An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(90)
Miranda wrote again, Are you going? If you’re going, just let us know.
But I didn’t think I’d been given a choice, or maybe I didn’t want to think I’d been given a choice. I finally felt fully comfortable with what I’d become. Did I know the Carls were good? No. I thought they were, I hoped they were, I felt they were. But I didn’t know. What I did know is that I’d chosen my side, and my side had chosen me.
My phone rang—it was Maya. I didn’t pick up.
Then it buzzed with a text: I plugged in the key, I saw what it said. You can’t go on your own.
I didn’t respond, but she didn’t stop.
April, maybe you can go on your own, but don’t do it right now. Let’s take some time.
But the Defenders were already on their way, who knows what mess they would cause. She didn’t give up: APRIL JUST CALL ME, TALK TO ME.
The phone rang again, I put it on mute. I was doing the thing I had to do, there wasn’t any point, but I did keep my eye on the three little dots that told me Maya was writing something to me. It finally came through as a wall of text.
You’re so caught up in this, you have no idea. To Miranda and Robin, you’re so much more than a person. They’ve never known an April May that wasn’t famous. Have either of them ever said no to anything you’ve ever told them to do? Listen to me, April. In those relationships, you have all the power. Too much power. I’ve watched you with them, they idolize you. That’s how fame works. It sucks. No one you meet from now on is ever again going to feel normal around you. Both of them feel like it’s a privilege just to be near you.
This is just something that happens, not something you did on purpose. But when they let you do these . . . frankly dangerous things, that doesn’t mean that they’re agreeing it’s a good idea. They just can’t say no to you. April, I hear you. But please trust me. Do not do this. I am telling you not to do this because I love you.
I read the whole thing through four or five times. Maya had never said “I love you” to me, she knew it would scare me off. Not responding felt like it would be one of the greatest betrayals I could commit. I didn’t respond.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Are you sure this is it?” the driver asked. I didn’t need to check my phone because I’d been studying this very spot on Google Street View on and off for the last thirty minutes. I’d even found a real estate listing. It’s a warehouse. It’s not currently occupied. It’s for lease. If you would like to lease it, that would run you around $15,000 per month. It was, it turned out, a pretty big warehouse.
“Yep! Thank you!”
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried that there was no sign of Peter Petrawicki and whatever camera crew would be following him around. Speaking of cameras, I didn’t have one. What I did have was two phones and my ever-present “just in case” external battery.
I thought for a long time about what Carl wanted. The message said “Only April,” but that seemed clearly about people’s physical presence. Carl usually seemed to want me to bring an audience with me wherever I went. And feeling certain that whatever was about to happen would be historic, I made a call that was both deeply foolish and genius.
I went full livestream.
Facebook’s system had gotten so good that it could handle pretty much infinite viewership these days. Worst-case scenario, I figured, I would crash it. Best-case scenario, I’d beat the record for the most-viewed stream of all time and share one of humanity’s greatest moments with the largest live audience in history.
“This is April May, and I am pleased to announce that I have solved the 767 Sequence. For those of you who haven’t been following, for a while now we’ve known that all of the Dream Sequences have been solved and that the world is awaiting the solution of one final sequence that only appeared in one dream.”
While saying all that, I walked from the curb up to a chained fence gate.
“I don’t know why I was the only one who had this dream, just as I don’t know why New York Carl saved me from Martin Bellacourt on July 13.”
I carefully kept the camera pointed at myself to minimize the clues of my location. The warehouse was big, three stories, made of wood, with large, mostly boarded-over windows and a few huge loading-bay doors. Wood lay strewn around the base of one of the walls. In between me and the door were both the fence and a parking lot that was being reclaimed by persistent little grasses.
“After solving the 767 Sequence, we were given a password, which, when inputted into the code generated from the rest of the Dream Sequences, directed me here. The Garden State. The message was very specific that I should come alone, so that is what I’ve done.”
I was poking at the fence now. It was capped with barbed wire, and the chain at the gate was tight and secure. I began walking along it, thinking aloud to what was now a massive audience about how I was going to get in.
But then, after I turned the corner, I spotted a cut in the fence. At this point, I decided to tell some truth. Not all of it or anything, but some.
“However, we received word, not long ago, that another group had decoded the sequence and that they were on their way here as well. This is why I have, I’ll be honest, rushed into this trip a bit. I promised some people that I wouldn’t do it like this, but as we can see here”—there were still bits of chain-link fence scattered around in the overgrown grass—“I am not the first here.”