In the Afterlight (Bonus Content)

by Alexandra Bracken

  “Five A.M. wake-up alarm. Five minutes later, the doors unlock. After that, it changes by month. They gave us two meals a day, so if you didn’t have breakfast scheduled, you went to the Wash Rooms and worked for the next six hours until midday, when they gave you lunch. Then you had time in your cabin for about two hours before you started an evening work shift, usually some kind of cleaning, like laundry, or mucking out the terrible sewage system that always got backed up. Then dinner. Then at eight, lights out.”

  “My God,” was Senator Cruz’s only comment.

  “There were over three thousand of us,” I said. “They had the system down to the second. They even figured out how to accommodate for the shrinking number of PSFs, once everyone started finishing their four years for the draft.”

  “What would you say the ratio of kids to PSFs was?” Cole said. “Ballpark it.”

  I’d already given him this information in my plan, but he was asking for the benefit of the two women in front of me.

  “Cate told me there were usually two hundred in the camp at all times, plus an additional twenty bodies working in the Control Tower. There may be fewer now that they’re in the process of closing the camp.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but they’re strategically placed, and they’re given permission to harass and bully the kids.”

  For someone who had been so involved in researching a cure for IAAN, Dr. Gray looked sick at all of this, like it was her first time hearing it. That seemed impossible. Certain things were bound to be confidential, but her husband was the president—he’d played an integral role in the development of the rehabilitation camp program.

  She looked away. “…You’re like my son, are you not?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but not in the way that matters.”

  “Were you there at Thurmond while he was?”

  “After. We didn’t overlap at all. I didn’t arrive at the camp until they’d already started to expand it. Is there a reason you’re asking?”

  She cocked her head to the side and I fought off the shudder that threatened to move through me. The simple movement was Clancy, all Clancy.

  “I’m assuming that the reason I’m here is because you want to know about my success in controlling the children’s psionic abilities?” she began, straightening in her seat. “As well as Leda Corp’s final assessment as to the cause?”

  “You got it,” Cole said. “So, naturally, our question is what you want in return.”

  It was straightforward and to the point, and still, I was somewhat shocked by it. I don’t know why I had expected her—a Gray—to do this out of the goodness of her heart. I had hoped, I guess, that the apple had fallen far from the tree in that regard.

  “Can we speak somewhere with a little more privacy?” she asked, glancing through the glass windows at the kids moving through the halls.

  “Sure thing,” Cole said. “Nico, grab us if you hear any chatter about Kansas.”

  We followed him upstairs, past the groups of kids moving between the rooms in the hallways, all of whom seemed oblivious to who the blond woman was. When we reached the office upstairs, Cole motioned for the two older women to sit as he walked around to the other side of the desk, and I locked the door behind us.

  Dr. Gray leaned back against her chair, her dark eyes taking the small room in with one glance. “This was John’s office, wasn’t it?”

  I’d somehow managed to forget the fact that the Grays and John Alban were once close personal friends. Alban had helped the First Lady disappear, sponsored her research trials, made a deal with her—Oh.

  “You want us to hold up Alban’s end of the bargain,” I said. “You’ll give us the information in exchange for being able to perform the procedure on Clancy first.”

  Cole let out a soft whistle. “I was under the impression it’s a kind of operation. You couldn’t expect to be able to perform it here.…”

  “Of course not,” she said. “You could scrub every inch of this place with bleach and it still wouldn’t be clean enough for an operation. I would need you to quietly help me set up a time it can be performed at a local hospital, where I’ll have trained staff.”

  “That’s a tall order,” Cole said. “There’s almost no way to keep it quiet.”

  “Once the procedure is complete, the plan has always been to take Clancy and go into hiding. I want a return to a life that resembles normal, with the son I once had.”

  The cure is another way to control us, take decisions out of our hands. Clancy’s words worked through my mind in a whisper. I listened.

  “I don’t…” I started to say. What was really my problem with this, though? Clancy had proven over and over to me that he couldn’t be trusted to use his abilities in a way that wouldn’t hurt others. East River…Jude…how many times did he have to show me the lengths he would go to? All to avoid becoming what he’d been at Thurmond: powerless. I’d felt his helplessness when he was strapped down on the table at Thurmond, the pain of having volts of electricity shot through his mind. I’d felt the embarrassment of losing control of my functions, the fury of being treated like an animal.

  He’d save himself before a group of thousands. This time, we had to choose the thousands over him.

  “Okay,” I said, when it was clear Cole had been waiting for me to respond. What was it I saw flicker in his eyes—disappointment? Understanding? It was there and gone so fast, masked by his usual grim smile, I wasn’t sure I had seen it at all.

  “It’s a deal,” he said. “We’ll round up the troops tonight so you can explain. Tomorrow morning, we’ll start looking into viable hospital options for you.”

  Dr. Gray inclined her head, a silent agreement. I stood up, muttering some excuse about needing to check on Vida and the training upstairs. In truth, I couldn’t seem to get the room’s heavy air into my lungs—not in, not out. I was suffocating on the words left hovering inside those four walls, and I couldn’t shake the feeling, not even as I wiped them frantically against my legs, that I had spilled blood on my hands.

  I was alone in the computer room with Vida, telling her about the short conversation I’d had with Cate, when Zu’s face suddenly appeared on the news channel livestream Nico had set up.

  I’d been sitting with my knees drawn up to my chest, doing the best I could to answer her questions, all of which seemed to be a variation on, “But she’s okay, right?” My eyes had stayed peeled to the screen, waiting for any late-breaking news from Kansas, and when I saw Zu I dropped my feet back to the floor so quickly that the chair rocked forward with me.

  “Turn the sound back on,” I said.

  “—more footage released today from sources tied to the rehabilitation camp scandal that’s rocking a newly reopened Washington. This evening, Amplify released a series of videos, purportedly of the children who were removed from Nevada. Let’s take a look.…”

  I didn’t know if it was the news network or if it had been Alice’s clever mind at work with the editing, but the initial seconds of footage were of each of the ten kids who’d agreed to be interviewed, introducing themselves.

  “Zach…I’m seventeen years old.”

  “My name is Kylie and I’m sixteen.”

  On and on until finally the video showed Zu; there was footage of her shot later, introducing herself this time. Immediately, the video launched into her describing the way her parents had dropped her off at school. Each of the kids got to tell their own version of how they had gotten away from PSFs, their parents, the world.

  I pressed a hand against my mouth, looking over to gauge Vida’s reaction. She took a sip from her water bottle and slammed her palm back down on the cap to close it again.

  “They’re fast on pulling the trigger, I’ll give them that,” she said. “But boo, you know I’m with you. This is great for tugging some heartstrings, but how many asses is it going to get off of couches? Where’s the call to action with this? They needed our input. There’s too much hope here, not enough strategy.
”

  “They were right, though,” I said, feeling strangely hollow at my center. “We did need something like this—we have to set the public up with the truth, so that when the kids do get out, they’ll be accepted. This is good.” Liam’s instincts had been right.

  “Just because they’re right, it doesn’t make you wrong, boo,” she said, lowering the volume. “Charlie was right. You dipshits fell apart without us there to tell you what to do.”

  The newscaster, a perky blond woman in a deep red suit, appeared back on the screen, but almost immediately cut to a photo a program viewer had sent in. At the center of what the program had identified as New York City’s Times Square, Zu’s face glowed from a cluster of three billboards, a stark contrast to the dark billboards around it, the ones that hadn’t been lit up for years. It was a heartbreaking photo—even without knowing the girl or the context of the interview from which the still of her had been taken, it tugged at you, demanded your attention. The words PUBLIC ENEMY, AGE 13 flashed over the image, a perfectly calibrated piece of emotional manipulation.

  “Where is Chubs?” I asked.

  Vida began to peel the label off her water bottle. “I asked Cole if our boy there could use one of the empty senior agent quarters to set up a kind of…medical bay, or something. First-aid station. A place to put all of the medical junk and books he’s been carting around like a freaking nerd. He’s in there measuring out all of his jars of cotton balls and Q-tips.”

  “You’re going soft on me, Vi,” I said. “That’s almost sweet—”

  The glow from the screen changed abruptly from the electric blue and white of the news station. The set flashed red, drowning out even the color of Vida’s hair. “Oh, shit.”

  The structure was almost unrecognizable, but the words running below it were clear enough: CHILDREN’S LEAGUE HEADQUARTERS DESTROYED.

  “—reporting live from just outside of Colby, Kansas. Government officials have confirmed that drones were used to hit a warehouse believed to house the remnants of the Children’s League. Earlier this morning, faked photographs and documents were leaked to the press, and the organization claimed to—”

  I didn’t stay to hear the rest. If they had sent drones to Colby, then what we were seeing really was Kansas HQ—and all of those agents, unless they’d abandoned it earlier in the day, were gone.

  Cole was in the office with the door shut, but he’d left it unlocked. I slipped inside, finding him in the chair, his hand covering most of his face. At the sound of the door shutting again, he looked up, then switched the phone over to speaker.

  “The guys said it was still burning when they got there.” Harry. “They picked up two survivors about a mile out of what was left of the structure, but can’t get any closer. I’m going to have them pull back and meet with us in Utah.”

  “How did they escape?” I asked. How could anyone?

  “Unclear. The connection was rotten and the survivors had completely lost it by the time our guys found them. The story we got was unreal.”

  “What makes you say that?” Cole asked.

  Static filled the room, filled my brain. It was only because of the murderous look on Cole’s face, the way the heat beneath his skin evaporated that last trace of softness in him, that I knew I hadn’t misheard Harry.

  “The survivors,” Harry said. “They claim they were attacked by a unit of kids. They said they were Reds.”

  “DO YOU BELIEVE IT?” I ASKED. “THAT REDS DID THIS?”

  Cole looked up at my question. “I wish like hell I knew. It just makes me want to—”

  “Want to what?” I asked.

  He stood suddenly, unable to stay seated, his hand spasming the whole time. “I need to tell you something before we go in and present our plan to the other kids.”

  My hands twisted in my lap as I fought to keep my voice calm. “What is it?”

  “I want us to go investigate and document the activities of a camp—Sawtooth, in Idaho. Clancy claims that it’s one of the facilities they use to train Reds.”

  “And you believe him?” I asked, shaking my head. “Cole—”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I do believe him—and not because he’s been working me over with his abilities. Because every piece of intel he’s given me up until now has panned out…and I might have promised I’d consider letting him go if he helped. Obviously not, but still. A good motivator.”

  “Why, though?” I asked. “Why do we need to investigate it?”

  “Senator Cruz told me she needs hard evidence of the army of Reds in order to spook the international community into action. I want to get it for her—at least try. If it’s a dead end, so be it. But tell me I have your support on this. I promise it won’t affect our Thurmond hit.”

  My patience finally dissolved. “If you want to do this, you have to tell the others that you’re a Red. That’s the only way I’ll agree to support this.”

  He reared back in surprise. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “We’ve been losing the support of the kids—I can feel it. They need to know once and for all that you do have our best interests at heart because you’re one of us.” I could hear my own exhaustion in my voice. “Hasn’t this gone on long enough?”

  He opened his mouth, angry and clearly defensive, but closed it again, studying my face. After a long while, he said, “I’ll tell Liam. Start with him tonight. Then, depending on how that goes, I’ll tell the others. Is that reasonable?”

  I could have cried, I was so relieved. “Yes. But you have to tell him before the meeting tonight.”

  He waved me off, taking a seat. “Before that, I want to run through with you how I think we should get you back into Thurmond. Figured you might want to discuss that here, rather than in front of the others?”

  I nodded. “I’ll tell them, but not until we’re all in agreement on the strategy. Are you still thinking you want to drop me in Virginia?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The goal here is to get you in front of one skip tracer to start, while making sure you’re not overpowered from the get-go. We’ll call in a fake tip about a Green kid on the loose, and you’ll have to get into the skip tracer’s mind before he can run your face through the program. He’ll bring you into the nearest PSF base for your reward, and you’ll have him lead a PSF out to you so he can ‘officially’ test you and confirm you’re Green. You’re going to have to jump between the minds of every person you cross paths with—they can’t know the truth, otherwise you’ll never make it to Thurmond. The key is to control the total amount of people you come in contact with at any given time. Is that even doable?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling my spine stiffen with resolve. “It is.”

  We assembled in the garage two hours later, sitting in a circle around the white crescent moon painted on the floor. I’d set up chairs for Cole, Senator Cruz, and Dr. Gray to sit in while we talked, but Cole walked up beside me with another, set it to the right of his, and gently pushed me down into the seat. I snuck a glance at him, trying to read how his conversation had gone, but his expression was carefully blank.

  Liam, on the other hand, looked like he had just stepped off a thundercloud. I felt his eyes on me the entire time, and wasn’t brave enough to try to meet his gaze.

  “So as you can see, we have a new guest with us on this fine evening,” Cole began, arms crossed, stance strong. “She’s the scientist who conducted the research about the cure, and she’s here to explain to you the cause of IAAN, as well as what the cure exactly is.”

  The whispers died out so quickly, I was sure we could have heard a car backfire from a hundred miles away.

  Lillian brushed out invisible wrinkles in her sweatpants and started to rise from her chair, only to change her mind and sit back down. Some of the older kids must have recognized her from old news reports, but most…they were just looking at her in awe, totally oblivious to her last name. Alice, on the other hand, was a different story. I saw the exact moment her mind
made the connection.

  “Hello.” With a deep breath, she turned to Cole and asked, “Where should I begin?”

  “Start with the cause, end with the cure,” he said.

  “Ah. All right. Initially…when Idiopathic Adolescent Acute Neurodegeneration—IAAN—was first recognized, the common assumption was that it was some kind of virus whose manifestation was more pronounced and deadly in children than in adults. This quickly was proven to be false by the scientific community, as cases outside of the United States proved to be fairly rare or mild in comparison. After several years of research…Leda Corp concluded its experiments and has confirmed what some, myself included, had privately believed to be the cause.”

  I leaned forward in my seat, heart hammering in my chest. I bit my lip.

  “Almost thirty years ago, there were attempts…several, actually…on the security of the nation. These bioterrorism attacks were launched by enemies of the United States, all involving tampering with our crops and our water supply.”

  Liam stood at the periphery of the group, next to Alice. He’d been watching Dr. Gray through the digital screen on the back of her camera but looked up at that, startled. I shifted impatiently, waiting for her to continue. There had been theories for years that IAAN was the result of a terrorist attack, this wasn’t new information—

  “The president at the time, not my—not President Gray—signed off on a confidential order to begin development on a chemical agent to counteract and nullify a number of poisons, bacteria, and drugs that could be added to a population’s water supply with us none the wiser. Leda Corp developed and distributed the chemical, called Agent Ambrosia, to our country’s water treatment facilities.”

  I rubbed a hand against my forehead, fighting the way my vision seemed to blur.

  “Did they test this agent in conjunction with the usual minerals and compounds added to our water?” Senator Cruz asked, white with anger.

  Dr. Gray nodded. “Yes, there was routine testing. The participants signed ironclad confidentiality agreements and were generously reimbursed for their time. They studied children, adults, animals. Even pregnant mothers, who all safely delivered their babies without complications and no defects. In truth, these researchers received so much pressure from the government to quickly implement the program that they weren’t able to study the long-term effects of the agent.”