The Forsaken (34 page)

“Can I—” the drone begins. “Can I put his mask back on?”

“Make it fast,” Markus tells him.

So Minister Harka is dead,
I think as the drone reattaches the mask. And we’re the only ones on the entire planet who know it. Of course, for the citizens back home, he’s still alive. He’ll probably be alive as long as the UNA exists, an ageless cipher of a corrupt regime.

The drone walks back over to us, in a trance.

I realize that this whole time, no one has even asked him what his name is. “Hey,” I say softly, trying to be nice. In a weird way, I feel sorry for him. “What’s your name?”

He looks at me. “I don’t . . .” He pauses. “I don’t remember.”

Gadya makes a scoffing noise. Maybe she thinks he’s lying, but I can tell from his eyes that he’s telling the truth.

“I’ve been with the Monk a long time. Three winters. I think my name was John. Or James. Or—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Gadya interrupts. “Pick one, and that’s what we’ll call you.”

“James,” the drone says. He repeats it, his voice getting stronger. “Call me that.”

So we leave Minister Harka’s body there by the frozen lake after we’ve warmed ourselves as best we can by the fire. We head up the desolate beach from the shore, into the forest. I don’t look back, and neither do any of the others, not even James.

I don’t know how long we can survive out here without succumbing to the elements. We’re all going to end up like Minister Harka sooner or later, unless we find some way out of this cold. I thought I’d enjoy watching him die, but I didn’t—not after I learned the truth. Of course he took most of his mysteries with him to the grave. I still don’t know what he was going to say about my parents.

I look around at my ragged band of companions. David is no longer Markus’s prisoner. The others trust him now. Still, that doesn’t matter if we can’t achieve our goal. So many of us are already dead. Maybe none of us will make it all the way to the end.

I force the negative thoughts away. I can’t afford to think that way.

We limp up a hill, getting closer to that shimmering mirage that supposedly masks a city beyond it. This hidden city must hold the secret to our escape—assuming Minister Harka was telling the truth, which is a pretty big assumption.

I keep walking. I wonder what will happen if more feelers spot us now. I’m surprised that others didn’t come when we got trapped on the lake, but maybe the fact that we killed one of them scared the rest off. Of course, we won’t be able to fight like that again. There’s not enough of us left, and we’re too weak now.

I think of my dad and his Greek myths for the millionth time.
To imagine Sisyphus happy.
Sometimes I wish I could get that phrase out of my head, because I just can’t do it yet. It’s a contradiction to imagine him happy when he has to suffer so much.

But I do know one thing: Sisyphus must have been one hell of a survivor. He didn’t give up, whether he was happy or not. Focusing my mind on that thought, I start walking even faster, leading the pack with Gadya and David as we move through the forest toward our unknowable destiny.

BY THE TIME WE FINALLY
reach the base of what is indeed a bizarrely shimmering wall, I can’t feel much below my knees. I’m stumbling forward unsteadily. The others crowd around me. The air is so cold and still here that it’s like being inside a vacuum. The tips of Rika’s ears look like they’re crusting and turning black. I probably look even worse.

“Minster Harka wasn’t lying,” I say, as I look up at the wall. It’s thin like a sheet of silk fabric, nearly translucent. Behind it, something is projecting images of trees and sky onto the material so that it camouflages whatever sits beyond. The screen creates the illusion that the forest continues forever.

Gadya pushes at the fabric tentatively. It sways slightly, like a giant movie screen suspended on hundred-foot poles. I reach out and push it too.

I look closer at the material. I see small holes and tears in it, like it’s been hanging here a long time and is starting to fall apart. Still, it creates a relatively convincing illusion, at least from a distance.

“We have to cut our way through,” I say.

Then I see that Gadya already has her knife out. She holds it up and slices downward in one clean motion. The blade shears the material, opening up a slit in the fabric. A colored light shines through, like we’ve exposed part of the projection mechanism.

“Who wants to go first?” Gadya asks.

Markus lumbers forward, barging his way through the opening. I follow, with David, Gadya, Rika, and James at my heels.

Within seconds, we’re all standing there at the top of a grassy hill. Bright projector lights shine into our faces. I hold my hand above my eyes, trying to block the lights out. Behind the lights, I can see buildings, and my heart leaps.

We’ve found the hidden city!

But “city” isn’t the best word to describe it, because it looks nothing like New Boston or New Providence.

From our angle, I mostly see the black roofs of gigantic industrial buildings stretching out for miles in either direction. It’s a mix of warehouses and factories. They’re all dotted with massive silver ducts, venting white puffs of steam into the frigid air. Tangles of white pipes connect many of the buildings to one another and run off into the surrounding forest at oblique angles.

Beyond the city is the shore of the gray zone. Blue-green ocean stretches out for miles, and I can smell the tang of briny salt water.

I can’t believe we’re actually here.

We walk forward, passing underneath the projectors. They sit in vertical rows on acres of metal scaffolding, projecting images onto the undulating fabric. This scaffolding appears to surround the entire inland side of the city, shielding it from view.

Every single building is ugly and monolithic. Rail lines stretch off to our left, heading farther up the coast. I don’t see any sign of landing strips for aircrafts, but they could be hidden too. I also don’t see any feelers—at least not yet.

Weirdest of all, I don’t see any people. Everything looks deserted. The only sign of life is the smoke that rises from the chimneys and vents, forming low-lying clouds of steam and pollution in the sky.

“How do we get down there and inside the buildings?” I ask.

“We hike.” Markus sounds completely wiped out. “David, you know anything about this place?”

“Not yet.” He’s scanning it with his eyes.

“See that one building?” Rika asks faintly. “Near the center of the city.” It’s the first time she’s spoken in a while. “The round one with the silver paint on it?”

We follow her gaze. The building is one of the largest ones I’ve ever seen in my life. Perhaps twice the size of the GPPT scanning arena in New Providence.

“Yeah,” David says.

“Well, that’s the one,” Rika replies. “The place we need to get to.”

Gadya looks at her. “And why do you think that?”

Rika peers down at the ground, suddenly shy. “Because I’m a fail-safe. . . . In case everyone else died.” I look at her, startled. “Veidman knew I was coming the whole time. He asked me to. He said no one would expect me to know anything. That no one would question me.”

“Unbelievable,” Gadya says, shaking her head.

Just as I’m wondering how Veidman could know which building we had to get to—apparently without knowing about the screen and the projectors—Rika adds, “He also wanted me to spy on everyone. Tell him if anyone acted weird.”

“He asked me to do the same thing,” I confess. I’m starting to realize that Veidman probably asked each of us to spy on one another and report back to him. Maybe he thought that was the only way to figure out who the real spy was.

“Rika’s correct about the building,” Markus adds softly. “According to all the data we’ve gathered, I think that’s the nerve center of this entire place. We have to get down there and find a way in. From there we can figure out how to locate the aircraft hangars. They could be underground.”

James is silent, his face grim. He probably thinks we’re all going to die.

As a group, we start walking down the hill toward the city. I know that we’re exposed out here, but we don’t have another option.

For some reason, no feelers come out to greet us. Then I have a depressing thought: Maybe there are no feelers here because they don’t need to swoop in and kill us anymore. Maybe whoever runs this island knows we’re going to die anyway, and they just don’t want to run the risk that we’ll destroy another precious feeler.

As we keep hiking, getting closer to the industrial city, I realize that the central building presents a kind of illusion. It looked so sleek and massive from a distance. But up close, I see cracks and holes in its curved exoskeleton. Peeling silver paint, and white fissures like marbled slabs of meat, run up and down its side. It clearly hasn’t been maintained in years.

“How can this place be in such bad shape?” I whisper to Gadya, who’s walking right next to me. “What does it mean?”

“No clue,” she mutters.

“Me neither,” David adds. “This is uncharted territory.”

We walk closer, until finally we’re standing on a slab of cracked concrete at the bottom of the hill, several hundred feet from the buildings. The entire place is still deserted and silent, except for the sounds of distant machinery hidden behind thick walls. All of us are on guard.

We cautiously head toward the massive silver building. When we finally reach it, Gadya moves up to one of the largest cracks in the building’s wall. “Air’s coming out,” she says. She presses her face up to the crack, trying to see inside, but then recoils violently.

“It’s freezing!” she yelps. I can see a white, bubbling welt on her cheek. A raw blister. “It’s even colder inside than it is out here! It’s like dry ice.” She raises her hand and touches the blister, wincing.

“Must be some kind of cooling plant inside,” David conjectures. “I don’t know for what. Maybe they need it so their machines don’t overheat.” He crosses his arms, trying to stay warm against the biting cold. Trying to figure things out.

I’m just surprised this place is so dilapidated. I expected anything but this.

Gadya’s blister is already fading from a white pustule into angry redness. “We can’t break inside this place. It’s too cold. We’ll die.”

“Then let’s keep walking,” Rika says dully.

Markus nods. James just stares at the ground.

I’m looking around, suddenly realizing there could be cameras anywhere on these buildings. I should have thought of that sooner. “You think we’re being watched?” I ask out loud.

“Probably,” David says. “The UNA loves to watch people, so it can control them.”

“Then why’s no one stopping us?”

“We’re either lucky or it’s a trap,” Gadya guesses.

Markus is still scanning the silver building. “This way,” he says. “We need to find a door, or some kind of way inside. Rika, you got any more information that we need to know?”

“I wish I did.”

We start heading east, along the curved edge of the building. It’s incredibly cold here, as if the building itself emanates the frigid air permeating the gray zone. I’m glad for the numbness, or else I’d probably be in more pain. I don’t care anymore if I get frostbite. I just want to get off the wheel.

So I walk. Occasionally we pass holes in the building that are as large as my fist, and I try to sneak glances inside, dodging streams of icy air. I can’t really see inside because it’s so dark, but I hear the distant rumble of machinery and occasionally catch glimpses of large metallic shapes moving around.

It reminds me of video footage of a factory that we were forced to watch in New History class a year ago. The footage was about the UNA’s military prowess, of course, and how we were the greatest superpower the world had ever known. It showed tanks and airplanes being constructed in massive hangars, and rows of gleaming war machinery that kept our enemies frightened of us.
That’s what this place looks like to me—some kind of military installation.

I glance inside another jagged hole as we pass. But when I try to see more, I suddenly get a blast of cold air straight to my eyeballs.

“Crap!” I twist away, blinking madly, temporarily blinded.

“You okay?” Gadya asks.

“Fine,” I tell her, rubbing my stinging eyes. My sight comes back, blurry at first but then slowly clearing. I keep blinking, breathing warm air into my gloved hands and cupping them over my face.

“You gotta be careful,” David says. “We don’t know what we’re up against. This city might be a testing ground for new weapons, or the place where new weapons get built. Either one is possible, and equally dangerous.”

We keep walking, our feet crunching on the icy broken pavement. Our journey has become an endurance test. There’s no end to this building, or so it seems. It looks the same no matter how far we walk. I glance back and see it stretching endlessly behind us, like a mechanical wave constructed from steel and brick, frozen in space and time right here at the edge of the wheel.

“Up ahead!” Gadya suddenly calls out.

I stop walking and squint.

In the distance, I see a break in the monotony. We’ve come upon a thicket of the large white plastic pipes, each one taller than a person. Each one covered in ice. They stick out the side of the building and run directly across our concrete path in a thick mazelike tangle.

David comes to a halt too and stares into the distance. “Some kind of venting system?” he guesses. Here and there, steam rises from small gasket holes in the pipes. “What are they trying to keep so cold in this place?”

Rika looks despondent. “More important, how are we going to get through these pipes?”

“We might have to backtrack,” Markus replies. “I don’t know if people are meant to be here. It looks too industrial. Like it’s only meant for machines or something.”

“It’s too cold to go back,” Gadya says. “We have to go forward.”

“Then we’ll have to go over and under the pipes,” I say. “Like it’s a jungle gym.”

David nods in agreement.

We all walk closer. It takes another fifteen minutes to even reach the tangle of pipes, which looms large ahead of us. At least sixty pipes extend out of the wall at different heights, leading away from the structure, forming an oddly impassible barrier.