“Drake,” Sam said.
“You know what’s cool, Sam? I never paid that much attention in school, but that’s because I never saw how I was going to use any of that stuff.” Drake pulled what looked like an oversized remote control from his pocket. He tapped a button.
An urgent alarm blared.
“Walk away, Drake,” Sam yelled over the sound of the klaxon.
“I’m going to hurt you, Sam. And you’re going to take it.”
“What are you doing, Drake?”
“Well, the way I understand it, Sam, there are these control rods. Stick them in, and the reactor goes dead. Pull a few out, and it starts up. Pull them all out at once, and you get a meltdown.”
Something was rising from the ominous blue of the pool. Dozens of narrow poles that hung from a glowing circular collar.
“You’re bluffing, Drake.”
Drake grinned. “Keep thinking that, Sam. What do you think pretty Astrid will look like after her hair starts falling out in clumps?”
He turned the remote around so that Sam could see. “This button right here? It drops the control rods back in. And everyone lives. If no one hits the button . . . well. According to Jack, we’ll die pretty quick. Everyone else in the FAYZ dies slow.”
“You’d die, too,” Sam said, knowing he was just stalling, mind whirring crazily, trying to figure out a way to stop this. Was Drake crazy enough to . . . Yes. Of course he was.
The alarm redoubled in volume and intensity. It was an electronic scream now.
“I’m not worried, Sam, because you won’t let it happen,” Drake shrieked to be heard over the alarm.
“Drake . . .” Sam raised his hands, palms facing Drake.
Drake held his hand out over the glowing, throbbing pool. Held the remote now with just two fingers.
“If I drop it . . . ,” Drake warned.
Slowly Sam lowered his arms to his side.
The alarm filled his brain. How many minutes? How many seconds? The control rods rose with majestic inevitability. How long until it was too late?
One more failure, Sam thought dully.
“Don’t you want to know what I want, Sam?” Drake cried.
“Me,” Sam said dully. “You want me.”
“That’s the idea, Sam. And you’re going to stand there and take it. Because if you don’t . . .”
Astrid was with Little Pete, doing one of the long-neglected exercises. This one involved separating balls by color. There was a blue box, and a yellow box; blue balls, yellow balls. Any normal five-year-old could do it. But Little Pete was not any normal five-year-old.
“Can you put the ball where it belongs?” Astrid asked.
Little Pete stared at the ball. Then his eyes wandered.
Astrid took his hand and placed it on a yellow ball. Too hard. She was hurting him.
“Can you put this where it belongs?” Her voice was shrill, impatient.
They were on the floor in Little Pete’s room, sitting in a corner on the carpet. Little Pete was gone in his head, not there, indifferent.
Sometimes she hated him.
“Try again, Petey,” Astrid said. She stopped herself from twisting her fingers together. She was sending signals of being tense. Not helpful.
She should be running exercises like this every day. Several times a day. But she didn’t. She was only doing it now because she couldn’t stand waiting. She needed something to take her mind off Sam.
“Sorry,” she said to Little Pete, who was as indifferent to her apology as to everything else.
Someone knocked at the bedroom door, and she jumped.
The door swung in; it wasn’t closed.
“It’s me, John.”
Astrid climbed to her feet, relieved it was just John. Disappointed it was just John.
“John, what is it?” They wouldn’t send John with bad news. Would they?
“I can’t find Mary.”
A flood of relief, instantly replaced by more worry. “She’s not at the day care?”
He shook his head. His red curls went everywhere, a counterpoint to his serious expression. “She was supposed to come in hours ago. She’s almost never late. I couldn’t leave to look for her because we’re shorthanded and we have so many kids sick. I came as soon as I could. I looked in her room. I didn’t find her there.”
Astrid glanced at Little Pete. He had stalled with his hand on a yellow ball, and seemingly no interest in doing anything with it.
“Let me look,” Astrid said.
They entered Mary’s room. It was as neat and organized as ever. But the bed was unmade.
“She always makes her bed,” Astrid said.
“Yeah,” John agreed.
“What’s that sound?” There was a steady hum. Coming from the bathroom. The fan. Astrid tried to open the bathroom door, but it was blocked. She leaned into it and pushed it open enough to see inside.
Mary was on the floor, unconscious. She was wearing a robe that exposed her calves.
“Oh, my God,” Astrid cried. “Mary!”
“Help me push,” Astrid said. Together they forced the door open enough to let them slip inside. Astrid immediately noticed the smell of vomit.
“She must be sick,” John said.
The toilet water was slightly discolored. There was a thin trail of vomit running from Mary’s mouth.
“She’s breathing,” Astrid said quickly. “She’s alive.”
“I didn’t even know she was sick.”