“Sarah caught Toby poking around in the silo two weeks ago. Have you seen him too, Ethan? I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m asking you a direct question.”
Ethan stared me straight in the eye. Then he smiled. “There’s the murderer I’ve been looking for.”
I flinched. Stepped back.
Ethan chuckled. “To answer your question, no. I haven’t seen Toby. I don’t understand how he even got onto the island. The outer cliffs are sheer all the way around except for by the caves, but he never came near us. I can promise you that.”
“Maybe he had help.” Richie picked up the overturned chair and sat heavily. Akio remained in the doorway, keeping one eye on the path back to the Outpost.
“Help?” I said. “From who?”
Richie shrugged. “From whoever knocked over this camp.”
I blinked. “Toby did. Obviously.”
Richie’s eyes grew skeptical. “Could Toby and those jokers really have attacked here and blown up the silo on the same night? Seems like a lot, bro.”
Ethan nodded curtly. “Charlie spoke to Neb by radio before the weather hit, but we couldn’t reach anyone by noon the next day. So the Outpost must’ve been attacked during the storm or right after it. How could Toby do both things with only six people?”
I thought about it. “Could the explosions have been detonated remotely?”
“There were what, five of them?” Richie said. “I doubt anyone could rig together so much gear beforehand without a ton of help, or Sarah and her friends noticing. And how’d they know exactly when to collapse the back tunnel unless they were watching things?”
I ground my teeth. They were right, it wasn’t adding up. Which meant Toby’s squad couldn’t be working alone.
Akio came fully inside the cabin. “We should be talking about Tack’s map.”
“Where the hammer came from,” I whispered. In a blink, everything changed. What had Tack been trying to tell us with those arrows? What did he find in the woods? I went cold, considering the impossible. Was some unknown factor at play?
If our problem is bigger than Toby’s goon squad and a few traitors . . .
Ethan clapped his hands. “I see you get it.”
My cheeks reddened. “What do you mean?”
“Your face. You now understand what we have to do. And it isn’t run back to your girlfriend.”
Everything inside me sagged. “We?”
“Not them.” Ethan pointed at Richie and Akio. “But definitely you and me. We’re gonna find out what’s going on in that forest.”
Richie looked around in confusion. “Not us what?”
Ethan folded his arms across his chest. “You two are going back to report what we found and find out why they’re not answering. If everything’s okay, send a team over here to guard the crops while Noah and I are gone.”
Richie’s head dropped to the table. “We have to cross the water again?”
Akio said nothing, but his shoulders tensed.
“Ethan’s right.” I took a deep breath. “Tack left a clear sign. If there’s a threat we don’t know about, Fire Lake Island will always be at risk. It makes sense to split up.” I made a final play. “But Ethan, you’re the sailor. You should go with Richie. Akio can come with me.”
Ethan snorted, absently fiddling with the radio knobs. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
I held my tongue. I knew what was coming.
“This is serious, Livingston.” The humor had left his voice. “There’s no way I’m leaving it up to someone else. I want to know what happened to Corbin and the others. I want to know what’s hiding in those woods, and where that hammer came from. I don’t trust you and Tack to do a damn crossword puzzle together, much less assess a threat. So we’re going arm-in-arm on this one. I promise to use my best manners.”
Ethan took a step toward the door, but I pivoted to block his path.
“You’re right Ethan,” I said, surprised by the frost in my voice. “This is serious. Which means I’m all done with the posturing bullshit. We’ll search the forest, find Tack, and figure out what the hell happened to the Outpost crew. Working together for once. Do you understand?”
Ethan startled me by laughing. He looked at Akio and Richie. “Run and hide, boys! Serial Killer Noah is back, and not a moment too soon.”
I turned and strode from the cabin, a wave of revulsion sweeping through me.
I’m not that guy anymore.
But I was kidding myself. I knew the truth.
I’d be that guy again, if that’s what it took to protect Min. I’d burn down the whole world.
Demons awoke inside me. I felt a familiar, smoldering rage.
I would go into the wild. I would find Tack. I wouldn’t hold back to defend those I cared about.
Ethan was right. I was back.
I’d crush anyone who got in my way.
11
MIN
I scooped cold, rehydrated beans from my bowl.
Spread them on a stale cracker. My tongue recoiled from the taste, but I scarfed it down anyway. Food wasn’t a problem yet—Ridgeline had enough to last another few weeks—but it would be soon, and then forever afterward.
Running out of food had always preoccupied my thoughts, but I’d assumed we had time. Years before needing true self-sufficiency, enough cushion to get our houses built and methods straight, and have a workable farming system in place. But that dream was in tatters now, drowned at the bottom of a submerged silo.
Toby’s silo.
I winced. Then I shook my head to clear it, leaning back against the wall of Sam’s cabin. Toby was a nightmare sprung back to life, but he was a sideshow. It was the strangers with him that mattered.
Because they were impossible.
Totally, clearly, flatly impossible.
My classmates and I were the only survivors of the Nemesis Dark Star that ended all human civilization. My father had told me so straight out, and I believed him. There’d been no reason for him to deceive us any longer. He’d worked too hard, invested too much of himself in the mad scheme—which included murdering me five times—to have lied about why he did it. I was cynical by nature, but I’d seen the truth in his eyes as he explained what Project Nemesis really was.
The Dark Star’s massive gravitational field had ravaged Earth, sparking earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and deadly tectonic shifts. Continents were torn to pieces. Mountain ranges disappeared beneath the sea. Then, as it had many times before, the planet slowly recovered, but over hundreds of thousands of years—far too long a span for humans to have survived on its surface.
The only way we’d survived was by giving up biological existence altogether, hiding inside a computer as strings of ones and zeros. Our persistence was a miracle of science and technology, but it was artificial. We’d used a cheat code to bypass the countless millennia of pure hellscape on Earth after Nemesis. Everyone not uploaded into the MegaCom was dead.
But I’d just seen three people by the silo entrance who hadn’t been there. They weren’t part of the Program.
Which, again, was impossible.
Impossible.
I set the bowl aside and stood. I’d taken a quick nap after our nervy trek around the empty lake, but I could no longer avoid the conversations that needed to take place. There were living, breathing strangers on Fire Lake Island, working with Toby. They’d attacked Home Town and taken hostages. Now they were prowling around our busted silo for some reason, and I couldn’t guess why.
I stepped outside into a damp, spanking breeze. Ridgeline was high up the western side of the bowl, in a windswept valley I wouldn’t have chosen for a settlement. But Sam and his group had wanted away from the rest of us, and this was the geographic limit. Their cabins were smaller, lined up along a creek that emerged from a low-ceilinged cavern. Canvas shee
ts stretched between trees to wall in certain areas, giving the place a woodsy, elven vibe.
The camp had been empty when we arrived. Sam’s whole crew had come down for the meeting after the cave-ins, and I assumed the others were captured in the raid. I found Derrick by the fire pit, tending a blaze of cave-dried logs that wouldn’t smoke much. The risk felt small—we were hours from the silo, under an overcast sky that threatened rain—but we didn’t know what our attackers intended to do next. They could be marching here right now.
“Get some rest?” Derrick asked.
I nodded. “We need to find out who those people are.” I was stating the obvious, but didn’t care. We’d made no plans for something like this, because . . . why would we?
“Let’s wait until everybody’s here.”
I perked at that. “Others?”
“Some people showed up while you slept. About a dozen. Sam’s getting them settled in the cavern, but they’re coming right back.”
“That’s great! Who else made it out?”
Derrick put down his poking stick and leaned back, rubbing his eyes. I could tell he hadn’t slept yet, and my heart went out to him. “When the madness started, Floyd and Hamza bumped into Tucker and some other dude they didn’t know, and pounded them into the ground. Well, Floyd did, anyway. Then they lit out with Leah, Piper, and Ferris. They got lucky in the woods and ran into Zach, Lauren, and Casey. Those guys all hid until morning and headed here, scooping up Anna and Aiken along the way. Cenisa and Leighton showed up by themselves a half hour later.” He blew out an exhausted breath. “Sounds like the crew that hit us wasn’t spectacular at taking prisoners. Maybe that wasn’t even their goal. Seems like they just wanted to control the village and isolate the silo.”
My spirits rose. “That’s fifteen people. Derrick, I only saw twelve attack the village. If that’s all of them, we outnumber the bastards.”
Derrick frowned. “Zach saw a gun on the kid who tried to jump him, and Casey said the same. If they’re armed and we’re not, the numbers don’t really matter.”
I paused, thinking. “Are there no weapons here?”
“Sam told me they don’t have any, and I don’t think he’s lying.”
“You guys have serious trust issues.” Sam strode into the clearing, followed by Leighton, Casey, and Big Floyd. “We don’t have any guns here because we all agreed no one would have any guns, remember?”
I flashed my palms. “I know. I believe you. I was just hoping you’d been dishonest for once.”
Sam barked a laugh. “For once, I wish I had been.”
More classmates filed in. Cliques re-formed, with Floyd, Hamza, and Cenisa gathering with Sam in a Ridgeline bloc, while Casey, Lauren, Leah, and Piper—Home Towners, all—chose a separate log for themselves. Leighton and Zach sat opposite Derrick and me. Ferris, Anna, and Aiken remained standing.
“It’s good to see everyone,” I began, but didn’t get any further. Anna grunted loudly, swatting my opener away like a pesky gnat.
“Cut the crap, Min.” Her whole body quivered as Aiken put an arm around her shoulders. “Get to the point. Who the hell are those people?”
Okay, fair question.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, “and it scares the hell out of me.”
Floyd stood up, glaring at everyone not from Ridgeline. “Have any of you ever seen a stranger before? Don’t lie, now!”
The whole group shook their heads or called out a denial. I expected as much. We might have our differences, but those paled in comparison to the idea that other people might be alive. No one could keep that secret.
“Toby and the Nolans led the attack,” Casey said bitterly, chewing on her long blond braid. “They must’ve met the strangers out”—she waved a hand up and away—“wherever those guys live now.”
“We should hit them back,” Ferris snarled, slamming a fist into his palm. “My cabin burned down last night, with all my things inside. Those a-holes can’t take our stuff. Let’s attack!”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “You want to go against armed fighters with nothing but your fists?”
Ferris swallowed, turned away. He’d never been much for bravery.
I tried to steer the conversation to more productive ground. “Let’s take stock. There are fifteen of us here. I saw twelve flares during the raid, which means at least six people helped Toby’s guys that we don’t know. And they captured sixteen prisoners.”
“How can anyone else be alive?” Leighton whined. “There’s no way society just carried on the same way for a million years outside the Program. They’d be Neanderthals or have teleporters or something.”
“What do they want with the silo?” Aiken added, ignoring Leighton as he glared through a curtain of greasy brown hair. “I saw three of them babysitting the front entrance this morning, even though it’s smashed to pieces. Why would they bother?”
Sam twisted to face Derrick. “Did you reach Spence in the caves?”
Derrick nodded. “He and Charlie are fine. I told them to hang tight.”
“Where’s Ethan?” I said sharply.
“He went with Noah.”
I paused to digest this. That couldn’t have been Noah’s idea.
Derrick leaned forward, jabbing his fire stick into the dirt. “Let’s say the cave-ins really were sabotage by Toby and his new gang. If those fools want something from down there, all they did was make their own job harder.” He spread his arms wide. “For no good reason.”
Aiken stomped the ground in frustration. “None of this makes sense! It’s like we’re back inside the Program.”
Several people flinched. I rose quickly, lofting both hands. “Everyone stay calm. We’re definitely not inside the Program. That’s over with.”
“You don’t know that!” Anna shrilled, her beady doll’s eyes glistening. “Maybe we never came out. This could all be, like, some twisted new simulation level. We could still be dead!”
Panic began leaching through the group like a virus. The meeting teetered on its rails.
“That’s not true.” I fought to keep my voice calm. “We’re facing something unimaginable, but it does exist. We exist. We’re alive in the real world.” My voice dropped. “We have the graves to prove it.”
Sam’s head jerked away. His cousin hadn’t gotten even that much.
“This is worthless.” Ferris sat back and scratched his nose. “Strangers have imprisoned our friends and are trying to steal everything we have, including our homes. We have to fight back. It’s literally a matter of survival.”
“You guys keep glazing over the fact that other people are alive,” Anna shouted, hands clenched at her sides. “What if there are, like, thousands of them?”
“Wouldn’t that be . . . good?” Hamza blushed as all eyes swung to him, but he kept going. “I mean, lots of people would mean a society. That we’re not alone. They might have a city, indoor plumbing, all that stuff. Shouldn’t we try talking to them and see where they’re from?”
“They didn’t talk to us,” Derrick growled. “Sorry Ham, but these people attacked in the middle of the night and locked me in a shed. It’s not like I wouldn’t have sat down if they’d wanted to.”
Zach spoke for the first time. “Where they came from is my thing. We’ve charted every scrap of land within a two-day radius of our island. Where do these strangers live, and how did Toby meet them?”
“And why would they take his side?” Casey crinkled her nose. “He’s an insane, slimy prick.”
“You guys are missing the point!” Anna had worked herself into a lather. “How are these people alive?! Who are they?! What are they going to do to us?!”
“I have a guess.”
Heads spun around as Sarah slipped from the forest, followed by Jessica Cale. My stomach did a backflip and botched the landing.
Derrick s
queezed his forehead. “Stop doing that.”
“Sorry. I wanted to listen for a minute.”
I glanced into the woods behind Sarah, but she shook her head. “No one else. Just this one, and she’s been terrible company.”
Jessica ran to Piper and buried her face in her friend’s lap. Sarah sat on a log next to Derrick. “They took everyone else,” she said. “Twelve attackers, including six douchebags we don’t know. Fourteen prisoners. They aren’t really trying for more. They have what they want.”
I cleared my throat. “Which is?”
Sarah looked at me with disappointment. “The silo, Min. They want the lab complex.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s the only thing that makes sense.” She crossed her arms, spoke in a tone best suited for addressing a pet of questionable intelligence. “Toby stole explosives and used them to destroy the silo’s front entrance and upper levels, forcing my group to evacuate. Then he slammed the back door and flooded the shaft, sealing off the lab complex completely. But it’s still down there, undisturbed, and now they control the perimeter, too. To me it’s obvious what they’re after.”
She paused. I refused the bait.
Sarah smiled. “What, you ask? Why the MegaCom, of course.”
I bit my lip, thinking. The others remained silent, content to let me deal with Sarah alone.
“What would they want with it?” I asked, honest confusion superseding my annoyance. “It’s useful for record keeping, and running the silo itself, but we’re in a one-system world now. It’s a relic.”
Sarah warmed her hands over the fire. “Maybe Toby promised these newcomers something. Information we have, about our own survival. Or maybe the strangers don’t have a supercomputer as strong as ours, or an advanced system at all. I can’t really say, but I’m sure that’s what they want. Based on their actions, it’s the only logical goal.” She paused. “But we can get inside before them.”
My mouth opened, but before I could speak, Anna walked directly up to Sarah, panic overriding her instinct for selfpreservation. “You. All. Keep. Missing. The. Point. Where did these people come from, Sarah? Nothing else matters.”
Chrysalis Page 9
