The Eden Conspiracy: Book 2 of The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  I sat on the windowsill, ignoring its mold and unidentifiable slime. The bars were too close together to even fit my entire hand through them, but I could see the sunrise over the hill where we would most likely face the firing squad at sunset.

  I turned to look at Charlie, who sat on the edge of his bunkbed in the darkness, his head in his hands. I felt a stab of pity for him. We’d never gotten along, and we’d never really even been friends before. But he was my brother, after all, and I loved him.

  Wow, I thought. I’d never, in my whole life, thought those words before about Charlie. I guess impending death has a way of producing clarity.

  “I know this is unfair to you,” I said aloud. “I’ve had a few months to get used to it all. I’m still not used to it, but I remember how much worse it was at the beginning. I’m—sorry I dragged you into all of this.”

  Charlie gave a little snort, but then his face settled into seriousness. “Thanks, I guess.” Then he sat up with a sudden spark of hope. “What about Will? He’s alive, so surely he’ll come and rescue you?”

  “Will doesn’t know I’m here. None of the refugees do.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  I almost hated to answer. “Because… they wanted to try and wake everyone up by slowly disrupting the government signals. Like with the signal disruptors we carry, but on a mass scale. They’ve come up with a series of strategies on how to do that. I just think that’s necessary to help people wake up—but not sufficient.” I laughed weakly at my own use of a phrase I’d borrowed from Will and Charlie both. They always talked in logic terms like that. “I’m even more convinced of that, now that I know the signal disruptors don’t automatically work on everyone. Disrupting the signals gets people back to neutral, and it gives them a chance. But someone has to tell them the truth too, I think. Most people won’t just see it on their own. Not after a lifetime of brainwashing.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Charlie growled. “Why did you come here without at least telling Will what you were doing?”

  “He would have stopped me. They all would have stopped me.”

  “And maybe he should have, huh? Considering how things ended up?”

  I couldn’t argue with him—he was obviously right. More than anything, I wished Jackson knew where I was and what I was doing. Jackson, who had singlehandedly taken down the entire Council… who seemed to have an innate understanding of exactly what to do in any life-threatening situation… what would he do when he found out I’d died, I wondered? I didn’t know what I hoped for exactly. Of course everyone would be sorry. Would he be angry that I’d gone without telling him?

  “Who’s Jackson?” said Charlie.

  I looked up, startled. “What?”

  “You’re muttering over there. Who’s Jackson?”

  I felt myself blush, but it was too dark for Charlie to see.

  “You don’t mean Jackson MacNamera? The terrorist? Do you know him?”

  I nodded. “He was in the refugee community.”

  “So… not a terrorist, then?”

  I shook my head, and gave a bleak laugh. “I guess it depends on what you mean by terrorist. He’s on our side, if that’s what you’re asking.” I turned back to look out the window, at the hill now bathed in morning sunlight.

  The door to our cell swung open, and three agents stood in the frame. “Kate and Charlie Brandeis. Come with us.”

  I’d never seen the Tribunal in real life before. They all sat in a room I’d seen only in pictures, behind a high mahogany wood paneling with unlit torches in wall sconces. Level with the torches were long horizontal windows, covering the length of the room’s upper perimeter.

  I had never fully appreciated the height disparity of the prisoners compared to the Tribunal before, from the photographs of trials I’d seen. Charlie and I must’ve been a full six feet below them. I felt like a grasshopper.

  The center of the panel remained empty: it was the Potentate’s seat, I knew. I’d never seen him in the flesh before, but I knew he liked to make an entrance.

  “All rise for our glorious Potentate,” announced a bailiff.

  The Tribunal stood to their feet, and Charlie and I did too—it somehow never occurred to me to refuse him this small honor.

  The man who entered wore the black robes of a judge, to match his slicked back black hair. I was somehow a little surprised to find that the Potentate was just a man. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting exactly—he’d just been so built up all my life. But here he was, with a receding hairline, lines on his face, and wicked black eyes that looked even more frighteningly intelligent than they did in the posters.

  “Miss Brandeis,” said the Potentate. He ignored everyone else in the room, and looked at me with a sort of jovial confidence. “I’m pleased to finally meet you, though not pleased about the circumstances, of course. I hardly recognize you with all the makeup!”

  A hand fluttered absently to my face—I’d completely forgotten about the disguise. The makeup was all that remained of it, but I hadn’t washed my face the night before.

  “Be seated, be seated,” said the Potentate, and the entire room obeyed, including Charlie and me.

  Ben Voltolini, I told myself. If I stopped thinking of him as The Potentate, perhaps I’d feel less intimidated by him.

  “So, Kate.” Voltolini continued, as if he and I were alone in an intimate sitting room together. “Tell me your story. I understand you disappeared after the untimely death of your fiancé, which I’m so sorry about, by the way. Where did you go, and what brought you back to the Republic?”

  The apparent friendliness of the question disarmed me. How was I supposed to answer that?

  “I just… needed some time away,” I said.

  “I’m sure,” murmured Voltolini sympathetically.

  His false charm set my teeth on edge. But two can play that game, I thought. So I poured it on thick, too.

  “At first, when I heard Will was gone, I couldn’t believe it… I couldn't function. But then I heard he was an EOS. Of all people… my fiancé!”

  I risked a glance at the faces of the Tribunal. Most of them were etched in stone, but I thought I caught a few head shakes. Beside me, I felt Charlie stiffen.

  “I just… needed some time,” I finished, my lower lip trembling.

  “But you vanished from the Republic entirely,” Voltolini reminded me, folding his hands on the absurdly high podium before him. “Why was that necessary, Kate? Where did you go?”

  I was sure he saw through every word I said, but at least I wouldn’t make it easy on him. “I had to investigate a little bit. It was Will, after all. I thought I knew him. If he could turn Enemy of State, I had to at least understand why, and consider it.”

  The Potentate nodded, but I saw the black eyes sharpen. “And where did you go?”

  I didn’t have a good answer to this. He had me now.

  “Just… on an extended camping trip.”

  Voltolini pursed his lips. “You’d never been much of a camper before, Kate. I find it hard to believe you’d suddenly camp for months following Will’s death, especially if you intended to do any research regarding his traitorous leanings. What research could you possibly do without access to the net?”

  “I… accessed the net occasionally. From abandoned homes on the edges of the Republic.”

  “Did you?” Voltolini looked at me sideways. “Because I understand you’re not especially tech savvy, Kate. That was your late fiancé’s forte.”

  I bit my lip, tired of this cat-and-mouse game.

  “Here’s what I think.” Voltolini leaned forward, peering down at me. “I think you joined a group of refugees who are now on the move. I think you have already been reunited with Anderson, and he’s likely the reason why you survived the bombings in the caves. And I think you are all under the leadership of Jackson MacNamera.”

  I still said nothing.

  “I like you
, Kate,” Voltolini went on, sitting back again. “I always have. You’re one of the Republic’s brightest stars, and, if I may say so, one of our most beautiful women. Although you’ve looked better.” He chuckled at his own joke. “So here’s what I’m prepared to do for you.”

  Here it comes.

  “You tell me everything you know about this community of refugees: where they are currently, and what their plans are. Also, I want to know everything you can tell us about MacNamera: what makes him tick, and what really gets under his skin.” He shrugged. “You tell us that, and we’ll let you and your brother both go free.”

  Charlie turned to look at me abruptly, and I could feel his eyes widen. But I didn’t look back at him.

  “I don’t care what you do to me,” I said. “I won’t tell you anything.”

  “Kate!” Charlie hissed. “What about me?”

  I folded my arms over my chest and glared at the Potentate.

  Voltolini didn’t seem at all surprised by this answer. “I suspected we might need a bit more persuasive powers on our side,” he said. “I recall hearing what you were like as a twelve year old, Kathryn. You were a little hellion, were you not?” He actually winked at me. Then he turned to the guards standing beside two elaborately carved wooden doors at the entrance, and signaled to them with his fingers. The guards pulled the door handles open, and two agents dragged my mom and dad in by their hair, guns pressed to their backs. Charlie sucked in a sharp breath, and I let out an involuntary scream as the guards forced my parents to their knees.

  Chapter 24: Kate

  “Let me ask you one more time,” said Voltolini, his voice smooth as silk. “The refugees: their locations? Their plans? MacNamera?”

  My mother trembled all over, and pleaded with me with her eyes. In them, I saw the peculiar combination of terror and shell shock that I had felt in the beginning, when I’d first woken up. They believed me now. They knew the truth.

  “Katie,” my dad begged me. “Tell them! Just tell them what they want to know!”

  I couldn’t move—my tongue nor any other part of me. I knew I couldn’t sacrifice my family. But could I sacrifice the refugees? Jackson? Will? One word from me and they’d all die.

  Suddenly a window up above shattered, and the agent holding my father collapsed. I blinked, and the agent holding my mother fell down dead too.

  Before I really understood what was happening, I looked at the Potentate—I knew he’d be next. But he had already disappeared.

  Then the Tribunal erupted into pandemonium. They’d all leapt to their feet, and one of them shouted to the agents on the floor, “Get Brandeis! Don’t let her esca—” But he crumpled before he could finish the words, a bullet through his throat.

  Most of the Tribunal members fled the room after that, but a few more of them fell before they could make it out. Armed guards flooded into the courtroom as soon as the shooting began, both on the floor, and up where the Tribunal had sat. But the guards ignored us, focused entirely on the upper windows. The shooter was still there, plucking off the armed guards one by one. The guards shot back with their semiautomatic weapons. The remaining windows shattered, but I wasn’t sure whose bullets had done it: theirs or the shooter’s.

  “Go!” I told Charlie, pointing at the ornate wooden doors, where the guards had dragged our parents in. “Go!”

  I ran toward my parents, still on their knees and in shock in the middle of the room. I hoisted my father to his feet from behind, hooking my hands underneath his armpits, and shoved him up. I did the same to my mom next, but she just fell to her knees again as soon as I let go.

  “Mom! Get up, we have to get out of here!”

  My mother started to cry. “Oh, Kathryn!” She buried her face in her hands, and did not budge.

  Desperately, I looked at my father, but he just bleated over and over, “I can’t understand. I just can’t understand…”

  I wasn’t strong enough to drag even one of them by myself. I looked at Charlie, who’d already peered out the main wooden doors and come back. He shook his head at me grimly.

  “Two more armored guards out there. I guess the rest are on a manhunt for the shooter, but we still can’t get out that way.”

  The shooter. I knew exactly who he had to be—if we could only get to him.

  “Get Mom and Dad on their feet! Meet me up there!” I shouted to Charlie, pointing at the door behind the Tribunal’s seating, where the Potentate had entered the room and where most of them had fled when the shooting began. I had no idea where that door led, but it was the only other way out of the room. Then I dashed back onto the courtroom floor.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Charlie demanded.

  “Getting weapons!”

  I reached the body of a fallen guard, and pried the semiautomatic from his fingers. I had no idea how to use it, but how hard could it be?

  Also, I was pretty sure the guards’ weapons were only loaded with blanks… but here on the grid, would that matter? Anyone I had reason to shoot at would think they were real, and they would die just the same. Just like Kenny and Andrew had.

  I took an assault rifle from another guard, remembering what Jackson had told me about the accuracy of rifles, though they were harder to transport. I started to lift a pistol too, wanting to collect four guns, one for each of us. But then I realized there was probably no point in giving a weapon to my parents. They were in no condition to do much of anything at the moment. I tucked two pistols into my waistband anyway, hoisted the rifle and the semiautomatic in one arm each, and ran toward the stairs behind the podium and the door to the now-empty corridor. Charlie struggled up the stairs ahead of me, dragging our parents behind him. They stumbled along, more a detriment than a help.

  “We have to get outside, as fast as possible!” I told Charlie. But we weren’t going anywhere fast with my mom and dad. “Maybe—” I looked up at the horizontal windows, but they were too high and there was no way to climb up to them.

  I pushed past Charlie and sprinted into the hall ahead of them, looking for a way out. The hall led to a catwalk to another part of the palace, all encased in glass. I’d wanted a window we could crawl through, but this one was too high to do us any good.

  Then I saw a little room just before the catwalk. I ducked in there to investigate: it was a little dressing room, with a half bathroom in the back of it. The bathroom had a frosted window across from its sink.

  I flipped the rifle around to its backside and rammed it into the window with all my might. It shattered.

  “Katie?” cried my father behind me, still struggling against Charlie.

  “In here!” I called to them. Now the trick was just getting up to the window… but I could use the edge of the sink for a leg up. I put the assault rifle and the semiautomatic on the ground and balanced on the edge of the sink with my hand pressed against the wall beside the window. Then I set about clearing the glass shards from the windowsill to keep from ripping me to shreds as I slid through it. As I did so, I peered outside, and breathed a sigh of relief. The roof was only a few feet below the edge of the window, maybe seven or so. We could hang on the edge of the sill and just drop to it with no problem, provided we didn’t stumble backwards too far and plummet to our deaths on the lawn below.

  I didn’t know whether my parents would be capable of any of this, but if we didn’t get out now, none of us would survive.

  “Kate, what—?” Charlie had arrived behind me, but the question died in his throat because presumably he could see exactly what I had in mind.

  “It’s not a far drop, and I think it’s the only way out. Come on.”

  “There have to be guards on the roof! That’s where the shooter was! I’m sure he’s long gone by now, but—”

  “He’s not long gone, he’s waiting for me. He’s still out there somewhere. He can get us out of here!”

  “Who?”

  A burst of gunfire erupted from the roof, and I fr
oze, even as I plucked the last shard out of the windowsill.

  You have to do this, Kate. Even as another burst of gunfire erupted, I hoisted my knee to the sill, swung my body around, and looked at Charlie and my terrified parents, still crouching in the little bathroom.

  “Toss the guns down to me first, and then follow me as fast as you can! I’ll wait for you down there!”

  I hung by my hands for a split second before dropping to the roof below. Instinctively I crouched when I landed, trying to take cover, but there was none to be had.

  Charlie dropped the semiautomatic down to me as I cringed away from it, frightened that the impact would set it firing. I still wasn’t sure what deep impact bullets would do to me, since my ability to see truth was patchy at best. But it landed without incident, so I moved it out of the way before Charlie dropped the assault rifle next. Then I watched as my mother crawled up to the sill, painfully slowly and begging Charlie, “Don’t make me do this! I can’t do this, please don’t make me! I can’t, I just can’t!”

  They are going to get us killed, I thought, dazed. Another burst of gunshot erupted from somewhere on the roof, followed by a few muted explosions like the ones that had killed the Tribunal members.

  Jackson’s still here. A wave of hope succeeded my wave of terror.

  “Come on, Mom, you can do it!” I begged, keeping my voice as low as I could.

  She hung from her hands on the sill now, sobbing. “I can’t, I can’t!”

  “You have to!” I hissed. “Let go!”

  Tired of waiting for her, Charlie started to pry her fingers off the sill. She began to scream. I looked around, frantic.

  “Charlie, no! They’ll hear her!”

  My mom finally couldn’t hold on anymore, falling to her feet and then to her knees, wailing all the time. I ran over to her and clamped my hand over her mouth.

  “Mom, you have to be quiet! There are guards on this roof, and they will hear you, and they will kill us!”