I’m not good at sports like you are! I wanted to snarl at him.
But I nodded and clutched the glowing pebble in my hand and dashed toward Enu, Edwy, and Rosi.
The bars slid ahead of me, and I slammed into them so hard my head bounced back.
“Try again,” Edwy said.
“You can do it!” Rosi encouraged.
I swerved back to the left and aimed for an escape out into the other end of the hall.
Once again I slammed into bars.
“It’s like the prison bars are playing keep-away with you,” Enu said. “Remember playing that when we were little? Remember how to win?”
I remembered watching Enu play keep-away. I didn’t remember ever playing it myself.
I certainly didn’t remember ever winning that game. And now my forehead throbbed where I’d hit the bars. My legs ached. My ears started ringing so badly that I couldn’t hear Enu’s advice.
I’m the one who found the pebble, I thought. But all I did was help the others escape and now I’m left behind. I’ll be a prisoner forever.
I couldn’t breathe. I swayed back and forth, and the bars blurred before me. The gravity, which I thought I’d adjusted to, seemed to be pulling me down, harder and harder.
“Enu,” I heard Edwy say sharply. “You go back in there and let her out. Then you try winning at keep-away.”
Suddenly I wished the light coming from the pebble in my hand weren’t so bright and steady. Because I could see Enu’s face too clearly. I could see the way his eyes hardened.
He didn’t want to help me. He didn’t want to be the one stuck in the prison cell, the one left behind and trapped while everyone else had a chance at freedom.
He was just as scared as I was.
Edwy shoved Enu’s shoulder.
“I’m going! I’m going!” Enu said, jumping back into the prison cell. The bars didn’t move at all, probably because he was going in, not out. “Don’t worry—I’m fast. I’ve got this!”
He feinted toward the bars, trying for escape this time. His motion made the bars slide back toward him, and let me step out into the hallway.
I was out of the cage.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure that Enu heard. He was concentrating too hard. He dashed right, then left, then right again, as if faking out the swiftly sliding bars. Maybe they were designed to speed up when challenged, because they seemed to be going faster and faster.
Finally Enu walked slowly back to the other side of the prison cell, like he was giving up. He sank to the floor. He waited a moment.
And then, with a burst of speed, he sprang to his feet, sped toward the gap in the bars, and dived through it. He rolled into a somersault and landed at my feet.
“All right!” Edwy congratulated him with a high five as Enu stood up.
“That was amazing!” Rosi agreed.
“Not bad,” I said, because that’s how Enu and I always treated each other. He didn’t need to know how close I’d been to panic.
Enu held his arms aloft again, pumping them up and down like he was cheering for himself.
“I knew I could do it,” Enu said. “No sweat.”
But he actually did have sweat dripping down his T-shirt.
“Why don’t you already have your sandal off, to use it to unlock that door at the top of the stairs?” he asked me, pointing down the hall, toward the stairway we’d descended after our long day of work. “Let’s really get out of here!”
“Let’s think about this first,” I said. “Make a plan. Remember, the Enforcer said it gets really cold outside overnight. Rosi’s the only one who’s wearing more than shorts and a T-shirt, and even her dress looks pretty lightweight. Maybe we can find some other clothes first. And even if they aren’t monitoring what we do in our prison cell, doesn’t it seem like—”
“If you had your way, you’d sit around thinking your whole life away,” Enu interrupted. He gave a disgusted snort. “Come on—let’s get out of here. Now!”
Without waiting for an answer, he took off for the stairs.
“Hey! I’m coming too!” Edwy called, darting off after Enu.
“But—” Rosi reached for Edwy’s arm, but he slipped away.
“Boys,” I grunted. “They think we’re going to rescue them when they get in trouble.”
I made my voice sound cavalier—casual, even—as though I didn’t really care. As though nothing was at stake. But tension churned in my stomach. Tears glistened in Rosi’s eyes.
“If we can’t get out of here, we can’t get back to Earth and Refuge City to find Bobo and Cana and Zeba,” she whispered. “We can’t fail at this.”
“Let’s go talk some sense into Enu, then,” I said, grabbing Rosi’s hand and tugging her along. “Sense and caution.”
I didn’t actually know what made sense. What if this was our only chance to escape? What if the guard caught Enu at the door and beat him up or . . . did something even worse? What if . . .
Rosi and I had just reached the bottom of the stairs when we saw Enu coming back toward us. Enu climbed robotically back down the stairs, planting each foot precisely. He kept his elbows bent at exact ninety-degree angles, and pumped his arm in sync with his legs, like he was marching. His head stayed erect, his eyes pointed directly forward, even though it would have made more sense to look down at his feet.
He looked like a robot again, like the Enforcers had him entirely under their control.
I had seen this before, of course, when my body had been under the Enforcers’ control too. But the Enforcers had controlled what I saw then, so I’d only gotten isolated glimpses of Enu and the others. I couldn’t gape.
This was so much more horrifying, to be able to follow every move of Enu the Automaton. Enu usually moved like liquid, flowing wherever he wanted to go. His every action had always been such a combination of athletic grace and laziness. So it was beyond wrong to see him move with militaristic precision.
It was like watching a stranger. A stranger who just happened to have my brother’s face.
A stranger without a soul.
Edwy was balanced on the stairs directly below Enu, and Enu almost knocked him over going past. Edwy barely managed to press his body against the wall, to keep from falling.
Enu reached the bottom of the steps, and Rosi and I did the same thing as Edwy, automatically moving back against the wall in horror, in shame, in numbness. We were in a panic to get out of the way. Was it just our own brains telling us this, or were the Enforcers controlling us in some minor way as well? It was hard to tell.
Enu stepped back into our prison cell, marched to the center of it, and then fell to the floor. He hit hard, his face slamming against stone. It was like watching someone drop a puppet, someone who didn’t care if the puppet broke or not.
I couldn’t help myself. I ran to my brother’s side.
“Are you all right?” I cried, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” Enu growled, shoving my hands away.
I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. He already had a welt rising on his cheek, but at least the skin wasn’t broken.
“How—? Why—?” Edwy sputtered behind me.
“Don’t you see?” I said bitterly. “They probably don’t even have to lock that door at the top of this stairs. And this is why they don’t need complete bars on our prison cell.”
“Because that’s how they keep us from escaping,” Rosi said, pointing at Enu. Her hand shook. The bleakness in her voice echoed off the walls. “They take over our bodies any time we try.”
“But not our brains,” I said fiercely. “We still have control of our brains.”
My words sounded like Enu’s glib I’m fine.
Really, we had nothing left but bravado.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Enu being Enu, he had to try three more times to mount the stairs and grab the doorknob. Each time, just as he reached the landing at the
top of the stairs, his body turned around and started climbing down. Watching from the bottom of the stairs, Edwy, Rosi, and I could see the exact moment he lost control: His entire body went stiff. His movements instantly became jerky.
It didn’t scare me any less to see this happen again and again.
“Next time,” Enu said stubbornly, the fourth time his invisible puppet master slammed him back to the floor in our cell.
“Enu—every single time you do that, they drop you to the floor harder. What happens when you break a bone?” I asked.
“My bones are too strong for that,” he bragged. He lifted his right arm and flexed the muscle. As if that mattered. Then he rolled to the side, clearly preparing to race the bars and escape the cell yet again. “This is like basketball conditioning. No pain, no gain. Anyhow, what do you want me to do instead? Sit here and do nothing? Just wait for that light to go out?”
I looked down at the pebble I still held in the palm of my hand. The light glowed out evenly and unchanged, filling the space around us.
“I’m not doing nothing,” I said. “I’ve been thinking—”
“Nothing worthwhile,” Enu sneered.
I saw how it could get ugly between us. Enu and I, we were really good at arguing. Something inside me wanted to argue—to blame Enu for everything.
We wouldn’t even be on this planet if Enu hadn’t broken that TV back in Refuge City and made me feel like we had to go out into the store. No, let’s go farther back—if he hadn’t made me so mad I sided with Edwy and agreed to help him rescue Rosi and confront the Enforcers . . . or if . . .
It would feel so good to scream accusations at Enu. It would feel good to call him names: Knucklehead! Lamebrain! Sexist! It would even feel good to punch him.
“Calm down, you two,” Rosi said softly. “We’re all upset. Why don’t we look for a different exit?”
I realized I’d already balled up my fists. I’d already taken a threatening step toward Enu.
Even though he was crumpled on the floor, with bruises swelling on both sides of his face.
“What do you mean, a different exit?” I asked Rosi. My voice came out just as surly as it did when I snarled at Enu. “Do you see any other door?”
“No, but maybe if we go that way, we will,” Rosi suggested. She pointed away from the stairs.
“You mean, deeper into the prison?” Enu asked, as if suddenly he and I were on the same side. “That’s crazy!”
This was a mild insult, coming from Enu, but Rosi flinched.
Oh, yeah—those Fredtown kids were so pampered and babied. Rosi probably can’t cope with any insult.
“It’s worth a try,” Edwy said, and somehow he sounded calm and patient. “Better than letting them beat you up all night long.”
“Or maybe we just need to throw off the Enforcers’ system by having two of us try to escape at once,” Enu said. “Maybe it works like the prison bars. You guys are depending on me too much. I can’t be the only brave one! Edwy, help me out here!”
It bugged me that Enu was asking Edwy to be his assistant, and not me.
“What, you think only a boy would be capable of helping?” I asked.
“I thought you were too busy thinking,” Enu taunted. “Besides, Edwy’s a faster runner.”
“He is not!” I said. “Here, I’ll help. Race you to the top of the stairs!”
I took off ahead of Enu, knowing he’d catch up quickly. Which he did a split second later, digging his elbow into my rib, shoving me to the side. We mounted the narrow stairs together.
“You jump, I’ll dive,” he muttered, and I knew he meant at the top of the stairs. He was thinking we could force the door open by slamming into it full strength. He thought one of us was sure to get through.
Oh, Enu, you optimist, you, I thought.
I am not a runner—computer geek, remember? So even though Enu seemed to be trying to stay right beside me, he reached the landing a little ahead of me. I saw him spin around an instant before my own body stiffened and whipped out of my control. My feet stopped climbing up and methodically stepped down instead.
No different from before, I told myself. Stay calm. As soon as you get back to the prison cell, you’ll have control back.
But I couldn’t stay calm. Something was different from before. It wasn’t just that my body moved without my control; it felt like my mind had been invaded too. Or maybe my spirit—whatever part of me registered joy or sorrow, determination or the desire to give up. As my feet descended the stairs—down and down and down—sad images flooded my mind: a cruel nanny beating Enu and me when we were little; me staring at a computer screen detailing the massacres in my parents’ hometown, the first time I’d learned what had really happened there; the Enforcers marching into Refuge City only yesterday, in another lifetime and on another planet. The terror and fear I’d felt fleeing the Enforcers back in Refuge City multiplied and magnified with every step I took. I felt such despair that if I’d had any control over my body, I would have begun weeping and wailing; I would have begun bashing my head against the wall.
Maybe I would have even hurled myself down the stairs.
Just a few more steps and you’ll be at the bottom anyhow, I tried to tell myself. Just another dozen or so steps after that, and you’ll be back in the cell. You’ll be yourself again.
It was still agony, every step my body took against my will. It was even worse agony because I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t wail—I couldn’t even shift the straps of my sandals where they rubbed on my blistered feet.
And then Enu and I were back in the prison cell, landing in a jumbled heap together.
The tears I hadn’t been able to shed before stung my eyes. I kept my face down, hoping I could hide my anguish from Rosi and Edwy, waiting out in the hall.
“Was . . . was it that bad the other four times you ran up there?” I gasped to Enu. “Did walking down make you feel sad every single time?”
Maybe he was surprised I brought it up. Maybe he was still caught in the sorrow that the Enforcers had slammed into us. But for once, Enu answered a simple question with naked honesty.
“Yes,” he murmured, blinking back tears of his own. (Tears! Enu never cried!) “It’s gotten worse with every try.”
Worse? Was it possible to feel any worse?
And Enu had known that it got worse every time, and he still kept trying?
I stared into my brother’s eyes, and he stared back at me. Our eyes matched, I knew, both a glowing green.
“You,” I said, “are either the bravest idiot, or the most idiotic brave person who’s ever lived.”
“Am I supposed to say thank you?” he asked.
He attempted a mocking grin, which failed dramatically. I gave him a weak punch in the arm because I had to do that—we had to be ourselves again.
“Now are you two ready to go looking for another door?” Edwy called from out in the hall.
Even though my legs still trembled, I forced myself to stand up. Even though my voice wavered, I forced myself to call back, “Yes. Absolutely.”
I tried to shake off the lingering sorrow and hopelessness.
I’m not letting the Enforcers control what I think and feel, I told myself. Not ever again. Not if I can help it.
The question was, could I help it?
Did I have any control over that?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
For our first several steps headed away from the stairs and our prison cell, the hallway ahead of us looked no different from the hallway behind us. Empty cells lay to our left and right, and dirty footprints showed that many others had walked here before us.
Are these human footprints or Enforcer footprints? I wondered.
There were so many of them, and so layered on top of one another, that it was impossible to tell.
Not that I would be able to tell the difference between the footprints anyhow. Not without my phone camera, and access to the Internet to compare images, and . . .
�
��How many prisoners do you think there are?” Edwy asked. “How many prisoners used to live here? Or—are there some who are still out working? Do they have prisoners working in shifts?”
“If there were enough to fill all these cages, we would have seen them,” Rosi said. “Maybe the Enforcers set them free? And sent them home? And they’ll set us free again soon too?”
Her optimistic tone sounded totally wrong in this grim place. It seemed totally wrong while I was still fighting the despair from my forced march down the steps.
Edwy and Rosi kept peering around, looking at everything. I was doing well to put one foot in front of the other. I managed to glance back to see if Enu was similarly affected: He trudged along just as doggedly, his head down, his shoulders slumped.
He did run into that agonizing despair five times. Knowingly, the last four times.
I guessed he had learned something about persistence, playing basketball all the time. I guessed maybe he was braver than I thought.
“Doesn’t that light seem really strange?” Edwy asked, glancing over his shoulder at me.
“Yeah, because it’s a pebble that lights up a whole prison,” Enu snarled. “That is strange. We’re on another planet. We’re in a prison. Everything’s strange here!”
“No, I mean, think about how a flashlight works,” Edwy said. “It spreads out, and so it’s harder and harder to see, the farther out you look.”
“With a laser, the glow doesn’t spread out,” Rosi pointed out. “That’s a type of light too.”
“But that’s a narrow beam, and a laser light goes on and on and on, unless it runs into something,” Edwy said. “This pebble light . . . the glow is the same all around us, just as strong out at the edges as it is right beside us. And it keeps changing how far ahead of us it goes.”
Because I’m holding the pebble, and I keep walking forward, I wanted to growl at him. How stupid are you?
But then I saw what he meant. The light flowed out evenly up to the very end of a prison cell six spaces ahead of us. And then, when I took another step forward, the light didn’t move up an equal amount, one step’s worth. Instead it leaped far enough ahead to reach the end of the next cell—the equivalent of maybe eight steps farther.
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