This is a work of fiction.

All of the characters, organizations, and events

portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS .

An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

SECONDWORLD. Copyright © 2012 by Jeremy Robinson. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America. For information, address
St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com

ISBN 978- 0- 312- 61786- 8 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-01516-7 (e-book)

First Edition: May 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
1
MIAMI, FLORIDA
WEDNESDAY—AUGUST 8, 2012

“Shit!”
The microwave door flew open and Rachel Carter reached
her hand in.
The spoon, left in the bowl of oatmeal and heated along with
the cardboard-flavored breakfast, had been shooting off blue sparks
when she noticed it. Without thinking, she grabbed the spoon. A
millisecond later, her mind registered the stupidity of her action,
along with the searing heat. Her arm reacted quicker than her
fi ngers, flailing backward. The spoon soared across the kitchen,
weighted with expensive organic oats, and smacked against the
stainless steel fridge, where both breakfast and spoon clung like
Silly Putty.
Rachel turned on the tap and ran cold water over her pulsing
index fi nger and thumb, her glare fi xed on the spoon. It slid slowly
toward the floor.
“You okay, Mom?” asked her ten-year- old daughter, Samantha.
“Fine.”
Samantha walked past the fridge, paused, stepped back and
looked at the spoon. She turned to her mother with an eyebrow
raised. “Fine?”
Rachel forced a smile that communicated a single message:
don’t ask.
Samantha shrugged and pulled a chair up to the counter. She
climbed onto the chair, then onto the counter.
“Get down from there!”
“I’m hungry.”
“I made you oatmeal.”
JEREMY ROBINSON 12

“You’re gonna make me puke, too, if I have to eat that sludge.”

With two granola bars in hand, she jumped down from the
counter, swung the chair back to the table, and began unwrap-
ping the fi rst bar. Jake, the younger of the two siblings, strode into
the kitchen, still in his footie pajamas, which he wore most days.
“One of the advantages of being homeschooled,” he was fond of
saying. Samantha tossed him the second granola bar and they sat
at the table, eating in silence.
Rachel sighed. She couldn’t complain. At least they were eat-
ing granola bars and not fast- food egg and sausage sandwiches—
which she suspected her husband, Walter, had been sneaking on
his way to work. Again. She looked at the microwave clock.
8:30 A.M.
“Walter, you’re going to be late!” she shouted after noticing the
time. He worked for a big downtown marketing fi rm and had a
major pitch to make that afternoon.
Walter slid into the kitchen, moving fast. He opened the cabinet,
reached up, and took down the granola bar box. Empty. “Ouch.
Epic fail.” He looked at Rachel, who nodded toward the kids. Her
grin said it all.
He took in their barely contained smiles. “Traitors!” He sighed.
“I guess I’ll just get something on the way.”
“I’m sure you will,” Rachel replied, drying off her still- stinging
fi nger.
“What?”
Rachel stared intently at him, trying to convey her annoyance
over his bad eating habits, without actually having to spell it out
for him in front of the children.
Seeing her expression, Walter laughed. “I have no idea what
you’re talking about! Now get out of my head, woman!” He grabbed
his bag and headed down the hallway for the front door.
“Love you!” Rachel shouted as the door creaked open.
There was no reply.
No customary “Love you, too.”
No closing door.
No starting car.
She was about to go check on him when Walter slowly backed
into the kitchen. He had his iPhone out and was tapping the screen
madly. This wasn’t an uncommon activity, but the dire look on his
SECONDWORLD 13

face was far from normal. Rachel held her breath. The kids stopped
giggling and watched their father.
“What is it?” she asked. “Did the job fall through already?”
Walter shook his head and kept on tapping. Then he stopped.
“This is wrong.”
“What?” she demanded, growing worried. “Is the phone broken?”
He stared blankly down at the screen. “It’s happening
everywhere— all over the world. Wait— Crap, I lost our Wi-Fi con-
nection.”
“Walter . . .”
“The 3G network is down, too.” He met his wife’s eyes. “It must
be disrupting cell ser vice.”
She took his face in her hands, willing his stunned eyes to meet
hers. “Walter! What are you talking about? What is happening?”
He glanced toward the still- open front door. She followed his
gaze and gasped.
The kids hopped out of their chairs to look.
“It’s snowing!” Jake shouted, running for the door.
“No!” Walter jumped forward and snagged his son by the sleeve.
He looked at Rachel, his expression alarmed. “Close any open win-
dows. Tape the seams. Use the duct tape.”
She nodded, feeling sick, and they both set off around the
house, closing doors and windows. Samantha and Jake went into
the living room, climbed onto the couch, and peered curiously
out the bay window.
“Why can’t we go out?” Jake asked. “It never snows here. I want
to play in the snow!”
“Dad says it’s not snow.”
Jake looked grumpy. “Well, how does he know?”
“Because, silly, snow isn’t red.”
2
TOKYO, JAPAN
WEDNESDAY—AUGUST 8, 2012

Akiko Sato woke to a loud chime.

She reached for the alarm and hit the snooze button. The sound
disappeared and she returned to sleep within seconds.
Moments later, the shrill electronic chime sounded again. Her
mind, pulled from REM sleep by the fi rst chime, fi nally registered
the sound for what it was— her cell phone. She rolled over to look
at the clock, but her tightly tucked-in sheets resisted her move-
ment.
Had she missed her alarm? Was work calling to fi nd out why
she was late?
When she saw the time, she relaxed.
10:30 P.M.
She’d only been asleep for half an hour.
She brought the phone up to her eyes and squinted in the
screen’s bright blue glow as she read the caller ID. She groaned.
Tadao. Her boyfriend. Soon to be ex-boyfriend. He was nice enough,
but just too clingy for her. She hadn’t called to say goodnight, and
here he was, calling her instead. She popped open the phone and
decided that she would break it off with the whipped pup of a
man tomorrow. Tonight she had to sleep, and that meant saying
goodnight now, or the phone would ring until morning.
“I was asleep, Tadao.”
“Sorry, sorry. Right, it’s late. But you have to see something.”
Just say goodnight, hang up, and go to sleep, she willed herself.
“I’m up at four thirty. You know that, don’t you? I have to go.”
“Wait! Just look out your window.”
She glanced toward the drawn shades on the other end of her
SECONDWORLD 15

long, narrow bedroom. She lived on the thirtieth floor of a high-

rise apartment building. The only thing to look at outside her
window was other buildings. What could he want her to see?
A surge of ner vous energy stirred in her belly. Normally re-
served and always professional, Tadao sounded unusually lively.
Like someone about to do something stupid. He was a system
programmer, making it possible for hotels to control lighting
and environmental systems from one location. He had, in fact,
worked on several of the hotels within eyeshot of her building.
She had a feeling she knew where this phone call was leading.
“I’m going,” she said as she yanked free of her sheets and
stumbled over to the window. She hoped he wasn’t going to take
a picture of her in her nightgown, using some kind of long- range
camera while she read, with a scowl on her face, his marriage pro-
posal written out in lights on the side of a building.
She was positive that’s what he had planned, because as re-
served as Tadao was, that was exactly the stupid romantic kind of
stunt he would pull.
She took hold of the curtain and held her breath. She’d never
been one to climb slowly into a pool. She preferred to jump in. Let
the shock hit her all at once and then fade all the more quickly.
She counted to three, then jerked open the curtain, scouring the
buildings for anything unusual.
Everything looked normal. Tokyo glowed brightly below her
window. A thick haze fi lled the air, which was nothing new, though
the color seemed more vibrant than usual. The streets were packed,
which was typical.
Well, not quite typical, actually. Something was different. She
pressed her nose lightly against the glass and looked down.
The streets were mobbed, but no one was moving one way or
the other, simply standing frozen as they gazed upward in awe.
“Are you there? Do you see it?” Tadao asked. “Pretty amazing,
right?”
She caught her breath. “I don’t see anything.”
“Step onto your balcony and look up.”
Akiko did as she was told, more curious now than worried. She
unlocked the slider, pulled it open, and stepped out into the cool
night air. She breathed deep and sneezed immediately. The air
was bad tonight.
JEREMY ROBINSON 16

But then she looked up and forgot all about the air.
The sky was ablaze with colors! Like a rainbow in motion, the
atmosphere from horizon to horizon danced with vivid colors
like the aurora borealis seen through a kaleidoscope. Hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of bright streaks, like shooting stars zipping
in and out of view, made the display even more spectacular.
She laughed.
“Beautiful, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Like you,” he said.
Akiko frowned, closed the phone, and tossed it back inside. It
began ringing a moment later. She closed the door, blocking out
the sound, and returned to watching the sky. Tadao could call all
night if he wanted to. She doubted anyone in Tokyo would be
sleeping tonight.
She turned toward the sky again as a collective “ahhh” rose up
from the streets below. The shooting stars had picked up pace. They
were everywhere. They were incredibly beautiful.
But somehow ominous.
She looked down at the people below again, all still looking up.
Something major was happening. She followed their gaze and for
the fi rst time saw something in the night sky brighter than the
neon city lights. The haze wasn’t haze. It had a solid form to it.
Like snow.
Red snow.
She glanced down at the shoulder of her pale blue nightgown.
What looked like ruddy dandruff, though some bits were more
similar in size to a fi fty-yen coin, covered the light fabric. Her en-
tire nightgown was coated in it. Akiko gasped, breathing some of
it in.
Tasting it.
She gagged and spit, trying to expunge the flavor from her
mouth, but each breath only increased the potency.
The air tasted like blood.