Part 12 (1/2)

”Here,” she said. ”We stashed some stuff for when we go on longer swims.” Ahead was a fallen tree, its roots having pulled up the forest floor like a flap of skin. She crouched and ducked under the thick base of the trunk. With a grunt, she pulled out a red bag made of smooth, waterproof fabric. She unclipped big metal buckles and pulled out a bulky yellow flashlight. She flicked a switch, igniting a beam of white light. ”Waterproof.”

”Cool.”

She stashed the bag. ”Come on.”

We walked back to the water's edge and had waded in knee deep when I paused. We were far enough from camp that we'd reached the edge of the inlet. The wide center of the lake spread away from us, and on its far sh.o.r.e, a couple kilometers away, was the EdenWest city. It twinkled in vertical stacks of amber-and-emerald lights. I'd seen photos of the old technopolises, with their miles of skysc.r.a.pers, and of the new, more modest ones up north, like Baffin City, Yellowknife, Helsinki Island, and New Murmansk. EdenWest was probably not even close to that scale, but still, for someone who had spent his life in a flat, hunched world beneath rock ceilings, there was something amazing to me about the straight, reaching towers, the idea that people might have existed, once upon a time, making free use of the sky.

”There's Neverland,” said Lilly.

”Huh?” I didn't know the reference. When she didn't add more, I asked, ”Is it cool there?”

”I guess. If you're like Evan and you just want to live your little life pretending everything's fine, while the world outside goes to h.e.l.l.”

I laughed, but cut it off when I saw that Lilly wasn't smiling.

”It's not all bad,” she said. ”There are museums and stuff, entertainment, sports, shows and games that travel from one Eden to the next, and you know, lots of boutiques with the styles from up north, SensaStreets made of hyperbricks that synch with your me-self and advertise to you and play your own sound track as you walk, but... I'm mainly at Cryo House.” Her voice quieted. ”You don't get out much when you don't have parents to take you anywhere.”

She hugged herself, like she might be cold. I thought about putting my arm around her, but wasn't sure if that would be okay. And how did you find out if it was? Did you ask? It seemed like you were supposed to just know. know.

But then Lilly said, ”Come on,” and I'd missed my chance.

We plunged back under, descending with the lake bottom until we were in new depths, maybe ten meters down, ears aching. Lilly switched on her light and we leveled out, losing the bottom and moving into the black, the light beam waving back and forth. You couldn't tell up and down by sight, but there were other clues, variations in temperature and pressure, things your body could sense if you listened in new ways.

Lilly's beam caught something white in the water. She paused and aimed the light as I swam up beside her. I looked down and flinched. There were eyes down there, large and black... a fish. An enormous fish, barely moving, just hovering lazily in the dark. Its body was a sickly peach color like dead flesh, with a pattern of dull coal-colored blotches like incomplete stripes. It had a square head and a fat body. Its fins flicked slowly.

'What's that?' I asked.

'Zombie koi. That's what we call them, anyway.'

'It's gross.'

'Yeah. I guess back when they opened this place, they thought it would be cute if the lake had pretty fish like some Asian garden, so they put koi in with everything else, but then the koi ended up outcompeting the other fish, either by eating them or killing the plant life in the lake.'

'I saw fake plants on the bottom,' I said.

'Yeah, and then this lake never gets cold, like winter, so the koi just kept eating and growing all the time. And then, get this: Eden even put in these fish called walleyes that used to be here, to eat the baby koi, but then the koi and the walleyes just got it on, and that's how you got these mutant zombie freaks. Oh, and the koi eat those walleyes now.' Lilly turned to me and smiled. 'This lake is full of weird creatures.'

'Ha.'

'Don't worry, though; they might look creepy, but they're just big dopes.'

The fish kept floating there, s.h.i.+mmering in the light beam. It rotated to aim its other eye at us, then must have decided we weren't food, and slithered off into the darkness.

We kept swimming, every once in a while seeing another zombie koi floating along in the murky depths. The story made me feel a little bad for the creature. I thought again about how this lake, this whole place, seemed like a giant lab, a weird mad scientist's chamber of robot b.u.t.terflies, creepy fish, and mutant gill people.

Now Lilly's flashlight reflected off metal. The side of the wreck. It appeared to us as a long wall looming out of the dark, rusty and twenty feet tall, red paint remaining here and there. It hung c.o.c.keyed, impaled on a spear of rock rising up from the unseen bottom. A flat deck in front, then a square cabin, and in back a bunch of cranes and ropes like maybe it had been a fis.h.i.+ng boat.

Lilly swam to the side railing and into the cabin through a door that hung open. I followed. Inside was a little room with a dining table and benches. Everything was coated in furry green slime. I found her pretending to sit there at the table, despite the steep angle of the s.h.i.+p, her hands folded. 'What's for dinner, captain?'

I laughed and swam toward the door to the next room. 'This is cool.'

She slid beside me in the doorway. I felt her arm against mine. 'We thought there might be bodies, but no luck.'

We slipped into the next room, and the flashlight beam illuminated buckled counters, the gnawed remnants of rolled papers, an ancient computer floating upside down in the corner. The floor was littered with a mess of rotted books, plates and cups, electronic debris. Schools of small silver fish scattered around my feet. I wondered if they hid in here from the zombie koi outside.

'What would you like?' Lilly asked.

I turned to see her near a stove, holding a rusted frying pan. She was smiling.

I was supposed to say something witty, I knew that. But what? 'Um... ,' I said.

Lilly drifted over to me, the pan in front of her, the flashlight pointed straight at my face. 'Jeez, it's not a test.'

'No?' I said, wincing against the beam.

'You're funny,' said Lilly.

'Me?' I felt my insides spinning into overdrive. Funny? Where did she get that idea? 'I'm never funny.'

'Yes, you are. Your whole awkward thing.' Maybe it was just the currents in this room, but Lilly seemed to be inching closer. 'The way you get so fl.u.s.tered.'

'I don't get... I...' I had no idea what to say.

'Exactly what I'm talking about. You never try to act all cool around me. You never try to put on a show.' The frying pan bounced against my abdomen. She lowered it and let it sink to the floor. The flashlight beam pointed up, giving us sinister faces.

'I-show? I wouldn't even-'

'That's what I like.' Lilly smiled, and her eyes seemed to get bigger. 'The Owen Show isn't a show, it's real. It's just what you are.'

Closer. A shocking thing suddenly crossed my mind. Was Lilly flirting with me? Like, real flirting? The actual I like you I like you flirting? I felt frozen. How could this be possible? And what was I supposed to do? I felt like I should say something witty, something smooth, but there was no time and so I just replied, 'Sorry,' and then I thought, flirting? I felt frozen. How could this be possible? And what was I supposed to do? I felt like I should say something witty, something smooth, but there was no time and so I just replied, 'Sorry,' and then I thought, Why did you say that? YOU ARE AN IDIOT! Why did you say that? YOU ARE AN IDIOT! Why would I say sorry? I- Why would I say sorry? I- Lilly laughed. Moved even closer. 'Owen, it's not a bad thing.'

Our bodies were only centimeters apart. Now what?

'I fl.u.s.ter you,' Lilly said, her face like some kind of black hole, sucking me in, bending time. Could this really be... that? Could we really- Owen.

A blue glow caught the corner of my vision.

Lilly was right there, our eyes locked- I turned away. Now, of all times, but I had to, because it was that that blue glow. blue glow.

Find me.

It flickered from the porthole window behind me. 'It's back,' I said.

'Wait, what?' Lilly asked.

I was ruining the moment, but I couldn't help it. I slid over and pressed my cheek to the gla.s.s, realizing with a tight twist of nerves that I had just missed a gigantic chance, though I was maybe relieved more than anything else, my head still spinning from the possibilities.