“So that’s what this gaiaphage is?” Sam asked.

“Please don’t act like I just told you the answer, okay?” Astrid said. “Because I’m totally off in guesswork. And it doesn’t really explain much, even if it’s true. Big ‘if.’ Really big ‘if.’”

“But?” Sam prompted.

“But maybe this thing that’s been living under the ground for thirteen years has been living on radiation. Feeding on it. Think about a virus that could survive thousands of years in the environment of space. The only possible food source would be hard radiation.”

The next part was hard for Astrid. Sam could see the way her lip quivered. “The power company lied: they never cleaned up all the radiation from the accident. It’s been under our feet all this time, seeping into the water, being absorbed into the food we eat.”

Astrid’s father had been an engineer at the power plant. She must be wondering whether he had known of the deception.

“They may not even have known they didn’t get it all,” Sam said. “The people who worked there—they probably didn’t know.”

Astrid nodded. The quiver stopped. The tight anger in her expression remained. “As the gaiaphage mutated, so did some of us. Maybe some kind of synthesis. I don’t know. But one safe guess is that the gaiaphage began to run out of food. It needs more. It can’t get to it, it can only attempt to make others do its will. I think—I believe—that the meltdown Little Pete stopped was caused by someone at the plant. Obeying the gaiaphage. Attempting to blow up the plant, which would spread radiation everywhere, kill everything nearby . . . except for the creature that lives on radiation.”

“Little Pete stopped the meltdown. Created the FAYZ. But he did not destroy the gaiaphage. And the gaiaphage is still hungry.”

“Hungry in the dark,” Little Pete said.

“Caine’s going to feed it,” Sam said.

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“And then, the gaiaphage will survive and adapt. It can’t go on living in a hole in the ground, relying on others. It needs to be able to escape. To move freely. And to survive attacks from us.”

“Maybe it’s good if it comes out to fight,” Edilio said. “Maybe we can kill it.”

“It knows what powers we have,” Astrid said. “And it has had some help imagining ways to build a body that would be invulnerable.”

“Help? Help from who?”

Sam put his hand on Edilio’s arm, calming him. “From someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing,” he said.

“Nestor,” Little Pete said.

“Try some, dude. What are you, three years old?” Antoine tried to pass the joint to Zil. Zil waved it off.

“I’ve tried it before,” Zil said. “I didn’t like it.”

“Yeah, right.” Antoine took a long pull off the joint and began coughing like he was hacking up a lung. He coughed so violently, his knee hit the coffee table and knocked over Zil’s water.

“Hey,” Zil yelled.

“Oh, sorry, man,” Antoine said when he could speak again.

Lance took a hit, made a face, and handed it off to Lisa. She giggled, smoked, coughed, then giggled some more.

Zil had never had a girlfriend before. Girls didn’t like him. Not like, like. He had never been one of the popular kids.

In the old days Zil was mostly known for the strange lunches his mother packed for him. They were always vegan, organic, and always very “green,” with nothing disposable, nothing prepackaged. Unfortunately much of what his mother packed for his lunch smelled. Vinegar dressing for salads, tapenade or hummus reeking of garlic, stuffed grape leaves.

Zil loved his mom and dad, but the coming of the FAYZ had been liberating in one way: he’d finally been able to eat all the cookies and chips he’d wanted. He’d even done what his parents would have considered unforgivable: he had eaten meat. And he’d liked it.

Of course now he would give anything to have a gooey wad of hummus and some whole wheat pita bread.

He had no food. What he had were stomach pains. And his crew. His posse. The Human Crew. All of whom, he realized, were losers. Except for Lance. Lance being there kind of made them look cooler than they were. He even managed to look cool by the flickering candlelight.

“The freaks have food,” Turk said for the thousandth time. “They always have food. Regular kids are going hungry, but the freaks always have enough.”

Zil doubted that, but there was no point arguing about it. It wasn’t some crazy story about the freaks having food that made him hate them. It was their superior attitude. But whatever.

“I heard Brianna caught some pigeons and ate them,” Lisa said, then giggled. Zil wasn’t sure if she always giggled, or was mostly giggling because she was high.

She was drawing on a pad, perching a small flashlight on her lap and using a Sharpie to do variations on the letters “H” and “C” for Human Crew. She had a version that Zil kind of liked where the “H” and the “C” were sort of joined, slanted to one side, all hard edges.

Antoine had found the weed in his parents’ bedroom. While conducting yet another desperate search for food.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Turk said, pointing at Lisa like she was evidence. “They have their ways of getting food. The freaks all work together.” Turk was not smoking. He was staring at Zil. Like Zil might have some solution. Like Zil was going to have some kind of plan.