I’m so worked up by this point that I’m heaving as I finish, but I won’t back down. “I am getting off this damn ship. I don’t care if the boogeyman jumps up as soon as the door opens and swallows me whole so long as I can step outside just once.”
“No!” Elder snaps. “I’m sorry, but no. This is ridiculous. I don’t care how impatient you are; this is something worth taking our time on. It’s worth it to know if we’re going to die the minute we step off this shuttle!”
Ringing silence fills the bridge when he’s done shouting. My face burns; I can almost hear the others repeating Elder’s words in their minds. Bartie stares at Elder with a sort of intense, furious wonder. I am being a spoiled little brat, throwing a temper tantrum.
But they can’t show me a planet and then snatch it away.
“Can you really go on living in Godspeed after having seen this?” I ask in almost a whisper, sweeping my arm toward the window.
Elder doesn’t look to the planet. His gaze doesn’t leave my eyes. “No,” he says. “No, I couldn’t.”
Bartie clears his throat. I can’t tell if he’s scared or if he’s angry—he glares at Elder, but he shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “I say we take a vote. If people don’t want to go . . .”
“They stay?” I ask incredulously. “Really?”
“We have a better chance of survival on the planet now anyway, monsters or not,” Elder says. Bartie turns to him. “The food stores are gone.”
“We can grow more—” Bartie starts, but he’s interrupted by a loud boom!
“What was that?” Victria says.
It wasn’t the same explosive thunder the bombs made; this sounded more like something heavy crashing to the floor in the distance.
But we’re alone on this level.
We’re supposed to be alone on this level.
We creep to the door leading out of the bridge—the last locked door on the cryo level. It opens from this side, but Elder’s smart enough to cram a chair in the door so it doesn’t lock again.
The hallway’s empty, the other doors all closed and locked. My stomach lurches—what if someone’s down here messing with the cryo boxes? What about my parents? I force myself to think despite my rising panic. My heartbeat is thrumming in my ears, urging me to race down the hall. But no—I take a deep breath. The chambers would make a glass-on-metal cracking sound, not that thunderous boom of metal-on-metal.
The cryo area is empty—except for the far wall. Black dirt and debris from the explosion litter the floor near the elevator. The doors have been blown off; they lie like fallen soldiers on the floor. But the elevator shaft is blocked off with another set of heavy, seal-locked doors.
“The gen lab door is open,” Elder whispers.
I nod. The four of us creep forward slowly. Elder steps around in front of me when I reach the door. I want to yank him back—I don’t need him to play the hero—but he stops dead in the doorway. I crash into his back.
“Doc?” he asks. His voice is surprised, but I notice the way his neck tenses and his fists clench.
Doc turns around slowly as Victria, Bartie, and I pile into the room behind Elder.
Behind Doc is the source of the crashing sound we heard earlier—Doc opened up the cryo tube Orion was frozen in, and the metal frame smashed against the floor.
“What are you doing?” Elder asks. I try to move around Elder so I can get a clearer view, but he throws his arm out, keeping me behind him.
“I knew you were here,” Doc says, tossing a floppy at Elder. Elder scans it and hands it back to me; Victria and Bartie look over my shoulder. The screen shows the wi-com locator map. Blinking dots indicate each of us on the level—Doc, Bartie, Victria, Elder . . . and Orion.
My mouth feels dry and tasteless. Orion. That’s my wi-com. Doc gave it to me just so he could keep track of where I was going.
“What are you doing, Doc?” Elder asks again. His tone is even, unnaturally calm.
Doc turns back to the cryo chamber. The glass window in the cryo tube is foggy with condensation, but I can still see the red veins popping in Orion’s eyes. I imagine myself mirrored in his pupils. His hand is pressed against the window in front of his face. This cryo tube was developed after the glass boxes my parents and I were frozen in. It’s metal, insulated like a thermos, and operates much more simply. It’s like a shower instead of a bath—instead of lying in a glass coffin, all you have to do is step inside, let the cryo liquid dump on you, and then initiate the freezing process: one big red button on the front. I stare at it now, remembering when Elder pushed the button.
“Doc,” Elder says, his voice a warning.
Finally, Doc turns to Elder. “This ship needs a leader. And the only one we have left is Orion.”
“We have a leader,” I say, stepping in front of Elder.
Doc smiles at me in a sad, ironic sort of way. “He could have been a leader. Given a few more years and a lot less of you.” I sputter in anger, but Doc just shakes his head. “We have to have control. We need a real leader.”
I laugh, a harsh sound I don’t even recognize coming from my own throat. “We have a leader, I told you. And Elder will never let you go back to the way things were.”
Doc laughs now, a soft, low chuckle. “Oh, Amy,” he says, “you’re so slow. And so wrong.”
I turn around to tell Elder to shoot Doc’s idea down.
He stares blankly, emptily, back at me.
“Elder?” I say, fear making my voice crack.
Victria steps out from behind both boys. “I’m sorry,” she says, letting the pale green wrappers drop to the floor. “I just want Orion back.”
In her hands is a gun, a small revolver with large-caliber bullets. “How did you . . . ?” I ask.
“Doc gave it to me. He knew—he knew I wanted protection. And when he told me that he could get Orion back . . . I made sure I could help him.”
My mouth drops open. I’ve come to know so many sides of Victria—the unrequited lover, the victim, the forgotten friend. I never thought I’d see her as a traitor.
She moves to stand between Doc and the cryo chamber holding Orion’s frozen body. And she never once lowers the gun.
Elder and Bartie stare straight ahead. A single square green patch clings to each of their necks.
65
ELDER
“NO, NO, NO,” AMY WHISPERS.
Her words remind me . . . of . . . something.
But everything’s so . . . slow.
“Stay back,” Doc says.
I struggle to hold on to the situation . . . to understand. . . .
“Are you okay?” Amy says.
Why wouldn’t I be?
Doc. Holding something that looks like an orange cut in half. Mustard yellow.
“I’ll blow us all up,” Doc says. “If that’s what it takes. We have to protect the ship. Or I could just have Victria shoot you. Yes. We’ll do that. It would leave less of a mess.”
“I . . . I don’t know how,” she says softly.
“It’s very easy, dear,” Doc says. “Just point and squeeze the trigger. At this distance, you won’t miss her.”
His words mean something. I’m sure of it.
But . . . what?
Amy’s crying. Just one tear, on the edge of her right eye, but I notice it.
Can’t do anything.
Words float around me. Loud. Angry. Pleading.
“If he’s that much of a distraction,” Doc says, “maybe we should kill him now.”
“Not Elder!” Amy shouts, pushing me behind her.
I feel gray.
Fuzzy.
“Elder!” Doc commands loudly. “Show me what’s in your pocket!”
I do.
Wires.
Pretty wires.
Red.
Yellow.
Black.
Wires.
“Put them back in the Phydus machine,” Doc orders. “You know you want to.”
I do.
I do want to.
I shuffle toward the Phydus machine.
Something stops me.
Something pulls me back.
I try to keep walking.
I go nowhere.
“Amy,” Doc warns. “Don’t try to stop him.”
“Elder,” Amy’s voice whispers in my ear. “Elder, fight it. Fight it. You don’t want to start the Phydus machine again. You don’t have to rule with drugs. You’re good enough the way you are. Fight it. Be yourself.”
“Amy,” Doc warns. “You know I’ll kill you. Or him. You know I will.”
My legs move up and down, and I move forward again.
To the Phydus machine.
To put back in the wires.
Like I always knew I’d have to.
66
AMY
ELDER STANDS NEXT TO THE PHYDUS MACHINE, THE WIRES in his hand, but he doesn’t seem able to hook them up. He’s motionless, staring at the console. I wonder how long he’s carried those wires in his pocket. He must put them there every day when he dresses, the same way I put on my necklace or wrap my hair. Has he carried them around with him all this time because he wanted to remember the way things were and should never be again . . . or because he wanted to remind himself that he had the same power to control people that Eldest had, if he chose to use it?
Doc stares into the glass at Orion. “He entrusted me with everything. I let him live. I helped him escape. He kept himself hidden from me for a long time—I didn’t know he was the Recorder; I didn’t know he was right beside me all those years. But before you froze him, he gave me his secrets. And I will not betray his trust the way you betrayed him.”
Doc moves over to stand by Elder. I start to lunge after him, but Victria steps in my way. Her hand is shaking; she’s not used to the weight of the gun, and the grip sits uncomfortably in her palm. Not that it matters . . . all it would take is one squeeze of her trigger finger, and I’d be gone.
I eye her warily, taking in the fear in her face, the sweat trickling down her neck. She doesn’t want to do this, she doesn’t want to hurt me, but she’s like a caged animal, and a caged animal will do anything if threatened. I stay still.
“Oh, Elder, I tried to warn you, I did,” Doc says, gently plucking the wires from Elder’s hands. “I told you each time—follow the leader.”
“You’re insane,” I shout. “Elder is the leader!”
Doc turns and looks at me, as if he’s evaluating my worth and finding that I come up just short. “I did hope he could become Eldest. I gave him three months. But as more and more people started to question him, it became clear he was hopeless. And then there was Bartie.” He sneers the name.
My eyes flick to Bartie, the green patch on his neck.
“Bartie thought he could start a revolution.” Doc rolls his eyes. “His attempts were clever—hacking into the floppies and the wi-coms was smart—but in the end he’s such a feeble sort of person. He would never really have what it takes to lead a true revolution. And besides,” Doc adds, “I wasn’t going to let dissent evolve into rebellion. Once we have a real leader again, any question of a revolt will disappear.”