Sam had the odd feeling that he’d just been caught goofing off in class. He sat up straighter and unconsciously lowered his voice half an octave. “You’re right, Edilio. What is it you want to do?”
At some point, and Sam could not really pinpoint quite when, Edilio had stopped being his sidekick and become his equal, his full partner. The change had permeated the consciousness of the population at the lake, had become fact without anyone having to announce it. No one anymore told Edilio they’d have to “check with Sam”: in everything except for a battle, Edilio was in charge.
Sam could not have been more pleased. He had discovered about himself that he had no talent for details. Or managing. And it was a wonderful thing to be able to lie in bed with Astrid and not feel the whole world was depending on him. In fact, glancing up at her now, with her sleeveless T-shirt gapping at the side, and the amazing line of her legs, and . . . He forced himself back to Edilio.
“Okay, a couple things. First, while we have time, I want to prepare for the worst,” Edilio said. “We don’t have much extra food, but I want to stop people eating the last of the Nutella and Cup-a-Noodles. I want to put that stuff on a boat we’ll anchor out in the lake. Also some of the vegetables that Sinder is growing, the stuff that won’t spoil. I don’t want us getting caught flat-footed again. From now on, people want to eat, they had better get their butts back to work.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah.” Up above, the sky was cloudy. But they were not quite normal clouds. They moved in a strange pattern, seeming to slide by, swifter close in, slower off in the far northern distance. Toward the southeast the sky turned dark blue. It was all part of the dome effect.
The newly transparent sphere that contained the FAYZ was twenty miles in diameter, with the nuclear power plant at its center. That meant that directly over the power plant the top of the sphere was ten miles up. At that point the top of the sphere approached the stratosphere, up beyond clouds, beyond much oxygen. It was quite a bit lower here at Lake Tramonto, which was near the northwest edge. This close to the barrier they could be seen from the outside by anyone with a decent set of binoculars.
Just forty-eight hours after the barrier had gone clear it was still very strange to Sam to be able to look across Lake Tramonto and see the rest of Lake Tramonto. There was a marina over there, probably not a mile from where he was sitting. There were boats, and people, too, though not more than a handful. Some had ventured out in the boats to nose right up against the barrier and look in, like people staring at the animals in the zoo. There was one over there right now with two guys pretending to fish but actually shooting video. Sam waved and felt foolish.
Life in the FAYZ had changed.
As if to make that point, Astrid shaded her eyes and looked off to the north. “Helicopter.”
There was a helicopter with some sort of logo, maybe a news station or a police department, impossible to read from this distance. It was hovering above the “out there” marina, most likely aiming a camera into the dome. Perhaps focusing, as well as they could from that distance, on the four of them sitting there.
Sam fought a sudden childish impulse to give them the finger.
Edilio was still talking, and for the second time Sam felt like a distracted student in class.
“What we need most of all is simple information,” Edilio was saying. “What are Drake and Diana and that kid going to do? And what can they do? Right now we’re blind.”
“Irony,” Astrid said. When everyone just stared at her blankly, she sighed and explained, “For the first time we can see the real sky, and the world outside of this fishbowl, and we’re still blind.”
“Ah,” the three said in unison. “Yeah, right.”
“You know, it’s not a witty remark if I have to explain it,” Astrid said, obviously disgruntled.
“I want to talk to Caine,” Edilio said. “I’m going to head down to PB. We need to work together.”
“You want me to come?” Sam asked.
“If it’s you down at the barrier trying to get kids motivated, it will just get Caine pissed off. And we don’t have time for that whole enemies thing. To be honest with you . . . Well, I was wondering, Sam . . . I mean, just a suggestion . . .”
Sam smiled affectionately at his friend. “Dude: if you got a job for me, just tell me what it is.”
“It’s not just a job. It’s . . . Okay, here it is: Even Breeze can’t be everywhere. She searches, but she doesn’t search smart. I love her, but she just zooms around randomly and doesn’t let anyone tell her where to look.”
Sam nodded. “You want me to go looking for trouble.”
“Breeze is all over the area around PB, looking for any sign that Gaia and Drake are heading toward town—and of course making sure the TV cameras see her. But maybe Gaia is holing up somewhere, waiting. Getting stronger. Or maybe she’s on the move.”
Sam thought about it. “The mine shaft, the National Guard base, the Stefano Rey, or the power plant.”
“Same as my list. And you can’t take Dekka with you; I—we—need her here.”
“Who can I take?”
“We don’t know what Gaia can do. Sam, you may not be strong enough to take her, it, whatever. Not alone for sure, or even with Dekka.” He nodded respectfully at Dekka. “No offense to you, Dekka.”
Dekka nodded slightly to say no offense was taken. Dekka knew the limits of her powers.