Chapter Eight

HE HAD DAYS to show her, to discover more about the island himself. He learned to swim and he learned to swordfight. Gwen said it was some kind of ancient sport, and she would laugh when she knocked the sticks they used out of his hands, but somehow, the laughter was never unkind. James took to it with ease, using his hook as leverage when he could; he took to Gwen too, sharing stories with her and Tink late into the nights while Peter brooded, calculated. He tried to take comfort in the fact that time passed much quicker in holomaxes like Neverland than they did back in the world. It would have only been a few hours for Mir. But still, a few hours could be…

They started building a boat. It was Gwen’s idea. “So you can come on the water without getting wet, James,” she’d offered with a twisted grin. Peter wanted to just program it, but Gwen got in his face about Tink still needing to rest from those damn portals. So he put his hands to work using the blueprints and instructions Tink downlinked from the archives in her system. It was a good distraction.

But not good enough.

He was so occupied with trying to find Mir that he barely noticed anything about the next four children, all boys, who came through the following four portals he begged Interface to stir up the power for. He barely noticed anything about them, except for the fact that they weren’t Mir.

“What’s the problem?” he raged, right in front of their newest and youngest boy, lost in time, in space, in their holomax, whose name was Michael. Michael frowned and cuddled back into Jon, who at seventeen, was the oldest child on the island. He’d taken a protective stance toward Michael since the moment the eleven-year-old plopped out of the portal. Jon covered Michael’s ears with sandy palms and sent Peter a devastating glare.

Peter ignored it.

“Are my calculations wrong? Is it something in my coding? Are you diverting power elsewhere just to spite me? What is it, Interface?”

“No need to yell at her like that, Peter.” Gwen glared even harder than Jon, and Peter took an unconscious step back. Gwen smirked and Tink whirred in satisfaction.

“Yeah, man, come on. We know you miss your enbyfriend, but nobody’s trying to get yelled at, you know? Even Gwen’s computer girlfriend—”

“She’s not my girlfriend, Nibs!” Gwen blushed furiously, and Tink made a series of breezy, chiming tones that Peter couldn’t interpret. James could, and he smirked; Gwen could, and she blushed even harder and refused to look at Tink; while Slightly gave Nibs a she’ll-realize-eventually shrug.

Tink, on her part, switched to verbal, rather than tonal, interface mode, and said flatly, “Programmer cannot expect programming to function at maximal efficiency with such immense continuity. Tink also would request that programmer make a note of the fact that program existed before programmer, and the island does not require these continuous interruptions in—”

“No!” Peter interrupted, and the force of his protest blew Tink back a bit, her wings caught off guard at the human unpredictability. “No, I built this place. I built it, I dreamed it—I came up with it, with you, Interface, and if you wanna be all artificial intelligence on me, fine, okay, whatever, but you still have a purpose, and that purpose is finding Mir and bringing them here from the war. Saving them! Not some half-human lab rat or pretty girls for you to flirt with or boys who are so lost half of them can’t even remember their own names even though I keep trying to tell them what they are!”

James bristled, digging his hook into the fleshy part of his side irritably. Gwen’s fists were balled and James used his own fleshy hand to keep her from launching herself at Peter. Jon staunchly continued to cover Michael’s ears, even though the younger boy squirmed in protest. Nibs bit his already-stubby nails, looking at the sand as he kicked it; Slightly dropped out of the spot where he’d been hovering in the air and collapsed sloppily on the ground, belly-first.

All the boys were silent.

Tink was silent, crashing out of the air, something she was doing more often with each new portal Peter opened.

Gwen, though, jolted forward, breaking free of James’s grasp to steady Tink before stalking over to Peter, fists balled up and eyes narrow.

“Look, Peter, none of us asked to be here. None of us asked for you. But here we are, and somehow, none of us have conspired with Tink to keep this paradise all to ourselves and send you packing. Why? Two reasons. One: we feel bad for this Mir kid you keep going on about. And two: Tink created some pretty sweet living arrangements. I mean, neon butterflies that fly in formation to make dragons? And Slightly says he saw a mermaid the other night? Not that I believe him—”

“Hey, what’d I ever do to you?”

“You can’t remember your own name, you little lost boy. You think I’m gonna trust that you’re remembering that you saw some water-breathing human with a flipping fin?”

“Well, I—”

“Exactly. My point, Peter, is that neither of those two reasons is that we like you.” Gwen poked him in the shoulder at her final word, and Peter glared his hardest.

“I mean, he’s a pretty good guy when he’s not in panic mode,” James murmured, and Gwen sighed.

“Can I get some solidarity over here, Hook Boy?”

Again, Tink chimed with laughter. James grinned a little, but Peter scowled.

“Fine. None of you like me. Whatever. I mean, you used to, Gwen. I know you don’t remember, but it was you. I’m sure of it. You asked some man why I was crying, just like you did when you got to the island. You were nice to me then. And you know why? Because I was crying. Badly. Is that what you want me to do, huh? Cry? Sob, make a big show of it? I was crying because of Mir, Gwen, so just…please. Can you tap into whatever kindness you have in that sarcastic body of yours and just please ask Interface—Tink—to try one more time? Please? Just once. And we’ll get it right this time, I know it. We’ll find them. Please.”

He turned to Tink, looking down since she couldn’t fly any longer. Not today, anyway. “Please,” he repeated, his voice softer.

A whirring and a series of clicking sounds served as his only answer.

He waited, brow furrowed, heart hammering.

And then the island shook, and the last portal ripped open.