by Allen Zadoff
I do my best to keep up with him, making sure I drink two sips for his every one, keeping myself hydrated as limited defense against my exhaustion.
We hike for another hour before he pauses at a place where the trail splits in two directions. He takes a moment to judge both ways, then confidently moves to the left.
I’m watching the whole time, doing my best to memorize terrain, not knowing whether I’ll need to get back home alone.
Or get away from him.
We come out onto a clearing on the ridge, open to the sky.
It’s midafternoon now, but the elevation has caused the temperature to drop several degrees.
Francisco stops by a large tree with a small satellite dish about halfway up hidden among the branches.
“That’s the satellite uplink,” he says. “You want to spot me?”
“I can do that,” I say.
“I’m going to clip us together,” he says.
He snaps a rope into a carabiner on his belt, knotting one end, then does the same on my belt. He hands me the section of rope.
“I can trust you, right?” he says.
“Trust me not to throw you off the mountain?”
“Trust you to hang on if I fall.”
“You can trust me,” I say.
I’ve got no reason to harm Francisco. Not unless he gives me one.
He climbs halfway up the tree, makes a few adjustments on the satellite uplink, then climbs down without incident.
“Look there,” he says.
I turn, and I can see the entire basin beneath us, the encampment laid out like toy buildings, and the road beyond that winds up the mountain and disappears out of sight.
It’s barely been three days since I came to this place. It feels like a lifetime.
“What do you think of our home?” Francisco asks.
“It looks small from up here.”
“It’s small, but it’s ours. How many people can say they have something like that in their lives?”
He steps closer to the edge, inadvertently kicking a stone that rolls for half a meter, then falls off the edge.
“You can step out farther,” he says, tugging lightly at the rope on his belt. “I’ve got you.”
I check to be sure we’re still clipped together.
I take him up on his offer, stepping forward. The ledge is narrower than it first appeared, dropping off suddenly into nothing.
I stand at the very edge. I think back to a time just a few days ago at the sports camp in Vermont. I stood at the edge of a cliff. With Peter watching, I took the plunge into the cool water below.
But there is no water here. Instead there are a thousand meters of rugged cliff face.
A single wrong step and I would plunge off the side. If Francisco is strong enough, he could stop my fall. If not, we’d both go down together.
“You could have taken anyone up here with you,” I say.
“But I chose you,” he says.
“Why is that?”
He looks out over the valley. “Perspective,” he says. “Sometimes you need to see what you’re up against to understand who you really are.”
“What are you up against?”
“Not just me, Daniel. Us.”
He points to the vista in front of us, a small valley surrounded by mountains on all sides.
“We’re up against the world,” he says.
“It looks like these mountains will keep out the world.”
“For a time maybe. Not forever.”
I track his position behind me, looking for any indication of a move toward me, an adjustment of his body that might portend danger to me.
“You haven’t been at Liberty long, have you?” I say.
“What makes you say that?”
“The way Lee spoke to you the other night. He talked to you like you were an outsider.”
“He’s envious of my position with his father. But yes, I’m relatively new. And I rose fast.”
“You’re new, but you call this place your home?”
“Home is a choice,” he says. “We’re home when we decide we’re home.”
I hear a click behind me. I look back and see that Francisco has unclipped his end of the rope from his belt. That means I’m alone on the edge, untethered.
The wind whips up, strong enough that I have to lean back to steady myself.
Francisco drops the end of the rope on the ground and without a word, he turns and heads back up the trail into the forest.
Just before he disappears, he motions for me to follow him.
I unclip the rope and coil it around my arm.
Then I follow.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
FRANCISCO LEADS ME DEEPER INTO THE FOREST.
We walk for ten minutes or so in silence, when suddenly he stops.
“Where are we?” I say.
“Someplace we can talk,” he says simply.
The area is deep shadow, the foliage blocking out all but individual beams of sunlight. I look around us, but I see no markings, nothing to distinguish this place from any other.
“It’s a long way to come for a conversation.”
“I wanted to talk to you outside of Liberty, away from the electronics, the distractions, everything.”
Francisco squats and picks up a pinecone. He peels it with a fingernail.
He says, “Someone sent you to Camp Liberty.”
He says it simply, like it’s a fact he already knows.
“I was invited,” I say.
“I don’t think so.”
I subtly edge backward, working to create enough distance to maximize my options.
“You’re right,” I say, going with him rather than resisting. “My father sent me. He wanted me to have the experience.”
“Not your father.”
“Who, then?”
Francisco drops his hands to his sides. The gesture might appear casual to the outside observer—a relaxing of the shoulders, a lowering of the arms with palms open and turned out toward me—but it’s more than it seems.
Because as he does it, his energy changes entirely.
“You were sent here by the same people who sent me,” he says.
I see his power, his training. I see what he’s capable of, and what he’s been hiding.
Francisco is a Program soldier.
He is the dead soldier, very much alive.
I look at him, standing across from me, unblinking, revealing his true self.
“It was about four months ago that I came to Liberty,” he says. “I was sent as an assassin. Just like you.”
There are four meters between us. I can cover that distance in a second and a half if need be.
“If what you’re saying is true, Francisco, why did you let me into camp?”
“I knew they would send another assassin after I disappeared. The only question was how he would come.…”
He steps forward. Four meters becomes three and a half.
“And whether I would know who he was before it was too late. With Moore’s permission, I staged the recruiting event in the community center.”
“Staged it?”
“I wanted to provide an opening outside the compound where it would be easier for someone to get to Moore, and for us to get to whoever that was.”
“What about the woman who tried to kill Moore?”
“The English teacher? That was my idea, too,” Francisco says. “A test of sorts. I knew the scenario would be too tempting for a potential Program assassin. He could do nothing and see if she succeeded—”
“Or he could act like a hero and try to use that to get in with Moore.”
He smiles. “And flush himself out in the process.”
The English teacher was a trap. That’s why she was coming into camp in the van the other night. She is one of them, following orders.
I feel anger flooding my chest, along with shame at having made a mistake. I should have let the woman shoot if she was going to.
I should have kept my cover, even if it meant losing Moore.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Francisco says, like he knows what I’m feeling. “Even after it happened, I couldn’t be sure you were the one. You might have been some brave, crazy kid off the street.”
“So you brought me closer. And you watched me.”
“That’s right.”
“Quite a risk.”
“I had my reasons,” he says.
He’s not showing any aggressive intent, but I don’t trust what I’m seeing. As a Program operative, he should be able to control his surface emotions, misleading me and getting me to drop my guard.
I don’t yet know what Francisco’s trying to achieve, but I remind myself to stay sharp until I understand him better. I take long, slow, deep breaths, keeping my tired muscles oxygenated and at maximum readiness.
“When did you know?” I say.
“For sure? Not until this morning during the defense drill.”
“Who else knows?”
“Only Moore and I were in on the plan. We warned Lee about you in a general way, but he is easily swayed. He believed in you.”
“What about Miranda?” I say.
His eyes widen slightly.
“Does that matter to you?” he asks.
I think of her in my room the other night, standing naked in front of me. Was it all a trick to confuse me and get me to reveal myself? The idea is upsetting to me, much more than it should be.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “And she doesn’t matter.”
He knows I’m lying. I can see it on his face.
“We left her out of it,” he says gently.
I feel relief inside. The feeling surprises me.
“You’re the only one who knows, then. You and Moore.”
“That’s right.”
“Did you bring me out here to kill me?”
“I brought you here to talk to you. Because as I got to know you, Daniel, I saw something in you that I didn’t expect.”
“What’s that?”
“Potential.”
He drops the pinecone at his feet. I keep my attention on his center mass, ready to defend myself against a strike.
But he doesn’t strike.
Instead he tells me a story.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
“MY NAME IS FRANCISCO GONZALEZ,” HE SAYS.
“I am the son of a Mexican tycoon. My father made his fortune in banking. I had a blessed life because of the family I was born into and the natural talent God gave me. I was a soccer player, recruited to the Cruz Azul Youth Academy before the sixth grade. I was away and training when the accident happened. My parents died in a private plane crash. Pilot error, the authorities called it.”
Pilot error. He says the phrase like it’s an insult.
“You don’t believe it was an accident?” I ask.
“I lost my parents, and then The Program came for me. Would you believe it?”
“It’s hard to know what to believe when The Program is involved.”
“True,” he says. “The Program told me they were offering me a new life. I was lost after my parents died, and so I agreed. I chose to go with them, but I didn’t know what I was signing up for. None of us do.”
I remember Mother in a room of the training house after my parents died. I remember her talking to me for the first time, giving me a choice between life and death.
“How old were you when they came for you?” Francisco asks.
“Twelve.”
“Do you think a twelve-year-old should be asked to make a choice like that?”
Life or death. Not much of a choice.
“What does it matter now?” I say. “It’s over and done.”
“I’m not blaming you,” he says. “We all made the same choice in the same situation.”
“We? You mean there are more of us?” I say.
“There are a few.”
“Before this mission, I only knew about two. Me and the one who brought me in.”
“Who was that?” he says.
“He has many names. But I know him as Mike.”
“Mike,” Francisco says. His face goes pale. “I thought he would be the one they’d send for me.”
“You know him?”
He nods.
“If you know him, then you would have seen him coming,” I say.
“Maybe. You never know with Mike.”
“You’re afraid of him,” I say, surprised.
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m not afraid of anyone.”
“That’s what you believe,” he says.
“Because it’s true.”
He smiles and shakes his head. I don’t like the look on his face.
“I’m afraid of Mike for good reasons,” Francisco says. “I’m afraid because he is Alpha.”
“Alpha?”
“The first. The Program began with him.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m Beta.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. The Program has been cloaked in mystery to me, revealing only what they felt I needed to know.
The curiosity inside me is overwhelming.
“What am I?” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
“You don’t know, do you?”
I shake my head.
“I can’t say for sure,” he says. “But looking at you, I’d say you’re Epsilon.”
Epsilon. The fifth letter of the Greek alphabet.
I sort the information Francisco is giving me. I see the schematic in my head:
Mike Alpha
Francisco Beta
? Gamma
? Delta
Me Epsilon
“There are five of us,” I say.
“Maybe more,” he says, “but five that I know about.”
“Mike is the oldest.”
“And you’re the youngest.”
“What happens to us after?” I say.
“You’ve thought about it, too,” he says.
I have avoided these questions and the dangerous places they can take me in my mind, but talking with Francisco, the questions come rushing to the surface:
What happens when we reach an age where we no longer fit in? What happens when we can’t pass for kids anymore?
What happens to a teen assassin who is no longer a teen?
Francisco says, “I don’t know what happens, because nobody has aged out yet. Mike is the closest, but he’s found a niche for himself.”
“A niche?”
“Recruiter. I’m next in line, but I wasn’t going to wait around to find out what happens. Not when there are better options.”
Camp Liberty. Francisco’s last assignment turned into his way out.
“I have a question for you,” Francisco says. “What was your exact assignment here?”
“Moore,” I say.
He swallows hard. “What about me?” he says.
I shake my head. “They thought you were dead. They didn’t send me for you; they sent me because of you. Because you lost the mission.”
An expression of pain crosses his face. He stands and rubs his forehead, pressing at the sides of his temples.
He is emotional, much more than I would expect for someone with his training. It makes me wonder about him, gives me some clue into his strengths and weaknesses.
“So you’re my replacement?” he says.
“That’s right.”
He laughs, a loud laugh that echoes through the forest.
“That’s fucking great,” he says. “I went off the grid and they couldn’t figure out how or why, so they told you I was dead, right?”
“They had to assume you were dead,” I say. “What else could you be?”
He laughs again.
“Don’t you see? I confused the hell out of them,” he says. “Their soldier turned against them. It’s so inconceivable they could only assume I was dead. I would pay to have seen Mother’s face after I d
ropped off the grid.”
“How did you go off the grid without them knowing?” I say.
“I destroyed my phone,” he says. He steps toward me, his voice dropping to an intense whisper. “And something else.”
“What else?”
He looks around the woods to check that we’re still alone, and then he unbuttons his shirt, slips one arm out of the long flannel. It’s afternoon now, and the woods are cast in a golden glow. He runs his fingers down his arm, tracing something there.
I step closer, squinting until I see them, cut marks running up and down his arms and across his chest as if he were attacked by an animal. Some are scarred over, others are still healing.
The flannel shirt. He wears it to hide the marks.
“It took me a while, but I found it,” he says.
“Found what?”
“The Program. It’s inside us.”
He points to one particular scar on his bicep, near the shoulder joint.
“You’re implanted, too,” he says.
“Implanted?”
“They put a chip inside you,” he says.
I flash back to the house where I was trained. I try to remember any medical procedures, surgeries, something invasive enough to have been an implantation surgery.
I don’t remember anything like that.
“What kind of a chip?” I say, not believing, but wanting to keep him talking.
“It’s a neurosuppressor,” he says. “You already know what it does.”
“How would I know?”
“Because you’ve felt it,” he says. “It takes away your fear.”
I look at Francisco standing without his shirt on, a ghostly glow around him.
I am alone on a mountain with someone trained just like me, someone who is my enemy, miles from help or support.
I should be afraid, but I am not.
I’m never afraid.
Mission after mission, through dangerous, near-death situations, I do not get afraid. I only have moments of fear that fade as soon as they arise.
“Let’s say you actually found a chip. How would you know what it did? Did they tell you?”
“Never,” he says. “They’re not going to tell us we’re the subjects of an experiment. I know what the chip does because I took it out. Then everything became clear. It’s like an emotional throttle. You start to feel fear, and it clamps down, sends a signal to your brain that takes the edge off. This is why I could go into any situation, no matter how dangerous, and still function. I could think clearly no matter what was going on around me.”
