as best he could. Her pants were torn. From the angry look of her skin, Gilly had removed some debris before he arrived. He took hold of her leg and her eyes popped open and she gave a small cry. “It’s okay,” he said. “Worst part is over, Beanfield.” But his promises had never been worth much and she’d always known that about him and she kept protesting, making a terrible, feeble mewling. He pulled as hard as he could and there was a noise and her leg slid free and she fell silent and limp.
He carried her to the ladder shaft. He was glad she was unconscious. He didn’t know if he could do this with someone clinging to him, trying to grab his shoulders. It was bad enough already.
His brothers had put him in a toolbox. He’d had a thing about small spaces even before and he made the mistake of telling Eddie, the youngest, whom he trusted, and Eddie told the others. After that they would come anytime. Hands on his shoulders. Hey, Pauly. He kicked and screamed but there was never any help. Sometimes they sat on the lid and didn’t lock it, so he could believe that if he pushed hard enough, he could escape. Each time he saw a sliver of light before the dark slammed down again. He died a whole lot of times in that box. Screamed and cried with wet terror bursting inside his mind. It felt like they left him in there for hours, for days, or not even that, a spongy, indistinct amount of time that could grow or compress and conceivably last forever. That was his real fear, that they might not let him out. He couldn’t close his hands into fists when he got out because of how he’d punched the lid. Couldn’t write well, either, or manipulate a board, or do much of anything that required fine motor skill, and he tried to cover for it with horse-ass behavior, which got him appointments with the school counselor. I want to help you, the counselor said, but Anders had heard that before and not once had it been true. When he did get around to asking that man, in a roundabout kind of way, what would happen to a person who killed a member of their own family, he was silent awhile and then said, Sorry, Paul, but we have to leave it there. No school for a while after that.
One time in the toolbox he had kicked and there was a sharp noise. He pulled himself free and lay on the cool concrete floor and it was the sweetest moment of his life. He’d never found anything quite so good again, and not for lack of trying. Lying there, things had become very clear to him: one, that when his brothers found him, they would put him back, and two, he would do anything to prevent that from happening. So he took down a wrench and waited by the front porch. He knocked Eddie off his bike before any of them noticed him. The others jumped him pretty quick and beat him half to death, but Eddie was still out four teeth and never spoke right again. Anders caught all kinds of hell from his father for that. And he always felt bad for how it went down, because Eddie was the nicest, and just happened to come around the corner first. But it was the end of the box.
“I’m at station,” Gilly said.
He wedged Beanfield into the ladder shaft. “You hear that? Gilly’s on the case.”
She didn’t reply.
“I’m going to trigger the pulse manually,” Gilly said. “Stand by. Three. Two. One. Pulsing.”
“Was that it?”
“What do you mean?” Gilly said. “Yes. We pulsed. Why? What happened?”
“I’m not seeing any impact. But it’s difficult to assess damage without the regular scans.”
“I can pulse again in twenty seconds.”
“Six incoming hostiles,” Jackson said. “Same as before. Twenty seconds to physical contact. Confirmed, no apparent impact.”
“Shit,” Gilly said.
“What went wrong?”
“I don’t know. It’s . . . wait. They’re too close. They’re too close.”