The Reaping (27 page)

I take a deep breath. This is it. I’m going back and I’m going to do something. No more trickling the nomads down to the colonies—that would have never solved anything. Now I’m going to destroy the serum. My resolution solidifies and helps ease the knot in my stomach. I’m doing something, I repeat to myself.

Jessa, Jack, and Dave go down the hatch, and I’m left on the platform with Gaea, my hands holding the straps of my pack. I close my eyes and breathe. I’m stepping into the hatch when he calls me.

“Terra?”

My father.

His voice is uncertain, filled with the doubt that has pulled us apart more times than I can count. I turn back to him.

“Teresa,” he says.

My mother nods and then she turns and goes down the hatch.

I raise my hands to ask,
What?

His eyes find mine for a moment and then he drops them to the floor. He looks different, and it takes me a second to realize why. He’s not wearing his speaker’s sash. Could he really be coming to me just as my father?

“Terra, I . . .” He doesn’t say anything more.

I cross my arms.

“I resigned as Speaker. The elections will be next week.”

That startles me. Being speaker was the most important thing in his life. Then I notice he’s holding a drive case in one hand. I point to it.

He looks at it like it could reach out and bite him. Then he sighs, long and drawn-out. “I should have done this the second you asked me for help. I should have said yes as soon as I saw you. There are so many things I should have done.” He runs his hand over his face, and I notice how tired his eyes are.

What is it?

He holds it out to me. “One of the security techs put this together for me. A special request and thankfully he didn’t ask too many questions. It’s part of why I resigned. As speaker, I never could have condoned this action. But as your father—something I should have been more concerned about from the beginning—there was never a question. I tried to see if we could establish a link to their servers remotely, but it can’t be done. The code on this drive will hack in. If you can install this on their main server, we can link to it, and then we can wipe out all their data.”

I raise an eyebrow and shake my head. Sure that would be an inconvenience, but it wouldn’t be the end of the regime, right? I’m ready to wave off this offering that feels like too little too late, but my father speaks.

“We can destroy all their data about the serum.”

Tears prick my eyes and my throat is thick. Finally, after all this time, my dad is helping me. I swing my legs out of the hatch and throw my arms around him. His hands hesitate in the air, but then he presses them against my back and hugs me more tightly than he ever has before.

“I’m sorry. I’ll spend the rest of my life saying I’m sorry.”

He leans his head against mine, and I close my eyes. This is what it should have been like the past seventeen years. This is what it should have felt like to have a father.

“This isn’t enough—I know it’s not—but it’s all I could do with such little time. I don’t know exactly what their technology is like to know how you’ll install it.” Dad smiles ruefully. “I’ll leave that to your ingenuity.”

I smile at him—maybe the first genuine smile I’ve offered him in years—and he puts a hand on my cheek. Worry knits his brow and his lips turn down.

“Please be careful. What I’m giving you is so dangerous that I don’t know why I’m even doing it. They won’t forgive this. You know that, right?”

I nod, turning the small device over in my hands. This small scrap of metal and plastic might just save all of the citizens of New America. I will never be forgiven if the government finds me.

Dad holds me for a moment more before his hands let me go and he steps back. His eyes are wet, but he doesn’t turn away.

“I love you, Terra.”

I love you too
, I mouth. It’s true.

Chapter Twenty-one

Jessa is masterful at maneuvering the sub. We’ve all been raised doing it, so I’m not too shabby, but she glides smooth as silk from the sub dock and away from the colony. The lights burn brightly, cutting through the dark water. I’m trained on them until they’re no more than pinpricks and then they’re gone, swallowed up in blackness as if they were never there at all.

Leaving the colony the first time was terrifying but liberating. I left everything I had ever known and loved, but I escaped the monotony and the life that felt like a prison to me. All for a whim, a fleeting dream. Now I’m leaving the colony with the drive clutched in my fist and a seed of dread planted in my heart because I know what I need to do and I know what the consequences will be if I’m discovered.

Jack sits beside me but says nothing. There’s nothing more to say. I don’t know if I’ll ever come back again.

I could have refused the drive. I could have told my father no. But that would mean abandoning the citizens of New America—people who have become my friends, people who I love—to the government that wants nothing more than to have absolute control over their lives. There never really was a choice for me. I had known it the second my father offered his last gift. This chance to free them is something only I can offer them. I just hope they’ll use this chance to break free. Erasing the data of the serum won’t erase the serum from their lives forever. There are scientists who will recreate it, but if the people—my people—fight back first, the serum will never take control of them again.

Jessa’s fingers run over the control panel, entering coordinates and programs for the sub to follow as it slips through the Pacific Ocean for the government island.

I turn away from the window. It’s been ten minutes since the lights of the colony faded, and my eyes are dry from straining through the darkness. I’m ready to stand. I need to move my legs, I need to pace, I need to keep my brain away from the drive in my hand, but Jack tucks me against his side.

“You’re amazing,” he whispers, kissing my forehead.

I don’t feel amazing right now. There’s a pit starting to gnaw at my stomach, and its root is what I know I have to do in a matter of days.

“I’m coming with you. All the way to the end.” He takes my hand and uncurls my fingers from the drive.

I take his other hand.
Remember what you said after I left the settlement?

He smiles. “I’ll go with you. I may not be what you’re looking for right now, but you’ll need a friend. I’ll come with you.”

Word for word.

“I’ll never forget it. Because that wasn’t what I really wanted to say.”

What?

“Don’t worry, I meant every word of that.” He strokes his fingers down each one of mine and turns my hand over and over in his, like he’s memorizing every line. “I just couldn’t say the whole truth. You would have kept running from me.”

The pit is gnawing, but I can’t help smiling in spite of it.
What did you want to say?

“I’d follow you anywhere.”

I look at his face, and he stares back earnestly. I shake my head and take his hand to write on it, but he stops me.

“That’s the whole truth. That’s what I’ve tried to show you. And I’ll follow you to the end of this.” He nods at the drive. “So don’t try to talk me out of it. I know you’ll try. I know you, Terra. But it won’t work, because I’m coming with you. Do you understand me?”

I look at his hands that have healed me in so many ways. His hands are strong and gentle. They should never be used for this kind of work. A part of me wishes he would stay as far away from me as he could. Where I’m going there’s nothing but blood. But there’s another part of me—the selfish part—that won’t let him out of my sight again.

I understand.

I feel eyes on me, and I look up to find Dave staring at us with a longing look on his face. I clear my throat. I can see it in his eyes—he’s thinking about Mary, and it’s probably killing him to watch us be like this when he should be the same way with her. I train my eyes on my hands until I feel his gaze finally relent.

Jessa gets the sub on course and then pulls out our breakfast rations and sits with us.

“Two days,” she says between mouthfuls of oatmeal.

I close my eyes. Two days. It’s such a short amount of time.

“Want to play checkers?”

I laugh, but then see she’s serious.

“I brought Dad’s old set. Remember how we used to play when we were little?”

You made up the rules.

“And I won every time.”

Let’s play.

So we pass the next two days talking and playing games. Gaea sits on the periphery, not saying anything, but always there, just where I can feel her presence. I feel like we’re all making up for lost time—for the days we spent not understanding each other. It’s refreshing to be completely myself with everyone here.

The guidance system beeps at us.

“Destination is five miles away.”

Jessa flips on the view screen, and we get a glimpse of the government island looming on the water. Island is a little generous. Island implies trees and sand and bugs and life in general. This is nothing more than an oversized barge with office space—even from this distance it puts a shiver through me with its cold looming. It still looks imposing, though, as it cuts a jagged shape on the horizon. The government was smart about this. There’s no way any citizens could mount a decent attack, and the barge can sail anywhere along the coast it wants to.

“Destination is four miles away.”

I look over Jessa’s shoulder. The lowest access doors are along a corridor ten feet above the water. There are more levels above that, and the barge is topped with several turrets. I can see the faint shapes of soldiers in them, and mounted guns aim away from us.

“Destination is three miles away.”

I want to turn the blasted computer off. I know how far we are, and I don’t need a reminder. I squeeze the drive that’s burning a hole in my pocket. It’s such a little thing; how can it scare me so badly?

“Destination is two miles away.”

We’re too far away for them to see, and they’re looking in the wrong direction anyway. They scan the coast—not the water—for threats.

Jessa stares at the barge on the view screen, her mouth hanging open. “Are you sure about this?”

No.

Jessa grips my arm and turns to me. Her eyes are wide and panicked. “Then don’t do it. I know why you want to, and I understand that. But there are other ways you can help. Other things you can do. I feel like if you leave this sub I’m never going to see you again.”

“Destination is one mile away.”

I gently pry her hand off my arm. I have a rock in my gut, and Jessa’s words aren’t helping at all. I have to peel her hand open to write on the palm.

If I don’t go now, I never will. I need to do this.

She turns her head and a hand sweeps in front of her cheeks. She puts it back down on the controls, and her fingers are wet.

“Then please just be careful. Promise me.”

My eyes flick back at the screen—at the image of the hulking metal on the ocean. The knot in my stomach tightens.

Promise.

The beeping stops and the sub slows to a crawl. Jessa drops her head in her hands for a moment and then pulls her hair away from her face. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. It looks like this side of the island—” she points to the far side “—isn’t as well guarded. They’re not expecting someone to come from below the water. I’ll let you out there. It looks like this door may put you in the right direction.”

Dave scoots in closer, studying the screen with a feverish intensity. I want to ease him back, but I know I’ll never be able to. He’s here for one purpose alone. He wants blood to avenge the stains he still carries from Mary’s death. Jack, though, is determined to keep him in check. He claps a hand on Dave’s shoulder.

“Come on, Dave. Let’s grab our packs.”

Dave shrugs him off. “We need packs? It’s not like we’re going camping.”

Jack hesitates, his hands hovering in the air, unsure whether to bring Dave with him or let him go.

“He’s right,” Gaea says. “No matter what happens in there, you’re not staying long. And if they do capture you, your packs will only raise more questions.”

“About the colonies, you mean?” Jack says.

Gaea nods. “After what happened to Terra in the labor camp, I don’t believe it would be prudent to give them any more clues about the colonies.”

Jack raises his hands. “Fine. Just ourselves then.”

Dave shakes his head. “We’ll get some guns from the first soldiers we come across.”

I close my eyes and try to stop a shudder. Not more guns.

“Don’t worry, Terra,” Jack says. “You don’t have to use one.”

Gaea hands me a knife instead. It’s like the knife she gave me when I first left for the Burn. Her fingers are tremulous as I pull the sheath from them.