Coda (41 page)

On the TV, a woman who I guess isn’t a Corp spokeswoman anymore is trying to explain the idea of elections to anyone watching. She stumbles through concepts she herself doesn’t quite understand.

“You okay?” Haven appears from somewhere and slips past the twins to put her arms around my waist. I stare out the window.

“Yeah.” I nod. I turn away from the window and point to the front door. Her eyes widen and she releases me.

“Be careful.”

The blue has faded from my hair thanks to Haven’s repeated washings, and a cast still covers the chrome on my hand. When I hop a passing trans-pod, no one takes any notice of me. The Vortex, alive in neon again, pulls us in and I step out onto the sidewalk in front of what is now just a big, dark glass building, half-shielded by scaffolds and alive with the activity of repair.

“Anthem.” Isis greets me when I find her deep in the medical facility. She kisses my cheek. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” I raise my plaster-covered hand. “You?”

“Better now. Yeah, I’ll bet you want that back. Come on.” She takes me into a treatment room, makes me sit perfectly still for an X-ray, and pulls out a small electric saw. She sees me staring when she plugs it in.

“Mage and some of the others are trying to find alternatives,” she says. “Looking up old technologies, things that can take power from the sun and the wind, stuff like that. But they’ve only been at it for a week or so. The withdrawal hit you worse because you drained so much of your energy beforehand, but it was almost as bad for the rest of us who quit.” Her eyes darken. Maybe Pixel will, eventually.

I hope I live to see the day when there are no conduits anymore, but I get that, for now, we need power from somewhere.

My hand freed, Isis examines it closely, flexes my fingers, and feels the bones. “I’ll give you some exercises to do for getting the strength back.”

“Okay. Thanks, Isis.” She checks the healing wound on my wrist and nods in approval. Just another scar, resting over absolutely nothing underneath. After the revolution, after Scope, after everything, I made her pull the extra chip out before stitching me back together.

“You missed a lot. I’m setting up a lab. We’re researching medication, chemical stuff. And I think we can alter tracks so that if we
do
use them, it’ll be like it was in the beginning. Just for pain relief. Still a little addictive, but no more so than the prewar kinds of drugs could be.” She touches my arm, reading my face. “Only if they need it, and only if they choose.”

“You think it can be done?”

She smiles. She’s in her element here. “I think we can do whatever we want.”

I leave her to what she was doing and head for the mainframe hub. I don’t have to swipe my ID chip once. Mage is there, bent so closely over a touch screen his dreadlocks keep getting in his way.

“Hey,” I say. He looks up and grins, raising his hand for a high five I take with my left.

“It’s good to see you up, man. I visited a few times after I recovered, but . . .”

I remember. Vaguely. “What are you doing with all this stuff?”

“Restoring power—some of the outlying areas were damaged pretty heavy. Going through old tracks, making sure there’s nothing too dangerous in there and scrubbing duplicates free of encoding so that there’s normal music for anyone who wants. Getting the food supply flowing properly again. Haven did a pretty good job while most of us were sick, and the people who kept tracking helped her, but she was pretty busy looking after you. Truth be told, I don’t think she was too comfortable controlling anything.”

“You should run this place.”

Mage laughs. “Nah, man, not me. I’m happy down here. Her, maybe.” From somewhere, I hear Phoenix loudly giving instructions. Probably better not to interrupt that.

“Bring her over later?”

“Sounds good.”

In the lobby, I stop, paralyzed, staring at elevator doors. Just a
short ride to the studio. I turn away and head outside, not ready to face whatever has become of it. Not today. Soon.

I walk down to Two. Not everything is better. There are no guarantees that whoever takes charge next will be any better than President Z or the people who came before her. Without the requirement of tracking or clubbing, life expectancy will extend and the population will grow past the point the island can sustain or hold. Conduits in the Energy Farm are still giving their lives for neon lights and banks of computers.

There’s no way to reverse the effects of the music, even in those who choose never to track again, and so people will still come home to find loved ones attached to consoles, chests motionless in bloodied bathtubs, or on frayed rugs on top of spreading stains.

But around me, there are signs of hope. Pulled from a drugged stupor for the first time in generations, we are awake, seeing what we have and what we can be. The damage sustained in the fighting is slowly being repaired; we care again. I won’t help with the rebuilding efforts. I’ve done enough, both good and bad, and I’m tired. The twins are safe, and I can content myself with the knowledge that they will never have their minds, their wills, their
selves
stolen beyond what they’ve already suffered.

I have to accept the possibility that, one day, they will choose to track, to satisfy that yearning awakened by the evil, poisonous Ell.

My legs ache. I stop and lean against the window of a water bar, its door locked. I let my eyelids drift closed, stand there for a minute until, undirected by conscious thought, they open again.

Somewhere, someone—a woman—is singing, a rich alto filters down from an open window. Her voice would be beautiful anyway, but strengthened by an utter lack of fear that a guard will drag her away, pin her down and cover her ears with headphones, it sucks all
the tiredness from me. I push away from the window and keep going.

Pixel answers his apartment door; his skin sallow against bloodshot eyes. Déjà vu sweeps through me like sickness, and I force myself to remember that Scope is not hiding in his bedroom.

“I loved him, too,” I say. My voice cracks.

“I know.”

We sit on the old, battered couch, saying nothing more for a long time. Scope is everywhere; a good, trusting, infectious ghost. “Have you gone to see him?”

His breath hitches. “I got as far as the front door of the CRC.”

We’re all going to need time. The door to his mother’s bedroom stands open, the bed empty. “I’m so fucking sorry,” I whisper. So much death. So much damage and horror and fear.

“Don’t you dare.” The tightly restrained anger in Pixel’s voice grabs my ears and forcibly turns my head to face him. “Don’t you
dare
think what we did wasn’t right, or they died for nothing and all the people we killed died for something. Do you get that?”

He’s right. I know it, maybe one day I’ll feel it, too.

“Thanks for helping Haven,” I say just to kill the silence. “Mage and Phoenix are coming over later.”

“I’ll be there.”

The trans-pod back up to One detours around a street too wrecked to traverse. It takes me up through Four, along the edge of the river. A crowd of people are gathered in an empty space, meaningless except that it’s where one of the bridges used to be. Maybe that’s next. There’s nothing stopping us anymore. In one of my more lucid moments of the past few weeks, Haven told me she wants to restore all the memory chips the way she did with my mother’s. We’ll take our entire past into whatever the future holds.

I tab Haven and ask her to bring the twins to the park. Schools
will be open again soon, and I want to spend as much time with them as I can. There are other people I should check on, see, speak to—Crave’s wife and daughter, Fable and his mother, Tango, J, Imp and all the others at the depot in Two—but I’ll do that tomorrow.

The park is warm, soft, and veiled in a haze of mist. It’s almost summer, but the clearest sign that winter has ended is on the faces of people who pass by me on the path. The cherry blossoms are gone. I look only for one hint of pink and spot her walking toward me; the twins are on one side of her and a guitar case is in her hand—the one I took from the studio ages ago and wrote songs with in darkness and silence.

“Ant! Haven says you’ll play music for us,” Omega says. “Will it sound like the music before that the teeth-lady let us listen to? I want more of that.” Beside him, Alpha nods emphatically.

“Um. Kind of,” I say through a dry throat. “It will if you let it. You have to use your imaginations, though.”

“Okay!” they chime. Music—real music—runs down the curve of my mother’s violin bow and along my guitar strings and maybe, maybe, into their veins.

“Give me a minute to talk to Haven, then I’ll show you,” I promise. They run off, chasing each other around trees.

“You know you want to,” she says, tilting her head at the case I’ve put down on the grass. I take out my tablet, and she stops me. “Remember what I said about treating me like I’m too fragile? Don’t hide this from me.”

She knows me too well. You have to tell me something first._

Her eyes close, shutting out the only green I was looking at in this blooming, living park. I put the tablet into her outstretched hand and, after a moment, she taps at its screen with her nails. Because
I thought you wouldn’t do it if you knew, and it had to be done. It’s not about how I felt about them._

Did you love them?_

She considers this. They were my parents. It was different when I was a little kid, then they took their positions and became people I didn’t know. I could blame it all on the memories they inherited, but it wasn’t just that. They knew what they were getting into. They wanted it._

Which one were you supposed to inherit?_

Does it matter?_ She shakes her head. They used to argue about that. Probably my mother, but in the end I was just a means of ensuring the future they saw. They didn’t know . . . me._

There’s more I could ask, more I could say. Instead I lean over and kiss her, because everything else has changed, but we haven’t.

My guitar is calling.
Play me
. It’s been so long, and this will be worth whatever pain I suffer in my hand later.

I call the twins over from where they’re hiding—not very well—behind a bush. The guitar is warm, heavy in my lap, the color of liquid honey in the sunshine. Alpha and Omega kneel, excited, a few feet away. A hand slips between it and my stomach. I look at Haven and realize what she wants. The vibrations will translate to melody in her head, and she’ll be able to watch the sound implants on her arms ripple and glow.

We’ve lost so much. We might lose more. But for now I can sit here, under the trees and sky, and pull music from the strings. My fingers find the frets easily, effortlessly, and each plucked note is
light, breezy—a single leaf on one of the nearby trees. With my voice it begins to grow and stretches up to the sun. I run out of songs I want to play and keep going, making up anything that sounds like the sunshine, the warmth of the day, the quiet knowledge of freedom.

No one stops me.

Thanks to my family, who I hope will understand that my gratitude for their love and support is too personal and extensive to fully describe here without taking up all the space I have. For now, just . . . thank you. You are everything and I love you all.

To the White Blank Page girls, Angela, Anna, Bec, Melissa, and Tonya—you’re among the finest writers and women I know. Thanks for always making me feel like I could do it, and for getting that all words are musical. Several others read this book in its early stages and offered their thoughts: Caren, Jennifer, Leiah, Paula, and Shireen. It wouldn’t be what it is without any of you, and neither would I.

Help on some aspects was provided by Adam McHeffey of the excellent band Swear & Shake, who was generous in offering his input to a non-musician. Also thanks to my team of acoustics experts.

I couldn’t have written this book without feeling the way I do about music. I put on my headphones before I get out of bed in the morning. Way more bands than I can list inspire me every day, but without Animal Collective, The Antlers, Bright Eyes, The Cure, David Bowie, Placebo, The Sisters of Mercy, and Wolfsheim,
Coda
would still be an unfulfilled idea. Their songs kept me going during 3 a.m. writing sessions and were a constant reminder of why I attempted this insane thing in the first place.

For much needed encouragement during the hardest part, my thanks to John, Vicki, Helena, and Suzanne.

I owe more than I can express to Meredith Barnes, an agent who became my friend, and to Brooks Sherman, a friend who became my agent. Meredith’s passion and guidance kept me sane during submission and sale, and Brooks took up the agent baton with speed and
grace. Thanks for the hugs—both virtual and real—the laughs, the belief in Anthem and in me. You guys are amazing and I’m honored to know you and have you in my corner. Thanks go as well to everyone at Lowenstein Associates and at FinePrint Literary Management.

Finally, thank you to my wonderful editor, Lisa Cheng, for seeing what this story was and could be. Her enthusiasm and understanding have made working with her an amazing experience. (So did the time she force-fed me cheesecake.) She and the team at Running Press Teens turned a manuscript into a real book and have been kind, generous, insightful, and funny along the way.