I start with the door to the left of the hatch. The keypad has both letters and numbers. I try typing in 27 first, but an error code flashes across the screen—ERROR: PASSCODE MUST BE FOUR DIGITS OR MORE. I try 0027 next, and when that doesn’t work, I spell it out: t-w-e-n-t-y-s-e-v-e-n. Nothing.
I move to the right, past the hatch, and try the password on each of the other two locked doors.
Still nothing.
Frustrated, I recount the number of the people on the list, but it’s still twenty-seven. I run back to the elevators and grab a floppy from the table there, checking the official record of frozens against Orion’s list. Twenty-seven.
The significance of who Orion listed isn’t lost on me—he’s trying to remind me that the number of frozens in the military indicates trouble for those born on the ship. He thought this was a good enough reason to try to kill them all, including my father. And while, yes, twenty-seven military personnel out of a hundred frozens may be large, Orion’s still a psycho to think my father would be okay with enslaving anyone.
I try the stupid doors one more time, but they still stay locked. Whatever the passcode is for opening the doors, it’s not 0027 or t-w-e-n-t-y-s-e-v-e-n.
Frustrated, I take the elevator back up to the Hospital and—after locking my door, just as I promised Elder—I stare at the wrinkled paper until I fall asleep.
For the first time in a long time, I dream about Jason, my old boyfriend back on Earth. In my dream, Jason and I are at the party where we met. Even though in my memory, the party is full of laughter and dancing and fun, in my dream all I see is cigarette smoke and jocks who splash their red plastic cups of beer on me. When Jason and I meet outside, it starts to rain—but it’s not romantic warm summer rain. It’s spitty, cold, sharp rain. My father would have called it “pissing rain,” and it stings my skin and gets in my eyes.
When we pull apart, Jason says, “I love you now that I can’t have you. ”
And I say, “You were my first everything. ”
But Jason shakes his head. “No, I wasn’t. ”
And before I can figure out what he wasn’t my first of, he kisses me.
It’s sloppy and wet and awkward and our teeth clack together and his tongue feels like a dying fish in my mouth, flopping around.
I pull back—but it’s not Jason kissing me, it’s Luthor.
“You’ll never escape,” he says.
I want to run away, but my muscles are frozen as Luthor steps closer. His mouth opens in a wide grin, and his teeth are all black and rotten. I open my mouth to scream, but before I can, his lips crash against mine.
I wake up, struggling against my tangled quilt. My face is damp—with sweat or tears, I can’t tell. As soon as I escape my bed, I run to the bathroom and splash cold water on my cheeks, still gasping from the scream I never sounded in my nightmare.
I grip the sides of the sink with both hands, unable to stop shaking. I don’t recognize the girl in the mirror. Eyes red, lips cracked, fear spilling out. I don’t like admitting how much Luthor scares me. I wrap my arms around myself, squeezing them tight against my body. Why should I be so afraid of him when he hasn’t even really done anything? Is almost a good enough reason for fear?
Yes.
The room caves in around me. What I want to do is run, but I’m too afraid of what lurks in the dark, in the places where there’s nothing but cows and sheep and no one to hear me shout for help.
And that pisses me off.
It’s not just Luthor, though he’s the biggest part of it. It’s the eyes that glared at me in the City. It’s the way some of them, like Harley’
s mother, Lil, still flinch when they see me. It’s the fact that it will be this way for the rest of my life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, no more than I could jumpstart the ship’s engine. I can’t change what I am or where I came from, and because of this, they’re never going to accept me.
I dress quickly—so quickly that I mess up my hair wrap and have to do it over again. I doubt anyone’s awake yet, it’s so early, but I don’t want to risk it. I make sure the paper I found last night is tucked securely in my pocket and then I am out the door, through the silent Hospital, and racing down the path. When I reach the grav tube dais, the solar lamp clicks on, momentarily blinding me. I press the wi-com on my wrist and activate the grav tube.
The winds start up, and for a minute I think about jumping out, just comming Elder and asking him to come get me. A few strands of my hair float up. Then the winds accelerate and even more hair escapes from my scarf, reaching up like thousands of tiny arms. For one instant my toes are on the ground but my heels are lifted, and then whoosh! I’m sucked up into the tube. I shut my eyes. I don’t want to see the Feeder Level shrink away as I soar higher and higher. I don’t open them again until the winds die down and I step out onto the Keeper Level.
I try to smooth the scarf over my hair, then give up and rip it off, stuffing it into my jacket pocket. I don’t have to hide my hair from Elder anyway.
I open my mouth to call for him, then snap it shut, realizing something.
For the first time in three months, I didn’t start my day by talking to my parents on the cryo level.
When I woke up sad and lonely and empty inside . . . I came straight here.
Straight to Elder.