World After

“They need you. You’re the only one who can help them. My mom and my friend—”

“Get out before you convince me to rat you out just to get rid of you.” He has the decency to look uncomfortable about it.

Madeline closes the door. “I’m leaving it unlocked.”

“That’s fine,” he says in a voice that makes it clear he’s done with the conversation.

I had completely underestimated how hard it would be to talk someone into risking his life for others. Whatever issues the Resistance has, they would have rallied around a cause like this.

“Can anyone else drive the boat?” I ask Madeline.

“Not without sinking it while trying to back it out from the dock. You can’t make someone be a hero. I’ve left the door open for Jake in case he changes his mind.”

“That’s not good enough. I need to find someone to take the boat back tonight.”

Daniel, Madeline’s assistant, sticks his ta

Madeline takes my arm and pulls me toward the bus. “Come on. It’s not our problem anymore.”

I yank out of her grasp. “How can you say that?”

She pulls a small pistol from her pocket and points it at me. “I told the doctor I’d take you to the aerie and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m sorry, but my husband’s life depends on it.”

“A lot of lives can be saved, including your husband’s, if we can just—”

She shakes her head. “There is no one else who can drive that ferry. And even if we found someone, he wouldn’t risk his life any more than Jake would. I’m not throwing away my husband’s life for a pie-in-the-sky escape plan. Let’s go. Now.” She has a determined gleam in her eyes like she’s ready to shoot my arm and drag me into the bus.

I reluctantly head toward the bus with Madeline.

WE WEAVE through the abandoned cars onto I-280 and head south. The further we get from the piers, the worse I feel about the Alcatraz escape plan. Captain Jake looked like he was pretty comfortable with his position as slave captain. Is there any chance he might throw away the one asset that’s been keeping him alive and risk his life to rescue the same people he ferried to their doom?

There’s a small chance that he might. He is human and humans sometimes do things like that.

But it’s more likely that he’ll drink steadily all day until he’s in a guilt-induced stupor when the scorpions take off on their mission.

This is too much. Mom and Paige are too much. The sword and Clara and all those people on Alcatraz…

I shove everything into the vault in my head and mentally lean hard to shut the door. I have a whole world in there now. I can’t afford to open it without the serious risk of being crushed by all the stuff that’ll spill out. Some of my friends had therapists in the World Before. What I have in that vault could take a therapist’s entire career to untangle.

Sitting in the back of the bus, I gaze out the open window without really seeing anything. It’s all a blur of dead cars, junk, broken and burnt buildings.

Until we drive cautiously by two black SUVs.

The SUVs have drivers in them even though they’re parked. They’re keeping watch, and they look ready to move at a moment’s notice. Three men are fiddling with something on the ground by the side of the road. It’s so small I can’t see it clearly.

As we drive by, I get a good look at the drivers. At first, I don’t recognize them because of their newly blond hair. But there’s no mistaking the freckled faces of Dee and Dum.

I remember the letter I wrote to the ferry captain in case I didn’t have enough time to talk to him. I yank it out of my pocket and stare hard at the twins, willing them to see me. They’re watching us carefully as we go by, and their gazes snag on me.

I shift my body to block the guards from seeing what I’m doing. I hold up the letter to make sure Dee and Dum see it and then I slip it out the window.

It falls to the ground, but their eyes don’t follow it. Instead, they keep their cool and continue their surveillance of the rest of the bus. They don’t get out of their cars to pick it up, even though I’m sure they saw the letter drop.

I casually glance at the guards to see if anyone noticed what I did. The only one watching me is my girl look-alike sitting beside me, and she doesn’t look like she’s about to tell anyone. Everyone else is watching the Resistance group with an intensity that borders on paranoia, if anything could be called paranoid any more.

We all watch the guys by the side of the road until they shrink to a dot. My guess is they are setting up cameras of some kind for their surveillance system around the Bay Area. It makes sense that they might want a few cameras along the highways.

It takes a while for my heartbeat to return to its normal pace, and I actually have to suppress a smile. I never thought I’d think good things about the Resistance again. But if anyone is going to risk their necks and pull off a major rescue, it’ll be those guys. No guarantee it’ll happen but it sure beats counting on Look-Out-for-Number-One Captain Jake.

HALF MOON BAY is bordered by a crescent-shaped beach on the Pacific coast. The earthquakes and sea storms have trashed the coastline to the point of being unrecognizable. Half Moon Bay now looks more like Crater Moon Bay with all the recent dents and bumps along the coast.

The new aerie is a posh hotel that used to sit on the bluffs overlooking the ocean. Now it sits on a piece of the land that miraculously didn’t get washed away with the rest of the cliffs surrounding it. A narrow land bridge co

The land bridge isn’t the old road that used to go to the hotel. It must have once been part of the golf course. Whatever it was, the drive is as bumpy and jittery as my emotions as we approach the sprawling, estate-like hotel. Being this close to the sea, it’s amazing the hotel is intact.

We drive past the main entrance, which faces a big circular driveway with a colored-light fountain that is oddly still ru

We drive onto the grounds from the side, where the pavement is still solid and most of the golf course sprawls over the spectacular view of the ocean below. The grass is both green and mowed as if it was still in the World Before.

The only thing marring the illusion is an empty swimming pool hanging halfway off the cliff on the edge of the grounds. As we drive by, a freakishly large wave crashes against the cliff, fa

The main building looks like a country estate from a Regency romance novel. Once we park, we’re herded into the rear entryway. We walk up the stairs and into a cream-and-gold banquet hall that’s been turned into what feels like the backstage of a play.

Wheeled racks of costumes are everywhere. Flapper dresses, demi-masks with peacock and ostrich feathers, 1920s hats and sparkly headbands, zoot suits, pinstriped suits, and elegant tuxes. As if that isn’t enough, there are gossamer fairy wings of every color hanging from all the racks and fixtures around the room.