The Death Code

We are inside of a small cave, surrounded on all sides by grimy, rocky walls that make a dome over our heads. It smells like earth. The falls barrel down behind me, covering the entrance, glittering blue with the light of day.

  It is strange, how the beauty of this world begs to be seen. Even in the darkest, most dangerous places, it shines through.

  Saxon points at a pile of blankets, folded neatly in the corner of the cave. “Frostbite is nasty business,” he says. “Get warm, and let’s move.”

  Zephyr wraps a blanket around me before he wraps himself. He is selfless and loving.

  And yet when he looks at me, I see a darkness in his eyes that reminds me too much of my own.

  “Zephyr,” I say. “Look, if you want to talk about everything some more—”

  “I’m fine,” he cuts me off. Then he sighs, runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I just need some time, Meadow.”

  He turns and heads away, following the others down an earthen tunnel.

  I follow his shadow into the darkness.

  My father is on the other side of it.

  And that thought, the image of his face, and the pride in his eyes when he sees me, warms me more than the blanket ever could.

  CHAPTER 86

  ZEPHYR

  The tunnel leads us upward for too long.

  There’s no way this could have been made by the earth. The walls are perfectly round and polished.

  “The Ridge used to be a big mining place before the Fall,” Koi says. I can’t see him, but his voice echoes back, bounding through the darkness. “Abram, one of the oldest guys we’ve got, used to live here. He refused to move when they built the Ridge, so they built it up right around him. He knows everything there is to know about this place.”

  I feel my way along, moving forward.

  “My thighs are burning,” Sketch groans.

  She never shuts up. She’s Talan, but she’s a whole hell of a lot worse. And it hurts, thinking of Talan.

  Would Talan have come with me, to the Ridge?

  I know the answer already. To everyone else, Talan seemed selfish, and broken, but I knew the truth. She was loyal as hell. She would’ve followed me to the ends of the earth. She did follow me, all the way into the Headquarters building.

  Right into death. I wonder if the tables were turned, would Meadow follow me?

  Would she risk everything, even her freedom?

  Stop whining. I can hear Talan’s gravelly voice in my memories, coming back. Just shut up, Zeph, be a man, and get over it. You chose this. You went after her.

  I shake Talan’s voice away.

  Finally, just when my back muscles are screaming, the tunnel widens.

  There’s a door, handmade, standing right there in the wall. Two torches hang beside it, throwing light around the small space. Koi knocks three times, followed by two quick staccato beats. I hear a loud bang, then a muffled curse. The door swings open. A pool of orange light shines out.

  A dark face stares at us, a tall wavy-haired man with what looks like a permanent question in his eyes. They’re a strange, milky white.

  “Who’s knocking this early? Not even light yet, is it?” He’s looking a little to the right of us. “I can hear your breathing, there’s three of you there!”

  Saxon chuckles and snaps his fingers, and the man whips his head toward the sound.

  “Who goes there? I’ll take you down, I will! Got hands big as an elephant, they tell me!” He lifts his hands and swings them toward us. They’re way bigger than they should be. Swollen like they’re full of air.

  “Keep those filthy hands away from my face, Abram,” Koi says.

  The man’s face lights up with a toothless grin. “Oy! It’s Koi! He’s got stragglers!” His voice squeaks like a mouse. He yells back into the doorway behind him. “Koi and Sax are back, with more Yellows!”

  Meadow shoves past me, almost knocking the old man over.

  “Where is he? Where’s my father?”

  “Meadow, hold on,” Koi says. He rushes in after her, and then we’re all moving forward, spilling through the doorway past Abram.

  I finally get a look inside.

  It’s a massive, towering room, strangely lit by several flickering fires scattered throughout. Tall fingerlike rocks protrude from the floor, reaching almost to the ceiling. I look up and see black winged shapes flitting swiftly from place to place overhead. The air feels cool and moist, and I shiver a little. It’s so much like the Resistance Cave that it shocks me.

  “Brought some Newbs!” Saxon shouts.

  Meadow stops and looks around.

  I watch her take in the place, look left to right.

  Then she freezes, and her eyes fall on a man lying by the fireside.

  “Dad,” she whispers.

  She runs for him. Koi chases after her.

  “Come on, Zero.” Sketch grabs me by the shirt and yanks me toward the crowd. Everyone’s sitting by a big fire, sparks shooting into the ceiling of the cave, way overhead. We sit down with the group.

  “Reds?” a girl asks. Her skin is a weird, yellowy color, peeling away in places.

  “They’re joining us. Koi’s sister came, just like he said. And these two were with her.” Saxon motions at Sketch and me. “Koi found them. Seems like he can’t stop bringing strays home. They’re from the other testing site, same place as Koi and his pops. They got the barcodes, see?”

  I hear a couple of gasps, as the group crowds around the fire to get a good look at me and Sketch.

  None of them have barcodes on their foreheads. Just big, empty space that shouldn’t be there. It’s like they’re missing limbs.

  A dark-skinned boy with long dreadlocks takes a seat next to me, crossing his legs together. There’s a big hole in his cheek, and I can see his teeth where they sprout right out of his gums, like a skeleton. “Hey. I’m Onyx.” His voice comes out with a hiss. “Any weapon you can think of, real or not, you come to me and I’ll whip something up for you.”

  He leans past me, winks at Sketch. “And if you need anything else . . . I’m here.”

  “Talk to me like that again, and I’ll stick a knife in your junk.”

  The boys erupt into laughter.

  Saxon ignores Sketch’s threat. “The tall one in the back is Aiken.” A wide-shouldered boy with a buzzed head and a number 80 on his cuff. His eyes drip constant tears of blood. He nods, looks at me and Sketch, and leans back on his elbows. “Guy’s got ears like a mouse; he does a lot of recon for us. Knows where most of the other colors keep their hideouts. When we run out of food, it’s good to know who to steal it from. Aiken’s been here almost as long as I have. Initiative hasn’t killed him yet. We’ve also got Doc.” Saxon points out a fat lump of a man with bug eyes and a balding head, no eyebrows or lashes. “He used to work for something called the CDC. He knows all there is to know about what they’re pumping us with. And the craziest part? This loony bastard actually volunteered to be in here.”

  Doc’s eyes light up. “Tuberculosis, meningitis, avian flu, Ebola, the SARS virus.” He counts out names of things I’ve never heard of on his fingers. I notice the 77 on his yellow cuff. “Fascinating diseases, all of which should be able to take out the nation, within mere days of exposure. And yet we live on.” He smiles, like he’s proud of being in here.

  I wonder if he’s like the Believers, back in the Shallows, in Cortez. The people who supported the cause of the Leeches. Who actually believed in what they were doing, by letting the murders just happen.

  I guess there are crazy people everywhere in this world.

  Even in the Ridge.

  Doc keeps talking. “Six-hundred and seventy-two days in here, and I’m still fat as an Initiative’s ego. Healthy as a horse. You got an explanation for that? No,” he says, answering for me. “No one does. And that’s the most mind-bending science I’ve ever seen. It’s beautiful. Absolutely thrilling.”

  “So, what’s the point?” Sketch asks. “Why keep trying to kill us, if it
hasn’t worked yet?”

  Doc rubs his hands on his chin. “There’s always a flaw in every system, always a weakness to every disease, every anti-disease, like the Eternity Cure,” he says. “The Initiative believes they will find it. Then they’ll use that answer, this so-called Death Code that they believe can be implanted into our genetic systems, to combat the Cure. Bring death back to the world.”

  It’s not possible.

  Meadow’s mom made sure of that.

  But as Saxon goes down the line, naming off at least twenty other boys, a few girls and women, and finally the introductions end, I realize that maybe the Leeches are on to something.

  Maybe, if they keep running through the lines of people, they might eventually find their Death Code.

  I’m about to stand up to leave, when I notice there’s someone else at the back of the crowd, away from the fire. Someone Saxon didn’t name.

  It’s an old man, all crumbly and gray, with a wrinkled face hidden behind a mess of white hair. His eyes are such a bright watery blue that it reminds me of a summer sea, back in the Shallows. In his creased hands sits a walking stick carved of wood, his fingers scratching intricate patterns down the shaft of it with a rusty old blade. He mumbles silently to himself as he works. His cuff has a number 80 on it.

  “That’s Tox,” Saxon says, waving his hand. “He’s old as hell. And bat-crazy to top it all off. He’s been here since the beginning, longer than anyone else in the Ridge. It’s too bad he’s lost his mind. Whatever they gave him, it did something to his brain. He’s a mumbling, drooling mess.”

  I stare at Tox through the flames.

  There’s something about him. Something different, and interesting.

  And I realize it’s not him that’s interesting. It’s the images he’s carving on the stick. Xs and jagged lines and circles, and one word over and over again.

  Green. I think of the memory I had earlier in the week, while we were walking into the city.

  “What’s that mean?” I ask. “Green.”

  Saxon shrugs. “No idea. But don’t waste your time talking to him, Cleanie.”

  I watch Tox for a long time.

  He looks crazy, like his mind is fluxed. But his hands are steady, and the word he carves is solid and clear.

  Green.

  It means something. Has to mean something. And I’m going to figure it out.

  CHAPTER 87

  MEADOW

  Close your eyes.

  Relax your mind.

  Now survive.

  I see my father, sitting beside the fire. Silver hair, like storm clouds.

  My father.

  Feel your enemies’ weaknesses.

  I run to him.

  You are stronger than you think, Meadow.

  You must always be ready to defend yourself, no matter what.

  He is alive, and I have found him, and he is in front of me right now. Close, so close, after weeks of needing him. Missing him. Begging the world to bring us together again.

  I reach the fire.

  My father looks up, and through the flames, our eyes meet.

  His are tinged with red. Not from crying, not from tears.

  It is blood.

  “Meadow,” he says. “My Meadow.”

  His voice is a raw croak, the sound of sickness. But sickness isn’t possible. It isn’t real, not in the world my mother has cured. There is no way the Initiative has succeeded in breaking the Cure.

  I fall at my father’s side. He reaches out. My hands close over his, feel his warmth. He is too warm, and his forehead is beaded with sweat.

  We simply watch each other for a time. The world around us fades away, and for a moment, we are back on the houseboat, father and daughter, lost in our own world.

  It is one of training and toughness.

  Love is cast aside, and only the art of survival remains.

  I can almost taste the salt air. Feel the gentle lull of the waves beneath my feet. Hear the cawing of the gulls overhead, the sloshing of water against the sides of the boat. The sound of Peri’s laughter in the background, and the carving of a knife on driftwood, as Koi creates another beautiful image.

  “You left the Shallows,” my father says, bringing us back to the here and now. The Ridge.

  “I did what you trained me to do,” I say back, nodding. “I came to keep my family safe.”

  “You put yourself in the line of danger.” He blinks, and more blood drips from his eyes. What is wrong with him? Why does he look this way? So broken. So weak. And yet, when he speaks, his words are still filled with training. Authority. “Why did you come? Why did you leave your home?”

  “Because my home is here, with you,” I say. “Family is everything. The only thing. You taught me that.”

  He nods. He swallows, hard. And then he does the one thing he hasn’t done in years. He reaches out. He pulls me into his arms. And he hugs me.

  My father hugs me. Holds me.

  “I don’t know how you made it, and I don’t want to know,” he says.

  I am about to explain anyways, but he keeps going, and I let him speak.

  “But I’m proud, Meadow.” He takes a deep, rattling breath. “I’m so proud of you.”

  It’s all I’ve ever wanted. My father’s pride.

  And at his words, I let the tears fall.

  For once, he doesn’t tell me to stop. He doesn’t tell me to be strong, or to wipe them away, or to throw a punch or a kick or wield a sharpened knife.

  He lets me break.

  And as I break, I whisper that my mother is dead, for good this time. She is no longer a life behind a lie, but a corpse, probably already burned to ashes in the incinerator. I tell him the secret she told me, trembling as the words spill from my lips. His grip tightens. I tell him about Peri, and the Regulator that is on her spine. How she’s out there, somewhere, terrified.

  As I speak, I see my mother’s dead eyes, staring at me from my memories. I hear her whispered words. I’m sorry. I hear her begging me to stay, to just stay, to live.

  I tell him that soon, I will die.

  I tell him that soon, I will join my mother on the other side, in fire and ash.

  I have to set the world right again before that moment comes.

  I have to find my sister.

  CHAPTER 88

  ZEPHYR

  I wait for Meadow to join us at the fire.

  I fight to stay awake, but eventually, exhaustion takes over. I fall asleep.

  I’m only a kid.

  Lying in a bed in the Initiative Headquarters, staring up at a screen, as images flicker by, showing me memories. Hopes. Dreams. Desires.

  Two Leeches move around the room, checking vitals of everyone in the beds.

  They come to me, ready to tape my eyelids open, so I’m forced to watch. I like the videos. They make me feel safe. Alive.

  “I’m transferring,” one of the Leeches says. A woman. “I’m leaving tomorrow for the Drop or the Ridge, wherever they assign me. And if you love me, you’ll come with me.”

  “You keep saying that,” another Leech answers. This one is a man. “But you never actually go. What’s so bad about here?”

  “It’s them,” she says. I see her lean over me. She’s pretty. Young. She tapes open my first eyelid, her hands gentle and soft. “This is wrong, Peter. We’re playing with the natural order.”

  “And isn’t that exactly what they’re doing in the other sites? What’s wrong is you allowing yourself to think that way. You want to go to the Ridge? Test them, make them wish they were dead? Look at this kid.” He points at me. “He’s higher than the clouds right now. We’re making the Patients happy. They like listening to us. They like killing, doing what needs to be done for the system. We’re giving them a reason to live.”

  They tape my second eyelid open.

  The woman sighs. “I just can’t get over it. It gives me nightmares. I can’t sleep. So maybe we don’t go to another site. Maybe we could just go to the Green,
and . . .”

  “The Green isn’t real,” he says. He reaches across my body, grabs the woman by the chin. She gasps, but he holds her strong. “How many times do I have to tell you? You’re not leaving here. You’ll stay, and do everything the Commander tells you to do, and forget about imaginary places.”

  “We could have sanctuary,” she says. Her voice shakes.

  “Sanctuary is here,” he tells her. “Face it, babe. The Shallows is as good as this world gets.”

  He releases her. She holds back tears. They move on, and I’m left to stare at an image of a broken place. Buildings blown to bits, a world that is my job to purge clean.

  The Shallows.

  I wake up, gasping, drenched in sweat.

  Damned flashbacks. I thought they were gone.

  I think of Meadow.

  She’s still alive, which means the system is still alive, too. No matter how far I run from the Shallows, and even with the Creator dead, I’m still a Patient. My mind is still beyond my total control.

  I sit up, and a blanket falls from my chest. Sketch is asleep beside me, curled into herself. Shivering. I toss the blanket over her instead, then stand up.

  I try to piece together the memory I just had. The Green. It’s the second time I’ve had a memory about it, and now with the old man Tox carving it, I’m sure.

  It means something.

  The Green.

  I have to find Meadow.

  CHAPTER 89

  MEADOW

  Zephyr finds me later, when I am sitting by the dying light of the fire.

  His eyes are heavy, with dark circles beneath them.

  “Hey,” he says. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I let you sleep. You looked tired.”

  “Thanks,” he says. He sits down beside me, but far enough away that I can’t touch him.

  My father is asleep a few feet from us, curled up in a blanket. Snoring, which is something he never did before on the houseboat. “He’s sick,” I whisper. “His breathing is labored. His heart rate is slowing.”

  “That’s not possible,” Zephyr says. “I mean, it shouldn’t be.”

  “Everyone here is sick,” I tell him. “You’ve seen them. My brother, Saxon, the people in the Rock. I think the Initiative’s diseases are actually doing something. Weakening the Cure in our bodies.”