Reached (6 page)

“Is everything all right?” someone asked, and I realized it was the same woman who had brought me. She came closer, the yellow-white circle of her flashlight directed down at my feet and not at my face to blind me. “Have you had enough time to look?”

“Everything appears to be here,” I said. “Except for three poems, which I assume are the price you mentioned for the trade.”

“Yes,” she said. “If that’s all you need, then you can go. Come out of the shelves and cross the room. There’s only one door. Take the stairs back out.”

No blindfold this time? “But then I’ll know where we are,” I said. “I’ll know how to come back.”

She smiled. “Exactly.” Her gaze lingered on the papers. “You can trade here, if you like. No need to go to the Museum with a cache like that.”

“Would I be an Archivist then?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “You’d be a trader.”

For a moment, I thought she said
traitor
, which of course I was, to the Society. But then she went on. “Archivists work with traders. But Archivists are different. We’ve had specific training, and we can recognize forgeries that the average trader would never notice.” She paused and I nodded to show I understood the importance of what she was saying. “If you bargain with a trader alone, you have no guarantee of authenticity. Archivists are the only ones with adequate knowledge and resources to ascertain whether or not information or articles are genuine. Some say the faction of Archivists is older than the Society.”

She glanced down at the pages in my hands and then back up at me. “Sometimes a trade comes through with items worth noting,” she says. “Your papers, for example. You can trade them one at a time, if you like. But they will have more value as a group. The larger the collection, the higher the price you can get. And if we see potential in you, you may be allowed to broker others’ trades on our behalf and collect part of the fee.”

“Thank you,” I said. Then, thinking of the words of the Thomas poem, which Ky always thought I might be able to trade, I asked, “What about poems that are remembered?”

“You mean, poems with no paper document to back them up?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“There was a time when we would accept those, though the value was less,” she said. “That is no longer the case.”

I should have assumed as much, from the way the Archivist in Tana reacted when I tried to trade with the Tennyson poem. But I thought that the Thomas poem, unknown to anyone except Ky and me, might have been an exception. Still, I had a wealth of possibility, thanks to Ky.

“You can store your items here,” the Archivist said. “The fee is minimal.”

Instinctively, I drew back. “No,” I told her. “I’ll find somewhere else.”

She raised her eyebrows at me. “Are you certain you have a secure place?” she asked, and I thought of the cave where the pages had been safe for so long, and the compact where Grandfather kept the first poems hidden for years. And I knew where I’d hide my papers.

I’ve burned words and buried them,
I thought,
but I haven’t tried the water yet.

In a way, I think it was Indie who gave me the idea of where to hide the papers. She always talked about the ocean. And even more than that, it might have been her odd, oblique manner of thinking—the way she looked at things sideways, upside down, instead of straight on, seeing truth from unexpected and awkward angles.

“I want to trade for something right away, tonight,” I told the Archivist, and she looked disappointed. As though I were a child who was about to spend all these fragile beautiful words on something shiny and false.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“A box,” I said. “One that fire can’t burn, and that won’t let in water or air or earth. Can you find something like that?”

Her face changed a little, became more approving. “Of course,” she said. “Wait here. It won’t take me long.” She vanished again along the shelves.

That was our first trade. Later, I discovered the woman’s identity and learned that she was the head Archivist in Central City, the person who oversees and directs the trades but doesn’t often execute them herself. But, from the beginning, she’s taken a special interest in the pages Ky sent me. I’ve worked with her ever since.

When I climbed out from underground that night, clutching the box full of papers in my chilled hands, I paused for a moment at the edge of the field. It was silver grass and gray and black rubble. I could make out the shape of the white plastic that covered the other excavations, protecting them from a Restoration interrupted and not yet resumed. I wondered what that place used to be and why the Society decided to abandon any attempts at bringing it back.

And then what happened next?
I ask myself.
Where did I put the pages after I took them from the Archivists’ hiding place?

For a moment, the memory tries to slip away like a silvered fish in a stream, but I catch hold of it.

I hid the papers in the lake.

Even though they told us the lake was dead, I dared to go into it because I saw signs of life. The bank looked like the healthy streams in the Carving, not the one where Vick was poisoned. I could see where grass had been; in a place where a spring came in and the water was warm, I even saw fish moving slowly, spending the winter deep below.

I crept out through the brush that went up to the edge of the lake, and then I buried the box under the middle pier, under the water and stones that pattern in the shallow part where the lake touches shore.

And then a newer memory comes back.

The lake.
That’s
where Ky said he’d meet me.

Once I reach the lake, I switch on the flashlight I keep hidden in the brush at the edge of the City, where the streets run out and the marsh takes over.

I don’t think he’s here yet.

There are always moments of panic when I come back—will the papers be gone? But then I take a deep breath and put my hands into the water, move away the rocks, and lift out a dripping box filled with poetry.

When I trade the pages, it’s usually to pay for the exchange of messages between Ky and me.

I don’t know how many or whose hands the notes will go through before they get to Ky. So I sent my first message in a code I created, one that I invented during the long hours of sorts that didn’t require my full attention. Ky figured out the code and changed it slightly when he wrote me back. Each time, we build upon the original code a little, changing and evolving it to make it harder to read. It’s not a perfect system—I’m sure the code can be broken—but it’s the best we can do.

The closer I get to the water, the more I realize that something is wrong.

A thick cluster of black birds has gathered out near the edge of the first dock, and another group of them is congregated farther down the shore. They cry and call to each other, picking at something, some
things
, on the ground. I shine my flashlight on them.

The black birds scatter and screech at me and I stop short.

Dead fish lap along the bank, catch in the reeds. Belly- up, glazed-eyed. And I remember what Ky said about Vick and the way he died; I remember that dark poisoned stream back out in the Outer Provinces and other rivers that the Society poisoned as the water ran down to the Enemy.

Who’s poisoning the
Society’
s water?

I shiver a little and wrap my arms more tightly around myself. The papers inside my clothes whisper. Underneath all this death, somewhere in the water, other papers lie buried. It’s early spring, but the water is still frigid. If I go in to get the pages now, I won’t be able to wait as long for Ky.

What if he comes, and I’ve gone home cold?

CHAPTER 6

KY

W
e’re getting closer and closer to Grandia. It’s time to tell Indie what I want to do.

There are speakers in the cockpit and down in the hold. The commander of our fleet can hear anything I say, and so can Caleb. So I’m going to have to write this out for Indie. I reach into my pocket and pull out a stick of charcoal and a napkin from the camp’s meal hall. I always keep these things with me. Who knows when the opportunity to send a message to Cassia might come along?

Indie glances over at me and raises her eyebrows. Silently, she mouths, “Who are you writing to?”

I point at her and her face lights up.

I’m trying to think of the best way to ask her.
In the Carving, I said we should try to run away from all of this. Remember? Let’s do that now.

If Indie agrees to come with me, maybe we can find a way to get Cassia and escape with the ship. I only get one word written down—
In
—before a voice fills the cockpit.

“This is your Chief Pilot speaking.”

I feel a little jolt of recognition, even though I’ve never heard him speak before. Indie draws in her breath, and I shove the charcoal and paper back into my pocket as if the Chief Pilot can see us. His voice sounds rich and musical, pleasing, but strong. It’s coming from the control panel, but the quality of the transmission is much better than usual. It sounds like he’s actually on the ship.

“I am also the Pilot of the Rising.”

Indie and I turn to look at each other. She was right, but there’s no triumph in her expression. Only conviction.

“Soon, I will speak to everyone in all of the Provinces,” the Pilot says, “but those of you taking part in the initial wave of the Rising have the right to hear from me first. You are here because of your decision to join the Rising and your merits as participants in this rebellion. And you are also here because of another important characteristic, one for which you cannot take credit.”

I look over at Indie. Her face looks beautiful, lit up. She believes in the Pilot. Do I, now that I’ve heard his voice?

“The red tablet doesn’t work on you,” the Pilot says. “You remember what the Society would have you forget. As some of you have long suspected, the Rising did this—we made you immune to the red tablet. And that is not all. You are also immune to an illness that is even now overtaking Cities and Boroughs throughout the Provinces.”

They never said anything about an illness. My muscles tense. What does this mean for Cassia?

“Some of you have heard of the Plague.”

Indie turns to me. “Have you?” she mouths.

I almost say
no
but then I realize that I might have.
The mystery illness that killed Eli’s parents.

“Eli,”
I mouth back, and Indie nods.

“The Society intended the Plague for the Enemy,” the Pilot says. “They poisoned some of the Enemy’s rivers and released the Plague into others. This, combined with continued attacks from the air, completely eliminated the Enemy. But the Society has pretended that the Enemy still exists. The Society needed someone to blame for the ongoing loss of life of those who lived in the Outer Provinces.

“Some of you were out there in those camps. You know that the Society wanted to eradicate Aberrations and Anomalies completely. And they used your deaths, and the information they gathered from them, as one last great collection of data.”

Silence. We all know that what he says is true.

“We wanted to come in and save you sooner,” the Pilot says, “but we weren’t ready yet. We had to wait a little longer. But we did
not
forget you.”

Didn’t you?
I want to ask. Some of my old bitterness against the Rising fills me, and I grip the controls of the ship tightly, staring out into the night.

“Back when the Society created this Plague,” the Pilot says, “there were those who remembered that what is water in one place becomes rain somewhere else. They knew that releasing this disease would come back to us somehow, no matter how many precautions were taken. It created a division among the scientists in the Society, and many of them secretly joined the Rising. Some of our scientists found a way to make people immune to the red tablet, and also to the Plague. In the beginning, we didn’t have the resources to give these immunities to everyone. So we had to choose. And we chose
you
.”

“He chose us,”
Indie whispers.

“You haven’t forgotten the things the Society wanted you to lose. And you can’t get the Plague. We protected you from both.” The Pilot pauses. “You’ve always known that we have been preparing you for the most important errand of all—bringing in the Rising. But you’ve never known
exactly
what your cargo would be.

“You carry the cure,” the Pilot says. “Right now, the errand ships, covered by the fighters, are bringing the cure to the most impacted cities—to Central, Grandia, Oria, Acadia.”

Central is one of the most impacted cities.
Is Cassia sick? We never knew if she was immune to the red tablet. I don’t think that she is.

And why is the Plague in so many places? The largest cities, all sick at the same time? Shouldn’t it take longer to spread, instead of exploding everywhere at once?

That’s a question for Xander. I wish I could ask him.

Indie glances over at me.
“No,”
she says. She knows what I want to do. She knows that I want to try to get to Cassia anyway.

She’s right. That
is
what I want to do. And if it were me by myself, I’d risk it. I’d try to outrun the Rising.

But it’s not just me.

“Many of you,” the Pilot says, “have been paired with someone you know. This was intentional. We knew it would be difficult for those of you who still have loved ones within the Society to resist taking the cure to your family and friends. We cannot compromise the efficiency of this mission, and we will need to bring you down should you try to deviate from your assigned course.”

The Rising is smart. They’ve matched me with the one person in camp I care about. Which goes to show that caring about
anyone
leaves you vulnerable. I’ve known this for years but I still can’t stop.

“We have an adequate supply of the cure,” the Pilot says. “We do not have a surplus. Please don’t waste the resources many have sacrificed to provide.”

It’s so calculated—the way they paired us up, the way they’ve made just enough of the cure. “This sounds like the Society,” I say out loud.

“We are not the Society,” the Pilot says, “but we recognize that we have to save people before we can free them.”

Indie and I stare at each other. Did the Pilot answer me? Indie covers her mouth with her hand and I find myself, inexplicably, trying not to laugh.

“The Society built barricades and walls in order to try and contain the illness,” the Pilot says. “They’ve isolated people in quarantine in the medical centers and then, when space ran out, in government buildings.

“These past few days have been a turning point. We confirmed that the numbers of those fallen ill have reached a critical mass. Tonight, Match Banquets all across the Society fell apart, from Camas to Central and beyond. The Society kept trying to reconfigure the data, right up until the last moment, but they could not keep up. We infiltrated the sorting centers to accelerate the problem. It wasn’t difficult to throw the Matching into disarray. There were silver boxes with no microcards and blank screens without Matches all across the Provinces.

“Many people took the red tablet tonight, but not all of them will forget. The Match Banquet is the Society’s signature event, the one upon which all the others rely. Its fall represents the Society’s inability to care for its people. Even those who did forget will soon realize that they have no Match and that something is wrong. They’ll realize that people they know, too many of them, have disappeared behind barricades and are not coming back. The Society is dying, and it is our time now.

“The Rising is for everyone.” The Pilot’s voice drops a little as he repeats the motto, becomes deeper with emotion. “But
you
are the ones who will begin it.
You
are the ones who will save them.”

We wait. But he’s finished speaking. The ship feels emptier without his voice.

“
We’re
going to save them,” Indie says. “Everyone. Can you believe it?”

“I have to believe it,” I say. Because if I don’t believe in the Rising and their cure, what hope is there for Cassia?

“She’ll be fine,” Indie says. “She’s part of the Rising. They’ll take care of her.”

I hope that Indie’s right. Cassia wanted to join the Rising, and so I followed her. But now all I care about is finding Cassia and leaving all of this behind—Society, Rising, Pilot, Plague—as soon as we can.

From above, the rebellion against the Society looks black and white. Black night, white barricade around the center of Grandia City.

Indie drops us lower to prepare for landing.

“Go first,” our commander tells us. “Show the others how it’s done.” Indie’s supposed to land the ship inside the barricade on the street in front of City Hall. It’s going to be tight.

Closer to the earth. Closer. Closer. Closer. The world rushes at us. Somewhere, the Pilot is watching.

Black ships, white marble buildings.

Indie hits the ground smoothly, greasing the landing. I watch her expression. It’s one of closely guarded triumph until the ship stops and she glances over at me. Then she smiles—pure joy—and hits the controls that open the door to the ship.

“Pilots, stay with your ships,” the commander says. “Copilot and runner, get the cures out.”

Caleb hoists up cases from the hold and we each shoulder two of them.

“You first,” he says, and I duck through the door and start running the second I’m down the stairs. The Rising has cleared a path through the crowd of people and it’s a straight shot to the medical center. It’s almost quiet, except for the sound of the fighters covering us above. I keep my head down, but out of the corner of my eye I see Rising officers in black holding back the Officials wearing white.

Keep moving.
That’s not only what the Rising has asked us to do—it’s my own personal rule. So I keep going, even when I hear what’s coming across the ports in the medical center.

Now that I know the Pilot’s voice, I can tell that it’s him singing. And I know the song. The Anthem of the Society. You can tell by the way the Pilot sings it that the Anthem has now become a requiem—a song for the dead.

I’m back in the Outer Provinces. My hands are black and the rocks are red. Vick and I work on figuring out a way to make the guns fire back. The other decoys gather gunpowder to help us. They sing the Anthem of the Society while they work. It’s the only song they know.

“Here,” a woman in Rising black says, and Caleb and I follow her past rows and rows of people lying still on stretchers in the foyer of the medical center. She opens the door to a storage room and gestures us inside.

“Put them on the table,” she says, and we comply.

The Rising officer scans the cases we’ve brought with her miniport and it beeps. She keys in a code to unlock the cases. The pressurized air inside makes a hiss as it escapes and the lid opens.

Inside are rows and rows of cures in red tubes.

“Beautiful,” she says. Then she looks up at Caleb and me. “Go back for the rest,” she says. “I’ll send some of my officers out to help you.”

On the way out, I risk a glance down at a patient’s face. Blank eyes. Body still.

The man’s face looks empty and undone. Is there even a person inside? How far deep has he gone? What if he knows what’s happening but he’s trapped there waiting?

My skin crawls. I couldn’t do it. I have to
move
.

I’d rather die than be down like that.

For the first time, I feel something like loyalty to the Rising stir inside of me. If this is what the Rising has saved me from, then maybe I do owe them something. Not the rest of my life, but a few runs of the cure. And now that I’ve seen the sick, I can’t compromise their access to the one thing that can help them.

My mind races. The Rising should get control over the trains and bring cures in that way, too. They’d better have someone good working on the logistics of getting the cure out. Maybe that’s Cassia’s job.

And this is mine.

I’ve changed since I ran off to the Carving and left the decoys to die. I’ve changed because of everything I’ve seen since then, and because of Cassia. I can’t leave people behind again. I have to keep running in this damn cure even if it means I can’t get to Cassia as soon as I’d like.