The System (Virulent Book 2)

by Shelbi Wescott

  “Lucy King. Thank you for being my guest of honor this morning at breakfast. I am delighted that you agreed to meet me,” he said and he waved for the server, who brought over two tall glasses of a sparkling drink mixture.

  Lucy took a sip, the sweetness was overpowering, and she set it back down, swallowing quietly. “I had asked if I could see you,” Lucy replied. “I wasn’t expecting it to actually happen.”

  Huck put down his own drink and looked straight at Lucy. “Many people request to see me. Some have questions. Some have solutions. Most have requests. Others just want to be close to the leadership. It makes them feel protected…or above the others…if they can feel like they have my attention.”

  She didn’t know how to respond, and so she looked around the empty room nervously. It was just the two of them, alone, and Lucy felt all of her rehearsed arguments and appeals just beyond her mental reach.

  “I fit in the request category,” she said after a long pause. She let her eyes fall to the table and she waited to be dismissed.

  “Of course,” was Huck’s response. “First things first. Are you more of a bread girl or a protein girl?”

  “Bread girl,” Lucy answered quickly.

  Huck rang a silver bell beside his water glass and their server appeared. He then raised a single finger in the air and then man nodded, spun, and left. Lucy watched the exchange with puzzled scorn and he noticed. With a smile, Huck leaned forward, and lowered his voice.

  “You’re thinking it’s too excessive. The service. I see it in your eyes. You must understand there are perks that come with being the leader. But I won’t lie…I’ve always been a man of means. Some of this…the Sky Room, my office…are luxuries for me.”

  She didn’t know anything about Huck’s office or his living quarters, but she imagined he wasn’t roughing it. Maybe his shower didn’t have a timer.

  “Hey,” Lucy replied, “It’s your world. We’re just living in it. Right?” She grimaced, aware of her tone, and when she saw Huck’s face—his apprehension, a flash of frustration—she backpedaled. “No, I mean…my mom always used to say we deserve little luxuries…” she trailed off and then sighed.

  “Don’t be nervous, my dear.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry either,” Huck laughed. “If I didn’t want to entertain your requests and if I didn’t think I’d enjoy your company, then you’d still be in your apartment with your parents…and from what I hear, your little field trip last night didn’t go as planned.”

  Lucy turned red. All her emotions related to last night bubbled to the surface. Huck treated the incident with such nonchalance, but Lucy knew that he had been the one to turn her in to her parents. She narrowed her eyes, hoping to shame him into confessing his role. But Huck didn’t seem concerned with keeping his role in her discovery a secret.

  “Ah, I see,” Huck hummed. “You blame me. Well, of course.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “No, no. I accept your blame. You are right. I told your father. But for your own good, Lucy. Out of worry for you alone.”

  Lucy started to protest, but Huck put up his hand to stop her.

  “You think that’s hyperbole,” Huck continued. “But your father has been experimenting with Grant. Testing viruses on him. Infecting him…” He paused and waited for her to fully understand. She blinked twice and furrowed her brow. “He could have been highly contagious to you. Depending on what stage of the viral infection he was in.”

  His words sunk in and Lucy thought of her attempted kiss.

  Maybe she hadn’t been rejected after all. Maybe Grant had known that kissing her would have put her at risk. Her body slumped and Lucy felt even more ashamed for her behavior: assuming out of humiliation that her feelings for Grant would never be reciprocated.

  “Why won’t you let me save him?” she asked. Now, more than ever, she needed to see Grant again. Beyond that was the need, the compulsion, to not let his life end at the hand of her father.

  “Where does it stop?” Huck asked. “Where do you draw the line?”

  “I don’t understand,” Lucy said.

  The server appeared carrying a tray. He walked the length of the Sky Room to their table and delivered two plates full of French toast, dusted with powdered sugar and cooked apples.

  “Bread,” Huck announced with a smile, pleased with himself. “Bon appetit.” He raised his glass and Lucy took hers and engaged in an awkward toast. She set the glass down without drinking. “You were asking what I meant?” he clarified, taking his fork and cutting off a small bite of the toast. “I’m not a man without empathy. Without feeling. I care deeply for people, for the earth. But I believe we allowed ourselves to get horribly lost…and that pained me. Perhaps you think I’m cruel and evil…behaving with reckless disregard for this boy’s life, but I promise you that is not the case. I value people very much. Grant included.”

  “Stop, please,” Lucy said with her mouth full of breakfast. She set her fork down and finished chewing. “That’s a lie. That’s either a lie you’re telling me, or just a lie you’re telling yourself. But you cannot take lives and value lives. You can’t.”

  “You’re wrong,” Huck noted and he kept eating. Shoveling the egg soaked bread into his mouth with grotesque efficiency. “It was the only way. If there had been any other way,” he lowered his voice, “then we wouldn’t be here. And we wouldn’t be heading to the islands…”

  “The islands,” Lucy repeated. People had talked vaguely of their future, about a move, but no one had fully explained to her what would happen when their time in the underground system was over.

  “We are building them. And they are wonderful. Eden, my darling. Heaven on earth. When our time here comes to an end, the chosen ones will be rewarded with a life beyond anything they could imagine. But paradise, utopia, doesn’t just happen. It is conceived from the most amazing of dreams and plotted with utmost care. I will leave nothing to chance…”

  Lucy couldn’t help but shake her head. “I’ve read enough books to know that your utopia is an illusion,” she said. She paused and looked at Huck’s reaction; he motioned for her to continue. “This place is not utopia.” She waved her hand to the ceiling of the Sky Room. “People are afraid that if they defy you, they will die…”

  “I’ll stop you there. Just for a second. Did your parents ever teach you about traffic?”

  Lucy hesitated. “Like…cars?”

  “Yes,” Huck said and took a bite. “Cars. Look both ways before you cross the street…because, as crass as it may sound to a child…if you don’t follow the rules, and hold your parent’s hand, watch for cars…you will die.”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “Don’t put your finger in the electrical socket. Don’t jump into a pool if you don’t know how to swim. Rules. They are for protection.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Yeah, but if I ran out in front of a car, my parents wouldn’t punish me by killing me anyway.”

  “The tanks are a scare tactic,” Huck added flippantly. “Designed as a precaution against extreme rebellion. Because our world will not accommodate…”

  “Democracy?”

  “Democracy is a lie,” Huck blurted, his agitation seeping through. He cleared his throat. “Your entire life until now has been a lie. You and the billions of people who lived on this earth have never been free. But in addition to living in chains, you bought the idea that you had freedoms. Lucy, I will never proclaim that what we are creating is perfect. But it is better. Better than the world we came from, better than any place the world was going. I have faith that by stopping the cycle…by choosing our future and choosing who we share that future with…that we will have our utopia. You see, my dear Lucy, I am creating the world I wish to raise my grandchildren in…a world that is not overrun with greed, evil, lies, and conspiracy…”

  “By killing people. Innocent people?” Lucy felt her hand shaki
ng. She put it in her lap to steady it.

  “No one is innocent. That is another lie,” Huck said and he shook his head. “Purging. With the intent to rebuild, to fix what is broken. It is a story we have accepted before. These Systems and the islands are my ark…”

  Lucy’s shoulders slumped. “So, your world will not work unless only your chosen people survive?”

  “This is all about Grant, is it? You can buy into this world…if you can have the boy?”

  She hoped it would be easy enough to say that was the case and be done with breakfast, but her wishes were not even that simple.

  “And my brother. And the people we left in Oregon. Good people. People who deserve a future too.” It wasn’t until after she had finished her sentence, and she saw Huck’s cheeks flush, and his eyes flash upward, that she knew she had made a mistake.

  It was too late to take back the confession and she searched her brain, trying to figure out if she had told anyone else about Darla and Teddy. Or had she been too preoccupied with her separation from Grant or taking in her new home?

  “So, your brother is not alone. There are other survivors,” Huck said in a steady voice. “Like Grant? Unaffected by the virus?”

  She stayed silent as long as she could. She did not know which was the worse crime. Eventually, she shook her head. “No,” she finally said, but she refused to say anything more.

  “I see. This is news. So…you are trying to say that there are vaccinated survivors left in Oregon? And I should warn you…withholding information will harm your brother,” Huck said to her as a blatant threat. He leaned across the table and extended his hand. “I am surprised, you see, not angry. I deserve to know what awaits my team back in Oregon. We must go back prepared.”

  That piqued her interest and Lucy looked up. “You’re going back for him? Really? My mother said—”

  “It was always my intention to go back for Ethan. I owe your father that.”

  “He’s been injured. He needs help soon. You have to go soon,” Lucy pleaded. She had renewed hope and energy, but she was overcome with urgency.

  “Who else is there with him? How should we best prepare for a rescue mission?” Huck asked this while looking down at his plate. He moved a piece of toast around in the sugar and then popped it into his mouth. His eyes were raised with concern and interest. Lucy didn’t know how to respond or if to trust him. She hesitated.

  “It’s okay,” Huck said with a wave of his fork. “Don’t say anything you feel uncomfortable sharing.”

  “Thank you,” replied Lucy. She stared at her untouched breakfast. Picking up her fork, she moved some of the pieces around, isolating the apples on one side and the bread on the other.

  “Almost everyone was accounted for,” Huck mumbled to himself. “That’s okay. That’s okay.” He ran his fingers over his lips and mimed throwing away a key. “I’ll pressure you no more.”

  Huck reached down and rang the little silver bell. The man appeared and walked the distance to the table, standing at attention by Huck’s side.

  “Yes, Mr. Truman?” he asked.

  “Summon Scott King to my office in fifteen minutes. Thank you,” Huck told the man.

  “Of course, Mr. Truman,” he replied and walked back across the vacant Sky Room.

  “You haven’t touched your breakfast,” Huck said and he pointed to Lucy’s full plate. “Would you like me to have someone box it up for you?”

  Lucy shook her head and forced herself to take a bite. “I feel like…” she started and stopped. She ran her hand over her forehead. “If I leave breakfast and you still won’t let me save my friend…I feel like a failure.”

  “He means that much to you?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “I can’t guarantee his life. It’s not a simple decision. There are factors. Ramifications. How do I explain it to the others who also had people they loved…and were forced to stay behind…”

  “You already told the masses that you are making decisions for the good of the System.” Lucy was proud of this argument and she felt her confidence building.

  “So, all of my addendums are just to benefit the Kings,” Huck said and he set his fork down and leaned in, running his tongue over his teeth. “You. Ethan. Grant. A little pathway of future resentment. Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t care about what other people think.” Lucy deflated.

  “You should. You must.”

  “I just want to see him.”

  “Even with the personal risk of being infected?”

  Lucy nodded again.

  Huck sighed. “Tell me about Oregon.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. Telling Huck the truth was too dangerous, and that was not including the fact that telling him how Darla and Teddy survived would be admitting that her father left them the vaccines.

  “How did the others survive?” Huck asked her again, more pointedly. “Tell me what is in Oregon and I will give you the boy. I will spare him.”

  “Just like that?”

  He snapped his fingers. “It is my decision to make.”

  She cleared her throat and her hands shook. “There is a woman and her son.”

  “Vaccinated.” It was a question. Huck narrowed his eyes and waited for her reply.

  She hesitated and then thought of Grant. His skin had turned so yellow and he looked so weak. Yet his letter to her had been kind and spirited. Grant was the epitome of everything good and amazing in the world—and he was being sacrificed. How could she make the choice to never see him again? She needed him.

  “My dad left extra vaccines for his kids as a precaution in case we missed a dose. He was afraid of something happening to him before—” as Lucy started to tell Huck, she began to understand her father’s fear. One misstep with Huck could have cost him his place in the System and his clues, his room in the fruit cellar, and his vaccines were ways to ensure that his kids would survive.

  “Just the two people?”

  Lucy nodded. “We gave the other vaccines away. But when I left, it was just my brother, this woman, and her small son. Teddy,” she added, remembering the child’s face. “They deserve to live. All of them.”

  Huck rose from the table without warning and picked up a napkin from beside his plate. He dabbed the corner of his mouth and then dropped the napkin back down. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Grant?” Lucy asked in a panic.

  “I’ll discuss it with your father,” he replied as he turned and walked away—his back to her, his shoes clapping against the floor. He headed back toward the elevators and out of the Sky Room.

  “You said it was your decision,” Lucy called after him. “You said you’d save his life.”

  “I will save his life,” Huck continued, still walking away. “But whether or not you get to see him ever again? That is up to your father.” He rounded the corner and disappeared out of sight.

  Without even a formal goodbye, Huck was gone, and Lucy sat staring at her plate, reeling, and feeling tricked.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Scott stood outside Huck’s office. He took in a deep breath and then knocked, waiting for an affirmative answer before walking inside. When Huck called from behind the door, he turned the knob and entered. He’d been a visitor to the office several times, but he never tired of the glorious mural painted on each of the four walls. Each time it made his heart skip. Huck had commissioned an artist to create a replica of the view from his office at the old Fourth and Main building where he had conducted most of his business.

  If he didn’t stare directly at the artwork, Scott could pretend that he was back in the real world, meeting Huck for the first time, sitting at that office. And when he let his imagination travel in that direction, he often wondered if he would make the same decisions. Ultimately, despite the fear and complications, he was proud that he had saved his family. Lucy could pontificate all she wanted with her narrow understanding of how the world worked, but
Scott was secure that he had done the right thing.

  Lucy would understand someday. Maybe it wouldn’t be until she had children of her own, but she would understand.

  “Sit, sit,” Huck instructed and Scott obeyed. He lowered himself into the big leather chair opposite Huck’s desk and waited for his boss to explain the nature of their meeting. “Your daughter and I had a lovely breakfast this morning, Scott.” Huck leaned back in his chair and folded his hands above his head.

  “Thank you for meeting with her. I’m sure you were able to answer many of her questions,” Scott answered, weighing his words.

  “She cares deeply for the boy.”

  “So it would appear.”

  “Young love. It’s hard to decide if it’s wonderful or misguided. In this case, I told your daughter that Grant was unsafe from a practical standpoint.”

  “That was my concern as well,” Scott admitted.

  “What have you been able to discover? An anomaly?”

  Scott shrugged. “There are markers that would indicate it could be genetic. But I’m running tests against some of our other blood samples…without a larger sample, I don’t know. I’m trying to narrow it down soon.”

  “Good. Here’s the deal. If Grant is a singular case…a mistake, then he can live.”

  Turning his head, Scott looked at Huck. He blinked and bit the underside of his lip. “I’m sorry. What?” Scott asked. This edict defied everything he had been told; all of his experiments and tinkering were for nothing. “There’s no way to know if he’s a single case…just the fact that anyone carried an immunity to that virus is suspicious.”

  Huck waved Scott’s reply away like it was odiferous. “Like a flip of a coin. If the resistance to the virus is genetic, I want him gone. Nobody should know that there could be people out there who have survived. It will only create dissention and a desire to go after them. But if he’s an exception…a mistake. A rarity. Then,” Huck crossed his arms over his chest, “we can pass off his inclusion like he is a miracle.”