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Malik cast a sidelong look at Shade. “The thing is, if you’re playing the hero role, you don’t actually have to beat him, you just have to try. And people have to see you trying.” Then, to Cruz in the rearview mirror, “Speaking of typical tropes, you and I are either sidekicks or enablers. I guess you’re the sidekick, since you have a power.”
“Did you see the videos?” Shade demanded, ignoring the byplay. It was a purely rhetorical question—they’d all watched the YouTube videos repeatedly. “That’s a big, scary thing, that Knightmare.”
“With your speed?” Cruz asked. “He’d probably never touch you.”
Shade now twisted to talk to Cruz. “When you morph, when you use your power . . . do you still always feel . . .”
Now it was Cruz’s turn to look grave. “The dark things watching? Yes. That’s why I don’t change for long. I feel them, and each time it’s like I can hear them a little better, not that there’s an actual sound . . . just . . .” She shrugged. “What is it, they, whatever?”
Shade shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Guess,” Malik demanded.
Shade was quiet for so long, Malik was sure she’d say nothing. But then, “I think of them as the Dark Watchers. I think they are the same thing that was inside that girl. Gaia.”
“Which tells you what?”
“I have to pee,” Shade said.
“Cut the bullshit, babe.”
Shade took a deep breath. “You want a theory? I’ve got a theory. Everyone always thought the ASOs were benign life-creating viruses, basically. But what do real viruses do? They turn healthy cells into breeders of more virus. And sometimes they turn a healthy cell into cancer. I think somehow a consciousness is in that ASO virus, in that rock.” Eyes down, she added, “I think they’re using us. I think maybe we’re . . . an experiment. Unless . . .”
“Unless?” Malik prompted.
“Unless we’re just entertainment.”
“And yet you think this is all still a great idea?” Malik said, harsher than he intended. “It would help me to not think you’re crazy, if you’d at least admit this is all a huge mistake.”
“I’m going in to use the ladies’.” Shade did not invite them to come with, nor did she offer to get anything while in the Target store.
“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” Cruz asked when Shade was gone.
Malik didn’t bother answering.
“I don’t think I should have eaten the rock,” Cruz said.
Malik, with great self-discipline, resisted the urge to say and to shout and perhaps even to sing at the top his voice that he had told her so, that he had warned them both that they were taking on a fight with all the might of the government.
“I don’t know what I thought would happen,” Cruz said. “I don’t know, I just . . . Maybe it’s all a mental illness, like my father and, like, half of people think. I just wanted to . . . Just trying to . . . But maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe it really is just gender dysphoria, a mental illness, a—”
“—So what if it is, Cruz?” Malik cut in impatiently. He was coming to have great affection for Cruz, but her unwillingness to stand up to Shade irritated him. Half the time she was in what Malik considered the rational world, and half the time she was a bit of flotsam carried along on Shade’s obsession. “Look, Cruz, what if your trans thing is just some mental problem? Dysphoria, or whatever. What does it matter what the diagnosis is if there’s a cure, and the cure doesn’t hurt anyone? How has anyone got a single damn reason to care how you look or what you call yourself? If you’re crazy, the people hating on you are a hell of a lot crazier.”
That brought a crooked smile to Cruz’s lips.
“Your friend in the Target ladies’ room is perfectly sane,” Malik went on bitterly. “There is not a shrink on earth Shade couldn’t convince she’s all right. Smart as hell. Very good at rationalizing. And yet, look where we are, Cruz. She’s sane and smart and here we are, and I wouldn’t bet ten cents we’ll be alive a week from now. So how smart does that make the two of us that we follow her? What the hell is the matter with us?”
“You follow her because you love her,” Cruz said.
There followed a silence. Then, “Goddammit, Cruz.” Malik lowered his forehead to the steering wheel and banged it softly.
“It’s true,” Cruz said.
“Of course it’s true. Jesus, Cruz! You’re not supposed to say it.”
Cruz lay her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry you’re in this mess, Malik, but I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Playing the part of the idiot ex-boyfriend,” Malik grumbled. “The official enabler.”
