by Ally Condie
“What is it about the Otherlands,” I ask him today, “that makes all of you want to go there so much?”
Oker snorts. “Nothing,” he says. “I’m too old to start over. I’ll be staying right here. And I’m not the only one.”
“Then why work on the cure if you’re not sharing the reward?” I ask.
“Because of my inherent altruism,” Oker says.
I can’t help but laugh at that and he glares at me. “I want to beat the Society,” Oker says. “I want to find the cure first.”
“It’s not the Society anymore,” I remind him.
“Of course it is,” he says, tipping back his canteen to drink. He wipes off his mouth with the back of his hand and glares at me. “Only fools think that anything has changed. The Rising and the Society have infiltrated each other so thoroughly that they don’t even know who’s who anymore. It’s like a snake eating its own damn tail. This—out here—is the only true rebellion.”
“The Pilot believes in the Rising,” I say. “He’s not a fraud.”
Oker looks at me. “Maybe not,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean you should follow him.” Then his gaze turns sharp. “Or me.”
I don’t say anything because we both know I’m already following the two of them. I think the Pilot’s the way to revolution, and that Oker’s the way to the cure.
The patients here still look much better than the ones back in the Provinces. Oker’s cured all the secondary symptoms from the mutated Plague, like the platelet accumulation and the lung secretions. But he keeps muttering about proteins and the brain, and I know he hasn’t figured out how to prevent or reverse the mutation’s effect on the nervous system. But he’ll get there.
Oker swears. He’s spilled some of the water from the canteen onto his shirt. “The Society was right about one thing,” Oker says. “Damn hands stopped working a year or two after eighty. Of course, my mind still functions better than most.”
Cassia’s already in her cell when I get there, but she’s waited up for me. I can’t see her very well because it’s night, but I can hear her when she talks to me. Someone down the hall shouts out at us to be quiet but everyone else seems to have fallen asleep.
“Rebecca says all the research medics like you,” Cassia says. “She also says that you’re the only one who talks back to Oker.”
“Maybe I should stop,” I say. I don’t want to alienate any of the workers. I’ve got to stay inside the research lab working on that cure.
“Rebecca says it’s good,” Cassia says. “She thinks Oker likes you because you remind him of himself.”
Is that true? I don’t think I’m as proud as Oker is, or as smart. Of course, I have always wondered if I could be the Pilot someday. I like people. I want to be around them and make things better for them.
“We’re getting closer,” Cassia says. “We have to be.” Her voice sounds a little bit farther away. She must have moved back to sit on her bed instead of standing right at the front of the cell. “Good night, Xander,” Cassia says.
“Good night,” I tell her.
CHAPTER 35
CASSIA
Sometimes, when I am tired, it seems that I have never lived anywhere else. I have never done anything but this. Ky has always been still, and Xander and I have always been working on a cure. My parents and Bram are lost to me, and I have to find them, and the task at hand seems very large, too large for any one person or any group of people.
“What are you doing?” one of the other sorters asks. She gestures to the datapod, and to the tiny scraps of paper and the charcoaled stick I’ve been using for notes. I’ve found that sometimes I have to write things down by hand to understand the data I see on the datapod’s screen. Writing clears my mind. And lately, I’ve been trying to draw by hand from the descriptions recorded in the datapod, because I can’t picture the things they’ve described as being possible components for the cure. The sorter’s eyes crinkle with laughter as she looks at my attempt at drawing a flower, and I pull the paper closer to me.
“There aren’t any pictures on the datapod,” I say. “Only written descriptions.”
“That’s because we all know what they look like,” another sorter says, sounding annoyed.
“I know,” I say softly, “but I don’t. And it’s affecting the sorts we do. They’re wrong.”
“Are you saying we’re not doing our job correctly?” the first sorter asks, her voice cold. “We know the data could have errors. But we’re sorting it in the most efficient way we can.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s not what I mean. It’s not the beginning or the end of the sort—it’s not the data or the way we’re sorting it. Something’s not coming together in the middle, in the correlation of the lists. It’s as if there’s an underlying phenomenon that we’re not observing, some latent variable that we’re not measuring in the data.” I’m sure that our understanding of the relationship between these two sets of data isn’t right. As sure as I am that I’m missing the middle of the red garden day memory.
“The important thing,” says the other sorter, “is that we keep getting the lists to Oker.” Every day, we send him suggestions of what might contribute to the cure, weighted according to the best information we have about the patients and taking into account what hasn’t worked.
“I don’t know how much Oker listens to us anyway,” I say. “I think there’s one person Oker trusts, and that’s himself. But if we can come to some kind of consensus on what should be the most important ingredients and give that to him—he might be more likely to take what we say into account if our analysis lines up.”
Leyna is watching me.
“But that’s what we’re doing,” one of the sorters protests.
“I don’t feel like I’m doing it right,” I say. Frustrated, I push back my chair and stand up, holding the datapod in my hand. “I think I’ll take my break now.”
Rebecca nods.
“I’ll walk you to the infirmary,” Leyna says, surprising me. She works very, very hard, and I know the Otherlands are to her what Ky is to me, the best, most beautiful place, not fully realized, but full of promise.
We cross the village circle and pass the enormous stone set there. In front of it are two narrow troughs.
“What do you use these for?” I ask Leyna.
“Voting,” she says. “It’s how we choose. The farmers, too. Each person in the village has a little stone with his or her name written on it. Those troughs are where people cast their stones. The choice, or trough, with the most votes wins.”
“And are there always only two choices?” I ask.
“Usually,” Leyna says. Then she gestures for me to follow her around to the other side of the stone. “Look back here.”
There are tiny names on the stone, arranged in columns. Someone has chipped and carved them in. They start at the top and come down to the bottom, where there is only a little room left.
“This column,” Leyna says, “is a list of all those who have died in this village, in Endstone. And this,” she adds, pointing to another part of the stone, “is a list of people who have gone on to the Otherlands. This is the jumping-off place, so to speak, so anyone who came through here on their way to the Otherlands—no matter where they came from originally—has their name carved here.”
I stand there for another moment, looking at the names on the stone in the Otherlands column, hoping to find someone. At first my eyes slide right over his name, not daring to believe he’s there, but then I look back and it hasn’t disappeared.
Matthew Markham.
“Did you know him?” I ask Leyna eagerly, touching the name.
“Not well,” she says. “He was from another village.” She looks at me with interest. “Do you know him?”
“Yes,” I say, my heart pounding
. “He lived in the Borough. His parents sent him out of the Society.” I should have thought to ask about this sooner; I can’t wait to tell Ky that his cousin was here once, that he might be alive somewhere, even if it’s in a place from which people do not come back.
“A lot of those who vanished went on to the Otherlands,” she says. “Some of them—and I can’t remember if Matthew was this way—felt that, if their parents didn’t want them in the Society, they’d get even farther away than their families intended. For some, it was almost like revenge.” Then she puts her hand on his name, too. “But you say he used this name in the Borough?”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s his real name.”
“That’s something, then,” she says. “Many of them changed their last names. He didn’t. That means he didn’t want to erase the trail completely if someone wanted to look for him eventually.”
“They had no ships,” I say. “So they would have had to walk all the way to the Otherlands.”
She nods. “That’s why they don’t come back,” she says. “The journey is too long. Without ships, it takes years.” Then she points to the bottom of the stone. “There’s just enough space for the rest of our names,” she says. “It’s a sign that we should go.”
“I understand,” I say. The stakes are high, almost impossibly so, for every single one of us.
When I get to the infirmary, I tell Ky all about the stone. “It’s proof that Anna’s right, that he didn’t die in Oria,” I say, “unless there’s another Matthew Markham, but the likelihood of that is . . .” I stop calculating and breathe out. “I think it’s him. I feel it.”
I try to remember Matthew. Dark-haired, older than me, handsome. He looked enough like Ky that you could tell they were cousins, but different. Matthew wasn’t as quiet as Ky; he had a louder laugh, a bigger presence in the Borough. But he was kind, like Ky.
“Ky,” I say, “when we find the cure, I’ll take you to see the stone. And then we can go back and tell Patrick and Aida.”
I’m about to say more when the door opens. Anna has brought Eli to see me at last.
Eli has grown, but he still lets me hold him the way I hope Bram will when I see him again, pulled close and tight. “You made it,” I say. He smells like the outdoors, a scent of pine and dirt, and I am so glad he’s well that tears stream down my cheeks even though I smile.
“Yes,” Eli says.
“I lived in your city,” I say. “In Central. I thought of you all the time and wondered if I was walking on the streets where you lived, and I saw the lake.”
“I miss it sometimes,” Eli says. He swallows. “But it’s better here.”
“Yes,” I say. “It is.”
When Eli pulls away, I look over at Hunter. He still wears blue markings up and down his arms, and his eyes are very tired.
“I want to see Ky,” Eli says.
“And you’re sure Eli’s immune?” I ask Anna.
She nods. “He doesn’t have the mark,” she says, “but none of us do.”
I step away from the cot so Eli can go around to the other side. He crouches down next to Ky and looks right into his eyes. “I live in the mountains now,” he tells Ky, and I have to turn away.
Anna points to my datapod. “Are you any closer to a cure?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I’m not helping,” I say. “I don’t know enough about the things on the lists. I can read the descriptions, but I don’t know what the plants and animals you eat look like.”
“And you think that matters?” Anna asks.
“I do,” I say.
“I can draw some pictures for you,” she says. “Show me the items on the list that you’ve never seen before.”
I pull out a scrap of paper and write them all down for her. It’s a long list and I feel embarrassed. “I’ll work on it right away,” she says. “Where should I begin?”
“Flowers first,” I say. It feels right. “Thank you, Anna.”
“I’m glad to do it,” she says.
“And thank you for coming to see Ky,” I tell Hunter. He shakes his head as if to say, It’s nothing. I want to ask him how he is, to find out more about what his life has been like here in the mountains, but he nods to me and leaves. I should go, too. I have more sorting to do, always, until we find a cure.
CHAPTER 36
KY
Every time she leaves, Cassia always promises that she’ll be back.
It feels like it’s been a long time since she was here, but I can’t really tell. Now that she’s gone, I hear other voices, like I heard Vick’s after he died on the bank.
This time it’s Indie talking to me, but that can’t be right because she’s not here.
“Ky,” she says. “I brought Cassia to Camas for you.”
“I know,” I say. “I know, Indie.”
I can’t see her. But her voice is so clear it’s hard to believe that it’s actually me, making this up. Because Indie can’t be here talking to me. Can she?
“I’m sick,” she says. “So I had to run. There’s still no cure.”
“Where are you running?” I ask.
“As far as I can before I go down,” she says.
“No,” I say. “No, Indie. Go back. They’ll find a cure. And you might have the old version of the illness. Maybe they can help you.” I can’t believe I’m telling her to do this, but what other choice is there?
She’s not going to listen to me.
“No,” she says. “It’s the mutation.”
“You can’t be certain,” I tell her.
“I can,” she says. “I’ve got red marks around my back. It hurts, Ky. So I’m running.” She laughs. “Or flying, you could say. I took a ship from the Pilot.”
I’m saying her name, over and over again, trying to stop her. Indie, Indie, Indie.
“Even when I hated you, I liked your voice,” she says.
“Indie—” I say one more time, but she doesn’t let me go on.
“Am I the best pilot you’ve ever seen?” she asks.
She is.
“I am,” she says, and I can tell from her voice that she’s smiling. She’s always so beautiful when she smiles.
“Remember how I used to think the Pilot would come on the water?” Indie asks. “Because my mother sang me that song.” Then Indie’s singing it for me, her voice strong and plain. “Any day her boat might fly /Across the waves and to the shore.” A pause. “I thought she might be trying to tell me that I could be the Pilot someday. So I built the boat and tried to escape.”
“Turn around,” I tell Indie. “Go back. Let them hook you up to keep you alive.”
“I don’t want to die,” Indie says. “Either they’ll shoot me down or I’ll get somewhere I can land and then I’m going to run until I can’t anymore. Don’t you understand? I’m not giving up. I’m just running until the end. I can’t go back again.”
And now I don’t know what to say.
“He’s not the Pilot,” Indie tells me. “I know that now.” She breathes out shakily. “Remember when I thought you were the Pilot?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Do you know who the Pilot really is?” Indie asks.
“Of course,” I say. “You do, too.”
She catches her breath and for a moment I think she might be crying. When she speaks I hear the tears in her voice, but I can also tell she’s smiling again. “It is me,” she says.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course it is.”
For a little while there is silence.
“I think you kissed me back,” she says.
“I did,” I say.
I’m not sorry anymore.
When Indie kissed me, I felt all her pain and longing and want. It cut me up to know how she felt and to know how much
I loved her, too, but not in a way that could work. The way I feel about Indie is an understanding so painful and elemental that it would tear me apart.
The strange thing is that what she felt for me held her together.
I could do for her what Cassia does for me. I knew that and it’s why I kissed Indie back.
It feels as though I’m running with her—I see moments from her life. Water filling a boat in Sonoma as the Officials sink it before her. Her triumphant run down the river to the Rising that didn’t save her. Our kiss. A flight, a landing, a run, step after step after step, running when anyone else would go still—
Then nothing but black.
Or maybe it was red.
CHAPTER 37
XANDER
Oker,” Leyna says, “the sorters have made a new list for you.”
“Another one?” Oker asks. “Put it over there.” He gestures to one end of the long table.
In theory, Oker needs the lists from the sorters because their input is valuable. The sorters try to discover which factors are most likely to contribute to the immunity. Oker has to figure out what that means in the real world. If eating some kind of plant seems to be a factor, what component of the plant is it that’s important? How do you put that into a cure? In what concentration? The collaboration is supposed to save everyone time and increase the chances that we’ll find an effective cure quickly.
But Oker never seems inclined to drop what he’s doing and read through the list right away. I know how hard Cassia has been working on sifting through the information. It’s valuable. I clear my throat to say something but Leyna speaks first.
