“Yes. Jonas.”
“Is he still alive?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did he start the militia after The Water Initiative left town?” Lockland asked.
“No.”
“So, the militia was already active before The Water Initiative?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did your group make a pact with the former government about The Water Initiative?” Case asked.
“We have become the government,” Reed answered.
That couldn’t be completely true, because Claire had worked for the government for years and hadn’t known about the Bureau of Truth until recently. She would’ve known if the entire government was being secretly run by a militia down South. That information would’ve bubbled to the surface at some point.
“Our questions are too broad,” I said. “We need to ask him specific questions in order to gain the right information. There’s a good chance Reed doesn’t know everything. He was clearly born into it, and his dad might’ve played a prominent role, but he might not hold the answers.”
“He has enough in his brain to give us a good idea,” Lockland said. “The Flotilla leaving seems to have been a turning point for this group. But I agree, our questions need to be more focused.” Lockland rearranged his chair, but not without making a face. We needed to get him back into the medi-pod as soon as possible. “What is the mission of the Bureau of Truth?”
“To eradicate.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Eradication was contrary to what the government was supposed to do for its people. “To eradicate whom?” I asked.
“Any and all who stand in our way,” Reed answered.
In an effort to redirect, I asked, “Other than to kill everyone you don’t like, what is the Bureau of Truth’s mission?”
“To control the city and repopulate it.”
“Why are the people here defective?” I asked.
“They do not follow our ways.”
“What are the ways of militia S17?” Case asked.
“We are the strongest and smartest. We alone know what lies ahead.”
“What lies ahead?” Darby asked.
“Salvation.”
A clearer picture was beginning to emerge. According to what I knew of history, several groups after the dark days had believed that the meteor strike was delivered as divine punishment for the human inhabitants of Earth. That the people had sinned and had somehow deserved their fate. These groups had billed it as a mass cleansing. I’d never understood how anyone could believe such a thing, and it surprised me that sixty years later, people were still embracing such a notion.
I got off my chair, unable to sit still any longer. “So, once you cleanse the population of defective humans and bring in your own people, the true believers of your cause, you will achieve salvation?”
“Once the Flotilla returns, we will merge in a rebirth, ushering this world into a new era. Only then will we achieve salvation.”
“And this is a cause worth dying for?” Case asked.
“Of course,” Reed answered.
“What does the world look like once salvation is achieved?” Lockland asked.
“The sun will shine again, the water will recede, vegetation will return, animals will thrive and multiply. We will be in the good graces of the Spirit Advisor once again.” His tone was absolute. He believed what he was saying with his entire being.
I glanced around the group. “It seems Reed’s militia has something in common with the Sun Optimists.” I met Case’s gaze, which was stony. “If they follow the rules, amass an army, hoard resources, and kill off all the lowly deviants who don’t buy into their way of thinking, the sun will shine again, and there will be rebirth and salvation. Please correct me if I’m on the wrong track.”
“That’s what he is saying, on a basic level,” Lockland replied. “Or at least that’s how it started more than thirty years ago. But it would be foolish not to factor in power, greed, and the inherent quest to control one’s destiny. That’s at the root of this. The original concept might’ve started from a place of ideological intent—that if they adhered to some strict rules, they could alter the world for the better, and that’s certainly what they regurgitate to their followers. But over the years, based on what you and Case saw firsthand down South, it’s morphed into something darker. After the meteor strike, don’t forget, many small factions formed, including the Sun Optimists. They believe that they will be blessed with a change in our environment if they work hard enough for it. But as far as I know, it never turned darker than that. Then there are the Iron Worshipers, who feel the world has been blessed by iron and refuse anything not made from their sacred material. Again, I don’t believe they’ve developed a quest to give birth to a new race. So, as this Bureau of Truth group might have started similarly, it’s changed dramatically over the years, likely only holding on to a few of the tenets of the original mission. The rest is made up of power and greed.”
“Don’t forget the Meteor Fellowship,” Bender grunted. “They believe we’re being punished, left here to rot in this hellscape for the sins our ancestors committed, and actively hope we get wiped out by another meteor.” He shook his head. The shared feeling by all of us when we thought of such groups and their crazy belief systems. “But overall they’re harmless. Definitely not trying to wipe out the population. After all, why bother to do something a meteor can take care of in a few seconds?”
I felt like pacing, so in an effort to keep still, I leaned my shoulder against the wall. Since we weren’t asking questions, Reed remained quiet. “I realize groups like those exist,” I said. “But they’ve always included a very small segment of our population. Isolated belief systems haven’t gained traction, for the most part, because their followers are considered loonies that should know better but somehow don’t. So somehow, this Bureau of Truth group managed to gain incredible traction, infiltrating the government with the agenda to kill the masses, save for their followers, and have kept it a secret for thirty years. It’s hard for me to believe something like that could’ve grown to wield so much control.”
“Once you understand the inner workings of such a group,” Case said, “it’s not that hard to conceive it could happen.”
I raised my eyebrows in his direction. “Please explain,” I encouraged.
“Well,” Case said, “if the person they decided to follow was incredibly charismatic and had a solid vision, you’d be surprised how quickly the disenfranchised sign on. If whoever started this targeted militias and people with power to begin with, then control was easily within their grasp in a short period of time. Then, before they knew it, their followers conformed to a specific way of thinking without even realizing it.”
“How could they not realize it?” I asked.
“Because life here is desperate,” Case answered. “They want to believe. If they buy into the concept that this group will change their life for the better, and that is reinforced daily, they will continue to believe even when faced with incredible adversity.”
“At some point, you’d think they’d figure out that the group doesn’t have their best interests at heart,” I said.
Case shook his head. “Very few ever change their minds. For example, the Sun Optimist belief system was started by a man my sustainer parents described as ‘enchanting’ and ‘godlike.’ When they talked about him, their voices grew low and they became reverent. We said a prayer in his name, Gustaf Lorrey, every single night, and he’d been dead for twenty years by that time. So even then, he controlled them. If another Sun Optimist claimed tomorrow that they’d unearthed notes written by this man and that those writings stated they were supposed to jump into the sea on a specific date in the future, they would. His power hasn’t faded for them. It’s the opposite. They ache for it. They want what he promised. They’ve been conditioned for it, and they will not be persuaded otherwise.”
I pondered what Case was telling us from firsthand
experience. “So, essentially,” I said, “you’re saying there’s a possibility that whoever started the Bureau of Truth and is responsible for strengthening the S17 militia could be someone so charismatic that, even if they’ve been dead for years, their presence still motivates people like Reed and the guy I killed at the Emporium to keep doing their bidding?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Case said. “This guy”—he gestured at Reed—“was born into a group in which his father likely played a key role. It makes total sense he would be willing to die for his cause. It’s the only thing he knows. For him, there’s nothing else.”
Lockland stood on shaky legs. I made an instinctive move to help, but stopped short. It was his choice if he wanted to be up and around. “I agree with you,” Lockland told Case. “In order to keep their secret for as long as they did, they had to have been fanatical, with only a very few breaking free, like Dixon. Dixon knew what their end goal was and made it harder for them to achieve it.”
“Dixon cared about Dixon,” Case stated. “He may have killed the militia I was involved with to ultimately lessen the growing numbers of S17, but he was after their resources and nothing more. He spared me because he realized I didn’t buy into anyone else’s belief system, but mostly because he needed an ally he could control, and he chose right.” Case was admonishing himself by voicing his regret about the role he played in allowing Dixon to exercise control over him.
“Yeah, he chose right until it killed him,” I retorted, pinning Case with a look, daring him to challenge me. He’d been a young man at the time Dixon showed up. One who’d been abused for years, grateful for a way out.
“Dixon got what he deserved,” Bender said. “End of story. I don’t care if he was actively working against S17. He didn’t do enough, and it’s up to us to finish the task.”
“To do that,” I said, “we have to keep questioning this guy.” I jerked my thumb toward Reed, who seemed to be tracking our conversation, but unless he was asked a direct question, he was content to stay silent.
Lockland limped over to Reed, bracing his hand against the wall above the guy’s head. “Was Perseus Leavenworth your leader?”
Perseus Leavenworth was the very first acting president after the dark days. Our last official president, Alphonse Guerrero, had left with the Flotilla. There had been two others in between, but they’d been in office only a short time and had done nothing noteworthy. As the stories went, people had gravitated toward Perseus because he’d been gregarious and energetic. He’d led a solid initiative to try to knit the city back together, but he died only a few years into his tenure when a piece of falling debris landed on his head.
“No,” Reed answered.
“Who was your first leader?” Lockland asked.
“Brock Shannon.”
Lockland’s gaze snapped to mine. We all knew Brock Shannon. He was notorious in our short post-meteor history, being the first person tried for murder after the dark days. He’d been accused of flaying bodies and displaying them in front of his residence for all to see, spouting gibberish about people coming back from the dead in reanimated corpses to devour the remaining population by eating their flesh.
It was said he’d lost his mind and had been killed for his crimes.
“Brock Shannon was jailed and sentenced to death for the murder of at least thirty people over fifty years ago,” Lockland said. “How can he be your leader?”
Reed shook his head. “They jailed the wrong man. Brock escaped.”
“Is Brock still alive?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Elaborate,” I ordered.
“He speaks to us through his special army.”
This was getting weirder by the second. With a single eyebrow cocked, I glanced around the group. “How many here think Brock is dead and gone and probably has been for a long time?”
Lockland made his way back to his seat. “Building on what Case was saying earlier, Brock could’ve easily been the figurehead needed to start this movement. Someone notorious and well-known. Someone who would garner specific attention. He didn’t even have to be alive. Pretending he was might’ve been enough.”
“Reed, who are the members in Brock Shannon’s special army?” I asked Reed.
“Their leader is Tillman,” he answered.
“I know who that is,” Case said. “He visited my militia a few times, and I’m fairly certain Dixon had dealings with him. He’s a mean SOB, and most of us pretended to be busy with anything we could find whenever he arrived.”
“If Dixon had dealings with him after Dixon defected from the Bureau of Truth, that complicates things,” I said. “Could you pick him out of a crowd? Do you know what he looks like?”
Instead of Case, Reed answered, “He has dark hair, cut closely, silvered with gray. He stands thirty centimeters taller than me and will shoot you if you don’t cooperate. If you step out of line, he will punish you. That punishment will cause lasting pain.”
I crossed my arms. Tillman sounded lovely. “Tillman could be the guy we’re looking for, the one who’s behind this chaos. I have to admit, it’s pretty evil genius to use someone like Brock Shannon to get a bunch of militants to listen to you. Nothing gets crazy’s attention like other crazy.”
Darby came off his chair. By the cant of his head, he’d been in deep thought, trying to puzzle everything out. “What’s still unexplained is why they waited so long,” Darby muttered. “If they had all these resources, guns, and access to tech we don’t have, like UACs that send and receive live video, why would they wait so many years to strike? Brock Shannon was executed over fifty years ago. That’s an incredibly long time for a group to wait to implement their agenda.”
I shrugged. “I agree with you. Ask Reed.”
I moved aside, and Darby took my place. “Reed, why have you waited so long to take over the city?”
“The time wasn’t right.”
“What reasons were you given for why the time wasn’t right?” Darby tried again.
“We need more people,” Reed said. “Without them, we fail, just like Tandor.”
That was an interesting tidbit. He’d just admitted the Bureau of Truth was connected to Tandor, proving our assumptions.
“Why did Tandor fail?” Darby asked.
“He wouldn’t listen,” Reed said as anger crept into his words. “We tried to control his tribe, but his group was too strong. Tillman was angry. So we made Tandor a deal. We offered him the city in exchange for his tribe.”
“Except you knew he would fail, right, Reed?” I asked. “You knew he would come up against Bender’s crew and he would fail.”
“Yes.”
“So Tillman was trying to get rid of Tandor,” I said. “Send him away from his tribe, knowing he would die, so you could gather up the people he left behind and get on with repopulating the city with your followers?”
“Yes.”
“It must’ve made Tillman mad that he couldn’t get to the scientists sooner,” I commented. “The scientists were a big prize, weren’t they? Without them, you wouldn’t have enough resources to take over the city.”
“What scientists?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
We spent the next ten minutes grilling Reed about the scientists, not believing he knew nothing about them, but in the end it was clear he had no idea who they were.
“That proves Teddy Candor, aka Tandor,” I said to the group, “managed to keep the biggest secret from the most powerful militia around. How he achieved such a thing boggles the brain, given our short interaction with him. He didn’t seem like a mastermind.”
“If Tillman knew about the scientists and the resources they have,” Darby said, “I assume things would’ve gone much differently. It’s a relief he doesn’t know.”
“Agreed. And we have to keep it that way at all costs,” I said. “It proves Tandor understood he was being played, but lucky for us, he had an abnormal amount of overconfidence in himself
, with no real idea what he’d encounter when he reached the city.”
Case shook his head. “I think it might’ve been the opposite. Tillman set Tandor up, that much is true, but I think he hoped Tandor would succeed in taking all of you down. If he had, Tillman’s agenda would’ve been much easier. From my inside source, I know Tandor had information about all of you. He was able to track your whereabouts from the beginning. The only thing he didn’t anticipate was Daze.” Case tossed a look of gratitude at the kid, who’d been quietly listening to the interrogation. Daze jutted his chin out and then promptly scuffed his feet against the ground, overcome by the sudden attention, his cheeks tinting a rosy pink. “If Daze hadn’t stolen the quantum drive, Tandor might’ve succeeded. The kid forced his hand. And if he’d been successful, Tillman would’ve taken over, because he has the Bureau of Truth behind him. If Tandor had known about the Bureau of Truth, and the scope of the S17 militia and their plans, he probably would’ve stayed down South, safe and secure with the scientists, hoarding his resources.”
“This is proving to be a complicated web of deception, each side holding back valuable information.” I nodded. “Reed’s answers still don’t explain everything, but it’s a start. Using Brock Shannon’s name took ingenuity. And to keep that story alive took even more. What we need right now is to find out for sure who’s behind it. We’re assuming it’s Tillman, but we don’t know for sure.”
“It makes more sense why they aborted the medi-pod program,” Lockland said. “They had no intention of saving anyone. Roman’s notes mention that the medi-pod program was sponsored by someone with power, influence, and money. And after he or she died, the program went with them. Reed probably doesn’t have that information. But I’m certain whoever that person was holds a key in all this.”
I turned to our prisoner. “Reed, are you familiar with the medi-pod program the Bureau of Truth was responsible for?”
“Yes.”
“Who started the program?”
“Brock Shannon.”
Danger's Cure: (Holly Danger Book 4) Page 14
