The Variables (32 page)

Gordy shook his head. “No. He did
all of this
for him.”

“But because of her?”

“No,” Gordy said softly. “When you are consumed by grief, if you’re not doing something,
anything
to try to move forward, then you’ve let the grief win. This was not just for Kymberlin, my sister. It was for the world...a world that needed to heal. You are young, so I cannot expect you to see the depths of our destruction.”

“This place won’t fix humanity,” Lucy said. “Didn’t your Systems already show that?”

“You’re wrong,” he said. He tapped a single finger on the glass display. “People here will be happy. And you will, too, if you give it time. I understand adolescent discontent, Lucy, trust me. But everything about the Islands is scientific and adjusted perfectly to the people who inhabit them. You will want for nothing, yet you will learn the value of hard work and perseverance.” He rubbed his fingers along his thin beard. “I still owe you a dress, I see.”

“I’m fine,” she answered.

“We
want
you to be happy here. Part of the reason my father was so concerned about the variables, as he calls them, was because he knew that once you saw
how
this new world was built, it would be hard to understand
why
.”

“I’m old-fashioned, I guess,” she answered him. “Murder is wrong.”

“We agree.”
 

Lucy paused. She turned her head and looked at Gordy as he patiently watched her. Raising an eyebrow, she picked up her bag near the front and started to leave the room. “Thanks for the chat,” she said as she made her way to the exit.

“Don’t be stupid, Miss King,” Gordy continued, using her surname to gain her attention. “Look at this room, read these stories. Murder. Injustice. Mayhem. Governments purposefully starving their citizens. Corruption.”

She turned and looked at him, and she blinked, and then she took a step outside into the hallway. She wanted him to feel every ounce of her freedom to walk away.

“Of course, we cannot ever protect you against the travesty of a broken heart,” he called to her. And Lucy stopped in her tracks. When she realized Gordy was approaching her, his arm outstretched, she froze. Her limbs dangled at her sides as her purse fell from her shoulder.

“What are you talking about?” Lucy asked.

He took her hand, pried open her palm, and placed a small slip of paper inside. Then he closed her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Just a guess,” he replied. “I lack Cass Salvant’s ability to predict the future. But I have other means at my disposal.” And he left her in the doorway of the Remembering Room as he walked back down the hall, pushing the button to the glass elevator and walking on board without giving her the satisfaction of looking back. When he was safely out of sight, Lucy opened her palm and stared at the piece of paper Gordy had left there.

I love you
it read in Grant’s distinct handwriting. The jagged edges around the paper were torn and missing.

She let out a small gasp of surprise and let the paper float to the floor. Then she marched back down the hallway, out of the hall of memories, away from the room of remembering, and back out of the lower level. Though it wouldn’t matter where she went. She was being watched. Forever.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ray and Jillian pulled over to the side of the road. A dirt-smeared sign greeted them with the message:
Welcome to Brixton. Population 26.

“This the place?” Ray asked through the back window into the bed of the pickup truck where Dean, Darla, and Ainsley had sat for the bulk of the sixteen-hour drive. They had stopped a few times along the way, once to drop off Liam and the girls and meet the other survivors in Montana. The Montana community welcomed their trio without fear or apprehension. They pooled together their limited resources to treat Darla’s hand and feed them well before they journeyed onward. Those who had discovered the commune felt blessed and safe.

The whole time they were there, Darla regained some of her dashed hopefulness. Perhaps not everyone’s spirit was broken. Some goodness did survive.

Like they promised, Ray and Jillian agreed to make the trip to Nebraska without payment. Whether propelled by kindness or some other motivation, Darla didn’t know, but they did it without complaint.

They didn’t have to.

Along the way, Darla, Dean, and Ainsley could have acquired a new vehicle and ventured out on their own. But they couldn’t deny that it was comforting to have a chauffeur. Ray and Jillian switched off driving while the trio slept and relaxed in the back. Though their time together was brief, it provided a needed respite.
 

Darla looked at the Brixton sign and nodded.

Brixton, Nebraska. It didn’t seem like anything was here, but she wanted to reserve her fear until she knew for sure.

“You want us to take you further in?” Jillian asked.

“No, ma’am,” Dean answered. “We got it from here.”

Ray stuck his hand through the window and Darla grabbed on tight, shaking it with a strong grip. “We wish you luck and hope you find your son,” he said. He waited, paused. She had given him bits and pieces of their story, but she hadn’t told them that Ethan’s father was connected to the bioterrorism group or that the guards who stole her child were anything more than the Sweepers they had come to fear. It was a small white lie, but it felt right—the duo didn’t want to drive them into the lion’s den, but they did anyway. They deserved some tidbit to take back to their group.

Darla knew their generosity was a sacrifice she could never repay.

“Thank you,” she answered. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough...”

Ray let go of her hand and batted the comment away. “We’re good here. And you know where we are...if you need a place to go, our doors are open.”

“That means a lot,” Darla said as she sat on the edge of the truck and then hopped down to the dusty ground below. She extended her left hand to Ainsley and helped her down; Dean followed after. “Once I have Teddy, I don’t know where we’ll go. Maybe you’ll see us soon?”

“We’d like that,” Jillian said. “You’re good people.”

Darla looked at the ground and kicked the dust. She looked up and squinted. “Sometimes,” she replied and smiled. “Drive safe?”

Ray nodded and saluted, and without any prolonged heart-warming goodbyes, the truck did a u-turn and disappeared back down the dusty road, kicking up a film of dirt around them, the truck’s tires crunching along until it was out of sight.

From the sign, they walked in silence. Darla had her gun and nothing else. She held it in her wounded hand, keeping her finger poised on the trigger in anticipation of spotting someone worthy of shooting at any second. It was nearly half a mile of walking before they even reached a building.

Darla was the first one to spot the car with Wyoming plates sitting at the start of Main Street. Its passenger side door was wide open, and she jogged over to inspect it. The interior was littered with wrappers and empty water bottles. In the back seat there was a small bag—Darla hoisted it into the passenger side and unzipped it; she tossed out a few pieces of clothing, but there was nothing identifiable in either the car or the bag. Darla crawled back out with her hands on her hips, assessing the town with one long sweep.

Dean paused in front of a bar called Carson’s Place.

“Whatcha got?” he called to Darla.

“Nothing,” Darla shouted back.

“And we’re sure this is the place?” Ainsley asked. A heavy wind rushed down the street, throwing dust into miniature cyclones.

“This is the place,” Darla said with authority. “These were the coordinates. This is the city. Ethan and I talked about it all the time—” she trailed off, remembering that Teddy was not the only thing they had lost that day. Ainsley looked at the ground and dug her toe into the dirt road, and then she looked up into the sky. It was a deliberate sort of quiet that blanketed the street.

“This is hardly the type of place that is housing some sort of vast terrorist cell,” Ainsley muttered. “We’re missing something.” She peered through the darkened windows of the bar, wandered down the street, and kicked small tumbleweeds underfoot as she walked. Stopping, she paused and spun around. “Where’d Dean go?” she asked, scanning each area, rotating her head back and forth and looking perplexed.

Darla stopped and looked around. “Dean!” she called. “Dean!” she called louder when he didn’t reply to their shouts.

Ainsley started walking out of the main area, past the church and the school. The rolling Sand Hills of Nebraska spread out all around them. Behind the church, there was a small knoll, and atop it, she could see Dean’s figure standing, looking out and beyond at something out of sight.

“Up there!” Ainsley called back to Darla and she took off toward Dean, who remained unmoving on the hill. As she approached from behind, she laughed. “You disappear for like one minute and I think we all think you’ve been abducted or shot,” she said.

“I had to take a leak,” Dean replied without turning.

“Oh.” Ainsley froze mid-step. She turned. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Dean said. “I’m done. No...come here. You should see this.”

She turned around and could see Darla following her route up the small hill, past an American Sycamore tree with branches full of richly green leaves. Following Dean’s command, Ainsley perched herself beside Dean and looked down into a valley below. She gasped, bringing her hand up over her mouth. Silently, Ainsley turned to him, her eyes wide, and Dean smiled.

Darla approached and slid up next to Ainsley; she put her hand above her eyes to shield the sun and peered outward. She whistled loud and low.

Stretched beneath them were rows upon rows of solar panels, like little metal worshippers all lifting their bodies up to their sun god. And sitting off to the side, angled against the hills so the flat plains were in front of it, was a medium-sized passenger airplane sitting on a short black tar runway. A staircase was pushed up to its side and the cabin door was open. The three of them looked at the plane and the panels and then at each other.

“Well,” Darla said with an authoritative nod. “That settles that. We found the right place.”

It was Ainsley who spotted it first. As they wound their way down to inspect the plane, they found Ainsley peering through a thick pane of glass imbedded in the ground. She tapped on the glass with her foot, and then jumped up and down to test its strength. She turned to the group and called them to her.

Darla laid herself across the skylight and cupped her hands to see, and Ainsley crouched down beside her on her haunches. They half expected someone to peer back up at them, but the space below was unoccupied and still.

“A kitchenette. And some chairs. Books.” Darla sat up. “It’s like a little apartment.”

“They’re underground,” Ainsley said. “Like Hobbits.”

“Don’t Hobbits live in trees?” Dean asked.

Ainsley just stared at him and blinked.

“There must be a door somewhere. Come on,” Darla said and she went off wandering back toward the town, staring at the ground as she went, leaving everyone else in her wake. Ainsley jogged to catch up: pumping her arms and letting her curly hair fly.

“Wait!” shouted Dean. “What about the plane?”

“I don’t care about the plane,” Darla called back without turning. “I want to find the people who are getting on that plane.” She held her gun out from her body and scanned the buildings and kept a watchful eye on every darkened corner and behind every tree.

“What are we looking for?” he called to Darla. She rolled her eyes at him in annoyance.

“Just look for
anything
,” she shouted back.

“Anything is a tall order!” he called back. But he listened to her and began to wander and inspect the ground beneath them and every tree as though it held the secret entrance to the terrorists’ underground lair.

“Darla?” Dean called after a few minutes.

She turned.

Dean sighed, dropped his arms, and sped up to her. “This doesn’t feel right. And it doesn’t feel safe,” he said in a whisper.

“No, it’s not safe. They’re here. We found them. And we have the element of surprise. This town? It is deserted. The people we want are down below.”

“How do we even know that?” Dean asked. A look of concern crossed over his face and he put his hand out and touched Darla lightly on her forearm. “We have one gun. And we know they are armed...”

She hadn’t wanted him to bring the truth to her hunt. She felt the energy drain out of her like she was a slowly deflating balloon. Darla lifted her head to the sky and tapped her gun against her leg. “We can sit back and we can wait for someone to show themselves...which could be minutes, hours, days. Or we can
do
something. I just spent time trapped in someone’s basement without the ability to save my boy. That wasn’t me, Dean. That was a shadow of me. I’m here now…I’m where I need to be…I’m where Teddy is. Don’t tell me I can’t do anything about it.”

He pointed back over the hill to where the plane was hidden. “That plane is wide open. We won’t wait days. And—” he hesitated, “it’s not just Teddy we’re looking for. Can’t you see that? Please, Darla, I’m really asking you: can you see?” He stepped into her line of vision and forced her to look at him. Darla’s chin quivered and she blinked.

“I can’t wait,” Darla said. “But you don’t have to come with me.”
 

“You’re no good to Teddy dead, Darla.”

“I’m no good to him up here, either. My son is down below and that’s where I’m going.”

From behind them, they heard the sound of feet rushing toward them. Ainsley had popped her head into a church on the hill and now she rushed out, and carried herself straight up to Dean and Darla. She paused and took in deep gulps of air.

“Bones,” she said, out of breath. “They’ve been dead a long time...way before the virus. Completely deteriorated.”

They all paused and took a collective breath and let that information sink in.

“I’m thinking there has to be a hidden staircase in a building. Easier to hide. Come on, let’s check each place together, no more splitting up.” Darla readied her gun and marched forward. “One end to the other. Come on, troops.”