“I never said I wanted to be in charge,” Quinn huffed. But he was running out of resentment. He shot a dark look at Edilio, a wary look at Astrid. “It’s just weird, brah. Used to be it was you and me, right?”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed.
In a whining voice Quinn said, “I just want to get our boards and head for the beach. I want everything to go back to how it was.” Then in a startling shout he cried, “Where is everyone? Why haven’t they come for us? Where. Are. My. Parents?”
They began walking again, Edilio hobbling a little, Quinn falling behind and muttering. Sam walked beside Astrid, still self-conscious in her presence.
“You handled Orc back there,” he said. “Thanks.”
“I tutored him through remedial math.” She made a wry smile. “He’s a little intimidated by me. We can’t count much on that, though.”
They walked down the middle of the highway. It was strange to see the yellow line under their feet, strange.
“Fallout Alley Youth Zone,” Astrid said.
“Yeah. I guess that will stick, huh?”
“Maybe it’s not just a joke,” Astrid said. “Maybe this is about Fallout Alley?”
Sam looked sharply at her. “You mean maybe an accident at the nuclear plant?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure I mean anything.”
“But you think it could be connected? Like the plant blew up or something?”
“The power is still on. Perdido Beach gets all its power from the plant. The lights are still on. So one way or the other, the plant is still running.”
Edilio stopped. “Hey, guys. Why are we walking?”
“Because that jerk Orc and that tool Howard stole our golf cart,” Quinn said.
“Dude,” Edilio said, and pointed at a car that had plunged off the road and come to a stop in the drainage ditch. There were two bikes mounted on a trunk-top bike rack.
“I feel bad taking someone’s bike,” Astrid said.
“Get over it,” Quinn said. “Haven’t you noticed: It’s a whole new world. It’s the FAYZ.”
Astrid peered up at a seagull floating not far above them. “Yes, Quinn. I did notice.”
They took the two bikes and rode two-on, Quinn perched on Edilio’s handlebars, Astrid on Sam’s. Her hair blew in his face, stinging him a little. Sam was sorry when they located two more bikes.
The highway did not go to the power plant. They had to turn onto a side road. There was an impressive stone guardhouse at the turnoff, and a red-striped gate, like the ones at a railroad crossing. It was lowered to bar the way. They pedaled around it.
The road wound through hillsides carpeted in desiccated grass and wilting yellow wildflowers. There were no homes or businesses near the plant. It was surrounded by hundreds of acres of emptiness in all directions. Steep hillsides and infrequent stands of trees, meadows and dry creeks.
Eventually the road veered down to the tumbled rock shoreline. The view was stunning, but the surf, normally explosive, was gentle, tamed. The road rose and fell, wound back on itself a couple of times, hid behind hills, and then opened on a new panorama of the ocean.
“There’s another security gate up ahead,” Astrid said.
“If there’s a guard there, I’ll kiss him,” Quinn said.
“This is all constantly watched and patrolled,” Astrid said. “They have almost a private army that protects the plant.”
“Not anymore,” Sam said.
They came to a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. The fence extended down to the rocks on the left, and disappeared up into the hills on the right. There was a much more serious guardhouse here, almost a fortress. It looked like it could handle a major attack. The gate was a tall section of chain link that could roll back and forth at the push of a button.
They stopped pedaling and stood looking up at the obstacle.
“How do we get in?” Astrid wondered.
“Someone climbs the gate,” Sam said. “Rock, paper, scissors?”
The three boys did rock, paper, scissors, and Sam lost.
“Dude. Paper? Come on,” Quinn teased. “Everybody knows you go with scissors on the first round.”
Sam scaled the chain link quickly, but the razor wire gave him pause. He took off his shirt and wrapped it around the most troublesome strand of wire. He carefully swung a leg over and yelped as the wire nicked his thigh. Then he was over. He dropped to the ground, leaving his shirt behind on the wire.
He entered the guardhouse. The air-conditioning was on full blast, making him instantly regret the loss of his shirt.
A bank of color monitors showed the road they had just come down, as well as a rotating array of outdoor scenes: ocean and rock and mountain. It also showed several passcard-protected doors to the plant.
In the restroom he spotted an electronic passcard on a lanyard, hanging from a hook. Some guy had been using the can when he disappeared. Sam hung the lanyard around his neck.
In a closet off the main room he found a gray-green military-style uniform shirt, many sizes too large. Against the wall was a locked rack of automatic weapons, machine pistols. The room smelled of oil and sulfur.
He looked for a long time at the guns. Automatic weapons versus baseball bats.
“Don’t go down that road,” Sam muttered.
He left the gun closet and closed the door firmly. But his hand rested on the knob awhile. Then he shook his head. No. It had not gotten to that point.