I focus on my anger—let it burn away my fear. I will do this for Atlas’s father, and my mother, and Rose’s brother, and all the people in this city who don’t understand that they are in the dark. And I need do this for myself.
I unzip my backpack.
Maybe it would be easier if I could live with the lie, I think.
I shake the bag. Metal rattles inside.
But I can’t.
I pretend to trip. The backpack gapes open and two cans of spray paint fly through the air. The first bounces on the concrete with a metallic clang.
Heads turn.
The bright pink cap separates from the other paint can as it crashes to the ground. The cap flies one way. The can rolls to the edge of the sidewalk and off the curb onto the street.
Blood roars in my ear.
Someone reaches down to pick up one of the paint cans, and behind him a man in a dark blue suit jacket locks eyes with me.
Marshal!
His steps are fast and fluid. Icy terror streaks down my spine. I take a step back—two. Then, holding tight to the backpack strap, I turn and run.
“Hey!” someone shouts.
“Stop! Police!” is barked behind me.
He’s not the police—at least not the kind people think he is. But the heads snapping in my direction as my feet pound the concrete don’t know what I know.
Hands reach out for me. A boy in a red baseball cap not much older than I am steps in my path. I dart to the side of him, but a tall, very large man in a football jersey blocks that path and reaches out to grab me.
I stumble back and spin. Panic propels me away from the bulky man’s grasp and smack into the arms of the Marshal.
I scream for help as I try to pull away, but his grip is too tight. He shoves me to my knees, then wrestles my hands behind my back. No one helps me. The metal handcuffs clicking together echo louder in my head than the shouting people on the street or the cars honking or the Marshal thanking football-jersey man and the boy in the baseball cap for their assistance.
This is what was supposed to happen.
I have to stay strong.
Observers move back as a dark vehicle pulls up at the curb. The sedan has gold rims.
I try to take deep breaths and tell myself not to fight. It will only make things worse for me and for Atlas, who is watching this entire scene. He has to believe I will be okay.
Three sets of Marshal boots step onto the curb. One Marshal has my bag. The other two yank me to my feet and drag me to the back seat of the car where another Marshal waits. There is the faint flowery scent of perfume.
The car doors slam shut.
We start to move.
They’re supposed to think I’m afraid.
I open my mouth to scream as an arm snakes around my neck and steals my breath until everything goes black.
Seven
I blink my eyes open.
Everything spins in and out of focus. It takes all my effort to keep my eyes from closing and to not give in to the languorous pull of sleep.
Something isn’t right.
My brain is fuzzy—like there is a smear on my drawing tablet, making it hard to clearly see what is beneath. My mouth is impossibly dry—like I’ve been eating cotton that has sucked up every drop of moisture. The not-quite-white sheets feel scratchy against my cheek, which doesn’t make sense. Nothing about the bed and the room I’m in makes sense. Not the glare of the bright white bars of light or the dull gray wall next to my bed.
Fighting against the strange heavy sensation, I sit upright and take in the row of narrow beds made up only with a sheet and a single, stingy pillow. A man with dark curly hair dressed in a torn, dirt-stained yellow button-down shirt stares at the black metal door to my right as if waiting for it to open. He has deep-set eyes and a hint of stubble that makes him appear both disheveled and dangerous.
I shift my legs over the edge of the bed. It squeaks in protest and the man turns his head. That’s when I spot the large, sickly purple bruise blooming against the tan of his left cheekbone.
Fear bubbles. The fog clears and I remember.
I am in the custody of the Marshals now. My bag is gone, but I can still feel the device that’s hidden behind the lining of my shoe.
My heart pounds as I instinctively look around the room for some way—any way—to escape.
But there are no windows to tell me whether I am on the top floor of a skyscraper or a basement deep underground. There is only the solid black metal door that I walk to on spongy legs.
I face the six beds lined up against the wall like soldiers and steel my shoulders and my soul for what is to come.
This was my choice.
The Marshals think they caught me in their trap. I set the stage and I walked onto it in order to play my part.
After my dad left, I spent days in Dewey’s library looking for examples of the kind of information that would finally make people open their eyes and their minds to the truth. The real truth—not the one they have been conditioned to or personally prefer to believe.
While reading through the history books, there were several examples from the past that stuck with me.
The audio recordings that proved to our country that President Nixon was unfit for office. He resigned when the tapes were made public and he knew what people would hear him say.
The story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York that in the early 1900s killed almost a hundred and fifty women and girls who had asked for better working conditions but instead were trapped in a fire that burned most of them alive and caused others to jump ten stories to their deaths. Laws were changed and unions were formed when the horrifying details of their deaths were printed in black and white for everyone to read.
And the one that haunts me more than the others—the first photographs and stories of the Nazi “death camps,” which when published brought the horror of the mass murders to governments in countries around the world that were avoiding getting involved in the war.
Staying out of war was easy when it was abstract. It didn’t feel real when it was happening to someone else. But those stories brought to life the innocent women, men, and children who were being killed en masse. No one wanted to believe it was happening, but once people saw the photos, they couldn’t forget what they knew. They couldn’t turn away from those images.
I’m here in this room to find the words that won’t be ignored, sounds that will echo in people’s brains, and images they will see even when they close their eyes. Atlas will have followed me to wherever this place is. He’ll get me out before the battery life in the recording tracker runs out. Once he does, Mrs. Webster will publish it all. She’ll show people the Unity Centers they didn’t know existed and hopefully where the people go when the government makes them disappear. Rose said her father believed Isaac was still in the city. With any luck, I will find him here today. And Atlas and Dewey will help set both of us free.
My neck prickles. The man on the far bed is watching me with narrowed eyes and a half smile. I start to ask him why he’s staring but before I can get out a word, he places a finger to his lips. The man shakes his head, points to the door, then motions for me to sit on the bed next to his.
I don’t move.
The man rolls his eyes, puts his hands under his armpits, and moves his elbows up and down.
Really?
He’s calling me chicken?
Still, I suppose he has a point. It’s not like keeping my distance from a man who is as trapped as I am is going to make me any safer. If he wanted to hurt me he could have taken me out in my sleep.
He smiles when I walk across the room and take a seat on the bed directly across from him. From this close, he looks younger than I first thought—maybe a handful of years older than I am. And the bruise on his face is more pronounced. So are the scrapes on his arms and neck. All the injuries look recent—as if he’d received them within the last twenty-four hours.
“As soon as they realize
you’re awake, they’ll come for you like they did the others.” His raspy whisper rakes across my nerves like a rusty nail. “They always have questions.”
I press a hand to my stomach to calm the hollow churning—a gesture the man acknowledges with a deliberate glance and an exaggerated sigh.
“Others?” I ask. “What others?”
He shrugs, winces, and rubs his right shoulder as he says, “Three men older than me. Two women a lot older than you. I never got any of their names. I thought they were coming for me when the door opened the last time. Instead, they brought you. I guess they aren’t in a hurry since they already know my answers to their questions.”
“What questions—”
We both turn at the soft click of a lock. The handle rotates and the door swings open to reveal a woman with short, sleek honey-blond hair and darkly lined and shadowed eyes that Rose would applaud. She smooths the fabric of her fitted gray suit jacket and looks around the room.
“Good,” she says as her eyes land on me. Her painted crimson lips curve into an unfriendly smile. “You’re finally awake. You certainly took your time.”
“As if I had a choice. It’s not like I drugged myself,” I snap, before I can think about how stupid it is to fight with my captors.
The man on the bed lets out a low chuckle. The woman’s smile grows even as her eyes narrow. “You don’t want to make this harder than it has to be.”
The Marshal and the man on the bed lock eyes. When the man looks down at the floor, the woman’s grin grows wider and she turns her attention back to me. “You. Get up. You have questions to answer.”
“Good luck,” the man says when I stand on shaky legs. “It was nice having company.”
“Don’t worry, Wallace,” the blond woman says. “You’ll be spending lots of time together soon.”
Behind me, I hear Wallace’s low voice whisper, “I guess they already know your answers, too.”
The blond woman steps out of the way and lets me pass into a brightly lit hallway. The seamless white of the floors, walls, and ceiling is interrupted only by a line of five closed black metal doors on one side of the hallway and four on the right. There is a silver water fountain immediately to my left. Just looking at it makes me realize how thirsty I am.
The door clicks shut behind the blond Marshal. I wait for her to lead me away, but instead she turns toward the door with a huff. “They said they fixed this thing,” she mutters, and starts pressing buttons on the keypad above the lock. Her back is to me. I glance both ways down the hall.
The Marshal casts a quick glance at me, then jerks her eyes forward and I realize what she’s doing. She’s waiting—hoping that I’ll run.
With the bruises on Wallace’s face clear in my mind, I fold my hands in front of me and ask, “Can I get a drink?”
She nods and I take two slow steps forward and press the button. The water barely trickles from the spout and I only have enough time to wet my lips and get a few stingy drops into my mouth before the Marshal snaps, “Enough. Follow me.”
I follow her down the hallway and around a corner to an elevator. The Marshal presses her index finger on a glowing panel that scans her print. The panel turns green and the doors ding open. Had I tried to run, I wouldn’t have gotten far.
The Marshal presses the button for the bottom floor and I glance at the red illuminated number above the sliding doors. The building has four stories. The room I had been held in was on the top.
As the elevator starts moving, I rehearse everything Dewey and I put in place for MaryAnn Jefferson—whose identification I carry with me. The high school she attended in Wisconsin. The reason she came to Chicago. Even the date she filed her application for Gloss—one that is on file but was rejected, if they have chosen to look. All the information is designed to make it look as if I am new to the city—without any attachments to the Stewards or any other group the Marshals are looking for. She is—I am—swept up in the excitement of the new Gloss logo and the danger of putting her own mark on the city. This will get me held, but probably not disappeared permanently. MaryAnn Jefferson is nobody—connected to no one.
Because I am busy reminding myself of MaryAnn’s details, I don’t notice the elevator stopping until the doors open. The smell hits me first. A thick antiseptic scent I associate with hospitals and Nurse Hayes’s office at school. Underneath that is the musty dampness of body odor and the pungent scent of waste.
The Marshal steps in front of me so all I can see is the rough concrete floors and the dim lighting. Then she steps out of the elevator with an order for me to follow and I suddenly can’t breathe.
When I was seven, I went to a friend’s house to see their new puppy. When we were done playing with the fluffy black-and-brown dog that tripped over its own feet and loved licking faces and it was time for me to be driven home, the mother picked up the pup and locked it in a cage. The cage was supposed to help train the puppy. And I suppose it did. But I will never forget how the pup pushed its nose against the bars and whimpered as we walked out the door. I remember thinking that putting animals in cages was the worst thing ever.
I was wrong.
Because these cages are full of people.
In the center of a cavernous, concrete parking garage space are silver metal bars. Hundreds of them stretching from the floor to just above the ceiling. More bars box off the top. The design is not quite the same as the ones from the archives of the City Pride Department—the ones that I “borrowed” Rose’s brother’s summer job security official badge to gain access to and caused Isaac to be taken away. Or maybe they only seem different because there are people huddled inside.
“Move!” The Marshal grabs my arms and yanks me out of the elevator. Her fingers dig deep into my skin, trying to force my feet forward, but if there is pain I can’t feel it and my legs are as heavy as stone. Because now that the shock is subsiding I can see there is more than one cage—there are lots of them, all connected, creating separate kennel-like spaces. And they are full of people.
Gray haired and wrinkled.
Slightly older than me.
Some around the age of my father.
It’s hard to tell how many people there are in total. Some are curled up on the cement floor, wrapped in thin silver blankets, sleeping or pretending to be. Others stare aimlessly as they grip the bars. One woman is yelling at me—no, at the Marshal—that she doesn’t belong here. That this is a mistake. She has no idea why she’s being held here and she wants to go home to her children.
“Please, don’t do this to my children!”
For a moment, I don’t see the woman’s anguished face. I see my mother. Tired. Glassy eyed. Hair tangled.
Whatever I thought I was prepared to see, it wasn’t this. And something hits me. By bringing someone here—by allowing someone to see this—the government has already decided that person will never be set free. If they were, it would ruin them. It would expose them for the evil that they were. Because the truth would get out. And no one could possibly accept it.
If it weren’t for the tracker in my shoe and the rescue Atlas and Dewey have planned, I’m not sure I could keep walking. Why would they bring someone like MaryAnn here? It doesn’t make sense.
“Move,” the Marshal barks, and yanks me away from the faces in the cages. I have to go with her or fall. Heart pounding—stomach churning from the smell and the fear that is growing colder with every passing second—I put one foot in front of the other.
From the shadows of the cages, eyes—hollow—hot—hopeless—follow me as I pass several darkly uniformed guards to a wide opening in the concrete wall on the far side of the damp garage. Metal rattles. A man screams for help. But as we round the corner, it’s the chilling shriek of pain immediately followed by a wail of tears that strips me of my remaining courage.
Behind a concrete wall partition are curtained areas—all lined up in a row. There is a desk in the first with a computer and several glowing screens. An official in a navy
-blue uniform with silver embellishments on the collar and the cuffs sits behind the computer. A restrained man in a bulky, dark coat sits hunched on the other side of the desk. A curtain halfway down the aisle shifts to the side and a Marshal leads a weeping woman out of that space. The crying woman is holding the side of her head and screaming for a lawyer who she has to know will never come.
A tall, broad-shouldered official at the end of the row turns our way. “Melissa, bring your subject to area two.”
The red-lipped Marshal next to me grabs my arm. She pulls me down the blue runner that is spread out along the row of stations and I remind myself that Atlas will use the signal from the tracker in my shoe to find this place—to free me. The Marshal yanks the second curtain to the side and shoves me toward a chair facing a desk like the one I just passed.
My foot catches on the stained rug. I crack my knee against the front of the desk, but grab the top to catch myself before I fall. I stand there, hands flat on the edge, looking across the expanse of the hard, smooth black surface at a man with a narrow, perfectly trimmed white mustache who is studying a handheld screen as if I am not even here.
“Sit,” the man instructs.
Marshal Melissa grabs my shoulders and pushes me into the chair. My knee throbs in tempo with my pounding heart as I wait.
The man looks up and gives a tight smile. “This will go easier if you do as you are told.”
I swallow down my panic and force myself to stick to the script. Be confused. Non threatening. Scared. The last is the easiest since I am terrified. “I don’t understand. Where am I? What happened to me? Was I drugged? Are you the police?”
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