“What really happened?”
“What do you mean?” I say, all innocence.
“I mean, it looks like you’ve been hit upside the head, you’ve got bruises around your wrists and judging from your pained expression when Mom hugged you, you’ve got more injuries under all that.” He gestures to my clothes.
I hesitate. Everything that’s happened to me, everything that I’ve discovered, is bottled up tight inside me, and the cork is ready to pop. I’m desperate to share, but I mustn’t.
“C’mon,” says Robin, “it’s me.”
I know what he means. Robin has always been the one person I trust implicitly. Even when we were kids — fighting over toys or what we watched on T.V., or arguing about who was responsible for leaving the door on the hamster cage open — we never ratted each other out to our parents. And when Dad died, and Mom kind of went dark, it was us against the world.
“You can’t tell Mom — not a word!” I warn.
“As if I would.”
“Okay, well, you remember that guy I told you about in my emails — Quinn?”
“The guy you fell in love with, then ditched?”
“He ditched me.” Still hurts.
“Details,” says Robin, waving a dismissive hand. “What about him?”
“I kinda shot his brother. I mean, not really shot,” I say quickly. “I darted him. With a tranquilizer.”
Robin packs my pillows up against the headboard and then flops back into them, sending a white feather into the air. He catches it and hands it to me — he knows I like to fiddle with things.
“Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning,” he says.
I do. Slowly, at first, tentatively. Then it all comes spilling out, like a stream overflowing its banks. I tell him about what happened with Quinn and Connor.
At first I play with the feather, stroking it lightly over the pink, wrinkled skin of my exposed nailbed. But as I offload, as I get to the really hard parts, my hand sneaks under the neck of my T and picks at the sore near my shoulder. It’s become a horrible habit.
I tell Robin how I was detained, and that I was tortured, though I don’t give him all the graphic details.
“They did what?” He comes off the pillows, looking ready to attack. “What exactly did they do to you?”
“They gave me a lie-detector test, can you believe that? Me — hooked up to a polygraph! They wanted to be sure about what I knew, and whether I knew anything about the rebels’ plans.”
“Do you?” Robin asks, intently.
“Not much.” I shrug.
I tell him about how Connor was probably tortured and how I helped get the message to his rescuers. I explain how I chose to go back to ASTA, to fight them from within. I tell him I’ve found out a couple of things the rebels might find useful, but I stop myself from telling him exactly what I discovered — that we really are snipers, not ratters. That we’ve been killing people. It’s not safe for him to know.
“Does anyone there know you’re sniffing around?”
“There’s another girl at ASTA. She’s in the intel unit, so she sees stuff and can research things. She helped me get the note about Connor to the O’Rileys. I think I can trust her.”
To force myself to stop picking at my arms, I sit on my hands.
“And, Robin?” The time has come to tell him. “There’s something I need to tell you about Dad. His death.”
“What?” Robin’s blue eyes, so like mine, are round with alarm.
“He …” There’s no easy way to say this. I take a deep breath and plunge on. “He didn’t die from a heart attack. He was taken hostage by terrorists in a bank, and they injected him with the plague.”
“What? No. No, that can’t be right.”
“It’s true. I saw video footage of the attack, from the bank’s security cameras and from what the terrorists released.”
The images come back in a series of rapid flashes — the young woman with the strawberry-shaped birthmark holding the big poster, the security glass slamming down between the tellers and the bank floor as the attackers stormed inside, Dad’s face as he was injected, as he succumbed to the ravages of the plague.
“Then when he became …” Became what — something less than human? “When he got really sick, they turned him outdoors to become a human viral bomb, and some special ops forces shot him. In the street.”
Robin remains pressed back into the pillows, as if felled. His face is as white as the feather resting on the bedspread, his arms are limp, his eyes brim with tears. I sit down next to him and hug him, comforting him as he goes through the same shock and outrage that I experienced when I found out the truth.
“Do you think Mom knows?” he asks eventually.
I shrug. I have no idea. “Maybe she knew and she wanted to protect us from the horror of it.” I realize I’m shielding Robin from the full awfulness of it, too. “Or maybe they never told her. They’re very careful about what they reveal. They manipulate everything for their benefit.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t they tell the truth?”
“It’s only on the surface that the war is against the plague, Robin.” I tell him everything Quinn told me. “The other war is a battle to extend power and profit for the lucky few.”
“That’s what all wars are ultimately about.” His voice is harsh with bitterness.
“And all the hype and measures to protect against the plague? That’s part of the propaganda to keep us scared so we toe the line and give up our freedoms uncomplainingly. The rebels even believe that the only way rat fever is transmitted is via bodily fluids and bites.”
Robin narrows his eyes and looks at me long and hard. “What are you going to do?”
It’s the same question Sofia asked. This time I have an answer.
“I’m going to join the rebels.”
“And just how do you intend to do that?” he demands, his face a mixture of shock and admiration.
I smile for what feels like the first time in years.
“Funny you should ask that.”
Chapter 18
No show
Dear Quinn,
I scrunch up the paper, cut another small section out of the sheet, and begin again.
Q,
I found out something terrible about ASTA and have to leave. If they discover what I know, I’m toast. I want to join the rebels and help in the fight, if you’ll have me? At 9am on Monday morning, I’ll be waiting in the drive-through around the back of the old Taco Bell on the corner of Thirteenth and Peach, Seventh West Zone. If you decide not to come, I’ll understand.
J
I hope your brother is okay.
I want to add so much more — explanations and apologies, plus a few sharp comments — but there’s no room. I fold the piece of paper into a tiny square, write a big Q on the outside, enclose it in a layer of cling-wrap, and then tuck it inside a medium-sized bag of salt and vinegar chips, resealing the top with paper glue.
Over my shorts and T-shirt, I pull on a white disposable PPE suit, which is a lot like my ASTA jumpsuits, except that it’s made of a thinner synthetic material and has a hood. I tie my long hair up into a ponytail, strap on a red backpack with integrated water hydration-pack, and grab my mask and sunglasses. Robin and I plied Mom with wine at lunch, encouraging her to toast my visit home again and again, until she’d finished off the better part of a bottle. Now she’s upstairs, sleeping it off.
Robin, waiting for me at the front door, stows one of my prepaid cash cards in a specially designed pocket in his zip-up jacket. No one uses wallets anymore — what’s the point when no one accepts cash? On his phone’s screen is the electronic business card Mom sent us both, in case we ever need to get to the hospital in an emergency: Hygeiney-Rides, sterilized and sealed driverless transport for your safe journey!
“It’s 3.15 pm. Time to blow this popsicle stand,” he says.
“Are you sure you know what to do?” I ask, handing him the packet of chips, which he tucks insi
de his jacket.
“Yes!” He sounds impatient.
We’ve been through the plan a dozen times, trying to anticipate possible outcomes and potential problems, and figure out how we should handle them. Now it’s time to go. Robin opens the Hygeiney App on his phone and orders a cab. Ten minutes later, I step into the decon unit — it’s an irritating delay, but it’s the only way to get out the house.
I stride down the garden path and do a few bends and stretches on the sidewalk, being sure to give the person in the parked car a good look at my face and ponytail before I pull on the mask, put on the glasses, and tug the hood of the PPE suit over my head. Then I set off, running away from our house in a westerly direction, hoping that I look like I’m just out for a training run, with a weighted pack on my back for resistance training. When I turn the corner, I see out of the corner of my eye that the brown car is following behind me at a slow crawl. In a few minutes, the cab will arrive to take Robin to Freedom Park.
I run a long circuit of about ten miles, passing the abandoned Taco Bell on 13th and the long-deserted library on 22nd. What did they do with the books? Are they all still neatly filed on their shelves, waiting for a time after the plague when everyone thinks it’s safe enough to come out and go to public places, to handle objects that others have touched? If Quinn is right, then that won’t be anytime soon. The companies selling us masks and disinfectants and hot-boxes and immunity-boosting super-vitamins, and the people snooping on our communications, building our armies, stocking our arsenals, and manipulating our votes with fear, would lose big money if we resumed our old lives. They won’t be in any hurry to question what we’ve all been told.
There’s profit in war, not in peace.
At the halfway mark, I stop and rest, have a drink of water and stretch some more — buying time for Robin to complete his side of the mission. I check my watch. I’ve been gone almost an hour. It’s time to start heading back.
As planned, Robin is already home by the time I get there. Not as planned, he didn’t make contact with Kerry or Mrs. O’Riley.
“They weren’t there. There was a woman with a baby —”
“Neon-yellow hair?”
“Yeah, but nobody else. I felt like a creeper sitting on the swings doing nothing. I think I made her nervous, too, because she got up and hurried off after a few minutes.”
“Did you wait a while — maybe they were just late?”
“I waited until after 4.30 pm, then I got worried that you’d get home before me, and your tail would see me coming home and order up another spook to keep an eye on me too in the future. So I came home.”
I kick at the sofa in frustration and feel the pain reverberate in my knee. “We’ll have to try again tomorrow — in the morning. That time I passed the note to Kerry, Mrs. O’Riley made a point of saying how they went on weekend mornings at 10 am. We’ll try then. Same plan.”
“Let’s hope they’re there,” says Robin.
But when I get back from my Saturday morning spook-tailed run — in a northerly direction this time — I can tell even before Robin opens his mouth that once again they didn’t show up.
“Damn! Why aren’t they there? Maybe they’ve been detained. Maybe Quinn’s been captured. Maybe … maybe Connor’s dead!”
“Hey now, that’s crazy talk. They don’t want Connor dead, they want to capture him alive so they can squeeze more information out of him.”
“What if he cracked under questioning? They went at him for at least two and a half days. You don’t know how bad it is. I don’t know that anyone could survive that and not crack. What if they’ve found out everything he knows? Then he’d be disposable.”
“Nah, they’d use him as leverage against his brother or the other rebels. Dead, he’d just become a martyr. Alive, he’s a hostage that they can use, that they could trade for something or someone else.”
What he’s saying makes sense, and I calm down a little.
“I’m sure they’ll be there tomorrow,” I say, but my voice sounds like a question. We’re running out of time. My weekend’s leave ends tomorrow.
“And if they aren’t? Will you go back to ASTA?”
I sigh. “I can’t go back, Robin. I can’t keep up the pretense. I can’t risk them putting me back on active duty and ordering me to shoot someone.” I can’t risk them finding out I know about the poison bullets.
“So you’ll resign?”
I shake my head. “Can’t do that either. Not after I asked Sarge to ignore my resignation and begged to be allowed back in. He’ll know immediately that something’s up, and they’ll take me back in for questioning. And I can’t go back there, ever.” I whisper the last words through the tightness in my throat. “I’d have to run away.”
“Run away? Where to?”
“I have no idea. Not a freaking clue.”
“There’s always Aunt Ida in Chattanooga,” says Robin with a grin.
In spite of myself, I smile. Aunt Ida is our great-aunt on Mom’s side and our sole surviving relative in the States. She is eighty-two years old, bedridden and lives in a care home in Chattanooga because she is, as my father used to say, out with the pixies. She’s had Alzheimer’s disease for the last decade, and could no more help or shelter a runaway teen than fly to the moon. Uncle Bob, my father’s younger brother, would help me if he could, but he was in Stockholm when the plague broke out and the borders were sealed, and he decided to remain there with his new Swedish bride instead of coming home.
“They’ll be there tomorrow,” I insist, not sure if it’s Robin I’m trying to convince, or myself. “They’ve got to be.”
Chapter 19
Dangerous games
On Sunday, I set off at the same time, wearing the same gear as on the previous two runs, and drawing the spook off in a new direction. I keep my fingers crossed the whole way. When I get back home, Mom is waiting to chide me, but I have eyes only for Robin, who gives me the thumbs-up.
“Jinx Emma James” — Mom always uses my full name when she’s angry — “I insist that you stop sneaking off outside! It’s not safe, and it’s not necessary. We have a perfectly good mini-gym in the basement. Robin has been training there all morning, why can’t you work out with him?”
Because he wasn’t there. Robin had cranked the volume on the music system down there up to maximum — a sure mom-deterrent — and sneaked out when she was in her study.
“I was wearing a mask, Mom, it was safe enough.”
“But what if a rat attacks you?”
“I run faster than a rat. You worry too much.” I give her a tender kiss on the cheek. I know she loves me — that’s why she worries.
“Come on, Jinxy, I want to show you something new on The Game.” Robin tugs me to the stairs.
“You kids and that game!”
We run up to Robin’s room, shutting the door behind us.
“Mission accomplished!” Robin says proudly, flopping onto his bed. Mounted on the wall over his head, like a monument to the time before the plague, is the skateboard he hasn’t been able to use in over three years.
“They were there? You gave them the message?” I perch myself on the end of his bed.
“They were and I did. Well, I got there first and hung out on the swings, facing the parking lot. Then Mrs. O’Riley and the kid —”
“Kerry.”
“— Kerry, arrived. With a tall guy just behind them.”
“Their spook.”
“Yeah, their spook. He leaned up against a big rock a few feet back and just stared at us. The kid was coughing. I reckon she’s been sick and that’s why they didn’t come the last few days. Anyway, she came and sat on the swings, and her mother stared at me suspiciously like I might be some paedo, especially when I opened the bag of chips and offered her kid some.”
“But she didn’t stop you?”
“Will you stop interrupting? No, the kid —”
“Kerry.”
Robin gives me a look.
<
br /> “Sorry,” I say, “go on.”
“Kerry, took a few chips before her mother could stop her. I ate a few more then asked her if she’d like the rest of the packet, but I tilted it so that she’d be able to see the note inside. Her mother said no, but the kid just snatched the packet. But then the spook straightened up and started walking over.”
“No!”
“Yes! I figured he wanted to check the packet, so I got off the swing and stepped in front of him to ask him the time, kinda blocking him when he tried to step around me. If that kid’s as smart as you say she is —”
“She is.”
“— then she would’ve used the couple of seconds to get the note out and hide it somewhere. Then the guy shoved me aside, and I headed back up to the parking lot and requested my cab.”
“Thank you, Robin, really. You did great!”
I’m so relieved that I relax for fully a minute before the next worry starts gripping me tight — will Quinn come to fetch me tomorrow? Will anyone?
“I kinda enjoyed it,” says Robin, grinning widely. “After what they’ve done, I felt like I was sticking it to them, you know?”
I nod, smiling at my brother — daydreaming computer geek turned secret agent.
“It was great to have a little excitement in my life.”
“Have you been bored?”
Stupid question. Life in the James household is routine, predictable, dull. It’s part of why I was so desperate to get away in the first place.
“After you left, it got insanely boring,” Robin says. “It pains me to say it, but I missed you.”
I throw a cushion at his head.
“And Mom was driving me crazy. She kept interrupting and nagging and checking. So I started playing The Game again.”
This is surprising. I’d played The Game compulsively in the months and years after Dad died — initially because it helped me escape the pain of the loss of him, but later because I kind of became addicted. You can play any of a variety of roles — as a code-breaker, intelligence analyst, spy or soldier — but I’d only ever wanted to play as a specialist sniper. I hadn’t known at the time that my performance was being measured and monitored by ASTA, only that it was fun and challenging to pit my skills against other players, and to try take down the Alien Axis Army in spectacularly detailed virtual reality.
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