Chapter 77

  A momehey stormed into the corridor, their footsteps eg off the walls. ing to an abrupt halt, the survivors froze upon spotting Jake crouched down further ahead. Frank and Isra led the group, the other two trailing behind. Archie and Rick collided with Frank and Isra as the leading duo uedly halted. Maneuvering around them, Archie positioned himself beside Frank on the left while Rick took his pce beside Isra on the right. The four of them locked eyes with Jake, who remained crouched farther down the corridor. He stared back at them through his rge unblinking eyes.

  “What do we do now, boss?” Archie asked nervously.

  Before the leader of the group could say something, Jake slowly lifted his hands in the air.

  “What is it doing?” Rick asked. “Trying to surrender?”

  “I doubt it,” Isra replied, her tone wary.

  Jake mimicked writing as if his left hand were a piece of paper and his right hand held a pen. He pantomimed writing and theeo read before exhibiting his left hand to the survivors. They peered at his as with puzzled expressions. While he thought he was being clear, they seemed tle to immediately grasp his message. A wave of fusion passed through them as they exged uain gnces.

  “What the hell is the freak doing?” Frank grumbled.

  “It seems like it’s imitating writing,” Archie guessed.

  “But why?” Rick said, his brow furrowed in thought.

  “Guys, I think it wants to say something to us,” Isra said. “Si doesn’t have a mouth, it wants to write something for us.”

  The very idea seemed to ahe leader of the group. He spun toward Isra, gring at the woman.

  “It’s impossible, dammit,” he returned sharply. “That thing ’t be that intelligent.”

  Isra seemed to be unfazed by his outburst.

  “How do you know? Let’s give it something to write with and see if we unicate with it.”

  “Give it something to write with?” Frank scoffed. “Like what?”

  “Maybe a marker or something?” Archie offered.

  Frank turned abruptly to face Archie, his expression fierce.

  “When was the st time you found a marker in this goddamn world?” the leader snapped. “Or any other writing tools, for that matter?”

  Archie fell sileher g to Frank’s point or wary of provoking his boss further.

  “We could give it a PDA,” Isra suggested, who was the only one who remained uurbed by Frank’s temper.

  “But a PDA doesn’t have a text editor,” Rick mentioned, standing by Isra. “We ’t even manually write entries in our diaries. They appear automatically.”

  “Exactly,” Frank said, pleased to find support from at least one of his people. “He’s right. Listen to the guy. For once, he came up with something smart to say.”

  Isra tered, “Doesn’t mean we ’t write at all on our devices. We mark a location and give it a name. So a PDA does let us type something in.”

  “The names given to markers are restricted to just a few words, though,” Rick pointed out.

  “Doesn’t matter. It could be enough to test the creature’s intelligence. And if it possesses writing abilities, it could group markers together and input a few words into each, f a plete sentence.”

  She turned and looked at Jake, who was still croug down farther down the corridor and them with his unblinking eyes. He met her gaze and nodded in aowledgment.

  “Frag me,” Archie muttered. “It listens and uands everything we say. It uands every freaking word we say!”

  “You ’t know that for sure, you dumbass,” Frank grumbled.

  Archie and Rick seemed to be genuinely excited. They wao know if Jake was truly intelligent and what it was that he wao tell them. Frank’s mood darkened further as he noted his three panions watg him ily, hoping he would go along with their idea. The leader of the group hesitated. It seemed that while he opposed the idea of Jake being intelligent, he desired to uhe truth, mirr his panions’ curiosity.

  Finally, he ceded.

  “Alright,” he said before shifting his gaze to Isra. “Go ahead and hand over your PDA to the freak.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows. “Why me?”

  A shit-eating grin spread across Frank’s face. “Why not you? After all, it was your idea to give it a PDA, wasn’t it?”

  At first, it appeared that Isra might dee. However, her expression shifted to one of determination. With her PDA in one hand and what resembled a submae gun iher, she began to walk down the corridor toward Jake.

  He didn’t move a muscle, watg the woman slowly walk toward him. He remained perfectly still, doing his best to look non-threatening. Behind the woman, he saw her panions positioning themselves to protect her, ensuring she was not in their line of fire as they aimed their ons at him. They were prepared to open fire on him if he attacked her. However, he was going to do nothing of the sort.

  Isra kept moving slowly down the corridetting closer to Jake with each step she took and approag the elevator entrance along the way. Though her attention remained on him, he silently hoped that she would catch sight of the magically-enhaform within the elevator shaft arigued enough to check it out.

  trary to his hopes, Isra’s progress slowed as she neared him, eventually ing to a stop just a few steps before reag the entrao the elevator shaft. She was clearly afraid to get any closer to him.

  For a moment, she hesitated, her gaze fixed on him as she pondered her move. Finally, she spoke, “I’ll pce it here, step back, and you’ll have to e a. Alright?”

  Jake was unsatisfied with the current turn of events. He didn’t want Isra to retreat. Instead, he needed her to approach closer so she could discover the magical ptform. Just as she made a move to bend down, he vigorously shook his head, catg her attention once more as she gnced back at him.

  “No?” she asked, a look of fusion crossing her face. “What is it that you want, then?”

  He extended his hand toward her, implying that she should e closer and pce her PDA in his hand. Despite his efforts to appear non-threatening, Isra hesitated, unwilling to approach him due to her lingering fear. She took an unscious step backward, and Jake noticed three other survivors behiensing up, unsure of what was happening or what to expect from him. Jake hoped he hadn’t plicated things further.

  Before he could e up with ao put Isra at ease, Frank yelled to her, “Is everything alright?”

  “Think so,” Isra replied.

  “Then why won’t you give the freak the device?” Frank demanded.

  “I don’t want to get any closer.”

  “Maybe you could toss it over?” Rick suggested.

  Isra took a moment to think, then shifted her gaze to Jake, log eyes with him as she posed the question, “If I toss my PDA to you, will you catch it?”

  Seeing that she was unwilling to get any closer, Jake responded with a nod, raising both hands in readio receive the device.

  “If he breaks your PDA, yonna have to look for another one,” Frank grumbled from a few yards behind her. “It’s gonna be a pain.”

  “Try not to break it, alright?” Isra said, her focus still on Jake, who nodded in agreement.

  “PDAs are nearly unbreakable, though,” Archie said meekly to no one in particur.

  Just as Isra was about to toss the devi, she paused as a realization dawned on her.

  “Wait a sec,” she said. “I probably o unlock it for you first.”

  She pressed her thumb against the s of the device, then tapped a few more times to plete the necessary as.

  “Alright. Catch.”

  She tossed the PDA underhand toward Jake. With impressive agility, he reached out and snatched the device out of the air with one hand, leaving Isra and her panions gasping in surprise. He g them briefly before shifting his focus down to the deviow securely held in his hand.

  Isra had already opehe map app for him and had even pced a pin on a random location. Attached to the marker was ay bel with a blinki cursor inside, poised for him to begin inputting information. The lower side of the s dispyed a virtual keyboard, ready for his use.

  Jake took a sed to think of the message he wao write. He then poised his thumbs over the keyboard to start typing the text into the bel while the group of survivors waited.