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several steps back. “A chip like that is bad news,” he said slowly, as if I were stupid. “It might be NSA. I won’t mess with it. Look, you stay away from me! Next thing, they’ll be after me.” He backed away into the darkness, his hands up as if to ward off evil. “I hate them! Hate them!” Then he was gone, back into the bowels of the tunnels. “See ya,” I whispered. “Wouldn’t want to be ya.” Fang looked at me irritably. “I can’t take you anywhere.” I so wished he weren’t all banged up—so I could whack him. 120 We tried to get some sleep—God knows we needed it. I kind of dozed off. Then I wasn’t asleep, I knew that much. But I wasn’t awake, exactly. I’d been, like, sucked into another dimension, where I could feel my body, sort of, knew where I was, and yet was powerless to move or speak. I was in a movie, starring me, watching it all happen around me. I was going down a dark tunnel, or the tunnel was slipping by me, and I was staying still. Trains were rushing past me on both sides, so it was a subway tunnel. I was thinking, Okay, subway tunnel. Yeah, so? Then I saw a train station: Thirty-third Street. The Institute’s building was on Thirty-first Street. In the darkness of the waking-dream subway tunnel, I saw a filthy rusted-over grate. I saw myself pulling the grate up. Fetid brown water gurgled below. Bleah—it was the sewer system, beneath the city. Hello. Beneath a rainbow . . . Bingo, Max, said my Voice. My eyes popped wide open. Fang was watching me with concern. “Now what?” “I know what we have to do,” I said. “Wake everyone up.” 121 “This way,” I said, walking in the darkness of the tunnels. It was as if a detailed map was imprinted on my retinas, so I could see it laid over reality, tracing the path we needed to follow. If this map effect was part of my life forever, I would go nuts, but right now it was dang useful. One
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