Viral Nation (14 page)

Her upper thighs still had a faint collection of scars from the first year, when they gave the suppressant with hypodermic needles. West had faint pockmarks on his upper arms as well. The suppressant was thick and delivered cold. The needle they had to use back then to push it was as thick as a spaghetti noodle. Clover was glad she didn’t remember the old days.

For as long as her memory stretched, she, West, and the rest of Reno had small ports implanted at the back of their necks. The medicine was still as congealed as jelly and stung like fire ants eating toward your brain, but at least the long, thick needles were a thing of the past.

Clover rubbed around her port after the doser was done, helping the medication move through so it would stop stinging. “I wish I could take you driving,” she said to West as they started back to their house.

He walked with his head down and his hands in his pockets, deep in thought. “Me, too.”

“Leanne said that kids aren’t drafted into the Mariner track.”

West stopped walking and turned to look at her. She waited for him to respond to that. When she said it out loud to him, it sounded a whole lot more ominous than it had just in her head.

“Can you make it home on your own?” he asked.

“Of course, I can practically see the house from here,” she said. “Why, where are you going?”

“I won’t be long.”

“West.”

“I promise. Go on.”

He waited until she started walking toward home. In fact, he stood there longer than that. She looked over her shoulder twice and saw him still rooted to his spot on the sidewalk, watching until she walked the last few hundred yards home and went inside.

As soon as Clover and Mango were inside the house,
West turned and walked toward Bridget’s house. It was iffy, showing up so close to dinnertime. Kingston could be home, or he could still be at the Academy getting ready for the next semester to start. Maybe West should have waited until the next day, but he really didn’t want to. Bridget had something to tell him, and after hearing that Clover’s trainer didn’t know that kids were being drafted by Bennett, it suddenly seemed vital that he find out what it was. The sooner, the better.

Be careful
, she’d told him. He needed to find out what exactly he needed to be careful of.

He was afraid he’d have to knock, so as he walked he tried to come up with some story in case Kingston answered the door. All he could come up with was an apology for his response to Clover’s being sent to the Company. It was weak, because he wasn’t really sorry at all, but nothing better came to him. He had no legitimate reason to knock on the headmaster’s door.

He didn’t need an excuse in the end. When he reached the Kingston Estate, Bridget was in the front pasture, working with her horses. Jesus, she took his breath away. Corny, but true.

“What do we need to talk about?” he asked when she saw him and came close enough that he didn’t have to shout.

“Not here.” She leaned over the fence and looked both ways
down the road that ran in front of her house. Then she opened the gate for him. “Come with me.”

She led him through the pasture, which was planted with alfalfa. The sweet scent of the grass wafted up into West’s nose as he crushed it under his feet. She looked back again, then took his hand and pulled him into the stables.

West wanted to trust her. He had once; when they were in primary school, they were friends. Maybe more than friends. But then her father was promoted and she moved out of West’s orbit. He didn’t know how to trust her now, no matter how badly he wanted to. “What do I need to be careful of, Bridget?”

She let go of his hand and, despite his reservations, West had to fight to keep from taking hers back. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I—” She stopped and took a breath. “I overheard something I shouldn’t have.”

“Something about Clover?” What could she have possibly overheard about his little sister? The Donovans didn’t matter to anyone, except that they were as much a part of keeping the mechanics of the city running as any other citizens.

“Not her specifically. But they look at the test scores to find them.”

“Who does? Them who?”

“My dad and Langston Bennett. They look for kids with certain test scores.” She looked at the dirt at her feet. “Kids like Clover, you know?”

Langston Bennett was the man to whom Kingston had sent Clover. The director of the Mariner program. “Why do they want them?”

Before she could answer, her father’s small white Academy car pulled into the driveway a few feet from where they hid.

“Oh, no,” Bridget said. “Oh, God. Stay here until we’re inside.”

She started to leave the stables, but West caught her arm. “Why do they want them?”

Bridget looked over her shoulder. “He can’t find you here.”

“When can we talk again?”

“Soon,” she said. “I promise.”

It was two more days before Clover had another mission
. She hadn’t been able to get any information from Leanne about underage Messengers and where they lived. Despite thinking and talking about little else, she and West weren’t able to come up with any plan other than for her to show up and keep her eyes and ears open.

“Be careful, Clover,” West said, before he left for the farm that morning.

Clover took a bite of her oatmeal. “If you knew how easy the job was, you wouldn’t be worried.”

“Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

There was something odd in his tone that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “I promise.”

After he left, she filled her pack with a water bowl for Mango, a couple of books, a pair of pajamas, and a change of clothes before heading out herself with Mango’s lead in her hand.

“They might let us move into the barracks,” Clover said to her dog as they walked, the sun warming his pale fur and her upturned face. “West isn’t always right, even if he thinks he is.”

Mango made a small sound and Clover picked up her pace to a gentle jog. Maybe Leanne would let her drive to the launch site. The idea of driving outside the city walls sent a small shiver of anticipation down Clover’s back, and goose bumps covered her arms as she moved into a run.

Mango ran beside her, his wide, strong body easily keeping up.
After a few minutes she made herself slow down. Arriving at the Waverly-Stead building sweaty and pulsing with adrenaline was a bad idea.

“Your mission is canceled,” Bennett said when she saw him half an hour later. His eyes darted to Mango and then back to Clover’s face. “I’m sorry you came all this way.”

“It’s not that far.”

He nodded slowly. “Well, that’s good, then.”

They stood and looked at each other for a few awkward seconds before Clover asked, “Should I go home?”

Bennett cleared his throat. “Yes, I suppose so.”

Clover turned to go back upstairs to change, but stopped when she realized she’d responded to the wrong part of Bennett’s statement. She came back and asked, “Why is the mission canceled?”

Bennett looked relieved that she’d put them both back on the same page. “Leanne was in an accident and broke her good leg. We’re going to have to get another team to make the run tomorrow. We’ll have to find you another trainer, since you don’t know how to drive.”

“I know how to drive.”

“You said you didn’t.”

“Leanne taught me.”

“In two days?”

“I don’t want another trainer,” Clover said. “Can’t I go alone and meet the future Leanne on the other side?”

“That’s where she broke her leg.” Bennett ran his palm over his mouth and down his chin. He looked at Clover for a long moment. Clover was about to ask why Leanne couldn’t drive with her on this side and another trainer meet her on the other side, but Bennett kept talking. “Show me you can drive. Take me to the launch site.”

Bennett made her skin crawl and she didn’t like the idea of being trapped in the van with just him. But she was sure driving would
make it worth it. Besides, maybe he’d drop his guard and she’d be able to get some information from him.

Clover and Bennett walked together to the van. When she got behind the wheel, her black boots under the rolled cuffs of her brown uniform hung inches from the pedals. She reached between her legs and pulled on the lever to slide her seat forward.

“She taught you that, at least,” Bennett said.

“She’s a great teacher. She’s been doing it for ten years, right? She must have taught a lot of kids to drive.”

Clover looked sideways at Bennett, but he didn’t take the bait. Yet.

Cerebral things came naturally to Clover. Math, science, reading. Except for running, most physical things did not. She was clumsy and awkward and often felt out of place in her own body. For some reason, being behind the wheel of the van, feeling the engine roar to life, then purr as it waited for her to put it in gear, felt as normal as breathing to her.

She put the van into drive and pulled out of the parking lot, onto the avenue toward the wall gate. Bennett watched silently as she passed through it and started toward the mountain. He seemed relaxed when she sneaked a glance at him.

“You’re doing well, Clover,” he said.

“I told you, it’s not that hard.” She turned away from the road for just a second, a few miles after the highway turned into a winding road. A heartbeat. Instead of a nod of approval or some other sign that she was doing all right, Bennett stiffened, both hands white-knuckled on the dashboard, and the color drained from his face. Clover looked back to the road and screamed.

A black bear, hulking and unruffled, reared up on his hind legs, twenty-five feet in front of the van, and froze there staring at them as they barreled toward him.

“Oh, God. Oh, God!” Clover put her weight on the brakes and
wrenched the wheel to the left. The van skidded past the bear so close Bennett could have petted its coarse dark fur through the window. On the driver’s side, they nearly scraped the sheer cliff side. Clover overcorrected and the tires ground in the rocks inches from the dropoff on Bennett’s side. The brakes locked and they skidded to a stop in the center of the narrow mountain road.

Clover gasped as she yanked at the belt that had tightened across her chest, then fought panic when it wouldn’t loosen at first. Finally it did, and at least she could breathe again. Shaking, she watched through the rearview mirror as the bear climbed into the trees at the top of the ravine.

Bennett put his hand on her shoulder and Clover barely bit back a yelp as she tore away from him. Mango, who had been thrown against the front of the van, scrambled to his feet and pressed his head against Clover’s thigh. She lifted his face by the chin and looked into his eyes. He seemed okay.

“Clover, are you all right?” Bennett asked.

“I think Mango peed.”

Bennett blinked at her and then looked at the growing dark circle in the gray carpet under her dog.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked away,” Clover said.

“Carpets can be cleaned. I’m not sure I could have avoided hitting that animal.”

Clover breathed slowly, through her nose, trying hard to control the nausea that sat like an iron cantaloupe in her belly. “That was an American black bear.”

Bennett pulled himself up straighter in his chair. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

“Probably four hundred pounds. They aren’t in hibernation yet. Not until October, or maybe November,” Clover said, talking as much to herself as she was to Bennett. Six feet from Bennett’s seat, the ravine waited to eat them alive. She wrapped her arms around
her body and shook, adrenaline working its way through her system. She had come so close to driving them into it. “No one would have ever found us.”

“Oh, they would have eventually.” Bennett’s voice had lost its confident swagger. It squeaked and sounded hoarse, like he had a sore throat.

“Do you want to drive now?” she asked, suddenly sure that she’d never be allowed behind the wheel again.

“No,” he said. As upset as she was, he was worse off. His face was a strange shade of pale. If he drove, they’d both have to get out of the car, and there was no telling where the bear was now. “Not unless you want me to.”