The Death Code

by Lindsay Cummings

  “So the whole country is prisoner,” Meadow says. She’s taking the news well.

  I’m freaking out so bad I can’t even find words.

  “Why?” Sketch asks.

  “Because the Initiative offered up the United States as one of the controlled variables in a worldwide experiment,” the General says. “We’re the country that’s trying to reverse things. The testing sites, the Shallows, the Ridge, the Drop. It’s all ways to deal with the Cure. Murder, manipulation. They’re trying to fix what Lark Woodson and her team started.”

  “And you want to fight that?” Sketch asks.

  The General nods. “People aren’t mice to be thrown into mazes. The world got sick, and the Initiative made it even sicker by eliminating death. What they’re doing to our people . . . It ain’t right. This is the new way of the world. We should be able to live free in it, or die trying. The New Militia has a few branches. We’re gathering teams, gearing up for a fight. It took years to get to where we are now. Those people out there, in this city? They protect us. Help hide us from the Initiative. It’s been a close call, and we’ve lost people. We’ve moved around a lot, regrouped. But we’re almost ready. Soon, we’ll stage simultaneous attacks on the Ridge and the Drop.” He smiles. “You and your people took care of the Shallows for us.”

  Meadow nods, chews on her thumbnail.

  “My mother said the Ridge was up north. Do you know where it is? What happens there?”

  The General is quiet for a long time. “Your family is stuck inside of the site for Genetic Mutation. It’s in what used to be Northern Washington. They’re working to reverse the Cure, testing on the citizens of the Ridge.” He sighs, stares out at the packed world around us. “Trust me when I tell you this, girl. The Ridge is worse than the Shallows. You don’t want to go there, and you can’t just walk in, anyways. You’re free now. You’re out of the system. Keep it that way. Fight with us and help us fix what your mother broke.”

  “No,” Meadow says.

  The General raises a brow. “No?”

  “No.” Meadow shrugs. “I won’t help you unless you decide to help me.”

  Sketch chuckles and claps her hands, like she’s enjoying the show.

  The General stands up, brushes off his pants. “You’re just a girl. What could you offer us that we don’t already have?”

  Meadow stands, steps closer to him until their noses are practically touching. “I’m not just a girl. I’m Lark Woodson’s daughter, and if I want help, you’ll help me. Get me to the Ridge. Help me get inside. I’ll find my family, and once I have them, I’ll help you fight back. I’ll help you destroy the Initiative from the inside out.”

  “You drive a hard bargain,” the General says. “What if you die? Is your life not worth anything?”

  Right as he says it, Meadow’s nose drips again.

  Fresh red blood, bright even in the darkness.

  That’s not supposed to happen. The Surgeon said it would stop, now that the Regulator’s computer is down.

  Unless it’s not the Regulator, and never has been.

  Meadow lets the blood drip down her face. “Trust me, General. I have nothing to lose.”

  I can see a new light in his eyes, see him thinking, planning. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t simply send you into the Ridge. Do you think they’ll let you just walk in there, especially with the barcodes and that Regulator strapped to your skull?”

  “I do,” Meadow says. “Because they’ll let my mother inside.”

  “Your mother is dead,” the General says. “By now, all the soldiers in the Initiative will know, in every testing site.”

  “So we’ll trick them,” Meadow says. “We’ll bring her back to life.”

  “That’s imp . . .” The General trails off. His eyes light up. He smiles, and nods.

  I don’t even have to look at Meadow to know what he sees.

  She’s identical to her mother, the same silver hair, the same springtime storm eyes. She’s been tortured for weeks, she’s lost weight, and there’s a darkness, a touch of insanity in her, that wasn’t there before. She might only be sixteen, but she’s faced worse than most people should in an entire lifetime.

  She could pull it off.

  “Make me into my mother,” Meadow says. “Give me a team, dress them up as Initiative soldiers. We’ll hijack a train and attack their Headquarters, then break through to the Ridge from the inside out.”

  “And how will you explain the Regulator?” the General asks.

  Meadow doesn’t skip a beat. “I’ll tell them you did it. The New Militia will do anything to break down the Initiative, right?”

  He nods, lost in her plan.

  “Just get me close to the Ridge, and I’ll find a way inside. I’ll find my family, and once I’m free again, I’ll swear my service to the New Militia. For the rest of my life, I’ll be your greatest soldier.”

  “Meadow, no,” I hiss.

  “Like hell you will,” Sketch yells. “We just got free!”

  Meadow glares at us with such intensity that we both shut our mouths. “I wasn’t asking you for help. You’re free now. You two can do what you want.”

  “I’m sticking with you, Woodson,” Sketch says. She looks at me like she’s ready to punch me. Our stupid little game.

  “I’m with you, too, Meadow. I made a promise, and I’m going to keep it. But don’t do it like this,” I say. “We’ll find another way. Don’t trade your freedom, not when you just got it.”

  She looks down at her hands. “I was never free.”

  The General rubs his hands over his jaw, breathes deeply as he thinks.

  Meadow looks up. “You said your reason for survival was to stop what my mother started. Let me help you do that.”

  They stand together and move off to the side, talking in hushed voices. I don’t have to hear what they’re saying to know what is going on.

  The General is falling right into Meadow’s hands.

  CHAPTER 55

  MEADOW

  We eat a full meal tonight.

  The New Militia has canned food, something I have never seen before the Outpost. We eat beans, and peas, and a soft orange fruit that explodes with flavor when it touches my tongue.

  Afterward, we sit around the table and discuss.

  I tell the General we only need seventy-two hours, starting the moment we make it inside the Ridge. We plan together in private.

  We argue over whose plan is best, but I will not back down.

  Finally, the General agrees to go with my ideas, and the plan is in place.

  Tomorrow, I will become my mother. Tomorrow, I will be the woman who ruined me. The woman who broke the world. I will hand my freedom over to the New Militia. I will become the soldier my father always trained me to be.

  But for tonight, I want to be free. One final time, I want to grasp the illusion. I want to feel the freedom my father once felt.

  I want to feel the wind on my face. I want to run.

  Everyone is asleep, scattered about the Outpost. Sketch snores from the couch, and Zephyr is curled up on the floor in front of her. Curtains are drawn around all the cots, and no one will be awake to stop me.

  I tuck my dagger into my waistband. I tighten the laces on the new boots I have and leave everyone behind.

  The walk up the levels of the garage is exhausting. Weeks ago, I would have been able to sprint these concrete floors, breathing evenly, without breaking a sweat.

  Tonight I stumble.

  My nose drips blood.

  I wipe it away and force myself to keep going, to forget about the pain in my skull, the weight of the Regulator against my neck. I persevere the way that I always have, and finally, I make it to the top.

  The guards won’t let me leave, so I take the staircase again, the one that leads to the roof.

  I am only halfway up the second floor when I fall.

  My knees crack hard on the staircase, drip with blood. I try to stand but I’m too weak. My head
spins, and the world flickers in and out of focus. This isn’t right.

  This isn’t supposed to be happening. But it is.

  My mother said that it would.

  I bang the back of my head against the wall.

  The Regulator’s thick metal rings from the impact, but it does not crack.

  I bang my head again, and again, and I lose myself to the fury. To the hatred I feel for myself, for getting caught. For not being able to die in the Resistance Headquarters.

  For getting my mother killed by drawing her out of hiding. For the pain that Peri felt, because of me. For dragging Zephyr and Sketch along, when they deserve to be free. Away from me, away from my selfishness.

  You are just like me, my mother’s voice says. I want her to be wrong.

  But I think she is right.

  Suddenly I’m furious at myself for caring about my mother’s death. She was a monster, inside and out, and she will always be.

  But I could never forget the way she whispered my name. Forgive me.

  She was my mother, and I will always love her.

  Love makes us weak.

  I tear at the Regulator with my fingernails. I draw blood but I don’t stop. I want it out. I want to be strong again.

  I want to die.

  I want to survive.

  It’s only when I feel hands on mine, gently pulling my fingers from the Regulator, that I notice Zephyr.

  He kneels in front of me, soft green eyes watching mine.

  “Meadow,” he whispers. He says it like a song, and his eyes are so gentle, so . . .

  My head spins. I slump over, and he catches me, wraps his strong arms around my waist. He pulls me up, holds me like I’m a child.

  I both hate it and love it at the same time. He smiles down at me sadly, the way I used to look at Peri, when I knew she was weak, when I knew she wouldn’t be able to fight back against the darkness of our world.

  “Don’t,” I say. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?” he asks, as he carries me back down the stairs.

  “Like I’m weak,” I say.

  He stops. “You think . . . Stars, Meadow. It’s not because I think you’re weak. It’s because you’ve been through so much, and you still want to fight. You still won’t give up.” He leans his head down, looks at me closer. “Why won’t you just give up?”

  “Because I can’t,” I simply say. “Because giving up is not something I know how to do.”

  We reach the first flight of stairs. He starts to head down, carrying me, but I stop him.

  “I don’t want to go back in there,” I say. “I wanted to go outside. I wanted to be free, for one last time. To make my own choices.”

  “You can still change your mind,” Zephyr says. “You don’t have to do this.”

  I swallow and taste blood. “You know I do. I’ll fight for my family, even if it kills me. And I can’t ask you to go with me. I’ve taken advantage of your help, expected you to always be at my side. But you’re free, Zephyr. Why won’t you just go?”

  He sighs. He sets me down.

  “I can’t go, Meadow.”

  “Yes, you can. And you should,” I say.

  He stares at his boots. “It’s like you’re hardwired into me, Meadow. I think about you when I’m awake. I dream about you when I’m asleep. My brain was obsessed about you for years because of Sparrow, and the system, and the need, deep down, to murder you.” He laughs, but the sound is hollow. “And then I met you in real life, and I realized it wasn’t an obsession. It was just . . . you.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “You’re stubborn, and you’re always angry, and you like killing, I can see it in your eyes. I have a theory that you’re one of the worst people in the world,” he says. I turn my face away, but he reaches up and gently touches my chin. “But that’s what I love about you. It sounds crazy. You make me stronger. You make me laugh, and most of the time, you make me so mad I want to scream. But that’s just it. You make me feel things, Meadow. Real things, not just fabrications programmed into me in your mother’s lab. You’re real. We are real. There’s something here. And I refuse to let that go.”

  I told myself I wouldn’t let him get closer to me. There is no room for anyone else, not now, not ever.

  But his words shatter my walls. My body takes over, and it’s full of want, need, now.

  I reach out, grab Zephyr by the shirt collar, and yank him toward me with all the strength I have left.

  Our lips touch, and there’s fire inside of me.

  I feel him groan, feel his mouth press harder against mine. He pulls me down on top of him, and I become a burning flame that wants to devour more, more, all of him, always. But when I slide my fingers beneath his shirt and run my hands across his chest, he pulls away.

  “I can’t do this,” he says.

  “Do what?” I ask. “Don’t you want this? I can feel your heart beating as fast as mine.”

  I press my forehead against his; kiss him again, and for a few seconds, he kisses back even harder than before. I’m breathless. Wanting him, even though I don’t know why. The kiss breaks as Zephyr pulls away.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I did it,” he whispers, and then he gasps, like he’s shocked by his words.

  “Did what?” I ask.

  He won’t look at me. His lips are out of reach.

  When he speaks, his words ignite a flame in me again.

  But it isn’t a good fire.

  “I killed your mother,” Zephyr says. “I’m the one who shot that arrow.”

  The fire is hot and heavy.

  It’s so angry it could burn down the entire world.

  CHAPTER 56

  ZEPHYR

  She doesn’t speak to me.

  She stumbles the whole way back to the Outpost, tripping over her own feet as she goes.

  Blood drips from her nose, and stars, I want to help her.

  But Meadow is beyond help.

  “You hated her,” I say to her back. “Why does it matter that she’s dead?”

  No answer. Just the stomping of her boots as she struggles to get back to the others.

  “I did it because it was the only way, Meadow. If she didn’t die, then the Patients wouldn’t have gone after the Leeches. We escaped. We’re here, and we’re going to find your family.”

  Finally, she whirls around. Her eyes are wild, and for a second, she looks so much like Lark that I freeze. “She was my family,” she says. “Regardless of what she did, what she became. She was my mother.”

  “You’re confusing mother with monster,” I say to her back.

  She whirls around, flings her dagger so fast I don’t have time to be shocked.

  It grazes my face, then clatters to the ground behind me.

  I feel hot blood as the fresh cut opens.

  “You missed!” I yell at Meadow’s back.

  She stops before the door to the Outpost, turns again to look at me. Stars, she’s beautiful. And terrifying. “I meant to,” she says.

  I throw my hands up. “So why don’t you kill me, then?”

  There’s sadness in her eyes. “If I wanted to kill you, Zephyr, you’d already be dead.” The guards raise the gate for her. “Keep him out,” she says.

  They lower it before I can get there.

  “Really, guys?” I ask.

  Sasha is one of them. “Trouble in paradise?” she asks. I nod, motion to the gates. “The General’s orders. What the girl says, goes. Sorry.”

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll just stay out here, then, and bother you until you let me in.”

  She shrugs, from the other side of the gate. “Try me.”

  I slide to the ground with my back up against the wall.

  I don’t get a wink of sleep all night.

  CHAPTER 57

  MEADOW

  Morning comes, and I am staring at my mother.

  She stares back at me.

  When I move, she move
s. When I stumble sideways, she stumbles, too. When my nose drips blood, she lifts her hand to wipe it away.

  Her eyes are heavy, dark half-moons beneath them weighing them down. She smiles, and her teeth are blackened. My teeth are blackened, from something Ray’s wife used.

  The New Militia has dressed me in Initiative clothes, all black. They have made me look older, somehow. Martha, Ray’s wife, has altered my Catalogue Number to match hers. I held my screams to myself, while she tattooed a new number 8 over my number zero, and the Cure has already healed it. The Catalogue Number looks fresh and new.

  My mother and I were only one number different.

  It wasn’t that hard to do, with the right tools.

  “Flux,” Sketch breathes. She steps beside me into the small bathroom, stares into the cracked mirror. “Woodson, I swear, you look just like her. I kind of want to kill you now.”

  “Zephyr already did that for the both of us,” I whisper. Anger flares in my heart, threatens to burst from the inside out.

  Sketch sighs. “Get it over it. He did what he had to do. You would have done the same thing, right?”

  “Before capture, I wanted to kill her,” I say. “What she did to the world is unforgivable. But after all the torture . . . She went through what we went through, Sketch. But we endured it for weeks. She endured it for years. It changed her. It would change anyone.” I lean against the wall, stare at myself as my mother, and sigh. “Can we come back from the things we’ve done in this world?”

  “I don’t know.” Sketch shrugs. She runs her hands down the scars that line her arms, tallies of all the victims she’s killed, under the influence of the system. “But even if we can, I think there’s some of us that wouldn’t make the choice to.” She looks at me in the mirror. “You might hate your mother for what she did to the world, Meadow. But deep down, you’re a killer just like her. We’re all killers. And we like being that way.”

  She’s right.