Page 21 of The Infinite Glade (The Maze Cutter #3)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Senate of Sequencers

C ian 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. Buried is 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 not their lifetime, 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.

“The truth is always the last thing to be believed. People fight the truth,” Cian said. “You,” he pointed at Old Man Frypan again. “You couldn’t take the truth earlier and left. It’s what’s expected.”

“Well . . . the truth sucks!” Jackie whipped another rock overhead and Isaac waited for the thump of it hitting the earth, maybe a tree, but instead he heard a metal CLANK . A sound he missed hearing from the forge back home.

“Watch it, we’ve got our equipment over there.” Cian stood up and looked over into the darkness.

“That Berg’s been hit with a lot worse than a pebble,” Erros said, but all Isaac really heard was Berg .

“Jackie! They have a Berg!” Isaac wanted to scream, to hug her, find his own rock to chuck. Maybe even hug a rock. He turned to Frypan and then to Cian. “Can you take us to Alaska to find our friends? They’re with the Godhead. Maybe the Godhead knows how to get to the Sequencers, and?—”

Cian cut Isaac off. “Whoa, there, little fella. Bergs aren’t cheap to fly. Plus, the Godhead is as power-driven as those in WICKED ever were. The Godhead . . .” Cian looked to where the sound of the rock hitting the Berg came from.

“The Godhead is its own disease,” Ximena mumbled.

“But we need to get to our friends. Please.” Isaac would get on his knees and beg if he had to. The thought of never finding them or seeing them again had been gutting him since they separated. “Please . . .” He turned to Ximena and the backpack on the ground in between them.

“Isaac, don’t even think about it.” Ximena shook her head.

“Please.” He held his hands together to ask of her the one thing he knew she didn’t want to do.

“What’s going on?” Jackie whispered to no one in particular.

Isaac kept at it. “We can help them and find our friends. Please.”

Ximena merely looked at the fire.

Jackie tossed another rock into the center of the flames. Ash kicked up sparks.

“Alaska,” Old Man Frypan said. “Huh. Site of the Maze . . . is that where the Sequencers are?”

Please . . . Isaac begged Ximena with his eyes.

Cian shook his head. “Yeah but no. The aurora’s gotta be ten times stronger up north in Alaska. I don’t know what that will do to the Berg.”

Erros didn’t add much hope. “And we’ve already surveyed all of Alaska—no pink or orange lake. We have to save our remaining fuel for finding the mark of the buried.” Cian cleared his throat and looked at Erros expectantly. “Sorry, the mark of the Sequencers.”

Isaac knew Ximena could convince them. She had to. He didn’t want to take the Cure from her, but he needed it. “It’s bigger than the Villas,” he whispered to her. She could destroy as many Villas as she wanted to, but it wouldn’t change things. This might.

“Dammit, Isaac,” Ximena picked up her backpack.

“Please . . .”

She let out a sigh and stood up. “I can help the Sequencers,” she announced to Cian and Erros. “Take the islanders to Alaska to find their friends, and I’ll take you to the Cure.”

The two brothers said nothing, just stared at her. But it was only a matter of time, now. She’d convince them for sure.

Isaac let out a sigh of relief.

Thank you , he mouthed to Ximena.

Ximena had no intention of giving them the Cure. But going to Alaska? Fine.

She’d escape and make her way to the Alaskan Villa, as good a plan as any, but she wasn’t dumb enough to give something so valuable away, especially to strangers. She’d make them believe that she trusted them enough to share the Cure.

Cian didn’t seem on board. “It doesn’t really matter, anyway.

The Cure is useless without finding the Sequencers, and Kletter made sure that the entrance and coordinates were kept secret.

We’ve been looking for . . . well, for longer than I want to even admit.

” He threw another log on the fire. “You can sleep here; there’s plenty of wood. ”

“Man, I got my hopes up,” Jackie said. Isaac just gave her a sad nod.

He certainly seemed to have no intention of giving up. “What if we go up there, and we talk to the Godhead? They’ve got to know where these people are, right?”

“Wrong.”

“The Godhead isn’t what you think it is,” Cian said while laying down palm branches, apparently for his bed. “Sleep closer to the fire and the bugs won’t bother you.”

Isaac and Jackie pulled palms over for Old Man Frypan.

Ximena had a strange, nagging feeling that she couldn’t shake.

Another intuition was coming, and her body was already fighting it before it got to her mind.

It physically hurt her to lie, and her intuition always felt like a lie until proven true.

The time it took for the pain of the lie to leave her always varied.

Sometimes the intuition only felt like a lie for a second or two.

Other times it took months, and sometimes years for the truth to be proven.

She had a gift, and deep down she knew it was somehow related to the mutations of the Flare virus.

That often made her hate these inner-knowings the most. Her body was all tension and doubt, wondering if she could be going mad. It never got easier, and right now she felt a big hairy lie creeping up in her throat. It got louder inside her head. Then stronger . . .

Until she had to say it.

“I know where the Sequencers are located.” Her voice cracked a bit. Then she cleared her throat and raised her voice. “People at our Villa knew all about them, talked about it way more than they should have, obviously. I can guide you to where they are.”

Cian looked at her with a focus that felt invasive. Ximena repeated the lie in her head. I know where the Sequencers are . . .

“Cian?” Erros asked his brother. “That’s what she’s been hiding?”

Cian tied the red scarf around his neck and picked up his crossbow.

Erros let out what sounded like a chuckle and stepped closer to his own weapon, too.

Had she gone too far, too quickly? Were they about to aim their weapons at her and fire?

All the worst thoughts ran through her head but she stood still, while being sure of nothing but herself.

“Well?” Cian turned to Ximena, kicking the bed of palm branches at his feet. “Since we have absolutely no other leads or hopes, let’s get to Alaska and drop these islanders off. Then you can prove yourself and show us where they are. How about that?”

Yep. She’d gone too far, this time.

Ximena tried to slow her heart, prevent the fear from spreading all over her face. Her joints burned with the lie; panic filled her lungs like a million tiny pinpricks. She had no idea what she’d do after they dropped Isaac and the others off. But she needed to figure something out, quick.

They’d called her bluff.