“Then I don’t see what the problem is,” Hannah said. “You’re all alone on this mountain. It’s the middle of a national emergency. And you’re what? Sixteen?”
“Seventeen,” Greer said. “And that’s not the problem. The problem is that I’m in a position of authority here.”
“Ha!”
“Shut up, Card! I’m like their big brother! Their wise and noble big brother.”
“Who makes them dance the mambo between halves of fake football games.”
“Exactly!” Greer said. “Even when I’m making them do ridiculous things for my own amusement, they trust me. I can’t abuse that!”
“Even though you want to,” Hannah teased.
“Oh God,” he moaned. “I want to so bad, it haunts my dreams. That’s it. I’m burning up. I need a swim.” He ripped off his shoes and socks.
“Now?”
He yanked his shirt off over his head. “It’s an emergency, Hannah!”
“What’s that?” she asked, shining her flashlight on his back. Up near his shoulder blade was a tattoo in heavy black ink. Two numbers separated by a slash.
“Fourteen eighty-eight?” she read.
Greer twisted around to try and get a look at it. “Oh, yeah, that. Weird, huh?”
“What does it mean?”
“We don’t know,” I said. “I tried to look it up once, but it doesn’t seem to mean anything.”
“Just another part of the mystery that is me,” Greer said. “Okay! Let’s do this!”
He pulled off his shorts and underwear in one swipe.
“Greer!” Hannah squealed.
“What?” he said, wiggling his pasty butt in the moonlight. “We’re all alone on a mountain. It’s a national emergency. Anything goes.”
“Not that! Anything goes but that!”
“You’re just afraid of your own desires. That’s all it is.”
He took a running leap and threw himself into the water, popping up dozens of feet away doing a strong backstroke.
“Hey! Did I ever tell you guys I think I might have been an Olympic swimmer?”
Greer laughed, then turned over, chopping at the water freestyle. A white V spread out from the tips of his fingers and trailed behind him. I thought he’d turn back, but he kept on going until he was beyond the reach of our flashlights. Soon the splash of his strokes faded, replaced by the sound of crickets.
Hannah laughed. “Poor guy has no idea what he’s in for.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Carrie’s not the only one. Judging from the way the younger girls look at him, she’s gonna have some serious competition a few years from now.”
Hannah took a pebble from the shore and playfully tossed it at my shoulder. “So which one of them’s in love with you?”
I shook my head, feeling the blood rise to my cheeks again.
“Ah, come on,” she said. “I bet there’s one or two.”
“Nah. I’ve always had to kinda keep my distance from them, you know?”
“Ah, so you were a ladies’ man before the outbreak.”
“Yeah, right.” I laughed. “No. My brother, maybe. He had a new girlfriend every week since he was like thirteen. Not me.”
“I don’t know. I bet you could—” Hannah sprang to her feet. “Whoa! What the hell was that? Card! Did you see that?”
She was pointing out over the water. At first I didn’t see anything, but then a few pinpricks of greenish-yellow light appeared over the surface of the reservoir.
“What?” I said. “The fireflies?”
“Fireflies? Oh! Look! There’s more! They’re so pretty!”
All across the reservoir, lights flared and then winked out, like match heads. I watched Hannah watch them, her eyes bright, her mouth agape. A few minutes passed, and then they were gone.
“Fireflies,” she whispered, as if she were carving the word into her memory. “Hey, I guess that’s another clue, right? I didn’t know what they were, so that must mean I come from a place that doesn’t have fireflies.”
“Maybe that’s why you left.”
Hannah laughed. She pulled off her boots and let her feet dangle in the wavelets at the reservoir’s edge. “Can I ask you a weird question? It’s something I’ve been wondering.”
“Sure.”
“Is Cardinal your real name? I mean, that’s a kind of bird, right? Your parents named you after a bird?”
“No. My dad—he, uh, he wrote comic books. Cardinal was a character of his.”
“Seriously? That’s so cool! What are the comics about?”
“This group of superheroes in a place called Liberty City,” I said. “The Brotherhood of Wings. There’s Black Eagle. Sally Sparrow. Blue Jay. Kestrel Kain. Rex Raven. Goldfinch. Lord Starling.”
“And Cardinal,” Hannah said.
The first few pages of issue one came flooding into my head. Mild-mannered Cameron Conner sweeping up the lab while he pines for Sally Sparrow, his true love, who barely knows he exists.