Disgust rolled through Ren’s stomach as he thought about those prisoners. He wanted to write an exposé to uncover what they had gone through, but that would mean exposing himself as the Viper to Marty. And he wasn’t ready for that.
“How did the San Francisco cell get this intel in the first place?” Ren asked.
Marty pulled her lips together. “We have a source who goes by Bluefin working at Alcatraz as a nurse.”
“Why would she want to help the Resistance?”
“Numerous reasons, but she ultimately turned because her fiancé is biracial like you, although he’s Korean and Latino. His parents have worked for Bluefin’s family for decades, so they’ve known each other since they were kids. Bluefin’s mom doesn’t know about her engagement, though. Bluefin would get disowned for that.”
“Of course she would,” said Ren. His reply came out more harshly than he intended, but it was a sore subject for him. Racism had always existed in America, and it had carried on under the Empire’s rule. Ren’s own parents had lost friends when they got married, and Ren had learned early on that there were people who’d always scrunch their noses at him simply because of who he was. When he first realized that as a kid, he had buried his face in his pillow and cried. Now it just made him mad. He had published an essay about it, too — Even in the old United States, some Americans were more free than others — and nothing had felt so cathartic.
“Tell me more about these Anomaly prisoners,” he said, guiding the topic back on track. “I’m guessing the Resistance wants to do something about them.”
Marty rewarded his observation with a wide grin, revealing two dimples on her cheeks. “We need them fighting for the Resistance, and that means breaking them out of Alcatraz.”
Ren choked. “You’re going to do what?”
“You heard me. We’re going to get those prisoners out of Alcatraz. Many of them were Resistance members. They’re our people.”
A new round of questions popped into Ren’s head and were ready to leap out of his mouth, but that’s when someone knocked on the door downstairs. The nurse was here.
“We’ll talk more after Serrano leaves,” Marty said, rising up to get the door. She left before Ren could reply, leaving him with more questions than he had started with. How exactly did the Resistance plan on breaking into Alcatraz and freeing the prisoners? With what army?
Mr. Cabot moaned on the sofa, and Ren quickly grabbed his father’s uninjured hand. His questions would have to wait.
“Ren?” Mr. Cabot coughed.
“I’m here, Dad, and Serrano is downstairs,” Ren said quietly. He squeezed his dad’s fingers. “We’re going to get you patched up.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to worry.”
Ren needed to let his dad rest, but his lips disobeyed him. He had to ask. “What were you doing with Marty tonight? I thought you were done with the Resistance.”
“I was but …” Mr. Cabot’s eyes fluttered open, then closed. He was beginning to go under again. “You need to stay out of this. It’s too dangerous. You have to promise …”
As Mr. Cabot slipped back to sleep, footsteps came up the stairs and Ren let his hand drop to his side, but he kept his eyes on his father. There was so much unsaid between them.
“What aren’t you telling me, Dad?” Ren whispered.
At Serrano’s arrival, Ren hovered in the shadows to let her do her work. He watched as she plunked down next to her patient and tackled his injury with silent efficiency. Serrano worked as a nurse in the town’s health clinic, and she applied her experience here, assessing Mr. Cabot’s hand before cleaning it again and stitching it together. Ren slunk into the kitchen when she got out her needle and thread, but Marty sat by the nurse’s side, asking questions about what kind of needle she was using and how to stave off infection.
When she was finished, Serrano injected another painkiller into her patient and mummified Mr. Cabot’s hand in a new layer of gauze but never asked what had happened to him — and Marty didn’t offer her any information. Ren got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time Marty had placed a call to the nurse in the middle of the night.
Within an hour of her arrival, Serrano was done. She handed Ren a bag of antibiotics and told him she’d call to check in tomorrow. Ren tried to pay her, but Marty nudged him aside and gave Serrano the contents of her wallet, which was no small amount.
“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Millie,” said Marty dryly.
Serrano tucked the cash in her shoe and nodded. “I’m sure I’ll see you again soon. I can let myself out.”
Once they were alone again, Marty pulled a blanket over her uncle and headed into the kitchen, gesturing for Ren to come with her. “I’ll make us some tea and we can finish talking. I think I saw a few bags of peppermint the last time I was here.”
Ren couldn’t even think about tea right now. “What about my dad? We’ll just leave him on the couch?”
Marty stopped rummaging through the cabinets and glanced at him. “We’ll be a few steps away if he needs us. Serrano is the best nurse in town, too. She wouldn’t have left if she thought Uncle Paul was in any danger.”
As she retrieved the teabags and filled the kettle, Ren adjusted his father’s blanket. His dad looked pale and clammy, and Ren doubted that he was in the clear. There was always the chance of a fever or an infection.
“He’s going to be okay, Ren,” Marty said from the kitchen.
Ren only wished that he could share her certainty.
“Come on and drink some tea. We still have a lot to talk about. Where did we leave off?” Marty said.
Dragging himself to the kitchen, Ren rubbed his eyes. He was dead tired, but he had to hear the rest of what Marty had to say and find out what his father was hiding from him. “You were talking about breaking into Alcatraz.”
“That’s right.” Marty leaned against the counter, crossing her arms, while the kettle heated up. “The plan is already in place. Our objective is to infiltrate the prison and free all of the prisoners there, not only the fifteen Anomalies. We can’t let the Empire continue to use them as lab rats.”
Ren was in full agreement with that. Freeing the Alcatraz prisoners might not have been a practical idea — the manpower and resources required would be immense — but human experimentation was horrific. His fingers itched for the feel of his typewriter, ready to hammer out a new essay about this very topic. The public deserved to know what the Empire was doing.
Marty wasn’t finished. “If we can pull this off, those Anomaly prisoners will be a huge boost to the Resistance. Bluefin has said that one of them can go invisible and walk through walls. Another can make fog so thick that you won’t be able to see your own hands in front of your face. Think about what that could mean.”
Ren didn’t have to get too creative to understand what she was implying. American Anomalies were few and far between, not to mention illegal. They were usually children of a Ronin soldier and an American civilian — sometimes these relations were consensual, other times not — and they were taken into custody as soon as they manifested their powers. That was why the Empire required every American child to attend school until the fifth grade. It wasn’t to provide a free education, but to keep an eye on illegal Anomalies. Those who managed to hide their powers usually had subtle abilities like hyperflexible joints or underwater breathing.
“How can you be sure that these prisoners will fight for you, though?” asked Ren, unable to stop himself from plucking at the mission details. “What if they’ve been brainwashed?”
The kettle began to whistle, and Marty moved fast to turn off the burner and pour the boiling water into the awaiting mugs. “It’s a risk we have to take, but it’ll be worth it even if a few of the Anomaly prisoners are stable enough to join us. They could use their invisibility to spy or create a huge blanket of fog to cause chaos at a place like the Fortress.” Marty had obviously thought this through, and she wasn’t going to be swayed. “Bu
t you have to remember the bigger picture, too. You know how the Viper keeps harping on us to not be complacent?”
Ren’s face warmed, and he murmured a quick “I guess.”
“What if we blew the whistle on the Alcatraz experiments? That could really wake people up. We could have a real revolution on our hands like what has happened out east.”
Marty’s eyes glinted in the kitchen lights, and Ren’s skin shivered from what she said. The rebels could have new legs to stand on if they had widespread public support.
But one big question still loomed between Ren and his cousin.
“You still haven’t told me how my dad factors into all of this,” he said.
Marty took a tentative sip of her tea. “I’m getting to that. The Resistance knows that it won’t be easy landing on Alcatraz because it’s one of the most guarded places in the world. The waters surrounding the island are loaded with bombs that will go off unless your ship has proper clearance.”
“Let me guess,” Ren said grimly. “Getting clearance isn’t easy.”
“Exactly. Helicopters and planes are barred from the prison’s airspace, which means the only way in and out is by sea. Any ship approaching the prison has to provide Alcatraz’s security team with the correct clearance code, which is randomly generated and changes hourly. You get two tries to give the code, and if you’re wrong both times? Kaboom.”
Ren winced at that image as he warmed his hands on his mug. “Then how do you get around that?”
“Bluefin shared an interesting bit of information.” Marty took a sloppy sip of tea. “Because Alcatraz is so protected, it’s also designated as a safe house for Crown Prince Katsura. Let’s say that the Fortress gets attacked and the crown prince needs to get on the Rock as soon as possible. The Empire has an exit plan in case that happens — the crown prince will board a special armored boat headed for Alcatraz. When it nears the prison, the crown prince can bypass the clearance code by using a digital fingerprint and retina scanner on board the ship, which will shut off the bombs and give him access to the island.”
“So you need a copy of his fingerprints and retinas,” Ren thought aloud.
“No, we need the crown prince himself. The scanner requires a living, breathing human being.”
Ren balked. “The Resistance is going to kidnap the crown prince?”
“He’s too heavily guarded. But” — a smirk inched up Marty’s face as she set down her mug — “his family members would make slightly easier targets. Both his wife and daughter can access any safe house with the proper fingerprint and retina scanners, too. Granted, his wife has been placed under tighter protection since the Empire announced her pregnancy.”
“Which leaves Aiko,” Ren said, the realization dawning on him. She was the crown prince’s only child, called Aiko by her family and given the formal title Princess Teru. She would never inherit the throne because she was a girl, and so the emperor had looked into changing the succession laws — until Aiko’s mother discovered that she was carrying a baby boy. “You’re going to kidnap her instead of her father?”
“That’s the plan. The Resistance already bought a military-grade fingerprint and retina scanner. The royal family has been using them for years, and every so often one of them pops up on the black market. Anyway, this is how we’ve plotted things out: We kidnap Aiko from the Fortress, we smuggle her on board a stolen Coast Guard ship that the San Francisco cell has been refitting, and we use our stolen scanner to get onto Alcatraz.”
Ren knew that would be very risky, but it just might work. The tough part would be getting their hands on Aiko herself. She lived a cocooned life inside the Fortress; Ren didn’t know much about her aside from what he had read in the state newspapers, which fawned over her ink-black hair that was as thick as a painter’s brush and her pale skin that had been perfectly preserved underneath a layer of sunscreen. The society columnists also loved chattering about her odd fascination with French art and murmuring about her potential suitors now that she had turned seventeen. Soon, she would be expected to fulfill her female duties — to marry, to bear children, and to raise a new generation that would carry on the imperial line.
“This is where your dad finally comes in,” Marty announced, and Ren almost knocked over his tea. “We’re going to kidnap Aiko on the night of the Joint Prosperity Ball. Security will be tighter, but the soldiers’ attention will be splintered among all of the dignitaries they have to keep safe. We have two accomplices already embedded in the Fortress who will carry out the kidnapping — code names Beetle and Bird. Basically, they’ll slip Aiko a drug that will give her flu-like symptoms and knock her unconscious for a few hours. Once she’s asleep, Beetle will head up to the royal apartment with a laundry cart to clean up after Aiko’s ‘flu’ — with Bird hiding inside that cart. From there, Bird will smuggle the princess down the laundry chute. We’re almost ready to install a secret pulley system in the chute to bring Aiko safely from the twelfth-floor penthouse and out to the getaway car.”
As Marty gulped down her tea, Ren tried to wrap his head around the details she had spat out at him. There was one puzzle piece missing. “Again, what was my dad’s role in all of this?”
Marty wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You know that drug I mentioned that’ll knock Aiko out? It’s a liquid chemical compound that has to be absorbed through skin. That means I need someone inside the Fortress who will have access to Aiko’s wardrobe — and her outfits will probably remain in the sewing room for her last-minute fittings right before the ball.”
Finally, everything clicked into place. “You needed a tailor.”
“Bingo. I asked Beetle to pull some strings to get Uncle Paul a job interview, and I was talking everything over with your dad tonight in one of our safe houses.” Marty looked over to the couch where Mr. Cabot lay sleeping. She pressed her lips together and sighed. “We were almost finished when some of my team members returned from a supply run. They had a box of explosives with them and I told them to be careful, but one of the sticks of dynamite went off. Most of us got out with scrapes and bruises, but a piece of shrapnel hit your dad’s hand.”
So that was what had happened. Ren digested this information slowly, but something still didn’t add up for him. “How did you convince my dad to go along with this mission in the first place? Ever since my mom died, he hasn’t wanted anything to do with the Resistance.”
“Uncle Paul is a rebel through and through,” Marty said a little too quickly.
Ren wasn’t buying this, but before he could press her on it, she plowed onward.
“Listen,” Marty said. “Your dad is out for this mission. There’s no way he’ll get hired at the Fortress with his hand bandaged up. That means I need to find a replacement.”
Seconds passed before Ren understood what she was saying. “You want me to take his place?”
“You’re the only who has the experience, and you’re someone I can trust. Plus, the visitor’s pass that the Fortress sent to your dad only says ‘Paul Cabot.’ There’s no Senior or Junior. That’s your in.”
Ren couldn’t believe that she was asking this of him. Marty had always treated him like her baby cousin, but she was going to take a chance on him to pull off one of the biggest missions in Resistance history. He wanted to say yes, and yet he hesitated.
Marty seemed to catch what he was thinking. “I’ll take care of your dad if you get hired at the Fortress. I’ll even pay Serrano to stop by every day. As for the shop, you’ll survive closing it for a week. You’ll get paid by the Fortress, and the Resistance can cover your rent next month.”
Ren glanced over at his father. Mr. Cabot’s wounds may have been cleaned and dressed, but there was a chance of an infection — or worse. He knew Marty would take good care of his dad, but he wished he had a little time to think this over.
Marty, however, didn’t have any minutes to spare. “Look, the interview is tomorrow morning, and the Fortress is expecting a ‘Paul Cabot.’ I nee
d you.” She pushed her empty mug aside and leaned toward Ren from across the table. “You’re right that your dad wanted nothing to do with the Resistance. I approached him about this mission a couple of months ago, but his answer was always no. I even started lining up other candidates — but that was before I got a piece of intel that made Uncle Paul change his mind.”
Ren’s palms went damp with sweat. The room seemed to shrink around them, narrowing upon Ren’s ears and Marty’s next words. “What sort of intel?”
“A partial prisoner list from Alcatraz. Only the prisoners’ initials were listed, along with a few personal details, and one in particular got my attention.” Marty drummed her fingers on her thigh. She looked nervous as she repeated what she had seen. “Female. Early forties. Gray hair, about five feet six. Ethnicity: Chinese. Admitted five years ago.” Her eyes climbed upward to meet Ren’s. “Her initials were J.T.”
Ren felt kicked in the gut. He pushed away from the table. “It can’t be her.”
“That was my reaction, too, but what if it is?” She let her question hang in the air between them, wedging a hope into Ren’s heart.
“I watched my mother die. I saw the sword go into her stomach. She couldn’t have survived that.”
“Probably not, but the possibility was enough for your dad to agree to this mission.”
Ren’s face plummeted into his hands. His mother was gone. Whoever this “J.T.” was, it couldn’t have been Jenny Tsai. She died five years ago, and Ren had mourned her ever since.
But what if?
Ren didn’t want to get his hopes up, but he couldn’t ignore what Marty had told him.
If his mother was alive, if she had become a prisoner at Alcatraz, if all of these “ifs” turned out to be true — then how could he turn this mission down?
Ren looked over his shoulder at his dad, wanting to hug him and shake him at the same time. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
Live in Infamy Page 5
