Dead Water Zone - Kenneth Oppel [22]
His hands felt clumsy against the keyboard. He got into the computer’s main operating system and waded into the electronic morass. A daunting matrix of symbols glittered on the monitor: weird arrangements of numbers and letters, exotic flourishes and occult scribbles.
So what’s the code, Sam?
His eyes were fixed on the screen. When his memory flagged, he willed his hands to remember the steps for him. The symbols seemed to waver, leap toward him. Perspiration dampened the fringes of his hair. He was rushing through electronic doors, gazing into the labyrinthine innards of the computer. And there it was—Sam’s code.
Da Vinci.
The engine cut out as he finished reading the first file. He hadn’t understood most of it. There were formulas and molecular models, references to chemical compounds he’d probably never hear about in school. But Sam had added comments and observations in log form, and that part at least, Paul had understood.
Monica’s footsteps sounded in the gangway, and he furtively switched off the computer, the text swirling out of sight. He watched her coming into view down the stairs, the scissoring of her legs beneath the bulky pants, the weightless swing of her arms, her thin, pale face.
Why hadn’t he suspected? It seemed so obvious now. He’d sensed all along she was different: such power in her frail body, the unnatural speed, the way she always saw and heard things before him. Sked’s voice slurred through his head. Toxic freak. Health hazard.
“We’re tied up off the reach,” she said, hesitating on the last step. “What was on the diskette?”
“You drink the water, don’t you?”
She looked back at him, silent.
“You drink it, and it changes you.” Dead water zone. How could she do that?
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. Then again, more firmly, “No!”
He laughed hoarsely, waving his hand at the computer. It was all there.
“No one drinks the water,” she insisted, “not anymore. About twenty years ago, everybody did. But it wasn’t so polluted then—that’s what my mother said, anyway. Anything bad in it, the Watertowners were immune to, they’d been drinking it for so long. But then the water turned.”
“Turned?”
“Changed. People suddenly started getting sick from it, losing weight. Some went crazy, a few died. Almost everyone stopped then. But people who kept drinking it said it wasn’t hurting them.”
“But it was changing them.”
Monica nodded. “Mom said they got real thin, but they got stronger, faster. She was a Waterdrinker.”
Paul shook his head in confusion. “But how—”
“I must have got it through Mom, before I was born. Like Armitage. But she wouldn’t let us drink it.” Her voice suddenly hardened with anger. “Didn’t stop her though. Even if it didn’t make her sick, it made her go funny. I think that’s why she was always wandering off, like she was looking for something. A lot of the other Waterdrinkers disappeared, too. A few of them died, real sudden, all shriveled up, like skeletons—horrible. Anyway, they’re all gone now. The kids—most of us banded together on our pier.”
“And built a gate to keep people out.”
She shrugged. “They hate us, the other Watertowners. A lot of them don’t even know about the dead water, but they can all tell we’re different. Freaks.”
“Not Decks.”
“No, Decks is different. He’s an old family friend. He never drank the water, but he doesn’t hate the people who did. Most Watertowners are more like Sked.”
“He seemed almost jealous.” Paul remembered the twisted look on the spider boy’s face. Maybe if I had what you all had.
“I heard he tried to drink the water, but it didn’t work for him. Nearly killed him. That’s the thing—some people can take it, others can’t.”
“You never wanted to?” he asked cautiously, remembering her crouched on the pier, the water cupped in her hands.