Isle of Man (The Park Service Trilogy #2) (6 page)

Up and out of the biohazard room again, I slip the hard drive in my pocket and clutch the lesson slate to my chest as we walk-jog our way across the sewage pools, retracing our steps. My panic doesn’t subside until we’re back in the freight elevator moving up, safely on our way to the transfer station and the waiting train. Hannah squeezes my hand and shoots me a sexy smile on the sly. Sometimes she can be very cute.

We stand hand in hand and take in the gas this time like pros. Then the elevator opens, and we step off and hurry in a single file line across the loading platform toward the train. The hydraulic hiss of another opening elevator door catches my ear, but before I can turn my head to look, something slams into me and knocks me to the ground.

I scramble to my feet and spin around.

“Red?”

“Aubrey?”

Standing before me with a look of panic on his face is Red, my old childhood nemesis from Level 3. He’s shorter than I remember him, his boyish freckles faded and a new patch of red, wispy whiskers on his chin. But otherwise, his enormous head covered with thick, red hair remains unchanged. He looks me up and down.

“You look different,” he says.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I was fixing to ask you the same thing.”

“I asked it first.”

He looks down and kicks at the ground.

“I was going to see my girl.”

“On Level 3?”

“Yeah.”

“But I thought you were moved down to 5.”

He holds up a lanyard with a dangling keycard similar to the professor’s.

“I’m apprenticing in freight.”

I laugh.

“Still sneaking around during rest hours, eh? Good to see some things haven’t changed.”

The professor grabs my arm.

“We need to keep moving.”

Red looks at the professor, a confused expression falling over his face.

“Hey, wait a minute. You’re a senior, aren’t you? A real, live senior. If you’re only thirty-five, I’ll eat my head.”

“No small task,” the professor grumbles, sizing up Red’s big head with an irritated glare. “Let’s go, Aubrey.”

“Are you all older up there?” Red asks. “And what are you doing down here?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, taking a step away. “And don’t tell anyone you saw us here, either.”

Turning away, I follow the professor toward the train.

We both stop when I hear Red scream.

I turn back and see Hannah leading Red along behind us, pulling him by his ear. They pass us by, Red flailing his arms and crying.

Hannah says: “No way is he staying behind.”

Before I can protest, we’re all on board the train and the door is closed and locked. Red slumps down in a seat and rubs his ear, already bright red and swelling. Hannah storms to the back of the car and sits with her arms crossed. The professor looks at me and shakes his heads, leaving me to sit down and explain things to Red. No easy task for sure.

By the time we approach the Foundation, nearly five hours later, I’ve somehow managed to confuse Red more than I’ve managed to enlighten him.

“So ... ,” he scratches his head, “Eden wasn’t really Eden, but now it’s been destroyed by a flood anyway? And this guy’s how old again?”

“Don’t get hung up on the details,” I say, not wanting to go over it for the thirteenth time. “Just know you’re taking part in something big up here now. Okay? Something that you’ll be remembered for forever.”

“You mean freeing the people?”

“Yes, freeing the people.”

“And what about these drones again?”

The train glides to a stop, and Hannah struts to the door and yanks it opens. We follow her onto the Foundation cavern platform.

Red looks around.

“So where are we now?”

When Hannah shoots an annoyed look our way, the professor says: “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you let me show Red here around the Foundation, explain some things to the lad. Might be nice to dust off my old teaching skills, you know. That way you two can go get some rest.”

“What about the mastercode?” I ask, holding up the hard disk. “Don’t we need to load it?”

“I’ll start a system backup,” the professor says, taking it from my hand. “But that will take hours. I’ll come and get you when things are ready to be rebooted.” Then he nods to the lesson slate in my other hand. “Would you like me to give that a charge while I’m at it?”

“Please. Thanks. I miss reading a lot. And I am pretty beat. I think I will go get some rest.”

“I’m not tired,” Hannah says. “I’m going to go see what’s salvageable in the lab.”

Hannah takes off toward her lab, the professor leads Red away, and I head for the welcome relief of a submarine bunk.

I descend the ladder and make my way to the bunkroom, navigating by memory and not bothering to turn on any lights. I crawl halfway into my narrow bunk and freeze. Someone’s in my bed! I have one leg on the mattress, and one leg still on the ground, and all I can hear is my heart pounding in my chest. Then something warm and bristly rubs against my ankle. Still not daring to move, I squint until my eyes adjust to the low light, and I notice Junior lying on the floor by my feet.

Hope leaps into my heart.

I turn and look at Jimmy’s shadow next to me, his sleeping face fading into view. He looks peaceful and calm, not a care in the world visible on his features. I’m reminded of those fearful days hidden away in that cave, nursing him back to health, hoping the homemade antibiotics would help. I remember the same innocence on his sleeping face then. And I remember the horrors of what happened in that cove flooding back into his eyes the moment he was awake. As much as I want to, I can’t bring myself to wake him now. Instead, I do something that surprises me. I lean down and kiss his forehead.

Then I ease myself off the bunk, climb onto the empty one above, close my eyes, and fall fast asleep.

CHAPTER 5
Where Man Rises from the Sea

The professor’s voice echoing down the hatch wakes me.

I lean over and look down on the bunk below, but Jimmy and Junior are gone.

“Aubrey!” the professor calls again.

“Coming!”

I jump from the bunk and rinse my face with cold water in the tiny submarine sink and run my wet fingers through my hair. A faceless outline of my head is dimly reflected in the small mirror. I wish I knew who I was supposed to be.

The professor lends me a hand out onto the deck of the submarine and presents me my lesson slate.

“Does it work?”

“Quite well,” he says. “And it’s loaded with our entire library now, even the books that were banned in Holocene II.”

“That’s great! I was sad to see Radcliffe’s library washed away in that wave. There was so much I wanted to read.”

The professor smiles approvingly.

“We do have a problem, however. Come with me.”

“Where’s Jimmy?”

“Oh, no,” he says, “Jimmy’s fine. He’s in the supply room trying to find something for that fox of his to eat. We have a problem with the mastercode.”

“What is it?”

“Come. I’ll show you.”

Following the professor toward the command center, I look around at the Foundation, wondering what the problem could be. It’s remarkable how little evidence there is of the flood. You’d never know how many people drowned here if you didn’t have to dredge them up and dispose of them like Jimmy and I did. I remember Dr. Radcliffe leading Hannah and me down here for the first time, taking us through the sintering plant on our way to the hanger to board that drone and tour the park. I remember seeing Eden and having doubts about its promises, but I pushed the doubts away. Never again. From now on, I trust my instincts.

We enter the command center and find Hannah and Red watching random lines of code scroll across the wall of black screens. Red’s head bobbles up and down as he tries to follow individual lines of code, moving far too fast to read even if they weren’t gibberish. Hannah has her balled fists on opposing hips and a frustrated look in her eyes. The professor waves at the passing characters as if presenting the problem.

I shrug.

“What does it mean?”

“It means,” the professor sighs, “the code is encrypted.”

“Encrypted?”

“Impossibly so,” he says.

“There’s no way to unlock it?” I ask.

“Not unless you have the key.”

“Well, where’s the key?”

He tosses up his hands.

“Probably at the bottom of the lake trapped inside Radcliffe’s thick skull.”

Hannah shoots the professor an angry look.

“There must be some way to crack it,” she says.

“We were using 14 rounds of 256-bit keys when this was designed,” the professor frowns. “I’m afraid there’s no way to decrypt it with brute force.”

Red shakes his head.

“I should’ve studied more in school.”

I step closer and watch the code roll down the screens—lines of random letters and symbols marching like armies across two-dimensional space. Could we possibly be doomed to die down here because of a missing key? A simple string of thought buried with Dr. Radcliffe and never to be exhumed?

“There is this,” the professor says, stepping past me and tapping a command into the keyboard.

The code disappears in a flash, replaced by a static page of header text that reads:

THE HUMAN EXTINCTION PROJECT
ENCRYPTION KEY _________________
“WHERE MAN RISES FROM THE SEA, IN THE RIGHT HAND OF DAVID YOU SHALL FIND YOUR KEY”

I read the strange clue aloud: “Where man rises from the sea, in the right hand of David you shall find your key.”

“I’m not sure of its meaning,” the professor says. “It appears to be some kind of clue to finding the encryption key.”

Hannah casts a distrustful glance at the professor.

“You must have some idea what it means,” she says. “You were here when my father wrote it.”

“I was indeed,” he replies. “But there were many more of us back in those days, and I truly was very low on the pole for this kind of thing.”

I turn to Hannah.

“What are we going to do?”

She shakes her head.

“I wish I knew.”

The professor taps the keyboard again, killing the screen. “Let me dig around a little and see what I can turn up,” he says. “Why don’t you all try and take your minds off of things? Play some games or something.”

“Games?” I ask.

“Well,” he says, “whatever it is you young people are into.”

“I like games,” Red says.

Hannah rolls her eyes.

“Of course you do.”

“Come on, Red,” I say, “I’ll introduce you to Jimmy.”

Hannah looks surprised.

“Jimmy’s back?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, I’ve been in the lab this whole time trying to make some sense of the mess there.”

“Well, let’s go welcome him back,” I suggest.

“You go ahead,” she says, waving Red and me toward the door. “I’m going to stay here for a bit and help the professor.”

We find Jimmy near the docks. He’s dragging a rabbit fur along the ground by a long string as Junior stalks after it. Every time Junior crouches to pounce, Jimmy jerks the string and pulls the rabbit from his reach. As we approach, Jimmy stops teasing the poor pup and lets him seize the rabbit in his mouth. Junior shakes the fur from side to side and algaecrisps spill out from inside. Excited, he laps them up and chews them with an audible crunching.

“Teachin’ him to eat this awful food ya’ll got down here ain’t an easy thin’,” Jimmy says.

I smile.

“You get used to it.”

“I sure as shit hope I never do,” he says. “Who’s this?”

Red sticks out his hand.

“They call me Red.”

“I can see why,” Jimmy says, pumping his hand. “Where’d ya come from?”

“Level 5.”

“Huh?”

“He’s from down below,” I say, jumping in. “Holocene II. We grew up together.”

“Oh,” Jimmy looks him up and down. “You’s the bully.”

Red drops his head.

“I said I was sorry.”

“Well that’s more’n most folks ever do,” Jimmy replies, patting him on the back. “Welcome to our little club then.”

“Thanks,” Red says.

“Speakin’ of apologies, Aubrey,” Jimmy continues, “I owe you one my own self.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do,” he says. “I acted like a spoilt kid. And you was right, I was wrong. It wouldn’t be right bringin’ them people up jus’ to be slaughtered out there.”

For all Red’s apparent ignorance, he has the good sense to see what should be a private moment, and he says: “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go play with the dog.”

Jimmy nods, handing him the string.

“He’s a fox. His name’s Junior.”

Red lumbers away, dragging the rabbit fur, and Junior tears off after him, yipping and swatting at it as they go.

“Junior’s getting big,” I say, wanting to lighten the mood. “Remember when you wanted to eat him?”

Jimmy smiles.

“He might be my fox now, but he missed you, too. Kept lookin’ back and whimperin’ the whole time we was gone up there.”

“Are you saying you missed me?” I ask.

Jimmy dips his chin, then looks back up into my eyes.

He says: “I got as far as our river. You know, where you’s almost drown. Anyway, we made camp at dusk, and no sooner had I lit a fire when that whole river got dark with a passin’ shadow. I looked up and could’ve damn near spit and hit the underside of a drone. I swear it was brushin’ the treetops. Evil lookin’, I tell ya. And I ain’t too proud to say I’s scared. I’s scared as I ever been. And the first thin’ I thought, before I even thought about dyin’, was I thought how much I wished you was there.”

Now my eyes well up.

“I had the same feeling here,” I say, my voice cracking a little. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“You forgive me?” he asks.

“I couldn’t ever not forgive you,” I say.

Jimmy laughs.

“I think you jus’ said you’d forgive me, but I ain’t quite sure about it the way it come out.”

We both laugh, then an uncomfortable silence follows—nothing more to say. We stand there looking after Red, as he kneels on the ground, trying to wrestle the rabbit fur from Junior’s mouth.

After a minute or so, Jimmy says: “We’d better get on and catch up ’fore ol’ Junior there decides he likes the taste of Red better’n those awful algaecrisps.”

The next two days pass in a blur of boredom.

The professor spends most of his time locked away in the command center, messing with the computers. Whenever he does come out to use the restroom or get some food, we can hear a string of muffled profanities echoing across the cavern as he moves. Red proves very useful busying himself with loading the supplies into the storeroom, even though he does eat almost as much as he manages to organize. Jimmy and Hannah seem to get on fine, both treating the other with a polite distance at meal times, but I feel as though something has come between Hannah and myself. Deciding the submarine was too cramped, she moved into a sleeping room next to the professor’s, which is still just too creepy for me, since we found dead people in there, and she spends most of her awake time working alone in the lab.

Today, I find the lab door locked as usual, and I knock for three minutes.

“What’s up?” she says, finally opening the door, but not inviting me in.

“Nothing. I just wanted to talk.”

“I’m kind of busy right now. Can we talk later?”

“Actually, I thought maybe we could get away for a bit.”

“Get away? Where?”

“Come on,” I say, my tone bordering on pleading. “Just say yes. It won’t take long.”

She takes a deep breath then lets it out in a sigh.

“Okay, but I need a few minutes to wrap up here.”

“Cool. Just meet me at the dock.”

Her few minutes turns into more than half an hour, and I have everything ready and am waiting long before she arrives at the dock. She sees the boat and stops.

“Where are we going?”

“Just out for a little picnic.”

“A picnic? Up top?”

“Yes, up top. I need a little break from all this gray down here. And I’m sure you could use one, too.”

Hannah hesitates, looking across the bay at the tunnel leading to the locks.

“Fine,” she says. “But only if you promise we won’t be gone long.”

We don’t say much until we’re out above, cruising on the lake. Most of the snow has melted away, replaced with a winter frost that catches the setting sun and sparkles like pink and gold ornaments on the trees that line the shores. The lake is calm, almost like an inverted second sky over which we fly, breaking the clouds into ripples and sending them rolling in our wake. Both our moods begin to lift, and Hannah remarks about how beautiful everything is.

I purposely take us away from the lake house site, toward the eastern shore where I run the boat up on a bank far enough for us to step out onto dry ground. It’s cold, but invigorating. I lay out one of the foil emergency blankets and gesture for Hannah to sit down. Then I wrap another blanket around her shoulders and ask her to wait while I run for wood.

“I’ll help,” she says.

“No. Stay here. I’ll be fast.”

The wave’s line of destruction is littered with limbs left behind, and although covered in a light frost, they seem to be mostly dry. When I get them arranged in front of our blanket, I realize that I forgot to ask Jimmy for his strike-a-light. But then I remember the flares, and I grab one from the boat and use it to light the fire.

I offer Hannah a meal bar, but she laughs and waves it away. She seems much more interested in the bottle of algae ethanol I smuggled from the storeroom. I get the top off and hand the bottle to Hannah.

“What’s this?” she asks. “No glass?”

I recall our first dinner together, outside the lake house, beneath the mosquito net, and I remember the bottle of port and the fine crystal glasses. I feel suddenly unsophisticated. Hannah must see the shame on my face, because she laughs and passes me back the bottle and says:

“I’m only kidding. It’s fine. But you first.”

I tilt the bottle to my lips and take a long pull. It burns my throat and makes me feel instantly sick. Too embarrassed to show it, I control my expression until most of the pain passes. Hannah takes a swig next, and her head jerks to the side and she spews the ethanol out onto the sand. She thrusts the bottle at me.

“Ugh! That’s terrible.”

Relieved, I recap it and stow it away in my bag.

Hannah opens her blanket and invites me to scoot next to her. We sit together and watch the last of the pink light fading behind the mountains where the sun has set.

“This was a good idea,” she says.

“Kind of cold, though.”

“Yeah, but still a good idea.”

A few minutes of silence pass. A coyote calls somewhere. I take a deep breath and smell the cold, pine air.

“Hannah?”

“Yeah.”

“You know how when we first met, we kind of fell for one another really fast?”

“Yes, I remember,” she says. “It wasn’t very long ago, although it feels like it was.”

“Well, that’s just it. Do you think ... well, never mind.”

“Do I think what, Aubrey?”

“Was it too fast? Us, I mean. I’m just saying, I guess ... well, I mean it seems like you don’t really like me like you did.”

Hannah sighs and leans into me.

“I still like you the same, Aubrey. I always will.”

“Well, what’s going on then?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says, her voice faraway. “It’s just been a lot. We’ve been through a lot. And, you know, you were the first boy I’d ever seen. The first person I’d ever seen, other than my parents, of course. And, well, it was kind of all set up for us. I mean by my dad ... ” Her voice fades away with her gaze, obviously thinking about her dad now.

“Do you miss him?”

“Maybe the idea of him,” she says. “But mostly I just miss my mom a lot.”

There doesn’t seem to be much else to say, so we sit and watch the light drain from the sky. A duck lands on the lake not far away, its feet skipping across the surface several times before it touches down and slides to a halt.