Undaunted Read online

  Tasha rose from her crouch but held herself stiffly. “When’re you gonna leave?”

  “I don’t know. But when I do, I might not be able to say good-bye.”

  Jia snorted. “You already told us that.”

  “Did I tell you that it makes me sad?”

  She shrugged, while the others watched me with big eyes.

  “I don’t want you to go!” Dusty said suddenly.

  Don’t make another promise you might not be able to keep, I told myself firmly. “I’ll stay for as long as I can.”

  None of them looked happy at that. But what could I do? I was living on borrowed time. Every day I waited for biohazard agents to clamp their hands on me and announce that I was under arrest. Every night I went to bed shocked and relieved that it hadn’t happened yet. And that was the key word — yet.

  I dropped my open palm under Jia’s nose. “Hand it over.”

  She pouted, but when my palm continued to hover, she sighed and dug a large envelope from under the covers. “It’s for Ev,” she said, clutching the padded envelope to her chest. She’d adored him ever since the night she arrived at Arsenal’s gate, towing an injured man in a wagon — my dad, as it turned out. Everson had looked out for her that night and gotten her into the orphan camp when the other guards would have forced her back into the Feral Zone alone. Considering that she followed him around base like a starstruck groupie, I was surprised that she’d steal his mail.

  “Why’d you take it?” I asked.

  “Because they weren’t going to give it to him. And they opened it!”

  “The mail staff opens all the packages. That’s their job.” I plucked the envelope from her grasp. It was addressed to Everson, Arsenal Island, Mississippi River, with a curly flourish. Girly writing. And what was up with the missing last name? The thought that came to mind wasn’t flattering to the girl who sent it or to Everson. Not that it was any of my business.

  “Why were you even in the mail office?” I asked Jia. The orphans didn’t get mail. No one in the West knew they existed, and no one in the East cared, which was how they’d ended up on base.

  “She takes the food sent to the guards,” Dusty piped in. Jia shot him a warning look.

  “They always get cookies and stuff,” said Trader. “If you go early, before the postmaster logs it in, nobody misses it.”

  “Nice.” I leveled her with a hard look. “A guard’s family sends a care package, and you steal it?”

  “They’ll send more.” Jia flung a hand toward the West. “They eat brownies and cookies every day over there and never run out.”

  Okay, she wasn’t completely wrong about that.

  “And the guards don’t share,” she added angrily.

  Time to drop the morality issue. Trying to convince a kid with nothing that it’s wrong to steal from an adult with plenty was beyond my pay scale. Still, she had to stop. “If you get caught stealing mail, they’ll send you back to the Feral Zone.”

  The kids fell silent at that, even tough little Jia. After all the stories I’d heard about their hardscrabble lives in the zone, I knew they never wanted to go back. And they knew my warning was dead-on.

  “But they were the ones stealing!” Jia burst out, fists clenched. “I heard the postmaster say, ‘Anything for Everson Cruz goes in the incineration bin.’ They were going to burn it!”

  Yes, the patrol checked all incoming packages for contraband, but they weren’t supposed to destroy the guards’ mail. “Are you sure that’s what he said?”

  Jia nodded adamantly. I glanced down at the envelope. From the weight of it, it contained more than a letter. One edge had been sliced open, tempting me to peek inside, but I resisted. What kind of example would I be setting for the orphans? Still, I wondered what was so problematic it had to be destroyed. Even more mysterious, it sounded like this wasn’t the first time — not if the postmaster had a system in place for dealing with Everson’s mail.

  Jia reached for the envelope. “I want to give it to Ev.”

  I jerked it out of her reach. “I’ll give it to him.”

  “I’m the one who took it,” she protested.

  “Which is why you can’t be seen with it.” Plus, she’d just handed me the perfect excuse to approach him.

  She pouted and then dropped her hand with a sigh. “Tell him I was the one who stole it for him.”

  “Sure. He’ll be so proud.” I shot her a smile. “Wasn’t it just yesterday he threatened to put you in the brig for throwing things at the electric fence?”

  She grinned, completely unrepentant. “Potatoes make the biggest sparks.”

  “Ev said it’s dangerous,” Tasha said reproachfully. “He said you could hurt your heart.”

  “He’s right. And, even worse” — I tugged Jia up from my bed — “you were wasting food.”

  I sent the orphans outside and slid Everson’s envelope under the thin mattress of my cot, planning to tell him at breakfast that I had it. Maybe I could work in some questions about Mahari on the walk from the mess hall back to the tent. But Everson wasn’t in the mess hall when we got there, and he wasn’t there for lunch either, which wasn’t that surprising since he practically lived in the lab on the other side of the island. The guy wasn’t just devoted to Dr. Solis; he took his work as seriously as a quest for the Holy Grail. He wanted to undo the damage his mother had done.

  He wanted to fix the world.

  That morning, the orphans and I worked on reading, using the few children’s books my dad had managed to bring me on his last visit. Then we swept the barracks and hung the blankets on the clothesline to air out in the cool spring breeze.

  In the afternoon, we worked on a group project, planning a trip from Arsenal to Moline using an old map I’d found in one of the footlockers. The least I could do for these kids was help them get somewhere relatively safe when they were kicked off the base.

  We stopped an hour or so before dinnertime.

  “Let’s take a break,” I said. “You can watch the recruits if you want to.” They responded with gleeful whoops. “Just don’t get in anybody’s way.” Hah. The orphans had sprinted for the ropes course before I’d even finished speaking.

  Jia, now wearing my pink hoodie, which hung to her knees, scrambled up a hanging rope at twice the speed of the guard next to her. The recruits glared at me. Their commanding officer seemed less irritated and immediately used Jia’s dexterity as one more way to humiliate the newbies. I sent them a shrug of apology and called to the orphans, “Meet me at the tent in an hour.” Only Dusty acknowledged that he’d heard me with a thumbs-up. The rest of them high-stepped their way through the lanes of crisscrossing ropes. Who was I kidding? These kids didn’t come when called. Most of them didn’t even know how to use a fork and knife. Not as eating utensils, anyway.

  I retrieved the envelope addressed to Everson and slid it under my T-shirt. As I hurried toward the lab along the paved road that bisected the base, I tamped down the flutter in my belly. This was not about getting to see Everson. This was about delivering a package and finding out about Mahari. Period.

  The wind picked up as the recruits suffered through belly-busters, atomic sit-ups, and the sadistic reverse push-ups. Team captains roamed among them, snarling instructions and kicking recruits into the proper positions. The guards on laundry duty glared at me as I hustled past.

  “Sorry I ruined your sweet deal on child labor,” I called. A jerk move, but so what? I was proud that I’d gotten the patrol to stop forcing the orphans to work from dawn till dusk. Captain Hyrax still scowled at me over it every time we crossed paths. Guess his boots didn’t shine quite as brightly when not polished with orphan sweat. As much as I didn’t trust Chairman Prejean’s intentions, she’d backed me on that. Now the orphans had to keep their own clothes, tent, and latrine clean, but not the guards’ too, which meant they had time to learn and play. I hoped it would last — that Captain Hyrax wouldn’t turn them back into indentured servants the moment I left.
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  I pushed open the door to the virology lab, which was the tallest and most modern-looking building on the island. It was also the most fortified, and I had to pass through a laser decontamination booth before guards let me enter the main area on the first floor, which looked like a hotel lobby with its comfy couches and coffee tables.

  None of the guards at the doors or by the elevators asked why I was there, but then, this building was filled with scientists who worked in the Titan labs. The top floors were their living quarters, which included private suites, a dining room, and a recreation room. I’d overheard some guards complaining that Everson also had rooms on the top floor but that he rarely used them. He lived in the barracks and ate in the mess hall with all the other grunts, even though he worked in the lab. The guards didn’t like him any better for it. No matter where Everson slept or how hard he worked, he’d always be the chairman’s son, and most of them would always resent him.

  If the guards’ resentment bothered Everson, he never showed it or made an effort to tone down his bossiness. Maybe he didn’t know how. He’d grown up inside an old Titan labyrinth theme park, surrounded by tutors and Titan employees. Since he wasn’t allowed to leave or interact with anyone but staff, he’d thrown himself into studying. He started taking online college science classes when he was in his early teens. He’d earned his place on Dr. Solis’s research team.

  Once inside the elevator, I pushed the button for the third floor while noting that the basement didn’t have a button, just a thumbprint screen.

  The elevator door slid open, and I strode out, only to slow my pace as I took in the series of photographs along the opposite wall. The photos represented a trip through history, starting with the outbreak. The lurid colors attacked my eyes while the subject matter hijacked my brain. Figures in jumpsuits swung body bags into flaming burial pits; slavering dogs chased a man struggling to carry two children; a crazed woman lunged at the lens, bloody teeth bared to bite; a family threw aside their suitcases to flee as firebombs fell from the sky; the terrified refugees crowded onto the last bridge across the Mississippi River, hoping to be allowed into the West.

  By the time I passed the last photograph, I was hyperventilating, which was stupid. I should have been immune to these kinds of images by now, considering that I’d been raised on all things plague: facts, images, personal accounts, analysis, and opinion. People over thirty were obsessed with the topic. Obsessed. Still, it was weird to see these pictures on display in a Titan lab.

  I turned the corner and found a group of people blocking my way. Everson’s husky voice filled the corridor as the group shuffled forward. “The lab was built fifteen years ago, when Titan began funding drug research.” Standing a head taller than the rest of the group, he was easy enough to spot. Plus, he was walking backward to face them.

  I couldn’t interrupt him while he was giving a tour, so I tagged along to wait for my chance.

  The group was an equal split of men and women and a wide range of ages. Scientists, going by their questions. Definitely new Titan employees. But unlike new guards, their welcome-to-base orientation didn’t include getting dropped from hovercopters into the river.

  “As you all know, when the plague first hit, the course of the disease was short,” Everson continued. With his ramrod posture, cropped dark hair, and gray pullover with shoulder patches, he looked every inch the line guard, but he sure didn’t sound like one. He sounded like a science geek. “Infection meant insanity and death within days,” he went on. “Since then, the Ferae virus has adapted so that it’s no longer lethal to humans. Now the virus acts as a mutagen — changing the host’s DNA, exactly as it was designed to.”

  The scientists hung on his every word. Like most people from the West, they probably believed that the only humans living in the East were criminals banished from our side of the wall. They wouldn’t get the whole truth until they’d signed a confidentiality contract with the Titan Corporation. Now they were so wound up with anticipation they were practically thrumming when Everson paused in front of the door to the virology lab, where he spent his days and many nights.

  Instead of a handle, the steel door had a control pad, to which Everson pressed a finger, and the door swung open. Excited whispers passed through the group. Before coming to Arsenal Island, none of these scientists would have seen a hybrid animal other than in photographs. It was no wonder that they stampeded into the lab the moment the door thunked open.

  I hesitated in front of the open door. I didn’t have the clearance for this. I should wait for another time to approach him. Sometime when he was alone. That would be the smart thing to do. The safe thing.

  Except … I’d been playing it safe the past two weeks —staying far away from Everson — and had gotten nowhere. I was no closer to finding Mahari than when the lionesses had scared all sense out of me. So maybe it was time to step off the safe path. Or take an all-out leap …

  I hurried into the virology lab just as the door closed behind me.

  Head ducked, I joined the scientists in a vestibule furnished with leather club chairs, a wall screen to the left, and swinging doors on the right. What had everyone staring, however, was the glass wall before us and the multilevel space beyond it. Workstations lined the platforms, accessed by curving metal ramps. Researchers in protective jumpsuits and goggles maneuvered carts between the vault-sized refrigerators on the first level. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any more sci-fi, a tower of glass-fronted cubes rose out of the floor, each containing a hybrid animal. The scientists surged toward the glass wall for a glimpse of the different animal mash-ups, and I hurried to stay hidden in the group.

  As the tower topped out at ten cubes high, a researcher rotated the whole thing with a swipe of his finger and then stopped it with a touch when he reached a specific animal. He tapped the glass twice and red text appeared, floating across the front of the cube. Assured that he had the correct animal, the researcher pressed a button and the cube filled with blue gas.

  “Lull,” Everson said in response to the group’s murmurs. “It’s a quick and painless way to sedate the animal … Or put it down. Depending on the dose.”

  So, which was it — asleep or dead? There was no way to tell when the researcher opened the cube and lifted out the limp fuzzy body.

  “Those animals are infected, right? What if one gets loose?” someone asked Everson.

  “Chances of that are slim. We keep the animals in a restricted area one level down and bring them up as needed.”

  The scientists spread out along the glass wall, vying for views of specific workstations. I kept plenty of people between Everson and me. If he saw me now, he might kick me out for not having the right clearance. I edged closer to the swinging doors on my right in case I needed a quick exit option, but then a low growl snapped my attention to a wood crate shoved into the corner on our side of the glass.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d heard it. A scientist shoved past me in his hurry to crouch and peer through the slats. Within seconds, the others rushed over. I scooted around the group to put more bodies between Everson and me.

  “Not too close,” he warned. “The patrol caught it on the riverbank an hour ago, and it hasn’t been tested.”

  “It’s a GMO.” The man sounded like a kid at the circus.

  Genetically modified organism. Animals and people usually got infected from being viciously attacked by a feral. Then came a raging fever and painful physical mutation, followed by insanity. Modified wasn’t quite the right word to describe that transformation.

  “What’s the DNA mix?” the man asked.

  “I won’t know until I do a blood test,” Everson said with a shrug. “But if I had to guess … a lynx that caught a bad case of lizard.”

  Between the slats, yellowish eyes darted from side to side, scanning us with such malice, goose bumps broke out across my skin. It might not be feral, but it was furious. The creature yowled, and the crate shuddered under the force of scrabblin
g claws. The scientists leapt back in a perfect splash pattern.

  Everson remained relaxed against the chair, his arms crossed. “It might not even be infectious.”

  “Not infectious?” one man scoffed. “It’s a hybrid. Just look at its skin.”

  “It could have had an infected parent,” Everson explained. “Parents pass down their messed-up DNA but not the virus itself. In fact, the offspring are immune to Ferae, which means we can’t use them in our research.”

  If they couldn’t use the animal in tests, would they set the scaly lynx thing free? Not a chance. They’d just kill it, and it wouldn’t even have died for a worthwhile cause. Clearly, I wasn’t cut out to work in a lab.

  “This can’t be safe,” someone complained, “leaving it out here.”

  “Nothing on this side of the wall is safe,” said a cool voice from the doorway.

  Unlike the rest of the group, I didn’t turn to see who’d spoken. I knew that voice, with its mashed words and muffled tone and silky ability to raise all the hairs on my body. I slipped behind two tall scientists just as Chairman Prejean strolled into the antechamber.

  Dr. Solis was by her side and two guards were at her back. “Welcome to Arsenal Island.” She pivoted to take in the group, a study in contrasts. Intimidating in silky white scrubs and transparent surgical mask. Very sickly chic. I didn’t want to see her move past intimidating into scary, which would happen if she spotted me here.

  “I hope you all found your living quarters acceptable,” she went on. That got a chorus of positive replies, and the chairman’s lips pulled into a smile under the skintight latex. “You’ve all met Vincent.” She gestured to where Dr. Solis stood, sleepy-eyed and elegant as always. “He’ll be taking over now as your tour guide.”

  He gave the group a warm smile. “Let’s head up to the labs on the fourth floor, where you’ll be working.”

  Before anyone could take a step, the creature in the crate let loose with a piercing yowl. The chairman’s eyes flashed above her surgical mask at the tufts of brindled fur poking from between the slats. “What is that thing doing in here?”