The Ones (8 page)

As Kai returned to his seat, there were loud murmurs of assent. For her part, Cody wanted to jump up, rush over, and hug him. He had articulated exactly what she already knew to be true: A storm was coming, and they had no choice but to face it head-on. And then it dawned on Cody with a wave of excitement—she saw how the wind was blowing.

Before the next person could speak, the back door of the storage room crashed open. As Cody and everyone else turned to look, she let out an audible gasp. James was being led into the room at gunpoint.

Cody covered her mouth, not knowing whether to scream out or hide. A girl Cody had met outside, Taryn, was pushing James to the front of the room.

“I found him outside, spying. Not sure how much he heard,” Taryn said. She turned to Kai. “What are we going to do with him?”

Brandon jumped out of his seat. “Whoa, hold on a second,” he shouted. “First of all, why are you asking Kai? No one's in charge here, remember?”

Taryn rolled her eyes, then made a big show of addressing the whole room. “Sorry … what are
we
going to do about this?”

“And second of all,” Brandon continued, “why the hell do you have a gun? We're certainly not going to kill him!”

“Gimme the gun—I'll kill him!” J-Dog shouted.

Taryn turned to Brandon. “Wake up, dude. This is exactly the type of stuff we need to worry about now,” she said. “If you want me in charge of security, then don't bitch about how I handle it.”

Cody watched as Kai stepped in between them and lightly pressed on Taryn's arm to lower the gun. And then Cody made eye contact with James for the first time, saw the panic on his face, and realized she had to do something.

“He's with me!” she shouted from the back of the room. Everyone turned to look at her. “It's fine. He's with me. And he's a One.”

“And who the hell are you?” Brandon sneered.

“It's cool, I invited her,” Kai said. “She's the high school kid I told you about. The one who fought back.”

“Since when are we including kids at these things?” Taryn asked.

“Hey, remember the point of all of this? We're a minority that makes up one percent of the population.… We need all the help we can get,” Kai said. Then he turned back to Cody. “Do you vouch for him?”

Cody hesitated. She could certainly vouch that James was a terrific person, a good boyfriend, moral, trustworthy, and kind. But somehow she knew that was not what Kai was asking. And now her standing in the group would be forever tied to James. But what else could she do other than vouch for him? She'd just have to make James understand that whether or not he completely agreed with what was happening here, he'd have to accept it. Everyone else in the church saw what the Equality Movement was trying to do—if James didn't, Cody would make him.

She looked Kai in the eye and nodded. She vouched for him.

Up in the front of the room, Kai turned to James and gave him a rough pat on the arm. “Welcome,” he said. “Have a seat.”

*   *   *

After the meeting ended, Cody waited until they had walked away from the church before she turned on James.

“I can't believe you followed me here!” she said.

“Are you serious? Don't you mean
thank you
?”

“Thank you for what? I was fine. Meanwhile, you almost got yourself shot and made us both look like idiots.”

“Which all could have been prevented if you had just told me where you were going.”

“I wasn't allowed to. Kai told me to come alone.”

“Oh. Kai. I didn't realize he was in charge of our relationship.”

“He's not. And neither are you. You're not my babysitter.”

“Right, I'm sorry. Your mom's freaking out, I'm worried sick, but from now on I'll just wait until it's crystal clear that you're in trouble before I lift a finger to help. Wouldn't want to embarrass you again.”

As James walked off ahead of her, Cody realized she was being a jerk. She caught up with him and grabbed his arm.

“You didn't embarrass me, okay? It's just that … you heard what they were talking about down there. I didn't want us to look like ignorant kids,” she said.

“Yeah, I did hear them. And honestly, they're all crazy.”

“James, keep your voice down.”

“I'm sorry. But they're talking about a national network of college students that's going to run around—doing what? Planting bombs? Can we just get out of here, please?”

Now something scarier occurred to Cody, an issue that was much bigger than their petty bickering. She was almost afraid to ask, but she had to.

“You actually think we deserve this, don't you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You agree with them, the rest of the country. You think we are a mistake—a problem that needs fixing. That we shouldn't be treated the same as everyone else.” Cody glared at him. “Am I right?”

James struggled to formulate a response. “Not exactly, okay? I just … I understand why people think it's unfair. We have an advantage, don't we? And if there needs to be some adjustments to make things fair again, I don't believe that bombing government buildings is an appropriate response.”

“
Adjustments?
Kids are getting killed! No one should be punished simply because of how they were born. I thought we always agreed on that.”

“We do. But whatever is happening in there,” James said, pointing back toward the church, “that's not the solution.”

Cody's heart sank as she realized how big the rift was between her and James. But she knew this wasn't the moment to convince him. She needed to get him away from the rest of the Ones and explain things in the car. Make him understand that he was now obligated, at the very least, to keep quiet about this. She had vouched for him.

As she pushed James toward her mother's car, she heard Kai call out from behind her. “Cody!” he yelled. “Wait up a second.”

Cody and James stopped at the edge of the street, and Kai jogged over to them. He stood between them and put his arms around both their shoulders. Cody thought it was supposed to be friendly, but it still felt a little weird.

“I'm glad you two made it today,” Kai said. “I know there may have been a lot to take in, but I hope you felt it was worthwhile.”

“Yeah, thanks for including us. We're honored to be part of this,” Cody said.

“Okay, great. That's what I expected,” Kai said. Then he turned to look at James. Cody fixed her gaze on him as he stood silently for a moment.

“Yup. Ditto,” James said.

“Well, listen … I think there's a real opportunity to get you guys organized over at the high school. Like I said inside, it can't just be us old geezers—if this is going to work, we need every One to be involved.”

“Yeah, I totally agree,” Cody said.

“Here, take my number,” Kai said, handing her a slip of paper. “We should bounce some ideas around. And don't worry, it's not my regular phone. This one is safe to call.”

Cody took the paper and slid it into her pocket. She could feel James staring daggers at her. And yes, they were definitely daggers, not butter knives. Cody wanted to pull Kai aside and ask him about the Vaccine, since that was the whole reason she had come in the first place. But she had a feeling that she should focus on separating Kai and James as quickly as possible. Nothing good was going to come from their interacting any longer. Anyway, she had Kai's number now—she could ask him about the Vaccine on her own.

“Sounds good,” Cody said. “We should really be going now.”

“Of course. Be safe, and we'll talk soon,” Kai said. He nodded at both of them and then jogged back toward the church.

James started walking to the car. Cody grabbed her bike and ran to catch up with him. She threw it in the trunk and got inside, and then they rode back to Shasta in silence.

It was the last time they'd be together before everything changed.

*   *   *

When Cody woke up on the morning of List Day, she had a clear plan in her head. She was going to jog over to James's house, thank him for looking out for her, and then in the calmest way possible explain why she agreed with the New Weathermen. If he disagreed, she'd be disappointed, but at least they'd be communicating about it. And if she absolutely had to, she would tell him the rumor about the Vaccine. That was what had worked on her, after all, when Kai had left her in the diner. She had imagined James or herself being irrevocably changed, and it was too much to bear. She liked them the way they were and knew James did, too. So that was the plan—she truly believed that she and James could fix things.

But when James threw open her bedroom door while Cody was still blinking awake, she knew something terrible had happened.

“Have you checked your computer yet?” he asked gravely.

“No. I just woke up. What's going on? Why are you over here so early?”

James picked up Cody's computer. “Here. See for yourself.” He handed it to her and gave her some space.

Cody opened the computer and caught up with the rest of world. At six o'clock that morning, every American citizen had received the same e-mail. It was sent by a woman named Edith Vale, an analyst at the National Security Agency. Attached to the e-mail was a remarkable document.

It was a list of every single One in the country.

It included their names, addresses, and photos. Each identity was confirmed by the Social Security number that the NIH used to monitor the genetic-engineering program. The List, it seemed, could not be more comprehensive and official. It had everyone from the most recent newborns to those in their early twenties. Cody gasped in horror, realizing the gravity of this action. The List was meant to unleash terror. To serve as a map. To expose each individual One to the fate they deserved. Edith Vale had put a bull's-eye on every single one of them.

And then came the greater shock.

Cody's name wasn't on it.

The List was divided by ZIP code, and Cody quickly scrolled down to the section that contained the citizens of Shasta. She saw James's name. She saw the names of the Ones she knew from school. She saw Kai's name and others that she vaguely recognized. Cody scrolled around, checking in every possible way. She imagined that maybe they had mixed up her name somehow, or where she lived. If this was a list of every single One, then she had to be on it. She did a formal computer search within the entire document, and still there was nothing. No matter how hard she looked, her name wasn't listed.

Cody turned to James, who was hanging over her shoulder searching, as well. They locked eyes as the same thought shook each of them with all the grace of an earthquake.

Cody wasn't a One.

 

CHAPTER 6

CODY WAS ALWAYS
fast, of course. How she had the wherewithal to stand, to move, to dart out of the house, James didn't understand. But once she had the head start, there was no catching her.

James couldn't fathom how anyone could have moved a muscle in the moments after Cody had looked at the List. Just a second earlier, she had seemed paralyzed in front of her computer screen with James frozen behind her, and then, in the doorway to Cody's room, her mother appeared, crying. James watched as the two of them locked eyes, and he saw the momentous but silent exchange. As James accepted his own paralysis, grateful that it gave him time to process all the new bombs that had detonated in his life, Cody bolted. She knocked over her mom, grabbed her sneakers, and burst out the door of the house, and by the time James got his body working and stuck his head outside, she was a speck disappearing at the end of the street.

Ironic,
James thought. She wasn't a One, but she was still the fastest person in town. And then he immediately hated himself for thinking it.

With Cody gone and Joanne slumped over crying, James didn't know where to go. To school, he figured. It was still a school day. Or did an unauthorized national-security breach that threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of children mean that school was canceled, like a snow day? James tried to wrap his mind around exactly what had happened that morning. Some things made perfect sense: The federal government had a database of all the Ones. They were being studied, after all, so of course some organization was keeping track of them. But this woman—Edith Vale—what the hell was she doing? James didn't find it crazy that she had access to the List; he assumed employees at the NSA had access to everything. He knew the Clear Browsing History option on his computer was a joke and behaved accordingly.

Before he went anywhere, James felt like he was supposed to say something to Cody's mom.

“I'm sorry,” he said, not fully understanding what he meant. Joanne didn't respond, and James couldn't resist asking a question. He spoke softly, trying not to be rude. “Why did you lie to her?” he asked.

Joanne looked up at him, devastated. “She was never supposed to know. This list … why would anyone release it?” she asked.

James considered the question and concluded that this list was meant as a gesture of encouragement. A gift to everyone in the Equality Movement who wanted to get rid of the Ones. Of course,
get rid of
could mean a lot of different things. Some people just wanted to ban the technology, as the Supreme Court had recently ruled. Some people wanted to restrict how the existing Ones could go about their lives. And then there was the last group. James knew how they defined
get rid of.
They were pretty literal-minded, those people. The thought that the List might be a gift to them sent a chill down his spine.

Even with this new bull's-eye on his back, James left Cody's house and drove to school. There was something reassuring about sticking to his normal routine. If the government had turned against him and his girlfriend was a different person, then maybe sitting in good old first-period history class was exactly what he needed. Lots of bygone eras had terrible problems; maybe he could live vicariously through all the awful stuff that happened in the past and ignore what was going on in the present.