The Gift (27 page)

Far below, the last thing I see is the feral children descending on Byron.

I turn my head away.
I can’t watch this.

Wisty

THE DOWNSIDE OF CHANGING yourself into any flying creature is that you just might be a couple of hundred feet up in the air when your spell wears
off. Fortunately the unfortunate happened when we were only a dozen or so feet off the ground, dipping down toward our final
destination: the entry to Garfunkel’s.

We’re greeted on the ground floor of the department store with deeply pained faces. Something really bad has been going down
here, I can feel it. When Whit comes back from a near-death adventure without being greeted by cheers and Janine throwing
herself at him, you know something’s wrong.

At least Emmet’s got his arms around me before we can even say, “Hey.”

“I can’t believe you’re alive!” he chokes out, uncharacteristically emo.

“Since when do I make a habit of dying?” I try a bad joke.

“But it’s been…
months!
” He absently runs his fingers through my now-longer hair, as if to emphasize the point. “What happened to you guys?”

Whit and I look at each other, thoroughly confused about the timing for a moment.
“The portal?”
he guesses, referring to the mysterious time-warp quality of some portals.

I look around at the group and nod at Whit. Yes, more than just a few weeks have passed. Definitely. It’s almost as if everyone’s
gone pale somehow. More unkempt, slouched. They all have sunken cheeks and eyes. Emmet looks as if he should be holding a
tin can and asking for loose change.

“Where’s Janine?” Whit sounds alarmed.

“Back in Ladies’ Shoes. Running therapy sessions for some of the messed-up kids. Jamilla’s back there, too. But she’s a patient
instead of the doctor this time. It’s been hard around here, guys,” he reports grimly.

“Let’s head to Accessories and get caught up,” Whit says to us.

“Why’s it so
dark?
” I ask as we move toward the back of the store.

“Brownout,” Emmet explains. “Too many bombs, every day, all day and night.”

Sasha’s back in Accessories strumming a particularly gloomy tune on his guitar. As he comes over to greet us,
I notice that the zealot’s confidence is gone from his stride. In the next few minutes, the stories he and Emmet tell make
it pretty clear why.

The past month saw the beginning of the next stage in the New Order’s plan for domination. The first wave of kids who were
kidnapped and reprogrammed in facilities—those that weren’t vaporized anyway—were just then being released back into society
so that their little ’bot brains could take root and flourish. Meanwhile, a second wave of intensive kidnappings began, and
the New Order’s scout teams probed deep into Freeland. At least a dozen kids from Garfunkel’s had been captured when they
were out on food-collection missions, including some of the kids we’d already saved once from other facilities.

Talk about three steps forward and one huge, megastep back.

We’ve lost our homes, friends, families—an entire world. And now we’re losing one another.

Whit

JANINE MEETS UP with us on our way to Ladies’ Shoes—and I think she’s changed more than anyone else here. She’s thinner, which might have
made her face even prettier, but she’s gotten harder and tougher, too.

She spots me, and though she’s definitely stressed, she greets me with a smile. “Whit, you’re finally back.” She glances at
Wisty and just says her name. I’m not used to this kind of weak reception, and it hurts, but I don’t show anything. Everyone
here has been through a lot.

“Hi, Janine. It’s good to see you. Really good,” I say, and leave it at that.

“I take it Sasha and Emmet brought you up to speed? It’s scary out there, guys. The New Order’s turned some kids…
bestial,
” she explains.

“They’re monsters.” I nod. “We’ve met them.”

“Good, then you and Wisty can probably help. If you’re planning on staying around, that is.” I guess I’m not exactly
what you’d call a reliable constant in Janine’s life. “Help us get everyone moving, okay? Tell them what they can expect.
Try not to scare them too much.” She looks over at her traumatized crew of kids. “How’s your magic? Your Gifts?”

“On and off,” I say. “We flew here, but then we crash-landed.”

“Well, let’s hope you’re more
on
than off today. We have to get out of this place, like,
now
. It was nice living in a department store while it lasted,” she says, looking around at the disheveled place the Freelanders
had called home for so many months. Months that felt like an eternity.

Then Janine starts to clap her hands loudly and shout out orders. “We know from intelligence that the New Order is coming
tonight, everyone.
We have to get everyone out, and I mean everyone, even the sick and wounded. Let’s move it, everybody! We have a plan for
evacuating. Let’s execute it perfectly.”

She stops for a breath and makes eye contact with me. “It’s good to see you, Whit. You look older. It suits you.”

Janine seems older, too—and it suits her.

Whit

NOW THAT GARFUNKEL’S HAS BEEN seriously breached, we need to move to a new protected location, but no one’s sure exactly where. Janine, Sasha, Emmet,
Wisty, and I debate the options as we hike through the tunnel underneath the once-famous department store that used to sponsor
football games and the holiday parade.

“Within hours Freeland is going to be blanketed with bombs or totally teeming with New Order patrols. Or both.” I recount
the details of what Byron had told me and Wisty at the factory. “We’re going to have to go back across the border into New
Order territory. Maybe just lie low and wait it out.”

“But where?” Janine asks. “We’ve been living out of Garfunkel’s for so long we don’t really know what’s going on out there.
That’s the problem with getting too comfortable.”

“How about the Stockwood reservoir?” Sasha suggests.

“Too risky,” I say. “The Bionics know about it, and we
know they were working for The One.” I glance at Wisty’s pained face. “Most of them anyway.”

“How about the abandoned Electio factory, Whit?” Janine says.

“Breached by the enemy,” Sasha replies.

Wisty suggests the City of Progress. “They won’t bomb there, and maybe Mrs. Highsmith can help with the sick and wounded.”

After some discussion, we decide that’s the best plan we have. We’ll try to do a group transformation when we get closer—to
disguise ourselves as a rally, or a parade of Sector Leader’s Stars of Honor. The old tunnels don’t run all the way there,
though, so we’re faced with having to do the last piece of the journey aboveground and without a vehicle.

“Maybe there’s a portal that will get us there,” I suggest.

“Right. Let’s go hang out in the Shadowland,” scoffs Wisty. “They’re always rolling out the red carpet for us. Especially
when they’re hungry.”

“We’re all exhausted,” Janine says. “We’ve been walking for hours, and a lot of us haven’t slept in at least a day. Let’s
get a few hours’ rest before we make our break into the open.”

And that’s right about when the bombing begins. And it’s the worst ever.

With the tunnel shaking like a jackhammer, and without our knowing whether or not this tube is strong enough
to withstand the blasts, no one is getting much rest—let alone
sleep.
Instead we huddle together quietly and tightly—not for warmth but for safety.

Janine and I, leaning our backs against the wall, rest together. Wisty has her head in Emmet’s lap. Sasha is cradling his
guitar. The rest of the kids are in a tangle around us.

We’re just waiting here to die, aren’t we?

Wisty

WHIT AND I CHANCE a peek outside. The sun is high in a perfectly blue sky by the time the N.O. artillery has quieted down. We can see the City
of Progress skyline a few miles away, across bombed-out Freeland.
Now what?

Since none of us got much sleep, and miles of trekking ahead of us meant we’d need as much energy as possible, Whit and I
had worked hard to conjure up a breakfast buffet for the entire group—complete with bacon, eggs, and waffles. This was a feast
way bigger than Whit’s earlier soup-kitchen trick. Realizing that maybe we’d never have to survive solely on Garfunkel’s Cashew
Crunch again was a definite breakthrough for us and our powers.

Here’s how we did it: taking a cue from what Whit and I learned at the BNW Center, we’d practiced doing our magic
with
the group, holding hands, and it worked like a dream. I’d even started taking stock in Byron’s
wild theories about our magic becoming greater when it passes through others. This
could
be the secret to our success.…

Of course, waffles help a whole lot, too. We’ve been living in a tunnel for half a day, so sun plus breakfast equals a group
of kids who are now officially sunny-side up.

And it’s a good thing, because it’s not that long before we spot a ponderous black V formation of at least fifty N.O. bombers
creeping right toward us. This is the battle we’ve been waiting for, and we’d rehearsed our plan. To the extent that you can
actually “rehearse” defeating a world-dominating enemy.

So that’s how it came to pass that rather than hiding in rubble, we’re now standing boldly in the barren landscape and staring
hard at the planes speeding toward us.

“You ready?” Emmet shouts above the squadron roar. He flashes me a confident smile, and I nod.

“Okay, people,
focus, focus, focus!
” I shout out like I’m a gym teacher running a tough calisthenics regimen. “Wait until they’re almost right overhead but not
directly enough to bomb us. I’ll tell you when!”

And, at what I hope is precisely the right moment, Whit and I begin to conduct a chorus of voices.

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!…

Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!”