A/N: Things are picking up. This one was tough. I'm not tottally happy with it, but ill revise it another time. right now im plotting out where we go next. enjoy the hints of what's to come ;-) ... okay please enjoy it. and reviews are always welcome! feedback and ideas too!
Paige straightened up and wrapped her arms around the back of her friend's neck. Jake returned the gesture, and rested his chin on Paige's shoulder. The two stood for a few seconds, a visceral meeting of two people pretending that the world around them is not really falling apart. Jake saw Ali approaching them, and he greeted her with a warm smile.
She didn't return it, of course. She doesn't allow her dazzling smile to dazzle enough. That was just Ali, and you couldn't do anything about it.
She marched forward, straight golden hair flowing behind her. Jake maneuvered and held his arms up to embrace her as well.
Ali stormed past without a word.
She grabbed her sister and continued on.
"Ali?" He asked, stunned.
She stopped.
"Ali…" Paige whispered, turning slightly to her sister.
Ali turned around and gave Jake the coldest stare he'd ever seen. The kind that old friends never give each other.
"Stay safe, Jake." She turned back, guiding Paige away.
A warning?
Jake felt he was missing something.
"Oh no…" Jake recoiled.
Paige was in The Sharing.
He had to warn Ali. But what if she's one of them, too?
Ali was struggling to calm down. Paige should have known better. She can't trust anyone! Even old friends like Jake.
It stirred up suspicions of her sister once more. A member of The Sharing. If it's not lack of grasp of the situation, her just running up to Jake, then is it total confidence of knowing who is a controller?
Was it so easy for her to go to Jake because she knew he's a fellow controller?
God, calm down, Ali. She willed herself.
Footsteps behind her. "Ali, wait!" Jake called.
No, get away. Ali begged inside.
"Ali!" Jake yelled. Ali stopped. Paige turned and said meekly:
"He was helping a lady who fell…"
"So, what?" Ali hissed back. It hurt Ali to say it, but she found it hard to believe that Jake, one of her best and oldest friends, would allow a slug in his head.
This was the boy who in kindergarten, when her father died of cancer, and without any sense of the tragedy that had hit her, somehow felt obligated to give her a hug and sit with her that whole first day back. Braving cooties and scorn from the other boys, Jake spent all of his playtime wordlessly comforting her behind the bookshelf. The only time he sat still for more than 5 minutes all year, Ali's mother said. He had no idea how much it meant to her. She was afraid to ask if he even remembered.
He cannot be a controller.
I refuse to believe it.
So she turned.
"Can I talk to you?" They said together. Jake looked stunned. They walked to the side, leaving Paige alone clutching her elbows.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
Far from okay. She wanted to say. But instead:
"I think it goes 'Does a bear piss in the woods?'"
Man that was stupid. She thought, regretting the words as soon as she said them. Jake rolled his eyes.
"I meant are you okay?" He pressed.
"What do you mean?" Ali's eyes narrowed.
Jake turned red, clearly not wanting to clarify. His gaze dropped and darted over to Paige, then back to Ali.
Paige. A member of The Sharing.
Did he know?
"Did you listen to the radio?" She asked him.
His eyes widened, and his face returned to normal. But he recognized what the word 'radio' meant. His motives were betrayed right there. He asked a question of his own.
"Do you trust Paige?"
"She's my sister."
"You know what I mean."
"I will in three days."
He allowed a smile. "Keep her in sight."
He knows about the Sharing. He knows what the radio was saying about the Sharing. If he was a controller, he would have warned them. They wouldn't be out in the open.
Ali was flooded with relief.
"You're not one of them." She whispered.
Jake kept his face straight. "No." He whispered back.
Is she one of them? Jake thought. But did she guess I was talking about the Sharing? Jake guessed he made it pretty obvious when he asked about Paige.
Don't let your guard down. He willed himself.
"You're not one of them." She whispered.
She's probing. She's waiting for me to slip up.
"No." Jake responded carefully neutral. Her eyes softened a little bit.
Now what?
Jake heard Paige shuffle her feet. He heard Ali clear her throat.
In fact he could hear things quite clearly.
He realized the noise and mayhem had faded. All around them was the motionless, soundless display of a throng on the cusp of something great. Looters stopped looting, The Sharing stopped sharing, and preachers stopped preaching. Everyone became listeners listening. Something important was happening.
It happened to be a man blasting his car radio.
His radio happened to be blasting the Emergency Broadcast Signal.
The unmistakable ambient grinding buzz resounded through four hundred human beings, each standing alone, yet all as one. Crows called out to one other in the pillars of oak.
If someone dropped a penny, even the deaf would hear it.
The shopping center put it on the external speakers. Other cars tuned in and echoed the station.
"This is the Emergency Broadcast Service…"
"This is the Emergency Broadcast Service…"
"The following residential areas have been issued blanket orders of evacuation: suburban areas up to 10 miles south of San Francisco, suburbs within a 25 mile radius of Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Boston and surrounding areas, Richmond, Manhattan Island, and Los Angeles County. Please stay out of these areas.
"Residents of Los Angeles County are specifically advised to avoid being downwind of any clouds of debris and/or smoke originating from the city center. These clouds may contain harmful elements, chemicals, airborne toxins, and asbestos.
"Please exercise caution and vacate these areas in a calm and orderly fashion. Do not crowd major highways with trailers or any external additions to your vehicle. Avoid all areas with escalated violence. Please contact local authorities if you witness any organized attacks or unusual gatherings of armed civilians. Do not attempt to contact these individuals, even if you recognize them.
"The President of the United States has instructed the National Guard to mobilize to all major metropolitan areas, in order to combat rioters and unidentified organized aggressors. Members of the Army Reserve and all local emergency services are to report to their local headquarters to receive briefings and further instructions.
"The President states that attempts to contact many west-coast military bases and Air Force bases have failed, citing breakdowns in communication networks and unauthorized mobilizations of U.S. troops to undisclosed locations. Please do not attempt to contact anyone stationed in these bases.
"The FAA has grounded all flights over national airspace; do not attempt to board or operate a plane or helicopter.
"Locally, Suffolk and Nassau County officials have declared a curfew beginning at 6:00 PM, and recommend that all citizens should stay off the streets, and wait for further developments inside their homes."
Things happened all at once. There was no denying it now, we are under attack. No one need it spelled out for them anymore. The Yeerks were on the March.
People scattered every which way. Back into the store, as far away from the store as possible. People were probably running home. People were probably running to loved ones. People were probably running to find a place to hide or to find a way off the island.
People were running.
People were screaming.
Colliding. Embracing. Fighting. Crying.
Car alarms blared. Tides of biomass flowed over anything and everything.
Everywhere. Glass shattered. Voices cried out in anger and despair.
It's all over. No need to be civil about it anymore.
Jake was stunned. God, he thought, was probably laughing somewhere up there in infinitude, sipping a margarita – crowing down 'you all thought I was gonna get you again?'"
This can't be.
The Preacher was stunned, a look of awe on his face, standing atop his pedestal encompassed with a hundred desperate hands reaching up to him for words of guidance.
A large, burly man with a thick beard climbed up next to him. He raised his fist high over his head and roared an affirmation:
"NO! FEAR!"
He drew in another mighty breath, and blasted again.
"NO FEAR!" It was an oath he was taking. The desperate kind of oath that a man who has nothing to lose takes.
"No fear!" A woman cried back. The preacher buried his face in his hands, and fell to his knees.
"No fear! No fear!" the crowd chanted together.
"Dad!" Jake yelled. His voice was not strong enough to carry.
Someone bumped into Jake from behind. Another nearly knocks over Ali.
Paige screamed behind them. Jake whirled around to see a mangy-looking man tugging Paige away by her hair and arms. He's trying to take her.
"Ali!" Jake yells. She was already moving.
The man looked up, stopped struggling with Paige and took off. Jake and Ali gave full chase. No way was he getting away. Rape. Murder. The man dashed between two figures and cornered around a column of shopping carts. Jake tore around and dashed ahead of Ali.
'Mangy' got to a car and gets out his keys. He looks over his left shoulder for his pursuers and turns back to his car. Big mistake. Jake had a clear vector to his right side.
"Sicko!" Jake grunts. He lowered his shoulder and ran full on into the man, crushing him against the car. Sheet metal popped in and out as the man's chest compressed against the car with a violent crunch.
Jake bounced back as the man sprawled onto the car, wheezing in air. Ali arrived and grabbed a fist-full of his hair. She pulled him around and trusted the butt of her palm into his face, knocking him back, bloody.
Jake stood over the man as he dropped facedown to the blacktop. Ali dropped to one knee next to him. She clutched the back lobe of his head and said eerily calmly:
"That's what a broken nose feels like." wiping the blood on her hand onto the man's shirt. "It's a warning. You touch my sister again, and I break two bones."
She smashed his nose down onto the pavement. Once. Twice.
"If you do it again," she chirped "I'll double it to four."
She pushed the man's head down to the pavement four times, each harder than the last. Blood flowed freely from his nose onto the parking lot. Jake winces at the man's cries of pain and pleas for mercy. Ali was not going to give him any.
"What's four-times-two?" she queried. The man screamed. "Eight." She growled, voice dripping with acidic rage. Ali raised the man's head a few inches higher than before. Jake stepped forward to restrain her.
Ali trusted the bloody head down, but stopped a millimeter short of impact. Screams and tears drained from the cowering man who tried to kidnap Paige. Ali leaned in close to him and whispered:
"I'll double the punishment every time you, for some hilarious reason, don't learn your lesson. I'll continue to do it until I have broken every bone in your body, at which point, I'll remove you from the gene pool."
The man cried and covers what is left of his face. Ali got up and looked at Jake.
Jake shivered. "Was that necessary?"
"Oh, yes." Ali responded, clearly off in a dark place.
Jake watched the man scramble away through the crowd, trying to his face. Ali looked at Jake. Jake saw the ruthlessness in her eyes. He saw the pure unadulterated rage at the fact that someone had the impudence to touch her sister. Tried to hurt her sister. Tried to do who knows what. The sheer audacity of it all.
Jake understood then. Ali was no controller. Not at all.
When in doubt, make a joke.
"You know, I don't think he grasped that whole math thing with all the…" He hesitated, Ali blinked at him. "..fluid loss." Jake finished. "You really should have been more thorough." He edged as they walked back to Paige.
"The sicko got off easy." Ali said, monotone. "Did any cops see us?"
"Don't think so." He put his arm around Ali's shoulder. A smile finally crept across her face.
Jake shook his head. Ali toed the fine red line between revenge and sadism, and even though whether she 'overreacted' depends on perspective, it's clear that Ali is willing lose control and to hurt people to protect her charges.
A strength and a weakness.
Ali was a beautiful monster.
And that scared Jake.