Ascending the Boneyard (6 page)

Jesus. I had one job: save the bird and collect the Ascent Credits so I could become Worthy. Well, I blew it. And now I probably just wiped. Again.

I'm seriously gonna need some backup if I have any hope of getting out of here. My fingers mash the buttons on the phone, frantically dialing numbers—first Cam, who doesn't answer, then Napoleon Burger since Haze doesn't have a cell phone.

“Come on,” I urge, bouncing with nerves inside my hazmat suit. “Come on, answer!”

The mechanical click-and-report behind me sends echoes of terror through my entire body.

My hand falls slowly away from the side of my head as I lift my gaze equally slowly up the sides of the go-kart pit.

Holy mother of—

I'm half expecting to see news cameras stationed around the perimeter of the track because of all the vans out front. Instead I find myself surrounded by a wall of weps—I don't know whose, but there must be dozens of them, staked out along both sides of the pit, aimed straight at me.

I lift my hands skyward—I've run through maps like this enough times to know how it works.

“Drop the cup!” one of the soldiers yells from behind me.

I do. I let it fall from my fingers, consumed by a sickness I can't reconcile as the carcass of that recently deceased bird bounces partway out onto the concrete track.
I'm sorry,
I whisper to the bird, but it sends nothing back.

“Now the phone!” the voice behind me shouts.

My alarms go off. No way am I dropping my phone onto the concrete track on purpose. It won't survive another violent mishap.

“Drop the phone!”

I crouch down, place it gently on the ground next to the cup. My eye catches the sight of the bird's little wing draped lightly over the rim, and I swallow against the slow burn in my throat. Damn bird. I was supposed to save it. I made it here in time and everything. Why'd it have to wait till I showed up to go and die?

“Turn around nice and slow,” the voice behind me orders.

I rotate a hundred and eighty degrees, only to find myself staring down the barrel of at least a dozen different kinds of weapons, and it hits me.

I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore.

5

“You don't understand,”
I tell the odd collection of soldier dudes for the fortieth time. “I don't
work
for anyone. I'm not
affiliated
with any organization. I'm a just a high school kid. I don't even get good grades.”

They huddle-whisper after every statement I make, their voices low enough where I can't even tell what language they're speaking. The matching bowl-cut hairdos, the strange but identical camo-style fatigues, the weps that don't look like anything we've been using in the Boneyard (although admittedly I haven't unlocked everything from the expansion pack yet). Still, nothing about this has any ring of familiarity to it. I have no idea what I'm dealing with here.

All I know is, I was supposed to save that bird and I failed. I didn't get to call for backup when I was standing on the go-kart track at Goofy Golf. I let my brigade down on this mission. Couldn't even keep Turk from infiltrating my phone afterward.

Wait.

“Where's my phone?” I ask in a panic.

“In for analysis,” one of the men says.

Analysis?

“What about my wallet?”

“In for analysis.”

“And my skateboard?”

The commando shoots me a lethal glance before saying, “In for analysis.” I finish the sentence with him, and for a split second his eyes glow an enraged, biohazard green.

I sneak a look around as the group of soldiers reconvenes. The room looks vaguely familiar. Opaque brick walls made of some kind of composite material and a few acrylic chairs surround a single backlit, acrylic table. That's it. Just me in a room full of virtually invisible furniture with a bunch of guys who look like extras from every B-grade sci-fi movie ever made.

“Why am I here?” I say, raising my voice. “I didn't do anything wrong.”

In-for-analysis pushes right up against me, and the idea pops over my head like a burst thought bubble. Of course I did something wrong. I probably committed a whole convoy of wrongs at Goofy Golf alone. Not that I'd tell
him
that. Confess nothing—that'll be my motto.

“Look,” a second commando says, circling around, closing in on me nice and tight. “I don't think you appreciate the seriousness of the situation.”

I'm flanked at this point—I have no choice but to agree. I swallow against the dry panic in my mouth.

“Maybe I don't.”

“You trespassed onto a crime-scene investigation.”

“Are you guys CSI—is that what you're saying?”

He ignores me, continues down the litany of my offenses.

“You broke into a municipal vehicle, stole government property.” He leans forward. “You impersonated a hazmat officer.”

“So you're Feds?”

His fist comes down hard on the table.
“Who do you work for?”

I refuse to show him I'm intimidated.

“Why should I tell you who I work for when you won't even tell me who you are?”

A third commando pulls his chair up in front of me and straddles it backward. He doesn't lean close, doesn't crowd me with aggressive energy. He crosses his arms over the back of the chair and drops his voice to a whisper so low that
I'm
the one who has to lean in.

“Just tell us what you were doing,” he says, keeping his voice calm and low, “and we can clear this whole thing up right here, right now.”

My gaze boomerangs between them. If I say what really happened, they might kill me. If I don't, they'll probably for sure kill me. I realize with dire certainty that I have to come up with something to say that won't culminate in them wanting me dead.

“Look, if I tell you what I was doing, you'll legitimately think I'm a wuss,” I tell the guy.

“No, I won't.” He leans over, drilling into me with his commando-vision. “I'll think you're a goddamn hero.”

I swallow hard, look around at the commandos. What's in it for me if I comply? Level jumps? Special weps? Extra rezzes? I'd give anything for the chance to finally get this shit right. Still, something tells me it's in my best interest to be only partly truthful.

“Okay, well, I was watching the news this morning.” I pause for dramatic effect. Even a lie sounds more believable if you whisper it. “And I saw a bird lying on the go-kart track. And I noticed it wasn't dead like all those other birds.” I skip the part about the message on my phone, study the circle of pinched faces around me. “I decided to come down and save it.”

The commando doesn't move, doesn't budge, doesn't so much as twitch for one full minute. Then he scrapes his chair back so suddenly I just about disintegrate inside my own skin. He circles up the wagons, and they confer again behind me.

I sneak glances at the mottled gray-purple-black of their huddled uniforms, wishing I could hear what they're saying. Unfortunately, these guys, whoever they are, have perfected the art of the stealth-whisper.

The third commando breaks free of the group, comes back, and sits across from me again.

“Caleb Tosh,” he says in a dark hush. “Are you familiar with Turk's army?”

He can't be serious.

“Why?” I ask.

“You're aware of the upcoming battle?”

He notes my skepticism.

“You've seen them, haven't you?” He says it so quietly, I can barely hear him. “Scouts? Infiltrators?”

I try not to let him see me gulp. “Yes.”

“We believe you can be of service to us.”

I'm blinking like a crazy person behind the yellow goggles, but I can't stop myself from asking, “What are you talking about?”

“It will require an extreme level of internal fortitude,” he continues in a whisper, every word coming faster. “You will see things.
Strange
things.”

“Stranger than five thousand dead birds in an amusement park?” I say.

He ignores me. “And you will be asked to do things that may not seem to follow typical mission protocol. You must not question the mission.”

“What's the catch?” I ask.

“We know where Turk's lair is. And it's not what you think.”

My ears start to ring. What he's suggesting . . . well, it's impossible. “Then, wh—”

The other soldiers move in fast, form a semicircle around us. Commando Number Three pulls back, raises his voice to mid-volume. “You're free to go,” he says.

Wait,
what
?

“But you said—”

“I said. You are free. To go.” His expression turns hard, matching his cohorts'.

“Oh. Okay.” I look around, not sure what to do next. “So . . . can I have my stuff back?”

“It will remain in custody until we've completed our analysis,” the first guy says.

“But you're welcome to take this,” one of the others tells me, handing me a plastic ziplock baggie with the now-dead bird inside. “Give it a proper burial.”

I reel with disgust.

“Don't you need
this
for analysis?” I ask, unable to keep the sarcastic twinge out of my voice. I can't even look at the bird as I pinch the baggie between the tips of two fingers. Bastards confiscated the gloves along with my Tyvek suit and the rest of my stuff.

“Thousands more where that came from,” he says.

But this one made it out alive.

Until it had to go and die.

As I reach the door, I turn, eye the commandos one last time. They've gone on with their business, ignoring me so completely, it's almost like I was never there to begin with.

I head outside with nothing to show for my trouble but a dead bird in a ziplock bag. The little black carcass bobs up and down in time with my footsteps, like it's still trying to flap its lifeless wings.

Save it.

I hang my head as I walk home. Serves me right to go off on a mission without a platoon. I wouldn't even blame them if I got stripped of my rankings. They already threatened to leave me behind for good once before; I had to do a humiliating amount of groveling to get back in. Jesus, I don't know what I'd do if I got left in the Boneyard alone.

Plus, now the old man's going to kill me for losing my phone.

But not before I kill myself for letting them keep Devin's skateboard after promising him I'd bring it right back.

My guts are in a complete twist by the time I pass the mailbox in front of my house. It's halfway open; inside is a fat envelope with my name on it.

I quick drop the baggie to the ground, pull out the contents of the envelope: my cell phone, my wallet, and the now-crushed drink cup.

The empty manila envelope flutters from my hands, lands in the dirt next to the ziplock bird. Nothing's missing from my wallet; even the screen on the phone looks brand-spanking-new. Baffled, I flip it over, unlock the screen, check my settings—this is definitely my phone; it's all here. Nothing's been changed or deleted—just mysteriously repaired.

Did those commandos do me a solid and fix my phone to prove they're legit? Note to self: check my Trade Screen next time I log into the Boneyard.

Meanwhile, I do a panoramic sweep of the street. Nothing suspicious jumps out—no unmarked cars with blacked-out windows, no strange pedestrians trying to appear incognito as they scurry down the sidewalk. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a living soul around.

Devin.

The old man.

I never saw them at Goofy Golf.

I take the two wooden steps to the trailer in one leap, turn the handle, stop dead in my tracks.

Devin's skateboard is parked right inside the door like it always is. I flip it over, check for the scuffed-up Virgin Mary on the bottom.

She's there.

I slide my gaze toward the living room, half expecting to see one of those commandos sitting there next to the old man, catching an episode of
Promzillas
with a beer in one hand and a powdered doughnut in the other. But the only signs of life inside the trailer come from the TV—still on, still throbbing gray-blue light into the room.