Keen found herself on her feet with her heart in her throat and no memory of actually standing up. She had gone from dead asleep to warp speed with no transition between, but now the alarm was wearing off and fatigue settled back over her. Her mind felt stiff and foggy. How long had she been asleep? There was no way to tell without her watch or a view of the sky. She felt disoriented and off-balance. Her mouth was so dry, her tongue had become a pile of sawdust.
Her eyes adjusted to the glare. Ressler and the others were on their feet as well, though Stuart was moving more stiffly. The thin mattress and the stone floor weren’t kind to arthritic joints.
A young woman held a styrofoam tray by a sideways slot in the bars. On the tray were a jelly sandwich, an apple, a sealed plastic glass of orange juice, and a tiny styrofoam bowl with what proved to be honey in the bottom. It was the orange juice that held Keen’s attention.
“You may eat,” said the woman. She was dressed as a drone, too, but didn’t wear a mask. Her belt bristled with a pistol, a taser, and extra clips of ammo. “But first you must say the blessing.”
“Blessing?” Keen croaked.
“Blessings on the Beekeeper, blessings on the Hive,” the girl singsonged. “We are one with the Beekeeper, one with the Hive.”
Keen was still half asleep, but enough of her was awake to want to rebel. What kind of whack job…? However, her parched body demanded that orange juice, held tantalizingly just out of reach.
They’re empty words, she told herself. This is why you’re here.
Keen tried to repeat the words, but had forgotten half of them, and her stiff tongue barely obeyed her anyway. The woman prompted her until she got it right.
“…one with the Hive,” Keen said at last.
The woman passed the tray through. Keen snatched it from her and ripped open the orange juice. It was one of those stingy cup-sized deals that cheap companies set out at conferences. Keen could have emptied it in a gulp. But she forced herself to drink slowly. The sugar in the orange juice coursed through her veins and perked her up even as the liquid washed some of the dryness from her throat. Once that was done, she was able to pay better attention to the woman.
And then she realized: she was looking at Mala Rudenko.
CHAPTER NINE
“Mala,” said Keen gently.
The woman looked startled. “How do you know my name?”
“Your father is looking for you,” Keen said quietly. “He’s worried about you.”
Other drones, including Pug, were delivering similar trays to Stuart, Ressler, and the Bodysnatcher—or John, she supposed. Each delivery required the prisoner to recite the same blessing. Stuart said it quickly. Ressler and John did so with obvious reluctance.
“No!” Pug was saying to Ressler. “You have to say it like you mean it! Now try again. I know you can do it, okay?”
Keen whispered, “We’ll get you out of here. Help us any way you can.”
Mala looked away. “No one gets out of here. No one escapes the Hive. You’ll see that.”
“How so?” Keen murmured. “I mean, Dr. Griffin isn’t all-powerful.”
“Don’t talk like that!” Mala hissed. “It’s a sin, and they’ll hurt you. Just do as the Beekeeper says, and everything will be fine.”
Keen pursed her lips under a wave of pity and heartbreak. Poor Mala had gone missing weeks ago, and during that entire time, she’d been in the clutches of the Beekeeper. She had become a full-blown member of the Hive, a drone who would drink a whole barrel of special Kool-Aid if they told her. What had the Beekeeper done to her? The pity turned to outrage. It wasn’t just Mala—it was all the drones. The Beekeeper was snatching them away from their homes and raising them like animals to be his slaves, body and soul.
“It’ll be fine, yeah,” Keen said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Mala glanced around, as if afraid one of the others might hear. “And Pavel Rudenko isn’t my father. He never was.”
“How do you mean?” Keen was wolfing down the sandwich now. It was strawberry jelly on white bread—pure carbs and no protein. The apple and the honey were the same. All of it was designed to give Keen a sugar high that would crash in an hour or so, leaving her weak and shaky and wanting more food, a fact the Beekeeper would certainly exploit. He knew his stuff.
“The Beekeeper is my father,” Mala said earnestly. “The Hive is my family. We’ll be your family, too.”
Keen nodded, hiding her interior dismay. The Beekeeper’s brainwashing had gone deep. Keen checked for crumbs on the tray. Her plan was to join the Hive, but observe carefully and find a weakness to exploit. The Beekeeper wasn’t perfect, and neither was the Hive. Play along, pretend to get sucked in, then bring the Hive down from inside. Just like the bees who invaded a foreign hive.
“I don’t know what kind of family treats you like this,” Keen said as if more bewildered than angry. “The shocks and the cages. Isn’t that over-the-top?”
“Only if you disobey,” Mala said. “It’s bliss if you just obey. Everyone knows that. Desire creates conflict, but obedience erases desire. Obey the Hive, and you have no desire, no conflict. It’s bliss.”
“Huh.” Keen crunched the apple down, taking care to suck out every bit of moisture as she went. “I’ll have to think about that.”
“What’s happening now?” Ressler was finishing his own tray of food. He looked rumpled from sleep.
“Put these on,” said Pug. “Give us your clothes. You’ll match us now!”
Each of the newcomers were passed a folded pile of cloth through the bars. Keen shook hers open. It was a drab green jumpsuit, same as the ones the other drones wore, though these had no belts for weapons. Outdoors, they would blend well into the woods. Keen retreated to the rear of her cell and turned her back to change.
“No underwear!” another drone barked. “We’re all the same underneath!”
Until you meet skin, thought Keen sourly. She refused to look toward Ressler—or Stuart—and managed the change as fast as she could, feeling the eyes of the drones on her all the while. Were the men just as bothered, she wondered?
Once everyone was done, the drones opened the cages and handcuffed each of the prisoners with their hands in front.
“If you try to run, the Beekeeper says we have to kill you,” Pug said matter-of-factly as the cold cuffs clicked on Keen’s wrists. “There are lots and lots of Hive people down here, and they will catch you. I would be too scared to run away.”
“There’s no need for these.” Stuart held up his bound hands. “I certainly won’t hare off. These old bones of mine wouldn’t make it far anyway.”
“We always follow the rules,” Mala said. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” John the Bodysnatcher demanded.
“The Circle,” said Pug happily. “You will join us!”
The drones hauled them down one tunnel, and then another. There was a whole warren down here. They ended up in a small room lined with poured concrete and lit with harsh white light. Keen blinked at the brightness. A circle of plastic folding chairs sat in the center, along with a cooler. Keen had been expecting something rather less prosaic—a stone altar or diagrams painted in red on the floor. This looked straight out of WalMart. Ritual work for a trailer park.
Her gaze went to the cooler, wondering if food or water might be in it. Thirst still burned through her, and the food had done little to fill her stomach. She knew very well that deprivation of food, water, and sleep were all tools of indoctrination into large groups. The military, in fact, pioneered several methods, and the Beekeeper, Keen remembered, had spent extensive time training soldiers in the army. Knowing this didn’t change her desire for water or sleep one bit.
“Come to order now. Sit,” came a commanding voice and the Beekeeper himself entered the room, looking well-fed and comfortable, easy in his power. Even his white hair was neatly combed. He adjusted his coke-bottle glasses and gestured at the chairs. Cautiously, everyone took sea
ts. The drones, including Mala and Pug, stood in a ring outside the chairs, guarding. Dr. Griffin took up the chair closest to the cooler. The taser still hung from his belt. The other drones each carried multiple weapons.
“There’s no need to fear,” Dr. Griffin said in that calm, measured voice. “You are one of us. One of my family. One of my Hive.”
“What if we don’t want to be?” John growled. “You and I had a deal. We—”
“You want to be one of us,” the Beekeeper interjected, “even if you don’t know it yet. We start all of our sessions with a salute. It goes like this.” He patted his chest over his heart with his right hand twice. “We are the Hive!”
All the drones around the circle patted their own chests and said in unison, “We are the Hive!”
“Now you.” The Beekeeper removed a box of snack crackers and a plastic bottle of honey from the cooler. “Everyone together now. ‘We are the Hive.’”
Ressler folded his arms around the handcuffs. The Bodysnatcher didn’t move.
Keen glanced at the tasers each drone carried. It was clear what would happen if she disobeyed, and in any case, she wanted to convince the Beekeeper that she was joining the Hive, get them to trust her so she could find out what they were up to and take them down from inside. Therefore, she should go along with the salute.
No, she thought almost instantly. Dr. Griffin wouldn’t believe a conversion if it came too quickly. With another unhappy glance at the tasers, she pursed her lips and remained silent, though her heart beat fast in painful anticipation.
Stuart felt no such compunctions. He patted his chest and said, “We are the Hive.”
“Excellent, Stuart!” The Beekeeper squeezed a dollop of honey onto the cracker and held it above Stuart’s nose. “Open.”
Uncertainly, Stuart opened his mouth and Dr. Griffin dropped the honeyed cracker inside, like a trainer rewarding a dog. Stuart crunched. Keen’s mouth watered despite herself.
“What do you say?” Dr. Griffin prompted.
“Thank you, Beekeeper,” Stuart said, spraying crumbs.
The Beekeeper beamed his praise, then turned to the others. “The rest of you failed your first order.”
Before Keen could react further, a taser tapped her back and electricity jolted through her. It was as bad as she remembered from her training. Her muscles convulsed and burned, and she went limp.
“I am sorry,” Pug said behind her. “But you broke a rule. Are you okay?”
John and Ressler both shouted out as they got taser jolts of their own. John fell out of his chair, and two drones hauled him back into it.
Anger and pain in equal measures flared in Keen, but she couldn’t do much about either. Her muscles took several seconds to respond, and awful pain followed. Finally she was upright in the chair again.
“Just follow the rules,” Mala told her quietly. “You don’t need to think. Just do.”
The other drones were murmuring to John and Ressler. Keen forced herself upright as Dr. Griffin took out more honey and crackers.
“Once more,” he said. “We are the Hive!”
All the members of the outer circle repeated the salute. So did Stuart. Then John.
Keen sat on her anger and decided she could get away with obeying now. She tapped her chest. “We are the Hive,” she said.
Ressler remained stubbornly silent.
“Very good!” Dr. Griffin clapped his hands like an elementary school teacher and held a honeyed cracker over Keen’s nose. She felt like a puppy being offered a treat, but she was so hungry, she found she didn’t care. “Open.”
“Hooray!” Pug said.
She crunched the sweet, salty treat down, savoring it. John and Stuart got one each, and Keen couldn’t help but notice that this was Stuart’s second one.
It’s your own fault, she thought. You could have had one the first time. She clamped down on that line of thinking. It was what the Beekeeper wanted.
“Donald,” the Beekeeper said, “you still need to learn.”
“Screw you,” Ressler said, and screamed when the taser hit him again.
“Twice, please,” the Beekeeper said. “Once for disobeying, and once for disrespect.”
“No swearing,” Pug agreed.
Keen looked away when Ressler screamed the third time. Her face was hot, and she wanted to hit the drones, attack the Beekeeper. But she sat still.
“Now, Donald,” the Beekeeper said again when Ressler had recovered, “once again. We are the Hive.”
Everyone in the circle except Ressler repeated the salute.
A spark snapped from the taser in the hand of the drone behind Ressler, and this time Keen said, “Please! Just say it, Ressler. For me.”
Ressler looked at her, his blue eyes hard. She pleaded with him silently. A drop of sweat slid down Ressler’s cheek. The circle held its breath.
At last, Ressler nodded. He slapped his chest with his cuffed hand. “We are the Hive,” he said.
“Delightful!” the Beekeeper shouted, reminding Keen for a horrible moment of Reddington. The Beekeeper dropped a honey cracker into Ressler’s mouth, then took from the cooler a half-sized bottle of cola. “And this is for you, Elizabeth, my star pupil, for helping Donald see the way.”
He placed the cool bottle in Keen’s hands. Everyone was watching in undisguised envy. Keen could almost feel the liquid pouring down her parched throat, especially after the salt from the cracker. The Beekeeper nodded encouragingly.
“Please, sir,” she said, “may I give it to Stuart? He needs it more.”
The Beekeeper clapped his hands again. “You’ve just uncovered Rule Number One, Elizabeth.”
“The needs of the Hive outweigh the needs of its members,” intoned the people in the circle, including Pug.
“But in this case,” the Beekeeper continued, “your need outweighs Stuart’s. So drink up.”
“Oh.” Keen kept her voice meek. “Thank you, Dr. Griffin.”
She drained the bottle. It was the best soda of her life. Ressler gave her a look of… jealousy? She couldn’t blame him. The cool soda washed her throat clean and made her extremities tingle. The Beekeeper’s beaming face surmounted it all, and Keen made herself look elsewhere. She didn’t want to connect that image with the delights of the soda.
“Now we’re going to play a game,” Dr. Griffin said. “It’s called Judge.”
“May I watch?” An older woman—gray hair pulled into a bun, gray eyes, crow’s feet—entered the room. She wore a modestly cut gray dress, and Keen wondered why she was the only person who wasn’t wearing a green jumpsuit.
“Hi, Mrs. Griffin!” Pug almost shouted. “I am glad to see you!”
“Honey,” Dr. Griffin said reproachfully, “we’re at a delicate moment. I’d much rather that you—”
“But I enjoy this part so much,” she whined. “Please?”
“She should stay,” Pug said in a quiet voice.
Dr. Griffin reached up and took her hand from his chair. “I can’t say no to you. Just stay out of the way, then.”
“Of course,” she said. “We are the Hive.”
“We are the Hive,” said everyone in the room automatically, including Keen.
Mrs. Griffin edged to the wall and leaned against it, folding her bony arms against a non-existent chest. What kind of life did the wife of a cult leader live? Keen didn’t want to think about it.
“As I was saying,” the Beekeeper said, drawing Keen’s attention again, “the game we’re playing is called Judge. It helps us remember that without the group, we are all unhappy, low-born insects, but together we are strong. The rules are simple. One person sits in the center of our security circle and confesses to the group any sins he or she has committed or thought of. The rest of us shout the Hive’s opinion of those sins. Mala will go first to demonstrate.”
Mala took the chair in the center of the circle. Her face was tight, and Keen noticed how her body was tense. Mala might be familiar with the game,
but that didn’t mean she liked it.
The young woman took a breath and said, “I thought about my father today and wondered what he was doing.”
Mrs. Griffin and all the drones in the outer circle pointed at her. In one voice, they shouted, “Filth!”
Keen jumped. Stuart flinched. Mala bent her head. Pug nodded.
“Everyone together,” the Beekeeper prompted. “Sins cannot be expiated without the will of the group.”
“But it’s not a sin to think of your family,” John objected.
The drone behind John stung him with the taser. John jerked in his chair and went limp, then recovered with a groan.
“Order. It is a sin to think of your life outside this group,” the Beekeeper admonished. “And John—you have something to confess when your turn comes. Now, everyone?”
The new members, including John and Ressler, pointed at Mala and, without much conviction, said, “Filth.”
“Stronger!” the Beekeeper ordered. “Louder! Feel the hatred toward her sin!”
They exchanged glances, then obeyed. “Filth!”
“Again! As loud as you can.”
“Filth!”
The shout reverberated against Keen’s bones like primal drums.
“Continue, Mala,” said Dr. Griffin.
“I wanted more food after the last meal,” Mala said.
“Filth!”
Keen’s head felt floaty, like a bit of flotsam in a wave pool. The abrupt sugar rush and the shout swept her away.
“I… wanted time by myself,” Mala said.
“Filth!”
“Very good,” the Beekeeper said. “You are forgiven, Mala. Come out of the circle.”
Mala looked shaken, but exited with dignity. Her eyes met Keen’s as she moved, and she gave a small nod, though Keen didn’t know what it meant. Still, Keen nodded back. An ally was an ally.
The Beekeeper gave Mala an entire package of cheese sandwich crackers. Mala tore into them. The smell of cheese spread—protein—filled the air, and Keen stared with open desire at that package. Licking her fingers, Mala returned to her place behind Keen.
The Blacklist--The Beekeeper No. 159 Page 9
