He raced across the deserted beach, aiming his Stone at the water. Trevor was right behind him. "A rotten egg? Ooh. That really hurts," he shouted.
"You ever smelled a rotten egg?" Michael yelled back. He plunged straight into the ocean and kept running, as well as he could run against the tide, until the water was chest high. "This is awesome. It's warmer than a bathtub." He spread open his arms and let himself fall backward, submerging completely. When he came back up, the first thing he saw through the salt stinging his eyes was Trevor blowing a stream of water out of his nose and coughing.
"Didn't the materials the Kindred gave you mention that the human body can't breathe underwater?" Michael asked.
Trevor answered by using both hands to splash Michael. Michael retaliated, using a little power, nothing anyone would notice, to bring a wave down on Trevors head.
A second later Michael was kissing sand. "Truce, okay? Truce?" he called when he resurfaced.
"Okay," Trevor answered, slicking his brown hair away from his face.
"Suck-er." Michael used his power to knock Trevor on his butt. And the water war was on again.
One attack, one counterattack, one counter-counterattack, two fake truces, and one real truce later Michael stretched out on his back, allowing the warm water to support him. He couldn't stop a smile from spreading across his face. Him and his brother at the beach. It was too cool.
"I'm gonna have to build me one of these when I get back home," Trevor announced as he floated beside Michael. "After we shatter the consciousness and I help rebuild the planet, it's on the top of my list."
"Ambitious much?" Michael asked. The stars had come out, and he stared up at them, feeling like he was floating in the sky, too.
"It's going to be a big job," Trevor answered, his voice serious now. "The consciousness has been the foundation of our society for thousands of years. Together we're all going to have to figure out what we want to replace it. Sometimes I don't think the members of the Kindred think about that part enough."
"But you do." Michael glanced at his brother as well as he could without tipping himself over.
"Yeah. I do. A system a little like the one you have in the United States might even work." Trevor flipped over on his stomach and paddled out to a sandbar just breaking through the water. He sat on it, letting the ocean advance and retreat around him.
Michael swam over and joined him. Trevor kept his eyes focused back on the beach, and Michael could feel that his brother had something big on his mind. Maybe even bigger than the consciousness, if that was possible.
"I was hoping, or wondering, I guess, if you'd come back with me when we've figured out how to break the consciousness," Trevor said finally. Michael felt an excited tingle run all over his body, but oddly, it disappeared rather quickly. "The planet is going to change forever. I want to be a part of that change." He turned toward Michael. "I want you to be a part of it, too."
"Go back home," Michael said, stating the obvious because he didn't know what else to say. He'd been dreaming about this moment for years-ever since he'd discovered the truth about himself. Only lately, that dream had begun to change. He had a place of his own now and a family. A strange sort of family that actually included humans, but they were his family.
"Aren't you curious?" Trevor asked, his eyes guarded. "Don't you want to see it? Don't you want to be there when everything changes?"
Michael felt another surge of that old longing. What would it be like to stand on the planet where his parents were born? Would the air feel more right in his lungs? Would everything feel somehow familiar?
"You don't have to give me an answer right now or anything," Trevor said, breaking the silence and looking out at the shore again. "Just know I want you there."
FIVE
Liz peered into the refrigerator. It was crammed with food-Crashdown stuff, some of her mama's baking experiments, a batch of her abuelita's tamales-but nothing looked good to her. She reached over and pressed the long white button that controlled the little light inside the fridge, then released it. On. Off. On. Off.
"I remember when you figured out that mechanism," a voice said behind her. She turned around and saw her papa smiling at her. "You were about, oh, six, and you were determined to know whether the light stayed on when the door was closed. I think your sister was doing a unit in school about energy conservation, and that's what set you off."
"I don't even remember that," Liz told him. She pushed the fridge door closed, struck by how easily he had brought her sister, Rosa, into the conversation. That was a change. A change for the better.
"Want me to make you something?" he asked, leaning into the counter. "Remember, before I owned the Crashdown, I was the fastest short-order cook in the West." He ran his fingers over his bald spot. "Back when my hair managed to completely cover my scalp."
"No thanks. I'm not really hungry," Liz answered. She had a feeling she was supposed to laugh at her fathers joke, but she wasn't up to it.
"Just saying good night to the food?" he asked.
Just avoiding going to bed, Liz thought. Every time she lay down under the blankets, waves of grief smashed into her until she could hardly breathe. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. When she was alone in bed, it brought up all kinds of memories of Adam. Their most special times together had been on the dream plane, and now whenever she began to drift off to sleep, entering that almost dreaming stage, Adam's face would appear before her, eyes bright and hopeful, so eager to try new things. Things he would never have the chance to experience now.
"Liz?"
She realized she hadn't answered her papa's question. "Um, yeah, saying good night. It's lonely in the fridge in the dark," she said quickly, forcing a fake laugh. She flashed on an image of Adam. Alone in the dark, deep under the desert floor.
"Is something wrong?" her papa asked. "I mean, besides the plight of the friendless vegetables?"
"No, I'm just sort of tired," Liz said, going into reassure-the-parent mode. She didn't want to upset her father. She didn't want to give him any reason to worry about her. She-
Stop, she ordered herself. He doesn't need your protection. Liz pulled in a deep breath and met her father's warm brown eyes. "Actually, something-something bad happened. Something awful," she admitted.
Her papa pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and gestured for her to sit. As soon as she did, he sat down beside her. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."
"I had this friend… Adam?" She looked at her dad to see if the name struck a memory, but it didn't seem to. "Well, you might have met him in the Crashdown once. He's… dead."
Her father shifted in his seat, and Liz told herself to slow down and choose her words carefully. She could tell her father what she was feeling, but she couldn't tell him everything.
"He-" She broke off. There were some things that still had to be kept secret, even from him. "He was… he was in a burger place in Hobbs, and he ordered a fish sandwich," Liz continued. "Then he left, and a drunk driver hit him. He's dead." Her voice wobbled as she realized for the hundredth time that he really was dead.
It wasn't even close to the truth. And it was a totally lame cover-up. But it still conveyed how random Adam's death had been.