Plague

the whole population up here. Use the boats as housing. Fish the lake. Drink the water. Use the gas to haul the crops from the fields up here.
    It wasn’t perfect. But for the FAYZ it was heaven.
    If only Astrid were here.
    He tried to push that thought aside. He was mad at Astrid. He was sick of Astrid. And yet, all he could think of was her face when he handed her a jar of Nutella and a can of Pepsi.
    “Why didn’t they do something?” Dekka wondered aloud.
    “Who?” Sam asked.
    “The people who were studying crazy boy over there.” She jerked her head toward Toto.
    “What were they going to do?” Sam asked with a shrug.
    “How about warn people what was happening?” Dekka said. “Like, ‘Hey, people of Perdido Beach, something very weird is happening’?”
    “They were scientists,” Jack mumbled, no longer deciphering boring documents but searching the laptop’s hard drive, reveling in the sheer visceral pleasure of opening applications.
    “So they were scientists,” Dekka snapped. “So what?”
    “So they were studying, right?” Jack said. “They had to understand it first. Can’t just run around . . . Hey, look, there’s this cool Easter Egg if you press—”
    “Means people on the outside know what’s happening,” Dekka said.
    “What do you think happens when the barrier comes down?” Sam wondered aloud. “I mean, to all of us?”
    Jack said, “Most likely all our powers go away.”
    “Most likely,” Sam agreed.
    “But not for sure,” Jack said.
    “No.”
    Dekka said, “They don’t even let you carry a Swiss Army knife at school, what are they going to do with you, Sam? You’re like a guy carrying two massive lasers.”
    “Like Jack said, most likely our powers will be gone. That will be a relief.”
    “Not true,” Toto said. “He says it will be a relief, but that’s not what he believes.”
    Sam glared at Toto. “Okay. I would probably miss it.”
    “Truth,” Toto said. Then, communing once more with his imaginary Spider-Man head, he added, “It’s the truth.”
    “Look what they did with Toto and subject number two,” Dekka said.
    “Locked us up,” Toto said. “No family. Stole us away and locked us up.”
    “That’s not going to happen,” Sam said. “Everyone in the world probably knows about us. We’d be too well-known.”
    “He believes it,” Toto said.
    “But he’s not sure,” Dekka said dryly. “Sam, you’ve never been a freak out in the real world. Me? To a lot of people I was a freak before I ever got here. If my parents would send me away to Coates just for being a lesbian, imagine how happy they would be to see that I can also cancel gravity.”
    She laughed to take the edge off it. But Sam did not join in.
    “I still want the barrier to come down,” Sam said.
    “Not the truth,” Toto said.
    “Yes it is,” Sam protested. “You think I like things like this?”
    Toto started to answer, but Dekka cut him off. “Sam, maybe you haven’t spent much time thinking about this, but I have. And trust me, lots of kids have, and not just freaks with powers. I mean, you think Albert wants this all to end so he can go back to school and to being some little nerd?”
    “Astrid wants it to end,” Sam said.
    Dekka nodded. “No doubt. And Jack here wants it to end so he can get back to his computers and all because half the time he doesn’t even remember he has superstrength. Edilio wants it to end, too, I guess, unless he starts thinking about getting deported back to Honduras. But do you honestly think Brianna wants to stop being the Breeze?”
    “Brianna would hate it,” Sam admitted.
    “There’s kids who pray every night for all this to be over. There’s other kids who pray every night that the barrier stays right where it is. And now that we’re going to show them all this lovely fresh water, this nice place up here . . .”
    “You believe that,” Toto confirmed.
    “Thanks,” Dekka said sarcastically.
    Sam gazed out at the lake with a very different feeling now. If they had water, if they had food, if peace could be kept between him and Caine, and especially if they could get power flowing somehow, how many kids would stop hoping for an end to the FAYZ?
    “You need to think about all that, Sam,” Dekka said. “You’re the leader, after all.”
    “Not anymore,” he said.
    Dekka laughed. She stood up and stretched. “Sam: you’re still the leader. You’re always going to be the leader. It’s not something you