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“Interesting, most interesting.” Aleksandr nodded. “Very well. You may consider yourselves members of Project Thunderclap — provisionally, of course, subject to review prior to the event.” He indicated an aide-de-camp standing by the doorway. “Marjorie here will provide you with identity tokens and give you the tour. Be sure,” he said, with a pointed glare at Jaide, “that you touch nothing and interfere with no one. You will be called upon when needed. That is all.”
They stood, and Marjorie, a skinny woman with dark hair pulled back in a bun, waved them through the flap of canvas that stood in for a door.
Jaide expelled a deep breath. They had made it. So far, her plan was working.
Marjorie led them along a narrow hallway full of bustling people, explaining to them as they went to get their tokens. “The tokens mark you as members of the Project and give you access to the proper interior of the tent. Anyone who’s not a Warden or a member will just see a circus tent, a circus tent that’s closed so they can’t get in. And even if they do get a look somehow, they’ll just see sawdust and stuff. The Evil has spies everywhere. We can’t be too careful.”
She took them to a small room, like a sick bay. The tokens were coin-size metal badges that were permanently affixed to their scalps, so that their hair would fall over them, hiding them from view. Jaide rubbed at hers, unnerved by the new, alien bump. It didn’t hurt or even itch, but when she tugged on it a sharp pain went through her skin right into her brain. If there was a traitor in Project Thunderclap, there was no way he or she could remove the token and give it to someone else.
Jaide wondered if she qualified as a traitor. Perhaps she did. She certainly had no intention of letting Aleksandr’s plan proceed without a hitch. Stefano didn’t say anything, but she could tell by his burning gaze that he was thinking the same thing.
Next came the tour. Marjorie was brisk and perfunctory, showing them through the labyrinthine halls of the tent — which seemed much bigger on the inside than it ought to be — naming each room they passed with very little explanation.
“Mess,” she said. “Sick bay. Orderly Room. Quartermaster. Ironmonger.”
Jaide did her best to memorize it all, but soon became overwhelmed. This was a much bigger endeavor than she had imagined. Without Marjorie, she would have quickly become lost.
Then, over the banging and clanging of industry, she heard a familiar, strident voice rising up in protest.
“My theories require no explanation at all,” it declared, “being perfectly evident in the workings of nature. Your contraptions, on the other hand, are inexplicable to the extreme! Just look at this device. Is it a window or a painting? It cannot decide, and until it does I’m afraid it will not make any kind of sense to me, or to anyone sensible. Take this computational confounder away and bring me a scribe with a reliable quill! Then we will begin to make progress.”
Jaide hid a smile. Professor Olafsson hadn’t changed one bit.
She stopped and turned her head, using her ears to determine where the sound of his voice came from. There was a door just along the hallway with a four-pointed star painted on the canvas. That was the place.
“What’s over here?” she said, pulling away from Marjorie and heading in that direction. If she could just make sure it was him, everything would be much simpler.
“Jaidith!” called a voice from behind her. “What are you doing here?”
She stopped and turned on the spot. “Dad?”
Hector was hurrying down the hallway. He looked furious.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he said. “Kleo told us you were checking the wards, and then Aleksandr called to get our approval. He says you’ve volunteered. What on earth are you thinking?”
Jaide cursed Aleksandr. She hadn’t thought that he would check with her parents.
“I … that is, we wanted to do something to help,” she said, which was technically true, but she didn’t think technicalities would matter if he found out what she was really doing.
“You, too?” Hector asked Stefano.
Stefano swallowed, then nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said in exactly the tone he had used with Aleksandr.
Hector took Jaide by the arm, and although her Gifts twitched, she let herself be pulled down the hallway. She didn’t want her father to know what she was really thinking, and if he saw the Professor he might guess.
“I understand that you’re upset, Jaide, but this isn’t going to fix anything.”
“Isn’t it?” she said for the benefit of the people around them. “Jack is gone. Lottie is gone. How many other people are we going to lose before The Evil is stopped?”
“Yes, that is true, but —”
“And you’re helping, too, aren’t you, Dad?” she said. “You’re a volunteer as well?”
He rubbed at the back of his neck, and she saw clearly through the hair there a token that matched her own.
“Well, that’s true, too, but —”
“So what’s the problem? You’ll be here to keep an eye on me, and together we’ll get rid of The Evil forever.”
She smiled her most winning smile.
He sagged. Hector could never stay angry at his children for long.
“All right, but you’ve got to come home now. Your mother is beside herself, as I would be, too, in her shoes. She wants to take you with her to Scarborough tomorrow morning, and it’s all I can do to convince her that you’ll be much safer here, inside the wards, than you would be out there. You, too, Stefano. Come on. It’s been a long day, and you have a long day ahead tomorrow.”
For a moment Jaide’s mind was empty of anything but the plan.
“Just school and soccer practice, and I can skip those if they need help here.”
“You’re forgetting the Examination,” Hector said. “The third round may be the worst of all, and you’re not getting out of it that easily.”
Jaide and Stefano exchanged a look of shared surprise.
“The worst of all?” Stefano croaked.
“Seriously?” Jaide said.
“Yes, now get a move on before your mother turns up in the helicopter.”
Hector led them out of the tent to where the old family car was waiting for them by the oval, Jaide’s Gifts stirring nervously for the first time since Stefano had stolen her power.
Jack!”
Tara’s voice was accompanied by the high-pitched ringing of steel. Jack ducked and the sword swished over his head, missing him by a hair.
“What are you doing?” He spun to face her, raising his improvised bone-scimitar. He didn’t want to use it, even if she had been turned Evil, but he had to defend himself somehow.
“Look.” She pointed at his feet, where something twitched in the sand, cut neatly in half by the impossibly sharp blade.
He squatted to look at it more closely. It was a bug with six wings and way too many legs. A long stinger curled and uncurled from its head. It had four eyes, and all of them were glowing white. As Jack watched, they flickered and went out. The stinger stopped moving. The thing was dead.
“Yuck,” said Kyle. “Where did that come from?”
“It was right above you, Jack,” Tara explained. “I thought it was going to bite your neck.”
Jack stood up and brushed himself off.
“I’m glad you saw it,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Do you think there are more out there like that?” asked Kyle, sweeping the sky with a nervous gaze.
“Let’s not stick around to find out,” said Tara, pointing at the structures ahead. “Onward!”
They resumed their march across the sand. It was less a march and more of a trudge, Jack reflected, even though he did feel slightly less heavy in the realm of The Evil. The sand was too soft to properly walk on, and they were getting tired and very thirsty on top of the dozens of aches and pains caused by their crash landing. But their destination was slowly getting closer. Jack was certain now that the shapes ahead weren’t mountains, as Kyle had suggested.
They were lumpy and cylindrical, lots of them all joined together and bulging up out of the earth, with dark openings that looked like doors or windows dotting their sides. They could have been buildings, but they could equally have been giant anthills. Jack didn’t know which possibility made him more anxious.
Either way, he and the others needed to get out of the bright daylight. One of the suns had set, but a third one, the hottest of them all, had taken its place. The only shade he had was that beneath his hat. The huge number of bones sticking out of the desert sand was testimony to how often things died here. Not all of the bones were of giant beasts. A lot of them were human-size, but nothing at all like human skeletons.
Kyle and Jack fell in behind Tara, who was setting a brisk pace in the lead.
“Did you see the bug’s eyes?” asked Kyle. “It was Evil, wasn’t it?”
Jack nodded. “That’s how it looked to me.”
“Do you think everything’s Evil here?”
“I guess so. Except for us, and maybe Lottie, if she really is here.”
He had begun to wonder about that, now that he had seen the place. If it was all like this, dry and dead, it would be a miracle if anyone had survived for so many years. And thus far there had been no sign of her. Cornelia was still missing. Jack hoped she was faring better than they were.
