The Ones

by Daniel Sweren-Becker

  Arthur reeled in his line and sloshed over to the hunters. Michael followed, and James joined them. The first hunter, who was tall and gangly, opened a map, while the second one took out a flask and tilted it up to the sky. Then he offered it to Michael and James.

  “No thanks,” Michael said. He nodded admiringly at the hunter’s rifle. “You guys going after bucks?”

  “Shit, I haven’t even been looking. I just came to walk around outside and get drunk.”

  The first hunter slapped his friend with the map. “Shut up, Dale.” He turned to Arthur. “He ain’t much of a woodsman.”

  “No, but I like shooting shit. Damn, Willis, when we gonna shoot at something?” He wheeled around with one hand on his rifle, and James jumped back.

  “Soon as you stop scaring everything but the flies away.”

  “Ask ’em where the deer are,” Dale said, nodding for Arthur to look at the map, then taking another nip from his flask. “Shit, ask him were the gennies are hiding.”

  “I said shut up, Dale!” Willis snapped.

  James and Michael exchanged a tense look.

  “What? What’d I do? You can ask them,” he said, and turned to Arthur. “We heard some gennies were hiding out in the woods, making plans and whatnot. It ain’t just deer season, am I right?” He held his gaze on Arthur and offered him the flask. By the way he gestured, it was clear he was insisting. Arthur hesitated for a second and then took a sip.

  “We haven’t heard a peep. Just some quiet family time with my boys,” Arthur said.

  The drunken hunter turned his gaze to James and Michael. He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. Then he jabbed his buddy with the tip of his rifle and gestured with it at James and Michael.

  “Shit, Willis, look at these two. Damn near cut from granite, huh?” He swung his arm hard against James’s shoulder. “Ouch!” he yelled, shaking his hand, exaggerating.

  Willis stepped over and looked at James and Michael. He turned to Arthur and grew serious. “You sure you haven’t seen anything?”

  Dale leaned into James’s face. “I swear, this one is pretty enough to kiss.”

  James felt the man’s warm breath in his nose and lifted his arm against the hunter’s chest, just to get some space. The other hunter wheeled on him and leveled his rifle.

  “Watch it there, boy.”

  Arthur tried to step between everyone. “All right, gentlemen, let’s just all take it easy. Please stop pointing your rifle at my son.”

  Dale hopped around with excitement. “We found some, Willis, I told you!”

  “These are my sons. We came out here to fish. You might be looking for trouble, but we’re not.”

  The tall hunter held his gun steady. “These are your kids, huh? Don’t you lie now … are they gennies or not?”

  Dale reached out and pinched both James and Michael on their cheeks. “Just look at them!”

  Arthur stepped forward and smacked the hunter’s arm down. “Get your hands off my boys!”

  The other hunter turned his rifle to Arthur. “Hey!”

  But James’s father didn’t budge. “How dare you! I know how these boys were made.” Then, to James’s shock, Arthur grabbed his crotch with a flourish of pride. “They were made the old-fashioned American way.” The hunters stared at Arthur. He stared back defiantly. “No kid of mine is a fucking genny.”

  There was a moment when the only sound was the water rippling onto the bank. And then, in an instant, the hunters both started laughing, tilting their heads back and cackling up at the sky.

  The tall one patted Arthur on the back. “Sorry, pal,” he said, then turned to his friend. “Damn it, Dale, quit molesting and offer them a drink, for Chrissake!”

  James watched as Arthur smiled back at the hunters. He knew, of course, what his father was doing. He was keeping them safe. But even good intentions couldn’t mask a deeper, more important truth: His father truly didn’t have the heart to stick up for him.

  This sudden and bitter realization finally settled it for James: He couldn’t bring himself to warn his father about Kai.

  CHAPTER 17

  CODY LAY AWAKE the whole night. For starters, Kai had thrown his sleeping bag down right next to her. He had passed out quickly, but Cody could feel the warmth emanating from him. The mine was drafty, and as she tossed and turned, she couldn’t help but edge closer into the cozy shelter that his body created. But even when she got warm, her mind wouldn’t stop racing.

  The Vaccine.

  James’s father.

  Kai’s bomb.

  Cody tried to tackle them one at a time, but they were all so interconnected now. James’s dad made the Vaccine, so Kai made a bomb. After what she had already endured, Cody thought she could handle anything. She was prepared to die to fight back against the Equality Movement. She would resort to any measure to have her revenge on Agent Norton. But this—this wasn’t as simple.

  Of course now Cody understood how Arthur had gotten her released from detention. But even after Kai had shown her the memo, she still had trouble believing it. Arthur was so wise and reasonable, just an older version of James. And his own son was a One! The idiots who spray-painted equal signs were one thing, but how could Arthur have sat with his family every night after working all day to destroy them? That was a different kind of monster.

  Cody thought back to their first moments driving away from her prison, when she had asked if he was doing this for James. Was it a gift to his son, or did James force him? If James had forced him, then James knew about the Vaccine. And it meant that James had used that leverage not to destroy the program but to save her.

  She hated him and loved him for that.

  Now it was her turn. She had to choose between fighting against this evil or protecting James—or in this case, his family. James had picked her. In the brief time she had to contemplate, Cody knew she couldn’t return the favor.

  The Vaccine was too big. No person deserved to be changed or diminished at the behest of the government. Cody knew she wasn’t in danger from it, but the rest of the Ones were. They were all just kids, essentially, ranging from babies to college students. It was hard enough figuring out who you were without scientists prying into your genes and crossing the wires. That is, after you were alive already. Cody didn’t care who was in charge or how much she might owe them—she knew she had to help stop it.

  Still, her heart broke picturing her mother waking up to find her daughter gone again, but Cody hoped she’d understand. Her mom would have read the note a dozen times since she’d found it that morning. Cody had tried to strike a tone of optimism, even if she knew there was a chance she’d never return. And she ended it with a declaration that she knew her mom needed to hear: I know exactly who I am … proud, stubborn, idealistic—in other words, YOUR daughter—and I wouldn’t change a thing.

  Now, as she tossed and turned in the mine, Cody’s thoughts turned back to the pile of fertilizer and chemicals that Kai had unveiled. It was all jumbled together in a large suitcase, with wires running through it. Following the science, Cody knew how it would work, understood exactly how the ammonium nitrate in the innocent-looking mulch would vaporize upon detonation and release oxygen that would feed the subsequent explosion. She knew it was a weapon of powerful violence, and she couldn’t help but feel a wave of excitement just looking at it. This was why she had come to Kai and the New Weathermen. This was how she was going to get her revenge.

  Cody didn’t feel any guilt for this instinct. Instead, she thought back to what her captors had put her through. First the fear, then the pain, and then the hopelessness. The smiles as they tried to kill her. The taste of the airless plastic bag. The room they had left her to rot in, dark and freezing. The way the walls seemed to close in on her every day and the air would get sucked out, and how she thought she’d suffocate not with her head in a bag but by clawing at the steel door, blood running from her fingertips and down her arms in dark, desperate streaks.

  Cody sa
t up and tried to shake herself out of the flashback. She knew she wasn’t back there, but as she looked around, all she could see was darkness. The tunnel felt narrow and on the verge of collapse. A cold draft blew up from the depths of the mine. She felt around for her flashlight and couldn’t find it. She gasped for air, struggling to breathe. She had to get out.

  With arms extended, Cody felt her way along the tunnel, scraping her hands and face and tripping with every other step. But it was too tight in there—she had to get above ground—so she raced forward blindly, hugging the wall, crying, and growing light-headed.

  At last, she felt a change in the air and smelled the pine needles. A few more steps and moonlight trickled in from the mouth of a tunnel. Cody lunged out of the mine and collapsed on the ground, the stars above finally proving she wasn’t trapped. As she took deep breaths and regained her senses, her hatred for the people who still tormented her hardened even further. They had left her like this: an angry, broken shell. She was ready to blow things up because of them.

  But a spark of humanity still burned deep within her. She knew she would still be locked away were it not for one man. Whatever else he had done, she owed her life to that man. Cody couldn’t bring herself to kill James’s father.

  * * *

  Cody woke up in the mouth of a mine tunnel with Kai kicking her feet. He tossed her an apple and started walking away.

  “A sleepwalker, huh?” he said. “Come on, we’re already behind schedule.”

  Kai stepped back into the mine as Cody blinked awake. She stood up, dusted herself off, and hesitated in the entrance. She had wanted to talk to Kai about the bombing, to volunteer her support, but only on certain conditions. Of course Kai was already walking briskly away, so she had no choice but to chase after him. It was impossible to ever talk to him on her terms.

  Cody caught up with him just as he ducked into a side tunnel. He stopped at the same wooden door she had seen the night before. Kai stepped through the crevice, and a moment later Cody followed him into the bomb room.

  Besides Kai and the bomb, there were two other people: Taryn, who flashed with anger as she stepped in, and Brandon, the One from the first meeting who Cody remembered was a real stickler for the rules.

  “Hell no,” Taryn said to Kai. “She’s not coming.”

  Brandon threw his hands in the air. “Kai, you’re kidding, right?”

  “We need four people,” Kai said. “She deserves to be there. She’s earned it.”

  “Kai, you said you needed to bring her here to debrief her. But she’s not even a One—she could ruin it for all of us. No,” Taryn said.

  Cody decided to speak up. “Who said I even wanted to come?”

  “Perfect, she’s not up for it. Then it’s settled,” Brandon said.

  Kai turned to her, incredulous. “We can get into the lab that’s creating the Vaccine and blow it to the sky, and you don’t want in?”

  “I didn’t say that. How about you tell me the plan before anyone makes a decision for me?” Cody said.

  “You see that?” Taryn asked, pointing at the covered tarp in the middle of the floor. “It goes boom. Now see you later.”

  Kai stood up and pulled the tarp back, revealing the bomb materials. “We built it for the Christmas-tree lighting. It’s got a blast radius of three hundred yards. Four hundred pounds of fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, and gasoline.” He glared at Taryn and Brandon. “That’s why we need four people.” Kai brushed some dust off the wires delicately, almost lovingly. He turned back to Cody. “But once we found out about the chemistry lab, changing the target was a no-brainer. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Even in her jittery excitement, Cody couldn’t get past something Kai had just said. “You were going to blow this up at the Christmas ceremony? With the whole town there?” Even in her state of rage at the Equality Movement, Cody didn’t understand how such a murderous act would make sense.

  “Don’t worry about that now, Cody,” Kai said. “We know where the Vaccine is. That’s all that matters.”

  These people clearly didn’t care who died as long as it made a statement. Cody suddenly realized what she had signed up for and decided to choose her words carefully. “I want to stop the Vaccine more than anyone. But I can’t kill Arthur Livingston. I owe him my life.”

  Cody saw Taryn shoot a look toward Kai. But Kai didn’t seem worried. “That’s fair,” he said. “We don’t care about killing him, anyway. We’re doing it at night—no victims—This is going to be a statement about the Vaccine, not an assassination.”

  “So James’s dad is safe?” Cody asked.

  “Sure. We can deal with him later if we need to, but that’s not what this is about. You have my word.”

  Kai and the others stared at her, waiting for an answer. Cody didn’t need to hesitate; it was pretty clear-cut for her now. The Weathermen had found out where the Vaccine was being developed. They had constructed a bomb to destroy it. And they had agreed to spare James’s father. Cody hated the idea of Kai “taking care” of him later, but if Arthur decided to keep working on the Vaccine again, she wasn’t sure she could save him, or even if she should.

  “I’m in.” She looked around and stared everyone in the eye. They all nodded.

  “We still have some prep work to take care of,” Kai said. “If it all checks out, we plant the bomb next Wednesday.”

  There was a knock on the wooden door concealing their crevice. As Taryn rushed to pull the tarp back over the bomb materials, a voice called out from the other side.

  “Kai, you really need to come see this.” It was Daphne, one of the other Weathermen Cody had seen when she arrived.

  “Not now.”

  “I promise you, it can’t wait,” Daphne said.

  Kai pulled the door back and stepped into the tunnel. Cody and the others followed Daphne back to the top of the mine, where the Weathermen had set up their base camp. Everyone was huddled around a laptop with a thick cellular antenna. They were watching a live news report.

  Cody immediately recoiled as she saw Agent Norton’s face speaking into the camera.

  “As the head of the FBI office entrusted with keeping our country safe, I’ve asked an emergency session of Congress to pass this law immediately. The new protocol will ensure that this recent wave of violence comes to an end and will allow us to handle the pressing issue of our genetically engineered citizens in a more organized and productive manner.”

  “What is she talking about? What is the new law?” Cody asked in a panic.

  “I ask all of the people affected by this law to report to their new residential camps as quickly and peacefully as possible. This is for your own safety. Parents, please help them. After the law passes, if you’re not already at your designated camp, the federal marshals on our Equality Teams will escort you there. Thank you, and God bless America.”

  Agent Norton stepped away from the lectern, and the Ones all looked at each other in shock.

  “They are shipping us to internment camps,” Daphne said. “Congress is having an emergency session later today. Apparently, the camps are already set up, and the buses are on the road.”

  Cody tried to imagine how this was possible. Her government was preparing to take one percent of its children and force them into a camp. To steal their lives away from them. To banish them. And then it dawned on Cody what would actually happen to the Ones at these camps. As she realized it, Kai was already saying it out loud.

  “They’re ready to give us the Vaccine.” He stepped back from the group and began heading down into the mine. “Change of plans. We plant the bomb tonight.”

  * * *

  Six hours later, as the last sunlight slanted through the trees, Cody carried her share of the bomb’s weight away from the mine. She walked in step with Kai, Taryn, and Brandon, each of them holding a corner of the heavy suitcase on their shoulders and struggling over the uneven terrain. They looked like pallbearers.

  A few hundred yards away, Kai h
ad parked an old van at the end of the dirt road that led to the quarry. They opened the doors and gingerly slid the suitcase into the back of the van. No one wanted to give it the slightest jostle. When it was strapped down securely, Kai climbed into the driver’s seat, and Taryn took shotgun. Cody had already noticed that she had her pistol tucked into the back of her pants. Before she hopped into the back to join Brandon, Cody considered what she was getting herself into. She imagined what the worst-case scenario might be and realized she felt like she had already endured it. Surely, though, she wouldn’t get so lucky a second time if they were caught tonight. Rushing like this was only going to increase those chances. But Cody agreed with Kai: After the announcement that Norton had just made, they needed to act fast. These might be the final few hours when Ones would be able to move around freely. Cody got in the van and shut the back doors behind her.

  They started driving down the slope of Mount Shasta, the racing van keeping time with their adrenaline. After a long period of silence, Brandon finally brought it up.

  “Kai, we might not be ready to do this. I mean, the plan we made for next week … it only works if we do it next week. The guard schedules, the night technicians … even if we can make our way in, it might not be empty tonight.”

  “We’ll see what’s up when we get there and figure it out,” Kai said.

  “Brandon might be right,” Taryn said. “There’s no point if we can’t—”

  “I said we’ll figure it out!” Kai bellowed. He pressed down on the accelerator and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “We don’t have a choice, okay? It’s now or never. Tonight or the camps. The plan stays the same. Brandon still has the entry code. If there’s a guard, we take him out. I don’t care how hard it is, we are blowing up that lab tonight and destroying as much of the Vaccine as possible.”

  The matter seemed settled, but Cody knew she had to speak up. “As long as James’s father isn’t there.”

  Kai looked into the rearview mirror and met Cody’s eyes. He stared at her for a long moment, his wild energy barely able to contain itself. He held her gaze, then finally answered.