Viral Nation (34 page)

“I want to go with him,” Clover was saying when they
came back to the table.

“I don’t think so,” West said at the same time that Jude said, “No.”

“I’m the only one of us who can travel through the portal. I need to see how he does it. What if I have to sometime?”

Jude took his seat next to her again. “Why would you ever need to?”

“How could I know that?”

“You don’t even know how to swim,” West pointed out.

“I don’t want to dive tonight, for God’s sake. I just want to watch. I want to see what happens.”

Arguing with Clover was like beating yourself against a brick wall. West felt the headache coming on to prove it. “The portal is deep. You won’t see anything.”

“Come with me if you want. I’m going.”

“I’ll go, too,” Jude said. “The more we know the better, including about what he does when he goes out to the lake.”

Everyone wanted to go then, and there was a little chaos as they jockeyed for a spot on the team that would head with Waverly to Lake Tahoe.

“Wait a minute,” West said. “We don’t even know if he’ll allow it.”

“Nine on one? He won’t have a choice,” Geena said.

Jude put his arms up to stop the noise. “Raise your hand if you want to go.”

All hands went up.

More noise that made Clover cover her ears with her hands and start to rock in her chair.

“Someone has to search the house. That was the whole point,” West said.

“I’ll stay,” Bridget said. “Me and Emmy. We’ll be the search party, won’t we, Emmy?”

The little girl took a long time to think about that and then finally nodded very seriously.

It took less to persuade Waverly to let them come
to the lake with him than Clover anticipated. He agreed almost immediately, which made her think maybe he already knew they’d ask. They all piled into the van. Clover left Mango with Bridget and Emmy. He would warn them when the van returned.

“Sit up here with me, Clover,” Waverly said when she was about to climb into the back, which had its seats replaced now. She hesitated, but then climbed into the passenger seat.

After they were on the highway, Waverly reached down between their seats and pulled up something that looked like a rubber bag with a long strap and a mouthpiece. “This is how I do it.”

Clover took the bag and Waverly put his hands back at ten and two on the steering wheel. “What is it?”

“An air bladder. I know, I know. Terrible name. But it stuck. Air tanks won’t make it through the portal with the electronics intact. I’ll fill the bag with oxygen, and it’ll give me just enough to get me through and back.”

“The water must be cold down there. Do you dive in the winter?”

“Not as much. Sometimes I have to risk it.” He didn’t say more, and she didn’t ask what might make him dive into nearly frozen water. “My suit keeps me warm enough.”

“What do you do on the other side?”

“I write in my notebook. I read what’s been said earlier. I keep
the current one there, so I’m not tempted to spend too much time with it here. A built-in restraint.”

“Where do you keep the notebooks?”

Waverly was silent for a minute, and then he said, “In good time, okay?”

“Does Jon Stead know you still dive? Do you ever see him?”

“We didn’t part well, me and Jon.”

“What happened?” As soon as the question was out, she wondered if she shouldn’t have asked. But Waverly didn’t seem upset by it.

“I couldn’t be part of what he was doing anymore. And he didn’t want me to leave the Company. I know too much. Even Langston doesn’t know everything that I do.”

“Does Dr. Stead know where you are?”

Waverly shook his head. “I don’t think so. I was on guard for years, waiting for him to find me. I stayed in houses around the lake at first. Then I found the ranch. It was perfect. Jon never came. I guess as long as I kept my head down, finding me wasn’t a priority. He’d have to do it himself, wouldn’t he? Everyone else left alive thinks I’m their savior.”

“Aren’t you?”

Waverly drummed his palms on the steering wheel to the time of some music only he heard. “I suppose so.”

“Do you know where Jon Stead is?” West asked from behind Waverly, who looked through the rearview mirror at him.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

Waverly adjusted the mirror. “Everything you need to know is where all the information is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When you need to know, you will. We’re meeting the train first.”

“What train?” Clover asked. She’d never actually seen one. When she was still a baby, work was done to extend tracks around
the city, so that train deliveries could be made without breaching the walls. The trains stopped just outside the city. Guards with trucks brought the goods in from them and out to them.

“This is why I was so glad you wanted to come. You’ll meet Frank tonight and his daughter Melissa. She’s about your age, Clover.”

“We get to see a train?” Christopher asked.

“We do indeed.”

The energy in the van changed, from wary distrust to excitement.

Waverly drove quietly for a few more minutes, then pulled onto an unpaved service road and finally turned down a nearly invisible path that was hidden by the trees. They all sat there, their eyes and ears trained toward the tracks in front of them.

“When will it be here?” Phire asked.

“Soon. Listen.”

Clover did, straining, then cranked the window down halfway. After about fifteen minutes, she heard the rumble of an approaching train. It came around a curve with its lights glowing and steam billowing from its stack. The whistle blew once, then twice, and the noise seemed to fill Clover up.

Then the train screeched to a stop in front of them. A few minutes later a middle-aged man with red hair going white and a girl with long hair the same shade without the white walked toward them.

Waverly opened the van door. “Okay, everyone out.”

“They’ll see us,” Clover said.

“Frank and Melissa are the whole crew, and they’re anxious to meet you.”

Clover walked toward the man and the girl but couldn’t make eye contact. Instead, she walked on by, toward the train. It was magnificent. The engine made the ground under her feet rumble, and the lights were dazzling. The engine, with its big steam stack, pulled three freight cars.

“Frank,” Waverly said. Clover turned and saw the two men
shake hands. “Frank and Melissa, meet West and Clover, Jude, Christopher, Sapphire, Geena, and Marta.”

“Oh, wow.” Melissa grabbed Clover’s hand and started to pump it. “I can’t believe you’re finally here, Clover.”

Clover yanked her arm back.

“Clover,” West said, almost under his breath.

Clover tried again. “I can’t believe I’m here, either.”

“I’m Melissa,” the girl said. “Wait! I have something for you.”

She dug into her pack and came out with a packet of letters held together with a rubber band. “There’s one from all the way in Pennsylvania,” she said. “Can you believe it?”

Clover took the letters and turned them around in her hands before looking up at Waverly, who was talking to Frank. When she turned back around, Melissa had her arms around Jude’s neck, and he stumbled back a step before hugging her back.

Even covered in soot and wearing filthy work clothes, Melissa was pretty. She was tall and lanky, and her auburn hair was pulled back into a braid that hung halfway down her back. Clover thrust the letters at Jude, holding them there until he untangled himself and took them.

“What are these?” he asked.

Clover shrugged and looked at Melissa.

“Well, they’re letters,” she said.

Neither Jude nor Clover responded to that.

“I mean, they’re the information. The information that we gather. Don’t you know this?”

“I haven’t had a chance to tell them,” Waverly said.

“Dr. Waverly gathers the information.” Melissa looked at Waverly and then her father, looking for assurance. “We bring it to him and he puts it in the book.”

“There’s a book?” Clover looked to Waverly. “What is she talking about?”

“I keep a book full of the letters,” he said. “It’s really quite incredible. They come from all over.”

“Why haven’t we seen this book?”

Waverly took the letters. “You will.”

“Where is it?”

“On the other side of the portal.”

“In the future? You keep this information in the future?”

“I’ll bring it back tonight.”

“Denver sent information about a new calorie crop that grows like grass,” Frank said. “Sent some seed, too. Lots of the cities just send updates about how they’re surviving. Recipes for things they can’t get from the Bazaars. That kind of thing.”

“That doesn’t sound like it needs to be hidden.”

“They send information about their resistance efforts, too, Clover,” Waverly said.

The train left after Frank told Waverly he’d have oil
to deliver in two weeks. Every first and third week, the train delivered convicts from around the country to the Justice Center in Reno, and Frank couldn’t stop when he had live passengers. Melissa hugged everyone again, including Clover, who wanted to hate the girl, or maybe just resent her, but didn’t.

“You liked her,” she said to Jude while the others were getting back in the van.

“She’s a likeable girl.”

“Yeah.”

Jude had the nerve to chuckle.

“What?” she asked.

“Not a thing. Ready?”

She climbed into the backseat of the van, as far from Jude as she could get.

“I dive right in front of the
Veronica
,” Waverly said as he backed out of the path and turned onto the road to the highway. “You’ll be able to watch from the dock.”

“What if someone sees us?” West asked.

“Not at this time of night.”

“Still, might be better if we stay hidden, don’t you think?”

“Suit yourself. You can watch from the trees nearby.”

“But I want to see him dive,” Clover said.

Waverly tilted the rearview mirror so he could see her through it. “You won’t miss a thing.”

During the day, the lake was spectacular, mirroring the blue and white sky and the mountains around it. When they approached it a few minutes later, the stars reflected in it, and with an almost full moon, the lake glittered like a giant bed of jewels.

“I can’t believe Bridget’s missing this,” West said.

“She’ll have a chance to see it later.” Waverly pulled into a spot in the trees, facing the van so that it pointed toward the lake, where they saw the
Veronica
in front of them. “You’ll have a good view from here.”

He got out before anyone could say anything else and went behind the van to undress and get into his wetsuit. When he came back, he looked to Clover like a giant seal. He reached into the front seat for his air bladder and a small tank of oxygen, which he used to fill it. He slipped that over his shoulders like a backpack and picked up a pair of something that looked like duck’s feet.

“Time me,” he said as he adjusted a mask over his eyes and nose. “Less than thirty.”

They watched him in complete silence until he was at the dock and walking down it.

Christopher leaned forward between the seats. “I didn’t even know people could dive through the portal.”

“It’s how he found it,” Clover said.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Christopher gave up trying to see from inside the van and opened the door.

“Hey!” West said. “We’re hiding.”

“I can’t see from here. Can’t we get out of the van and stay in the trees?”

Before West could answer, everyone came out of the van and crowded around the edge of the stand of trees, hushing each other and generally raising a stage-whispered racket.

“Just be quiet,” West said.

“Look, he’s going!” Clover pointed toward Waverly, poised at the end of the dock, positioned about ten feet from the nose of the
Veronica
.

A sharp, painfully loud noise took Clover so by surprise that she froze, like the bear she’d nearly hit with the van. It came from a tunnel over the highway leading back to the city, about a hundred yards from where they stood and collectively stopped breathing.

“Oh, God,” Geena said.

Waverly collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. Just folded in on himself. Clover started toward him, but her brother held her back forcibly enough to hurt her.

“We have to get out of here,” West said, his voice barely a whisper.

“We can’t just leave him,” Clover said.

“He was shot. We have to take the van and go before we are, too.”

Apparently, Clover was the only one concerned about Waverly. Everyone else started toward the van.

“Wait a minute.” Clover turned back to the dock. Her heart stopped when she recognized Langston Bennett walking down it toward Waverly’s body. Before she could say anything, there was another shot. One of the twins cried out in surprise somewhere behind her.