The Death Code

  Zephyr groans, pulls away. “What do you want, Sketch?”

  She frowns. “The General’s back. And he wants to see us. Now.”

  CHAPTER 50

  ZEPHYR

  The first things I notice about the General are his eyes.

  They’re a deep, dark brown, so dark that they could almost be black.

  He’s seated at the metal table, waiting.

  He wears army greens, and on his chest there is an old, faded patch. A red-and-white-striped rectangle, blue and flecked with stars in the upper left corner. It’s a symbol I’ve seen before, in another pre-Fall thing Talan collected. Some stupid, worn book, but the symbol stood out to me. A flag.

  “Welcome to the Outpost,” he says. His hair is salt and pepper gray. It makes him look like he knows a million more things than I ever could. “Please, sit.”

  Meadow and Sketch take their seats. I slide in beside them, and we sit in awkward silence until Sketch opens her mouth.

  “Who are you?” she asks. “And how do you have access to a place this nice when everyone else is out there in hell?”

  The General looks at me when he speaks. “I’m George Jenkins, General of the New US Militia,” he says. He sits straight in his chair, like there’s a pole in his spine. “You three are lucky to be alive. Testing Site Three is not an easy place to survive.”

  “That’s what we do,” Meadow speaks up. “We survive. And apparently, that’s what you and your people do, too.” She leans forward, and even though her eyes hold the General’s, I know she’s watching all around us.

  She still doesn’t trust this place.

  And maybe I shouldn’t either, but it feels good to be somewhere safe. Somewhere that feels safe, at least, with gates and walls and weapons. And food.

  “Surviving seems to be all we can do, in today’s world,” the General says.

  “That’s true.” Meadow nods. “I survive for my friends, here, and my family. What I’m interested to know, General, is what are you surviving for?”

  He smiles, wide. “That’s the question I was hoping you’d ask, Miss Woodson.”

  How did he know her name?

  Meadow’s hands clench into fists. Her eyes turn to slits. She reaches for the dagger at her hip, but before she can go any farther, the General holds up a hand.

  “No need to defend yourself here. I’m merely stating the obvious.” He waves over one of his soldiers.

  A man comes over, holding a file of papers. The General takes it, flips through until he finds the one he’s looking for. He sets the paper on the table in front of us, swings it around so we can see it.

  My breath hitches. It’s a copy of the article Meadow and I saw back in the Shallows, in the old storage unit that belonged to her mother. I see Lark’s face on the front page, smiling and happy, as she holds a pair of scissors. She’s standing in front of the Perimeter, about to open up the Shallows for the very first time.

  “You’re the spitting image of her,” the General says. “Which is why, initially, I was afraid of what your reaction might be, when I tell you that the reason I survive is to stop what your mother started.”

  Meadow sits silently, and he goes on.

  “Anyone who came from that woman must be sympathetic to her cause. But then I saw that machine attached to your skull. I saw the Xs, tattooed onto the backs of your two companions’ necks. And I wondered, why would Lark Woodson, the Creator of the Eternity Cure, the creator of the Murder Complex and the Shallows, allow her daughter to wear a machine like that? And better yet, why would she let her escape?”

  Meadow looks down at her hands. She takes a deep breath, and when she answers, her voice is ice. “Because she’s dead,” she whispers. “And . . . I’m the reason why.”

  The General taps his fingers on the table.

  “If that’s the truth, child, and I hope it is, then you’re welcome to stay here, and join us, or you may leave in peace. But first, I think we need to share stories. Then we’ll decide if we are on the same side or not.” He taps the paper in front of us. “I’d like to hear your story first, Miss Woodson, if you don’t mind.”

  Meadow looks at me, then Sketch. I can see her mind working, see her calculating how much she’ll tell him. Trying to gauge if he can be trusted or not.

  Finally, she smiles and nods. “Of course, General,” she says.

  Then she leans back, folds her hands into her lap, and begins to tell our story.

  CHAPTER 51

  MEADOW

  My father told me once that we should never share the whole truths of our lives with others.

  He said that it was like giving away pieces of our souls, and if we give too many pieces away, we will eventually lose our strength.

  Because of him, my entire life has been made up of half-truths and lies.

  My mother was not the woman I believed her to be, because my father held a part of the story back. My past, even my own body, was never fully mine to know, because my mother chose not to tell.

  Today, I continue their pattern.

  I tell the General almost every gritty detail. I tell him about what Zephyr and Sketch are, how they’ve learned to fight the system. I tell him the number of people I have killed to survive, about the Red and Blue trains that run through the Shallows, about the rations job I got, and how Orion was an undercover Resistance member. I explain the truth about my mother, how a part of me smiles when I realize she is dead. How the other part of me wishes she could come back and change things for the better. I tell him about what happened in Headquarters. Sketch shivers when I mention our torture. I tell him about the Motherboard, and how when my mother died, the Patients set off to get revenge on the Initiative, because of my mother’s fail-safe.

  I tell him about how my family was stolen away from me. How I am trying to get to the Ridge, so I can rescue them, so we can be together and free on the Outside.

  What I hold back is my mother’s secret, and the truth about my mind. About my connection to the Murder Complex. About how the only way to truly kill it in the end, is to kill me. Not many can be trusted in this world, and until I know his story, I won’t give that piece of me away.

  I don’t know how long I talk for. Sketch and Zephyr help fill in the blanks, talk about what the Murder Complex did to them, how many countless they killed without the freedom of self-control.

  When we’re done speaking, I realize the soldiers have all been listening.

  I realize they all look as if they have seen the ghosts of their loved ones, rising from the dead.

  The General clears his throat. He motions for one of his soldiers again. This time, a man delivers a small drinking glass and a bottle of amber liquid. The General removes the top, pours a little into the glass, and chugs it down.

  I can smell the pungent scent from across the table. I wrinkle my nose in disgust.

  “That was quite a story,” he says, as he fills the glass a second time. “And one I know to be true. We’ve been tracking the Initiative’s moves for quite some time now. I’m sorry, for what they’ve done to you. I’m also sorry for what I have to show you next.”

  “Well, flux,” Sketch says. She sighs, then reaches forward and takes the bottle of liquid from the General. She throws her head back, chugs from the bottle, and comes up coughing. “Might as well start this now.”

  CHAPTER 52

  ZEPHYR

  “Let’s take a walk,” the General says.

  He leads us out of the room, up a few flights of the parking garage, until we’re back at the entrance. The two soldiers from earlier are still standing guard. When they see the General, they stand and raise their hands to their brows in one swift motion. Then they stand still as statues.

  “At ease,” the General says. The soldiers relax. “I’d like to take my visitors to the Crow’s Nest.”

  There’s a door in the wall, and the General’s men unlock it for us. It swings open with a puff of dust, and behind it, there’s a concrete staircase, leading
up into darkness.

  Sketch groans. “You could’ve told me before the drinking there was gonna be so many stairs.”

  The General doesn’t laugh. I’m starting to think he’s a ChumHead, like his pants are too tight in all the wrong places. He moves past us, into the stairwell.

  We follow.

  It goes on forever.

  All the levels are marked with bright red numbers, painted on the wall. When we reach another level, I’m dripping sweat. But it feels good to move. It feels good to climb, because we’re heading toward answers.

  And since leaving the Shallows, I know we all have questions we want answered. Especially Meadow.

  She walks behind me, and the higher we go, the harder she breathes. It’s not normal for someone who could probably outrun me ten times and only break a light sweat.

  I look over my shoulder as we climb. “You okay?”

  Her face is pale. Her lips are a horrible, papery white.

  It’s not like her.

  I think of yesterday, when her nose bled, and she dropped like a swatted fly. She won’t like this, but I stop and wait for her to catch up to me. She’s exhausted from the surgery, probably. I wrap my arm around her waist and climb by her side.

  “I don’t need help,” Meadow says.

  “I don’t care,” I say back.

  This is the game we’ve been playing since we left the Shallows. One snappy remark after another. She’s too stubborn.

  I can be stubborn, too.

  I help her more by lifting some of her weight onto me. I’m practically carrying her up the stairs now.

  “I said I’m fine, Zephyr.” Meadow glares at me.

  I laugh because I can’t help it. “You’re acting like such a . . .”

  “I know,” she says. She sighs and leans her head against my shoulder. “I know.”

  We pass flight twenty. Thirty.

  The whole time, the General is up ahead of us not looking back.

  At one point, there’s a hole in the wall, like something was blasted through here. We scramble over rubble and keep going, until finally we reach the very last set of stairs.

  It leads to a single red metal ladder that heads into the ceiling.

  The General goes first, climbing on hands and feet. He shoves open a grate and disappears into cool night air.

  Sketch goes after, complaining, as always.

  Meadow rests heavy on my shoulder.

  I help her to the ladder. She leans against it, and when she breathes, I can hear a wheeze in the back of her throat.

  “Just relax here for a second,” I tell her.

  “I don’t need to relax,” she says. “I can do this.” Her voice doesn’t sound convincing. She looks up at me with sad, gray eyes, the same ones I’ve been waiting to look into for so long.

  She’s here now. She’s with me and she’s safe.

  But she’s not the same.

  “Something is happening to you,” I say. “We need to get help, Meadow.”

  “I’m just tired.”

  “That’s exactly it,” I say. “You don’t get tired. Not the Meadow I know.”

  She shakes her head.

  When she speaks, she stares into my eyes, and I’m haunted by what I see. “The Meadow you knew is dead.”

  She turns, grabs on to the ladder, and climbs into the sky.

  CHAPTER 53

  MEADOW

  We are at the top of the tallest building in the city.

  And if I weren’t already out of breath, the sight would have stolen mine away.

  Up so high, we can see for miles. Buildings go on, stretching into the darkness, and beyond, I can see other places.

  Forests.

  Dark, flat patches of land, and long expanses of road that reach on and on into nowhere, or somewhere, however you look at it.

  The world is just so big. I feel as small as a seashell, as if the Outside is a wave so large it could crush me whole.

  The General takes us to the edge of the building, where a woman sits, waiting.

  In front of her is what looks like a long tube of metal, shining black as oil under the moonlight.

  When she sees us, she stands, salutes the General. She has deep-red hair the color of blood, and on her bare shoulder, big and bold, is the same eagle tattoo that everyone else here has. A statement. For a moment, I am reminded of the Initiative’s eye tattoo, open and all-seeing. They were all marked with it, and it seems that this New Militia has marked themselves with a symbol, too.

  It is strange, how things constantly remind me of home.

  I wonder if I will ever truly escape my past.

  No, Darling, my mother’s voice taunts me from the grave. You will never escape the Shallows, no matter how fast or how far you run. It is your destiny.

  “Sasha,” the General addresses the woman, pulling me from my thoughts. She’s young, I realize, perhaps only a few years older than I am. Sasha smiles and nods with respect, and the Commander continues. “I need to show them the truth. Fire it up, will you?”

  Sasha nods, then turns to the metal tube. It is like a giant lens, aimed at the sky.

  “You ever seen a telescope?” she asks.

  Zephyr and Sketch and I shake our heads.

  Sasha laughs. “No, not many have, I guess. There’s not much of that stuff left today. But this baby, she’s great.” She pats the telescope on its side. “A real powerhouse, aren’t you, girl?”

  Sasha lowers the telescope so that the end is pointing out into the distance, away from the city. She puts her eye up to the smaller side, makes some adjustments.

  I see her shoulders stiffen. She stands, nods at the General.

  “It’s ready, Sir.”

  “Good work, Soldier,” he says. He turns to the three of us, and his eyes hold a gloom that wasn’t there before. “The Shallows is surrounded by a Perimeter. As is the Ridge, where you’re trying to go. And the third site, at the Drop. It’s a way of keeping you all in and keeping others out.”

  “We know that.” Sketch shrugs. “We had to escape the damn thing to get free.”

  “‘Free,’” the General says. “It’s a strange word, isn’t it? We all have different meanings for it, and I think you may find, after you see what I’m about to show you, that your definition of freedom will change.”

  He moves aside.

  Sasha smiles sadly and waves us over.

  I go first.

  “Just put your eye here,” she says. “Like a rifle scope. You look like the kind of girl who knows her way around a gun or two.”

  I nod, and she helps position me so that I can stare with one eye into the telescope. It’s strange, like looking into a black hole, and at first, all I see is darkness.

  “This is miles and miles away, out in the ocean,” Sasha explains. “You see it yet?”

  “It’s too dark,” I say, but then suddenly there is a blinking light.

  It starts out as purple.

  Then blue.

  Then red.

  Then back again.

  As the light blinks, an image begins to take shape. A solid line splitting the darkness, a little lighter than the rest of the night sky.

  “It can’t be,” I whisper. “That’s not possible.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sasha says. “But it is.”

  “What is it?” Sketch asks. She stands up, grabs my shoulders, and whirls me around to look at her. “Woodson, what the hell is it?”

  I can still see the image burned into my head, a massive stretch of silver, standing out in the ocean, holding us in. This was supposed to be the Outside. But how can that be, when we’re still trapped?

  “It’s a Perimeter,” I say.

  My words settle in, and I know from the horror in my voice that they are true.

  CHAPTER 54

  ZEPHYR

  There’s a Perimeter around what’s left of the country.

  It’s miles and miles away, out in the ocean. You can’t see it without the telescope, even if
you’re standing onshore staring until your eyes hurt.

  If you can pretend it’s not there, you can pretend you’re free.

  But what is freedom, really, if it’s all a lie?

  The General sits down on the roof and explains what he knows.

  “A long time ago, about twenty years, this country was the United States. Big world power, if you can believe it. Damn, those were good times. We were strong. We had all the power, all the answers.” The General points to his chest, where that strange symbol sits. Red and white and blue. The flag. “And then it all went to hell when the Plague hit. Huge epidemic, and it wasn’t just here. It was everywhere, all over the world.” He sighs, looks down at his boots. “People were dropping left and right. It was airborne. Hit the world like a storm, and we didn’t stand a chance in hell.”

  Meadow nods. “That’s why we were in the Shallows. Or why we thought, anyways. Our whole lives, we believed the Pins we had were keeping the Plague away from us. In reality, it was just my mother’s Eternity Cure. The nanites are in all of us, in our blood.”

  The General nods. “The government couldn’t do anything to stop the Plague, and it all fell apart.”

  “Until my mother,” Meadow says. Her voice breaks. I see sorrow in her eyes. Then disgust. It’s like a constant battle for her.

  Will it make things better, or worse, when she finds out I was the one who killed Lark?

  The General goes on. “The Initiative stepped up. They were strong, and they weren’t dying from the Plague, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before any dying country doesn’t follow the new world leaders who have the answer to cheating death. The Initiative brought your mother with them, a young, brilliant woman they’d found in Florida. She created the Eternity Cure. People stopped dying. It was the answer we’d been looking for. It was sent airborne, and waterborne, to fight the Plague. All over the world, governments were distributing it.”

  “So the Initiative isn’t just here?” Meadow asks. “Where are they?”

  “The Initiative is the US branch.” He shrugs. “There are others, in other countries, but we lost contact. Satellite systems went haywire, when the power went out with it. The Perimeter you saw in the ocean, it surrounds what’s left of this country. Stretches from sea to sky, and it’s electromagnetic. Scary as hell. Uncrossable. Those who try, die.”