After the End (21 page)
LANDING IS TEN TIMES SCARIER THAN TAKEOFF. The ground grows closer and closer and we are going so fast, I am sure as soon as we touch ground the impact will rip off the bottom of the plane. Instead, with a sort of pulling tension, we land smoothly and taxi around large loops of runway as we slow. Finally we stop near a long black car that looks like it could easily fit twenty people inside.
Baldy slaps the handcuffs back on me, and I am shuffled quickly from the recycled air of the plane through the stifling hot oven of the runway and into the pine-scented frigid air inside the car. Although I spent most of the plane trip coming up with escape plans, my curiosity has gotten the best of me. Somehow, Miles’s dad knows something about my clan that I don’t. Or at least he thinks he does. And I’m determined to find out what he knows.
So I don’t give the men any trouble this time and climb willingly into the car. We spend most of the next hour sitting stationary on the road, with hundreds of other cars, inching forward from time to time. Again, I think of Dennis and his mournful tone when he talked about pollution.
At last we reach a downtown area, which has the same forest of glass buildings as the other cities, all perched next to the sea. The car stops outside the tallest of these mirrored buildings. Baldy acts like he is helping me out of the car but actually uses the gesture to get a firm grip on my upper arm as he leads me over the simmering-hot sidewalk through the front doors.
I have seen these skyscrapers from the outside but, besides the Salt Lake City Library, which was small in comparison, have never been in one. I wasn’t even tempted to in Seattle. The giant glass plinths look more like tombstones than a space where people would work and live.
We walk through an immense cavern of an entryway into the tiny mirrored space of an elevator. I feel my stomach drop to my toes as we shoot to the highest levels of the building, moving as quickly upward as we would be if we were free-falling downward.
Lights flicker on a wall panel until the very last button, 73, lights up. A bell rings, and the doors open. My head swims, and although a man stands directly in front of us, waiting for us with hands clasped behind his back, all I can focus on is the window behind him. We are so high that the world is a tiny toyscape laid out in miniature as far as the eye can see. My legs refuse to hold me any longer. I sink down to the ground, my hands still cuffed behind me, and use every remaining bit of willpower not to throw up.
“What have you done to her?” the man says, and strong arms lift me and carry me through a door into an office.
“She tried to run,” Baldy says as he deposits me onto a white leather couch and unlocks the handcuffs. Necktie runs to a shelf lined with bottles and pours one into a glass.
I lift it to my mouth. Water. Just water. But it tastes so good, and is the only natural thing in the room besides a large treelike plant near the window.
Oh Gaia, the window,
I think, and my stomach churns.
“Leave us,” the man says, and Baldy and Necktie make a quick exit, pulling the door softly behind them like it’s made of spun sugar. The man scoots a chair close to the couch, and when our eyes meet, I see Miles in thirty years: still-thick but graying hair cut short and carefully combed, aquiline nose, and dark-green eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Why did you bring me here?” My throat is clenched so tightly, my words come out in a croak.
“I brought you here because you have some information that I need,” he says simply. His expression is solicitous. He doesn’t look like what I expected—I thought I’d find a tyrant. Someone willing to use torture to get what he wants. But this is just a middle-aged man in a business suit.
I glance around the room and see, to my horror, that there are no actual walls: We are surrounded by windows. The granite floor is strewn with intricately woven rugs, and tasteful furniture is positioned around the room to make it appear more like a living space than a place of business.
“I can’t . . . I can’t be this high up,” I say, clutching my stomach.
“Let me close the blinds,” he responds, and walking to a desk, picks up a little black box and clicks a few buttons on it. The windows automatically begin darkening, while the lights of the room become brighter until we are in an enclosed space and I can no longer see the frightening view outside.
I close my eyes and try to slow my breathing. After a moment, I open them and see that he’s sat back down in the chair in front of me. “My name is Murray Blackwell,” he says, leaning forward, his hands clasped together. He stares at my starburst. A muscle under his eye twitches, and his jaw clenches and unclenches. “And your name is . . . ,” he prods.
“I’m Juneau,” I say, and take another sip of the water. I have to decide how much I’m going to talk. His movements are graceful. But the more I watch him, the more I notice something in his eyes—something cold—that doesn’t match his body’s lithe gestures. He’s like a snake, smooth but poisonous.
He is dangerous,
I think. I can’t trust him, but I’ll tell him as much as I need to find out what he’s after.
“Juneau . . . ,” he says like a question, and waits.
“Yes?” I ask. My brows knit in confusion. I don’t recognize his body language. He could be speaking Swahili for all I understand.
“Juneau what?” he asks.
I stare at him.
“Your last name,” he says finally.
I exhale. “Oh! Newhaven,” I respond. Everyone in the clan knows one another’s last names, but we never use them except in ceremonies, and I’ve never actually had someone ask mine.
“Juneau Newhaven, you are from . . . ,” he asks, and this time I respond automatically.
“Denali, Alaska.”
He nods, acknowledging the fact that I’m playing along with his game.
“Good, good,” he says. And then leaning farther forward, so his elbows are on his knees, he asks softly, “That means, I suppose, that you know a man by the name of Whittier Graves?”
I gasp, not even trying to hide my surprise.
“Yes, you do know him,” he says with a jolly smile, like we’re sharing a joke. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. I’ve been wanting to talk to him for the last few weeks, but it seems like he has disappeared. Along with the rest of your—what did he call it?—your clan.”
Facts start pinballing around in my head. This man knows of Whit. He knows about our clan, and where we live. He knows enough about me to have me followed.
Instead of launching my own questions, I wait quietly to hear what other details this man will give away.
“Mr. Graves approached me about a drug he and some colleagues developed some time ago. He called it Amrit. Does that sound familiar to you?”
I shake my head no.
“I expressed interest in purchasing the formula for Amrit. Even offered to come to Alaska to visit your clan and see how his field study had gone. Mr. Graves refused, insisting on personally bringing me the data. We made an appointment to meet here a month ago. Mr. Graves did not show. As you can imagine, that had me worried.”
Mr. Blackwell leans back in his chair and crosses his arms across his chest with a pained expression, like it’s difficult for him to tell me this story. But from my study of human facial expressions and body language, I see anger behind his careful words.
And he is watching me as carefully as I watch him: studying my face for any change of expression. Seeking any clues he can gather from my reactions. I relax my facial muscles and, leaning back in the armchair, do the same with the rest of my body. I already gave away the fact that I know Whit. I don’t want to accidentally give him anything else.
“I sent some men to Alaska to try to find him. We had a clue of where he was. Traced the calls he made by GPS to a cave near Denali, where they found residue from a recent fire.”
I can’t help it—my eyes widen, and I suck my breath in. This man tracked us down to our territory. He knew where we were.
Mr. Blackwell raises an eyebrow—he’s curious. In my surprise at hearing him describe Whit’s cave, I gave something away. The edges of his lips move upward just a millimeter, but he readjusts his poker face and continues.
“A tracker I hired followed a path from the cave to an abandoned village some miles away. Twenty or so yurts. Lots of dead dogs killed by gunshot. A few farm animals, chickens, goats, and pigs, wandering wild in the ruined encampment and the woods nearby.”
He comes to a stop and waits for me to say something. I formulate my question carefully.
“Why would you come after me—one of the clan children—if Whit . . . Mr. Graves is the one with the information you need?”
“I was told by a reliable source that you are Mr. Graves’s understudy—that he is your mentor. I was told that if I couldn’t find him, you may be able to help me. That, in fact, you were indispensable. I don’t know if Mr. Graves went directly to one of my competitors, but I certainly won’t lose both of you to another drug company.”
“How did you know I wasn’t with the rest of my clan?”
“A tip from the same credible source,” he says, and then sits silently again, waiting.
“Exactly what information are you trying to get?” I ask.
“As I mentioned before—the chemical makeup of the drug Amrit,” he says. “The formula for the drug.”
“See, that is what confuses me—what I haven’t understood since I overheard Miles talking to you. My clan doesn’t make drugs! We don’t use any kind of medicine besides first aid!” I say, trying to steady the anger in my voice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, but I think you do,” Mr. Blackwell shoots back. “Tell me something. Are there others in your clan with the same iris deformation you have?”
Through all the rage and frustration and betrayal, I am beginning to feel something new. A genuine interest as to what the hell is going on.
“All the children have the starburst,” I respond, raising my chin to show him that he can’t bully me into telling him anything I don’t want.
He nods, considering what I’ve said. “A drug as strong as Amrit is capable of producing this severe of a genetic abnormality . . . maybe ‘mutation’ is a nicer way to say it—in the offspring of those who take it. Mr. Graves was very vague with the details, but did mention the necessity to develop the drug further in order to avoid severe aftereffects. I see now what he means.”
“Our starbursts are from being close to—” I stop myself before I tell him anything about the Yara.
“Being close to what?” he prods. “A nuclear testing site? A water source containing biohazardous materials? There are other things capable of causing a genetic mutation like yours, but I don’t believe it for a second. I think your parents and their friends took Amrit as a part of a test, and now their children bear its mark.”
As I listen to him, something tugs deep inside me. I suddenly think of Tallie and of how she urged me to think of what I learned from my past and weigh it against what I feel is right. And though I don’t want to believe a word this man is telling me, something about his theory rings true.
And then everything falls together and then falls apart and I can’t think, can’t talk, can’t move, can’t breathe, as the fictional pieces of my past begin flashing before my eyes and re-form themselves into facts.
A loud buzzing rings in my ears, and my vision is gradually reduced until the blackness around me is as dark as a cave. I can’t move. I’m no longer here.
I hear Mr. Blackwell’s voice, as if from a long ways away. “Ms. Newhaven? Are you okay? Ms. Newhaven?” Someone is patting me—lightly slapping my face. I hear a voice say, “Quickly. Send a doctor to my suite. I have a visitor who is having some sort of attack. A teenage girl. Make it fast.”
I PULL INTO MY DRIVEWAY AT 7:00 A.M. DAD’S CAR is there, along with another I don’t recognize. I leave all my crap in the car and march through the front door yelling, “I’m home! Where is she?”
I gave up trying to call my dad after Vegas, and knew he wouldn’t answer in the middle of the night. But judging from the car outside, he’s home, and if he’s not awake, I’m ready to do the honors.
No one’s in the sitting room, so I stride on through the double doors into the open kitchen area. A wall of windows at the far side of the room overlooks Holmby Hills. My dad sits in a chair, gazing out as he sips a cup of coffee. This in itself should warn me that something’s wrong. Dad never relaxes. Never takes in the view. Normally he drinks his coffee while walking out the door and would be halfway to his office by now.
“Dad,” I say, and he turns around and looks at me, genuinely surprised.
“Miles. You came home.” He stands and moves toward me.
“Yeah, after your cronies snatched Juneau right from under me, I figured I should probably make my way back.” I take another step toward him so that we are an arm’s length away from each other, staring eye to eye since we’re practically the same height.
“What. Have. You. Done. With. Her?” I ask, each word a challenge.
“What does it matter to you?” Dad quips, and setting down his cup, puts his hands in his pockets.
“I care about her,” I say. Fuck explanations. Fuck Dad’s expression now that he looks like the cat that ate the canary. I’m done tiptoeing around him, hoping he’ll approve of me. Wanting him to act like a real dad for once instead of a CEO who happens to have a teenage boy living under his roof. Wishing he’d say something . . . anything . . . about Mom. It’s like she never existed. But all that is in the past, because there’s someone else I care about now, and he’s the only one who can tell me where she is.
“Juneau is in one of the guest bedrooms,” he says. “She’s being taken care of by a medical assistant.” He crosses his arms as if daring me to challenge him.
“What happened?” I yell, taking a step closer to him. “What did you do to her?”
He backs up and puts his hand on my shoulder to keep me from bulldozing into him. “All I did was have a little chat with her. Unfortunately, I seem to have brought up something that distressed her. Greatly. She has been receiving sedatives throughout the night, and a nurse has stayed on call in her room in case she tries to hurt herself.”
“Juneau would never hurt herself. All she wants is to save her family.”
“So after a few days with her, you think you know her?” he retorts.
“Better than you do, obviously,” I say. “When I talk to her, she doesn’t have a breakdown.”
“Sometimes stating the facts as directly as possible is the best way to make someone respond,” he says. “To shake their answer loose.”
“Looks like that worked real well for you,” I say, narrowing my eyes.
My dad gets a supremely pissed look on his face, and then exhales deeply and shades his eyes with his hand. “Why don’t you go talk to her then, Miles? She won’t speak to me anymore. She won’t even look at me. I have no doubt she has the formula for Amrit stored somewhere in her head. Somewhere she doesn’t even know, because she didn’t realize what it was. We need to get her comfortable with us. We need her to trust us, so that she will talk.”
I hate my dad in this instant. This is the business side of him, willing to negotiate anything to get what he wants. His human side gets turned off until his bid is successful, and then—maybe—he acts like a real, caring person again. Well, you know what? I can do the same.
“What’ll you give her back if she talks? Will you pour all your resources into helping her find her family?” I ask.
“Every resource I have,” he promises, and looks so sincere that I have to look hard to see that twitch at the corner of his eye that says he’s lying.
I pause for a second, searching for what to say. I have to make him think I believe him. “Thank you. That’s the only thing she wants. I’ll see if I can get her to share any information, Dad. I’m sure she’ll talk to me.”
“Good boy,” Dad says, clapping me on the shoulder. “Any details. Anything at all could be valuable, even if she doesn’t realize it. Just . . . well, be careful, son. You can’t even imagine how much she is worth to us.”
Loathing rolls off me in black waves, but Dad keeps his positive-outlook face on until I leave the room. There are so many things I would like to say to him. To hurt him. But I bite my tongue and walk to the “guest room” to see what, if anything, I can do.
Nothing has changed in my mother’s room since she left. She and Dad shared a room until she was hospitalized the first time. He moved out. And then she left. My heart is in my throat. I have avoided coming in here for the last year.
But there, lying in a tiny lump under the covers, crowned with her black spiky hair and a sickly pale face, is Juneau. The nurse is reading a paperback in a chair on the far side of the room, but when she sees me, she stands.
“My father wants me to talk to her,” I whisper to the woman. She nods and lets herself out, leaving the door open. I close it and carefully sit down next to Juneau on the bed. I want to touch her but don’t know how she’ll react. “Juneau,” I say, and her eyes flutter open. “It’s me, Miles,” I say. “Are you okay?”
She bites her lip and shakes her head no.
“What happened?” I ask. “What was it that my dad said to upset you?”
She closes her eyes and lets out an exhausted sigh. “Your father basically suggested that my starburst—and those of the other children in my clan—is a genetic anomaly. A mutation caused by our parents taking some sort of strong drug. The drug he’s looking for. ‘Amrit,’ he calls it.”
“And what do you think about that?” I ask carefully. Her eyes are brimming with tears. She wipes them away with her knuckle and sighs again.
“It makes a lot of sense,” she says finally. “Which means it’s just more proof of the web of deceit that’s been spun around us since we were born. I am the product of deception. My whole life has been a carefully formulated and maintained lie. Your dad inferred that I and the rest of the clan were part of a ‘field study’ that Whit was running for the drug.”
I don’t know what to say, so I take her hand and hold it between mine. It’s cold, and I rub it between my palms as she continues.
“I had begun figuring out what from my past I thought was true,” Juneau says. “But after what your father said yesterday, I don’t know what to think. It put me back at square one. I’m totally lost again. Worse than before.”
She closes her eyes.
“How are you feeling, physically? Think you’re strong enough to walk?”
Juneau’s eyes pop open. “Why?”
“Because I have a promise I need to keep,” I say. “Something about getting you to the Wild West so you can find your family, if I recall correctly. Even if your dad and the others lied to you, they’re still your family. They still need to be found.”
A light goes back on behind Juneau’s empty eyes, and a smile blooms on her lips. She leans toward me, and I take her in my arms for a hug while she nestles her head against my neck. After a long moment, she pushes back a little so she can look at my face, and traces it with her fingertips, running her fingers lightly over my eyes, nose, and lips.
We’re so close that I can feel her warm breath on my face, and then she lifts her head slightly so that our lips meet. And she kisses me. Her skin is so soft, it’s like brushing my mouth against flower petals. I taste her and she tastes like the lemon drops that the nurse has set by the bed in a bowl.
This kiss isn’t urgent and needy like the last one. It’s a slow kiss that promises more to come. Which is exactly what I want: more Juneau. More time.
“We need to get you out of here,” I say finally, forcing myself to pull away from her embrace.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” she says.
“I am going to tell my father that you were too tired to talk,” I say. “That I can try again in a few hours.”
I start to get up, and she squeezes my hand to stop me. “Miles?”
I raise an eyebrow, waiting. Keeping a totally straight face, she says, “Even though you make a crappy fire and wouldn’t survive more than ten minutes in the wilderness, there isn’t anyone I’d rather be with at a time like this. You’re my desert island friend.” And she grins.
I laugh. “Even though you could probably kill me in fifteen different ways with a table fork, and even though you barbecue bunnies, I like you, too, Juneau. So let’s get our butts to New Mexico.”
“A very good plan,” she says. I stand and lean over the bed and kiss her forehead. She gives me her crooked mouth-closed smile, and I feel a rush of relief. She’s going to be okay.
My dad is waiting in the den, wearing his “caring father” expression. “Did she tell you anything?” he asks expectantly.
He probably thinks I can’t see through his act. Well, I learned my lying skills from the very best. I rearrange my face to show concern and disappointment. “She was too tired to really talk,” I say, and his face falls. “But she did mention that you said something about her eye being a genetic mutation?” Dad nods and, leading me into the kitchen, grabs a bottle of apple juice out of the fridge. He pours us both a glass and takes a swig from his.
“The girl’s eye is a mutation, and if all the children in her clan have the same one, as she claims, it means that their parents all did something that would produce that dramatic of an effect in their offspring.”
“And you think this has something to do with a drug.”
“What I was told, Miles, is that a group of greenie scientists were working on a drug to solve the problem of endangered animals. To help species that were dying out resist disease and extinction. They tried it on themselves and found it had made them immune to every illness they tested. It would have been at least a year—nine months, of course—before they discovered its effect on a developing fetus. And when they knew what they had, they escaped America for somewhere they could live undetected, in seclusion.”
“Just to hide their kids’ eyes?” I ask doubtfully.
My father sets his glass down on the counter and looks at me intently. “I’m guessing that they didn’t initially know what they had. But they stayed when they discovered they had stopped aging.”
“So that’s what Amrit is,” I say, confirming my theory from before—from when I saw Whit with my own eyes. “It’s a drug that stops aging.”
“If you want to get technical about it, Amrit doesn’t completely stop aging. But it slows it down to an imperceptible rate—at least that’s what Dr. Graves claims. It’s the holy grail, Miles. The fountain of youth. They have figured out how to cheat death.”
I just stare at Dad, at the greed on his face, and feel sick. “Not only do I think you’re all crazy,” I say, “but I think you’ve been duped.”
Dad holds a finger up, like he’s scolding me. “Believe it or not, it’s true. I’ve seen the test results. I’ve seen Mr. Graves himself. I know what’s possible with this drug, Miles. And Blackwell Pharmaceutical will own its patent.” He turns and leaves the room.
I’m not going to let this happen. When I hear his office door close, I sneak away to the carport and start cleaning out my car, leaving all the camping gear in the back. We’re going to need it. Hopefully soon.
