The Eden Conspiracy: Book 2 of The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  That was probably still what I should do.

  But I wasn’t going to.

  I approached Nick finally, figuring I had to tell him something.

  “I’m going to be gone for a little while,” I told him. “If I’m not back by the time you finish here, don’t wait for me and don’t come looking. I’ll find my own way back to Beckenshire.”

  Nick whipped his head around to face me. “What? Where are you going?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  He stared at me for a minute, trying to process this. I could almost hear the questions in his mind. This announcement stretched his trust of me to the breaking point, I knew. So I added, “All I can tell you is that what I’m going to do will benefit the community.”

  I hoped.

  Very slowly, Nick said, “All right… I really think we need you here, but… I trust you, Jackson.”

  “You don’t really need me this time, anyway—not like before,” I told him. “You have the jammers. You’ll be fine. I’ll come back here before the mission is over if I can, but if not, I’ll see you in Beckenshire in a couple of days at the latest.”

  When I saw Kate leave the dilapidated house, I followed at a distance—but not so far away that I couldn’t see her impressively horrible disguise: impressive because she didn’t look like herself at all, horrible because she stuck out like a flashlight in the dark. Where the rest of the citizens were gray and washed out, Kate practically glowed with vibrancy, and she was strutting like a peacock to boot. Clearly she’d never tried to blend in before.

  Yet for reasons I couldn’t figure, nobody seemed to notice her unless they got too close. They all seemed briefly alarmed when she passed by, but then descended again back into their usual complacency.

  I got a few double takes myself though—somehow it never occurred to me to don a disguise. Nobody stopped me, though. Most of them probably thought, No. It can’t be him, and then forgot about me as soon as I left their field of view.

  I waited at the train station at a safe distance from Kate when I arrived, keeping my head down. When I saw her board, I climbed on the same train several cars behind hers. I thought about just sitting beside her (after all, what could she do about it at this point?) but decided against it. Kate seemed quite determined to do this on her own. Perhaps she’d never need my help at all; and if she didn’t, she need never know.

  If she did need help, though, I’d be here.

  Two hours later, the train pulled into Dawvish. I blended in to the flow of people, still drawing a few surreptitious looks from my fellow travelers. I’d tuned them out by now, which was apparently a mistake.

  A whole slew of agents waited for me on the platform, weapons drawn. I counted them quickly: twelve.

  “Jackson MacNamera,” one of them said, taking aim at my chest, “you are under arrest for treason against the Potentate…”

  My first thought was, if I couldn't get past them quickly, I’d lose track of Kate. I scanned the crowd, and just saw her orange scarf disappear into the distance.

  “…Surrender and come with us,” the agent continued. I glanced back at him, trying to decide whether I should fight, or brush past them and follow her. That depended on whether they had real bullets this time or not.

  If they were real, this would be far from easy.

  But they’re not, I decided. They wouldn’t be. Even if the Potentate and higher-ups had figured out I could tell the difference between real bullets and fake ones, the agents themselves didn’t know they carried blanks.

  So I risked it: I ran straight at them. The one with the weapon trained on me began to fire, and the other agents opened fire too. I felt the familiar mild pressure sensation on my chest indicating a hit at close range from a blank, and breathed a sigh of relief. The people on the platform screamed and scattered.

  Definitely not a good way to blend in, I thought. Even worse than Kate’s approach.

  When I got close enough, I reached out to grab one of the agent’s guns, but he ran away from me before I could. Still looking at the first retreating agent, my arm shot out to the agent beside him, and I snatched his gun before he could react.

  “Don’t shoot!” the agent begged, falling to his knees. “Don’t shoot!”

  The station was now empty. I had to get out of here.

  “Don’t follow me,” I told the agent on the ground, tucking the gun into my waistband. I planned to get rid of it as soon as I got away from them, since I had real ones on me already, but I wasn’t going to give it back. I focused on the rest of the group and said, as believably as I could, “If you do, I won’t be so lenient the next time.” Then I took off running for the exit.

  But when I arrived, Kate was nowhere to be found.

  Chapter 19: Kate

  Just as I rounded the corner from the bullet train terminal to the street, I heard screams and gunshots behind me. I broke into a run with the stampeding crowd, expecting with every pounding footstep to hear, “Kate Brandeis, you are under arrest!”

  But as I ran, threading my way between panicking citizens around me, nobody seemed to single me out in any way.

  I looked around in disbelief. Really? Was I safe?

  I slowed down a few blocks away, trying to catch my breath and calm my thundering heart.

  Okay. You’re okay. Time to focus.

  The next part of my plan would be a little trickier: I had to get to Pierremont, a suburb of Dawvish. Too far to walk, yet too close to take another train. That meant I’d have to hitchhike.

  There was a system for hitchhiking in the Republic: citizens who didn’t offer some service directly to the government didn’t own their own cars, so they stood in designated areas and waited for commuters to pull over and offer them rides. The commuters complied, because somehow the Republic kept track of how many commuters they picked up per month, though I never knew how. Anyone found to offer fewer than twenty rides in a month received a dock in his rations. Even though we all thought we had more than enough, subconsciously I guess we knew we couldn’t afford this. Or perhaps we just genuinely wanted to be of service. Either way, the hitchhiking program was one of the ways the Tribunal encouraged “a culture of generosity.”

  At least, that was how Jillian and I had spun it.

  I’d actually enjoyed picking up hitchhikers, though. Everyone I’d picked up became starstruck when they realized it was me. The women would fall all over themselves, telling me how poised I was, and how they aspired to be just like me. The men wouldn’t even bother with flirtation—they skipped straight to celebrity worship, gushing about how I was even more beautiful in real life than on camera, and they didn’t know any woman could be so physically perfect as I was. There were no other celebrities in our society, really—aside from the Potentate himself, Jillian and I were about as big as it got.

  I approached the cluster of commuters waiting for a ride, keeping my head down and feeling like I might as well have a neon sign flashing over my head, announcing, “Look at me! Look at me!” But apparently my disguise, though ill-conceived, was convincing enough. I scanned the faces of my fellow travelers with anonymity, and just couldn’t get over their vacant, placid stares. Finally I understood why Alex kept calling them all sheep. That’s what they reminded me of, too.

  How had I never noticed that before? Did I ever look like that?

  Of course I did, I thought with a shudder. I must have.

  Presently I moved my way to the front of the queue, next in line for pickup. Within a minute or two, a small silver sedan pulled up. I had a strange flash of recognition as I moved toward it, but I couldn’t place it at first. All I saw was that the driver was a middle-aged woman. I pulled the door open and got inside. Then I gasped before I could stop myself.

  It was Nancy. My old boss.

  I swallowed my reaction. Fortunately she didn’t notice, nor did she really look at me.

  “Where to?” she barked, in her traditional no-
nonsense tone.

  I made my voice as low and raspy as possible, pressing my body against the door. “Pierremont,” I croaked. “The corner of 6th and Laundres.”

  Nancy quirked her head to the side, and looked at me. I forced myself to breathe normally, waiting for her to finish her inspection.

  “Do I know you?”

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t think so. I’m… Bridget.”

  Nancy blinked, and still she didn’t put her foot on the gas. “Really.”

  Oh please, just drive. Oh please, oh please.

  When the cars behind her started to honk, Nancy shrugged and pulled out onto the intersection. “I’m Nancy,” she told me finally.

  I breathed again.

  “What’s in Pierremont?”

  It was considered impolite to question a rider too closely, and we both knew it. “A… client of mine.”

  “Oh yeah? What kind of business are you in, Bridget?”

  Keep it together. “Um… textiles.” I had no idea what that meant. It was the first thing that popped into my head, and I regretted it the moment it was out of my mouth.

  Nancy didn’t reply to this right away. But as she neared Pierremont, she told me, “It’s just interesting, because the family of one of my star reporters who’s gone missing happens to live right near that intersection.”

  My heart stopped. She knew. Before I replied, I paused, weighing my options. I could play dumb, but at this point I didn’t think that would help. If I were really a random citizen, I’d probably know she meant me, wouldn’t I? I wasn’t sure what they’d been publicizing, but surely they must’ve mentioned my disappearance. If I feigned ignorance, it would all but give me away.

  “You mean Kate Brandeis, I assume? Her family lives there?”

  “Mmm hmm. I’d never met them before, but since her disappearance, we’ve been in regular contact with them, just in case she happens to get in touch with them in any way.”

  “And has she?”

  “Not so far.” Nancy pulled up to the intersection, and gave me a hard, penetrating stare. Then she added with the deliberate edge to her voice that I knew so well, “But we’ll be in contact with them later today, I’m sure.”

  I forced myself to smile. “Well. Nancy. Thank you for the ride.”

  I got out, and realized as soon as my feet hit the pavement that I was trembling all over. But I did my best to walk normally, and I didn’t look back.

  Get it together.

  I needed to find someplace secluded to regain my composure, before I ran into anybody else that knew me. I hadn’t expected that at all.

  But I also needed to move fast. What if Nancy called the agents and sent them over to my parents’ and Charlie’s houses now, just in case?

  As soon as I thought it, I realized that was exactly what she’d do. I’d just have to get to Charlie and… convince him to come with me. How, I had no idea.

  Charlie lived on the same street as my parents, though, so I couldn’t get to him without passing by my parents’ home. I had hoped to get him alone, which would give me only one person to convince, rather than three. Unfortunately, my mom was standing on her front lawn when I passed by. She wasn’t doing anything—it looked like she was waiting for me.

  “Kathryn?” she squeaked, even though I was on the other side of the street with my head down, in full disguise. “Kathryn!” She ran toward me with arms outstretched, and a frantic expression. “Nancy just sent a comm and said she thought you might be headed over…”

  She threw her arms around me. My dad came out of the house behind her, and broke into a run.

  “Katie!” he cried. “We just heard… oh, my goodness, Katie, we’ve been so worried about you—”

  I started to panic. This was way too public.

  “We—have to get to Charlie’s,” I cut them off. Anywhere but the street.

  “We already told him to come over as soon as Nancy messaged us. He should be here any minute—oh!”

  Charlie rounded the corner just then, but he didn’t appear to be in any particular hurry, his hands stuffed in his pockets as he strolled along.

  “So. The prodigal returns,” he called out to me. I couldn’t read his tone, but it wasn’t complimentary. Even from a distance, I could see that he was glaring at me. My heart sank. I needed him to give me a chance, at least.

  My mother squeaked, “Oh, honey, we heard about Will—so dreadful! To think all this time he’s been an EOS, I never would have thought it of him…” she trailed off, using the Enemy of State acronym that I so often used on broadcast. “Will’s death would have been bad enough, but the idea that he was also an EOS is just… too much to bear! And when you disappeared around the same time, the speculation was that maybe you, too…” she broke off, her voice a tremor.

  “Come on inside, baby,” my dad slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward the open front door, “we’ll let the agents know you’re here and then—”

  “No! You can’t! Just, please, let me explain…” I tried to run toward the open front door, desperate to get out of the street, but I couldn’t disentangle myself from them. Instead, I half-ran, half-dragged them back inside.

  I couldn’t understand why they were acting like this. They were touching me… yet neither of my parents seemed the least bit affected by the signal disruptor. I looked at Charlie, though, and noticed for the first time that his insolent expression had vanished. Instead, he watched me intently, and kept stepping a few paces away from me, then a few paces toward me, and then a few paces away again. With each rotation, he looked around the living room we both knew so well, wide-eyed.

  “What’s going on, Kate?” Charlie demanded.

  I could have crumpled with relief. I pulled the jammer out of my pocket and held it up.

  “I got the idea from you,” I told him. “It will take me awhile to explain. But we’re not going to be able to stay here for long. I’m sure if Nancy called you guys, then she probably called agents to pick me up and interrogate me as well.”

  “Of course she did, it’s the right thing to do!” cried my mother. “You have to clear your name, Kathryn. Everyone thinks you were in league with Will—!”

  “Will’s alive, Mom,” I cut her off, but regretted it the minute it was out of my mouth. Why did she need that information?

  “What?” cried both of my parents at once, followed by a barrage of, “What happened?” “Where is he?” and, “Where have you been, Katie?”

  But I didn’t have time for all that—their questions weren’t relevant to my current mission anyway. So ignored them both and approached Charlie, who stepped away from me again as I did.

  “I came back for you,” I told him in a low voice. “I need your help.”

  He kept backing away, like I was threatening him. “You’d better explain the thing in your pocket. Fast.”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s a signal jammer. It’s interrupting the government signals that tell us how to think and how to see the world. What you see when you get within its radius is reality.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Then give me an alternate explanation.”

  All the time, I kept moving toward him, while he kept backing away. Jackson. What would Jackson say right now? “You know I’m not capable of creating false signals like that myself. You know that one of the two things you’re seeing must be true, and the other is a lie. Some part of you knows which it is, Charlie. You’ve always known.”

  “Stop it!” he shouted, thrusting an arm toward me. “Stay there!”

  My mom burst into tears, and my dad said gravely to no one in particular, “They warned us this might happen.”

  I looked over my shoulder at him. “That what might happen?”

  “The agents told us that if you came back to us, you might be sick. They said you might tell us about your hallucinations. You’d try to tell us not to trust the government—”

 
“Just like when you were a little girl!” my mom sobbed. “We—we thought they’d cured you, all those years ago! You must have relapsed!”

  There was a knock at the door. It felt just like the night that Mr. Santiago came to take me to McCormick’s… except this time, I knew what was happening.

  “That’ll be them,” said my dad, turning to answer the door.

  “No!” I begged. “Please, not again! You have to listen to me!” As I said it, I jerked toward my old bedroom. The window was my only remaining escape route.

  “Charlie!” my mother ordered. “Grab her!”

  Charlie ran toward me. I thrust my elbow back as hard as I could, aiming for his gut, but he sidestepped me and his hand tightened on my upper arm like a vice. But then, to my surprise, he moved his other hand to the center of my back, giving me a shove toward my room.

  “I’ll cover you,” he whispered. “Go!”

  Chapter 20: Kate

  I ran to my childhood bedroom, Charlie at my heels. I yanked open the window, even as I heard my parents open the door to let the agents in.

  “Climb up!” Charlie said, cradling his hands to give me a step up to the windowsill. I took it, swinging myself over and around and dropping to my feet on the lawn like I’d done a thousand times as a child. Charlie vaulted over the sill himself, landing beside me in the dirt and pebbles that I’d once thought was grass.

  “This way!” I whispered, running across our small yard and then the neighbors’ yards. We heard voices and footsteps behind us, and—my heart sank—dogs.

  They’d find us. No way they wouldn’t find us.

  “In here!” Charlie grabbed my collar and yanked me into a shed filled with rusty old gardening tools, and not a few cobwebs. I followed him inside, and the two of us crouched beside each other, panting but trying our best to quiet our breathing.

  The barking and the shouting approached, and I held my breath completely. I fought the urge to sneeze.