The Ark Plan

by Laura Martin

  Shawn looked up at me, his forehead wrinkling in the familiar way it always did when he was trying to figure out a problem. “Maybe it was on the body armor we just traded?”

  “Maybe.” I frowned. “But we wore that stuff all day yesterday; we’d have felt a tracker. Wouldn’t we?”

  Shawn shrugged, his face clouded and anxious as he busily checked the lining of his bag. “They make them tiny now. Plus”—he shook his head, eyes baffled—“trackers usually need to be close to their home signal, within a mile or two. That’s impossible out here. Right?”

  “How in the world should I know?” I snapped, and then immediately felt ashamed. This wasn’t Shawn’s fault. This was mine. If I was angry with anyone, it was myself.

  “Even if they had a tracker, they shouldn’t have come after us,” Shawn said, considering. Then he looked at the compass hanging around my neck. “It has to be your dad’s info plug that they want. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  I nodded grimly; he’d confirmed my suspicions. They wouldn’t have bothered sending helicopters and armed men after us for stealing a couple of body armor suits and some ration packs. They would only do that for something big, and it had to be the plug.

  “What plug?” Todd asked.

  “But they didn’t know about that. I never—” I stopped, thinking back to the day of my escape, and my heart sank in realization. I had taken my compass out of my shirt to see if the plug would fit in any of the port screens. There had been a security camera. Guilt, hard and heavy, settled in my stomach. I turned to Shawn. “Oh, no.”

  “Whatever is on that plug must be worth killing for,” Shawn said. “The Noah wouldn’t risk sending marines topside if it wasn’t.”

  “Stop talking,” Todd said as silent tears streamed down his face. I jumped. I’d almost forgotten that Todd was standing there, his huge bow still pointed at our heads, listening to us discuss tracking devices. I swallowed hard at the anger I saw boiling just beneath Todd’s skin.

  He held out a trembling hand. “Hand over that plug thing you keep talking about.” I looked at his outstretched palm in disbelief.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You heard me,” he said. “If they want that stupid plug, then I’m going to give it to them and get my mom back.”

  “But—” I stuttered. “That won’t work.”

  “Why not?” he snapped. “You are going to tell me where they are being taken, and then I’m going to hand that plug over to them.” His voice was too loud in the silent forest. I glanced helplessly at a speechless Shawn before turning my attention back to Todd, all too aware of the sharp arrowhead inches from my face.

  My hands went up. “They could be taking them to any one of the four compounds.” I took a cautious step back. Could I outrun one of Todd’s arrows? Doubtful.

  “Why would they do that?” Todd asked.

  “Because humans aren’t supposed to live topside. It’s against the law,” Shawn said.

  “Your laws,” Todd snarled.

  “Even if I gave you the plug,” I said cautiously, “the marines still wouldn’t release your mom and the rest of the villagers. They may have come here looking for it, but they took those people away even though they knew they didn’t have it.”

  Todd looked at us for another moment, and then he lowered the bow.

  “Keep your stupid plug, then.” He sniffed. “You can tell Roderick over there how important it is to you.” With that, he stormed past us toward the abandoned tree houses. I glanced over at Roderick’s still body and felt sick. When I let go of my compass, I saw that I’d been clutching it so tightly that it had left an angry red imprint on my palm. Was Todd right? Should I just give him the plug? I rolled this idea around for a moment before shaking my head stubbornly. Kennedy and his marines wouldn’t hand over the villagers for the plug. Not now. I could only hope that Roderick hadn’t died in vain. That whatever was on this plug was worth the sacrifice. My dad had certainly thought so, or he wouldn’t have risked my life and his.

  When I finally looked up, Todd was halfway up one of the long ropes. I went to follow him, and Shawn grabbed my arm to stop me, shaking his head.

  “Give him a minute to cool down,” he advised. “We aren’t his favorite people right now. In fact”—he glanced up nervously—“part of me thinks we should run while we have the chance.”

  I crossed my arms and glared at him in disbelief.

  Shawn sighed. “How did I know you wouldn’t be on board with that plan?” As one, we craned our heads back to follow Todd’s progress. He was fast, faster than I’d thought possible. Soon he was through the hatch in the floor.

  “We need to fix this,” I said as we watched Todd running from house to house, the rope bridges swinging wildly. My heart tugged painfully.

  “How do we do that?” Shawn asked.

  “I don’t know.” I frowned and tapped the compass. “Whatever is on here, we need to get it to Lake Michigan.”

  I looked up as Todd began lowering cloth bundles down on ropes. The first three were light and appeared to be nothing but rope and thick fabric, and I wondered what Todd wanted them for. The last bundle was heavy, and when it landed in my arms I felt a warm weight that made my heart sink. It was a body. A small one. I laid it down gingerly, too scared to open it. Todd soon followed, a large pack strapped to his back and his bow over his shoulder. He was holding three shovels.

  “Anyone up there?” I asked.

  “No. Come on,” Todd said. “We need to bury Roderick before scavengers find him.” He bent down and gingerly picked up the heavy bundle.

  “I’m so sorry, Todd,” I said. “This is all my fault.”

  “No,” Todd said, laying the bundle down beside Roderick. “It’s my fault. I should have never brought you to the Oaks.” I flinched as he began digging a hole. He was right; he shouldn’t have helped us. Roderick would have still been alive if he’d let that T. rex eat us in the meadow. Todd had trusted us, vouched for us, and we’d betrayed him in one of the worst ways imaginable. He would never trust someone so completely and easily again, and it wouldn’t matter that our betrayal was by accident. Shawn and I picked up the shovels and helped dig. Soon we had an acceptable hole, and Shawn helped Todd carry Roderick over. Todd walked over to the other bundle and threw back the wrappings to reveal Tilly. She could have been sleeping if it weren’t for the neat bullet hole in her head. A sob caught in my throat, and I turned away as Todd laid her down next to Roderick.

  Shawn stood staring bleakly into the hole. “I never thought I’d be sad to see a dead dinosaur.” He turned his face away, and I saw a tear glistening on his cheek before he wiped it away. “But this is awful.” He picked up his shovel to begin covering them with dirt, but Todd held out a hand to stop him. He reached down and removed a leather necklace from around Roderick’s neck and put it around his own. On it hung a simple silver circle. I looked closely and recognized the old pre–Dinosauria Pandemic currency: it was a quarter. It had a hole punched through it to allow the leather to pass through.

  Todd saw me looking and tucked it in his shirt. “It’s a symbol of our village,” he explained. “You don’t get one until you turn eighteen, but as I’m the only free villager left, I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

  “I’m sorry, man,” Shawn said. “Not everyone in the compound is like Kennedy. He’s as mean and nasty as they come. I’m sure the Noah didn’t authorize him to shoot people.” He glanced back down at the hole and swallowed hard, and I knew he was thinking that the Noah probably had authorized the marines to shoot dinosaurs. Todd just grunted, and we finished burying Roderick and Tilly in silence.

  The job done, Todd walked back over to the pile of packs we’d left by the base of the tree. I noticed that there was something about the way Todd moved, a wary edginess that Shawn and I lacked. His eyes flicked this way and that as he took in the surrounding woods. Every now and then, his head would snap in the direction of a noise, and I’d see his hand jerk
involuntarily toward the bow that never left his back. Shawn and I had left ours sitting in a pile next to the packs. Not good. I hurried over to sling mine on, not that carrying it was going to do me much good. I had no clue how to use the thing.

  “What is all this?” I asked, pointing to the remaining bundles Todd had lowered from the tree houses.

  Todd picked one up and tossed it to me. “They’re tree pods.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “What’s a tree pod?” Shawn whispered to me.

  “No clue,” I muttered, “but say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Shawn said obediently. Todd ignored us as he secured his own tree pod to his pack.

  “If you don’t sleep in a tree, you’re as good as dead. This lets you do that without breaking your neck. My mom wanted you two to have them. Of course, she didn’t plan on you getting our entire village kidnapped, but you won’t last one night without them.”

  I looked around, my heart jumping into my throat. “Wait, where’s Verde?”

  “Verde is staying here. She’s too small to come with, and I don’t want anything to happen to her.” He glanced back at the freshly dug grave and frowned. “It’s lucky she was out. I left enough food for her to last a few weeks, so hopefully she won’t try to follow us.” He readjusted his pack and glared at us. “Are you ready to go?”

  “You’re coming with us?” I asked, and as I said it, I realized it’s what I was hoping he’d do. Our chances of making it to Lake Michigan alive were much better with him along, and he was my only hope of learning how to use the bow strapped to my back.

  “I’m not going with you,” Todd said as though this should have been obvious. “You’re coming with me. You have to help me find my mom and get my village back. I have no clue where that stupid compound of yours is, and it’s your fault they got taken.”

  “I want to help you,” I said. “I do. But I can’t. Not yet. I have to finish what I started. I think the reason those marines came after us in the first place was because of this,” I said, holding up my compass. “I need to get it to Lake Michigan, and I need to get there fast before anyone else gets hurt.”

  “And what?” Todd said. “You are just going to leave my mom and everyone I love in the hands of your crazy dictator? No way. You got them taken, and you are going to help me get them back.”

  “I promise I’ll help you get them back,” I said. “I’ll march you right into North Compound myself if that’s what you want. But I can’t go anywhere near a compound until I see this thing through. I have to.”

  Todd frowned. “There isn’t anything in Lake Michigan. If you make it there alive, which you probably won’t, all you will have accomplished is wasting time.”

  “So come with us,” I said. “We make it there faster, and we make it there alive. As soon as I’ve delivered this plug to, well, whatever is in the middle of Lake Michigan, Shawn and I will help you get your village back.”

  “We will?” Shawn muttered quietly, and I stomped down hard on his foot. He grunted in pain, but he got the message.

  “We will,” I said. “I promise.”

  Todd stared at us, then he looked back up at the deserted tree houses, their rope ladders swinging gently in the breeze. “If I help you,” he said after a moment, “we can make it to Lake Michigan in less than three days.”

  “Really?” I said, feeling hopeful for the first time since the helicopters had shown up.

  Todd nodded. “If it was any farther, I’d say forget it, you’re on your own. But I can spare a few days, especially if it means you help me. I know about as much about survival underground as you know about survival aboveground.”

  “So . . . you know nothing,” Shawn said. Todd barked out a laugh despite himself. Shawn had a knack for making people laugh when they felt like crying.

  “Really? You’ll come with us?” I asked.

  Todd nodded. “I’ve never actually gone to the lake, but I did do some trading trips with my dad to Ivan’s, and I know his place is only a day or so from the lake.”

  I froze.

  “Did you just say Ivan?” I asked. Not daring to hope. “You know an Ivan?”

  Todd looked at me strangely. “You know Ivan? Crazy trapper Ivan? Dinosaur hunter Ivan?”

  “Um”—I glanced at Shawn—“maybe?” I unscrewed my compass and pulled out my dad’s note and handed it to Todd. It was time to put all my cards on the table.

  “How many things do you have in that direction-finding thingy of yours?” he asked.

  “More than you’d expect,” I said with a strained smile. “Just look at it.” He read it quickly and then handed it back to me.

  “So that plug thing you guys were talking about is in there?” Todd asked, eyeing my compass speculatively. I nodded, fighting the urge to grab it protectively. Todd saw my look and shook his head ruefully. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to take it.”

  I nodded.

  “Your dad wasn’t real specific in that note, was he,” Todd said.

  “You can say that again,” Shawn grumbled.

  I glared at him. “You should be happy. If it is the same Ivan, then we might not have to go all the way to Lake Michigan.”

  “Now that,” Shawn said, pointing at me, “is the best news I’ve heard all day.”

  I frowned as something occurred to me, and I turned to Todd. “Can we go back to Adler’s trading post before we head out?”

  Todd looked startled. “Why? You have all the gear you need.”

  “That’s not it.” I shook my head. “I don’t trust this stuff anymore.” I gestured to my backpack. “I want to trade it all in. I couldn’t find a tracker, but there has to be one, or those marines wouldn’t have found us. The last thing we need is for them to track us to Ivan.”

  “We can try,” Todd said. “But Adler’s not going to want anything potentially carrying a tracker.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t think about that.”

  As it turned out, Adler wasn’t a problem. The rope ladder leading up to his house swung back and forth lazily in the wind, and the small hut was abandoned.

  “The marines must have gotten him,” Shawn said, running his fingers over some of the dusty pots and pans hanging from the wall. He picked up a small box of bits of metal and began pawing through it.

  “Or Adler heard the gunshots and took off without even trying to help,” Todd said in disgust. His face darkened, and he glared at me. “Although I shouldn’t be too judgmental. All we did was hide in the bushes.”

  “There was nothing we could have done,” Shawn said, setting down the box of metal. “If we’d shown ourselves, we’d be in those helicopters too.” Todd just grunted in response and disappeared down a dusty row of what looked like cooking utensils. Shawn’s eyes roamed over the cluttered shelves of the store. He was looking for his music box.

  I took my bag off my back and plunked it on the counter. It didn’t take long to empty out my worn gray clothing and the few items I’d stolen from the compound. Todd thumped two large canvas bags like his own down without a word, and turned around to poke through the shelves again. Shawn joined me at the counter and quickly emptied out his own bag. His pile of supplies dwarfed mine, and I stared in wonder at the items he’d managed to get his hands on. I picked up the med kit and the small bag of tools, wishing we could take them with us. But in the end, I put them back on the pile. One of these items had a tracker in it, and nothing was worth getting caught.

  Ten minutes later, we had filled our new canvas packs with supplies from Adler’s stash and were heading back down the rope ladder. The only thing I’d kept was my journal, tucking it safely in the bottom of the unfamiliar pack. Shawn had kept his old patched-up port. I hadn’t known that he’d brought it along, but after a little arguing, he’d convinced me that there was no way a tracker was in the port he’d personally assembled piece by piece. I’d finally agreed. I knew part of the reason was because we hadn’t found his music box. He’d tried to hide his deva
station when it hadn’t turned up, but failed. Everything familiar had been left in the tree house above us. It was bittersweet and freeing all at once.

  Todd jumped the last few feet to the ground, landing gracefully. He’d barely spoken to us through the entire exchange of supplies. He stood now, taking in the forest around us, his face wary, his bow strung. At least it wasn’t pointing at us anymore, I thought as I hopped off the ladder to land clumsily beside him.

  Shawn dropped next, but missed the landing and fell onto his butt with a loud grunt. I bit back a smile as I helped him up. “So we’re heading to this Ivan’s house?” he asked glumly as he dusted himself off.

  “We are,” I said, nodding, but then I stopped and looked at Todd as something occurred to me. “Can you even find Ivan? My dad said that he didn’t know where Ivan was located.”

  “I can find him,” Todd said. “I think. He relocates every few years, but I know Mitchell just saw him a few months ago to trade for some teeth and bones, and he said Ivan was back at the house I visited with my dad once.”

  Shawn didn’t look convinced. “Only once?”

  “Once is enough,” Todd said, shouldering his pack. “Let’s get going. I want to get as far as I can before night falls.” He took a few steps into the woods, then stopped and turned back to us. “Remember what I said about being alert,” he warned. “If the smaller meat-eating dinosaurs are hungry enough, they might try to take one of us out, especially if they are hunting in a pack. We need to stay close together, and we need to have our bows ready.”

  “But we don’t know how to use our bows,” Shawn pointed out.

  “Worst-case scenario,” Todd said, “use it as a club.” He turned and headed into the woods at a jog.

  “Was that supposed to be reassuring?” Shawn asked me.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, heading after Todd.

  I wondered if I would ever get used to this topside world. As I ran after Todd, every breath scraped up my throat in a wheezing gasp, I decided the answer was probably not. Growing up in the filtered, monochromatic quiet of the compound made all the colors and smells and sounds up here overwhelming. There were so many things I wanted to look at but couldn’t because I needed to watch where I was going. I managed to catch a glimpse of a bird here or a chattering squirrel there, but I always paid for it with a rather painful face-plant and an irritated look from Todd. And while I appreciated the beauty of the fallen leaves, moss, and tiny patches of multicolored flowers we ran over, I also found them annoyingly uneven. I caught myself longing for the smooth compound tunnels and almost laughed out loud at myself. I’d spent a lifetime wishing for exactly what I was doing right now, running in the fresh air and the dappled green light that shone down from the trees. I just hadn’t imagined it being so uncomfortable.