by Ramona Finn
I got to my feet. “Yes, that’s right, and rioting would be the right thing to do,” I said, hearing my own voice get louder. “The people in the Geos, my people, deserve to live up here in the Labs.” So did the Rejs, but I didn’t want to push that issue. “Why aren’t we moving them up? We can quarantine the ill and still protect the Labs.”
“I want to do that,” Ben said, looking so sincere that I almost believed him. “But we need authority. My plan is to slowly climb that ladder of trust with Father, until he gives me the authority I need to save the Geos. You and I together will make a strong team. That’s why I’m asking…no, begging you to leave well enough alone, until we can make ourselves so indispensable that Father won’t be able to resist making us his right-hand people. Do you see?”
Ben really believed in what he was saying, that much I could tell. But I didn’t know if it was the right path to take. On the one hand, I admired his plan to save the Geos, but on the other hand, I hated his actions against the Rejs. The people in the Geos and the Rejs, to me, were the same—they both needed hope, and the right to live disease-free in the Labs. My heart ached for Skylar Two as he mourned his father and people. And my hackles went up as I thought of Tam and the other survivors still being experimented upon, and the idea that maybe Kev was in a similar position somewhere in the Sky Labs.
Whatever I felt, though, I knew that I had no power. I couldn’t do anything to save anyone from where I stood right now. As Ben’s partner, that might change…but it would also take too long. I would lose everyone I cared about if we took Ben’s path. I might even lose myself once I got too caught up in the lifestyle of the Elites. And I couldn’t let that happen.
No. I had no choice but carry out my own plan—to help the Rejs, and to get the truth out to the Geos. I just couldn’t let Ben see that.
I nodded. “Okay,” I said, trying hard to play the part right. “I will do as you ask.”
Ben actually clapped. “Good, that’s the right decision.” Then he moved over to my computer terminal. “Now, just tell me what you did with the data in these files, and I’ll try to get them recovered before anyone else finds out.”
“I swear I didn’t do anything!” I said. “I was as shocked as you that they were empty.”
Ben swore under his breath. “Those Rejs are getting access to our tech. They are relentless.”
I pulled him away from the desk. “The Rejs didn’t do this,” I said. “There’s no way they did this.”
“How would you know?” He looked at me in suspicion. “You aren’t privy to the intelligence that I have. They’ve managed to get hold of tech, and they learn fast. I tell you, it’s them. But not for much longer. Tomorrow, we attack again, and then I’ll be done with them once and for all.”
Ben leaned in to kiss me and I turned my head at the last minute, so that his lips landed on my cheek. He sighed and shook his head, but said nothing.
As he opened the door to leave, he turned back. “I did some digging and found Kev.”
I held my breath, waiting for the rest of his sentence.
“He’s been transferred to another Sky Lab. He’s working directly for Father on a special project. He won’t be contactable until his mission is over. That’s why you haven’t been able to reach him.”
Somehow, I knew that was a lie—whether Ben knew it to be one or not. So many lies. I was drowning in a quagmire of lies and half-truths. I’d fallen for each one like a complete idiot, too. But no more. There remained one person who might give me the answers I needed, and that was a fellow survivor. Tam, if she could stay lucid, would have the answers I sought.
As I watched Ben leave for the studios, to film the episode where he’d be interviewed about the ceremony, my heart sank for all that was wrong with this life. But, most of all, I feared for the Rejs tomorrow. I hoped against all hope that Skylar Two had received my message and that he was on his way far away, to safety. A sick tremor ran through my body as I thought of myself celebrating my entry into the Farrow family as my friends on the surface were being slaughtered.
That wouldn’t happen. Not if I could help it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I found my way through the back passages once again and reached the door where I’d found Tam and the survivors just a few hours before. If Tam knew about Wallace, then she might know something about the Rejs, and maybe, just maybe, she could help me get a message to the Rejs who were still alive.
The door was locked. I knocked, but there was no answer. I tried to stop a clone on their way down the corridor, thinking to ask them where the survivors were, but no one would pay me any attention.
Had I given away the survivors’ secret existence? Had I just condemned another bunch of people to their deaths?
I walked up and down the back passages, hoping to get someone to help me, but I might as well have been a ghost. I was an Elite in the eyes of the clones, and therefore was not to be spoken to, especially about things that weren’t supposed to exist in the first place.
I found my way back to the communications department and found Dax among those on duty that afternoon. When he saw me, his eyes widened and his pale face went even paler. I pretended not to notice him. I knew that singling him out would get him in to trouble, and I didn’t want that for my new friend.
“Excuse me,” I said to the nearest clone on duty. “I’d like to send a message to the Geos.” I made up a story about needing to update my parents about my partnering ceremony. And because I was now more well-known to everyone in the Greens, the clone on duty didn’t object. She led me to an empty terminal and told me to record my vid message. Then she left me alone.
I fiddled with the controls for a long time, trying to decide how to get a message to Skylar Two—or to anyone who could help him. I thought about opening up to my dad, but I didn’t want to bring more trouble into my parents’ fragile lives.
“Do you require assistance?” Dax appeared over my shoulder. His mannerism was very official, and I knew this had to be a show for the other clones, so I went along with the performance.
“I’m trying to decide how to best formulate my message.” I fiddled with the camera, putting myself right in the middle of the screen.
Dax lowered his head to match mine and pretended to program the recording device for ‘optimum quality,’ as he said.
“You were looking for the survivors,” he whispered harshly. “You need to leave them alone.”
I tried to look nonchalant. “I need to talk to them. Where are they?”
Dax huffed. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Please?” I turned to look at him. He straightened up immediately and adjusted his tunic. And then he gave me an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
“It’s important,” I pleaded with him.
“You’re going to use these comm coordinates to send your message. He typed on the keyboard in front of me. “That’s the fastest way to reach your parents.”
On the screen were numbers that I could see would lead to my parents’ sector, but they were also followed by directions through the back passages.
Meet me in front of Cafeteria 125 as soon as you’re done here.
I deleted the message.
I recorded a brief message to my parents, informing them of the ceremony preparations and asking them to watch the next day. I tried to subtly ask Dad if he’d spoken to the Union heads, as well, but I didn’t know if my attempt was so subtle that he wouldn’t understand it. I wished for my mother to recover quickly, and I told them I loved them. Then I sent off the vid and hoped it found them well.
I ducked out of the communications department without so much as a glance at Dax. I was sure he’d be glad of it. I was asking a lot from him, and I didn’t want him to get into any trouble. I waited in front of the cafeteria for all of five long minutes when Dax walked past me. Without looking at me, he gestured with the slightest movement of his finger over a shoulder, gesturing for me to follow. We walked like this—him in
front and me following about twenty meters behind him—until we reached the end of a corridor. Dax pressed on the corner of the wall and a door popped open without a sound. He beckoned me to enter. Again, I was met with a set of dim passages.
“Take this path, and you’ll reach the survivors’ new quarters,” Dax said in a low voice. He slipped a note into my hand. It had directions drawn on it. “Destroy this afterwards.”
I promised him I would and thanked him profusely, but he barely looked me in the eye. As I shut the door behind me, I caught a glimpse of Dax jogging back to his post in Comms. Why was he helping me? It was so dangerous for him.
Following his instructions through the passages, I reached the survivors’ new quarters. Sure enough, there was Tam with her survivor friends, hanging around a room that was almost identical to the last one.
Today, all of the survivors were dressed in loose white tunics. They were barefoot, and many of them walked around looking lost. When Tam saw me, her face lit up. “Girl! Have you come to have dinner with us?”
I sat down next to Tam at a small table. Two other women sat with her, but as soon as I sat down, they got up and left.
“I hope I didn’t upset them,” I said, watching them walk away.
Tam looked at me and tilted her head. “Who are you?”
I slumped in my seat. I didn’t have the energy to explain everything all over again, but apparently I had no choice. I had to hope Tam would become lucid enough to give me answers.
“I’m Tylia Coder, a survivor of the Acceptance,” I said.
“I’m Tam Medic,” Tam said. “I’m also a survivor. Did they take any of your organs yet?”
“What? They took your organs?” I tasted bile in my mouth. What had these people endured?
Tam laughed. “Only one kidney and a spleen, so far.” She pointed at another old man, who was sitting in front of the TV. “Matthew over there has lost a whole lot more.” She threw her head back and laughed.
“Why were you moved to this room?” I asked, hoping she’d remember at least that much.
“We were moved?”
I chewed on this inside of my cheek. I was getting nowhere with her. Maybe this was all a mistake and these poor people really had nothing left to offer.
I watched Tam as she watched the others in the room move about aimlessly. I was about to give up on getting anything from Tam at all when she leaned over and lowered her voice. “You came back for my stories, eh?”
Had she been pretending this whole time?
I nodded and smiled. “You mentioned Wallace. I knew him. Can you tell me about him?”
She smiled back, patted me on my knee, and began to talk.
“In time, child. First, you must learn the history.” She sat back in her chair and patted her nonexistent belly. She took a deep breath and exhaled it in a fatigued sigh. Then she began, “A long time ago, when humans still lived on the surface, there was a powerful corporation that ruled governments and people. There were many disasters on Earth—as if the planet was trying to shake off the pests that were sucking its lifeblood dry. But we survived that. Then a terrible Virus began to spread, and entire populations died, all of their people lost. No one had a way to save us. Until the corporation miraculously produced floating cities that had room for many people.”
“The corporation?” I asked, impatiently.
“Farrow Corp, child. Have you not heard of them? The Farrows had planned all this for a long time.”
“Planned?” I began to wonder if she was speaking from a lost mind.
But she sat up, her eyes bright, and suddenly began to speak very quickly, and with authority. “When the Virus began to kill people by the hundreds, and I mean hundreds per day, it became obvious that the prominent and powerful weren’t on the death lists. Only the poor, the working people seemed to lose family in droves. A small group that called themselves the Resistance took it upon themselves to investigate why. They discovered that the wealthy were being taken to safe spaces—Sky Labs built by the Farrow Corp years before. Or, rather, the wealthy had bought their way in to this space the Farrows built. Funny how the Farrows seemed to know they’d need the Labs, huh?
“Well, when the Resistance made the Sky Labs public knowledge, the outcry was great. People rioted, fought, and scrambled for the right to live up in the air. The Farrows came up with an alternative.”
“Go underground.” I was catching on.
“Go underground. Exactly. Funny again, how they knew to build the first levels of the Geos before they were truly needed. Great foresight, wasn’t it?”
I was fully invested in this story now. “How did the Resistance learn what they did? What resources did they have?”
She pointed to her head. “They had their brains, and an ounce of courage. And, of course, we had some tech.”
“We?”
She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. “Whoops!”
“You were a part of the Resistance?” How old was Tam? She looked old, sure, but the move underground had been seventy-five years ago.
“You’re looking at me like I’m a ghost,” she said with a big grin. “I’m a hundred and fifteen years old, and I’m one of the youngest here!”
“How is that possible?” The life span in the Geos was sixty, at best.
“The experiments, dearie. We are all R.L. Farrow’s guinea pigs.”
“Are you all Resistance?”
“No,” she said. “There aren’t many of us left, as far as I know. At the end, the Resistance sent teams out to all people to spread the truth. I was part of a team of six. Two of us were sent into the Geos, two paid their way into the Labs, and two stayed on the surface to live with those who refused to go underground.”
“The Rejs? They were part of the Resistance?”
“Is that what you call them? In those days, they were made of those who believed the entire Virus affair was a hoax, and they expected it to blow over—like the other disasters before the Virus. They trusted their own luck. But it was Wallace’s job to get the message to them—to tell them the truth about Farrow Corp, not that they needed to be persuaded. It was too much of a coincidence that Farrow Corp was so prepared to take in people, both rich and poor in their own way, exactly at the right moment. It was almost as if they’d engineered the biggest disaster in the history of mankind, and made themselves the savior of all.”
I was stuck at the mention of Wallace. “Wallace was Resistance? But he’s not that old.”
“Oh, did I say his name out loud? I’m really losing it. In the old days, that would’ve been a sure way to get him killed.”
“Is he still alive?”
“You know someone named Wallace?” Tam seemed very confused. “My Wallace must be over a hundred-and-twenty by now. How is that possible?”
I described my mentor to her as she listened with deeply furrowed brows.
“Hmmm,” she pondered. “I wonder if my Wallace had a son and named him Wallace, too? That would make sense. Because I’m sure my Wallace died years ago. But who knows? Everyone thinks I’m dead. Miracles can happen.”
I favored the idea that her Wallace was my mentor’s father. Interesting that the father could have passed the spirit of resistance down to his son.
“I doubt that the Resistance still exists,” Tam said. “When all people can think about is survival, and when they are thankful for the slightest handout, it’s hard to convince them that their saviors are the ones who caused their plight. Only a few people in the Geos bought into our theories, and we couldn’t prove any of it. With the surface people—the Rejs, as you call them—we decided that because they were more of a spiritual people, we could create a prophecy to keep our fight alive.”
“I know of the prophecy. The Rejs thought I was the fulfillment of it.”
“So, Wallace survived long enough to give it to them? I’m so glad.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “If your Wallace is indeed his son, he may have told him about the prophecy. The yo
unger Wallace would’ve been on the lookout for the fulfillment of it. Are you that person? The one who will unite all factions?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying, but I’m alone in this.”
“You are not alone. You have all of us.”
I didn’t want to tell her that the survivors had all lost their ability to even remember their names, so how could they be a part of the Resistance. Tam smiled, as if she had read my mind again.
“Come with me,” she said, taking my hand.
She walked us through a back door. It led to a long, dark corridor and opened up into a room even bigger than the last. It was the size of the show’s set and maybe a bit more. This room was different, in that it was filled with tech—computer terminals and surveillance screens. Behind each terminal was an old person, the same ones that in the room before seemed to have lost their memories. A clever trick, apparently. In the corner, something caught my eye. Barrels lined up against the wall. Barrels that looked very familiar.
My crazy theory was right. “You were the ones who blew up the shuttles!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“You can’t blame us for the fate of the Rejs,” Tam said as I examined the barrels and confirmed that they looked exactly like the ones I’d found after the first shuttle explosion. “We have to keep the Elites on their toes and force them to take responsibility for their cruelty to the surface people.”
I walked over to their computer terminals. Theirs were as old as ours in the Geos, but the so-called ‘out of their mind’ old people looked like they were doing some pretty clever things on them.
“Did you empty the Cure files?” I looked over the shoulder of one of the old ladies at a terminal. Her fingers moved over the keyboard as if they were psychically attuned to each other.
She giggled, and I looked over at Tam, who tilted her head with a mischievous smile.