“I’d rather stay,” Lark said and shook her head.
“I’d rather you come with me to find a new shirt,” Octavia answered.
“The fuel,” Sally called from the other side and Lark looked out the window to see. “It’s hidden. I’ll take you to it.”
Lark slid over and watched as Octavia reached into a hidden holster and adjusted her weapon, clicking off the safety.
“Hidden fuel?” Octavia called.
“It’s that or walk the rest of the way to the Bayou,” Sally yelled back.
Octavia waivered and Lark made a quick decision to disembark the plane. She scrambled down the small steps and hopped down to the ground below.
Sally led them forward into a dilapidated town. Wooden structures tumbled and sagged with rot; none of the signs were easily readable. One section of the town, including what appeared to be an old church, was reduced to splinters and rubble, the victim of some cruel act of God.
“Where are we?” Lark asked.
“Nebraska,” Sally answered.
“No, like, what is this place?”
“It was one of the original bunkers from the Great Divide. Have you ever explored one, Octavia?” Sally asked, but she clearly knew the answer was no. “They are magnificent relics. History preserved.”
“Magnificent relics of genocide,” Octavia answered evenly. “You’ll have to excuse my lack of enthusiasm.”
Sally caught herself and pivoted. “Oh, no, I meant…from a history standpoint. And we’re lucky they still have what we need…otherwise…”
“Yeah, we’d be walking to the coast, I get it,” Octavia said. She wiped her brow with her hand. “So, where is this great city that housed everyone?”
Sally walked them toward an exposed section of what appeared to be a library. And in the back, another metal box. Lark knew it was an elevator because the Lodge had elevators once; except without power they were useless, so Grant and the others turned them into giant dumbwaiters.
“Going down…way down,” Sally said with ease. She pushed a button and it lit up; Sally clapped with excitement. “Still works.”
Lark swallowed and took a step back. A plane ride and now a trip in a mechanical box controlled by the sun.
“I don’t see why I can’t wait here,” Lark said. “This is too much for one day.”
“Oh no,” Sally said with faux-sympathy. “It’s fine that you’re scared. But once you get down there, oh, Lark…maybe if we have time and I can figure it out, I’ll show you where your mom and her family lived…”
“Underground?” Lark asked. She could hear the metal clanking upward, ready to arrive and take her deep into the earth. When the doors opened, Lark peered inside and recognized the hollowed metal of bullet holes. The elevator had seen better days. “No, thank you,” Lark tried.
Octavia didn’t suffer fools. She pushed Lark into the elevator and grabbed her arm. “Not giving you a chance to run. Where I go, you go. And I’m going with Sally.” Lark went pale when the metal doors closed on their own and she jumped back against the rear wall, hyperventilating. She put her hands on her chest and closed her eyes. It wasn’t the elevator that was causing her distress. As the doors had closed, Lark saw movement in the room outside. Men in dark uniforms shifted behind the bookshelves and made themselves known a second too early, stalking toward the elevator, eyes locked on Lark.
They’d been followed.
Chapter Twenty
Somewhere in the former Caribbean
KOZO
Ethan took them to a small, uninhabited island in the center of the Caribbean. If it had a name, Kozo didn’t ask. All he knew was that the island was equipped as an alarm: it did not have an alarm. It was the alarm.
“This is the last one,” Ainsley said and she pushed the box of explosives toward Kozo and Ethan. “All the signals through the whole area will be on fire by morning.”
“Don’t worry,” Ethan clapped Kozo on the shoulder. “We’ve got protocols in place. This won’t burn the islands…”
“I wasn’t worried,” Kozo replied. He was tired and weak, he’d helped them build and light their signals for hours.
They unwound the coil and walked backward away from the inevitable explosions and Ethan pontificated. “You should be worried. This culture, this land, this stuff…it all gets erased. These are artifacts of humans who were murdered…all over this small rock there is a decaying advanced civilization crumbling into rubble. And the people on those Islands think they get to be the ones to rewrite history…build their stories right on the backs of everyone they lied to or slaughtered to get there. But there is beauty in this…”
“Beauty in disaster isn’t novel,” Kozo said. He tripped a bit on a vine and watched as Ethan never lost his balance.
“I never told you I was original,” Ethan replied with a laugh. When Kozo didn’t reciprocate the humor, he let the laughter trickle down. “I mean…I’m still here. Causing trouble. And all of this was to say that yeah, we don’t want to wreck more things, we really do want to save more things…better things. Like art. Like stories. Huck can have the Mona Lisa.”
At the mention of art, Kozo turned. Megumi. He’d forgotten his true mission in his haste to help the others.
When the explosion was ready, they lit the coil and watched it run and hop and catch. Ethan kept watch with his ray gun—shooting the sky with relish, hoping to catch a metal bug in the act. They had worked as fast as they could, switched boats with ease, and landed back on a pretty impressive yacht for their trip home.
Malcolm made them a meal of crackers and fish, and they sat around and stared at the sky. No one tried to make small talk or engage in conversation; they were exhausted. Ainsley was the first to retire without a word. Ethan followed her, shuffling along. Kozo liked the subtle understated movement of their relationship—the two were clearly companions, but their love had become part of the fabric of their day with ease and without comment. It was old and weathered like the ships they borrowed. They sailed with purpose.
Kozo knew then he was part of their story, not the other way around.
“By morning we’ll be at the Bayou,” Ethan said to Kozo with a yawn.
“What’s there?” Kozo asked. He yawned, too, mimicking the man involuntarily.
“A little slice of hope,” Ethan replied before he disappeared inside his cabin.
New Orleans was underwater.
Houses disappeared completely, submerged under a slow-moving river of debris, the above-ground cemeteries washed away. Kozo knew nothing about New Orleans other than what Ethan explained as they powered the boat into the heart of the sinking city, passing by the roofs of old buildings, iconic steeples the only thing that remained from the old churches.
Ethan took the boat through the city and made a beeline to the old Plaza Tower, whose extension into the New Orleans skyline remained, now with half of its floors underwater. Quickly, the team organized itself into stations—everyone donning climbing gear and searching the building for anchors. Kozo let them dress him in a harness without a word.
He had a choice.
He could have exercised his decision to stay, float around the city, perhaps go inland, but for what?
Kozo watched as Malcolm and Monroe scaled the former skyscraper first, clipping and dancing around old windows. Fifty feet above the water, Ethan opened a small window and disappeared inside, Ainsley followed. The twins sat at another open window and beckoned for Kozo to follow.
“It’s easy!” they announced and tried to hurl down suggestions.
Easy was relative, but he was left without options. Kozo clipped his harness to the rope and tugged. The line was stable and so he climbed. Still barefoot, still in his kimono, beaten and bruised and numb, he pivoted his feet against the glass and shimmied up the side. Following the path laid out before him, he moved to the side and walked along an old window ledge, nearly six inches wide—big enough to let him maneuver with ease.
He stopped, however,
and peered in the windows.
Kozo didn’t know what he expected to see—skeletons maybe, people at their desks, working, mummified. But instead he saw nothing but space. The floor was gutted, no ceiling, no walls, with dusty cement floors. There wasn’t a stitch of humanity left behind—no work-related tools or garbage. It was emptiness and nothing more; a vast amount of space, left to rot and disappear into the encroaching sea.
And for the first time since he woke up on the raft, Kozo was overcome with terrible grief.
Unable to go on, he crouched on the small ledge and froze, suspended fifty feet above the drifting yacht and the slow-moving waves of what was now the Bayou—a city underwater. Above him, he heard Malcolm and Monroe calling for him, and then moving back down the side of the building to retrieve him. Kozo stood.
He wiped away his tears and turned.
His eyes scanned the watery mass grave below. From where he stood, he could see the roof of a domed building, the water lapping against the sides. It looked like a beacon on a hill. A few other tops of buildings protruded and danced in the water. Before Kozo could move, Malcolm appeared above him, reaching down with his hand, extending it from his place on the floor above.
“It’s okay,” the young man replied with a comforting smile. “I got you.”
And Kozo nodded and reached up to take Malcolm’s hand. It was the first time in his life anyone said that to him—it was the first time someone didn’t expect him to figure out survival on his own. If he weren’t so scared, he would’ve kept weeping. Instead, he let Malcolm guide him to the ledge and walk him to the open window a few floors above.
He took Monroe’s hand and slid down a small ramp, and when he landed, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Everything around him was light and bright and full of people. Young and old, all well dressed in simple clothing, catering to the returned like they were heroes. Soon, people made the rounds and Kozo found himself carried and whisked up some stairs, the talking around him nothing but noise.
On the next floor, the plan was the same, and everything was flooded with light reflecting on the water and cascading down from the sky. In the middle of the room was an older woman, gray hair and a flowing dress. She had her back turned to Kozo and Ethan stood next to her. Their voices floated to him as he made his way forward, escorts still hovering on either side.
“Trash Islands are gone,” Ethan said.
“A refugee? How’d you end up that far east?”
“Nah. We ended up west. He was responding to the Bermuda SOS.”
“She’s collecting,” the older woman sighed. “Why did she let him live?”
“Experiment,” Ethan replied. “You know Blair’s MO, Mom. We thought he brought monitoring but it was the scouting drones…”
“And she’s looking to expand,” the woman said. She sounded tired. Kozo approached and the woman turned. She smiled and Kozo couldn’t help but smile back and bow. She clasped her warm hands around his and brought him up, cupping his chin for a moment in a motherly shower of affection. His heart surged with joy, but then plummeted once more when he realized that she wasn’t loving him but inspecting him, cautiously.
“This is Kozo. His sister Megumi was kidnapped for the Bermuda Project…”
“Welcome, Kozo,” the older woman replied. “This is my home…in the Bayou. I have control of the water…”
“A man named Elijah controls the land,” Ethan added. He picked his teeth with his nails.
“Are you hungry?” the woman asked. She popped her head up and snapped and someone rushed to them. “Feed him,” she instructed without waiting for Kozo to answer the initial question. “Kozo, welcome. I’m Maxine…”
Mama Maxine, Kozo realized, thinking back to the boat.
“…and while I wish I could sit you down and answer all your questions…we’ve got a situation. So, it’s best if you just keep out of the way for now. Sorry if that seems blunt but sometimes we find it’s more efficient to speak our minds.”
“Great,” Kozo said, preparing to speak his mind. “I can leave you alone easily because I’d like a boat so I can go get my sister.”
Maxine’s eyes widened and she leaned to look at Ethan before leaning back. “Right. A boat. To go to Bermuda. When our crisis is tabled, we’ll discuss a boat to Bermuda but I can’t have that conversation now. How about you eat first. Ethan?” Maxine shifted her attention. “Follow me.”
Ethan and Ainsley power-walked behind Maxine as she moved to the stairwell. A girl with long brown hair asked Kozo if he had any food requests, but he shied away and followed the group instead. Without making a scene, he kept pace and tailed them up two flights in silence.
They entered an open space, and he grabbed the door before it closed, and waded into the white and sterile room. It appeared to him like a makeshift hospital with portable cots and stacks of blankets, towels, and medicines.
“Elijah’s men brought her to me this morning. Found her body in Texas…no sign of Carlos. She operated on herself and got the chip out, but they must’ve found her less than one-hundred miles after that…”
Ethan, Ainsley, and Maxine drew close to a covered cot in the corner of the room, but Kozo kept his distance. Underneath the blanket, there was the outline of a body. He didn’t know whose dead body, but he was tired of death.
“She made it to Texas,” Ethan repeated. He leaned down and put his hand over the body. After a second, he punched a free spot on the cot with his other hand. He went to move the sheet back from the person’s face but Maxine stopped him. “Dammit, Mom…”
Ethan stood.
“She was tortured,” Maxine told her son.
Ethan was quiet but Ainsley sighed and looked away. No one dared to touch the sheet now.
“There’s more,” the older woman continued. “Whoever did this… found out where she was headed…and we have reason to believe…”
“Don’t—” Ainsley said and spun back, her face pale. “We were too late.”
“The whole mountain is in flames. We just got word.”
Ethan pulled himself tall. “And?” he asked and looked at his mom.
Maxine said nothing.
Ethan paced and he bit his lip, eyeing both his mom and Ainsley as he walked. “Blair broke her promise to the mountain. Why is she doing this? And the drones know to go back home now, so they’ve got footage of our faces.” He stomped his foot. “We’ve accomplished nothing…where can we run to?”
“We’ve accomplished a lot,” Maxine reminded him. “We knew this was happening. Fifteen years is a long time, but it’s enough to lull you into that false sense of security. She wanted people to think they were safe. She waited fifteen years and now she’ll unleash her army.”
“So, all of it…my girl is dead and Elijah couldn’t get my stubborn sister to run…” Ethan’s voice broke. Without warning, he spun and landed a fist against a wooden post. Kozo listened and felt out-of-place among their grief, but this Ethan felt like someone he could know.
“If the Colony was attacked, they know to go west…” Ainsley tried to comfort him, but his anger didn’t dissipate.
“We’re running out of time.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Kymberlin Island
Huck Truman’s Suite
THEA
Blair had not spoken to her for three days. Three full days of tortured silence, not knowing what kind of revenge her mother was brewing for her insubordination. It was the silence that bothered her the most in conjunction with Blair’s steely eye-rolls and icy, practiced looks of disdain. Thea wasn’t born a people-pleaser, but she was desperate to earn herself back into her mother’s good graces. It was too uncomfortable not to be.
Now, someone called them to a Leadership Meeting. The nurses set up chairs along Huck’s hospital bed and moved the monitors out of the way so people could see him. Her grandfather looked worse than he had the evening of the courting, but Amira took her place by his side, holding her handkerchief in
her hand and waiting for him to cough.
Thea was glad she’d been dethroned for that job.
When Gordy arrived, red-faced and agitated, he settled down and the door shut and everyone watched as one of Huck’s longtime bodyguards placed her grandfather’s communication bot on a small table and pushed a button. Huck’s voice, tentative and breathy, spoke to all of them through the speaker while the real Huck watched them all, lips pushed together.
“I have gathered my heirs today to discuss the plans for succession. It has come to my attention that my health may be in rapid decline at which it is necessary to outline what comes next for these Islands. It is also important to discuss the growing discontent among my islands.”
Blair and Thea found each other and nodded; they could be reunited in a common hatred of the people who thought the islands were a prison.
“Here is all this is, my dearest ones. The younger generation wants to rebel against the rules while retaining their privileges. It means we’ve offered them too much and they forgot where they came from and what was given for them to live here. But they want to claim what is theirs now, with impatience. I won’t allow it.”
The Huck on the recording paused. The Huck in real life coughed. Amira leaned in to assist.
“As the moods have changed, my governing style must as well. My ears say we must protect our family line until we know how to simmer down the angsty young adults. With that in mind, it was decided to create a sanctuary, hidden. So, I am moving off my islands and to a secret place on land. And I am taking my immediate successors with me…Gordy, Amira, and her husband, Maverick James.”
Amira leaned over and wanted to say something, but Huck silenced her before she could. “Pause,” Huck’s rattling voice said. His image paused. “Do you still want your seat? You want to this next generation and go down in history?”
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