The Young World Read online

  But so much for that. She has me dead to rights, down to the little red laser point on my chest.

  “Put down the sword and the gun,” she says in a clear, confident voice.

  I hesitate. “But—”

  “But what?” she snaps.

  “But then I’d be defenseless,” I say.

  She smiles a crooked smile. Something about her looks familiar. “You’re bright. Put them down.”

  I lean down and put the gun and the sword on the ground. Of course I have a fantasy about somehow throwing the wakizashi and skewering her in an uncanny burst of dexterity, but it seems pretty unlikely.

  Plus, weirdly, the idea of just wasting this beautiful girl seems wrong.

  This mental scruple puts me at a hell of a disadvantage. I should just see her as a threat, same as everyone else, but it’s hard to shake this kind of prejudice.

  I can practically see Donna facepalming.

  “Take two steps forward and stop,” she says. So I do.

  Now the weapons are behind me, and she’s still a good ten feet away. I try to calculate how many shots she could get off before I get to her. Enough.

  We stand there as she eyes me up and down.

  “Well,” I say, “do what you’re going to do.”

  “Where are the others?” she says.

  “What others?”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” she says. “I know you’re running with four others. Two bitch—” She catches herself. “Two girls and two boys. And the Mole. Are they hiding back there?” She looks into the shadows. “I’m going to kill your boy if you try anything!”

  “We were separated,” I say.

  She blinks. “Bad news for them.”

  “They’re doing better than I am,” I say.

  “Naw. You’re lucky.” She blows a stray lock away from her eyes. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s make a deal.”

  “Huh?”

  “I save your ass from my—from the Uptowners. In return, you let me join your tribe.”

  “What tribe would that be?” I ask.

  “Washington Square, of course.”

  “How do you know that?” The question sits there. Then I add, “I can’t make a deal like that.”

  “Why not?” she says. “I thought you were the boss.”

  I recognize her. It’s the girl who was with the Uptowners when they tried to trade us the pig. The girl they wanted to use to convince people everything was cool.

  And I can see the bruise that was covered up before, just above her mouth on the left side.

  “What’re you doing?” she says.

  “What do you mean?” I say.

  “Are you eyeballing me? Are you checking me out?”

  “No!” I say, even though the question is kind of ridiculous under the circumstances, and even though I had been checking her out only a moment before.

  “Jesus,” she says. “Boys.”

  The red dot skips off my body for just a moment, and I move. I’m on her before she can get a shot, my left hand around her wrist. I figure if I can get the gun from her, I can get away, go back, and find the others.

  She wraps a leg around mine, jams an elbow into my windpipe, and brings her head down on my nose with a thud. My eyes sting; my ears crackle. I won’t let go of her wrist, though, and she pulls the trigger, firing into the darkness. Still, I don’t let go.

  She’s stronger than she looks, and it’s a stalemate for a while. The only sounds are our raspy breathing and the growls in the back of our throats as we struggle for position.

  Then, suddenly, her mouth is on mine.

  Which is unexpected.

  I don’t know if she’s biting me or kissing me for a second, and then I realize, the latter.

  Our bodies are still fighting, but our mouths are kissing. I don’t know how this happened.

  Her leg is still wrapped around mine, but in a different way, somehow. Meanwhile our hands are still at war, but as they start to get reports from other parts, they slack off. With a clatter the gun falls to the platform, and now our hands grip each other like fighting octopi.

  Her other hand wanders down my back, coming to rest on my tailbone. And mine is on hers. And we mash into each other.

  I remember once I was despairing of ever getting any action and Washington said that you never knew when things like this were going to happen, and that it went down exactly when you thought it was the last thing possible. But this is kind of ridiculous.

  So I’m making out with the girl who was about to shoot me. And, okay, I don’t have much to compare it to, but it’s amazing. Like eating when you’re incredibly hungry, like cold soda on a hot day. I feel her little stomach heaving against mine, her tongue, the arc of her back, her feet pressing against my legs.

  A little voice asks, What about Donna? But after a while, it shuts up.

  She didn’t care anyway.

  CHAPTER 28

  HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? You wander for years with a great guy right under your nose, and then when you realize you’re nuts about him, there’s a gun battle and you’re driven apart by bloodthirsty enemies?

  Are you with me, ladies?

  Yeah.

  After what seems like forever, which was probably an hour or so, we stop for a rest.

  I make a compartment for what happened—the screaming and running and crying—and put it all in there. Now for what matters. Jefferson.

  Useless thoughts infiltrate and set up shop. If I had woken him up last night and told him what I was feeling, maybe he would have been with me when the attack came, maybe he would have stuck closer, and we wouldn’t have been separated, and I wouldn’t have lost him.

  I push the thought away, but you can’t, really, can you? I mean, that’s just a metaphor, just another like. Thoughts aren’t really like people coming to bother you, and minds don’t have doors that you can close on them. Thoughts are more like water, or wind, or the smell of something burning; they find a crack to get through.

  Jefferson, I was right. It was a bad idea to try to fix the world. And now you’re somewhere out there in the dark, alone.

  But I’ll come find you and protect you.

  We’re huddling in the middle of the tracks, which would be, like, dangerous if there were trains. Now it’s as safe as it gets. Miraculously, I have the rest of my peeps with me. As for the Moles, the ones who weren’t caught or killed have disappeared into the dark, which probably says a lot about our chances.

  We’ve prodded our way forward a couple of times only to find the way blocked by the Uptowners, like they were waiting for us, driving us toward something. Like we’re surrounded.

  Me: “Anybody know where we are?”

  Everybody shakes their head except for Brainbox, who says, “We’re on the E line below Fifty-Third, two hundred yards west of Fifth Avenue.”

  Me: “Is that a rough approximation?”

  Brainbox: “No.”

  Peter: “Not to sound, like, concerned or anything, but what the hell are we going to do?”

  SeeThrough: “Uptowners everywhere.”

  Me: “I noticed.”

  Peter: “Aren’t there manholes we can get out of? Maintenance stuff?”

  Brainbox: “Different system. You’re thinking of electricity and steam.”

  Me: “Okay, so how do we get out, exactly?”

  Brainbox: “There’s a disused line from Fifty-Seventh and Seventh to the Sixty-Third and Lexington stop.”

  Me: “Everything’s disused. The whole world is disused.”

  Disused, diseased.

  Brainbox: “What I mean is that they didn’t use it for passenger trains. Maybe the Uptowners don’t know about it. It connects with the line they were building up Second Avenue.”

  Me: “How do you know about it?”

  Brainbox: “While you were doing karaoke, I was learning about tunnels from the Moles.”

  Me: “Okay, so we find Jefferson and get out via the secret tunnel, right?”

/>   The others sort of avoid my eyes, like, Let’s not tell her that the goldfish died. Except they can’t just go to the pet store and buy a new Jefferson while I’m away at school.

  Me: “What?”

  Peter: “I’m willing to do that, honey. You know I am. Just… how do we know he made it?”

  Brainbox: “He’s probably dead.”

  Me: “Jesus, Brainbox! What’s wrong with you? Jefferson wouldn’t count you out like that!”

  Brainbox: “I didn’t say I was happy about it. Just that he was probably dead.”

  Brainbox is right, of course. In principle. He continues, “Besides which, even if he’s alive, don’t you think he’d be in a better position to know what to do for himself? He might be up and out of the tunnels by now.”

  SeeThrough: “I’ll go with you.” She looks at the others. She pushes Brainbox. “Idiot! Donna likes Jeff. If you were out here alone, you’d want me to come get you.”

  Brainbox: “I do want to get him. I was just pointing out that he’s probably—”

  Me: “Okay, okay. I get it.”

  Brainbox: “Which makes it not the best decision.”

  Me: “Yeah, but I’m the boss now. So what I say goes.”

  Peter: “Uh, Donna? I’m down with this, but who made you boss?”

  Me: “I did. Unless somebody else wants to take responsibility.”

  Nobody else does.

  We eat a quick meal, some packets of tuna, some canned beans, which, fortunately enough, have lids you can open just with your hands. Beats cutting your way in with a knife, though the sound of the aluminum top tearing free still seems to ring through the tunnels like a violin note.

  We creep back the way we came, figuring maybe the Uptowners have given up and Jefferson might be hiding back there.

  We come to a fork in the tunnel that we hadn’t seen when we were hauling ass away from the Moles’ place. We take one and stumble farther through the darkness.

  This isn’t “the dark” of your room at night. That was in a world of windows and streetlamps and office buildings lit up at night, and the LEDs of clocks and the standby lights of speakers and TVs. Little voices of electromagnetic radiation speaking to your eyes even when they were closed. And it’s not vacation darkness, in the twittering of the stars and the pale glossy moon. This is earth darkness. Thousands of tons of dirt between you and the sun, lightbulbs dead, the air swallowing up life. If it weren’t for the others being here, I would be full-on Paranormal Activity freaking out up in this bitch.

  I think of Jefferson alone out there, and my heart hurts.

  And that’s why I fire on the shapes in the distance.

  Because I think Jefferson’s alone. After about a half hour of stumbling around, we hear the sneezy sound of a handgun going off. We track the sound around some bends and up onto a platform.

  When we make something out, we hit the dirt, or the metal, as I do, bruising my hip. Alerted, two shapes kind of straighten up like prairie dogs, and I line one of them up in my sights as best I can.

  I figure the Moles would be smart enough to stick to the walls. I figure it can’t be Jefferson.

  So it’s good that I miss, because after some pointless shots back and forth, which serve to scare the crap out of all of us, I hear a familiar voice.

  Jefferson: “Donna?”

  Me: “Jefferson! Are you okay?”

  Jefferson: “I’ll be fine if you stop shooting at me.”

  Me: “Who’s that with you?”

  Jefferson: “Long story. I’m getting up, okay? Don’t kill me.”

  And it is Jefferson. Of course, I mean, maybe in some story it would be, like, a shape-shifter who copied his body or whatever, but obviously it’s him, and the relief floods over me.

  I get up. Cross the distance between us and hug him to me hard, and I notice just a teensy little bit of reserve, just a few pounds per square inch less pressure than I’m giving him, and then I tell myself not to be so insecure and persnickety.

  Over his shoulder, I see some blond chick.

  I don’t say Who the hell is this? but I sure think it pretty loud.

  Jefferson: “This is Kath. Kath, this is my friend Donna.”

  Blond Chick: “Hey.”

  Me: “Hey.”

  I put just the right degree of coolness into “hey” so that she’s on notice.

  Pause.

  Me: “So, Kath, what brings you to the subway tunnels?”

  Jefferson: “She says the Uptowners are after us.”

  Peter: “We know that.”

  Blond Chick: “They’re waiting for you. All the tunnels across the East River, all the ways downtown.”

  Shit.

  Brainbox: “What about the line at Sixty-Third?”

  Me: “Shut up, will you?”

  Jefferson: “We can trust her.”

  Me: “Okay, uh, why?”

  Jefferson gives her, like, a significant look.

  Jefferson: “Tell them.”

  Blond Chick: “I’ll lead you out of here. If you take me with you.”

  Peter: “Oh? Where do you think we’re going?”

  Blond Chick: “I don’t care. Away from here.”

  Me: “And what if we say no?”

  She shrugs. “Then we’re all dead.”

  Jefferson: “We’ve already said yes. I’ve already said yes. We need help to get out of here.”

  Me: “So what’s your angle? You some kind of, like, political refugee or something?” I look Kath up and down. Golden hair, bee-stung lips, nice boobs.

  Big trouble for little Donna.

  Tits McGee: “I have good reasons to leave Uptown.”

  Me: “Like what?”

  She loses her poise for a nanosecond. Then: “Do you know anything about what happens up here?”

  Yeah. The Twins told us plenty.

  Me: “Fine. Fine, Generalissimo.” I try to look through Jefferson’s eyes into his brainpan.

  I can’t tell what’s going on. Is he being smart, or is he rescuing princesses?

  Me: “But I’ll take her gun.” I walk right up to her and hold my hand out. She doesn’t go for it, which leaves us in a bit of a macho standoff.

  Tits McGee: “You’re smoking crack.”

  Me: “You’re smoking crack.” Not, like, dazzling repartee or whatever, but the chick has spoiled my composure.

  SeeThrough: “Stop smoking crack!”

  Jefferson: “Give it to her, Kath.”

  She shoots him a look. Then shrugs and hands me her gun.

  I slip it into my waistband against the small of my back. Which is kind of a cool-looking move, except that the cold metal on my butt gives me the shivers, and I’m worried about shooting myself in the ass accidentally. I try to carry it off as best I can.

  McGee: “Fine. Let’s get out of here.”

  Brainbox: “The Sixty-Third Street—”

  She straight-up shuts Brainbox down. “Forget it. We—they found the spare tunnel ages ago. Our only chance is Fifty-Ninth and Fifth.”

  Me: “Our only chance? What’s so special about Fifty-Ninth and Fifth?”

  McGee: “What’s so special is that I’m supposed to be guarding it.”

  So, perfect. We’re trapped like rats, and our only hope is Little Miss Benedict Arnold.

  Her bright idea is to pop up at Fifty-Ninth and Fifth and make our way into Central Park. The park. Which the Uptowners don’t control. Which makes sense, because it’s full of wild animals.

  I guess it beats being massacred in the subway. But not by much.

  There isn’t time to hold out for the perfect plan. We’re running out of darkness above, according to the Hello Kitty Limited Edition Military Chronometer. Without the cover of the nighttime, they could have us dead to rights aboveground, and we can’t afford to wait the day out down here. Too many people on our tails, too much risk.

  So, Tits McGee leads us uptown, explaining on the way that she was some kind of high-ranking ho-bag or something
, which is why she was trusted with a gun. She and some dude were assigned to a subway exit. She’s going to lull this guard into a false sense of security or whatever. At which point, we knock him out. Then we leg it into the park.

  Which sounds awesome, except for one thing? It’s really hard to just knock somebody out. I know in movies and stuff, you just bop somebody on the head and they collapse into a heap, and then later they wake up with a mild headache.

  In fact, the line between knocking someone out and smashing their head open like a melon, scattering their brains everywhere, is pretty thin. Even if you do pull it off and conk somebody on the head just so, odds are that the conkee is going to suffer from intracranial bleeding and concussion, and maybe slip into a coma. Which, I know they’re after us and everything, but still. It’s hard to stop being Dr. Donna, Medicine Woman.

  I argue that we should take the guy hostage and do the old tie-’em-up-and-gag-’em routine, only this time we make sure they can’t get out as easily as Cheekbones did. There’s some controversy about this, but I say I’ll handle the prisoner taking.

  We head east for a few hundred yards, then turn north. Up a couple of narrow stairways—Brainbox says we’re skipping from the E to the F lines even though the tracks didn’t used to connect. At one point we hear voices from above, and we hunker down and try not to soil ourselves. Then the voices fade.

  I make sure I’m behind McGee, so I can put a bullet in her brain if she screws us over. Just sayin’.

  Before long, we approach a platform. It’s not as crapped-on as your usual subway stop. The white tiles are still shiny, and the Roman mosaic thing saying TO 59TH STREET in little stone pixels is clean. McGee says the guard is up on street level.

  There are three exits farther up, on Sixtieth, but they’re across the street from the park. The closest way out, a big stairway that forks into two smaller ones, is up against the park border; if we get up to the street, it’s just a quick jump over the wall and we’re in the cover of the trees.

  Kath says she’ll go up one branch of the stairway and distract the guard. I’m supposed to sneak up the other side, rock up behind him, and take him prisoner. Very eighties TV.