56
RINGER
I PUSH SULLIVAN down into a seat and shout in her ear, “Get ready to bail!” She doesn’t say anything, just stares up into my bloody face uncomprehendingly. Arteries cauterized by the microscopic drones swarming in my bloodstream, pain receptors shut down by the hub; I may look horrible, but I feel great.
I climb over her to the cockpit and plop into the copilot’s seat. The pilot recognizes me immediately.
It’s Lieutenant Bob. The same Lieutenant Bob whose finger I broke in my “escape” with Razor and Teacup.
“Holy shit,” he shouts. “You!”
“Back from the grave!” I yell, which is literally true. I jab my finger at our feet. “Put her down!”
“Fuck you!”
I react without thinking. The hub decides for me—and that’s the terrifying thing about the 12th System: I don’t know anymore where it ends and I begin. Not fully human, not wholly alien, neither, both, something loosed within me, something unbound.
Afterward I realize the brilliance of it: The most precious commodity of any pilot is his sight.
I rip off his helmet and shove my thumb into his eye. His legs kick; his hand flies up to grab my wrist; and the chopper’s nose dips. I intercept his hand and guide it back to the stick as I pour myself into him: Where there is panic, calm. Where there is fear, peace. Where there is pain, comfort.
I know he won’t go all kamikaze on us, because no part of him is hidden from me. I know the desires he would deny even to himself, and there is no desire within him to die.
As there is no doubt in his mind that he needs me to live.
57
ZOMBIE WAS RIGHT all those months ago: As sanctuaries in the apocalypse went, the caverns of West Liberty were damn hard to beat.
No wonder the Silencer priest claimed them for his own.
Gallons of fresh water. An entire chamber stocked with dry and canned goods. Medical supplies, bedding, cans of heating fuel, kerosene, and gasoline. Clothes, tools, and enough weapons and explosives to outfit a small army. A perfect place to hide, even cozy, if you ignored the smell.
The Ohio Caverns reeked of blood.
The largest chamber was the worst. Deep underground and humid, with very little ventilation. The smell—and the blood—had nowhere to go. The stone floor still shimmers crimson in our lights.
A slaughter took place here. Either the false priest picked up the spent shell casings or he sliced his victims open, one by one. We find a spot against the wall with a sleeping bag, a stack of books (including a well-worn Bible), a kerosene lantern, a bag full of toiletries, and several rosaries.
“Of all the places he could bunk, he chose this spot,” Zombie breathes. He’s pressing a cloth against his face to filter the air. “Crazy SOB.”
“Not crazy, Zombie,” I tell him. “Sick. Infected with a virus before he was even born. That’s the best way to think of it.”
Zombie nods slowly. “You’re right. That is the best way to think of it.”
We’ve left Bob the pilot with Cassie and the two kids in another chamber, after packing and bandaging his wound and giving him antibiotics and a massive dose of morphine. He’s in no condition to fly any farther tonight. Just getting us as far as the caverns exceeded his endurance, but I sat beside him and kept him focused and calm, his ballast and his anchor.
Zombie and I retreat toward higher ground, and he navigates the narrow passages with one hand on my shoulder, awkwardly swinging his bad leg, wincing with every step. I make a mental note to check the wound before I leave. The round should probably be removed, but I worry the procedure will do more harm than good. Even with antibiotics, the risk of infection is high, and nicking a major artery would be catastrophic.
“Only two ways down here,” he says. “That works for us. We can block off one end, which leaves a single entrance to watch.”
“Right.”
“Think we’re far enough from Urbana?”
“Far enough from Urbana to what?”
“To avoid getting vaporized.” He smiles, and his teeth shine unusually bright in the lamplight.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“You know what’s scary, Ringer? You seem to know more than any of us, but whenever a critical question comes up, like the issue of whether or not we’ll be vaporized in a couple of days, you never know the answer.”
The path is steep. He needs to rest. I’m not certain he knows that I can feel what he feels through the conduit of his hand touching my shoulder. I don’t know if that would comfort or terrify him. Maybe both.
“Hang on, Zombie.” Acting as if I need to catch my breath. “Gotta rest a minute.”
I lean against an outcropping. At first he tries to be tough and stay upright. But after a minute or two he can’t maintain the act; he eases himself onto the floor, grunting from the effort. Since we met, his near-constant companion has been pain, most of which I have delivered.
“Does it hurt?” he asks.
“What?”
He points at my nose. “Sullivan said she got you good.”
“She did.”
“It’s not even swollen. And no black eyes.”
I look away. “Thank Vosch.”
“Kind of hoping you’ll thank him for all of us.”
I nod. Then I shake my head. Then I nod again.
Zombie knows he’s on dangerous ground. He moves to safer territory quickly. “And it doesn’t hurt? There’s no pain?”
I look right into his eyes. “No, Zombie. There’s no pain.”
I squat, resting on my heels, and set the lamp on the floor. The space between us, less than a foot, feels more like a mile.
“Did you notice on our way in?” I ask. “Somebody built an outdoor shower. I think I’m going to take one before I leave.” Blood’s caked on my face, there’s dirt in my hair, and damp earth is smeared over every exposed inch. An eternity passed after Zombie buried me. I can still see their faces blank with astonishment and horror as I burst from the grave, the two recruits sent back to pick up the squadmates they left behind to kill us. Sullivan had a similar look after she smashed her head into my nose. I’ve become the stuff of wonder and nightmares.
So I want to be clean. I want to feel human again.
“Won’t matter if the water’s cold?” Zombie asks.
“I won’t feel it.”
He nods like he understands. “It should be me. Not in the shower. Ha, ha. I mean going with you. Not Cassie. I’m sorry, Ringer.” He pretends to study the cave’s jagged teeth jutting down over our heads, a dragon’s mouth frozen in midchomp. “What was he like? I mean. That guy. You know.”
I know. “Tough. Funny. Smart. He loved to talk. And he loved baseball.”
“What about you?” Zombie asks.
“I have no opinion about baseball.”
“Not what I meant and you know it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I answer. “He’s dead.”
“Still matters.”
“It’s something you’d have to ask him.”
“I can’t. He’s dead. So I’m asking you.”
“What do you want from me, Zombie? Seriously, what do you want? He was kind to me—”
“He lied to you.”
“Not when it mattered. Not about the important things.”
“He betrayed you to Vosch.”
“He sacrificed his life for me.”
“He murdered Teacup.”
“That’s it, Zombie. No more.” I rise. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Why did you?”
Because you’re my bullshit-free zone, but I’m not giving him that. Because you’re the one I came out of the wilderness for, no, not that, either. And not Because you’re the one person I still trust.
Instead, I
say, “You caught me at a weak moment.”
“Well.” Then the Ben Parish smile, the smile it almost hurts to look at. “If you’re ever in need of an egotistical prick, I’m your man.” He waits two breaths, then adds, “Oh, come on, Ringer. Come on. Smile. That joke works on so many levels, it isn’t even funny.”
“You’re right,” I answer. “It’s not funny.”
58
I SLIDE OUT of my clothes beside the outdoor shower. The overhead container was empty, so I had to fill it from the cistern next to the welcome center. The cistern must have weighed over a hundred pounds, but I hoisted it onto my shoulder as if it weighed no more than little Nugget.
I know the water is cold, but like I told Zombie, I’m protected by Vosch’s gift. I feel nothing but wetness. The water bears away the blood and dirt.
I run my hands over my stomach. He sacrificed his life for me. The boy in the doorway lit up by a funeral pyre, carving letters into his arm.
I touch my shoulder. The skin is smooth and soft. The 12th System repaired the damage minutes after I inflicted it. I am like the water that runs over me, immune to permanence, recycling endlessly. I am water; I am life. The form may change, but the substance stays the same. Strike me down and I will rise again. Vincit qui patitur.
I close my eyes and see his. Sharp, glittering, brilliant blue, eyes that knife deeper than your bones. You created me, and now your creation is coming back for you. Like rain to parched earth, I come back.
And water bears away the blood and dirt.
59
CASSIE
HERE’S SOMETHING to chew on. Here’s the charming truth about the world the Others are creating:
My little brother has forgotten the alphabet, but he knows how to make bombs.
A year ago it was crayons and coloring books, construction paper and Elmer’s glue. Now it’s fuses and blasting caps, wires and black powder.
Who wants to read a book when you can blow something up?
Beside me, Megan watches him the way she watches everything else: silently. She clutches Bear to her chest, another silent witness to the evolution of Samuel J. Sullivan.
He’s working with Ringer, the two of them kneeling next to each other, a two-person assembly line. I guess they took the same IED class at camp. Ringer’s damp hair shines like a blacksnake’s skin in the lamplight. Her ivory skin gleams. A couple of hours ago, I smashed my forehead into her nose and broke it, but there’s no swelling, no sign I inflicted any damage at all. Unlike my nose, which will be crooked till the day I die. Life is not fair.
“How’d you get on that chopper?” I ask her. It’s been bugging me.
“Same way you did,” she answers. “I jumped.”
“The plan was for me to jump.”
“Which you did. You were hanging on by a fingernail,” she said. “I didn’t think I had a choice at that point.”
In other words, I saved your worthless, freckly, crooked-nosed ass. What are you bitching about?
Not that my nose has an ass. I really should stop putting thoughts into other people’s heads.
She tucks a strand of her silky locks behind her ear. There’s something so effortlessly and inexplicably graceful about the gesture that it borders on creepy. What the hell happened to you, Ringer?
Of course, I know what happened to her. The gift, Evan called it. All human potential times a hundred. I have the heart to do what I have to do, Evan told me once. He neglected to say at the time he meant that both literally and figuratively. He neglected to say a lot of things, the bastard who doesn’t even deserve rescuing.
What the hell am I thinking? Looking at Ringer’s delicate fingers dance in the complicated ballet of constructing a bomb, I realize the scariest thing about her isn’t what Vosch has done to her body; it’s what that amped-up body has done to her mind. When you tear down our physical limitations, what happens to our moral ones? I’m pretty certain the pre-enhanced Ringer couldn’t have single-handedly massacred five heavily armed, well-trained recruits. I also suspect pre-enhanced Ringer couldn’t have shoved her thumb into another human being’s eyeball. That required a leap in evolution of an entirely different kind.
Speaking of Bob.
“You people are wacked,” he goes. He’s been watching, too, with his good eye.
“No, Bob,” Ringer says without looking up from her task. “The world is wacked. We just happen to be occupying it.”
“Not for long! You won’t get within a hundred miles of the base.” His panicky voice fills the little chamber, which smells of chemicals and old blood. “They know where you are—there’s a fucking GPS on that chopper—and they’re coming after you with everything they’ve got.”
Ringer looks up at him. A flip of the bangs. A flash of the dark eyes. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
“How much longer?” I ask her. Everything depends on our reaching the base before sunrise.
“A couple more and we’ll be ready.”
“Yeah!” Bob shouts. “Get ready! Say your prayers, because it’s goin’ down, Dorothy!”
“She’s not a Dorothy!” Sam shouts at him. “You’re a Dorothy!”
“You shut the fuck up!” Bob yells back.
“Hey, Bob,” I call over to him. “Leave my brother alone.”
Bob’s all balled up in the corner, quivering, sweating, the buttload of morphine apparently not enough. He couldn’t be older than twenty-five. Young by pre-Arrival standards. Middle-aged by the new ones.
“What’s gonna stop me from crashing us into a fucking cornfield, huh?” he demands. “Whatcha gonna do—punch out my other eye?” Then he laughs.
Ringer ignores him, which throws gas on Bob’s fire.
“Not that it matters. Not that you have a chance in hell. They’ll cut you down the minute we land. They’ll carve you up like fucking Halloween pumpkins. So make your little bombs and hatch your little plots; you’re all dead meat.”
“You’re right, Bob,” I tell him. “That pretty much sums it up.”
I’m not being snarky (for once). I mean every word. Assuming he doesn’t crash us into a cornfield, assuming we aren’t shot down by the armada that’s surely on its way, assuming we aren’t captured or killed inside the camp by the thousands of soldiers who will be expecting us, assuming by some miracle Evan is still alive and by some bigger miracle I find him, and assuming Ringer kills Vosch, the closest thing our species has to the indestructible cockroach, we still have no exit strategy. We’re buying a one-way ticket to oblivion.
And those tickets don’t come cheap, I think while I watch my Sams put the finishing touches on a bomb.
Oh, Sam. Crayons and coloring books. Construction paper and glue. Teddy bears and footy pajamas, swing sets and storybooks and everything else we knew you’d leave behind, though not this soon, not this way. Oh, Sam, you have the face of a child but the eyes of an old man.
I was too late. I risked everything to rescue you from the end, but the end already had you.
I push myself to my feet. Everybody looks at me except Sam. He’s humming softly, slightly off-key. Theme music to build explosives by. He’s the happiest I’ve seen him in a long time.
“I need to talk to Sam,” I tell Ringer.
“That’s fine,” she says. “I can spare him.”
“I wasn’t asking for permission.”
I grab his wrist and pull him from the chamber, into the narrow corridor, up the path toward the surface until I’m sure they can’t hear us. Fairly sure, anyway. Ringer can probably hear a butterfly beating its wings in Mexico.
“What is it?” he asks, frowning, or maybe-frowning. I didn’t bring a light; I can barely see his face.
That’s a damn good question, kid. Once again, here I go, half-cocked and winging it. This should be a speech weeks in the making.
“You know I’m
doing this for you,” I tell him.
“Doing what?”
“Leaving you.”
He shrugs. Shrugs! “You’re coming back, aren’t you?”
There it is: the invitation to a promise I cannot make. I take his hand and say, “Remember that summer you chased the rainbow?” He looks up at me, utterly baffled. “Well, maybe not. I think you were still in diapers. We were in the backyard and I had the sprayer. When the sunlight hit the water . . . you know, a rainbow. And I was making you chase it. Telling you to catch the rainbow . . .” I’m about to let loose with some waterworks of my own. “Kind of cruel when I think about it.”
“Why are you thinking about it, then?”
“I just don’t want . . . I don’t want you to forget things, Sam.”
“Things like what?”
“You need to remember it wasn’t always like this.” Making bombs and hiding in caves and watching everyone you know die.
“I remember things,” he argues. “I remember what Mommy looked like now.”
“You do?”
He nods emphatically. “I remembered right before I shot that lady.”
Something in my expression must give me away. I’m guessing a mixture of shock and horror and a sadness that has no bottom. Because he turns on his heel and barrels back to the weapons chamber only to return after a minute with Bear in his arms.
Oh, that goddamned bear.
“No, Sams,” I whisper.
“He brought you luck last time.”
“He’s . . . he’s Megan’s now.”
“No, he’s mine. He’s always been mine.” Holding him out to me.
I gently push Bear back into his chest. “And you need to keep him. I know you’ve outgrown him. I know you’re a soldier or commando or whatever now. But one day, maybe there’ll be a little kid who really needs Bear. Because . . . well, just because.”
I kneel at his feet. “So hang on to him, understand? You take care of him and protect him and don’t let anybody hurt him. Bear is very important to the grand scheme of things. He’s like gravity. Without him, the universe would fall apart.”