Chapter 2

"Do you think I'd joke about something like this?"

Edgar Friar, called Myth by those who used given names, grumbled as he pedaled his old-style bike down the suburban street. MytholoGen was a staunch New-Englander, whose parents had practically dragged him, kicking and screaming, to the muggy heat of Florida. As far as he was concerned, a heat wave should be defined as weather conditions where you didn't have to wear a jacket outside. Sweating should be confined strictly to activities within a heated gym, or the odd sauna or Jacuzzi. One should be wet when it rained and dry when it didn't. Unfortunately, his grumbling did not affect the temperature, the humidity, or the insects. The multitude of insects especially bothered him. In New England, now, not just any creepy-crawly could survive. It took a highly motivated bug to brave the cold.

Myth shook his head, flinging aside the sweat tricking down his nose. He'd never mastered the trick of taking even one hand off the bike handle to wipe his face. If his parents would trust him with a car ... but no. Even if they had, they probably would have objected to his taking it just the two blocks to Kara's house. "Why don't you walk?" his mother had asked. Walking took too much time. Too many minutes in the dripping heat for MytholoGen of Maine, thank you. He was thinking of changing his name. Something like "Polar" or "MainE" or "Frigid" ... anything to let the elements know he wasn't taking defeat lying down.

He dismounted the bike, leaning it, unlocked, against the Shayen's mailbox. If any bike thief was daft enough to come out in these weather conditions, pick up a bike and ride off with it, all good fortune to them. If Myth had his way, he wouldn't leave the Shayen's air-conditioned house and their sweet computer for hours.

Wiping his face with the long-sleeved shirt he wore in defiance of the thermometer, he rang the doorbell, hoping for goodness sakes that Kara would open the door quickly.

"I'll get it," Kara announced dully. The family had cried all their tears in the hour or so following Mr. Shayen's announcement. Now all that was left was a numb, sinking, horrible grief that ate away at them, as though it wished to consume them from the inside. She got up from her perch on the arm of the couch, where she had simply been staring out the window at nothing in particular. She rubbed her red and puffy eyes. Kara didn't really care if whoever was at the door saw her. If the world really was coming to an end, what did her reputation matter? The doorbell rang again, and she hurried a little, muttering in annoyance, "I'm coming, I'm coming!"

When she reached the tiled foyer she opened the front door. There, standing on the porch was her friend, Myth. In a long sleeved shirt and pants. Kara laughed a little, despite herself. Somehow, the presence of one of her friends offered a small amount of cheer.

"Myth, you are crazy, you know that?" she asked rhetorically, then sighed. "Come on in. It would certainly be interesting to see how long you could last out there in the heat, but hey, I'm not really that cruel." She opened the door a little wider, allowing Myth and several dozen bugs to enter. Her first impulse was to ask if he knew about the Rock and the Mayflower and all, but she remembered her parents' warnings about everything needing to stay top secret, and said nothing about it.

Myth noted Kara's red-rimmed eyes without reaction or remark. He noted the sudden, soft laugh that hinted at a long time, maybe hours, of crying. But the front door was not the right place to inquire into matters like that. Maybe after an hour of programming, or so ... "I'm not crazy. I'm loyal." He grinned as the closing door squeezed out the heat and humidity. He watched as she seemed to almost ask him a question. Something important was riding The Pipe in the Shayen home today, that was for sure. She then did pose a question, but it was certainly not the one that she had held back earlier.

"So," she asked, "other than biking around in a heat wave and looking like you're either insane or a fool by wearing those clothes, why did you come by?" He paused momentarily. Something must have really upset Kara ... it wasn't like her to forget a programming appointment. He let the "insane or fool" bit slip by without comment.

"Well, my parents have this big news item coming up, and they wanted some extra-special graphics for the intro. Our computer can't even run Immortal Kombat 3 ... I figured you probably wouldn't mind my working on your machine." He offered a broad smile. "Plus, you people have the best lemonade on the block."

Kara returned the smile. "Well in that case, let's go get some lemonade and then get to work on those graphics." She led Myth into the kitchen and poured two glasses of lemonade, then they went back into the Shayens' computer room. She had to admit- it *was* a really nice computer. Well, two really nice computers. Her parents often had to do work at home, and they had decided it would be wise to purchase these computers for that purpose. Kara gazed at the PC's and wondered how many encrypted files were on them that contained information about the Rock and the Mayflower. How many of those files were protected only with a password and could be broken into? She wondered if she could figure out how to open them up and learn more about the Mayflower Project than her parents had told her.

However, if she tried now, Myth would probably see the files too, and she had no way of knowing whether or not he knew about the Rock. She knew she couldn't tell him. *Later,* she told herself. *I'll look for those files later. In the mean time, work on the graphics stuff.*

"Here, why don't you take the driver's seat," she told Myth. "After all, this is your project. I'll just stand by and watch."

Myth slid into the chair, and downed half of his lemonade. Cracking his knuckles expertly, he pulled open the file the Shayens' had given him, hit "New" and clicked "3D9". He smiled as the familiar black window appeared, surrounded by an array of tools. His tools. "An eternity of potential for me to play around in."

Kara peered over at the computer screen. "Are you looking for anything in particular? Maybe I could help."

Myth tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well, sort of. The 'rentals are doing the newscast on a new seafaring exhibit up in Massachusetts. Something about people actually going on the boat. I'm going to get a picture of the boat for a texture, but it'd be good if I could get the 3D model from a file I've already done." Myth constantly referred to his parents as the "'rentals". "Parents" becomes "parental units" becomes "parentals" becomes "'rentals". Both the "'rentals" were in the newscasting business, and often handled the evening news together. Kara sat down at the other computer and began hurriedly typing something into it.

"Do you know what the name of the ship is? It'd make finding it a lot easier."

Myth nodded thoughtfully. "The best ship I ever made was for a science/computer-science project. What was it ... oh, yes. It should be under filename 'Mayflower'."

At the name 'Mayflower', Kara's face suddenly turned white and she stopped typing. She leaned back in her chair, fighting hard to hold back tears. "Can't I *ever* escape that name?" she whispered to herself. "It's like everywhere I look, everywhere I turn there's some reminder of it ..." She trailed off, cleared her throat, and began typing hard on the keys, trying to find the file and hoping beyond hope that Myth hadn't heard her or wasn't paying attention.

But Myth certainly was paying attention. Myth always watched his friends, noted what was hidden in their faces, caught the times they almost spoke, but waited or said nothing. He spun in the chair to face her. There was a time for Tylenol, and a time for surgery. Fasten the masks and slip on the gloves, boys. Nurse, scalpel. "What's wrong? What about Mayflower?"

"I ... I'm not supposed to tell," she whispered. "They warned me not to tell anyone." At this point, Kara was talking more to herself than Myth, trying to convince herself that she had to do as she had been told. But if the end of the world was coming ... What did it matter? They? What was this, a government conspiracy?

Myth was about to press further, but after a moment of silent debate, he let it go with a shrug. "Okay, sure, fine. Not like I'm going to die if I don't know."

Kara set her jaw in defiance. *Sorry everyone,* she said silently. *I thought I could, but apparently I can't keep a secret this important a secret for long ...* She began typing furiously, trying all the numerous tricks she knew to break into her parents' top-secret files about the Mayflower Project. They were all heavily encrypted, many using other unimportant files as dead drops where they were piggybacked on so that no one would suspect the real files' presence. After several minutes, she smiled and muttered, "Mission accomplished."

Myth regarded this in a mixture of curiosity, expectancy, and satisfaction. Whatever was bothering her, he'd get to the root of it now. He kept silent, though. He'd talked and pried a lot since he came. Odds were, if he just held his piece, it would all come out.

Kara looked around the room, as though trying to locate the surveillance cameras the FBI had no doubt placed there. She debated what to say next--Myth had to be told, there was no doubt of that, but she had to word everything very carefully so that the FBI wouldn't become suspicious. She knew they would of course, but caution might buy a little bit of time.

"Myth, I found the Mayflower file. Come see." Arching a brow at all this mystery, Myth scooted over in his chair, and glanced at the screen. Within seconds, he was entirely absorbed in the text contained there.

"This is impossible. This is insane. This has got to be a joke." Finding it impossible to tear his eyes from the horrifying text, he contented himself with turning his head towards Kara, still reading out of the corner of his eye. "This is a joke, right?"

She shook her head. "Do you think I'd joke about something like this? It's all real. Every word. Every single word." Myth felt his mouth go dry. He tried to speak, found he could not, cleared his throat, and tried again, with only partial success. "How long?"

"Only seven days. But my mom and dad might be able to get your family onto the Mayflow-" At that point she was cut off.

The front door slammed open with a loud bang. "FBI," a man's voice said. Heavy footsteps thudded down the hall and a tall man in a dark business suit entered the room.

"It's too late," Kara told them. "Myth already knows everything."

"Young lady," the agent said sternly, "That was a very bad move."

Myth thought fast. He could feign ignorance, but if the spooks were already here, that meant they had heard something. And, of course, Kara would tell them, so now they were absolutely sure. He could run for it, but these guys were in shape. Plus they had guns, and the guns were a problem. But what would they do if he cooperated? What could they do, within the bounds of the law? Then he stopped, and thought again. The world was ending in a week. What did the law matter anymore? Myth thought fast. Odds had it the spooks hadn't had time to run a background check on him. He spoke quickly.

"That's right, officers, I do know everything! But that's only because my parents work in NASA with hers." He jerked his head towards Kara. Well ... it was sort of true. Kara's folks often gave the 'rentals a story. And if this wasn't the biggest story ever to hit Earth ... Myth winced inwardly at the unintended and unfunny pun. "I've known for awhile now, my parents are already negotiating our berths ... we're expecting word to come through any minute." Myth made double-sure to slow down his speech, as he always talked too fast when excited and not telling the full truth. "Check on it if you want, it'll be a waste of our short remaining time."

The agent frowned. There was every possibility that this kid wasn't telling him the truth. But, then again ... He shrugged. "All right, kid. But you two- you especially-" he pointed at Kara "-need to not tell *anyone* about this. If word gets out there will be more trouble than either of you can even imagine."

Kara nodded, glad the DSA guy had accepted Myth's fib. "Yes sir. We won't tell anyone." The agent looked at each of them in turn, as though trying to figure out what they were thinking and might not be telling him. He had been trained, but mind-reading was not one of the skills he had learned.

"Well, you have a good day then," he said, and with that turned and left the house. Myth's eyes almost lit up at the agent's words ... "If word gets out there will be more trouble than either of you can even imagine." ... almost, but not quite.

Myth could keep himself under control. He waited, tensely, until the DSA spook left. Then he turned to Kara with a glimmer of hope and a hard look. "I should get home." With an eloquent look, he walked to the front door. "See you at the Mayflower." He flashed a quick thumbs-up, and stepped out into the boiling humidity with a grimace.