CHAPTER FOURTEEN - SADIE
Sadie, Sadie, Sadie.
The words are in my head but they are flashing across my eyes too. My closed eyes.
Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
It must be them. It must be Prodigy School. They’re looking for me. Or maybe hunting me.
They’re trying to communicate with me with some kind of link. Mentally? I don’t think so. I think there’s something inside me. Some kind of computer or—
Sadie, Sadie, Sadie, “Sadie!”
I open my eyes and see Thomas. His face is right up next to mine, eyes searching me—filled with questions. He smells like charred metal.
“You had me worried.” His voice is low and deep. Some kind of flashlight is illuminating his face from below. There’s black soot on his cheeks, giving him a hollowed near-death appearance. Like he just walked through fire.
“Thomas,” I whisper.
He strokes my head softly, moving my hair out of my eyes. “Try again.”
Shit.
And this time I’m not asleep. I know that for sure. This is real. “Sullivan?” I say, trying out the name.
“Ding. Ding. Ding.” He says the words slowly, pausing between each one. “You’re gonna be OK. You seem to be… working the way you’re supposed to.”
“What the hell happened?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who did it.”
“What?”
“You grabbed your head, Sadie. You and Thomas were talking about things you shouldn’t be talking about. Then you grabbed your head and the fucking train just shut down.”
“We were coming up on the gates.”
“Correct again. If this was a game show, you’d be two for three. What the hell did you do?”
He’s got a very stern look on his face. But it’s so different from the other times I’ve met him. This is real. And clearly those times were real too. He really had me tied up. He really did touch me that way. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s because,” he says, letting out a long sigh. “It’s because you have no idea what you are.”
“What am I?”
“How the fuck should I know? But look.” He points to my body. I’m lying down with my head resting on this thigh. So I have to sit up a little to see what he’s pointing at.
My leg is… disgusting. My jeans are ripped open. But that’s not all that’s ripped open. The denim is covered in blood and the wound is gaping and huge. But it’s… “Oh, my God. There’s little things moving around. Are those bugs inside my leg?”
“No,” Sullivan says. “They’re little fucking computer fuckers. Nanites, but like… supernanites. Globs of them. Gross, isn’t it?”
“What the hell is a nanite?”
“What part of little fucking computer fuckers didn’t you understand?”
Dick. “What are they doing?” I try to sit up to get a better look, but Sullivan’s hand is on my shoulder, pushing me back down.
“Don’t get up. Just let them work. They fix you, Sadie. They repair you. Prodigy put a scaffolding mesh of healing… whatever the fuck it is. I don’t know what it is. But Thomas and I have it too. It repairs tissue damage.”
It’s weird hearing Sullivan refer to Thomas and him as separate people.
“You were hurt pretty bad but they were already working by the time I got out from under all that goddamned steel and found you. We’ll be fine. Eventually.”
“Who? You and Thomas? Or me and you?”
“All of us,” he says, waving a hand in the air. “It just takes a little while.”
“Where are we? Can we get out of here?”
“Well.” He laughs. “As if things couldn’t get any worse, we’re on the other fucking side of the gate about a mile from the west tower.”
“How do we get through the gate?”
He shrugs. “We don’t.”
“Then how can we get out of this stupid tunnel?”
He sighs again. “We can’t.”
I just stare up at him. “Surely there is a door? There’s always a door. Some secret access point or something?”
“Yeah,” Sullivan says, absently stroking my head again. “If this were a normal tunnel there would be. But it’s not, so there isn’t. We could walk back, but we’re still on the other side of the south tower gate. And the walk back…” He shakes his head. “I’m not even sure that’s possible. My leg is fucked up just as bad as yours. It’s going to take the better part of a day for it to really heal. At least to make a walk like that. It’s sixty miles to the south tower. There’s a tunnel that connects to the other towers somewhere in that blackness. But the east tower is probably a hundred miles away. And the other tower even farther than that. Besides,” he says, exhaling loudly. “My phone battery will die and then we’d be in total darkness.”
I picture that whole scenario in my head as he’s talking. The distance, the state of my leg, the darkness. “So we’re fucked.”
“Good. And fucked.”
I let out a breath and close my eyes. “I’m going to die down here.”
“No,” he says. “We can’t die. We’ll starve. And we’ll go crazy from lack of water. But we’re not going to die. There was an emergency kit in the train car with water and rations. But—” This time his laugh is curt. “It’s gone now. The whole car is gone thanks to your little trick.”
“I didn’t stop the damn train car, Sullivan. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then who did?”
“How should I know. Maybe something is happening up top? Maybe the power went out or something?”
“This tunnel is powered by the towers. And if they weren’t still standing there’d be green gas in here. We have it set up to self-destruct.”
“Wait,” I say, realization hitting me in the face. “If you guys set it up so the green gas releases when anyone breaches—we’re going to die anyway!”
“Was I speaking a foreign language just now? I told you, you can’t die.”
“So that green gas can’t hurt me?”
“No.” He laughs. “It can’t hurt me. Because Thomas had Lincoln code it for our DNA.”
“Well, aren’t the two of you just a couple of fucking Wondertwins. This is just great. I’m gonna not-die—whatever the hell that means—and you’re gonna be just fine. Just wonderful. Does this shit get any better?”
“Well, there was plenty of antidote in the fucking train car, just like there was plenty of water and rations. But not anymore. It’s not my fault we’re here,” he says.
“I didn’t do it,” I say, getting pissed off about his accusation. “Maybe it is your fault. Maybe you’re the one who wrecked the train? Ever think of that, Mental Man?”
“Wasn’t me, Trip Chick.”
“Why not you? You’re the one with all that weird mentalist shit inside your head. I’m the wind, Sadie. I’m a force. Well, OK. Fine. But it’s more likely that the stupid force of nature inside your head got out of hand and… and…”
“And what?” He laughs. “I don’t know how to stop electricity. The train car wrecked because the power went out and we slowed down as we approached the gates. And that was all you. I saw it. I might not be able to talk when Thomas is in control, but unlike him, I see everything.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Messages inside your head? Remember that little conversation?”
“That was you!”
“Yeah. Back at the tower. But I wasn’t in your head when the car stopped. And just before you woke up you were talking to people. Mumbling, ‘Who are you. Who are you?’”
I think about that for a little bit. Because he’s right. My head did hurt. “There’s static in there,” I say.
“What kind?” he asks. Like people say this all the time and he just needs a little clarification to understand it better.
“Are there different kinds?” I ask.
“Describe it,” he practically snarls.
Dick. “Like… like an in-between radio signal. Static like that. And lights flashing. There were words too.”
“What do they say?”
“Just… ‘Sadie, Sadie, Sadie.’ Calling me. You know.”
“Prodigy?” he asks.
“Probably. But then, just before I woke up, they said, ‘Where are you, where are you, where are you?’ Three times. Just like that.”
“They’re looking for you.”
“Obviously.” I roll my eyes.
“It’s some kind of transmission. And now that I know that—thanks for the punctual update, by the way—that’s probably who came to the tower. You were broadcasting to them. You’re probably still broadcasting to them. So hey, bright side.” He fake-laughs. “Looks like we’ll be rescued. Too bad it’s gonna be a bunch of mad scientists who come looking for us.”
We think about that for a long, long time. Time in the dark passes in strange ways and I spend it thinking about the green gas. Then not-dying, whatever that means. And probably going unconscious, at least. Waking up back wherever it was I came from, I guess.
It might all be my fault.
And just then, when I think it can’t possibly get any worse, the flashlight is flickering. Which means the phone is dying.
We really are stuck here. We really are fucked.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to mess things up. I don’t understand anything and I don’t know what I’m doing but I don’t want to go back there. I don’t know what I want, but I don’t want to go back there.”
“Well, Thomas and I don’t agree on much. But we are both one hundred percent on board with staying the fuck out of the grip of Prodigy School.” He sucks in some air and pauses. “We were so fucking close, too. So fucking close.”
“Close to what?” I ask, tipping my head up so I can see his face. It’s still lit up from below. Reflecting eerie shadows onto his cheeks.
“Revenge. We have the perfect plan. And even though I scared the fuck out of Thomas last month when all that shit went down and he tried to blow his fucking head off with a goddamned gun—as if that would make things better—just to get rid of me again…” He stops to sigh. “I was only there to help. That’s all. I just wanted to be there when it all finally went down. And now look. I’m stuck in a grave I made myself. With a girl who has no idea what’s going on. With a plan that can’t even be implemented because my satellites—well, technically, they belong to Thomas, but anyway, our satellites are the trigger that starts the ball rolling and Case won’t be able to initiate Lincoln’s program without them.” He pauses again. More in control when he speaks. “In case you’re wondering what all that has to do with anything, I’m the only one who can initiate the satellites. Irony can suck my dick.”
I almost find him funny. Almost. “Well, maybe next time you should consider letting your team in on your secrets. Then they can carry on without you. And you sure do swear a lot more than Thomas. I think he’s the good twin.”
“Fuck off.”
I laugh. I should be insulted, but he’s frustrated and defeated. And this is the asshole who tied me up and touched me twice. This is the asshole who made himself out to be a god who had all the answers.
His depression lifts my spirits.
“So let me see if I can put all this together. Thomas used drugs to keep you away for all these years. Locked you up in his head by eliminating his emotions. Then that Case dude shot him with something that messed up all his perfectly laid plans. That released you from your prison. And when Thomas figured out you were back, he tried to blow you out of his mind with a gun. Stop me when I get it wrong.”
“Ding. Ding. Ding,” he says, mocking me with his slow words.
“Why did you tie me up? Kiss me? Touch me?”
He shrugs. “Why not? You’re pretty. And young. You didn’t know anything about anything.”
I tilt my head up to see him again.
He’s smiling when he looks down at me. “Besides, you’d want to touch you too if you were me. I was locked up in that head of his for fifteen years.”
“You’re a pervert.”
“You liked it.”
I say nothing. Because I did.
I look up again and now he’s grinning like a boy. “Thomas made a move on me too,” I say.
“I saw,” he grumbles.
“He kinda frustrated me. After… you.” A chuckle from Sullivan. “You just take. But Thomas doesn’t.”
“He’s dumb like that.”
It’s my turn to grin and chuckle. “I thought you were an everyday run-of-the-mill asshole, but I’m reevaluating.”
“I’m not an asshole?”
“You’re the definition of asshole. But I like your diabolical side.”
“Well, that’s awesome. I can waste away to pathetic weakness waiting for Prodigy to come take me back, knowing you prefer me to him.” He looks down at me, not smiling. “I appreciate the gesture.”
“There has to be a way out.”
“There isn’t. Not without explosives. It might take them a while to blast through the doors back at the southern tower, but they will. And then they’ll blast through these too. Or maybe they know there’s a tunnel over here and they’ll say fuck those southern doors and just head west.” He lifts his arm. Like he’s pointing to something. “They’ll come right though that gate there. Or you know what’s even better than that?” He pauses to see if I’ll play along, then just continues when I don’t. “They might figure out that there’s a tunnel connecting to this one up north or out east. Maybe they’ll just sneak up from the south and surprise us.”
Dick. “Optimist you are not.”
“What’s there to be optimistic about? We’re stuck in the goddamned tunnel. This is all Thomas’s fault. We’ll get out of here eventually. We might spend the next twenty years as Prodigy prisoners, but eventually we’ll get out of that too. And I tell you what… the next time I see an opportunity to get rid of that asshole, I’m gonna take it.”