“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.

It took my eyes a solid moment to adjust to the darkness of the warehouse. The room I had entered was massive and empty. Dust floated inside the slices of light that fell through the few windows that hadn’t been boarded up. Papers and leaves littered the concrete floor; a few bits and bolts of metal shot through that floor that I assumed were used for whatever manufacturing had once been done there.

“Well, it appears to be a giant empty warehouse,” I said quietly to the livestream, feeling a bit let down. The entire lower level of the building was one open space, and there was nothing in it. There was, however, a metal-slatted staircase that led up to a second level that appeared to house some offices with windows that overlooked the warehouse floor.

“I’m going to go up these stairs to check out the offices.”

The stairs clanged as I walked up them. I kept a tight grip on the railing with my left hand while broadcasting my progress with my right. The connection had remained solid—I was broadcasting in HD to the whole world.

My personal phone, the one I wasn’t using to livestream, buzzed in my pocket. I dug it out as fast as I could and saw that it was Miranda. Wasn’t she watching? Didn’t she know I couldn’t take a call right now? I was contemplating answering the phone when I heard it, playing off in the distance.

“Do you hear that?” I asked the livestream.

I’ll stick with you baby for a thousand years, nothing’s gonna touch you in these golden years.

It was the first sign of anything unusual inside the warehouse, and boy, did it seem like a solid clue. I stopped paying attention to anything. “That’s the song. It’s ‘Golden Years,’” I said to the stream, and I started walking faster. By now, my audience was a couple million people strong.

I half expected the stream to die, whether from supernatural intervention by Carl or the sheer load on the world’s servers, but apparently it held. The music kept getting louder.

A text notification popped up from Miranda: April. Get Out Now.

I saw the notification fly up over my screen, but my brain refused to accept it. What was she getting at? I looked up and I was already there anyway. A little office to the side of the catwalk. There was a desk, and from it came Bowie’s voice.

I waited for the magic to happen, for my reward, and then another text appeared: Run

And still, I stood there.

Don’t cry my sweet, don’t break my heart. Doing all right, but you gotta get smart.

As I stared dumbly, another text arrived: It was faked. It’s not real. It’s the wrong place.

I turned just in time to see the huge metal door behind me slam shut.

There’s my baby, lost that’s all. Once, I’m begging you, save her little soul.

You know I’m a damn fool.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

This chapter is going to contain some graphic violence. I will tell you when it’s coming. I will not be offended if you skip it.

I immediately shot myself at the door, but it didn’t budge. I slammed on it, shouting, “WHAT THE HELL!”

There was no response.

Faintly, over the sound of “Golden Years,” I heard footsteps racing off down the catwalk. I didn’t understand how any of this was possible until I saw, on the floor next to a filing cabinet, six large empty plastic jugs of Welch’s grape jelly. That achieved what I assumed was the desired effect: making me feel like a damned idiot.

“Well,” I said to the livestream, panting with fear, “things have taken a turn for the worse. I have been informed that this was a hoax, and not real, and now I have been locked in a warehouse in New Jersey, and, Miranda, as I’m sure you are watching, please call the police and send them to me because I am stuck in here. Also, if they could arrest the dickholes that just kidnapped me, that would be grand.”

I searched around the room for a bit and came up with nothing that could maybe be used as a pry bar. I slammed the door with the desk chair a couple of times, then with one of the metal drawers from the desk, but that barely even dented the door.

Eventually, I got tired of hearing “Golden Years,” so I tried to turn off the little music player that it was tinnily streaming out of. No matter what buttons I hit, it did not turn off.

“In every town around the world, each of us must be touched with gold. Don’t cry my sweet, don’t break my heart, I’ll come runnin’ but you gotta get smart,” David sang.

I left the livestream going as I did all this, occasionally commenting to it because, at that point, I felt pretty safe. I’d gotten word out to the world at large, and though I was pretty scared and extremely disappointed not to be meeting Carl or whatever, I hadn’t smelled the smoke yet.

Another text came in from Miranda: I’m so sorry. Oh god, April, it’s my fault. The code had been tampered with. It was sitting on the Som in an open page, anyone could edit it and I just didn’t notice that someone had.

I texted her back, still streaming as I did it: It’s OK, I’m fine. If I wasn’t such an impulsive ass, we would have figured that out. I made you rush.

I put the chair back behind the desk and set up my phone so it could see me from a not-terrible angle.

“Well, I know most of you have already checked out, and I’m terribly sorry for wasting all of your time today. Hopefully, if it’s all right with you, we can hang out until the cops bust me out of this creepy room. Because, let’s be honest with ourselves, you’re my best friend.