Ghost Hope

by Ripley Patton

  When I turned back to Gordon, he reached inside his shirt, pulled something out, and handed it to me. As I unfolded it, I realized it was the picture he’d shown me back at his place, the one of the NAM group who’d raided Umatilla. He’d taken it out of the frame and there was something scrawled on the back, a list of names in faded pencil.

  “I want you to have that,” he said. “Make sure your generation understands. Don’t let them make the same mistakes we did.”

  “I’m sure we’ll make our own mistakes,” I said, knowing it was already true.

  “Then make them count.” He smiled, or it might have been a grimace of pain. It was hard to tell.

  He turned to Reiny. “You and Lonan must watch out for the tribe’s interests.”

  “You’re going to be fine,” Reiny assured him, clutching his hand and squeezing it.

  “The helicopter is almost here,” Palmer called, sticking his head in the tent door. “We’ve cleared room for it to land. Get him ready,” he barked at the Red Cross workers, and they scrambled like rats, descending on Gordon and shoving the rest of us out of the way.

  I could hear the chopper in the distance now, buzzing like an angry wasp. The tent sides were heaving against the down thrust of the chopper blades and, for a moment, I felt overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu, as if I’d been in a tent with a helicopter buzzing over it before.

  And then the medical workers were wheeling Gordon’s gurney out the door, Mia clinging to him, the tent flaps whipping violently as they passed through them.

  Kaylee, Reiny, and I went outside, holding our arms up to our faces against the dust and wind.

  Several guys jumped out of the chopper and loaded Gordon into it, pulling Mia in as well.

  The medics began working on him immediately, attaching their monitors even before they shut the door and lifted off into the sky.

  23

  KAYLEE

  The world around us seemed unaware that we’d lost Gordon. Our grief and fear meant nothing to them. Even as we walked back to the RV, they had already returned to their normal banter and excitement, as if Gordon no longer existed—had never existed. And that was almost as scary as feeling the energy ebb from his heart as I’d held his hand. To these people, Gordon was only a background character in a story they had never read.

  Living in the dome, I’d been the center of everything. Every person who’d come there, came to see me. Every conversation had been with me or about me. Every event had concerned me.

  But out here in the real world, it wasn’t like that. I was only one person in an endless ocean of people, each one convinced they were the apex of the events swirling around them. It was both terrifying and exhilarating, this constant effort to mean something. And now perhaps Gordon would be done with it. The sadness of that only made me want to try harder. I had found Mike, or he had found me. It didn’t matter which. We were back together. And there was the dome, looming on the horizon, just within reach. My sister was in there. My mother too. Mike had whispered it to me when I’d hugged him. They were here.

  When we arrived back at the bus, Reiny made lunch, but I could tell she was holding back tears. Lonan was quieter than ever. David kept folding and unfolding the photo Gordon had given him. And Mike looked stricken. As for me, I felt strangely reluctant to touch anyone, as if I only had enough comfort to sooth myself, and barely that.

  After we ate, we all went to Lonan and Reiny’s camp to pack up their stuff. They’d decided to stay in the RV with David and me because the local weather was predicting a rare desert storm for the evening. Plus, we had room now. I was thrilled that Reiny let me sweep out the tents and roll them up, and even under the hot sun in a dry desert with Gordon gone, the sound of children giggling and playing nearby made me feel better. At least on the inside. On the outside, every part of me was coated with a layer of dust. It was in my hair, up my nose, on my neck, and even in my teeth. Without thinking, I took off my light cloak and swung it around, doing my best to shake it out.

  The giggling I’d been hearing suddenly stopped, and I looked up to find three children standing at the edge of the nearest camp, gawking at me.

  “Whoa,” the littlest boy said, waving a stick at me. “You’re freaky cool-looking. What happened to your skin?”

  “Abram, hush! That’s not polite,” an older girl scolded, though I could read in her eyes she was just as curious.

  “She has PSS,” the other boy said, proud to be the expert. “It’s just the way she was born.”

  I nodded and smiled at all of them, folding the cloak over my arm instead of putting it back on. I had told David I wasn’t going to hide anymore. Why not start now?

  “Is PSS contagious?” little Abram asked, sounding almost hopeful. “Can we catch it from her?”

  “No,” Expert Boy said. “It’s just like being born with red hair, or brown eyes, or a birthmark on your arm. Except way cooler.”

  “Do you glow in the dark?” Abram asked me, excitedly.

  I nodded, showing them the glow of my hand under the cloak.

  “That’s awesome,” Scolding Girl jumped in. “You don’t even need a flashlight, or a lantern, or a campfire when you go camping. I want PSS!”

  “Does it hurt, though?” Abram asked, stepping closer. “Does it feel like real skin?”

  I shook my head at the first question and held out my arm in response to the second, offering him a touch.

  “Can’t you talk?” he asked, his eyes gone huge and concerned. “Or did a cat get your tongue?”

  “Kaylee can’t talk,” David stepped up, coming to my rescue, alarm radiating off of him. This was his worst nightmare, people seeing me and asking me questions. “And it has nothing to do with a cat,” he added, managing a smile.

  “Children, who are you talking to?” A woman came around the tent and stopped, her eyes falling on me.

  For a moment, I was tempted to run. Was this the part where she gasped in horror and raised a mob to kill me, like in Frankenstein? No, that was silly. I wasn’t a monster.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, nodding at the children. “Were they bothering you?”

  I shook my head adamantly, smiling, and David said, “They were just curious. It’s fine.”

  “Are you leaving?” she asked, nodding at our rolled up tents.

  “Yes,” David said, lying through his teeth, always trying to protect me. “We heard there’s a big storm coming tonight, so we’re packing up and heading home before it hits.”

  “We heard that too,” the woman said. “But after the Dome Show, we’re determined to stick it out and see what happens.”

  “The Dome Show?” David asked.

  “Didn’t you see it?” There was excitement in her voice.

  “It was so cool!” little Abram chimed in.

  “I saw it first,” his sister declared.

  “No, I saw it before you did,” her older brother argued.

  “Early this morning,” their mother went on, right over the top of their bickering, “the entire dome turned as white as frost, and then it started flashing the most amazing images—beautiful skyscapes and landscapes, one right after the other. People were staring and cheering, everyone climbing out of their tents to see it. And then it paused for a moment and did it all over again. Didn’t you notice it had changed?” She pointed toward the dome.

  David and I both turned, staring at its newly opaque surface. Of course, I wasn’t surprised. I’d seen the projection program run numerous times. But I was glad my sister had discovered it and the crowd had enjoyed it.

  “I guess we missed it,” David said. “We had a pretty hectic morning.”

  “Everyone’s saying it’s a sign,” the woman told us. “Someone is obviously in there, and they’re trying to tell us something. I think what we saw this morning is only the beginning. So, storm or no storm, we’re sticking it out.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” David said, sarcasm tinging his voice.

  And the wom
an didn’t miss it. She frowned, took little Abram’s hand, and said, “Come on children, I need your help getting the rain flies up. And best of luck to you,” she called over her shoulder as they turned back to their camp and disappeared behind a huge green tent.

  You didn’t have to be so rude, I told David. They were nice people.

  “You should put your cloak back on,” he said, ignoring my comment.

  No, I said, handing it to him. But you’re welcome to wear it if you like.

  “Kaylee,” he called after me as I marched past the truck and walked proudly through the neighboring camps on my way back to the RV.

  And yes, people stopped and stared. They murmured and some gasped. A few small children even followed in my wake, chanting “Glowy girl. Glowy girl. Where are you going Misses Glowy Girl?” I think I liked that best of all.

  When I was almost to the RV, the truck drove by, maneuvering slowly and squeezing between the tents and pop-ups.

  David was hanging his head out the window, frowning worriedly, but I caught a glimpse of Mike, Lonan, and Reiny holding back grins.

  Back at camp, Jason was waiting for us.

  “Gordon had to be medically evacuated,” Mike told him. “Mia went with him.”

  “Is he gonna be okay?” Jason asked.

  “We don’t know,” Reiny answered. “But I’m going over to the Red Cross tent right now to see if they have any news. Lonan and David, can you start dinner?”

  “Sure,” David said, looking at me and expecting me to follow him, but I just crossed my arms over my chest until he went inside with Lonan. He was going to have to learn I wasn’t his pet project.

  As soon as Reiny left, and Lonan and Marcus had gone into the RV, Jason pulled a handful of money out of his pocket and held it out to Mike. “I sold all Bernie’s stuff,” he said.

  “Did you take your cut?” Mike asked.

  “Of course,” Jason nodded.

  “Good,” Mike said. “Keep the rest too, because I have a job for you. I want you to go back to the spot we came in last night, and give that money to the guy in charge as payment to hold the fence open for the rest of the evening. Based on the rate they charged us that should be enough, but I want you to stay and make sure they do it. You got that?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Jason said, stuffing the cash in his pocket and marching off into the crowd mumbling something about wasting good money on moths.

  24

  OLIVIA

  “We should get back to the dome,” Pete said at my shoulder. “It’s getting late, and I promised your mother we wouldn’t stay over here too long.” Had she made him promise so she wouldn’t worry? Or had she guessed how hard this would be for me?

  I’d been fine while Pete and I raided the infirmary and searched the upstairs CAMFer rooms. Well, mostly fine. I kept having the strange feeling someone was watching us, but I didn’t tell Pete that. My fears were my own to deal with.

  Then, we’d gone downstairs and the feeling had dissipated, only to be replaced with something worse.

  Memories.

  We were standing in Fineman’s lab now.

  “This is where we’re going to find what we really need,” I told Pete, crossing to one of the large cooling units and pulling it open. Inside were shelves packed row upon row with small glass vials glowing blue with PSS. I shuddered to think how many of them represented people the doctor had killed. I bent down, scanning toward the back, and found the vials labeled David Marcus Jordan and Danielle Elizabeth Jordan.

  The fridge next to that one was full of PSS samples too, their labels yellowed, faded, and beginning to peel. A name caught my eye and I reached in, pulling out the vial and staring down at it.

  Gilbert Lee Long, it read, with a long serial number after the name.

  “How did Fineman get Yale’s PSS?” I asked, holding it out to Pete. “He escaped the CAMFers with Marcus in California and was killed at the Eidolon. Fineman never extracted him.”

  “That’s a health industry number,” Pete said, pointing at the label. “All hospitals use them. This part is the date, this is the patient ID, and this portion indicates the hospital of origin and the department. Based on its number, that sample came from the obstetrics unit of a hospital in California shortly after Yale was born.”

  Pete and I searched through the rest of that fridge, and found old hospital samples for everyone who’d been on David’s list except for Marcus. There was even a sample of my PSS and Kaylee’s.

  “Marcus wasn’t born in a hospital,” I pointed out.

  “True,” Pete said. “I doubt they took a sample on the reservation. It appears to me Fineman was conducting a study, comparing the hospital samples to the new ones he was taking.”

  “To find out what?”

  “He must have been trying to track some kind of change between the two. I’ll ask the hackers to scan for the numbers in the CAMFer data base. That should lead us to the files on whatever he was doing.”

  “Good idea,” I said, hoping we could finally crack the code on what Fineman’s twisted mind had been up to.

  While Pete jotted down the numbers, I moved to the wall and opened a tall cabinet. It was filled with PSS tools and torture devices, including various types of minus meters, though the knife made out of Passion’s blades was mysteriously missing.

  I closed the cabinet and turned to the far end of the lab, facing the door to the interrogation room where I’d been tortured and beaten.

  “Olivia,” Pete said, coming alongside me. “We don’t need to go in there.”

  Was that true? Maybe I did need to? Maybe I had to go down to the depths of my cell too, and into the dark morgue with Major Tom to get over this horrible fear they’d instilled in me.

  Fuck.

  Was Major Tom still down in that death drawer, waiting for me, or had I displaced him?

  The thought of any part of my power touching his dead, lacerated body was too much. I leaned over and puked under the nearest table.

  “I told you,” Pete said, putting his hand gently on my shoulder and handing me a handkerchief to wipe my mouth. “It’s time to take a break.”

  “Okay,” I nodded.

  Upstairs, we found the others ready to head to the dome as well. Chase and T-dog had downloaded all the CAMFer files and could process them from the van. Samantha and Passion had sourced a duffle bag of useful supplies, including some sweets and chocolate. And Pete gave the hackers the vial numbers from the lab, and they said they’d search for them.

  So, we made our way to the dome door and Chase unlocked it, letting us back into our new domicile.

  “Hey honey, I’m home,” Pete called good-naturedly.

  “Well, it’s about time,” my mother called back. “I made sandwiches.”

  After a late lunch, Samantha, Passion and I had dish duty. I was pretty distracted, absently rinsing a plate when Passion nudged Samantha and said, “Tell her.”

  Samantha frowned, shaking her head.

  “Tell me what?’ I asked.

  “It’s nothing, really,” Sam said. “You have enough to worry about.”

  “If you don’t tell her, I’m going to,” Passion said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Fine,” Samantha said, turning to me. “It’s just—I haven’t been able to hear anyone’s PSS since we got here. Back in the van, I didn’t hear the pronghorns, but I had my earbuds in, so I thought maybe that was why. But since then, all I can hear is this rushing sound, like when you hold a shell up to your ear, only much louder. It’s gotten worse since we’ve been in the dome, and it was even louder over on the CAMFer side today. And it’s actually really starting to worry me.”

  “Yeah, that’s not good,” I said. “Do you think it could be all the PSS samples over there, or maybe one of Fineman’s experiments interfering with your ability?”

  “I don’t think so,” Samantha shook her head. If something over there had been the source, I should have been able to pinpoint it.”

 
; “Maybe it’s all the people outside. I mean, now we know most of them have PSS.”

  “No,” Samantha said, sounding frustrated. “This isn’t—human. It has no personality or melody. It’s just big and relentless, like the ocean beating against the shore.”

  “And it scares her,” Passion said.

  “Yes,” Samantha whispered.

  “I’m so sorry.” I reached for Samantha’s hand and squeezed it. “I think you should check in with Pete, just in case it’s something medical, and I’ll ask Chase if he has any ideas. Maybe he can think of a way to trace it. And I want you to tell me if the sound changes, in any way.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Samantha nodded. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. And while I’m thinking of it,” I turned to Passion. “I have something I need to tell you.” I pulled the dog tags from my pocket and held them out. “Mike found these in the cave. He gave them to me before he left Portland.”

  She stared down at them. “I can’t feel them anymore. Isn’t that weird? I had no idea you had them.”

  That was strange, and in the context of what Samantha had just shared, the two things might be connected. If something in or near the compound was interfering with PSS resonance that could explain both Samantha’s deafness and Passion’s inability to feel the tags.

  “Anyway,” Passion said. “I don’t want them.” She reached out, closing my fingers over the tags. “They’re yours now.”

  When we went back upstairs, we found Pete and Grant moving beds and furniture from the Hold staffer suites into the dome, while my mother directed them. Samantha and Passion quickly joined in, arranging the screens to give us each, at least, the illusion of privacy.

  As for me, I went off looking for Chase and found him in the van alone, which was perfect. First, I told him about Samantha’s hearing issue and my theories about something interfering with PSS resonance. He said he’d run some tests, but he didn’t have much confidence in his equipment to discern something like that.

  “Well, do your best,” I said. “I know I’ve put a lot on your plate. Were you able to get what I asked for from the CAMFer files?”