The Gardener (21 page)

Not wanting to waste time arguing, or ask when they’d made up, I shouted for her.

As she jogged to the gate, she called out, “Is it Laila? What’s happening?”

“I don’t have time to explain. Please—we need your help.”

She took a step back, hesitating. She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t go in there.”

My knuckles grew white from gripping the axe. “Not even for Laila?”

She shook her head and stepped back.

After everything? Everything with Laila, the rush to get to TroDyn? The words came out before I could stop them. “You suck!”

I didn’t take time to see her reaction. Instead, I turned to Mom. “We have to hurry.” And we ran for the front door.

Just inside, I pointed. “This way.”

Mom said, “I know the way.”

So I brought up the rear as we ran to Solomon.

Although he was obviously in bad shape, his eyes opened and his face lit up when he saw her. Mom knelt beside him and put a hand on his face, whispering his name over and over. As he came to, she started rearranging the silver tubes. “Who did this?”

Solomon swallowed. “Eve. Eve did.”

Mom froze at the name. “Why in the world…”

I blurted, “She wants to take over. I heard in the hallway. And she’s been poisoning him.”

Mom shook her head. “I never trusted that woman.” She continued to sort through the tubes.

It was a little weird, to see the mother who always seemed on the edge of losing it be so competent, like it was second nature to her. “Here. This needs to be connected now. I don’t know if we made it in time.” She looked at me. “Can you lift him back in his chair?”

With Mom on one side, we got Solomon back in his chair, and she started hooking him back up to all the silver tubes.

I asked, “What do we do now?”

Mom asked, “About what?”

I said, “Everything! The kids in the Greenhouse. Eve taking over.” And, of course, the one thing I cared about the most. “Laila.”

Mom shook her head. “Eve is crazy. And whoever she has on her side is crazy, too.”

“But how do we stop her?”

Solomon seemed to be getting some strength back. His voice grew steadier as he spoke. “Eve has been lobbying for a long while now. She wants to make a deal with the military.”

Mom bit her lip. “I can’t believe they would go for that.”

Solomon said, “Eve lied about it. The families think it’s simply advancement in the project, a military intervention with a lot of funds that will speed our work along.”

I recalled my conversation with Dr. Emerson, her worries about the project turning toward the military. Had she been talking about Eve? “So most of them have no idea their kids would become soldiers?”

Solomon shook his head. “Except for a few who share Eve’s thinking, I doubt any of the others truly understand the implications.”

“It’s always been that way,” Mom said. “The parents are blind, blind to everything but their cause. All Eve did was put it in a bigger, prettier wrapper, and they all went along with it.” She patted Solomon’s arm. “Behind your back.”

“Oh my god,” Solomon moaned. I was starting to see him in a different light. He honestly did want to save the human race. Was it possible, despite everything I’d seen in the Greenhouse, that he was the good guy in all this? And Eve the bad one, the one to blame?

I asked, “So? What do we do about Eve?”

Solomon grabbed my mom’s arm. “You can’t let her do this—”

“But she doesn’t know you’re alive, right?” I interrupted. “I mean, she meant to leave you for dead.”

He nodded. “And it almost worked.” He looked at Mom. “There are only a handful of people here who could have fixed the damage to me.”

Solomon coughed. My mom found a towel and held it to his mouth.

I asked, “Can we shut this all down? End it now, forever?”

Solomon had stopped coughing and held the towel over his mouth. He and Mom exchanged glances.

“What?”

Mom held my arm. “Mason. You can’t just shut this project down.”

“Why not?”

She said, “You saw what happened to Laila when she was away from the others for just a day.”

“Yeah. But you can’t just keep them here. People know the truth. I know the truth. Jack knows the truth. We can tell everyone, get this place shut down.”

Mom looked over at Solomon.

“What?” I nearly screamed. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Mom cleared her throat. “Mason, I know you care about Laila, so think about this. If you were to call someone, the FBI, even Health and Human Services, what would they do?”

“What do you mean?”

Mom gestured toward the door. “The kids. What would they do with the kids? Think about it.”

There had been stories on the news before, compounds full of religious freaks who married off young girls to grown men. Law enforcement had gone in and taken care of it. “They’d make sure they were okay, wouldn’t they? Find them foster homes or something?”

Solomon’s voice was ragged when he said, “These children cannot just be sent to foster homes. Law enforcement would not understand. They’d rip the children out of here with no clue how to care for them. They’d separate them all, try to force-feed them when they refuse to eat or drink. In effect, Mason? They’d all be dead before anyone figured out what was wrong with them.”

No, it wouldn’t go down that way. “The TroDyn scientists would tell them what to do!”

Mom said, “From jail? Sweetie, they’d throw everyone, including me, in the slammer and throw away the key.”

My eyes widened. “Why you?”

“Come on.” She tilted her head and laughed a little. “I knew about this and took care of those kids in the Haven of Peace for years. TroDyn has been making automatic deposits into an account in my name for fifteen years. If nothing else, I’m an accessory. And with me in jail, even if it’s only for a little while, you’d be in the foster care system so fast your head would spin.”

The thought of losing my mom, my home, maybe my entire way of life, made me ill. I dropped onto a chair. “So what do we do?”

Solomon spoke up. “First we need to quash whatever plans Eve has. We need to let the other scientists, the other parents, know what her plans are for their children. Let them understand that the project here is in danger if she takes over.”

The alarm suddenly stopped.

I stood up.

Mom asked, “Where are you going?”

“To the Greenhouse. I’ve got to protect Laila.”

Solomon shook his head. “You can’t go there right now. We need to plan this out. I must deal with Eve myself.”

I grabbed the fire axe and bolted from the room as Mom yelled for me to come back. I couldn’t stay there, knowing something might be happening to Laila. Fortunately the orange powder was still in the corners, plus the route seemed more familiar than the last time. Three quick blasts of the alarm sounded as I neared the Greenhouse. I slowed to a jog, stopping at the last corner, before shoving open the door and stepping inside.

Eve stood near Laila with a couple of green suits. She turned to me. “You finally found it.”

She thought I’d been running around all that time, looking for the Greenhouse. I nodded as I walked to them, keeping an eye on them as I tightened my grip on the axe.

Both green suits eyed the axe and brandished their Tasers.

“Can we dispense with the showing of weapons, please?” Eve pointed at Laila. “Say your good-byes, then you can beoff.”

What good-byes? I had no intention of leaving Laila. But Eve’s tone was more ominous than the situation, no matter how unknown it was, called for. “What are you talking about?”

Eve said, “You had your chance.” She turned to Laila. “‘If you become a crocus in a hidden garden,’ said his mother, ‘I will become a gardener and I will find you.’”

Laila’s eyes dulled and her chin dipped down onto her chest.

I glared at Eve. Did she think I was an idiot? I quickly said, “‘If you become a mountain climber,’ said the little bunny, ‘I will be a crocus in a hidden garden.’”

Laila’s head raised and she looked around.

Eve rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She said something in a language that sounded like French, and Laila’s eyes dulled once more, and her head tipped forward. Eve said, “She knows it in seven languages. Do you?”

God, I
was
an idiot. Holding out the axe, I crossed in front of them to sit beside Laila. I set down the axe and reached out a hand to hold Laila’s head up.

“Just leave her. She’s better off here now anyway.” Eve straightened up, a faint smile on her face. “This project is about to come under new leadership.”

My eyes narrowed. “Solomon won’t let you.”

Her eyes flashed. “Solomon has been holding us back.”

She had no idea Solomon was still alive. And the longer she was in the dark about that, the better chance we had of stopping her. “Holding you back from what?”

Eve started to pace a little in the aisle. “TroDyn has power and money, yes. But who has more of each?”

I shrugged as I moved closer to Laila and let her head rest on my chest. At that point, I didn’t care about whatever Eve had to say.

Eve stopped moving. “The military. With their power and financial backing, this project could go leaps and bounds beyond what Solomon, what any of us, ever dreamed.”

To me, military involvement equaled point of no return, and I found myself caring again, fairly quickly. “But why would the military want to spend money to end starvation?”

Eve laughed so hard that a few tears came down her face. “That is priceless.” She held her stomach, trying to stop laughing. “Oh my god, they couldn’t care less about ending starvation.” She pointed at me. “Don’t you see the practical implications of this project? What military on Earth wouldn’t give anything to have soldiers that require no food or water?”

It was one thing to hear Solomon talking about the possibility of what would happen if the military became involved. But Eve’s reasoning made it sound like she had already cut a deal with them. “But what about Solomon? What he said about famine. Even the military will have to deal with famine.”

Still smiling, Eve said, “Solomon was worried about the wrong horseman. We need to worry about the one with the sword. War is going to end this planet long before famine does. I plan to be on the winning side.” She nodded at Laila. “And I plan for my daughter to be on the winning side.”

Although I’d known him for less than an hour, I was pretty certain of one thing. “Solomon will never allow it.”

“Solomon, Solomon, Solomon.” Eve crossed her arms. “Do you know how tired I am of hearing about Solomon? How innovative he is? How smart he is? Well, I’m done with that.” She looked at the two green suits, then glared at me. “Plenty of us are done with that.”

The double doors slammed open. Several people in white shirts and khaki pants walked in.

Eve waved a hand at them. “Didn’t you hear the lockdown? You should all be in your quarters.” She looked a little unnerved. Was it because she thought they might find Solomon? Find him and save him, like I hoped I had done?

A tall red-haired man stepped forward. He said, “The all-clear sounded a few minutes ago.”

That must have been the three blasts of the alarm I’d heard.

Eve said, “Why are you all here?”

The red-haired man looked at the woman next to him, then turned back to Eve with a frown. “This is the first place we come after the lockdown drill.” He held a hand out to his side. “To see how they are.”

Eve shook her head slightly. “I knew that.”

A man with a gray beard asked, “It was a drill, wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was a drill.” Eve stood up straighter. “And I’d hoped you would all come here, actually. Please, gather round. I have an announcement.”

Eve stepped forward, away from the row where we sat, and the green suits angled themselves in the aisle so they hid Laila’s row, and me, from view. I had no desire to reveal myself at that point, because I had no idea what any of those people would do if they saw me. And I had no plan, either for waking Laila up or getting her out of there, or even getting myself out. So it was better to just lay low as long as possible.

Eve’s voice was filled with emotion as she said, “Solomon is dead.”

Several people gasped, and one of the women burst into tears. Murmurs of “How? When? What happens now?” grew louder.

I wasn’t sure what would happen next, but I knew that those people thinking Solomon was dead would be dangerous to everyone.

So, taking a deep breath, I stood up, revealing myself to the group.

A
S THEIR MURMURS DIED DOWN
, I
WALKED TO THE AISLE
, brandishing the axe at the green suits when they turned my way.

I cleared my throat. “She’s lying.”

Eve whipped around. “Don’t listen to him.”

“No!” I yelled. “Don’t listen to
her
! She’s been poisoning Solomon for months! She ripped out his tubes and left him for dead! I saw him!”

There were more gasps and murmurs from the crowd. Maybe they were trying to figure out who they should believe. Or maybe just which one of us was less crazy. And I kind of figured my yelling and waving the axe around tipped the scale toward me being the loonier one. My bad.

The man with the gray beard spoke as he pointed at me. “Who is that?”

A few people shook their heads, as did Eve, who said, “He kidnapped Laila from the Haven of Peace, and nearly killed her before he brought her back.”

“That’s not true!” As I found myself shaking the axe once again, I realized I had a much stronger weapon at my disposal. “I’m Solomon’s son.”

The murmurs grew to outright exclamations as most of them stared at me, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth.

Eve said, “He has no proof.”

Someone called out, “He doesn’t need any proof.”

The crowd parted and I heard a squeak as my mom stepped through, pushing Solomon in his wheelchair until they stood before Eve. There were relieved exclamations. While Mom looked directly at Eve, she spoke to the crowd. “He’s my son with Solomon.”

Then the gray-haired man spoke. “Is it true about Eve?”