Reached (32 page)

CHAPTER 50

XANDER

W
ho will stand with Xander?” Colin asks.

No one answers.

Anna looks at me. I can tell that she’s sorry, but I understand. Of course she had to use everything she had for Hunter. He’s like a son to her, and it was right for her to have spent everything on him.

But there is no one else. Cassia has to stay in the infirmary with Ky, to give him the cure and make sure he wakes up. Ky would stand with me: but he’s still.

People shuffle their feet and look in Colin’s direction. They’re impatient with him for letting the moment go on so long. I’d like it to be over, too. I close my eyes and listen to my heart, my breathing, and the wind high up in the trees.

Someone calls out: a voice I know. “I will.” I open my eyes to see Cassia pushing her way through the crowd. She came after all. Her face is all lit up. The cure must be working.

Something’s wrong with me. I should be glad that Cassia’s here and that the cure could be viable. But all I can think about are the patients in the Provinces, and Lei when she went down, and I worry that it’s too late. Will we be able to bring enough people back? Will the cure work again? How will we find enough bulbs? Who will decide which people get the cure first? There are a lot of questions and I’m not sure we can find the answers fast enough.

I’ve never felt this worn out before.

CHAPTER 51

CASSIA

P
eople come up to take their stones back from the vote they cast for Hunter. The stones are still wet and they drip a little onto the villagers’ clothes, leaving small, dark spots. Some of the people roll the rocks in their hands as they wait.

“This trough,” Colin says, pointing to the one nearest him, “is for the maximum penalty. The other,” the one closer to Xander’s feet, “is for the lesser penalty.”

He doesn’t specify what the penalties are. Does everyone already know? Anna guessed that the worst sentence Xander would receive would be exile, because his crime wasn’t as great as Hunter’s. No one died.

But for Xander, exile would
mean
death. He has nowhere to go. He can’t live out here alone, and it’s a long journey through rough terrain back to Camas. Perhaps he could find Hunter.

But then what?

I look up at Xander. The sun has crept through the trees and shines gold on his hair. I’ve never had to wonder what color his eyes are, the way I did with Ky; I’ve always known that Xander’s are blue, that he would look at you from a place of kindness and clarity. But now, though the color hasn’t changed, I know that Xander has.

“I’m lonely with you sometimes,”
he told me in the infirmary earlier.
“I didn’t think it could ever be that way.”

Are you lonely
now
, Xander?

I don’t even have to ask.

There are birds in the trees; there are stirrings in the crowd, and wind in the grasses and coming down the path, and yet all I feel is his silence—and his strength.

He turns to the crowd, straightening his shoulders and clearing his throat. He can do this, I think. He’ll smile that smile and his voice will ring out over the crowd like the Pilot he could be someday, and they’ll see how good he is and they won’t want to destroy him anymore—they’ll want to circle around and gather close to smile back up at him. That’s how it’s always been with Xander. Girls in the Borough loved him; Officials wanted him for their departments; people who became ill wanted him to heal them.

“I promise,” Xander says, “that I only did what Oker asked me to do. He wanted the cures destroyed because he realized he’d made a mistake.”

Please,
I think.
Please believe him. He’s telling the truth.

But I hear how hollow his voice sounds, and when he glances back at me, I see how his smile isn’t quite the same. It’s not because he’s lying. It’s because he has nothing left right now. He took care of the still for months without relief. He saw his friend Lei go down. He believed in the Pilot, then he believed in Oker, and they asked him to do impossible things.
Find a cure,
the Pilot said.
Destroy the cure,
Oker ordered.

And I’m no less guilty.
Make another cure,
I told him.
Try again.
I wanted a cure as much as anyone else, whatever the cost. We all asked and Xander gave. In the canyons, I saw Ky get healed. Here in the mountains, I see Xander broken.

A stone clatters into the trough next to Colin’s feet.

“Wait,” Colin says, bending down to pick it up. “He hasn’t had a chance to finish speaking yet.”

“Doesn’t matter,” someone says. “Oker’s dead.”

They loved Oker and now he’s gone. They want someone to blame. When the stones settle, it might not be exile Xander receives. It might be something worse. I glance over at the guards who brought Xander here and who let him make the cures. They won’t meet my gaze.

Suddenly, I see the other side of choice. Of all of us having it.

Sometimes we will choose wrong.

“No,” I say. I reach into my sleeve to pull out one of the cures Xander made. If I show them this, and the flower that my mother sent and Oker saw, they
have
to understand. We should have done this first, before the trial even began. “Please,” I begin, “listen—”

Another stone rattles into the trough, and at the same time, something enormous passes across the sun.

It’s a ship.

“The Pilot!” someone calls out.

But instead of moving down the mountain to the landing meadow, the ship hovers over us, the blades rotating so that it can stay suspended in the air. Eli flinches, and some in the crowd duck instinctively. They’re remembering firings in the Outer Provinces. Someone else moans, far back in the crowd.

The ship dips down slightly and then comes back up. The intent is clear, even to me. He wants us to move so that he can land in the village circle.

“He said he’d never try to land here,” Colin says, his face pale. “He promised.”

“Is the circle large enough?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Colin says.

And then everyone moves. Xander and I turn to each other and he grabs my hand. We race away from the circle, our feet flying over the grass and ground, the air whipping above us. The Pilot is coming down. He might not survive the landing, and we might not either.

What would drive the Pilot to do this? It’s only a short walk from the landing meadow up to the village. Why can’t he spare the time? What is happening back in the Provinces?

The ship dips and tilts; the air is always moving in the mountains. The ship’s blades churn and the wind whips around us, so we hear nothing but a howl and a scream as the Pilot comes down, down, down, crashing through the trees, ship turning to the side.

He’s not going to be able to land it,
I think, and I turn to look at Xander. We’re pressed up against the wall of a building for shelter and Xander’s eyes are closed, as if he can’t bear to see what comes next.

“Xander,” I say, but he can’t hear me.

Again the ship tips, turns, shudders down closer and closer to us, too near the edge of the circle. There’s nowhere else to run. There’s not enough time or space to go around the building. These thoughts flash fast through my mind.

I close my eyes, too, and I press against Xander as if either of us can keep the other safe. He puts his arms around me and his body feels warm and sound, a good place to be at the finish. I wait for scraping metal, for breaking stone and cracking wood, for fire and heat and an end as sudden as a flood.

CHAPTER 52

KY

C
assia’s not here anymore,”
I say. My voice is a whisper. Weak and dry.

I don’t feel like I do when I’ve been asleep. I know time has passed. I know I’ve been here and that there was a time when I was gone. I try to move my hand. Do I succeed?

“Cassia,” I say. “Can someone find Cassia?”

No one answers me.

Maybe Indie will do it,
I think, and then I remember.

Indie’s gone.

But I’ve come back.

CHAPTER 53

XANDER

W
hen I open my eyes, the air ship fills the village circle. Cassia is tucked into my arms, holding on tight. Neither of us moves as the Pilot climbs out of his ship and stands almost exactly where I stood moments ago, over by the troughs.

Colin strides forward into the circle. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks, furious. “You almost destroyed part of the village. Why didn’t you go to the landing meadow?”

“There’s not enough time for that,” the Pilot says. “The Provinces are falling apart and I need every minute I can get. Do you have a cure?”

Colin doesn’t answer. The Pilot looks past Colin in the direction of the research lab. “Find Oker,” he says. “Let me talk to him.”

“You can’t,” Leyna says. “He’s dead.”

The Pilot swears. “How?”

“We think it was a heart attack,” Colin says.

Everyone looks over at me. They still think I’m responsible for what happened to Oker.

“Then there’s no cure,” the Pilot says, his voice flat. “And no chance for one.” He starts back to the ship.

“Oker left us a cure,” Leyna says. “We’re about to try it on the patients—”

“I need a cure that works
now
,” the Pilot says, turning around. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to come back here again. This is the end. Do you understand?”

“You mean—” Leyna begins.

“There’s a faction in the Rising that wants to remove me from my position,” the Pilot says. “They’ve already taken control of the patient disconnections and the rations. If they succeed with my removal—which they will—I won’t have
any
access to ships or a way to get you to the Otherlands. We have to have a cure.
Now
.” The Pilot pauses. “The Rising has ordered disconnections of a certain percent of the still.”

“What
is
the rate?” Cassia asks. She walks out into the village circle as if she has every right to be there. Leyna narrows her eyes at Cassia but lets her speak. “We projected that they’d start releasing around two percent of the still to preserve the maximum amount of life while still freeing up others to work.”

“That’s where they began,” the Pilot says. “But they’ve increased it. They’re recommending twenty percent, with a further increase to come.”

One in five.
Who would they pick to cut off first? The ones who went still early? Or later? What’s happening to Lei?

“It’s too many,” Cassia says. “It’s not necessary.”

“The algorithm assumed that people would be willing to help,” the Pilot says. “That they wouldn’t leave the still behind. And the Rising has released the sample storage. They’re giving out tissue samples to people if they’ll agree to let their loved ones be disconnected to save space.”

“People aren’t actually agreeing to such a thing, are they?” Cassia asks.

“Some are,” the Pilot says.

“But they can’t bring anyone back,” Cassia says. “No one has that technology. Not the Society, not the Rising.”

“The tubes have never been about bringing people back,” the Pilot says. “They’ve always been used to control the people who are here. So I’ll ask again.
Do you have a cure?
”

“We need more time,” Leyna says. “Not much.”

“There is no more time,” the Pilot says. “We’re getting low on food. People are running away from the Cities and into the Boroughs, where they attack those who are left, or they take off for the country, where they die of the mutation because we can’t get to them in time. We’re running out of the ingredients Oker recommended for inclusion in the fluid and medication bags, and none of the scientists in the Provinces has found a cure.”

“There
is
a cure,” Cassia says. “Xander can show your pharmics how to make it.” She holds out a tube to the Pilot. She’s at the game table and she’s throwing down all her cards.

For a second I think Leyna and Colin aren’t going to let Cassia get away with it, but neither of them says anything. Everyone watches to see what Cassia will do next.

“How many people have you tried it on?” the Pilot asks, taking the cure from Cassia.

“Only one,” Cassia says. “Ky. But we can make more.”

That makes the Pilot laugh. “One person,” he says. “And how do I know Ky really got cured? When I last saw him, he wasn’t even still.”

“He was sick,” Cassia says. “You saw him yourself. Everyone here will vouch for his illness.”

“Of course they will,” the Pilot says. “They want passage to the Otherlands. They’ll agree with anything you say.”

“If this is your last chance to come to the village,” Cassia says, “then you should at least see what we have. It won’t take long.”

Leyna moves closer, smiling, as if she’s been in on this all along. But when she gets near enough to Cassia that the Pilot can’t hear, Leyna hisses, “
Who
? Who helped you?”

Cassia doesn’t answer that question. She’s protecting the people who helped with the cure: me, the guards, Anna, Noah, and Tess. “It’s Oker’s base,” she says loudly. She’s looking at the Pilot but speaking to everyone, trying to get them to go along with her in this. “And it’s the ingredient he wanted in it. This is Oker’s
real
cure, and it’s working.” She starts down the path to the infirmary. “It would be a shame,” she calls back to the Pilot, “if you came all this way and then didn’t get what you needed.”

The Pilot follows her across the village circle, and so do the rest of us. Cassia pushes open the door to the infirmary as if she’s perfectly confident that everything inside is fine. But I see how her lips tremble when Ky looks up at her, his eyes clear and aware. She didn’t know it was working, at least not this well. And then, for a second, it’s like none of the rest of us are here. They’re the only two in the world.
“Ky,”
she says.

“Can we run yet?” he asks her. His voice is barely a whisper. Everyone, including Leyna and Colin, leans in to hear Ky, even though what he’s saying isn’t meant for the rest of us.

“No,” she says. “Not yet.”

“I know,” he says, and there’s a half smile on his face. She bends down to kiss him, and his trembling hand reaches for hers, but he can’t move it far enough yet. So I lift up his hand and put it on hers. I help him to reach her. For a moment, I’m a part of it all. Then I’m just apart.

The Pilot looks down at Ky and then up at me. Does he believe us? His expression doesn’t give anything away. “Oker said this was what you should use?” He’s asking me directly. It’s my turn to convince him now. Cassia and Ky have done what they could.

“Oker told me about his work in the Society,” I say. “I know that he was part of the team that originated the viruses. I know how much he wanted to find the cure. And I think he did.”

“If what you say is true,” the Pilot says, “we’d need to do a full trial of the cure somewhere else.”

“How secure is the medical center in Camas where Indie found me?” I ask.

“We still have control over it,” the Pilot says. It’s a strange feeling to have someone I once believed in deciding whether or not he believes in me. I meet his gaze, the two of us standing face to face.

He knows I’m not telling him everything, but he decides it’s enough. “I can fly the three of you out now,” the Pilot says. “Seeing Ky might convince some of the pharmics and medics to start a trial. Where can we find more of the plant you used? Do you have stock on hand?”

“Yes,” Anna says. “I stayed out digging them all night.”

“And I may know where we can get more,” Cassia says. “My mother saw a field with this flower once. The Society destroyed that field and Reclassified the grower, but there might be something left. If we can bring my mother back, she’ll remember where she saw the flowers.”

“Let’s go, then,” the Pilot says. “Get Ky on the ship.” He turns on his heel and walks out the door without looking back at us.

“Thank you,” Ky says to me as we bring him onto the ship, Cassia close behind.

“You would have done the same,” I say.

Cassia looks around as if she’s expecting to see someone else, but the Pilot flies alone.

“Where is Indie?” she asks the Pilot as we climb into our seats. “Is she all right?”

“No,” the Pilot says. “She got the mutation and she ran until she had no fuel left. Her ship went down in the old Enemy territory. We couldn’t spare anyone to retrieve her body.”

Indie is dead. I look at Ky first to see how he’s taking it and his face is full of pain, but he’s not surprised. Somehow, he already knew. Cassia looks shocked, as if she can’t believe this is true. But of course it is. I know that a virus doesn’t think or feel, but it still seems as if this one likes to take down those who were the most alive.