I wipe the knife blade clean and eye a fuel station across the street, watching it for activity. At this time of night, there is none, only a lone Bot attendant attached to a pay console. I work up the nerve to cross the street and ask where Oak Creek is. Without a star in the sky, I just hope I've been running north. The Bot is as catatonic and uninterested in me as a real clerk working the night shift, and just as short on words. "That way," he says, pointing. But it's enough. At least I know I am headed in the right direction. A light blinks on the panel of his console and he adds, "Fourteen miles."
Fourteen miles? Fourteen more miles on top of how far I've already come?
I am wet to the skin. The coat was no match for rain whipped by wind, or for the multiple times I stumbled and fell into knee-deep puddles that I didn't see in the dark. My legs ache, and the stab in my side grows. I try not to think about the BioPerfect that may still be oozing out of me into the gauze. I look in the direction he pointed. I'm going to be walking all night.
Even in his Bot stupor, he seems to read my thoughts and says, "CabBots or free shuttle, one block east." I nod, pulling my pack up higher on my shoulder, and my hood farther over my head. I walk away, stepping back into the rain. I can't take a chance on any more CabBots or even the free shuttle north. I'm sure the one-armed CabBot scanned my ID when I got close to his cab. It's worthless to me now.
I look down the long highway. I have miles to go, and once I get to Oak Creek, I still don't know exactly where Jenna lives. My only consolation is that Kara doesn't know either--I'm certain I'll reach Oak Creek before her. Which train did she take to escape Gatsbro? Los Angeles? Seattle? Wherever she went, I know where she will end up. Even if I can't hear her mind right now, I know her mind.
The road I'm on follows the coast. The town quickly peters away and becomes dark open landscape. Since the cover of dark buildings and side streets is gone, I stay to the far shoulder of the road as much as possible so I can duck into the brush if I need to. I don't know who might be in the occasional car that passes, and I keep envisioning an angry one-armed
Bot bent on revenge.
Most of the time, the road is a straight shot north, but sometimes it veers in a crisscrossing pattern across steep hillsides and I lose sight of the ocean for miles. The rain has let up to a light drizzle now, but a thick blanket of clouds still blocks out all light. Without the stars or moon, the ocean is my only hint that I'm still on the right path.
How far have I walked? How much longer? I can't even judge my speed anymore. With the monotony of my steps and darkness blotting out the landscape, my thoughts are what I focus on instead of the road. I think about Jenna--at least the Jenna I used to know. I wonder about the first moment that I see her. What will I say? What will she be like? Her hair was as silky as Kara's, but long and blond, usually tossed up carelessly in a clip. Jenna never fussed much with clothes or hair. An image of the half-bald Bot from the diner flashes in my memory. After 260 years, will Jenna have hair? But she's not a Bot--she's human, like us. Still, the image of the balding Bot with the peeling skin launches an avalanche of others. What if Jenna's outdated first-generation Bio Gel has begun to degrade after all this time?
I am so busy imagining and fearing the possibilities, I don't notice a pothole in the road, and I trip, flying through the air and landing hard on the pavement. I hold my side, trying to get my breath, and then I just lie there thinking how easy it would be to shut my eyes for a few minutes. I even rationalize for a moment that it would be good for me to lie there. Rest, Locke. I roll to the side, farther off the shoulder and onto the gravel, and lie there, my face to the sky, drizzle dripping into my eyes. A few more miles. You can walk a few more miles. And then I see it, a star peeking through a break in the clouds. I close my eyes, just to blink away the drizzle. A star ...
Chapter 41
Look, that's Scorpius. The one right there at the end of ...
There were a billion stars sprinkling all the way down to the treetops that surrounded us. Frogs the size of small dogs croaked at the shore, and fireflies flickered in the black hollows of the forest.
And over there. That one is Cassiopeia, the queen.
Kara, Jenna, and I lay on a blanket outside Kara's parents' summer cottage, staring into the night sky. It was the end of summer vacation, and it was a dream world. Kara was on one side of me, and Jenna, on the other, and the blinking black sky was so close it felt like I could reach out and scoop the stars into my hand.
Delphinus, the dolphin ...
Ursa Major, the Great Bear ...
And then a blazing trail would split the sky with light and we would shout in awe, but just as quickly we fell into silence, like we were before some celestial altar witnessing an event that was almost holy.
Make a wish ...
I couldn't think of anything more to wish for than what I had right then. Two full days and one night alone in the woods with Kara and Jenna. Each of them had claimed they were staying the night at the other's house so they could slip away. My parents were away for the weekend, and my sister couldn't have been happier to have me out of the house--no questions asked. We had all taken courses over the summer, so our vacation was short. We were making the most of what was left of it.
Look. The Northern Cross.
And that one's the North Star, the brightest star in the sky....
Jenna reached over and held one of my hands, Kara held the other, and I felt like the universe was holding us all.
For that night, maybe just for that magic moment, it all seemed to make so much sense, like the thousand puzzle pieces of my life were all in place and I knew the How and Why of all things. It was one of those moments that I was sure would stay impressed on me forever because it was real and true. It was as tangible as the blanket beneath me. I felt like I had touched something, something as big as the universe, and it had touched me back.
I didn't know that even a big moment like that could be snuffed out in a matter of days by packing to go home, by the wrong teacher on the wrong school schedule, by my brother stealing sixty dollars from my wallet, or by my uncle getting his brains blown out at a traffic stop.
But all that just made Kara and Jenna brighter stars in my sky. I had no way of knowing that, in a matter of weeks, even those stars would be snuffed out.
Chapter 42
"Get moving, you filthy Nop!"
My eyes shoot open just as a sharp kick swings into my leg.
"Go sober up in some hole where you belong!"