even farther and wash us away or strand us there.

We reached the gate with the sign on it that said UNSAFE ROAD. NO ENTRY.

“I don’t think it’s locked,” I said, squinting through the rain.

“How can you tell?” Rex asked, squinting as well. The rain was coming down hard now, and even with the wipers on, it was impossible to see.

“Wait here,” I said.

“Jimi, wait!” he said, but I had already released my seat belt and slipped out the door.

I was drenched by the time I’d taken three steps, but it was still hot, and even the rain was warm. It felt kind of nice. With the briny smell of the bay, I almost felt like I was swimming in the ocean. The chain was there, wrapped around the frame on one side of the gate, the padlock dangling from one end.

I pulled one side of the gate open, then the other, and waved Rex through.

He drove past me and stopped just inside the gate, waiting.

I thought about leaving the gate open, in case we needed to beat a hasty retreat, but we were guests here, even if uninvited, and I thought that would be rude. I closed the gate and got back in the truck.

“You’re soaked,” Rex said. “I would have done that.”

“Then you’d be soaked,” I said. “It’s fine. Just a little water.”

But I did take it personally when the rain all but stopped moments later.

We drove past a few hundred yards of abandoned and collapsing houses, right up to where the road disappeared under the water.

Rex turned to me. “What now?”

“I don’t know.” I got out and shook my hair to get rid of the excess moisture as I walked over to the rusty mailbox on the side of the road. I ran my hands over all the surfaces but couldn’t find the seams for the panel that Sly had opened before. I don’t know what I did to activate it, but with a slight hiss and a groan of metal, the panel where the mail pickup times were once posted opened up, revealing a row of numbered buttons and a touch screen.

I put my palm against the screen, but nothing happened. Then I pressed the 1 button. The screen came to life, with the words ENTER PASSWORD over a green rectangle with a single asterisk in it.

I turned and called over to Rex. “Numeric password. Any ideas?”

He shook his head, then got out and came over. “None,” he said as he came up next to me. “Four digits?”

“Looks like,” I said, judging from the size of the box and the size of the asterisk.

“Did you try one-two-three-four?”

I snorted. “No, but if that works, I say we turn around and go join CLAD because I don’t think I want be associated with an organization that has that kind of security.”

I keyed in the 2, 3, and 4, then we both looked over at the water, hoping it was about to start bubbling as the bridge rose to the surface, but definitely also hoping it wasn’t.

It didn’t.

“Score one for Chimerica,” I said under my breath. Then I looked up at Rex. “One-one-one-one?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know if that would be all that much better.”

“Whatever the password is, if we guess it, someone needs to be fired,” I said as I keyed in the digits.

We looked over again, but again nothing happened.

“What now?” Rex asked.

“I don’t know. There’s a good chance it’ll lock us out if we get it wrong a third time.” I was still soaking wet, but I didn’t relish the idea of swimming across to the other side.

“Right. So having come to it, maybe we won’t be crossing this bridge after all.”

I screwed up my face at him, then kneeled down and studied the keys up close. “The three is smudged,” I said.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning it’s been pressed a lot. Meaning it’s probably part of the password.”

He knelt down beside me. “Good thinking. Any of the others?”

Several of the others had smudges on them, but none were as pronounced as the 3. “I don’t know,” I said. “Could be. Not as much though.”

“Maybe it’s three-three-three-three.”

“Could be. Should we try it?”

He shrugged and looked around. “What else are we going to do?”

I pressed the 3 once, twice, three times, and as I was about to press it again, a voice came across the water: “Stop!”

We turned and saw Sly standing where the road emerged from the water on the other side. “See?” he yelled. “This is what I get for not making you two ride in the back.” He went over to the pylon next to the road and pressed a few buttons. “What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

The bay started to bubble, and over the sound of gurgling water, I shouted back, “We need to talk.”