The NULL CODEX System

6. The new tracker

Petra straightened up a bit with her brows furrowed. 

"When I saw the old man leaving," Petra said. "He stopped at the end of the row. He turned around and looked back at Cinder Row, and he looked at my house specifically. He was staring at my house like he was looking for something. And like he was waiting for someone."

Oren went very still. "He was looking at your house?"

"Yes," Petra said with a firm nod. "I thought it was strange at the time, but I did not think much of it. I just thought he was looking back at the settlement one last time before he went on his trip to come back soon." She paused, and her voice dropped lower. "But now I think he was waiting. He knew the Purge was coming, and he was waiting for something. Or someone."

Oren stared at Petra, and the pieces started to click into place in his mind.

The old man had known the Purge was coming. The old man had left a symbol connected to Oren's bloodline. And the old man had been looking at Petra's house, waiting for someone, or something. 

"Petra," Oren said slowly. "Why was he looking at your house? Do you have any idea?"

Petra shook her head. "I do not know, Oren. I have been asking myself the same question since I found you." She paused, and something in her expression shifted. "But I think he was waiting for you. I think he knew that you would survive."

Oren stared at her, and his thoughts raced to his mother's words. "The Codex knows your name. Do not be afraid when it calls."

"Wait," Oren said slowly. "You said he was looking at your house specifically? Not just looking back at Cinder Row?"

Petra nodded. "Yes. Your house is at the other end of the settlement, and my house is the one above the tunnel where I found you." She paused, and her voice dropped lower. "He was not looking at Cinder Row, he was looking at the tunnel entrance. He was looking at where you were hiding, before you were even hiding there."

Oren stared at her, and the realization hit him like something solid and heavy landing in his chest.

The old man had known. He had known exactly where Oren would be, he had known exactly when the Purge would happen, he had known exactly what Oren would become, and he had left the symbol in his house so that Oren would find it, and then he had looked back at the tunnel entrance like he was waiting for something to happen.

Because the old man was waiting for Oren.

"What did he know?" Oren asked out loud, but more to himself. "What did the old man know about me?"

Petra said nothing, and the silence stretched between them like a living thing.

Oren knelt on the floor of the old man's house with his fingers still resting on the symbol scratched into the boards, and he understood that the questions he had been asking himself since the Purge had just multiplied.

Who was the old man?

What had he known?

And why had he chosen to leave the symbol here for Oren to find?

Oren pressed his lips together and breathed through his nose for a moment, slow and controlled, the way his mother had taught him. He thought about her hands holding his in the dark. And he thought about her voice saying, "The Codex knows your name. Do not be afraid when it calls."

Oren looked at the symbol again, and then he looked at Petra.

"Someone knew," Oren said slowly. "Someone knew about me before I knew about myself."

Petra looked at him carefully. "Who?"

"I do not know yet," Oren said. "But I am going to find out."

Oren pushed himself up from the floor and stood in the middle of the old man's house with his legs stiff and cold from kneeling. He looked around the room one more time, taking in the details of the single cup on the counter, the empty drawers, and the bed that had been stripped of its bedding.

"He left in a hurry," Oren said quietly. "But he did not take much. He had just a bag, and he left the symbol."

Petra stood up beside him. "Maybe he wanted you to find it."

Oren nodded. "That is what I think too. He left it for me, because he knew that I would come here."

Oren walked to the door of the old man's house and looked out at Cinder Row, which was still quiet and gray and still full of the dead. The morning was growing lighter, and the shadows were beginning to shrink.

"We need to leave," Oren said.

Petra walked up behind him. "Where are we going?"

"I do not know yet," Oren admitted. "But we cannot stay here. The Division is going to come back. They are going to sweep the settlement again, and they are going to find us if we stay."

Petra stood beside Oren, and he could feel her presence like something solid and real in the emptiness of Cinder Row.

Oren looked at her carefully. "Are you ready to leave Cinder Row? Are you ready to leave everything you have ever known?"

Petra was quiet for a moment. Her dark eyes moved across the empty streets, the broken houses, and the bodies that still lay where they had fallen. She looked at her house above the tunnel entrance in the distance, and she looked at the house where her father had died.

Then Petra looked at Oren, and her voice was steady and certain.

"Yes," Petra answered. "I am ready."

Oren nodded. "Then let us go."

They stepped out of the old man's house and into the gray morning light. The wind was still moving through Cinder Row, still picking up dust and scraps of debris, and still carrying the silence of the dead.

Oren started walking toward the edge of the settlement, toward the road that led out of Cinder Row and into the unknown. Petra followed close behind him.

Then suddenly, Oren stopped.

He felt a presence through the Codex's passive sensing, but it was not the Division. This was something else, and someone else. Like a figure moving through the ruins of Cinder Row with deliberate searching purpose.

Oren grabbed Petra's arm and pulled her to the side of the old man's house. He pressed his back against the wall and pulled Petra close beside him. "Someone is here," Oren whispered urgently. "Do not make a sound."

Petra's eyes went wide. "Who is it? Is it Division?"

"I do not know," Oren whispered. "Just be quiet."

Oren peered through the narrow gap between the houses and saw a figure moving through the ruins. She was a woman with dark brown skin and sharp features and her hair was pulled back tight. She was wearing clean clothes that were precise and professional and out of place in the ruins of Cinder Row. She was not Division, but she had a Division escort following behind her.

She was looking at the bodies, she was scanning the streets, and she was searching for something specific.

The cold blue text appeared at the edge of Oren's vision.

NEW DATA DETECTED: Anomalous biometric signature. Not Division. Class-B Analyst identified: MAREN DUSK. Connection to Vael Institute confirmed. The Institute has been tracking this bloodline marker for twenty years.

Oren read the notification slowly, and something cold settled in his chest.

The woman was here for him.

Oren said quietly, "That woman is looking for me. She has been looking for me for twenty years."

Petra whispered, "How do you know that?"

"The Codex told me," Oren said. "It just identified her. She is a Class-B Analyst, and she works for something called the Vael Institute. They have been tracking my bloodline for twenty years."

Petra stared at him. "Twenty years? That is almost before you were even born."

Oren nodded. "I know."

They watched Maren Dusk through the gap between the houses, and Oren saw her stop near the old man's house. She knelt down and examined something on the ground. It was a footprint, and a mark in the dust. She photographed it with a small device, and she sent nothing to Division.

Oren's heart was pounding, but his breathing stayed slow and controlled. He thought about his mother's hands, he thought about the symbol on the floor, and he thought about the woman who had been hunting him for twenty years.

He said, "We need to leave. Now."

Petra asked, "Where are we going?"

Oren looked at the woman one more time. She was still kneeling, still examining the footprint, and still hunting.

Oren said, "We are getting out of Cinder Row. And I am going to find out what that woman knows."

Oren pulled Petra away from the wall and they moved through the ruins of Cinder Row, staying low, staying quiet, and keeping to the shadows. Behind them, Maren Dusk continued her work, unaware that the ghost she was hunting was watching her from the shadows.

Oren and Petra reached the edge of Cinder Row, and Oren looked back at the settlement where he had lived his whole life. The gray morning light was spreading across the broken streets and the collapsed houses and the bodies that still lay where they had fallen.

Oren thought about his mother's hands that were thin and light and strong. He thought about the symbol on the floor of the old man's house, and he thought about the woman who had been hunting him for twenty years.

And Oren understood that his life had divided itself into two distinct parts.

The part that had existed before midnight, when he was just a Null-born resident of a settlement the city barely acknowledged.

And the part that had just begun.

The part where he was the ghost, and the part where he was the hunted.

The part where he would find out who had built the Null classification, and why his bloodline had been targeted, and burn everything they had built before he forgot why he started.

Oren turned away from Cinder Row and walked into the unknown with Petra Wynn beside him.

Behind them, Maren Dusk lifted her head and looked toward the edge of the settlement with her dark eyes narrowing as she stared into the gray morning light.

She had found the footprint, and had found the symbol.

And now she knew with the certainty of someone who had been tracking a bloodline for twenty years, that she was close.