The Last Star (The Fifth Wave 3)

“Right. The maniac who orchestrated the murder of seven billion people. Well, sure, if he said it, then it must be true.”

“Why else would he want Walker so badly?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because Evan betrayed his entire civilization and is the one person on the planet who can stop them?”

Ringer is looking at me like I’m something disgusting she found growing on her toothbrush. “If that’s all there is to it, your boyfriend would be dead right now.”

“He could be dead right now. It kills me how you claim to know so much despite the fact that you don’t know much at all. Theories, scenarios, possibilities, odds, whatever. And for your information, just so you know, and this is no supposition based on the theory that I-am-Ringer-ergo-I-know-all, he isn’t my boyfriend.”

My face is hot. I’m thinking of the night I landed on the shores of Evanland and planted my flag upon that sculpted beach. Ben says something a

t that point, which I totally miss, because my mind has a way of scolding its own thoughts. Like, how could I be the flag-planter? Shouldn’t that be Evan?

“Evan is human,” Ringer insists. “His purpose is obvious. What isn’t so obvious—and why Vosch needs to deconstruct his programming—is what triggered Evan’s mind to rebel. He didn’t just betray his ‘people.’ He betrayed himself.”

“Well,” Ben sighs, “that’s fucked up.” He shifts his weight against the wall, trying to find a more comfortable position. That’s not possible with a bullet in your leg. Believe me, I’ve tried. “So there are no escape pods coming to evac the Silencers,” Ben says slowly. “No pods, so no way to the mothership. No way to the mothership, so no way to blow it up. Shoots that plan all to hell. What about bombing the cities? Or is that a lie his programming told him, too?”

Ringer doesn’t answer for a long time. I have no clue what she’s thinking. Then I start thinking maybe this whole deal is a trick—of Vosch’s. Something happened to Ringer after she checked out of the Walker Hotel. Somebody implanted her with bionics that turned her into a part-human, part-machine weapon of mass destruction. How do we know she hasn’t flipped to the other side? A certain Brawny-paper-towel-looking guy did. How do we know she wasn’t always on the other side?

My thumb’s working that bolt catch again.

“I think they are going to bomb the cities,” she finally says.

“Why?” I demand. “What’s the point?”

“A lot of reasons. For one, it evens the playing field before the launch of the 5th Wave—urban combat gives the Silencers every advantage, and you can’t tip favor too far to one side. But the most important reason is cities hold our memories.”

Whaaaaa? Then I get it, and getting it makes my stomach hurt. My father and that damned wagon and those damned books. Libraries, museums, universities, everything we designed and built over six thousand years. Cities are more than the sum of their infrastructure. They transcend brick and mortar, concrete and steel. They’re the vessels into which human knowledge is poured. Blowing them up will be the final reset of the clock back to the Neolithic.

“Not enough to reduce the population to a sustainable level,” Ringer says softly. “Not enough to level what we built. We’ll repopulate. We’ll rebuild. To save the planet, to save our species, they have to change us.” She touches her chest. “Here. If the Others can take away trust, they take away cooperation. Take away cooperation, and civilization is impossible.”

48

“OKAY,” BEN SAYS. Time to get down to the gnarly nub of it. “No on the pods but yes on the bombs. Which means we can’t stay here—too close to Urbana. That’s fine with me, because I really fucking hate Urbana. So where? South? My vote is south. Find a source of fresh water, miles from anywhere, as in the middle of nowhere.”

“And?” Ringer asks.

“And what?”

“And what then?”

“What then?”

“Yes. After we get to nowhere, then what?”

Ben lifts a hand. Lets it fall. His mouth curls into a smile. He looks so boyishly cute in this moment that I feel like bursting into tears. “There’s five of us. I say we form a band.”

I laugh out loud. Sometimes Ben’s like a bracing mountain stream I dip my toe into.

“Anyway,” Ben says after two seconds of Ringer staring blankly at him. “What the hell else are we going to do?”

He looks at her. He looks at me.

“Oh Christ, Sullivan,” he moans, tapping the back of his head against the wall. “Don’t even go there.”

“He came for me,” I tell him. He knows I’m thinking it, so I might as well say it. We’re both a little surprised that I’ve gone there. “He saved your life—twice. He saved mine three times.”

“Ben’s right,” Ringer butts in. “It’s suicide, Sullivan.”