“Those round things?”
“They’re called cantaloupes,” Edilio said. “And they’re very tasty, actually.”
“What about zekes?” one of the girls asked.
Edilio sighed. “That’s the cabbage field, not here. That’s, like, a mile from here.”
But no one moved. They all lined up obediently but kept close to the bus and far from the edge of the field.
Edilio sighed. “Okay. Let the wetback show you how.”
He sauntered out into the field, bent over, gave a twist to one of the melons, and held it up high so they could see.
It was luck that saved him. The fact that he dropped the melon.
He looked down at the cantaloupe and saw the dirt move.
Edilio leaped, a wild reaction that almost tripped him, but he caught his footing and ran.
He ran faster than he had ever run before, boots slamming down on the seething worms and faster, faster, faster until he sprawled, facedown, in the dust.
The dust beyond the field.
He yanked his feet toward him and frantically examined his boots. There were chew marks on the sides, on the heels. But no holes.
The worms had not penetrated.
Edilio looked at the shocked faces of the kids around him. He had been seconds away from impatiently ordering them into the field. Most wearing sneakers. None with experience seeing what the zekes looked like.
He’d been one hesitation away from ordering forty-nine kids to their deaths.
“Get back on the bus,” Edilio said shakily. “Get back on the bus.”
“What about lunch?” someone asked.
FIFTEEN
30 HOURS, 41 MINUTES
SAM TOOK THE list from Astrid. He scanned the first couple of matters and nearly crumpled it up.
“The usual?” he asked her.
Astrid nodded. “The usual. I think you’ll especially enjoy the—”
Computer Jack burst in like he was in a hurry.
People weren’t supposed to just come busting in, but Jack wasn’t just people.
“What is it, Jack?” Sam asked him as he slid into the oversized leather chair behind what had once been the real mayor’s desk and briefly was Caine’s.
Jack was agitated. “You should let me turn on the phones.”
Sam blinked. “What? I thought you had an emergency the way you came in here.”
“Everybody keeps asking me when I’m going to fix the phones,” Jack said in apparent agony. “Everybody asks me, and I keep having to come up with stupid lies. They think I failed.”
“Jack, we’ve been over this. I’m really grateful for the work you have done, man, no one else could ever have pulled it off. But, dude, we have other issues, okay?”