I move quickly back up to where I was sitting. Julian watches me the whole time, although he doesn’t move—he stands there, perfectly still, in front of the now-blank screen. Only his eyes are mobile, alive. I can feel them on my neck, on my back, tangled in my hair. I find my glove easily and scoop it off the ground, holding it up for Julian’s inspection.
“Found it,” I say, deliberately avoiding his eyes. I start walking quickly to the exit. He stops me with a question.
“How long were you standing there?”
“What?” I turn around again to look at him. His face is now expressionless, unreadable.
“How long were you there? How many pictures did you see?”
I hesitate, wondering whether this is some kind of test. “I saw the mountain,” I say finally.
He looks down at his feet, then meets my gaze again. Even from a distance, I am startled by the clarity of his eyes. “We’re looking for strongholds,” he says, lifting his chin, as though expecting me to contradict him. “Invalid camps. We’re using all kinds of surveillance techniques.”
So, another fact: Julian Fineman is a liar.
At the same time, it’s a mark of progress that someone like Julian would even use the word. A year ago, Invalids weren’t even supposed to exist. We were supposed to have been exterminated during the blitz. We were the stuff of myth, like unicorns and werewolves.
That was before the Incidents, before the resistance started asserting itself more forcefully and we became impossible to ignore.
I force myself to smile. “I hope you find them,” I say. “I hope you find every last one.”
Julian nods.
As I turn around, I add, “Before they find you.”
His voice rings out sharply. “What did you say?”
I shoot him a look over my shoulder. “Before they find us,” I say, and push through the doors, letting them swing shut behind me.
By the time I make it back to Brooklyn, the sun has set. The apartment is cold. The shades are drawn, and a single light burns in the foyer. The sideboard just inside the hall is stacked with a slender pile of mail.
NO ONE IS SAFE UNTIL EVERYONE IS CURED, reads the writing on the first envelope, printed neatly above our address. Then, beneath it: PLEASE SUPPORT THE DFA.
Next to the mail is a small silver tray for our identification papers. Two IDs are lined up next to each other: Rebecca Ann Sherman and Thomas Clive Sherman, both unsmiling in their official portraits, staring straight ahead. Rebecca has coal-black hair, perfectly parted, and wide brown eyes. Thomas’s hair is clipped so short it’s difficult to judge what color it might be. His eyes are hooded, as though he’s close to sleep.
Beneath their IDs are their documents, clipped together neatly. If you were to page through the packet, you would learn all the relevant facts about Rebecca and Thomas: dates and places of birth, parents and grandparents, salaries, school grades, incidents of disobedience, evaluation and board scores, the date and place of their wedding ceremony, all previous addresses.
Of course, Rebecca and Thomas don’t really exist, any more than Lena Morgan Jones exists: a thin-faced girl, also unsmiling in her official ID. My ID goes next to Rebecca’s. You never know when there might be a raid, or a census. It’s better if you don’t have to go digging for your documents. It’s best, actually, if nobody ever goes digging around here.
It wasn’t until I moved to New York City that I understood Raven’s obsession with order in the Wilds: The surfaces must look right. They must be smooth. There must never be any crumbs.
That way there is never any trail to follow.
The curtains are closed in the living room. This keeps the heat in and also the eyes—of the neighbors, of the regulators, of passing patrols—out. In Zombieland, someone is always watching. There is nothing else for people to do. They do not think. They feel no passion, no hatred, no sadness; they feel nothing but fear, and a desire for control. So they watch, and poke, and pry.
At the back of the apartment is the kitchen. Hanging on the wall above the table is a photograph of Thomas Fineman, and another of Cormac T. Holmes, the scientist credited with performing the first-ever successful cure.
Past the stove is a little alcove pantry. It is lined with narrow shelves and absolutely packed with food. The memory of a long hunger is difficult to shake, and all of us—the ones who know—are secret hoarders now. We pack granola bars in our bags and stuff our pockets with sugar packets.
You never know when the hunger will be back.
One of the pantry’s three walls is, in fact, a hidden door. I ease it open to reveal a set of rough wooden stairs. A light glows dimly in the basement, and I hear the staccato rhythm of voices. Raven and Tack are fighting—nothing new there—and I hear Tack, sounding pained, say, “I just don’t understand why we can’t be honest with each other. We’re supposed to be on the same side.”
Raven responds sharply, “You know that’s unrealistic, Tack. It’s for the best. You have to trust me.”