The Darkest Minds (42 page)

I stared at him for a long while, speechless.

How did you survive that life?
I wanted to ask.
How are you
you
, and not the monster they would have turned you into?

“After I got out that night I met Hayes, and then Olivia, and then others. We found this place and went to work, and all the while my father couldn’t put a bounty out on me, not without exposing the truth about me and his rehab program. He had to make up some lie about me attending college, to get the press off his back.” Clancy smiled then. “So, you see, I did win in the end.”

He rose from his chair, reaching out a hand. I took it without being conscious of it, feeling some calm wash over me as he squeezed my fingers. My head was silent. I felt myself lean forward.

“When I heard your story, I knew I had to meet you. I had to make sure that you knew the truth about what was going on, so you wouldn’t be caught in the dark the way I was.”

“The truth?” I looked up, startled. “What do you mean?”

Clancy didn’t release my hand; he only sat on the edge of his desk in front of me. “The woman who broke you out of Thurmond—the League agent? What did she tell you about the White Noise they used that day?”

“That the camp controllers had embedded a frequency in it that only Oranges, Reds, and Yellows could detect,” I said. He must have known about that—they used the same method to broadcast the location of the camp. “That they were trying to pick out any of the dangerous ones that were still hiding out.”

Clancy released my hand and reached back to turn his laptop so it faced us. On the screen was a snapshot of my face on the morning they had brought us into camp, but the text beside it wasn’t my history.

“Read the second paragraph aloud.”

I looked up at him, confused, but did as he asked. “‘Camp Controller Harris discovered the discrepancy in the Calm Control at 05:23 the following morning, after noticing an underlying frequency that had been added without his consent.’” I paused, licking my dry lips. “‘Upon further investigation of the recording devices in the Mess Hall, he came to the conclusion that the outbreak of violence there that resulted in the use of the Calm Control at approximately 11:42 was directly provoked by undercover operatives from the terrorist group the Children’s League. He believes these same operatives planted an identification frequency in the Calm Control. Psi subjects 3285 and 5312 who were taken from camp boundaries at approximately 03:34 by a Children’s League operative, are now believed to have been mistakenly identified as Green upon their initial classification.…’”

“Keep going,” Clancy said, when my voice trailed off.

“‘Subjects 3285 and 5312 are believed to be highly dangerous. Orders have been issued for their immediate recapture and reprocessing’—
reprocessing?
” My eyes flew up again. “But the way this is written…they didn’t know…they didn’t… Are you trying to tell me that they had no idea I was an Orange until
after
I got out?”

Clancy nodded. “It sounds that way.”

“Then I wasn’t in any danger after all? They wouldn’t have killed me?”

“Oh, you were definitely in danger,” he said. “They had all of the pieces, and it just took one curious mind to put it all together. But if you’re asking whether or not you would have been caught if the League hadn’t planted the frequency—then the answer to that is no, probably not.”

“Then why did they do it?” I demanded. “It seems like a huge risk to take to only get a few kids.”

“A few extremely valuable,
rare
kids,” he corrected. “Kids that would have been killed otherwise.”

Seeing my expression, he added, not unkindly, “You didn’t really think they let any of the kids like us live, did you? Not Oranges. Yellows, yes, because their threat can be contained, but not Oranges.”

I passed a hand over my face. “What about the Reds, then? They were killed, too?”

“No,” Clancy said. His voice became quiet, hesitant. “They had a much worse fate.”

I waited for him to continue, hands twisting in my lap.

“The president’s classified program.” Clancy crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back. “Project Jamboree. Dear old Dad’s been training himself a special army using all of the Reds they took from the camps. So you can see why…” He cleared his throat. “You can see why the League would be interested in finding any particularly dangerous kids for their own.”

I shook my head, dropping my face into my hands. Of all of the scenarios I had imagined—of all the things I thought had happened to those kids—this was too insane for me to have ever dreamed up.

“How could they force them into this?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow to my own ears. “Why did they agree?”

“What other choice do they have?” Clancy asked. “They were made to think that if they didn’t cooperate, something would happen to their families. They underwent a special conditioning program to make them think that they were needed and cared for absolutely. Before my father and his advisers figured out I was influencing them, I was able to supervise enough of the program to ensure that they
would
be cared for—better than if they had been in camps, at least.” He shook his head. “Don’t be afraid for them. They’ll get out from under my father’s control one day.”

And they’re not dead, I thought; there’s that.

“Ruby.”

I looked up, feeling cold down to my guts.

“Let me show you what I know,” he whispered, his other hand rising to brush the hair off my cheek. The clenched mass of nerves in my stomach eased at the touch, and I felt what few suspicions I had left about him unwinding. We were the same, in the ways that mattered. He wanted to help me, even though I had nothing to offer him in return.

“No one will be able to hurt you or change you if you can fight them off,” he said, softly.

It wasn’t depression that drove me forward—it wasn’t even self-pity. It was a pure, distilled strand of hatred, weaving its way through my core. I thought the Slip Kid would be able to help me reclaim my old life, but now I knew that wasn’t enough. I needed him to help me protect my future. When I spoke, my words burned the air between us.

“Teach me.”

TWENTY-THREE

J
UST BECAUSE
C
LANCY
had all that power, it didn’t mean he actually used it. It was strange to me that someone who could influence the thoughts of others had been born with a personality that naturally drew people to him. I witnessed it firsthand, when he offered to give me a tour of the camp.

Clancy waved at the few kids in black around the fire pit. His presence sent a buzz through the air. Smiles bloomed on every face we passed, and there wasn’t a single person that didn’t wave at us or call out some kind of greeting, even if it was just a quick, “Yo!”

“Do you ever talk to any of them about what you’ve been through?” I asked.

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, as if the question had startled him. I watched as he tucked his hands in the back pockets of his pants, his shoulders slumping with his thoughts.

“They’ve put their trust in me,” he said, with a small, sad smile. “I don’t want to worry them. They have to believe I can take care of them, otherwise our system wouldn’t work.”

This “system” was something else. It’s one thing to carve the Psi symbol into the side of buildings and string up banners over porches, but to actually internalize the message?

My first true example of this came when the girl in charge of the camp’s gardens stomped up to us on the main trail and demanded that Clancy punish three kids who she believed had been stealing fruit under her nose.

It took me two seconds of listening to Clancy talk the situation out to realize that the way of life at East River wasn’t built on a foundation of hard and fast rules, but rested almost entirely on his good judgment and what everyone under him perceived to be fair.

The accused were three Green boys, only a few months out of Cubbies. The girl in charge of the Garden had left them sitting in the dark dirt like ducks in a row. Each wore black shirts, but their jeans were in different states of disarray. I stood off to the side as Clancy knelt in front of them, completely unbothered by the wet earth staining his own pressed pants.

“Did you steal that fruit?” Clancy asked gently. “Please tell me the truth.”

The three boys exchanged looks. It fell on the larger one sitting in the middle to answer. “Yes, we did. We’re very sorry.”

I raised my brows.

“Thank you for being honest,” Clancy said. “Can I ask you why?”

The boys were silent for a few minutes. Finally, through some coaxing, Clancy got the truth again. “Pete has been really sick and hasn’t been able to come to meals. He didn’t want anyone to know, because he thought he’d get in trouble for not coming to Cleaning Duty this week, and he—he didn’t want to let you down. We’re sorry, we’re
so sorry
.”

“I understand,” Clancy said. “But if Pete is really sick, you should have told me.”

“You said at the last camp meeting that the med stuff was low. He didn’t want to take any medicine, in case someone else needed it.”

“It sounds like he needs it, though, if he’s too weak to come to meals,” Clancy pointed out. “You know that when you take food from the garden, there’s a chance that it could throw off the meals we have planned for everyone.”

The boys nodded, looking miserable. Clancy looked up at the kids gathered around us and asked, “What would you like them to do in return for taking the fruit?”

The girl in charge opened her mouth, but an older boy stepped up and leaned the rake in his hands against the simple fence surrounding the garden. “If they’re willing to help weed for a few days, a couple of us will take turns sitting with Pete and making sure he gets meals and medicine.”

Clancy nodded. “That sounds fair. What does everyone else think?”

I thought the girl in charge was going to stamp her foot in anger when everyone else agreed on that “punishment.” She was deeply unhappy with the outcome, if the red in her cheeks was any indication. “This isn’t just a one-time problem, Clancy,” she said, walking us out of the garden. “People think they can just come in here and take what they want, and it’s not like we can lock it like the storeroom!”

“I promise I’ll put it on the agenda at our camp meeting next month,” Clancy said with one of his smiles. “It’ll be right at the top of new business.”

That seemed to satisfy her, at least for now. With one curious look flung in my direction, the Empress of Vegetables turned on her heel and marched back into her domain.

“Wow,” I said, “she’s a real gem.”

He shrugged, absentmindedly fiddling with his right ear. “She has a valid point. If we start running low on food in the storeroom, we have to lean on the gardens, and if that’s been picked over, we’re in trouble. I think everyone here has come to understand how interconnected life is at East River. Hey—do you mind if I stop by and visit Pete?”

I smiled. “Of course not.”

The little boy was buried under a mound of blankets—if the bare mattresses around it were any indication, the other boys had gladly donated theirs to his pile. When his flushed face finally emerged from the covers, I said hello and introduced myself. Clancy stayed to speak with him for a good fifteen minutes, but I waited outside in the fresh air, watching the comings and goings of the camp. Kids waved and smiled at me, like I had been there for years, not a few days. I waved back, something tightening in my chest. I don’t know when it had dawned on me, or if it had been a slow, creeping realization, but I had begun to understand that black—the color that I had trained myself to fear and hate—was the same thing that allowed these kids to feel a small measure of pride and solidarity.

“You’ll never feel alone here,” Clancy said, shutting the cabin door behind him. We walked to the laundry building next, then made a stop by the wash houses to test the faucets and make sure the lights were still working. Every now and then, someone stopped Clancy to ask a question or air a complaint, but he was never anything other than patient and understanding. I watched him unravel a misunderstanding between cabin mates, take suggestions for dinner, and give his opinion on whether the security team needed more kids assigned to it.

By the time we reached the cabin that served as the Cubbies’ classroom, I was dead on my feet. Clancy, however, was ready to give his weekly lesson on U.S. history.

The room was small and crowded, but well lit and decorated with colorful posters and drawings. I spotted Zu and her pink gloves even before I saw the teenage girl at the front of the room tracing a finger down the length of the Mississippi River on an old map of the United States. Hina sat next to Zu, of course, frantically scribbling down notes. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me, but the kids actually cheered when Clancy appeared in the doorway. The girl relinquished the front of the room to him immediately.

“Alllll right, alllll right,” Clancy began. “Who can tell me where we left off?”

“Pilgrims!” a dozen voices chimed in.