Light (Gone 6)

Caine focused and stopped its slide down the hill. He swung it left and let it drop just to the side of the cave entrance.

“Break it up a little more,” Caine said.

Sam focused the killing light again and held it until the face of the rock began to melt. It fell into two uneven pieces, which Caine easily drew back and then hurled into the mine shaft entrance, blocking it completely.

Sam once again focused energy and held it for a very long time, lighting the mountain’s face with the green glow, until the rock softened into magma and crumbled wetly into the shaft entrance.

Finally he stopped. The boulder formed a welded plug that would have to be blasted out with a great deal of dynamite should anyone wish to dislodge it.

Without looking at Caine, Sam said, “Something we’re good at.”

“Yep. Something we’re good at. But listen to me, Sammy boy, I have one rule for when we throw down with the gaiaphage: Diana doesn’t get hurt.”

It took Sam completely by surprise. “We may have no choice.”

“You’re not listening. I’m going with you to kill what some would call my daughter, although I don’t think she’s anyone’s daughter. But if I suspect you’re going to hurt Diana, our peace treaty ends. We clear on that?”

Sam nodded. “We’re clear.”

“Deep down, she’s a good person, Diana is,” Caine said, and sighed. “Deep down, I’m not. But she is.”

NINE

64 HOURS, 25 MINUTES

AS SOON AS the lights came on, so to speak, Albert had known he had made a mistake. He had seen doom, nothing but doom coming as the dome went dark. But then, like something out of the book of Genesis, it was “Let there be light.”

And there was light.

Now as he stood sourly recalling his own failure of judgment, the sun, the actual sun, was setting out over the ocean, and Perdido Beach was touched with gold.

In this light Albert pretty much looked like he’d panicked. In this light he didn’t look like the prescient, cold-eyed businessman. He looked like a coward.

Standing on the southernmost point of San Francisco de Sales Island over these last three terrible days he’d seen that the wild, terrified mobs of kids had not, as he’d expected, burned Perdido Beach to the ground just to provide light as he’d expected. In fact, he was looking now through a very good telescope he’d found in the Brattle-Chance home, and while he could certainly not make out faces, he could see people in town. And he could see beyond town to the motels that had been built, and the fast-food restaurant, and the news trucks. Out there.

And now all was being revealed to that wider out-there world.

Had it happened just a week earlier, he, Albert Hillsborough, would have been one of the great heroes of the FAYZ. Who had kept the McDonald’s running while there was still electricity? Albert Hillsborough. Who had created the market up at the school? Albert Hillsborough. Who had created a stable currency—the ’Berto—using gold and McDonald’s game pieces? Albert Hillsborough.

He had put people to work.

He had saved them all from starvation. Everyone knew it.

My God, had it all ended then, he could have written his own ticket. He was barely in high school and he would have had university business schools lining up to give him a full scholarship.

Albert Hillsborough—Harvard MBA.

Recently graduated Albert Hillsborough offered vice presidency at General Electric.

Albert Hillsborough named youngest president ever of Sony Corporation.

All of it lost in a moment of panic. The story might already be out there. Half the country might already despise him.

Albert Hillsborough buys waterfront villa in the south of France. Says, “I needed some place to dock my yacht.”

Albert Hillsborough hosts party aboard his yacht. George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Olivia Wilde, and Sasha Obama in attendance.

But he really had done all those good things, and he’d done them without ever raising his hand against anyone, and without any so-called powers he had saved everything.