The Indigo Thief

by Budgett, Jay

  “Because those muffins won’t bake themselves,” I said.

  She smiled. “Neither will the poisons.” It seemed there was still much about Kindred I didn’t know.

  I was somewhat surprised to see that the Feds had set the gates and fence back up after knocking them down in the earlier raid and fire. Signs had been posted as well: “WARNING—TREPASSING IS A FELONY.” I guessed this was government property now.

  I quickly clambered over the iron gates. Kindred and Sparky both struggled to follow, and it was clear why Phoenix had never brought them in the field. Tim bested them both by several minutes in a true testament to their speed.

  The smell of smoke still wafted from the building’s charred remains. Only the outside shell of the place remained, and that hadn’t escaped unscathed either. It was like the building had become a red apple—rotten to the core.

  But the building wasn’t our destination. We headed straight for the banyan tree, which was far enough away from the house to have been largely undamaged by the fire. I quickly shinnied up a hanging root and settled myself along a low branch. Sparky and Tim joined me, but Kindred remained on the ground, shaking her head. Together, Sparky and I grabbed her arms and pulled her up onto the branch with us. Tim helped by snagging her beanie. It looked better on him than it did on her.

  I struggled to find the keypad in the tree’s mass of branches, then struggled to remember how exactly Phoenix had gotten its center to slide open. Why hadn’t I paid more attention? I couldn’t believe our brave rescue attempt might get stopped before it had even started.

  At last Tim crawled past me, and I heard a few beeps on the keypad—followed by a crunching sound. The trunk’s center slid open and Tim crawled down, the keypad’s wired remains hanging from his mouth.

  Well, there’s always another way.

  We lowered ourselves into the tunnel as scattered moonlight bounced through branches and lit its depths. Then the tree’s trapdoor resealed itself with a click, and the little light we’d had was gone.

  I took a deep breath. “So… anyone got a match?”

  “Negative,” said Sparky.

  “You can’t be serious, dear.”

  I hadn’t gotten this far in my head—the extent of my planning had stopped at getting to the tunnel, and even that had been a stretch to begin with. For the first time, I realized what a miracle it was that Phoenix was always so prepared. I had packed some dynamite borrowed from Bertha’s room, as well as some snacks—I’d be a dead man before I forgot to bring some snacks—but a flashlight had been the last thing on my mind.

  The silver watch felt cool against my chest. I thought back to my first encounter with the watch man, and the way the watch faces had glowed from within his trench coat. Would this one glow, too? I fiddled with a button on the watch’s side, and its silver shell slid open—revealing a glowing face. It wasn’t much, but it would do.

  We made our way down and through the tunnel until we reached the fork I’d seen earlier with Phoenix and Mila. I stared at the branch we hadn’t taken the last time, and remembered Phoenix’s words: They say it goes all the way to the Light House’s cellar. I wondered if he’d known I’d come back this way. He probably had—this was Phoenix, after all.

  It was a long shot, but it was the best shot we had. I followed the unfamiliar path, and Sparky and Kindred followed.

  We’d been walking for at least half a mile, and I was beginning to wonder if this part of the tunnel would ever end, when my face slammed into a brick wall and I crumpled to the floor. For a brief second, I wondered how many times I’d crumpled to the floor in the past few weeks. It seemed like every fifteen steps I took, my legs had an obligation to hit the ground.

  “Next time,” Sparky laughed, “watch where you’re going, KB.”

  The pun was almost worse than hitting the brick wall. I guess I deserved it for the Dummy Darts.

  My nose burned where it had hit the wall. I put my hand to it and felt blood pooling in my palm. Kindred made me lean forward to drain it. We didn’t have much time. We had to keep moving. Bloody nose or not, we couldn’t stop.

  “Can one of you—uh—just get the stuff from my bag?”

  Kindred pulled out the dynamite. “Oh, dear… spicy.”

  “Affirmative.” Sparky nodded.

  The three of us lined the dynamite sticks against the brick wall. A pit formed in my stomach when I remembered we’d forgotten the matches. We were stuck. We couldn’t go any farther. The mission was a failure. I shook my head. “We’ve gotta go back into the city. I don’t have the matches. The watch won’t cut it this time.”

  Kindred pulled a sparkly pink lighter from her pocket. “We can just use this.”

  “Kindred! Why didn’t you give me that earlier? When I was searching for a light?”

  She stared at me blankly. “You didn’t ask for it, dear.”

  “I asked for matches!”

  Kindred rolled her eyes. “I think we can both agree this is hardly a match.”

  So this was why Phoenix didn’t let her into the field.

  I grabbed the lighter and straightened the dynamite along the wall. Sparky fiddled with the fuses, configuring them so they’d all three go off at once, like Phoenix had done with the gum wrapper bombs.

  When everything was set, I said, “Get as far away as you can.”

  Kindred and Sparky started running. I heard rubber slap against concrete, and flashed the light toward Kindred’s feet. She was wearing flip-flops. Pink flip-flops.

  And this was why Phoenix didn’t let her into the field.

  I lit the fuses, then hurried after the others, back down the tunnel from which we’d come. I wasn’t sure how long those fuses were, so I ran like hell. Soon I was passing Kindred. She pulled off her flip-flops, held them in her hands, and hurried to catch me. Both of us ran together toward Sparky in the tunnel’s black abyss. Kindred panted next to me. My lungs burned, but I knew I could run faster. I pushed myself harder.

  Kindred’s footsteps slowed behind me. I reached back and grabbed her hand. “D-do it,” I said, my breathing coming in spurts, “f-for the muffins.”

  Her sprint matched mine again. The dynamite sounded. The resulting explosion lit the tunnel and lifted our feet off the ground, throwing us airborne. I twisted to my side as I fell in an attempt to soften the landing. Kindred flayed her arms to the side and hit the floor in a belly flop.

  Around us, the tunnel shook and moaned—it was going to collapse. Its walls were too old to handle the explosion. Again, I wondered who’d built the tunnel, and if it had been the Moriers. Why had they been so eager to get to the Light House?

  Sparky’s footsteps echoed—he was running back toward us. “Get up! Get up!” he yelled. I shined my watch’s light in his direction. “The whole tunnel’s coming down! The ceiling’s falling in chunks—the blast destroyed its whole damn infrastructure.”

  We got to our feet, and ran again—but this time, back toward where we’d set off the explosion. The air was hot and smoky, and smoldering concrete lined the walls. When we got back to where we’d set the dynamite, the brick wall previously blocking our path was nothing but a pile of rubble. We pushed through.

  Above us, ceiling chunks crashed to the ground. The walls shook again. I prayed that Phoenix was right—that this branch of the tunnel led to the Light House. The only other alternative was death.

  We sprinted for what seemed like another mile. Every few seconds, the ceiling would crack and concrete would rain down around us. By now, I was sure the way back was blocked by fallen rubble. There was no turning back, only moving forward. Toward the Light House, the Federation’s capital building.

  The air grew damp and musty as we ran, smelling like stagnant water and rotten eggs. The tunnel’s walls narrowed, and the ceiling above us ceased its cracking. This area seemed unaffected by the explosion. When my hands felt the tunnel’s flat walls give way to evenly spaced pillars, I stopped for a moment and shined my light between the pill
ars.

  Stacks of skulls stared back at me.

  I stumbled backward. The watch flew from my hand, throwing its light across the tunnel

  Kindred sobbed. “Oh—oh my god.”

  The tunnel’s walls were no longer lined with concrete, but skulls. This tunnel didn’t lead straight to the Light House at all.

  It led to catacombs.

  Phoenix’s words echoed in my mind: There was a genocide.

  So this was where they’d stored the bodies—where they’d buried the millions of blue-eyed people who’d died all at once. The ones that they’d told us were “killed” by the first wave of Carcinogens in the months following the Final World War’s end. These skulls belonged to the people who were sacrificed in order to bring about the impetus for the creation of the Indigo vaccine. Their deaths had caused a mass panic, which in turn had led to Indigo’s miraculously rapid development.

  In school, we were taught that the bodies of the first batch of Carcinogen victims were sent out to sea. They’d lied. Here were the real bodies. The real corpses. Not out at sea, not burned, not buried. No, the people who had done this must have wanted something more—something symbolic. So they’d built the empire’s capital on catacombs created from the victims’ corpses. They built the Light House on top of the bodies—as a symbol, to those few who knew, that the Federation was standing not because of the people it saved, but because of the people it killed.

  The Federation didn’t rely on Indigo at all—it relied on the careful cultivation of fear, lies, and the deaths of its people.

  Footsteps echoed in the hallway just ahead. I lifted the light and saw a girl my own age, her head cocked to one side. Her eyes stared back, unblinking and glazed—she was blind.

  I raise a finger to my lips, hoping Kindred and Sparky were smart enough to remain quiet. The blind girl might not even notice we were there. We could escape.

  “Well, hello there!” Kindred called to the girl. “What’s your name, dear?”

  This was why Phoenix didn’t let her into the field.

  The girl leapt toward Kindred and pressed a knife against her neck. “You have three seconds to explain how you got in here before I slit your throat.”

  Chapter 40

  “Three seconds,” the girl said again. Blood appeared where the knife dug into Kindred’s throat.

  “Kindred Deer!” she shouted. “My name’s Kindred Deer! Put the knife down—PLEASE—sweetie. I don’t mean you any harm.”

  “Don’t call me sweetie,” said the girl. She cocked her head in our direction. “And the others?”

  “You can hear us?” I asked. “But we didn’t say anything.”

  “Well, you just did. I had a feeling someone was there.”

  Sparky slapped my arm. “Nice going, KB.”

  The girl smiled. “There’s two of you?”

  I punched him in the shoulder. “Nice going, Sparky.”

  The girl shrugged. “I could hear you breathing anyways.” She pushed the knife harder against Kindred’s throat. “Now, names.”

  “Sparky Stratcaster.”

  “Kai Bradbury.”

  The girl shook her head. “Not possible—he’s dead. The Feds got him yesterday. Your real name?”

  Kindred coughed. “Could you—uh, dear—loosen the knife a wee bit? It’s a bit sharp on my throat and you see—ah, perfect, thank you, dear—his real name is Kai Bradbury. He’s the one and only. He’s got the cheeseburger socks to prove it.”

  To our surprise, the girl suddenly lowered the knife. “Friend,” she said, stepping in my direction. Kindred ran and hid behind a pillar, then jumped back when she realized she was pressing herself up against human skulls.

  Again, the girl spoke to me. “Friend.”

  I stepped back. “Uh, friend?”

  She nodded. “Charlie said you’d be my friend.”

  Something leapt in my chest upon hearing someone say Charlie’s name again.

  “She said her friend Kai would be my friend, too.”

  Charlie was still alive, and this girl knew her—she’d know where to find her and how to get us there, too. I wrapped my arms around the girl’s shoulders. She patted my back.

  “Friend,” she said again.

  I nodded. “Friend.” The girl might’ve been blind, but she knew how to navigate the darkness. In Phoenix’s world, that was a good thing. If we were going to save Charlie and the others, we’d need this girl’s help.

  I grabbed Kindred’s and Sparky’s hands and put them into the girl’s. “They’re friends, too.” Tim smiled and pressed one claw against the girl’s hand. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she took it and shook it gently.

  “Wow,” she said. “S-so many new friends. So many new friends at once.” She caught her breath and muttered quickly. “I can burp my ABC’s.”

  I had no idea what to say, so I just sort of smiled and nodded.

  “How excellent!” said Kindred. For the first time, I was glad she was in the field. “Perhaps you can tell us your name, too?”

  “Sangria Penderbrook,” the girl answered, “but I prefer Sage.”

  “Then we shall call you Sage!” said Kindred triumphantly.

  “Before today, I only had one friend—Charlie Minos. But now I have four—or, uh, five”—she clearly wasn’t sure yet what to make of Tim’s handshake—“and I think that’s quite a lot.” Then she closed her eyes and started to burp. “A—B—C—”

  “Excellent start!” interrupted Kindred. “You will definitely have to show us more later, dear. But first, make us wait. Suspense makes everything better, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Sage sort of nodded. Evidently, she wasn’t used to people interrupting her, or maybe just listening to her in the first place.

  “We’re searching for our other friends,” said Kindred. “Maybe they can become your friends too? How does that sound? You could have four more new friends for a grand total of nine friends. Now wouldn’t that be extraordinary?”

  Sage nodded—she was shaking. The thought of having nine whole friends was too much for her. She might have been my age, but whatever they’d done to her in here must have stunted her maturity.

  “But we’ll have to be careful,” said Sage. “They’ll kill you if they see you. People aren’t supposed to be down here.” She paused. “Should I continue my ABC’s now?”

  “No, no, dear,” said Kindred, shaking her head. “Suspense—that’s where the real show is. Keep us in suspense, dear! And while we’re letting the suspense build, we can get you some more friends.”

  Sage nodded, and without another word, turned and headed down the tunnel. The rest of us looked at each other, shrugged, and followed.

  Sage clearly knew the layout of the catacombs well. As she guided us along, she explained that she’d been through them many times. Once, she told us, they made her bury someone down here, but she was young, and started crying. After that, they hadn’t asked again.

  Eventually Sage led us to a brick frame and a metal door, which in turn led to a series of mazes and corridors. We were lucky Sage had found us. We’d never have made our way out if she hadn’t.

  Sage’s room was on the Light House’s lowest floor—the basement, between the kitchen and the hall that led to the catacombs. The room was the size of a closet, with only enough room for a cot wedged between two walls. Before we moved on, I turned on the extra VLF I’d borrowed from Bertha’s workshop and prayed it would work as well for us now as it had in the Ministry.

  “The kitchen staff is asleep,” Sage explained. “There won’t be any guards until we get out of the basement. Charlie’s on the eleventh floor, in the holding cells.”

  “And the others?”

  “If they didn’t come here by choice,” she said, “then that’s where they’ll be too.”

  We snuck past the first floor’s guards with surprising ease—Sage knew their routines well. She had us avoid the elevator and take the stairs, saying it was less likely we’d run into guards
that way. But just as we reached the second floor’s landing, two guards pushed their way in. Sage hurried up the steps ahead of us, but Kindred, Sparky, and I were caught at the landing.

  The first guard, a fat man, eyed us up and down. “What’s this? You fancy a stroll?” he asked.

  His friend, a tall, skinny man with a thick mustache, tilted his head. “Yer wearin’ all black…” His breath stank like liquor. He pulled a flask from his pocket and took a swig. “Whaddya doin’ that fer?”

  I saw Kindred taking deep breaths to calm herself. Sparky eyed the stairs that would carry us back to the basement.

  The skinny one squinted at Kindred. “Yer not lookin’ so good…”

  Kindred’s face went white, and she curled her hands into fists.

  “Knuckles,” she said, “prepare yourselves!” She couldn’t be serious—she was still wearing the pink flip-flops, after all. What did she think she was doing? “For today,” she continued, spinning her fists in the air, “we serve knuckle sandwiches.”

  With a single jab, she smashed the skinny guard in the face, and he crumpled to the floor. Immediately, she clutched her hand. “Mother—”

  “Kindred!” I said.

  She blushed. “Sorry, dear.”

  Before the other guard could react, she decked him too. He fell harder than the first. As we stole their guns, I noticed that the fat one had a headset shoved in his ear—he was miked. The rest of the guards had surely heard our encounter, and would come looking for us. There wasn’t much time.

  We ran up the stairs after Sage, who seemed to know every step and turn of this building by heart. How long had she lived here? At the fifth floor’s landing, we heard guards pile into the stairwell from the third floor’s landing, swarming like bees as they climbed.

  Sparky turned toward Sage. “What floor is Security’s main office?”

  “Fifteenth floor.”

  “Think you can hack it?” I said.

  “Affirmative. I suggest we implement a bomb threat procedure.”