An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(96)

“You guys. I’m sorry. I’m going to leave it at that.”

And then I hung up to call Andy.

“Are you OK?” he answered.

“No, is anything happening yet?”

“No, April . . .”

“I know, Andy. There’s nothing you could have done. I know that you’re going to be mad at me forever, and that’s OK, but don’t be mad at yourself forever. You were right, and no one could have stopped me.”

“Don’t fucking give up, April.” His voice was shaking.

“I’m not going to,” I gasped, and then Andy shouted in what sounded like shock or fright.

“Are you OK?” I said.

“It’s the hand . . .” And then there was a loud pop.

A fraction of a second later, from above me came a thundering crack. The roar of the fire had been a constant weight on my mind, but this dwarfed that noise. I looked up, still somehow thinking maybe . . . maybe now I would be saved. Through the veil of smoke above came a rushing tumult of fire and wood.

And this is the part you might really want to skip if you don’t want the gore because a burning wood beam, probably several thousand pounds, fell through the space that was also occupied by my head. It entered just above my hairline on the right side. It hit with so much force that it didn’t even knock me out of the way. It slid through me like a knife dropped into a glass of water.

The beam broke through my skull, taking a small hunk of brain.

Then it tore off the right side of my face.

It missed my torso by inches, and then slammed into my right leg just above the ankle. Those things hurt more than anything I had ever experienced. But then, as the flame expanded and the skin of my bare torso began to cook, I learned that it could get worse.

I remained conscious for a few terrible seconds after this, so I had a little bit of time to finally and without a doubt understand that I was going to die.

I understood it, but there was no acceptance in that understanding, only bitterness, terror, frustration, and hatred piled on top of the pain. I screamed and then it was all gone.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


I was in the lobby where you arrive in the Dream. That slick, modern office building. Carpet tiles, familiar music, reception desk, all of it exactly the same. Except at the desk, instead of the sleek little robot, stood Carl. I’d gotten used to seeing him with just one hand, so the fact that he had two stood out. His helmeted head almost scraped the ceiling. He was menacing, maybe because my mind was expecting danger, maybe because I had just watched my body get ripped apart, maybe because Carl had torn my world open and I knew it could never be put back together again or because so many people had died on July 13 and I wasn’t one of them.

Maybe it was just because Carl was actually pretty scary-looking.

I looked down at myself, afraid of the burns and wounds I expected to see, but it was just me. I was wearing a silk blouse and a tight black skirt, like I was about to go to a nine-to-five at some corporate PR company.

“Carl?” I said.

“Your body is very badly damaged.” That tremendous suit of armor didn’t move, but the voice was clearly coming from it. It was a loud, clear tenor. If I had to guess gender, I would say male, but I’m glad I didn’t have to guess. The voice bounced around the hard walls of the office.

“So, then I’m not . . . dead?” I was surprised.

“Not this moment.”

That wasn’t super comforting. I wanted to follow the logical course of the conversation, to find out what had happened and what was going to happen now, but I also was talking to Carl, and I had been imagining this moment for so long that I just skipped ahead and blurted out, “Why did you come here?”

“Three questions.”

“What?”

“It is a tradition in your stories. Also, your body will likely not keep working for long without intervention.” That certainly raised a question, but I wasn’t taking the bait.

“Why did you come here?” I repeated.

“To observe.” I waited for more, because, I mean, that had been my guess all along and it was a bit unsatisfying.

“Can you elaborate on that? Or does that count as another question? Does that count as another question?” And then, since I am so good at First Contact scenarios, I concluded in a frustrated whisper, “. . . Crapballs.”

If Carl reacted to my mini freak-out, he did so internally.

“We had to see how you react to us. There was no way to know without contact. This is the beginning of a process.” And then, to save me from my fear that I’d used all my questions, he said, “You have two more questions.”

I wanted to ask very much what that process was. Had they been through this before? Were we dangerous? Were we being studied like ants? Like wild gorillas? Or like fungus?

But I had a more pressing debate happening in my mind. I wanted so badly to ask about myself, about why I had been singled out and saved so many times. But while epiphanies are temporary, I had learned this lesson too many times too recently. As much as this was about me, it was also about more than me.

“How do we measure up?” I asked, seriously, and with conviction.

“I don’t understand,” Carl said.

“You came to observe us, to test our reactions. Did we pass your tests?”