The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  I found the batteries, the radio, the watch, and a circuitboard from an old television set within thirty minutes. Then I found the stash of tools—a drill, and tiny screwdrivers. No soldering iron, at least not that I recognized, but I didn’t really expect to find one of those anyway.

  “How’s it going?” Jean poked her ski mask-covered head into the living room, coughing a deep bronchitis-sounding cough.

  I looked up at her. “Yuck. That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It’s the mold,” she said, sniffling. “At least it makes it easy for me to remember that this place ought to be condemned, no matter how it looks.”

  “I think I’m gonna have to go next door and see if they have a soldering iron there,” I told her. “Nick isn’t gonna love that—”

  We both stopped. At first the sound was distant, but it grew closer very quickly before it passed overhead.

  I looked at Jean. “That sounds like a plane, doesn’t it?”

  “I was trying to place the sound,” Jean admitted, “but yeah, come to think of it… I haven’t heard a plane in decades, though. That’s ironic, because the Crone just talked about trying to hijack a plane for their escape plan… you don’t think that could be them, do you?”

  I shook my head, equally perplexed. “Too coincidental. Besides, they’d be going in the wrong direction.” I shrugged. “How’s it coming with you guys in there?”

  “He’s swearing under his breath every five minutes,” Jean murmured. “Our code is failing all over the place. I’m not sure this is going to work.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “You can go in there and ask him if you like, and I’ll have a look for your soldering iron. I’m no help to Will right now anyway.”

  The room where Will sat smelled dank. Cobwebs hung in the corners of the room. He glanced up at me, and I saw the worry in his eyes.

  “What was that noise outside?” he demanded.

  “Jean and I thought it sounded like a plane.”

  Will turned back to his screen abruptly, his shoulders hunched. “I don’t know what that means, but it can’t be good.”

  “Jean sent me in to see if I can help.”

  “No. You’ll just get in the way.”

  I sat down beside him anyway and waited. He glanced at me irritably. Then he sighed.

  “I’m trying to trouble-shoot our code. We wrote it on paper, but apparently there’s a bug somewhere, at least one, because it keeps crashing. Meanwhile I’m running the tests inside the portal—”

  “Oh, so you got in?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but that means if the guy whose credentials I used tries to sign in at any point while I’m in here, they’re gonna know I’m an imposter. And maybe trace my location. That’s why I’m worried about the plane.”

  As he said all this he kept backspacing and changing things on the screen, not looking at me.

  “So they might have traced us here already then?”

  “Yup.”

  “Any estimate of how long ago?”

  “How in the hell would I know that?” he snapped. He clicked execute at the bottom of the screen and I watched as a digital wheel spun while the computer thought about his command, and then the word failed appeared again, with a bunch of code beneath it. Will swore, and pounded an open palm on the grimy table.

  “I’ll go alert Nick that they might know where we are,” I said.

  “You do that,” Will scowled, still not looking at me.

  “You’re never gonna believe this! I found one!” Jean crowed, coughing again as she held up what must have been a soldering iron. “What are the odds?”

  “Excellent,” I murmured, brushing past her to the outside of the house.

  Nick’s head snapped around to face me. “What is it?”

  “We might have company soon,” I said, and told him what Will told me.

  “I was afraid of that,” Nick murmured. “I saw a plane, of all things, and had to ask myself if it was really there or not.”

  “It was real, I heard it,” I told him.

  “But why would the Potentate resurrect old planes? Why now?”

  I shook my head, and then froze. “Shh. We’re being watched.”

  “What?” Nick whispered. “Where?”

  I spun around slowly. Then I heard the gunshot.

  “Get down!” Nick yelled, and grabbed me, pulling me to the ground. I shook him off, and located the source: three agents, who now stood out in the open, weapons raised. Nick and I both pointed our guns back at them.

  “Lower your weapons,” called one of the agents. “There is a fugitive inside the house you are guarding.”

  “Their bullets are real, did you see that?” Nick hissed to me, still cowering on the ground. I glanced down at Nick pointedly, still standing in full view of the agents myself. “Truth or lie, Nick?”

  “What?”

  “There was no damage from their bullet. Keep checking in with yourself on what you really see.”

  The center agent called, “Lower your weapons, or we will fire!”

  “Would you get down?” Nick demanded, jamming his arm into the back of my knee so that my legs buckled, just as the agents fired where I’d been standing. Nick curled up with his arms over his head, just as if the glass from the windows had shattered—even though it hadn’t.

  “Truth or lie?” I demanded of Nick, prying his arms off of his head and pointing at the intact window.

  Nick blinked at it, as if seeing the window for the first time.

  “Lie,” he murmured at last.

  “You got it,” I affirmed. “Now stand up and let’s face them!”

  Nick stood up beside me very slowly, still with his knees bent so he could hit the ground again quickly if he needed to. The agents let out another burst of gunshot, and Nick cried out as he fell to the ground again.

  “I’m not hit!” he told me, his voice frantic as he pressed a hand against his chest and gasped. “I’m not hit! It’s a lie!”

  “Yes, it is a lie, because they are firing blanks,” I barked. “You are fine.” The agents let out another burst of fire, and I didn’t even glance up at them.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine…” Nick gasped, prying his hand off of his chest and staring at it. He looked up at me and declared, this time with amazement, “I’m… fine!”

  I grinned, though he couldn’t see me through the ski mask.

  The agents stopped firing. Then one of them shouted, “You are the rebel leader Jackson MacNamera. Aren’t you?”

  I didn’t answer. They probably knew that because I was the only one who had ever stood unscathed before agent bullets before, and they figured it had to be me this time, too. But if I admitted to them who I was, and the agents escaped, they would tell the Potentate I was here. And I didn’t want to kill them unless absolutely necessary.

  “Take off your mask! Show us your face!” the center agent demanded.

  “I can’t see how that would be in my best interest,” I called back.

  The three agents conferred with each other. Then the one in the middle put away his gun and pulled out something else: a knife that glinted in the sun. That one was real. The agent hesitated for a moment, but then began to move toward me.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I told him, but I didn’t move to defend myself. Not yet.

  The agent broke into a run when he was about twenty yards from me, and let out a cry as he raised the knife to strike. Still I didn’t move. I knew I didn’t need to.

  Bang.

  The agent fell down dead, Alec’s bullet lodging into his back. I glanced up in the direction where the bullet had come from, and nodded my thanks. The other two agents turned and fled.

  Both Nick and Alec fired—Nick hit one of them in the shoulder, and Alec grazed the other one in the calf. The agents stumbled, but then they were out of sight.

  Nick swore, and told me, “They’ll brin
g reinforcements. This is not good.”

  “Will thinks he’ll need more time,” I said. “We should find out how much more.”

  Nick stared at me for a minute, eyes wide, and then nodded as he turned to reenter the house.

  I heard Alec racing up beside me, panting. He yanked off his ski mask.

  “We can never use these again,” he told me. “The Potentate will know it’s us just as surely as if they’d spotted our brainwaves.”

  “That’s okay. We have another plan for that now.”

  Nick emerged, Jean and Will in tow. Even through the mask, Will did not look happy.

  “We’re ready,” Nick announced. “Let’s get moving.”

  Chapter 11: Ben Voltolini

  Ben Voltolini stood facing the enormous window in his office, hands clasped behind his back, his feet spread wide beneath him.

  “Sir?”

  The voice belonged to Jefferson Collins of the Tribunal. It was simpering and tentative as ever.

  “Send them in,” said Voltolini, without turning around.

  He heard the quick, nervous footsteps scamper away, and a few minutes later, another knock at the door to his office. He turned to see two men he’d never laid eyes on before. Until now, they hadn’t been important enough.

  “Agents Murray and Youssef, Your Excellency,” murmured Collins, and bowed himself out of the room.

  Agents Murray and Youssef wore the usual dark gray suits, though one was on crutches, and the other’s right arm hung in a sling. They watched Voltolini with expressions of reverence.

  “Your Excellency, I cannot tell you what an honor—” began Murray.

  “I understand you told your supervisors a very interesting story,” Voltolini interjected. “I’ve heard the story second-hand thus far only and have brought you here so that I might hear it directly from the horse’s mouth.” His expression did not change as he spoke, but he fixed his dark eyes on the two men before him and raised his eyebrows.

  Both agents began speaking at once. “Yes, sir! Well we—”

  “—saw men in ski masks and they—”

  “—four of them—”

  “No, two!”

  “At least one more inside and one in the trees, though—”

  Voltolini held up his hand, and they both clamped their mouths shut. “One at a time,” he said, gesturing to Youssef.

  “We were sent to the southern border of the Republic, sir, just about twenty miles from Kensing, because of a report of a hacker using a stolen password to infiltrate our network. They traced the location, and that’s where it came from. Our supervisor, Hunt, told us that most likely Will Anderson was the hacker because of the person whose password he used.”

  Voltolini did not visibly react to this other than to purse his lips. “And? Was it Anderson?”

  “We—don’t know for sure, sir,” murmured Youssef. “We understand the hacker deployed code designed to disrupt our control center signaling, which makes it likely that it was Anderson. But we never saw anybody’s faces. They were all in ski masks.”

  “How could we not know for sure that it was him? Whose brainwaves did we detect?”

  Youssef hesitated. “No one’s, sir.” He and Murray exchanged a look, and Murray went on, “Our supervisors believe—that was the point of the ski masks.”

  “Faraday cages,” murmured Voltolini. He turned back to the large window. “Send Collins back in here.”

  He heard shuffling behind him as the two men left. A few minutes later, the shuffling returned, and an uncertain voice said, “Sir?”

  “Contact Jillian Reynolds immediately to issue a broadcast alert,” said Voltolini. “Tell her that any citizen who spots an individual wearing a ski mask is to report that individual immediately as a terrorist.”

  Collins nodded, and turned to carry out the order, but Voltolini said, “Wait, Collins. That may not be all.” He turned back to the two agents, and raised his eyebrows. “Is that all?”

  Murray stumbled. “N-no, Your Excellency…” They exchanged another look, and then Murray went on, “One of the rebels… appeared to be impervious to our bullets.”

  Voltolini said nothing.

  Murray went on, “He somehow said something to his companion so that—” he scratched his head with his good hand, “I really can’t explain it, sir, but one of them said something to the other, and then even though it looked like we’d hit them both, neither of them were hurt. I don’t know how that’s possible. But that’s what we saw.”

  Voltolini looked at Collins, who gave him a tiny nod.

  “And I understand you asked the first terrorist his identity, did you not?”

  “Yes, sir. We asked him if he was Jackson MacNamera. But he did not answer.”

  Youssef interjected, “He did tell the others not to shoot at us, but there was a sniper in the trees. That’s how Giles died.”

  Voltolini pursed his lips. Then he turned to Collins and said in a low voice, “Make sure Jillian tells the people that the terrorists in ski masks will kill indiscriminately, and they are believed to work for Jackson MacNamera. MacNamera may in fact be among them.”

  “Yes sir,” murmured Collins.

  Voltolini turned back to the agents. “Anything else?”

  Youssef said, “We also believe—we saw planes, sir.”

  Voltolini started. “What?”

  Youssef nodded. “I’ve never seen one in person before, sir, but I’ve seen pictures from the old United States. We are both sure that’s what they were.”

  “We—thought they were doing some sort of reconnaissance for you, sir,” Murray added, hesitating.

  Voltolini turned to Collins. “Find out what they were and where they came from. Immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then deliver new orders to the Lieutenant Colonel. I want the troops to fan out over the hundred square miles or so surrounding the area where the rebels were spotted. They’re on foot, so they can’t get far.”

  Collins balked. “Hundred square miles? You can’t mean—into Beckenshire, sir? Surely we’ll skip that city—!”

  Before answering, Voltolini turned to the agents. “You are dismissed,” he told them. They both bowed, and ran into each other as they exited the room.

  Voltolini faced Collins again. “This is classified information, Collins. Many of our top scientists doubt that Beckenshire is still radioactive. Very likely it’s been inhabitable again for some time.”

  Collins’s eyes grew wide. “But we don’t know for sure! And surely the rebels wouldn’t know that, in any case…”

  “Almost certainly not, but I still want to keep an eye on Beckenshire, just in case. Send a platoon in.”

  “But sir, if it is radioactive there…?”

  Voltolini rolled his eyes. “Give them sugar pills and tell them it’ll make them immune to radiation. Tell them they’ve been selected for a high honor and they’ll all receive a personal commendation from me as explorers of a new frontier. I don’t care what you tell them, just get them in there!”

  Collins bit his lip, shifting from one foot to the other as if he wished to say something further. But he thought better of it, bowed, and left the room.

  Chapter 12: Jackson

  None of us spoke as we hurried into the forest, away from where we’d seen the agents. The sky began to darken, and we still had a long way to go back to camp.

  Finally after about forty-five minutes, Alec said to Will, “So did it work, or what?”

  “I doubt it,” Will said shortly.

  “You doubt it?” Alec balked. “All that and it didn’t even work?”

  “They must’ve figured out I was using someone else’s credentials and traced my location,” Will said, panting as he leapt over branches. “So I’m sure they’ll just kill anything I did under that username. Even if the code would have executed perfectly, which I’m also not sure of, at this point I don’t think it would make
any difference.”

  Alec swore. “So this entire mission was a complete waste? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “It’s not his fault, Alec,” Nick growled. “Back off.”

  Alec didn’t seem to hear him. “Don’t you know what this means? Now they probably have a good idea of our location out here! How long before they send more troops, like they did to the caves? And now these things are useless, too!” He yanked off his ski mask and flung it into the forest. “What do you want to bet the Potentate will alert all citizens of the Republic to look out for people wearing ski masks now?”

  “Alec! Enough!” Nick whirled on him, jabbing a finger in the direction of the ski mask as if commanding him to retrieve it. The two stared each other down for a moment. Alec crossed his arms over his chest, implicitly refusing to fetch the mask.

  “We can’t ever use them again anyway, and you know it.”

  “You want to leave them a trail of breadcrumbs, is that it?” Nick retorted.

  Alec hesitated, glowered, and retrieved the mask, tucking it into his satchel.

  Jean pulled off her ski mask too. “I’ve been wanting to get rid of that thing all day anyway,” she murmured, rubbing her face. The rest of us followed suit, tucking them into our coats and waistbands and satchels.

  Jean’s words broke the tension, and Nick started to move again, Alec resentfully trailing him as he cast one more sour look in Will’s direction.

  “Not as if we didn't know failure was a possibility,” Will muttered to no one in particular.

  “We just didn’t expect failure to be so catastrophic,” Alec shot back.

  I’d had about enough of this.

  “Alec. Hold up,” I commanded. The whole group stopped as Alec turned to look at me. “Your statement, that this failure was catastrophic. Is that truth, or a lie?”

  “Oh, what are you, some kind of spiritual elitist? Quit being such a damn know-it-all!”