Hunger (Gone 2)

Sam had no answer to that.

“What I’m going to do, Sam, is turn off the power to Perdido Beach.”

“You do that, you’ll be sitting in the dark, too,” Sam shouted back.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Caine said with a laugh. “But it turns out that’s not true. It seems we can turn off some parts of the grid from here and not affect other parts.”

“I think you’re bluffing, Caine. I’ve seen the control room. It would take you a week to make any sense out of it.”

Caine laughed easily. “Oh, man, you are right about that, brother. Hey, it would probably take me a month. And Diana’s no better at the techie stuff. And Drake, well, you know Drake. But…”

Sam knew what was coming next. He closed his eyes and hung his head.

“Fortunately, our mutual friend Computer Jack, here, he’s pretty much got it whipped. In fact…How’s it going, Jack? Got it yet?”

There was a murmur, barely audible. The

n, Caine again, taunting. “Guess what, Sam?”

Sam refused to answer.

“Jack here says the lights just went off in Perdido Beach.”

Caine laughed, a wild, triumphant sound.

Sam caught Taylor’s eye. She teleported over to him. “Check it out,” he said. The girl nodded once and disappeared.

“You sending Brianna to check it out?” Caine shouted. “Or Taylor?”

Sam said nothing. He waited.

Taylor popped back into view, right beside him.

“I bounced to a bend in the road where you can see town,” she reported.

“And?”

TWENTY-FIVE

17 HOURS, 54 MINUTES

DUCK HAD ARGUED with himself all the way home. Hunter’s problem was not his problem, he told himself. Okay, maybe he was a freak now, too, like Hunter, but so what? He had some stupid, useless power—why did that mean he had to buy a piece of Hunter’s grief?

Hunter was a jerk. And all the people Duck liked were normals. Mostly. He liked Sam, of course, in a sort of distant way. But, man, how was he suddenly supposed to be choosing sides in a fight he didn’t even know was happening?

However, he didn’t like the idea of just leaving Hunter hiding out hungry in the rubble outside the church. That seemed kind of harsh.

By the time he had reached the relative safety of his home, Duck had talked himself out of doing anything one way or the other. And then he talked himself into the opposite position. And back again.

He found himself looking in the kitchen cupboards. Just to see. Just to see if it was even possible to help Hunter out.

There wasn’t much to see in the kitchen. Two cans of veggies. A jar of hot dog relish, but not even the sweet kind. A half-empty bag of flour and some oil. He’d learned how to cook a sort of nasty-tasting tortilla with the flour and a little water and oil. It was the current popular favorite in the FAYZ, something even the most kitchen-impaired could kind of figure out.

He didn’t want to even think about what they’d all be eating in a week. From what Duck had heard, there was food in the fields, but no one wanted to pick it if there were zekes. He shuddered at the thought.

But he supposed he could spare the hot dog relish. Not exactly something good for you, but Hunter had sounded pretty desperate. And nowadays everyone was eating things that would have made them gag before.

Duck had a sudden vision of actual hot dogs. The real thing, steaming hot, nestled in a tender white bun.