The Murder Complex

  She swipes a palm frond out of her way. It whips me across the face. “All right.” I shrug my shoulders. “That’s fine.”

  We make our way through the undergrowth, stopping now and then to listen. “Your family’s safe, you know,” I say to her back. Her hair sways back and forth just above her waist. “They got away in time.”

  “Hmm,” is all she says. But I’m not stupid. I know all she cares about is them. I know she’s hoping.

  Soon the skeletal buildings of the city loom in the distance. I smell hot human waste, the stench of the Graveyard. I notice the key in Meadow’s hand. “White Avenue is this way,” I say, grabbing her wrist. She whirls and slams me up against a tree trunk, her dagger pressed to my throat.

  “Touch me, you die,” she says.

  “Hey. Relax. I can take you there. I’m not going to hurt you, Meadow.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  I run my hands through my hair. “Because we’re in this together. We both want answers. You need me to figure this out.”

  “I don’t need anyone,” she says. “Especially you. Patient Zero.”

  “Well, I need you. I need to figure this out. I need to figure me out. Please.” I take a deep breath. “I’m begging you.”

  Her eyes hold mine. I swear she can hear my heart thrumming in my chest. “You’re lucky my father taught me how to tell when someone is lying,” she growls. “Well, this is all great.” She laughs, a cold hard sound. “The sad thing is, I have to keep you safe now, because if I don’t, they’ll kill you, and I’ll never get any answers.” She tosses the dagger up, then catches it on top of her knuckles. Lets it teeter for a second, then whirls it around again. “Plus, if the Initiative kills you . . . I won’t get to. Make one wrong move and this blade goes through your heart.”

  “You should threaten me more often. I like it.”

  She looks like she’s about to slam her fist into my face.

  “Okay,” I say. “No jokes. Got it.”

  Skitz.

  “This way,” I say. “Keep your head down. Move with the crowd. And stay close to me, if you can handle that.”

  We keep our heads down while we walk, just like everyone else. We step over dead bodies and try not to gag at the stench. The street’s still wet from the rain. Cicadas bounce off our shins. I pull a hat off a dead man’s head and slip it on top of my own. Meadow grabs a scarf and wraps up her hair. We both walk faster.

  “Flux. The Pirates are here,” I say. They hardly ever leave the beach. This isn’t good.

  There’s a group of Pirates huddled up against a building, all of them covered in tattoos. One of them has on a pair of the strange black goggles the Leeches use sometimes, the kind that can search for and find a single Catalogue Number in the middle of a crowd. He falls into step behind Meadow and me.

  “We should have covered our numbers better,” Meadow whispers. “Walk faster!”

  “How many people did you kill in that building?” I hiss, but she ignores me.

  We’re being hunted, and I think we’ve been found. I can see at least ten of the ChumHeads. They keep using their signals, and whistling in code.

  “Left,” I say, and I nudge Meadow’s hip with mine. “Trust me,” I say into her ear, and I take her sweaty palm in mine. Then we start to run.

  Left, right. I can hear them clambering after us, anxious to catch us and get their Creds.

  We’re fluxed.

  I see White Avenue up ahead, the old holographic street sign bent almost in half, its screen flickering sadly. I run faster, hauling Meadow along with me. The address is on the edge of the Pit.

  It isn’t what I expected. It’s way worse.

  The place Meadow wants to go to is the old lot full of storage units, all dented and covered in bird skitz, most of them probably abandoned or ransacked.

  And that’s because half of the units have fallen right into the Pit. I’ve walked past it thousands of times, hauling dead bodies with Talan. No one goes in the storage units anymore, because the ground is so unstable.

  “We can’t go in there,” Meadow says. She skids to a stop and rips her hand out of mine. “What if the ground falls in?”

  “It’s better than being Leech bait,” I say. “Come on.”

  There’s an old chain-link fence that surrounds the place. We duck through a hole in it and lose ourselves in the maze of units, and the whole time I’m begging the stars not to let the ground crumble and suck us in.

  “The units, they’re in the units!” I hear someone shout, and then we’re sprinting down the rows, searching for 450.

  “Oh, come on!” Half of 450 is dangling over the edge of the Pit. A Leech steps out in front of us, eyes bulging wide with contentment when he recognizes us. He’s about to shout, but he never gets a chance.

  Meadow’s dagger whistles through the air and lands handle-deep in the guy’s throat. He drops, blood gushing from his wound, and then lays there. Lifeless.

  “Stars,” I say. “Your aim is amazing.”

  “Move him,” she says, as she heads for the padlock on the unit’s door. I hear the clanging of chains as she turns the key, but the door doesn’t budge. “Damn it!” she says. We try to pull the padlock up, make it move. But then I spot something on the metal, low to the ground. A strange insignia, like three tiny lightning strikes. “What is that?” I say, and Meadow gasps.

  She stoops down, presses her bracelet to the insignia, and the metal door slides open on its own, revealing a small gap for us to crawl under.

  It’s like her bracelet was a second key.

  “Pull him inside,” Meadow commands, and I do, rolling us both into the darkness. I hear Meadow take a deep breath, and then she rolls in after me.

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  CHAPTER 53

  MEADOW

  I do not know what I expected to find when I turned on the light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

  Maybe I expected to find a Pad screen with my mother’s face on it, explaining everything.

  The words are painted everywhere. The Murder Complex.

  They are on the floor. On the metal walls. The ceiling. In different shades of red. Crimson. Scarlet. Maroon. Everywhere, like blood. Besides the words there is splattered paint, as if someone stood in the middle of the unit and threw buckets of it all over the walls. Screaming.

  Why would she want me to find this place? My mother, who I used to love, is an entirely different person than I thought she was.

  I rise to my feet. The whole unit creaks, and I feel the ground sway.

  “Be careful,” Zephyr says. “Slow movements.”

  He pushes the dead Pirate to the far right, and squats beside him. “Weight distribution. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like crashing down to hell in that sinkhole.”

  “If I have the chance, I’ll push you,” I tell him.

  The wall to my left is covered with sheets of paper. They are all numbered, and the word MURDERER is painted in a deep red across the top of the wall, in massive dripping letters that take up several feet. I take a moment to gather myself.

  Number one. It is dated, like a page in a diary. Twenty years ago. Before Koi was even born. The handwriting is rushed, but I can tell it is hers. I touch it with my fingertips.

  October 2nd. The Initiative Research Team has finally come together. The government has given us money to fund our experiments. Today, our patient responded well to our commands, twitching his fingers when triggered. We have hopes to bring him out of his coma soon.

  My mother was not a doctor. She could fix up my scrapes and cuts, sure, but bringing a man back from a coma? I read once in one of my mother’s books that a coma was an endless sleep, that people could get stuck inside for years. Decades, even. The thought of my mother curing a coma patient is so ridiculous I almost want to laugh. I scoot to the right, to the t
enth page tacked on the wall.

  October 17th. I’ve discovered a way to heal paralysis. Trials are all ending with 90% positive results. But it isn’t enough. Not for me. I want to do more for the greater good.

  My mother did this? No. It’s not possible. I stumble to the other wall, and my foot catches on a stack of newspapers. And there is a photograph of me.

  No. It is not my face but . . . but my mother’s. When she was younger, with soft eyes and hair that is identical to my own. I lean over the image, my blood-crusted curls scraping against the paper. She is smiling, the way I remember her.

  “Young Woman Cures the Plague – New Hope for All” the headline says.

  “Lark Woodson, the 20-year-old daughter of Professors Adam and Jane Friedman at the University of Southern Florida, has discovered a cure for the human weakness to disease. The cure will render the Plague completely ineffective, thus saving humanity from its untimely end. Woodson was recently placed as head of a research team called the Initiative. Their mission? Rewiring human DNA in order to improve the Cure and distribute it widely. Just weeks into the trial stages, Woodson solved the puzzle that has baffled scientists for years . . . ”

  There is a hole in the page, and half of the story is missing. But I understand enough.

  “It’s so overwhelming,” Woodson said, from her Florida home. “I have discovered a way to arm the human immune system, so that it is impossible to contract the Plague. From this day forward, the only way a person can die is from unnatural causes. Disease is a thing of the past. The world finally has a future. We will go on.” There is another picture of my mother standing in front of the Perimeter. A huge smile is on her face, and in her outstretched palm, she is holding something small and rectangular.

  A Pin.

  The room is too warm, and closing in around me with these dripping red walls. The newspaper flutters to the floor, but I can still see my mother’s face, staring up at me from the page.

  “This is impossible,” Zephyr says. He takes a step forward, and the entire unit sways. “Get back before you kill us both!”

  But he doesn’t seem to care. “Your mom invented the Pins? And the Pulse? She is the one who cured us of the Plague?”

  I turn back to the wall. My mother’s rushed handwriting stares back at me.

  “Read it to me,” Zephyr says. “Please.”

  “December 24,” I say. The year is missing. “The Initiative has exposed the population to the Cure through Water Distribution.

  I skim further down.

  “Everything is falling apart. The Cure is keeping us all alive, but it killed many of the larger land animals. We are running low on resources. Citizens are dying of starvation. I am blessed to be a part of the Initiative. We have purchased a million acres in Florida with the funds we have received from our efforts. We can now start experimenting on a Cure Controller. I have been granted the position of Commander in Chief of the Scientific Population Control team. John will be pleased with the rations we will receive because of this....”

  My father. How much did he know?

  I move to another article. The Perimeter has finally been sealed. The rest of the country is in shambles, but here, we have the chance to start again.

  And another . . .

  Tonight, we commence the first trial round of The Murder Complex. In exchange for lifelong rations, our patient will undergo our procedure. We will send her out into the Shallows, and we’ll be watching as we make her decisions for her. Sometimes I second-guess myself . . .

  I scoot away from the wall and sit down in the middle of the floor. I swallow and try to think rationally, the way my father would if he were here next to me right now. The way he trained me. He would breathe. And adapt to the truth of the situation.

  He would face the facts, and the facts are right here in front of me. Written in my mother’s handwriting.

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  CHAPTER 54

  ZEPHYR

  I want to tear the photograph from the wall and rip the thing to shreds.

  It’s two bloody children fighting to the death. They’re both bald, heads shaved slick as glass. They have additional Catalogue Numbers tattooed on the tops of their heads.

  A7. A8. Their faces are dead. Devoid of all emotion. Like machines. It’s bullskitz.

  Scientists stand behind a wall of glass, taking notes. It’s like they’re all betting on who will win a dog fight, like the kids aren’t human beings. But the lists are worse. There’s all these names and numbers covering one wall from top to bottom. Thousands of them.

  Patient X. Allen Troy. Patient U78. Sicily Peters.

  We scan the names, and even though I already know what I’m about to discover, I try to make it not true. “Look at my scalp,” I whisper to Meadow. “There’s nothing there . . . right?”

  She moves toward me in the flickering light, careful not to move too fast. The unit groans again, and she freezes. I slide the rest of the way to her. She touches my hair, gently brushing it aside. I hold my breath.

  “There’s nothing here, Zephyr,” Meadow says. But she keeps searching. Suddenly her breath catches in her throat, and her fingertips fall from my scalp. “What’s that word you use again?”

  “Which one?” I ask.

  “The worst one,” she says. “It’s there, Zephyr. I’m sorry.”

  We both turn back to the list, and see Patient Zero. Zephyr James.

  “Flux,” I say.

  “Yeah,” she breathes. “Flux.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER 55

  MEADOW

  “What does it mean?” Zephyr asks me. His hands linger on the wall where his name is printed, as if the answers will come to him the longer he stands here.

  I shove his hands away. “Stop looking at it. And get away from me, for the last time.”

  There are other things in the unit. Stacks of old wooden crates.

  I have to move, do something besides stand here with my mind reeling.

  “Open the crates,” I say to Zephyr. “But be slow. Be careful.”

  He moves to the first one and starts prying it open.

  It’s full of knives, nice ones that cost thousands of Creds. My heart rises into my throat. How would she have gotten her hands on so many of these? But of course. She had everything she wanted.

  The second crate is full of blueprints. I take one and smooth it out on the floor.

  Initiative Building A – Scientific Research

  It is a plan of the cooling systems. My mother was the Commander. So why would she need to know the utility entrances to the Initiative buildings? Better yet, why would she have a hidden storage unit full of blueprints and knives?

  “Stars, Meadow, I know that building,” Zephyr whispers, when I hold up the blueprint.

  “Have you been there?”

  “No. Never,” he says, shaking his head. His eyes are glazed over, confusion making him look younger, like a child. “But . . . I’ve had dreams about it. And I’m starting to think maybe my dreams aren’t exactly dreams at all.”

  I hear feet pounding by outside. The unit starts to teeter up and down. I hold my breath.

  I can hear chains clattering to the ground. They’re prying open the padlocks. We don’t have long before they open up the right one.

  “Take these,” I whisper, and shove a handful of blueprints into Zephyr’s arms. He finds a dusty backpack against the wall and starts filling it with them. No questions asked. He just does what I ask him to do, as if obeying me will be enough of an apology.

  I open the next crate, keeping one hand on my dagger, one eye on Zephyr’s back. This crate is long and rectangular like a casket, and for a second, I am afraid I’ll find a body. But
when I open it up, a huge grin spreads across my face.

  “Oh,” I gasp, and Zephyr appears at my shoulder. I ignore him. It’s my mother’s crossbow. I poise my finger over the trigger and remember the way she used to shoot down seagulls from the deck of the boat. Koi and I would race through the water like hunting dogs. Whoever got to the bird first was the one who got to shoot the next arrow.

  It was always me. And I never missed.

  Why didn’t she feed us? Why didn’t she move us to the Compound with the others, where we would always be safe, and never hungry, and always far from the murders? Why didn’t she tell us who she really was?

  The crossbow already has four arrows attached, the feathers on the ends red and black. Beautiful. Lethal. So familiar. They seem to buzz with life.

  The ground moves again. More papers flutter to the floor.

  “What are you doing? We can’t stay here!” Zephyr says, but I hold up a hand to silence him.

  I slide over and reach into the box of knives. Zephyr tucks several into the backpack. I find two leather thigh sheathes and strap them to my legs. I slide two knives into them and stand, slinging the bow over my shoulder. Feeling confused about my mother. Feeling angry. But feeling strong.

  That is when we hear the clicking. They have found us.

  “This one,” a voice says, and my heart nearly stops beating. Someone laughs. “We could shove this one into the Pit.”

  “Oh, man. Imagine their screams.”

  The first voice barks, “They’re wanted alive. Hey. You! Open this thing up!”

  Zephyr tries to step in front of me, but I shove him to the side and position an arrow onto the bow. I hold it steady in front of me, finger on the trigger, and let the thought of my father’s voice settle me. Breathe. Steady arms. Focus.

  “They don’t have the bracelet. They can’t open it,” I whisper.

  The door explodes. I fall backward onto Zephyr.

  “Come on out, kiddies, before you fall!”