Blackout

Sixteen

The drive from Berkeley to Seattle takes fourteen hours if you use major roads and avoid serious traffic. It takes twenty-three hours if you stick to back routes and frontage roads. We split the difference, risking our cover several times in order to eke out a few hundred miles on I-5 before returning to the shadows, and made it from city to city in just under nineteen hours.

We didn’t stop in Shady Cove. Tempting as it was, there was too good a chance that we were being followed—and too good a chance that if we stopped there, we’d never leave again. Dr. Abbey tried to send us to the Florida hazard zone, and we failed. Fine. Barring another way to do the same thing, she’d probably insist we stay and start looking for a way to evacuate us all to someplace that was guaranteed to stay mosquito-free.

“I hear Alaska’s nice this time of year,” I muttered.

“What’s that?” George looked up, blinking still-unfamiliar brown eyes at me in honest confusion.

“Just wondering where we could run when this is over. The mosquitoes are going to be pretty damn hard to kill.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged, returning to her study of the jamming unit. A lock of her hair—it was starting to need a trim—flopped forward, falling in front of one eye. I resisted the urge to lean over and brush it aside. Unless I was having a really crazy day, she’d just vanish if I tried to touch her, and I needed the company too much to have her leave again. Becks had been asleep in the back since we crossed the border into Washington. Without my hallucinatory sister, I would be totally alone, and I wasn’t sure how much longer my own wakefulness would last.

“What do you mean, ‘maybe’?” I asked.

“Like Dr. Abbey said, an insect vector for Kellis-Amberlee didn’t just happen. They’re probably the product of some lab like hers, full of scientists who think ‘I wanted to see what would happen’ is a perfectly valid justification for doing anything they want.”

“Yeah, and?”

George looked up again, brushing the hair out of her eyes with a quick, economical wave of one hand. This time, she looked almost annoyed. “Shaun. You know this. There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know. Why are you pretending you need me to say it?”

“Because I’m not pretending.” I shrugged, trying to keep my attention focused on the road. I didn’t want to get so wrapped up in arguing with her that I needed to pull over; not only would that potentially attract attention, but it would annoy the hell out of Becks if she woke up before we started moving again. “Maybe you can’t tell me things I don’t know, but I need you to be the one who says them. That lets me believe in them.”

“You are a strange, sick little man, Shaun Mason.” George sighed. “The mosquitoes were made. Man’s creation, just like Kellis-Amberlee. If you were going to build killer bugs to spread the zombie plague, wouldn’t you put in a little planned obsolescence?”

Despite the fact that George could only use words I knew the meaning of, I had to pause while I tried to remember what “obsolescence” meant. Sometimes it’s annoying having hallucinations that make me feel dumb. “You mean they’d be built to break down?”

“Now you’re thinking. I have to wonder whether the mosquitoes are fertile. If someone built them as a biological weapon, why would they have given them the capacity to breed? All that’s going to do is increase the chances of them hurting the people you’re trying to protect.”

“So how did they wind up in Cuba?”

“Weapons test. Cuba did too well during the Rising. It was almost insulting to certain people. I’m sure they would have loved the opportunity to run a little fear-inducing trial on soil close enough to ours that they could look horrified and appalled when someone implied we might have had something to do with it.”

“George…”

“I’m not being nihilistic, Shaun. I’m being right, and you know it.”

“Yeah.” I glanced out the window at the high concrete fence dividing the tiny back road we were on from the safe concrete river of I-5. “I just wish I’d stop reminding myself.”

George was gone when I looked back. I shook my head, trying to clear the malaise brought on by her last statement, and turned the radio on, scanning channels until I found something with a catchy beat and simplistic lyrics. Then I switched to NPR.

National Public Radio is a dinosaur in the modern age of podcasts and Internet radio stations, but that’s part of what makes it useful, because when you turn on NPR, you’re getting the thoughts and opinions of the part of the population that has not yet moved into a purely virtual format. Things still move a little slower there. Not predigitally slow—I’ve read the history books, I know how long a single story used to dominate the cycle—but slow enough that you can learn a thing or two, if you’re willing to listen.

Two experts were arguing about ways to save the Everglades. One wanted to send in CDC teams in full-on moon suits to rescue as many noninfected animals as possible, and then dump enough DDT into the water table to sterilize the ecosystem for a hundred years. “We can breed them in preserves and exhibits until we confirm that the Everglades are safe, and then return them to their original environment,” was the gist of his argument, wedded to a firm belief that instinct would override generations of zoo-bound living and lead to an immediate, complete return to the wild as soon as the money ran out and somebody in accounting decided it was time to let the animals go.

The other expert claimed this would result not only in the permanent loss of a major piece of America’s biological diversity, but render most of Florida uninhabitable whether we got rid of the mosquitoes or not, since pesticide would inevitably get into the human water supply. He was in favor of releasing thousands of insectivores into the impacted areas and letting them take care of things the natural way. And by “insectivores,” he meant “bats.” He wanted to gather as many bats as possible and dump them on the Everglades, where they could do their batty thing and eat all the mosquitoes. Because the people of Florida would, of course, be totally cool with this.

At no point did either of them mention the idea that the mosquitoes had been made, rather than being a natural worst-case scenario. All their solutions started from the premise that the mosquitoes just happened, much like the storm that brought them to our shores. Somehow, that only made me more certain that George was right. Somebody made these mosquitoes, and somebody was going to have a way to deal with them. They were just waiting for the time to be right, just like they’d waited for the time to be right before letting the bugs out of the box in the first place.

Becks climbed back into her seat right about the time the speakers got really involved in yelling at each other. Yawning and rumpling her hair with one hand, she squinted at the radio. “Do I wanna know?”

“I can’t get a good wireless signal out here,” I said. “So we’re listening to the radio.”

“Listening to the radio talk about what?”

“Bats.”

Becks frowned, still clearly half asleep. “Bats?”

“Yeah. You know, flap flap, squeak squeak, works for Dracula? Bats. Because we need a vampire problem to go with our zombie problem.” I opened the cooler we had wedged between the seats, pulling out a can of Coke. “Here. You look like you could use the caffeine.”

“Oh, thank God. I thought I was going to have to deal with this without chemical assistance.” Becks popped the tab before downing half the soda in one long slug. She didn’t seem to realize what she was drinking until she lowered the can and blinked at the label. “Shaun… this is a Coke.”

“I know.”

“You gave me one of your Cokes.”

“I know.”

“Why did you…?”

“Because you needed it.” I glanced her way, smiling just a little—just enough to show her I meant it. “If the Masons can let us go and agree to get Alisa out of Florida, I can be selfless enough to give you a can of Coke.”

Becks’s expression sobered. “Do you really think they’ll go after her?”

“I do, yeah.” The experts on NPR were still arguing. I leaned forward and turned the radio down. “I don’t think they’ve changed completely. I mean, knowing Mom, she’s probably already convinced herself I cheated by bringing up Phillip, and that she and Dad let us go out of the goodness of their hearts, not because it was the right thing to do. But rescuing a little girl from a refugee camp in an interdicted hazard zone? That’s the kind of ratings you can’t buy. It’s just gravy that they have that whole martial law thing going on over there, which gives Dad an excuse to trot out a bunch of old chatter about personal responsibility and freedom of the press.”

“So they’re going to do it for the ratings.” Becks’s mouth twisted into a disapproving line. She took another large gulp of Coke, presumably to stop herself from saying anything she’d regret later.

It didn’t matter. There was nothing she could say that I hadn’t heard before. Some of it I had heard from George. Some of it I had said myself. “There are worse reasons, and the fact that they’re always in the public eye means that if they get her back to Berkeley, they can’t mistreat her. They can be themselves, which is bad enough, but Alisa’s older than George and I were when they took us in. She’ll be fine until Alaric can get there and take her away from them.”

“You’re willing to count on that?”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice. We can’t head for Florida. We’d never make it past the barricades. We need to get to the rest of the team and regroup.”

“How long before we reach Seattle?”

“We’re about twenty miles out. I figure I’ll try calling Mahir right before we hit the city limits—if he picks up, we can go straight to where he is, and not need to keep the connection open.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Becks asked, taking a smaller sip of her soda.

“I have no idea. I’m sort of making all this up as I go along, you know.”

You’re doing an excellent job.

“Thank you,” I said automatically, and winced.

Becks politely ignored my slip. “I know you are. I don’t envy you the lead on this story.”

“Hey, it’s worked so far. What are you going to do when we meet the Monkey? You could be anyone. What’s your new identity going to be?”

“I think I’ll be an Internet journalist.” She smiled. “I understand they don’t need much in the way of training. Or brains. How about you?”

“I’m going to ask for anything that lets me disappear.” I kept my eyes on the road. “This is going to end soon, Becks. It’s gone too far to last much longer. Too many people have died. So if I get through this story alive… I just want to be left alone.”

“You want to be alone with George,” said Becks.

“Maybe.”

“I don’t… Shaun, I…” Becks paused, taking a breath. “You know I love you, right? As a friend. I may have loved you as something more once, but that’s over now. You know that.”

“I do.”

“So it’s as a friend, and as a colleague, that I ask… are you sure? You’re not holding on that tightly as it is. Going off to be alone with the voices in your head—”

“It’s not just voices anymore. I see her sometimes.” That stopped her. I continued. “She was sitting in that seat not long before you woke up. We were talking. If I get deep enough into the conversation, if I forget long enough, sometimes I can even feel her. I’m going to wind up alone with the voices in my head. The only question is whether or not I get the rest of you hurt in the process. Mahir was Georgia’s second. You’re mine. You know how badly I could fuck everything up if I refused to let go. So let me plan to let go. It might help me hold on a little longer.”

Becks sighed. “You’re asking me to help you turn into a crazy hermit living in the mountains somewhere.”

“Yeah. I am.”

“As long as you realize it.” She slumped in her seat, giving the jamming device a light smack with the heel of her hand. “How does this damn thing work, anyway?”

“You want the technical answer, or the honest answer?” I paused. “Actually, those are the same answer.”

“Shoot.”

“I have no fucking clue. Buffy was always real impressed with it, I know that; she wanted to build one for us, but other stuff kept getting in the way, and then we were working for a presidential hopeful, so it didn’t seem like a good political move.” And then she was dead, and she wasn’t going to be building anything for anybody. Things would have gone so differently if she’d lived. She would have seen what was happening and turned on the conspiracy that had turned her against us, and all this might already be over. George might still be alive. And I might not be looking forward to going all the way insane.

“It was nice of the Masons to give it to us.”

“Yeah, it was. I figure we’ll kill it with a hammer as soon as it’s served its purpose.” Becks shot me a scandalized look. I shook my head. “You really think they don’t have some sort of a tracking beacon in this thing? Buffy built alarms into the van security system that would have gone off if it were broadcasting—she had to reprogram them not to go off when Maggie got too close, since her parents have her rigged up with ‘do not abduct’ heiress crap. So I figure they’re just waiting until we stop moving long enough that they can assume we’re not in the vehicle anymore, and then they’re going to start pinging our position.”

Becks stared at me. “If they’re planning to use the thing to track us, why did you let me take it?”

“Because it was the only thing that would get us out of Berkeley. Even if the Masons just called the local cops on us, they’d be turning on every tracking chip they could think of as soon as we ran. And I somehow doubt they just called the local cops—or called them at all.”

“Why?”

“It took too long for them to get there. There’s a police station less than eight blocks away. My parents were turning us in for the ratings, remember? They called the CDC. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” It explained both the delay in their arrival, and why the Masons listened when I said they were making a mistake. The CDC is still the government, and after what happened during the Ryman campaign, trusting them might not have come as easy as it once did.

“Right.” Becks sighed and slumped in her seat. Then she leaned forward and turned the radio back up, signaling that she was done talking for the moment. I smiled a little, catching her meaning, and returned my focus to the road.

Things are almost over, murmured George.

“I know,” I said, and kept driving.

The outskirts of Seattle loomed up with surprising speed; the relative obscurity of the roads we’d been taking meant that there was minimal traffic. I dug a burner ear cuff out of my pocket, snapping it on. A tap triggered the connection. “This is Shaun Mason activating security profile Pardy. Something’s wrong with Brenda, we’re out of Mister Pibb, and hunting season’s here. Now let’s go to Hollywood.”

“Your taste in passwords is crap,” commented Becks.

I made a shushing motion. Mahir picked up after two rings, asking, “Oh, thank God. Shaun? Is that you?”

“If it weren’t, somebody would have just gotten really, really lucky trying to turn this thing on. Where are you guys?”

Mahir’s voice turned instantly suspicious. “Why?”

“Because we’ve just reached Seattle, and we’d like to come join you. Especially if wherever you are has a bathroom. Is there a bathroom? Please tell me there’s a bathroom. We’ve been driving for like, twenty hours, and I need to piss like you wouldn’t believe.”

“TMI, Shaun,” said Becks.

“How did you get out of Berkeley?”

“Wait, what?” Now it was my turn to get suspicious. “What are you talking about?”

“Several local Berkeley bloggers posted yesterday morning about a surprise CDC hazard team drill being run in a residential neighborhood—and their target was your family home. The Masons have even posted about it. They said they were glad to cooperate with anything that might improve safety procedures and response times.” He paused before adding, grimly, “We thought they might have turned you in.”

I sighed. “They kind of did. They just changed their minds before things could go all the way horribly wrong. How did they look?”

“Your mum had a black eye—”

“Yeah, I gave her that.”

“—and a broken arm. Your dad just had some taped-up fingers.”

“What?” I demanded. “I didn’t do that. Neither did Becks. The black eye was so it would be believable when they said we got away.”

“Apparently, it wasn’t believable enough for the CDC. Snap your transmitter to the GPS, I’ll send you the address for our hotel. Wipe it as soon as you get here.”

“Done. See you soon, Mahir.”

“One hopes,” he said.

I removed the cuff from my ear and handed it to Becks. “Here—connect this to the GPS. Mahir’s going to send us directions on how to get to the hotel he and Maggie are staying at. Keep the jammer going. The Masons made the news.”

“What?” Becks glanced at me in confusion as she connected the ear cuff to the GPS. The GPS unit beeped and began to display its “loading” screen.

“Mom has a broken arm. Dad has some broken fingers. Think they tripped and fell after we left the house?” I gripped the wheel harder than necessary, resisting the urge to slam my foot down on the gas and race my anger away. “The fucking CDC, Becks. My parents called the fucking CDC and said we’d be waiting for them, gift-wrapped and unsuspecting, and when we weren’t there, the fucking CDC showed their disappointment.”

“You can’t be sure it was the CDC.”

“That’s what the blogs are saying. They’re calling it a training exercise. As in, ‘The CDC decided to train their employees on beating the crap out of my parents.’ ” My fingers clenched even tighter. “Those fuckers. They had no right.”

“Ahead, turn left,” said the GPS.

Do it, said George.

I turned left.

“This is insane,” said Becks. “What the hell is going on here? What did we do?”

“Honestly? I don’t know anymore.” Something in my face must have told her to let it be. Becks shook her head, settling in her seat. After a moment’s hesitation, she drew one of her pistols, resting it against her thigh below the window’s sight line. If someone decided to use us for a “training exercise,” they weren’t going to find us as off guard as they might have liked.

The GPS led us through a maze of side streets to what looked like a relatively major road, one that led us away from downtown and toward the less densely populated residential areas. The buildings took on a dilapidated look as we crossed from one zone into the next… and then, abruptly, began to improve, until we were passing well-maintained mini-mansions surrounded by high fences instead of tenement apartment buildings. Some of them even had their own private gatehouses. The convenience stores and their kin were replaced by upscale grocery stores, fancy salons, and dry cleaners whose signs boasted zero-contact door-to-door service. There were no blood tests on the corners; instead, men on motorized scooters patrolled the sidewalks, running checks on anyone who wanted to get out of a vehicle.

More tellingly, as we drove deeper into the clearly wealthy part of town, people began appearing on the sidewalks. Some of them were walking small dogs, like Maggie’s teacup bulldogs, or the more traditional pugs and Pomeranians. Others had cats on leashes. We even passed a couple with one of those bizarre tame Siberian foxes trotting at their heels, its bushy tail low and its triangular ears pricked forward as it scanned its surroundings for danger.

“This can’t be right,” said Becks, watching the fox slide out of view. “Check the directions.”

“These are the directions Mahir gave me. Maybe they’re hiding in someone’s attic. I don’t know. Wherever they are, they’re going to be trying to stay unobtrusive.”

“In two hundred yards, you have reached your destination,” announced the GPS.

I looked forward. “Oh, fuck.”

“You have got to be kidding,” said Becks.

In front of us loomed the elegant, fenced-in shape of a luxury resort. It looked like it was large enough to host the entire Republican National Convention, assuming anything as gauche as politics were ever allowed to pass its pristine white gates. The guardhouse in front was staffed by four men, their concierge uniforms somehow managing to go perfectly with their assault rifles. Two of them moved out to the street, motioning for me to stop the van.

“There’s no way we can reverse fast enough,” said Becks. “They have to have cars.”

“Or they’d just shoot the windows out.” I set the brake. “It was nice knowing you.”

“Same here.”

The men took positions on either side of the van, one next to my window, one next to Becks’s window. The one next to mine raised a white-gloved hand and knocked, deferentially.

Forcing a smile, I lowered the window. “Hi,” I said. “What seems to be the problem?”

“No problem, Mr. Mason. We’ve been expecting you.” The man produced a handheld blood-testing unit while I was still gaping at him. “If you would please allow me to verify your current medical state, I would be delighted to explain.” On the other side of the van, his companion was making a virtually identical speech to Becks.

“Uh.” I stared at him for a moment before focusing on the most disturbing part of that statement. “You’ve been expecting us?”

“Oh, yes. Miss Garcia contacted the front desk after you called.” The man kept smiling. It was starting to make me nervous. “We’re thrilled to have you joining us.”

“Uh… huh.” I took the testing unit, pressing my thumb down on the pressure plate. “Did she threaten your lives, by any chance? Tell you you’d never work in this town again? Cry?”

The man actually laughed. “Oh, no, nothing like that! She simply asked us to meet you at the gates, and to assure you that the Agora Resort is a completely confidential retreat for those who may be in need of more… confidence… in their security.”

“Wait—did you say the Agora?” Becks leaned into my field of vision, her right hand still outstretched as she pressed her thumb to her own blood-test unit. “This is the Agora?”

“Yes, Miss Atherton.” The man frowned, although his overall air of polite readiness to serve remained. “You’ve heard of us?”

“My mother stayed here once, when she was younger. She was a Feldman before she got married.”

“Ah!” said the man, suddenly all smiles again. “Of the New Hampshire Feldmans?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a pleasure to have another member of the family with us. I hope we can live up to whatever fond memories she may have shared with you.” He deftly plucked the test unit from my hand, holding it up to show the green light that had come on at the top. “You are, as expected, clean. Welcome to the Agora, Mr. Mason. I, and the rest of the concierge staff, am pleased to serve.”

“Um, thanks?” I looked from Becks—who was being shown her own clean test unit—to the concierge, not bothering to conceal my confusion. “What happens now?”

“Now you enter. A valet will take your van”—he paused as my hands tightened on the wheel—“or not, as you prefer. Your party is waiting for you in the lobby.” He stepped back. His partner did the same, and the gates in front of us swung slowly open.

Becks put a hand over mine. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve heard of this place.”

“So?”

“So I wouldn’t have if my mother hadn’t stayed here. You need so many zeroes in your bank account to get in that there are presidents who never stayed here.” Becks pulled her hand away. “They believe in discretion above pretty much all else. Now let’s go.”

“You’re the boss.” I started the engine.

Becks smirked. “I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah, thought you might.”

Getting past the valet without ceding the keys was easier than I’d expected. Every place I’d ever seen that was even remotely like this had been staffed by people who were so desperate for tips that they’d do anything to guarantee them—as long as “anything” didn’t involve coming close enough to actually touch another human being. There’s a commonly held belief that people who work in the hospitality industry are less paranoid about strangers than the rest of us. I’d almost been able to buy it, until I stayed in a few hotels and saw how careful the staff was to avoid touching the guests. It was almost funny, except for the part where it was so damn sad.

George theorized once that the people who worked in hospitality were even more afraid of other human beings than the average man on the street. “This way they never get attached to anyone,” she’d said. “People come and go. They don’t stay long enough to become anything but names on a ledger. There’s no sense of loss when there’s nothing to lose.”

The Agora was disturbingly different. The valet’s smile when I said I’d rather park myself seemed sincere, and the garage maintained for self-park vehicles was large, spacious, and well lit, with emergency doors located every fifteen feet along the walls. The bellhop who opened the hotel’s main door for us was also smiling, and kept smiling even when it became apparent that our days on the road didn’t leave us exactly minty fresh. And neither of them held out a hand for a tip.

“This is weird,” I muttered to Becks, once I was sure we were far enough past the guy for my comment to go unheard.

“This is wealth,” she replied, and slapped her palm flat on the test sensor that would open the airlock separating the outer ring of the hotel from the main lobby. I did the same. The doors swished open a second later, allowing us both to step through.

“Welcome, Mr. Mason. Welcome, Miss Atherton,” said a polite female voice. “The Agora recommends that you make use of our lavish guest facilities. A hot bath has already been drawn in your rooms. We’re glad that you’re here.” The door on the other side of the airlock slid open, and the main lobby was revealed for the first time.

Now that’s just overkill, commented George.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said, and followed Becks out of the airlock.

The Agora lobby was decorated in shades of white and blue. It looked like the interior of the world’s most expensive glacier. A piano was tucked away into one corner, half blocked from view by tall plants with broad green leaves and trumpet-shaped blue flowers. The sound of the unseen pianist’s playing echoed through the room, soft enough not to be distracting, yet somehow unpredictable enough to make it clear that there was a live person at the keys. The front desk was set just to the side of a curved flight of stairs leading to the second floor.

Maggie and Mahir were standing near the center of the lobby, talking quietly. They looked around when the airlock door slid shut behind us. “Shaun! Becks!” exclaimed Maggie, the volume of her voice seeming inappropriate in this overly rarified atmosphere. “You made it!” She started toward us at a trot, Mahir following behind somewhat more slowly.

“Uh, yeah. We did,” I said, transferring my staring to Maggie. “You look…”

“Like the heir to Garcia Pharmaceuticals,” she said, and smiled. “You like?”

“Uh…”

Maggie was wearing a tailored blazer over a white lace shirt, no bra, and pants that could have been applied with a spray can. Maybe they were—they’ve been doing some incredible things with memory polymers in the last few years, and I know canned clothing was one of the things being worked on. Her normally curly, normally braided brown hair was both loose and straight, falling down her back like it had developed its own private gravity. Again, maybe it had. The ways of the obscenely rich are alien to me. Her makeup was elaborate enough that I was certain she hadn’t done it herself.

At least she was still wearing sensible shoes, rather than teetering on a pair of impractically high heels. I’ve heard them called “fuck-me pumps” in some of the pre-Rising media. These days, we call them “get-you-killed heels.” I think it’s a little more appropriate.

“It’s Shaun, Maggie, and you’re a girl,” said Becks, coming to my rescue. “He has no idea what the safe answer is, and so he’s going to vapor lock until you change the subject. Hi. It’s good to see you. You look wonderful.” She stepped forward, sweeping the head of the After the End Times Fictionals into a hug, which Maggie gladly returned.

Mahir caught my eye and smirked. “Hallo, Mason.”

“Hey, Mahir.” I shook my head. “Looks like we’ve both been having an interesting time. I’ll see your luxury hotel, and raise you one zombie bear.”

“I can see that this is going to be a deeply enlightening evening.” He put a hand on my arm. “I’ve been following the feeds about the Masons. Two of our juniors are covering it, due to the connection to our site’s founders. How are you holding up?”

It took me a second to realize that by “our site’s founders,” he was referring to me and George. “Oh, okay, I guess. Totally out of my mind, but that’s normal. Should we be hanging around down here?”

Maggie disengaged from Becks, glancing my way. “Our rooms are on the third floor. Did the Agora tell you about the baths?”

“That depends. When you ask ‘did the Agora’ tell us, do you mean—”

“The hotel.”

“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say. Yeah, it told us.”

“Good.” Maggie looped one arm through Becks’s and one arm through mine, tugging us across the lobby toward the elevators. “Let’s get you cleaned up and into something that doesn’t smell like road funk, and then we can sit down for dinner and to plan our plan of attack for tomorrow.”

“Road funk?” I asked.

“Plan of attack?” Becks asked.

Tomorrow? George asked.

“Your timing is impeccable, as always,” said Mahir, moving to walk alongside the three of us. “Tomorrow morning we will finally be accomplishing our goal here in the city of Seattle.”

“What do you mean?” asked Becks.

Maggie freed an arm long enough to push the elevator “call” button and leaned even closer, whispering conspiratorially, “We’re here to meet the Monkey, remember?”

The elevator arrived with a loud ding and Maggie stepped inside, waving for the rest of us to follow. After exchanging a look with Becks, I did.

“I think I preferred the zombie bears,” I muttered.

“That’s just you, Mason,” she said, and started laughing. Maggie and Mahir joined in. There was an edge of hysteria to the sound, like they were laughing to hold back the dark. I stood there, feeling the elevator gaining speed beneath us, and held my silence as we rose higher, and closer to the future.