Outbreak

by Tarah Benner

  “So the Fringe Program . . .” he muses. “Forgive me, but are you sure you want to know? It’s part of the compound’s more . . . unsavory history.”

  Blaze throws me a sideways glance.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Suit yourself. Why don’t you have a seat?”

  Sitting down across from his father looks like the absolute last thing Blaze wants to do, but I feel as though I’m not in a position to be rude by refusing. Shane’s already proven that he has an unpredictable temper, and there’s no harm in humoring him.

  I sink down onto a low-backed chair with very little cushion, and Blaze perches on the edge of the armrest. Normally it would be weird to have him this close, but right now I find it strangely comforting.

  “The Fringe Program was not the systematic initiative the board wants people to believe,” says Shane. “At that time, the compound leaders brought in babies and children any way they could.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugs. “Sometimes they would lure in parents with healthy infants with the promise of a place for the whole family. Other times, they would pay off poor families that were trying to make a living in nearby towns.”

  Shane takes a brief sip of his drink and then smacks his tongue over his teeth as though he tasted something sour. “But the board had no interest in the adults.”

  “How come?” asks Blaze.

  Shane nods. “To keep population counts on track so the compound could sustain itself without overloading the system, the founders figured that a certain number of babies had to be born each year. The year the Fringe Program took off had been a particularly low birth year.

  “After some crops failed, there was a major food shortage in the compound. This had happened before, and it made people very nervous.”

  He turns to his son and raises an eyebrow, as though he’s about to throw down some fatherly wisdom. “Uncertainty and nervousness do not put people in a baby-making mood. The board tried everything. They even increased stipends for tier-three workers so some of them might decide to start a family, but it wasn’t going according to plan.”

  “So why wouldn’t they just bring in adults who wanted to live in the compound?” I ask.

  “It all goes back to the first generation,” says Shane, making a faraway gesture with his drink. “You have to remember that they grew up on the outside. The founders . . . they were all smart, educated, progressive people. But despite all that, a lot of them had trouble adjusting when they came into the compound.

  “It’s like you take an eagle that’s been soaring over the mountains, clip its wings, and put it in a cage. It’s unnatural. The animal is unhappy. It goes crazy and claws out its insides and then hangs itself with its own intestines.”

  I cringe at the grisly image.

  “They were worried the adults wouldn’t adjust?” Blaze clarifies.

  “And that they could cause a disturbance among the general population,” says Shane. “They’d seen it before. A woman gets it in her head that she’d rather be out there than in here. She tries to escape. Well, of course, they aren’t just going to let people run off, so they throw her in the psych ward.

  “But then people start asking questions. They start to feel trapped. Suddenly, you’ve got yourself a full-blown panic. People want to know why they can’t leave. It’s ridiculous, but it’s what happened. It was a real problem for the founders before Death Storm.”

  “So what happened to them?” I prompt. “The parents who brought their babies into the compound, I mean.”

  Shane pauses for a long time, and I start to wonder if I’ve gotten everything out of him that he’s going to give. But then he sets his drink down and makes a jerking motion with his hand that cracks all his knuckles. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Yes!” I say, feeling impatient. Shane clearly enjoys hearing himself speak, but when it gets down to the important details, he becomes evasive.

  “I only ask because this isn’t the sort of thing you can just forget. Once you know, you’re going to wish you didn’t. Once you know, it’s going to change the way you see everything around here.”

  Blaze and I exchange a look, and I get the feeling he would rather not know. But he wanted to come up here with me, so he’s just going to have to deal. “I’m sure.”

  Shane dips his head so he’s looking me straight in the eye. “If your parents were ever here, they weren’t here for long. The day they entered the compound, they signed their own death certificates.”

  seventeen

  Harper

  It takes a long moment for Shane’s words to sink in.

  “You mean . . . the board had them killed?”

  “It could have been the board, or it could have been the Fringe Program Committee. Who knows?”

  “But how could they get away with that?” Blaze asks, glaring at his father in disbelief.

  Shane throws his son a derisive look as if to say, “Are you really asking me that question?”

  “Seriously,” I say. “How did they explain a new baby to people without accounting for the parents? There’s the medical ward staff, the Institute, the child . . .”

  Shane shrugs. “Think of it this way: Two people enter the compound with a baby in the middle of the night. Nobody knows they’re coming or what condition they’re going to be in.

  “Someone from the Fringe Program Committee meets them in postexposure and rushes the baby straight to the medical ward for an exam and observation. The parents think that’s a good idea. They’re told they need to wait there to fill out some paperwork. Your parents probably never even made it to the medical ward.”

  That floors me. It seems too medieval to be true.

  “They just killed them on sight?”

  Shane nods. “It was easier that way . . . no one would ask questions. Once the baby was declared healthy and passed off to the Institute, the Fringe Program Committee would make a note in its file that the parents died of radiation poisoning or influenza a few weeks after entering the compound. Maybe the committee would tell the medical ward that they found the baby on the Fringe. Who’s going to ask questions? They have no reason to believe it isn’t true.”

  It sounds ridiculous, but Shane is right. I never questioned my parents’ death. I believed my guardian in the Institute when she told me they died a few weeks after arrival. She probably never even knew it was a lie.

  “How long did this go on?” pipes Blaze. “It can’t have been widespread. Someone would have gotten suspicious.”

  Shane shakes his head. “It wasn’t. The Fringe Program didn’t last. Only a handful of kids were brought in each year during the pilot program. The funding dried up twenty years ago, and the board just chalked it up to another failed experiment.”

  “Why do you say that?” asks Blaze.

  Dread settles in my stomach.

  “Later, they found out that those children weren’t as healthy as children born in the compound. They were exposed to too many toxins and high levels of radiation, which put them at risk for all kinds of health problems. Not to mention they were — How should I put this? — not part of the compound elite.”

  Shane spits out the last two words with uncharacteristic contempt.

  “Compound elite?”

  “You have to remember that the compound’s founders were a bunch of eugenics nuts. They screened themselves for disease and genetic deficiencies before signing on. They recruited across the genetic spectrum to add diversity to the herd. And when the second wave of people came to the compound, only those with top-notch genes were even considered.”

  “And the Fringe babies were genetically inferior,” I murmur.

  “It doesn’t really matter whether they were or not,” says Shane. “It’s all about perception. If people believed others were genetically inferior, it would have made it that much more difficult to convince people that the compound was a meritocracy, wouldn’t it?”

  My mind flashes to the spreads
heet of VocAps data, with its endless columns of health- and genetics-related scores. Meritocracy, my ass.

  “But that’s ridiculous,” says Blaze.

  “Is it? How many third-gen kids do you know in Recon? Hmm? What about Fringe kids who ended up in tier one?”

  “Celdon,” I murmur. As far as I know, he’s the only one — an outlier among Fringe rejects.

  Blaze’s expression hardens. He must be feeling all the outrage I felt when I found out about the VocAps test.

  “And what about the babies who didn’t come with their parents?” I ask.

  According to Celdon’s guardian at the Institute, a couple of Recon operatives found him just outside the compound. But that has to be a lie, too.

  Shane shakes his head and waves off the question as though it explains itself. “After Death Storm, it was chaos out there. People were desperate. All the committee had to do was find a drug addict or prostitute who had a baby. The mother got some cash, got to feel good about giving her kid a better life . . .” Shane lets out a derisive laugh. “Believe me . . . it wasn’t a tough sell.”

  Shane’s words feel like a sucker punch. Celdon always thought his mother abandoned him outside the compound, and it sounds as though his theory was not too far from the truth.

  After a few seconds, Shane grows bored with my shock and dismay. He kills the rest of his drink in one gulp and fixes me with a grim stare. “I know your first impulse might be to run and tell the world about this, but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll forget all about it.”

  I glare at him. “Don’t want to be sent to kill me again?”

  Shane shakes his head slowly. “It’s not a task I enjoy, believe me. It’s just business.”

  “Just business?”

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m just warning you because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do. And it’s not just your life, either.” Shane looks pointedly at his son and back to me. “They might just start picking off the people close to you.”

  I have the sudden impulse to jump out of my seat and slap Shane. I’m sick of Constance’s threats — even indirect ones. The fury is bubbling in my chest, and I get up to leave before I can act on the violent thoughts flashing through my mind.

  “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa,” slurs Shane from behind me.

  When I turn around, he slides his familiar smug expression back into place. “Now, don’t forget . . . you owe me for that little piece of information. And I’m not going to come shake you down for it.”

  I glare at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that if I have to remind you, you aren’t going to like the way I send the message.”

  * * *

  It takes me about half an hour to lose Blaze after our meeting with Shane. His shocked expression stays firmly in place all the way from Shane’s private room to my compartment.

  It’s strange that the son of a man who runs the black market and orchestrates all organized crime within the compound would find anything surprising, but Blaze must have lived all this time by ignoring some of the more heinous crimes his father commits.

  While it was comforting to have Blaze by my side in Neverland, I don’t have time to bring him up to speed on everything I know. Once he recovers from the news, I tell him I’m exhausted so he’ll leave.

  When I hear his door click shut a few compartments down, I check to make sure the coast is clear and head up to Systems to find Celdon.

  I still haven’t decided what I’m going to tell him about his mother, but I need to share Shane’s information with someone. He isn’t in his compartment, so I go straight to Systems. It’s kind of a long shot, but I never saw him down in Neverland, and this is the only place I can think where he would be.

  To my relief, Celdon answers the door right away when I buzz headquarters. I can tell he hasn’t left this room in hours. His eyes are tired from staring at his computer screen, and his blond hair is sticking up in odd directions from running his hands through it in frustration.

  “Hey,” he says, taking me in with a furtive expression and glancing down the tunnel. There’s no one else around. The only people who live this close to headquarters are Systems retirees, and they’re all in for the night.

  “Hey. Do you have a minute?”

  He looks back over his shoulder and tries — unsuccessfully — to pat down his messy hair. “Sure, sure.”

  Stepping into Systems headquarters, I get a familiar pang of envy. Station after station stretches before me in a honeycomb configuration, each one tricked out with the latest equipment.

  I run my hand over the back of a swivel chair, marveling at the butter-soft upholstery and trying to keep my tech lust in check. All the electronics give the stations a pleasant warmth, and it feels as though I’m stepping inside a living, breathing organism.

  “I don’t think I’d ever get tired of this,” I whisper.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Celdon’s voice sounds strange to me, but I’m not sure if that’s because he feels guilty about his Systems status or because his mind is elsewhere.

  “You never showed me your new station,” I say, trying to buy myself some time before I have to deliver the bad news.

  “Oh, well, uh . . .” Celdon trails off, running a hand nervously through his hair. “I would show you, except . . . it’s kind of a mess right now.”

  I throw him a skeptical look. “Like you’ve ever cared about a mess. Come on! I want to see it.”

  Celdon lets out a puff of air from between his teeth, looking genuinely agitated. “No, it’s like really bad at the moment. I don’t want anybody to see it.”

  “I don’t care if you were watching porn in there,” I say, only half joking. “I just want to see your setup.”

  He opens his mouth to retort, but no words come out.

  Something isn’t right.

  Before he can stop me, I make a beeline for his station — the only glass cube that’s lit up along the far back wall.

  As soon as I step inside, I know he was lying about the mess. There’s only one canteen takeout container lying next to the keyboard, and it hasn’t even begun to smell yet. He’s got three top-of-the-line monitors facing away from the bull pen, and they’re filled with square after square of Fringe footage.

  “Oh my gosh,” I murmur.

  Celdon steps into the cube behind me, looking very guilty. “Now, before you freak out, let me explain.”

  “O-kay.”

  He holds up his hands and releases a quick burst of air. “Eli asked me to do this.”

  “What?”

  “He filled me in on everything that’s been going on and asked . . . asked if I could hack into Constance’s surveillance to keep a lookout for his brother.”

  “He did what?”

  I could smack Eli for dragging Celdon into this.

  “Are you insane? Do you know how dangerous this is?”

  “Chill, Riles. I’ll be fine. They won’t even know I’m here.”

  “You can’t fool Constance!”

  Celdon tilts his head sideways and cocks an eyebrow. “Actually, I can. Their security really sucks.”

  But my panic has already reached a boiling point. I keep seeing Celdon as he was after Constance dragged him in to get to me: battered, broken, and afraid.

  “No! This is too dangerous! I don’t want you involved.”

  “More involved than I already am?” he snaps. “Because if knowing Constance’s dirty little secret at 119 doesn’t make me involved —”

  “That’s different. We got back here without anyone knowing, and we were lucky. What do you think would happen if they noticed someone hacked into their system? Huh?”

  “Please. Those amateurs don’t even know I’m watching.”

  “It doesn’t matter!” I cry. “I can’t let you do this.”

  “I’m already doing it. And it’s not your choice. I’m a big boy, Riles.”

  I want to shake him. I want to scream at him. I wan
t to tell him that he doesn’t understand how dangerous this is, but he does. Celdon knows better than anyone.

  Celdon was the one Constance tortured. Celdon is the one who continues to be threatened because of me. Who am I to tell him he can’t help?

  “You’re right,” I sigh. “You’re right, okay? Just please, please be careful.”

  He seems legitimately surprised that I caved so easily. “What’s going on with you?” he asks, sinking into his chair. “Why did you come here?”

  “I just paid a visit to Shane.”

  Celdon’s eyes bug out, and his mouth falls open. “No, you didn’t.”

  “I know, I know. It was stupid and dangerous, but —”

  “Are you serious? You come in here and start lecturing me for being reckless, yet you wander right into the den of a guy who tried to kill you?”

  “I needed his help.”

  “What could you possibly need Shane for?”

  I hesitate. I want to tell Celdon everything, but that would mean confirming all his worst suspicions about the woman who gave birth to him. So instead I start by unloading everything Sawyer told me and Eli about our radiation resistance.

  As I talk, Celdon’s expression changes from disbelief to excitement. I leave out the suggestion that he might be resistant, too, but Celdon doesn’t miss a beat.

  “Does that mean I’m a super mutant?”

  “There’s no way to know,” I say. “You haven’t been exposed to radiation as an adult, so there’s no way to tell how your body would react.”

  “So I could be a mutant.”

  “I guess,” I say, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. “But that’s not what I came here to tell you.”

  Celdon tilts his head to the side and gives me a look of dread. Any news bigger than super-mutant radiation resistance can’t be good.

  I pause, debating for the hundredth time if I should tell him the truth. It certainly won’t put his mind at ease knowing his mom was paid off, but I know if it were me, I’d prefer closure — even misery — to a lifetime of uncertainty.