Touching Darkness

"Whoa." Dess nodded slowly, as if stunned by the revelation. Jessica got the same uncomfortable feeling she'd had at Rex's house on Sunday - she'd never felt rich before coming to Bixby.



She picked up the soldering iron to escape the awkward moment. "So this is where the magic happens, huh?"



"Yeah." Dess smiled. "You know, Rex and Melissa blew all their weapons the other night, and I'm supposed to make more. You know how to solder?"



Jessica shook her head. When she'd first fallen into the secret hour, the three of them had given her a crash course on metals and tridecalogisms, mindcasting, and antidarkling numbers. But she didn't really know how the angles of a thirteen-pointed star warded off slithers, or which alloys the darklings were most scared of, or what made a weapon powerful other than its name.



Maybe it was about time she learned more about how this stuff really worked.



"Not a clue. Show me."



They had worked all afternoon, absorbed in the smell of solder and tungsten, ignoring the sounds of Dess's parents coming home. Her mother had finally knocked on the door to call them to dinner, and they'd eaten quickly and in silence while Dess's father steadily drank beer and watched the living room TV over Jessica's shoulder. She could feel Dess wanting to get back into her room, back into the safe space of numbers and constructions that she had assembled out of the junk around her.



But as she ate, Jessica began to notice Dess's touches in the rest of the house. The lights all had dimmer switches, there were extra phone jacks and electrical sockets in every room, and the kitchen windows were colored with stained glass in beautiful antidarkling patterns. After dinner Dess's father had asked about the latest credit card bill, and she'd launched into a long explanation about transferred balances and how they wouldn't have to pay for another month.



He smiled and said, "That's my girl."



Dess beamed for a moment, as proud as a kid with straight A's. And then the parentals had gone to bed incredibly early.



"They work Saturdays," Dess explained.



"My mom does too."



Then they'd hit the soldering irons again, the room silent save for the hiss of metal melting. Rex called at about nine to make sure everything was in readiness, but Jessica was so engrossed she hardly listened. The shield for Jonathan was slowly taking shape, its decoration forming a pattern that had seeped into her mind over the slow repetition of tiny marks. Even the base-sixty thing didn't give her a headache anymore, as long as she didn't think too hard about it.



She was lost in the numbers when, about an hour later, the phone rang again.



"Jeez, Rex, wake up my parents," Dess answered, then a puzzled look came over her face. "Melissa...?"



There was a long pause, and Jessica could hear the girl's voice from the other end, frantic and stumbling as she rushed through some story.



It didn't sound at all like Melissa.



"Okay, we will. See you soon." Dess hung up the phone, dumbstruck.



Jessica leaned back from her soldering iron, eyes stinging from the smoke. "Who was that?"



"Melissa. You've got to call Jonathan. Tell him to get his ass over here now." Dess thrust the phone toward her. "Oh, man."



"What happened?"



Dess shook her head, as if unable to believe her words: "Rex is gone."



"Gone where?"



"Taken. His house was broken into, and he's gone. And he left a message for Melissa: they got him." She shoved the phone firmly into Jessica's hand. "Call Jonathan. We need him now. Melissa was at a pay phone. She's already halfway here."



"But who - ?"



"Call Flyboy!"



Jessica looked at the phone, the base-ten numerals on its buttons momentarily mysterious to her. She dialed Jonathan's number with trembling fingers.



He answered after one ring.



"Come to Dess's... quick. Rex is gone."



"Jessica? Gone where?"



"Kidnapped." She looked up into Dess's wide eyes for confirmation and found her stunned gaze returned.



"Rex was kidnapped? By who?"



"Just come here. Fast. I need you. Please..."



"Okay. I'll be there as fast as I can." He hung up.



"Lovelace," Dess was muttering. "Lovelace. Listen, Jessica? You've got to do something for me when Melissa gets here."



Jessica stared at the silent phone, unable to think. "Do Something?"



Dess took her shoulders and spoke slowly and carefully. "You have to tell her. They took Rex out to the desert, to where the runway's being built. That's the only place they can change him. We need to get out there and find him before midnight. Can you tell Melissa that?"



Jessica swallowed. "Sure. But where are you going?



"Nowhere," Dess said. "I'll be right here. But you have to remember. You have to tell her."



"Why? I mean, Melissa will listen to you more than she will me. She doesn't even like me. And you're the one who knows about maps and stuff."



Dess closed her eyes, her right thumbnail between her teeth. "But I won't remember."



"What?"



"I can't remember, or Melissa will find out..." Dess shook her head and muttered, "Crap! I can't tell you either, she'll taste it in your head. This is not going to work." She started swearing, a muttering rant in low, even tones.



"Dess, what's happening? What's wrong with you?"



"There's something in my head, something I have to hide from Melissa. But I'm pretty sure I know where Rex is, okay? He'll be somewhere on the runway site. That's where they make halflings, so they'll take him there. That's why the darklings don't want the runway built. It'll run straight through the place where they make halflings!"



Jessica felt nausea rising in her at the thought of Rex transformed. At least the darklings had only tried to kill her, not turn her into something inhuman. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again to clear the picture from her mind. "How do you know this, Dess?"



"I can't tell you, or Melissa will see it in your mind. She can't know where I got the information, understand?"



"Uh,no."



"Listen, the darklings feel Melissa more than they do the rest of us, Jess. We have to keep this secret from her. Okay?"



"What secret?"



Dess pulled away, her hands shaking. "Earth to Jessica if I tell you, it won't be a secret."



Jessica groaned and sat on the bed with her head in her hands. Dess had lost it. If Rex's disappearance was freaking her out this bad, Melissa was going to be a basket case. Jessica wished that Jonathan were here already, but he was miles away, all the way on the other side of town.



"Listen," Dess said, her voice under control again, "this is just like the base-sixty thing. You don't have to understand it, you just have to do what I say." She grabbed a piece of paper and quickly sketched the runway, each end marked with rows of numbers that spilled from the pencil. "Just tell me to take you to the runway. I'll still know where it is because you showed me the map; she didn't."



"She who?" Jessica asked. "Melissa?"



"No. Someone else." Dess wrote REX in huge letters across paper and thrust it at Jessica. "Tell Melissa I drew this, and I agree with you because it's true... I think."



"You think it's true that you drew this?" Jessica asked, the paper slipping from her hands.



"No, I think I'll know that I... because I'll remember drawing this... Oh, screw it. Just tell her to drive us to the runway!"



Jessica lifted the paper from the bed and stared at it, mysterious numbers and all. Dess was going nuts without Rex around, and Melissa had sounded just as bad.



Jessica took a deep breath, trying to recall the sensation she'd gotten from wielding Demonstration against the darklings, the power flowing through her. She had taken a lot on faith since arriving in Bixby - trusting rows of thirteen thumbtacks to protect her, believing in a history that wasn't in her textbooks, banking on a flashlight to save her life. But so far, she'd survived.



She had to trust Dess now, even if the girl wasn't making any sense.



"Okay," Jessica said in a calm, firm voice. "I'll tell Melissa we're going to the runway. Because you said so."



"Great. Good."



"In the meantime let's finish these weapons, okay? We might need them." Anything to keep Dess occupied until Melissa got here.



"Sure. Just one more thing..."



"What?"



Dess stared at Jessica, her eyes bright with panic. "Don't think about this conversation when she gets here. Don't let Melissa taste anything I've been saying to you. If she knows, the darklings will know. Just... don't... think about it."



"Sure thing." Jessica nodded slowly and turned to the shield again. The darklings will know what? As Jessica worked to finish the shield, she wondered how you didn't think about something, how you kept it from your mind without it being in your mind in the first place that you weren't supposed to have it in your mind...



Thinking like this was far worse than base sixty.



Jessica was still busy not thinking about the thing she wasn't supposed to think about when Melissa's car slid to a stop outside.



28



10:44 p.m.



TARANTULAS



"Ada," Dess said softly, and felt the door shut.



The knowledge slid from her mind, but with Melissa outside waiting, the transition wasn't clean. Though memories faded, the anxiety that filled Dess didn't disappear but was cast adrift. Her brain felt disjointed, full of unresolved worry, plagued by loose ends of uncertainty and fear.



"What the hell?" she muttered.



"She's here," Jessica said, lifting Jonathan's shield. "I'm done. You?"



Dess looked down at the bench before her, at the pile of throwing disks made from paint-can lids marked with high multiples of thirteen in Phoenician.



"Uh, yeah," she said blankly. Why did she feel this way, so worried and strung out? Oh, right, duh: Rex was missing. The groupies had got him and he was darkling meat unless they found him by midnight. Dess blinked, wondering why her head wouldn't clear.



Man, she thought, I get way too caught up in work sometimes. No wonder half the geniuses in the history of mathematics couldn't tie their own shoes.



She started shoving weapons into her duffel bag. "Let's move before she starts honking and wakes up my parents."



"We're going to wait for Jonathan, right?"



"Sure." Dess snorted. "But you get to explain that to Melissa."



Jessica scowled. "So I get to explain everything, huh?"



Dess glanced at Jessica. What the hell was she talking about?



They swept the finished weaponry into the duffel bag, and Dess dropped Geostationary into her pocket. She'd opened the window and was halfway out when Melissa let off a long blast of her horn. The barking of angry mutts spread across the trailer park like a fire in a dry field.



"Thanks, Melissa," Dess muttered. At least it was Friday night, and her parents would be expecting to get woken up a few times. There were always fights and loud music in the trailer park during the witching hours.



They ran, duffel bag clanking, across the front lawn to the old Ford, threw open the door, and piled into the back. It took a moment for Dess to realize that the front seat next to Melissa was empty.



Of course - Rex always rode shotgun.



She swallowed. Outside of rare glimpses in the school hall, she couldn't remember ever seeing Melissa without Rex by her side.



The mindcaster's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Without looking back, she said in a small, anguished voice, "What do we do now?"



Dess paused. Where the hell would the darkling groupies take Rex, anyway? Back to Broken Arrow? She squirmed in the seat, trying to shift the duffel bag. One of the poles from her dad's tent, Daughterboard, was jabbing into her stomach, and she still couldn't think straight.



"Okay," Jessica said, all cool and collected, "Dess thinks that they'll take Rex out into the desert. To where the runway's going to be."



"I do?" Dess asked.



Jessica shot her an annoyed look. "Yes, you do. That's why the darklings are afraid of the runway, remember? It's going to steamroll the spot where they make halflings." She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and thrust it at Dess.



"Oh, yeah. This." She remembered drawing the map based on the stuff Jessica had borrowed from her mother. But would the darkling groupies really take Rex there?



"Maybe..." Melissa's voice came from in front. Her forehead rested against the steering wheel. "The runway was in Angie's head, and it seemed like it had something to do with the halfling." She put the car in gear.



"Hang on!" Jessica cried. "We have to wait for Jonathan."



Melissa thumped her palms against the steering wheel. "We can't wait. I can't just sit here doing nothing."



"He'll be here in ten minutes."



"So what? He's useless!"



"What?"



"He can't fly until midnight," Melissa said. "And we've got to find Rex before then."



The car started to move.



"Wait!" Jessica yelled. "He's not useless!" She pushed her door open. "I'm staying here to wait for him."



Melissa stepped on the gas, gravel spitting up around the car. "No, you're not. You we might need if we get stuck out there late."



"Then we need him too!"



"No time," Melissa said. The car surged ahead, pressing Dess back into her seat. Jessica looked over at her, eyes wild. Her door was still open, as if she were ready to jump. The thought of going out to the desert with a crazed Melissa and no Jonathan was clearly not making her too happy.



"Be careful, Jess!" Dess reached across and grabbed her arm. Through the still-open door the road was rushing past, a blur of gravel and patchy asphalt. Jessica tried to pull away, and Daughterboard managed to jam itself between Dess's ribs with a vengeance. "Ow! Come on!"



Jessica stopped fighting. The car was moving way too fast now.



"Make her stop!" Jessica said in an intense whisper. "Or I'll tell her everything!"



"Huh?" Dess kept her grip on Jessica's arm. Had she gone crazy?



"If you don't make her stop, I'll tell Melissa the thing I'm not supposed to think about!"



"What are you talking about?" Dess asked. With Rex missing she could understand Melissa losing it, but why had Jessica gone nuts?



"I'll tell her!" Jessica whispered.



"Tell her what?"



The car slewed to a halt, throwing them both forward against the seat back with a thud. A choking dust cloud rose up through Jessica's open door before it slammed shut with the car's momentum.



Melissa shut off the engine and turned slowly, locking her eyes onto Dess. She made a sniffing noise.



"You know something about Rex," she said softly. "Something... secret."



Dess scowled. "Did you both double up on crazy pills this morning?"



"You do," Melissa said. She glanced at Jessica, who sat there wide-eyed and glaring. "You told Jessica. She stinks of not thinking about it."



"Told her what?" Dess said, fighting not to cough from the dust roiling through the car. "Have you gone totally nuts?"



"And I can taste it on you," Melissa said. "Something like... tea." She wrinkled her nose. "With milk."



A sharp pain shot through Dess's head. "I hate tea."



"I've tasted this before," Melissa muttered; then her eyes brightened. "The other night, when Jessica and Flyboy got help finding their way. You know something about that, don't you?"



Dess crossed her arms in front of her. "You have totally lost it, Melissa."



"No, I think I'm about to find it." Melissa took her hands from the wheel and stared at her. "How do you know where Rex is? Tell me."



"Do I look like a darkling groupie? I mean, what Jessica said might be true, but how should I know?"



Melissa closed her eyes. "You do know, somewhere in there. But it's hidden... by someone clever." She opened her eyes and shook her head. "Man, Rex knew this would happen. How spooky is that?" She started pulling off one glove, finger by finger.



Dess slunk back into her seat, feeling something nauseous rising inside her. "Don't you dare touch me." Her stomach rolled over at the thought.



"I have to do this, sweetie," Melissa said. "They've got Rex, don't you understand? Plus keeping secrets is wrong."



"Ada," Dess whispered, not sure why the name had sprung to mind, demanding to be spoken.



"I'm not going to be alone again," Melissa said. The glove was off.



Dess's stomach heaved, and something rose up in her mind, an awful memory out of nowhere, something she'd been given to protect herself.



"Just relax." Melissa reached out.



"Or what?" Dess spat. "You'll make me like Rex's father?"



Melissa's hand froze, her face suddenly pale. The words from nowhere had worked; they'd brought her to a halt.



"What - what do you mean?" Jessica stammered.



Dess could see the old man now - the empty eyes, the drool glistening on his half-shaven chin. The realization sank in. "You did that to him. And Rex helped you."



Melissa bit her lip. "That was an accident."



"An accident?" Dess felt her voice rising - anything to keep Melissa on the defensive. "You left him a vegetable by accident?"



There was a pause. "More or less. We didn't know what we were doing."



Jessica shrank into her corner of the backseat, eyes wide. "You can do that? You guys never told me..."



"We never told anyone." Melissa's eyes narrowed at Dess, the fingers of her bare hand flexing. "Not even little Dess. But someone told you."