The electrical shock had done something strange to Finn. He’d flickered between 2.0 and human sixty times in less than a second. It was like trying to restart an Xbox too quickly. The effect was nauseating, phenomenally painful, and dreamlike—ripe with hallucination. He felt something primal, something deep within him, change with this altered state. At first he thought he might die. Then he realized, no, he would live. But it was like he inhabited someone else’s body. Like he wasn’t himself. He felt bigger, stronger. He felt more in control than he’d ever felt in his life. He felt…
Dangerous.
He marched over to Tia Dalma, picked her up—breaking the woman’s hold on Willa—and cast her aside like an empty bag of luggage.
Philby.
“Finn?” Willa gasped. She obviously either saw or sensed something different in him as well. He didn’t have time to reflect on such nonsense.
“We must go,” he said, wondering who’d said it. It didn’t sound like his voice. “No,” he corrected, turning toward the fallen witch. He stomped over to her without the slightest tremor of fear or concern—who was he?—and took hold of her as she had held Willa, lifting her off her feet.
“Release my mother,” he said. He tightened his grip.
“Finn!”
“Release her, or I swear by all things holy I’ll snap your neck like a twig.” He eased Tia Dalma to the deck. “Right…now!” he said.
The sound of quick-moving feet on the steel-grate catwalks.
“Finn…”
Tia Dalma and Finn were locked in a staring contest. “Release her now…or I’ll kill you.” Was this him saying this? He’d never considered killing anything beyond a mosquito before. And yet…he knew he meant what he said.
And so, apparently, did Tia Dalma. She nodded. Her lips began moving silently.
“Any tricks, and they will be your last. You cannot harm me. You cannot reach me.” Again, he wondered who was speaking. Such confidence! Wayne had lectured him for years about leadership, about strength and courage and their differences. This new feeling he recognized as strength, unbending and willful.
Dangerous, he reminded himself.
He tightened his chokehold.
“Finn…” Willa’s voice. “They’re coming.”
“Do it!” he said, shaking Tia Dalma by her neck. She fought to nod.
“It’s…done…” she gasped. “Undone.”
He dropped her like a stone. “You have had your time,” he said, quoting her. “And just FYI: cicadas are commonly eaten by birds or wasps. They don’t last more than three to four weeks.” He showed Willa the thumb drive in his hand. “Let’s go,” he said.
Out they went, into the roar of the motors and generators, out into the harsh emergency lighting that cast shadows as they ran. They turned toward the ship’s bow, hearing the scurrying scratching of paws on metal behind them, like a dog that missed its turn on a hardwood floor. Sliding. Colliding.
It must have been the change in lighting, Finn thought. That or the sound of the paws. Or maybe it was this steroidlike, super-size, pumped-up pressurization that created this sense of invincibility within him. But he knew now why he’d earlier sensed a familiarity to it all.
The jump. Or future sight. Or whatever had happened to him after he and Willa had witnessed the theft of the journal. He’d been here: right here. The hyenas after them in the factory. But it wasn’t a factory—it was the engine deck of the Dream, and they were reliving it now.
Reliving it for real this time.
The hyenas struggled with the ladderway, leaping and slipping, buying Willa and Finn a precious lead they did not squander.
“My mother’s safe!” Finn shouted.
“The server’s dead, and the OTKs down—at least for the moment,” she hollered back.
They reached I-95—the crew hallway—and headed for the doors to the ship stairs. So early in the morning, the hallway was empty—that is, until four drooling hyenas appeared behind them.
“Run!” Willa said, switching on the afterburners and leading Finn by five strides. Finn too dialed up a higher gear, catching her effortlessly and pulling ahead. He reached and held the door for her.
“What was that?” Willa panted, fleeing past him.
Finn smiled, ducked through the doors.
“Here!” she said, indicating a piece of furniture along the wall. “We can block…” She grunted as Finn reached the other side of it. “Darn it!” she said. “It’s bolted to…”
Finn tore it from the wall effortlessly. The bolts pulled through the wood, leaving torn holes. He paused and looked down at his own two arms, not believing he’d done this.