EARTH ONLINE

Chapter 7 — Dine and Dash

There was no time to grieve, and no time to be afraid.

Zoe and Hale were gone — completely, no clothes, no wallets, nothing left to bury — so there was nothing to gather and nothing to do. Cole pulled the library doors shut and walked away.

Under the Spire, seven or eight people still sat where the cull had dropped them, staring at nothing, unable to understand how the strangers who'd been chanting beside them an hour ago had simply ceased. Two men in expensive coats were tearing a hole in the white barrier, working their way toward the tower. Cole didn't go and look. A hundred scientists had studied the thing for six months and learned nothing; he doubted he'd do better.

His first problem was a car.

It was 8:15. At eight sharp, most of the city had vanished — drivers mid-commute, the cars left to drift and pile into one another, the roads half-blocked with wreckage. He walked half a mile before he found a shared bike toppled on the sidewalk. His phone wouldn't unlock it, of course. He crouched, studied the lock, picked up a chunk of broken curb, and hit it.

The reinforced steel shackle snapped on the second blow.

Cole looked at the broken lock for a moment, thoughtful, and rode home.

His apartment was silent, the whole block silent, only leaves moving. He packed a little. His parents had died in a wreck his freshman year; both had been only children, his grandparents gone before that, and he'd let the cousins drift out of his life. His few close friends had scattered after college — one to the West Coast, one to New York.

New York. Where Hale's daughter was.

He'd go to New York. He'd find Cassie, and he'd find his friend, and that would be that.

A bike wouldn't make New York. He went up a floor and knocked on his landlords' door. No answer. He braced, and drove the wrench he'd brought through the lock.

The smell of gas hit him the moment it opened.

He moved fast — killed the stove, threw the windows wide. Half-chopped vegetables sat on the cutting board; someone had been making breakfast when the world took them. His landlords were a kind old couple, retired, bored, forever inviting him up to eat. He'd borrowed their car a dozen times. He knew exactly which drawer held the keys.

He checked every room. No one. Then he let himself out.

The tank was nearly dry — the needle kissing the red line, maybe enough to make it halfway before he stalled out on some empty highway. He'd have to find fuel first. He slid the key into the ignition and turned it.

And the instant the engine caught, the pain drove into his chest.

It was like a vast hand closing on his heart. His face went bloodless; his pulse slammed; his blood ran too fast through his whole body, and his temperature climbed at a speed that made no sense — past forty Celsius inside a minute. The fever didn't cook his mind. He stayed perfectly, horribly lucid, feeling a thin sharp knife saw at the meat of his heart while the heat kept rising and the pain kept building, until his fist came down on the passenger seat and did nothing at all, and the world finally smeared and went out.

When he woke it was full dark.

He'd sweated through his clothes and dried and sweated through them again, over and over, he didn't know how many times, before his heart finally settled and the sourceless pain drained away. His face was still pale. His eyes were not — they were clear and sharp, almost bright.

He pressed a hand to his chest. Steady. He checked the rest of himself. Fine.

Then he reached up and pulled a book out of the empty air.

He took it from nothing, and his face showed no surprise at all. It was the size of a notebook, bound in stiff tan kraft board, and when he opened it the pages were blank. He looked at the blankness, and under his gaze, lines of text rose up out of the white.

> 【 Ability: Dine and Dash 】

> 【 Owner: Cole Mercer 】

> 【 Type: Special 】

> 【 Function: Collect abilities 】

>

> 【 Note: Everyone carries a dream in their heart — to dine and dash! Don't let Cole's clean-cut face fool you; still waters run sleazy. Age seven: ate the neighbor kid's Halloween candy, didn't pay. Age ten: copied his deskmate's homework, didn't pay. Age fifteen: watched his first dirty movie, STILL didn't pay! See? All he's ever wanted is to eat it all and skip the check. 】

Cole stared at it.

You absolute lunatic of a book.

His hand twitched with the very real urge to slap it flat against the wall. He restrained himself, barely.

This was his ability. Not lightning, not fire, not the strength of a god. A book. A book that made you want to drown it in a toilet.

He turned the pages. Nothing — just the one entry. He read it for half an hour and got nowhere, and the longer he stared, the more it seemed to take offense, because a new line surfaced:

> 【 Note: You think Cole's going to pay? Friend, he's sitting there right now wondering whether he has to pay at the gas station. 】

A book sailed out the car window.

A minute later, a lean, sharp-featured young man climbed out, walked around the car, and retrieved it, face blank as stone.

He set it on the passenger seat and didn't look at it again. He drove to the nearest station. It was dead silent, not a soul; fuel hoses lay where they'd dropped, diesel pooled stinking across the concrete — someone had been pumping gas when they were erased. Cole sat a moment before getting out, and took his wallet with him.

"Anyone here?" he called, though it was plainly empty.

No answer. He went to a pump. A station card was already slotted in it — the high-limit card the attendants used to charge fuel straight through. He had no car and no card of his own. He used the attendant's.

In the bright, empty island of light he filled the tank. The dark beyond it felt occupied; sharp gusts of wind keened past, too sharp. He hung up the nozzle, and on his way back to the car his expression shifted, as if remembering something. He took two hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, weighted them down on the concrete with a stone, and turned to go.

He was just straightening up when something cold pressed into the small of his back.

He went still, half-bent.

"Don't move," a man's voice said, low and rough. "Take out your wallet. Now."