Black Moon

by L. A. Weatherly

  The low murmur of Guns came from outside. One slapped the van as if bored, and we all flinched. In a rush, I saw again the heads on Harmony Five’s fence – weather-beaten, glittering with frost. I screwed my eyes shut, trying not to shake.

  On my other side, fingers linked through mine. My gaze flew to Ingo’s. Despite his own fear, he gave a small smile. I exhaled and held tightly to his warm grip. It helped as no one else’s could have – like me, Ingo knew first-hand what could happen to us.

  When we started moving again, Ingo and I still held hands. We didn’t let go until the van finally stopped and we knew we were safe.

  That turned out to be relative.

  Dwight was eighteen but younger-looking. Mac had known his parents back in what used to be the Central States. When he opened up the van’s hidden compartment, he was pale.

  “You, um…probably didn’t hear what the Guns were saying,” he said.

  I’d just gotten out after Ingo; our gazes met in alarm.

  Mac’s expression sharpened. “What’s going on, buddy?”

  We were in a dimly-lit garage. Dwight glanced at its closed door. “A Gun was killed earlier today,” he said in an undertone. “Knocked down in traffic. It sounds like it was an accident, but…Pierce has retaliated.”

  “Retaliated how?” said Hal faintly. Sephy squeezed his shoulder, her narrow, high-cheekboned face apprehensive.

  Dwight was breathing hard. He let out something almost like a laugh, shoving a hand through his pale hair and looking again at the door. “She’s…she’s decreed that…”

  I didn’t want to know…but when Mac headed towards a dusty window beside the garage door, I followed.

  The others came too. Peering out beside Mac, nausea lurched; I gasped and pressed a fist to my mouth. No one spoke. I glimpsed Hal’s expression and wished wildly that he wasn’t seeing this.

  Bodies, hanging from lamp posts. One after the other, stretching away down the street. The traffic passing underneath seemed muted – cowed. The nearest body was an old woman in a flowery dress. Another was a dark-haired boy no older than Hal. From their bloody torsos, they’d all been shot first, then strung up.

  They dangled motionless, without even a breeze stirring them.

  “Fifty people,” whispered Dwight. “She’s decreed that from now on, if a Gun is killed, fifty people will be shot.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Now, five weeks later, Mac and I were about to climb into Dwight’s van again, but this time its false back was gone – Dwight had removed it so his aunt and uncle wouldn’t suspect.

  He arrived promptly, picking us up in the dark parking lot. Mac and I sat in the rear as he drove us through the Harlemtown streets. “Holy moley, I can hardly believe it.” Dwight glanced at us in the mirror, his hair looking almost white in the passing street lights. “The meeting’s really going ahead?”

  “Looks that way,” I said, tension making me curt. Neither Mac nor I mentioned Collie. Only a few of us knew he was our contact.

  “Nothing’s agreed yet, don’t forget,” Mac told Dwight. “But, yeah, fingers crossed.”

  Former Appalachian President Arthur Weir had been under house arrest here in his native New Manhattan since Kay Pierce seized power. Dwight gave a low whistle, running his hands up and down the steering wheel.

  “He’d be good,” he said. “Well. Anyone else would be good. So long as we get rid of her, I don’t care if we put a duck in charge.” His eyes flicked to mine again in the mirror. “Hey, Amity, what did one Resistance worker say to the other?”

  I smiled slightly. “I don’t know, Dwight.” It was a common refrain.

  “‘Know a duck we can put in charge?’”

  “Don’t joke, it may come to that,” said Mac.

  New Manhattan had twelve sectors now. When we reached Arnhem Street, we were on the far edge of Gemini, skirting Cancer.

  The sectors had primarily been set up to establish checkpoints, but in a spirit of fear, people had embraced them. Through the van’s side window I glimpsed a restaurant: Gemini’s Delight, with an emblem of golden twins. Beside it was a hairdresser’s: Twins’ Tresses.

  I gazed at the signs in apprehension. A week after our arrival, a man had resisted arrest and a second Gun was killed. Fifty more random people had been shot, their bodies strung up along Concord Avenue.

  Even if President Weir agreed to help tonight…when the time came, would the city stand behind us?

  Dwight pulled up in the shadows behind Blake’s Bar and Grill. He killed the engine and hopped out. As Mac and I emerged, an alley cat hissed and scrambled away.

  Dwight darted a look at Blake’s, rubbing the silver ring he always wore. “Will you be okay? Want me to wait for you?”

  Mac clapped Dwight’s shoulder. “Better not take the risk. Just get on home, buddy. Keep on their good side.”

  Dwight nodded tensely and glanced at me. “Good luck, doll-face.” As always, he said it faux-gangster tough.

  “Later, gator,” I replied with a faint lifting of my lips.

  After Dwight drove off, Mac and I went to the double basement doors that lay against the ground. I acted as lookout as Mac took the key from under its loose brick. The owner was another of our handful of sympathizers.

  We crept down the stairs. The basement enveloped us: cool, dark, smelling of hops. A pile of dusty tables and chairs sat stacked against one wall. We edged behind them to an old door tucked away in the corner.

  Mac creaked it open. Another dark stairway with earthen sides. We peered down, listening. Guns occasionally patrolled the upper tunnels.

  There was no sound. Mac groped for the hidden gasoline lantern and offered a small grin. “Ready to go meet a president?”

  I irritably pushed away my reluctance. “Ready.”

  Half an hour later, we were deep underground in a section of the old sewers, a cavernous space that Ingo and I had found weeks ago: two storeys high, criss-crossed with ancient pipes. Its ceiling vanished into shadow in our lantern-light.

  These abandoned subway tunnels and sewers were once the veins of old New York. Nearly two thousand years ago, the ancients had destroyed themselves in what we called the Cataclysm. Centuries later, New Manhattan rose atop New York’s ruins. It had disused tunnels of its own.

  The entire forbidden network spanned hundreds of miles and once linked several islands. The blast and time had altered the coast. Now, New Manhattan Island, nineteen miles long, was alone.

  When Ingo went to boarding school here, a small band of his friends had explored its tunnels every weekend, sometimes throwing parties deep underground.

  Back then it had just been a lark…until Kay Pierce took power. Closing her new capital city had trapped it in a nightmare. People were executed these days for even mentioning the tunnels, so full of covert possibilities.

  By now, Ingo and I had mapped much of its main system. But the one thing we needed desperately – a route out, to help people escape – had so far eluded us.

  I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets as Mac and I waited, my fingers tight. Mac started to say something – then four resounding clangs came from the pipes further up the tunnels. They echoed in the high, gloomy space.

  Neither of us moved. I licked my lips and checked my watch. Exactly twenty seconds later, there were two more clangs.

  Mac picked up a piece of lead and rapped out three quick beats of our own.

  I stared at the main tunnel. All that matters is what this means for the Resistance, I reminded myself sharply. You’d have had to see him again at some point anyway.

  Footsteps approached. Three men appeared in the shadows. One was average height with prematurely greying hair. One was tall and thin, with a half-scarred face framed by unruly black curls.

  The third was Collie.

  As arranged, Collie had covertly smuggled President Weir from the midtown brownstone where he was being held. Ingo had met them both and brought them down here. Mac glanced at me as we headed toward
s them but didn’t speak.

  We met the small group halfway across the dripping chamber. Mac offered his hand to President Weir. “Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  Weir shook with Mac. “Likewise, Mr Jones. Thank you for arranging this.”

  “Shall I keep watch?” said Ingo.

  Mac nodded. “Thanks, pal.”

  Ingo’s eyes caught mine as he headed back into the tunnel. His small smile was troubled, sympathetic. It helped to know he understood how I felt.

  Mac introduced me to President Weir. I kept my gaze from Collie as I shook his hand.

  “It’s very good to meet you, sir.” Nerves stilted my voice.

  Weir was young for a president, in his forties. His eyes were hazel and sombre, but he smiled dryly: the last time he’d seen me, I’d been on a stage shooting Gunnison.

  “It would be difficult to forget you, Miss Vancour,” he said. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “The pleasure’s mine,” I said. As Mac said something else to President Weir, I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I turned to Collie.

  His hair was longer than when I’d last seen him in person, combed back from his strong-featured face. His blue-green shirt matched his eyes. He fiddled with his cuffs.

  “Amity,” he greeted me softly.

  My spirits sank. From his expression, I hadn’t been wrong – he did have hope. Surely he knew it was impossible? Yet as I stared at him, to my surprise my anger, my unease, faded.

  What was left?

  His throat moved. He stood motionless under my scrutiny. Belatedly, I put my hand out.

  “Collie,” I said, and we shook.

  There weren’t any chairs. The four of us sat on discarded pieces of pipe, our shadows long in the lantern-light. Mac outlined the plan: the Resistance would spend several months gaining support in New Manhattan before making a strike against Kay Pierce, Sandford Cain and their council. We’d then reinstate Weir as president over Can-Amer.

  “You mean you’re planning an assassination attempt,” said President Weir.

  “Yes,” Mac responded simply, unflinching. “Not just an attempt, with luck.”

  Collie winced slightly at this. I had a sudden hollow memory of aiming at Gunnison; pulling the trigger. As I’d said to Ingo, it was worse this time – premeditated. Yet I longed to get it over with.

  Mac explained further: the moment Pierce, Cain and the council were disposed of, various Resistance members would take over key points of the city – a telio station, the airport, the capitol building. Mac and others would then parade Weir through the streets, shouting that Pierce’s reign was over and Weir was back in charge.

  He finished, “When we get you to the capitol, we’ll have a crowd of thousands with us. We’ll put you back in power.”

  His level tone made the plan sound foolproof. All of us knew that if the city wouldn’t stand behind us, it was anything but. The silence of the tunnels pressed down.

  Weir’s mouth was grave. “The European Alliance definitely won’t help us depose her?”

  “No one will,” said Mac. “The world’s left us on our own. It’s this or nothing.”

  “If I consider this, I have to know that my family will be safe,” Weir said finally. His wife and two daughters were under house arrest with him.

  Mac glanced at me. We’d known he’d say this.

  I leaned forward. “With luck, we can get them out of the city through the tunnels if need be.”

  Weir shot me a keen look. “You have a route out of the city?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted, cursing the fact. “But Ingo – the man who brought you down here – and I have just spent weeks mapping the tunnel system. We’re close to finding a way out, I know it.”

  Half-bluster, half-hope. Mac was worried, I knew, but gave no sign.

  “The second we have one, we can hook up with helpers to the north,” he said. “They’ve agreed to form a sort of ‘railroad’ to get people in danger to Nova Scotia. It’ll all help to boost morale, so that when the time comes, we can put you back in power without a hitch.”

  “Raising support is where you come in too, I suppose,” said President Weir to me.

  I nodded, disliking it but willing to do it. I’d do anything to get rid of Pierce.

  “Everyone already knows who I am,” I said. “So I guess we have to use that.”

  “Wildcat,” said Mac with a small smile. It was the name the press had denounced me under, but we’d decided to use it – turn it around.

  Mac counted off on his fingertips. “One, an underground newspaper – we’ve already started that. Two, Amity will begin giving wireless broadcasts, as soon as we source safe locations for them. Three, helping people found Discordant by doctoring their birth charts, or smuggling them out of the city. Word will spread: Wildcat’s on the loose, and Pierce’s days are numbered. People will stand behind us when we need them to.”

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out a copy of Victory, our newspaper. He handed it to President Weir. “We distribute those all over the city. They go on park benches, in library books…people are reading the truth.”

  President Weir scanned the single folded page. “Pretty risky for all of you, making it so obvious that you’re here.”

  I shoved away the image of hanging bodies and shrugged brusquely. “There’s no help for it, if we want to raise support.”

  “But ultimately, success will depend on the assassination plan itself.” President Weir glanced at Collie. “How do you propose to do it?”

  Collie shifted. “Well…not me specifically. But—”

  “With his help,” finished Mac. “Don’t worry, any plan we put in place will be rock solid. But probably the less you know about that part, the better.”

  President Weir fell silent, clearly deep in thought. Mac waited patiently, though I saw a flicker of tension in his eyes. It matched my own. Without Weir’s familiar presence at the helm, we’d face a probable military coup once Pierce and Cain were gone. Pierce had the army on her side.

  Yet part of me was still conscious of Collie – the way he was sitting with his arms propped on his knees – and of my mysterious easing of mood where he was concerned. Why was that?

  Then it hit me. I’d dreaded stirring up old feelings tonight – hadn’t wanted to relive the pain. But at some point, without my even realizing it, the pain Collis Reed once caused me had faded.

  The relief came from how little I actually felt on seeing him again.

  My attention snapped back to President Weir. “I’ll only agree to be involved if you can find an escape route through the tunnels,” he said. “My family must be kept safe if things go wrong.”

  “We’ll find one,” said Mac firmly, rising and offering his hand to President Weir again. “Then we’ll get word to you. With luck, we can attack by the end of the summer.”

  He sounded completely confident. My guts clenched at how much he was depending on Ingo and me. But at least we’d cleared this much of the hurdle. I let out a breath and stood up too.

  As Mac and President Weir said a few last words to each other, Collie turned to me, jiggling his hands in his jacket pockets. “Amity…I wonder if maybe we could talk in private for just a few…”

  He faltered at my expression. From somewhere, water dripped with a faint echo. Once I’d dreamed of hurting Collie as badly as he’d hurt me. Now I just felt tired and detached – maybe even a little sorry for him.

  Mostly, I wanted to leave.

  “I don’t think so, Collie,” I said softly.

  His small smile was bitter. “Yeah…forget it.”

  Just like the safe house in Bayon, you could go up on the roof of Jakov’s, though there wasn’t much of a view – just a sea of dingy brownstones and the lights of an occasional elevated train flashing past.

  When Mac and I returned later that night, we went up. Mac smoked another cigarette while we waited for Ingo. He sat sideways on one of the two battered deckchairs, not saying much, his b
row furrowed.

  “Want to spill it?” I said finally.

  He blew out a puff of smoke. “Let’s wait for Manfred.”

  I nodded. Hugging my good leg, I looked up at the washed-out stars. Jakov kept pigeons; they rustled in their coop.

  When Mac and I had come in, I’d been surprised to find Hal still up, working on an astrology chart. “Find the cache okay?” he said. He’d directed the question at Mac, though his eyes had flicked belatedly to me too.

  “Yeah, I think it’ll work really well,” I’d said, my voice falsely cheerful.

  Part of me had wanted him to ask questions about the mythical cache, even though I’d have had to lie further. He’d just nodded stiffly and turned back to his chart. Mac had pretended not to notice, which made it worse.

  And I’d known it was my own fault.

  After I’d shot Gunnison in February, I’d made my way to the safe house where Hal was. Mac and Sephy had followed. I barely knew Mac then; all I knew was that he was a leader in the Resistance and had been a double agent under Gunnison.

  Sephy had turned out to be no-nonsense and kind. When I could think of it, I’d been glad, because my brother had needed someone like that. A few days before I’d shot Gunnison, he’d learned that our father had thrown the civil war Peacefight. Then, though he’d only just found out I was still alive, I’d left him again without even a goodbye.

  It was me Hal had needed those two months after Gunnison’s death. Yet I hadn’t been able to find my way out of myself to reach him. I spent entire days curled on an upstairs window seat, my thoughts as grey as the sky.

  A memory came.

  “Amity?”

  Hal’s voice. Outside, the oak trees shifted in the breeze, their branches bare. I stirred myself to lift my forehead off the window and look at him.

  “Yes?”

  He stood in the bedroom doorway, fists tight. “I just…thought you might want something.”

  I shook my head. “No. But thank you.”