Quake (2 page)
Authors: Carman,Patrick
13
I'm Your Hitler. I'm Your Stalin
UNCORRECTED E-PROOFâNOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Field log â â file Faith Daniels
Date stamp â â Removed
Location GPS â â Spectral
I used to draw things and make little notes but I don't do that anymore. I'm too tired. I've let so many details slip away these past months because living is a lot of work or because I grew out of writing things down or I just got lazy. I woke up one day and realized I wasn't writing things down anymore. I guess it happens.
I used to ask my mom what she remembered about being my age, and the answers were all broad strokes of runny paint. I got nothing out of those conversations. I'm worried I'll forget everything that's happened to me, too. I'll get old and looking back I'll find shades of color that run into each other, no sharp lines of detail.
I'm lying next to my one and only, my Dylan. He's asleep and the soft light of my Tablet is setting the cool sheets aglow. I'm writing down the crisp lines of how I arrived here, nothing more.
For a while I lived in the shadow of the Western State. If for some unforeseen reason the States disappear, they are not hard to describe. They are utopias, or so I'm told. In my part of the world there are two: the Western State and the Eastern State. They grow larger every day, eating whatever space lies in front of them. They spread like an oil slick, hundreds of millions of people living inside. They are not inherently evil, I don't think. But once entered, they are a thing I could never turn back from. I see the States in a very specific way: my time before going inside, and my time after. I have a strong feeling that if I ever do go inside I will change into something I don't want to be. My resolve will crumble. My distinctiveness will fade into the many. I fear this outcome.
Outside the States is an empty, abandoned space. I think only 1 percent of humanity lives out here with me, something like that. It can feel lonely outside, forgotten.
Hotspur Chance, Wade Quinn, Clara Quinn: these are my enemies. These three are responsible for the death of my parents and my best friend. They also killed Dylan's mother. They seek to destroy us, too. They fuel the fight inside me.
There are only four second pulses in the world. The first pulse gives them the ability to move almost anything with the power of the mind, including themselves. The second pulse deflects all things. These four people are close to indestructible, but not quite. Each one has a weakness, a Kryptonite.
I am one of these four; Dylan is another. Wade and Clara Quinn are the other two. We are at war with one another.
My only weakness is titanium. If someone made a titanium bullet and shot me in the head with it, I'd be in real trouble. Any other bullet would bounce off my second pulse like a Ping-Pong ball. Dylan's weakness is concrete and stone. The Quinns, being twins, have the same weakness: living stuff either in the ground or freshly pulled and still alive, like trees and weeds and roots. I think really fresh dirt might not agree with them, either, but that hasn't been proven. I once tangled Clara and Wade Quinn inside a web of ivy and watched them struggle. That was a good day.
There are single pulses, too. Single pulses can move things with their mind, but they can't deflect something coming at them, like a car or the pavement. I was a single pulse once. Looking back now I realize what a dangerous time that was. I would use my mind to make myself fly, never thinking about how easily I could crash. It's no small miracle I lived long enough to discover my second pulse.
Hotspur Chance is a single pulse. This makes him vulnerable, which is why they hide him. He's the smartest man on earth, the designer of the States, and also ruthless. I can't decide if I hate him or not. I think I do. He has a singular vision about life on this planet, and he'll do anything to see it through. I can appreciate that kind of resolve. The problem is that the people I love stand between him and this vision of his. Okay, yeah, I hate Hotspur Chance. He didn't kill my best friend; that was Clara Quinn. He didn't kill my parents; that was Wade Quinn. But he brought these two monsters into the world and let them do whatever it took to free him from a prison inside the Western State. He's the head of the beast, the brains, the heartless center.
Hotspur also created the Intels. There are even fewer of them left in the world. I think Clara and Hawk are the only ones. It's a very good thing Hawk is on our side, because Intels are nearly as smart as Hotspur. They are brilliant thinkers with photographic memories. They learn new skills much faster than I do. They analyze, calculate, and hold information like supercomputers. Hawk has created a lot of high-tech gadgetry for us, like the sound ring. I have one. So do Dylan, Hawk, and Clooger. If I press the lobe on my ear and speak, they all hear me in their heads no matter where they are. If I don't press, they don't hear. Elegant and useful. We drive around in a modified Hummer that floats a few inches off the ground like a hovercraft. So yeah, Hawk makes really cool stuff. We'd all be dead without him.
We made a serious run at killing the Quinns and we came close, but in the end we became misunderstood fugitives. The Quinns freed Hotspur and hid him away somewhere. Dylan's mom, our leader, was killed.
Clooger, our single-pulse leader, has a plan to hide us away, too. He's old military, strong as a horse, and overprotective. I'm going along with his plan to run away and heal up for now, but no oneânot Clooger or Dylan or Hawkâis going to stop me from what I have to do.
My fight will never be over until the Quinns and Hotspur Chance are gone for good.
Now I'm going to tuck inside the arms of the one person I trust completely and fall asleep. When I wake up the rest of my life will unfold and I probably won't write any of it down. At least I got this far.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOFâNOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Hawk's breath fogged the glass of his Tablet as dawn broke on the world outside. He turned to Clooger, whose wide nose had turned a pale shade of pink in the chill of morning, and said a single word.
“Incoming.”
Clooger's black eyebrow went up and he dug a finger into his ear. The up and down of the mountain drive had left him feeling as if he was underwater.
“Here or there?” Clooger asked.
“There. And stay on your side of the rig. Whatever you're finding on that ill-fated ear expedition is probably nuclear.”
Clooger pulled his finger out and examined it. “Better make contact.”
“You sure?” Hawk asked. “With this much activity so close, who knows? We might blow their cover.”
Clooger leaned his huge shoulder closer to Hawk and looked at the Tablet.
“Cover's already blown. Call 'em.”
Hawk nodded. At fifteen he was scrawny for his age, but next to Clooger's colossal frame, he looked like a four-year-old.
“Dylan? Faith? Can you hear me?”
Hawk's small voice traveled into the sound ring as he searched for Dylan and Faith. He pressed hard on the lobe of his ear and wondered if the communication system he'd invented had been damaged.
“They're coming for you, Dylan. Tell me you're hearing this. Get out of the house. Get out now.”
Still no answer.
“Why didn't you see this sooner?” Clooger asked. He was tougher on Hawk than anyone, but he loved the kid like his own son.
Hawk glanced at Clooger as if he was crazy.
“We both woke up thirty seconds ago. How much faster were you thinking?” asked Hawk.
“You should have an alarm on that Tablet for situations like this.”
“At least Wade and Clara aren't out there.” Hawk scanned his Tablet again. “I don't see them anywhere.”
Clooger was starting to worry, flexing his muscles nervously as he gripped the steering wheel. He blamed himself for their falling asleep, but they'd been up for thirty-six hours in a row. It wasn't as if they could stay awake forever. “We should have slept in shifts instead of simultaneously passing out from exhaustion. I should have known better.”
“They've got maybe three minutes, Cloog,” Hawk said. His fingers danced across the screen of the Tablet he held in his hand. “I don't know how this group found the safe house, but they did.”
“At least the town is zeroed,” Clooger said, stepping lightly on the accelerator. The HumGee hovered a few inches off the deserted mountain road, turning back and forth between fir trees. “How many?”
“A full unit of Western State military army.” Hawk paused and looked at Clooger. He was glad to have the big guy at his side. “Air and ground. They've surrounded the house.”