He smiled, patted Drake’s gaunt cheek, and with a hint of his old swagger said, “We’re going to reshuffle the deck. Sam thinks he holds all the cards. But we’re going to change everything.”
“We’re going to feed the monster who has his hooks in your head,” Diana said coldly. “Don’t try to dress it up. We’re feeding a monster and hoping it will show its gratitude by letting go of your leash.”
“Let it go, Diana,” Caine said. The bluster was gone.
Diana glanced to see that Drake was out of earshot. “Bug’s not coming back. You know that.”
Caine chewed at his thumb. Jack had the unsettling thought that he might be hungry enough to eat his own finger.
“You don’t know that,” Caine said. “He might have had trouble finding Orsay. He wouldn’t turn against me.”
“No one’s loyal to you, Caine,” Diana said. “Drake is itching to take you down. No one at Coates is rushing to bail you out. You only have one person who actually cares about you.”
“You?”
Diana didn’t answer. “I know it has a hold on you, Caine. I’ve seen it. But that monster of yours isn’t loyal to you, either. It will use you and throw you away. It will be everything and you will be nothing.”
“Most of what I have to say is speculative,” Astrid began.
Sam, Astrid, Edilio—almost from the start, they had been a team. They’d fought Orc when he was calling himself Captain Orc and trying to dominate the FAYZ. They’d fought Caine and Pack Leader. They had learned to survive the Big One-Five.
Now, the picture of something much more terrible was becoming clear.
“From what Edilio has said, what Lana’s letter said, what we’ve learned of Drake’s story from Lana in the past, and all the little things we’ve pieced together.”
She glanced at Little Pete, who sat in a chair by the window, looking out at the slowly sinking sun and nodding mechanically. “And from what I’ve been able to guess from my brother. Something . . . maybe some type of freak, a mutated human. Maybe a mutated animal . . . maybe something else entirely that we don’t understand at all . . . is in that mine shaft.”
“This thing, this gaiaphage, has the ability to reach out, mind-to-mind, and influence people. Maybe especially people it has had some contact with. Like Lana,” said Sam.
“Or like Orsay,” Edilio interrupted. “Someone with that kind of mind, you know? Like, sensitive, or whatever.”
Astrid nodded. “Yes. Some may be more vulnerable than others. I am sure, now, that it is in contact with Little Pete.”
“They talk?” Edilio asked skeptically.
Astrid rolled her head, stretching her neck forward, trying to shake off the tension that tightened her jaw. Sam was struck by how beautiful she still was. Despite everything. But he saw as well how delicate she seemed, how thin and fragile. She had lost weight, like everyone. Cheekbones more prominent than before, eyes bruised by exhaustion and worry. There was a welt just in front of her temple.
“I don’t think they talk, not like you mean,” Astrid said. “But they can feel each other. Petey’s been trying to warn me . . . I didn’t understand.”
“Short version,” Sam said in a low voice. “What do you think?”
Astrid nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m not . . .” Her voice trailed off. But she shook her head vigorously and refocused. “Okay, it’s some mutant creature. Origin unknown. It has great power to influence minds. That power is greater over people who’ve already encountered the creature. Like Lana. Drake.
“And possibly Caine,” Astrid added.
Sam said, “You think Caine has had a run-in with this gaiaphage?”
“You asked for the short version. So I’m leaving out the epistemology.”
Sam recognized Astrid’s favorite ploy: dazzling people with polysyllables. He managed a faint smile. “Go ahead. Leave out the . . . whatever it was.”
“Suddenly,” Astrid went on, “after months of relative quiet, Caine reemerges. We know from Bug that he was in some kind of a coma, or delirium, before that. But suddenly, he’s better. And the first thing he does is charge off to take over the power plant.”
“At the same time, Lana begins to feel the gaiaphage calling to her. And Petey is starting to talk about something being hungry in the dark.”
“Orsay says the thing is expecting to be fed soon,” Edilio said.
“Yes. And then, there’s Duck.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Duck?” He had not expected this.
“No one listened much to his story. Me included,” Astrid admitted. “But he kept saying there was a cave down there that glowed. Like from radioactivity. He said like something from The Simpsons.”
“Yeah?” Edilio prompted.
“The power plant is at the center of the FAYZ,” Astrid said. “We know it was going into meltdown when Little Pete reacted by creating this . . . this bubble. But why were things changing even before that? How did Little Pete acquire that kind of power?”
“The accident thirteen years ago,” Sam said, realizing it even as he said it.
“The accident. We’ve always said it was a meteorite that hit the plant. But maybe it wasn’t just a meteorite. Maybe there was more to it.”
“Like what?”
“Some people theorize that life on Earth grew from a simple organism that reached this planet by comet or meteorite. So, let’s say something as simple as a virus was alive on the object that hit the power plant. Virus plus radiation equals mutation.”