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
C lose 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.