And when it was and they let Drake just lay there and breathe afterward, they all did, Ella too, sharing it, drinking the strange liquid that burned all the way down. He knew what it was for then, this stuff Brody made him drink all these years ago to take away his pain at having lost everybody.
Riley drank to make everything blurry in his mind, the door of their little house with the words on it, Samson's collar, Ams kicking at a dead body, Drake who wouldn't scream, and that awful, charred field on the edge of the city.
He drank until all he could see was Ella leaning over Drake and kissing him softly on the lips, not caring that everyone was watching her do it, not caring about anything other than this man who was still breathing, and who wouldn't have to die now.
23
The Promise
Amelia, April 27, 2236, Reston Office Tower
What the hell would possess her to hide in this nothing of a room? She and Riley spent half the night looking for her after getting back from the hospital, leaving Ella to watch over Drake. Half the night of frantically checking every room on the floor, hoping she didn't run off while they were gone.
She felt guilty for not knowing until they were done with Drake that Laurel wasn't with them. None of them noticed. She was mad at herself then and scared when she couldn't find her in any of the places she expected to. Finally, they did find her, curled up like a little kid in this tiny chair, head in her knees.
She wouldn't talk to them when they got her out of there, not even when they told her how Drake's tag was out of him now, and he could come with them wherever they were going, and they'd all be safe because of his not having the tag anymore. She just nodded and didn't say anything. They put her to sleep on a couch in the east room, and she stayed with her the rest of the night, arm over her, waiting for her to talk, but she didn't talk, and then the stuff she drank finally took her to dreamless sleep, and she was glad for not having any dreams in her.
A voice of a stranger woke her up before she felt ready to be up, so she lay there listening for a while. Not a stranger, Stan, she heard it now. Stan and Laurel. Something about the implant. She made herself wake up more, enough to where these snippets made sense. Laurel wanted to know if the implant could make them do things they didn't want to do; bad things. She thought that's how all the people here went to the fire, but he was telling her that Zoriners didn't have implants. Of course not. Everyone knew that. Laurel knew that. She wanted him to tell her how it worked and if there was a way to get it out of her. It seemed to be scaring her, to have it in her.
Ams couldn't figure out why it would suddenly scare her after so many years of it being there. And then she knew what it was that Laurel was so afraid of. That whoever put those implants in them could maybe do something to them through these things, change them somehow. But Stan didn't know much about how they worked. Just that they were these tiny neuro blocks of data that were now a part of them, not really implants so much as microscopic computers, and they couldn't take them out like they did Drake's tag. He seemed genuinely sorry telling her this.
She was up now, all the sleep gone from her. She looked at Laurel and saw fear in her face, fear, and sadness. Stan was drawing pictures for her on one of Ella's pads, chewing on the end of his pencil when he stopped to think of how to draw something. These weren't like his other drawing, like the stick figures and boxes earlier.
He drew the little circular metal thing they took out of Drake, and then a drop of blood, and a tiny speck inside the blood bubble, and then added a few other specks and drew tiny lines between them. That was the implant, he told Laurel, pointing at these tiny specks that all fit inside a drop of blood and still had plenty of room to move around.
Then he drew a small thing that looked like a bug, like something Riley called a spider, only he made it look shiny with the pencil as if it were made out of metal. "This thing–this I can fix. It's why Ella can't talk. They didn't take her voice, they just put this bug in there and it's clamped on her vocal cords so nothing comes out when she speaks. I can fix this, break it with an electromagnetic current. It's the only thing I can fix, I'm sorry." And he really did seem sorry that he couldn't fix anything else.
She ran out looking for Riley. They had to tell Ella that this strange man could fix her voice. She didn't want to tell him about the other thing yet. She didn't think anybody could make their implants do something strange, but a part of her wondered the same thing Laurel did. A part of her was afraid of it too. Riley was already at the hospital with Ella and Drake, the note he left for her told her, so she ran the few hundred meters, fast, impatient to see him and to see Drake, hoping he was awake now and well enough for her to hug him. She desperately wanted to hug Drake.
When she got there, he was awake, and she hugged him lightly, afraid of the thing on his chest, just enough to let him know how worried she was for him last night. And then she told all of them about the bug, the metal spider that Stan said he could make not work anymore, and that Ella would get her voice back, and that they wouldn't have to cut into her or anything, just zap at it with something the name of which she couldn't remember.
It made her happy to tell them and to see Drake and Riley smile the way they did, only Ella didn't seem happy about any of it. She was shaking her head at them, and it didn't make any sense that she wouldn't want this man to help her. It didn't make sense that she wouldn't want to have her voice back.
She grabbed Riley's hand and took him with her out of the room, thinking that Drake could make Ella happy about the voice thing because she knew she loved Drake, and he just let her cut him open like that to take his bug out, knowing that he could have died then, but he let her do it anyway, so she had to let them help her get her voice back now. She owed it to Drake to at least let them try.
"There is something else, Ams. I can feel it. Something you’re not telling me. No more secrets, remember?"
He was leaning against the wall in the hallway outside the surgery room, looking at her. She told him then, about the other things Stan drew on Ella's pad, and how he explained it to Laurel, who was scared of having it in her, and how she seemed really sad when he told her he couldn't fix it. She told him, too, that she worried about the thing Laurel worried about, that she thought maybe the implant could get to the places that make her her after all, because it didn't make any sense that anybody could do some of the things they did, her people to his people, without something making them do it. And that maybe Drake didn't need the gun on Keller because it was the only way to fix the implant; that Keller didn't want to be Keller anymore.
She hadn't thought of any of it like that until just now, in telling it all to Riley, and the fear and sadness in Laurel's face must have shown on hers, because he was holding her to him, patting her hair, kissing the top of her head. He didn't say anything for the longest time, and she was afraid of what he thought of her now, only even more than she was back at the stream after the serpent thing. And she knew that it was because Riley saw her kick at Keller, and then watched her hit him like that, and he had to think that maybe it wasn't completely Ams doing these things.
She stepped back from him to see his face, and he was looking at her with his sad Riley look, and she just needed to not have anyone look at her like that, so she ran from him, ran all the way outside, hearing his footsteps behind her, but she kept running.
He caught her by the arm and turned her around to face him. "I can't tell you what I think you want me to, Ams. And I don't want to hurt you by telling you the other thing. One way or the other you’ll be sad, or hurt, or angry. But I can't lie to you, so here goes. I don't think the implant made you do what you did to Keller and what happened with me after that. I think you were angry at everything Keller was to you, at the way he was with Drake, and you didn't think it was right of Drake to do what he did for him in the end. That's why you kicked him. And you were ashamed after that, ashamed that you did it and that I saw you do it, so you did what you did to me because of that, because o
f the shame." He watched her, a worried look in his eyes. "Ams, those things you did, they weren't as bad as you have it in your head. They were just really bad to you because you never did anything like that before and it scares you, knowing that you can do something bad. But we all can. It just makes you human, Ams, not a monster or whatever it is you think you are," he said softly, and let go of her arm and took her hand in his. They walked the rest of the way in silence.
She knew he was right, that she wouldn't have felt how she felt if it wasn't her doing all of those things. Somewhere in her, she knew it was never the implant.
"Riley... They can't touch the implants. They would have found Laurel and me already if they could see the implants at all like they could see Drake's tag until Ella got it out. Or maybe they can see the tag still, I don't know, but we have to get out of here, this city, because that's the last place Drake was with the tag in him. We have to get out, Riley," she almost yelled at him, even though he was right next to her, and he was nodding his head at her, at all she was saying. And it felt good to have thought of it and to know that she could make Laurel not afraid of the implant anymore.
When they got upstairs to the east room, Stan was sitting on the couch with one of Ella's pads, writing in it or drawing something. He didn't even look at them when they came in, so they let him be and went to the room on the other side, looking for Laurel.
She was by the window with her back to them when they came in, looking at something out there, only she knew that there was nothing new there for her to be looking at. Laurel was making a fist with her right hand, and she thought it was strange for her to do it with just one hand, and then she knew that she wasn't making a fist, but hiding something, and suddenly all of this, the way she was standing and not looking at them, not saying anything scared her. She ran to her at the window, lunging for the hand making the fist, only Laurel moved away from her when she got there and stood staring at her, shaking her head, and there were tears in her eyes.
"Please stay there, Ams." The way she said it was all wrong too, not at all like Laurel.
She looked at Riley for help, and he was standing there next to her, but he was all wrong too, pale and tense all over, watching Laurel as if she was a serpent thing.
"You don't want to do this, Laurel. You don't need to. There is nothing your implant can do to you. It's just data, that's all. It can't change you or make you do anything you don't want to do. I swear it, Laurel," Riley said and the way he said all of it, slow and quiet, she could tell Riley knew what she was hiding in her hand, and what she wanted to do with it.
She took a few more steps toward her friend, holding her hands up a little. "Riley, you need to stay where you are and not do anything or say anything. You need to promise me." She looked at him, fear making his eyes bigger, and finally, he nodded.
She stood right in front of Laurel. "You won't need all of it, Laurel. Take half and put it in my hand. If the implant can make you do things that scare you, it can do it to me too, and I don't want to do those things any more than you do. So if you believe that it can somehow control you like that, you have to believe that it can control me too. I need my half, Laurel." She moved her hand toward Laurel's, pried her fist open, and broke a large piece of the dried mushroom off the musky-smelling gray lump. She felt Riley move toward them and looked at him, her angry look. "You promised, Riley. You can't."
He looked like he was in pain, his hands in fists at his sides.
It hurt her to do this to him, but there wasn't another way, not with Laurel, and Riley didn't know Laurel the way she did; didn't know that she would never make her do something she didn't want to do, even if it cost her everything.
She could tell Laurel was shaking a little, her hands were, at least. She was looking at the mushroom she took from her, shaking her head. "You can't do this to me. I am not you, Ams. I can't let this thing change me, I just can't. If there is even a tiny chance that I could do what Stan thinks we did, I can't let it happen. Don't you see that? The fear he looked at us with—it was real. It was the most real thing here, Ams. I can't be someone who can do that to people."
She heard Riley take a deep breath, but he didn't move toward them.
"Ams and I don't think the implant can do any of the things you are afraid of, Laurel, but you’re right, we don't know for sure. We can't know for sure until it does something to you or Ams. I know you don't know me enough to trust me, but I keep my word. I always keep my word." There was sadness in his voice when he said it. After a beat, "if I see it suddenly changing you in that way, or Ams, the first time when we know for sure it's the implant and not something else, I’ll help you do this thing, both of you if you still want to. I give you my word...."
Laurel stared at Riley, reading his face, and finally nodded at him, and he walked over to her and she let him, and took the piece from Laurel's hand first, looking her in the eyes, and then took hers.
She could tell Riley meant everything he just said. He stood there in front of her, serious and sad, waiting for her to tell him that she was all right with it and that she trusted him enough to know if Ams was no longer Ams. And in her deepest parts, she did trust him. Riley was the best of them, better than she was, and she knew, too, that if she ever did anything truly bad, she would lose this boy, and that would be worse than going to sleep and not waking up anymore. She nodded to him, and he left the room, and she didn’t go after him. She needed to let him do his own thinking and let all the sadness out.
When he was done and Drake could walk again, they would leave this city, and maybe not being here would make them more like they were before; make all the hardness she felt on everyone gone.
24
The Waterfall
Riley, May 6, 2236, Woods Outside of Reston
Riley knew Stan wouldn't go with them, even before he asked. Could feel it in the way he was helping them get ready, packing their supplies for them, running around places to get things they might need. He seemed eager for them to leave, knowing why they had to go now, and knowing that he couldn't go with them; that he could never leave this city for the same reason they had to. He told Riley that however they made all the people here go to the fire, they didn't do that to him because they wanted for someone to see it, to know what happened, someone to tell anyone who might find this place the way they did.
Drake was okay now, and best of all, Ella had her voice back. She barely used it, but she had it, and hearing her say anything at all made him smile. He missed her soft voice, had been missing it for all these years. Ella putting him to bed voice, Ella making Samson curl up on her feet voice, Ella humming one of mother's old songs voice. She still seemed worried about it, having her voice back, as if she were afraid they'd be found out and punished for it somehow. And there was a coldness between her and Drake that wasn't there before. He knew it was something to do with her finally agreeing to let Stan fix her voice. They would be okay, Ella and Drake, he knew that—somehow had always known that—and that gave him the tiniest bit of hope that not all things were unfixable.
They set out two days after he made Laurel and Ams the promise that he felt he had to make, just after enough light splashed into the city to where they didn't need to use their rays to see by. Laurel and Ams clung to each other, chatting softly, comfortably in that way they had with each other now, as if they finally realized that they, too, were stuck together, and they might as well get used to this new Ams and new Laurel. It didn't worry him anymore what he promised these girls. He spent most of that night thinking and worrying about it and there was no point in it. He had to believe that the implant was just data, or none of this made any sense, and there wouldn't be any reason for them to keep going.
Stan gave them a rough map to follow that would take them to the closest city in about ten days. Drake kept listening to his comm for any soldier chatter, but there didn't seem to be anybody in these woods. Ella walking close to Drake was a good sign that they would make up and be happy again like they s
eemed for a bit after Drake first came back to them.
He slowed his walk to fall back to where Ams and Laurel were, wanting a bit of company. He liked the sound of their voices and wanted to be closer to it. They were talking about something to do with Ams, about her family, and he was suddenly not sure he wanted to hear any of it, but they didn't sound sad, so he stayed. Laurel was telling Ams that she had calculated in her head that it didn't make sense for Ella and Drake and Riley to all end up in the same compound as her and Ams unless they all came from someplace that was nearby, and she knew Ams and she didn't come from Waller. But she thought that wherever they were born had to still be close to where they were, only there wasn't any way she could think of to figure out where that was without one of them remembering something, and because Ams at least remembered what happened to her, maybe they could find her family or what happened to them if Ams could remember more of it. But she couldn't. Not even what their house looked like, just Blanche. She remembered Blanche, and it made him ache for her that she remembered it.
He walked ahead of them after that, because he didn't want to see the sadness in Ams, and he knew there would be sadness. It felt strange, this aching for someone else like that. Before Ams there was just Ella, and all the years of looking for Ella and thinking about Ella, and there was nothing else for him after he left Waller, the day that he knew for sure Brody did that ugly thing they all said he did, but nobody believed it. He remembered that, couldn't help remembering that.
Janet was talking to him in that way she knew she had to ever since she started taking care of him, the way that didn't make him feel like a little kid, the way without pity.
"You know how you asked me to look into Brody after everyone said he killed himself?"
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 17