“He died?” asked Chase.
“Yep,” said Woolly.
“We were recording everything in our journals at the time,” said Arie, “and the Agency didn’t approve, but we were apparently getting away with writing down mundane details like where to find firewood and how to stretch our rations and who had what to trade. But Gosford was breathing down our necks at the time, gently discouraging us from using journals and looking into the past. If I wrote down what happened with Eudrich, I could have been disciplined or taken prisoner or who-knows-what. End of the year was coming up, and Eudrich said the virus was real. So, it’s like we guessed—I put it all in code.”
“So, nothin’ new,” said Ruby. “Like I said.”
“What are you talking about? This means there really is a cure,” I said, “for the memory loss. This changes everything.”
“Now hold on, Al,” said Ruby. “Simmer down. These fellas ain’t got but to page ten yet. What if on page eleven they find out this You-jerk guy was lying, or delirious, or just plain wrong?”
Woolly nodded. “There’s a lot more to this notebook—there’s obviously more to it than this first revelation. And it’s slow-going. We’ll probably need four or five more days to finish the rest of it.”
“I still say this changes everything,” I blurted. “How could it just be wrong? Or a lie?”
“Well,” said Ruby before I could go on, “maybe it ain’t wrong or a lie but it’s just a red herring, something we chase and chase and never get nowhere. We’re doing all right just as we are.”
I scoffed. “You’re telling me that if there’s a solution to our memory loss we’re not going to do anything about it?”
“I’m not sayin’ yay or nay, Al,” she replied, a defensive darkness in her tone. “Course I want my memories back, but it’s a matter of risk and benefit.”
“Sure, but the benefit in this case is everything!” I said.
“It would give us a huge advantage,” said Chase to no one in particular, “depending on what we knew before. It really could change everything.”
We’d taken shelter and established our camps in mountainous wilderness areas that were remote and had been difficult to reach even before society collapsed. Still, detection by the Agency was a constant threat, something we had to be constantly vigilant against. I imagined Rachel relentlessly sparing no expense or resources to find us, leading the charge even, ordering all the camps to be wiped out until every person submitted or lay dead. I even had the occasional nightmare that it would be her who swept open the door to my tent and shined her blinding white LED flashlight into my face.
“I’ve got her,” said Rachel in my dream, staring down at me from behind her light. “Get in here and secure her.”
And Ruby was fiercely protective of the camp network—preached vigilance constantly. She considered the camps her own—every path, every guard post, every patch of wild strawberries. And it was all hers and we were all under her protection—she was the mastermind of the sanctuary. I understood why she was so protective.
“There was another name in the book,” said Woolly. He turned to Arie. “What was it? Bellingson?”
“Bellington.”
“Bellingson?” Ruby perked up.
“Bellington,” said Woolly. “Ton. With a ‘t’.”
“That’s what I said.” She was snapping her fingers, trying to recall something. “Hey, don’t we know a Bellington? From the old days?”
Chase was already nodding. “David, I think. David Bellington. Did a bunch of surveillance on him for a few months before we met Alison and Arie. I mean, it’s been a while, but yeah, we know him. What’s the notebook got to say about him?”
“Nothing, really,” said Woolly. “Eudrich mentioned him to Arie, and so he’s in Arie’s narrative, but we’re not sure yet why he’s important or if he is. We were hoping the next few pages would say more.”
“Rube,” said Chase, “we have been talking for a while about grabbing a prisoner or two to see if we can short-circuit the whole cat-and-mouse game, find out how they keep finding us up here in the woods. If this Bellington guy is more or less where we left him, he wouldn’t be hard to nab, and we might squeeze him for answers we were already looking for and maybe get something about the info in this notebook, too. It’d take a week or so to pull off, but it could pay off big.”
Ruby was chewing the inside of her cheek again, as if she had been thinking the same thing already. Lately she’d been moving against the Agency in safe, conservative maneuvers, trying to protect what we’d gained, trying to keep moving forward, even if it was slowly. But the Bellington issue had gotten her attention. It was one thing to nab an Agency goon and pump him for random bits of information, but it was another to interrogate a prisoner with pre-determined objectives in mind. Those moves had leverage, potential. Even I knew that.
“Rube?” said Chase. We were all looking in her direction.
“Sounds like we should pick him up,” I nudged.
Ruby rubbed her chin, trying to downplay her interest, but her eyes had narrowed. She still knew a good move when she saw one. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt just ta’ ask him a few questions. Chase, go ahead and put together a team. Bring me a plan.”
Again, there was a collective sigh of relief. Chase made a fist and smacked the palm of his other hand with it. A calculating grin spread across Woolly’s face, and he nodded slowly.
I tried to stay quiet and still, not wanting to jinx Ruby into backing out. But Arie reacted the way I would have if I could have—he leaped from his chair and pumped his fist in the air. He’d wanted to go prisoner hunting for a while. He’d been told no so many times he could practically answer on behalf of Ruby. But it was more than that. It seemed we had all been feeling like Arie—the restlessness of sitting around and playing it safe for too long. It seemed we were all growing impatient to take it to the Agency again, like the old days, waging war in the shadows. We felt stuck. I know I did, anyway, and I’d forgotten almost all the skullduggery I’d ever played a role in.
“Meanwhile,” Ruby hastened to add, “Wool, you and the kid keep working on that damn notebook. I don’t care how long ya stay up. If we’re picking someone up, we gotta know what it says in there.”
“We’re on it,” said Arie, barely concealing his excitement.
Woolly made a half-bow to likewise consent.
I thought they might head in the direction of their tents to grab a few hours of rest before starting again, but they were going in the direction of the command tent. I didn’t object. Let them sleep when they want to, I thought.
“Everybody else,” said Ruby, turning to me, “which pretty much just means you, Al—you’d best be on your best behavior and go about your business like normal, which in your case probably means doing some breakfast duties.”
“I’m on it,” I said. I mimicked Woolly’s half-bow and then I turned on my heel and almost sprinted to the kitchen area. I no longer felt tired, I no longer felt worried. For the past few days I’d been feeling that I could only take about half a breath, that I could only half-relax. Now it was as though I could fill my lungs all the way up.
Of course none of us knew what this Bellington character would have to say, or if he could even be found, but my reckless optimism had kicked in again and it seemed like almost anything could result from this coded notebook information and the impending prisoner grab.
We could end up with a year’s worth of restored memories.
Or more.
I almost tripped on the trail to the kitchen as I fantasized about it, and I actually did trip when my thoughts turned to the possibility of having all our memories restored. As I got up and clapped the dirt from my palms and knees, I laughed. That was the entirety of all my wishes for the future—that we would find ourselves again. Cost-benefit analysis goes out the window when something like that is at stake.
And so there was an energy in the camp, a crackle or current that I’d felt before, but n
ot for a long while. I felt it in my head and my chest and I’d seen it in Arie’s face before he’d turned to go back to the command tent. I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to name it for fear that it would vanish or burst like a bubble of soap.
It was hope.
CHAPTER 6
For days, I begged Chase to tell me their plan to take Bellington prisoner.
“How long will you be gone?”
“Al, you know I can’t say.”
“Where is he at? Main Zone complex? Where I was? Is he farther north? Is he out in the new settlements?”
“Al. Quit. Please.”
“Well, do you even know where he’s at? How are you gonna find him?”
“Al.”
“Just tell me who’s out looking for him, then? Is this thing even happening? Just tell me something!”
For days, he wouldn’t budge.
I knew he wasn’t supposed to say anything. It was for my safety, of course, and Chase’s, too—the less I knew about where he was or what he was doing, the less I could say about it if everything went to hell and we were captured. It’s not like they wouldn’t torture me either way, but it’d be better if I had nothing to divulge.
I knew this; I just wasn’t happy about it.
Just about everything in our existence was supposed to be on the QT, need-to-know, etc. Who were the leaders of the other camps? We didn’t know exactly, didn’t even know precisely how many camps there were, unless we needed to know, and we were supposed to keep everything to ourselves. Compartmentalization was our motto, our mission. And it wasn’t just to prevent getting information tortured out of us. The Agency had on several occasions tried to infiltrate our camps with outsiders posing as wanderers or Agency defectors, and so we were not supposed to gossip or share information or ask each other about our roles in camp. In fact, Ruby had implemented a policy that forbade us from even talking about or asking each other what jobs we did in camp from day to day—picking berries, cutting wood, boiling water—not because it would endanger anyone to know that I did dishes all the time, but because it helped to develop good, tight-lipped habits, so that we weren’t blabbing about everything we knew or thought we knew.
But Chase also knew that I couldn’t not ask.
Whenever there was any kind of operation, I was consumed with knowing all the details. For a week I obsessed about knowing when the prisoner grab would happen, extrapolating what would happen next, and from there predicting how long it might take before we made any progress on the whole getting-our-memories-back thing. It was a light at the end of the endless tunnel.
I’m sure I drove Chase absolutely insane. And it made me angry, but he finally told me that we needed to stay apart for a few days while he worked on the plan.
“Babe, I can’t say no to you forever,” he said, “so I’m gonna have to ask you that you stay on that side of the camp and I’ll stay on this one.”
I harrumphed at him, shot him my most withering glare, but he held his ground.
“It’s for the best. You know it is.”
“So, you’re just going to ignore me until it’s time for you to go?”
“I’ll come by and tell you good night,” he said, “but we gotta do this by the book if we’re gonna realize any benefit from it.”
The rest of the day crept by with a glacial deliberateness. I watched the shadows on the ground outside my tent slowly slant with the changing angle of the sun. I barely ate, I did my dishes in a half-trance, skipped dinner, and crawled into my bed as soon as the crickets began to sing.
How long could something like this possibly take? A week to catch this Bellington guy, a week to interrogate him, and a week to get back? Add a week for unforeseen happenstances—that was a month. Add another full month for making the plan to get the memory cure, or synthesize it, then a full month after that to execute that plan—so, we’d be getting our memories by early winter? Let’s say something goes really bad wrong, I thought. Something always does seem to go sideways, so let’s add two months to recover—could we maybe get back on track over the winter, and maybe get the memory-restoration up and running by next summer? Could this take a year? Could it take longer than that?
Chase came to my tent as he said he would. He ran his finger along my temple, tucked my hair behind my ear, and kissed me on the forehead. I pretended to be asleep already.
“Sleep tight, bunny,” he whispered. “I love you.”
I lay still, kept my eyes closed.
As he blew out my candle and turned to go, I snagged his arm and pulled him back.
“Ah,” he said, laughing. “Not sleeping after all, eh?”
“Please!” I blurted. I thought I might wake up the whole camp. “Just tell me something. So I can sleep? Please?”
It was almost dark, and there was only a faint light remaining inside my tent, a hint of the dusk that was still draining from the sky, but in that half-light I thought I detected a smile stealing across Chase’s bearded face. The crickets had fallen into a synchronous rhythm and thrummed softly outside. Chase shook his head slowly.
“Okay,” he said, smoothing my hair with his hand. “If I tell you one thing, you’ll go to sleep?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You promise you’ll go to sleep and shut the hell up?”
“I promise.”
“Okay,” said Chase, with a sigh of relief. “They found him. Bellington. I won’t say where, but a runner came into camp tonight with the news. We know where he is. It’s on. We’re gonna go grab him.”
“When?” I said, sitting up in the bed and tugging on Chase’s arm. “How long will it take? When will you go? When will you be back?”
He laughed and ran his hand over his face. He was exasperated at me again—I didn’t need any light to know that. But I couldn’t help it.
“Go to sleep, bunny,” he said. “I gotta go. Lots to be done. Sleep now.”
“I can’t,” I cried. “Not now that I know it’s really happening. Chase, can you imagine? Getting it all back? Getting yourself back?”
“Yeah, babe. I do get it. And I’m excited, too. Haven’t felt this way since back in the early days, back at Thrill Harbor, back when we met. It’s all very exciting, for sure. But you gotta learn some patience.”
“You’re right,” I confessed, shaking my head emphatically. “I’ll work on that. Right after you tell me how it’s all going down.”
“Dammit,” he breathed. “How can I say no to you? Okay. I’ll tell you a bit. But if you breathe even a word to this to, well, anyone, at anytime, even after it’s all over and even if it all works out fine—if anyone anywhere ever finds out I told you anything—you know Ruby will have me skinned alive, right?”
“I promise I won’t tell anyone. I swear it. Cross my heart.” In the darkness I drew an X over my heart. “It’s just—I’m going crazy, Chase. Just tell me when, how long, and when you’ll be back. Tell me that and then I swear I can lay down and go to sleep.”
“It’s tonight, babe,” he said, cupping my face. “Me and Bostwick and Thompson.”
“You were just gonna leave me without saying good bye?”
“That’s why I came over here, babe. I’m saying good bye.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know that!” I insisted.
“Babe, all of this is supposed to be classified.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep myself from crying. “I know. I’m sorry. Where will you hold him? The Bellington guy. How long will you question him? How long will you be gone?”
Chase sighed deeply, and I saw him shake his head. “We’re bringing him here, Al. Ruby’s plan. Ruby’s orders.”
“Here? My god,” I said. “Isn’t that kinda crazy?”
“Definitely. A huge risk. But Ruby wants to question this guy himself, and she just can’t travel very well anymore. She’s been wanting a prisoner for a while, of course, we all have—to try to get some distance on the cat-and-mouse. Now that the boys are making headway on that crazy not
ebook, who knows what else we might find out? But remember, no one knows we’re even grabbing a prisoner, and even if they do, they don’t know why. So keep a lid on it, for god’s sake.”
“Okay, so when? How long will this take? When will you grab him? When will you be back?”
“Grab him probably on Thursday, Friday at the outside. We’re hoping to be back here within nine or ten days. If the weather is good, we could be back within a week, I guess.”
I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of me. The cot squeaked in rickety protest. We lay that way for a while, noses touching.
“I want to know who I am, Chase,” I said. “I want to know who you are.”
“Ya know, babe,” he replied, “we know quite a bit about each other already. For example, I know that I love you.”
“I love you, too, Chase,” I whispered.
We shared a long kiss.
“You happy now?” he asked, getting to his feet again.
“Yes, very.”
He sighed. “You’re my weakness, Al, you know that? Back when we were in the 1891, before Gosford got to us, I told Woolly that you would be the end of me. He doesn’t remember, of course, but I did. Fact, I’m not sure how I’ve survived this long.”
“Well, give me a little more time,” I said.
“Get some sleep,” he said.
“How can I sleep knowing it’s happening tonight?”
“Al!”
“Just joking.”
He bent over, drew the top of my sleeping bag up, and tucked it under my chin. Tucked it tightly, just the way I like it. Then he straightened, but I took his hand in mine.
“Be careful, Chase.” I squeezed his hand.
“I will.” He squeezed back.
“Come back.”
“I will. I told you I will.”
“Getting my memories back won’t mean much if you’re not here to make new ones.”
He went out without another word, and the only sound then was the slow thrumming of the crickets in the darkness.
Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember Page 4
