The Power of Five Oblivion

others – if you ever get to see them again, which, frankly, I doubt. Or maybe you’ll see them in the dreamworld. Do you ever go to the dreamworld, Pedro? I’ve been there quite a few times but there’s nobody ever waiting for me. It seems they’ve decided to leave me on my own.”
    “I can’t find them either.”
    “Then maybe they’ve dumped both of us.” Scott stopped, suddenly tired. “We were never going to win this fight,” he said. “And it’s all over anyway. Have you worked it out yet? When we went through that door in Hong Kong, we somehow jumped ten years into the future. Half the world has gone. Look at this place! Naples was once a pretty cool city. It was where all the rich people went. Now it’s just a big refugee camp and soon it won’t even be that. When Vesuvius blows a second time, it’ll be wiped out … which brings me to the point of this little meeting.”
    Scott glanced at his watch. It was new, a great slab of precision engineering on a silver strap. It would have cost him two thousand dollars if he’d had to pay for it. But that was the deal he had made. He would never have to pay for anything again.
    “I have to get back,” he said. “But if you want, you can tag along. I can talk to my friends. Right now they want to do a lot of bad things to you but I think I can persuade them to take you with us. I can’t promise they’ll let you travel first class but at least they won’t kill you.”
    Pedro shook his head. “I can’t come with you.”
    “What’s the alternative?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Then why are you here?”
    “I hoped you would come with me.”
    Scott laughed briefly. “Back into the sewers? No way.”
    “We can get out of Naples. We can find another door.”
    “You just don’t get it, Pedro.” Scott was scowling now. “I’m finished with you. I’m finished with Matt. I’m finished with the Five. I just don’t want to know about it any more. I’m flying out of here with Jonas, in comfort, and the only reason I’ve come here is to give you the chance to come with me. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll take it.”
    “Who is Jonas?”
    “He’s a friend. He looks after me.”
    “I thought I was your friend,” Pedro said.
    Scott shook his head. “You’re wrong. You and I were thrown together but I never wanted that. I don’t care if I never see you again.”
    Pedro gazed at Scott and knew that there was nothing more he could say. The meeting had been a waste of time and he had never felt more depressed. He had let Matt down. Far from healing him, he had allowed Scott to slip away. The boy who stood there, lording it over him in his new clothes, wasn’t anyone he recognized. How had it happened so quickly? Pedro wondered briefly if Scott had been drugged or if he had been hurt again. He wanted to forgive the other boy. But looking into his eyes, he could see the truth. Scott had caved in. He had allowed the Old Ones to reach inside him and this was the result.
    Was there any way Pedro could still reach him? Did they have any connection left? He remembered the one person Scott had always been close to. “What about Jamie?” he said.
    “What about him?”
    “What do you want me to tell him?”
    Scott shrugged. “Don’t tell him anything.”
    “You know that without you, we can’t win.”
    “We could never have won anyway. That’s the whole point.”
    There was nothing more to say. Pedro turned round and would have walked away but Scott called out to him, stopping him. When Pedro turned back, the other boy was holding something out: a handful of money.
    “I stole this for you,” Scott said. “I don’t know if it will help you or not, but you might as well have it.”
    “Thank you.” There was no point in refusing it. Pedro reached out and took it and it was then that Scott noticed the filthy bandage that was still tied around his hand.
    “What happened to your hand?” he asked.
    “It was the guards. They broke one of my fingers.”
    “When?” For the first time, Scott’s voice faltered and he seemed to have lost a little of his confidence.
    “I don’t know. It was the same day you left.”
    There was a brief silence. Then Scott spoke once more, the words pouring out rapidly. “Listen,” he said. “This was always going to happen. The world was going to end and there was nothing any of us could have done to stop it. Me joining them or me staying with you, it would never have made any