A Million Suns atu-2

by Beth Revis

“All that floppy did was prove that he was paranoid — and that this whole clue-chasing thing has been pointless.”

  “Pointless?” I pick the floppy up and stand as well.

  Elder nods. “Pointless. I was hoping to learn how to restart the engine, but all we get from this vid is some big secret that Orion decided not to share with us. He sent us on a chase all over the ship to find clues that lead to a door that he just tells us to lock again. You don’t get much more pointless than that.”

  I nod, folding the floppy and slipping it into my pocket. “There is definitely something sketch about this,” I say as soon as the last words fade to black.

  “Sketch?”

  “You know, weird.”

  A wry grin slides across Elder’s face. “Every time I think I know you, you say something so… strange.”

  “Ha!” I punch him on the arm. “I thought we’ve been over this before: you’re the one who speaks sketch.”

  Elder pushes the heavy submarine-like door closed, and I make sure the door does lock behind us — but I’m not going to forget the code.

  “I think Orion was scared,” I say, following Elder down the hall.

  “He was loons.” Elder’s voice is bitter. “That was filmed around the time Eldest tried to kill him, and it’s clear he’d already lost it. Orion was paranoid—”

  “He had a right to be paranoid.” I can’t help it; I touch the smooth skin behind my left ear, remembering the way Orion had scratched his skin in the video. What did it take for him to dig deeper into his skin, to rip the wires from his own flesh? I glance at the wi-com encircling my wrist and swallow back bile at the thought of how it was those wires, dripping in gore and blood, and… ew.

  “It’s weird, though.” I pause, thinking. “All the rest of the videos have been on that mem card thing. This one was already loaded on a floppy, sitting in the armory. None of the other ones had text. And none of the other ones were that old. That video was made just before Orion faked his own death. Maybe someone, I don’t know, messed with it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Elder frowns at the video. “Look, I get that Orion made these vids for you, and you feel like you have to solve his frexing riddle. But we’re going to have to figure out how to live on this ship without whatever stupid message he left for us.” He runs his fingers through his hair. He usually does this when he’s thinking, but there’s anger in the way he does it now, as if he’s only doing it to stop himself from punching something. “We have serious problems to deal with — and this was just a frexing waste of time. The engine isn’t going to fix itself. Orion’s just distracting us from the real problems.”

  I bite my lip. Orion didn’t leave a message for us; he left it for me. And it was something about getting off the ship, I know it. The key to fixing the engine, the reason for the delay — something. Something important.

  Besides. How much longer can we go on like this?

  “Hold on,” Elder growls, and then turns away from me, jabbing his wi-com button on the side of his neck with such force that it looks like it hurts. He speaks in a low voice for a moment, then shouts, “What?!”

  “What is it?” I ask softly, putting my hand on his arm.

  Elder jerks away from me. “What?” he says again into the wi-com. “I’ll be right there.” He presses the button behind his ear again and glances at me before taking off down the hallway toward the elevators. “I’ve got to go,” he says.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” I have to jog to catch up. “Elder, what’s wrong?”

  “Bartie’s causing more trouble.” Elder slams his fist into the elevator call button. “I can’t waste my time with this anymore,” he says.

  “It’s not a waste,” I say softly.

  The elevator doors open, and Elder holds his arm out to prevent them from closing without him. He searches my eyes. “I’m not angry at you,” he says, his voice sincere. “But these ‘clues’ aren’t going to fix the ship.”

  Elder steps into the elevator, leaving me alone on the cold, empty cryo level. Part of me wishes he could stay, but I know he’s needed on the other levels. As I walk slowly back to the locked doors, I wonder how things would be different if Elder didn’t have to be in charge of Godspeed. I would never ask him to give up the leadership he’s longed for all his life… but maybe if he didn’t have to care about the ship first, I could believe him when he said he cared about me.

  I pull the floppy we found out of my pocket. Maybe Elder is right. Maybe this is nothing but a wild-goose chase.

  But… it’s all I have right now. It’s all I’ve had for three months. It’s the first spark of hope I’ve had since waking up, and I have to cling to it. I have to. I have to believe something, something will come of this.

  I play the video file again, skimming over the words and straining my ears to pick up some nuance in Orion’s tone, something that will give me a clue.

  Orion’s voice — so much like Elder’s — fills the hall. “Eldest doesn’t want anyone to know this secret. I don’t think he even wanted me to notice, but… the outside of the ship needed maintenance… I–I saw what he wanted me not to see.”

  “Whatever you found,” I tell Orion’s face, “you saw it outside the ship.”

  We can’t go outside the ship. There’s the vacuum of space, waiting to suffocate us or turn our lungs to mush or pop our eyeballs or whatever. We’d die. Unless… unless behind one of the two remaining locked doors are space suits.

  I stare up at the hatch that shows the stars. Well, of course there’d be something to enable people to safely go out the hatch. Surely the makers of the ship realized that in centuries of travel, the ship would need maintenance. That’s what Orion called me in the first video, his contingency plan — this must be theirs. Four locked doors on this hall. One leads to the armory, one leads to an evacuation hatch… one must store space suits.

  The possibility of what I’m thinking hits me so hard that I don’t breathe for a minute. Then I remember the other thing Orion said.

  But the secret… it should stay a secret.

  No. I want — I need — to follow this through to the end. I need to know what Orion knows. Because if it’s something that will get the ship going again, that will get us to the planet — it’s worth it. And if it’s proof that the ship will never move again — that’s worth it too. It’s the not knowing that’s killing me. Not knowing if there’s a chance that something can change, not knowing if there’s hope at all.

  I play the video again.

  The thing is — there’s something different about this clue. It feels off. It was on a floppy, not a mem card. The scrolling text, the fact that Orion was so much younger — it’s as if someone found this video and cobbled it together from an old film. Which means… Orion didn’t make this.

  Someone else has the real video — the real clue.

  33 ELDER

  “FREX,” I MUMBLE AS MARAE RUNS DOWN THE LIST OF EVERY thing that’s happened so far today. I’ve only been with Amy for two hours, tops, but I should have known better than to ignore my coms.

  First there was the meeting Bartie held at the Recorder Hall as soon as the solar lamp clicked on. Second Shipper Shelby had been there already and commed Marae, who tried to com me. By the time Marae had gotten to the Recorder Hall with the rest of the first-level Shippers, Bartie had already presented his ideas for what the ship’s leadership should be like in the future, with an added note that I was too inept to rule. Thirty people had pressed their thumbprints on his petition, giving it their mark of approval.

  Then Marae tried to “arrest” Bartie, but I don’t think she really even understood what the word meant, even though we’ve all been reading up on police forces and civil conflicts. I think she thought if she just shouted “I arrest you!” really loudly that would mean he’d quit, but instead he uploaded the petition to the floppy network and everyone on the ship had it by lunch.

  Not that I had lunch. By midday, I was back in the City, standing up on
the table at the Food Distro, explaining that, for some reason, wall food production was delayed. The whole time, the Food Distro manager, Fridrick, was staring at me, smirking, and I kept remembering how Bartie said that you could start a revolution if you took away people’s food. I did an all-call explaining that extra portions would be delivered for supper, but no one was really satisfied with that answer.

  It wasn’t until now, with the workday nearly done, that Doc bothered to summon me to the Hospital and explain that someone had broken into his office and stolen his supplies of Phydus med patches.

  “Why the frex didn’t you tell me this sooner?” I shout.

  Doc cringes. “You looked busy.”

  I roar — an inarticulate sound with no words. The stolen patches explain a lot — as I was running from one end of the ship to another, I’d noticed surreptitious looks and veiled comments, but I’d thought it was people passing around Bartie’s manifesto. Now I see they were also passing around the Phydus patches. The people who’ve been depressed — and many who weren’t — are trading anything they have for them.

  “The worst thing,” Doc tells me as I stare at his disheveled office, “is that this must have happened yesterday. I haven’t been back to my office since early last morning. Whoever killed Stevy must have pocketed the patches after I left.”

  Doc’s lips curl in disgust. I don’t know which part he hates the most: that someone stole med patches, or that whoever it was turned his office into a mess.

  “I made the concentration of Phydus in the patches high on purpose,” Doc says, “so that one patch could quickly placate a person. But the problem is, with such a high concentration—”

  “It only takes three patches to kill a person.”

  “Yes. It’s very concentrated — two patches, and… It slows everything down. The organs. It’s too much for the body to handle. Three is death. I should have diluted the drug, but I thought…”

  “You thought you’d be the one administering it.”

  “Me or Kit. Someone who knew the dangers and could regulate it.” He sounds guilty, sad. But I’m as much to blame as he is. I approved the use of the patches.

  We both stare silently at his trashed office for a moment. Everything is normally so neat and organized. But now it’s a chaotic mess. The desk shoved to one wall. The locking cabinet smashed open, with med patches spilling out in all colors, but none of them pale green.

  Kit runs into the office. “There’re reports,” she says breathlessly.

  “Of what?” Doc snaps.

  “Dead. Someone dead. From the patches.”

  We immediately spring into action. Doc drives the electric cart across the Feeder Level, with me riding behind him. As the level flies past us, all I can think of is how much worse everything has been since I took over.

  “You’re going to have to do something,” Doc calls back to me over the roar of the electric cart. “Something to really make the Feeders see you as leader. Use this problem to show your strength!”

  Yeah. Right.

  When we get to the City, Doc stops the cart in front of the weaving district. “Why are we stopping here?” I ask, my heart sinking.

  Before Doc can answer, someone yanks me off the back of the cart and throws me onto the street. I stumble, almost losing my balance.

  “You frexing chutz!” Bartie bellows.

  I step back, surprised.

  “What are you—?” I start.

  Bartie shoves me, hard, with both hands on my chest. I stagger back, hitting the cart with the back of my legs. He hurls a handful of square, pale green med patches at my face.

  “Did you do this?” Bartie shouts. He towers over me.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Those ‘special’ med patches are full of Phydus, you chutz.” Spit flies in my face as he growls the words at me.

  “I–I know,” I say, looking over his shoulder where the patches he threw at me lie scattered on the ground.

  “You know? You’re not even going to deny it? You know? How could you let Phydus back on the ship? You—you—swore that you wouldn’t use it again! You stupid frexing chutz!”

  “How did you get any?” I shout back. I don’t like the way he’s in my face, the way he won’t back up, give me room to breathe. I try to lean up, but he doesn’t back down.

  “How could you?” Bartie sneers. “You prance around here, talking about how great you are for letting the people all get off Phydus, and then you just slather some frexing med patches on them and call it done! Anyone get in your way — anyone cause too much trouble — just slap a frexing patch on them!”

  Bartie spins away from me. But just as I take a step toward Doc, who’s standing on the curb, too shocked to do anything, Bartie turns back and shoves me hard so that I slam against the side of the cart again.

  “You’re worse than Eldest, you know that? At least he treated us all the same. You’re just picking us off as you choose.”

  He turns to go, shaking his fist out.

  “Wait a frexing minute!” I shout. Bartie stops but doesn’t turn; his back is stiff and straight, and his fingers curl into fists again. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “Didn’t do anything wrong?” Bartie sneers without turning around. “Tell that to Lil.”

  He strides off. The people on the street are silent, watching us. As soon as Bartie turns the corner, they start whispering.

  “Lil?” I ask Doc as I gather up the patches from the ground, stuffing them into my pockets. They may be scattered throughout the rest of the ship, but at least I can make sure these don’t fall into the wrong hands.

  Doc’s face is creased in a dark frown, but he’s glowering at where Bartie walked off, not at me. “She’s the one Kit found dead.”

  I rush up the stairs to Harley’s childhood home. I don’t know what I expect to find there — his mother is already dead. Lil’s trailer is exactly as it was before — messy and slightly smelly. When I enter her bedroom, Lil’s just where Amy and I left her, sprawled on the bed.

  Across her forehead are three pale green patches. One word on each patch.

  Follow the leader.

  “You know what that means, don’t you?” Doc asks. When I don’t answer, he adds, “This was murder. Someone killed Lil. For you.”

  “For me?” I can’t take my eyes off her body. It seems to melt into the bed.

  “Follow the leader. It’s a warning to others — to those who don’t.”

  “But Lil wasn’t rebelling. She wasn’t involved with Bartie’s group, and she never spoke against me—”

  “She wasn’t working,” Doc says. He sits beside Lil on the bed, peeling the patches off one by one. They cling to her skin, lifting it up a little and making a schlick sound as they pop off her. “Anyone not working, anyone not fulfilling the needs of the ship… they’re not following you.”

  Doc waits until I tear my eyes away from Lil’s body. “She was murdered for you,” he says clearly, slowly, as if to make sure that I understand the weight of her death rests on my shoulders.

  34 AMY

  I CAN’T KEEP STILL. I MAY HAVE GIVEN UP RUNNING, BUT I can’t think cramped up on the cryo level, with all the locked doors mocking me. I have to move. When I get to the Hospital lobby, though, I’m surrounded by shouting patients, angry nurses, and a crowd that seems to grow by the minute.

  “It’s safe!” Doc’s apprentice, Kit, tells a woman loudly. “Just one is fine!”

  “How do I know that?” the woman asks. Her voice is thick, like she’s been crying.

  “Well, look at yourself,” Kit says, exasperated. “You’re fine, aren’t you?”

  “I think so… but…”

  Kit growls in frustration and marches off, nearly crashing into me.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  “No prob. What’s going on?”

  “Those frexing med patches. People are worried they’re dying, but if they’d had the overdose, they’d alr
eady be dead. Try to convince them of that, though.”

  “What med patches?”

  Kit reaches into her lab coat and shows me a square green patch. “Doc developed them for the depressed patients. Works, too. If you have only one. Problem is, word’s gotten out that three or more will kill you.”

  “What’s in them?”

  “Phydus.” She says it matter-of-factly, but she waits for my reaction before continuing.

  Phydus. I thought we were through with that.

  Part of me is angry. Very, very angry. I thought Elder and I agreed. I thought he had promised. No more Phydus. But another part of me can’t forget the crowd that turned into a mob in the City.

  “We’re all going to die!” the woman Kit had been arguing with shouts. She grabs Kit by the lapels of her coat, her knuckles turning white.

  Kit wraps one hand around the woman’s wrist, and, surprisingly, the woman easily releases her. Her arms drop to her sides, and her whole body relaxes.

  “There, isn’t that better?” Kit asks gently.

  The woman doesn’t answer. And then I notice the pale green patch on the back of her hand.

  Kit leads the woman to a chair against the wall and deposits her there. She turns back to me with a satisfied look on her face. And — I can’t help but smile back at her. That worked. Maybe if Elder had had some patches in the City yesterday, things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand. And maybe if I had had one in the fiction room when Luthor burst in…

  “Can I have some of those patches?” I ask Kit.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Didn’t you hear? They’re not safe. We’re trying to get all the ones that were stolen back. Only Doc, the nurses, and I are supposed to use them.”

  Interesting. The patches were stolen.

  “Can I just have one, then?” I ask.

  Something in Kit melts. I think she thinks I’m depressed about being the only freak on the ship — she’s always been nice to me in the way that some people are super-nice in a suffocating sort of way to people who are handicapped.

  “Don’t tell Doc,” she whispers, slipping me a patch. I hide it in my pocket, next to the floppy I found in the armory.