Gone

goes from your phone to the tower, right?” His tone was condescending and he formed his hands into a schematic of a tower with beams radiating toward it. “Then it gets sent on to a satellite, then down to a router. But we can’t send signals to the satellite now, so—”
    He was interrupted by a shockingly loud cry of pain from inside the church. It made him flinch.
    “How do you know we can’t reach a satellite?” Astrid asked.
    He blinked in surprise and made the smug face he made whenever someone questioned his technological expertise. “I doubt you would understand.”
    Astrid said, “Try me, kid.”
    To Jack’s surprise, she seemed to follow everything he said. So he went on to explain how he could reprogram a few good desktop computers to serve as a primitive router for the phone system. “It wouldn’t be fast. I mean, it couldn’t handle more than, say, a dozen calls simultaneously, but it should work at a basic level.”
    Astrid’s little brother seemed to be staring at Jack’s hands, which he was now twisting nervously. Jack was anxious beingaway from Caine. Before they had come down from Coates Academy, Drake Merwin had warned everyone that they should keep talk with the Perdido Beach kids to a minimum.
    A warning from Drake was serious.
    “Well, I better go,” Jack said.
    Astrid stopped him. “So you’re into computers.”
    “Yeah. I’m kind of a tech guy.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Twelve.”
    “That’s young to have those skills.”
    He laughed dismissively. “Nothing I’ve been talking about is hard to do. It’s not something most people could do, but it’s not hard for me.”
    Jack had never been shy when it came to his tech skills. He’d gotten his first real computer for his fourth Christmas. His parents still told the story of how he had spent fourteen hours on the machine that first day, pausing only for Nutri-Grain bars and juice boxes.
    By the time he was five he could easily install programs and navigate the web. By age six his parents were turning to him for computer help. By eight he had his own website and was acting as his school’s unofficial tech support.
    At nine, Jack had hacked into the computer system of his local police department to erase a speeding ticket for a friend’s father.
    His own parents found out and panicked. The next semester he was at Coates Academy, which was known as a place to send smart, difficult children.
    But Jack wasn’t difficult, and he resented it. In any case, it didn’t help him stay out of trouble. On the contrary, there were kids at Coates whom Jack’s parents would have called bad influences. Some of them, very bad influences.
    And some were just bad.
    “So, what would be hard for you, Jack?” Astrid asked.
    “Almost nothing,” he answered truthfully. “But what I would like to do is get some kind of internet working. Here in the…in whatever this is.”
    “It seems we’re calling it the FAYZ.”
    “Yeah. Here in the FAYZ. I mean, I’d estimate there are two hundred and twenty-five or so decent computers, based on the number of homes and businesses. The land area is pretty small, so it would be fairly simple to set up Wi-Fi. That’s easy. And if I had even a pair of old G5s to work with, I think I could stand up a limited local system.”
    He smiled happily at the thought.
    “That would be great. So, tell me, Comp—should I really call you Computer Jack?”
    “That’s what everyone calls me. Or sometimes just Jack.”
    “Okay, Jack. What is Caine up to?”
    Jack was caught off guard. “What?”
    “What’s he up to? You’re a smart kid, you have some idea.”
    Jack wanted to leave, but he couldn’t figure out how to do it. Astrid moved in and put her hand on his arm. He stared down at the hand.
    “I know he’s up to something,” Astrid said. Her little brother trained his big, vacant saucer eyes on Jack. “You know what I think?”
    Jack shook his head slowly.
    “I think you’re a nice person,” Astrid said. “I think you’re very smart, so people don’t always treat you very well. They’re scared of your talent. And they try to use you.”
    Jack caught himself nodding in agreement.
    “But I don’t think that kid Drake is a nice person. He’s not, is he?”
    Jack held very still. He didn’t want to give anything away. He was not as quick at understanding people as he was machines. Mostly people weren’t that interesting.
    “He’s a bully, isn’t he? Drake, I mean.”
    Jack