This is her eyelids fluttering but not quite finding the strength to open, lashes matted to her cheeks by a gluey mixture of blood and tears.
This is the sound of gunfire going silent outside. Not tapering off; just stopping, like the world has been muted.
This is the world going white.
This is the end.
We got it wrong we got it wrong we got it wrong we got it wrong we
The owl looked at Avery and Zib. Avery and Zib looked at the owl. It was difficult not to notice how long the owl’s talons were, or how sharp its beak was, or how wide and orange its eyes were. Looking directly at them was like trying to have a staring contest with the whole of Halloween.
Privately, Avery guessed that the owl did not give away licorice or candy apples on Halloween night. Dead stoats and stitches were much more likely.
“You are very loud,” said the owl finally. “If you must spend the whole day fighting, could you do it under someone else’s tree?” The owl had a soft and pleasant voice, like a nanny. Zib and Avery blinked in unison, bemused.
“I didn’t know owls could talk,” said Zib.
“Of course owls can talk,” said the owl. “Everything can talk. It’s simply a matter of learning how best to listen.” . . .
—From Over the Woodward Wall, by A. Deborah Baker
Book II
Reset
No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.
—Bell’s Theorem
The call was coming from inside the house.
—Urban legend (traditional)
CHECKMATE
Timeline: 16:52 EST, June 19, 2000 (five years in isolation).
Dodger plays chess the way she used to slide down the gully behind her house: hard and fast and like she’s afraid any loss of momentum could prove fatal. Every move is an attack. When she isn’t touching the pieces, she sits frozen, barely seeming to breathe, a predatory halt that bears no resemblance to actual calm. She is a marble statue masquerading as a girl, coming alive only when the rules of the game allow.
Her opponent moves; she responds, swift and unflinching as a master debater arguing some unprovable point. The fact that they play for a crowd doesn’t matter. (Neither does the fact that her coach has asked her—virtually begged her—to slow down, to draw out her moves and give the rubes something worth watching. “If they wanted to see something flashy, they should have gone to the aquarium” was her reply every time the subject came up. She’s as unwavering in her answers as she is in her ruthless, results-based style of play. She’ll never be a rock star, but at least she’ll fade into obsolescence with a trophy in each hand. That’s good enough for her.) Winning is the only thing that matters.
Winning is something she can do without anyone to help her.
The last piece is moved; her opponent tips over his king, signaling her victory. She finally lifts her eyes to his, holding out her hand for the ritual, perfunctory handshake. Someone in the crowd—the great, faceless beast of the crowd—shifts positions, and somehow, her attention is caught.
Training conquers distraction: she shakes her opponent’s hand, fingers cool and nerveless, before she pulls away from him and does the unthinkable. Dodger Cheswich, who once did three games back to back while suffering from food poisoning so bad that she excused herself between moves to vomit, who has another game to prepare for, who has never, during the six long weeks of this tour, which he’s heard her call “geniuses on parade” without a hint of irony in her voice, paid attention to anything but the board . . . Dodger Cheswich is walking away.
It’s hardly more of a surprise when she breaks into a run. After all, she’s already broken script; what’s a little more deviation?
She runs, eyes fixed on a teenage boy with slightly too-long brown hair and a faint tan underscored with years upon years of freckles. His glasses are too large for his face; they make him look like a confused cartoon owl, someone trotted into the episode long enough to dispense wisdom before being carted off again. He’s wearing a T-shirt with a Shakespeare quotation on it, blue jeans, and the possessive hand of the blonde girl next to him. Everything about the blonde screams “back off, he’s mine,” and if Dodger were the one who got the words, she’d find a way to explain that she doesn’t want him, not