Page 36 of The Infinite Glade
“Gather the others.” She made the order in a voice that commanded respect, filled with the influence of all her training and experience.
They’d obey. What else could they do now that they were stuck?
She repressed the smile aching to burst out.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Senate of Sequencers
Cian drew the seashell shape bigger and bigger until the beginning of the circle resembled the eye of a storm. Maybe it only looked like that to Isaac because everything reminded him of the night his parents and sister died. Especially when he didn’t want to be reminded.
“So that’s what you’re calling these Glader families, sequencers?” Old Man Frypan asked. “But if they’re so protected then why do they need the Cure?”
“It’s not a Cure . . .” Ximena mumbled.
“The aurora is exactly why they need the Cure.” Erros pointed up to the colors in the sky.
“It’s bad. I knew it.” Jackie kicked up dirt at her feet and grabbed at rocks. The west-siders could be so dramatic sometimes.
“No, actually, the opposite. The sun changes our DNA little by little, natural evolution, and the auroras are small blasts from the sun mixed with our atmosphere that evolve the DNA of everyone on Earth, but the auroras won’t touch the sequencers. Not where WICKED buried them.”
Ximena gave Isaac that look again.Strangers will put us in the ground.She also glanced at his wound and frowned. For some reason she started messing with the material at the bottom of her shirt.
“Erros . . .” Cian shook his head. “Language.”
“Sorry.Buriedis a terrible word. Most cultures bury their dead but WICKED. . . . WICKED buried the living in an underground world built to survive the Flare. They knew it was coming; they orchestrated it years ahead of time. And they were all kept safe from the solar flares and the Flare virus. But if they come out now, they’d never last more than a year. There’s too much that their once-precious DNA has missed out on. Even the air is different now; all the coltsfoot in the world couldn’t help their lungs.” Erros lit another cigar. “They’d die from basic exposure . . . the Cure is for the youngest of their generations to have a fighting chance.”
Isaac knew his history, and the world had always been so bonkers that he actually found himself believing Erros. If they could put kids in giant mazes under the ground, why not families, hidden in a different, safer spot?
But exposure for them at this point did seem dangerous. Ever since the islanders arrived to this new land, the environment had threatened to kill them: Lil Newt poisoned Jackie. A rash put Ms. Cowan in a coma. Even that murder hornet that looked like a tiny Griever made Dominic’s arm swell up. There were probably things on their island back home that would be extra dangerous to someone who didn’t grow up there. Isaac immediately understood the challenges these so-called Sequencers were up against.
“Why didn’t they bring them out sooner?” Isaac asked. “Why keep them underground so long?”
Cian answered with one word. “Fear.”
“And safety,” Erros added. “Familiarity. Comfort. The Senate of Sequencers vote every three years, and every three years they vote to remain. But it’s time to shit or get off the pot. For evolution.”
“That’s why our Village doesn’t have a Senate, we have elders . . .” Ximena mumbled as she ripped the bottom of her shirt off and then tied it around Isaac’s knife wound. “You need to put pressure on this.” She made a knot so tight his whole leg bounced with his pulsing blood. “Plus the Hollowers can probably smell blood and weakness.”
“Thanks,” Isaac said. It felt like she might have really cared about him there for a second. Until she called him weak.
“So . . .” Jackie turned to Old Man Frypan. “All these fancy people who were once the world’s greatest and brightest are now held back from evolving, because they’re not experiencing . . . real life? Now that’s some irony.”
“Sounds like that’s what they’re saying.” Frypan shook his head.
Erros continued. “If the Senate of Scientists would have just studied nature, instead of their human-caused chemistry—they would have understood that in time. . . . Hell, maybe nottheirlifetime, but eventually . . . nature, the earth, the sky, everything would have corrected itself. But they thought they knew better.”
“Man always thinks he knows better than nature.” Of course this came from Ximena.
“Yeah, well sometimes nature just sucks.” Jackie chucked a rock into the darkness.
Isaac understood her frustration. Lacey and Carson died because they came here, all for some Cure to save humankind, and it turns out it was just to try to help a few special families. Isaac couldn’t grab all the different questions racing in his mind. “Why didn’t Kletter just tell us all this, why didn’t she?—”
“Would you have believed her?” Erros asked.
No, Isaac thought. But he shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Annie Kletter couldn’t tell the truth if her life depended on it,” Ximena added.
