“So,” Caine said conversationally, “I hear you’re not a big fan of my brother, Sam.”
“The FAYZ is for humans,” Zil muttered. “Not freaks.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Caine said. For a moment he seemed to fade, to draw in on himself. Weak from hunger. Or from something else. But then the freak pulled himself together and, with visible effort, plastered on his cocky expression.
“I have a plan,” Caine said. “It involves you.”
Turk, showing more nerve than Zil would have expected, said, “The Leader makes the plans.”
“Uh-huh. Well, Leader Zil,” Caine said with only minimal sarcasm. “You’re going to like this plan. It ends with you being in total control of Perdido Beach.”
Zil sat back in the recliner. He tried to recover some of his dignity. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“Good,” Caine said. “I need some boats.”
“Boats?” Zil repeated cautiously. “Why?”
“I kind of feel like taking an ocean cruise,” Caine said.
Sam went home for lunch. Home being Astrid’s house. He still thought of it that way, as hers not his.
Actually her own house had been burned to the ground by Drake Merwin. But she seemed to take ownership of whatever house she was in. This house was home to Astrid and her brother, Little Pete, Mary and her brother, John Terrafino, and Sam. But in everybody’s mind it was Astrid’s house.
Astrid was in the backyard when he got there. Little Pete sat on the deck steps playing with a dead handheld game player. Batteries were in very short supply. At first Astrid and Sam, both of whom knew the truth about Little Pete, were scared. No one knew what Little Pete might do if he went into a complete meltdown, and one of the few things that kept Little Pete pacified was his game.
But to Sam’s surprise, the strange little boy had adapted in the oddest way imaginable: he just kept playing. Sam had looked over his shoulder and seen a blank, black screen. But there was no knowing what Little Pete saw there.
Little Pete was severely autistic. He lived in a world of his own imagining, unresponsive, only rarely speaking.
He was also far and away the most powerful person in the FAYZ. This fact was a secret, more or less. Some suspected a part of the truth. But only a few—Sam, Astrid, Edilio—really grasped the fact that Little Pete had, to some degree, at least, created the FAYZ.
Astrid was stoking a small fire in a hibachi set atop a picnic table. She had a fire extinguisher close at hand. One of the very few that had survived—kids had found them a lot of fun to play with in the early weeks of the FAYZ.
From the smell, Sam concluded she was cooking a fish.
Astrid heard him but did not look up as he approached. “I don’t want to have a fight,” she said.
“Me neither,” he said.
She poked at the fish with a fork. It smelled delicious, although it didn’t look too good.
“Get a plate,” Astrid said. “Have some fish.”
“That’s okay, I’m—”
“I can’t believe you lied to me,” she snapped, still poking at the fish.
“I thought you didn’t want a fight?”
Astrid shoveled the mostly cooked fish onto a serving dish and set it aside. “You weren’t going to tell us about Orsay?”
“I didn’t say I—”
“You don’t get to decide that, Sam. You’re not the only one in charge anymore. Okay?”
Astrid had an icy sort of anger. A cold fury that manifested itself in tight lips and blazing eyes and short, carefully enunciated sentences.
“But it’s okay for all of us to lie to everyone in Perdido Beach?” Sam shot back.