shifted in the harness, looking uneasily out the Hummer’s rear portal window. The captain had taken them across the Capitol bridge, into the downtown grid, but instead of simply continuing yesterday’s systematic search of the main, mine-less streets, Jopek had unlocked several thick layers of fencing, and taken them into an alley so narrow that the sides of the Hummer nearly scraped.
Michael looked to Holly, wanting to know what she thought of this, but the captain had opened the sliding plate between the front and rear Hummer compartments: the unfiltered sound of the engine was so loud that nobody in the back could hold a conversation.
Calm down, man, Michael thought, feeling a little panicky. The captain knows what he’s doing.
They got to their destination safely. The side streets didn’t contain as many mines as Michael had thought, perhaps because the recent influx of Bellows into the city had detonated them already.
But still.
The Hummer stopped. Captain Jopek hurled open the rear double doors.
The pale fire of late afternoon burned on the captain’s grinning, eager face. “’Mon out,” he said, strapping on his Kevlar vest, his wrist knives, ankle pistol. “This little mission shouldn’t take too long.”
They’d parked next to an enormous fake-corn maze, set up in a shopping square across from an old movie theater as a Halloween decoration, Michael supposed. Scarecrows hung inside the maze, ragged and off-kilter on crosses; jack-o’-lanterns rested on bales of hay, their puckered mouths stuffed with snow. Much of the corn was flattened; all of it was browned. Michael felt, again, that sense of vague depression: seeing the maze was like walking past a water park closed for winter.
“Rock ’n’ roll,” Hank said as he disembarked. Observe the badass is what it sounded like.
Michael helped Bobbie out of her harness, then waited with Patrick as she and everyone else piled out of the Hummer.
“What’re we gonna do?” Patrick whispered as Michael set him down on the street, heading toward the maze behind the rest of the group.
“Just wait while the captain looks for people,” Michael replied. I guess. “Hundred points for each one.”
“Points for people?” Patrick said, and stopped walking. “There’s never people in buildings, though.”
And just like that, the momentary relief that Bub had gotten from Jopek’s “mission” announcement was gone: his small face crinkled down with disappointment and frustration; his mittened hands clenched and unclenched. Michael could feel, like something electrical, the tingling signals of Patrick’s anxiety through the air between them.
Michael’s heart hurt a little. He saw the scene around them through Bub’s eyes.
The snow, all slushy and gray.
No gentle hills to sled.
No Lightball-able places to explore.
And most of all: no real reason to believe that The End was one step closer than it had been before.
Michael remembered the other night, in Coalmount, when he and Patrick had been taken aback by the brilliant starpointed sky, how it had seemed that they almost owned the world. Now the captain was standing beside this dreary abandoned maze, talking to “his troops,” undoubtedly telling them to wait outside “while yer captain does a little explorin’.”
Uh, Michael, are you seriously feeling nostalgic for the good old days when you and your brother were trying not to get eaten?
Well. Actually: yeah.
“Maybe can we look for more pieces for my weapon tomorrow?” Patrick murmured, almost to himself, walking toward the maze, his shoulders slouched. He pulled his tiny orange toy gun from his coat pocket, then put it away again forlornly. “I can’t even make it shoot, the trigger’s too hard to pull.”
“Bub, hold up.” Patrick looked back. “Why don’t we go look for the pieces now? Secret style.”
’Cause who’s it gonna hurt, if I do what I want for a couple minutes?
“Nuh-uh, really?” Patrick replied, his face coming alive. Michael nodded, and Patrick offered him a double fist-bump. And it was as Michael led back around the opposite side of the Hummer, going away from the captain and the maze and everyone else, heading toward an Ace Hardware storefront, that in the back of his mind he realized something was off.
Footsteps, coming toward him, fast across spattering snow.
Michael turned.
And when he looked, the captain’s face was there, filling his vision.
“Hi! What’cha doin?” Captain Jopek said.
Michael startled, trying to search the captain’s eyes, finding instead only that perpetual blankness. But he told himself: I’m just taking my brother for a walk, captain, and I’m allowed to do that.
The captain’s checking to make sure you’re safe, that’s all.
“Taking Patrick for a quick walk,” Michael replied, trying to sound