Pulse

fashion a way in which to explain everything to her. He’d thought about this moment through long, endless nights standing outside her room in the cold, but somehow the words were harder to find than he’d expected. Behind the bedroom window she’d always looked so soft and warm, all limbs and wild hair, a sleeping beauty waiting to be woken up. But now she was awake and turning out to be more complicated then he’d imagined.
    Faith stared at her fork, her brow narrowing and her full lips tightening as she concentrated.
    “Make sure you know where you’re sending that thing before you think too much about it,” Dylan said, intuitively sensing what she was up to. “You don’t want to find that thing sticking out of your forehead. Or mine.”
    Faith didn’t heed his warning, and the fork was gone from the table in a flash, over the side of the roof and off to places unknown.
    “Headed for Wade’s ass,” she said.
    Dylan laughed softly. “You’d have to run that errand the old-fashioned way. If you don’t know where he is, it’s not going to know where to go.”
    “So where did the fork go?”
    Dylan shrugged. “It’ll stop when it hits something, which could be another human being. Better call it back.”
    Dylan made a slight motion with his hand, and a moment later the fork was on the table. The tongs were bent backward.
    “Guess it hit something hard,” Dylan said. “Bummer.”
    “I didn’t know you were so fond of forks.”
    “You’re funny when you’re not screaming.”
    Faith was starting to settle down. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, trying to tame it as best she could, then gave up and put it in a loose ponytail that wouldn’t reveal her two small tattoos. She looked at the broken glass on the roof of the Nordstrom building.
    “You do realize this is completely ridiculous,” Faith said.
    Dylan nodded, gathered his thoughts, and tried to explain.
    “Do you remember the lessons about the early stages of the States? You learn that stuff pretty young, like second grade.”
    “And they keep teaching it,” Faith added. “Not that you’d know. It doesn’t seem like you’re really into taking classes on your Tablet.”
    “I’m flattered you noticed. Humor me and tell me what you learned in school all these years.”
    “What does any of that have to do with the fact that I just made a fork fly off the edge of a building with my mind ?”
    “So you don’t remember anything about history? I guess the rumors are false. I heard you were pretty smart.”
    “Better watch it. I can put a fork in your eye without even moving my hand.”
    “No, you can’t. But that’s not important at the moment. Tell me what they’ve been teaching you. Best to start with what you think you know.”
    Faith was annoyed with Dylan’s confidence, but he knew a lot more than she did. She was smart enough to play along, at least for the moment.
    “In 2025 the California coast slid into the ocean, killing three million people. That about where you want me to start?”
    “It’s the right marker, yeah. Let’s take it from there.”
    Faith leaned back in her chair and put her arms across her chest, looking at Dylan like he were a substitute teacher.
    “You already know all this stuff. Why do I have to repeat it?”
    Dylan was silent. He picked up his glass of water and took a drink, waiting patiently.
    “Hotspur Chance,” Faith said, nodding to Dylan as if to say Why would I go into detail about this guy? You know this already.
    “What about him?” Dylan asked.
    That was it for Faith. She decided to get it all out in one long explanation instead of waiting any longer for Dylan to let her off the hook.
    “California slides into the ocean, setting off alarm bells all over the world about global warming. So they get the smartest people they can find from all over the place and stick them all in the same building for three years. No one talks to them; no one hears from them. They’re just working in isolation like they’re on the moon or something. When they come out, they’ve appointed a leader, Hotspur Chance, a scientist from Oklahoma, of all places. Guy isn’t autistic, but he’s got some personality issues, so he doesn’t talk much. What he does do is prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that the world is totally screwed, and it’s going to happen way faster than anyone would have imagined. There are a lot of charts and computer simulations that ninety-five percent of the