1
IT WAS A DARK NIGHT OFF THE SHORE AT Sierra’s edge. Under a gray sky, the bay rocked gently, its surface capping here and there with the foamy white crests of its turbulence. In the distance, the ocean grabbed feebly at the city’s junkyard coast, hoping, perhaps, to claim some ruin’s shard or brick or slab for itself.
There were no fish below the water. There were no birds below the clouds. It was a dead view of a broken city, and even the few lights still shining did little to promise otherwise.
“Well, that’s the end of that,” Logan said, sitting in the dark as the propulsion system sparked and shut itself off underneath him. All paid advertisements had stopped at this point, and as it was, the only image left on the POD’s wallscreen was the dim, ghostly vestige of Lily on the glass, fuzzy around the edges, and broken and wavy like a bad TV signal. When she moved, the projection jumped and jittered crazily.
Outside of the glass, the lip of the water’s surface danced and bobbed at eye level. Ripples from the POD’s ocean crash still stretched into the black.
“Nice job hacking the landing,” Logan said sarcastically. “I think the salt water just shorted the POD.”
“I should hope so,” Lily said. “DOME will certainly be tracking it otherwise.”
“They don’t think I’m here,” Logan said. “They think I’m headed up north. There’s a doctor in Sierra. She told them—”
“I know what she told them,” Lily said. “I didn’t say they’d be tracking you. By now, my fingerprints are all over this POD hack. And they’ll have started showing up in networks somewhere. The worse shape this shuttle’s in by the time I’m done with it, the harder it’ll be for them to trace the hack back to me.”
Logan was quiet for a moment. “DOME doesn’t know about this?”
Lily laughed. “No, Logan. This little virtual visit’s between you, me, and the Dust. And I intend to keep it that way.”
Logan leaned forward in his POD seat, trying hard to read the expression on Lily’s broken-up, translucent face. “The others don’t believe you’re on our side,” he said. “Even now, they’ll be thinking you tracked us down so that you could kidnap me for DOME.”
“Indeed. The look on Daniel’s face left little room for doubt.”
“Did you?” Logan asked.
“No.”
Logan smiled. He reached over his seat and touched the glass where his sister was projected. “I knew I’d see you again,” he said. “I was sure of it.”
But Lily didn’t return the gesture. “You shouldn’t have come for me in Acheron,” she said scornfully. “That was stupid, and rash, and selfish.” The projection of her batted uselessly at his hand. “Making me choose between you and everything I’ve worked for these last five years . . . I mean, what were you thinking?”
Logan’s head spun with the accusations. “I was thinking I could save you.”
“I didn’t ask for that!” Lily said.
“You didn’t have to. You’re family.”
Lily looked at him, astonished. “Do you have any idea what your actions have done to this country?”
“They’ve started the uprisings,” Logan said. “People are fighting now. Even some of the Marked. Is that such a bad thing?”
“Yes!” Lily yelled. “People will die!”
Logan was silent.
“There was a way to do this without sacrificing lives. That moment’s passed now, thanks to you.”
“I didn’t know,” Logan said. “How could I possibly have known?”
“Well, maybe if you’d had even the tiniest amount of faith in your big sister—”
“I was eight when you disappeared. You didn’t say one word to me before you left. Even now I haven’t the slightest idea what your actual intentions are. You haven’t told me. I’m sorry for doing the best I could with zero information.”
“You weren’t supposed to do anything,” Lily said. “You were supposed to get Marked and lead a happy life.”
“And what were you supposed to do?”
Lily stared at him with a look Logan barely recognized. “I was supposed to overthrow the Union. When the time was right.”
“Well,” Logan said. “Sorry for incorrectly assuming that my sister wasn’t an insane renegade double-agent revolutionary. What, you intend to kill me for it?” Logan looked at the water lapping against the POD’s fishbowl glass. “I’ve certainly made that easy for you, it seems.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Lily said. “I’m not trying to drown you. You’re barely out from shore. That POD’ll wash up any minute now.”
“And then what?” Logan asked.
Lily frowned. “And then we play defense.”
“Defense against who?”
Off a ways on the shore, two shadows closed in. Lily couldn’t have seen them, of course. But she didn’t imagine they were very far away either.
She smiled over the video. “Our own best friends.”
2
When Logan’s POD reached the shore, Peck and Hailey waded out and grabbed at it, rolling it onto the junkyard beach and tugging hard at the emergency latch by the door.
Logan braced himself. Hailey climbed into the POD and glared at Lily’s projection. She looked ready for a fight; sad, even, that there was no one physically there to push around.
“What’s your game?” Peck demanded as he poked his own head into the broken POD’s door.
“No game,” Lily said. “I’m here to warn you—that’s all.”
Peck narrowed his eyes. “Then how’d you find us? How much do you know?”
“I know last DOME could tell, you guys were out here. I know you bought nanomeds at a corner store a while back. So I figure most likely you’re looking to cure Trumpet.”
“Smart,” Peck said.
“Well,” Lily said somberly. “You are looking at America’s expert in stopping Trumpet outbreaks so far. Guess you could say I still have it on my mind.”
And a cold shiver went down Logan’s back.
“Anyway,” Lily continued. “DOME figures they lost you. But I thought either way this was as good a place to start looking as any.”
Hailey glanced nervously between Peck and Logan. “But you aren’t with DOME,” she told Lily. “So how’d you get DOME’s records?”
“I’m well connected,” Lily said simply.
“Okay, fine,” Peck said. “So what, then? You trying to stop us?”
“It wouldn’t be worth my time to stop you, Daniel. Looking for a cure to Project Trumpet . . . it’s a fool’s errand. Wasted effort.”
“The doctor thinks it’s possible.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t possible. I said it was a waste of time.”
For a moment, Peck listened without disputing.
“Come on, Peck. You’re not uninformed. You’re no idiot. Project Trumpet is over. I erased it myself, last summer! You know as well as I do that there hasn’t been an outbreak ever since. So spending your time out here, with everything else that’s going on, with all the other good you could be doing . . . it isn’t helping anyone.”
“It’s helping Erin,” Hailey said. “It could save her life.”
“Fine.” Lily waved her hand dismissively. “Save Erin’s life, what do I care? But you don’t all need to be in Sierra for that, and deep down, I think you all know it. Right now, we have bigger problems to solve.”
“Even if that’s true,” Peck said, “we can’t work with you. I don’t trust you enough for that.”
Now Logan chimed in. “It’s okay, Peck. She’s on our side.”
“Was she on our side when she betrayed us three months ago? Was she on our side when she left you for dead? Eddie’s an IMP because of her!”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh, give me a break—Eddie’s fine.”
“Fine? Fine? You’ve Revised him! He’s your prisoner!”
Lily shrugged. “I’d say he’s better off than you are, actually.”
Peck shook his head. “What happened to you? What did they do to you?”
“It’s not what they’ve done, it’s what I’ve done. You aren’t seeing the bigger picture here, Peck. This isn’t Slog Row anymore. These aren’t simple street cleanings. You need to start thinking more broadly.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Logan said. “Peck, calm down and give Lily a chance. She didn’t want to set us up back in Acheron. She didn’t want to turn us in. She had no choice. It was that or blow her cover.”
“What cover?” Peck demanded. “Look at her forehead—she’s an IMP, plain and simple!”
“She is an IMP, yes. She’s an IMP so that she can be in a position to do what it takes to stop Lamson and Cylis. She’s fighting them, Peck. She’s fighting them from the inside.”
“If she’s an IMP, she’s been brainwashed.”
“People backslide,” Lily said.
“Okay, then they’ve reprogrammed you again!”
“That’s true,” Lily confirmed. “Many times. But it didn’t continue until it worked. It continued until I figured out how to trick the IMPS into thinking it had.”
“She’s a double agent, Peck. She told me she’s trying to overthrow the Union.”
“Of course she said that,” Peck said. “She has to say that. It’s easy to say that. What, you think IMPS can’t lie? She’d tell you the sky was green if she thought it’d get you to do her bidding.”
“She’s not lying,” Logan insisted. “I could tell if she were lying.”
“Oh yeah? Because you’re just such a good judge of indoctrination? You’re just the expert around here? Know all the signs? Know all the tells?” Peck laughed. “Remind me not to play poker with this guy,” he said sarcastically to the group.
“She’s my sister,” Logan said. “I’d know if she were lying.”
“She’s not your sister! She’s an IMP! A person can’t be both!”
“Oh yeah, and what do you know about it?” Logan yelled back.
“Guys. That’s enough.” Lily didn’t even raise her voice, but at once both boys went still.
“I dropped everything for you,” Peck said to Lily, a deep pain showing through him. “I gave up my friends. I gave up my life. I gave up my future. All for even a guess at what they did to you.
“I braced myself for anything. I waited to learn of your death, of your torture, of your wasted years in some dark cell. I gathered my strength . . . and I braced myself.
“And now I see you, projected on this miserly POD screen—and I realize I wasn’t prepared at all.
“I learned how to lose you, Lily. It took time, and it hurt. But I learned how to do it.”
Peck laughed a sad, defeated laugh. “And now I realize. What I never learned was how to see you again. Not like this. Not like how you are.” Peck’s face went red. “I want Lily back. Not some rising star IMP Advocate. Not some Head-Marked Lamson loyalist—”
“I’m no Lamson loyalist,” Lily said calmly, just loud enough for him still to hear. “That’s the truth, plain and simple. But I am not asking you to take me at my word.
“I’m asking you to help me. I’m trying to stop Lamson, you fool, not honor him. And I’m close now. Turning you all in, proving my allegiance to country—it worked. I know the general’s plan now. And it’s not too late to end it.”
“Go on,” Peck said.
“Thank you. Because like me or not, you’re the only friends and family I have left in this world. You’re the only ones I can trust.” And Lily took a deep breath. “This spring General Lamson either solidifies his stranglehold on the American State, condemning this great continent to a generation of tyranny—or General Lamson falls. It’s going to be one or the other. And I came to you because I thought you’d want some say in that outcome.”
“We’re listening,” Logan said.
“Good. So do you know about the current permadrought?”
Peck scoffed. “Everyone knows about the drought.”
“All right,” Lily said. “Then tell me—what do you three know about the state of our weather mill?”
3
Logan, Hailey, and Peck were still sitting in the busted POD on Sierra’s beach, circled around Lily’s shaky projection, a tentative alliance forming. She’d told them everything—about Lahoma, about the offline weather mill, about Lamson’s involvement, about the tactical brilliance of strategically stirred political instability . . .
“It’s retaliation,” Peck concluded. “For the uprisings. This hits the Markless hardest, and Lamson knows it.”
Lily shrugged. “It’s more than that. But sure, that’s a part of it.”
Logan shook his head. “The Marked—they’d never stand for this. Even now, the Markless are gaining sympathy. And that’s just over all the new martial laws. There’s no way they’d sit back and let Lamson get away with this. They’d seed the clouds themselves if they had to!”
“They won’t be able to,” Lily said. “Lamson isn’t just holding up the cloud seeding—he’s destroying America’s weather mill itself. Once he’s done with this next attack . . . well, let’s just say the drought will have done its damage by the time anyone will be able to fix it. But you’re right,” Lily added. “Marked wouldn’t stand for it. Which is why Lamson has stayed as far away from the execution of this plan as possible. His IMPS aren’t involved. DOME’s not involved. He’s found a loyal patsy to pin it on. A fourteen-year-old kid, in fact. A real go-getter by the name of Connor Goodman. Lamson asked Connor’s parents to start sabotaging the mill last September, shortly after the Marked outbreak of Project Trumpet—and no doubt as a result of it. For months, the Goodmans delayed launches and created one temporary malfunction after another. But just a few weeks ago, the Goodmans got scared—and they got hasty. They blew the place up—destroyed all the computer servers that run the place, along with a good bit of the rest of it.
“The whole town of Lahoma’s come together since then to bring the plant back online—and they’re succeeding. First launch of the new and improved mill is set for three weeks from now—April 1 at 5:00 p.m.
“But now it seems Connor’s taken up the mantel of his parents’ responsibility. He’s set out to complete what they started. And this time, he’s going to destroy the mill for good.
“It’ll be billed as domestic terrorism, carried out by a lone, crazed individual. He’s likely to die in the act. Not the prettiest plan, perhaps . . . but Lamson’s hands stay clean.”
“How do you know all this?” Hailey asked. “And why does it need to be us who stops it?”
“I’ve been working as Lamson’s personal assistant in the Capitol for weeks now. At this point, he’s told me everything.
“Needless to say, I myself am powerless to stop it. I can’t even leave town, let alone find a way to get to Lahoma. Even this call is putting me at enormous risk.
“DOME won’t stop it, because they don’t see it coming. Same goes for the IMPS. And anyway, Lamson would never give the order for them to interfere.”
“So it falls to us,” Logan said. “That’s what you’re saying.”
Lily paused. Her connection flickered. “That’s right.”
Logan, Peck, and Hailey were quiet for a minute. Waves crashed behind them. The salt air mixed strangely with the sweet, rancid smell of the junkyard beach.
“Okay,” Hailey said finally. “So where do we begin?”
“Lahoma’s about a thousand miles from Sierra,” Lily said. “Just a few hundred miles south of Spokie, in fact. It won’t be an easy trip.”
“Getting there’s not necessarily the hard part,” Logan said. “We have the River for that.”
“The hard part,” Hailey added, “is that even if we make it there in time, none of us has the slightest clue how to actually run a weather mill. Depending on what that Connor kid is planning, the reboot process could easily end up falling to us—and what then, huh? We’d be screwed.”
“So we’ll have to learn the basics before we head out,” Logan said. “We’ll cram for it ahead of time.”
“How?”
“The SSC must know how weather mills work,” Logan said. “Arianna can explain it to us.”
“Well, yeah, she can explain the science of it,” Hailey said. “But she won’t have any idea how to man the control panel—that’s all European proprietary technology. It didn’t come from the SSC. There’s no way she has a schematic of the controls themselves. What we need is a technician. And unless you just happen to know someone who’s actually been hands-on with a weather mill before—”
Logan’s eyes lit up. “Hailey, that’s it—you’re a genius!”
“Why?” Hailey asked. “What’d I say?”
But already, Logan was climbing out of the POD. He kissed the glass projection of his sister on the way out. And just like that, he was off and running along the Sierra junkyard beach, fast as he could back to the SSC.
4
The evening in Spokie was calm and hushed, as almost every evening was these days in Logan’s old home. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Langly, sat on the fifth floor of their Wright Street residence, stretched out on the couch and watching the television frame with the sound on low. It was turned to the news, quietly spilling out useless facts about the Markless protests in New Chicago and Beacon. Some of these facts were more factual than others; this new Global Union media left something to be desired.
It did speak of middling protests here and there, of the loyal men and women in uniform who were containing it—the word “IMPS” was never officially used—and of the occasional statement made by Lamson or Parliament addressing both the sanctity of democratic dissent, and also the importance of keeping the peace across city streets. But to date, the mainstream press had said nothing of Logan or Lily or the Dust or Acheron or any of that, and the Langlys didn’t know what they were missing.
They had an inkling, perhaps, that there was more to the story than they knew. But it was no more than that.
Ironically, had the Langlys spent even one night listening to the radio program that Charlotte’s mom was broadcasting in secret just six floors above, they’d have long ago learned everything they were so eager to learn. But once again, the Langlys didn’t know what they were missing. And Grandma Sonya couldn’t risk telling.
“Dianne still here?” David asked when Sonya entered a few minutes later.
“She left,” Sonya said.
“Good game of gin rummy?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes, quite fun,” Sonya lied. As far as her daughter and son-in-law knew, Dianne Phoenix’s nightly visits had nothing at all to do with a nationally broadcast, illegal talk show. And they certainly didn’t know that tonight, their own missing son Logan had placed a hacked computer call to talk frantically with Grandma afterward.
“Actually,” Sonya said, “tonight Dianne and I got to talking about . . . ahem . . . weather mills, in fact—your area of expertise!”
“That’s interesting,” Charlotte said, clearly uninterested.
“It’s funny, really—she and I got into the most bitter argument over how Lahoma’s weather mill was run.”
“Oh?” Charlotte asked, more out of manners than anything else.
“Yes, you see . . . Dianne thinks that the cloud seeding is done by plane. But I told her, ‘No—it’s all automatic now, dozens of ground-to-air missile launchers, controlled from a single, central hub.’ She didn’t believe me, but I’m just sure I’m right!”
“Yes, you’re right.” Charlotte yawned.
“Oh, so it is all by control panel these days?”
Charlotte nodded.
“My! Well, isn’t that something—I knew Dianne had her facts wrong! You know, Char, I would just love it if you would show me how that whole system works!”
Charlotte looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “You thinking of picking up a part-time job?” she asked.
“Oh, no, no.” Sonya laughed. “It’s only . . . well, if I knew how these weather mills were run—how their control panels worked, and so on and so forth—oh, well, then I could really rub Dianne’s nose in it, so to speak, during our game tomorrow. You wouldn’t happen to mind bringing me up to that office of yours and explaining it to me, would you, dear?”
Charlotte shrugged, still flipping through pages of useless news sites online. “Sure,” she said. “In fact, I even have a copy of the electronic manual for Lahoma’s technicians. Got it years ago from a colleague. I could just give you that, if you’re interested.”
“Could you?” Sonya asked, delighted. “Oh, that would be marvelous!”
David rolled his eyes on the couch and stayed glued to the news. How anyone could be so concerned over gin rummy small talk with all these important things going on, he would honestly never know.
5
That night, Logan, Hailey, and Peck sat down in a corner of the Sierra Science Center’s third floor, and they discussed next steps. They’d gotten the weather mill control manual from Logan’s grandma, they had the full story and marching orders from Lily, and the only thing left to do now was chart a course along the River and push off.
“We agree?” Logan asked.
Hailey nodded quickly. But Peck sat quietly, deep in thought.
“Yes,” he said finally. “It’s the right thing for you to do, I think.”
Logan looked at him, leaning in. “But . . . ?”
“But I have a feeling . . . ,” Peck said. He held his breath for a moment before letting it out in a big, frustrated burst. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. But all this research I’ve been doing out here, all these talks I’ve been having . . . I just feel . . . unprepared. And suddenly it feels very urgent that I begin taking steps to fix that.”
“What are you talking about?” Logan asked. “What’s urgent is making sure this weather mill is safe.”
“I know that,” Peck said. “But for me, it seems . . . well, it seems like I’m needed somewhere else.”
“Like a pilgrimage?” Logan asked. “You’re talking about a pilgrimage?”
Peck shrugged.
“A pilgrimage to where?”
Peck was quiet for a moment, staring, unfocused, at the table in front of them. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “Europe? The Dark Lands? There’s still too much about this world that I don’t understand. I grasp at it, I try . . . and yet . . .”
Logan nodded, trying to follow along. But Hailey just laughed.
“Look at this guy. One little cameo in some Markless paperback book, and he thinks the world’s calling him, all of a sudden.”
Peck smiled distantly.
“So you’re abandoning us?” Logan asked. “Is that what I’m hearing?”
“That’s not what this is,” Peck said, getting out in front of whatever it was Logan was about to suggest. “This, now . . . it’s about a broader struggle.” He sighed. “You and I are fighters. But these battles we’re waging—I just can’t help but feel as though . . . I don’t know. As though it’s all still small-time stuff.” He looked around at the bustle of the Sierra Science Center and sighed.
“Five and a half years ago—six, almost—your sister disappeared. And I can’t explain it, but I knew then, at that moment, that I needed to follow a different path. So I dropped out. I went Markless. I found Jesus. Became a Christian. And I spent months—years—by myself, just reading. Just listening. Just learning what I could.
“And it’s because of that,” Peck said, “that the Dust exists today. It’s because of that research that we knew Lily was alive. It’s because of that introspection that we’re here right now.
“Five years ago, I looked out at Spokie, and I realized there was something to it I was missing. Some truth I could feel but couldn’t see.
“And I found that now. And it’s brought us here. As though we’ve finally reached . . . I don’t know . . . the mountaintop.”
“The mountaintop,” Hailey repeated.
“Yeah. The mountaintop. And so now here I am, looking out at the view. And I’m seeing so much more than I used to, down below. But I’m seeing above the clouds now too, for the first time. And suddenly I realize there are peaks that I didn’t even know were there before.
“And now that I do, it’s time to start the climb all over again.” He laughed. “Does that make any sense?”
Peck sighed. “I’ve been seeing signs,” he said finally. “In my research at the library. Every electronic book I read, every page I browse on the Internet . . . it’s like Someone, or something, is dropping hints. Telling me to keep my head up. Pointing me in some new direction . . .
“I can’t explain it better than that,” Peck said. “But somehow, I need to follow it.”
“Are you talking about visions?” Logan asked. “Like, prophetic visions?”
“Sort of,” Peck said. “Yeah. Ever since I started exploring Sierra.”
Hailey gave Peck a look, some mix between intrigue and pity. “Well,” she said. “Do what you gotta do then . . .”
“Try to understand,” Peck said. “If these really are end times . . . then none of us are prepared. We need you guys to keep fighting the battles today. But all I’m saying is, it may be time to brace ourselves for what’s coming around the corner too.”
Logan nodded. Peck hugged him and Hailey both. He said, “Have faith.” But neither of them found any comfort in it.
And that night Peck went off in search of something even he couldn’t yet comprehend.
6
The basement of the SSC was dark, and the harsh formaldehyde smell rising from the storage shelves struck Logan more now than it had in the past. Perhaps he was eager for distractions. Perhaps he was simply on high alert.
“Logan!” Erin called when she heard his footsteps coming down the stairs. “Are you okay? Did the IMPS find you?”
“There was only one, but yeah. She found me,” Logan said. “It wasn’t a raid, though. It was a message. I’m fine.” He rounded the corner of the last storage shelf, and he frowned when he saw Erin there. Whatever cocktail of medicine she was on, its effects were starting to wear off. And without any real Trumpet cure in sight, Erin was looking worse these days than ever.
“They’re probably monitoring the entrance of this place. You shouldn’t be here. You can’t stay.”
“It wasn’t official IMP business,” Logan said. “It was just someone going rogue. But you’re right. And I won’t be staying long.” Logan swallowed. “Hailey and I have already made the arrangements, in fact; I came to say good-bye.”
Erin looked down. She pulled her blanket up past her shoulders, tucking it in around her neck. “Oh.”
“There’s been a, uh . . . development.”
Erin looked at him. “What kind of development?”
Logan scanned the various monitors, all beeping and flashing above Erin’s bed. He still didn’t know what any of it meant. It made him nervous to look at them. Were any recording sound? What about video? Was the room bugged? Who was listening?
Logan leaned in, taking every precaution, pretending to give Erin a hug. He whispered into her ear, “The IMP that found me . . . it was my sister.”
“Lily?” Erin sat up now, just a little.
“Shh! Act like you’re hugging me.”
“Why?”
“Just in case,” Logan whispered.
“Logan, the room’s not bugged.”
“Yeah, but just in case.”
After a moment, Erin put her arms around him, reluctantly at first. But soon they just rested there. Comfortably. They felt natural there, somehow, clasped around the back of Logan’s neck.
For a moment, the two of them were quiet, perhaps pretending the hug was real.
But that’s silly, Logan thought. Of course it’s not.
“Lily, uh . . . she had no intention of turning me in,” Logan whispered. “She was trying to help me. Or, more accurately, to see if I might help her.”
Erin didn’t speak for a few long breaths, her arms still draped around him.
“You gonna tell me not to trust her?” Logan asked. “Everyone else is. Peck’s not even coming,” he added, somewhat bitterly.
Erin frowned. “Lily’s not out to hurt you, I don’t think.”
Logan nodded. “That’s a relief, hearing you say so.”
“Doesn’t mean you can trust her, though; don’t get me wrong. Not too long ago, you and I were enemies. I wasn’t out to hurt you either. But we were enemies all the same.”
“We were never enemies,” Logan said. “Your intentions were too good for us to be enemies.”
“Oh yeah? Well, look what good that did us.”
“It did do us good,” Logan insisted, breaking away from their pretend hug. “You got me out of Acheron. You saved my life.” He sat down at the side of Erin’s bed, and Erin laughed.
“Yeah. Great. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” Erin sighed and wrapped an IV cord a couple of times around her finger. “So where are you off to now?”
And Logan told her everything. About Lahoma, about the weather mill, about the drought, about Connor Goodman’s plans and the need to stop them at all costs . . .
“Don’t go,” Erin said suddenly.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Erin said. “Something’s fishy about it.”
“How is it ‘fishy’? There has been a drought. Grandma’s been saying that for weeks. She’s been getting her reports straight from Dane out in the Village. It’s bad out there for them, Erin. Scary bad.”
“Well, sure, I believe the drought’s happening,” Erin said. “I believe the mill is down. I even believe there’d be someone out there crazy enough to make sure it never came back up. But, Logan, why you? Last time we saw Lily, she was throwing you into a BCI helmet. And now here we are, doing actual good work to stop an impending plague, and we’re expected just to trust that her intentions are good when she comes to pull you away from all that? To deal with another threat entirely? One that just came up out of nowhere? Just all of a sudden?”
“It isn’t sudden,” Logan said. “This has been going on since September. And she came to me because who in the world else is she supposed to go to?”
“So how’d Lily hear about this weather threat?” Erin asked. “How’d she get so lucky?”
“She’s been assisting Lamson personally these last few weeks. She found out from one of his letters.”
“So how’d she get that position then? That’s a pretty remarkable promotion for her to have gotten, so quickly like that.”
Logan shrugged. “Well, she did just throw her own brother into Acheron’s ninth level. I mean, if that didn’t get people thinking she’s loyal . . .”
“So Lamson requested her assistance then? She told you that specifically?”
“Well, no,” Logan said. “But who cares who promoted her? Look—the story checks out, all right? She’s on our side. And even if it is taking me away from the SSC, what Lily’s asking me to do is good. It’s the weather, Erin. It’s important.”
“I believe it’s important!” Erin said. “I just don’t want you walking into a trap. She’s lured you into one before—you can’t say she hasn’t!”
“That was because she had to,” Logan said.
“Oh yeah? And what if she thinks she has to this time as well?”
“She’s on our side, Erin—I’m telling you! She did all that back in Acheron precisely so that she could be in a better position to fight the bigger battles later on. And this is one of those battles, Erin! She’s betraying Lamson for us.”
“Yes, Logan, because that’s what she does. She betrays the people who trust her. She’s good at it. And you’re fooling yourself if you don’t believe she could betray you again too.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe it,” Logan said. “It’s that I don’t see how she possibly could, in the context of this mission right here. It’s not to say I won’t tread lightly with her in the future. But in the meantime, this threat is real. Lily’s confirming it, not making it up. And she’s risking everything just to give me a way to fix it. I’m sorry. But I don’t see any red flags with this.”
Erin laughed for a while, like a loud manifestation of the fight leaving her body. She wasn’t going to convince Logan to stay, and she knew it. So instead she gave Logan the book he’d lent her a few long weeks ago. She flipped through its thin pages one last time, letting the wind of them tickle her face. “Take it,” she said. “I’ve been reading it. And I think I understand now what it means to you and what it means for me. And you may need it.” She laughed. “For a dweeb, you sure do know how to find trouble for yourself.”
“Yeah.” Logan laughed too. “I guess so.”
Then they both fell quiet for a moment.
Twice, Erin started to say something else. She stopped herself both times.
“I missed you, the last time we were apart,” Logan said. He felt his face go hot the moment he did.
“Okay,” Erin said simply, stepping on Logan’s exposed and vulnerable heart. But only just a little.
Logan stood up to leave, not saying anything else.
Erin watched sadly as he did. “I won’t be able to save you this time!” she called. “So try not to be as big of an idiot out in Lahoma as you were back in Beacon, you hear me? I’ll blame you first, if you get yourself killed.”
“Whatever,” Logan said.
And he left the basement, his heart still beating fast. And he walked up the stairs like the idiot he was.
And he went off to embark on his idiot’s quest.
7
That night, Erin ripped the medical equipment clear off of her. She tore out the IV drips and pulled off the heart monitors. She stood up from her bed. And she left the SSC altogether.
It wasn’t long, it seemed, before she made it to the base of the mountain. And when she arrived, she looked up at it, and she wondered about the peak beyond the clouds. Was there blue sky above? Were there people up there? She felt certain she could speak with someone, if only she could make it to the top. And they would know what she was feeling, up there. They could help, she was sure. In a way no one down here could.
At its base, the mountain was an easy climb. The hike began with a wide trail, and it turned and followed the contours of the slope generously, never too steep, never too narrow.
So Erin climbed that tall mountain all by herself. She climbed for hours. She climbed all night. It was effortless, this climb, and that surprised her, but it was terrifying too. With each step, Erin grew increasingly fearful. By the time she was halfway up, it was nearly too much to bear. Was it the height that was getting to her? Was it the loneliness? She wasn’t sure. But she screamed now, loud. Louder than she’d been in weeks. And still no one seemed to hear.
It occurred to Erin in this moment that she was helpless. Helpless and stranded and alone on a mountain that terrified her.
So she spoke, pleading aloud with the people at the peak.
“Please,” she called out. “Please help me. I can’t do this alone. Please! I’m not ready to be alone. I’m not ready, please!”
No one called back, and at once she was shivering. But in this moment, the cloud covering above her went dark, and a heavy rain fell and made the mountain slope slick. And Erin began running up, up in the rain, and the rain cleansed her. She wasn’t fearful anymore, and she wasn’t cold. She was wet and her clothes stuck to her skin, but it didn’t bother her. She was comfortable and she was clean. And as she ran through the rain, she tripped and slipped on the slope and she fell, down, down, fell all the way back. Into the SSC. Into her bed. Into her covers and the tangle of medical wires.
And Arianna was by her side, sitting with her, her hand on Erin’s arm. “Bad dream, huh?”
“Is it raining?” Erin asked.
“But I’m soaking wet.”
“You’re sweating,” Arianna said, swiping a finger across Erin’s arm. “Your fever’s the highest I’ve seen it. You’ve been dreaming about it.”
But Erin didn’t think so. “It didn’t feel like a dream,” she said, sinking back into the pillow behind her. “The rain, the way it hit me, the storm . . . I’m sure I was there. But who was it at the top?”
“The top of what, Erin?”
“The mountain. Who was it at the top of the mountain?”
“There is no mountain, Erin. You’ve been dreaming.” Arianna smiled encouragingly.
But for once, Erin knew, Arianna was wrong. The mountain was real.
The rains were coming.
Erin closed her eyes. This time, all she saw was black.