Jopek growled. “When did you start thinking you were better than me?”
Oh my God, is this why he kept me alive?
To try to show me—and himself—that he’s “special”? That he didn’t just get lucky last night?
Yes!
The things that shot across the basket next weren’t Jopek’s bullets.
They were Michael’s words, tumbling, tumbling:
“The first second I saw you, seriously, I thought, ‘Look at that Shortbus Kid, I bet he asks me to tie his shoes.’”
Jopek was booming to a stand and his eyes were fiery with anger and joy, side-by-side like complementary poisons. Jopek tried to pull back the hammer of the pistol with a clumsy-with-emotion hand. He tried again. Got it the fourth try.
“Strike thr—”
“It’s not a strike; it’s just true. Are you too stupid to get that?”
Jopek slammed Michael sidelong into the wicker wall of the basket, and the moment was so yes-yes that Michael had to fight to keep himself from shouting victoriously.
Jopek panted.
“Heyo, the truth stings,” said Michael.
The basket swung and swung in the sky.
Jopek aimed the gun at Michael’s heart . . . and opened his fist.
The gun dropped between the V of Michael’s feet, bouncing once before settling.
Jopek lunged at him: he keyed open the handcuffs, then hurled the cuffs over the side of the basket in a glittering arc.
“Who do you think you are? Think you’re better, let’s see it, let’s play! Move, gunslinger! Sling! Sling!”
Michael gaped. At the gun between them. The gun in the pool of shadow between them.
“N-no,” he faked.
Yes, he thought. Yes!
THIS IS IT! This was what Jopek was! Jopek was stupid, Jopek was jealous, and this was the final standoff the Game Master had promised Michael!
Jopek’s breath rose to the high canvas. “Go for it. Draw. Sling it! Let’s us see who’s faster, see who’s better!”
“No,” said Michael.
“Sling!”
“I was kidding before,” Michael lied.
“I wasn’t.”
“Captain!”
“—Caaaaaaapppptttaaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnn—” called Bellows a world below.
“Suh . . . ling . . .” Jopek whispered. His voice was hoarse, and for a hovering, trembling moment, Michael felt pity for him. Almost. “Sling,” Jopek said, collapsing into the stool, thudding his head against the first aid kit that hung on the wall.
“Jopek—Captain—Horace, I’m not going to shoot you,” Michael said in what sounded like desperation. “Let’s just talk this out like two grown-up dudes.”
And that was when Michael made his move for the gun.
The world clicked into yes-yes as he kicked the gun toward himself, straight into his space-suited hand.
Jopek shot up from the stool, shouting.
Michael knew, absolutely, that Jopek was going to strike him. He braced for it. He had taken everything a world of corpses had: he could take anything Jopek could offer and still get him to lower the basket and let him go free.
Jopek’s fist leapt—
—but not at Michael—
—because it went for the first aid kit. He grabbed it and the kit clammed open, so for a second the red cross blazed before the sun like a sign, and out of the case spat—no, no, doesn’t work that way—a large, black pistol that Jopek had hidden and now snatched from the air. The gun in Michael’s hand began loudly clicking. Empty, he thought, fool me twice oh my God NO, and the basket exploded beside his head. Michael’s screams were trapped in his space suit and he could only hear the missiles revving past his skull while Jopek laughed and shot at his head, Which is how you kill people who were too slow and became Bellows, like me—
—I was wrong—
—Jopek isn’t like Ron—
Jopek’s eyes were blastingly bright with intelligence.
With cunning.
With bad genius.
Smart! He is smart! His secret is that he is smart!
“Hey,” said Captain Jopek. “You missed me.”
No accent, Michael thought.
“Who are you?” Michael said.
The captain’s face flamed: new mask, same fire.
“Don’t you know yet, Mikey? I’m whover I damn well want to be.”
Michael paled. “Are you . . . even a soldier?”
“What I am,” Jopek replied, “is better than you. I want you to remember that.
“I want you to know that I put a kill switch on that Hummer, so even if you’d gotten out of the Capitol last night, you never would’ve gotten away.
“I want you to know that there are no other survivors in Richmond, you goddamn dumbass, ’cause every Safe Zone except mine got overthrown last week.
“I want you to know that this world is my world, and the only reason you breathe in it is because I let you.
“Every day of my life I have known that this new world was coming down the pike. You breathe and