The Power (The Magnificent 12 4)

It was a beautiful thing, Mack realized: a beautiful boat in a beautiful place under a beautiful blue sky dotted with scudding white clouds.

In fact it might be the most beautiful place he’d ever been. This fact just filled him with longing for home. He missed his mom and dad even if they didn’t realize he was gone. He missed his boring teachers, and even more the good teachers. He missed lying around playing games online. He missed being dragged to Target to buy underwear or whatever.

None of that was ever going to happen to him again, he thought. His life was permanently messed up. Even if he somehow survived, he would always be Mack of the Magnifica.

Would he end up like Grimluk? Would he live on and on somehow? End up in some cave somewhere talking via bright chrome toilet objects to some kid in the distant future?

Sylvie came and stood beside him as he stared pensively toward the rising volcano with its plume of ash.

“What are you thinking?” Sylvie asked him.

“Me?” His first instinct was to deny that he was thinking at all. But that wouldn’t do. “I’m thinking that one way or the other we’re finally getting to the end.”

Sylvie nodded thoughtfully. “Life? Or death? Victory or failure?”

“Yeah, all that.”

“It is a beautiful day to die,” she said.

Mack sighed. “Kind of early though. I mean, in terms of life. Twelve years old isn’t supposed to be the end.”

“Death is welcome only to those in unendurable pain,” Sylvie said.

Which sounded very profound to Mack, but not very comforting. “If I die, it means I’ll never go to college. Or have a job. Or eat caviar. Not that caviar sounds all that great, but everyone should taste it before they die, right?”

Sylvie moved beside him and put her arm around his waist, which left him no real choice but to do the same to her. She felt very small. It suddenly occurred to him that she would also very likely die, and that somehow seemed outrageous to him. It made him mad.

This wasn’t just about Mack MacAvoy, it was about these friends of his. And his whole family back home in Sedona. All his old friends.

Also people he kind of knew but didn’t really know, like people on TV shows and in movies and pop stars and all.

And then there were the billions of people he didn’t know, and didn’t even “kind of” know—all those people all around the world who were just minding their own business, eating lentils and driving their kids to school and doing their jobs.

“Is there not one special thing you would miss, Mack?” Sylvie asked him.

Her head was turned toward him now, and frankly she was unusually close. Closer than she had ever been before. Closer than any girl—or boy for that matter—had ever been before.

“Um . . . ,” Mack said, and suddenly found he had a hard time swallowing properly.

“Is there not one thing you will miss above all others?” Sylvie asked, and her voice was breathy and kind of unsteady and her eyes were very big and he could actually feel the vibration of her heart beating.

He thought frantically. What did she mean? Was she talking about food? Was she talking about the next Avengers sequel that he might never see?

He didn’t have the answer, but he had a feeling that maybe he did, or maybe he would if his brain was working right, which it obviously wasn’t, so instead of saying, “Toaster Strudel?” which was one thing he would really, really miss, he said:

“Errr, uhhh . . .”

Sylvie’s eyes closed. And she touched her lips to his.

They were extremely, extremely, extremely soft lips. Extremely.

And then she released him and walked away, swaggering just a bit.

Five minutes later Mack remembered to breathe.

And then he muttered, “Well, I didn’t know I was going to miss that most. But now I do.”

“Land ho!” Grace yelled.