by C. A. Gray
“We can’t take a straight shot back to your caves,” Brenda murmured to me, as the man in overalls continued to distribute weapons, heedless of the wide-eyed government workers. “There will be agents all over us at the very next stop.”
“But they’ll leave you alone if I tell them I’ve got you in my custody,” said Dunne, his voice low.
Brenda blinked at him, absently taking the gun I offered her and tucking it into the waist of her pinstriped skirt. She looked like she wanted to ask him a question, but didn’t know how to phrase it. “Good idea,” she said finally.
I handed another two weapons to the waif girl and her boyfriend. I’d have been more cautious to hide them from other travelers, but at this point, with Kenny and two agents lying dead on the pavement, no ID cards, and a bunch of emaciated citizens already distributing weapons to one another, did it really make any difference what I did?
“We aren’t going direct anyway, we have to rendezvous with the other hunters,” I told Brenda. “Our meeting place is just off the next stop.”
“You know we’ll never make it all the way out,” she whispered to me. “Even if you're bullet-proof, the rest of us aren’t.”
“I’m not bullet-proof. If they were shooting real bullets, I’d be dead. But they’re not. They’re firing blanks.”
“You expect me to believe a blank just killed your friend out there?”
I clenched my teeth and looked out the window, at the blur of the endless concrete outside. “I tried to tell him. He didn’t believe me.”
“I believe yer,” said the man in the overalls. “I saw it. They hit yer, clear as day, but you was fine. And then I saw they never hit yer at all. Like an illusion, just wiped away.”
“That’s what I saw too,” murmured Dunne. He looked up at me cautiously.
“Why did you see that, and not the others?” Brenda demanded of him.
Dunne opened his mouth and closed it again. Then he looked out the window and said to me, “What you said about how the people looked like they were starving and the Republic looked impoverished—it’s bothered me ever since. And then somehow you were dead, and then you weren’t. When we went to bury your body, all we found was just an empty body bag.” He paused. “I tried to forget about it, and I did for awhile. But then a few days ago, I started to see… flashes.”
“So did we,” said the man in overalls, gesturing at his pregnant wife. The others nodded too, and the thin girl said, “Thursday. Right? Around noon.” They all glanced at one another with a knowing look.
“Funny,” Brenda murmured, “that’s when it happened for me, too.”
Dunne nodded, and I murmured, “I wonder if something happened with the system around then. Maybe it went down or something.”
“The system?” asked the man in overalls.
“We’ll explain. I promise.” Then I extended a hand, and introduced myself, “Jackson MacNamera.”
He shook, his hand caked with dirt. “I’m Sam. This is m’wife, Violet.”
I shook Violet’s hand too, and added, “Sam, I’d be grateful if you’d back up my story to my friends we’re about to meet. The more of us that understand the agents’ bullets can’t hurt us, the better chance we have of making it out of here alive.”
Just then, the silver screen at the front of the car crackled to life. The seal of the Republic appeared first: it was a stylized eagle, a take-off on the symbol from the former United States.
The very next image on the screen was my face.
I was strapped to the maroon chair, unconscious, with electrodes stuck to my head. The voice-over was Jillian’s.
“Breaking news: an escaped terrorist by the name of Jackson MacNamera is wanted for the murder of two federal agents. He is considered to be armed and very dangerous.” My picture shrank to the upper right corner of the screen, and the camera zoomed in on Jillian. She sat behind her desk, her blond hair perfectly in place and her face a mask of concern. “MacNamera has also been linked to the escape of known Enemy of State, Brenda Halfpenny, just half an hour ago.” Brenda’s image appeared on the screen next to mine. I heard her suck in a sharp breath beside me. “It is possible that he may be holding hostage government agent, Roger Dunne. Citizens are authorized to use force on behalf of the government in order to bring these criminals to justice as quickly as possible.”
Chapter 25: Kate
The hunters always came through the clearing in the trees that led down to the stream when they returned to the caves from their daily exploits. So I figured they’d come through that same spot when they came back today, too.
If they came back.
Most of the day, I tried to help Molly stay busy and distracted, like Jackson told me to do. She and I gathered root vegetables and nuts and berries, tended her little garden, washed clothes in a basin, and hung them out to dry on a little clothesline she had erected by the stream. As we washed, she prattled with a sort of frantic ebullience about their life before the Crash. I knew she was trying to distract herself just as hard as I was.
“I used to be a schoolteacher,” she told me, too brightly. “I taught seventh grade English until I was thirty-six, when the Crash happened. I loved it. The students called me strict, but it’s only because I expected them to do their best. I remember the ones who were so bright they never had to try. I had this little boy named Billy, and he was much too smart for his own good!” She gave a high-pitched, nervous giggle. “He’d never done homework before he came to my class. I wouldn’t let him get away with that, though. I insisted he do his work, or I’d fail him. He didn’t understand why, because he said if he could write the papers and do projects and pass exams, why should he have to do extra work at home? I told him, I said, ‘Because it’s more about the work ethic than anything else.’ Maybe he could master information without any effort, and that was enough to get him by right now. But in the future, long after he forgot what he had to know for my exams, knowing how to work would give him the tools he needed to succeed at anything.”
I nodded, watching Molly wipe sweat off her brow. At the end of every sentence, I saw her eyes shift toward the clearing in the trees. My eyes followed hers every time, like a nervous tic.
“Did he understand that, as a seventh grader?” I asked, just making conversation. I didn’t really care about Billy one way or the other.
“You know something, he did! That’s how bright he was. Not just book-smarts, but real wisdom, you know? Not often you see a kid willing to delay gratification for some benefit down the line.” She nodded, and went on, in a tone that made me think she was barely listening to what she was saying, and had told this story many times, “He was one of my inspirations. Sometimes you get those kids who make you feel like, ‘ah, this is why I’m doing what I’m doing.’ He was one of those.”
She stopped talking for a minute and bit her lip. I thought she was about to break down crying. I racked my brain for another question.
“So… um…” Nothing came to mind. Then I blurted, “So what about the kids in the caves here? Does anybody teach them?”
“Yes!” Molly burst out gratefully, sniffing and wiping her nose with her sleeve, “yes, in fact, I help teach part time. We hold class in the amphitheater when the weather is nice enough, which it usually is. You’ve seen the amphitheater?” I shook my head, and she prattled, “Oh well, you will. It’s where the Council holds their meetings too, and sometimes they call everyone to conference to witness it. Every now and then the kids put on plays for the rest of us out there too. Usually they're shows that a few of the former writers in the caves wrote, or else a play from the old English textbooks. Things like Shakespeare, you know. You’ve met Sadie Callahan? She used to be an opera singer in the old days—she directs all of the productions.”
“Oh, how delightful,” I said absently, glancing at the clearing again. Nothing.
“It is!” Molly insisted, wiping her face again with the back of her hand. “Sometimes f
or a rare treat, Sadie will sing for us herself. She does that on our national holiday—the day when the cave community was first formed as a refuge and the Crone was established as our leader. Every May 18th. We can’t do fireworks like they did in the old United States, of course,” she giggled again, perspiring profusely as she scrubbed the clothes, “but we do what we can. It’s a holiday and we make special dishes, kind of like the old Thanksgiving holiday, and Sadie sings for us, and Father Edwards—he’s not a priest or anything, he’s just the oldest in the community still living—he gathers us all around and tells us the story again of our establishment. It’s really an inspiring tale!”
“So it’s always been the Crone who was in charge, though?” I asked, actually a little interested now. Molly and I looked at the clearing again at the same time.
“Oh, yes, that was quite unanimous!”
“Was it? Why? I mean, I’m sure she does a good job, but she seems so… harsh.”
“That’s what makes her good,” said Molly. But now her words sounded a bit perfunctory again—as if she were reciting something she was expected to say, or wanted to believe, rather than something she really thought was true. “The Crone was the matriarch of a large immigrant family in the old days. Used to having her way. I guess in their culture, nobody in the family made a major decision without consulting her for at least her blessing, and usually more than that. She chose who all of her sons and daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews married. She chose their professions for them. She even told them where to live, which was all within a few square miles of the rest of the clan. A little like the caves, actually!”
I frowned. The way she described the Crone sounded eerily like the Potentate. “What happened to them? Her family, I mean.”
“All killed,” murmured Molly. “In the first days after the Crash. Not surprising, really—so many people were killed.”
“All of them?”
“Oh, I think she may have a few sundry relatives left in the Republic here and there,” said Molly vaguely, “but she doesn’t talk about them. If they’re still in there, they’re brainwashed, and she’s washed her hands of them. That’s one thing about her: she gives you one chance to do what she says, and that’s it. You won’t get another. She doesn’t forget, and she doesn’t forgive.”
Molly wasn’t smiling anymore, I noticed. Her hands shook, and she stared down at the basin blankly.
“Molly,” I said quietly. “What is it?”
She looked up at me with an expression like she’d forgotten I was there. “What? Oh. Don’t mind me, dearest, I’m just being silly.” She sucked in a deep breath, and with it her expression renewed with the sparkle of forced energy. “So I don’t mean to be inappropriate, considering—” she pointed at the diamond ring on my left hand. I stopped washing, staring at it. “I know it may be completely uncalled for. But I can’t help noticing a sort of—chemistry between you and Jackson. Am I imagining that?”
I kept staring at the ring, and mumbled, “No. You’re not imagining it.”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to pry!” Molly blustered. I shook my head.
“No, no, it’s okay. It’s just—” I sighed. Considering everything else going on, considering all Molly had on her plate, I hadn’t intended to say anything to her. But come to think of it, it would feel really good to get it out. “I kissed him last night,” I confessed. “And he pushed me away.”
Molly gasped, but didn’t say anything, waiting for me to go on.
“He told me it was too soon. For me. He told me…” I shook my head and ran my hand through my hair, finally finishing, “…a bunch of really uncanny things, actually. I don’t know, it’s like he can read my mind or something. Maybe better than I can myself.”
“What did he say?” Molly whispered. Dimly, I thought that at last I’d succeeded in truly distracting us both. At least there’s that.
“He said what I wanted wasn’t really him, but just a man to complete me, because I’d lost Will and I feel so—alone now.” My voice caught in my throat. “That I thought I wasn’t strong enough to be okay just as I am. I want someone to tell me what to do, who to be. What to believe.” I noticed I’d stopped washing altogether, and so had Molly. I looked back at her and saw that she had tears in her eyes. She nodded at me. “He… well, I guess he didn’t exactly say this, but he implied that I’d have to get that settled before I could be with anyone again.”
“He’s right,” Molly told me softly.
I bit my lip, and thought of the flare of anger I’d felt when arguing with Karen in the garden. Like little Kate, the stubborn, rebellious girl I was always meant to be, was starting to come back to life again.
“I know,” I murmured. “I just don’t know… how.”
After a long pause, Molly murmured, “Well… you could start by finding a purpose here. In the caves. Not because anybody told you you have to, or because it needs to be done, or because someone else thinks it’s a good thing to do… something you just enjoy, for its own sake.”
I thought about this, and my eyes fell on the ring again. On an impulse, I tugged it off, tucking it into my pockets. “I can start with this,” I whispered. “Living in reality. That’s a good start, right?” I gave her a forced smile.
Molly wrapped her sudsy fingers around my now bare left hand, and squeezed.
Chapter 26: Kate
I thought about what Molly said for the rest of the day. Every time I caught myself glancing at the clearing, I asked it again: what would I enjoy for its own sake? What would bring me purpose?
What would eleven-year-old me have done?
But I never got very far with the answer. My mind kept interrupting me with visions of Jackson running from the agents, shot in the back, the blood blossoming from the bullet wound and soaking through his clothes as he fell on his face. Jackson getting shot in the head. Jackson getting shot in the chest. Jackson (and all the rest of the hunters, plus the two they rescued) getting arrested and pulled before an official firing squad of the Potentate.
Then I saw Will’s face swimming before my mind’s eye, and I felt the lump rise to my throat.
If the hunters were successful, if they managed to rescue those two innocent people, it would mean Will didn’t die for nothing.
That was the answer to Molly’s question, the thing that would bring me purpose out here in the caves. It was the same thing that brought purpose to Nick and the hunters and to Jackson: I needed to help set people free. I had to be part of it.
I couldn’t hunt, and I couldn’t fight, and I couldn’t be a hacker like Jean. But somehow… somehow I’d have to find a way to contribute. What did I have that could help them? What could I do that no one else…
I gasped. Of course.
I had one thing that no one else in the caves had—one thing I could use. I was famous. And not only that, I was a famous reporter. The people in the Republic trusted me, knew me, listened to me…
What if my biggest regret, the reason why everyone here hates me—what if I could turn that into my biggest asset to them? What if I could go on the air and tell the entire population the truth about the Republic, the Potentate, the Control Centers… all of it?
I started laughing out loud. The women and children gathering herbs with me for the feast that night stopped and looked at me like I was crazy, but for once I didn’t care.
I have to tell Jackson!
Then my heart sank again, and my eyes involuntarily sought the clearing again. What if I never had the chance?
Twenty minutes later when the sun dipped below the horizon, I heard a scream of joy rip from Molly’s throat. My breath caught, and I whipped around in the direction where I was sure she was looking.
It was Nick. He emerged from the clearing, dragging a wounded Alec. Molly dropped her basket of berries and sprinted straight for him. Nick grinned, passing Alec off to Pete for support. Not a second later, Molly threw her arms around her husband.
I leapt to my feet as well, scanning the crowd emerging from the trees. I was confused; this was really a crowd. Who were all these people? And why couldn’t I find the one face I searched for?
I rushed forward along with a group of other cave-dwellers that followed after Molly, hugging the men and sobbing.
“Where’s Kenny?” I heard a young girl ask, with her dark hair plaited and her doe-eyes wide. She asked every hunter who passed, “I don’t understand, where’s Kenny? Why isn’t he with you?”
Jackson’s silhouette emerged last of all through the trees. He met my eyes once he appeared in my line of sight, and smiled, but he looked exhausted. I smiled back, approaching him calmly and with dignity, like I hadn’t been worried about him all day.
“Who are all these people?” was the first thing I said to him. A woman in an absurdly out of place pinstriped suit stood by his side, staring at me openly.
“This is Brenda Halfpenny,” said Jackson. “She was our team’s target. Pete’s team rescued Nelson Armstrong—that’s him, there.” He pointed to the backside of a burly man in threadbare flannel.
I felt a wave of emotion crash over me like waves upon a rock, and it was all I could do not to throw my arms around Brenda too. “You did it!” I breathed.
Jackson nodded, and I turned to Brenda, who gave me an icy smile.
“Brenda, this is Kate—” Jackson began, but Brenda cut him off.
“Brandeis. I know who she is,” Brenda said coolly.
I winced, and took a step back.
“Kate is the reason we were able to find you, Brenda,” Jackson told her, a note of reproach in his tone. “She gave us the information we needed to find the database that allowed us to locate both you and Nelson.”
Brenda’s features softened. “Forgive me,” she murmured, “I have no right to judge.”
I inclined my head in acknowledgement of her apology. Her words stung, but they only strengthened my resolve.
I turned back to Jackson, getting ahold of myself. “Who are the rest of these people?”
