“IT’S A TEST,” Evan said.
The green liquid-gelcap-looking thing lay on the desk, safely—we hoped—sealed inside a clear plastic baggie, the kind your mom used in the long-gone good old days to keep your sandwich and chips fresh for lunch period.
“What, like human IEDs are still in the R-and-D phase?” Ben asked. He was leaning on the sill of the busted-out window, shivering, but someone had to watch the parking lot, and he wasn’t letting anyone else take the risk. At least he had changed out of the blood-soaked, hideous (it was hideous before it was blood-soaked) yellow hoodie and into a black sweatshirt that almost brought him back to his pre-Arrival, buffed-out period.
From the bed, Sam giggled hesitantly, unsure if his beloved Zombie leader was making a joke. I’m no shrink, but I guessed Sams had undergone some transference due to seriously unresolved daddy issues.
“Not the bomb,” Evan answered. “Us.”
“Great,” Ben growled. “First test I’ve passed in three years.”
“Cut it out, Parish,” I said. Who passed the law that said jocks had to act stupid to be cool? “I know for a fact you were a National Merit Finalist last year.”
“Really?” Dumbo’s ears perked up. Okay, I shouldn’t make remarks about his ears, but he did appear to be dumbfounded.
“Yes, really,” Ben said with a patented Parish smile. “But it was a very weak year. Aliens invaded.” He looked at Evan. His smile died, which his smile usually did when he looked at Evan. “What are they testing us for?”
“Knowledge.”
“Yeah, that would be the purpose of a test. You know what would be really helpful right now? If you’d knock off the enigmatic alien routine and get the fuck real. Because every second that goes by and that thing doesn’t go off”—nodding to the baggie—“is a second that doubles our risk. Sooner or later, and I’m leaning toward sooner, they’re coming back and blowing our asses to Dubuque.”
“Dubuque?” Dumbo squeaked. He didn’t get the reference and that frightened him. What was wrong in Dubuque?
“Just a town, Dumbo,” Ben said. “A random town.”
Evan was nodding. I glanced over at Poundcake filling the doorway, his mouth hanging open slightly as his big head ping-ponged to follow the conversation.
“They will come back,” Evan said. “Unless we fail the test so they don’t have to.”
“Fail it? We passed, didn’t we?” Ben turned to me. “I feel as if we passed. How about you?”
“Failing means we took her in, all fat, dumb, and happy,” I explained, “and then got our asses blown back to Dubuque.”
“Dubuque,” Dumbo echoed, mystified.
“The absence of detonation can mean only one of three things,” Evan said. “One, the device malfunctioned. Two, the device was incorrectly calibrated. Or three . . .”
Ben held up his hand. “Or three, someone in the hotel knows about the bomb-children and was able to remove it, put it in a plastic baggie, and conduct a seminar on how to instill panic and paranoia among the dopey humans. The test is to see if we have a Silencer among us.”
“We do!” Sam yelled. He jabbed his finger at Evan. “You’re a Silencer!”
“Something you absolutely can’t know for sure if you vaporize the joint with a couple of well-placed Hellfire missiles,” Ben finished.
“Which raises the question,” Evan said quietly. “Why would they suspect such a thing?”
A silence settled over the room. Ben drummed his fingers on his forearm. Poundcake’s mouth snapped closed. Dumbo tugged on an earlobe. I rocked back and forth in the chair, plucking at Bear’s paw. I didn’t know how I came into possession of Bear. Maybe I grabbed him while Poundcake was moving Megan into the adjacent room. I remembered his getting knocked to the floor but didn’t remember picking him up.
“Well, it’s obvious,” Ben said. “They must have a way of knowing you’re here. Right? Otherwise, you run the risk of taking out your own players.”
“If they knew I was here, there would be no need for a test. They suspect I’m here.”
Then I got it. And getting it did not bring me any comfort.
“Ringer.”
Ben’s head whipped toward me. The slightest breath of wind would have toppled him from his perch.
“She’s been captured,” I said. “Or Teacup. Or both.” I turned to Evan, because the look on Ben’s face was too much to bear.
“That makes the most sense,” Evan agreed.
“Bullshit! Ringer would never give us up,” Ben barked at him.
“Not willingly,” Evan said.
“Wonderland,” I breathed. “They’ve downloaded her memories . . .”
Ben came off the sill then, lost his balance, staggered forward, knocked against the edge of Sammy’s bed. He was shaking, and not from the cold. “Oh no. No, no, no. Ringer has not been captured. She’s safe and Teacup’s safe and we are not going there . . .”
“No,” Evan said. “We’re already there.”
I slid out of the chair and went to Ben. One of those moments when you know you have to do something but you have no idea what. “Ben, he’s right. The reason we’re alive right now is the same reason they sent Megan.”
“What is it with you?” Ben demanded. “You buy into everything he says like he’s Moses come down from the mountaintop. If they think he’s here, for whatever reason, then they know he’s a traitor and would still send us packing to Dubuque.”
Everybody looked at Dumbo, waiting for it.
“They don’t want to kill me,” Evan said finally. He had a sad, sick look on his face.
“That’s right, I forgot,” Ben said. “That would be me.” He pulled away from me and shuffled back to the window, leaned his hands on the sill and studied the night sky. “Stay here, we’re done. Bug out, we’re done. We’re like five-year-olds playing chess with Bobby Fischer.” He swung back around to Evan. “You could have been spotted by a patrol, followed here.” He pointed at the baggie. “That doesn’t mean they have Ringer or Cup. All it means is we’re out of time. Can’t hide, can’t run, so the question circles back to same question it’s always been: not if we’re gonna die, but how. How are we going to die? Dumbo, how do you want to die?”
Dumbo stiffened. His shoulders squared, his chin came up. “Standing up, sir.”
Ben looked at Poundcake. “Cake, do you want to die standing up?”
Poundcake had come to attention, too. He nodded smartly.
Ben didn’t have to ask Sam. My little brother simply stood up and very slowly and deliberately gave his commanding officer a salute.
OH, BROTHER. Guys.
I tossed Bear on the desk. “I’ve been here before,” I told the Macho Brigade. “Run equals die. Stay equals die. So before we go all O.K. Corral on this, let’s consider the third option: We blow it up.”
That suggestion sucked all the air from the room. Evan got it first, nodding slowly, but clearly not happy with the idea. Lots of variables. A thousand ways it can go wrong, only one way right.
Ben cut right to the gooey guts of the problem: “How? Who has the duty of breathing on it and getting vaporized?”
“I’ll do it, Sarge,” Dumbo said. His ears had turned red, like he was embarrassed by his own courage. He smiled shyly. He’d finally gotten it: “I’ve always wanted to see Dubuque.”