The two of them went off together to get their meals. Petra looked at Seth. His gaze had strayed back across the room. To Esta.
WHEN IT WAS SETH’S turn to go get his meal, he made sure he arrived at the counter just after Esta.
The whole time he’d been watching her, she’d been drawing. She must’ve found pen and paper somewhere. It made him miss his sketchbook, left behind on Deadman’s Island. Or maybe locked away here, where Dr. Ritter could page through it with his meaty fingers.
Standing behind Esta in line, watching her fold the sheets of paper into her pocket, he caught a sketch of wings and felt a sudden, strong pulse of kinship.
“I draw them, too,” he told her.
She looked around at him, eyebrows raised quizzically. “Really?”
He nodded. “I’ve filled tons of sketchbooks.”
Her guarded expression melted away. “Me too.”
“We’re sitting over there,” he said. “If you want to join us.”
She assessed their table. “The new girls.”
“Anaya and Petra. We’re from Salt Spring Island. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“Who’s the dude with the muscles?”
Seth was surprised she didn’t already know. She’d been here longer than him. She really must keep to herself.
“Darren.”
On first sight, Seth hadn’t liked him. It was irritating, the way he carried himself, like his muscles were so big he couldn’t possibly walk properly. He was an easy talker, which always made Seth suspicious. Years ago, in a foster home, Seth had known one of these confident, charming guys, but there was something in his eyes and grin just waiting to get angry so the bully in him could explode out. Darren had those same eyes, that same smile. Maybe Seth wasn’t being fair. Maybe he didn’t like him because he was handsome, the kind of guy girls like Petra always went for.
“Seems friendly enough,” he added half-heartedly. “He thinks we’re being trained as soldiers.”
Esta sniffed.
“That’s what I thought. Charles I just met, too. Seems pretty smart.”
Reluctantly, Esta said, “Okay.”
They got their meals and carried their trays over to the table.
When they arrived, Darren was saying, “But seriously, don’t you guys want to fight these things? Better than waiting it out down here.”
“This is Esta,” Seth said as the two of them sat down at the end of the table, across from each other.
Everyone said hi except Petra, who gave a quick, closed-lip smile. Seth had no idea why she was being unfriendly. She turned her back on Esta and resumed her conversation with Charles and Anaya and Darren. That suited Seth. He wanted Esta to himself. He took a bite of his lasagna, then another. It was surprisingly good, and he realized how hungry he was.
“Did your parents ever see your drawings?” Esta asked him.
“Foster parents.”
“Did you know your real mom at all?”
“A bit.” Every time Seth thought of her, he felt the same clench in his chest, like a muscle that would never get tired. “She gave me up pretty early. After that it was a foster home. Foster homes.” He took another bite of lasagna. “How about you?”
“My mom was only eighteen when she had me. When I was six months old, she dropped me off at my aunt’s and that was it. She never came back.”
“So your aunt brought you up?”
“Yeah, but she didn’t want to. She hated my mom. My aunt was always telling me how wild and selfish she was. My aunt already had two kids of her own. And they all thought I was a freak.”
“Because of your feathers?”
“Yeah. Were you born with them, too?”
“They cut mine off.”
Esta nodded and took a bite of buttery garlic bread. “Same here. My aunt still thought I was weird, though.”
“Did you get a lot of broken bones?”
“When I was little, yeah, I felt like I was always in a cast. Leg. Wrists. Arms. The hospital called Children’s Aid the first couple of times. Until they realized my bones were just frail.”
He remembered the exasperation of his various foster parents whenever he was in a cast. A broken arm or leg meant he wasn’t much help around the house. The opposite. He’d liked how much extra time it gave him to draw, though.
“Did you dream a lot?” he asked her. “About flying?”
She nodded, her eyes widening as she chewed.
She didn’t need to say anything more. He could tell how much she loved those dreams. From the moment he’d seen her, he’d felt connected. At first, it was the sheer thrill of meeting someone else who had feathers. But now he realized how much the two of them shared.
“When I was little,” she said, “I told my aunt about the dreams, because of the headaches at the end, but I could tell it bugged her, so I stopped. But then she started finding my drawings. She told me they were wicked. I think she thought they were devils or something.”
“My foster parents got freaked out, too.”
Esta grinned. “I got better at hiding them. But after the big rain, my aunt and uncle noticed I wasn’t allergic to the pollen. They all were. They caught me eating the berries on the vines.”
“I did that, too! They tasted so good.”
“So good! Then the feathers started growing back.”
“Were you excited?”
“Yeah, but it was scary, too.”
He noticed they’d both stopped eating, they were talking so fast. He hadn’t looked at anything but her face for a long time.
“Mine came in all at once,” he told her.
“Seriously? Mine weren’t that fast. A couple poked out each day, but it was super painful. My aunt and uncle were freaking out. They thought I was some kind of monster. Or devil, I guess.”
“What’d they do?”
“They didn’t want to take me to the hospital. They were too ashamed. Worried what people would say. They just kept bandaging my arms. But one day a neighbor noticed the blood leaking through my sleeves and took me to the ER herself.”
He almost told her he’d seen her there in the hospital, on the video Dr. Weber had shown them. But it seemed like an invasion of her privacy. She’d been so upset and scared.
“After that,” Esta said, “it was all doctors trying to figure it out, and then my aunt and uncle disappeared and no one could reach them. Then these guys in uniform showed up at the hospital, and I ended up on a helicopter here.”
“It sounds terrible.”
“At least I know what I am now. And why.”
There was an excited tingling at the base of his skull. He felt so close to her, it was like they hardly needed to speak.
“What’s the thing you hope for most?” he asked.
He must’ve been whispering. He could barely hear himself.
“The thing that kept me going?” she whispered back.
He nodded, knowing exactly what she was going to say next.
“That one day I might fly for real.”
ANAYA TURNED WHEN THE cafeteria doors opened and eight guards came inside.
“Dormitories!” one of them called out.
“Bedtime,” Darren said.
“Trays on the racks,” the guard shouted. “Form two lines. Boys on the right, girls on the left.”
“How retro,” Anaya said, glancing over at Seth and Esta. The two of them had been talking nonstop. Their meals weren’t even finished. They were speaking so quietly that Anaya wondered if they were even speaking at all. For a second, they gazed at each other like they were in a trance, and then suddenly they noticed that people were getting up. Both of them blushed.
Anaya felt her own cheeks heat, like she’d barged in on something private. Petra was watching them, too, with an expression that Anaya had never seen on her face before.
Jealousy. It took her totally by surprise. All through the meal, she’d noticed Petra doing her pouty lips thing and had assumed it was for Darren.
It never took Petra long to have an admirer. And Darren was exactly the kind of guy Petra liked. And maybe the big lips were also for Charles, just to get his attention and prove that she was still the prettiest, even if she did have a tail. But all along, the pouty lips had been for Seth.
For Anaya, Seth was like the best big brother you could have, and she’d assumed Petra felt the same. She couldn’t quite believe her friend had a crush on him. She usually went for the handsome, confident dudes. The Darren models.
Esta stood abruptly and went to return her tray.
“Guess we get to see the dorms now,” Seth said, watching her go.
He obviously hadn’t caught the jealous look on Petra’s face. He was completely clueless—just like Anaya had been until a few seconds ago.
She almost felt sorry for Petra. Her friend was so used to getting what she wanted. But right now, all Seth wanted to look at was Esta. Which made sense. She had feathers, like him, and they clearly had a lot to talk about. And Esta really was very pretty. No wonder Seth was mesmerized.
She glanced at Charles, a bit sad she didn’t feel the same fascination with him. It was very nice having an admirer—if she could even call him that. But she wasn’t getting much of a sparkly feeling. Maybe it would come later.
As she headed over to the cafeteria doors, she hoped the dorms weren’t gross. She suddenly realized how much she wanted to lie down on something soft and sleep. After everyone had lined up, Dr. Ritter entered the cafeteria, and the room somehow seemed a little dimmer. He looked directly at her.
“L9. You’ll be coming with me.”
“What for?”
Ritter didn’t answer. A guard with buggy eyes pulled her hands behind her back, cuffed her, and marched her through the doors.
“What’ve I done?” she asked, to no reply.
“Tell us where she’s going!” Seth demanded behind her.
Being separated suddenly from her friends was like being dragged away from her parents all over again. And now it was nighttime, which made things even worse. The corridor was almost deserted. Wasn’t it too late for an interview or a medical examination? And why the handcuffs?
She tried to breathe, tried to pay attention and make a map in her head. She passed a red door that said FIRE EQUIPMENT, a row of dented gray lockers, a room labeled TOOL CRIB.
A set of double doors marked A-200 led to a landing with stairs going up and down. The way down was labeled with a sign:
LEVEL 100
VAULT / MACHINE ROOM / MORGUE
Morgue? A terrible musty smell welled up from below. Despite the allergy meds, she sneezed.
“Up,” said Ritter, to her relief.
The sign pointing up read:
LEVEL 300
SITUATION ROOMS
What exactly was a situation room? Brown linoleum treads on the steps, just like at school. Half landing. Sharp turn. Up again. She was marched past the double doors to Level 300 and kept going. She read the sign leading up:
LEVEL 400
COMMUNICATIONS / MEDICAL
Medical. Her stomach gave a twist.
At the very top of the stairs, the guards pushed through a final set of double doors. A sentry was stationed behind his desk.
This place was like a maze, corridors branching in all directions. She passed doors stenciled with big red letters: OPEN WITH EXTREME CAUTION and TELECOMMUNICATIONS ROOM. Through a wire-reinforced window she caught an eerie glimpse of a dentist chair surrounded by flex lamps and mildewed trays. Right next to it was a door that said SURGICAL SUITE.
Another turn, another corridor. At the open doorway of a small, bare room, Anaya paused. A woman in a hazmat suit stood beside a square hatch. At her feet was a bunch of gear, including pruning shears and a chain saw.
“Make sure you get it all!” the woman yelled into the hatch.
From inside came an echoey reply: “. . . wouldn’t have thought they’d grow down so deep.”
“Yeah, they’re fast!” the woman said, reaching inside and scooping up a tangle of pruned black vines. Some of them were still twisting.
Dr. Ritter pulled Anaya past the open door, his face tight with displeasure.
“Doors stay closed at all times,” he told the guards.
“Yes, sir,” they replied promptly.
Anaya couldn’t believe that the cryptogenic vines were getting inside, this far underground. They must’ve been coming in through an air shaft. Anaya took a mental snapshot of the hallway. A shaft meant a possible way out.
The corridor dead-ended with an elevator—definitely not the one she’d arrived in. A sign on the doors said ANTENNA FARM ACCESS.
What was an antenna farm? The guard with buggy eyes turned a key in the lock, and the doors opened immediately. The control panel had only two buttons: 400 and G. Anaya’s heart stuttered. G for Ground.
“Yes, we’re going to the surface,” Ritter told her, pulling out a pollen mask and fixing it over his mouth and nose. The guards did the same.
“Why?”
Were they letting her go? The thought careened around her head like a bird trapped in a room. Ritter watched her impassively, as if she were behind glass in a museum. The two guards avoided eye contact with her. She was getting used to being treated like a criminal. The elevator rattled as it slowly rose.
When the doors jerked apart, she was ushered into a small room with a concrete ramp leading to a set of heavy doors. The guards opened them, and cool, invigorating night air bounded toward her, tangy with pine needles.
Any hope of being released was quickly doused when she saw the large fenced enclosure. In the stark wash of electric lights, antennae and satellite dishes jutted into the air. Half a dozen White Coats turned to look at her with a touch of annoyance, like she was a late party guest.
“Let’s get on with this,” one of them said, sneezing behind his mask.
Everyone was wearing pollen masks, but there was still lots of sniffling and coughing.
“Bring her over,” said a White Coat next to a dentist chair. It was bolted to the concrete deck. Lots of little trays around it.
“Why am I out here?” Anaya asked.
It was hard to imagine anything good happening in a dentist chair. Her handcuffs were removed, and she was forcefully seated. Her arms were yanked around back of the chair and refastened at the wrists. No matter how tightly she held herself, she couldn’t stop trembling.
“I thought you were worried we’d transmit to the cryptogens if we were outside!”
Ritter nodded. “Tonight that’s exactly what we want you to do.”
She looked at him, bewildered.
“You’re helping us with a very simple tracking exercise.”
“How?”
Ritter chewed through his words with particular relish. “The organ in your brain transmits to the cryptogens, and if they transmit back to you—as we believe they do—we might be able to find the source of their signal. We’ll be using two other antenna farms to triangulate the incoming signal. And then we have their location.”
That sounded reasonable enough, and Anaya’s body relaxed the tiniest bit.
“Why me?”
“According to the MRI scans, your brain has the biggest transmitting structure. Your signal might be the strongest.”
“It only happens when I’m asleep, though,” she said.
“Yes, we’re aware of that.”
She felt a prick in her right arm and turned to see a medic holding a syringe.
“Just something to sedate you.”
“I don’t want to be sedated! I didn’t give permission!”
“Relax,” Ritter told her.
Anaya’s eyes darted all around. People were staring at monitors and equipment, murmuring to each other. Within a few seconds, she felt weirdly calm, more observant. She heard, quite close, a train’s whistle. It was comforting to think of a train moving through the night. The fact that it was still running seemed like a good sign. The world hadn’t totally falle
n apart.
Beyond the fence, darkness weighed heavily. Anaya sensed forest all around. She smelled it—along with the faintest whiff of the sickly perfume from cryptogenic vines. She imagined them curled through tall pines.
Drowsier now, she tilted her head back and saw stars. The lights of a plane drifted downward across the sky, and she heard the deepening drone of its engines. Coming in for landing. So there was an airport not too far away, and a city.
Remember this, she told herself. Her eyelids drooped. She didn’t think she was fully asleep, though. She still smelled pine needles, felt the cool air on her face—
And she was moving through the forest, running. It was so good to be free from the chair, her hands unmanacled. In the back of her head, she felt the familiar pressure, just shy of pain, that always came when she had the dreams.
She heard faraway human voices:
“Okay, she’s transmitting.”
“Signal’s strong.”
Running and bounding through the forest, Anaya saw her furred arms, her clawed hands. Past the trees, someone was waiting expectantly for her.
More distant voices:
“We’ve got an incoming signal!”
“Make sure all directional antennae are synced.”
“Power boost on three, please.”
“Triangulating now.”
The voices suddenly evaporated.
Deep inside Anaya’s head, someone else was talking. It wasn’t so much a voice as a presence. It had the smell of soil after a big rain. And with the smell came a color, a flicker of amber light. The sounds in her head were like a language she had never heard. Somehow she caught their feeling. There was curiosity and concern. Most of all there was urgency. The sounds reshaped themselves. In the darkness of her head, she could almost see it happening. A single word:
—Help.
And then human voices intruded again.
“We’ve got a fix!”
“You sure?”
“Nailed it!”
Suddenly Anaya’s head was empty, as if a small, shy animal had just bolted from its warren. She felt a pang of loss.
“Let’s get her inside fast,” she heard Ritter say. “I don’t want her transmitting anything else.”
Hatch Page 6