Begin Again

by K. A. Applegate

  likened it to the witch-hunts of the seventeenth-century United States. Reason quickly gave way to madness. Science succumbed to superstition.”

  Lyric felt sick with fear. She didn’t know about the witch hunts. Or much about the United States. But given her mother’s tone, she knew the hunts had to have been something horrid.

  Hunt. In the old days, before the Rock, people used to hunt animals, like lions and deer and turkeys. Hunting meant killing. Lyric wasn’t sure but she didn’t think witches were animals.

  But if they were human…

  Lyric’s stomach roiled. Intuition leaped into action and told her that the elders were talking about destroying humans. Defective humans. Like Echo’s baby. Like her.

  Lyric scrunched her feet in her moccasinlike shoes. Only her mother, Nile, and Echo knew the dangerous truth about her. Even Borlaug, brilliant technician and Lyric’s guide, was ignorant of that significant piece of personal data.

  A terribly skinny woman named Deena spoke for the first time. Her voice was raspy. “No. We can’t let that happen again!”

  Westie shook her gray head. “We have not forgotten. But this is a matter of survival. The good of the colony outweighs the good of its individuals. If j’ou recall, I was against bringing another mouth to feed into the colony in the first place. What with the yield being so poor —”

  “Yes, Westie,” Shipper interrupted, “we all recall quite clearly.” “Listen to —”

  Lyric tuned out the angry, desperate voices. The dust in the cramped hiding space was getting the better of her. With two fingers she squeezed her nose shut and tried to breathe through her mouth. But particles of dust swarmed down her throat with every breath until — “Chooo!”

  Oh, no! Had they heard her muffled sneeze? Lyric’s heart began to race. Like a child thinking that by the force of her will she would become invisible, Lyric curled into herself, squeezed her eyes shut, and clasped her hands to her chest. Maybe now …

  “J’ou!”

  The wire screen wedged across the crawl space was torn off. Rough hands dragged Lyric out and yanked her to her feet. Her eyes popped open to see Borlaug’s furious face only inches from her own. Without another word he pulled her into the center of the meeting room. Lyric stumbled along, almost numb with fear. With great effort she avoided looking at her mother.

  “J’ou were spying, eh?” Shipper roared. “J’ou were listening to matters that should not concern a young girl. But now that j’ou are here — what do j’ou say should be done with Echo?”

  Lyric swallowed hard. Never had she felt so alone. If she betrayed her friend, Echo might retaliate by telling the elders about Lyric’s webbed toes. She might, but knowing Echo, she probably wouldn’t. And if I don’t pretend to agree with the elders. Lyric thought, feeling the weight of their stares, if I say genetic testing is wrong, I just know I’ll be the first to be tested!

  And the first to be thrown out of the colony.

  And then: What would happen to her mother?

  Lyric pressed her hands against her stomach in a futile attempt to calm the riot inside. “Yes,” she said in a voice so low she herself could hardly hear it.

  “What did j’ou say?” Westie demanded. “Speak up, girl!”

  Lyric cleared her throat and licked dry lips. “I said yes. Yes, Echo should undergo genetic testing.”

  CHAPTER 3

  THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING.

  Orange daylilies swayed in a breeze on which rode a hint of salt air Lush green grass tickled his feet as he walked. An elegant little grasshopper leaped from the stem of a daffodil. Billy smiled.

  He was on his way.

  And there was Tate. She saw him and started but he smiled at her and she smiled back. With one pale hand he beckoned her closer. She came, her feet hidden in the long swaying grasses. He handed her the card.

  Billy watched Tate lower her eyes to the card and the warm golden aura around him intensified pleasantly.

  Three elements, he read along with her The Source, the Five embodied in me, and —

  And then Billy opened his eyes and Tate and the grasshopper and the flowers were gone.

  Billy stared into the semidarkness. What was dream and what was waking? He straddled the two worlds or maybe several.

  Billy rose and began to walk. He felt no hunger or thirst. Maybe he was beyond those merely human needs now. It didn’t much matter.

  What mattered was the goal.

  One foot in front of the other. Eyes fixed straight ahead.

  Billy walked.

  Then — whoosh!

  A geyser of flaming gas erupted from the ash at his feet.

  Billy walked right through it, unharmed, unscathed.

  Whole.

  Once again, Billy had become something other than what he had been.

  Something greater.

  Still, enough normal human nature remained for Billy’s brain to access certain memories from

  — before. Or maybe it was the Missing Five inside him who were doing the remembering.

  I have a message that has to be delivered, Billy thought. They’re all waiting for me. Tote. Jobs. The future.

  He walked on, feet shuffling through the ash, leaving no prints, no trail.

  He doubted nothing and asked no questions. He was beyond fear.

  This can’t be happening, Echo thought, standing mutely in the center of the Alpha colony’s medical and research laboratory.

  But it was.

  “Sit,” Park commanded. He was the head medical technician and since Rainier’s death, his duties had fairly doubled.

  Echo remained in place, unwilling if not unable to take a step. Irritably, Park pointed at a reclining medical chair circa 2009 or so. His scowl finally penetrated Echo’s stupor and she walked slowly to the rusted metal and ripped leather chair.

  As soon as she’d carefully lowered herself into the seat, a guy not much older than Echo secured a strap around her waist. Where do they think I could run to? Echo cried silently, wincing as the lab assistant unnecessarily tightened the straps around her wrists.

  “Sorry,” Hidge murmured.

  Echo scanned the lab again, hoping to see something — anything that might help her. But there were only blue metal tables and centuries-old machines and a few cabinets spilling over with bandages worn thin from use. Park and Hidge were occupied. And Westie, who’d brought her here …

  Even Westie would not meet her pleading eyes. Oh, Westie, she asked silently, what is happening?

  Why are j’ou letting them do this to me?

  Echo fought back tears of self-pity. Was there no one at all to stand up for her?

  Briefly, she wondered if Lyric knew what was happening to her. Lyric, with her webbed toes, would be in deep trouble if the Alpha elders decided to test everyone in the colony. Right there. Echo vowed not only to keep Lyric’s secret no matter what, but to help her friend escape if her life was in danger.

  Again: Escape to where?

  To the deadly surface of the planet? To — the Marauders?

  A sneeze. Park, the head medical technician, wiped his nose on his sleeve. He was bent over a micro-scope. Echo noted the tendons stretching the skin of his scrawny neck.

  A sudden and incongruous flicker of hope rose within Echo’s chest. Life with the Marauders might not be so bad now that Jobs and the others from the massive spaceship were with them.

  But almost as quickly as the flicker of hope had come to life, it went out. The rational part of Echo’s mind reminded her of the Marauders’ habitual brutality. A brutality she had witnessed on more than one occasion. Could Jobs and Mo’Steel stand up to men of such rough spirit?

  “Now,” Park said blandly, interrupting Echo’s thoughts, “we are almost prepared to extract from the specimen what samples we need to run our tests.”

  The specimen.

  As she watched Park and Hidge move around the laboratory like well-programmed robots. Echo wondered. Was the Marauders’ barely checked violen
ce really any worse than what her own people were doing to her right then?

  For the moment. Echo had no answer.

  The Marauders had been journeying away from the Dark Zone. The Source grew ever closer. But while Sanchez was eager to reach their destination, he was also frustrated.

  There had been no further message — no vision — since the one he’d experienced just after the victorious battle with the Savagers.

  Sanchez fingered the relic around his neck. He knew visions could not be forced. He knew that the Source would give him what She would in her own time. And yet, Sanchez was impatient to know what fate awaited them all.

  Besides, he thought, casting a dark eye on Nesia, scowling and dragging little Walbert behind her, the others were constantly hounding him for information he did not have. Only a few — Violet among them — let him be. Only a few seemed to understand the enormous responsibility Sanchez bore.

  A responsibility he had not asked for but to which he had been born.

  Sanchez plodded on. Thirst made him reach for his water. But his hand stopped midway there.

  Of course. There was one way in which he might bring about a vision. If he undertook a fast, then went off alone for a while, he might be able to coax a message …

  Or die in the process. Of dehydration. Or, while in a trance, in the terrible jaws of a Slizzer. Or …

  A gruff voice interrupted his thoughts. “J’ou got anything yet?” Balder asked, bumping shoulders with Sanchez and almost knocking him to the ground.

  Sanchez just glared at the bigger man. Balder grimaced and hurried ahead.

  Sanchez was decided. He would go to Mo’Steel and tell his plan. Perhaps nothing would come of it.

  But maybe, just maybe, something would.

  It came with the force of a gale wind.

  First, strange lumps pushing violently up through the ash, one after the other, as far as his eye could see.

  Sanchez felt one rise under his feet and leaped to flatter ground, only to find himself teetering atop another, larger lump, growing, pulsing.

  And then Sanchez saw that the lumps were no longer gray ash — but darker and softer seeming —

  and flattening out to make one giant new ground of —

  The smell was new. It was overpowering and Sanchez had no word for it. It made him gag at first, until it made him inhale deeply, greedily. A word came to his head: soil, then another: fertile — words both familiar and unfamiliar.

  But Sanchez had no time to ponder this wonder as he screamed and rolled to one side to escape the spiky, spiny green — things — shooting up through the dark stuff — all around him — ahh! —

  between his very fingers!

  Trembling with horror, Sanchez wiped his hands hard against his tunic — but he was safe, the skinny blades remained in the ground and none had pierced his flesh….

  Carefully, slowly, Sanchez reached down and poked at one of the little blades — and it bent under his light touch. Another word in his head — grass — another term both familiar and unfamiliar.

  Suddenly — Sanchez jerked his head back to find the source of the warming on his shoulders — and was horrified to see — He clapped his hands over his burnt eyes, blinded, and fell again to the grass-covered ground, weeping against the white circles dancing in his eyes. But then they were gone and Sanchez again felt a very pleasant warmth on his back, neck. Finally, he lifted his head and stood and looked around — not straight up — and saw — and saw —

  CHAPTER 4

  THERE IS NO KINDNESS HERE.

  Everyone was there. Every member of the Alpha colony except Echo and her blind baby and the smallest children were gathered in the meeting room.

  Lyric sat between Mattock and Marina. She made it a point to sit very, very still. It was the strangest meeting she had ever attended.

  It seemed to have a life of its own. Its progress was inevitable. It seemed nothing would halt the flow of disaster, no dissenting voice would drown out the roar of condemnation.

  Echo’s DNA had been found wanting.

  “Genetic purity is essential!” loud voices cried.

  Weaker voices argued. “But historically, genetic diversity has been the key to a species’

  survival!”

  “Mutants are a danger to our world and must be eliminated!”

  Those last voices were the strongest.

  Lyric sat rigid with fear and loathing.

  Finally, Shipper stood and looked at each member of the colony. “The decision is unanimous,” he said.

  No, Lyric cried silently. It’s not!

  Shipper paused before going on. Before stating the awful sentence. “Echo and the child will be sent away to live what is left of their lives with the Marauders.”

  “Agreed,” Kosh said quickly. “And yet, there is a problem. We don’t know where the Marauders are at this point in time. Yes, we know they are on their way to the Source. But their current, exact location is unknown.”

  A murmur ran through the Alpha colony members.

  “The last time the Marauders visited us,” Marine said, her tone bitter, “they destroyed Woody and stole our food. Since then we have been weakened. Rainier has died. And now are we to support the lives of two defectives until the Marauders return to steal more of our food?

  No. I say we eject them from the colony immediately!”

  The sad news about Rainier made Lyric wonder. Had malnutrition contributed to Echo’s baby being blind? But she didn’t voice her thoughts. She didn’t think anyone would listen, not now.

  Not when they were talking about sending Echo away.

  Beside Lyric, Mattock sucked in his breath. Subtly, she poked his leg, urging him to keep still.

  Silence hung heavy in the air. Finally, it was broken by Lyric’s mother.

  “No,” Nile declared, but her voice was weary, defeated.

  Lyric clasped her hands tightly.

  Again, she said nothing. She was sick and paralyzed with fear. Who were these people she’d grown up among?

  Mattock’s face was pale. Nile’s face was carefully blank. Almost everyone else’s face, including Westie’s, was set in a harsh and unyielding mask.

  Still standing. Shipper cleared his throat. “Then it is final. Echo and the child will be locked away.”

  Echo lay on her narrow bed, eyes open, staring into the middle distance. In a small crib by the wall, her baby slept fitfully.

  The room was reserved for the very ill. There was nothing personal about it. Echo’s thoughts momentarily turned to the blond-haired boy from the ship. Jobs. The one who’d given her a few crumbly crackers. It was the first and only gift Echo had ever received other than her life on this Earth. She wondered if he’d thought of her since leaving the Alpha colony with the Marauders. She wondered if he had any idea of how much his small kindness had meant to her.

  There is no kindness here. Echo reminded herself, sadly. She wanted to run away, right then, from the place that was no longer home. From the place that she’d once found simply boring but certainly never threatening. She could grab her child and go, slip up to the surface, take her chances on —

  Echo turned her head to the crib where her baby lay sleeping and knew she could never run away. Echo was petrified of leaving the colony. No matter that it recently had become a scary place, it was the only home she’d ever known.

  Besides, how would she find the Marauders? And if she did happen to stumble across them, who was to say they’d welcome two more mouths to feed?

  Anyway, the journey would be horrible. And the baby was weak. Echo would have to be strong for them both, but how could she be with absolutely no experience of life on the surface of the planet?

  A faint sound made Echo frown in concentration. What was that? Where had it come from?

  Echo listened hard but heard nothing more. After a moment, her thoughts wandered back to her dilemma.

  So, what were her choices? Did she really have any options? Or was she simply doom
ed to be a victim to the people who were supposed to protect her? Never love her. No, Echo had never known much about love, not before the baby, anyway.

  Echo bolted to a sitting position. The noise — it was louder now — from the hall?

  Footsteps? A shuffling … Coming closer?

  And then — nothing. Silence for at least twenty beats. Slowly, Echo lowered herself again and sighed. She was becoming a nervous wreck. Why would anyone be sneaking around the bunker? There was nothing to hide, nothing to steal….

  Echo’s eyes closed as a wave of exhaustion slammed her. The baby’s faint but now steady breathing lured her further into the abyss of sleep….

  She barely realized it when the hand clapped over her mouth.

  “Ahhh!”

  Sanchez was flung back into consciousness with all the gentleness of a man being flung aside by a Beast. He shot to his feet — and crumpled, dizzy and frightened and thirsty.

  He lay still for a moment until his head stopped spinning. Then, he rolled over onto his stomach, then up onto his knees.

  Frantically, he clawed at the ashy ground, searching, hoping to find — hoping not to find —

  the spiny green things he’d seen … but, no. Sanchez laid his hands flat. That ground, in the vision, it was — brown. Impossible! And moist, and when he’d taken a clump in his hand and squeezed, it had formed a lump. Sanchez grabbed up a handful of the gray ash. When he opened his hand the ash sifted through his fingers.

  Dry.

  He squinted up at the sky, afraid he’d be blinded by the sudden appearance of that too-bright ball. He didn’t think he’d ever really seen “yellow” before, though he’d heard that the sun, back before the Rock, was called “yellow.” In the vision it had hurt his eyes and frightened him — and yet, for some reason he couldn’t articulate, more than anything Sanchez wanted to find that bright yellow ball screaming down at him now.

  That and — water. Could those blue expanses have been … Blue? Sanchez didn’t really understand that word, either, and yet it came to him to describe the vast areas he’d seen in his vision….