Chapter 13

            They made it through the town of Avon without incident.  They stopped at a truck stop, mostly so that Will and Jessie could use the phone.  Will dialed his mother's number first, but she had already gone to work.  There seemed little point in leaving a message on the machine or to call her at work.  She probably hadn't realized he was gone, at least not yet.  If he wasn't there when she came back, then she would raise bloody hell.

            Jessie took the receiver from him to call her parents.  "Hi Mom," she said.  "What?  No, I'm fine.  Janie and I were at the mall and now we're studying at her house.  I'm not sure when I'll be back—"

            Will left her to talk, retreating into the truck stop's diner, where he had left Tom.  His brother had used most of their little money to order himself a hamburger, fries, milk shake, and slice of apple pie.  He wolfed these down with the ravenous appetite of someone who hadn't tasted real food in four years.

            When Will reached the table, though, he found only empty plates and dirty utensils.  He thought at first Tom had simply gone back to the car, but he wasn't there either.  "Did you see Tom?" he asked Ricky.

            "No.  Isn't he with you?"

            "No."  Will shrugged.  "He probably just went to the bathroom."

            A search of the bathroom turned up only a trucker relieving himself at a urinal and another scribbling something on the wall of a stall.  Will hurriedly backed out of the room before he could find out what else the truckers did in there.

            In desperation, he went back to the pay phone.  Jessie was still talking to her mother.  "Mom, please, we have to study.  We have a really big paper due tomorrow.  All right.  Love you too."  She made an exasperated face as she hung up the phone.

            "Have you seen Tom?"

            "Isn't he still gorging himself?"

            "No.  He's not in the car either.  Or the bathroom."

            "You think he took off?"

            "What?  Where would he go?"

            "I don't know, but we'd better find him."

            They ran back to the car, Jessie explaining the situation to the stuffed toys.  "Stupid meatbags," Heather said.  "We've wasted so much time already."

            "It will be fine," Ricky said.  "He couldn't have gone far."

            They headed back in the direction they had come, Jessie explaining Tom would probably go that way to throw them off.  Her hunch proved correct, as they found him trudging along the side of the road about two miles from the truck stop.  Jessie pulled the Accord off the road to the shoulder in front of him.  She turned to Will.  "Go talk to him."

            "Me?"

            "You're his brother.  He'll listen to you."

            "He never has before.  Maybe you should use your feminine wiles on him."  Jessie looked ready to punch him as she'd done to the guard.  "I'm sorry."

            He climbed out of the car.  "Need a lift?" he called out to his brother.

            "No thanks, I'll find a ride."

            Will fell into step beside him.  "Where are you going?"

            "I don't know.  Maybe Canada.  There's plenty of room to hide up there like in the Yukon and all that.  I could build myself a cabin like we used to make out of Lincoln Logs when we were kids."

            "Your cabins always leaned," Will reminded him.

            "I'll make an igloo then."

            Will planted himself in front of Tom, finally bringing him to a halt.  "You can't leave now.  We've got to go help them."

            "Who, the stuffed toys?  Come on, be serious."

            "How can you still not believe after all that?"

            "I don't know what they are and I don't care.  All I know is I got to get the hell out of here while I can."

            "We promised to help them.  They need all three of us."

            "Why?  What's so special about the three of us?"

            "I don't know, but that's what they said."

            "Uh huh.  So you really think you're going to jump into this portal and be transported into some alternate universe?"

            "Maybe.  Why is so hard to believe that what we imagined could become real?"

            "Because this isn't Winnie the freaking Pooh, that's why.  And we're not little kids anymore.  We're too old for this crap."

            "Then why did you come this far?"

            Tom sneered at him.  "I came so I could get out of that hellhole.  Thank you and Jessie for busting me out of there, but now I've got to be on my way.  So why don't you get out of my way before I have to kick your ass?"

            Will stood his ground, folding his arms across his chest.  "You'll have to go through me."

            "Fine."  Tom pushed him to the ground.  Will landed on his rear on the gravel shoulder of the road.  He sat there dazed for a moment before scrambling to his feet.  He grabbed hold of Tom's arm to yank him backwards.  Tom spun around, a hand poised to lay Will out with a right cross.  "Let me go, Will."

            "No.  You go on and hit me.  Knock me out and then walk away.  Walk away from me and Ricky and Heather and the whole Bloc—and Jessie."

            Tom's eyes narrowed at this last name.  He dropped his hand to his side.  "All right, I'll come with you idiots, but only to make sure you don't get into any worse trouble."

            They walked in silence back to the car, Tom dropping into the passenger's side while Will took the backseat with the stuffed toys.  "So, you two have a good talk?" Jessie asked.

            "Just drive," Tom said.

#

            On the way back to Preston, Will and Jessie brought Tom up to speed on current events.  Not only on Earth, but in the Bloc as well.  Ricky chimed in from time to time, but didn't dare trigger a holographic projection in the Accord.  Tom listened to all of this with his arms crossed and staring out the windshield.

            "So where did these Black Ships come from?" he asked.

            "No one knows," Ricky said.

            "Well, if we created the universe and we didn't make them up, then how could they be there?"

            "That's something Dr. Ruff has been working on.  It's possible there might be another Creator out there."

            "How can that be?" Will asked.  "We didn't tell anyone else about the Bloc.  Did we?"

            "Don't look at me," Jessie said.  "I would have been too embarrassed."

            "Well it wasn't me," Tom said.  "We all pinkie swore to keep it a secret, remember?"

            "I didn't tell anyone," Will said.

            Tom turned to Jessie.  "Did you write about it in your diary or anything?  Maybe your mom saw it or your sister."

            "Megan wasn't even born yet.  And no, I didn't write about it in my diary."

            "What did you write about in your diary?"

            "That's none of your business."

            "Probably love notes about some boy."

            "Shut up!"

            "You probably wrote sonnets about you and Davy Pierce."

            "Davy Pierce?  The one who used to eat paste?  What kind of girl do you think I am?"  She held up a hand.  "Don't answer that."

            Will only half-listened to this exchange, focusing more on what Tom had brought up.  "Maybe it's something subconscious," he said.

            "Subconscious?  What do you mean?" Jessie asked.

            "Well, maybe one of us—or all of us—since we stopped believing in the game, maybe we subconsciously created the Black Ships to destroy it."

            "That's a bunch of crap," Tom said.

            "Hold on, Will might be on to something," Jessie said.  "These Black Ships might be a manifestation of our desire to break with our childhood, to grow up."

            "Sure, but why go to that much trouble?  Why not make it disappear?"

            "Maybe we don't have that much power," Will said.  "Maybe this universe has gone out of our control and taken a life of its own."  He turned to where Ricky sat on the center console.  "Couldn't there still be remnants of the Galactic Dominion that you didn't destroy?"

            "It's possible, but the Black Ships use technology far more advanced than anything the Dominion ever possessed."

            "They could have a mole in your operation, someone who gave them the technology," Jessie, the most devious of them, suggested.

            "You mean someone might have turned against the Bloc?  That's impossible."

            "Everyone has a price," Tom said.

            "No, I don't believe that.  The security in our labs is impregnable," Ricky said.

            "How do you know that?"

            "I created the safeguards myself with Dr. Ruff's help."

            "So maybe this Dr. Ruff is the traitor," Tom said.

            "That's not possible," Ricky insisted.  "Dr. Ruff's programming can't be compromised."

            "Programming?"  Will snapped his fingers.  "Right, he's an android.  I'd forgotten."

            "Can't you check his programming?" Jessie asked.

            "No one has the expertise—except Dr. Ruff."

            "Great, so I guess we're back at Square One," Jessie said.

            They continued discussing various theories the rest of the way back to Preston without coming up with anything that seemed probable.  In the end they had to decide that they would have to wait until they could get to the Bloc and find more answers.

            Jessie pulled onto their block and then braked sharply.  "Shit," she said.

            "What—" Will started to ask, but then saw the police cruiser in front of his house.