The Lost Code (15 page)

“Maybe.” Lilly swiped her finger over a bar graphic, scanning satellite frequencies, but there was only the whispering static of dead air and space junk. She sighed and flicked off the pad.

She put it on the rock by the candles, and I noticed a photo frame there. It showed Lilly standing in front of two adults, a man and a woman. The man in a suit, the woman in a sari. There was a tall, older-looking boy beside them. “That’s your family?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Mom, Dad, and Anton. All dead now.”

“What happened to them?” I asked.

“Life,” said Lilly with a shrug. “Anton died in Bangladesh. My parents had tried to get him in here, too, but he didn’t want it. He was sixteen, old enough to say no. He said, with the world in such bad shape, it was wrong to just hide away when we could be helping. And then he ran off and joined a relief group to help climate refugees. I was only ten at the time, stuck doing what my parents said. Then, six years after I was Cryo’d, Anton drowned in a ferry accident.

“And my parents, I guess after they froze me, they kept trying to get into the ACF, but they never could. The HZ had filled up. They ended up staying in Calgary in the Borderlands. It wasn’t as bad there back then, but it was still bad. Mom died of the plastics cancer. One of the super-pneumonia epidemics got Dad.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “Those got my grandparents, too.”

Lilly went on like she hadn’t heard me. “You know what’s creepy is that there are vid chats, from my parents, that they made me throughout their lives. I guess they made one each year so I’d know them. There’s a few from Anton, too. . . .”

She sniffed. “They called me Tiger Lilly, their little princess-warrior. I have the files here with me, but I’ve never watched them. I started the first one once, but . . . it was too hard. I know they wanted the best for me, to save me from the chaos. Now I’m here, and I don’t want their big sacrifice to be just so that I end up as some experiment.”

She glanced up at me. I saw rims of tears beneath her eyes. “Have a seat.”

I moved to sit across from her, but she raised her blanketed arm like I should sit beside her.

I sat down in the grass and was careful not to touch her, in case that would seem too forward or weird, but then she scooted over and tossed the blanket over my shoulder. Her smooth bare thigh touched mine, her sleeve against my arm.

I saw she was looking up at the stars, so I looked up, too. “My mom left when I was seven,” I said.

“Where’d she go?” Lilly asked.

“She didn’t say. She left a note, but all it said was that she had to find her place, and that she was sorry she couldn’t be happy with us. She left with a medical caravan and we could never track her down after that.”

“That stinks.”

“Yeah. Mostly ’cause I would’ve liked to go with her. She got to go off to find herself, and Dad and I were stuck at Hub, living like moles.”

“You could have gone after her.”

It didn’t surprise me that this was Lilly’s first thought, and it made me feel lame for never really considering it. Well, I’d thought of it, but not in any real way. “I didn’t want to leave my dad,” I said. “He’s kinda sick. And he likes having me around.”

Lilly shook her head. “Parents.” I thought she’d say something else, but she didn’t.

“How’d you get this stuff out here?” I asked, nodding to the candles and radio.

She pointed behind us with her head. I saw that there was another red waterproof bag lying against the tree trunk. “I brought it out awhile ago,” she said. “That way I can come here whenever. Have some space to think.”

“Tiger Lilly Island,” I said, trying out a smile as I said it.

Lilly cocked her eyebrow at me. “Corny,” she said. Then she punched my shoulder, “Just kidding, O. I like it.”

She liked it. That was all I thought about for a few seconds.

An owl called in the distance, lonely, searching. There was no answer. I pictured it out there somewhere, looking for another of its kind, except then I remembered that it might not even be real.

“They told me you want to try to break out,” I said.

“Tsh,” Lilly chuckled. “You probably heard how that went over.”

“Yeah. Do you really think we’re part of Project Elysium? Or in danger from it, or whatever?”

Lilly turned and gazed at me. It was too dark to tell what she was thinking. “First, you tell me why you ran away from me last night. Then I’ll tell you what I think.”

“Oh, yeah,” I stumbled, not knowing where to start. “You mean . . . the siren?”

“That’s what you said last night.” Lilly’s eyes narrowed. “You mean like the sexy mermaids that drown sailors?”

“Well, no, but—I don’t know what else to call it. And it looks like a girl. Well, sort of, it—”

“It’s okay. I know,” said Lilly, rubbing my arm. “I saw it.”

“You did?”

She nodded. “Yeah, just, not at first, not when you started talking all crazy and took off. But as you were swimming away, I saw it. I tried to follow you, but you had too much of a head start. You’ve gotten fast, by the way.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Anyway, I swam for a while, but then I figured you must have headed back and I’d missed you.”

“Okay, good,” I said, feeling a wave of relief wash over me. “I’m glad you saw it, too. I was starting to think the whole thing was in my head.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not saying it’s
not
in your, or, our heads. I mean, I saw it, but you acted like you knew it. You asked me if I
heard
it. And I didn’t hear anything. What did you hear?”

“It says stuff to me.” I explained mainly what the siren’s messages had been.

Lilly frowned and didn’t respond.

“What?” I asked.

“Well . . .” Lilly started picking at her fingers. “A lot of things. I mean, that’s weird, don’t you think? Seeing this siren thing, when the others haven’t?”

“They haven’t ever seen it?” I asked.

“No, nobody’s ever talked about anything like that. What do you think she means by all that stuff she said to you?”

“No idea.”

Lilly shook her head. “Also, your siren doesn’t really sound like it has anything to do with Eden. I mean, spiking the bug juice is one thing, but I don’t think Paul is making some ghostly chick appear in the water to lure you away.”

“Yeah. I know,” I said. I thought about the vision, the pyramid, the skull. Maybe I’d save that part—I looked over and found Lilly staring at me, one eyebrow raised. “What?”

She kind of half laughed, a little hitched noise. “You have a look like either you have to pee, or there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Well, okay, yeah, there’s one other thing.” I told her about the vision, about how it felt like my throat was being slit. When I was done, she just looked at me. “It felt real,” I added.

“Whoa, okay, that’s . . . I don’t know what that is.” Lilly seemed to make up her mind then. “We should check out that area again, over by the Aquinara. Maybe we can find the siren, or this temple thing, whatever that means. It’s
got
to be part of what’s going on here, somehow.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Should we go now?”

Lilly thought for a moment. “Nah. Tomorrow night. I’ve gotta be in the Preserve early in the morning to set up for predator-prey, and we have to keep up appearances, you know? We can’t let Paul get an idea that this is going on.”

I glanced around into the darkness. “He might be watching us right now, with bats, or even cameras in the trees. Who knows?”

Lilly just shrugged. “Maybe. Still, even though most things here are completely lame, predator-prey is actually fun. We CITs get to be the top predators.” She smiled at me. “You guys are
so
dead.”

I didn’t really know what she was talking about. “No chance,” I said anyway, “you’ll never catch me.”

“Will too.” She nudged me with her shoulder. Our eyes met—stayed meeting. . . . I felt myself freezing in place.

Then Lilly twisted around. “Ooh, I have something.”

She rummaged around behind us. “Here,” she said. She had a soaking-wet plastic bag. Inside were two brownies. “Felix in the kitchen gives me anything I want.”

“Of course he does,” I joked.

Lilly narrowed her eyes at me. “Hey, watch it. You want one or not? I don’t usually share when it comes to chocolate.”

She gave me a brownie and then lay back on the grass. Her movement pulled the blanket down, and me with it, so that we were shoulder-to-shoulder, staring up at the SimStars.

“They’re so much brighter here than they were in Las Vegas,” said Lilly. “There was a ton of city light there, until the end.”

“That’s funny,” I said. “Out at Yellowstone, the stars are way brighter than this. You can barely make out constellations, there are so many.”

Just as I said it, a cloud passed over. Then more . . .

Something cold hit my eye. “Ah!” I grabbed my face. Another hit my foot. Tiny cold splashes. “What—?”

“Are you serious?” I glanced over and Lilly was staring at me. “Owen, it’s rain.”

“I’ve never seen rain,” I admitted. “Or felt it.”

“Never? Really? I mean, we didn’t get it much in Vegas either, but . . .”

I thought back to Hub. “Every now and then you hear rumors that it’s rained on the surface, overnight. One time I sneaked up top with some friends to look for puddles, ’cause people said that cougars or wild dogs would come to them, but we didn’t find anything.”

“They turn on the rain once a week here in the summer. EdenWest,” Lilly said mockingly, “fulfilling wet dreams since 2056.”

We laughed. The rain got heavier. I was blinking nonstop. “It’s cold,” I said, but then hated how wimpy it sounded ’cause I didn’t mean it that way.

“Oh yeah?” Lilly suddenly pulled the blanket away. More icy fingers pricked me, all over: face, chest, thighs.

“Agh!” I cringed as each one set off shivering tremors, and yet, they felt like little jolts of energy, too, and I had a grin so wide it almost hurt.

“We should celebrate,” said Lilly. “Owen’s first rainstorm.”

I felt her moving. Wait . . . Her leg brushed against mine, the side of her body moving against me. She appeared above me, her hair creating an umbrella, her body half on top of mine. Her smile had shortened, her mouth slightly parted, her lips right . . . there. . . . And I thought oh yes oh no oh God, could this possibly be the moment? Was this really going to happen?

I’d only kissed once before, a one-second thing with a girl named Sierra that had started our one week of dating. We only really went out because our mutual friends were, and the kiss had tasted like the canned salsa we’d just had at lunch, and our teeth had collided and it was so . . . not . . . this.

There were electric tremors running through me. I had no idea what to do, and yet I did, I could. . . . I started to crane my neck upward, toward Lilly, her giant eyes sharklike and black in the shadows and flickering candlelight—

She shoved her brownie into my mouth. “Double brownies for the rain virgin!” She rolled away, her warm body leaving me to the freezing water once more.

I fell back, awash in the drops, glad right then for how cold that water was. “Ganks,” I said around the mouthful of mushy chocolate.

Lilly didn’t reply, but she curled herself into a half moon, her head on my shoulder, and pulled the blanket over us both.

The rain picked up in intensity. My gills fluttered at the rivulets dripping down my neck.

“Why do you like me?” I asked quietly, beneath the hissing of water through leaves.

“Because you’re Owen,” said Lilly.

“Yeah, but really . . .”

Lilly didn’t answer.

I wondered for a second if I’d blown it somehow . . . but then she said, “You know how there’s all that stuff, between boys and girls, like how you’re supposed to act? And what you’re supposed to say?”

I thought of my cabin and the Foxes, and of my own meager dating experience. “Yeah.”

“Well, it’s weird, but like, with you, it was like we were already past all that. Like I already knew you, almost as if I always had. Does that sound crazy?”

What sounded crazy was the way my heart was pounding as I listened to Lilly’s words. “No,” I managed to say. “Not crazy.”

“I mean,” Lilly went on, “it’s not like I understood all that right from the start.”

“I thought you were just taking pity on me,” I said.

Lilly rubbed my head. “Well, you were all cute and pathetic. But it wasn’t pity. I was caring about you.”

“Okay,” I said. “Even though I don’t have, you know, like, killer shoulders and stuff?”

“Oh stop it,” said Lilly. She was smiling. “Your Owen muscles suit you, and they look good to me.”

“Huh,” I said, smiling too and thinking,
Whoa
.

Lilly’s grin turned devilish. “And I
heard
about how all those little Arctic Fox girls are all worked up about the new hot boy.”

“What?” I said, “No, come on. . . .”

“Mina.”

“Okay, maybe one.”

“Told you,” said Lilly.

Her lips touched my cheek, pulling away and leaving an echo of heat. She laid her head back down on my shoulder. I thought about what to say next, found nothing, and so I didn’t.

Time passed, unknowable amounts and I had no sense for it. There was just the blanket and grass, the cold of rain and the heat of Lilly like a small sun beside me, and we lay there until the clouds left and the SimStars reappeared. Later, the burn-off lightning started to jump from the array high above, its gentle thunder rolling around.

When the first purple lights of dawn turned on, Lilly said, “We should head back.”

“Okay.” I wanted to say something about what I’d been thinking of again, about us swimming the earth over, finding our own archipelago of clear water, of endless nights of rainstorms and candles, just like this. But I saved it.

I helped her stash the gear. We swam back through the depths, emerging at the empty raft.

We trudged onto shore. The dome was turning pink. The CITs were gone. I wondered what to do—give her a hug, say something—but when I turned, she had already started across the sand in the other direction, our spell broken. “See you in the Preserve,” she said. “I’m going to catch you and eat you up.”