The Lost Code (25 page)

“Yeah,” I muttered, and switched topics. “Paul brought you here and tested you,” I said. “To see if you were like me and Lilly. But you’re not.” I couldn’t help feeling a little bit of satisfaction saying that.

“What does that mean?” Evan asked. He slowly got to his feet, too.

“It means,” said Lilly, “that Paul and Eden have been looking for someone with a lost genetic code that connects them to Atlantis.”

“Atlantis?” said Aliah. “Wait, you mean like Plato and the sunken city and all that stuff?”

Everybody just looked at her.

“What? I read my classics in school.”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Point is,” said Lilly, “they’ve been looking all along. It’s why we were selected as Cryos. And . . .” She bit her lip, inhaled slowly like she was gathering strength. “I need to show you guys something.”

She took Evan’s arm and put it around her shoulder. I felt a knot form inside to see them like that, but this moment, what Lilly had to show them, it was theirs, not mine. I had to respect that.

I stayed where I was as Lilly led the CITs over to Anna. I heard Aliah gasp. Heard Marco curse. Then they were silent. I heard a kissing sound and saw Lilly take her fingers away from her lips and reach into the plastic tent. The others did the same. Then they whispered their good-byes and turned away.

“Paul never had to study us,” said Lilly, leading Evan toward the stairs. “He had his lab rat in Anna. So he left the rest of us alone and just watched, to see what we’d do. Watched until the real Atlantean arrived.”

Evan looked at me. “You mean
him
?”

“Yeah,” said Lilly. I felt their eyes on me as we headed back up the stairs. Lilly gave them the short explanation about the temple, the skull, Dr. Maria, and the Nomads, as we returned to the lab and then the cheery infirmary hallway. At each door, we paused, looking warily for Security Forces, but there were none.

We left out the front door, squinting against the bright daylight. There was a distant din of plates and forks. Lunch was still in progress. We headed around the dining hall and back down through the woods. The CITs slowly regained their legs, and we moved faster, rejoining the trail to the cabins.

“Hey, look.” Marco was pointing out toward the fields. A squad of Security Forces was jogging down the path toward the boathouse.

“Good job, Beaker,” I thought aloud.

We ran on until we reached the first cabins.

“We need to turn south,” said Lilly.

“So, we’re just heading out into the barrens of Radland in our bathing suits?” Marco asked.

I looked down at Evan’s shirt. “We can stop by my cabin. Some of those clothes should fit everybody. And you can have your shirt back.” I pulled the subnet phone from my pocket and checked the time. “We have to hurry, though. I told Aaron a half hour, and it’s already been twenty minutes.”

“So,” said Aliah as we jogged over to the Spotted Hyenas cabin. “I have to wear sticky boy clothes? And by the way, I’m totally kidding, but still . . .”

We entered the front door. The subnet phone beeped. “This is Aaron.”

“Hey,” I answered.

“I am not seeing you on the wall cameras. Are you at the door yet, or what? Everything is set.”

“Yeah, we’ll be there, maybe a couple minutes late.”

“Okay, well”—Aaron’s mouth turned down like I was something bitter tasting—“a couple minutes is going to be shaving it real close, especially when it comes to the neck that is stuck out to help you, that being mine. Make it fast, got it?”

“Got it,” I said, stuffing the phone away.

“Man, dude, this place completely smells,” said Marco as we entered the bunk room.

I looked around. It seemed like forever since I’d been here. I hurried to my bunk and changed into a shirt and jeans. I stuffed an extra shirt, underwear, socks into Dr. Maria’s backpack. It was too full to add any more.

Marco and Aliah were digging jeans and long-sleeved shirts out of cubbies and throwing them on. I tossed Evan his shirt.

“Anybody see a pullover that’s not gross?” Lilly asked as she rummaged around.

“Here.” I gave her mine, then considered the other cubbies. I remembered Wesley having a fairly nice sweatshirt, and he was about my size. I rounded the beds in the middle of the room and checked Wesley’s cubby. It wasn’t there. His bunk was below Leech’s. I looked there and found the sweatshirt lying among other clothes and his blankets. It didn’t smell terrible.

I stood up, slipping it over my head. As I did, I caught a glimpse into Leech’s bunk. The things he’d taped to the wall: his Trilobytes poster (they were a super-popular band that toured the Edens and the Northern Federation), and his signed photo from the previous camp session with a big pink heart drawn in the corner around Paige’s name. There was also a drawing in black ink, with the title
The Preserve: Secret Routes.
It was a map showing the whole Preserve in amazing detail. It had all the trails, animal pens, and here and there, dotted lines and arrows that were labeled with things like “good shortcut” or “ambush spot.” So, that was how he’d known where to leave the trail. He’d been keeping track from his previous games. The map even had a compass rose in the corner. And there were funny things, too. Like, he’d drawn a little bear in its enclosure that was standing on its hind legs, fangs bared, holding a terrified camper in its paws. There was a curving monster like a sea serpent in the little pond where the CITs had surprised us.

The drawings were really good. Maybe that shouldn’t have been a surprise, since he’d often had that sketchbook with him, but I guess I hadn’t wanted to think of Leech as having any talents other than being a jerk. Did knowing this change how I felt about him?

“We good?” said Lilly. I turned to see her by the doorway. The others had left.

“Yeah.” I took a step.

But I stopped. I turned back to the wall.

The map. Leech’s map. Something about it was sticking in my brain. Something familiar about that little sea monster . . .

And then I knew. The black cylinder case he took on his trips with Paul. It wasn’t a fishing pole.

“Oh,” I said quietly.

“Owen, what?” Lilly asked.

Everything was swimming. I thought about sitting down. Or, falling over. But there it all was. He’d been here the longest . . . his injured hand that one morning . . . he and Paul finding me in the water by the Aquinara. . . . They hadn’t been fishing at all.

I stared at the little map on the wall, and said, “I know who the third Atlantean is.”

“WHAT?” LILLY ASKED. SHE STEPPED OVER TO MY
side. “You do?”

I pointed at the little map. “It’s Leech,” I said. “Those maps we found in the temple. Paul didn’t draw them. Leech did.” As I said it I thought,
No way
, there was no way, and yet I felt like I knew it, for sure. “Paul knew. He even had Leech try to open the skull chamber. That’s why his hand was bandaged the other day. He must be the Mariner.”

“So what does that mean?” Lilly asked.

I sighed. “It means we can’t leave without him.”

“Let’s go tell the others,” she said. We headed outside.

“
That
kid?” said Evan when Lilly broke the news. “It was bad enough when it was just
him
,” he added, pointing at me, “but that little runt, too? Why them?”

Guess it wasn’t based on who had the biggest shoulders
, I thought to reply, but instead I just pointed. “And Lilly.”

“Well, yeah, but . . .” Evan trailed off and looked at the ground like he really was disappointed. Maybe he’d just realized that everything that had been happening here wasn’t about him. That he was basically a side character in someone else’s story. In
my
story. That was something I still wasn’t used to, either.

“It wasn’t a contest, idiot,” Lilly added, scowling at him.

“So now what?” asked Aliah. “Don’t we need to get to that south door if we’re gonna get out of here?”

“Yeah,” said Lilly. “You guys should get going.”

“Wait, what about you?” Marco asked.

Lilly looked at me. “We’re going to find Leech. Then, I don’t know.”

I thought about how Lilly had called the CITs her family. “You can go with them, if you want,” I said to her. “We can find each other outside.”

Lilly’s mouth twisted, like she was considering it. Then she shook her head. “I’m going with you,” she said. “We’ll find another way out,” she told them.

“That’s stupid. You guys should come with us now while we have the chance,” said Evan.

“Listen to you,” said Lilly, “Mr. I’m-never-leaving-Eden.”

“Yeah, well.” Evan glanced at me, and looked around. “Things changed.”

“They did,” said Lilly. “And they just changed again. So get going.”

“Maybe we should help you?” said Evan, almost like he was asking himself.

“No,” said Lilly. “Look, someone needs to get to the Nomads and tell them what’s really going on in here. If we don’t make it out, then, well, I don’t know, go tell the ACF if you have to, and come back for us. Now go, and don’t ask me if ‘I’m sure’ or any of that. This is the plan, got it?”

I listened to her and felt like I was falling for her all over again.

“Fine,” said Evan.

“Good luck,” said Marco.

“Yeah,” Aliah added.

I saw Evan catch Lilly’s eye and make a little motion with his head, like he was saying,
Be careful
.

Lilly made it back. I made sure not to react.

Then, the three CITs turned and ran into the woods.

Lilly took my hand. We started back down the path toward the fields. “Now what?” she asked.

“Not sure,” I said. My heart was pounding, though. We wove through the trees, and stopped in the shadows just before the fields. No one was out playing. It was early afternoon. They’d all be at electives and free swim.

I stared out at the sunny field, a moment of exhaustion rushing over me, my thoughts spinning around.

I felt Lilly watching me. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Ha,” I said. “Nah.”

She grabbed my arm and twisted it, like she was going to break it if I didn’t tell her. “Or, yes. Spill it, Parker.”

“Well . . . honestly, I was thinking that I wanted to run back and join the others and get out of here. And then, I don’t know, just take off. You and me, like . . .” I stopped, because I knew we needed to keep moving, needed to keep our guard up, and yet, everything was so dangerous now, and what if there wasn’t ever going to be the perfect opportunity to tell her the things on my mind? What if all our quiet moments, like on the island, our chances to really talk, were already gone? “What if . . . ah, never mind.”

“Excuse me, you can’t say that and then
not
finish.” Lilly was doing that thing again where she was staring at me and her eyes were being all blue and white and too much to look at.

“Fine. Well, it doesn’t matter now, ’cause my gills are gone, but I had this whole idea where you and I could run off and find our own little bay somewhere, you know, just us, a place where the coastline was clean, and there were still fish, and stuff. And we could catch them, and, I don’t know, just be there.”

Lilly smiled. “You want to catch me fish? Like, with a spear?”

“Sure, or, you know, a net.”

She stepped toward me. “So underneath that quiet exterior, you’re a romantic.”

I shrugged. “Who knows what’s under here anymore?”

Closer. “I’m starting to think I do.”

“Okay,” I said. Heart starting to sprint. Fingers tingling. But this time I was going to be the one who took that final little step, the one that made our bodies press together. I put my arms around her, and even as our faces were closing in on each other, I was still having that old thought like,
This can’t be right! You
must
be doing
something
wrong—

But then we were kissing. Lips moving in waves. Her tongue found mine, two warm creatures playing, and I tried to sense what hers was doing and do the same, and make the same lip movements too. And it worked, at least I thought it did, because we were still kissing, and it was amazing, and seconds were passing, now a minute. . . .

“Hello? Hellooo?”

The phone. The damn phone.

I pulled away. “Sorry.” I dug the phone from my pocket. Aaron was on the screen, peering frantically into it. He didn’t look happy. “Hey,” I said, “this is Owen.”

“Owen, Owen, Owen,” Aaron muttered. “Why is it that I’m sitting here, or should I say huddling in an empty office corner to avoid detection, and watching a team of Nomads sneaking between the solar panels on their way to hatch six, while simultaneously keeping this fact a secret from the rest of EdenWest, mind you, only now I’m noticing on the hatch camera that there are
three
young people approaching the door, not five. Please tell me this is because my above-average vision has suddenly and inexplicably deteriorated, and not, I repeat,
not
because you and that girl are still inside somewhere.”

“You’re not going blind,” I said. “Lilly and I are looking for Leech.”

Aaron’s face darkened. “You’re looking for Leech.”

“Yeah,” I said, “he’s the other Atlantean.”

“Oh.” Aaron rolled his eyes.
“That.”

I stared at the phone. “You
knew
?”

“Obviously,” said Aaron.

I felt like screaming at him. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

“Well, for starters, so that you wouldn’t feel compelled to do something inane like go find him instead of heading for the nearest exit like I
told
you.”

“Well, sorry, that’s what we’re doing. You can see inside the temple, right?”

“The Eye sees all,” said Aaron. “Actually, that’s not completely true. The cameras in that temple place are still down. And, it’s not like there are cameras in any of the showers or bathrooms in camp. I swear.” He made a noise like he was amused by his own joke.

“You’re creepy and disgusting!” Lilly shouted toward the phone.

“So, you don’t know where Leech is,” I said.

“Not only don’t I know,” said Aaron, sounding angry now, “but I’d have zero reason to tell you even if I did.”

“We can’t leave him,” I said. “He’s the third Atl—”

“Kid, spare me. I know the whole deal already, and what I also know is that we can get Leech out later, some other way, but the best way to get
you
out is currently arriving at the south hatch. So, turn around and get moving.”

“But—,” I started to say, except then I heard a soft footstep. And a click.

I looked up at Lilly and she was looking right back at me. Her face had gone cold.

The soldier was a few paces away, rifle raised at us. “Don’t move!”

I heard Aaron swear to himself, and the phone went black, then suddenly sprouted sparks in my hand, the screen cracking. I dropped it, smoking, to the ground.

More Security Forces arrived, breaking cover from the trees and sprinting toward us.

“And here we are, finally,” said Cartier, following close behind. He held up his own phone. “Mr. Jacobsen, it’s me. We have them.”