Under Their Skin (17 page)

FORTY-FIVE

We have to get into that cave when nobody's watching.

The words buzzed in Eryn's head so loudly she was afraid everyone could hear them; surely everyone could tell what she was thinking just by looking at her. But somehow only Nick seemed to understand. Their eyes met and he nodded.

“Come on away from there,” Dad shouted from above them on the hill.

Reluctantly, Eryn turned back.

Later,
she told herself.
We'll find a way.

It was a lot harder scrambling back up the hillside than it had been slipping and sliding and running down. By the time she and Nick reached the top again, everyone was turned toward Ava and Jackson.

“Look what we found!” Ava called.

She was trying to lift a large sign that seemed to have toppled from a rock base. This sign was made of some
sort of plastic or laminate, so it wasn't as weathered and hard to read as the metal ones.

Ava and Jackson got the sign up at an angle. Now Eryn could see that it said “Mammoth Cave National Park” in large letters and then, in smaller letters below, “A World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve.”

“This isn't a national park!” Nick exclaimed. “We'd know about it! Remember I did that national parks project in school last year? None of them are in Kentucky! None of them are called Mammoth Cave!”

“Maybe this used to be a national park,” Mom said. “Before. But then with the sinkholes and all, it wouldn't be safe for tourists to come here now.”

“I wonder how many other things have changed from before,” Jackson said.

Eryn glanced at him with new respect. That was something she'd been wondering herself, ever since she'd seen the video of Dr. Grimaldi and Dr. Speck. She remembered how Dr. Speck had put it: “Of course, we're still very human. We couldn't resist some tinkering. When we saw the opportunity to make improvements, we did try that.”

Dr. Grimaldi, Dr. Speck, and the others who worked
with them had changed more than just the things that might lead to another extinction.

But shutting down an entire national park?
Eryn thought.
That seems suspicious.

Wasn't that proof—or almost proof—that this was meant to be a top-secret place, a place where secrets were hidden?

Eryn worked to keep her face smooth, hiding her suspicions.

Nick sat down on the pile of tumbled-down rocks that had probably once held the Mammoth Cave sign.

“I'm so tired,” he said. He looked beseechingly at the grown-ups. “Please tell me the reason your backpacks are bigger than ours is that you've got tents and sleeping bags and stuff like that for camping out here overnight. It's going to be dark soon. I don't think I could hike all the way back to the van right now.”

Okay, not a bad strategy, Nick,
Eryn thought.
We have to convince the grown-ups we have to stay here longer, and overnight is a great idea. But are you maybe
being a little too obvious?

Maybe not. Michael gave the ghost of a grin, and started unzipping his backpack. He started pulling out pieces that clicked together and made . . .

An ax?
Eryn wondered.

“We don't exactly have tents and sleeping bags,” Michael said. “But we're going to test our mountaineering skills. We can stay in the woods tonight, but it will be more pioneer style. Roughing it. I think we have just enough light left for putting together a rough lean-to. Who wants to help?”

No one answered that question. Ava's eyes grew wide.

“But . . . but . . . I thought we'd be in a hotel,” she said. She turned toward Brenda. “You said this would be like an ordinary family vacation, just with more people.”

Eryn had had it with that “family vacation” pretense.

“I think what your parents—and mine—didn't tell us was that they mostly want to lay low for a while,” she said. She narrowed her eyes at Michael. “Right? Because of the attention on Nick and me, you're more afraid than ever that someone's going to find out the truth about Ava and Jackson. Aren't you?”

“Well, um . . . ,” Michael said, darting his eyes toward Ava and Jackson.

“Dad?” Ava said, her voice high and panicky. “Mom?”

Brenda put her arm around Ava's shoulder.

“This will just be a wonderful adventure out in
nature,” Brenda said soothingly. “Surrounded by people you love. And by people who love you.”

You don't go camp out in the woods in the middle of winter to have a wonderful adventure in nature,
Eryn thought.
You only do that in the spring, summer, or fall.

She'd just been throwing out a random accusation, but everything made sense. Keeping Ava and Jackson out in the woods also kept them away from electronic surveillance, from the danger that anyone else would find out that they weren't human children.

Good grief,
Eryn thought.
How long do the grown-ups plan to keep Ava and Jackson here? How long do they plan to keep
us
here?

Michael stepped toward Eryn.

“Please don't say anything else to set my kids off,” he said under his breath. “They're at a very fragile stage of their development, both of them.”

And Nick and I aren't?
Eryn wanted to spit back at him.
Aren't we fragile because of the big revelation we heard just a couple of days ago? Aren't we're in danger of going extinct? The fact that everyone like us could die—doesn't that
prove
we're fragile?

She bit her tongue. It would be easier to sneak out
later and go back to the cave if she acted like she was going along with things now.

“Hey, Ava, let's go look for dry wood we can use for kindling,” Eryn called. “I'm sure you'll feel a lot better once we're sitting around a roaring fire. And I don't know about your dad, but I bet my dad brought marshmallows for us to roast!”

Dad grinned and began unzipping his backpack. Eryn wasn't sure if he really had brought marshmallows, or if he was just teasing them with the possibility. Mom nodded approvingly. Jackson picked up a handful of sticks.

Eryn couldn't believe that the others seemed to be falling for her suggestion.

Either that, or they were as desperate to keep up a pretense as she was.

FORTY-SIX

The grown-ups aren't worried about smoke giving away our location,
Nick thought, lying on the ground later that night and staring into the fire that all four of the kids had helped build.
They're not worried about anything but electronic tracking.

Of course, that was because they were robots, and they were only worried about other robots finding them. As far as Nick knew, smoke could only be detected by others nearby, and obviously the eight of them were miles away from the nearest living soul. Or the nearest functioning robot.

Nick snuggled deeper beneath the “blanket” Mom had tucked him under for the night—which was mostly just leaves piled on top of his coat and jeans. A log collapsed in the fire, sending off a burst of sparks, which quickly faded into the darkness. On the other side of the fire, Ava and Jackson didn't even jump.

Have they finally fallen asleep?
Nick wondered.

“It's a shame we don't have pillows and blankets to make it look like we're tucked in and sleeping soundly like good little kids, even when we aren't,” Eryn whispered beside him.

“We could leave our coats behind, wrapped around logs,” Nick whispered back.

Even he wasn't sure this was a good idea—it was pretty cold outside—but he could tell that Eryn was shrugging her coat off next to him. If she was willing to risk the cold, how could he chicken out?

Nick cast a quick glance at the lumps arrayed around the fire a little farther out than Ava and Jackson: Mom, Michael, Dad, and Brenda. Dad seemed to be snoring, and his messy hair cast odd shadows blowing about in the slight breeze.

None of the other adults moved. Were they all asleep?

“We'll go quietly, one at a time, and wait by that tree over there,” Eryn whispered, pointing downhill into darkness. “If anyone notices us leaving, we can just say we have to pee.”

Nick nodded, feeling grateful that Eryn had everything figured out. Silently he eased off his coat, slid it to
the ground, and piled leaves on top of it. That was good enough. The coat alone would look like a sleeping body, as long as nobody looked too closely. But now he had on only a flannel shirt and jeans, and he couldn't resist rubbing his arms.

“It'll be warmer in the cave,” Eryn whispered. “Aren't caves a constant temperature year-round?”

She tiptoed past him. When she reached the tree she'd pointed at before, she gave a quick glance around and then signaled for Nick to follow.

Nick looked once more at everyone sleeping by the fire. Nobody had moved. He decided it was safe to tiptoe toward Eryn.

“We're going to need some kind of light,” he whispered. “I could barely see you signaling. Should we take a branch from out of the fire? Like, make it into some kind of torch?”

“I already swiped Michael's flashlight when he wasn't looking,” Eryn said, holding out the pocket of her sweatshirt. That must be where she'd stashed it.

“Sweet!” Nick said. “But—did you get back-up batteries? What if it dies when we're halfway into the cave and we can't get back out?”

Something about going into a dangerous place to find
out what had once killed off his entire species made him unusually cautious. Almost panicky, though he didn't want Eryn to see that.

“This is
Michael's
flashlight we're talking about,” Eryn said. “It's high-tech, with every bell and whistle. And a battery-life gauge. It looks like it's got thirty hours left. We'll be fine. But I want to wait until we're away from camp before I turn it on.”

The two of them started easing down the hillside they'd run down before. It was harder than ever in the dark, and Nick kept tripping. He looked back, and they were far enough away now that he could no longer see the fire, only smoke.

“It'd be better for you to turn that flashlight on now, than for us to wake up everyone screaming when we fall to the bottom of the hill,” he told Eryn.

He expected her to argue just on principle, but she pulled the flashlight out of her pocket and switched it on. The weak glow seemed to make barely a dent in the darkness around them. Having a little light was almost scarier, because it cast such shadows.

Eryn linked her elbow through Nick's.

“This way, if one of us starts to fall, the other one can catch him,” she whispered.

Nick could have said,
Catch “him”? You think I'd be the one to fall?
He could have said,
Wait—doesn't this make it more likely that if one of us starts to fall, both of us do?

But he kind of liked holding on to Eryn, and having her hold on to him.

He didn't say anything, just held on tighter.

Slowly, gradually, slipping and sliding, they made their way down the hill. When they reached the bottom, the cave opening seemed even more enormous than before. Eryn shone her flashlight into the heart of it, but the paltry beam was just swallowed up; the cave seemed like nothing but a pit of darkness.

Eryn giggled.

“If they really wanted to keep people out, don't you think they should have used something more than chains?” she asked. She let go of Nick to step over the rusty links. “A barbed-wire fence, maybe? An
electrified
fence?”

Nick held his breath, but nothing happened to Eryn. A sinkhole didn't open up in the ground to swallow her up. The ceiling of the cave didn't fall on her head.

He stepped over the chains as well.

“I guess they thought the signs would do the trick,”
Nick said. “They thought people would obey the signs.”

He slid his feet tentatively forward. The ground under his feet felt perfectly solid and safe.

Eryn snorted.

“They thought
robots
would obey the signs,” she said. “Robots follow rules. That's what they're programmed to do.”

Nick put his hand on Eryn's arm.

“Eryn—how many times have you ever seen a grown-up break a rule?” he asked. “Except for Michael and Brenda making Ava and Jackson, have you ever seen a grown-up do anything wrong?”

He racked his brain, trying to think of even the most minor infraction. Dropping a wad of gum on the school floor? Switching cafeteria trays to get someone else's larger serving of chocolate pudding? Shoving a friend's books off his desk because you were mad? He'd seen lots of kids do stuff like that, but never a grown-up.

“Dad yelled at us that one time,” Eryn said. “When we were asking him questions about Ava and Jackson.”

“He barely raised his voice,” Nick scoffed. “And . . . it was connected to Ava and Jackson. Those are the only things we can think of.”

He put aside everything he wondered about Ava and
Jackson, because something else intrigued him more right now.

“I always thought grown-ups didn't break rules just because they were grown-ups,” he said. “And . . . that we'd be like that too, in another ten or twenty years. But we won't, will we? Geez, what do you think the world's going to be like once it's all humans in charge again?”

Eryn took the thought in a completely different direction.

“What do you bet those signs were just there to keep out the robots, then?” she asked. “I bet this cave is perfectly safe, it's just that there are
tons
of secrets here. Not just about the extinction, but—everything! Everything we humans need to find out for ourselves!”

“But—” Nick started to object. It seemed like there might be lots of dangers connected to what they'd both just figured out.

It was too late. Eryn was already rushing ahead of him, deeper into the cave.