The NULL CODEX System

4. Another survivor

Oren pushed himself up from the tunnel floor and moved toward the entrance, his muscles stiff and cold from hours of sitting motionless. He climbed up and stood beside her in the thin gray light of the Cinder Row morning.

"Petra," Oren said, looking at her more closely now. The cut above her eye was fresh. The dirt on her cheek was smeared, not settled, like she had been wiping at it with the back of her hand. "You are alive."

"You are alive," Petra said back, her voice carrying the same disbelief. "I thought everyone was dead. I thought I was the only one. I searched everywhere and I called out to people, but there was no one. No one answered."

Oren saw Petra's eyes glisten with tears, and she wiped at them quickly with the back of her hand. He wanted to say something to make it better, but there was nothing to say, because the words did not exist.

"The house," Oren said slowly. "Your house. Your father…"

"Dead," Petra said flatly. "I found him in the road and he was holding a cup. He always holds a cup in the evenings. He does not even drink from it, he just holds it and I do not know why I noticed that. But I did."

Oren nodded slowly. He remembered Dara's cup shattering against the stone. And he remembered the way the liquid spread across the ground like something alive. He remembered noticing that too.

"Who else?" Petra asked. "Do you know who else?"

Oren closed his eyes for a moment. "Thirty-seven," he said quietly. "I counted thirty-seven people who dropped dead."

Petra was quiet for a long moment, and then she said, "I found a body outside the Miller house. I do not know his name, but he was lying in the road. He was just lying there, like he had been walking and then stopped. Like someone had just stopped him."

Oren let the weight of her words sit between them without either of them saying anything else.

Then Petra looked at him with her dark eyes, and something in her expression shifted. "Oren," she said slowly. "There is something I need to tell you."

"What?" Oren asked.

"I saw the old man leave," Petra said. "Three days ago. He packed everything he owned into a bag and he walked out of Cinder Row, and he did not look back. I thought he was just going somewhere, and I thought he would come back."

Oren went very still. "Which old man?"

"The one who lived at the end of the row," Petra said. "The one who always kept his windows closed and did not talk to anyone. I saw him leaving, and I wondered where he was going. But I did not ask. People leave Cinder Row all the time, and they come back, and nobody asks, and it just is the way things are." Petra paused, with her eyes suddenly locking onto Oren's. "But now I know. It seems like he knew what was coming. He must have known about the Purge. And he left without telling anyone, without warning anyone, and without trying to save any of us."

Oren felt something cold settle in his chest. He thought about the old man, about the symbol on the floor, and about the Codex's recognition of it. It was definitely all connected.

"I need to see his house," Oren said.

Petra looked at him carefully. "Why?"

"Because I need to know what he knew," Oren said. "I need to know why he left, and I need to know who he was."

Petra stared at him, and then she said, "Oren, I do not know what is happening to you. I do not know why you are alive when everyone else is dead. But I know you are different now. I can see that something has changed."

Oren was quiet for a moment, and then he decided. He looked at Petra, the one other survivor, and made a choice.

"Something activated inside me tonight," Oren said. "It is called The Codex. It is a system, and it gave me an ability. It also hid me from the scanners, and that is why I am alive."

Petra's eyes went wide. "A system? I do not understand."

"I do not fully understand it either," Oren said. "But it gave me a mission. I need to find out who built the Null classification, and I need to find out why my bloodline was targeted. Someone built this, and someone designed it. And I am going to find out who." Oren's voice dropped lower, and it became firmer than he had intended. "I am going to burn everything they built, Petra. Before I forget why I started."

Oren watched Petra's face carefully as he said it, waiting for her to flinch, to run, or to look at him like he had lost his mind.

But Petra did not run. She looked at him with her dark eyes, and then she asked, "Is that what the Codex told you? That you are the one who is supposed to burn it all down?"

Oren considered the question. "No," he admitted. "The Codex does not tell me what I am supposed to do. It only gives me the tools. I am the one making the decisions." Oren paused, then added, "It did tell me, though, that I am not nothing. That is the first thing it ever said."

Petra asked, "Who else is coming with you?"

"I do not know if anyone is," Oren said.

Petra stared at him for a long moment. Then she asked, "Where are we going?"

Oren studied Petra's expression carefully. "What do you mean, we?"

"I mean what I said, Oren." Petra's voice was firm. "Where are we going? You already know that I am coming with you, so you might as well tell me."

"You are coming with me?" Oren's brows furrowed.

"Yes, Oren. You are the only other person I have found alive tonight, and you are the only person in this whole settlement who I trust to not get us both killed. So, where are we going?" Petra asked again, her voice carrying the same firmness.

Oren looked at her for a long moment, and then he finally nodded. "The old man's house," he said. "We are going to the old man's house. He must have left something behind, and I need to see what it was."

"Then let us go," Petra said.

"Not yet," Oren said. He looked up at the street above them that was still a bit dark in the thin gray light of early morning. "I need to check first, and I need to make sure the Division is not still out there. I need to see if I can sense them."

"How will you sense them?" Petra asked with her brow furrowed.

"I do not know yet," Oren admitted. "But I am going to try."

Oren closed his eyes, and he reached for the Codex. Not with words and not with questions. Just with the intention of feeling what was above him. He did not know if it would work, and he did not know if the Codex was capable of showing him the street through the stone and the earth between them. But he had to try something.

Then, something shifted.

Oren felt a new awareness spread through him like a sense he had never known he possessed. It was not sight and it was not sound. It was like reading the shape of a room by the shadows it cast. He could feel the street above him, he could feel the gaps in the Division's sweep, and he could feel the empty space where nothing was moving.

Then the system cold blue text appeared:

“NEW ABILITY DETECTED: Codex Read with very limited passive sensing ability— Tier One. The Host can now read the underlying code of any person's System classification within a very limited radius. Current radius: 10 meters. 

Status: Available for activation.”

"Codex Read," Oren murmured to himself.

Oren focused on the street above and activated Codex Read. He did not know what he was doing at first. He just let the ability reach, and what he saw was impossible to describe in words, because it was not like seeing at all. It was like the shape of the world revealing itself to him. He could see that the street was empty, and he could feel that the Division's sweep had moved on. They were gone, and they were not coming back. Or maybe for now.

Oren opened his eyes. "The street is clear. They are gone, and they are not coming back."

Petra asked, "How do you know that?"

"Because I could see it," Oren said. "The Codex showed me. I could see the shape of the street, and I could feel that the Division's sweep had moved on." He paused. "I think that is one of the abilities on it called “Codex Read” It lets me see things the System is trying to hide."

Petra stared at him. "Then let us go," she said. "Before they come back."

Oren nodded. He turned and looked at Petra, and she looked back at him with her expression steady and certain. "Stay close to me," Oren said. "And if I tell you to stop, you stop. Do not ask why. Just stop."

"I understand," Petra said.

Oren climbed out of the tunnel entrance and stood in the thin gray light of the Cinder Row morning. Petra followed him up, and they stood side by side in the ruins of the settlement where they had both lived their whole lives.

The wind moved through Cinder Row, picking up dust and scraps of debris. The houses were still and silent, and the road was empty. Oren looked at the sky that was gray and reluctant, and thought about his mother's hands that were thin and light and strong.

Oren thought about the old man's house, and he thought about the symbol scratched into the floor.

And he thought about the decision that had just formed clearly in his mind, which had just become his key goal in this new life that the cold blue text system had given him.

“I, Oren Vask. I am going to find out who built the Null classification. I am going to find out why my bloodline has been targeted, and I am going to burn everything they have built before I forget why I started." Oren said, more to himself with a firm voice. 

Oren turned to Petra, his voice low and urgent. "Let us go," Oren said. "Let us go to where the old man lived."

Petra look at him with her dark eyes that were steady and certain, and then she said, "follow me."

Petra turned and walked away, and Oren followed her into the ruins of Cinder Row, towards the house of the man who had known The Purge was coming and had left without a word.