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.”
I crawled through the slit in the fence and started walking up to the building. Along the way, my voice got quieter. I knew some of the Defenders must be nearby, possibly already taking part in whatever weirdness Carl had in store.
I had thought a lot about what the endgame was, and, I’ll be honest, my dream was that it was some grand prize. Not, like, a new car or a million dollars, but some gift only the Carls could bestow. Immortality, my own spaceship, world peace. And there was a feeling inside of me that, if I didn’t get there, some ignorant, awful exophobe would be taking an all-expenses-paid trip to the Carl home world to show off how utterly awful humans are. I didn’t say any of this out loud, mostly because I knew it was a pipe dream to think anyone could ever guess what the Carls were up to. But also because I had made a pledge to myself to completely ignore that the Defenders even existed when speaking publicly.
Instead, I talked in low tones about how we solved the 767 Sequence and all the people who had helped—the accordion players, all the people who knew Mayan numerals, the engineers who had taught me about the inner workings of a modern 767. And, of course, Maya, whom I had decided to give credit to for helping me uncover the final clue. It was she who had told me to get into the mind of the Defenders, after all.
As I got closer to the warehouse, I noticed a human-sized door to the side of one of the giant loading-bay doors. It was hanging loosely; one of its hinges had been pulled out of the doorframe and a pile of clothes lay in front of it. That seemed like the simplest point of entrance, but also the most dangerous. Still, I felt time pressing on me, so I approached it. The clothes in front of the door looked dirty and wet. I was terrified. My heart was fluttering and I suddenly had to pee. Sneaking into an abandoned building is scary whether or not you’re alone and have been previously hunted. I believed and still believe that most of the Defenders wouldn’t hurt me physically, but I had seen already that most was not all. Then again, I had already started the livestream and the numbers were ticking up.
And then I smelled grape jelly. It was in the clothes, seeping around the entrance to the warehouse. Who had it been? Peter Petrawicki?
“Oh god,” I said, unable to control myself. I pointed the camera away as fast as I could. “I think . . . ,” I said, and then paused to calm myself. “I think someone tried to go inside but Carl didn’t want them to. I think . . . I think they died.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say more than that. I didn’t even want to think about it, so I was silent as I stared at the doorway, doing my best to not look down at the mess at my feet. Carl had zapped them the moment they tried to walk inside, and now it was my turn. But Carl had told me to come here, and trusting Carl was who I was now.
I did my best to tiptoe around the mess and into the warehouse.