The Lost Code (14 page)

I faded out again, into the half sleep I was getting good at during the day. I saw that place again, that city and the pyramid, or temple. . . . The siren had said something about a temple . . . and then I remembered that girl, too, one of the other sacrificial ones, like me—no, not me, but . . . me? But then who was that siren anyway? Was any of it even real?

Could be leftover trauma from your drowning
, a technician suggested.

Maybe we have a faulty block in the memory drives
, said another, looking over a map of my brain.
Hard to say.

Well, figure it out, already!
I said to them. They seemed surprised to be getting an order from me, and grumbled as they hurried around.

I needed to talk to Lilly about all this. Were the CITs seeing sirens or having visions or thinking about wind speeds?

“. . . for tomorrow’s predator-prey competition,” Claudia was saying. Now there was the usual giggle from the Arctic Foxes as Leech and Paul arrived and Leech did his grand entrance thing. Where had they been since I’d left the dock? Did Leech get to sit in on the board of directors meeting? I avoided looking at Paul as he headed up the hill.

Back into my thoughts . . . what had the siren said?
What is oldest will be new. What was hidden shall be unlocked. The secrets remembered by the true.
The
oldest
part made sense with the vision. Whatever that had been, it looked like it had happened a long time ago, but it hadn’t looked like any history I remembered hearing about. Where had there been pyramids with some kind of electric light, in snowy mountains by the ocean?

Claudia’s speech filtered back to my ears. “We’ll be using the Preserve for the game—”

And then she was cut off by a huge, thundering sound, immediate and sudden, and a wall of air slammed into our backs and pushed everyone off their benches. The older kids stumbled and staggered to our feet. Little ones were thrown to the ground, hitting their knees and chins.

Everyone spun to see a huge plume of black smoke rising from behind the dining hall like a thrust fist. It billowed up until it hit the side of the dome ceiling and then began to roll and spread, dimming a bank of the SafeSun lights. For a moment, I saw the entire wall of the dome shudder, almost like it was made of rubber.

Echoes of the explosion rolled away across the lake. An alarm began to sound.

“Everyone meet up with your cabin!” Claudia shouted.

“Over here!” Todd was calling. All the campers clustered.

“Nomads,” Leech said knowingly. “Probably mounting another attack.” Everybody tensed at this. One of the younger kids standing nearby overheard Leech, turned, and whispered frantically to his cabin. The panic spread, some children starting to cry.

“Hey, Carey!” Todd snapped at Leech. “We don’t know what happened.”

Leech looked at the rest of us and rolled his eyes.

“All right, everyone!” We looked back to Claudia, who was holding a subnet phone to her ear. “Everything is secured, nothing to worry about. We’re to proceed to breakfast as usual.”

We headed up the hill, everyone mumbling nervously.

“They tried one time back in the spring,” Leech was saying. Everyone in our cabin, even Beaker and Bunsen, stayed within earshot of him like he was our wise sage. I couldn’t help listening, too. “Blowing a hole in one of the supply entrances. There was another time when they tried to get in through the observatory roof. But the Security Forces took them out. Stupid savages.”

“Sometimes they show up in Dallas Beach looking for supplies,” said Noah. “They’re always dressed weird. My brother says they wear skulls around their necks.”

“I heard they practice human sacrifice, and worship, like, sun gods and stuff,” said Jalen.

I was pretty sure Jalen was wrong about that. The sun god stuff was down in Desenna, the human sacrifice too, but that was only rumors. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d heard that the Nomads were the victims of these sacrifices, but I didn’t feel like getting into the conversation.

“I heard that they’re just kinda normal,” said Beaker.

“Yes, but you’re an idiot,” said Leech.

We reached the dining hall doors and waited to file in. A trail of smoke was still rising from behind the camp office buildings. While we stood there, a little cart rushed by, carrying five of Eden’s black-suited Security Forces, four guards sitting on the sideways benches behind the driver. There were three men and two women, all wearing helmets and high-laced boots, with rifles over their shoulders. I knew the Edens had security, but it surprised me how much these officers looked like an army.

“Man, I’d like to suit up with those guys and go kick some Nomad ass,” said Jalen wistfully.

We filed in and headed to our table. Everyone was quieter than usual. You could hear the words
nomads
and
attack
being muttered everywhere. Todd started filling everyone’s cups with bug juice. Today’s color was neon pink and, again, I waved it off.

When it was our turn to get food, I looked for Lilly in the CIT area. There were six of them sitting over there eating, but none of my gill breathers were with them.

I went into the kitchen and got a tray. I took some gray waffles, some fried syntheggs, then I grabbed a cup of the fruit salad and turned—

Lilly was standing right in front of me. She took my tray and put it down beside the fruit cups. “Come on,” she said, and pulled me by the wrist. Instead of heading out the kitchen door into the main dining room, we left through a side door that led into a hallway.

“Where are we going?”

“To see what happened before the official story gets written.”

“Story?”

“History is always written to serve the powerful,” Lilly said over her shoulder. “Whatever just happened, Paul will change the story so that none of us are afraid.”

“You think we should be afraid?” I asked, not really understanding what she was getting at.

“Not of the Nomads,” said Lilly.

She led me out double doors. We were on the dirt road that led between the dining hall and the administrative buildings. Evan, Marco, and Aliah were standing there.

“Okay,
now
can we go?” asked Evan.

“Everybody needs to see these things together,” Lilly snapped at him. Then she glanced sharply at me. “If somebody runs off on their own, we can’t defend each other. Remember Anna?”

I figured she also meant me, last night. “Sorry about that,” I said quickly.

“Yeah, dude, what happened to you?” Marco asked.

“Later,” said Lilly. “Let’s go.”

“Roger that, commander,” said Evan sarcastically. Lilly huffed and brushed past, her shoulder bumping him.

I followed after them, wondering if Todd had noticed yet that I was gone. But whatever, it felt good to be back with my people.

Lilly led the way, ducking off the road into the trees between a staff office building and the infirmary. She turned around and held a finger to her lips, then tiptoed ahead.

We got to the edge of the building and peered through the underbrush. Ahead was the wide paved area and the tall metal double doors. The elevator shaft was off to the left. Before the doors there was a trench, like a dry moat, separating the ground and the wall. A steel bridge stretched over it.

Between us and this bridge was an overturned supply truck. Its squat, square frame was charred and smoking, twisted like it was made of clay. Same for the bridge, which had buckled and half given way. The little security checkpoint house had been flattened. A small fire flickered in its black remains, and one of the Security Forces was spraying it with an extinguisher.

“The bomb must have been in that truck,” said Lilly.

The dome doors were cockeyed, creating an awkward triangular gap. Everything was smeared with the black of the blast. A few inner panels of the dome had fallen from points above, wide triangular sections that had what looked like frosted glass on the front and then a feathery layer of radiation insulators on the back. The glass had mostly smashed all over the blast site, like someone had scattered diamonds. The air was sour with a smell like burned sugar and melting crayons.

But it was that tiny view out the cockeyed doors that caught my eye. I could see the dry steps of rock, a distant leaning water tower gleaming in white hot sun.

Lilly caught my eye. “Almost makes you want to make a break for it.”

“Yeah, an express run to death,” said Evan.

“There’s Paul,” said Aliah.

He was jogging toward the bridge. Shouts were coming from outside the doors. Three security guards appeared, ducking through with a fourth figure, whose hands were bound behind his back.

“Whoa, they got one,” said Marco.

The prisoner wore dirty jeans and a long, thickly padded coat with a silver reflective surface. He had tinted goggles pulled up onto his forehead, and a black triangle of plastic stuck onto the bridge of his nose. I’d seen these clothes before: all of it was to protect from exposure. He walked tall as they crossed the bridge, a defiant smile on his face.

Paul was calling someone on his phone as the security team edged its way across the twisted bridge. When they reached the other side, Dr. Maria appeared.

Paul motioned to the captive. “Take him to medical,” he barked, his normal mellow demeanor gone. “And we’ll want him to talk.”

“You know why we’re here!” the prisoner suddenly shouted, clearly trying to get as many of the personnel to hear him as possible.

“Shut him up,” Paul growled to Dr. Maria. He turned to the Security Forces. “Cartier, is this under control?” he called.

One of the officers, a short, burly man who wasn’t wearing a helmet, turned around. He had rough features and short hair. There was a silver bar pinned on his shirt. “Yes sir.”

“Good.” Paul spun and started back toward his office, like this was just one of many crises he was dealing with.

Dr. Maria had produced a syringe from her coat pocket. Her face was set seriously, but she also looked almost fearful as she approached the Nomad.

“This is all a lie!” the Nomad shouted. “You’ll all be left behind! You’ve got to bring down Project Elysium!”

I saw Paul pause at the door and turn back toward him.

“Hold him,” said Dr. Maria. I saw the syringe shaking in her hand.

Cartier put the Nomad in a headlock, pulling him sideways by the hair and exposing his neck. The prisoner saw Dr. Maria’s needle and stopped struggling, instead just glaring at her coldly. She pressed the needle into his neck and he slumped into the guards’ arms. They dragged him toward the infirmary. Paul disappeared inside.

“We should get back,” whispered Evan, checking his watch. “We’re supposed to be at the dock in ten minutes for morning lessons.”

For once, Lilly just agreed. “Right.”

We crept back through the trees to the road. “What did he mean?” I asked.

“Project Elysium?” said Marco. “No idea.”

“Not
no
idea,” said Lilly. “I’ve heard about it on the Free Signal.” She looked around suspiciously. “We shouldn’t talk here.” She glanced at me. “Tonight?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Lilly nodded, and the CITs headed up the road.

Back inside, I got a new tray of food and returned to my table. Everybody was finished eating.

“There he is,” said Todd. “Owen, Pedro tells me you were talking to a lady friend in there.”

I glanced over at Beaker and tried to say thanks with my eyes. “Yeah,” I said to Todd.

“All right then,” he said with a smile. “Eat up.”

I sat and started shoveling food. When I finished, I found Leech staring at me. That weird look again, from the boat, from the other day, too. Like he was studying me. Like nothing about me convinced him. Or . . .
like he knows something is up
. It seemed more certain than ever.

“Hello, everyone,” Paul’s voice echoed over the speaker system in the dining hall. I looked around, but he wasn’t anywhere in the room. “I just wanted to give you an update on this morning’s accident. It turns out one of our supply trucks had a faulty battery cell, which caused the explosion. The driver has some minor injuries, but otherwise everyone is all right. I know many of you have been worried that this event had something to do with the Nomad Alliance and so I just wanted to end those rumors. Everything is fine, and no one is in any danger. So, have a pleasant day.”

I heard Leech murmuring and glanced over. “Yeah, guess that’s all it was,” he was saying seriously, like he was Paul’s special agent to the Spotted Hyenas.

History is always written to serve the powerful
, Lilly had said, and here was proof: Paul rewriting what was only moments old. Had he done the same for Colleen? What about the DI? All of it was in question now, and I had to wonder, what about EdenWest
was
what it seemed?

WE SPENT THE MORNING PLAYING DODGEBALL
and tetherball on the paved courts. Having gills did me no good at surviving the screaming red rubber balls. If anything, trying to move my legs on land felt more inefficient and useless than ever. Every time I tried to twist or duck and the ball went
puunk!
on my head or back, I would look up and wish I could take that grinning face off Jalen or Mike, Noah or Leech, and show them the depths of the lake, drag them deep until their lungs felt like balloons trapped against a ceiling. I would imagine their eyes bugging out and their pupils saying,
Don’t do this!
Their arms flailing. I would see the bubble pressing out against their squeezed lips and—

Puunk!

“Ha, Turtle!” shouted Jalen.

I spent most of the game on the sideline, waiting for dark, for my time.

Lying in our bunks that night, Todd reading to us, I got a turn on the computer pad. I was surprised to find my camp mailbox empty. I thought I’d hear from Dad. It was strange, though, how little I’d thought about him the last couple days. I’d been so caught up in Lilly and everything else. I almost felt guilty now.

I started a new letter:

Hey Dad
,

It’s Saturday now. Things are okay here. I think you’d be proud of me. I’ve made some friends. Older kids that I actually have some things in common with. They’re better than the kids in my cabin.

Also, you maybe heard about that explosion here today. I don’t know if that would make the news or not. Well, I’m not sure what you heard, but

I stopped there and wondered: What should I tell him? What I’d seen, or what Paul and Eden would have said? Then I thought about how much I already
hadn’t
told him in the letter. My gills, the siren, all of that. How exactly was I going to explain that stuff to him, anyway? He might freak out if I told him, and pull me out of camp early. Did I want to leave early? Things didn’t seem safe here, but if I left I’d lose Lilly, and I’d never know what was really going on with me, with this place. And that didn’t even factor in that I’d be the only kid at Hub with gills.

I deleted the message.

Soon, Todd left us, and after the usual joke-filled conversations about the attractiveness levels of various Arctic Foxes, the cabin descended into snores and breathing. I closed my eyes and fell asleep too. . . .

Until my gills woke me up, like clockwork. I got out of my bunk quietly, double-checking to be sure that Beaker was asleep. I had already put on my bathing suit before bed, so I slipped on my sneakers, grabbed my towel, and headed out.

I heard the light murmur of voices as I crossed the beach. Saw the silhouettes of heads and shoulders sitting out on the raft. I walked out to the edge of the dock, my gills sensing their home and flicking open. I blocked my throat and dove in, all the sensations of water a relief. I did a few circles before heading out to the raft. As I got close, I decided to try the shooting hands-free jump that the others always did. I swam straight down, launched up into the air, landed, and managed not to fall over. “Hey!” I said, but I immediately tensed.

Lilly wasn’t there.

“She took off,” said Evan, noticing me looking around. “She was pissed.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt exposed standing there, and almost like, without Lilly around, I wasn’t actually welcome. “What’s she mad about?”

“Him,” Aliah said, sitting with Marco’s arm over her shoulders, and I saw that she was glaring at Evan.

“Oh, come on,” Evan said. “It’s not my fault she was being ridiculous.”

“It wasn’t ridiculous!” Aliah shot back. “I think she might be right.”

“About what?” I asked.

“She wants to bust out of here,” said Marco.

“Which is a stupid idea,” said Evan, “be—”

“It’s not a stupid idea!” said Aliah.

Marco looked at me. “Lilly thinks that we might be part of what the Nomad said, that Project Elysium thing. Like maybe that’s what’s been giving us our gills and stuff.”

“Making a new species,” I said, filling in Lilly’s theory.

“Right,” said Aliah, “except, it could be worse than that. What if we’re not the new race? What if we’re just the test subjects? You know, like the animals in cages that they test the NoRad lotions on, when the results are actually for someone else.”

“For
them.
” Marco waved his hand dismissively toward the glow of the city.

“The privileged few,” said Aliah. “So Lilly thinks we should try to get out, find the Nomads, to expose what Eden is really up to.”

“We don’t know if we’re part of the project or what,” said Evan, “but it would be stupid to try to break out because,
A
, the Nomads are savages—”

I was about to say something to refute that when Aliah jumped in.

“Oh whatever, that’s just what you’ve heard on the EdenNet news, and who makes that news? EdenCorp does. Lilly says the Free Signal isn’t like that at all—”

“And,”
Evan said over her, “
B
, there’s no way out of here anyway! That’s my point! Even if we wanted to, how are you going to get out? The main entrances are completely guarded. That’s why I keep saying we should just go to Paul and ask him. What reason would he have to lie to us? People are going to find out about our little fish club here eventually. We could work together.”

“And end up like Anna?” said Aliah.

“We don’t know what happened to Anna!” Evan was shouting now. “Why do we have to assume that something terrible happened to her? What if it’s true that she really is at the hospital over in the city? Maybe they’re trying to figure out why she has gills. Maybe it would help them figure it out if they could study more of us.”

Aliah glanced over at me. “This is why Lilly took off.”

“Which is fine, because I’m getting tired of her whole crusader thing anyway. She’s going to go getting us killed by savages over things she doesn’t even understand.”

“Like you do,” said Aliah.

“This isn’t good,” Marco muttered. “We should be sticking together.”

“Do you know where she went?” I asked.

“Oh, what are you gonna do, go find her?” Evan was peering at me. “You gonna try to make your move now, Owen? Little scrub gonna try to score with the CIT?”

“Evan . . .” Aliah rolled her eyes.

I felt like turning and diving in, getting out of there, but I stayed. “No, that’s not it.”

“Nobody even wants you here!” Evan stood up. “And Lilly’s still mad at you about whatever you pulled last night, anyway, so why don’t you just go back to your baby cabin?”

“Evan, that’s enough, buddy,” said Marco.

Evan walked out into the middle of the raft. I felt another urge to run, but instead I stayed where I was. I thought I might fall over but somehow I held my balance as he loomed over me. I was shaking and it wasn’t from the cold, but I was not running from this. If I had to stand here and get slammed by Evan for Lilly’s sake, then fine.

Evan glared down at me. This was going to hurt. So, let it hurt. Enough from these kings, Evan, Leech . . .

“Not cool, Ev,” said Marco.

Still staring at me . . . then Evan looked over at Marco and Aliah. “All right, fine, screw you guys.” He turned and dove into the water. A minute later he emerged on shore.

“Sorry about him,” said Aliah.

I shrugged. “It’s okay.” I looked around. “So, where did Lilly go?”

“To her special place,” said Marco.

“Her—”

“Sometimes she just takes off on her own.” Aliah pointed out toward the mouth of the inlet. “That way.”

“Oh.”

“Go ahead,” said Marco as Aliah snuggled into his shoulder.

“What?”

“We usually let her come back on her own. But go ahead and find her if you want.”

“Yeah? Um, I’m gonna go do that.”

“Have fun,” said Aliah.

I nodded, not knowing what else to say, and dove off the raft.

I headed out of the inlet, breaking the surface now and then to check my bearings. I waded ashore at the flashlight point but Lilly wasn’t there, so I swam out into the wide, main lake. To the right, the city and the Aquinara glowed, their lights reflecting on the water. A few lights blinked closer, people out on their yachts. To the left, the water stretched into a wooded bay where the lake ended, Mount Aasgard a dark silhouette above it.

I headed toward that bay first. As I swam, I watched for the blue light of the siren, but didn’t see it. If I didn’t find Lilly, maybe I’d head back to the Aquinara and try to check out that fissure again.

I swam into the middle of the wide bowl of water and poked my eyes above the surface. The forest was dark. The moon wasn’t up yet, but the MoonGlow lights were on, frosting the tips of the pines. There was nothing over here.

The water undulated with swells, increasing down the long channel of lake from the city.
Northeasterly winds. Almost ten knots tonight
, I thought, and again wondered where a thought like that was coming from. Now I noticed a shadow. Above, some disk-shaped clouds were cruising overhead, blotting out the SimStars. They seemed thicker than normal.

I took one last look around, about to head up the lake, when I saw a small flicker of light. If it hadn’t been for those cloud shadows, I might not even have noticed it. It was to my right, near the far side of the lake.

I ducked under and swam close. The bottom rose to meet me, and I surfaced to find that the light was flickering through the trees of a tiny sliver island, a little way from shore. The island was narrow, maybe seven meters wide and like twenty long. It was covered by a grove of wispy birch trees, the MoonGlow flickering through their small leaves, which rustled in the night breeze.

I stepped out of the shallow water onto soft, spongy dirt, crisscrossed by thick roots. I slipped between the slender trees, getting closer to the little light, and stopped at the edge of a tiny clearing.

A large birch trunk had snapped off a meter from the ground. Above, a hole was open to the sky. A tiny circle of grass had taken advantage of this. Near the center was a flat slab of rock, and on it flickered three candles set in old aluminum food cans. The upper halves of the cans had holes punched in them in geometric designs. There was a station for making those at Craft House.

Lilly sat beside the rock, wearing a baggy hooded sweatshirt, a blanket over her shoulders, her wet hair falling down her back in thick strands. She seemed to be checking out something in her lap. I watched her, heard her breathing.

She lifted her head. “It’s okay to come out. I know you’re there.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. I stepped out, crossing my arms. “Um, hey.”

She didn’t turn around. I walked over to her. She held a small device in her hands. A mini computer pad. There was a window open on it, showing a connection bar and a tiny graphic of a satellite. Soft static hummed from the pad and a message blinked:

SCANNING FOR SIGNAL
 . . .

I thought about what to say. Maybe I should just start by apologizing for last night and trying to explain all that, but it didn’t seem right. Besides, Lilly seemed busy. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Trying to find the Nomad signal,” she said. “My parents left me this. You only get one storage box when you’re a Cryo. They mostly filled it with mementos I’d kept, stupid stuff like dolls and knickknacks, and some photos. But my dad put this in there, too. It’s an old model but it has the gamma link for satellite connections. You can’t get these in here—only the ones that work on the EdenNet. It’s like he knew I might want to get more sides of the story than just Eden’s. Problem is, not many of the satellites work anymore. And most of the ones that do are encrypted. The Nomads hack one now and then to send their signalcast, then they pass the code around to their sympathizers. I have a friend over in the city who gave me a code before camp started. I think it might have changed, though. I haven’t heard anything for a few nights.”

“My dad said that most of the shooting stars we see these days are dead satellites,” I said.

Lilly glanced up. “Can’t see ’em from in here. I’ve never seen a real shooting star. They’re probably beautiful.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty cool.”

“Kinda poetic too, our trash raining down on us.”

“Yeah.” I wondered what to say next. “I’m glad I found you. Evan was just going on again about how he thinks the Nomads are savages.”

“Evan is full of roach shit.”

I laughed, but only a little, trying not to show how much I enjoyed hearing her say that. “What do they talk about on the signal?”

“Lots of things,” said Lilly. “Trade, where to find supplies or spots where agriculture or fisheries are working. The Alliance works co-op. They talk, too, about the insurgency against the ACF, about getting into the Eden Domes, though mostly they don’t want any part of these places anymore. They know the domes are failing. They say the DI is way lower than Eden will admit. And they’re worried about this Project Elysium. They say, too, that the ACF, the People’s Corporation of China, even the Russian Kingdom are all pressuring Eden to reveal what they’re up to, but they won’t.”

“Do the Nomads have any theories on what Project Elysium is?” I asked.

“They don’t really know, but they say the domes are placed in specific locations for a reason, and that EdenCorp is looking for some kind of technology or something. But their specifics are sketchy. One broadcaster thinks they’re looking for a spaceship, another thinks it’s some secret lab or something. Nobody really knows. All they know is there’s something.”

“A couple of the other domes are near landmarks, like the Pyramids and Stonehenge.”

“Ancient sites,” said Lilly. “Yeah, the Nomads think that’s intentional.”

I thought about the vision of the pyramid and the skull. “Maybe they’re looking for something old?”