I look over at Indie. Her face looks beautiful, lit up. She believes in the Pilot. Do I, now that I’ve heard his voice?
“The red tablet doesn’t work on you,” the Pilot says. “You remember what the Society would have you forget. As some of you have long suspected, the Rising did this—we made you immune to the red tablet. And that is not all. You are also immune to an illness that is even now overtaking Cities and Boroughs throughout the Provinces.”
They never said anything about an illness. My muscles tense. What does this mean for Cassia?
“Some of you have heard of the Plague.”
Indie turns to me. “Have you?” she mouths.
I almost say no but then I realize that I might have. The mystery illness that killed Eli’s parents.
“Eli,” I mouth back, and Indie nods.
“The Society intended the Plague for the Enemy,” the Pilot says. “They poisoned some of the Enemy’s rivers and released the Plague into others. This, combined with continued attacks from the air, completely eliminated the Enemy. But the Society has pretended that the Enemy still exists. The Society needed someone to blame for the ongoing loss of life of those who lived in the Outer Provinces.
“Some of you were out there in those camps. You know that the Society wanted to eradicate Aberrations and Anomalies completely. And they used your deaths, and the information they gathered from them, as one last great collection of data.”
Silence. We all know that what he says is true.
“We wanted to come in and save you sooner,” the Pilot says, “but we weren’t ready yet. We had to wait a little longer. But we did not forget you.”
Didn’t you? I want to ask. Some of my old bitterness against the Rising fills me, and I grip the controls of the ship tightly, staring out into the night.
“Back when the Society created this Plague,” the Pilot says, “there were those who remembered that what is water in one place becomes rain somewhere else. They knew that releasing this disease would come back to us somehow, no matter how many precautions were taken. It created a division among the scientists in the Society, and many of them secretly joined the Rising. Some of our scientists found a way to make people immune to the red tablet, and also to the Plague. In the beginning, we didn’t have the resources to give these immunities to everyone. So we had to choose. And we chose you.”
“He chose us,” Indie whispers.
“You haven’t forgotten the things the Society wanted you to lose. And you can’t get the Plague. We protected you from both.” The Pilot pauses. “You’ve always known that we have been preparing you for the most important errand of all—bringing in the Rising. But you’ve never known exactly what your cargo would be.
“You carry the cure,” the Pilot says. “Right now, the errand ships, covered by the fighters, are bringing the cure to the most impacted cities—to Central, Grandia, Oria, Acadia.”
Central is one of the most impacted cities. Is Cassia sick? We never knew if she was immune to the red tablet. I don’t think that she is.
And why is the Plague in so many places? The largest cities, all sick at the same time? Shouldn’t it take longer to spread, instead of exploding everywhere at once?
That’s a question for Xander. I wish I could ask him.
Indie glances over at me. “No,” she says. She knows what I want to do. She knows that I want to try to get to Cassia anyway.
She’s right. That is what I want to do. And if it were me by myself, I’d risk it. I’d try to outrun the Rising.
But it’s not just me.
“Many of you,” the Pilot says, “have been paired with someone you know. This was intentional. We knew it would be difficult for those of you who still have loved ones within the Society to resist taking the cure to your family and friends. We cannot compromise the efficiency of this mission, and we will need to bring you down should you try to deviate from your assigned course.”
The Rising is smart. They’ve matched me with the one person in camp I care about. Which goes to show that caring about anyone leaves you vulnerable. I’ve known this for years but I still can’t stop.
“We have an adequate supply of the cure,” the Pilot says. “We do not have a surplus. Please don’t waste the resources many have sacrificed to provide.”
It’s so calculated—the way they paired us up, the way they’ve made just enough of the cure. “This sounds like the Society,” I say out loud.
“We are not the Society,” the Pilot says, “but we recognize that we have to save people before we can free them.”
Indie and I stare at each other. Did the Pilot answer me? Indie covers her mouth with her hand and I find myself, inexplicably, trying not to laugh.
“The Society built barricades and walls in order to try and contain the illness,” the Pilot says. “They’ve isolated people in quarantine in the medical centers and then, when space ran out, in government buildings.
“These past few days have been a turning point. We confirmed that the numbers of those fallen ill have reached a critical mass. Tonight, Match Banquets all across the Society fell apart, from Camas to Central and beyond. The Society kept trying to reconfigure the data, right up until the last moment, but they could not keep up. We infiltrated the sorting centers to accelerate the problem. It wasn’t difficult to throw the Matching into disarray. There were silver boxes with no microcards and blank screens without Matches all across the Provinces.
“Many people took the red tablet tonight, but not all of them will forget. The Match Banquet is the Society’s signature event, the one upon which all the others rely. Its fall represents the Society’s inability to care for its people. Even those who did forget will soon realize that they have no Match and that something is wrong. They’ll realize that people they know, too many of them, have disappeared behind barricades and are not coming back. The Society is dying, and it is our time now.
“The Rising is for everyone.” The Pilot’s voice drops a little as he repeats the motto, becomes deeper with emotion. “But you are the ones who will begin it. You are the ones who will save them.”
We wait. But he’s finished speaking. The ship feels emptier without his voice.
“We’re going to save them,” Indie says. “Everyone. Can you believe it?”