The Lost Code Part 26

"Oh. I wonder if my other messages ever even got to him."

"Doubt it. Come on."

We pa.s.sed the other cabins, and then heard the distant sound of cheering.

"Perfect," said Lilly. "Everyone's at flagpole."

I could see them out there in the midday sun, a blur of T-shirt colors and skin. One of the cabins seemed to be standing up in front, probably doing a skit about something. All of them so unaware of the world they were really in. And yet it still felt weird to be outside of that group. Not like I wanted to be over there, pretending to be in a happy little camp, except maybe I did a little.

The flapping of the flag caught my eye. The Eden logo was whipping hard. Northwesterly, up around fifteen knots Northwesterly, up around fifteen knots, I thought. We'll need secondary thrust to fight that- We'll need secondary thrust to fight that- "Hey, snap out of it." Lilly pulled me along as we left the paths and cut through the woods, working our way around toward the dining hall. We emerged from the trees by the building and we were two steps out when I saw the kids coming up the path on the far side.

"Around back!" Lilly hissed, and we ducked and ran for the side of the building.

"Think they saw us?" I asked.

"Probably not," said Lilly. We ran through the underbrush by the wall, out to the dirt road. We checked for people, didn't see anyone, and crossed over toward the offices. We paused at the door, listening. It didn't sound like there was anyone inside.

"Owen!"

I turned and there was Beaker, running toward us from the dining hall's back door.

"Get out of here!" I hissed at him, waving my hand like he was a stray dog.

"I snuck away from our table!" he said, either not hearing me or ignoring me. "I saw you when we were coming up the hill, but don't worry, n.o.body else did!"

He reached us, panting, his little chest leaping. He had a big purple bruise below his right eye.

"What happened to your face?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah, that. The guys had me stuffed in a cubby for an hour yesterday."

"Leech," I muttered. "He's such a-"

"It wasn't him. He wasn't around. It was Jalen, because I told him to stop calling Bunsen a bed wetter and maybe I threw a dodgeball and hit him in the face. But it's fine, 'cause we have to stand up for each other, you know?" He looked at me like he was my soldier, waiting for my approval.

"Sure. Listen, Beaker," I said as nicely as I could, "get out of here."

"But where have you been?" he asked. "Everybody's been looking for you! We heard that you were off with-" He stopped, almost like he'd just noticed that Lilly was there, and he jumped back at little, like she was an alien. Then his eyes narrowed. "Are you guys okay?"

"Yes, we're fine," I said. "Just go back inside."

"And don't tell anyone you saw us," Lilly ordered.

Beaker looked down. "Oh, okay. But... can I help? I mean, we heard you got attacked by Nomads, and then you ran off, and the Arctic Foxes said that, this one time, they saw you out in the morning acting all weird, and-"

I glanced around, then cut him off. "Look, I know, but the way you can help most is to go back inside before someone notices you're gone."

"But what's going on? What happened to you?"

"I can't tell you. Sorry."

Beaker's face fell. "You're not coming back to the cabin, are you?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, that stinks. I mean, whatever, but..."

I hadn't realized that Beaker thought I was, whatever he thought, his friend or something. Then again, maybe I had. That to Beaker, I was his CIT. He'd seen me take on Leech and it inspired him to stand up for himself. But now I was abandoning him.

I wondered if there was something I could tell him. "You know what," I said, "if you want to help, here's what you can do: go back inside and tell our cabin, and especially Todd and anyone else who's around, that you were just outside and you saw the two of us running across the fields like we were heading toward the docks. Can you do that for me?"

"Okay," he said uncertainly, but then his face brightened. "Like a diversion... I can do that!"

"Thanks, Pedro."

"Yeah," he said. He kept standing there.

"Okay, go!"

"Right!" He ran back toward the dining hall.

"You know you're his hero," said Lilly.

"I don't know how that happened," I said.

"Come on, Mr. Swimming-into-temples-ancient-Atlantean. You might need to get used to being a hero." Lilly rubbed my shoulder. I felt a surge of electricity from her touch. Finally, some connection between us again.

I smiled at her and turned back to the door. "Okay, let's go in."

We stepped into the lobby area. All the doors were closed. We headed into the infirmary. The hall was quiet, but Paul might be back at any time. We ran to the red door.

"No sign of Evan," said Lilly, peering into each exam room as we pa.s.sed.

We reached the door and I pulled out the little orange case. I punched the five numbers written on the top into the keypad. Locks turned. A hissing sound. The red door swung open an inch. We pushed through.

Beyond the door was a metal hall, its sides draped in plastic. A single long light beam stretched along the ceiling, shining down cold, harsh light.

The hall led to a room. It was dark, low-lit in blue and white. It was almost like the light of the siren and the skull down in the temple, only this flickering came from modern devices, not ancient: monitors and sterile lights. The floors and walls were all covered in plastic.

There was another door at the opposite end of the room. To our left was a desk. It stood atop the plastic, as did the other objects in the room. Its top was covered in a gla.s.s monitor. Behind that was a long counter, lit in pale white light. It was covered with steel machines, and a set of refrigerator cases with racks of vials inside.

The wall to the right was paneled with flat gla.s.s monitor screens, showing views of other rooms, other labs almost identical to this one. One screen was black, the one labeled South, just like up in the Eye.

"So, all the Edens have labs like this," I said quietly, looking at the similar rooms. Even though there was no one here, something about this place made me want to keep my voice low.

The labs on the screens were mostly empty. In one, a white-coated technician seemed to be working with a set of vials, putting them in some round device that started to spin.

"This is not very summer campy," said Lilly. "So, this means that all the Edens are up to the same thing, yes? Are they searching for Atlanteans at these other sites, or what?"

"Something like that, I guess."

Lilly peered at the screens. "Hey, what's EdenHome?"

I realized now that not all the screens were the same. The one in the bottom right corner was different. It showed a bleak landscape, hardpan with patches of loose dirt and crumbled rock that was a burned rust color, the sky hazy with dust and tinted amber.

"I don't know." Lily was right. There were six screens instead of five, and this one was labeled EdenHome. "Looks like it's in a desert. Must be sunset or a dust storm or something."

"So, that means there's a sixth Eden somewhere, like, that n.o.body knows about?"

"I wouldn't put it past them."

"I am not feeling good about this," said Lilly.

"No." I moved away from the screens, around the desk and over to the refrigerators, peering through their clear gla.s.s doors. There were racks of blood inside, hundreds of vials, each with a label similar to the one Dr. Maria had used for me. But the number of vials was small compared to the racks of tiny plastic slides on the bottom shelves, each with a single strand of hair coiled in the center. These were marked with similar numbers. And also birth dates.

And then I remembered: "We had to submit a hair sample with the application to Camp Eden."

"Huh?" Lilly joined me.

What had it said in the application? That it was to screen for allergies and compatibility with Eden's unique environment. "Okay," I said, my heart starting to race. "I think I know how I 'won' the drawing to come here."

Lilly stepped beside me. "You think you were selected?"

"Yeah, and not just me." I opened one of the cases and reached to the back of the shelf, pulling out a tray of slides. I pointed to the birth date on the front one.

"November nineteenth, 2046," Lilly read. Her voice slowed as she understood. "I was born in forty-eight. These... these are the Cryo kids."

"This is why you got in, too," I said, feeling pieces click together. "If they had DNA from every applicant, they could screen it. Like, to see if we had the Atlantean code. Maybe they already had a profile, like, a sample from some other site. Maybe they found a skeleton or something, and they were trying to match us to it. And they selected the candidates who fit."

"So, they used the Cryo program to screen for possible matches first," said Lilly. "And then expanded it to the camp program? And then what, brought us here to see what happened? Like if any of us grew gills?"

"I think pretty much."

"If they were choosing the Cryos based on the genetic match," said Lilly, "then that means from the start, like as far back as the domes go, they've been looking for..."

"Us," I finished for her. I turned away from the samples, feeling a heaviness from all this information, almost like this whole place was going to come down on me, crush me. I tapped the gla.s.s desktop. A white box appeared in the black: [AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED]

Below the words was a circle and a blinking picture of a thumbprint.

I flicked open the orange case and pulled out the semiclear oval. I picked it up with my fingernails and pressed the mold onto my own thumb, holding it for a second. When I let go, it stayed in place. I pushed it against the spot on the monitor. The box blinked.

A voice spoke from the screen. "Welcome back, Dr. Estrella."

The screen jumped to life, folders appearing on top of a background photo of red rock mesas. Somewhere Dr. Maria had been, maybe.

The folder in the center had the t.i.tle For Owen For Owen.

I tapped it.

There were two more folders inside, one t.i.tled DI Index Monthly Report DI Index Monthly Report, and the other t.i.tled PE Quarterly Report to Eden Board PE Quarterly Report to Eden Board.

I tapped the DI file. It opened and a chart filled the screen. There was a scroll bar on the right. The chart was long. There were columns of data, by date, most recent at the top. Normal things like temperature, humidity, pressure, and then on the right, the dome integrity rating.

I read the numbers. "Whoa."

"What?" Lilly asked.

I pointed at the chart. "Look at the DI levels for each week."

Lilly started reading. "Fifty-seven percent, fifty-five percent, fifty-two percent... Um, those are way way lower than what they tell us. The Nomads were right." lower than what they tell us. The Nomads were right."

I scrolled down. "And look: they're like that for the other domes, too. And... six months ago the results were in the sixties." I kept scrolling. "Last year near seventy." I turned to Lilly. "It's going down, fast."

"EdenHome isn't on that chart," said Lilly.

I looked at the columns. "No. Maybe it's a different kind of facility."

I scrolled to the bottom and found a final row of numbers, t.i.tled Time to Integrity Compromise. Time to Integrity Compromise. For EdenWest it was 238 days. The others were in the same range. I pointed to the numbers. For EdenWest it was 238 days. The others were in the same range. I pointed to the numbers.

"That's, like, eight months," said Lilly. "Eight months until these domes start to fail. Wow." She peered at the screen. "Look at that."

There was another table below this one. The first column was each Eden name, and then columns labeled Yearly Expected Mortality Percentage. Yearly Expected Mortality Percentage.

I ran my finger across the EdenWest line, watching the numbers rise. "Fifteen percent a year from now..."

"Meaning fifteen percent of EdenWest's population will be dead?" Lilly was almost whispering.

"I think so." I kept reading. "Thirty-five in two years, seventy-four..." My finger reached the end. "Everybody in here will be dead in three years."

"If they stay."

"And there's nowhere for them to go."

I remembered the boy with the burns the other day. "n.o.body here has any idea how much danger they're in."

"It's... it's just like we thought...."

"Only way worse," I finished.

Lilly sighed, like she'd picked up something heavy. "Everybody needs to get out of here."

I scrolled back up to the top of the file. "Look at the date of the latest reading," I said. "Four days ago. This must be what got Paul so upset. I heard him freaking out in his office the other day." I thought of that dome panel bursting into flames. "So, Project Elysium must have something to do with this. We We must have something to do with this, and Atlantis." must have something to do with this, and Atlantis."

"Yeah, but wh-"

Lilly didn't finish. She was stopped by a scream in the distance, a muted, desperate sound.

I looked up. "What was that?"