by Kate MacLeod
“Propaganda is our greatest weapon,” Joelle said. “With our numbers so few, it’s nearly our only weapon. That and information.”
Scout ignored that obvious attempt at getting her to tell what she knew. “So they’re targeting the satellites that form the magnetic shield? If they knock those down, they can’t be replaced. There’s no coming back from that.” Scout turned her attention from the paper in her hands back to the two girls watching her. “That’s a hell of a threat. And from what I’ve seen, no one down here is capable of doubling the food shipments anyway. The Space Farers would never get what they want. It’s impossible.”
“It’s a very foolish threat,” Joelle agreed.
“So it is legit?” Scout asked again.
Joelle just tipped her head to one side, not affirming or denying.
Scout looked down at the page again. “Would you fabricate this just to sow chaos?”
“If we did, it would be quite effective, don’t you think?”
“Too effective,” Scout said, examining the paper. “This is a really good counterfeit.”
“As it so happens, it’s not counterfeit,” Joelle told her. “We stole it from the Space Farers. Apparently they had toyed with the idea of unleashing this threat, but someone backed off. Not enough to destroy these, but enough for them to warehouse them for another time.”
“Warehouse them on the surface?” Scout asked.
Joelle ignored the question. “They fell into our hands. Our job is to get them out to the people. We’re attaching this card to each,” she said, handing an index card full of writing to Scout. The back could be peeled away to expose an adhesive. Scout glanced over it, but Joelle explained it anyway. “The people should know the threat is out there. They should be prepared. We need to take steps to secure our own magnetic shield. This is a call to start that dialog. The planetary government isn’t doing a thing, so we’re going to the people, to get them riled up to take action themselves. That’s how we rebel.”
“Isn’t there a more efficient way to spread the word?” Scout asked.
“Ken and some of the other tech heads have been trying to find ways to get into the electronic systems and disseminate information, but so far they haven’t had more than minimal luck with it. Plus, this way everyone gets a piece of actual Space Farer print in their hands. It’s more convincing that way, don’t you think?” Scout supposed that was true.
“The shield is failing already, isn’t it?” she said. “The storms are harder, longer, and more frequent. Have they knocked some satellites down already?”
Joelle glanced over at Bente and Bente raised her chin, encouraging her to go on. “We don’t know. Not for sure. Do you know anything about life up there?”
“Not really. The women who owned the rover, one of them was a Space Farer. But she’d been living down here since the war ended. She didn’t talk about her prior life much.” Ebba hadn’t said much about her life in space, but the others had made lots of accusations. Scout didn’t know how many of them were true. Like whether Ebba had been part of the command structure that had dropped asteroids on the cities. On Scout’s family. Tucker’s family. Joelle’s mother too, for that matter.
“The war never ended,” Joelle said. “Will you help us? We don’t want these flyers to get dispersed without the cards to explain or there might be a panic.”
“There might be a panic anyway,” Scout said. “Like you said, it was a legitimate threat.”
“If we get these out, people will have time to react. And to think before they react,” Joelle said. “Will you help us?”
Her voice was almost desperately earnest. Too much for such a small ask. Scout reckoned it was a long road that ended at robbing trains, but this was probably where it started.
On the other hand, people did need to know. She had tuned out political talk most of her life, but if the last few days had taught her anything, it was that politics were important and far too few people were paying attention. “Where are you going to distribute these?” she asked at last.
“Everywhere we can,” Joelle said. “The people outside of the cities need to know because they depend on that magnetic shield. Their only shelter is underground, and that can never be more than temporary. Without the shield, their lives aren’t possible. But the people in the cities should know too. If they are dropping more shit from space, they’re going to be dropping it on the cities. Someone will be picking these up in the morning; we have to have them bundled and ready by then.”
“I think you’re right, this is important,” Scout said and slid onto the bench across from the two of them to start attaching the little cards to the corner of the pink flyers. Joelle gave her a grateful smile and she and Bente also got to work. “So this is the rebellion?” Scout said.
“Part of it,” Joelle said. “The most important part, in my view. We have to inform people and get them to start changing their minds about things.”
“But then there’s also robbing trains,” Scout said.
“That’s not as self-serving as you’d think,” Joelle said. “We acquired most of what you saw in the warehouse just before the last storm drove us into the shelter for four days. As soon as my father has this other problem locked down, we’ll be distributing this to the communities that need it. We don’t keep more than we need, and we don’t profit from any of it.”
“So why steal it at all?” Scout asked.
“The governor is getting more than his fair share. The bandits have been robbing him for a while now. We just started beating the bandits to the punch. They were selling what they took on the black market for quite a lot of cash. My father ignored it for a long time, because people stealing from the governor is not exactly counter to our mission, you know? But then the black-market money got too good and the bandits started robbing all the trains. That’s when we got involved.”
“Very noble,” Scout said.
“I can’t sit by and do nothing,” Joelle said, annoyed at Scout’s flippant tone.
“There has to be more going on here than that, though,” Scout said. “Because that all sounds reasonable and upstanding and noble. But then I’m being held prisoner for no reason, after being lured here, and that act is none of those things. You can see why I’m suspicious of what else might be going on.”
“Tucker brought you here without approval,” Joelle said.
“Hey, I love the ‘blame Tucker’ game as well as anyone—” Scout began, but Joelle talked over her.
“He says he intended for you to drop him off in the canyon without ever seeing where we were, but that the dogs made him nervous and he got distracted and didn’t wave off Ken and Bente in time.”
“Ah,” Scout said, looking up at them both. That had been bothering her for some time: Tucker’s on-and-off fear of her dogs. “You believe that?”
Joelle pursed her lips tightly. Bente looked over at her as if she too wanted to hear the answer.
“Tucker got bit by a dog when he was little,” Joelle said.
“So he told me. And showed me,” Scout said. “But I can’t help noticing he’s had no real fear of my dogs since that moment. You’re going to tell me my dogs are good dogs and so therapeutic that one encounter with them cures lifelong phobias?”
“No,” Joelle said.
“So Tucker lied,” Scout said.
“No,” Joelle said quickly. “It’s complicated. You don’t know Tucker, and he’s hard to explain.”
Bente made a sound suspiciously like a chuckle, but when Scout looked her way she was innocently going about her work.
“It doesn’t really matter now,” Joelle said. “My father has strict rules. The minute you came inside that gate . . . no, the minute you even saw that there was a gate, we couldn’t let you go.”
“You acted like you could,” Scout said. “You acted like you were going to. Did you make up seeing movement on your equipment?”
“No,” Joelle said. “I was hoping I could sneak you out and swea
r the others to secrecy and my father would never know you were ever here. It was a dumb idea; it would have never worked. He has to make that decision, he’s in charge. But I promise, that’s not as bad as it sounds. He just needs to talk to you one-on-one and get a feel for you. But there’s a lot going on right now that he has to focus on first.”
“Yes, he seems . . . focused,” Scout said diplomatically.
“He’s just upset,” Joelle said, and now it was her turn to not meet Scout’s eyes. “Things haven’t been going our way lately. A lot of people have left the cause, as you can probably tell. This place was built to hold fifty people, but there are only seven of us and most of us are teens.”
“Actually, that just makes me extra freaked out by the ‘glory to all martyrs’ speech he gave this morning,” Scout said.
“It’ll be fine,” Joelle said, focused on her hands binding a stack of papers. “He just needs to find what he’s looking for and then he’ll talk to you about the importance of keeping our location secret and then everything will be fine.”
But Bente was looking over at Joelle with deep sympathy. Scout doubted Joelle’s father was anywhere near being fine.
Scout and Bente were attaching the last few cards to the remaining flyers and Joelle was stacking the finished bundles on a handcart when Shadow and Gert came barreling into the kitchen.
“What’s with them?” Joelle asked as they ran past her. Scout got up from the bench to intercept them and they slid to a halt to jump all over her.
“Something has them spooked,” Scout said.
“Something in the warehouse?” Joelle said with a frown.
But Scout didn’t think so. Gert’s paws knocked her off-balance and she sprawled back on the floor to find Shadow leaping into her arms, pounding his entire body against her bruised chest. Gert burrowed in close between Scout’s knees, pressing in tight under Shadow’s trembling body.
No mere animal would upset the two of them this much. It was like the entire world was all of a sudden freaking them out, their eyes huge. Shadow shook and shook in Scout’s arms and Gert whined fearfully.
Then the entire world freaked out Scout too when it began quaking beneath her.
16
This time Scout knew she was feeling the ground moving underneath her. She wasn’t in a rover, moving or otherwise. There was no other explanation. The dishes inside the cupboards were rattling and something in the warehouse fell to the ground with a thump. Bente stood with both hands planted on the tabletop like that was lending her desperately needed stability. Joelle caught the cart before it could start rolling away from her.
Then the shaking stopped as inexplicably as it had begun. Joelle stayed as she was for another moment to be sure everything was going to stay still, then went back to loading up the cart as if nothing had happened.
Scout looked over at Bente. Bente looked a bit green, like the earth shaking had just made her seasick, but when she saw Scout watching her she swallowed hard and continued with her work.
“Come on,” Scout said to them, hugging both of her nervous little dogs. “You can’t tell me you didn’t feel that.”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Joelle said.
“Happens all the time, does it?” Scout asked. “As opposed to when it happened this morning and you pretended like it didn’t?”
“Joelle?” Reggie asked anxiously. He was standing in the hall hugging the doorway of one of the offices.
“It’s all done now, Reggie. You can get back to school,” Joelle said. Reggie looked unconvinced but just nodded and went back into the little room, closing the door. The smile she had given him quickly melted from Joelle’s face.
“Look, if you want to get out of here, you’re going to have to pretend you never noticed. Do you understand?” she said to Scout. She was standing over Scout now, but not in a threatening way. If anything, she sounded desperate.
“Are you guys doing something that’s making the ground shake?” Scout asked. “But what the hell could you be doing that would make the ground shake? Just the seven of you—what could you possibly be doing?”
“It’s not us, but that’s all I can tell you. Please just drop it,” Joelle said. Scout looked over at Bente, who had gone from green to white.
“You’re both scared,” Scout said, realizing it was true. But of what? The thing making the ground shake, or that Scout might figure out what it was? She shook her head when neither answered her and started toward the door back to the warehouse, but Joelle blocked her path.
“Don’t,” Joelle said. “Honest, you don’t want to dig into this. My father will never let you go if he thinks you even suspect. We don’t even talk about it with each other.”
“There are other ways out,” Scout said. “In one of the corners I didn’t explore, or a nook in that cavern that doesn’t lead up to the top of the canyon. There’s another way out that Tucker didn’t show me.” Joelle was clutching her own upper arms so tightly her fingers were making blanched circles in her flesh. Scout was getting close to something. “The rats are coming in somehow.”
“You want to take your rover with you when you leave, right?” Joelle said. “Then you have to do it my way. Wait for my father. I’ll convince him to make the time to talk with you the minute he gets back. I’ll see you on your way. You just have to trust me.”
Scout wanted to laugh, but she was afraid that if she gave in to that impulse she would be cackling like an unhinged maniac within seconds. Instead she just scoffed, shaking her head as she turned away.
The dogs fell in step beside her as she walked back out to the open air and bright midafternoon sun, out to where the rover was parked, repaired, and waiting for her.
She had left the door open. It would be hot inside, but she could start up the engines to run the climate controls to cool it off. She lifted Gert inside, Shadow making his own leap to land beside Gert before Scout pulled the door closed.
The air inside was indeed close and hot. Scout moved through the living space to the bottom of the steps leading up to the cockpit. But then she stopped there, hand on the bottom of the rail.
Something was wrong.
She turned back to look at the space behind her. Sink still full of dirty sporks, recycler still overflowing with unprocessed trash, crates everywhere filled with Ottilie’s junk. Nothing out of the ordinary.
No, the junk was what was wrong. Scout looked inside one of the crates that sat near the dining table. It looked like it was all still there, but it had been moved. Like someone had dumped it and searched through it, then put it all back.
Scout’s stomach suddenly clenched, then went into free fall, and she put a hand out to catch the edge of the table before the rest of her body fell after it. She lifted her eyes to what she had noticed as she had entered the rover but hadn’t paid enough attention to.
The hook on the wall near the bunk was empty. The belt, Gertrude’s belt, was gone.
Scout broke out into a cold sweat. She couldn’t get to the rendezvous without that belt. It wasn’t just that she had intended to return all that equipment to Liam when she met him. She had never committed the coordinates to memory, never even entered them in the rover’s navigation system. Without the tablet, she didn’t know where to go. And she would have no way to send another message to Liam. He would never know why she didn’t show.
Had it been there when she had left the rover hours before with Tucker? Scout closed her eyes and tried to recreate that moment, but she simply hadn’t been paying attention. The last time she had looked at the belt she hadn’t even really been looking at it.
She had been pointing out her saddlebags to Joelle. The belt had been hanging on the wall just over them. Joelle didn’t miss much, and Scout had as good as shown her that she was leaving all of that equipment out, unguarded, free for the taking.
Scout threw the door back open and jumped out of the rover again, the dogs eagerly jumping out after her, barking in the excitement of whatever it was
that was happening. Scout burst into the equipment room but had to pause there for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior.
Joelle was standing over one of the control panels but looked up to frown questioningly at Scout scowling at her from the doorway.
“You robbed me,” Scout said, her voice a low rumble in her own ears. Strangely, she hadn’t been feeling her own anger, but she could hear it. And once she heard it, she realized her hands were in fists and her heart was racing and the blood was singing in her ears.
“Excuse me?” Joelle said, all innocence.
“You took my belt. The one in the rover. The one with all my stuff,” Scout said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joelle said. She straightened up to her full if petite height, not quelled by Scout’s radiating anger as she crossed the room to stand nose to nose with Joelle.
“Give it back,” Scout said. “You give it back!”
She might have raised a fist, it was all a blur, but then Bente’s hand fell on her shoulder. Scout quickly spun away before the other girl could get a proper grip.
“Don’t, Bente,” Joelle said as Bente reached for Scout again. “It’s all right. We can figure this out.”
“Give me the belt back and I’ll leave,” Scout said.
“We don’t have your belt,” Joelle said, raising her hands as if imploring Scout to be reasonable, although she didn’t dare use those words.
“Someone took it. It must still be here. Find it!” Scout demanded.
“Why would we take your belt?” Joelle said. She sounded sincerely confused.
“I know you saw it when I arrived. It was loaded with tech from the galactic center. Better than your bandit haul, I’m sure.”
“I’ve explained why we hit those trains; you know we’re not just thieves. And we definitely didn’t steal from you,” Joelle said, still striving for calm.
“Someone did,” Scout said.
Then the dogs were barking again, running back out into the sunlight. It took a minute for Scout to hear it too past all the barking: the now-familiar sound of the motorcycle engines echoing through the canyon beyond the gate.
