The Eden Conspiracy: Book 2 of The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  “It won’t be safe there for long, though, no matter who she is,” Will interjected. Everyone turned to look at him. “The Potentate is building Control Centers there as we speak. As soon as they’re ready, he’ll release the vaccinia vector on the population, just like he did on us at the beginning, to make them anemic and susceptible to reprogramming. If they don’t find out what he’s up to and stop him, New Estonia will soon be no better than here.”

  The Council fell silent. Then the Crone snapped, “How do you know this, boy?”

  “Because I helped him set them up.”

  I looked at Kate. She pursed her lips and nodded at me.

  The Crone narrowed her eyes, but Will went on, “There is an alternative to fleeing to New Estonia, anyway. If we take the bullet trains, we can get to Beckenshire in about two days—”

  “Beckenshire?” Nick interrupted. “You mean the place that was declared uninhabitable after the nuclear reactor explosion?”

  Will nodded. “That’s the one. I found out that scientists believe it’s safe for habitation again now, or at least some of them do. My guess is they haven’t made the information public yet just because there aren’t any control centers with a long enough reach to cover the area. Which means we could hide there without discovery for a long time. Most of the agents and a good portion of the Tribunal don’t even know it might be an option.”

  “What if it’s not safe yet, though?” Kate asked.

  Will shrugged, and I saw his jaw tighten when he looked at her. They must have quarreled. “Die now for certain, or risk dying later. Take your pick.”

  “We could just stay on the move, couldn’t we?” Rachel whimpered.

  “Hold on,” I said. “We’re talking about this as if our survival is the most important thing. But did you hear what he just said?” I gestured to Will. “This is bigger than our lives. Much bigger. The goal shouldn’t be to find a place where we can hunker down and survive, it should be finding a strategic home base so we can figure out how to go back in there and take him out!”

  “Oh, just like that, huh?” said Brian, and I could hear murmurs erupt around the camp.

  The Crone held up her hands, and with just that simple gesture, everyone quieted down. “While I would love nothing more than to kill the Potentate for what he has done to us, young man,” she said, fixing her beady eyes upon me, “perhaps you are familiar with the concept of a lost cause?”

  I gritted my teeth. “We can’t just give up.”

  She looked away like she’d forgotten I was there. “The Council and I are practical enough to realize when we have no chance of success, and my first priority is to keep us alive. You all have had your say. Now I will tell you what will happen.” She cleared her throat. “We shall flee to New Estonia, and begin the journey tomorrow. We will need the help of the hunters to eat along the way, so no one will be left behind. We would of course prefer you to come voluntarily, but we have prepared contingency measures, should that not be possible. They are as follows.

  “Hunters from now on shall hunt by archery or slingshot only. All firearms have been confiscated by the Council, and Council members shall be armed at all times.”

  I closed my eyes. After our hunt that afternoon, we’d all deposited our bulkier weapons in a clearing not twenty yards from where we sat. I’d noticed before dinner that they’d been put away, but thought nothing of it at the time.

  “Given the present circumstances,” the Crone went on, “we shall suspend all trials for potential lawbreakers among our ranks. We will have neither the time nor the energy for them. Therefore, anyone found not complying with the will of the Council shall, regretfully, be executed on site.”

  Chapter 3: Kate

  I watched in horror as Uruguay Stone, the Crone’s bodyguards, and the remaining members of the Council pulled guns on us openly. I looked around at the hunters—at Jackson—hoping they would do something. But none of them moved. Jackson caught my eye, and I somehow felt his message, like telepathy.

  Don’t fight. Not yet.

  “Let’s get into the specifics, shall we?” the Crone went on. “Taylor, bring the map.”

  A middle-aged man with a thick curly beard delivered a map to her that had probably been pilfered from an abandoned home on one of the hunters’ raids, along with a highlighting pen which might have come from the same place. How they’d saved that from the explosions in the caves, I had no idea… unless the Council had gone back on the grid earlier that day to steal them, when everyone else was out gathering food for dinner.

  “We are here,” she drew an X on the map to represent our current location, “and we need to get here.” She drew another on the southeast coast of the Republic. “We are going on old information, but once there was a thriving port in this location. It is where I arrived in the United States all those years ago.”

  “That route will take months on foot!” Nick protested.

  “Who said we’d be on foot?” the Crone looked up, arching an eyebrow at him.

  There was a confused silence, and then she turned to look at my fiancé.

  “Young man,” she snapped at Will. “You know where we might find at least one military barracks, the one you yourself infiltrated. Are there any—” here she glanced at Taylor, who finished, “Boeing VC-25s?”

  Will stared at her for a minute. “You mean a plane?” Planes were a relic of the old United States. To my knowledge they’d never been used in the Republic. I’d only seen them in pictures.

  “Yes,” she snapped. “It’s a plane.”

  “They were de-commissioned long ago,” said Will. “I heard rumors that the Potentate was rebuilding an Air Force, but I didn’t pay much attention—”

  “I asked you a simple question,” the Crone snapped, “I didn’t ask for a dissertation on the subject. Where is the base you infiltrated, and were there any passenger or cargo planes on the premises, decommissioned or otherwise?”

  “It needs to be a Boeing,” murmured Taylor.

  Will set his jaw. “Sure, but they haven’t flown in decades. I don’t see how that will do you any good.”

  Uruguay Stone stood up, strode past Jackson right up to Will, and struck him across the mouth.

  “Stop it!” I shouted, leaping to my feet.

  Stone pointed his gun at me next, as Will sat up and spat blood upon the ground. He looked from me to the barrel of the gun.

  The Crone snapped, “Put the gun down!” Stone obeyed, but he still glared at me. Then the Crone announced to the group, “I do not prefer violence as a method of controlling insubordination. Uruguay has acted out of turn. But please understand that we will use force if you force our hand. We have only your best interests at heart, but we cannot tolerate insubordination at this time. We must be unified and work together if we want to survive.”

  Stone moved back to his seat.

  The Crone continued, “Taylor had a commercial pilot’s license before the Crash. He tells me the Boeing VC-25s are quite similar to what he used to fly, and he believes he can get the plane in working order, provided we can obtain fuel. We can do this by force if necessary.”

  “You want to fly to the docks?” Nick interrupted. “In a plane and with a pilot who both haven’t flown in twenty plus years?”

  “It’s the last thing they’ll expect,” said Taylor. “They’ll be looking for us on the ground. Nobody flies anymore. They’ll still be scouring the wilderness for us, months after we’re safely in New Estonia.”

  “There is one more glitch,” said the Crone, “and that is that the plane holds only forty-five passengers.”

  The refugees gasped, and looked around, wide-eyed, wondering which of them would be left behind.

  “This is a hardship, but not an insurmountable one,” the Crone went on. “It means that Taylor will need to make two trips from the barracks to the docks. The most difficult part will be the timing of hiding our second group near enough to the barracks to cli
mb aboard quickly when Taylor comes back, as we will no longer have the element of surprise on our side, while avoiding detection.”

  “That’s suicide!” cried Father Edwards. “The entire second group will be found by the control centers and eliminated, and the Potentate will surely shoot down the plane on the second pass!”

  I had to agree with Father Edwards on this one. Most of the other refugees seemed to concur.

  “Enough!” snapped the Crone, silencing the murmurs. “We will come up with a reasonable plan around this once we see the area near the barracks. Which brings us back to the original problem,” she said, glaring at Will again, “the military barracks. Where is it?” She thrust the highlighting pen in his direction.

  Will hesitated, until Stone pointed the barrel of his gun at Will’s chest. I saw Jackson shift in his seat, again poised to move if necessary. But Will stood up resentfully and took the highlighter. Without a word, he marked an X on the map. Blood still trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Wouldn’t recommend that you attempt to travel through the heart of the Republic to get there, though.”

  The Crone snatched the highlighter back from him. “That location will not be more than a thirty minute journey by bullet train, if we board the trains here.” She drew a circuitous route through the forest and the wilderness, avoiding the Republic except at the ghost town of Hampton, where she drew a straight line up to the very edges of the bullet train route. “Hampton should be safe enough if we move quickly. There’s not a lot of cover, and the control centers will find us if we dawdle. But this section is only three quarters of a mile. Even our feeblest should be able to manage that.”

  “You can’t assume the bullet trains are safe anymore,” said Jackson. “After what happened in the caves, the Potentate has to know that’s how we got around. He’ll tighten security.”

  “We will have to take our chances on that,” the Crone snapped.

  Jacob cut in, “Even if we somehow did manage to use the bullet trains, you think we could get through Hampton, board the train, get off the train, find the barracks, find the plane, and get it in working order and ready for takeoff in under two hours? You think no agents are going to be wise to this, when they’re already looking for us in the forest? Isn’t it safer to just go on foot to the docks—even if it does take months?”

  “Of course the agents will come eventually,” said the Crone. Then she looked straight at Jackson. “But it is my understanding that they do not, in fact, use real bullets.”

  “And we do,” said Stone, opening the chamber of his gun to show us the round inside before clicking it back in place again.

  “Given that,” said the Crone, narrowing her eyes at Jackson still, “I think we can hold them off for awhile.”

  “There’s a difference between knowing the bullets aren’t real and believing it,” Jackson told her. “I told Kenny and Andrew that too. They knew. But they didn’t believe.”

  “Then you will just have to train us all to believe,” said the Crone.

  “It’s not that simple,” Jackson growled back. “I can teach you, but can’t make anyone believe anything. Your mind is your own responsibility.”

  They stared each other down for a moment.

  Alec broke the tension. “And let’s say this ridiculous plan doesn’t end in a fiery death for all of us, and we actually get to the harbor in one piece,” he said. “Which is a long shot. Then what? We force a captain to give us passage at gunpoint?”

  “If we must,” said the Crone. “If he comes from New Estonia, he is likely to know my name, so that may not be necessary. But if not, he’ll have to have adequate incentive to leave his cargo behind and make room for the extra supplies required to sustain us on the journey.”

  “Which you’ll also steal,” Nick muttered loud enough for all of us to hear.

  “Oh, get off your high horse,” snapped Taylor, “as if you don’t steal all the time on your raids!”

  “From abandoned houses, that’s different!” Jacob shot back.

  “Gentlemen,” said the Crone in her most imperious voice, raising her hands to signal silence. Then she turned back to Stone to indicate that he had the floor.

  “For now,” said Stone, looking at Nick, “The hunters will obtain and prepare enough food for the first leg of the journey to Hampton. We will not stop for two days. We will leave before daybreak, as soon as we have provisions.”

  Alec snorted. “So you want us to hunt all night, and then walk for 48 hours straight?”

  “The hunters are strong, and more than capable of such a task,” pronounced the Crone. “As for the rest of you—find a way to carry on your backs what is left of the food you’ve gathered today, and go to sleep. We will have to move quickly. You will need your strength.”

  I glanced at Father Edwards, who had to be in his eighties. Then I glanced at Brittany, one of the women I’d met in the herb garden with Molly when I’d first arrived, and her two children, the youngest of which was barely two. Her husband had been killed in the explosions. She would need help carrying the kids. Brittany clutched her children to her chest and bit her lip, holding back tears. She saw me looking and turned, wide-eyed. I sent her a message as hard as I could.

  It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.

  Stone, Taylor, and the other Council members gestured with their weapons at the hunters.

  “Up,” Stone demanded.

  The hunters all got to their feet. I saw Jackson looking from Stone’s weapon to the Council, as if performing a calculation in his head.

  “You too,” Taylor barked at Will, who remained seated.

  “I can’t hunt without a gun,” said Will. “Never shot a bow and arrow or a slingshot in my life.”

  “You’ll go with the hunters anyway,” ordered the Crone. “We’re not leaving a Council member behind just to watch you.”

  “Pick up a weapon in the clearing,” Stone told the hunters, once he was out of earshot of the Crone. “Keep in mind that each of you has an automatic weapon pointed at his back at all times. Mutiny would be quite ill-advised.”

  Chapter 4: Jackson

  Before I left the rest of the refugees, I took stock of what they’d left behind—anything that might be useful information.

  The Crone and her bodyguards were the only Council members who remained; all the other Council members followed the hunters.

  The women and children and elderly had gathered a lot of food; it would be a shame to leave that behind. But we could get more.

  I saw Kate watching me, wide-eyed and pleading.

  Don’t worry, I tried to tell her. But I saw her gaze shift to Will, marching in front of the barrel of Taylor’s gun, just as Stone trained his upon me.

  I reached the pile of weapons before anyone else, and surveyed my options. There was a slingshot I had made myself, and a bloody cloth and length of rope we’d used to drag back the meat of the deer earlier that night. I grabbed this too.

  “You don’t need that,” snapped Stone, “we can’t carry big game.”

  “One person can’t, but we can if we cut it up and distribute it,” I told him. He seemed satisfied with this answer.

  A few minutes later, as I made my way through the thick of the woods and away from the others, Stone said, suspicious, “I thought you hunted together. Stay with the others.”

  I turned around and shook my head at him, sounding as exasperated as I could. “First, hunting in packs is too noisy. It scares off anything you might want to shoot, especially if you have to get close enough to it to shoot it with a slingshot. Second, you sound like a freaking water buffalo, so even going off on my own won’t do me any good if you keep making so much noise. And third, you’re talking, so anything that might have been in a several mile radius is now gone.”

  I heard the click as Stone took the safety off of his gun. “I’m warning you, kid. You’re lucky the Crone considers you an integral part of her plan. But if you don’t star
t treating me with some respect, I just might have to teach you some.”

  I turned my back on him, gritting my teeth. Not too much further.

  I kept on, moving deeper and deeper. I sensed that some kind of big game was in the area, up to my left about a quarter of a mile, but Stone didn’t know that. I kept going. One good crunch of Stone’s feet upon the ground, and the animal fled anyway.

  We were probably far enough away now. None of the other Council members ought to be able to hear the struggle.

  I stopped moving, waiting for Stone to catch up to me.

  “What?” he whispered, the gun in my back. “Is there something here?”

  I spun, one hand deflecting the angle of his gun while the other landed an uppercut to his jaw. Once I’d disarmed him, I kneed him in the groin, spun around and kicked him in the abdomen.

  While he gasped on the ground, I clicked the safety back on the gun, took the length of rope and sliced it with a knife hanging from Stone’s belt. He started to struggle and swing at me, so I head butted him and he fell unconscious. I knew it wouldn’t last long, though.

  I bound his hands behind him, and his feet next, and then sat him up and pressed his back to a tree, binding his shoulders to it. He’d be here awhile and it would be more comfortable for him, even though he didn’t deserve that.

  Using Stone’s knife, I sliced off a piece of the fabric that was dirty but not bloody—it wasn’t my intention to kill him with an infection. I took the canteen of water from Stone’s pocket, and was just rinsing the cloth off as best I could when I saw him start to move his head, and his eyelids fluttered. I stuffed the cloth in his mouth, wrapping yet another length of rope around his head so that he couldn’t spit it out. He opened his eyes and snarled at me.

  “I won’t leave you here to starve,” I told him. “Once those of us who want to escape are safe, I’ll make sure to send someone back for you.”

  He began to shout, but the wet cloth did its job, so muffling the sound that only someone very nearby indeed would have heard it. I checked his belt one more time, to see if I could find anything else useful. Then I frisked his legs. I found something else strapped to one of his thighs, so I sliced his pants leg open with the knife and retrieved yet another semi-automatic weapon.