But so far, the system hasn’t come.
So far, I feel stronger. Better.
If it weren’t for Meadow’s mission, I’d be free.
Sketch is walking beside me, and Meadow is out of earshot from us.
“You realize this could be our new world, right?” I ask her.
She kicks a chunk of rubble out of the way. “What do you mean?”
I sigh. “I mean it would be already, if we didn’t have to go to the Ridge.”
She stares straight ahead, taking in the packed streets. “What are you getting at, Zero?”
“We’re following Meadow like homeless mutts, giving up our freedom for a mission that isn’t ours to begin with. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“No,” she says automatically. Then she swallows, hard. “Don’t tell her I agree with you. Don’t even tell her we talked.”
Here I am, in this open space, a world without walls. And I’m marching toward a new Perimeter. A new cage to close myself in.
But then Meadow looks back over her shoulder at us. I realized we’ve slowed down. “You okay?” she asks. There’s a hint of concern in her eyes, a wrinkle in her Catalogue Number that lets me know she cares.
And that makes my chest constrict.
Because sometimes, you do stupid things for the people you care about.
And stars, even when it hurts, I care about that broken girl.
“We’re fine, Woodson,” Sketch says, waving Meadow off. Then she looks back at me.
“I wasn’t asking because I wanted to stop this,” I say. “I was asking because I had to know that if I’m in this, you’re in this.” I lower my voice. “It’s obvious she’s not . . . not herself, lately.”
She laughs. “That’s the understatement of the century, Zero.”
I look into her amber eyes. “I need to find a way for us to keep going, when it gets tough. When we feel like backing out on her.”
Sketch scratches at her cheek.
Then she punches me in the face.
I stagger back, too shocked to do anything, and spit blood. “What the hell was that for?”
She laughs, a crazy sound that means she just enjoyed what she did. “You start to doubt, you get decked. Deal?”
I rub the burn away from my brow. Then I nod, walk closer to her, and swing my fist.
She dodges it.
“You gotta do better than that, Zero. Now let’s keep going before we turn this into an all-out war.”
The day gets hotter and hotter, and it’s hard to keep track of how long we’ve been walking. I realize, as we go, that this isn’t just for Meadow. It’s for me, too. I’m looking at things I’ve never seen. I’m out in the world that I never thought I’d see.
The tents stretch down the road, until there’s a blockage in the way.
A big graveyard of metal.
“What the hell are those?” Sketch asks.
She points ahead, where the road is packed with hunks of metal on wheels, hundreds of them scattered, all broken and forgotten. Just like the shipwrecked boats in the Shallows. Some of them have shattered windows. Shards of glass are spilled across the road, and they catch the sunlight and sparkle like droplets of liquid fire.
“They’re cars,” Ray says.
He points at a green one.
And as I look at the color, a memory slams into me.
I’m just a boy, training in combat back in the Initiative Headquarters.
There’s a guard standing behind me, whispering to his comrades.
“The Green, man,” he says. “What do you think?”
The other guard laughs. “I think you’re an idiot.”
“Zephyr?” Meadow touches my shoulder. “Did you hear me?”
I blink, still staring at the green car. The memory fades away. But it was real, I know it was. I can sense the difference between the ones I actually had and the ones the Leeches implanted into me. It’s like tasting salt water compared to the fresh kind.
Big difference.
“I’m fine,” I say, blinking. “Really, I’m fine.”
Meadow frowns, the lines of her Catalogue Number straightening out. “I didn’t ask you if you were.” She watches me for a second, concern darkening her eyes. “Is it the system?”
“No,” I say. “No, it’s nothing.”
Ray shuffles forward, explains what the cars are. “They’re smaller vehicles, better than trains. But you need gas to work ’em. And we’re fresh out of the stuff. Let’s move. We don’t want to be out when darkness hits.”
“Finally, something we can agree on,” Sketch says. “Come on, Woodson.”
Meadow gives me a final look before following after her.
We walk toward the city, snaking around cars. I let my fingertips touch their hot metal sides. My boots crunch over wasted glass.
The entire time, I feel like I’m stuck in a dream.
CHAPTER 47
MEADOW
When I was younger, I used to think the Shallows was massive.
The buildings towered taller than I could ever be, and standing beside them made me feel impossibly small.
But the Shallows was nothing compared to this city.
There are triple the amount of buildings here, stretching high into the sky like a man-made forest. Some of them are missing their tops, and others have crumbling sides.
The sounds of life rise like the whispers of ghosts, growing louder, and clearer, the closer we get. We stop at the entrance just as darkness hits.
The colors of the city are muted at night, blacks and whites and grays, and I feel for a moment, the surge of anger that comes before every Dark Time.
But there is no Night Siren. This is not home.
We enter the city.
At first I think the people are corpses lying about. But then they move, they stand, they speak, and I am staring into the eyes of the living dead.
They are all skin hanging on bones.
They are sunken eyes and protruding hips and shoulders that are poking through filthy skin.
They are starving to death. I thought, in the Shallows, that we were hungry. But we had rations. We had jobs, where we could work for just enough food to survive. Here, there is no Rations Hall. There are no jobs, no payment. There is only the hope that you can find something to survive on.
This is like nothing I have ever seen.
So many people scattered about, far more than the Shallows. It seems the city streets have been made into homes. Shelters are all over every square inch of space, up against buildings, in Dumpsters, pouring out onto the fire escapes, even tarps that flap in the wind on the roofs. The smell is like the Graveyard, only this is fresh, a constant flow. In this packed city, with the buildings so tightly wound together, the wind cannot make its way clearly inside to ease the stench.
Fires burn all around. I hear infants, crying, and wonder why anyone would bring them into this world.
I think of the Shallows, with its overflowing numbers. But there, sometimes, you could find space to breathe. Here you could never do that.
We follow Ray through a pathway of sorts. Hands stretch toward him. Some voices call out to him, while others shy away. But one thing is constant.
They know him.
And they let us pass.
We reach the end of one street, turn right into another.
There’s more people here, more shelters. It all melts into a blur.
I think of my mother. She did this to them, gave them a curse of life without death. And these people look like they want to die.
“Almost there,” Ray says over his shoulder.
He stops before a building that has a big open mouth beneath it, disappearing into darkness underground. A thick metal gate covers the entrance, and three armed guards stand behind it.
When they notice Ray, the guards pull on a heavy chain. The gate groans, and it begins to slide up into the ceiling.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I say to Zephyr as we wait
.
“It’s a parking garage,” Ray says, turning back to us. “It goes underground a few flights, and it’s . . . Aah, well, you’ll see,” he says, as we all stare back at him like he is crazy, or speaking an entirely different language. “You three, I swear. It’s like you ain’t lived a life before. I forget all you’ve known is that damn walled city. Come on, then. Let’s go.”
We follow Ray into darkness. The ground slopes down, down, and then it turns a sharp left.
Down, down, again. Walls surround us on all sides. The ceiling is low, made of concrete. I feel incredibly small, like the weight over our heads could crush us at any moment. But it is cooler down here.
Torches flicker up ahead, and there’s another gate, made from scraps of metal, probably not originally a part of this place. More armed guards. Ray calls out to them, and they raise the gate, let us pass.
I see a symbol painted on the wall. A powerful bird, lit by flickering torches. An eagle. It was the symbol of our country, before the Fall. Now the bird is a thing of the past. Or it used to be, until now.
The lower we go, and the more turns we take, the more signs are painted on the walls. More eagles. A logo that reads NEW US MILITIA.
Ray touches the logo with his fingertips, mutters something under his breath.
We come to a third makeshift gate, and more guards that nod to Ray as we arrive.
The gate rises, slowly.
“Welcome to the Outpost,” Ray says.
I hear voices. Commotion, the hum of a generator. I see a flickering light.
I only get a glimpse of what’s inside. A table, with men gathered around it, deep in conversation. Computer screens, a giant map spread across one wall. Rooms, sectioned off by sheets. A stockpile of weapons, and food. Cots lining the walls. Lanterns glowing like watching eyes.
I’m about to ask what the Outpost is, what we’re doing here, when suddenly I feel something hot and thick drip from my nose.
I touch it, pull my fingertips away. They are soaked in blood.
“I’m . . . bleeding,” I say.
Everyone turns to look at me. The blood drips like a waterfall. My head feels fuzzy and light, and suddenly the world begins to flicker in and out of focus. My mother’s whispered words sing to my soul, and I finally know that they are true.
I fall. My Regulator slams against the floor.
The last thing I see before darkness takes over, is a man dressed in white.
He stares down at me with cold, calculating eyes.
CHAPTER 48
ZEPHYR
“Stop screaming, Sketch,” I groan. “You’re going to wake Meadow up.”
“This ChumHead thinks she can comb my dreads away!” Sketch growls. She’s sitting beside me on an old cracked leather couch. Martha, Ray’s wife, has been trying to rake through Sketch’s dreads for the past hour.
“If you would sit still, I might be able to fix things,” Martha says. She is old and gray, wrinkled as all hell, but her eyes are kind. She fed us food from metal cans. Something sweet and savory, called peaches. She let us bathe ourselves in a washbasin and gave us clean clothing to wear. New boots, probably from dead Militia members, but they fit my feet well enough.
I feel, for the first time, genuine care and concern from a stranger. I wonder if this is what it would have been like, to grow up with a real family. Not a fabricated one.
Ray sits in a chair across from us, drinking boiled water from a can. He chuckles as he watches Sketch. “We had grandkids, long time ago. Might as well let Martha get her fix on caring for ya.”
The old woman digs the comb in again, and Sketch screams like a whiny Ward child.
I want her to stop.
But then again, if she doesn’t, Meadow might wake up.
When she fell, Ray sent for a man he called the Surgeon. His hands were steady and his eyes were cold. He took Meadow away, and now I’m sitting here by the little makeshift hospital room, waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting some more.
I can hear a beeping noise in the corner of the room, where she’s behind her wall of sheets. The New Militia has resources, and power. More than the Resistance in the Shallows ever had. I stare at the closed wall of sheets, desperate for an update.
“You look like a sick puppy,” Sketch says. “Woodson will be fine, Zero. Trust me.”
“What do you know?” I ask. I kick off my boots.
Sketch groans as Martha pulls the comb through again. “The Leeches wouldn’t have put that thing in her head if they knew it would kill her. She’ll be fine.”
“And if this surgeon fluxes up when he’s removing it?” I ask.
Sketch shrugs. “Woodson wants to die, Zero. You and I both know that.”
“Not until her family is free.”
Martha reaches out and touches my shoulder. “The Surgeon does great work, child. Relax, and rest. You look tired.”
Her words are stupid and simple, but her voice is so soothing. If I’d had a real grandmother, I imagine she’d probably have been able to calm me the way Martha is trying to right now.
I look around the Outpost. It’s the nicest place I’ve ever been inside of, except for the Leech Headquarters. They have all sorts of technology. Generators that give us light. Maps of the Outside. Radios, weapons, food, clothing, even medicines, though I don’t think there’s use for that kind of thing anymore. Not with the Cure.
I want to know who they are, what they’re about, and why they took us in, when there’s so many people they could have taken instead.
But no matter how many questions I ask, they won’t answer.
“When the General comes back, he’ll decide what to tell you,” Ray says.
And so we wait.
Hours pass. I go in and out of sleep. I eat something called refried beans, and if I weren’t so sick over worrying about Meadow, I think I’d love their taste.
Finally, the Surgeon opens up the curtain. There’s blood on his hands and white clothes. His nurse comes out behind him.
I stand. Sketch stands, too.
“We couldn’t get it off,” he says. My heart sinks. “We could, however, remove the computer system inside of it, and lessen its weight. It’s shut down now. Even if the Initiative wanted to try to reach her through it, they couldn’t. I simply don’t have the tools to remove it from her spine, without risking her life, or paralyzing her.”
“You can’t just . . . rip it out?” Sketch asks.
The Surgeon shakes his head. “She’ll be fine. We think the system inside was getting to her. Hopefully, without it running, her symptoms will decrease, and eventually, disappear for good.”
There’s something hidden beneath his tired eyes.
Something that looks like a lie.
“You sure that’s all?” I ask.
The Surgeon shuffles his feet. “That’s all there is.” Then he goes to clean up.
Sketch sits down on the couch, shoves me with her boot. “Go see her, Zero. I’m sick of your face.”
I sweep the curtain aside, and step into Meadow’s tiny room. I pull an old metal chair next to her bed, and hold her hand. Stars, she’s beautiful in her sleep. With her head against the rough flour-sack pillow, it’s hard to imagine the Regulator is still attached on the other side of her. At least it’s shut down. They can’t hurt her anymore, not with that.
I hope.
Her lips are full, half parted.
I stand up, quietly, and lean down to kiss her. “I missed you,” I whisper. My lips are about to touch hers when her eyes fly open.
She gasps in shock. Before I can move away, she smashes her head against my skull.
CHAPTER 49
MEADOW
I knocked him out.
I literally knocked Zephyr out with a head-butt.
It’s a tactic my brother Koi always begged me to try, but I never wanted to, afraid it wouldn’t work. I guess it does.
I leap out of bed to help Zephyr as he groans and s
its up.
“I was trying to kiss you!” he gasps. “What the flux?”
There is already a purple lump on his head, over his Catalogue Number, but he doesn’t seem worried about himself. He stands, brushes himself off. Then he reaches out, moves a stray curl away from my face.
“Meadow, you just had surgery. Shouldn’t you be tired?”
I shake my head. I feel stronger than ever, like I could run for hours and not stop. My mother’s words sing to me from the deep. Only a few days . . . I swallow them back, force them to hide.
There is heaviness at the back of my head and neck. The Regulator, still attached to me like a parasite.
“They tried to remove it,” Zephyr says. “They couldn’t. They shut it down, though. We think the system was too much for you to handle. Hopefully you won’t have symptoms anymore.”
I nod.
But he is wrong. It isn’t the Regulator that is hurting me.
It is my mother’s secret, and now I believe it, without a shadow of doubt.
Zephyr sits down in his chair again. “I was worried about you.” His eyes are wide, green as fresh grass. His hand stays on my cheek, warm and soft. I lean into it and close my eyes. I could stay here forever, in the quiet.
“Why?” I ask. I realize that these moments are precious. Even if I refuse to admit it, even if he won’t say so either. “I’m sorry. For everything, so far. This isn’t easy, you know.”
“I know, Meadow,” he says. “That’s why I’m still here. Well that, and Sketch can pack a mean punch.”
I’m not sure what he is talking about. But right now, I don’t care.
I am selfish when he is close.
“Come here,” I whisper. “I want to apologize.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Zephyr says. But I feel him lean in, feel his warm breath on my face. His lips are almost against mine when the curtains around my bed fly open.
“Really?” Sketch is standing there, her hands on her hips. “I’m going to be sick, watching you two.”