I don’t even know how you feel about me, Oliver. You never say it.
And I hadn’t responded. Why? It seemed so stupid now.
She had already turned away to comfort Mrs.Gonzales, who had started to sob.
I turned just in time to see Mrs.Becerra had discovered Lulu’s makeup desk. She had a tentacle dildo in her hand and was examining it with a bewildered look upon her face. I moved to the hall before she could ask what it was.
“Oliver, your bed is filthy,” Mrs.Xalos said, coming out of my room. “I do wish you’d let me come over to tidy up once in a while.”
“Please don’t go into my room,” I said as I moved to the door.
“I was looking for another bathroom. I swear you used to have two.”
I came out the front door to find more people milling about. I spied my best friend, Sam, pulling up on his quad. His ever-present trucker cap sat upon his head. He wore a hand-drawn T-shirt that read, “Rhythm Mafia. Live from…” There was a blank space after “Live from.” I waved at him, and I moved toward the barn. He parked and jogged toward me.
“Hey, man,” Sam said, catching up. “One of your honeybees just threatened me. Whoa, what the hell happened to your head?”
“What?” I asked, ignoring the question about the bandage. “One of the drones?”
“No, it was one of the smaller ones. One of the ones that dragged you away after you passed out last night. I was about to pull into your driveway, and it almost took my head off. I had to state my name and purpose. Man, I hope Axel gives that thing the right answer when he and his brother get here. It’s going to ruin the band if your robot decapitates one of our guitar players. Well, maybe not Tito.” He poked a finger at my forehead. “Dude, you’re bleeding through that bandage.”
“I fell and hit my head, and Mrs.Gonzales and Mrs.Xalos ‘fixed’ me. I’ll tell you about it in a second.”
I looked over at the gate, and sure enough the third honeybee—which was supposed to still be charging—was hovering in place in front of the open gate. It was 413, which I was pretty sure was Melissa. The other one, Trixie 2, still hadn’t returned from Burnt Ends.
Sam turned sober and lowered his voice. “Do you believe this? Everyone is saying we’re under attack. José Gwin—you know that dude with the funny lips? He said there’s a bunch of smoke coming from Burnt Ends. And did you hear that explosion earlier? Something streaked through the air.”
“Come with me,” I said. “I’m grabbing my bracelet and heading out to meet Roger.”
“Bracelets ain’t working,” Sam said. He held up his to show the blinking red dot indicating a lost connection with the satellite.
“Mine is still connected through the backdoor net,” I said.
“Yeah, speaking of your bracelet, that video was pretty impressive.”
“What?”
Sam huffed as we passed through the large double doors of the beehive. To my right, the individual charging stations for the larger-sized drones were all lined up to the ceiling. All of them sat empty. To my left stood a pair of round repair pods for the scouts. Each station charged two at a time, and only one of the two stations worked. Past that were piles of empty bags of seed. They lay stacked around my large combine like they were somehow trying to entomb it. The side-engine compartment of the gigantic, frustrating piece of farm equipment remained open, reminding me I was supposed to be working on it today. Next to all this was the cubby where our band, the Rhythm Mafia, practiced.
Sitting there in the cubby were the three amplifiers my grandfather had built, Sam’s upright bass, my drum kit, and the Serrano twins’ guitars. Past that was the door to the “classroom” and control center.
We pushed through the door to the small room.
“There’s video,” Sam said, “of you puking. You drunk-dialed Rosita and were telling her you loved her when you straight up yakked right into it. It’s a perfect point-of-view shot. Everyone on the peninsula has seen it. You were like really loud, too. When the feed went down, I thought maybe your sister had done something to stop it from spreading further. I was in the middle of telling Tito and Axel that we should use it for our music video when it all went out.”
I grunted. Sitting in the corner was Roger’s empty charging station. Next to it the bracelet repair bay was blinking green. I snatched the bracelet up, and I popped it onto my wrist. It buzzed, letting me know it was online. I pulled up the map, and I saw Roger. He was helping “Priscilla” through the mud, and it’d be another ten minutes.
“Is this really happening?” Sam asked, again lowering his voice to a whisper. “Has Lulu confirmed it yet?”
I spent a few minutes telling him about what had happened, what I’d seen, and what we’d seen on the net.
He was silent for several moments. Sam always appeared to be in control of his emotions, able to roll with the good and bad, but I knew him better than that. We’d been friends our whole lives. He hid behind a façade of nonchalance and humor, but he was just as high-strung and anxious as I was. The big difference was that I would ignore things in hopes that they would go away, and he would always be the first to push through whatever it was. I envied him for his ability to hide it, for his ability to wear his humor like armor. He took a moment to compose himself. I could see the terror play across his face. I knew what he was thinking.
He was having a baby. He’d knocked up Harriet Riggs. She was just about seven months along. They were getting married.
“Operation Bounce House,” Sam finally said. He swallowed. “Man, you owe Rosita an apology.”
“Yeah, that’s what Lulu said.”
