When they reached the third level, the column halted. The guard at the rear saw something flicker right in front of him. Or thought he did. Barely a blink. He looked up at a wire-covered light fixture on the wall. He tapped it with his rifle barrel. It flickered. He shrugged. That must have been it. Either that, or he needed his eyes checked.
“Come forward!” the lead guard called out. “One at a time!”
The prisoners advanced until they were spread out along the cell row, one woman in front of each cell door.
“Open Row C!” the guard shouted.
There was a loud buzz and rattle as twenty cell doors slid open in unison. Prodded by rifles, each woman stepped into her new home.
“Close Row C!” the guard called out.
Twenty doors slid shut with a loud clang. Maddy pressed her back against the outside railing as the guards moved back past her toward the control station. She felt a tingle. None of the guards noticed her flicker this time, but she knew she had to hurry. She had a whole cell block to search.
As soon as the guards were clear, Maddy turned and slipped back down the stairs to the second level. In the cell just across from the staircase, a lone guard was flipping the mattress and banging on the window bars as the occupant stood trembling in the center of the floor.
When he finished his inspection, the guard stepped back into the corridor and shouted toward the control room.
“Close Number Twelve!”
The cell door slammed shut. Maddy stepped in behind the guard as he moved to the next cell in the row.
“Open Number Thirteen!” he called out.
The door to Number 13 rolled back. Maddy heard a rustle from inside the cell and then…a woman’s voice.
“How many times do I have to say it?” the voice said. “It’s too early for turn-down service.”
Maddy’s heart did a flip.
Grandma!
CHAPTER 73
IT TOOK ALL Maddy’s strength to hold back a shout. She fought every instinct to run forward and wrap her grandmother up in her invisible arms, guard or no guard. Instead, Maddy silently followed him into Cell 13 and pressed herself up against the front bars.
Jessica’s yellow prison jumpsuit practically swallowed her small body. Her silver hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She stepped to the middle of the cell as the guard grabbed her mattress—nothing more than a thin pad—and tossed it onto the floor. He used his rifle butt to test the window bars and tapped at a few chipped cinder blocks in the middle of the wall.
“You caught me,” said Jessica. “I was chewing my way out.” The guard ignored her sass and turned toward the door.
“Replace your bedding,” he said as he stepped back into the cell corridor.
“Close Number Thirteen!” he shouted.
The door clanged shut.
“Open Number Fourteen!” yelled the guard, moving on to the next prisoner, the woman in the red turban. For some reason, she had been allowed to keep her headwear. It created a bold contrast with the mustard color of her prison uniform. She stood holding her mattress in her hands, shaking it vigorously.
“Thought I’d save you some time,” she said.
“Drop it!” said the guard. He was in no mood for attitude. Besides, he’d been warned that a mattress could conceal a length of wire or a sharpened shard of stone.
Suddenly, a scream came from the previous cell. Number 13.
“Help!” the woman was shouting at the top of her lungs. “There’s something in here!”
Rat! was the guard’s first thought. They usually stayed hidden until dark, but sometimes the inspections stirred one from the nest. He pulled a short club from his belt. A rat wasn’t worth a bullet or the risk of a ricochet. One solid whack would take care of it.
He moved back to Cell 13. The old woman was sitting on the metal bed. But something else was happening. Something very strange. Her mattress was floating in midair—waving and rippling like a magic carpet.
“What the hell?” said the guard. He shoved the club back into his belt loop and turned toward the control room.
“Open Number Thirteen!” he shouted.
The cell door began to clatter. When the guard looked back into the cell, the mattress was lying still on the floor. But now, he saw two people in the cell. The old lady in the jumpsuit. And a teenage girl in shorts and a T-shirt. The guard flipped his rifle into firing position.
“Who the hell are you?” the guard asked Maddy. “How did you get in here?”
“Is there a policy against guests?” asked Jessica.
The guard was young and new to prison duty. A veteran would have called a code eight immediately, bringing a riot team to the scene in seconds. But this kid was green enough to think that he could resolve the problem on his own. It was an old lady and a girl his age, after all. No big deal.
Then the girl said, “Step into the cell and take off your clothes.”
CHAPTER 74
JESSICA’S COUGH WAS very convincing. The security detail at the end of the cell block didn’t question the guard escorting her, especially when they heard the magic word in a low, firm voice.
“Infirmary.”
The last thing they needed was a tubercular crone on their block. Stuff like that spread like wildfire. A buzzer sounded. A metal gate opened. The guards went back to their small talk, not noticing that the escort’s uniform was a particularly bad fit.
As she moved forward, Maddy could barely see. The helmet kept shifting on her head and the visor gave everything a dark cast. It was like being inside a bucket. She held the rifle at hip level and followed Jessica through the open gate and then down a short, windowless corridor.
“Are you sure that safety is on?” whispered Jessica, feeling the rifle barrel tap the small of her back.
“Yes, Grandma, I checked. Twice,” said Maddy. “Keep moving. Look sick.”
One more guard station to go. Once again, Maddy tucked her chin down and tried to force her voice as low as possible. She thought of that Shadow announcer on the radio.
“Infirmary,” she spoke into the grill at the front of the checkpoint kiosk. Jessica hawked up a nice wad of phlegm and spit it onto the cement floor. The guard quickly pressed his button.
Maddy and her prisoner reached the main gate just as the massive door was lifting. Outside, an idling bus was unloading a new crop. Maddy tipped her head toward one of the guards and gave Jessica a hard poke with the rifle.
Jessica produced another wet cough. The guard stepped back.
Maddy and Jessica walked through the scrum of guards and fresh prisoners near the entryway, then moved behind the bus, blocking themselves from the activity on the other side.
The roadway that led in and out of the prison passed straight through the entryway arch, just high enough for a bus to pass under. Beyond the arch, Maddy and Jessica could see the rippling water of the broad bay that bordered the road and, in the distance, the long bridge to the mainland. They walked quickly under the arch and around the outside of the wall, keeping their backs against the stone.
Suddenly a tall guard appeared from around the corner.
“Hey!” he called out. “Infirmary’s that way!” He pointed over his shoulder toward a red brick building on a small rise on the other end of the island.
Maddy gave him a thumbs-up and nudged Jessica in that direction.
“Damn rookie,” she heard the guard mumble as they walked past. He turned and walked back under the arch.
“Walk faster,” said Maddy, tapping the gun between her grandmother’s shoulder blades.
“Easy, soldier,” said Jessica. “I’m sick, remember?”
A new busload was rolling toward them on the road from the bridge. It slowed to a crawl as it approached the archway. Maddy waited until the bus was halfway past them, blocking them from the main building. She grabbed her grandmother’s arm and pulled her down a steep incline at the edge of the roadway. They lost their footing on the wet grass and slid wildly to th
e bottom of the slope. Halfway down, Maddy’s helmet flew off. The rifle spun away in another direction. Maddy and Jessica dug in their heels and stopped their slide just short of an ancient barbed-wire fence—the last barrier before the ragged shoreline. They rested with their backs against the damp slope for a few moments, catching their breath.
“You okay?” asked Maddy.
Jessica nodded. She pointed at the fence.
“You think it’s electrified?”
Maddy clambered up to retrieve the rifle from where it had lodged in the grass. She tossed it against the wire, barrel first. No sparks.
“It’s our lucky day,” she said.
Maddy held two rusty strands of wire apart with her gloved hands as Jessica crawled through. They were now about ten feet below the road, sheltered by the embankment—but trapped by the bay. The opposite shore was at least a half-mile away.
Maddy ripped at the Velcro fasteners on the muddy uniform. She pulled off the pants, then the vest, then the jacket, until she was down to her T-shirt and shorts again, now soaked with sweat.
The bus, empty again, was heading back toward the bridge. Maddy and Jessica flattened themselves against the muddy slope and waited for it to pass above them.
“There’s no way we’d get across that bridge without somebody stopping us,” said Jessica. “Too visible.”
They stared out at the brackish water. Near the shoreline, the water was patched with green algae. Farther out, the ripples were speckled with brown scum and dotted with floating bottles and disposable diapers.
A loud claxon sounded from behind the prison walls.
“They found our bare-assed guard,” said Jessica. “Let’s go!”
Before Maddy could say anything, Jessica was in the water up to her thighs. Maddy waded in after her grandmother until they were both shoulder deep, their feet sinking into a thick sludge on the bottom. They heard boots pounding on the roadway above them. Together, they pushed forward and started breaststroking their way toward the green park in the distance. Maddy didn’t want to think about what they were swimming through. She looked over at her grandmother, who was matching her stroke for stroke.
“Just grit your teeth,” said Jessica, “and filter out the big stuff.”
CHAPTER 75
BACK ON THE main island, Gismonde’s armored entourage crept up West Drive toward Transverse Road, making its way along the far edge of the Great Lawn refugee camp. Sonor Breece sat beside Gismonde in the plush rear seat. The driver was moving so slowly that children felt bold enough to approach the vehicle. The tinted one-way windows kept them from seeing in, but Gismonde could definitely see out. And even through the bulletproof glass and armor plating, he could hear their high-pitched chatter.
“Filth,” muttered Breece, staring out at the crowd on his side.
The bodyguard in the front seat bristled as small hands began pounding on the doors and hood of the vehicle. He raised his short-stocked automatic weapon.
“No,” said Gismonde. “Not today.” The car rolled forward. The windows were like picture frames filled with dirty, hungry faces. Gismonde closed his eyes.
A young boy in a gold robe stood in the opening of a high stone window, looking down. In the distance, snow-capped mountains loomed over flat steppes.
Below the window, a mob of peasants pressed against the high metal gates of the palace compound. The peasants looked skeletal and desperate. They spotted the boy in the window and began to shout at him in fury, hurling stones in his direction.
“Food!” they cried out. “Feed us!”
A young woman in a colorful gown snatched the boy from the window as a rock shattered against the ledge. Below, the force of the mob bent the gates down far enough for the boldest to climb over. Within seconds, the whole crowd spilled across the manicured courtyard, trampling flower beds and splashing through koi-filled ponds.
In the high-ceilinged chamber behind the stone window, the woman pulled the boy to a safe spot, out of sight from the mob. She brushed his fine black hair back from his face. There was fear in the boy’s eyes, and he could read it in hers, too. The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a small glass vial.
“I’m sorry we can’t both live,” the woman said softly, “but if it has to be one, it must be you.”
She put the vial to the boy’s lips. He drank in the warm liquid. The boy’s eyelids fluttered, then closed. He fell limply into the woman’s arms. The sounds of the crowd had moved from the courtyard to the stone-lined corridors below. It was like an angry hum, rising up the staircase now. The woman moved quickly to the far end of the room, carrying her son.
With one hand, she lifted a wooden shelf. But it was not actually a shelf. A lever.
A section of the stone wall opened. Inside was a small chamber with a child-size bed, covered in thick velvet. The woman laid the boy down and smoothed his hair against the pillow. She stepped out and lowered the shelf back into position. The door swung closed.
The woman heard the pounding of a hundred footsteps in the hall outside, then rhythmic, heavy ramming against the door. She backed against the wall. As the door splintered in the middle, rough hands wrenched it off its hinges. The door fell with a loud bang onto the stone floor.
Inside his secret chamber, the boy’s chest rose and fell slowly. He was unconscious now, beyond hearing, oblivious to his mother’s final screams. It would be many years before he woke again. And when he did, he would be hungry too. For many things.
“Have a beautiful day!”
Gismonde was startled by the loud sound of his own voice. The driver had switched on the vehicle’s PA system, broadcasting the recording from powerful speakers concealed behind the armor.
“And you as well!” came the reply from the crowd outside.
“Have a beautiful day,” Gismonde’s voice repeated as the vehicle moved forward.
“And you as well” came the response from a new section of the crowd.
The pattern of call and response went on, repeated every few seconds or so, as the entourage moved through the masses.
Breece looked over at Gismonde.
“You will have the poor with you always,” he muttered with a sneer.
“Who said that?” asked Gismonde.
“Jesus,” Breece responded, “the Nazarene.”
Gismonde remembered the man, of course, just not all of his pithy sayings.
“Jesus was naive,” said Gismonde, looking out the window at the multitude. “Even ‘always’ has its limits.”
CHAPTER 76
AT ABOUT ONE p.m., Bando started yipping excitedly.
“That’d better be her!” said Lamont. It was long past the time when Maddy should have returned from her scooter run, and Lamont was both angry and anxious. He had just returned from searching the neighborhood with no results. Margo had been pacing around the warehouse the whole time. Between stretches of worry, she pondered suitable punishments.
“We should saw that damned scooter in half!” she said.
Bando’s nose was practically touching the door when it flew open. Maddy burst in, her clothes wet and soiled with brown slime.
“Maddy!” shouted Lamont.
Margo ran to greet her but was stopped short by the smell. She rocked back, her hands over her nose and mouth.
“My word!” she said. “Did you fall into a sewer?”
“Kind of,” said Maddy.
“What the hell happened?” asked Lamont. He tried to sound angry, but he was really just happy to see her alive.
At that moment, Lamont and Margo both noticed the slight figure behind Maddy. She was dressed in mustard yellow, splotched with the same ugly slime.
“Jessica!” yelled Lamont as she stepped into the room beside her granddaughter. Lamont wrapped his arms around both of them. Jessica looked down at Bando, who was circling happily, tail wagging.
“Bando!” said Jessica. “I thought the bastards killed you!”
“He’s faster than he looks,”
said Lamont.
Jessica unwound herself from Lamont’s hug and walked over to where Margo was standing.
“My God,” Jessica said softly, “it’s you.”
“You must be Jessica,” said Margo. Margo held both of Jessica’s hands and smiled. For a few moments they just stared at each other. Margo was feeling something that she couldn’t really understand, something buried deep.
Everything she felt from Maddy, and maybe more.
Jessica turned to Maddy, tears in her eyes.
“You weren’t going to tell me?”
“I wanted you to be surprised,” said Maddy.
Jessica turned back to Margo.
“How did…?”
“Lamont and Maddy found me,” said Margo. “They brought me back.”
Jessica couldn’t stop staring at Margo’s face.
“Margo,” she said, “can I hug you? Would that be okay?”
In spite of the slime, Margo said yes.
CHAPTER 77
I NEVER KNEW a shower could feel so good. I had to show Grandma how the system worked—the industrial hose rigged to the post over the big metal tub at the back of the warehouse. Not fancy, but it does the job. Like me, she’s just happy to be clean again. I found her coziest robe, which she really appreciated. Now she’s settled in with us around the stove. We’re sharing what’s left of last night’s bean stew.
“Is this where you two used to live?” Grandma asks Margo.
Margo almost chokes on her beans.
“Jessica, please!” she says. “I hope you think I have better taste than this!”
“I thought it might have been nicer,” says Grandma. “You know…back then.”
“This place has never been less than dreadful,” says Margo. “A warehouse is a warehouse.”
Lamont looks at me. I can tell his mind is working. Earlier, he scolded me for running off. Now he wants to know what I know.
“You said you saw something,” he says. “What was it?”
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