The Death Code by Cummings Lindsay

Author:Cummings, Lindsay [Cummings, Lindsay]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-04-14T07:00:00+00:00

ZEPHYR

There’s a Perimeter around what’s left of the country.

It’s miles and miles away, out in the ocean. You can’t see it without the telescope, even if you’re standing onshore staring until your eyes hurt.

If you can pretend it’s not there, you can pretend you’re free.

But what is freedom, really, if it’s all a lie?

The General sits down on the roof and explains what he knows.

“A long time ago, about twenty years, this country was the United States. Big world power, if you can believe it. Damn, those were good times. We were strong. We had all the power, all the answers.” The General points to his chest, where that strange symbol sits. Red and white and blue. The flag. “And then it all went to hell when the Plague hit. Huge epidemic, and it wasn’t just here. It was everywhere, all over the world.” He sighs, looks down at his boots. “People were dropping left and right. It was airborne. Hit the world like a storm, and we didn’t stand a chance in hell.”

Meadow nods. “That’s why we were in the Shallows. Or why we thought, anyways. Our whole lives, we believed the Pins we had were keeping the Plague away from us. In reality, it was just my mother’s Eternity Cure. The nanites are in all of us, in our blood.”

The General nods. “The government couldn’t do anything to stop the Plague, and it all fell apart.”

“Until my mother,” Meadow says. Her voice breaks. I see sorrow in her eyes. Then disgust. It’s like a constant battle for her.

Will it make things better, or worse, when she finds out I was the one who killed Lark?

The General goes on. “The Initiative stepped up. They were strong, and they weren’t dying from the Plague, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before any dying country doesn’t follow the new world leaders who have the answer to cheating death. The Initiative brought your mother with them, a young, brilliant woman they’d found in Florida. She created the Eternity Cure. People stopped dying. It was the answer we’d been looking for. It was sent airborne, and waterborne, to fight the Plague. All over the world, governments were distributing it.”

“So the Initiative isn’t just here?” Meadow asks. “Where are they?”

“The Initiative is the US branch.” He shrugs. “There are others, in other countries, but we lost contact. Satellite systems went haywire, when the power went out with it. The Perimeter you saw in the ocean, it surrounds what’s left of this country. Stretches from sea to sky, and it’s electromagnetic. Scary as hell. Uncrossable. Those who try, die.”

“So the whole country is prisoner,” Meadow says. She’s taking the news well.

I’m freaking out so bad I can’t even find words.

“Why?” Sketch asks.

“Because the Initiative offered up the United States as one of the controlled variables in a worldwide experiment,” the General says. “We’re the country that’s trying to reverse things. The testing sites, the Shallows, the Ridge, the Drop. It’s all ways to deal with the Cure.

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