The Lost Code (24 page)

There was another shriek. It was eerie, high-pitched but muffled, not just by the door, but like through a gag. And definitely made of sheer terror. Maybe someone was tied up down there. At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past Paul.

“Come on, Owen!”

I glanced from her to the files. “But Dr. Maria wanted us to see these!”

Lilly scanned the room, then pointed toward a video sheet printer. “Download them!”

“Okay, yeah.” I tapped out of the folders, and dragged them to the printer icon.

The printer buzzed to life in the corner. I found a Log Out button and clicked it, gave Lilly the orange box, and hurried over to the printer.

A video sheet was slowly emerging, the files embedded in its silica fibers. I looked around the table for one of the chargers you needed to read it, little batteries that clipped into the base of the sheet and provided the current, but I didn’t see one.

I heard a beep and a thick hissing behind me. Lilly had opened the door.

“Owen! Let’s go!” Lilly’s panicked tone matched the feeling I was getting inside from having heard those screams.

“It’s almost done!” I said. “What’s the—”

Another shriek, and this time, with the heavy door open, the sound was much more horrible than I could have imagined, the note warbling and frayed. It sounded like an animal as much as a person, something terrified and alone, and it made a knot in my gut.

“No . . .” Lilly’s voice trembled. She launched out of sight.

“Wait!” I looked back at the printer. The sheet was still printing. And . . . done.

I grabbed it, rolling the smooth, clear surface as quickly and gently as I could, and then slid it into the backpack before I hurried to the door.

On the other side, a steel staircase led straight down. I could see another plastic-covered floor at the bottom. “Lilly?” I called quietly.

I started down the stairs, my feet clanging on the metal. There were sounds down there. Mostly machines. Humming. But also something rhythmic like breathing.

I neared the bottom. Another sound. Like a low voice, speaking to someone else.

Closer.

The voice bubbling, something miserable and lonely about its edges. I thought of the way that mourners spoke quietly to the tiny cinder piles after funerary ceremonies back home, just before setting the ashes free on the night breeze.

I reached the bottom step.

Another agonizing scream clawed at my ears.

The room was perfectly circular, almost like the Atlantean room, everything bathed in white light, reflecting off shiny surfaces.

Brilliant white. Only this room had a very different purpose. . . .

And I felt myself lose touch with my skin, like I’d come unstuck inside, a floating thing, tethered only by the images appearing in my eyes. Things I could never have imagined.

But this was not the dream inside the skull.

This was a nightmare.

I AM ON A BEACH. STANDING IN A GRAY MIX OF
pebbles and sand. Bright morning sun makes the water blinding. The lake is surrounded by an amphitheater of jagged mountains, their peaks topped with snow.

In front of me is a little ship crafted of dark wood beams, brilliant copper plating at its joints.

“No, no, no, oh God, no . . .” The voice is behind me somewhere. Back in reality.

Don’t listen to that.
I look beside me to see Lük. He stands before his own similar boat. And there are others to either side of us, in a line, all about my age.
Stay here
, says Lük.
See this.

Are we in the skull?
I ask.

No
, Lük replies,
we are in your head, inside our shared memory.

I look back at the craft before me. It is like the one in the temple: single mast, metal triangular object in the center with the oval-shaped clay pot on top. The curved metal poles arch over the front half from one corner to the other.

“No, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. . . .”

Cast out!
a voice calls from behind us. I turn to see a teacher in a maroon robe ushering us away. He is large, bald, with a curving pattern of black tattoos across his face that makes him look more like a warrior than a teacher.

Behind him, stone buildings ascend in levels back toward the city. Our city. The sky is blue. This is before the ash and darkness. In the midday sun I can see the shining mosaic tiles on walls, the copper frames around windows and roofs, the brilliant gold-plated tips of obelisks and domes, the arched bridges spanning from one cluster of buildings to another. I can see the white globes that burn eternally around the square top of the central pyramid.

Like this
, says Lük. He steps into his craft with one foot, pushing away from the beach with the other. Everyone is doing the same. So do I. The craft wobbles laterally as I get in. I steady my balance. With a gritting sigh, the craft leaves the sand and drifts over the lapping waves.

Where is the wind?
Lük asks.

I know this. I feel it.
To our right, a westerly. About ten knots?

Yes. So run a port-side sail.

Okay.
I pop open the seat on my left and pull out a rolled bundle of fabric. Find the corners, marked by copper rings. I rummage back in the box for the short rope lines. They are smooth and stretchy, woven of silk. I tie anchor-hitch knots to fasten the three points of the sail to the junctures of the curved pole structure and the mast, my fingers twisting the rope without thinking, then throw the sail up to the left side of the boat. It billows into the air, catches a full breath, and the craft shoots off away from shore.

“Stay with me, just stay, okay? Stay. . . .”

Steer with the pedal rudder!
says Lük. He is pulling ahead of me. I look down and see a wooden plank sitting on a metal fulcrum. Pressing it down left or right will control the rudder. I turn the craft to grab the wind.

We have to get enough speed to generate a charge for the heat cell
, says Lük.

Heat cell?

That clay pot. It gets its charge from turbines. Look over the side.

I do and see a blur of spinning metal beneath the waves, some kind of small wheel attached to the side of the craft.

We’re close. Now put up the thermal!
I look over to see Lük, and others spread out over the water, arranging large pieces of fabric. One of them billows full, creating a spherical balloon above the craft.

I open the other seat, pulling out a large bundle. I run it through my hands until I find the triangular opening. This needs to be positioned directly above that little copper nozzle on the clay pot.

“Please, please . . .”

That voice is tugging too hard. Though I want to, I can’t avoid it. The other craft are beginning to rise from the water, taking flight, but the image is starting to wash away.

Owen!
Lük calls to me. I see him looking down, through bright sun, but it is fading into white and blue.
Stay here! Learn this!

I can’t
, I say.

I have to leave. I have to go back and face what I’ve seen.

“COME ON, JUST HANG IN THERE, I’LL GET YOU
out. I swear.”

I blinked. I was back in the cylindrical lab. Around the wall there were metal exam tables on wheels. Five of them. Each had a tent of plastic, stretching up from the edges of the table to a point at the ceiling. The air smelled like strong chemicals, alcohol and ammonia, burning my nostrils.

In the middle of the room, there were three more exam tables that had been tilted to vertical. In the very center was a little round table. There was nothing on it except for an old brown jacket, draped there. On the floor were three thick cables, weird clear tubes stuffed with twisting, multicolored wires, and with large, clear suction cups at their ends. These ran up into the air, to the three vertical tables, where they connected to clear masks. Masks over the faces of Evan, Aliah, and Marco, who were strapped to the tables, hanging there, heads slumped forward, eyes closed. Their heads had been shaved in spots to allow little electrodes to be affixed to their scalps. Banks of monitors blinked beside them.

It was the Nomad’s jacket in the middle of the room. The skull had been here. And the CITs had been tested to see if it would work for them like it did for me. But that wasn’t where Lilly was.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Her voice was coming from my right, by one of the flat metal tables. I could see the cloudy shape of a figure through the tent. Lilly was leaning through a rectangular hole in the plastic. She had unzipped a panel that now hung down like a flap of skin. Her hands were in there, working feverishly. I could see the wet gleam of her eyes, the tears falling, the tremors running down her arms and legs.

I moved over to her. I didn’t want to look, but then I followed Lilly’s arms into the brilliant white light inside the tent, down to her wrists, where the blood began. To her hands, which were soaked, to her fingers, which fidgeted furiously at a buckle.

A buckle strapped over a clear plastic piece.

A plastic piece that covered a chest.

A chest that had been opened, that lay open now, skin peeled back, ribs separated.

Lungs inflating.

Heart beating.

“It’s okay, Anna, it’s okay.”

Anna.

And it was worse. Even worse than all the tubes and wires running down into her open torso. Little white dots, sensors, were stuck to organs. Little spray jets, misters, were mounted to the plastic piece, sending down a fine spray to keep things moist.

The incision ended at her collarbone, but then her neck, her gills, had been pried open, skin shaved away around them. Bumpy muscle and veins exposed. Two thick plastic tubes snaked down into her mouth from machinery above. One was foggy with condensation, from air, the other dotted with bubbles, from water. The water flowed out of her gills, being caught by curved funnels. There was a steady sound of falling water.

She screamed again, a shriek that was muffled by the tubes, but still agonizing.

And there were other tubes running everywhere, some filled with clear liquid, some with red. Multicolored wires running out of her body. Towers of monitors blinked and beeped beside her.

And her eyes were open. Green eyes in a pretty face; hair that if it hadn’t been matted with months, years of grease would have been blond. It flowed out chaotically behind her, strands knotted in the tubing.

Anna stared at Lilly. Her eyes couldn’t have been wider.

“Just gonna get this off,” Lilly was saying, her voice shaking. “Unhook all this, and then get you out. Oh God, Anna, I’m so sorry.”

Anna blinked, leaking tears. She made a quieter sound now. “Uuuu.” Her eyes flashed to the bank of machines. “Uuuu.”

I stared at the body, this girl, now a science project. This was a girl named Anna, a girl who had smiled and laughed and swam with Lilly, only now she was just insides, systems and organs dissected and turned into a living archaeology site. She had been torn apart by Paul and Eden in their search for the secret code . . . for me.

“Uuuu,” Anna moaned. Her eyes fluttered back in her head.

“Almost there,” Lilly assured her softly, her fingers flicking open the buckle. She threw the straps aside and pulled away the protective plastic piece, dropped it on the floor with a hollow thud that reverberated around the room. Her fingers twitched for a second. “I don’t—,” she said like she was talking to herself, and it was edged with a sob. I wondered what she was going to say, but then she started reaching gingerly down among Anna’s insides, pulling out the little electrodes.

“Uuuu.”

I looked back at poor Anna’s pretty eyes, the edges red and crusted, surrounded by rings of bruising. The searing white lights reflecting in her green irises. Again, she was looking up as if into her own skull, then down, then back up. Was something happening to her? Or maybe she was trying to say something.

“Lilly, wait,” I said. Peering behind Anna’s head, through the plastic . . . I ducked my head out of the tent and looked to the wall. A thick power cord snaked up to a socket. “I think she wants us to turn it off.”

“What?” Lilly snapped, sniffling. Her blood-soaked fingers were still working to untangle wires.

“To turn off the machines.”

Lilly kept working. I wondered if she’d heard me. Then she stopped. It seemed to take a lot of effort for her to look Anna in the eye. And doing so made her cry again. “Unplug it? Should we do that first? Before I take these off? Will that make it hurt less?”

Anna’s eyes welled again, big rims of tears, and she nodded.

“Okay, okay, and then we’ll finish getting you out.” Lilly turned toward the plug, but I caught her arm.

“Hey,” I said quietly, “I . . . I don’t think she wants us to get her out.” I couldn’t be sure, but that was how it seemed. I imagined myself like this. Like
that.
And it wasn’t like we could carry her out of here, not in her condition.

“What are you talking about?” Lilly jerked away from my arm.

“Wait.” I stepped in front of her. Held her shoulders. “I think turning it off will let her die.”

“She—” Lilly started shaking her head, almost like she wanted to keep the idea from sticking in her mind. “But, we can’t, we need to—”

“Lilly. Look at her.”

I did. Lilly didn’t for a moment, then finally did, too. “Is that what you want?” she whispered.

Anna nodded at us, slight movements of her head against the tubes. More tears, but also something like relief in her eyes.

“Oh, God,” Lilly sobbed. She backed away. “I can’t.”

I took Lilly by the shoulders and turned her to Anna. I knew what I had to do, and I hated it. “You stay with her.”

Lilly was frozen, like this had broken her. But then she nodded. She reached into the tent and put one hand behind Anna’s head. With the other, she rubbed a thumb on Anna’s cheek, wiping away the tears. “It’s going to be okay,” she said, her voice getting thick. “You hear me? It will all be okay in just a minute. . . .”

I stepped over to the wall. Took hold of the plug. The attachment was tight. I held my breath and tore it free.

The machines around Anna went dark. Humming cycled down to silence. Anna’s breathing stopped.

“I love you,” I heard Lilly whisper.

I thought about going back to her, to hold her, or something, but thought I’d leave her last moment with Anna for her. Besides, I didn’t want to see that again.

I took a deep breath. Let it out slow. Now I knew what Paul, Eden, even Dr. Maria had been capable of.
This
was what she’d been apologizing for up on the ledge.

I looked around this dim subterranean lab, the evil doppelgänger of the Atlantean room. This, right here, beneath the cheery camp, the TrueSky, the SafeSun lamps, the entire dome, this was the heart of EdenWest, a chamber of blood and suffering. And now of death. In this place, they’d been searching for what was inside me. I ran my hand over my chest, imagined the ribs being sawed open, fibers tearing as the covers were spread apart, cold air on my bare organs. . . . He would do that, if he thought he needed to. He would do it without hesitation.

Yet even knowing that, it was still almost impossible to really imagine someone cutting open a girl and stuffing her insides with tubes, like she was nothing more than a piece of equipment.

I walked, dazed, over to the next tented table. I could see the outline of a body. I looked through the clear plastic window. He was a younger boy I didn’t know. Probably one of the missing kids that the CITs had mentioned. This was where they’d all really gone. To be pried open and dissected, studied
, understood
. Lilly and Evan had talked about scientists growing ears on the backs of mice, of clones. None of that had ended. It had just gone underground, followed the money. Everyone knew EdenCorp had tons of money.

The next table held little Colleen, her insides on display. Her eyes were open. Wide, innocent. She looked at me. A soft moan from her tubed mouth. I could barely look at her, remembering her little pained voice the other day in the infirmary. Inside, I felt things closing up, locks going on chambers of feeling.

Let’s just put these away for a while
, said the technicians solemnly.

Then I stepped to the wall and pulled her plug.

Went around the edge of the room, from one tented table to the next.

Pulled all the plugs.

Humming slowing down to silence. Little lights going dark. Tortured lives ending.

When I was done, I slumped against the wall, cockeyed because of the pack on my shoulder. I felt heavy, too heavy. Slid down, and finally acknowledged the feeling in my gut. Threw up on the floor. A splat of liquid. Closed my eyes. Needed there to be nothing for a while. . . .

But another sound began. A voice through a speaker. Coming from behind me. From Dr. Maria’s backpack.

I pulled the pack off my shoulder, knelt, and dug into it. Under the medical kit, there was an extra shirt, flashlight, some soymeal protein bars, and a subnet phone.

“Is, um, anyone hearing this?” On the little phone screen was Aaron. “Oh, hey, it’s the gill boy, I mean, Owen. Maria gave you the phone, I take it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Dr. Maria said you were a friend.”

Aaron nodded. He looked past me. “Oh, looks like you’ve been down to the chamber of horrors.” I didn’t know if that was supposed to be humorous or what. If it was, then Aaron had a sick sense of humor, and right then, I couldn’t find a response.

Aaron glanced over his own shoulder. “Listen, we need to get you out of here,” he said quietly, “as soon as yesterday. There’s a maintenance hatch due south of the boys’ cabins. Number six. How soon do you think you can get there?”

I tried to measure the distance in my head. “Half an hour?” I guessed.

“Okay, good. I can tell Robard and the Nomads to send a team to meet you there. And I can disable that door, provided you don’t get caught before then. But, near as I can tell, Paul is back down in the temple, so you should have some time.”

“Okay,” I said. “We—well, Dr. Maria is—”

“I know, kid, I saw it happen live on the cameras. Just get to that south maintenance door, number six, okay? I’m opening it in thirty minutes and it can’t be open long.”

“Okay.”

The screen went blank. I stared at it. Yes, leaving now. No special flying craft, no skull . . . no ending up on one of these exam tables.

There was a zipping sound. Lilly was closing the plastic window above Anna. She moved back to the middle of the room, to Evan, the closest CIT. I watched her check his pulse and nod. “Still there,” she said. “I checked them when I first came down.”

“Good,” I said. “Hey . . .” I slung the backpack onto my shoulder. “Aaron says he can open a door for us, but we have to get there in thirty minutes. Which means, now.”

“Okay,” said Lilly. “Just help me get them down, and we’ll go.”

I looked at the bodies, felt the clock ticking. We had to move. “Listen, Lilly, Paul’s not going to do what he did to Anna, to these guys. Now that he knows about the skull and us—”

Lilly spun at me. “They’re my
family
, Owen!” She was screaming suddenly, just screaming at me. Her face twisted. A furious animal. “You still have one. I don’t!”

“We’re going to end up like
that
”—I pointed to Anna—“if we don’t get out of here!” I couldn’t help yelling back. I could almost feel the knives slicing my chest open, looking for the Atlantean inside.

“Then
go
!” She turned and started unstrapping Evan. “I’d rather die than lose them, too.”

Her words echoed around in my head.
Lose them, too.
She’d already lost one family.

I looked again at the CITs and then I realized I was wrong: Paul might not cut them open, might not need to, but now that they’d been down here, seen all this, was he really going to let them go back to lifeguarding? I felt pretty sure that once you ended up in this room, the only way you were getting out was the way Anna just had. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right. It’s just, the time—”

“Then start helping.”

I did. Lilly pulled a needle carefully from Evan’s elbow. We unbuckled straps, and he crumpled into our arms. “Evan, wake up,” Lilly whispered in his ear.

“Nnnn,” he moaned. We dragged his hulking body over to the wall and propped him there.

We did the same with Aliah and Marco. By the time we were done, they were coming to.

“Man.” Marco was coming out of it the fastest. He rubbed the back of his head. “Security Forces busted in while we were visiting Evan in the infirmary. All I remember after that is something white. . . . What
was
that?”

“A skull from Atlantis,” Lilly said matter-of-factly. Marco looked at her. “No time for all that,” she said. “We’re getting out of here, but we have to move. Can you guys walk?”

“We can try.” Marco started pushing himself up the wall. He helped Aliah.

“Guh, what happened?” Evan’s eyes blinked open. He saw me and frowned. “Last thing I remember, I . . . you . . .” He squinted at me. “Isn’t that my shirt?”