The Isle (22 page)

T
hirty miles turn to twenty, then fifteen.

A perfect circle of a moon hangs in the sky, lighting up forests on both sides of the strait. This far north, it's more of a river. Hundreds of trees hug the coast, more types than I ever knew existed. Dark, furry, cone-shaped ones. Fluttery mammoths that shiver all over with the wind. They swallow the ground. You'd never know there was ground.

A few miles downriver, strange lights dot the bank.

I join Benny at the helm and inspect his map. We learned geography at Nale's, but that was ages ago. Although Upstate is considered a single region, it's actually split into thirty: one for each reservoir. They have
that
many.

Only one aqueduct, however, can still supply the UMI with fresh . . . the one in Falls.

In the back of the Cloud, Callum frantically draws math on the air. “Benny, you wouldn't happen to have a pen and paper, would you?” he asks, pausing and cursing. “I can't remember this many numbers.”

Benny rummages around in the glove compartment. “I don't know,” he grumbles, skeptical.

“What are you doing?” Ter asks, sitting next to him.

Callum doesn't answer.

“Use the back.” Benny hands over a stick of black chalk and a folded-up map. He returns to the wheel, frazzled gray hair sticking out in a hundred directions. His looks like one of those globe things we had in Nale's science room, with electric lightning inside.

“Nearly there, kiddos,” he says.

Turning face-front again, I gasp.

Fluorescent towers rise into the sky, each level shaped like a flat wheel. Inside—
farms
. I've never seen one for real, just on holos in class. Upstate exports all sorts of fresh produce, since they have the water: another reason why they wanted to cut off their supply.

Squinting, I make out yellow and red and blue fruits growing against the glass. At the center, a mega-sprinkler goes
ch-ch-ch
, dousing them with water.

More towers line the coast, bright glass farms that spiral up into the sky. Between each, greenery takes over. If I didn't know a place like the Ward existed, nothing about this strange land would make me believe—back home is so different.

“Guys . . . how will we even find the magistrate?” I ask,
realizing I know nothing about Falls—I'll have no idea what to do when we get there.

No one answers.

I go backward in my mind through all of Nale's forgotten classes, trying to think of something that will help. Remembering the protest, I turn to the others. “What day of the month is it?”

“The thirtieth, maybe? Or the first . . .” Ter checks his comm. “Thirtieth. Why?”

“And what days of the month are the water auctions held?”

Callum doesn't look up from his work. “The first, the seventh, the fifteenth, and the thirtieth, I believe,” he answers, still drawing his math squiggles. “At midnight, they release the dam into the winning aqueducts.”

“The auction,” Benny says, tapping his temple.

Callum curses. He throws his fist into the back of his soft, cushioned seat. “Dammit,” he says again, staring into the air. The map, now covered in black, falls off his lap.

“What is it?” Ter asks, but Callum presses his lips together.

Defeated, he shakes his head. He won't tell us. “Dammit,” he says again. This time it's just a whisper.

Squeezing into the plush seat next to him, I ask, “What did Ren ask you? If it has to do with her, it has to do with me too.”

Callum folds up the map. “It's nothing,” he says softly. “She made me promise.”

“I'm making you unpromise. Tell me.”

He laughs, barely, and stands. “She has her reasons, Aven. She doesn't want you to worry about her,” he says, handing Benny the blackened paper.

“But
should
I be worried?”

“Maybe she doesn't know herself.” He returns to his seat and avoids my eyes.

My heart cowers. I keep very still. He won't let me pry this thing out of him—no means no. And if I want to fight with that answer, I can't.

East of us, higher up, headlights flash by. Shadows run across the river. Engines
vroom
against concrete.

“They're mobiles, for land. Cars.” Benny points to a road nestled in the hill. “With the price of gasoline, though, anyone still driving one is probably wealthier than we can imagine.” He pauses, awed, watching the cars go by. A gargantuan, brightly lit sign hangs over the eastern road. On it, green painted trees and the words—

“Welcome to the Falls!” Ter bellows as we pass it by.

We're really here.

My insides shudder like someone's banging on the window. Wringing my hands, I press my fingernail-less fingers against my lips.

Can we really stop a war?

L
ike sharks dancing, three identical Omnis duck and dodge in the murk. Kitaneh veers for mine, but one DI guy blocks her off, their mobiles screeching underwater. “How do we get into the cave?” I ask Derek.

From the way he's looking at me, I can tell he's not excited about the answer. “Find your way back to the airlock,” he says, twisting around in his seat, unsure of the direction.

Thankfully, my trusty Nav don't need eyes. Following the screen, I reverse and turn right into the narrow underwater alley. There, a few feet above the muddy sand, is a circular steel door—the airlock, built right into Derek's building.

“Okay,” he begins, pointing. “You see how there's a few feet of brick between the airlock and the riverbed? If you could drill a hole into that gap under the airlock, you'll wind
up in the drainage tank. From there you're only about thirty feet from the cave.”

“
Drill
a hole?” I balk—I didn't bring my drills. “And how do you propose we do that?”

Derek glances around the pit.

“
We
are the drill. Wonderful. You've got no back doors? Nothing?”

“Kitaneh changed all the locks, and our rainwater-collection drains are too narrow. This is our way in.

“But, Ren—” he warns. “The building is thick. You'll need to gather enough speed to break through the brick.”

“It won't work.” I shake my head, eyeing the narrow alley between Derek's building and the one next door. “Both this alley and this mobile are about ten feet. I can't get the momentum I'll need.”

Derek looks out the windshield. A school of dark fish swims out the window of the opposite building. “What about a window? Ground floor, across from the airlock?”

I inhale, skeptical, but I lower the Omni closer to the riverbed. The opposite building has at least four ground-floor windows—one almost directly across from the airlock. It's the color of mold, green with overgrowth, thick and fuzzy. Ain't even a window no more, which is probably why I didn't think of using it first.

I bite my nail and nod, inspecting it.
This could work.

Like parallel parking a grown man in a shoe box, I reverse through the water. Then forward. Then reverse. Again and again, until I step on it, driving right into the algae-coated
glass. My cuffcomm buzzes, but this kind of maneuvering requires both hands.

The window groans against my Omni. I hear it cracking, breaking away from its frame. Uneven green triangles shower down, bouncing off my mobile's nose and continuing to sink.

The debris clears, and I steer us into what looks like it once was a child's room. Clouds of plankton hover over an algae-coated crib. Holding my breath, I doughnut us around till the nose faces the window.

This is it
, I think. Last time I pulled a stunt like this, I had the good sense
not
to be inside the damn thing when it crashed. “We can't use autopilot, right?” I groan, knowing the answer.

“If you want to risk not hitting the proper speed, sure. Or it could malfunction. You'd end up drilling a hole two feet off-course, which would be completely useless.”

Again, my comm buzzes, this time with a second message. It's from Callum. I swallow and read the message.

           
5 liters. You won't make it . . . Ren, we can find another way—don't do it.

The Omni starts to feel like a death trap. “Derek,” I say, dizzy in my seat. “How much blood is in the human body?”

He knows why I'm asking, and reaches for my comm. “About five liters,” he whispers, reading Callum's message for himself.

“I don't believe it,” he says, squeezing my hand. He moves out of his seat and crouches next to me. “Don't do this,” he asks. Pleads. He lays his forehead against my thigh. “You don't have to. . . .”

I don't have to, he's right.

Am I willing to die so that humanity can die also?

I'd be leaving Aven on purpose.

Every day of her life that I wouldn't be around for—I imagine them. . . .

Her first real kiss. The first time she gets behind the wheel of an Omni. Her first date. Sometimes, she talked about wanting to work the rooftop gardens if she ever got better. . . . I imagine her face the first day she plants a seedling, and I laugh out loud with her, here in this Omni, the first day it sprouts up green.

The imaginings don't stop. They come to me like memories, like moments that have already happened, they're so precise. She's in white now—I knew she'd get married before me, had no doubts there. I'd be the happiest person just to get to hold her train.

A baby . . .

Could she forgive me for this? Would she understand?

The Omni shrinks, or I grow in size, suddenly too large for this measly body I was born into. The air in my lungs dies, collapses; there's still so much for us to do together. How can this be the right decision when it means I have to leave her?

I'll never be ready to leave Aven.

And then, something else occurs to me. . . .

Every moment I want to spend with her, every milestone—you only hit them because life moves forward, because death is out there, waiting.

Without death, without risk, where is failure?

And if you always have another chance . . . how do you make the most of each moment?

The spring is a threat to humanity at its very core.

“Derek,” I say, running my fingers through his hair. “I'm doing it. I'm doing it now.” He looks up at me with eyes so bloodshot they're red, not rust.

Braced against my knee, he lifts himself and moves to the backseat. He searches for the safety belt and locks himself in. “All right,” he says, because that's all he can manage.

Five seconds' worth of fear
, I tell myself. The Omni hovers in the child's waterlogged bedroom, about fifteen feet from the window, giving us a total of twenty feet to hit the right speed. I can see the airlock, and underneath, those few feet of brick we've gotta hit to make it into the drainage tank.

I wish Benny were here—his voice in my ear, all confidence. He'd have calculated the exact distance and speed necessary. With his old maps, he'd have been able to figure out how thick the wall was. But he's not here. It's like racing with a blindfold.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. No more than five seconds.

Five . . .
What if I miss the airlock?

Four . . .
What if the crash kills me first?

Three . . .
What if I can't escape the mobile?

Two . . .
What if I drown?

One . . .
What if—what if I actually do it?

Zero . . .
Enough
.

“
L
ooks like we're here,” Benny says as the river forks. Brassy music and rowdy laughter floats over our heads, carried downriver. He leans on the engine and we boat uphill, steering right past a brack waterfall. Then the shallow waterway dies out, spilling over smooth, flat rocks.

A tall stone wall stops us from going any farther. Twinkling gold ropes of light dangle from end to end. It reminds me of the pearl-like necklace Mama used to wear.

Pitched atop the wall, red and white tents fatten with a gust of wind. We're thrown the scent of food like tossing table scraps to a pet. It's real food too, farm-grown, probably cultivated in the very same towers we just passed.

My mouth waters on cue—Ren and I went for so long with too little. I don't even care that I've turned stray again,
begging for a place at a table, any table.

This is the dam
, I realize—the stony barrier that cuts off their reservoir, plugging up our aqueducts so we're always thirsty. It's how they keep the water to themselves.

We're in its very shadow.

And everyone is dancing on it?
Laughing? Eating and drinking? They must have forgotten us. It was decades ago that we fought them for water, and then the Blight hit—other nations wouldn't come near us with a ten-foot pole. They ignored us; we disappeared from memory. There's no other explanation.

Bolted to the massive gray stones, a sign reads:
Ye Old Dam Faire
.

Benny chuckles. “‘Dam Faire.' Ha. Clever bunch.” He brings the Cloud to a full stop and pulls a wheel of rope from its center hatch.

“Tie her tight, Aven. We still need to get home,” he says, throwing me the line.

The others might be glad he didn't ask them, but I'm not. This is new—getting to be useful. For so long, Ren did so much for me.

I like it this way.

Hopping over the side, I find a metal handle drilled between the rocks, exactly for this purpose. The others join me as I easily tie off the knot with two near-complete hands.

Then we turn our eyes to the dam—it doesn't cut the river in a straight line. Instead, it curves backward, morphing into a rounded stone staircase. As I get closer, I realize the
first few stairs are as tall as I am, and it's not actually a staircase at all.

A man-made waterfall must have flowed over this, once.

I begin climbing the bottom tier. The others tell me to wait, but the stairs shorten as they rise, and it only becomes easier. I let them yell—they'll catch up.

Soon the stairs end, and I'm face-to-face with a flat wall. To my right, I spot an
actual
staircase. It spirals all the way to the top. I crawl over the rail, one leg at a time, and climb, feeling every one of my muscles flex and burn.

I'm breathing harder, and my head feels light—but even as my body hurts, I love it. Before, my world used to be so small. A room, a bed, pain. My brain is still catching up, growing.

More quickly than I expect, I reach the top.

Everywhere it smells of cooked food. A dense crowd walks up and down the narrow stone pathway. Weaving through, I cross over to the other side of the dam, wanting a better view of the reservoir. There, I look out over the edge.

The freshwater goes on for miles.

As I take a step back from the wall, I notice something unusual—the top row of boulders isn't the same color as the rest. It's a darker shade of gray, like it hasn't been bleached by the sun yet. When the others join me, I point. “Look at the color.”

Ter, Callum, and Benny—still breathing deeply from the climb—squint until they see what I mean.

“Do you think . . . ?” Benny asks, grazing the stonework with one finger.

“The dam was raised, wasn't it?” I say, already knowing the answer. “They
do
have extra water.”

“Could be they've opted to sell less.” Callum inspects the dark, heavy boulders against the lighter ones. “Agriculture might have proven more lucrative, and with drought season coming, it'd make sense to stock up.”

“Perhaps,” Benny says, his voice still ragged from the haul up. He bends down and looks closer at the stonework. “Perhaps not.”

Leaning back against the dam, Callum crosses his arms. “You have a different hypothesis?”

“No,” Benny says, shaking his head. “But this raise wasn't added in a day. Take a look.” He points from one boulder to the next, until he taps the stones from the original dam. “Even more gradations in the color of the rock, see?”

We all bend down—he's right. The lower the boulders, the more bleached they get . . . by just a hair.

“An unaccounted surplus . . . ,” Ter says, scratching the dark fuzz at the nape of his neck. Benny nods his head vigorously.

“From where, do you think?” I ask.

“Let's find out.” Benny steps away from the wall, and we follow him into the throngs of the fair.

Under smoke-filled tents, striped red and white like Christmas candy canes, I bump into a woman—she's wearing a white apron, selling some type of food. It's long, yellow, and white, wrapped in open, stringy green leaves.

Regretfully, I show her my empty pockets and keep walking, even though my mouth is hurting from hunger. A moment later, Ter runs up to me, only to hurry us away from
her stall. When we're out of her sight, he opens my palm. In it, he places the same yellow food.

Now, Ter's dad is wealthy, but last I checked we didn't exactly bring spending money in our DI uniforms. “How'd you—” I start, but stop when Ter casts me a sneaky smile.

I'm about to eat stolen goods.

I grin, not caring in the least. I'm hungry, and the woman selling the yellow food looked okay. Peering closer at the pale little buttons, I recognize them: corn. We used to get it at Nale's, but the buttons were all separated in a pile.

Someone passes me, also holding the corn, I watch as they eat, hoping for instructions. They bring the whole thing to their mouth and take a bite.

I do the same.

The tiny pieces pop open in my mouth, sweet and buttery.
This is food
, I realize. Not the protein bars or rehydrated soup that Ren and I are used to.
Real food.

The feeling I had before returns. It's ugly. . . . I've only had it a few times. It's how I felt seeing Ren, healthy, sometimes.

The envy leaves me bitter. I try to shake away the scorched feeling, but I can't. These people—they have enough to share with us, and they choose not to.

“How is it?” Ter asks, smiling and drooling a little.

I want to smile back at him, but the anger in my stomach has infected all the other feelings too. Instead, I push him the corn.

He tries it, and his green eyes roll back into his head. He raises one clawed hand into the air. “Heaven,” he moans, wiping butter from his chin.

Then, his face drops. He knows what I'm thinking—I'm judging their happiness. Wondering if they deserve it more than me, or Ren, or him, or anyone else I care about.

They don't deserve it more.

From the west end of the dam, an announcer beckons everyone to come close. His voice is staticky through the megaphone. Benny and Callum catch up, and together we follow the flocks.

This is it
—Harcourt's here. He'll hear me speak my piece, and I'll make him understand. I have to.

Swallowing, I step deeper into the crowd.

“The auction is
open
!”