Mom? You o-k? Charlie said, interrupting the doctor.
Just had a question, said interpreter-as-mom.
The doctor nodded for her to go ahead, but Charlie’s stomach pitted; she knew what it was already. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, hoping that either she was wrong or the interpreter might press on without her having to look, but when she returned to the conversation the doctor was saying,
—too much tissue damage to reimplant. But we can certainly explore candidacy on the right side.
Are you fucking kidding me? Charlie said, and left.
* * *
—
She arrived on Slash’s doorstep without quite knowing how she found it—she had never sought it out in daylight （not to mention sober）， but the house had somehow burrowed a place in her memory and she slid her hand beneath the plywood and knocked on the door.
Someone opened it a sliver so that only a single, shifty eye was visible, but soon the person was fiddling with the chain, and Lem, as it turned out to be, pulled open the door and sighed.
Jailbait, hey. You scared the shit outta me.
She pulled Charlie inside by the elbow, locked the door. Behind her the house smelled faintly of burnt plastic. Charlie could feel Lem’s eyes run over the bald part of her head, revving up for some commentary, then catch on the stitches and leave it alone.
Everyone’s downstairs, she said.
Charlie followed her to the cellar door, where Lem yelled down into a fluorescent haze. Charlie watched for any sign that Slash had responded, but Lem was stolid.
You can go down if you want, she said.
Lem returned to the living room, peered out through a small hole drilled in one of the window boards, then dropped down on the couch, eyes still trained on the door. Charlie felt uneasy. She could tell something weird was going on. She knew, too, that even her mother would have managed to find her way back to the car by now, and would panic in the hyperbolic manner of Proper Southern Ladies upon not finding Charlie there. In the end, though, her curiosity got the better of her and she descended the stairs.
The cellar was dim with low ceilings, and smelled of mold and cat litter. Charlie could feel the thrum of loud music running through the concrete floor. In the back corner, she saw movement and started toward it, but Slash materialized from the shadows and intercepted her.
C, hey! What are you doing here?
Charlie watched him try to shove a tattered book into his back pocket, but it was too big and eventually he gave up.
What’s that? she said.
He looked down at it with an almost hangdog expression but handed it to her.
Recipes? Charlie repeated as she read the cover.
Of sorts.
More fireworks?
Something like that. Vintage copy, though. The new editions are useless. All “community organizing” or some shit.
Charlie could see the light returning to his eyes.
I mean, this shit’s all over the internet. The trick is being able to look it up without getting tracked. We used to have an in for burner library cards, but our guy is…well, anyway…
Slash trailed off and Charlie peered over his shoulder to the far side of the basement, where Greg and Sid were bent over something she couldn’t see. Beside them, flattened pressure cooker boxes were neatly piled and tied together with twine. Greg wore a pair of glasses with big, built-in magnifiers, like Charlie’s orthodontist used. Sid was tinkering with a run of wire inside the base of what, Charlie realized now, was one of the pots.
I better go, she said. My mom’s in town. I just wanted to say hi.
Yeah, said Slash. We’re kind of in the thick of it. Hey, what happened to your head?
I got electrocuted.
Slash cracked a grin, but stopped short, leaving his chapped lip caught crooked on his bicuspid.
Jesus, he said.
You’re serious.
Charlie nodded.
I’m fine now.
Electrocuted how? By what?
Big Pharma, Charlie said.
Fuck, are you okay?
The question felt more leaden that she’d expected it to. She thought for a moment.
I don’t know yet, she said.
Slash told her to come back if she needed anything and hugged her goodbye. Upstairs she nodded to Lem and let herself out.
* * *
—
She returned to Colson Children’s to find her mom outside the garage throwing a fit into her phone. Charlie waved once she got close enough and watched her mother’s face shift from worry to anger. She jabbed at the end call button with her ridiculous acrylic nail and crossed the street without even looking for traffic.
Charlie, what in the ever-loving hell! Where were you! You think you can just take off in the middle of the city!
Charlie understood that these weren’t really questions, though she briefly reveled in imagining her mother’s reaction if Charlie were to tell the truth, that she was in the basement with a bunch of drug-addled anarchists and their bomb cookbook.
What is wrong with you?
YOU’RE what’s wrong with me! Charlie shouted. You’re trying to kill me with these fucking—she pointed to her scar—things!
I was just asking about our options.
No more options. Not for you.
Have some respect, Charlie, Jesus.
No more surgery. I will—
Charlie paused. She had learned a word, exactly the right one, recently in Headmistress’s class—but she had no idea how to say it aloud. She took out her phone and typed: i will filibuster you until im 18.
She held the screen up to her, and her mother paused, taken aback, though by what—her defiance? the typing workaround? the fact that Charlie knew a four-syllable word?—it was hard to say.
Get in the car, her mother said.
So Charlie had gotten in the car, but her mind stayed in the city, turning over what she’d seen. It scared her a little, sure, but it hadn’t repelled her like the night at Holden’s, or even on New Year’s. Maybe she was just getting used to it, or maybe she was finally mad enough to see its use.
Her mother dropped her back at her father’s, but Charlie was no less angry with him. He wouldn’t stop her mother when it came down to it—he was either still harboring some romantic allegiance, or totally spineless, or secretly agreed with her, but whatever it was, it all added up to another hole in Charlie’s head.
I wanna go back to school, she said.
O-k, he said. I’ll drive you in the morning.
No, tonight.
Charlie, let’s not fight about this. Go do your homework and get your stuff packed up, and we’ll go first thing tomorrow.
Fine, she said.
Do you want dinner?
I ate, she lied.
All right, well, I’m gonna—he gestured over his shoulder to his office—I have some stuff to wrap up.
Whatever.
Love you.
She went upstairs and shoved what she could in her backpack, pulled on a hat, then stole back down and out the door, hoping the click shut wasn’t loud enough to rouse her father from his blue screen trance.
From Revolutionary Recipes: The Activist’s Guide to Cooking Up Change
Now that you’ve established the container for your explosive and your need for a timed release, you can build a customizable long-fuse detonator. Using an analog watch or clock is a dependable way to set a detonation time. （For short-fuse detonators, see Chapter 8.） A lightbulb squib is one of the easier and more reliable long-fuse detonators you can build with relatively few components.