Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(9)

“Can we change this, so everyone has access to everything?”

“I tried,” O’Malley says. “It won’t let me do much of anything.”

He faces the pedestals, licks his lips. He’s acting so strange. What has him so anxious?

“Shuttle, where are we?” he asks.

A soft voice purrs from the walls.

“Omeyocan.”

Black spots form above all three pedestals. The spots fuzz with sparkles of every possible color, then solidify. I’m looking at a planet: blue, green and brown. It spins slowly. It is exactly what I saw up on the Xolotl.

“Shuttle,” he says, “I need to change access privileges.”

“Chancellor, O’Malley, Kevin Patrick, speak the access code to continue.”

His first name is Kevin? I like that name. But I like O’Malley more.

“I think some info is available to anyone,” O’Malley says. “But most of the questions I ask, it wants a code that I don’t know.”



The shuttle obviously recognizes him. It must think he is the Grownup O’Malley, after an overwrite. Maybe it will make the same mistake with me. On the Xolotl, Matilda seemed to be in charge.

I face the pedestals.

“Shuttle, do you know who I am?”

“Savage, Matilda Jean, Empress.”

Empress?

O’Malley laughs. He rolls his eyes, smiling. “Your Highness. Should I bow?”

I punch his shoulder.

“Shuttle,” I say, “what do our symbols mean?”

“Speak the access code to continue.”

“If I’m the empress, I don’t need a code. What do our symbols mean? What is this city?”

“Gambit-level information requires verbal confirmation of access code, Empress. Speak the access code to continue.”

“Told you,” O’Malley says.

“What else is on this deck?”

“Nothing as far as I can tell. I think the rest of this deck’s space has machinery…maybe to take care of what’s below us, on Deck Four.”

His voice wavers when he speaks. He sounds anxious, and perhaps a little afraid. Whatever he’s afraid of, it’s down there.

“All right,” I say. “Show me.”

His lips press into a flat line. “Come on.”

I follow him down to the last deck. There is a wheel-door, just like the others, but this one has a circle-cross in the hub.

“I was able to open it,” he says. “According to the symbols in the pedestal room, I think you can, too.”

He waits for me to do so. Now I’m a little afraid, as if his anxiety is contagious.



I grip the wheel. It spins easily. I pull the door open and step through.

I am looking into a long space undivided by walls or doors. There is nothing here, in fact, save for what lies on the floor.

Two long columns of brown coffins, clean and shining, covered in carvings of jaguars, pyramids and suns.





O’Malley and I return to the top deck. People are playing, talking, even napping inside the white coffins.

I catch Bishop’s eye, tilt my head toward the pilothouse. He nods, picks up his axe and follows us.

Before we reach the pilothouse door, the wheel spins. Gaston and Spingate step out. They don’t look as rested as I’d hoped, but they look happy, and that’s something.

“Back inside,” I say. “I need to talk to you both.”

We enter. Bishop starts to swing the door shut behind us, but it stops halfway: smiling Aramovsky is blocking it with his body.

“Are we making plans?” he says. “Good. We need to discuss the spiritual needs of the people.”

Bishop glances at me, but when he does, skinny Aramovsky slides through the door and into the room. It would have been one thing to say he couldn’t come in—it’s entirely another to make him leave. Which, of course, Aramovsky knows.

Bishop shuts the door.



The first time I entered the pilothouse, the walls were black. Now it’s as if there are no walls at all. It looks like I’m standing in the middle of the clearing that ends in a tall, circular wall of piled vines. I see the shapes of the strange buildings beyond, and I seem to float high above yellow vines even though the pilothouse floor feels just as solid as it ever did.

Bishop leans the flat of his axe against his hip. He’s waiting for me to speak, as are the others.

“O’Malley accessed the shuttle’s lower levels,” I say.

Gaston glares at O’Malley. O’Malley is expressionless, as he always seems to be during discussions like these.

I don’t mention the room with the pedestals. If Aramovsky is going to make everything his business, I don’t want him messing around in there. I quickly describe the room we saw on Deck Four, making sure my friends understand these are not simple white coffins, but rather the same kind in which we all first awoke.

Bishop looks angry. Spingate and Gaston seem shocked.

Aramovsky is delighted.

“How wonderful,” he says. “Did you open them?”

Bishop huffs. “Of course she didn’t. Em wouldn’t do something that dangerous without me and the circle-stars there.”

“Dangerous,” Aramovsky says. “Ah, I see. Those new coffins might hold Grownups instead of people like us. Don’t worry, Bishop, I have absolute faith in you—if there are Grownups, I’m sure you’ll find a way to kill them all.”