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It’s clear that Oker’s won. There are far more stones in his trough than in Leyna’s. But Colin doesn’t announce that yet. Instead, he stands back as some of the farmers come forward, holding buckets of water. Their arms are marked in blue. Anna follows them.
“The farmers vote with stones, too,” Eli whispers to me, “but they also use the water. The villagers have added it as part of their voting ceremony now. ”
Anna stands in front of the crowd and speaks to us. “Like the floods that came through our canyon home,” she says, “we acknowledge the power of our choice, and we follow the water. ”
The farmers pour the water into both troughs at the same time.
The water rushes down, floods flashing through. Some of it slips through the rocks at the end. Even Oker’s trough lets some out. But it has the most stones; it holds the most water.
“The votes have been cast,” Colin says. “We’ll try Oker’s cure first. ”
I slip through the crowd as fast as the water through the rocks, racing for the infirmary to protect Ky from the cure.
When I push open the door to the building, I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s raining, inside. I hear a sound like water hitting the floorboards.
The bags are all unhooked, and they drip onto the floor.
All of them, not only Ky’s. I go straight to Ky. He takes a shallow, watery breath.
The line has been pulled out and then looped neatly over the pole next to his bed. It drips out onto the floor. Drip. Drip. Drip.
And it’s happening to everyone else. For a moment, I don’t know what to do. Where are all the medics? Did they leave for the vote? I don’t know how to hook Ky’s line back up.
I hear a movement at the other end of the room and I turn. It’s Hunter, down near the patients who the Pilot first brought to the village. Hunter stands there, a dark shadow at the back, and he doesn’t move. “Hunter,” I say, walking toward him slowly, “what happened?”
I hear someone at the door behind me and I turn to see who it is.
Anna.
Her face is stricken. She stops a few feet away from me and stares at Hunter. He doesn’t look away, and his eyes are full of pain.
Then I notice the crumpled bodies of the medics near him. Are they dead?
“You tried to kill everyone,” I say to Hunter, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I’m wrong. If he wanted to kill them, it would have been easy while we were all gone.
“No,” Hunter says. “I wanted to make it fair. ”
I don’t understand what he means. I thought I could trust him, and I was wrong. Hunter sits down and puts his head in his hands, and I hear the sounds of Anna crying and the bags dripping onto the floor.
“Keep him away from Ky,” I say to Anna, my voice harsh. She nods. Hunter is much stronger than she is, but he looks broken now. I don’t know how long that will last, though, and I need to find people to help the still. I need Xander.
He and Ky are the only people here that I can trust. How could I forget?
CHAPTER 41
XANDER
Oker locks the doors behind us in the lab. “I need you to do something for me,” he says, picking up the bag he used when we dug camassia bulbs and sliding it over his shoulder.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
Oker peers out the window. “I have to leave now. They’re all still distracted. ”
“Wait,” I say. “Won’t you need me to help you?” He can’t dig on his own. Is that what he has in mind?
“I want you to stay here,” Oker says. He reaches into his pockets and takes out the metal ring with the keys to the cabinets where he’s locked the camassia cure. “Destroy all of the cures. I’ll be back with something else we can use. ”
“But you won the vote,” I say.
“This cure won’t work,” Oker says. “But now I know what will. ”
“We don’t have to destroy everything,” I say.
“Yes, we do,” Oker says. “The people voted on this cure. They’re not going to take a substitute. Do it. Dump it all down the sink. Get rid of the cures Leyna had me make, too. They’re all useless. ”
I don’t move because I can’t believe what he’s saying. “You were so sure about the camassia. We can still try it on some of them. ”
“It won’t work,” Oker spits. “We’ll waste time. We’ll waste lives. They’re already dying. Do what I tell you. ”
I don’t know if I can. We worked so hard on the cure, and he was so sure.
“You think I’m the Pilot, don’t you,” Oker says, watching me. “Do you want to know what the real Pilot is?”
I’m not sure that I do anymore.
“We used to laugh at the Pilot stories back when I worked in the Society,” Oker says. “How could people think that someone was going to come from the sky to save them? Or from the water? Stupid stories. Crazy. Only weak-minded people would need to believe in something like that. ” He drops the keys to the cabinet into my hand. “I told you the Society named the viruses. ”
I nod.
“When we found out that we’d be dropping it from the sky and sending it on the water, we thought it would be funny to name the Plague after the people’s stories. So we called the Plague the ‘Pilot. ’”
The Plague is the Pilot.
Oker didn’t only help engineer the cure. First, he helped create the Plague. The Plague that is now mutated and turning everyone still.
“You see,” Oker says, “I have to find a cure. ”
I do see. It’s the only thing that can redeem him. “I’ll destroy the camassia cure,” I say. “But before you go, tell me: What plant is it you’re going to find?”
Oker doesn’t answer. He walks over to the door and glances over at me. I realize he can’t let go of being the only pilot for the cure. “I’ll be back,” he says. “Lock the door behind me. ”
And then he’s gone.
Oker believes I’ll do what he told me to do. He trusts me. Do I trust him? Is this the wrong cure? Would it set us too far back to try it out?
