Promised

by O'Brien, Caragh M.

  “Leon. This is not okay,” she said. “We are not turning into murderers.”

  “It’s possible, if someone’s in the wrong place, that they could get hurt from the last bomb. It shouldn’t come to that, though.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she said.

  “It’s just one that’s dicey,” he said. “As long as the Protectorat cooperates with us, I’ll have plenty of time to go in and defuse it. But if they arrest you again or something happens to you, I’m going to let it explode.”

  “We can’t do this,” she protested. “Where is it? When is it set to go off?”

  He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  She took a long stride over a gap between rocks. “I can’t believe this. Your father said you were a liar,” Gaia said. “I wouldn’t believe him.”

  Leon stopped, his eyebrows lifting in startled surprise. “My father? This isn’t a lie, Gaia. It’s a secret.”

  She put up a hand, opened toward the sky.

  “You’ve kept secrets from me, remember?” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Why can’t you trust that I know what I’m doing?”

  “My secrets couldn’t get anybody killed,” she said.

  Leon was silent a moment. Then he started walking again in long strides. She had to skip once to catch up, and then she realized she didn’t want to walk beside him. She let him get ahead a few paces and stormed along behind him. He was going to turn them into murderers and he didn’t even care. She rubbed her hand on her trousers, trying to get the blood off.

  Leon spun around to face her. “I don’t get why you’re making me into the bad guy,” he said. “My father’s the one who won’t give us water. He’s the one who wants to steal your ovaries for some ridiculous experiment. He’s the one who’d be happy to let me rot to death in a coma. All I did was set some bombs. They don’t even have to go off.”

  “But they’re ready.”

  “Of course they are.” He held up his broken arm. “This isn’t a game. People are going to get hurt.”

  Gaia planted her hands on her hips. “But I don’t want you to be the one to hurt them.”

  “Are you going to do it yourself, then?” he asked, his eyes glittering. “Like with Sephie? You need me like this, Gaia. Quit pretending you’re morally superior and accept it.

  She gasped a breath. Then the truth hit. She’d always depended on Leon to do the hard things for her, the bad things, like holding a knife to a girl’s throat way back when they were stealing birth records, or taking Gaia’s baby sister from Adele out on Bachsdatter’s island. Now he’d set bombs for Gaia. Until now, he’d let her feel like it was never her fault, but she’d always benefited from his cruelty.

  She was responsible.

  And now she was just like him. She looked down at her hands, at the flecks of blood that stained her sleeve. Leon faced the horizon, then raked a hand back through his hair and peered at her again.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “You’re right,” she said calmly. “I’ve been unfair to you.”

  “I don’t want it to be like this, either.”

  “But it is.”

  She turned her gaze to the south, to where the unlake had come into view with the precarious beginnings of New Sylum huddled below the old, worn homes of Wharfton. What had the Protectorat said? As a leader, she was responsible for all her people’s actions. That included Leon’s. And since she knew the Protectorat would never cooperate with the people outside the wall unless he was coerced, that also included bombs.

  She could feel a quiet turning inside herself, a certain, final clicking of a gear in a clock that could never go backward.

  “All right,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I accept it. Negotiating is no longer enough. We have to coerce him.”

  He stepped in front of her so that she was forced to meet his gaze.

  “You really mean that?” he asked, and she could hear the relief and hope in his voice.

  In a way, it would actually be simpler to fight the Protectorat than try to win him over. They might fail completely. They might all get destroyed, but it would be decided, once and for all.

  “He won’t give in,” Gaia said. “We need a new leader in the Enclave.”

  Leon regarded her closely. Her fingers found her necklace with the locket watch and the monocle, and she squeezed them both briefly in her fist.

  “You’re serious,” he said.

  She felt a last, lonely flicker of idealistic doubt, and then she nodded. “Just as long as the new leader isn’t me.”

  * * *

  The people of New Sylum began to cheer as soon as Gaia and Leon came down the path, and more gathered, crowding around, as they arrived at the new commons in the center of the new village. Peter wedged past a couple of miners and without preamble, he reached for Gaia, gripping her shoulders.

  “Are you all right?” he demanded. “I’ve been going crazy.”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” Gaia said. She could feel the tight strength of his fingers in his grip, and his searching eyes were near. “We both are.”

  She took a half step back, gently extricating herself from his embrace, and he opened his hands suddenly as if just aware of what he’d done. She glanced beside her to Leon, who had watched the exchange and said nothing.

  “How did you get out?” Gaia asked Peter.

  “Malachai got us out when the lights blew,” Peter said. “They put something in our drinks, but you were okay?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Beyond Peter, Will smiled in genuine welcome. His eyes were dark from sleepless worry.

  “We were about to go in for you,” Will said.

  That was when Gaia realized that all of the people of New Sylum were armed, from the archers and scouts to Norris and Dinah, who wielded a bow Gaia had never seen her carry before. They were all prepared to put their lives on the line for her.

  Gaia hardly knew what to say.

  Josephine arrived then, bursting into tears. She threw her arms around Gaia while little Maya and Junie hugged Gaia’s knees. Jack crowded forward next and gave Gaia a bear hug, then slapped Leon on the back. Pyrho lifted a hand in greeting.

  “When did you get out?” Gaia asked Jack.

  “Last night, during the fuss,” Jack said. “We did good, didn’t we?” He added to Leon.

  “Good enough,” Leon said.

  Angie pointed to Leon’s feet. “Where are your boots?” she asked. Her raspy voice was markedly improving.

  “I lost them,” Leon answered.

  “You need new ones,” the girl said.

  “I know,” Leon said. “Have you been good?”

  The girl nodded and touched a hand to her throat. Mace and his family had the girl with them, and Pearl nodded, smiling.

  “Come here,” Leon said to Angie.

  She didn’t. He went over to the girl and lifted her up in a big hug, regardless of how gangly she was. She buried her face into his neck and clung to him.

  “Mlass Gaia was mad at me,” Angie said.

  “Gaia’s hard on me, too,” he said. “What are we supposed to do? We still like her.”

  Jack leaned near to Gaia and spoke confidentially. “Angie’s got a little crush.”

  “I’d never guess,” Gaia said, laughing. She scooped up Maya in her arms. “Maya, say hello to our brothers. I don’t know them very well myself yet, but Jack seems very funny and deep, and Pyrho likes to blow up things,” she said. She realized the four of them, siblings, were together for the first time. It was strange, and delightful, and when Jack did a jogging thing with his eyebrows that was exactly the sort of thing her father used to do, Gaia felt both loss and joy mix in her heart.

  “Hello, Maya,” Pyrho said politely.

  Jack slung an arm around Pyhro’s shoulder. “Sort of makes you thirsty for a pint, doesn’t it?”

  Pyrho smiled. “You read my mind.”

  Gaia laughed, look
ing over her shoulder to Leon.

  He stood with Angie beside him, conferring with Will, and something in their demeanors put her on alert.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “We’ve just had word,” Will said. “It’s official. The Protectorat’s turned off the water.”

  Gaia looked around at her friends, sensing the wariness and fear. They were looking to her now, expectantly. She hugged Maya a little nearer.

  “Then we have no choice. It’s time to take down the wall,” Gaia said.

  * * *

  She was surprised by how little it took to persuade the people of New Sylum to mobilize. The people of Wharfton were even more enthusiastic. They still had two days’ worth of water reserved because of constant stockpiling and curtailed use, but Wharfton had endured one backward siege already and had no desire to wait helplessly through another. When people learned of how the Protectorat had tried to bargain for Gaia’s ovaries, she received an outpouring of sympathy.

  Deep memories in Wharfton recalled decades of stolen children and brutal injustice against anyone who had tried to speak out against the Enclave. Now was the time, people agreed, to put an end to it once and for all.

  Wharfton citizens with homes closest to the wall began shifting their valuables to houses farther downhill. Miners and masons focused on fortify walls and roofs against anticipated projectiles. They erected barricades between key buildings to create a protected route connecting every sector of Wharfton. Knives were sharpened and crude weapons readied.

  At nine that morning, the Enclave issued a notice via the Tvaltar advising anyone with information about a series of explosions to come forward.

  By ten, Wharfton men who worked as guards for the Enclave quietly abandoned their posts and began coming home.

  At ten-thirty, an explosion in the mycoprotein plant was audible all the way outside the wall. Gaia looked at Leon.

  “There are four more,” he said.

  “What’s the last one? The worst one? When is it set to go off?”

  But Leon wouldn’t tell her.

  “I’m committed to your approach. I get it,” she said. “You have to let me know.”

  “Do this one thing for me. Trust me,” he said.

  Gaia was on edge every second, perpetually listening for another explosion, and she could imagine that for people in the Enclave, the agony of anticipation was even worse. In a countdown with no known time limit, every second could be the last.

  At eleven, Gaia received a note from the Enclave:

  Masister Stone:

  Surrender your terrorists and anyone involved with the bombs.

  The explosions must stop immediately. We’re prepared to retaliate.

  Yours,

  Miles Quarry

  Protectorat

  She replied:

  Mabrother Protectorat:

  Until you give us the water you promised, the bombs will continue.

  Gaia Stone

  Matrarc of New Sylum

  She ordered her archers to the roofs of Wharfton, on alert for an attack, and scores of Wharfton people armed themselves with knifes and axes, ready to defend their families.

  At noon, the Protectorat sent another message via the Tvaltar inviting anyone loyal to the Enclave to enter promptly through the south gate, ensuring that they would find shelter and hospitality within the walls. No one accepted the offer.

  At twelve-thirty, electricity to the Tvaltar was cut off, suspending further communiqués. The south gate was closed and barricaded. The guards were tripled along the top of the wall, and their rifles gleamed in the sun.

  The siege was on.

  CHAPTER 19

  siege

  NERVES FRAYED TO THE snapping point as people below the wall waited for the first attack. A sense of barely contained chaos and slow-burning fury ran through the pockets of defenders, with messengers darting behind the line of barricades. Farmers, craftsmen, and merchants were now all turned into warriors. As an hour passed, and then another, Gaia refined her rebels’ organization. Decisively, she appointed leaders from each of the six sectors outside the wall, and told them to appoint neighborhood leaders from within their sectors, so that systems of communication and command were established. No one was too young or weak to help in some way. Chaos gave way to dogged determination as thousands of people united around one common goal: end the oppression of the Enclave, once and for all.

  “Why doesn’t he attack?” she asked Leon that evening. They had turned the Tvaltar into command central, and from the steps, she examined the Enclave guards, face by face, through binoculars.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure he wants to,” Leon said. “He must be talking to Genevieve or Rhodeski.”

  “He knows he just has to wait until we’re out of water,” Derek said. “It was like this before, too. He can wait forever.”

  She lowered the binoculars. “Not this time,” she said.

  Gaia had a wall to blow up.

  She was guided by Pyrho’s advice that they focus on three points in the wall that were naturally primed for the most damage: the irrigation pipe; the now plugged smuggler’s hole that Gaia had crawled through long before, when she’d first snuck into the Enclave; and the south gate itself. Pyrho used ammonium nitrate from the agricultural fertilizer to concoct the explosives, working with precise, unhurried care into the evening.

  Wharfton gradually lay in darkness. The few streetlights that normally burned in Wharfton failed to come on, and archers shot out the floodlights that illuminated the wall. Inside the cavernous Tvaltar, torches had been lit along the walls, and down the length of the sloping floor, swarms of Wharfton and New Sylum people were working together to bolster their arms and refine their defense strategies. The rows of benches had been cleared to the sides, and the screen loomed as a lifeless square of shiny gray on the back wall.

  “The explosives are ready whenever you want them to blow,” Pyrho said at last.

  Gaia was poring over a map of the Enclave with Leon and a dozen other leaders. She straightened at Pyrho’s announcement, and found Myrna standing beside him.

  “People are going to get hurt,” Myrna said. “It’s not too late to think this through.”

  “I have thought it through,” Gaia said.

  “Think again,” Myrna said.

  Gaia looked around the packed room at the eager, focused faces in the flickering torchlight. They wanted this. They were willing to take the risks, and Gaia was their leader. She owed them.

  “You were a midwife once. Remember?” Myrna said.

  “I still am,” Gaia said.

  “Are you? Think what you’re doing.”

  For too many years, the people of Wharfton had suffered the domination of the Enclave, and New Sylum had faced a bitter welcome. Yet even so, Gaia could still stop the machine if she chose.

  Gaia slowly backed away from the table.

  “No,” Leon said quietly. His splinted arm was in a sling now, useless across his chest. He still wore his white clothes from the Bastion, and she realized he’d never had time to change. “Don’t make this more complicated than it is,” he said. “We take the wall down, we march on the Bastion, we force the Protectorat to give us what we need.”

  “And the Protectorat orders his guards to murder us all,” Gaia said. With sudden clarity she could see it already: a bloodbath in the Square of the Bastion.

  “That’s what will happen,” Myrna said. “Make no mistake.”

  Leon reached for Gaia’s arm.

  “Myrna’s wrong. Remember,” he said. “We have allies inside. The Jacksons’ friends will side with us, and so will the parents of the advanced children, and the advanced children themselves. They won’t let the Protectorat mow us down.”

  “They’re cowards,” Myrna said. “They’ll be afraid for their own families. They’ll want nothing to do with your violence. It’s too easy for the Enclave to hunt them down and take them out, one by one, after you fail. They know that.”
<
br />   “Could you two quit arguing?” Gaia said. “Just wait.”

  A silence grew around them, and Gaia realized that people had turned to listen. She had to think, to weigh the possibilities. Her gaze fell on Leon’s broken arm, and she had a sharp premonition that he would be the first one killed. How was he supposed to fight with one arm? She could be leading him, leading all of them, to their deaths.

  She looked around the table to the people she most depended on for counsel: Leon, Will, Peter, Dinah, Derek, Norris, Bill, Myrna, Jack, and now Pyrho. The other clan leaders were present, too, and Malachai with the excrims, and more friends from Wharfton and New Sylum. Each face caught at her heart as she imagined endangering them.

  “We can’t go in fighting,” Gaia said. She spoke up with new confidence. “We have to change our plans. If we go in attacking, everyone will turn against us. They’ll side with the Protectorat. They’ll try to protect themselves and their homes and kill us in the process. We would do the same thing if they came down here on the attack.”

  The others shifted, talking in low voices, but she could see it clearly. The Protectorat was just aching for an excuse to kill them all. Since he controlled the guard, he would order them to start shooting before any unarmed citizens could speak up on behalf of the rebels.

  “I knew this before,” she said. “How could I forget? Our bows and arrows are nothing against their rifles. I can’t lead us on a suicide mission.”

  “Then what do you want to do?” Peter asked. “We have to decide. Everyone’s ready to go.”

  “We’ve been cut off from water before,” Derek said, stepping forward. “It’s only going to get worse from this point, not better. We have to act now, not tomorrow or the next day.”

  She scanned her gaze over the crowd. The Tvaltar held four hundred people, but there were thousands more outside.

  “Come outside with me,” she said. “I need to talk to everyone. As many as I can.”

  “What are you doing?” Leon asked, his voice low.

  “The best I can,” she said. “Just come.”

  Turning, she wound her way up the slanted floor and through the foyer to the outer steps of the Tvaltar. Leon and her other friends ranged behind her as she stopped before the central door and looked out over the quad. It was eerily familiar, the scene of upturned faces in the torchlight. More and more people were shifting into the confines of the quad, where an ancient mesquite tree thrust up its dark limbs toward the night sky. In the green commons of Sylum, when she’d faced a similar crowd before, she’d been fighting for justice within her society. Now she was seeking justice against a force far greater than all of New Sylum and Wharfton combined.