The Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1)

by J. M. Scarlett

  “None of us know where it came from, right?” she said. “All we know is what it does: It kills, it turns them, and it spreads.”

  Varra was still confused, she could tell. Maybe she wasn’t being direct enough, but how could she considering what she was about to say.

  “What if it wasn’t a virus that just appeared one day, but a government experiment, a plot to wipe us out?”

  Varra said, “Like a conspiracy?”

  “Yes,” Karma boosted. “Exactly! Think about it—a nuclear bomb would’ve ruined our planet; war would have provoked danger and rebellion. What better way to erase the population than with a virus, something that could eliminate billions of people within months, weeks even.”

  “But why would they want to do that?” asked Varra.

  Karma grew quiet. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “That’s the part I’m having a hard time figuring out.” And no matter how hard she tried to, she couldn’t piece it together, not even with the information the journal contained. The Black was a part of Operation Blackout, the journal made that quite clear, but why would their own government turn against its people? That was something the journal never explained, or if it did, it was in the missing pages of Captain Benton’s past.

  She took a sip of her drink, it tasted like dirt, and looked up. Varra was staring at her.

  “What?”

  Varra said nothing, but Karma knew that look. It was the same one people gave her grandfather when he walked into a room.

  “I’m not crazy,” she chided. “I’m telling you, it’s all in the journal. I found it in this box. There were pictures in there, too, and a letter. And if the journal is real, then that means my pops played a part in it.”

  That was the hardest part for her to admit. She looked at Varra, her eyes brimming with tears. “You have to believe me, Varra. I swear to you. I’m not lying about this.” She ran her hands through her hair. “If I’m crazy, I’d rather be crazy than helpless and blind.”

  God, how she sounded like her grandfather.

  Varra finished off her juice and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Karma was sure she was going to laugh at her.

  “I believe you,” she said, and surprised her again. “Can I see it?”

  Karma grinned from ear to ear.

  “It’s about time you asked.”

  Ditching their table at the Neon Plant, they took the elevators back to her bunker. The stairwell would have been faster being it was less crowded, but ever since her father’s death, she refused to take that route. And she wasn’t the only one, either. Many claimed that the long, metal stairwell that ran over a hundred and fifty feet of steps, was haunted by the ghosts of past jumpers. She wasn’t sure if she believed in ghosts, but she did believe in memories, and those were more haunting than any ghost to her.

  Along the way, they remained silent. The elevators were packed and neither one of them wanted to be overheard talking about such conspiracies. On the outside, she looked as cool as a cucumber, but on the inside, she was dying with both relief and regret. For days, she had wanted to tell someone about the journal, but knew her mother would deny it and take it away from her, and Ben would only laugh and call her crazy. If he didn’t believe their grandfather, there was no way he was going to listen to her. But telling Varra was like a release, though it was also dangerous. If Varra told anyone her secret, she and her family could be banished.

  “Good, she’s still at work,” said Karma as they came through the door to her bunker. Her mother worked in agriculture, which meant she worked all day, and as for Ben, he was still in training and wouldn’t be home for a while.

  “We better be quick,” said Varra. “We’re already running late for work.”

  As much as Karma loved Dr Carter and working at the med ward, this was far more important. The journal had ignited her entire world, planting seeds of conspiracy, and it was about to do the same for Varra, she knew. A week ago, she would have told anyone that her grandfather was two sandwiches short of a picnic, but after reading what she saw, she never believed it more than she did now.

  “Wait till you see it,” Karma was saying as they burst through her bedroom door. She ran over to her dresser. “I didn’t believe it myself, but then I read the letter. It’s from my pops to this Captain Benton character from decades ago, only I don’t think it was him. I mean I do, but I don’t. I think it may have been someone else.”

  “Now you’re really losing me,” Varra mumbled.

  “Just wait,” Karma said, opening her top drawer. “You have to see it yourself—”

  She dug through a mountain of socks and froze.

  Varra read her face. “What? What is it?”

  Karma dug deeper, tossing socks and underwear all over the floor. “It’s not here,” she exclaimed. “It’s gone!” She ripped open her other drawers, dumping all her clothes out onto the floor.

  “Are you sure?” asked Varra.

  Karma yanked the drawers off their tracks and tossed them aside, making a wreck of her room.

  “Yes, I’m sure!” she announced like she had lost the most important valuable in the world. As far as she was concerned, it was. Her sanity was on the line. “It’s missing. Someone must’ve taken it.”

  “But who?” said Varra. “Who would’ve taken something like that?”

  Chapter Six

  “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  The chanting grew louder around him; Ben was immersed in a blur of faces and scents, none of them good—a fist came toward him. He dodged to the right and felt the wind of the fist as it flew past his head and struck air. Hawker, as heavy and wide as a two-ton whale, shuffled to the other side of the locker room, trying to pin Ben against the lockers. A gush of dried blood sat below his nose. What started out as a simple taunting had turned into a brutal battle of egoism. He didn’t mean for it to happen. It was out of his control, really. He was in the middle of changing for class, throwing his things in his locker, when the letter fell out of the journal he found in his sister’s room, and floated down to the floor. He meant to pick it up, but not before Hawker nabbed it in his plump hand and read the letter in front of his entire class:

  Dear Captain,

  I must admit, you nearly won. The little stunt you pulled on Plum Island, I couldn’t have planned it any better myself. Under different circumstances, we might have been friends, brothers . . . heroes even. But that time has passed and I’m afraid the start of a new life must begin. Like all things that die with time, it is only time that brings us back from the dead, restores natural order and brings darkness so that light may be born. It is the epitome of Life. There is no good without evil. No day without night. No Eve without Adam.

  You did what you thought was right. You did what you thought you had to. But I regret to inform you . . . I always win.

  In a high-pitch voice, Hawker finished the letter. “See you on the other side, General Harper.”

  Ben was mortified. The others laughed and began taunting him about his grandfather. It was always the same: Crazy Old Man Arthur was a whack job, a dummy, a senseless fool, a lunatic, and his son, Ben’s father—the jumper, they called him—was just as crazy.

  That’s when he lost it.

  His grandfather wasn’t crazy, and his father wasn’t a coward, and he had the proof to show it. How his sister came across the journal was beyond him. Originally, he thought it was hers, but to his surprise, it was someone else’s, someone by the name of Benton, and what started out as a joke became an unexpected revelation.

  Funny thing was, it didn’t turn out that way. Instead of believing him, Hawker ripped the journal right out of his hands and suddenly, Ben was caught in a game of Monkey in the Middle. His classmates rallied around him, tossing the journal back and forth, shoving him this way and that. After several minutes of this, Ben finally had enough and instead of reaching for the journal, he swung at Hawker’s face. His knuckles clashed against his nose and a stream of blood streamed down his chin
, and next thing Ben knew, he was fending off the ape like a trapped rat.

  Hawker threw a left, and Ben ducked a little too late, and felt the brush of his knuckles catch the edge of his jaw. It stung like ice. He wheeled back and dodged a right hook just in time.

  “Admit it, Harper,” the ape growled between heavy breaths. “Your grandfather was a freak and so are you!”

  The others laughed, not because it was funny, but because if they didn’t, Hawker would pummel them next.

  “Take it back!” Ben screamed. “I mean it, Hawker! Take it back!”

  He didn’t.

  “Everyone knows he was a liar,” the pimply-faced ape bellowed. “The old man was a waste of resources and so was your dad!”

  That drove Ben over the edge. His grandfather may have been crazy, and his dad may be a jumper, but they didn’t deserve to be talked about like that. Teeth gritted, and fists clenched, Ben charged at him and swung up. He didn’t remember with which hand; all he remembered was something hitting the side of his skull and going down in a flash of stars and color. When he opened his eyes, Hawker was standing over him, a fist drawn back above his face, about to put him out for good—

  “Hawker!” Scraggs came barreling across the locker room just in time. The trainer was twice the size of both of them put together, covered in tattoos from head to toe. “Drop him. NOW.”

  “You’re lucky,” Hawker uttered under his breath and stepped away.

  “What’s going on here?” Scraggs demanded to know. He picked up the journal off the floor; the thing was almost in tatters. “What is this?”

  Hawker didn’t answer, and neither did Ben. There was one thing worse than being the grandson of Crazy Old Man Arthur and that was a snitch. But instead of being sent to detention, he was sent to the offices of Arlington Greenwood. He was terrified, naturally, of course. His first reaction was that he was being kicked from the team.

  “Ben, isn’t it?” Arlington said after he was led into his office by one of the guards. He was in the middle of eating. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and offered Ben a seat. “Sorry it took so long, but I was in a meeting.”

  It was a lie, obviously, but there was no way Ben was calling him out on it. If he wanted to, the old man could not only kick him from the watchmen, but from the Nest as well. He was the only man in the silo with that kind of power.

  “I didn’t get a chance to offer you my apologies for your grandfather,” said the old patriarch, pouring himself a glass of wine at the mini bar behind his desk. A huge hearth from across the room blew tons of heat into the air. Ben could feel the sweat trickle down his spine.

  “I didn’t see you at the vigil.”

  “I . . . I wasn’t feeling well, sir,” Ben muttered. He couldn’t help but notice the journal sitting on his desk. If only he could go back in time and leave it where he found it. It served him right for stealing it.

  “Losing someone never gets easier, does it?” said Arlington, returning to his desk with a chalice of wine. “They tell you time makes it better, but it’s all a bunch of crap. We know what pain really feels like, don’t we, Ben? We have so much in common, you and me. Both our fathers were jumpers, you know.”

  Ben said nothing. He already knew the tale of the Mad Mortimer Greenwood, leaping off the stairwell to his doom. It was shortly after that, others began to join him.

  Arlington said. “Coward, chicken, gutless, failure, loser. I’ve heard it all, Ben. Same as you.”

  Ben looked up from his hands. “You have?”

  A purple smile touched his lips. “Oh, yes. Quite often. Sixty years ago, before my father ran the Nest, he ran the country.” He pointed over to a portrait of his father hanging over the fireplace. There wasn’t much telling them apart from their white hair, straight smiles and steel blue eyes. “But all they remember of him is his crimes. Some say that’s why he jumped, because he was ashamed of the things he had done.”

  Again, Ben said nothing. It was no secret that nearly four decades ago, when Arlington’s father, Mortimer Greenwood, ran the Nest, he was a monster. Using his power to banish people and force them into labor, even the ones who physically couldn’t work. He claimed it was for the good of the Nest, but if you asked the Nest, he did it to prove his power.

  “And if I wasn’t wise enough, I’d believe them.” Arlington turned back to Ben, pulling his eyes away from his father’s perfectly painted ones. “But my father taught me a long time ago that myths don’t make men, men make myths. And it’s only us that stands in our own way. When you let people control your actions, you revoke your power.”

  A hint of a smile played across Ben’s face.

  “You like that one, do you?” said Arlington. “You should hear what else the Old Man used to say. You wouldn’t believe your ears. He was a nasty ruler, but a brilliant philosopher. It was a shame he didn’t practice what he preached.”

  Ben didn’t mind the stories. He kind of liked hearing about the old ruler and nearly forgot his purpose for being there until the old man placed a weathered hand on the journal.

  “Scraggs tells me you’ve been fighting with your classmates,” he said. “And judging by the bruises on your face, it isn’t far from the truth.”

  Ben hung his head. He knew he was in trouble, he just didn’t know how much.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he began.

  “Don’t be,” Arlington said to his surprise. “If you’re going to be sorry for anything, be sorry you didn’t do more.”

  Ben stared at him, eyes wide, jaw hanging.

  Arlington said, “People treat you how you allow them to. If you set the rules from day one, if you draw the lines from the beginning, you never have to worry about bullies like Hawker and the rest of your classmates crossing them. You have to stand up for yourself, Ben. If you don’t, no one else will.”

  “But how, sir?” Ben pleaded. “How can I get them to leave me alone?”

  “By choosing your friends wisely,” said the old patriarch, his beady eyes sparkling in the firelight. “And your enemies even wiser.” He crossed his fingers and leaned back in his chair. “I can be your friend, Ben. I can be that person you can trust, but I need to trust you in return.”

  “Absolutely, sir,” Ben implored. “Without a doubt—”

  “I thought you’d say that,” said Arlington. He gleamed from behind his desk. “This journal of your grandfather’s, what can you tell me about it?”

  Ben swallowed. He didn’t want to tell him where he got it; telling him would not only result in ratting out Karma, but he’d be admitting to stealing it, and how would Arlington ever trust him after that?

  “It was in my grandfather’s things,” he told him. A half truth was better than none. “I found it. I thought it was interesting, so . . .”

  “You brought it to show and tell?” Arlington said.

  Ben bit his bottom lip. “I wasn’t going to show anyone, not at first, but . . .”

  “You had to prove them wrong,” Arlington chimed in once again. He was good at that, Ben noticed.

  He cleared his throat and said, “Yes, sir.”

  Arlington stood, flipping through the pages. Most of them were either shredded or crinkled from the fight. He carried it over to the fireplace. At first, Ben thought he was going to toss it into the fire, but he didn’t. Rather than burn it, he used the light of the flames to read it:

  “It wasn’t until I learned the truth behind Operation Blackout, the secret behind Adam and Eve that I questioned not only myself, but my purpose on this planet and everything I knew to be true. Like any ordinary man deeming some dark secret, I was conflicted, and with confliction came the beginning of my betrayal . . .”

  He shut the journal and looked at Ben. “How do you think your grandfather came upon such a book?” He plucked the letter from its center. It, too, had been ruined during the fight. A chunk was missing from the top right corner, and the bottom was ripped. “Has he always had it?”

  “I don’t know, sir,”
Ben answered honestly. “I never saw it until now.”

  Arlington nodded. Whether he believed him or not, was up in the air.

  “What do you think of the journal?” was the patriarch’s next question. “Do you believe what it says?”

  This no longer felt like a friendly conversation, more like an interrogation. “I’m not sure, sir,” said Ben. Again, he answered honestly. “I would like to think it’s all a lie, maybe it is, but . . . I’m not so sure. The journal belongs to a Captain Benton and I don’t know why my grandfather would have it—”

  Arlington laughed then, so loud that it startled Ben. The flames danced off his translucent skin, giving him a devilish glow. “I’m sorry,” he apologized after he collected himself. “It just seems so silly, doesn’t it? A government creating a virus designed to wipe out humanity. It almost sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.”

  Ben recognized the name. They played a few of Hitchcock’s movies at the theater every now and then. He remembered the one with the birds, thousands of them tormenting a town, killing people, and even though it was fake, it scared him every time.

  Ben cracked a smile. “I suppose it does sound silly, doesn’t it?”

  Arlington returned to his desk, but instead of sitting in his chair, he sat on the edge of his desk, facing Ben.

  “I tell you what,” he said. “I think we should keep this a secret between us for now. In the meantime, I’ll keep the journal safe for you. I think it’s in your best interest . . . and your family’s.”

  Ben gulped. He didn’t like the way Arlington said, “and your family’s.” If he didn’t know any better, he swore it was a threat. But when he looked up into the wrinkled face of the leader of the Nest, the old man was smiling down at him, and there was nothing menacing about it.

  “Of course, you understand,” Arlington clarified, “if the journal is indeed real, then that means—whoever Captain Benton is—he is a criminal, and if your grandfather played any part in it that could be detrimental for—”