The Lost Code Part 24

We emerged on a flat rock ledge, on the inside rim of the Yellowstone caldera, looking out over a wide, flat plain. It was dark, starless. The leading clouds of the storm were already overhead. More thunder. Hot wind whipped our hair and clothes, bullied its way through the dry evening cold. The slender windmills atop the ridge were spinning furiously, making a droning hum.

"There," said Mom. She and others were pointing to the west, where a dark-orange glow lit the underbellies of the clouds. A spear of lightning zigzagged down, causing a flash in the distant pine trees. The orange light illuminated gaps in the cloud columns, canyons rising high into the sky. They were called pyroc.u.mulus clouds. Dry thunderstorms where, though there might be rain falling somewhere thousands of meters up, the little amount of water evaporated while it was still in the sky. The storms got nicknamed lightning rains because lightning was the only thing that made it to the ground.

This one was different though, bigger, fueled by the smoke of the Three-Year Fire, which had finally found us.

I didn't like being out there. In fact, it might have been the most scared I'd ever been. All I wanted was to be back inside, and yet, there was my mom, Nina, her face to the scalding wind, holding on to her hat, watching the ridgeline with the same antic.i.p.ation that I had watching a breakaway in soccer.

The orange grew, and then the flames appeared, their brilliance reflecting off the white poles of the windmills along the ridge.

The fire had been moving around the American West for two years. For the first year and a half we'd counted its age in months like it was a toddler, but then it was too old for that. There were no resources or people to fight it, so it just burned and burned. n.o.body knew how long it would last. It was a question of fuel. How many years would it take to burn every last tree in the American West? The answer turned out to be three years and one and a half months.

Aside from a near miss in month six, this was the first time it had ever come to us. Maybe, in a way, we'd felt left out.

It moved like some vicious, primitive predator, a swarm of ants, a herd of velociraptors leaping over the caldera rim and devouring the pine trees in bright bursts of sparks. The flames looked fluid, streaming down the hillside, and soon they were flooding the whole valley. When I saw it the next morning, all the green and yellow was gone, the land painted gray, the trees brittle black twigs, the river choked with ash.

All by our hand, someone would say, or said, long ago.

As the fire stampeded by and brittle gray flakes snowed down on our hair and eyelashes, Mom rested her hand on my shoulder. "Isn't it amazing?" she said. I knew she didn't mean amazing like strictly good, but her voice was low with awe, if not excitement. Others around us seemed struck too, maybe because we had heard so much about this terrible thing, and now here it was, its marauding demon gaze finally falling on us.

I didn't know if I thought it was amazing, or if I was terrified or what, but I looked up and saw Mom's expression, and it was one I remembered many times after she left, not a year later: her eyes gla.s.sy and wide with wonder, her mouth slightly open, like seeing this, being this close to it, was spiritual for her. I don't remember her ever looking at Dad or me that way.

The trees began to pop. Big, terrible cracks as trunks exploded, branches collapsing into the flames.

I started to cry.

Mom looked down at me, and I tried to hide it. I didn't want to ruin her moment.

"Owen, it's okay. You're okay...."

"Owen, you're okay."

I opened my eyes to find Lilly on her knees beside me. Her hand was on my shoulder. The heat of the Yellowstone fire was the SafeSun on my face. I looked around and saw that we were in the little clearing on Tiger Lilly Island.

It took me a second to understand where I was, or when I was. I'd really felt like I was back in Yellowstone, with Mom, six again. And I had a sinking feeling now. That night when the fires came had been terrifying, but it had been a relief to be back there, like none of what came next had ever happened, like it would never happen... except it all had. I was never going to be six again, and my life from then to now was never going to be undone, or redone. It just was.

My brain shuffled again, like it couldn't quite find the present. I pictured the world inside the skull, Luk's city under ash skies, that night at Yellowstone. That was what linked the two memories: that weird sense of being witness to the end, and the real acceptance that the world you knew wasn't permanent, that it was fragile and temporary and could be destroyed at any moment. My genes had seen it before, and again.

"Try to breathe," said Lilly.

I looked up at her, the recent past finally cementing itself. We'd run from the temple, swimming away, but then I'd stopped, things had stopped. I hadn't been able to breathe.

I tried now. It worked, but it hurt. I tasted the metal lake flavor. Remembered it pouring into me. "Okay," I croaked. "That's the last time I'm doing that."

I heard Lilly laugh quietly. Felt her fingers brush across my neck. "It's your gills."

"What?" I reached up and touched them, only to find that they were barely there. The slits, which had been deep, had connected my throat to the water, now felt like shallow indentations. "They're gone," I said vacantly.

"I had to drag you out of there," said Lilly. "Pump your chest all over again. And you shivered like crazy all night, sweating, too, but I wrapped us both up in the blanket and held you, and by this morning you were warm again."

I listened to this. Looked at Lilly sitting there in her baggy sweatshirt and shorts. I had spent the night wrapped in Lilly's body... and I didn't remember it. "Thanks," I managed to say. "Again."

Lilly shrugged. "You know me, professional Owen saver." She smiled, but only for a second. "When I was pulling you, I saw that your gills were moving less. I think they gave you just enough oxygen to keep you alive until we got here, but...why are they gone?" She touched her own gills.

"Luk said they were a side effect of activation," I thought out loud, "of everything reorganizing...."

"I don't think I understood any of that," said Lilly.

"Oh, right." I struggled to sit up, and then told her about the time inside the skull: Luk, the Atlanteans, the Qi-An, and the Terra.

"Well," said Lilly, sounding a little shocked by it all, "I guess it wasn't the bug juice. Marco will be disappointed."

"Yeah," I said. "And so I think my gills disappearing is maybe just part of the changing."

"Leech should have called you Frog-boy instead of Turtle," said Lilly.

"What's that mean?"

"Sorry"-Lilly pointed her thumbs at herself-"one of my CIT duties is leading nature walks. But so when frogs change from tadpoles to adults, they lose their gills and tails and grow giant mouths in, like, a single night. You're not going to grow a giant mouth, are you?"

I smiled, but also felt around my face. "I don't think so."

"So, you're one of three Atlanteans," said Lilly. "The Aeronaut."

"Yeah," I said, "at least, I guess I will be." I saw that she was frowning, looking away. "You're one, too," I said. "You're either the Navigator or the Medium. We'll know when we find your skull."

Lilly's lips were pursed. "Right," she said.

"What," I said, "you don't believe me?"

"No, I do." She turned and rummaged through her red bag. "Here." She handed me half a chocolate bar.

"Thanks." My throat hurt with each swallow, but the chocolate reminded my body about food.

"It's just a lot," she said.

"Yeah," I said.

"I mean, I know I'm the one who was all, 'We have to get out of here and figure out what's going on,' but," Lilly said slowly, "I stabbed someone. I could have killed him. Taken a life." She stared at the ground beside me. "I keep hearing the sound the knife made when it tore clothing and skin. I keep feeling how it caught on his ribs when I pulled it out...."

I reached out and rubbed her knee. "You were brave," I said. "You got us out of there."

She shrugged. "Maybe."

I shook my head. "All of this is hard. I mean, these changes are happening to me, and I can't control any of it. It's like I'm just along for the ride."

"Like p.u.b.erty wasn't hard enough," said Lilly. She managed to smile. "But you did make a choice, Owen. When you ran, back in the Preserve. You made the choice to find that skull, to know why this is happening, to take control. All we can do now is try to find out what's behind all this."

"I guess." That made it sound a little better. "So, now what?"

"We can't go back," said Lilly, gazing off in the direction of camp. "The boats were out searching for us all night. And I saw flashlights in the woods. But even if they weren't looking for us, I mean, what we saw down there..."

Lilly gazed toward the dome roof. "This whole place is built on a lie-its history, its purpose, even its location."

"Yeah," I said. "Paul's probably got the skull by now. That's where Cartier said he was taking it."

"But you're the only one who can use it, right?"

"Right."

"And so once Paul figures that out, finding you is going to be his number-one priority."

"Project Elysium's number-one priority," I said. "I want to know what that is."

"Yeah," said Lilly. "And also, I swam back just before dawn to look for Marco or Aliah, or even Evan. I figured after we didn't show up at the ledges, they might have been out at the raft, but they weren't there. I need to make sure they're okay. Paul will know they're lying by now. And, I think anyone with these"-she pointed to her gills-"is in danger."

"So what should we do?" I asked. I was trying to come up with something, but my brain still felt foggy, slow, like my body was still distracted. It had gotten rid of my gills. What was it busy with now?

"The ledges," said Lilly. "Marco and Aliah might have left us some word up there, about what was going on in camp, or where to meet next."

"If they ever got up there," I said.

"Yeah, well"-Lilly was suddenly almost snapping at me-"we can't just sit here until the security teams find us. Stand up."

I did and she took the blanket I'd been lying on and stuffed it into her waterproof bag. She pulled off her sweatshirt and stuffed it in, too. Then, she zipped it closed and started rolling down the top to fasten the big metal buckles.

As she was doing that, I found myself staring at the long gra.s.s that was matted in a flat rectangle where the blanket and our bodies had been. I tried to picture us lying there together, curled tight, but my mind was more concerned with something else. Something else I could do...

I picked one of the long, flat strands of gra.s.s. It snapped free. I held it up and pinched it in the middle and made a loop. I ran the bottom end under and back up through the loop, then around the back of the top half. Back down through the hole... I pulled the gra.s.s down, cinching it tight. I looked at my work.

Lilly clicked the buckles then knelt on the bag and wrenched the straps tight. She looked up. "What's that?"

"A knot," I said.

It's called a bowline. The voice in my head was familiar. It was Luk, a part of my mind now that we'd joined inside the skull. And yes, a bowline, that's what it was. I knew more, too. "You can use it for tying off sails." The voice in my head was familiar. It was Luk, a part of my mind now that we'd joined inside the skull. And yes, a bowline, that's what it was. I knew more, too. "You can use it for tying off sails."

"Is this more Atlantean Owen?" asked Lilly, almost suspiciously.

I gazed at the knot. I was a little bit proud of it. "Yeah, guess so." I had a weird impulse and held the knot out toward her. "Here."

Lilly's eyes narrowed at the little twist of gra.s.s. "What?"

"For you."

Lilly took it between two fingers. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"I don't know. It's just a little gift."

A slight smile dawned on Lilly's face. "You made me a knot out of gra.s.s." She didn't sound convinced, but then she stuck the little knot back in her braid. "Thanks," she said, and then business Lilly returned. She stood up, hoisting her bag over her shoulder. "Ready?"

"Oh, sure," I said, a little surprised that the moment had ended so fast. "You're bringing your bag?"

"Yeah, this is everything that matters to me. And I don't think we'll be spending any more nights here. I still have this, too." She indicated the knife at her waist.

We left the clearing. The only evidence of Lilly's time there was the dried wax pools on the rock, ancient artifacts for future generations to try to decipher.

We pushed through the birch branches, to the water channel on the back side of the island. It wasn't far to sh.o.r.e, but I felt a hesitancy that I hadn't felt in days. If my gills were really gone, then I was just a land creature and water was an enemy again.

"You can do it," said Lilly. She waded in up to her hips.

I started after her, missing the way that the cold on my legs used to bring my gills to life. There was a faint tingle, like the ghost of something that used to be there, but that was it. My feet felt unsteady on the rocks. I was tense all over and I could almost feel my cramp beginning to lock up.

I reached chest level and pushed out, swimming slow, keeping my head up. Lilly dove under, the bag dragging along the surface behind her. I paddled along, wishing I could keep up but feeling the lameness of my side, the protest of the muscles keeping my head above water, keeping me tied to the surface. I looked down into the green and missed that world.

By the time I got to sh.o.r.e, Lilly had her bag open again. Her gills were tucking away. She looked at me. "Nice work," she said, and I felt like she was CIT Lilly again and I was just the little student, like our time together was being undone.

I climbed out of the water, through a little forest of water gra.s.s. As I did, something buzzed and landed on my forearm. I looked down to see something like a b.u.t.terfly, but with a long, shimmery green body and four flat, iridescent wings. I raised my other hand, thinking if this was a robot like the b.u.t.terflies, then we couldn't afford to be seen- "Don't!" said Lilly. "It's a dragonfly."

Its long tail twitched.

"Is it fake?" I asked.

Lilly rolled her eyes. "No. Dragonflies aren't fragile like b.u.t.terflies. They've been around since, like, the dinosaurs."

I held my arm close and looked at the ancient creature, thinking that maybe Luk had seen these in his world, too.

"You're kind of like one," said Lilly. "More than Frog-boy, actually."

"Huh?"

"Dragonflies start life in the water as these swimmy things, and then they crawl out and turn into the flying guys. You know, metamorphosis, like you. And they're one of the fastest flying animals."

"Oh, cool." I started climbing up the bank, and the little creature zipped off.

"'Course, once they fly they only live a few days. Just long enough to mate, then they die."

"Thanks, Counselor Lilly." I smiled at her, but she wasn't looking, instead digging in her bag. I felt like yesterday, when we both had gills, we would have laughed together about that.

She pulled something out and tossed it to me. A bundle of sky-blue-colored fabric. I unrolled it and found that it was a T-shirt, a lot bigger than one I'd usually wear.

"It's Evan's," said Lilly, still rummaging around. "But it should work for you."

"Sure," I said. More spells being broken. Why did she have Evan's shirt in her island bag? Had he left it there one time after they'd hooked up? Had shirtless Evan been on the very blanket where Lilly had introduced me to rain, had kept me warm? I hated this.

She stood up, holding an armful of clothes. "Now turn around, and no peeking."

I felt a little twitch of excitement that almost brushed away my Evan jealousy, but not entirely. I turned around and tugged the T-shirt over my still-wet body. Despite my recent muscles, it was huge on me, Evan-sized.

"Okay," said Lilly.