Z 2135

by Wright, David W.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Adam said.

  “Only because you’re still thinking like the old Adam, refusing to see what’s in front of your face. If people stand against that system, even if it’s as simple as making their own way outside in The Games and not being a prisoners to The Network, individual freedom could spread like a virus. For The State, that’s a more terrifying infection than any zombie outbreak.”

  Adam turned from Michael and looked at the spotted bathroom mirror, staring at his own reflection, feeling enlightened and stupid.

  He had never been so conflicted.

  Until recently most things in his life were a constant. He was happy, so were his parents. Ana too. Adam had no cause to question anything, until he had reason to wonder about everything. Then the Chief was there to make everything better, to let him know that everything would be OK. But now nothing was OK. If his life was two halves of a whole story, one was a lie.

  And one part was dead regardless.

  Adam thought of all the wonderful things the Chief had taught him, about ways to be a better Watcher and man. The Chief had not only saved him from the Chimney Rock bullies, he had been kind to him ever since. He made sure Adam’s needs were met, and that he had everything he needed to feel less alone.

  Maybe The State was lying about Ana and the Chief didn’t know. Maybe even he would be surprised to learn this, and would help Adam find out what happened.

  No. He would know it. There’s no way he wouldn’t know the truth.

  Michael softly said, “Keller’s been lying to you since the beginning, and has turned you into a puppet for City Watch. Please Adam, please tell me you see it now.”

  It was awful, but Adam couldn’t deny it. He did see it, did know it was true. And that awful truth made him want to curl into nothing.

  “Even if everything you say is right—about The Network lying, and City Watch grabbing innocent people, about them setting up my dad and sister—that doesn’t mean Keller’s one of the bad guys. Maybe he’s been fooled, just like me.”

  “He’s as corrupt as they come, Adam.”

  “No he’s not,” Adam could believe the rest, but just couldn’t make himself think that Keller was complicit. “What proof do you have?”

  “Proof? Why would I need proof? He’s head of City Watch. That’s all the proof we need. Do you really need to talk to The Underground again? Hear more horror stories? Oh, the things your buddies do when they go into The Dark Quarters—robbing, raping, murdering.”

  “Sometimes the good guys have to do bad things,” Adam said, desperately clinging to his training. “For the greater good.”

  Michael turned, laughing, loudly with a hand over his mouth. “Is that the sort of horseshit they’re feeding you, Adam? Good God. How the hell is robbing, raping, and murdering part of some greater good?”

  While Adam could maybe believe The State had lied about Ana, he couldn’t believe that Watchers were doing such horrible things in The Dark Quarters. Especially not the last two.

  Michael continued, “You said yourself, that you were starting to become disillusioned, right? Why can’t you believe what I’m saying? I just showed you video of your sister and Liam, alive. And it wasn’t made by us, because we can’t do that. If that doesn’t open your eyes, I don’t know what will.”

  Adam returned to the mirror, “Why are you showing me this? Telling me this? What am I supposed to do? Go outside and find Ana in The Barrens?”

  “No,” Michael said, narrowing his eyes. “You fight.”

  “Fight?”

  “Yes, Adam. Join us.”

  “Are you crazy? I’m a Cadet, I can’t join The Underground!”

  “That’s what makes you perfect, Adam. I can’t think of anyone better. You could help us from the inside.”

  Adam stared, then swallowed the growing knot in his throat. When the evening started, he’d hoped to discover the truth about Michael. Now he had it, along with an invitation to join The Underground. If Adam was on the clock, then he’d just earned his first bonus.

  But that was before the video of Ana and Liam.

  The video changed everything, cast doubt on the world Adam thought he knew.

  “Well?” Michael said. “What do you think?”

  Adam suddenly knew (in a way that couldn’t be doubted, like how the sky sat like a lid on the planet, and that his mom and dad loved him before leaving forever) that everything Michael said was right, and that not helping him would be wrong.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  Michael practically jumped in excitement.

  “This is perfect,” he said, louder than he probably should have. “When do you want to start?”

  “Right now,” Adam said, not wanting to give himself seconds to doubt or double back. “What will I have to do?”

  “I don’t know what you’re comfortable with, but I know what we need more than anything.”

  Adam wanted to do that thing, whatever it was. He wanted to be a Cadet because it made it easier to be the best Watcher. If Adam was going to be in The Underground, he wanted to be best at that too.

  “Just tell me what you need.”

  Michael said, “We need you to drug Keller,” as if he’d been waiting forever to make the request.

  “Drug the Chief?”

  “Yes, the next time the two of you have dinner. It will be easy. He trusts you. I’ll give you a stunner; it shoots a paralytic into his blood, along with a jolt of electricity. One shot and he’ll have no power over you.”

  “That won’t work,” Adam said. “At least not right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the Chief is mad at me. I’m sure he doesn’t want to have me over for dinner.”

  “Do you know Keller’s mad, or are you guessing?”

  “Guessing, but I know.”

  “Why?”

  Adam said, “Because I stood up for you. When you thought I was ratting you out, I wasn’t. The Chief asked a bunch of questions, and I lied about the answers, saying I didn’t know anything about you being in The Underground. When we finished talking he was short with me and didn’t want me around. I could tell by his stare that he knew I was lying.”

  Adam expected Michael to look upset. Instead, he seemed happy. “That’s great!” he cried out, slapping the countertop.

  “Why is that great?”

  “Because this gives you the perfect excuse to see him. Tell him you have ‘big stuff’ to talk about, then ask him if you can meet for dinner at his house, as you don’t feel safe talking in public, or even at City Watch. Tell him about me, The Underground, everything else. Set up a mission. It won’t matter that you’re ratting me out because Keller will be too late to do anything about it. We’ll take him somewhere, question him, force him to tell the truth, and then we’ll broadcast it to the people.”

  It seemed like a good idea, if it worked, but Adam wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “This is so big. If I do this, there’s no going back. I’m Underground forever. Maybe I’m too young to hide for the rest of my life. I can’t see returning to City Watch. I’d feel guilty and get caught, or never show up and they’ll know I did it. Besides, what if he’s not alone? What if his wife is there?”

  Adam didn’t want to be a baby, and wasn’t a coward, but drugging Keller seemed sort of stupid. There was no way out if he did that. No matter what, Adam would have to sacrifice himself. He probably wouldn’t have minded before since there was so little that mattered, but now that he knew about Ana, Adam wanted to stay alive.

  Michael said, “There’s nothing to worry about, Adam. As for his wife, we won’t hurt her. Trust me. Despite the rumors, we don’t harm innocents. You do this, and you won’t ever need to go back, or hide. The streets will spill over in revolution, and you’ll wake to a new city by morning.”

  “Will you kill him?” Adam asked. “I don’t want him hurt.”

  “No,” Michael said. “We don�
�t need to hurt him. Though I can’t promise you won’t want me to once he starts talking.”

  CHAPTER 45 — DR. LIZA GOELLE

  Liza stared at Ana’s wrist, astounded.

  It was like nothing she had ever seen. If a wound could be beautiful, this one was. Most of the girl’s skin was the soft pink of fresh skin, though there was still some faded lavender—barely— where the blackish purple would have flowered under ripped flesh.

  Duncan’s wound had scabbed like Ana’s, but it had taken so much longer, and the slow improvement happened only after Liza had dressed the gash daily. Jonah’s daughter and the boy, Liam, were out in The Barrens for days, yet somehow had managed to reach the second camp better off than when they left the first. Ana had no access to medicine or a doctor, yet had healed, seemingly entirely on her own.

  “This is amazing,” Liza said from her seat beside Ana, who was lying on an exam table in one of the medical rooms located across from the main lab on the third level. “I can’t believe how much better you look since just two days ago.”

  Liza had been plenty amazed since her own arrival at Hydrangea, but was most awed by the possibilities present in the girl’s blood. And then there was the zombie-cyborg doctor, Oswald, who might help her strain those possibilities into a true cure.

  Her hope had always been to reverse the infection in the longtime zombies. This despite the possibility that their bodies were too far gone to ever be fully repaired. While the zombies of Old Nation movies were considered reanimated dead, the truth of the real zombies was different: they weren’t dead. Rather, they were in an almost constant state of dying, and most should have been dead, but clung to life, powered by the virus inside them, hungry to spread by any means necessary.

  Liza imagined that most people in The Barrens, if cured, would likely die upon healing. Most zombies examined postmortem had brains that had had severely limited blood flow to all but the most basic parts controlling gross motor function. Even if Liza could cure the long-term infected, they’d likely be vegetables at best.

  But for the newly infected, and for those not yet infected, Liza felt there was genuine hope for both cure and vaccine.

  It was still early in the process of experimenting with Ana’s blood, and she needed more subjects, but Liza couldn’t help but feel encouraged by their prospects. Between Ana, and Oswald—who had somehow halted the infection in his own body—stars seemed to be aligning for a breakthrough.

  Ana asked, “Do you think I’ll be OK?”

  “It’s still premature, but all evidence points to the virus being in remission,” she said. It was so hard to believe that the words still felt odd in her mouth, as if she were a liar for saying them. “I don’t want to say you’re healed, as far as I know healed is actually impossible with this virus, but your blood is definitely in better shape than Duncan’s, both after his initial infection, and post treatment.”

  Liza sighed. This was how it was with science, always a variable or many from the truth. “I wish there were some way I had a sample of your blood from before you started to improve,” she said, half to herself. She was lost in thought.

  “What does this all mean?” Ana asked.

  Liza came back from her musings. “It’s too early to say one way or another. Or to know your overall level of infection from the onset to now. I can only monitor what’s in front of me. We have to test and measure and mostly wait. Until we know more, it’s all speculation.”

  Liam, standing beside Ana on the other side of the table and holding her hand, asked, “Have you ever seen anyone bitten who only turned a little? This isn’t normal, right?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of people immune to the virus. Once their bites healed, they were fine. I’ve never met anyone who was immune before, though. This is only secondhand knowledge from other doctors I’ve spoken with. To my knowledge nobody in City 6 was immune. And I’m not sure Ana is either. No, this isn’t the standard response to a bite. Typically, a subject isn’t affected at all beyond the regular bite wound, or they degrade, and … never get better. This is, as I said before, simply amazing.”

  “Why don’t you know more? Don’t doctors share information?” Liam asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Ana said, apologizing for Liam with a light punch to the arm.

  “No,” Liza said. “It’s a legitimate question. The State publishes no data on infection rates. So far as I know, any attempts to find a cure or vaccine have been abandoned by all but those foolish enough to perform unsanctioned experiments.”

  “Like you?” Ana asked with a smile.

  “Like me,” Liza said. “My only human subject to date was Duncan. And he’d only improved after we treated him with experimental medications.”

  “Are you going to give me the same medicine?”

  “I don’t think I need to. I want to see how this plays out untreated.”

  “So if I’m understanding all of this right,” Liam continued, his kind eyes trying to make sense of it all, “it’s possible that Ana could get better, and if she does, it’s also possible that she could help you develop a cure?”

  “Maybe,” Liza said. She looked up at Oswald, who had just entered the exam room, and asked how Ana was feeling.

  Since Liza had met the doctor it was almost a full-time job to keep from staring in awe, constantly pretending he wasn’t the most amazing (and inspiring) thing she had ever seen.

  Ana said she was OK as Oswald examined her arm.

  Liza asked him, “What do you think?”

  Oswald turned his head sideways, examining every inch of Ana’s arm.

  “Looks good,” he said.

  “No,” Liza said. “I meant what do you think about a cure?”

  “Yes, I believe a cure is possible; that’s what we’ve all been working toward for so long now. I’d started to lose hope after so many failed attempts. But Anastasia has me feeling hopeful again.”

  Oswald smiled, though only half of his mouth turned upward, then said, “I can’t wait to get some test subjects; that’s our next step. It’s easy to find fresh infections in The Barrens, so we’ll have more than we need in no time at all.” He turned to Ana. “Your blood could change everything, and we’ll know a lot more soon. All I keep thinking is: If a cure can be found, why can’t it be us?”

  Liza had been trying not to get her hopes up too much, especially after losing Duncan. But she couldn’t help but feel buoyed by the optimism around her.

  A cure promised to change everything, tear down The Walls and give humanity a fresh start. The world would earn another chance. It would be easy enough to say that one person was nothing to go on, but one person was where everything always started.

  Cures weren’t born, they were discovered. Throughout known history, scientists spent plenty of time looking in the wrong places before stumbling into the right ones. This felt like a breakthrough, and even though Liza had felt such things before, as with Duncan, this time was different.

  And this time she wasn’t alone.

  Liza would have thought Oswald a genius the second she saw the measures he’d taken to ensure his survival. She could only imagine the nerves, courage, and raw intelligence it had taken to do what he did—to chop off his own limbs and replace them with bionics. And after a few minutes of speaking with Oswald, Liza knew he was special. If anyone was going to find a cure, it would be them. And it would be now.

  It had to be.

  “So Dr. Goelle,” Liam said, “is she gonna live?”

  It was obvious how much the boy cared for Jonah’s daughter, not just because of how he stood close enough to warm her, but because his every motion seemed articulated for her protection. He had glanced around the room when they first entered. It seemed to Liza as if he were scouting for danger, but his glances seemed designed around Ana, calculating distance between potential peril and its direct relation to her.

  Their young love made Liza smile, though as sure as she was about Liam’s feelings for Ana, she couldn’t tell if h
is feelings were reciprocated.

  Ana seemed to like Liam, but there was something else there too, something Liza couldn’t quite figure out. Ana was definitely guarded, though. It could have been nothing more than simple caution. Liza couldn’t imagine anyone having a more difficult past year than Ana. First getting tricked into thinking her father had done something so awful as murder her mother, then getting thrown into The Games, trying to survive, living day to day in a camp, then getting bitten just before leaving—the poor girl would probably never be able to relax again.

  Love was hard enough in the best of times. There was only so much a person could take before closing herself off.

  Liza felt her eyes getting damp, thinking of Jonah and how once upon a time she swore his heart beat faster around her, desperately wishing for him to fall into the misdeed she knew they both wanted. Liza had never felt so selfish in her life, not wanting to destroy Molly or stab a woman she didn’t even know with her betrayal. Liza felt like she knew Jonah’s wife through his stories, and didn’t want to hurt her. But at the same time, she didn’t want to give him up.

  You can’t help who you fall in love with.

  Liza had tried not to fall for a married man, but had just the same. She didn’t have to have him to herself. Liza would have been fine being Jonah’s little secret, if it meant having some of his attention. She had imagined him many times standing behind her, his breath on her neck, hands over hers, wandering up.

  She was ashamed to admit that she’d practically thrown herself at him.

  But he was a good man.

  As tempted as he may have been—and she was certain he was—he wouldn’t cheat on Molly.

  “Why are you looking at me that way?” Ana asked, pulling Liza from her thoughts.

  Liza turned from the girl, embarrassed. “Because you remind me so much of your father.”

  Ana blanched. “You know my father?”

  “I do,” Liza nodded. “He’s the reason I’m here. He’s very brave; you should be very proud.”

  “How do you know him?”