The Indigo Thief

by Budgett, Jay

  I thought of Phoenix’s parents, of how he told me they were attacked at home. I’d thought he’d made the story up. But when I saw the tears in Mila’s eyes, I knew her story was true. She wasn’t the mushy sort. I wanted to give her a hug, and tell her it’d be okay. I guess I wanted someone to do the same for me.

  “My parents never came back. They never came home. They drove themselves off a cliff.” I felt my knees buckle. I was going to be sick again. “The detectives guessed they died on impact, but they said we’d never know for sure. The sharks got to their bodies before anyone else could.” She stopped, and looked me right in the eyes.

  I just shook my head. “I—I dunno what to say.”

  She snorted. “Now you know how I’ve felt all day.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about your mom, Kai.”

  “Then why’d you do it?” I asked quietly. “Why’d you kill her?”

  “WHAT?” She stepped back. “What the hell are you talking about? Who put that idea in your head?”

  I stood silent, and she shook her head. A moment of realization flashed across her eyes.

  “You talked to the chancellor. On the roof, after the raid… That’s why you took so long to fall. You were hanging there, talking to him.”

  “I saw books lying around in the Caravan,” I said. “You were studying all her research—trying to figure out all the information you could squeeze from her—”

  “Kai—”

  “I saw the Caravites holding her down before she died. One of them fired the gun that killed her.” I stepped away from Mila, trying not to think about her sister, or what she’d been through, and just focus on what was at hand. “I know who and what you people are. I know what you’re trying to do here. I figured it out a long time ago—and it makes me sick. I’m sick of all these lies and all this bullshit.”

  I pushed a tin of muffins to the floor. Mila grabbed my arm. “You don’t know anything,” she said. “You think you know, but you have no idea what’s really going on here. We didn’t kill your mom, Kai! We never had her. Neither did the Caravites, and I mean, really? Those idiots can barely keep their own damn boats together. I think hiding your own mother from you is a bit of a stretch.”

  She squeezed my arm hard. “And what made you so certain they were Caravites? Because of their clothes? You think Feds always wear uniforms? That the bad guys always announce themselves with gunshots or explosions or—I don’t know—mariachi music? You think the Caravites would kill your mother right in front of you—for what? To deliberately turn you against them? Does that make ANY sense?

  “Open your eyes, Kai—the Feds killed my sister. They ran some bullshit diagnostic tests, and then Gwendolyn Cherry—on behalf of the Federation—decided she was in the weakest thirty-three percent and pulled her name from the system.

  “They poisoned her, Kai. They did. Not the ‘Carcinogens,’ but the Federal government. And then they pretended it was an accident. And you know how they do it? They manufacture viruses. Custom viruses, tailored to target only specific individuals’ DNA. They put them in our water supply, and the viruses find their way to their victims.

  “There ARE no Carcinogens, Kai. There’s nothing in the air. The only thing killing kids around here is people. And our enemies aren’t Girl Scouts—they don’t have to wear stinking uniforms.”

  The room was spinning. I remembered Mila’s conversation with Gwendolyn, and Gwendolyn saying something about seeing the names behind the statistics, the children behind the names. The initials S.V. The legacy of regret she was leaving behind.

  I remembered what Dr. Howey had said after she died: that the Indigo Report went to her head.

  What was in the report again? I tried hard to remember, but it was difficult when the room was spinning. Something about viruses and genetics… Everything was blurry now—it was too much. What was I doing? What had I done? What had really been in the Indigo Report? If the Carcinogens weren’t real, then what was Indigo?

  “But Indigo,” I said, my whole body shaking. “There has to be something in the air—there’s gotta be something.” My lips were quivering. “Maybe—maybe it’s too complicated for them to tell us. There’s gotta be something… because we have Indigo. The vaccine’s a miracle.” The words felt stale in my mouth. “It’s saved millions of lives. It’s the reason we can even exist…”

  Mila stared at the ground and fiddled with her fingers—she might have been crying. I thought I saw tears roll down her face. I felt my cheeks. They were wet. The tears were mine.

  Phoenix stood in the doorway, shaking his head. “Indigo has never saved a single life. It’s never saved anything.”

  God, now not only was the room spinning, the world was shaking. When would it stop? When would the world stop? The Feds would be here soon. Their helicopters would break the horizon, and everything would be over. Charlie would be here. Things would make sense for the first time in a long time. I could forget everything I’d learned. Forget the truth.

  Who needed the truth?

  “I’m afraid Indigo didn’t save humanity,” said Phoenix. “It destroyed it. It’s not a real vaccine at all—it’s a virus that delivers a slow acting poison, Kai.”

  “But the euthanizations—”

  “Are a way to cover up dosage discrepancy. Like any pathogen, people react differently to the Indigo virus. Some die immediately after the virus awakens from its thirty-five-year incubation period. Others hold on to life a little bit longer while their sanity dissolves, the unleashed poison wreaking havoc and driving them to erratic behavior. Before euthanizations, some people even committed murder as the neurotoxins dissolved their will to live and think rationally. The mandatory euthanizations returned order to the whole thing—stopped Indigo from being so messy. I know it’s hard to believe, Kai, and for that, I’m sorry.”

  His words hit me like bullets—I had had it wrong all along.

  He sucked in a breath and said it again: “Indigo is a virus.”

  Chapter 37

  Miranda Morier decided she’d wear a red dress tonight to celebrate the Lost Boys’ capture. She was thinking of a strapless one with ruffled chiffon fabric draped around its hem. She’d add a blue brooch, think her hair a foot longer (a perk of existing only as a hologram), and wrap her shoulders with her favorite mink shawl.

  Pouring her consciousness into the ConSynth had its advantages: she could appear and disappear in a room whenever she wanted, and change her appearance by simply imagining a different version of herself. A single thought could change her hair, shirt, or height in seconds. Her physical presence in the room was just a projection of her own imagination—a hologram cast from the ConSynth’s glowing green depths, which stored the electrical composition of her former brain. It was like she’d put her soul in a box.

  Sage rapped her knuckles on the chambers’ door.

  “Come in, darling,” Miranda called. Sage hurried into the room with a package and plopped it down hard on the desk. Miranda cocked her head to the side. “Heavy, was it?” Sage nodded.

  Miranda sprawled herself across the room’s chaise lounge, then took one look at the box before shaking her head. “Just shove it under the desk, darling. I don’t need it after all.”

  Sage poked a finger at the box. “What is it?”

  “Now?” Miranda smiled. “It’s just a hell of a paperweight.” She was lucky the blind girl was so dim—the poor thing had no idea what she’d carried down the hall, the power and possibilities that could be found within the machine’s depths.

  Miranda watched as Sage rubbed her fingers against the green ConSynth’s surface, the oils from her fingertips leaving a filmy resin. Miranda pursed her lips—she hated when people touched the ConSynth. It was too close to them cupping her actual soul.

  Miranda decided she’d had enough of Sage. The girl had been useful for a time, but now it seemed she was beginning to develop her own ideas—helping Charlie try and escape, for example. She was becoming bold and restless, an
d Miranda simply couldn’t afford the risk any longer. The girl would need to be executed, and soon.

  Next month, she decided. That would leave her enough time to train a new girl. She would start with a younger one this time. The younger ones were always better workers. Not as ornery, and more willing to accept another’s authority. Miranda would have Hackner take her to H.E.A.L. in a few weeks, after the Lost Boys had been tried and executed, and she could find a suitable replacement there.

  Miranda looked up and found the blind girl staring at her, her glazed eyes hard and relentless. It was unnerving. What was she thinking?

  Not much, Miranda decided.

  Sage chewed her lip and rubbed the ConSynth. “It’s another one, isn’t it?”

  Miranda flew across the room. What had the girl said? What did she know? She tried to brush off the question with a laugh. “What did you say, darling?”

  Sage’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Nothing.”

  For a split second, Miranda thought the girl was on to something—that she knew about the ConSynth. About both of the ConSynths, now. Maybe she was scheming. Planning a way to kill her.

  “The box is another paperweight,” said Sage quickly. “Isn’t it?”

  Miranda released a sigh of relief—the girl had no idea. She was far too dim. Delightfully so. “Yes, darling… another paperweight. You’re so clever!”

  Miranda thought she saw the girl let out a deep breath. Perhaps, she was on to her, after all? Miranda would have to accelerate the execution—maybe in a week or two.

  “Unfortunately, darling,” she said, smoothing the edge of her sapphire suit, “I don’t think the paperweight is going to be to my liking after all. I’ll have Maintenance take it tomorrow.”

  Sage reached for the box. “I can take it.”

  Miranda cleared her throat. “That won’t be necessary. You’ve already done so much. I’ll let Maintenance get it in the morning, don’t you worry.” Sage nodded. “You should probably be off, darling. I’m feeling exhausted.”

  The girl turned to the box once more before nodding and exiting. Oh, yes—something needed to be done about her, and soon.

  Miranda would have Hackner schedule a trash pickup with Maintenance for tomorrow morning. She wouldn’t need the extra ConSynth now that the Lost Boys had been found. There had never been any real threat. She’d just been overly cautious. The extra ConSynth could be safely destroyed. After all, she couldn’t have anyone getting any ideas, trying to pour their consciousness into an orb and achieve immortality like her.

  She sighed. She had to admit, a part of her was disappointed. The Lost Boys had fallen more easily than she’d expected. She’d hoped for a bit more blood, maybe a few more bombs. They always needed extra justification for the Ministry of Defense & Patriotism’s exorbitant budget.

  She eyed the papers sprawled across Hackner’s desk and reminded herself she was lucky the girl was blind, or else she could’ve learned the truth. The Indigo Report was not the first of its kind—not by a long shot. There were always idiots in R&D who figured out the system— people who put two and two together and realized what was really happening. They were always killed, of course. Except for Neevlor—the one who got away. Found Phoenix and the pesky Caravites and started this whole mess. The other ones hadn’t been so lucky. They’d found their ends in the megalodons’ mouths instead.

  Miranda was lucky the beasts were always hungry.

  Well, not lucky really, but genius. After all, she’d had them engineered to be that way.

  Chapter 38

  We were still standing in the kitchen when the first wave of bombs dropped. The first thing I saw through the window were helicopters swarming on the horizon, and then the window’s glass pane shattered into a hundred pieces from force of the explosions. Mila shoved me down, but Phoenix remained standing in the doorway.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said as my chest hit the ground.

  He pulled me up. “Of course it doesn’t.” Another bomb exploded on the beach. “Sense would imply that what I’ve told you is both reasonable and comprehensible, and I’m personally of the opinion that it is neither.”

  The ground shook as the Feds dropped another round of bombs on the island. I imagined the plastic shoreline breaking off in pieces.

  Phoenix flicked a speck of dirt from my shirt. “Have you ever entertained the possibility of a world without aluminum cans?” He’d lost it: the Feds were bombing the island and he was sitting here musing about aluminum cans.

  I shook my head and glanced at the shattered glass on the floor. “Uh, not really?”

  “And do you know approximately how long aluminum cans have been around?”

  I shrugged. “Do you?”

  “No idea,” he said, nodding excitedly, “and that’s precisely my point. We, as a society, have managed to invent television screens that can bubble, fizz, froth, shimmer, and sparkle like a bottle of champagne, but further innovation of something as common and simple as an aluminum can has evaded us.”

  Mila glanced nervously out the window, scattered glass crunching underneath her shoes.

  “What’s your point?”

  “And the common cold? Let’s consider the paradox surrounding the common cold—a virus as old as mankind itself—and our inability to create a vaccine to eradicate it in even the loosest sense. We pride ourselves on maintaining the highest health and research standards—yet we’re completely unable to eradicate even the most common of viruses.

  “And despite all that, the Feds expect us to believe that one day we were confronted with a wholly new and unfamiliar enemy—radioactive Carcinogens—and that they were able to concoct a mixture to stave off its effect in record time! Rather remarkable, don’t you think?”

  I didn’t know what to think.

  “If we’re seeking truth,” Phoenix went on, “perhaps we ought to look no further than the terminology itself. ‘Carcinogen’ is the absolute vaguest term the government could’ve provided. By definition, a carcinogen is any agent involved in causing cancer, which—when you think about it—is quite literally anything. Doesn’t living cause cancer? Each day you’re alive and healthy increases your risk of procuring cancer. But it’s not the cancer that kills children—it’s the Carcinogens. Are they viruses, bacteria—what are they, Kai Bradbury? Those are the sorts of questions the Feds don’t want you asking. Because then, you’d realize they don’t really exist… that there is no such thing as the Carcinogens.”

  More bombs dropped, and the fort shook. Mila ran from the kitchen to get the others.

  “It’s an illusion, Kai. Everything you know, everything you think you know, everything they’ve ever taught you, is an illusion. Because wouldn’t it be inconvenient if people lived past fifty? If they had time? Time to question things. Time to think about things. Time to think about the man behind the curtain.

  “Because isn’t it convenient that every single person born with blue eyes had a genetic weakness to the Carcinogens? That the gene which made a person more resistant to the Carcinogens—allowed a person to survive instant death after exposure—happened to be on the same chromosome as the one for eye color? That, with Indigo, the government could pick out from a distance who had been vaccinated and who hadn’t? Doesn’t that seem convenient, Kai?”

  More bombs. More explosions.

  A bomb landed a little too close, and Phoenix pulled me into the other room as a kitchen wall was blown apart. “There was no natural selection—there was a deliberate genocide. And there’s another one happening today. Happening right at this very moment. Only this time, it’s different. It’s not a single group of people they’re after. No, that would be simple. They’ve already done that. They’ve already won that war. Every person who was ever born with blue eyes is dead. They killed them to make the ‘Carcinogens’ look convincing.

  “No, now they’re after something bigger. They’re trying to eliminate something greater: the truth. They’re driving the truth to extin
ction.”

  Mila appeared behind us and grabbed Phoenix’s hand. “We’ve gotta go, Phoenix. We’ve gotta get out of here—New Texas is toast.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Bertha and Dove are getting ammunition. I can’t find Kindred and Sparky…” She was silent. “I—I think they’re gone.”

  “Gone?” Phoenix choked.

  Mila glanced at the ground. “We—we lost the left wing.”

  “And you checked the control room?”

  “Empty.”

  Phoenix shook his head. “They’ve got be here somewhere. They have to be.”

  Mila chewed her lip. “I don’t know how they found us. How the hell they found us in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”

  Phoenix stared at me: he knew. He always knew everything. I bet he wished he’d already killed me. I sort of wished he had, too.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, still staring at me. He turned to Mila. “Go help Bertha with the guns.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll find Sparky and Kindred, Meels. I promise you.”

  It was all coming to me in flashes now. The pages of the Indigo Report, the books in Neevlor’s library, the Chairman’s comments about a perfect system and an ordered world. The confused look Kindred gave Phoenix that first day, when he asked her to get me Indigo pills. There was no such thing. They’d probably given me sugar pills. And there was a reason he’d never had Mila or Bertha vaccinated, even though they had the supplies. He wasn’t killing them—he was saving their lives.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  In the midst of dropping bombs and explosions, Phoenix laughed. “Would you have believed me? You hardly trusted me when it came to a paper clip.”