The Fever Code (3 page)

222.2.28
|
9:36 a.m.

“Please hold still.”

The doctor wasn't mean, but he wasn't kind either. He was just kind of there, stoic and professional. Also forgettable: middle-aged, average height, medium build, short dark hair. Thomas closed his eyes and felt the needle slide into his vein after that quick pinprick of pain. It was funny how he dreaded it every week, but then it lasted less than a second, followed by the flood of cold inside his body.

“See, now?” the doctor said. “That didn't hurt.”

Thomas shook his head but didn't speak. He had a hard time speaking ever since the incident with Randall. He had a hard time sleeping, eating, and just about everything else, too. Only in the last few days had he started to get over it, little by little. Whenever a trace memory of his real name came forward in his mind, he pushed it away, not ever wanting to go through that torture again.
Thomas
worked just fine. It'd have to do.

Blood, so dark it looked almost black, glided up the narrow tube from his arm and into the vial. He didn't know what they tested him for, but this was just one of many, many pokes and prods—some daily, some weekly.

The doctor stopped the flow and sealed off the vial. “All right, then, that does it for the blood work.” He pulled out the needle. “Now let's get you into the scanning machine and capture another look at that brain of yours.”

Thomas froze, anxiety trickling in, tightening his chest. The anxiety always came when they mentioned his brain.

“Now, now,” the doctor chided, noticing Thomas's body tense. “We do this every week. It's just routine—nothing to fret over. We need to capture regular images of your activity up there. Okay?”

Thomas nodded, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. He wanted to cry. He sucked in a breath and fought the urge.

He stood and followed the doctor to another room, where a massive machine sat like a giant elephant, a tube-shaped chamber at its center, a flat bed extended, waiting for him to be slid inside.

“Up you go.”

This was the fourth or fifth time Thomas had done this, and there was no point fighting it. He jumped up onto the bed and lay flat on his back, staring up at the bright lights on the ceiling.

“Remember,” the doctor said, “don't worry about those knocking sounds. It's all normal. All part of the game.”

There was a click and then a groan of machinery, and Thomas's bed glided into the yawning tube.

Thomas sat at a desk, all by himself. In front of him, standing by a writing board, was his teacher, Mr. Glanville—a gruff, gray-toned man with barely any hair. Unless you counted his eyebrows. Those bushy things looked like they'd commandeered every follicle from the rest of his body. It was the second hour after lunch now, and Thomas would've given at least three of his toes to lie down, right there on the floor, and take a nap. Just a five-minute nap.

“Do you remember what we talked about yesterday?” Mr. Glanville asked him.

Thomas nodded. “FIRE.”

“Yes, that's right. And what does it stand for?”

“Flares Information Recovery Endeavor.”

His teacher smiled with obvious satisfaction. “Very good. Now.” He turned back to his board and wrote the letters
PFC.
“P…F…C. That stands for Post Flares Coalition, which was a direct result of FIRE. Once they'd heard from as many countries as possible, gathered representatives and so forth, they could start dealing with the spectacular disaster caused by the sun flares. While FIRE figured out the full ramifications of the sun flares and who had been affected, the PFC tried to start fixing things. Am I
boring
you, son?”

Thomas jerked upright, completely unaware that his head had dipped. He might've even nodded off for a moment.

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry. FIRE, PFC, got it.”

“Look, son,” Mr. Glanville said. He took a few steps, closing the distance between them. “I'm sure you find your other subjects more interesting. Science, math, physical fitness.” He leaned down to look directly into Thomas's eyes. “But you need to understand your history. What got us here, why we're in this mess. You'll never figure out where you're going until you understand from where you came.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said meekly.

Mr. Glanville straightened, glaring down his nose. Searching Thomas's face for any sign of sarcasm. “All right, then. Know your past. Back to the PFC. There's a lot to discuss.”

As his teacher returned to the front of the room, Thomas pinched himself as hard as he could, hoping that would keep him awake.

“Do you need me to go over it again?”

Thomas looked up at Ms. Denton. She had dark hair and dark skin, and she was beautiful. Kind eyes. Smart eyes. She was probably the smartest person Thomas had met so far, as made evident by the puzzles she constantly challenged him with in his critical thinking class.

“I think I've got it,” he said.

“Then repeat it back to me. Remember—”

He cut her off, quoting back what she'd said a thousand times. “ ‘One must know the problem better than the solution, or the solution becomes the problem.' ” He was pretty sure it meant absolutely nothing.

“Very good!” she said with mockingly exaggerated praise, as if shocked that he'd memorized her words. “Then go ahead and repeat the problem. Visualize it in your mind.”

“There's a man in a train station who's lost his ticket. One hundred and twenty-six people stand on the platform with him. There are nine separate tracks, five going south, four going north. Over the next forty-five minutes, twenty-four trains will arrive and depart. Another eighty-five people will enter the station during that time. At least seven people board each train when it arrives, and never more than twenty-two. Also, at least ten passengers disembark with each arrival, and never more than eighteen…”

This went on for another five minutes. Detail after detail. Memorizing the parameters was challenging enough—he couldn't believe she actually expected him to solve the stupid thing.

“…how many people are left standing on the platform?” he finished.

“Very good,” Ms. Denton said. “Third time's the charm, I guess. You got every detail right, which is the first step to finding any solution. Now, can you solve it?”

Thomas closed his eyes and worked through the numbers. In this class, everything was done in his head—no devices, no writing. It strained his mind like nothing else, and he actually loved it.

He opened his eyes. “Seventy-eight.”

“Wrong.”

He took a couple of minutes then tried again. “Eighty-one.”

“Wrong.” He flinched in disappointment.

It took another few tries, but he finally realized the answer might not be a number at all. “I don't know if the man who lost his ticket got on a train or not. Or if some of the others on the platform were traveling with him, and if so, how many.”

Ms. Denton smiled.

“Now we're getting somewhere.”

223.12.25
|
10:00 a.m.

In the two years since they'd stolen Thomas's name, he'd been busy. Classes and tests filled his days—math, science, chemistry, critical thinking, and more mental and physical challenges than he would have thought existed. He'd had teachers and been studied by scientists of all sorts, yet he hadn't seen Randall again or heard any mention of him, even once. Thomas wasn't sure what that meant. Had the man's job been completed, and then he'd been let go? Had he gotten sick—caught the Flare? Had he left the service of Thomas's caretakers, racked with guilt for doing such things to a boy hardly old enough to start school?

Thomas was just as happy to forget Randall forever, though he still couldn't help that spike of panic whenever a man in green scrubs turned a corner. Always, for just an instant, he thought it might be Randall again.

Two years. Two years of blood samples, physical diagnostics, and constant monitoring, class after class after class, and the puzzles. So many puzzles. But no real information.

Until now. He hoped.

Thomas woke up feeling good after an excellent night's sleep. Shortly after he'd dressed and eaten, a woman he'd never seen before interrupted his normal schedule. He was being summoned to “a very important meeting.” Thomas didn't bother asking for any details. He was already seven or so, old enough to not go along with everything grown-ups wanted him to do, but after two years of dealing with these people, he'd realized that he never got any answers. He'd realized also that there were other ways to learn things if he was patient and used his eyes and ears.

Thomas had lived at the facility for so long at this point that he'd almost forgotten what the outside world looked like. All he knew were white walls, the paintings he passed in the hallways, the various monitor screens flashing information in the labs, the fluorescent lights, the soft gray of his bedclothes, the white tile of his bedroom and bathroom. And in all that time, he'd only interacted with adults—he hadn't once, not even in a brief chance encounter, been able to speak with anyone approaching his own age.

He knew he wasn't the only kid there. Every once in a while, he caught a glimpse of the girl who bunked in the room next to his. Always only a mere second or two, eyes meeting just as his or her door closed. To him, the placard on that door had become synonymous with her name, Teresa. He desperately wanted to talk to her.

His life was one of immeasurable boredom, his scant free time filled with old vids and books. A lot of books. That was the one thing they allowed him to peruse freely. The huge collection to which they allowed him access was the lifeline that probably saved him from insanity. The last month or so he'd been on a Mario Di Sanza kick, relishing every page of the classics, all set within a world he hardly understood but loved to imagine.

“It's right here,” his guide said as they entered a small lobby, two male guards with weapons posted at the doors. The woman's tone made him think of a computer simulation. “Chancellor Anderson will be right with you.” She turned abruptly, and without meeting his eyes, she left him with the men.

Thomas took in his new companions. They both wore official-looking black uniforms over bulging armor, and their guns were huge. There was something different about them from the guards he'd grown used to. Across their chests, in capital letters, was the word
WICKED.
Thomas had never seen that before.

“What does that mean?” he asked, pointing to the word. But the only response he got was a quick wink and the barest trace of a smile, then a hard stare. Two hard stares. After so long interacting with only adults, Thomas had grown much braver, sometimes even bold in the things he said, but it was clear these two had no intention of conversing, so he sat down in the chair next to the door.

WICKED.
He pondered the word. It had to be…what? Why would someone, a guard, have such a word printed across his very official uniform? It had Thomas at a loss.

The sound of the door opening behind him cut off his train of thought. Thomas turned to see a middle-aged man, his dark hair turning to gray and storm cloud–colored bags underneath his tired brown eyes. Something about him made Thomas think he was younger than he looked, though.

“You must be Thomas,” the man said, trying but failing to sound cheerful. “I'm Kevin Anderson, chancellor of this fine institution.” He smiled, but his eyes stayed dark.

Thomas stood, feeling awkward. “Uh, nice to meet you.” He didn't know what else to say to the man. Though he'd mostly been treated well the last couple of years, visions of Randall haunted his mind, and there was the loneliness in his heart. He didn't really know what he was doing standing there, or why he was meeting this man now.

“Come on into my office,” the chancellor said. Stepping to one side, he swept an arm in front of him as if revealing a prize. “Take one of the seats in front of my desk. We have a lot to talk about.”

Thomas looked down and walked into the chancellor's office, a tiny part of him expecting the man to hurt him as he passed. He went straight for the closest chair and sat down before taking a quick look around. He sat in front of a large desk that looked like wood but most definitely wasn't, with a few frames scattered along its front edge, the pictures within them facing away from Thomas. He desperately wanted to see what parts of Mr. Anderson's life were flashing by in that instant. Besides a few gadgets and chairs and a workstation built into the desk, the room was pretty much empty.

The chancellor swooped into the room and took his seat on the other side of the desk. He touched a few things on the workstation's screen, seemed satisfied about something, then leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers under his chin. A long silence filled the room as the man studied Thomas, making him even more uncomfortable.

“Do you know what today is?” Chancellor Anderson finally asked.

Thomas had tried all morning not to think about it, which had only made the memories of the one good Christmas he'd known all the more crisp in his mind. It filled him with a sadness so sharp that every breath actually hurt like a spiky rock laid atop his chest.

“It's the beginning of holiday week,” Thomas answered, hoping he could hide just how sad that made him. For a split second, he thought he smelled pine, tasted spicy cider on the back of his tongue.

“That's right,” the chancellor said, folding his arms as if proud of the answer. “And today's the best of all, right? Religious or not, everyone celebrates Christmas in one way or another. And hey, let's face it, who's been religious the last ten years? Except the Apocalyptics, anyway.”

The man fell silent for a moment, staring into space. Thomas had no idea what point the guy was trying to make, other than to depress the poor kid sitting in front of him.

Anderson suddenly sprang to life again, leaning forward on his desk with hands folded in front of him. “Christmas, Thomas. Family. Food. Warmth. And presents! We can't forget the presents! What's the best gift you ever received on Christmas morning?”

Thomas had to look away, trying to shift his eyes in just the right way so no tears tumbled out and trickled down his cheek. He refused to answer such a mean question, whether it had been intended that way or not.

“One time,” Anderson continued, “when I was a little younger than you, I got a bike. Shiny and green. The lights from the tree sparkled in the new paint. Magic, Thomas. That's pure magic. Nothing like that can ever be duplicated for the rest of your life, especially when you get to be a crotchety old man like me.”

Thomas had recovered himself and looked at the chancellor, trying to throw as much fierceness into his gaze as possible. “My parents are probably dead. And yeah, I
did
get a bike, but I had to leave it when you took me. I'll never have another Christmas, thanks to the Flare. Why are we talking about this? Are you trying to rub it in?” The rush of angry words made him feel better.

Anderson's face had gone pale, any trace of happy Christmas memories wiped clean. He put his hands flat on the desk, and a shadow descended over his eyes.

“Exactly, Thomas,” he said. “That's
exactly
what I'm doing. So you'll understand just how important it is that we do whatever it takes to make WICKED a success. To find a cure for this sickness, no matter the cost. No matter…the cost.”

He sat back in his chair, swiveled a quarter turn, and stared at the wall.

“I want Christmas back.”