Page 219 of The End of the World As We Know It

Corporate litigator by day. Preternaturally gifted crime fighter by night. Able to convince even the most hardened criminals to do his bidding with his silver tongue (metaphorical) and his superior brain (not metaphorical). Able to freeze moments of great chaos with his stentorian catchphrase: “I OBJECT!”

Actually, now that he thinks of it, he’d created the SuperLawyer right after he was gifted this damn Plymouth. Inspired by that stupid key chain. A way to digest his complicated feelings. Talk about messy and unsettling.

He flicks that key chain now. Watches it sway back and forth.

I’m so damn proud of you, son, his dad had said, after showing him the car parked in the driveway of the crummy little apartment they shared. Getting into law school! I always told you how smart you were, didn’t I?

Dad. It’s. Thank you. But you can’t afford this.

Don’t worry about that. I got it on a deal.

That wild look in his eye. The kind he always got when he was doing something ill-advised. Something impulsive.

He handed his son the key, attached to a leather fob bearing two letters.

Who’s SL?

You are, dummy!

Dad. Those aren’t my initials.

Getting concerned now. His strange memory lapses had been getting more and more frequent… but this would be a big one.

Dad laughed. Clapped his son on the shoulders.

I know that! I know my boy’s initials. SL stands for—SuperLawyer.

A barely perceptible pause there. Covering a mistake? Was this the first real sign of the end? Or had he just gotten the key chain on some discount—maybe even a five-fingered one—and he couldn’t pass up a good bargain?

His dad suddenly gets very serious.

But you gotta leave the car here, SuperLawyer. Trust me on this. The car stays here.

He gestures to the odometer. An impossibly long number is displayed there.

Whoa. Lotta miles on this, Dad.

Those aren’t miles, dummy. That’s a second chance. This car’s gotta play its part, but maybeyoucan play a part, too, one d—

He snaps awake, sweaty and gasping. His mouth tastes lined with dirty cotton. He grimaces.

Fell asleep, he realizes. Staring at that damn key chain.

It’s stuffy and uncomfortable in the Plymouth. The air is stale and thin; he can smell the salty, waxy fast-food wrappers he’d hastily discarded into the passenger-side footwell earlier while driving.

As he reaches over to roll a window down, he realizes he fell asleep with his portfolio on his lap. Not only that, one of his drawings of SuperLawyer is out of its plastic sheeting and a pen is in his hand. He always keeps a pen or two in his pocket, and he must’ve grabbed one while he dozed.

“Nooooo,” he moans, seeing what else he did.

Something is scrawled across his drawing. A number. The same number he’d seen on the odometer in his already-fading dream.

978-1-66805-7551

No memory of writing it. No idea what it means. Furious at himself for defacing a perfectly good drawing.

Those aren’t miles, dummy…

His pulse begins to hammer. Knock.