A seventh-grader named Elias tries to drop his phone. Sax floods his nociceptors and he cringes with pain. In a moment, the virus digs deeper, and his autonomic and physical functions are under control, and he grips the phone like a lifeline at sea.

Another girl, named Bella, smiles vacantly as a flood of dopamine hits her brain, her reward for letting the virus in, letting it run free in her neurons.

All over town, more children pick up when they hear the beep or buzz or ping of a message or an alert. They do it by reflex, without thinking. And within seconds, any capacity for thought is gone.

Sax, at the center of this web, begins to pull on the strands. He sends signals down the pathways, tugs on the strings, tells the puppets what to do.

March, he orders them.

And all over town, the children of the senior class of Middleton High get up from their couches and beds and chairs and walk toward their front doors. They go outside without jackets, in their bare feet and socks, in their pajamas and sweatpants and shorts, in the soaking rain, shuffling along the sidewalks and in the gutters and down the middle of the road.

Babysitters who try to stop them are pushed aside with unnatural strength. That is, the ones who aren’t snagged by the virus themselves.

The children march forward, one foot in front of the other, slowly moving from the side streets to the main drags. They gather in an ever-larger group as they meet at the intersections. They do not acknowledge or look at one another. All of their attention is fixed on their phones. More fall in with every step, until there are at least a hundred all walking together.

All of them walk in the same direction, following a map drawn on the screens and in their heads. All of them obediently heading for Highway 23, going up the road to Snake Hill.

Like lemmings going over a cliff. A little on the nose, Sax admits, but it will get the job done.

26

You Were Right All Along

Carrie is beginning to wonder where Danny is when Carl Stuckey enters the gym in full uniform.

His presence plucks a string inside all these people who are on high alert for history to repeat itself. Carrie can’t blame them.

Carl ignores everyone else and moves quickly to Carrie, his face drawn with worry.

“Carrie,” he says, then hesitates. This is hard for him. “I need your help.”

Wow, that had to cost him. He must read the surprise on her face because he plunges ahead, explaining.

“I’ve heard about something — well, it’s bad. It’s really bad,” he says, quieter now, so that she can barely hear him over the DJ playing Red Hot Chili Peppers.

She can’t resist torturing him a little. “Why would you need my help, Carl?” she asks.