The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  I made my voice as low and raspy as possible, pressing my body against the door. “Pierremont,” I croaked. “The corner of 6th and Laundres.”

  Nancy quirked her head to the side, and looked at me. I forced myself to breathe normally, waiting for her to finish her inspection.

  “Do I know you?”

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t think so. I’m… Bridget.”

  Nancy blinked, and still she didn’t put her foot on the gas. “Really.”

  Oh please, just drive. Oh please, oh please.

  When the cars behind her started to honk, Nancy shrugged and pulled out onto the intersection. “I’m Nancy,” she told me finally.

  I breathed again.

  “What’s in Pierremont?”

  It was considered impolite to question a rider too closely, and we both knew it. “A… client of mine.”

  “Oh yeah? What kind of business are you in, Bridget?”

  Keep it together. “Um… textiles.” I had no idea what that meant. It was the first thing that popped into my head, and I regretted it the moment it was out of my mouth.

  Nancy didn’t reply to this right away. But as she neared Pierremont, she told me, “It’s just interesting, because the family of one of my star reporters who’s gone missing happens to live right near that intersection.”

  My heart stopped. She knew. Before I replied, I paused, weighing my options. I could play dumb, but at this point I didn’t think that would help. If I were really a random citizen, I’d probably know she meant me, wouldn’t I? I wasn’t sure what they’d been publicizing, but surely they must’ve mentioned my disappearance. If I feigned ignorance, it would all but give me away.

  “You mean Kate Brandeis, I assume? Her family lives there?”

  “Mmm hmm. I’d never met them before, but since her disappearance, we’ve been in regular contact with them, just in case she happens to get in touch with them in any way.”

  “And has she?”

  “Not so far.” Nancy pulled up to the intersection, and gave me a hard, penetrating stare. Then she added with the deliberate edge to her voice that I knew so well, “But we’ll be in contact with them later today, I’m sure.”

  I forced myself to smile. “Well. Nancy. Thank you for the ride.”

  I got out, and realized as soon as my feet hit the pavement that I was trembling all over. But I did my best to walk normally, and I didn’t look back.

  Get it together.

  I needed to find someplace secluded to regain my composure, before I ran into anybody else that knew me. I hadn’t expected that at all.

  But I also needed to move fast. What if Nancy called the agents and sent them over to my parents’ and Charlie’s houses now, just in case?

  As soon as I thought it, I realized that was exactly what she’d do. I’d just have to get to Charlie and… convince him to come with me. How, I had no idea.

  Charlie lived on the same street as my parents, though, so I couldn’t get to him without passing by my parents’ home. I had hoped to get him alone, which would give me only one person to convince, rather than three. Unfortunately, my mom was standing on her front lawn when I passed by. She wasn’t doing anything—it looked like she was waiting for me.

  “Kathryn?” she squeaked, even though I was on the other side of the street with my head down, in full disguise. “Kathryn!” She ran toward me with arms outstretched, and a frantic expression. “Nancy just sent a comm and said she thought you might be headed over…”

  She threw her arms around me. My dad came out of the house behind her, and broke into a run.

  “Katie!” he cried. “We just heard… oh, my goodness, Katie, we’ve been so worried about you—”

  I started to panic. This was way too public.

  “We—have to get to Charlie’s,” I cut them off. Anywhere but the street.

  “We already told him to come over as soon as Nancy messaged us. He should be here any minute—oh!”

  Charlie rounded the corner just then, but he didn’t appear to be in any particular hurry, his hands stuffed in his pockets as he strolled along.

  “So. The prodigal returns,” he called out to me. I couldn’t read his tone, but it wasn’t complimentary. Even from a distance, I could see that he was glaring at me. My heart sank. I needed him to give me a chance, at least.

  My mother squeaked, “Oh, honey, we heard about Will—so dreadful! To think all this time he’s been an EOS, I never would have thought it of him…” she trailed off, using the Enemy of State acronym that I so often used on broadcast. “Will’s death would have been bad enough, but the idea that he was also an EOS is just… too much to bear! And when you disappeared around the same time, the speculation was that maybe you, too…” she broke off, her voice a tremor.

  “Come on inside, baby,” my dad slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward the open front door, “we’ll let the agents know you’re here and then—”

  “No! You can’t! Just, please, let me explain…” I tried to run toward the open front door, desperate to get out of the street, but I couldn’t disentangle myself from them. Instead, I half-ran, half-dragged them back inside.

  I couldn’t understand why they were acting like this. They were touching me… yet neither of my parents seemed the least bit affected by the signal disruptor. I looked at Charlie, though, and noticed for the first time that his insolent expression had vanished. Instead, he watched me intently, and kept stepping a few paces away from me, then a few paces toward me, and then a few paces away again. With each rotation, he looked around the living room we both knew so well, wide-eyed.

  “What’s going on, Kate?” Charlie demanded.

  I could have crumpled with relief. I pulled the jammer out of my pocket and held it up.

  “I got the idea from you,” I told him. “It will take me awhile to explain. But we’re not going to be able to stay here for long. I’m sure if Nancy called you guys, then she probably called agents to pick me up and interrogate me as well.”

  “Of course she did, it’s the right thing to do!” cried my mother. “You have to clear your name, Kathryn. Everyone thinks you were in league with Will—!”

  “Will’s alive, Mom,” I cut her off, but regretted it the minute it was out of my mouth. Why did she need that information?

  “What?” cried both of my parents at once, followed by a barrage of, “What happened?” “Where is he?” and, “Where have you been, Katie?”

  But I didn’t have time for all that—their questions weren’t relevant to my current mission anyway. So ignored them both and approached Charlie, who stepped away from me again as I did.

  “I came back for you,” I told him in a low voice. “I need your help.”

  He kept backing away, like I was threatening him. “You’d better explain the thing in your pocket. Fast.”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s a signal jammer. It’s interrupting the government signals that tell us how to think and how to see the world. What you see when you get within its radius is reality.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Then give me an alternate explanation.”

  All the time, I kept moving toward him, while he kept backing away. Jackson. What would Jackson say right now? “You know I’m not capable of creating false signals like that myself. You know that one of the two things you’re seeing must be true, and the other is a lie. Some part of you knows which it is, Charlie. You’ve always known.”

  “Stop it!” he shouted, thrusting an arm toward me. “Stay there!”

  My mom burst into tears, and my dad said gravely to no one in particular, “They warned us this might happen.”

  I looked over my shoulder at him. “That what might happen?”

  “The agents told us that if you came back to us, you might be sick. They said you might tell us about your hallucinations. You’d try to tell us not to trust the government—”

  “Just like w
hen you were a little girl!” my mom sobbed. “We—we thought they’d cured you, all those years ago! You must have relapsed!”

  There was a knock at the door. It felt just like the night that Mr. Santiago came to take me to McCormick’s… except this time, I knew what was happening.

  “That’ll be them,” said my dad, turning to answer the door.

  “No!” I begged. “Please, not again! You have to listen to me!” As I said it, I jerked toward my old bedroom. The window was my only remaining escape route.

  “Charlie!” my mother ordered. “Grab her!”

  Charlie ran toward me. I thrust my elbow back as hard as I could, aiming for his gut, but he sidestepped me and his hand tightened on my upper arm like a vice. But then, to my surprise, he moved his other hand to the center of my back, giving me a shove toward my room.

  “I’ll cover you,” he whispered. “Go!”

  Chapter 20: Kate

  I ran to my childhood bedroom, Charlie at my heels. I yanked open the window, even as I heard my parents open the door to let the agents in.

  “Climb up!” Charlie said, cradling his hands to give me a step up to the windowsill. I took it, swinging myself over and around and dropping to my feet on the lawn like I’d done a thousand times as a child. Charlie vaulted over the sill himself, landing beside me in the dirt and pebbles that I’d once thought was grass.

  “This way!” I whispered, running across our small yard and then the neighbors’ yards. We heard voices and footsteps behind us, and—my heart sank—dogs.

  They’d find us. No way they wouldn’t find us.

  “In here!” Charlie grabbed my collar and yanked me into a shed filled with rusty old gardening tools, and not a few cobwebs. I followed him inside, and the two of us crouched beside each other, panting but trying our best to quiet our breathing.

  The barking and the shouting approached, and I held my breath completely. I fought the urge to sneeze.

  They passed us by. They didn’t even slow down at the shed. I wanted to cry with relief.

  When the voices vanished entirely, I heard Charlie shift and stand up.

  “Other way,” he whispered, and I understood he meant we needed to go in the opposite direction from the agents and our parents. “Come on.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “You told me to give you an alternate explanation for your jammer.” He hesitated. “I can’t.”

  I giggled a little with overwhelming relief, as tears welled up in my eyes. But I didn’t have time to indulge in the moment—Charlie thrust the door open and sprinted across our neighbors’ yards until we reached the next major intersection.

  “We have to keep out of sight as much as possible,” he said.

  “No kidding, really?”

  He looked over his shoulder and smirked at me. “All right. I deserve that. Maybe I should ask you where we’re going.”

  “The less you know, the better.” Man, it felt good to say that. “Just follow me, and I’ll show you.”

  “How did you get here, anyway?”

  “Bullet trains.”

  He shook his head. “No way. We’d never make it out of the station!”

  “We wouldn’t now, no,” I agreed, annoyed. “But we’re much too far away to go on foot, so—”

  “And we can’t risk hitchhiking either,” Charlie surmised. “So we’re gonna have to carjack.”

  I grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. “Excuse me?”

  “Steal a car,” he said again. “Commandeer a vehicle. Not while the driver is in it though—too risky. We’ll have to find one in someone’s yard, far enough outside of town that nobody will see us hot-wiring it…” he rubbed his hands together. “I have always wanted to do this!”

  I gaped, but followed behind him, trying to think of a way to protest and coming up dry. Now that I’d been discovered, there’d probably be a broadcast on about me within the hour, it was true. Any method of transportation that involved anybody seeing me, even in disguise, was pretty much out at this point.

  “You still have so much explaining to do,” Charlie said, looking over his shoulder at me so he didn’t see where we were headed. I gasped, and he turned around when he heard me, so that he could see what I saw.

  “Kate and Charlie Brandeis,” said the agent directly in front of us, his weapon drawn, “You are under arrest as fugitives of the Potentate.”

  Chapter 21: Kate

  One of the agents told the other to take us directly to the Potentate’s palace. That was when I really understood how bad our situation was. I wasn’t sure where they generally held prisoners for trial, but I suspected the palace dungeon must be reserved only for the most infamous prisoners.

  I’d known before I left that I might die on this mission. But it was one thing, expecting it at some nebulous time in the future… and another thing entirely to be escorted to my death. I watched the gray, bleak Republic whizzing by with the heightened awareness of a last look, feeling frightened and regretful by turns. But mostly, I felt numb.

  Despite the signal disruptor, when the palace came into view, it glittered in the sunlight with a familiar golden sheen, nestled between groves of fir trees and bursting with flowers on its immense lawn. It looked exactly like the pictures I remembered—that, at least, was real. A helicopter, the first I’d ever seen outside of the pages of a book, descended to land on its roof. Perhaps the Potentate was reviving the old United States aircraft after all.

  Four more agents ran up to our shiny black sedan when we arrived, two on Charlie’s side and two on mine. I wasn’t sure if this was because they deemed us a national security threat or what, considering there were two more agents driving, and both Charlie and I were cuffed. One of the men roughly pulled me out of the vehicle and gave me a shove down a lovely sloping path which descended to an ominous door. Involuntarily I glanced over toward a green hill I recognized well. Many a famous execution had occurred there. I’d done the voice-overs for quite a few of them.

  The door clanged shut behind us.

  The room where we now found ourselves felt dank and drafty, with very little light—like the inside of a cave. It smelled of feces and vomit.

  “Strip them down,” said a guard behind the desk. He tossed two gray cotton uniforms onto the desk, and the agent who had shoved me out of the car started to remove my clothes, inspecting each article as he went.

  “Wait—” I interrupted automatically, but the agent had already found the ammunition for my gun. With my jacket removed, the weapon itself was plainly exposed too. Charlie underwent similar treatment, though he was unarmed, of course.

  “Brandeis is packing,” said the agent beside me, inspecting the ammunition. “This is old school stuff. Not deep impact. Where did you get these?” he asked me.

  I glared back at him and said nothing. He didn’t seem to mind this, and removed my gun next, followed by my pants. I tried not to feel too humiliated, and didn’t look at Charlie.

  “What’s this?” the agent said when he’d removed the pants, lifting the signal disruptor from the pocket.

  Of course I said nothing, nor did Charlie. But he passed it to the other agents, all of whom inspected it in turn. They flipped it on, off, on, off—and Charlie and I, and one of the agents all started as they did. The dungeon became light and clean, still with prison bars but also with plush couches and area rugs. It felt like an intimate sitting room. And then with a flash—feces and vomit. Then flash—inviting and warm. Flash—filled with despair.

  Three of the agents didn’t seem to notice this at all. The one who did looked spooked.

  “What are you playing at?” he demanded of me.

  I noted that the other three agents looked thoroughly confused by his question. I held my head high with as much pride as I could, standing there in my underwear. But something told me not to announce to the guards the nature of the disruptor they held. If three of the four guards believed it to be wo
rthless, they’d be less likely to report it. Instead, I settled on, “You’ve been brainwashed, Lancaster.” I read his name off his badge. “And I think you’ve always known it, deep down.”

  Lancaster recoiled in disgust, and yanked the battery out of the signal disruptor, tossing it in the trash. The dungeon became inviting and warm again, filled with light, and the faint smell of baking bread. No doubt it was constructed to make prisoners feel at home—more likely to confess, believing they’d receive leniency.

  “Put these on,” Lancaster barked, throwing the gray uniform at me. I obeyed, and so did Charlie.

  “What are you going to do with us?” Charlie asked, tightening the drawstring on his pants.

  Lancaster glanced at me, and spat, “Brandeis is a suspected EOS in collaboration with her late fiancé, Will Anderson. You attempted escape with her, and in so doing, you threw in your lot with hers. You will both await trial before the Tribunal tomorrow morning.”

  We followed Lancaster to our cell. The dungeon felt oddly like a hotel, but for the bars. I concentrated as hard as I could—as much as I’d prefer to stay in a hotel than in a dungeon on my last night on earth, I knew was a lie. I wanted to see the truth. I needed to see the truth.

  Lancaster unlocked one of the cells, and the door swung open.

  “Sleep tight,” he said, and gave me a nasty smile.

  When we heard his footsteps recede, I looked at Charlie, and he looked at me. Finally, Charlie said aloud what we were both thinking.

  “They’re going to shoot us tomorrow.”

  I nodded. “Probably.”

  “Thanks so much for coming back for me, sis. Really appreciate that.”

  I sighed. “I needed your help. The whole Republic knows my face, and I thought if I could just hijack a broadcast signal, I could tell everybody the truth all at once.” I sank down, resting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. “But if even the signal disruptor doesn’t work on everybody, I wonder how many would actually listen if I went on air and did that. Ten percent maybe?” I shook my head. “I just can’t understand—how can the signal disruptor not always work?”