Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(35)

“So that was your access code? Chromium?”

“That and some other numbers and letters,” he says. “I’m not sure what they mean, or if they are just random stuff.”

The pig I killed in the garden—it was so hard to take that animal’s life. I can’t imagine what it must be like to do the same to something you love. How unfair that O’Malley remembers that act when it wasn’t even him that did it.



Maybe this is something he needs to talk about. If he wants to talk to me, I will listen, but not now. There are more important things than a dead cat.

“We need to know more,” I say. “Can the pedestals tell us about the city? The mold?”

He shakes his head. “It looks like most of the information was permanently erased. The Grownups did that, I think. I don’t know why. I was able to see some organizational information. That’s how I learned the Observatory has power.”

The Observatory. All he had to do was come out and tell us about it. Instead, he wanted us to think that going there was someone else’s idea.

Attack, attack…

“What do the symbols mean, O’Malley?”

His stone-face returns. “You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, don’t I? Now you know what I want?”

“I know what you need.”

How arrogant. My sympathy for the hurt he feels over the cat is fading fast.

“Out with it. Right now.”

He pauses.

“You’ve been telling us that we can’t afford to be divided against each other,” he says. “You’re correct. So, if I found something the Grownups did that doesn’t apply to us, and would upset people, then you’re right to say it’s best if we leave it alone.”

Arguing with each other, splitting into factions, that’s the fastest way to failure, to disaster. Do we really need things that could divide us? I want all the information I can get, but…



…wait.

Wait.

I know we can’t afford to be divided—but I never said that. Just like I didn’t say anything about looking near the shuttle to see if spiders were close.

O’Malley said those things, not me.

My anger spikes, but this time I’m ready for it. I shove it down. I set my spear against the wall, reach out and take his hand. He stares at our linked fingers, somewhat surprised. Maybe he’s only comfortable with contact if he’s the one initiating it.

“You want people to think your ideas are mine,” I say. “Why?”

His eyes go wide. He’s been caught and he knows it. Did he think I wouldn’t notice? Does he think I’m stupid, just an empty?

“My training,” he says. “I know ways to…to convince people to do things. Ways to make sure everyone thinks the leader knows exactly what’s going on. It’s bad for people to doubt the leader. As soon as I started helping you, back on the Xolotl, I remembered some of what I learned in school.”

He had a flashfire of memories. The same thing happened to Gaston, to Aramovsky, to Bishop and Spingate. I’ve yet to have mine.

“What you did was wrong,” I say. “Just because you know how to do something doesn’t mean you have to do it.”

He shrugs. “It’s how I was trained.”

“That wasn’t you. That was your creator.”

He huffs. “Is there really a difference? I remember that kitten. I remember holding it, petting it. I remember how it purred, loving me, trusting me, right before my hands closed around its tiny neck. I remember it scratching me…”

O’Malley seems confused. He slides up the sleeve of his black coveralls, stares at his forearm. He turns his arm this way and that, looking for something.



“It scratched me,” he says. “Really bad. There were scars.”

I take his forearm in my hands. My thumbs make slow circles on his skin.

“Your progenitor had scars. You are not him. You asked if there was a difference. There is—you don’t have to do things like he would have done them. You have a choice. We have a choice. I don’t need you to lie for me. We’re not going to make the same mistakes our creators made. If people doubt me, that’s fine.”

“You’re wrong,” he says. “If people don’t think you know exactly what needs to be done, they’ll look for someone who does.”

I shrug. “Then we’ll have another vote and pick another leader. We can’t keep secrets from each other.”

He laughs, looks away. “That’s what you say now.”

I cup his face, force him to look at me. “We will not keep secrets. Tell me what the symbols mean.”

His eyes plead with me. “Leave it be. This will change everything.”

I nod. “And we’ll handle it.”

O’Malley closes his eyes. He slowly tilts forward until his forehead presses against mine. That tiny spot of contact sends a tingle through me. It isn’t aggressive, like his kiss, yet this gentle touch reaches me in a way that kiss never could.

He straightens, faces the pedestals.

“Shuttle, show her the wheel.”

The invisible voice speaks: “Yes, Chancellor.”

The little heads above the pedestal blur, then fuzz out. A circle forms, dotted with tiny images around the outer edge. In the circle’s center there is a flat, fat-cheeked cartoonish face that looks like it was carved into flat stone. Its tongue sticks out. The style of art reminds me of my birth-coffin’s carvings.