one more level of the Ark still underneath us, unexplored, but I was beginning to feel the first stirrings of movement in the outer corridors, where they led to the surface doors. A shifting in the air, disturbing the dust. Then noises, reaching us through the pipes. We left the brightly lit lower levels and sprinted up the stairs to where we’d left the ventilation grille unscrewed. The first soldiers passed below us just as we’d hoisted ourselves back into the pipe and were replacing the hatch. But they were too noisy and busy, pushing their empty handcarts, to note the muted scrape of metal, or the hushed breath coming from somewhere above them. When they’d passed, we moved again, dragging our exhausted bodies toward the upper layers of the Ark. Five more groups of soldiers passed below us. Their discussions were at once familiar and unfamiliar: the everyday chatter of bored soldiers mixed with the strange language of the Ark.
Not likely, unless the betavoltaic batteries go, too . . . Two more trolleys coming from the western door, to meet the next wagon . . . Been there since the blast—what’s the rush? . . . Under the coolant pipes. Couldn’t shift the casing without a drill.
One word, though, made me jerk my head so sharply that it hit the roof of the pipe. Reformer. I heard, too, Piper’s intake of breath behind me. Motionless, I listened. There were no soldiers within sight, but the voices and footsteps came from somewhere nearby.
Said he wants to inspect it himself, so get it cleared. You know what he’s like.
The voices were gone.
Somewhere in the Ark my brother waited. The last time I’d seen him had been on the road outside New Hobart, the knees of my trousers still wet from where I’d knelt to shroud the bodies of the drowned children. I remembered the sight of Louisa’s small teeth, rounded like gravestones.
For a long time, as Piper and I crawled our way back to the upper levels, I thought about what we’d heard the soldier say: You know what he’s like. Did it apply to me, anymore? Could I claim to know Zach now, after all that he’d done? And did he know me?
More than a decade ago, he’d relied on his knowledge of me to have me exposed and branded. When he declared himself the Omega, he’d known that I would step forward. He’d known me well enough to be sure that I wouldn’t let him be branded and sent away. He had made our closeness into a weapon, and turned it on me. And I had allowed him to do it when I’d chosen to protect him, whatever it had cost me. Now, the man waiting somewhere in the Ark wasn’t even Zach anymore—he was the Reformer. Was I a different person, too?
When Piper and I reached the abandoned upper levels we lowered ourselves from the pipe into the dusty rooms near Section F. Among the jars of bones, we sat and ate more of the jerky, and drank most of the water. I’d thought that rest would be impossible, after all that we had seen and learned since entering the Ark, but it had been at least two nights since we’d last slept. We found a small room, free of bones, and slept.
Instead of the blast, I dreamed of Kip. His body was blurred by the glass and by the liquid in which it floated. But the hazy silhouette was enough—I would know his body anywhere.
I woke and I knew, with a certainty that nested in my flesh like frostbite, that these visions of Kip in the tank were not from the past, any more than the blast visions were. On the road outside New Hobart, Zach had told me that he had something of mine. When he’d tossed the figureheads onto the ground in front of me, I’d thought he’d been talking about the ships, and their crews. But I understood now what he’d meant.
“He’s here,” I said. “In the Ark.”
“We know that already,” Piper said, his voice still groggy with sleep. “You heard what the soldiers said.”
“Not Zach,” I said. “Kip.”
Piper pushed himself up, leaning on his elbow. Dust from the ground had caught in his hair, and in the stubble on his chin. When he spoke his voice was patient.
“You’re tired. What we’ve learned is a lot to take in. For anyone, and especially for you.”
I threw off his pity like an unwelcome embrace.
“I’m not