by Patrick Ness
But we can all hear the horror in his own Noise, the anxiety that's rising, the fear of his pa, of the new job, fear he won't be able to-
"You won't be leading the Askings, if that's what you're afraid of," says the Mayor.
"I ain't afraid," Davy says, too loud. "Who's saying I'm afraid?"
The Mayor drops the bag at our feet. I reckernize its shape. Feeling nothing, taking nothing in. Davy's looking down at the bag, too. Even he's shocked. "Just the prisoners," says the Mayor. "So we can fight against enemy infiltration on the inside."
"You want us to--?" Davy looks up at his pa. "On people?"
"Not people," says the Mayor. "Enemies of the state." I'm still looking at the bag.
The bag that we all know carries a bolting tool and a supply of numbered bands.
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30 THE BAND
***
(Viola)
I 'VE JUST SET THE TIMER running and turned to Mistress Braithwaite to tell her we can leave when a woman comes tumbling out of the bushes behind us.
"Help me," she says, so gently it's almost as if she doesn't know we're there and is just asking the universe to help her somehow.
Then she collapses.
"What is this thing?" I say, taking another bandage from the too-small first aid kit we keep hidden in the cart, trying to tend her wound as we rock back and forth. There's a metal band encircling the middle of her forearm, so tight it seems like the skin around it is trying to grow into it. It's also so red with infection i can almost feel the heat coming off it.
"It's for branding livestock," Mistress Braithwaite says, angrily snapping the reins on the oxes, bumping us along
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paths that we aren't meant to take this fast. "That vicious bastard."
"Help me," the woman whispers.
"I'm helping you," I say. Her head is in my lap to cushion it from the bumps in the road. I wrap a bandage around the metal band but not before I see a number etched into the side.
1391.
"What's your name?" I ask.
But her eyes are half closed and all she says is, "Help me."
"And we're sure she's not a spy?" Mistress Coyle says, arms crossed.
"Good God," I snap. "Is there a stone where your heart should be?"
Her brow darkens. "We have to consider all manner of tricks-"
"The infection is so bad we're not going to be able to save her arm," Mistress Braithwaite says. "If she's a spy, she's in no position to return with information."
Mistress Coyle sighs. "Where was she?"
"Near that new Office of the Ask we've been hearing about," Mistress Braithwaite says, frowning even harder.
"We planted a device on a small storehouse nearby," I say. "It was as close as we could get."
"Branding strips, Nicola," Mistress Braithwaite says, anger puffing out of her like the steam of her breath.
Mistress Coyle rubs her fingers along her forehead. "I know."
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"Can't we just cut it off?" I ask. "Heal the wound?"
Mistress Braithwaite shakes her head. "Chemicals make it so the banded skin never heals, that's the point. You can never remove it unless you want to bleed to death. They're permanent. Forever."
"Oh, my God."
"I need to talk to her," Mistress Coyle says.
"Nadari's treating her," Mistress Braithwaite says. "She might be lucid before the surgery."
"Let's go then," Mistress Coyle says and they head off toward the healing tent. I move to follow, but Mistress Coyle stops me with a look. "Not you, my girl."
"Why not?"
But off they keep walking, leaving me standing in the cold.
"Y'all right, Hildy?" Wilf asks as I wander among the oxes. He's brushing them down where they strained against the harnesses. Wilf, they say.
That's pretty much all they ever say.
"Rough night," I say. "We rescued a woman who'd been branded with some kind of metal band."
Wilf looks thoughtful for a minute. He points to a metal band around the right front leg of each ox. "Like these 'ere?"
I nod.
"On a person?" He whistles in amazement. "Things are turning, Wilf," I say. "Turning for the worse."
"Ah know," he says. "We'll make a move soon and that'll be it, one way or t'other."
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I look up at him. "Do you know exactly what she's planning?"
He shakes his head and runs his hand around the metal band on one of the oxes. Wilf, says the ox.
"Viola!" I hear, called across the camp.
Wilf and I both see Mistress Coyle treading through the darkened camp toward us. "She's gone wake everyone up," Wilf says.
"She's a little delirious," Mistress Nadari says as I kneel down by the cot of the rescued woman. "You've got a minute, tops."
"Tell her what you told us, my girl," Mistress Coyle says to the woman. "Just once more and we'll let you sleep."
"My arm?" says the woman, her eyes cloudy. "It don't hurt no more."
"Just tell her what you said, my love," Mistress Coyle says, her voice as warm as it ever gets. "And everything'll be all right."
The woman's eyes focus briefly on mine and widen slightly. "You," she says. "The girl who was there."
"Viola," I say, touching her nonbanded arm.
"We haven't got much time, Jess." Mistress Coyle's voice gets a little sterner, even as she says what must be the woman's name. "Tell her."
"Tell me what?" I say, getting a little annoyed. It's cruel to keep her awake like this and I'm about to say as much when Mistress Coyle says, "Tell her who did this to you."
Jess's eyes grow frightened. "Oh," she says. "Oh, oh."
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"Just this one thing and we'll leave you be," Mistress Coyle says.
"Mistress Coyle-" I start to say, getting angry. "Boys," the woman says. "Boys. Not even men." I take in a breath.
"Which boys?" Mistress Coyle asks. "What were their names?"
"Davy," says the woman, her eyes not seeing the inside of the tent anymore. "Davy was the older one."
Mistress Coyle catches my eye. "And the other?"
"The quiet one," the woman says. "Didn't say nothing. Just did his job and didn't say nothing."
"What was his name?" Mistress Coyle insists.
"I need to go," I say, standing up, not wanting to hear. Mistress Coyle grabs my hand and holds me there firmly.
"What was his name?" she says again.
The woman is breathing harshly now, almost panting.
"That's enough," Mistress Nadari says. "I didn't want this in the first-"
"One second more," Mistress Coyle says.
"Nicola-" Mistress Nadari warns.
"Todd," says the woman on the cot, the woman I saved, the woman with the infected arm she's going to lose, the woman I now wish was at the bottom of the ocean I've never seen. "The other one called him Todd."
"Get away from me," I say, as Mistress Coyle follows me out of the tent.
"He's alive," she's saying, "but he's one of them."
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"Shut up!" I say, stomping across the camp, not caring how loud I'm being.
Mistress Coyle races forward and grabs my arm. "You've lost him, my girl," she says. "If you ever really had him in the first place."
I slap her face so fast and hard she doesn't have time to defend herself. It's like smacking a tree trunk. The solid weight of her staggers back and my arm rings with pain.
"You don't know what you're talking about," I say, my voice blazing.
"How dare you," she says, her hand to her face.
"You haven't even seen me fight yet," I say, standing my ground. "I knocked down a bridge to stop an army. I put a knife through the neck of a crazy murderer. I saved the lives of others while you just ran around at night blowing them up."
"You ignorant child-" I step toward her. She doesn't step back. But she stops her sentence.
"I hate you," I say slowly. "Everything yo
u do makes the Mayor respond with something worse."
"I did not start this war-"
"But you love it!" I take another step toward her. "You love everything about it. The bombs, the fighting, the rescues." Her face is so angry I can even see it in the moonlight. But I'm not afraid of her. And I think she can tell.
"You want to see it as simple good and evil, my girl," she says. "The world doesn't work that way. Never has, never will,
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and don't forget." She gives me a smile that could curdle milk. "You're fighting the war with me."
I lean in close to her face. "He needs to be overthrown, so I'm helping you do it. But when it's done?" I'm so close I can feel her breath. "Are we going to have to overthrow you next?"
She doesn't say anything.
But she doesn't back down either.
I turn on my heels and I walk away from her.
"He's gone, Viola!" Mistress Coyle shouts after me.
But I just keep walking.
"I need to go back to the city."
"Now?" Wilf says, looking up at the sky. "Be dawn soon. T'ain't safe."
"It's never safe," I say, "but I have no choice."
He blinks at me. Then he starts gathering ropes and bindings to get the cart ready again.
"No," I say, "you'll have to show me how to do it. I can't ask you to risk your life."
"Yer goin for Todd?"
I nod.
"Then Ah'll take yoo."
"Wilf-"
"Still early," he says, backing the oxes into position. "Ah'll at least get yoo close."
He doesn't say another word as he reharnesses the oxes to his cart. They ask him Wilf, Wilf, in surprise at being used so quickly again after thinking their night of work was finished.
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I think about what Jane would say. I think about putting her Wilf into danger.
But all I say is, "Thank you."
"I'm coming, too." I turn around. Lee is there, rubbing sleep out of his eyes but dressed and ready.
"What are you doing up?" I ask. "And no, you're not."
"Yes, I am," he says, "and who can sleep with all that shouting?"
"It's too dangerous," I say. "They'll hear your Noise-" He keeps his mouth shut and says to me, Then they can just hear it.
"Lee-"
"You're going to look for him, aren't you?"
I sigh in frustration, beginning to wonder if I should abandon the idea altogether before I put anyone else in danger.
"You're going to the Office of the Ask," Lee says, lowering his voice. I nod.
And then I understand.
Siobhan and his mum might be there.
I nod again, and this time he knows I've agreed.
No one tries to stop us, though half the camp must know we're going. Mistress Coyle must have her reasons.
We don't talk much as we go. I just listen to Lee's Noise and its thoughts of his family, of the Mayor, of what he'll do if he ever gets his hands on him.
Thoughts of me.
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"You'd better say something," Lee says. "Listening that close is rude."
"So I've heard," I say.
But my mouth is dry and I find I don't have much to say.
The sun rises before we get to the city. Wilf pushes the oxes as fast as they'll go, but even so, it's going to be a dangerous trip back, with the city awake, with Noisy men on our cart. We're taking a terrible risk. But on Wilf drives.
I've explained what I want to see, and he says he knows a place. He stops the cart deep in some woods and directs us up a bluff.
"Keep yer heads down now," he says. "Don't be seen."
"We won't," I say. "But if we're not back in an hour, don't wait for us."
Wilf just looks at me. We all know how likely him leaving us is.
Lee and I make our way up the bluff, keeping down in the cover of the trees, until we reach the top and see why Wilf chose the place. It's a hill near where the tower fell, one where we've got a clear view of the road coming down toward the Office of the Ask, which we've heard is some kind of prison or torture chamber or something like that.
I don't even want to know.
We lie on our stomachs, side by side, looking out from some bushes.
"Keep your ears open," Lee whispers.
As if we need to. As soon as the sun rises, New Prentisstown
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ROAR s to life. I begin to wonder if Lee even needs to hide his Noise so much. How could it not be possible to drown in it?
"Because drowning is the right word," Lee says when I ask. "If you disappeared into it, you'd suffocate."
"I can't imagine what it's like growing up inside it all," I
say.
"No," he says. "No, you can't."
But he doesn't say it in a mean way.
I squint down the road as the sun brightens. "I wish I had some binocs."
Lee reaches into a pocket and pulls out a pair.
I give him a look. "You were just waiting for me to ask so you could look all impressive."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, smiling, putting the binocs to his eyes.
"C'mon." I push him with my shoulder. "Give them to me."
He stretches away to keep them out of my grabbing range. I start to giggle, so does he. I grab onto him and try to hold him down while I snatch at the binocs but he's bigger than me and keeps twisting them away.
"I'm not afraid to hurt you," I say.
"I don't doubt that," he laughs, turning the binocs back to the road.
His Noise spikes, loud enough to make me afraid someone'll hear us.
"What do you see?" I say, not giggling anymore.
He hands the binocs to me, pointing. "There," he says. "Coming down the road."
But I'm already seeing them in the binocs.
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Two people on horseback. Two people in shiny new uniforms, riding their horses. One of them talking, gesturing with his hands.
Laughing. Smiling.
The other keeping his eyes on his horse, but riding along to work.
Riding along to his Job at the Office of the Ask. In a uniform with a shiny A on the shoulder. Todd. My Todd.
Riding next to Davy Prentiss.
Riding to work with the man who shot me.
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31 NUMBERS AND LETTERS
***
[TODD]
THE DAYS KEEP PASSING. They keep getting worse.
"All of em?" Davy asks, his Noise ringing with badly hidden alarm. "Every single one?"
"This is a vote of confidence, David," the Mayor says, standing with us at the door of the stables while our horses are made ready for the day's work. "You and Todd did such an excellent job with permanently identifying the female prisoners, who else would I want to be in charge of expanding the program?"
I don't say nothing, not even acknowledging Davy's looks at me. His Noise is confused with the pink of his pa's praise.
But then there's also his thoughts about banding all the women.
Every single one.
Cuz banding the ones in the Office of the Ask was even worse than we thought.
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"They keep leaving," the Mayor says. "In the dead of night, they slip away and cast their lot with the terrorists."
Davy's watching Deadfall get saddled in a small paddock, his Noise clanking with the faces of the women who get banded, the cries of pain they make.
The words they speak to us.
"And if they keep getting out," the Mayor says, "they obviously keep getting in, too."
He means the bombs. One every night for the past two weeks nearly, so many they must be increasing for a reason, they must be leading up to something bigger, and no women have been caught planting 'em except once when a bomb blew up while the woman was still putting it in place. They didn't find much left of her except bits of clothing and flesh.
I close my eyes when I think of it.
Feeling noth
ing, taking nothing in.
(was it her?)
Feeling nothing.
"You want us to number all the women," Davy says again quietly, looking away from his pa.
"I've said it before," the Mayor sighs. "Every woman is part of the Answer, if only because she is a woman and therefore sympathetic to other women."
The groomsmen bring Angharrad into a nearby paddock. She sticks her head over the rail to bump me with her nose. Todd , she says.
"They'll resist," I say, stroking her head. "The men won't like it neither."
"Ah, yes," says the Mayor. "You missed yesterday's rally, didn't you?"
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Davy and I look at each other. We were at work all day yesterday and didn't hear nothing bout no rally.
"I spoke to the men of New Prentisstown," the Mayor says. "Man to man. I explained to them the threat the Answer poses us and how this is the next prudent step forward to ensure safety for all." He rubs a hand down Angharrad's neck. I try and hide how prickly my Noise gets at the sight. "I encountered no resistance."
"There weren't no women at this rally," I say, "were there?"
He turns to me. "I wouldn't want to encourage the enemy among us, now would I?"
"But there's effing thousands of em!" Davy says. "Banding 'em all will take forever."
"There will be other teams working, David," the Mayor says calmly, making sure he's got his son's full attenshun. "But I'm sure the two of you will outwork any of them."
Davy's Noise perks up a bit at this. "You bet we will, Pa," he says.
He looks at me, tho.
And there's worry there.
I stroke Angharrad's nose again. The groomsmen bring out Morpeth, freshly brushed and shiny with oil. Submit, he says.
"If you're worried," the Mayor says, taking Morpeth's reins. "Ask yourselves this." He hoists himself up in the saddle in one smooth movement, like he's made of liquid. He looks down at us.
"Why would any innocent woman object to being identified?"
