The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (11 page)

I wondered if Leech would offer any answers, but he didn’t. He was sitting at the front of the craft, chewing on dry noodles, making sucking sounds as he softened them with saliva. He was hunched over, sketching. I’d noticed that when he drew, he seemed barely aware of anything else. I wondered how he could be just working after what he’d done. The memory of him raising that boccie ball, smacking it down, the wet crunch of skull . . .

“Well,” I said, “I think all that stuff about Heliad and Desenna is true.”

“That the third Atlantean is there,” said Lilly. “A girl. Your
sister of memory
.”

“Sounds like it,” I said.

“Which means we need to go there,” said Lilly. She didn’t sound thrilled.

“Unless we can find some other way to contact her.”

“We should still go to the marker first,” said Leech. So he had been listening. “It’s important.”

“As important as the third Atlantean?” I didn’t really mean that question to sound antagonistic, but it did.

“Kinda, yeah,” said Leech. “That’s where my maps run out. I can’t see anything past it. I think we need to go there for me to know what comes next.”

“Fine,” I said. “That was the plan anyway.”

Leech leaned back over his sketchbook.

“And that family,” Lilly continued, “they were going to turn us in to Eden over those Ascending Stars they were talking about?”

“And to get help for the girl’s heat worm,” I said. “Eden probably offered to treat her.”

“Huh,” said Lilly. “If they did, it was a lie. The Edens haven’t been able to get medications like that from the Northern Federation for years. I heard on the Free Signal that relations are bad because Eden won’t reveal what Project Elysium is.”

“It probably wouldn’t have mattered in her case, anyway.” I pictured Ripley’s worm-filled eyes again and felt my stomach tremble. And thinking of her reminded me of the girl from my dream, standing there in the ash. The image seemed distant now, but at the moment in the craft, it had been so real feeling. I didn’t remember ever having an episode like that before. Maybe it was a side effect of my whole system reorganizing itself, a kind of discharge in my brain, like the ionization lightning inside Eden.

“Hey,” said Lilly. She rubbed my arm. “You just left for a minute.”

“It’s nothing.” I found myself looking into her eyes, and for a second I felt totally connected to her again, as close as we’d been on Tiger Lilly Island, when she’d shoved the brownie in my mouth and I’d felt my first raindrops. Those moments had seemed like things from another life for the last two days, until just now. My thought from earlier returned. I felt a warm rush, and almost wanted to tell her—

But then she looked away, rubbing at her gills. “I just can’t get all those horrible images out of my head.”

Horrors. That reminded me: “I saw the siren again.”

“You did?” Lilly asked.

“Yeah. This afternoon on the roof, right before I came in to find you guys. She said to
beware the gods and their horrors
.”

“And what did your special ghost girlfriend mean by that?” Leech asked.

“Not really sure. I was looking at the body on the flagpole. The only gods we’ve heard about are part of Heliad-Seven. I’ve been wondering if she was warning us about Desenna.”

“If she’s even real,” said Leech. “But we probably should be worried about Desenna. I mean, those people chopped off their
fingers
. And who knows how voluntary their volunteers even are? Plus, for being members of Heliad-Seven, those three back there were trying pretty hard to get into Eden instead.”

“Gods,” said Lilly. “That’s what they were saying the Ascending Stars were, too. Gods leaving us. Freakin’ people and their gods. My parents were Hindu. A lot of good anybody’s gods did during the Rise.”

“Well,” I said, “what could the Ascending Stars really be, then?”

“Maybe this will tell us.” Lilly put aside the stew can and reached down to Dr. Maria’s backpack. She pulled out the video sheet and unrolled it. It was a paper-sized rectangle, flexible and translucent and crisscrossed with intricate threads of circuitry. Looking at it now, I felt a burst of nerves. What would we find out? I almost didn’t want to know.

I handed her the reader device. It had a narrow slot across its top that the edge of the sheet fit into. Lilly clicked the sheet into place, and the reader began to hum, sending a charge up through the circuitry, lighting it in ghostly white. The light was not unlike the skull: two vessels of information, thousands of years apart. The light matrix bled together, solidifying into a shimmering square that seemed to hover just above the page. Words appeared:

PE Q
UARTERLY
R
EPORT TO
E
DEN
B
OARD

They dissolved and there was Paul’s face. I felt my skin crawling at the sight of him. “Members of the board,” he said, “by now you’ve seen the various numerical data. So here is a summary of where Project Elysium stands.”

HE WAS SITTING AT HIS DESK BACK IN CAMP EDEN, glasses on. His face looked smooth, like maybe he’d put on makeup for the occasion. And that was weird, but again, here was further proof that even Paul had someone to impress: the board of directors, who’d looked in at me from a video screen back in the skull chamber like I was some fancy new piece of technology.

“So, this is from before we escaped,” said Lilly.

“Before we were caught, even,” I added.

“As you all know,” Paul began, “we are firmly on schedule in phase three of the four-part project plan. Here is an update on each component:”

A graphic replaced Paul, white words on a red background, a basic bulleted list:

EdenHome

•  Climatization

•  Transit

•  Fusion Mining

Paul spoke over the list: “Basic climate systems are up and functioning normally at EdenHome. Our preliminary modeling of the likely effect of the Paintbrush of the Gods indicates that full climate restoration should be completed within a few months of activation. So, our overall time line remains intact.

“The transit plan to EdenHome is currently at seventy-five percent. This is five percent behind schedule, but our recent covert action, Operation Reclaim, has been a success and should help get us back on track. Otherwise, fleet construction is nearly complete, and transit from the Edens to the docks at Egress is ready and on standby.

“Finally, as I know you’re quite aware, uranium mining is proceeding ahead of schedule.”

Paul appeared again for a moment. “I hope the mining dust isn’t interfering with visibility on the driving range,” he said, smiling slightly.

“You’re so funny,” Lilly cracked at the screen.

I imagined the wrinkly old board of directors, men of power and money, standing around serenely playing golf, on green grass, wearing hats, while the rest of the world baked. I hated them even more.

Another graphic appeared:

Brocha De Dioses

•  Salvage Team Update

•  Status of Subjects

“Teams Alpha through Delta have been following map information obtained from the research at each Eden complex, and cross-referencing it with the maps we obtained from Test Subject One.”

“Hey, that’s me,” Leech said sarcastically.

“He called me Subject Two,” I said.

Paul continued: “Satellite imaging has led to some new excavations, but so far we do not know the precise location of the Heart of the Terra, where the Paintbrush of the Gods is hidden. We still believe that it will be the capital Atlantean city, and we have found more evidence to point to my initial theory as to that city’s location, but for the moment we are still operating covertly, so as not to arouse suspicion in the global community.

“Here at EdenWest, we continue to monitor the progress of Test Subjects One through Eleven, with subjects One, Two, and Five showing the most progress. We remain suspicious of the claims from Desenna of an Atlantean among them, based on the data sets we had from EdenSouth before it fell, but obviously there is a time gap that is unaccounted for, and so it is possible that dear Dr. Keller has discovered a new subject.”

“Is Dr. Keller the Benevolent Mother?” Lilly asked.

“Yep,” said Leech.

“We are receiving regular reports from our operatives within Desenna,” Paul said. “As far as we can tell, for the moment at least, Heliad-Seven remains no great threat.

“Based on that assumption, we have sent operatives into Coke-Sahel to determine if the recent rumors there are true, but it is too soon to tell.”

I glanced at Leech. “Did Paul ever say anything to you about Heliad-Seven?”

Leech clicked his tongue. “Not really. We did talk about EdenSouth, though.” It sounded like there was more to that story.

The next slide appeared:

Egress

•  Northern Federation

•  Selectees

“To this point,” said Paul, “our operatives in the Northern Federation report that, while there have been rumors about our preparations, no one has realized our true aims, outside of wild speculations by the usual gamma link fringe broadcasters in the Nomad Alliance. We remain confident that no one takes these claims seriously, but just in case, an added benefit of Operation Reclaim should be the silencing of that element.

“The preparations at Egress continue on schedule. As you are no doubt aware, we have notified all selectees that the departure command is imminent. All have agreed to enhanced monitoring during this final stage, so that we can maintain absolute secrecy, which as you know will be of the utmost importance.”

Paul appeared again. “It won’t be long now, gentlemen. I’m sure you’re as anxious as I am to shed these claustrophobic confines and stretch out into the new future. I’d love to come up and present this report in person, but I am just on the cusp of a fascinating discovery here at camp and need to monitor things closely over the next twenty-four hours. I may be getting in touch again with some important news. . . . Until then.” The screen went black.

“I suppose I’m the fascinating discovery,” I said. I was glad to have Paul’s face out of my sight.

“Yeah,” said Leech quietly. “I think that video was right before he came and pulled me from a dodgeball game and hooked me up to your skull for ten hours.”

“That must have been bad,” I said.

Leech didn’t look up. “You think?” He kept drawing.

It was obvious to me now how much anger and hurt were festering right below the surface in someone who I’d first thought was just an arrogant bully. Leech’s sneer was really a mask over pain, pain that made him obnoxious and sometimes violent. And I found myself actually wanting to know more. I realized this was a moment to try to connect with him, but I still didn’t quite know how to talk to him. I especially didn’t want to set him off, since seeing what his anger could lead to.

“I bet his next report doesn’t sound so chipper,” said Lilly, “after we escaped.”

“Knowing Paul,” I said, “he probably found some way to gloss it over.” I thought about what we’d just heard. “It’s weird. Paul asked me if I wanted to save the human race. But if setting off the Paintbrush was going to help everyone, why not just tell the Northern Federation countries what they were up to?”

“Well, maybe because the people in the north don’t have it that bad,” said Lilly. “What if the Paintbrush caused the Arctic to go back to being an inhospitable ice field? Then all the people in the Northern Federation would have to move south, and it would be chaos all over again. They’d probably like to stay right where they are, and they’re the ones with big militaries.”

I remembered the vision inside the skull, when I’d first met Lük, of the ash-filled sky and the stormy ocean. “Paul said he thinks it can be improved with modern technology, but maybe they’re keeping the Paintbrush a secret because it’s going to devastate the planet before it heals it. Maybe this EdenHome place is set up to weather the storm and keep Eden’s people safe.”

“Not even all their people,” said Lilly. “When Paul said you could help save humanity, he only really meant the selectees. The elite of the elite. Everyone else in the Edens is probably getting left behind along with the rest of the world.”

“What a surprise,” I said, “Eden choosing who gets to survive and who gets to die.”

I thought of the kids at camp, like Beaker and Bunsen, Xane, Mina. “We should have warned them,” I said. “Nobody at camp knows what’s coming. And I doubt they’re selectees.”

“We didn’t exactly have time,” said Lilly.

“I wonder who Test Subject Five is?” said Leech.

“Paul said there were eleven total,” said Lilly. “Could be any of those bodies we saw in the lab. Anna . . . Could be me or Evan, Marco, Aliah . . .” She blinked at tears.

“Paul might have been lying,” I said, “about Evan. They might have escaped. He’s lied about so many other things.”

“Maybe,” said Lilly.

A silence passed over us. The winds had calmed and the moon had risen, a swollen yellow disk. We flew for a while. Lilly fiddled with things. Leech drew.