“Especially not after you see this.” My voice sounds hollow, dull. Like I’ve reached a level where I can’t actually get any lower.
We duck through, and I watch Logan carefully, ready for . . . whatever he’s going to think. Do. He almost recoils when he sees our old prison, and I want to run to him and hold him, comfort him. But I can’t now. Not after kissing Benson.
After choosing Benson.
“I don’t understand,” Thomas says, looking around.
I turn him so he can see the huge Reduciata ankh painted on the wall. “This is where Logan, Benson, and I were held. Where were rescued from.”
“But . . .”
“I made the walls disappear, and we tried to escape that way,” I say, pointing. “But then when we were trapped, Curatoriates burst in and took us away. They knocked us out once we were in the helicopter.”
“But not for secrecy, like they said,” Logan fills in, his mind processing everything so quickly, “only so we wouldn’t know that all we did was go up, make a circle, and come right back down.”
“Exactly. Benson told me the Reduciates said I would have to be put through tests, and that was it.”
“Just a test,” Thomas echoes, still sounding shocked.
“Except that there were Reduciates involved. Benson—” I spare a glance up at Logan. I haven’t told him yet. That I want to be with Benson. I can’t. Not now. It would be too much for him. “Benson was here too. In that cell.” I point. “And other Reduciates I recognized from Portsmouth.” I look at Thomas and wait until he meets my eyes. “We simply have to come to terms with the fact that on some level, the Reduciata and the Curatoria are working together.”
His nod is small but determined.
“At the very least, Daniel knows. He found me in the hallway just outside last night and got nervous and sent me—” I can’t tell Logan where he sent me. “Away,” I finish lamely.
“But . . .” Logan’s voice trails off as we turn to him. He concentrates, gelling his thought, and then asks, “Why was Daniel here?” He sweeps his arm out, taking in the dilapidated room. “It doesn’t look like anyone has been in here since we left.” He arches an eyebrow. “They certainly haven’t cleaned it.”
He’s catching on fast—dealing with the shock. Better than I would have in his place. But then, he is a millennia-old god. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised when he demonstrates a sliver of wisdom and maturity.
But he’s right. Why would Daniel be here? And so late at night. His getting nervous about me is easily explained by not wanting me to figure it out. But why would he be hanging about? My heart falls to my stomach. “There must be more to all of this.”
“Anything that direction except the dead end?” Thomas asks, pointing down one end of the hallway.
“No. Behind the wall is just the space where the helicopter took off. I was conscious long enough to see that much.”
“This way then,” Thomas says, and I’m happy to let him take the lead as we stride down the messy hallway together toward a door.
“It might be locked,” I say.
“Only if they really took the time to make this a true prison. People who think they can’t possibly get caught tend to be sloppy.”
Sure enough, Thomas’s hand closes around the doorknob, and when he pulls, it opens.
He peers around the door through a narrow crack. Then he turns and puts a finger to his lips. We slip through into another prison-esque space nearly identical to the last one—except, of course, that it isn’t destroyed.
And it doesn’t look quite like a prison. It takes me a few seconds to realize what it does look like.
A hospital.
THIRTY-FOUR
There is a patient in two of the three cells, each hooked up to a bunch of machines. Instead of one door—like in the Curatoria cells as well as the cell Logan and I were held in—there are two, just like in the lab.
They’re air-locked, I realize.
“This is a quarantine,” I say breathlessly. “These two—they have the virus. They’ve got to.” They both have the gray pallor and sagging skin that I remember Mark having the last time I saw him. “Maybe . . . maybe Daniel’s hoping to save them?”
But we all know it’s too optimistic to hope Daniel has something positive in store for the pair before us.
“We’d better find out what we can and get out of here,” Logan says grimly. “This area looks like it gets frequented much more often than the other.” He’s right, everything smells clean and disinfected. But on top of that, there’s a half-empty coffee cup on the counter, and the trash beside me is partly filled with food paraphernalia like paper plates and plastic forks.
“Let’s try to be gone in ten minutes,” I suggest, and they all nod, faces as bleak as I’m sure mine is. Hopefully Alanna can continue to keep everyone away for the time being. I go to some files sitting at what looks like the central desk and begin flipping through them. “It looks like this is a set of Earthbounds named Nima and Bedrick?” I say, stumbling on the odd names.
“Earthmaker names, I bet,” Thomas says. “We almost never use them because they’re extremely helpful as passcodes and in verifying intentions, et cetera.”
“Oh,” I say, and despite everything else, I feel a little disappointed that I don’t remember mine. “There are also files on Shinla, Harnon, Elsa, and Regini. But there are only the two patients here. Where do you think the others are?”
“Wait, what were those names?” Logan asks, standing in front of a map full of pins and strings that’s hanging on the wall. I repeat the strange names. “And the first two?” he asks, and I can hear the strain in his voice. It’s so quiet and tense that my heart pounds in fear of what he’s discovered. “They’re all on here,” Logan whispers. “Shinla and Harnon are pinned on in France, but they have a thread that goes to the coast of Russia and the South Pacific.” He takes a breath, turns, and glances at me, but I can’t meet his eyes. “Elsa and Regini are pinned in California, and their threads go to the north and south ends of the Andes Mountains.”
Silence settles around us with the weight of wet sand—or perhaps more accurately, the dry sand the headquarters is currently buried in.
“What about the two in there who are sick?” I ask, but I can’t make my voice rise above a whisper.
Logan shakes his head, looking more confused than worried. “They’re pinned in South Africa, and their threads go to the sand dunes in California and Death Valley. That doesn’t seem so bad.”
“No!” Thomas’s haggard whisper makes us both jerk around to face him. “You two don’t know. That’s where we are.”
“But . . . that means in the next day or two . . .” Logan’s words fade away.
I remember Daniel’s angry words from yesterday: We’re running out of time. I was counting on you. The twenty-four hours, the lies about Reduciate attacks. This is why he’s so insistent we have to evacuate tonight. “He knows. He knows this is coming.” I study the map.
“How did he know which Earthbounds were infected?” Thomas asks. “It kills so quickly.”
“Unless . . .” Daniel’s words pound through my thoughts. I was counting on you. Counting on you. Why would he be counting on me? I put my hand to my stomach at the suspicion that’s forming. He was certain I could work more quickly. So confident, he must have gone ahead and started the clock. “Unless he infected them himself.” But I can tell from the looks on Thomas’s and Logan’s faces that they had the same thought. I just said it first.
“He’s got to have tracked them down and infected them. I don’t see what else this map could possibly mean,” I say.
“But why would he choose to destroy his own headquarters?” Logan asks.
“To cover up evidence?” I count the days. “He probably infected them the day he confirmed I could transform. He must have been so confident I
could just magically crack the code to a new vaccine, so he could take what he wanted and leave. No one would make the connection if the entire desert disappeared only hours later. Assuming anyone survived at all. And then he would be in control of the vaccine. He would be untouchable.” I look at them both, my eyes going from one face to the other. “We can’t just leave. Not when we’re so close to a real vaccine.”
“How long do you think we have?” Logan asks, turning to look at the patients.
“I don’t know. But the time limit Daniel gave me is up in less than eight hours. I don’t know how much leeway he gave himself, but I would guess we don’t have more than a day.”
A gasp from Thomas brings us both back around.
“This is me,” he says, pointing to two pieces of paper that say Sacha and Ren. “And this is Alanna.”
My heart pounds so loud I’m shocked no one else can hear it. “What did you create?”
“Half of Asia and most of Africa,” he says in despair. “As a mixed pair we were incredibly efficient.”
I think of what percentage of the population that must be. A full fourth. Maybe more? Depending on which parts of Asia, it could be half. “Half of the world’s population gone in one swoop,” I murmur in a tiny voice.
“It’s worse than that,” Thomas says. “Because of what’s happened in the South Pacific and now South America, I’ve been thinking about what the consequences would be if Alanna and I caught the virus. If an entire continent disappeared, the resulting tsunami alone would devastate the entire earth. A handful of survivors at best.” He shakes his head and swallows hard. “The Earthbounds who knew it was coming would be prepared. They could survive. But beyond that . . .”
He doesn’t have to say.
“The headquarters seems so safe,” Thomas says, and his forehead is damp with perspiration. I’ve never seen him so close to unraveling. “It’s been entirely virus-free. But if Daniel wants us to catch it, I don’t see how we can stop him.”
“You two need to go without me then,” I say, my throat tight. Knowing I’m signing my own death warrant by sending my best allies away. “Hide in the desert until you hear—from me—that the vaccine is ready. We can’t risk you two.”
“No,” Thomas says sharply. “I will not leave you. You are too powerful to just hand to Daniel.”
“Then you have to hide,” I protest, desperate tears building up in my eyes. “Go to Alanna, tell her, and then stay out of sight. Not your room—somewhere no one would expect.”
“I’ll do my best,” Thomas promises. “For now, we have to get out of here. And we have to get you back to the lab.”
We leave the medical cell and pass through the destroyed area where Logan and I were held and back into my faux-Michigan bedroom. I close the wall behind us, and it feels like putting the lid on a container of toxic waste. Still there, still dangerous, but at least out of sight.
“Isn’t there any way to . . . spread the word that people need to evacuate?” I ask.
“Not after this morning,” Thomas says. “Who would believe me?”
We stand in somber silence for long seconds before Logan says, “Maybe we should just kill them.”
“The patients?” I ask in horror.
“If they don’t die from the virus, then nothing gets destroyed, right?”
“I think so,” I say, hating the cold logic.
“But we don’t know so,” Thomas says, and I grasp onto his words like a rescue rope. “There may be some kind of tipping point where the virus takes over enough to do the damage. We can’t risk bringing the entire desert down on us too early. And we also can’t take the chance that Daniel will discover that we know his plans.”
“So we leave them like that?” Logan asks, his voice hollow.
Thomas nods. “For now.”
“What do we do?” Logan asks.
Thomas looks at me steadily. “Can you handle going back to the lab?”
“Yes, I’m ready.” My voice is strong. No matter how badly I’m quaking with fear on the inside, I have to do this. And I will. “First,” I dig into my pocket and produce the bagged piece of twine, “this is an artifact from my last life, as a girl named Sonya. It was in my backpack in the fake prison.”
“Is that what was really so important from your backpack?” Logan asks.
I look at him askance before remembering the conversation we had the first time we met Daniel. Back when we thought he was a good guy.
“I could tell you weren’t telling the whole truth, but I didn’t say anything at the time, and with everything that’s happened . . .” He shrugs. “I kinda forgot.”
Logan knew I was lying. Of course he did—he’s known me forever. I shove back yet another wave of guilt and nod. “After Daniel said they didn’t retrieve my backpack I figured I’d never see it again. All I know about her is that she had a secret, the Reduciata hunted her for it, and she killed herself rather than give it up.” I choke on the last words a little as I remember the excruciating pain of my heart turning to stone inside my chest. I glance up at Logan. “It’s a secret that goes back over two hundred years. Despite everything I’ve discovered, I’m still not sure I know exactly what that secret is. But I do know they still want it. Want to keep it quiet.” I don’t even know who they are anymore. Reduciates? Curatoriates? Is there really any difference? “I think it’s tied up in all of this. My powers, my immunity, my . . . my strength,” I add, although we haven’t discussed that yet. Still, it seems like the time for holding back information is over. “And the virus. They’re all connected.”
“So you just touch it and your memories come back? Like a mini-awakening?” Thomas asks.
I bite hard on my bottom lip and consider lying. But that can only be counterproductive at this point; he and Alanna are two of the only people in the entire world who are on my side. “The last time it happened I . . . well, there was a lot of screaming involved and Benson—” Did I seriously just say his name in front of Logan? I’m too distracted. “He was afraid it would kill me,” I finish in a murmur, purposely not meeting Logan’s eyes. “That’s why I didn’t use it before resurging with Logan. I couldn’t risk damaging myself and leaving Logan to die forever.”
Thomas stares hard at the bag for a long time.
“Do you think,” he says slowly, “that you will learn anything from that lifetime that will help you develop the vaccine faster right now?”
I consider everything I’ve ever heard and known about Sonya, the brief, often cryptic entries in her file, the dreams of her death, and then the one from yesterday about Greta. Could discovering more about Greta help? I already know I’m immune, and I’ve gotten what I need from that knowledge: the protein. Will finding out the source of my immunity assist me in finishing the vaccine? Enough that I can risk being completely depleted of energy? I’m running on sheer force of will already. Sonya knows secrets, yes, but related directly to stopping the virus? “I don’t think so.”
“And you think unlocking the memory will weaken you?”
“At the very least,” I whisper.
“Then I suggest we wait.”
I close my mouth and clench my jaw, even though I know it’s the most logical answer.
“We already know that Daniel is completely corrupt and the Curatoria itself only slightly less so. Will more confirmation of that really help anyone?” He points in the general direction of the secret rooms. “We have a clock now. We have literally hours to save the world. I don’t think we can afford to waste any time doing anything but doggedly pursuing this vaccine.”
I nod, the truth of his words sinking in deep. “Okay.” But I’m not taking any chances of losing this precious artifact again. I shove the bag with the braid of twine deep into my pocket so I know exactly where it is at every moment. I suck in a deep breath through my nose. “Let’s do this.”
As
we leave I transform the entire room back into a hollow space of nothingness. My heart aches as my haven goes away, but with as close as it is to the secret rooms, it’s too big a risk that somehow Daniel will find it and know it belongs to me.
Still, I feel the sting of my parents’ deaths all over again.
Logan walks me to the lab—lets me squeeze his fingers so tightly my whole hand aches by the time we reach the double doors. I feel guilty—like I’m using him—but I need the feel of his hand against mine to help me make this dreaded walk.
It’s almost noon. Hours of my regular workday are already gone. And yet, I still want to stall. I don’t know what comes after this, and part of me doesn’t want to find out.
Logan turns enough to grasp both of my hands in his. “I’m not going to tell you to be strong,” he whispers, “because you don’t need any help with that. But make sure that he knows how strong you are.”
I press my forehead against his, drawing in his confidence until I feel like what I am: the most powerful Earthbound in the world.
And Daniel will know it.
“I’ll wait here for you,” Logan says.
“You don’t need to,” I reply, giving him an out. Every moment I don’t tell him about Benson makes me feel terrible. But I can’t. Not now. Not in the face of everything.
“What could possibly be more important that sitting here in this hallway waiting for you to save humanity?” he asks with such sincerity I can’t help but smile.
But there actually are more important things. Especially now that we have a clock. “Could you . . .?” I hesitate, not wanting to ask him to do anything for me when I know in my heart I can’t do—can’t be—the only thing he really wants from me. “Could you go to the vault? Maybe take Alanna. She might be able to help you break in. Find the artifacts from my other lives. They . . . they might be all I have. All I’ll ever have.”
Lines form on his forehead, but he doesn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
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