Apocalypse 2 страница

I rolled my eyes and knocked that last one off the wall.

Angel curled up under a desk, folding her crusty wings beneath her. Forget mind‑ reading, that was her true talent: That kid could sleep anywhere.

Me? I was more interested in tracking down some chow. That lava‑ cooked, acidic fish was the last thing I’d eaten, and my stomach wrenched at the memory. Fang and Gazzy followed me on the search for a kitchenette, ever the eager consumers.

Just as I was shaking the box of aged, crumbled crackers into my mouth and thinking we’d made out pretty well considering, you know, the apocalypse, I heard a low, lingering growl.

“Jeez, Gasman. ” I scrunched up my nose, bracing for the stench to hit, but Gazzy held up his hands: Not me.

Max, get out of there! Angel’s voice.

None of us ever question a warning. In a split second I had dropped the cracker box, signaled Gazzy and Fang, and rushed to the door. It was already too late; the doorway was full of snarling creatures trying to get through at the same time – to us.

“What the heck are they? ” Gazzy breathed, jumping onto the kitchenette table and assuming a fighting stance. Fang and I both leaped onto the counter, muscles tensed, adrenaline pumping.

“No idea, ” I murmured. “Not Erasers. Not Flyboys. Not anything I’ve ever seen. ”

They were – doglike, but huge, easily three times the size of a Great Dane, but with a bulldog’s heavily muscled build and a mastiff’s powerful, snapping jaws. Their long‑ fanged mouths were already slavering in anticipation of a bird‑ kid breakfast.

And we were trapped.

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me, ” I snarled.

“Are those hyenas? ” Gazzy asked.

“Or just ugly mutant steroid dogs? ” Fang said.

The things were hideous, their furless pink skin wrinkled and speckled with flaky black spots. Their flat, massive heads were too big for their bodies – which, of course, meant bigger teeth, stronger jaws.

“Are they sort of hyena‑ ish? ” I asked. “Either way, they look rabid, and they’re bad news. ”

With our luck, it made perfect sense that these hellbeasts were the only other creatures that seemed to have survived the apocalypse, and that they somehow were thirty stories up a skyscraper, running loose in the hallways, ready to corner us.

Quickly I took stock. Small, windowless room? Check. Useless weapons, such as plastic cutlery? Check. Villains engineered specifically to destroy us... to be determined.

The first hellhound flattened its ears and bared its teeth, a low growl building in its throat. Even with me standing on the countertop, their heads came up nearly to my waist. And they were vicious. This was Cujo meets Marmaduke meets the Hound of the Baskervilles.

“How many? ” Fang asked quickly. I barely heard him over the high‑ pitched whining, low growling, and eager, hungry barking.

“Um, somewhere between five and... like, twenty, ” I said as more flat, slick heads pushed in through the doorway.

“What are they waiting for? ” Gazzy asked. “Maybe we can intimidate them. ” With a roar of his own, he snapped open his ten‑ foot wings, sending bits of crud flying. And this seemed to be what the animals were waiting for. Their attack instinct kicked in and they sprang to life, crashing through the doorway at us, teeth bared. Their growls became a frenzied, barking hysteria that was deafening in the tiny room.

I fended them off okay at first, with roundhouse kicks and evasive pivots. But then a particularly ugly beast with pink eyes reared up on its hind legs and dug its front claws into my chest, and the full weight of a two‑ hundred‑ pound animal made me stagger sideways.

I barely heard a sharp hiss from Fang as one of them sank its incisors deep into his shoulder, but I couldn’t spare a glance – I had a huge snapping muzzle inches from my face. Its tongue slobbered over its teeth in desperation, and its pink eyes bulged, crazed with hunger. They were starving.

For a second, I felt a wave of pity for them. But just for a second. In a choice between me and something else, I always choose me. So I gripped Pinky’s lower jaw with my hands and head‑ butted the mutt right between the eyes.

It skidded like an ungainly bowling pin into the giants behind it, but they weren’t down for long and when they sprang to their feet, there was a new hatred in their eyes.

“Hang on, Max! We’re coming! ”

I snapped my head around to see Nudge and Akila pushing their way through the entrance. Nudge was wielding a desk chair in one hand and a marble statuette in the other. I’d never seen Akila look so fierce – she was snarling, her teeth bared, and seemed so much more doglike than she had, say, at her wedding. But even though Akila was fairly big, she was dwarfed by these monsters.

“Nudge! No! ” I yelled. “Find a safe place! ”

I gave one vicious kick to my closest attacker and then grabbed for the sink hose behind me. Slamming the water on full blast, I sprayed all around, aiming for eyes, ears, and open mouths. The barking and howling hit a higher pitch.

On the other side of the kitchen, Gazzy fended the animals off as best he could, which was pretty dang good, but he was covered with bites and scratches and looked like he was starting to tire. One vicious hellhound dove for him, huge jaws open like a vise. I quickly sprayed icy water into its ear, and Akila snarled and dove at the creature, tearing into its throat. Her fur was stained with blood, and more blood dripped from her mouth. She looked pure wolf in that instant, and as they leaped, her cry pierced the air.

I lashed out however I could – the sprayer, karate chops to noses, hard kicks to their ribs, and, yes, plastic forks to the ears – anything to hold them back, but they just kept coming.

“Max! ” Nudge cried, and I watched, horrified, as one leaped at the side of her face and clamped on with those long yellow teeth, tearing flesh from bone. Fang stabbed at it with a knife and it yelped and jumped back.

Nudge stumbled into the fridge, her eyes wide and dazed. She held her hand over the left side of her face, but blood ran through her fingers and spilled down her shirt.

Fang gave one animal a brutal punch in the face that made it yelp and fall back. My own arms and legs were pretty torn up, and I started to wonder... if there were actually just too many of them.

So I did what you’re never supposed to do in a dogfight: I charged.

And then the room exploded.

Well, part of it. Before I got to Nudge’s attacker, chunks of plaster shot toward me as one of the walls blew inward. For just an instant, there was silence as we all stared at the destroyed wall in surprise.

On the other side of the gaping hole, Iggy stood in the hallway, waving dust away from his face. “Go! ” he yelled, choking on smoke.

While the beasts were still stunned, Fang grabbed Akila, and I reached for Gazzy’s and Nudge’s hands. We. Freaking. Ran.

Another floor‑ shaking blast made a few more of the creatures fall back, but there were plenty of them still on our heels as we ran through the mazelike hallways, searching for a way – any way – out of this. Then straight ahead of us we saw a conference room lined with big glass windows, and there was no time to hesitate.

“Abandon ship! ” I shouted.

Just as the monsters rounded the corner behind us, I closed my eyes, tucked my head down, and crashed through a window, feeling the shards explode around me.

I careened like a broken helicopter down half of those thirty flights, but finally I snapped my wings open and righted myself. My wings were still heavy and full of crud – cleaning them off would be job one. After quickly counting heads – all accounted for – I looked back to see the bloodthirsty animals snapping their jaws at us. Several unfortunates got pushed out the window by their eager packmates, and we swerved out of the way as they twisted through the air, baying as they plunged downward.

“They’re more like cry ‑ enas now! ” Gazzy joked wearily as we headed toward the outer edges of Sydney.

I was so dizzy with relief, I didn’t even feel the bite marks on my hands, or the feathers missing from my wings, but all of us looked like we’d been put in a blender on “chop. ”

I was especially worried about Akila. I eyed the bundled form that Iggy carried in the harness, and saw red splotches growing on the cloth. Nudge, too, was a bloody mess, and she flew with one hand holding the deeply torn flap of skin in place against her cheek.

When we stopped on a hill overlooking the city, we took stock of our injuries. Nudge seemed to be injured the worst, and I ripped off the sleeve of my ratty shirt. “Does it hurt bad? ” I asked, tying the flannel under her chin.

“It’s f‑ fine, ” she lied, her voice quivering as she bit back the pain.

I thought of all the times she’d spent scrapbooking fashion models and tried to make a joke of it. “What girl doesn’t want more defined cheekbones, am I right? ” She nodded and forced a weak smile. “Zombie chic, ” I pressed, and she actually giggled.

“Lame, very lame, Max. ” Nudge shook her head and adjusted the bandage, but her eyes were smiling.

“Does that count as zombie chic? ” Angel pointed.

A silence fell over the flock as we took in the grim scene below us.

So that’s where all the people are.

Our hill overlooked a subdivision, and while we couldn’t see inside any of the houses from our perch, we definitely saw the circular cul‑ de‑ sac drives – or the vague shape of them. I only caught a glimpse of cracked asphalt here and there, because the cul‑ de‑ sacs were littered with... skeletons.

Humans, animals, young, old. The ash was doing its best to bury them – it had already piled in drifts several feet deep in some places – but you could still see thousands of corpses in the mass grave.

“Jeezum, ” I whispered.

It was a modern Pompeii: Some of the skeletons were curled in fetal balls, with arm bones circling skulls. Others lay side by side holding hands, or clasping their own hands together. Many looked like they’d been crawling away, their jawbones hinged open in a permanent, silent scream.

I felt the vomit rise in my throat.

“What happened to them? ” I asked helplessly, looking for something, any type of answer that might make this somehow easier to understand. “The volcanoes couldn’t have erupted until pretty recently, or this whole place would be one big ash pit. But something killed these people long enough ago so that only bones are left. ”

Gazzy started hacking again, and Nudge lifted a worried eyebrow. “Ash inhalation from some other volcano? ” she suggested. When we’d flown over the open ocean, we’d seen any number of “new” islands being formed. It was like the earth itself was splitting in two, and volcanoes were erupting everywhere.

Gasman shook his head. “What about aftershocks from wherever that sky fire thing crashed? We got a lot of quakes on our island, and that’s hours from here. ”

“Or starvation? ” Iggy countered. “Maybe they didn’t have any rats... ”

“Everywhere has rats, ” Angel scoffed. “Besides, they’ve got loads of snakes, rabbits, dogs, cats, deer, even kangaroos. Tons of protein for the taking. ”

“Maybe the climate change drove all the animals nuts and they went on a murderous rampage, ” Gazzy said.

“Or someone – or something – more powerful did... ” That was probably Nudge’s conspiracy‑ theorist mind going into overdrive, but I wasn’t ruling anything out.

“Could’ve been mass suicide, ” I said seriously.

“Stop it. Just stop it, will you? ” Total snarled suddenly, and I looked at him in surprise. “These aren’t statistics. They were families. Look at them holding each other, protecting each other. They died with dignity. Just like... Akila. ”

Shocked, I looked at the bundled cloth that Iggy had set down carefully when we’d landed. I hadn’t even thought to check on her, though I’d noticed Total licking her face and talking quietly to her. Oh, Akila. Not you, too.

“Total, no–”

Gently Total nudged her nose with his, and I hurried over to kneel by the still, beautiful dog. Her eyes were closed and I put my hand on her side, praying that I would feel her ribs rising and falling with breath. I didn’t.

“Total, no, ” I whispered again, unable to think of anything else to say. The rest of the flock crowded around. Nudge and Angel had tears rolling down their cheeks, leaving odd, pale lines where they washed away dirt.

“A couple of the Cryenas got her good, ” Total said, his words muffled. “And the ash – she breathed too much of it. She sacrificed herself. Miserable excuses for canines... ” He coughed a bark. “Pure courage. Pure grace. That was my Akila. ”

Weeping, Angel wrapped her arms around Total’s scruffy neck, and then he couldn’t keep his composure any longer.

If you’ve ever heard a dog cry, you know it’s absolutely heartbreaking, a wail that cuts to the rawest emotion and shakes it in its teeth. Total howled for Akila, but also for Dylan, for the thousands of people below, for the whole world. And by the time he was finished, every one of us was all cried out.

Total chose Akila’s burial site at an abandoned cottage way out in the middle of nowhere. We had no clue if the soil was full of nuclear radiation or if the air was breeding deadly viruses by the second, but there was no ash cloud in sight right now, and that was good enough for us.

The cottage was run‑ down and looked like it hadn’t been lived in in years, but we found a shovel and a hoe in a lean‑ to, and Fang kicked in the front door in the hopes there would be stuff inside we could use.

We started digging in the hard, parched earth. From the corner of my eye I saw Akila’s swaddled form, and something in me felt like it had split open.

“You okay? ” Fang asked. He lifted my hand and ran his thumb over my dirt‑ caked fingertips. “I can take over. ”

His touch felt solid. Reassuring. But I just couldn’t handle it right now. I just wanted to feel my body working. I wanted to dig. Or scream.

“I’m good. ” I stepped back stiffly, and Fang let his hand fall.

When the hole was ready, Fang gently placed Akila in it. Total’s soft sobs made my heart feel like it was wrapped in barbed wire, but as leader, I knew I had to step up and say a few words.

I cleared my throat. “Here lies our brave friend Akila, ” I said. “She deserves better than this unmarked grave, and to tell you the truth, she deserved better than us. I wish we’d taken better care of her. But even so, she was a true and loyal friend to us, a loving wife to Total, and a fierce fighter under the worst circumstances. ”

I had to clear my throat again. My eyes were burning from the hot, dry dust, and I brushed my sleeve over them. Nudge had started crying and was trying to keep the stinging tears out of her injury, which had barely started to scab over.

“I don’t know about heaven or anything, ” I said gruffly. “Though God knows we’ve seen a thousand kinds of hell. But I know that somewhere, Akila is running free, the sun on her face and the wind in her fur, and she’s got plenty to eat and isn’t in pain. ”

That was when I started crying. I barely got out my last words: “Good‑ bye, Akila. ” Then I took a handful of gritty dirt and sprinkled it on her cloth. One by one, we each threw a handful of dirt on her, and then Total backed up to the pile of dirt and kicked furiously, filling in the hole faster than we could have with the shovel.

“Good‑ bye, my love, my princess, my beautiful bride, ” he sobbed. “Our love will never die. ”

We were all quiet for a couple of minutes.

“I wish we had flowers to put here, ” said Angel, wiping her face and leaving a smeared streak.

“Maybe there’s something inside we could use as a marker, ” Fang said, turning to the house. “Like a statue or vase or something. Be right back. ” He headed inside.

We stood in awkward silence until a distant, bone‑ chilling howl made us all jump... and set the Gasman off.

“What else is alive out there? Max? ”

“I don’t know, okay? ” I said, suddenly exhausted and frustrated and so, so sad about Akila. “I don’t have all the answers. The world looks like it’s been completely obliterated. So whatever possibly survived is going to be... pretty... yucky. ”

“I’m sure rats and cockroaches made it, ” Iggy muttered.

“And us, ” said Angel.

Dropping the shovel, I covered my face with my hands.

Breathe. Just breathe.

This was it: I had finally hit my breaking point.

“Guys? ” Fang called from inside the house, oblivious. “Nudge, c’mere, I need you. ”

“Akila won’t mind about the stupid fake headstone! ” Nudge answered miserably.

“I think you’ll all want to see this. ” Fang stuck his arm out the window, and I stared dumbly at the object he was holding.

Somehow, in the middle of this torched wasteland, Fang had found a laptop.

We gawked at Fang like he was holding an extra‑ large double‑ cheese stuffed‑ crust pizza.

“It’s a laptop, ” I said, frowning in disappointment. “So what? With no Internet, all we could do is play solitaire. We need either actual food or a marker for Akila’s grave. ”

“It’s a tablet, actually, ” Fang corrected as we came nearer. “It’s smaller, see? And it has a touch screen! ”

I rolled my eyes at his mocking tone. “Can we eat it? ” I flicked the hard casing. “Can we use it to fend off the psycho hounds? ” I gestured toward Nudge’s bandaged cheek.

“Let me see that. ” Nudge took the tablet, turning it over in her hands. “I can sense the owner’s fingerprints. He was anxious, searching for something. ”

“I knew it! ” Gazzy punched the air victoriously. “I knew there were still other people alive out there. It’s not just us and the Cryenas! ”

Fang’s eyes flicked to mine, challenging. Nudge did have the power to feel leftover energy, but since we didn’t know how old the energy was, it didn’t necessarily mean anything. And when you’ve had the kind of epically bad luck I’ve had, you learn not to get your hopes up.

Still, it could mean something – a record of what happened, or a connection to the rest of the world...?

“It means answers. ” Angel sat on the cracked kitchen counter, swinging her legs. The way she said it – with that weird authority she had – made it seem real, and there was a collective inhale, a quickening pulse, a feeling that maybe, possibly, we might just have a shot.

I bit my lip and then asked the only question that really mattered: “Does it even work? ”

Nudge held down the power button for a few moments and then looked up with a frown, like she’d been betrayed. Nothing.

“There’s no electricity to charge it, either, ” Fang said, flicking a dead light switch.

I sighed. “Like I said, just another useless piece of junk some poor sap left behind. ” Seeing some plastic flowers on the table, I grabbed them and turned to head out to Akila’s grave.

“Max, be careful out there, ” Gazzy said. “We definitely heard some kind of wild animal. ”

“What if we could charge it another way? ” Iggy called after me. A high‑ pitched squeal made me cover my ears, and I turned to see him standing in the doorway to the next room, holding up a dusty radio.

“Where did you get that? ”

Ig grinned. “Oh, just another useless piece of junk I found lying around. ” He fidgeted with the dial, but all we heard was the crackle of static. “Looks like the antenna’s shot, but it has a charging panel – solar powered. ”

“Doesn’t that mean you need sun? ” I squinted out the window doubtfully. The sky was dark with ash.

“She still might have some juice in her. ” Iggy shrugged. “Worth a shot. ”

Somehow, of course, Iggy found some doohickey thingamabob, fiddled with it, and managed to plug the tablet into the radio. We crowded around, seeing our anxious expressions reflected on the touch screen. The tiny red light on the power cord blinked on, and we waited.

And waited.

“It’s not working, ” I huffed, tapping the screen.

“Patience, Max. ” Total licked away the smudge from my grimy finger. “Just give it a minute. ”

But after five minutes, the radio started to hum with the effort, and the light was still red.

“It’s not going to be enough. ” I started to pace.

Then, just as the radio took its last, groaning breath, a welcoming note chirped from the speakers, and our reflections faded as the screen glowed to life.

Nudge’s hands hovered over the keyboard, and the rest of the flock huddled around her. “What should I look up? ”

“Whoa, you actually have Internet? ” Iggy asked. “I’m guessing this guy probably hasn’t paid his wireless bill in a while. ”

“Five G. ” Nudge wiggled her magnetic fingers. “I know it makes no sense, but don’t question it. ”

We tried all the major news sites. Over and over, we saw the same thing: a white screen with stark black type that read CONNECTION TO SERVER FAILED. Then Nudge started trying anything she could think of. We squealed when an actual site popped up, but saw that it was a shopping list for a homemade disaster kit. Gazzy found “antidiarrheal medication” particularly hilarious, while my stomach growled loudly over such delicacies listed as “canned fruit and meats. ”

But no contact with an actual human. No clues.

Nudge was trying yet another website.

“Hey, this one works! ” She grinned as the log‑ in field popped up.

“Seriously? ” I smirked at her. “The world ends and you want to check your Fotogram? Here, I’ll give you another ‘like. ’ ”

“Shh, ” Nudge said, swatting at my hand. “I just want to see something. ”

She typed #apocalypse into the search field, and the screen lit up with images – pages and pages of disaster pics taken with cell‑ phone cameras. Most of the scenes were beyond anything we could’ve imagined, and believe me, we have dark, twisted imaginations.

“Whoa, ” I managed to croak.

Because what else could you say about a selfie of a woman clutching a Bible as, behind her, a two‑ hundred‑ foot tsunami obliterated Los Angeles?

Or a shot of silver fish flopping on marble staircases while the train tunnels in New York’s Grand Central Station flooded with water?

We saw the city of Tokyo decimated by earthquakes. The president of France speaking to the press, wearing a hazmat suit. A row of houses in Spain buried by a freak blizzard.

It was as if the world had been tossed in the air and all the puzzle pieces were jumbled.

A sea of blue‑ masked faces showed us Hong Kong under quarantine. We saw forests burning, buildings burning, and people burning. Dead birds rained from the sky in so many of the pictures, they had their own hashtag: #crispycritters.

This was the end of the planet, chronicled before us.

There were hundreds of thousands of images, but the events were so varied, the effects so utterly weird, that everything started to blur together.

What happened? didn’t begin to cover it. It seemed like everything had happened, and more.

“Hey, we should check the blog, ” Fang said suddenly. “I haven’t updated it since we took off in Pierpont’s jet, but it had a ton of followers... ”

Nudge’s fingers were already flying across the touch screen as she nodded. “And maybe some of them are still checking in. ”

After Fang’s last post, there were a bunch of comments congratulating us on stopping the Doomsday cult, entries worrying about Angel because she had been missing, and a few standard Max‑ is‑ my‑ idol rants (no biggie). Then we got to the good stuff – the Fang‑ girls.

I started reading those comments aloud, of course. “ ‘Come to Cali, the water’s warm! Love, TeeniBikeeni . ’ ” I wiggled my eyebrows at Fang. “ Babette99 says she’ll give you a tour of Rome if you want to experience love, Italian style. Ciao, Babette! ”

Fang blushed a deep red. “Okay, we get it, Max. Ha‑ ha. ”

“And look! Brklynb8b likes vampires – guess your name gave it away, Snaggletooth. Are those the kind of comments you always got? No wonder you used to spend so much time on this thing, ” I cackled.

“All of these are from January eighth, ” Gazzy said. “That would’ve been it – wouldn’t it? – the day before... ”

The laugh died in my throat as we all stared at the glass screen, realizing these might be some of the last words written in the history of the world.

Total had been flopped morosely on the floor, but now he said, “They don’t really seem to do our culture justice, do they? ”

But then again, what words could?

“Those aren’t all of them. ” Fang pointed. “Some of the postings are more recent if you keep scrolling. Check out the time stamps here. JumpinJoanie wrote ‘stay strong, bird kids. 6 jugs of water with the flock’s name on em in traverse city michigan. ’ That one’s from March. ”

As Nudge scrolled down, it was clear that Fang’s blog had turned into some sort of rogue news site since the Event – whatever it was – had happened. The reports were either posted as Anonymous or under Friends of Fang, and they came from kids across the globe, sharing what had happened to them and trying to make some sense of things.

And boy, did things not make much sense.

Are Europeans checking this board? Since it went Dark, can someone verify if all of England incinerated, or just London? Thx for any info.

Just London? I stared in stunned silence at those words and let out a choked breath. I don’t know what I’d expected, but I wasn’t sure I could handle this.

Anybody heard news W of Denver? Updates apprec.

Fires coming from the west as far as Mississippi R. and flooding still seeping from the east. We’re heading north to Ohio.

“From what we got on the island, I expected the flooding. ” Fang looked up at me, his thick brows knitting together. “But what do you think is causing the fires? Was it from another natural disaster – more meteors or volcanoes – or something man‑ made? Something planned? ”

I shook my head uncertainly. “Look at this one. ‘Whole fam got sick. I’m the only 1 left. ’ Do you think that’s the virus my mom told us about – the bioweapon? ”

Nudge clicked the link to see the responses.

Make sure you protect yourself. H‑ men sweeping populated areas now. Especially west coast usa.

Are H‑ men Erasers? My mom said they’re same as Doomsday cult, but I thought the flock got rid of those guys.

“What! ” I jumped up and jabbed my finger at the screen, disbelieving. “If I have to deal with feral robotic man‑ wolves along with the dissolution of civilization, I am seriously going to lose it. ”

We had almost scrolled all the way down to the bottom, and we weren’t any closer to the answers. The last comment was by PAtunnelratt , and all it said was We miss you guys.

It was from four minutes ago.

“Do you see that? ” I jerked forward.

“I told you! ” Gazzy’s eyes lit up. “Quick, Nudge, write them back! ”

FangMod: @PAtunnelratt, it’s the flock. Are you still there?

“Ugh, this connection is so slow! ” Nudge groaned as she hit Refresh over and over again.

Fang shrugged. “Well, the world has ended. ”

Finally, it showed one reply, and we all crowded in closer to read it over Nudge’s shoulder.

PAtunnelratt: Awww yeahhh. FLOCK 4EVER!! I knew if anybody could survive it was U guys.

FangMod: Where are you?

PAtunnelratt: West Penn. In the mountains. Ppl thought Dad was nutz to buy underground silo. Sometimes impulse buys work out I guess. Ha‑ ha.

“Ask him about Erasers, ” I said.

“And Cryenas! ” Gazzy added.

“Oh my God, now it’s frozen, ” Nudge groaned. “This always happens. ”

“Sorry! ” Fang said dryly. “Next time I miraculously find a working computer in the middle of freaking nowhere, I’ll try to make it speedier. ”

FangMod: Tunnelratt, are there any other people in your area?

It finally went through, but Tunnelratt wasn’t responding.

“We have less than three percent battery left, ” Nudge said nervously. She fired off another message.

FangMod: Have you heard anything about Erasers?

PAtunnelratt: No. but I heard of the Remedy.

“What is the Remedy? ” Nudge typed lightning fast into the white box.

But the screen was already fading to gray as the tablet powered down.