him—that feeling other people’s clothes always seem to have—Michael found his way through the halls. He came to another dome, far higher than the one before, that looked as if it were painted with gold. He imaged what it was like here: people lying together in the winter night, warmed by their generators and their own communal body heat. The soldiers patrolling through the halls. He wondered if he would see the enormous soldier from last night again, or if that strange sniper was only on rescue duty, ballooning in the mountains.
And looking at the cots, for the first time, Michael began to wonder where everyone was.
Michael took a wide stairway that curved around the rotunda beneath the golden dome and, at its bottom, he heard something that he hadn’t heard in so long that his brain took a second to understand it: a group of people talking somewhere behind walls. The marble had a confusing effect on sound: there was a frustrating minute when Michael was chasing echoes.
But he found the door. A brass plaque read THE GOVERNOR’S DINING ROOM—PASS REQUIRED. He paused, feeling weirdly like he had on the morning of the very first day of high school.
He wondered if the girl had already told people about their encounter—indeed, if anyone else had seen him naked before he’d awakened. You know what? he thought, grinning nervously. I don’t even care.
Michael opened the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
And he experienced a moment’s disorientation. Like stepping down, wrongly expecting a stair.
The people at the table looked up at him, silenced. As Michael entered, an old woman with short, wavy hair put one hand to her mouth, as if delighted by the sight of him: her smile stretched past the edges of her fingers.
Michael thought for a second he had found the wrong room, and was about to mutter an exiting apology. But then he saw Patrick, drinking chocolate milk through a crazy straw from a clear plastic milk bag, sitting beside the wavy-haired old woman.
“And here he is, this new fella,” laughed the old woman brightly.
Michael eloquently replied, “Hey.”
Patrick looked at Michael, then the old woman, as if he wanted to get up and run to Michael but was too shy to do so in front of anyone. Instead, he threw a high five across the air with such grunting power that everyone stared at him anyway.
Michael’s chest warmed, seeing his brother: his smile, his posture. Patrick was fine. Last night’s emotional storm of near-Freak, however horrible, had passed. One thing Michael understood about Bub better than anyone: when the world around him made sense, Patrick could be pretty kick-ass strong.
The dining room, Governor’s or not, was a cafeteria: all plastic chairs and wipe-down tabletops. Four people, including Patrick and the old woman, sat at the nearest oval table. One of them—a muscle-y guy staring eagerly at him—looked about Michael’s age. The other person was a girl, dark-haired, whose head was down as she poked at her pancakes; Michael could just see a pale, round nose and small pink mouth. He assumed this was the girl he’d inadvertently streaked for.
And that was it. Nobody else in the cafeteria. Chairs upside down on the tables, silver legs pointing up.
“And how are you today, Michael?” said the old woman. Her softly Southern accent was lovely. So weird, hearing someone not-Patrick use his name.
She moved toward him with an old person’s small, careful steps. And then she surprised him: she took his hand in both of her own.
The unexpected contact, though warm and obviously sweet, made Michael’s cheeks prickle with heat for some reason. Despite how much he’d wanted to see people, he was struck by an urge to pull back.
“Well, we just want to say welcome,” she said. “And to tell you what a good day you’ve made this. We are so thankful to see you.”
“Thanks,” he said, taking his hand back. “I can honestly say that it is very awesome to meet you.” It occurred to him that he hadn’t spoken with a sane adult in weeks. He added, “Ma’am.”
“So what is your favorite breakfast, Michael? Bacon and eggs? Oatmeal? Cereal?” She went on, but Michael stopped listening around “bacon,” because he saw a pile of it on Muscle Guy’s plate, shiny with grease, and his stomach went, Baaaaacon? And itself answered, BAAAAACON!
He nodded. “Bacon works.”
Food. Was. Good.
Not stale Pop-Tarts or beef jerky; not prepackaged calories served car-temperature—f-o-o-d. The flavors burst, so intense that for the first couple minutes, Michael’s jaws ached. It was