Doomed (35 page)

I awaken early, heart racing, blood pumping, a scream lodged in the back of my throat. The closet light I left burning went out sometime in the middle of the night, and I am all alone in an unfamiliar room. In the dark.

The same old tightness rises inside me, and I sit up quickly, groping for the large lamp I remember seeing on my nightstand. I finally find it, cool glass beneath my burning fingertips. I fumble for the switch, knowing all along that it won’t go on. That I’m stuck here, in the dark, on my own.

Click.
The switch turns once. Nothing.

Click.
I turn it again. Dim, golden light fills the room, and has my too-wide pupils blinking at the sensory assault. Yet even as I struggle to see, I breathe a sigh of relief. Not completely in the dark. Not yet.

The old-fashioned windup clock on the dresser reads five fifteen. I’ve slept only four hours, but it’s going to have to be enough. I brush my teeth, wash my face, slip on a pair
of jeans over the underwear I slept in. I add a blue cotton blouse—my last clean shirt—and then, because I’m cold, slide the purple hoodie over my head.

Seven minutes have passed. Not enough time. I think about staying in the room, messing with Pandora’s Box or washing my dirty clothes in the sink. But I’m not in the mood, not now. I can’t breathe in here. I want to be outside, where I can feel the earth beneath my toes and the crisp, cool morning air in my lungs.

I grab a flashlight from my backpack and make my way slowly down the hall and out the front door. It will be dawn soon. Already I can see the beginning tendrils of morning snaking their way across the inky darkness of the sky.

I sit on the porch and wait for the light.

Dawn finally arrives, with a burst of reds and pinks and golds as it streaks triumphantly across the sky. It lights up the world around me, chases away the last of the dark, and I realize that though the farm has hundreds, thousands, of acres of land to harvest, Jean has planted a personal garden in a heated greenhouse not too far from the front door.

I walk to it, smiling at the neatly labeled plants. Lettuce, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, squash, strawberry, watermelon, just to name a few. She has almost everything out here, growing in rich, beautiful soil. My fingers itch to bury themselves in the earth, and I refuse to deny them, deny myself, this simple pleasure.

So in the midst of chaos and fear and indecision, in the midst of the darkest dawn of my life, I drop to my knees and begin to harvest.

I pick ruby-red strawberries, bursting with sweetness
and size. Shrug out of my hoodie and create a makeshift basket for them with the sweatshirt. Then I move on to the tomatoes and green peppers and finally the blackberry bushes lining the edges of the greenhouse.

“You like to garden.” Jean’s soft voice comes from nowhere, but instead of startling me, it just makes me smile.

“I love it. I grow a bunch of herbs and vegetables back home.” A flash of sadness as I think of my own flourishing garden and wonder if it’s going to go to waste or if Homeland Security is going to ransack it like they did everything else, just to be mean.

“The last time you were here you picked apples. Your dad balanced you on his shoulders and you brought in four or five bushels, one right after the other. He kept trying to talk you down, to get you to stop, but you were having so much fun he wouldn’t force the issue.”

The memory creeps into my mind. Slow and sticky like spilled syrup, it works its way into my synapses until I can’t believe that I ever forgot it. We were out here, alone save for Jean and her son, Matthias, and my dad took me down to the apple orchard.

“Tell me about my father,” I say impulsively, carrying my bounty back to the house and into Jean’s kitchen.

She sighs and pours each of us a cup of coffee. For a long time it’s quiet between us, and I finally decide she isn’t going to answer. But then she does.

“Being with your father was like harnessing lightning. Thrilling, fun, but more dangerous than anyone caught in his orbit likes to imagine.”

I think back to my mother, to her making me swear to
stay away from my father. Was that her experience, too? Was being married to him like trying to hold on to a lightning bolt? And if it was, how come I never noticed her struggles? I remember her being the interloper, but maybe I was too young to understand anything more.

“I first met him when I was the same age you are now. We were at school together, at UC Berkeley, and he was leading a protest against nuclear armament. There was chaos all around him, students protesting, campus police trying to keep things in line, other students trying to push through the demonstration so they could get to class.

“And there was your father. Right in the middle of it all. Completely cool, totally in charge, and having a fantastic time. I was hooked, from that moment on. I’d never thought much about the arms race—I mean, beyond what everyone else did—but I walked right up to your dad and told him I wanted to join the cause.”

She shrugs, smiles a little shyly. “We were inseparable after that. For years.”

Even after he and my mom got married?
I want to ask. I think back on those times here, with Jean and my father, and know that yes, even then, they were together. I don’t understand any of this, but I want to. I really do. Something tells me it’s a key to figuring out everything else that’s going on.

Even with all of that to process, there’s another question that begs to be asked. “Protest against nuclear arms?” Bitterness is in my mouth now. It coats my tongue, and when I laugh, it’s not a happy sound. “Tell me, please, how a man who once protested nuclear weapons went from that to creating a worm that breaks down nuclear-cooling towers? A
worm that guarantees to eradicate the planet? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“He won’t go through with it.” Jean’s voice sounds certain, but her hands are trembling when she reaches for the coffeepot.

The desire to believe her is a fire inside me, burning me with the need to see my father as something other than a villain. Something more than a spoiled little boy who decided to break everything because he couldn’t have his way.

“He already has. We’ve got six days left. I’m dancing to his tune, we all are, and yet the countdown keeps ticking. Technology as we know it has all but disappeared, and the nuclear-cooling towers aren’t functioning properly. It’s just a matter of time before this all gets away from him.”

“You don’t know that. Mitch isn’t the kind of person—”

“He’s exactly that kind of person! Can’t you see? Or are you so isolated on this farm that you don’t understand what’s going on?” I get up, walk to the window that looks out over acres and acres of food, and I think about that convenience store, emptied of supplies, its clerk murdered.

“People are already dying. Right now, as we speak. They’re dying, Jean. And more are going to, even if he is bluffing about the nuclear thing—and I don’t think he is. Hospitals can’t run forever on their generators. Think about the people on life support. Don’t tell me he didn’t think about them. And if he didn’t, then he’s even more of a monster than I already believe he is.”

“Pandora.” Her blue eyes are horror stricken and watery, tears slowly sliding down her cheeks. “He’s not a monster.
Whatever you say, whatever he’s done, I won’t believe that of him. The Mitch I know—”

“What? Tell me. Help me understand.”

“Is that why you’re here? To understand?”

“I’m here because it’s where he put me. I’m playing the game, trying to stop him, and he brought me here.”

“Which just proves he doesn’t want to succeed! He would never involve you if it meant you might get hurt.”

I stare at her in disbelief, as I think of everything I’ve done in the last few days. Stolen cars, fled federal custody, been in a high-speed car chase with Homeland Security, faced down men with guns, assaulted a cop, walked through miles of desert with very little water. Any one of those things could have ended badly for me, for Theo and Eli.

Would my father have even cared? Or are we all just pawns in this crazy game he’s created? I shudder as I think of my own strategy regarding pawns when I’m playing chess. I
always
sacrifice them for the greater good of the game. Why should I think my father’s strategy is any different?

I start to say as much to Jean, but she looks wrecked, and I’ve never been one to kick a person when she’s down. Instead, I walk to the sink and rinse out my cup. “Can I help you make breakfast?” I ask. “We probably need to get on the road soon.”

Jean wants to argue, I can see it in her eyes. But she must see something in mine that changes her mind, because all she does is shake her head. “Go wake up the boys. They’re in the room next to yours. And get your dirty clothes so I can wash them. We’ll have breakfast and then I’ll pack some food for you, get you some gasoline, and you can be on your way.”

“You have gasoline?” I ask, surprised. “Here?”

“We have a lot of machines for harvesting. They don’t run on air, though it’d certainly be nice if they did.”

I nod my understanding. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I appreciate it, but you may need the supplies.”

Her look is surprisingly fierce, and seems out of place on her warm, kind face. “You’re Mitch’s daughter. If he didn’t send you here to stay, then I guarantee he sent you so I could do exactly this.” She holds my gaze for long seconds, as if she’s trying to tell me something I can’t quite understand. Then she shoos me out of the kitchen, turns toward the sink. “Hurry up and get your clothes. I’ll put on a load of laundry right away.”

I nod even though she can’t see me and walk slowly down the hall to my room. It’s even prettier in daylight than it was at night. Sunlight reflects off the crystal knobs on the bedposts, sending rainbow prisms spinning across the floor and bed.

I empty my bag, pull out my dirty clothes. Start to head next door. At the last second, I open up my laptop, stare at the AR gate waiting for the right code to let me level up. I pause for a second, then type in J. E. A. N.

The game beeps and I’m back in Balboa Park, in front of the entrance to the San Diego Aerospace Museum. A bunch of players cross through the open AR gate with me, and we stand there, staring at the circular white building, trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do now.

Part of me wants to walk away forever. To smash my laptop into a million pieces so I never have to play this game again. I can’t do it now, but I promise myself that once I find my father I’m never logging in to Pandora’s Box again.

I walk into the museum. Inside it’s one big hangar, with a bunch of planes on display, ranging from some of the first airplanes up to some of the most modern fighter jets. I look around for a minute, try to figure out what I’m supposed to do.

One of the planes is glowing, so I walk toward it. It’s a small, two-seater plane like they use for crop dusting in old cartoons, and I have no idea what to do with it.

Just then CarlyMoon IMs me, and instead of ignoring the message as I usually do, I click on it:

I write her back:

We chat for a minute or so, then:

Her questions set off alarm bells inside me. I close our chat, but that doesn’t seem good enough. Or safe enough. If my instincts are right, and CarlyMoon is a federal agent, can she trace us through the game? Can she find out where I am?

I slam my computer shut just as there’s a knock on my door.

“I’m coming, Jean,” I call, scooping up my dirty clothes. But when I open the door, Jean’s not on the other side. It’s Eli.

“Hey, Pandora.” He smiles lazily, his green eyes still a little unfocused from sleep, though he smells of mint toothpaste. “I’m supposed to tell you breakfast is ready.”

“Great.” I grab my backpack and follow him out into the hall, where we run into Theo, fresh from a shower.

“I found the code,” I blurt out. “To the AR gate. It’s Jean. She and my dad …” I trail off.

“Did you finish the level?”

“No. I ran into a player who freaked me out.” I tell them what happened, and they both look as concerned as I feel.

“I don’t think they can trace us here, not with none of the com lines working,” Theo says as we settle at the table. “But I’d stay away from anyone who’s playing with us.”

“I agree,” Eli says. “It’s impossible to tell who they really are.”

“How long do we have before the time limit runs out?” Theo asks, pulling out his tablet.

Oh, crap. I’d been so caught up in worrying about Carly-Moon that I let the time limit get away from me. “Probably not long.” I log on to the game and the guys do the same, entering the AR code so they drop down right next to me. As one, we stare at the glowing airplane.

“We need to fly that baby?”

“I think so.” The clock reads 5:34.

“Then let’s do it.” Eli hops in the back. “You can sit on my lap, Pandora.”

Theo climbs into the front, starts up the plane, and I clamber into the back. As soon as the plane starts to move forward, the walls of the museum disappear, and we’re rolling through the fields of Balboa Park.

“You really know how to fly this thing?” I ask Theo.

“
This
thing? Not exactly, but hopefully it’s not much different from my plane.”

We bounce our way across the grass to a huge parking lot that is, thankfully, devoid of cars. Theo hits the throttle, or whatever that thing is called, and the plane starts coasting faster and faster. Within seconds, we’re airborne.