by C. A. Gray
Albert pulled Denise over to the car and helped her to climb into the middle of the backseat. Before I got in, I pointed at the large cans against the wall of the garage and looked back at Charlie and Kate, who were each sitting in the front.
“Think these are gasoline?”
Charlie stared at me for a minute, and then said, “Oh. Good call.”
I unscrewed the top of the canister to make sure, and got a good whiff: definitely gas. We carried one to the trunk, and then I glanced around to see if we might be so lucky as to find a funnel, too. Charlie grabbed a toolbox, presumably the one he and Kate had been using, and carried that to the trunk too before he climbed into the driver’s side.
Kate got out of the front seat as I walked around to get in.
“I’ll sit in the back, you don’t have to console my mom anymore,” she told me under her breath.
“No, it’s fine,” I told her. “You know your way around the Republic, you should be navigating.”
“Guys!” Charlie snapped, leaning across the front seat. “Would you stop flirting and get in? Kinda in a rush here.”
Kate blushed a little and wouldn’t look at me as she ducked in to the front seat. “Why are you always such an ass, Charlie?” I heard her say.
“Because you’re such an easy target,” was his reply.
I suppressed a smile and climbed in beside Denise.
“Okay, everybody strapped in?” Charlie asked us. “This is gonna be a little bumpy at first.” Then he punched the accelerator as we sped directly towards the closed garage door. I felt a brief spike of terror as I realized the front seat was going to get the worst of it—somehow I hadn’t thought of that before—
Crunch. We crashed through into broad daylight, but did not stop. When the debris cleared, I saw that the windshield had a few cracks in it, but there was no major damage.
“Did you even check to see if we could open the garage door?” I demanded. “The windows were unlocked, so I’m sure the door was too!”
“Ah… no.” Charlie shrugged, and grinned at me sheepishly in the rearview mirror. “I guess that would’ve been smarter, huh?”
I felt another spike of terror: the helicopter. Of course it would see us, and would immediately know who we had to be. I rolled my window down to peer up into the sky as Charlie raced down the very long driveway leading away from the palace. I could hear the agents shouting after us and shooting, but I ignored them, scanning the sky. But no helicopter.
Albert turned around and spotted the cluster of black sedans behind us first.
“We’re being followed,” he announced.
“No problem,” said Charlie. “They’re not equipped like this bad boy.” I saw the accelerator spike to 125 miles per hour, and climb.
Denise started to moan under her breath, “Ohhh… ohhh… ohhhh…”
“Mom!” Kate snapped. “Stop it, you’re making us all nervous!”
Denise stopped moaning, but started rocking back and forth instead. She wasn’t making a sound anymore, but I could see her lips forming the words, “We’re all gonna die… we’re all gonna die…”
Eventually the long straight driveway to the palace emptied on to a highway, which Charlie entered. Then he suddenly jolted over to the city exit with very little deceleration. A few of the sedans sped by the exit, evidently thinking he was going to keep going straight. But the ones further behind managed to follow him off the exit ramp. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but enough that Charlie had to weave between the cars on the off ramp, bumping in to a few of them as he went. He laid on the horn as he moved into city traffic, trying to blaze a trail. I could see his eyes gleaming in the rearview mirror as he navigated the sports car through a series of hairpin twists and turns.
“I have always wanted to do this,” he said over and over.
Kate gripped the edges of her seat so tightly her knuckles turned white. I glanced at Denise and Albert: he was ashen, and she looked like she might throw up.
At last, the sedans vanished, unable to keep up with Charlie’s maneuvers. He slowed down and merged with the flow of traffic, headed out of the city and in the general direction from which we’d come.
We were all silent for awhile. When Kate’s mom finally stopped rocking back and forth and regained some of her color, she stared blankly out the window. Then abruptly she said, “They’re going to find us. They’re going to kill us all.”
“Not if I can help it,” said Charlie.
“The Potentate wants us dead. So we’re all going to die…”
“Denise,” said Albert under his breath. “That’s not helpful right now.”
She turned big, pleading eyes on him—the kind I imagine Kate used to use on Will when she was still brainwashed herself. “Even if we escape him, if we get outside the Republic into the forest, we’ll starve or we’ll be eaten or we’ll die of exposure—”
“We have Jackson, Mom,” said Kate. “We’ll be fine.”
Denise went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “And if we get to Beckenshire, we’ll all die of radiation poisoning! How did this happen? How could this possibly happen?” Her voice faded away until she was mostly moving her lips again, just saying, “How? How?”
I thought she was done. But then suddenly Denise screeched, “The Potentate is good and kind, and we live in Eden! He only wants our welfare! We have to turn ourselves in! Stop the car!” She lunged over her husband and grabbed for the door handle, but Albert caught her hand easily. She railed against him, beating his chest with her fists as she burst into tears. “Stop the car! Stop the car! We… live… in… Eden!”
After all I’d seen of the brainwashed citizens, I still wasn’t quite prepared for that outburst. I stared at her, wide-eyed, and watched as she wore herself out pounding on her husband, and he stroked her hair, shushing her and waiting for her to cry herself out. I caught Kate’s eye, and saw my own horror reflected in her expression.
When Denise finally calmed down, Albert murmured, “For my part, after all we’ve seen, I feel like a fool for never questioning anything.”
Charlie looked at him through the rearview. “What do you mean, Dad?”
He glanced out the window, and then said, “We saw the collapse of the United States. You guys were little, and I was desperate to feed you… but there was no work and no money and no food. I started raiding empty homes and ransacking grocery stores like everybody else, but even those were mostly picked over… we went hungry a few times.”
“More than a few,” Denise muttered. She seemed a little more lucid now. “Kathryn almost died.”
“I did?” Kate said, startled.
“Not from starvation, from fever,” said Albert. “It got up to 105, and we were so scared, Katie. We needed antibiotics to give you, but there weren’t any. So many people died from infections that would have been easily curable before the collapse. Denise just kept bathing you in tepid water and crying and praying, and there was nothing I could do to help. I’ve never felt so helpless in all my life.” He shook his head. “And then Ben Voltolini came along. He reorganized the government and promised us food and rations, and all we had to do was go and register ourselves. Can you blame us for thinking he was a savior?”
I tried to imagine what that was like for him, but I couldn’t. Had my stepfather not beaten me, had my mom not sent me away to live with my aunt and uncle in Iceland… I’d have lived through the Crash too. I’d never have met Grandfather, never have trained my mind or learned how to feed and defend and protect myself. Maybe I’d have been just as much a sheep as any of the Republic’s citizens.
Who would have thought that an abusive stepfather would have been a blessing in disguise.
Charlie said, “All I remember was getting tired for a really long time, when I was seven. Like I could barely move, and didn’t want to get out of bed.”
Denise sniffled and shifted her position restlessly. I thought she was about to start shouting aga
in, but she settled back into Albert’s arms. He rubbed her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head.
Charlie went on, “Somehow over that next six months or so, after I was so tired and sick, the whole Republic was transformed and rebuilt.” He shook his head. “Come to think of it, we never saw it being rebuilt. It just suddenly… was.”
“Because he only rebuilt it in our minds,” said Kate.
They all fell silent. Then Denise looked at me, and said, “Why are you helping us?”
I thought for a minute, not sure exactly what she meant. “You mean, why did I follow you? Because… you have a very strong-willed daughter, who would have refused my help, had I offered it directly.”
“No, I wouldn’t!” Kate protested.
“Oh yeah?” I leaned forward. “This from the girl who ripped open a deer’s ribcage while gagging down vomit, insisting she could do it all herself?”
“My sister did that?” Charlie gaped, glancing at Kate. “My prima donna sister? Never a hair out of place?”
Kate snorted, and gestured to her current appearance. “Right. Look at me, I’m a regular fashion plate.” Admittedly she wasn’t looking her best at the moment: she was disheveled and in her prison jumpsuit, still wearing half her disguise makeup with the other half smeared, mostly on my shirt.
“If I had to sum you up in one sentence,” Charlie went on, “it would be, ‘I can’t possibly do anything for myself!’” He affected a high-pitched fawning tone.
“Do you even remember me before McCormick’s?” Kate demanded, heated now.
“Vaguely. You were paranoid and combative—”
“Wouldn’t you be, if you saw this,” Kate gestured at the gray, bleak world around us as we sped by, “and everyone else, including your own family, insisted the Republic was filled with roses and gum drops? Do you know what it was like at McCormick’s?” She spluttered, “The normal brainwashing didn’t take on me, so we had exams, and if we didn’t give them the answers they wanted, there were rumors that they’d ship us off to ‘Special Projects,’ which we knew was just a euphemism for death camps. That’s what it was like! I don’t know what they did to brainwash us there was different than what they’d done to you or just more intense—but whatever it was, it was worse. It was more targeted. Is it surprising that they sent me home with a whole new personality that was never mine to begin with?”
“All right, all right, calm down, geez,” Charlie muttered.
Albert reached forward and squeezed Kate’s shoulder, even as she panted angrily. She ignored it for a second, but then reached back and squeezed it. When she turned around to face her father, there were tears in her eyes.
“I lost twelve years of my life,” she said. “I spent twelve years being someone else, someone they made me.” She pursed her lips, and glanced at me, protesting as if I were arguing with her, “I know it was still my own fault for allowing it. My roommate Maggie didn’t allow it. Alec didn’t allow it. I’m not trying to be a victim here. I could have fought it off if I’d tried harder. But still. Of all the things Voltolini has done, I hate him for stealing myself from me the most.”
By the time the sun began to set, we were still driving, and nowhere near our destination. The bullet trains were much faster than driving, even driving in a fancy sports car. Eventually we needed to switch vehicles to avoid recognition, but at the moment the consensus was, speed was more important. We’d get something else before we stopped for the night, because a parked sports car marking our location would render us too vulnerable.
We’d refilled the gas tank a few times, but the canister we’d taken was empty. We’d mostly tried to stay on the side streets to keep from being recognized, but in order to refill on gas, we needed to go into the city. Charlie took an exit into a city called Jute, and merged with traffic on his way to a station. I planned to use the government ID chip I’d used to get on the bullet trains to pay for gas: if it worked for the former, it should theoretically work for the latter.
But as we waited to pull in at an intersection, suddenly a large silver screen plastered against a government building lit up. Even though we hadn’t touched our radio dials, the anthem for the Republic played through our speakers, and we saw the seal of the Republic appear on the screen just before it was replaced with Jillian’s concerned face.
“Citizens of the Republic,” she announced. “Tonight we bring you a celebration and a victory against terror. The Potentate himself will report from the East Coast.”
The screen cut, and the swarthy man with deep set black eyes appeared, the edges of his lips curled into a smile. But what made my stomach turn was not him, but rather the prisoner who stood shackled beside him.
It was Uruguay Stone.
I heard Kate gasp.
At first Voltolini spoke directly into the camera. “Citizens of the Republic, tonight I bring you a special treat. I personally will interview one of the top members of the terrorist organization that has plagued us in recent months, and will allow you to listen in on the conversation.”
I noted Stone’s appearance. He wore the same style of jump suit that Charlie and Kate wore. He’d been beat up, too: he had a black eye, and dried blood traced from his split lip down through his beard. His eyes were bloodshot, like he hadn’t slept in awhile, but the pupils were large: he was clearly terrified. He knew this wasn’t likely to end well for him.
Voltolini said, “Please introduce yourself to the people.”
“My name is Uruguay Stone,” he said, his voice hoarse. He fidgeted and didn’t look at the camera. “I’m one of the members of the Council of Refugees from the Republic.”
“Why is he doing this?” Kate whispered.
“He’s either been tortured or he’s been promised something,” I murmured back. “Possibly both.” Either way it wasn’t good.
“I see,” said Voltolini. “And tell us, are these the same refugees who perpetrated violence upon our nation, through leaders such as Jackson MacNamera?”
“He was never our leader,” Stone spat. Even under the circumstances, he still found the vehemence to abhor me. “And we never sanctioned his behavior.”
“So MacNamera acted on his own, then?” Voltolini raised his eyebrows, but wore a slight, condescending smile.
“Yes, him and a few others: umm, Nick Salazar, Jean Cross, Alec Chambers, Jacob Henderson, Pete Thorne, Eric Sansbury, Harry Krauss…” As he spoke their names, their images appeared on the screen briefly and then thumbnail sizes floated to the edges of the screen with their names underneath. My stomach turned over.
“They gave him a deal,” I whispered to Kate. “His life for information.”
“Who is this guy?” Charlie asked. But we ignored him as Stone went on.
“MacNamera and the hunters went onto Republic soil twice without the Council’s approval before we officially parted ways.” As Stone said we, the camera panned, showing about thirty of the refugees who had left with the Crone, though not the Crone herself, I noted. My heart sank. All of them were shackled, all standing on the same hillside. This must be the second half of the group, I realized, the group that didn’t fit on the first plane to New Estonia.
“And where were you headed when our agents apprehended you?”
Stone hesitated. New Estonia of course was considered the largest enemy of the Republic. “Out of the Republic,” he hedged.
“Where out of the Republic, and why?”
“To—Europe.” The lie was obvious even through the camera.
The Potentate said nothing to this, but his stare intensified, and Stone squirmed. “Many of your members have made it clear that your destination was New Estonia, which calls your loyalty to the Republic into grave doubt. That is, in fact, why you are shackled here today. Would you like to revise your answer?”
One of Stone’s eyelids began to tic. “We… were going to New Estonia, yes. Not to cause any harm to the Republic, but simply to start our own new lives!”<
br />
“And why should anyone wish to leave our glorious Republic? Did you not, truly, find it to be Eden? Were you not amply provided with all you could ever wish for here, before you decided to flee to the forest and set up a commune?”
“Tell them,” Kate hissed at Stone. “Tell them, here’s your chance, you’re on national television!”
“We… were,” acknowledged Stone. “Yes. Of course we were.”
“You coward,” Kate spat.
Voltolini smiled. Then he went on, “As you may know, MacNamera and his rebels murdered seven members of the Tribunal today. You have told us that you have information that will help the Republic to find those rebels and to bring them to justice. Tell us now what you know.”
Here we go, I thought.
“Yes,” said Stone. “MacNamera and Salazar, along with your beloved Kate Brandeis, and Will Anderson, intend to start a revolution.” Here Kate’s and Will’s pictures and names appeared on the screen briefly. “When we last saw them, they said they were headed for Beckenshire because they knew nobody would look for them there, and because Anderson said he believed it may be inhabitable now.”
“No,” Kate whispered.
“Beckenshire,” said the Potentate for emphasis, and he turned to the camera. “Citizens, you will remember that some thirty years ago, Beckenshire was the site of a major nuclear reactor meltdown. Our best scientists estimated at the time that it would be uninhabitable for 2300 years. But the terrorists apparently believe different!”
“See!” croaked Denise. “Uninhabitable for 2300 years! We can’t go there!”
“Anything else?” Voltolini asked Stone. “What are the terrorists’ exact plans for how to start a revolution? What is their strategy? Did it involve killing the Tribunal members today?”
“I—” Stone clearly wanted to have an answer for this, but wasn’t creative enough to make one up on the spot. “I’m afraid we parted ways before they could tell us specifics. I would assume that was part of the plan, yes. If they were at the palace itself, presumably they wished to assassinate you personally, Mr. Potentate.” Just as it looked like Voltolini was about to wrap up the conversation, Stone interjected, “Also, they’re using the bullet trains to get around! They stole some government ID chips to board!”
