by Rysa Walker
She trails off, her face coloring slightly. As hard as it may be to imagine a toddler being part of any sort of resistance, Daniel and Jaden both believed Caleb is the strongest of all the adepts. I’m not sure if everyone in the room follows Maria’s implication, but I suspect most of them do. They all know how powerful Caleb is.
Ashley doesn’t respond, but her eyes narrow. She knows exactly what Maria is leaving unsaid, and she obviously doesn’t like the possibility that Caleb might be pulled into the fight. I have to agree with her on that point. He’s practically a baby. He should be watching Sesame Street and playing with Duplo blocks instead of being pulled into calculations as a potential weapon.
Taylor steps in with a question. “Okay, I get why you’re concerned about this cure. But why are we rushing into action without discussing it first with the training team?” She raises her eyebrows on the last phrase, and I suspect even the youngest kids in the room understand that what she really means is why Maria decided to take this step without discussing it with Taylor.
Although, for all I know, the training team consists of just Taylor and Maria. I feel like I should know more about this. How much have I missed?
“From what you’ve just shown us,” Taylor continues, “the scientists aren’t even close to a cure. I agree this is something all of us need to begin thinking about. Maybe we even need to increase training hours.” A few boos meet this comment, but others look pleased at the prospect. “But is it really so urgent we couldn’t have discussed it ahead of time?”
Maria shoots a look at Stan. “It is urgent. Soon we will be at . . . how you say? Fork on the road? Anna will have vision tonight, and if Magda learns what Anna sees, she will send Miller and his men to get her father, this Scott Pfeifer man, and bring him here. He created this ability, so likely he can fix, no?”
No one seems surprised at the mention of my father, even though it takes me aback for a second. It’s not that I was keeping the fact that my father was the brains behind the Delphi Project a secret. I just didn’t think it was common knowledge. Now that Maria is at Sandalford, however, it seems like everyone knows everything.
I have no idea whether my father can undo what his Delphi serum created. But Maria’s logic is sound. As the scientist behind the formula, he’d probably have a better chance than anyone else of unraveling the effects and figuring out how to mitigate them. Still, it’s usually harder to restore order than it is to create chaos. Plus, the man killed my mother fifteen years ago and has been in a mental hospital ever since. I think it’s safe to assume his brain is no longer in tip-top shape.
But since I really don’t want to talk about any of that in a roomful of people, I focus instead on the first part of her comment. “What makes you think I’m going to have a vision tonight?”
“Fiver tells me.”
“Wait,” Taylor says. “Stan had a vision about Anna having a vision? It’s like we wandered into one of those M. C. Escher paintings.”
Stan pushes his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “Well . . . Maria is oversimplifying things. It was a group effort.” He nods toward a girl in the front row, apparently acknowledging her contribution. “The key issue is that it syncs up with minor path splinters I’ve been sensing for the past few weeks. But something has . . . changed.”
He looks over at me. It’s only a brief glance, but it almost feels like he’s accusing me of something. “The entire picture is out of focus,” he says, his eyes once again fixed on the floor. “So I told Maria we need to call a vote now. Because I get the feeling time is running out.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Carova, North Carolina
April 23, 2020, 11:48 a.m.
Maria has divided the whiteboard behind her into two columns—Yes and No. One of the other adepts suggests adding an undecided column. Maria argues against it for a minute, then gives up and adds a narrow strip down the right margin with a big question mark at the top.
“So . . . you vote yes, that means you will take a cure if they find one. That you want to lose your ability.” Maria tosses her dark curls over one shoulder. “Is not my choice, but I know the gift is more pain for some of you than it is for me. For others, it is pyrrhovo vítězství . . . a mixed-up blessing? For me, though . . . I say no. I will not let them take part of me.”
The fact that Maria views her ability as a gift rather than a curse puzzles me. She isn’t a second-generation adept like most of us. I don’t know all of the details, but she was one of the kids that Cregg’s company, Decathlon Services Group, “rescued” from an orphanage in the Czech Republic. Maria is nearly sixteen, which means she was brought over with the first group of girls—the same group as Dacia Badea—when she was around ten. So for most of her life, Maria wasn’t fully psychic. Clearly she had some nascent ability, or she wouldn’t have passed the tests that originally placed her in the Delphi program, but getting occasional psychic flashes isn’t really the same as having everyone’s thoughts laid out before you like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
I’ve spent far more time than I’d like with multiple voices in my head, and it seems to me that having so many people’s thoughts buzzing around would be a distraction for Maria. But then her gift is more like Taylor’s—she can shut it off at will, although she’s said it’s much harder to do when she’s around Deo, given his ability to amplify psychic signals. Maria actually bounced one of the other adepts from a room in the north wing so she could sleep as far away from Deo as possible.
Still, Maria can remember a life without her ability, a life when the only thoughts in her head were her own. I can’t. Neither can Aaron or Taylor or the vast majority of kids at Sandalford. As second-generation adepts, this is just how we’re wired. We inherited the ability from our parents along with our eye color and a host of other attributes. A cure might be fairly straightforward for first-gen adepts, but what kind of side effects would it have for those of us who were born this way? If it simply ended my propensity to pick up stray ghosts, I might be tempted. But that’s not the only aspect of my gift. I currently house the memories of at least ten hitchers. Some of those hitchers shaped who I am today—Emily, Molly, Jaden, and yes, even Bruno. Would those memories remain, or would I have massive holes in what I know and remember? Would I be able to function? Would I be me?
Maria draws one hash mark in the No column. “This is my vote. But listen to me. Those who put their mark with mine in this column—you do not just say no to taking cure. If you vote no, it means you will fight if they try to force this change on us.”
One of the older kids shakes his head. “Why do you assume anyone will force us to take a cure? No one forced me to come here. My father just felt I’d be safer, given the current . . . mood . . . of some of our neighbors. Were any of you actually forced to come to Sandalford?”
A few of the kids say no, but I can tell from their expressions that most of them aren’t sure how to answer the question. The kids who were housed at the special school on Fort Bragg weren’t given a choice between returning home and coming here. They were drugged, then scooped up by Vigilance Security, the group Magda hired, and moved to Sandalford while they slept. I spent a few days in the Fayetteville area, and this gorgeous beach is a definite upgrade, but they didn’t exactly come here voluntarily.
Many of the other kids, like those who were held by Cregg, don’t have family. Or at least not family in this country, because they were trafficked in from Eastern Europe. It’s not as though they have a lot of options. Like Maria, they’ve spent most of their lives here, with this group of people. The Warren is their family.
I expect Maria to answer the boy’s question. But Aaron beats her to it. “Those of us who are adults may get a choice, but I can easily imagine Magda justifying the use of force on minors by saying it’s for their own good. I doubt the authorities on Fort Bragg gave up all control when they transferred those of you who came from that school, so the decision would likely be theirs, not yours. Same goes for those of you with p
arents or guardians.”
The kid who asked the original question says, “We have rights, though. Even if we’re not adults, they’d have to give us some say if we fought it in court. My cousin was fourteen when her parents divorced. She said she wanted to live with her dad, even though her mom wanted custody. And the judge said okay.”
“Maybe,” Aaron says, “but your cousin didn’t pose a threat to society, as they claim—with some justification—all of us do. So again, I think some of us might get a choice, but if they come up with a cure, I’m pretty sure the people in charge will view it as something unpleasant but necessary, like vaccinations. And I’m certain the military scientists Magda is working with would enforce that for the sake of the good ole USA.”
“Military?” I ask him in a hushed voice.
Aaron gives me a puzzled look. “Yes. You know that.”
I don’t remember any discussion about the scientists being in the military. I was under the impression this was a team Magda brought with her when she came here from London. That’s apparently yet another thing I’ve missed during these stupid gaps. But Maria is talking again, so I make a mental note to ask Aaron about it later.
“They will force us,” Maria says, surveying the faces in front of her. “Fiver believes this from his visions, but even if he saw nothing at all, I know they will force us. I know because I see this before. Most of you never hear how I came to be here. How I came to be orphan who was happy to get on the boat to America, happy to take these tests and play the psychic games for Graham Cregg and his Fudds.”
There are a few confused looks, but most of the adepts get the reference. The adepts called themselves wabbits because they were stuck underground and basically treated like lab experiments. The guards were the Fudds, in reference to Elmer Fudd, the intrepid wabbit hunter who was always foiled by Bugs Bunny. I suspect the Fudd nickname originated with the tan uniforms they wore, and the fact that even though the guards talked tough, they usually weren’t allowed to kill the wabbits. Most of the adepts were reasonably happy at The Warren until that last part began to change.
“I come to The Warren from Česko,” Maria says. “The Czech Republic. But my people are the Roma. You know them maybe as gypsies. In Europe, the Roma people are thought to be bad. The Czech government force many Roma women to be sterile. Good jobs never go to Roma people. The floods happen when I was little girl, and many Roma people lose their homes and shops . . . sometimes to the flood, but more times to other people—the gadjos, the not-Roma—because the flood takes their house, their shop, and now they want ours. When the men come to put us onto street, they say we stole our house. That all Roma steal, that we’re all just no-good cikáni. Before the flood, these are same men who buy food at my family restaurant. They act like friends. But when my father stand up to them, try to speak reason with them, to defend his family, they shoot him. They shoot my mother and older brother. They would shoot me too, but I am hiding under bed, quiet like mouse.”
Maria’s eyes grow distant for a moment, then she says, “That is how it always is. If there is problem, they blame the ones who are different. Like us. And if we say no, if we say you cannot treat us like animal, they kill us. If they can. If we let them. So this is why I vote no. And this is why I do not like having maybe as an option for our vote. All of you maybe people will have to make decision very soon.”
I feel a strange shiver at her emphasis on the last two words. I know Stan had another vision, or maybe several of them, when they were being held in the silo. Maria knew all about Sandalford because Stan had seen the adepts here in one of these visions. She told me he’d seen all of us “fighting the bears” here.
A surreal image of bears lumbering down the beach flashes into my head. I doubt Dacia’s people would actually wear their bear masks. And I’m certain they won’t casually stroll over the sand dunes. They’ll be in jeeps or Hummers. Those who aren’t weapons themselves will definitely be carrying them.
Magda’s security force has weapons, too. Currently they are on our side, but Magda pays their salary and she is also funding the search for a cure. I can imagine several scenarios where this group of adepts ends up fighting not just Cregg’s people but Magda’s as well.
Graham Cregg believed this, too. Just before Jasper shot him, Cregg warned me that Magda would turn on us if and when our interests diverged. That she would side with his father. He called her a wolf in sheep’s array, another of his pretentious Shakespearean phrases. Normally, I’d discount anything he had to say, but on this issue, I’m inclined to believe him. As vicious and vile as Cregg was, he didn’t want the adepts killed if it could be avoided, especially the young ones. And while I don’t think Magda is necessarily a bad person, her main concern is finding a cure for her daughters. I have no doubt whatsoever she’d sell everyone else out if that’s what it takes to accomplish her goal.
Maria is calling for the vote, but Deo holds up his hand. She sighs, and motions for him to speak.
“Two things,” he says. “First, we don’t even know if there’s gonna be a cure, right?”
A brief shadow of . . . something . . . crosses Maria’s face. I’m pretty sure she knows more than she’s letting on, but she nods and Deo continues.
“Second, you left out one of the options. The most important one, actually.”
Maria frowns and taps the board. “Yes. No. Maybe. What else can there be?”
“My point is, you’re making it a false . . . dichotomy? At least I think that’s what they call it. You’re dividing us into those who will fight to avoid taking this cure that might never happen and those who will take it without fighting. I don’t know about the rest of you, but neither of those options accurately describes me. I don’t want this ability in my head, and I don’t like getting shot up with medicines constantly to keep it from killing me. So, yeah . . . they offer me a cure, I’ll be first in line. But people I care about might make a different choice.” He glances first at me and then at Taylor. “And I would absolutely fight to keep them—to keep any of us—from being forced to take something against our will. I’m guessing a lot of you feel the same way.”
There’s a low murmur of consensus in the room. And while it would be easy to dismiss them as children who have no idea what they’re agreeing to, these aren’t exactly typical kids. Most are from military families, so they have a better understanding than many people their age of what a battle might entail. More importantly, however, they’ve forged friendships in the foxholes. A few of them were together at the “special school” the military set up at Fort Bragg to deal with the wave of Delphi offspring. They claim they weren’t mistreated, but when they showed up here, they were all tagged with ankle bracelets, most of them a year or more behind on their academic work. They don’t have fond memories of the place itself, but they’re a fairly tight-knit bunch.
An even larger group was held captive by Graham Cregg, first at The Warren and later at the silo. Again, they were generally not mistreated, and some were even relieved to be somewhere their abilities didn’t make them stand out as freaks. But they all felt the pressure to cooperate, to hone their abilities and show they could be useful. Older adepts who were not useful had a way of disappearing once they reached adulthood. The guards at The Warren told the other kids they’d been “relocated,” and maybe some of them believed that. But several of these kids were reading minds before they could read Dr. Seuss. They saw straight through the euphemism and word spread through the psychic grapevine.
I don’t know the kids who were at the military-run school very well, so I’m only working on conjecture there. But I have Jaden’s memories of The Warren. There was a strong sense of esprit de corps, of us-against-them, along with a good deal of gallows humor. And the group from The Warren has been in battle already. I’m fuzzy on the details, since I was locked in a mental struggle with Graham Cregg at the time, but I do know Cregg would most likely still be alive and we wouldn’t have escaped that airfield relatively unscathed
if not for the quick action—and teamwork—of several other adepts when we fought Cregg’s guards at the airfield in New York. Two of them turned Cregg’s own helicopter into a weapon against him.
A stocky boy with blond hair nods toward Deo. “I agree with him. And I’d fight to get the others back, too. If they’re really still alive.”
Maria rubs her forehead wearily. “Your brother is alive. I tell you this before.”
“So . . . we don’t need to vote on anything,” the boy says. “You claimed we were coming here to fight. That’s the only reason I agreed to wait, instead of cutting out on my own to find Nate after we left the silo.”
“We will fight when it’s time,” Maria says. “Today, we vote. We vote on whether we fight. On whether Anna tells Magda about this vision she will have.”
“Wait,” I say. “You’re muddying the waters here. I thought the vote was whether or not to take the—”
“Is no mud in the water! This is same thing. If cure comes too soon, and if they force . . .” Maria glances again at Stan, who doesn’t speak but just nods solemnly. “When they force some of you. Your Deo, he says he will be first in line for cure, but still fight. With what will he fight? That sock full of pennies in his bag? Or the pepřový spray? All of us, even if we grab gun, our best weapon is here.” She jabs a finger against the side of her head. “They give us this weapon, but we decide how to use. So the vote on telling Magda . . . is really same thing. Stan says if your father comes here, if they do this cure too soon, we will lose.”
“Then we don’t have to decide today whether we’ll take a cure. Everyone can decide later, if and when it becomes an issue. The only question right now is whether I wait to tell Magda about this vision I’m apparently going to have about my . . . father. Whether we delay the possibility of a cure so we’ll be stronger for this fight you say is coming. But truthfully, given what you’ve said, I don’t see why we need to vote. I don’t want to tell her.”
