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“He knows we’ll come after him,” Shade said. “He’s bigger and stronger than before, and he’s crossed his Rubicon.”
“His what?” Armo and Francis both asked simultaneously.
Malik started to provide a complete answer but saw that this was not the time and shortened it to, “It means he’s crossed a point of no return.”
“We have to hit him soon, and we have to kill him.” Shade looked directly at Simone.
“There has to be some way . . . ,” Simone protested.
Shade was about to light into her when Dekka raised a hand and said, “You don’t have to be part of this, Simone.”
Simone said nothing, just sat on the edge of one of the ornate carved chairs they’d assembled into a circle dwarfed by the echoing space around them. She looked overwhelmed, and part of Shade sympathized. Over the last day and a half, she’d come to know Simone a little, and liked her well enough. But Shade dismissed sympathy—this was not the time for weakness or half measures.
“Edilio has put together a pretty fair cache of weapons,” Shade went on, nodding respect to Edilio, who she had quickly come to like for his modesty, directness, and efficiency. Shade had been obsessed with the FAYZ and had read every book, seen every interview or TV show or movie, but she had not until now realized how important the unassuming young man had been. “We have insecticide. We have flamethrowers. And if we just sit here, waiting for him to come to us, sooner or later he’ll get us all.”
Shade knew she was treading close to challenging Dekka, and she didn’t mean to do that. But Dekka had to act. She had to act now. Vector had publicly announced himself and carried out a Pearl Harbor–style sneak attack on the powers that be. The Rockborn Gang would be Vector’s next target.
“He won’t get in through windows or doors,” Cruz said. “But honestly there are probably ways. Insects have a way of getting around obstacles.”
Dekka sighed and hung her head. “Some stories have it that he can move through the ground, so I imagine if he put his mind to it he could eat right through the walls. What are you seeing on social media, Cruz?”
“People are saying the roads out of the city are still moving slowly, but a lot of the people who could leave, have,” Cruz reported. “9/11 didn’t scare New Yorkers away, the ASO strike didn’t scare them away, but this has done it. There’s all kinds of disgusting, terrible video of the people at City Hall and the other places. People are scared to death. The top trending hashtag is #PrayForNYC.”
“Yeah, prayer ought to do it,” Shade said.
“Any word on Markovic’s location? Is he actually at Grand Central?” Dekka wondered.
Cruz shrugged. “People are thinking every bug they see is him. Also . . .” She stopped herself.
“Also?” Dekka prompted.
“Well, also you’ve got lots of people saying the city will have to be nuked. #NukeAllMonsters is number three on Twitter.”
Every eye turned to stare at Cruz. Then turned to Dekka. Shade watched the consensus form. She looked most closely at Simone, who seemed on the edge of tears, and thought, I do not like potential traitors in our midst.
Dekka’s cell phone rang and everyone jumped.
“Yes?” Dekka answered, then fell silent, listening for a long time as Shade grew increasingly impatient. Finally, Dekka said, “Give us twenty-four hours.” Another silence, then an exasperated, “Okay, twelve hours. Come on, General, this is insane.”
Dekka hung up and just sat, head hanging. Finally she said, “Not a nuke. The Pentagon thinks they have a better way.”
“Not another bunch of tanks,” Cruz said.
“No. Nerve gas. They think they can drop nerve gas around Markovic and kill him, kill the bugs. They’ve positioned shells near the city. Sarin gas. They think regular insecticide sprayed from planes or helicopters would be too diluted to be effective.”
Simone winced like she’d been struck.
Malik, voice dripping sarcasm, said, “And yet we’ve always claimed we didn’t have nerve gas in this country anymore.”
Shade waited, impatient but knowing she had to let Dekka reach the decision on her own. When Shade had agreed to let Dekka play boss, she’d imagined that it was an act of generosity. She’d also imagined that she could take back the leadership anytime she wanted. But that was no longer true and maybe never had been. The others trusted Dekka in a way that they did not trust her.
“Okay,” Dekka said, “We have two choices. Attack or defend. We can sit right here and wait for him to come for us. Shade’s right, he knows sooner or later he has to take us out. The problem with waiting for him is tha
t all Markovic has to do is take a building full of people hostage, start infecting them, and demand we pull back. Anyone left in the city will turn against us out of self-interest, and we’ll have no choice but to walk away. So. Unfortunately, we really have no choice but to attack.” She made deliberate eye contact with Simone. “Again: you don’t have to be a part of this. But if you are, you need to be straight in your head. I can’t be worried about you when the shit hits the fan.”
“He is at Grand Central!” Cruz interjected. She held up her phone and played shaky video of a dense swarm, now in the form of a man’s head, but ten, twenty times normal size, like a seething, pulsating giant Wizard of Oz.
“You know it’s a trap, right?” Malik asked Dekka.
