No, that wasn’t it, either. He had seen the whipped boy.

“The power plant,” Astrid said.

“Why would he be there?” Brianna frowned.

“Because it’s the place that scares him most,” Astrid said.

Brianna looked doubtful. But then her frown lines relaxed. “Yeah,” she said. “That would be Sam.”

“You have to get him, Brianna. He’s Petey’s best piece.”

“Ummmm…what?”

“Never mind,” Astrid snapped. “Get Sam here. Now!”

“How?”

“Hey, you’re the Breeze, right? Just do it!”

Brianna considered that for a moment. “Yeah, okay. I’m outta—”

The “here” was lost in the wind.

Astrid handed the game player to her brother. He looked down at the ground, oblivious. He felt the game player for a moment, then dropped it.

“You have to keep playing, Petey.”

Her brother shook his head. “I lost.”

“Petey, listen to me.” Astrid knelt before him, held him, then thought better of it and let him go. “I saw the game. You showed me the game. I was inside it. But it’s real, Petey. It’s real.”

Little Pete stared past her. Not interested. Not even seeing her, maybe, let alone hearing her.

“Petey. He’s trying to destroy us. You have to play.”

She shoved the game at him. “Nerezza is the gaiaphage’s avatar. You made her real. You gave her a body. Only you have that kind of power. It’s using you, Petey, it’s using you to kill.”

But if Little Pete cared, or even understood, he showed no sign of it.

It was a panic run. Most of the population of Perdido Beach, all running and no one knowing quite why. Or maybe they all knew why but each had his own reason.

Zil loved it. Here at last was the total blind panic he’d hoped would result from the fires. Here was all order breaking down completely.

Kids on the beach stumbled in the sand. Some ran screaming into the water.

Drake, alive. Drake with his whip hand lashing at them, like he was driving cattle into the sea.

More kids sticking to the road, running parallel to the beach. Zil was with them, running with Turk beside him, looking for the freaks, seeing a kid whose only mutant power was the ability to glow brightly, harmless, but a freak and like all freaks he had to be dealt with.

Turk pulled up, raised his shotgun, aimed and fired. He missed, but the kid panicked and smashed facedown against the curb. Zil kicked him and kept running. He shouted in wild glee as he ran.

“Run, freaks! Run!”

But there were very few freaks in the mass of kids on the road. Too few real targets. But that was okay because the point right now was fear, fear and chaos.

Nerezza had told him it was coming. A freak herself? Zil wondered. He would hate to have to kill her, she was hot and mysterious and so much better than boring, pasty Lisa.

He spotted Lance ahead. Good old Lance, but he had lost his gun and his bat.

“I need a weapon!” Lance cried. “Give me something!”

Turk had a nail-studded stick. He tossed it to Lance. They took off again, a pack of wolves chasing down a terrified herd of cattle.

The older kids were pulling away. But the fat ones, the young ones, they were falling behind, worn out or simply unable to keep up on shorter legs.

They were all crammed onto the curved road that led to Clifftop.

Zil pointed. “That kid there. There! He’s a freak lover!”

Lance got there first and swung the nailed stick. The kid evaded it and hared off the road, tumbling down the slope into bushes and coming to rest against a cactus.

Zil laughed and pointed. “He’s yours, Turk!”

And Zil was off again, with Lance at his side, Lance like a blond warrior god, like Thor, slashing away at everyone now, no longer differentiating between freak or non-freak, they could all die, all of them who had refused to join Zil. “Run!” Zil screamed. “Run, you cowards! Join me, or run for your lives!”

He paused for a minute, winded from running uphill. Lance stopped beside him. Others, half a dozen of them, the Human Crew faithful, each of them a human hero, Zil thought fiercely.

Then Lance’s grin fell. He pointed. Back down the road they had just climbed.

Dekka, walking, but fast just the same.

Relentless.

Someone was beside Zil. He could sense her. Nerezza. He looked at her. Her throat was red, like the first stage of serious bruising. There was a cut on her forehead. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was all astray.

“Who did that to you?” Zil demanded, outraged.

Nerezza ignored him. “She has to be stopped.”

“Who?” Zil jerked his chin toward Dekka. “Her? How am I supposed to stop her?”

“Her powers don’t reach as far as your gun, Zil,” Nerezza said.

Zil frowned. “Are you sure?”

“I am.”

“How do you know? Are you a freak?”

Nerezza laughed. “What am I? What are you, Zil? Are you the Leader? Or are you a coward who hides from some fat, black lesbian freak? Because right now you choose which to be.”

Lance glanced nervously at Zil. Turk started to say something but couldn’t seem to find the right words.

“She has to be stopped,” Nerezza said.

“Why?” Zil asked.

“Because we’re going to need gravity, Leader.”

Mary reached the top of the road, up to Clifftop. A series of smaller pathways led down to the cliff itself.