Viral Nation

by Grimes, Shaunta

  Waverly smiled as he listened to Clover’s questions. “They have places. Like you have the Dinosaur. And they’re careful not to get caught, if they have to meet during curfew. They’re sneaky.”

  “What do they talk about?”

  “They share ideas,” Waverly said. “And they plan for now.”

  “Now?” Clover asked

  “Now that you’re here.”

  “Me?”

  “All of you. We’ve been waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” Jude asked. “We’re just kids.”

  “You are the Freaks. You’ve left the walls. I told you, I’m not sure what you’re going to do. But I know it will change everything.”

  West pushed his chair back and stood up. “What are we supposed to do?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You told yourself I like baseball, but you didn’t keep a record of what exactly is expected of us?”

  “I’ve already told you, I don’t know much about what happens after you get out of the city. There are some written records, but I didn’t read them. We can’t risk changing the future by knowing it too soon.”

  “Where are these records?” Clover asked.

  “They’re hidden safely away at the other end of the portal. No. No, don’t even think about trying to find where. This has to happen in its own time; a loop won’t do.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  Waverly looked rather proud of himself.

  “Look,” West said. “None of this matters if we don’t figure out what Bennett wanted with Bridget. It’s great that we’re part of some new wave revolution, but if we’re dead, what does it matter?”

  Waverly thought about that for a minute, then seemed to come to some conclusion and nodded resolutely before saying, “You’re still alive in two years, West. You and Bridget both.”

  The room exploded into chaos. Everyone wanted to know, all at the same time and at the top of their lungs, what would happen to them in the next two years. Waverly tried to wave them off, but they wouldn’t stop.

  Clover clapped her hands over her ears. West wouldn’t be executed. They did it. They’d saved him and Bridget, too. She left the table and went to the fireplace.

  West was at her side a few seconds later, and she turned into him, hugging him tight. She stayed there until the noise dulled. Everyone, Clover supposed, was figuring out that Waverly had said all he was going to. She’d just about come back to herself when West stiffened. She turned to look at what he was staring at. “What is it?”

  West reached over her head and took a framed photograph from the mantel.

  “That’s Bennett.” He turned the picture and showed it to her. “It is, isn’t it?”

  Langston Bennett. Much younger, standing next to Jon Stead. Their arms were thrown around each other, and off to the side, farther away than is usual when posing for a picture, was Waverly, tall and lanky, with already thinning dark hair and a haunted look on his face.

  The three men stood in front of a crew of workers just installing the gates to the wall around Reno.

  West turned the picture to face Waverly. “What is this?”

  “That’s Jon and I, on our way to meet the train to take us to receive our Nobel Prize.”

  “But why is Langston Bennett in it?” Clover asked.

  “Of course. You don’t know.”

  “What don’t we know?” West demanded.

  Waverly hesitated for a minute, looking around the room. He’s scared, Clover thought. His shoulders were tight and his jaw twitched. “Langston Bennett and Jon Stead are brothers.”

  “That can’t be right,” Jude said. “Jon Stead lost his only brother in the Bad Times, to the virus. Everyone knows that.”

  Waverly took the photograph from Clover. “Langston was very close to death when he was dosed. This picture was taken a year later, and he was still recovering. His face was eaten by the sores to the bone. You could see his teeth through his cheeks. That’s how bad it was.”

  “Why would you and Stead tell the world that he’d died?” West asked.

  “I don’t understand why this has you all so upset.”

  “This isn’t something that you put in your notes?”

  “Obviously not.”

  Maybe it was the tone in his voice that set Bridget off, Clover wasn’t sure, but she took the picture from West and thrust it at Waverly. “This man takes kids and sometimes they don’t survive whatever it is he does to them.”

  “Wait a minute,” West said. “What do you mean they don’t survive?”

  Bridget pulled away from him, wrapping her arms around her body. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? You said it!”

  “There was a kid, okay. A kid named Max. I heard my dad trying to make Bennett tell him what happened to Max. He didn’t get a straight answer, except that something went wrong and that Max was gone.”

  West looked from Bridget to Clover and back again. Even Clover caught the anger in his eyes. “You should have told me sooner.”

  “I’m not used to being surprised.” Waverly’s voice took on an edge of irritation and cut off whatever Bridget might have said to West. “I want to know what you’re talking about.”

  “Langston Bennett is the head of the Messenger program,” Clover said. “He drafted me into the Mariner track.”

  Waverly looked up and exhaled slowly. “I didn’t know he was still…that he still…”

  “Why did he want me so badly?”

  “Because you’re autistic.”

  “So what if I am?”

  “Another thing we’ve never really figured out. Brain chemistry is our best guess. Something in our makeup makes it possible for us to go through the portal and come out on the other end of a two-year-long tunnel.”

  “Us?”

  Waverly exhaled slowly. “Only people with autism can travel through the portal.”

  chapter 20

  I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.

  —JAMES MADISON, SPEECH TO RATIFY THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, JUNE 6, 1788

  “You’re autistic.” Not particularly clever, but West was having a hard time keeping up with the revelations.

  “I’m on the spectrum.” Waverly sat in a chair near the fireplace.

  The old man suddenly looked every one of his sixty-three years. “Why all the secrecy?” West asked.

  Waverly leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling. “I wish I’d prepared myself for this.”

  “Dr. Waverly,” West said when Waverly didn’t speak again. “Dr. Waverly! Please, we need to know why Bennett would want to hurt Bridget. What was he doing at her house, looking for her?”

  “I haven’t seen the man in more than a decade. I don’t know what he’s doing. His brother either. Jon hides himself, doesn’t he? Makes sure that if his secrets ever become public, no one will know where to find him in the aftermath.”

  “The Company ran low on adult volunteers,” Clover said softly. “I mean, how many autistic adults could have survived the Bad Times? That’s it, isn’t it? So you took off, and Jon Stead started taking kids. The tests had been done. They figured they could keep us safe by choosing those of us with the strongest memories and giving us a time limit.”

  “Jon needs autistic people to travel for him. He can’t do it himself. It was the one thing that eluded him. He dove, over and over, and the portal never opened for him.”

  “Couldn’t he go in the Veronica?” Clover asked.

  Waverly shook his head. “They tried to send someone off the spectrum, early on. He drowned when he didn’t go through the portal with the ship.”

  “Jesus,” West said. “You’re sure you didn’t write yourself anything about this, Dr. Waverly? Some clue or something?”

  “I’m positive. And I’m glad I didn’t. I wouldn’t have liked to sit with this informat
ion about my old friend for the last two years.”

  “If you knew Stead was doing something bad to autistic kids, you could have stopped him,” Clover said. She focused over his shoulder, and for once West wished she’d rock or tap or flap or even scream. Something other than hold herself so tight that he was afraid she might break.

  “I didn’t know that. And I am old and selfish.” Waverly stood suddenly, nearly tipping back the chair. He set the framed picture carefully back in its spot. “When you are old and selfish, you can have opinions about right and wrong. I must get ready for my dive now.”

  “My brother might be executed because you didn’t—”

  “I already told you, I knew he wouldn’t be.” Waverly walked away, to the other room, and closed the door firmly.

  “Geena and Marta were right. He’s crazy,” Clover said.

  West tried to gather his thoughts. He didn’t know what to believe or whom to trust.

  No. That wasn’t true. “Find the others. Tell them to meet us in our house. Fifteen minutes.”

  He grabbed Bridget by the hand and went out the door.

  “Waverly’s diving tonight,” West said, after everyone had gathered. “He’ll be gone to the lake for at least ninety minutes. I think we need to search.”

  “Search for what?” Jude asked.

  “Waverly can’t get out of the future. He’s like an addict. Somewhere, he must have stuff written down about Bennett and Stead and what the hell is going on in the Company. Why we’re here. What we’re supposed to do.”

  “So we toss his house?” Christopher asked. “What if he finds out? What if he already knows, because he wrote about it somewhere and telling us he’s going diving is some kind of setup?”

  “It’s a risk we have to take,” West said. “We need to know what’s going on, and I don’t think he’s going to give us the whole story.”

  “I been thinking. Any of you ever know a kid at Foster City that just poofed? You know, a kid like—” Phire tilted his head toward Clover.

  Clover shot Phire a dirty look. “You mean autistic? It’s not a dirty word. You can say it.”

  “Fine, any of you know an autistic kid that went ghost from Foster City?”

  “Oh, my God.” Clover covered her mouth with one hand, and breathed into it for a few seconds like you might into a bag if you were light-headed. Then she pulled her hand away and said, “Your brother, Jude. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  The whole room turned toward Jude, who looked a little green around the gills. Jude opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Then he stood up and left the room. Clover started to get up, to go after him, but West put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go.”

  It was warm outside, but the sky was overcast and everything had a sort of grayness to it. Jude leaned against the side of the little taxidermy house. He looked up when West came out.

  “I don’t want to talk about Oscar,” Jude said. “I really don’t.”

  West didn’t blame Jude. When Clover was missing for just a single day, he’d been frantic enough to knock on the headmaster’s door. He tilted his head toward the watch Jude twisted around his wrist. “Was that his?”

  “He always wore it. He left it behind for me, on my bed.”

  “How long has he been missing?”

  “Three years.” Jude tipped his head back and looked at the sky. “Looks like rain, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, little bit.”

  “Oscar loved the rain. He knew everything about every major storm for the last hundred years.”

  “Was he younger than you?”

  “Almost four years older.”

  West had about a dozen questions jostling for position in his head, but he didn’t know how to ask any of them. The best he could do was say, “I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet him.”

  “Maybe they just have him in the Mariner program somewhere. They don’t see us as real people, you know. Foster City kids, I mean. It wouldn’t occur to them that taking Oscar and leaving me behind would be a problem to anyone. He could still be alive.”

  “We’ll find him,” West said. “I don’t know how. But if he’s alive, we’ll find him.”

  “He wasn’t always all that easy to live with. Sometimes he would get so angry over something that no one else could see. But we took care of each other.”

  “I know.”

  Jude stood up from the wall. “I’m glad they let Clover come home.”

  West was, too. He was almost sick with relief. “We better get back inside.”

  “I want to go with him,” Clover was saying when they came back to the table.

  “I don’t think so,” West said at the same time that Jude said, “No.”

  “I’m the only one of us who can travel through the portal. I need to see how he does it. What if I have to sometime?”

  Jude took his seat next to her again. “Why would you ever need to?”

  “How could I know that?”

  “You don’t even know how to swim,” West pointed out.

  “I don’t want to dive tonight, for God’s sake. I just want to watch. I want to see what happens.”

  Arguing with Clover was like beating yourself against a brick wall. West felt the headache coming on to prove it. “The portal is deep. You won’t see anything.”

  “Come with me if you want. I’m going.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Jude said. “The more we know the better, including about what he does when he goes out to the lake.”

  Everyone wanted to go then, and there was a little chaos as they jockeyed for a spot on the team that would head with Waverly to Lake Tahoe.

  “Wait a minute,” West said. “We don’t even know if he’ll allow it.”

  “Nine on one? He won’t have a choice,” Geena said.

  Jude put his arms up to stop the noise. “Raise your hand if you want to go.”

  All hands went up.

  More noise that made Clover cover her ears with her hands and start to rock in her chair.

  “Someone has to search the house. That was the whole point,” West said.

  “I’ll stay,” Bridget said. “Me and Emmy. We’ll be the search party, won’t we, Emmy?”

  The little girl took a long time to think about that and then finally nodded very seriously.

  It took less to persuade Waverly to let them come to the lake with him than Clover anticipated. He agreed almost immediately, which made her think maybe he already knew they’d ask. They all piled into the van. Clover left Mango with Bridget and Emmy. He would warn them when the van returned.

  “Sit up here with me, Clover,” Waverly said when she was about to climb into the back, which had its seats replaced now. She hesitated, but then climbed into the passenger seat.

  After they were on the highway, Waverly reached down between their seats and pulled up something that looked like a rubber bag with a long strap and a mouthpiece. “This is how I do it.”

  Clover took the bag and Waverly put his hands back at ten and two on the steering wheel. “What is it?”

  “An air bladder. I know, I know. Terrible name. But it stuck. Air tanks won’t make it through the portal with the electronics intact. I’ll fill the bag with oxygen, and it’ll give me just enough to get me through and back.”

  “The water must be cold down there. Do you dive in the winter?”

  “Not as much. Sometimes I have to risk it.” He didn’t say more, and she didn’t ask what might make him dive into nearly frozen water. “My suit keeps me warm enough.”

  “What do you do on the other side?”

  “I write in my notebook. I read what’s been said earlier. I keep the current one there, so I’m not tempted to spend too much time with it here. A built-in restraint.”

  “Where do you keep the notebooks?”

  Waverly was silent for a minute, and then he said, “In good time, okay?”

  “Does Jon Stead know you still dive? Do you ever see him?”

  “We didn’
t part well, me and Jon.”

  “What happened?” As soon as the question was out, she wondered if she shouldn’t have asked. But Waverly didn’t seem upset by it.

  “I couldn’t be part of what he was doing anymore. And he didn’t want me to leave the Company. I know too much. Even Langston doesn’t know everything that I do.”

  “Does Dr. Stead know where you are?”

  Waverly shook his head. “I don’t think so. I was on guard for years, waiting for him to find me. I stayed in houses around the lake at first. Then I found the ranch. It was perfect. Jon never came. I guess as long as I kept my head down, finding me wasn’t a priority. He’d have to do it himself, wouldn’t he? Everyone else left alive thinks I’m their savior.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Waverly drummed his palms on the steering wheel to the time of some music only he heard. “I suppose so.”

  “Do you know where Jon Stead is?” West asked from behind Waverly, who looked through the rearview mirror at him.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  Waverly adjusted the mirror. “Everything you need to know is where all the information is.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “When you need to know, you will. We’re meeting the train first.”

  “What train?” Clover asked. She’d never actually seen one. When she was still a baby, work was done to extend tracks around the city, so that train deliveries could be made without breaching the walls. The trains stopped just outside the city. Guards with trucks brought the goods in from them and out to them.

  “This is why I was so glad you wanted to come. You’ll meet Frank tonight and his daughter Melissa. She’s about your age, Clover.”

  “We get to see a train?” Christopher asked.

  “We do indeed.”

  The energy in the van changed, from wary distrust to excitement.

  Waverly drove quietly for a few more minutes, then pulled onto an unpaved service road and finally turned down a nearly invisible path that was hidden by the trees. They all sat there, their eyes and ears trained toward the tracks in front of them.