The System #2 (29 page)

“No!” Ethan interrupted, his voice full of anger and apprehension. “If I’m going to die,” he paused and waited for Doctor Krause to contradict him, but instead she crossed her arms over her chest and waited, “then I want to spend a night doing something special. I want that choice.”

“Choice?” The word triggered something dark and Doctor Krause’s eyes flashed. “You think you are entitled to a choice? Since when do any of us get choices?” She scoffed and turned on her heels. “I’ll be back. I’m asking you to meditate on your health and start thinking like someone who wants to live and not a short-sighted twenty-year-old boy…”

“Who is going to die,” Ethan finished for her.

She paused in the doorway of the den and then turned. “I’m going to do everything in my power to try to save you, but I need you to be smart. I need you to want to get better. I’ll resort to begging.” Doctor Krause gave him a sad, small smile.

“I’m going to go on the date, Doctor Krause,” he replied. “I need this. You don’t understand how much I need this.”

Without reply, the doctor looked at Ethan and her shoulders slumped. Then with a sniff, she stared at him for a long, assessing moment, and then he turned back around and left, leaving Ethan alone, afraid, and determined.
 

Dean and Spencer moved Ethan back to the couch. Joey had run off on a hospital run with Darla—a task they were not looking forward to; the rotting bodies in the hospital were getting less manageable by the day. The infection raged and Ethan grew tired; he dozed while trying to calm his fever. And the fever dreams left him spent and anxious. When he woke, he saw Ainsley sitting by his side—her hair set about her shoulders in perfect coils, her brown eyes trained on him, her mouth pouty.

“Hey,” Ainsley replied. She held out a cool compress and tilted her head. “I didn’t want to wake you. I need to pack this on your wound…to get the swelling down.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Ethan said. He sat up a bit and reached his hand out toward her. “I can do it. Let me do that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous—”

“Your mother already said that to me once today,” he interrupted with a smile.

Ainsley got up off her chair and threw the blanket off of Ethan’s lap. She gasped when she saw his leg. The purple, blue, and black bruise climbing up his thigh. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked in a whisper. “All this time and I thought you were feeling better. I will never believe you again,” she added with an overly ominous tone.

“I feel fine.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Ainsley said matter-of-factly. She settled down next to his legs and put an ice pack next to his amputation site, and then with ease, she ripped the medical tape and wrapped it against his leg. “You’re falling apart.”

“I’m tough,” Ethan winced and then smiled. “I don’t want to be your burden.”

Ainsley shrugged. “Whatever.”

“The date is happening, by the way.”

She rolled her eyes and reached for the blood-pressure cuff. “I’m not going to pretend to understand your obsession with this. I admit it would be something
different
…”

“Yes!” Ethan called and then he coughed.

“How long have you had that cough?” Ainsley asked as she adjusted the cuff on his arm.

“Please don’t do that nurse stuff. It makes me sad,” Ethan replied, but Ainsley didn’t answer. She tightened the cuff and watched the dial spin.

“Please shut up,” Ainsley said with a wink. “Your blood pressure is higher than normal too. Man, I have, like, monstrously failed you.” She raised her finger and poked it into Ethan’s shoulder. He pulled away from her touch, but couldn’t quite escape it. “I’m no longer taking orders from you. Find yourself another gin rummy player.”

There was a sudden pressure in his chest and it filled and burst until Ethan couldn’t help it; he started coughing wildly, a non-productive bark. When the coughing died down, Ethan frowned. “Darla hates rummy. You’re my only hope.”

“The saddest statement ever uttered.”

“Date. Tomorrow. Don’t be late.” Ethan coughed again. “I’m serious. It’s happening. I have it all worked out.” His mind drifted to Anna for a moment; he imagined her blonde hair, her smile, and the way she made him feel. The date with Ainsley had started as a joke, something to do, to look forward to, but now he realized how much it made him feel alive—how much he couldn’t let it go. In a world of darkness, he’d made this one night the light. It wasn’t Ainsley that made it special, but the thought of doing anything that didn’t involve sitting around and waiting to get sicker.

“I actually agree with my mom. Ethan, this is serious. Can’t you take this seriously? You’re too sick—”

“Don’t you dare stand me up.”

Ainsley took off the cuff and placed the back of her hand against Ethan’s forehead. Her skin against his skin caused his chest to tighten and he pushed the feeling aside. It wasn’t supposed to be like that; he didn’t want it to be like that.
 

He touched her wrist, wrapping his hand in a circle around the smallness, his fingers overlapping, and he lowered her hand to his chest. Then he put his hand over hers, pressing her hand into the flesh. His heart beat fast and wild; Ainsley’s face dissolved, her mouth opened partway and her eyes watched her rising and falling hand. When she and Ethan locked eyes, he thought there had been a shift—subtle, nearly imperceptible.
   

“Please,” he added. “Please.”

“Fine. One pretend date. Only because I can’t say no to a dead guy,” Ainsley said in a whisper. Then she tugged her hand free of Ethan’s grip, pushed her chair back, and with dropping shoulders exited the room.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Cass and Lucy watched and listened as people traveled down the hallway toward the Center for the gathering; everyone’s voices were full of expectation and energy—vibrantly calling and whispering about why they were being summoned. The once-empty hallway was brimming with traveling occupants of the pods. The girls had to lie in wait until the halls cleared, the last of the footsteps dying away, before pulling up on the secret panel and slipping, unnoticed, back into the bowels of the System.
 

“Come, come,” Cass said and she gripped Lucy’s hand, slipping her fingers around Lucy’s and pulling her toward the voices.

As they rounded one hall and disappeared down another, they could hear the roar of the crowd settle into a hush and Gordy’s familiar voice address the crowd, setting the stage for his father, with great effusiveness.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Cass clicked her tongue. “We’ll have to sneak back through the main doors. There would be no way to say we missed the memo from the theater.” Then still holding Lucy’s hand, Cass walked them to the Center’s entrance and with a deep breath, ducked into the crowd.
 

It was the first time Lucy had seen everyone in the System gather in one place. She realized, with astonishment, that it seemed like there were fewer people living with her underground than had gone to her high school. All the survivors from North America were housed here and altogether they didn’t even equal a large high school population?

Her eyes scanned the crowd for their pod, but Cass knew right where to go and led Lucy to stand in place, shoving her next to her parents, brothers, and sister, who shot her looks of reproach. Lucy buried her head and tried to absorb her mother’s daggers.

“Where were you?” Maxine hissed. “Tardiness…”

“Right,” Lucy whispered back, “It’s not allowed. I get it. We hurried. I’m sorry.”

Maxine placed a protective arm around Lucy’s shoulders and tucked her into the softness of her body. She held her like that, scrunched together, as Huck rose to address the crowd.

As he walked to the small podium, up on a platform that hadn’t been there when Lucy walked through an hour ago, the group began a scattered applause; then the cheers grew, and more people clapped for Huck. Scott brought his hands together, but Lucy folded her hands in front of her, pushing them together in silent protest.

“Well, thank you. Thank you, but please, that’s unnecessary,” Huck said, speaking into the podium’s microphone, which was wired to a small amplifier and broadcast his voice crisply to the far reaches of the room. “I stand before you today to say how proud I am of our successes this past month. That’s right…we’ve been here a
month
already. Now that we are learning how to operate within the System, I can say with ease and assurance that the great time we have hoped for has begun.”

Lucy looked to her father and mother as they watched Huck. She wondered how many people defied him in their hearts and their minds, unwilling to show on the outside how his fine sounding arguments affected them. How, she wondered, could one man make so many people afraid?

“But I am gathering us together today to remind ourselves why we are here and why others are not. Perhaps enough time has passed that we may begin to let our thoughts wander to fairness.” Huck leaned over and took a cup of water from Gordy and sipped it. “I’m here to say I understand. Your concerns are valid. And I am not an unconscientious leader. As a matter of fact, when I outlined what kind of leadership our new world deserved, I set up the tenets of honesty, morality, and of working within our own conscience as a foundation. Together we are working toward a world void of the pain and dishonesty and deceit that has plagued our earth.”

Lucy felt her heart-rate increase. Her chest heaved and her eyes narrowed. Like a bull storming before the color red, Lucy watched Huck with such unease, that she felt like she was going to be sick. Her stomach clenched and she brought her hand up to her mouth.

“We are the chosen few,” Huck continued and Lucy shuddered. “We will bring the earth back to its former glory by letting it heal. And we will let ourselves heal too.”

“Mom—” Lucy whispered, leaning into her mother.

Maxine hushed her without looking down.

Lucy struggled against Maxine’s grip. “I don’t feel good.”

“You’re fine. Hush,” Maxine insisted and tried to snuggle Lucy in closer.

Huck’s voice rose throughout the crowd, his jovial smile evident even from across the room.

“But we must discuss fairness. That word that means so much to us here, in this place. I’ve heard whispers and rumors of how I have acted unfairly as your leader. I’ve allowed someone who was left behind to enter the System…even though in the days after our arrival, I said I would not.”

Murmurs spread across the room. People whispered, pointed. Eyes fell to Lucy and she absorbed their attention with embarrassment. She wished to disappear and she felt her trademark blush creep and spread.

“Oh God—” Maxine said.

Lucy didn’t say anything and she looked to the ground and concentrated on a small section of the floor. There was a black scuff mark and Lucy studied it, refusing to acknowledge that she had become the center of attention.

“Lucy King,” Huck said her name. The room went silent and people shifted; Huck’s head panned the crowd, but Lucy didn’t move. Her mother squeezed her hand.

“They said Lucy’s name, Mama,” Harper said and tugged on her mother’s shirt.

“Hush,” Maxine replied.

Huck continued. “I will not lie to you. Lucy arrived here at our compound and, due to a strange array of circumstances, she discovered the System. We did not bring her here or choose her over other survivors. No, Lucy came on her own accord and showed initiative and loyalty. We had a choice to keep her out there in the world, tank her…”

The crowd gasped and muttered collectively. Lucy knew what they were thinking: the tanks are real. Her father reached over and tousled her hair, Lucy pulled away. She glanced up for just a moment and caught a glimpse of Cass, only a few feet away. Cass winked at her and Lucy ducked her head again.
 

“Or,” Huck raised his voice, “we could show her kindness. And reunite her with her family…and her father…Elektos Elder board member Scott King, was thankful. As we all should be,” his voice rose even louder. “Lucy is a member of our collective family. Harboring resentment that she lives while others did not is a cruel and bitter way to live.” He paused. Cleared his throat. “I should know,” he added and sniffed. “Ultimately, as your leader, you must trust that I am making decisions that are good for the whole. Even if my decisions appear to contradict your expectations. It should comfort you that I do not live in a black and white world, governed by the law instead of compassion for the individual.”

People muttered their approval. One by one the heads and attention turned forward, although a few people still stole glances in Lucy’s direction.
 

“Great change sometimes requires great sacrifice. Even innocent sacrifice; and don’t think that it isn’t hard for me to make those final decisions. Just know that every step forward we make toward our goal, we are fully realizing a future in paradise! You, my loyal and amazing friends, are at the beginning of history. We will rise from the ashes, we will build our Eden. We saw injustice and did not stay silent. Things in life were cruel and we met their cruelty with swift retaliation. With God on our side, we have taken back the world from the clutches of evil, corruption, and depravity,” Huck’s voice rose and shook. Gordy, standing next to his dad, put his hand on his father’s arm and Huck chuckled into the microphone. “Sometimes my emphatic speaking embarrasses my family,” he said, and a murmur of laughter rippled through the crowd.

Someone closer to the front called out words of encouragement and there was scattered applause.

“No, no,” Huck replied to the crowd. “No praise to me. Applaud yourselves. You are the cornerstone of this new world. The builders. The creators. Those who followed, even though you could not see the fruits of our labor in action. Celebrate faith!” Then the room erupted into cheers and clapping; Huck bowing gracefully down from the podium and walking through the crowd, the people parting like the Red Sea.
 

It was then Lucy realized he was walking straight toward her. People shifted and moved, turned and made an opening, and Huck landed right in front of her, his hands extended, his face lifted in a bright smile.