She goes to stand beside Chief Ellena.
“Good girl, Lark,” the Chief says. “I’m very proud of you.”
Lark beams under her praise.
It’s over. The troops will destroy the rebels. We’ll be brainwashed or killed. Eden will be ruled by a madwoman.
We failed.
That buzzing in my head grows louder . . .
“YOU ARE ALL so much more ambitious than I gave you credit for,” Chief Ellena tells us. “Particularly you, Rowan. I think I can take some of the credit for that. You were such a nothing of a person before I went into your brain and tweaked you. I gave you strength and confidence in your persona of Yarrow. And now look at you—you think you can do anything! Unfortunately, your overconfidence has gotten your friends killed. Guards!”
I think she’s going to give the command to fire, and I step forward. “Don’t you want to know how I did it?”
“How you survived the Underground blast? Not particularly. You’ll just give me some tale about life outside of Eden. We all know that is a pipe dream. There is only Eden, and only us.” She sighs. “That is why it is so frustrating to me that you don’t understand why I’m doing all this.”
“Why do you care what she thinks?” Lark asks with scorn.
“I have a soft spot for all of my experiments,” Chief Ellena says. “Including you, my dear. Every teacher, every parent feels the same thing, as they mold the future generation into a useful form. And it is so terribly disappointing when a promising student like Rowan fails so miserably. Why, Rowan? Why did you and your little band of hapless rebels come to my office today?”
She still doesn’t know, I think, a spark of hope igniting in me. She doesn’t realize why we are here, or know we have a seed. If she did, she’d gun us down outright. Now maybe I can keep her talking, make her think it is better, or more amusing, to keep us alive. While we live, we might still prevail.
“We came to rescue my mom,” I say, hoping she’ll believe it.
Lark bursts into uproarious laughter. “Do you think I’m not going to tell her?” she asks when she’s caught her breath. She studies my face. “Oh, you poor little fool, do you still believe in me? Do you still think I’m the old Lark you knew and loved?” She laughs again. “She’s dead! Look at me! I don’t even look like that deluded little do-gooder anymore. Do you think I love you? That love conquers all? I ought to shoot you now.” She shakes the gun at me, but Chief Ellena pushes her arm down.
“Don’t be hasty. We have all the time in the world. And they—they have nothing.” With her free hand she reaches into her jacket pocket and takes out something small, pinched between her fingers.
It is our hard-won seed, the only way to reprogram Chief Ellena’s mind control.
“Lark doesn’t even have to tell me, though I know she would have. Do you think I wouldn’t have my prisoners searched? Do you think I wouldn’t put two and two together when I found the seed, and all of you exactly where it can be put to use?”
Though the Chief is talking, I glare at Lark. How could I have trusted her? How could she have betrayed me?
“How clever of you, Rowan,” Chief Ellena says. “How resourceful, to discover exactly what you needed. A seed. Isn’t that beautiful? So symbolic. And you got your hands on the very last seed in Eden, the only chance to override my controls and reprogram the mind link to every person in Eden.”
She holds the seed up, examining it. “This seed would put the control in your hands. You could rule all of Eden, make every man, woman, and child left on Earth your slave. Or you could erase the program, freeing the minds of the citizens of Eden. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
She sighs. “I was like you, Rowan—long ago. Idealism is an illness of youth. I understand. You believe in the rights of the individual. Self-determination. Freedom. All very pretty ideas. But do you know what people do with those things? They destroy—first themselves, and then their world.”
“Not necessarily,” I say. “Not if they have guidance . . .”
She laughs. “What do you think all this is?” She spreads her hands, indicating the complex system that dominates the room, the flashing buttons and intricate circuits that let her reach into the mind of almost everyone in Eden. “I guide the people of Eden.”
“No, I mean education, knowledge. If people are given all the information, they make the right choices.”
“Sure, like our ancestors did.” Chief Ellena scoffs. “Before the Ecofail, humanity was at its technological height. They could have made the world a sustainable paradise. And do you know what we were doing instead? Spewing out so much plastic that the very oceans choked. We poisoned our air so we could power the screens we stared at all day. We cut down forests for palm oil to give our snacks longer shelf life. And even in that advanced state, we fought wars with everyone whose beliefs differed from ours. With all that wealth and education, we allowed poverty and ignorance to flourish. With the power to create heaven, we made the world a hell!”
She’s breathing fast, passionate about what she is saying, and her words make my skin crawl, because she’s right. And I know what she’s going to say next.
“How can creatures like that—like us—be left to our own devices? Like children, violent and undisciplined, humans need a firm hand to keep them in check. To keep them safe.”
“You’re about to kill hundreds, thousands of rebels!” I shout at her. “You’re not keeping anyone safe.”
“On the contrary,” she says. “I’m keeping the species safe. EcoPan and I have the same goals: preserve humanity without destroying the Earth. Neither EcoPan nor I care about a few individuals when the fate of the whole species is at stake.”
She takes a step closer to me. “You know what I say is true. If I were to stop the mind control completely, if the second-child laws were rescinded, if people could drive cars, use all the power they wanted . . . Eden would collapse. Maybe not right away, but eventually. And with it, the last of humanity. We can’t have rebellion in a closed system. We can’t have individualism. I know what I’m doing seems harsh, but it is the only way to preserve our species.”
I want to argue with her, tell her that people can be trusted to make good decisions, to not poison their own environment. We’ve seen what can happen. We’ve learned from our mistakes.
But part of me can’t help but think she’s right, in a twisted way. In fact, Chief Ellena herself is living proof that humans can’t be trusted with technology or power.
She bends down and places the seed on the ground. Then, taking a step back, she fires an energy pulse into it, obliterating it in a puff of smoke and a burning stench. Every one of us gasps, and I can tell that Lachlan is going crazy under his forced submission. He’s just waiting for his chance to turn the tables and attack. But with all the guns pointed at us, we wouldn’t have a chance. And now our only chance of saving the rebels, and freeing every citizen of Eden, is gone, burned to cinder and smoke.
“There, that’s taken care of. No more seeds in all of Eden. No more worry about little rebel brats trying to interfere.” She checks her watch. “And soon, no more rebels at all. My troop should be at the outermost circle border by now. Your friends will be utterly wiped out within the hour. Now, as for you . . .”
She begins to stroll near the people on the ground. She points her gun at Flame’s head, then moves it away. “Do you know, I think I won’t kill all of you after all, as satisfying as it may be. At least, not yet. You’ve accomplished far more than I would have thought possible, and I want to know how. Flame, you had a good job once, the respect of your peers. What happened? Who brought you into this criminal life?”
“I won’t tell you anything,” Flame snarls.
“Oh, you will.”
Flame rolls her eyes up to glare at Chief Ellena. “No, in fact, I won’t. I’ve figured out how to block all of your mind control. I’ve had the surgery done myself. Nothing you do can alter my mind, or make me believe any of your lies. My m
emory, my thoughts, my soul are all my own. Same for all of us in this room.”
Except me, I think. My surgery was the first, and only partly successful because she was still figuring out the process. There might, theoretically, be a faint EcoPan connection in my blind eye, though none of us have seen any proof of it.
“How fascinating,” Chief Ellena says. “But I’m afraid I plan to get my information the old-fashioned way. Torture. Maybe you can withstand my brain manipulation, but you won’t keep your secrets when I flay you, peeling off an inch of skin at a time. When I starve you, then burn you, so that your own flesh smells like sizzling meat. I can torture your body and mind in ways that don’t require brain surgery or programming.”
Chief Ellena rubs her hands together in eager anticipation, and walks to stand over Lachlan now. She caresses him with the muzzle of her gun. “The body is full of sensitive nerves, and I will play yours like a master conductor until you scream a symphony. All of you. Believe me, you will tell me whatever I ask, and more, and beg me to end your life.”
“This is insane!” I scream at her. “You don’t want to save humanity—you just want power. If you would just think about what you’re doing . . .”
“Don’t condescend to me, schoolgirl!” she rages, charging forward to press her gun to my forehead. Peripherally, I see Lark shift closer to her. Does Lark want the chance to kill me herself? If this is my final moment, I’ll go with dignity. I stand straight and lift my chin.
“You, I will torture in any way I can. Even if all you do is spout nonsense about the outside world.” She leans close. “I will make sure you live a very long time. Before I’m done with you, you’ll watch all of your friends die, one by one. Your mother, too. Your torture will be watching them be tortured. You will die a little more each time I kill one of them. You love them all, don’t you, stupid girl? Which do you love the most?” She smiles, an evil curl of her lips, and whispers, “How about your sickly brother? He is a drain on society anyway.”
All this time, our best fighter has been biding her time. Outnumbered, with her new friends in peril, she has pretended to humble herself, lying on the ground as if she is beaten and meek. But she’s only been waiting for her chance, and she finds it when Chief Ellena is distracted by her own cruelty. Everyone is looking at the Chief, at Ash, waiting to see what will happen.
In an instant, Mira flips from belly to back and sweeps the legs out from under the nearest Greenshirt. With brutal efficiency she crushes his windpipe with her elbow before angling herself with a kick that breaks another’s knee.
As soon as they see she is in action, the others are up, too. Lachlan tackles one Greenshirt, slamming him to the ground and getting his gun. Carnelian lunges for another, and all of us are fighting.
None of us move with a fraction of Mira’s beautiful, deadly efficiency. There’s gunfire now, but it doesn’t distract her from her purpose. She’s up on her feet, catching a third Greenshirt’s gun before he can think to fire, twisting it out of his hand and delivering an uppercut that snaps his head back. Even before he falls, her leg shoots up high without obvious effort, kicking another Greenshirt in the face.
Then with her teeth bared in a feral snarl she turns to Chief Ellena.
Who shoots her in the chest.
I see Mira’s look of confusion. She learned a different kind of fighting, a more noble kind—body against body. She knows in theory about guns, but when she thinks about doing battle they don’t instinctively enter the equation. She fights like a panther, like a wolf, with wild passion.
She touches the wound on her chest, and looks at her bloody fingertips as if she’s not quite sure how they got that way. The world seems to grow quiet and still as I see my friend fall.
“No!” I scream, and lunge for Chief Ellena as she laughs at Mira’s death. There’s a second bang, and Chief Ellena collapses even as I try to attack her. Her face is a ruined, bloody mess, that maniacal smile frozen on it as she dies instantly. She sprawls on top of Mira, and I just have an instant to see the look of rage on Lark’s face before she opens fire on the other Greenshirts.
Catching them off guard, she shoots the Greenshirts in rapid succession until only we rebels remain.
Numbly, I look at the death all around me. Victory, for having defeated Chief Ellena and her Greenshirts. Defeat, because a beautiful soul, my brave friend, lies dead. Senselessly dead.
The seed is gone.
We’ve won the battle, but lost the war.
I DON’T WANT to go on.
But I can go on.
Elder Night told me that animals and humans each have special gifts. Humans have imagination. We can plan ahead. And so we can create civilization, prepare in summer for a winter we know is coming, give up the now for the future.
But with a few exceptions, animals only know now. A wolf with its foot caught in a trap won’t think that if it waits some miracle might save it. It is trapped, and does what it must to be free . . . even if that means gnawing off its own paw. An animal that sees its family swept away in the flood won’t give into despair. It will keep swimming, trying to save itself. No matter what happens to an animal, the struggle goes on.
The human in me wants to cradle Mira in my arms and never stop weeping, never leave her side. It wants to accept that all hope is lost, to give up, to wait for the end.
The animal in me pushes me forward, numbly, blindly, to do what we have to do. I think everyone is shocked that as I stand over Mira’s body it is not martial Lachlan or brusque practical Flame, but me that says, “We still have a job to do. We rescue my mom, and we escape from the Center. The rebellion goes on.”
“What rebellion?” Angel asks, looking up at me with livid eyes. “They’re all dead, or will be soon. There is no rebellion anymore.”
“There’s us,” I proclaim grimly.
Lark hands me her gun. “I thought I could be fast enough, when the time came,” she says miserably. “I never thought she’d shoot anyone. I thought she’d want to take you all prisoner. I should have acted sooner.”
“What do you want me to do with this?” I ask her as I take her gun.
She shrugs. “You can use it on me, if you need to. I never betrayed you. Not when I knew what I was doing. Not in my heart, ever. I took your gun and made Chief Ellena think I was still on her side. I thought it was the only way I could turn the tables, catch her off guard. I should have shot her right away, but I thought . . .”
Suddenly she crumples to the ground, a wounded bird. “Shoot me, Rowan. I can’t go on like this,” she says with her head buried in her hands. “I swear I pretended to be on her side to help you, but once I had the gun in my hand everything she put into my head came back, and for a second I hated you again. I didn’t want to, but her voice was there, whispering evil in my head. That’s why I didn’t shoot her right away. I was so confused. I can’t live like this!”
I think any other person in that moment would believe Lark was lying. At the very least they would question: Did she betray us? Did she change her mind again and again to try to stay on the winning side?
That never even crosses my mind.
“Lark, you were my first and truest friend. You showed me the world that had been hidden from me all my life. You helped rescue Ash from the Center, sacrificed yourself to the nanosand for my brother. You infiltrated Oaks to save me.” I pull her back to her feet, wipe away her tears. “I trust you with my life. You might have been manipulated by Chief Ellena, but I know that if there is ever any drop of willpower left in you, you will be on my side.”
I think I’m not completely broken down right now because I expect all of us to die here today. What hope do we really have? In a way, Mira’s death is not a shock. It was inevitable, once we chose this desperate course. Carnelian is the walking dead now, all hope stripped from him. I know that he’ll be heroic until it kills him, because he has nothing more to lose, and in the end he’ll welcome death. Then it will be me, or Lark, or Lachlan. And whoever i
s left will carry on, striving and hoping.
And very likely die, too.
I give Lark back the gun, and take one for myself from a fallen Greenshirt. I shove it down the back of my pants, another down the front, and take a third in my hand.
“My mom must be in one of the cells in the prison wing. It’s adjacent to the Chief’s office. She wanted to be close to the prisoners, her victims, so she could . . .” I gulp. I hope with planning the attack on the rebels she didn’t have time to do anything to my mom.
Lachlan, Lark, Angel, and Flame take as many guns as they can carry. Flame has the foresight to take Chief Ellena’s access card.
“Come on, Carnelian,” I say, but he barely glances at me.
I see Lark start toward him. “Lark, no,” I whisper, trying to hold her back. But something in her look makes me release her.
She stands over him where he kneels by his love’s body, and touches his shoulder. “There’s nothing to gain by staying except your own death. If you love her, live for her.”
Carnelian looks up at Lark. “You brought death here,” he says in a numb, flat voice. “It’s your fault my Mira is gone.”
What can I say to ease his grief? There’s nothing, so I bow my head. I hardly feel like I have the right to mourn for my dear friend. I’ve known her for a few months. Carnelian has known her, loved her, for all his life. And because of me, she’s been taken away from him. From all of us. Her bright light was extinguished on what may turn out to be a hopeless mission.
“She should be buried on a hilltop, under the sun she loved,” Carnelian goes on. “She should be laid to rest some place where birds sing and gentle breezes blow, not this cold, artificial place.” He looks down at Mira.
“That’s what I want for Mira,” Carnelian says. “But I need to do what she would want.” He bends over her and kisses her pale cheek. Then he rises, pale but resolute. “I’m with you to the end. I’ll do whatever it takes to destroy this terrible government, to set the innocent free. For Mira.”
Rebels of Eden Page 28
