The Ark

by Laura Liddell Nolen

The hairs on my neck began to stand on end. This felt dangerous. “So ask.”

  He nodded and took my hands in his once again. He was as confident as ever, or so I thought. But the tone of his voice betrayed him. He knew the gravity of what he was about to say. Even if he couldn’t have possibly predicted everything that would come from it, he surely knew what he was asking.

  “I need you to steal something for me.”

  Twenty-three

  “I don’t. I don’t steal anymore.”

  He didn’t respond to that, so I continued. “I’m not that person anymore, Isaiah. Don’t you remember talking about my cage, and how it was bigger than the prison walls? That was my cage. And I’m done with it. Let me help with the food, or the children. Heck, I’ll scrub the toilets. I can work hard, so let me do honest work. There are plenty of thieves among us. They can do the stealing. I’m out.”

  He breathed. “I’m so sorry, little bird. I really am.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just don’t make me go back there.”

  He frowned. “I don’t have a choice. You’re the best. We need the best. You want to live here, right? You want to belong? You can’t just go around learning about potatoes and expect that to be enough.”

  It was like falling through the ice on a frozen pond. I felt myself slip, like I’d missed a step, then my stomach dropped. “You know about that?”

  “These are my people, Char. I have to look after them.”

  My hands went cold, and my fingers began to freeze. “You’ve been spying on me?”

  “These could be your people, too. You can belong here, little bird. You can be safe. There’s a program on the Ark’s system. You can access it from Central Command. It has… it’s important. You have to get it for me. For us.”

  I didn’t answer. I was numb.

  So this is how a heart breaks. Not with a betrayal of kisses, or declarations of indifference, but like this. With a request I couldn’t refuse.

  Couldn’t I?

  The threat was there. In his hands, Isaiah held everything I wanted. If he told me to leave, I would have no home. No food, no shelter, unless I stole it.

  So if he told me to steal, I had to steal.

  “I’ll leave you now. I’ll send you the details later. You can sleep on it.” Isaiah slid off the ledge we’d chosen and strode out of the room.

  I stayed behind to stare at the stars.

  When I left the room, I didn’t want to go to sleep. I returned to the common room and found a new dance partner, some boy who worked in the kitchen. I did not ask his name. I didn’t speak at all. My new partner held me well enough while the music played. Around us, those who were still dancing were also quietly weeping.

  I cried, too. I didn’t know why, but it didn’t matter. The best part about the tango is you don’t have to think.

  The package arrived early the next morning, while I stumbled, barely awake, toward the mess hall. It was delivered by Adam, of all people. I didn’t know the exact nature of the war Isaiah would wage, but I thought Adam was awfully young to be a soldier.

  “Where’s your sister?”

  “Amiel’s around somewhere.”

  “Does she know about this? Or is she a bit young for the cloak-and-dagger bit?”

  He failed to pick up on the irony in my tone. “The King said I’m not supposed to tell her about it. I’m just supposed to give you the package and tell you we’ll be waiting for your orders.”

  I stopped walking. “Wait. We? Orders?”

  “Yeah,” Adam shifted uncomfortably. “There’s a group of us,” he said, finally sensing my disapproval.

  I made no effort to lighten my tone. “Well, Adam, you can tell them to stop waiting. I work alone.”

  “But the King said—”

  “Oh, you don’t have to tell him anything. I’ll deal with Isaiah myself.”

  I was granted the satisfaction of seeing Adam’s surprise at hearing me call the Mole King by his name. Once he left, I slipped into a side closet, leaning against the door so that no one could surprise me, and sifted through the package. I had to be impressed with Isaiah’s work. There were a solid number of details: the guard schedule in Mission Control (around the clock), the exact location of the access door, and complicated instructions on how to get back to the Remnant if the cargo hold got locked down.

  I frowned and flipped through everything again. There was nothing about what that program actually was, or how to download it. I must be on a need-to-know basis.

  Isaiah didn’t trust me.

  I thought about that. If anyone on the Ark could understand me, it was Isaiah. His family had divorced him, too. That was a pain that never went away. It receded further and further into the skin until it melded with bone. It lay down with us at night and whispered truth in our ears. This is who you are: abandoned children. Bearers of heartache. Rebels who got what you had coming. Whatever became of my life, should I live, it would always be tainted by this thing that clung to our skeletons, defining our destiny over the course of a thousand subtle changes in the way we saw the world, interacted with it.

  So he understood that when he asked me to go back to the person I used to be, what he really meant was, be the person who ruined everyone who ever loved you. No one could understand that like Isaiah. There was no mistaking it. The only thing worse than knowing your mother cries herself to sleep at night is knowing that she finally stopped crying, and the only difference between the Mole King and me was that his family had died on Earth, and mine was still out there somewhere, blaming me. Hating me.

  My arm burned, and I saw that I had crumpled the blueprints into a tight ball, my fist a steel trap around them. I smoothed the pages against the door and willed my throat to relax as well. I had no use for tears.

  I cleared my mind, and only this remained: Isaiah had always had good instincts.

  He was right not to trust me.

  He found me within an hour. I was pulling potatoes, a task the head gardener usually left for me. It suited me, of course, so I was grateful. I yanked a big one out and shook off some loose soil, then tossed it across the row into a box with the others. It was a long shot, but I made it on the first try, and allowed myself a victory smile.

  It’s the little things.

  “Char.” His voice sounded less melodic than usual. He was all business, this morning.

  Maybe he had always been all business, and I’d been a fool to think otherwise.

  I made my voice pleasant. “Isaiah.”

  “Adam says you’re not taking a team?”

  “Adam shouldn’t be doing this stuff, Ise. You know that.”

  “That has nothing to do with you,” he said.

  “Until you send me children to break into Mission Control! You know, and I know, that that’s exactly what happened to me. There was Kingston, then Kip. I learned from the best, until I became the best. Then there was nothing else I could do. No other path to take.”

  “The kid has talent. And like you say, you’re the best.”

  “All the more reason to keep him away. Teach him to do something else. Anything else. One thing I’ve learned here is that nobody is good at just one thing.”

  Isaiah remained impassive. “You’re gonna need backup.”

  “Either you trust me or you don’t. I work alone.”

  He tapped the table, and I saw that he no longer carried a cane. He must have memorized the layout of most of the half-sector by now. “You never did before.”

  “I’m not the same person I was before, am I? Look, that doesn’t matter.” I jerked the packet off the small of my back, where I’d taped it for safekeeping, and waved it at him. “You won’t tell me what the program does. You just want me to steal it. Fine. But everyone has to draw a line somewhere, Ise. This is my line. No kids.”

  Isaiah smiled. “Good thing I do trust you, baby. You and me, we’ve been through some things.”

  I softened, thinking of his hand on mine in Meghan’s car, Cassa’s gun at our
necks. Why did I have to be so angry all the time? Maybe I was just plain broken.

  “You got to take Adam,” he said. “You’re good, little bird, but you know nothing about computers. Too many years on lockup. And this is one serious computer. Adam’s the best.”

  I considered that. “No one else, then. Not his little sister, for sure.”

  “I’ll tell Amiel. She’ll be mighty disappointed. Reckon she’ll live, though.”

  “That’s the idea,” I said dismissively. I plunged back into the potatoes. There was nothing left to say. Isaiah had won. I was a monster, so I would act like a monster. And this kid would be right behind me.

  Later that day, I went to see Isaiah in his bunk. He kept himself separate from the day-to-day stuff. I understood that; it made him a better leader if he remained above the minutiae of our existence. No one wanted to know whether the King left toothpaste on the bathroom mirror or not.

  But it wasn’t like he lived opulently. Nothing could be further from the truth. Isaiah’s room was small and sparsely furnished, but it had a warmth that kept it from feeling like a cell. There were bright, thin tapestries on the gray walls and a shaggy red rug underfoot. His bed, smaller than a single bed in the main part of the Ark, was draped with a heavy handmade quilt. He’d told me once that he liked the idea of being surrounded by color.

  Isaiah was sitting on his bed with a book, his long fingers transforming the careful rows of Braille into images only he could see. I had a flashback to our last day in juvy.

  We’d come a long way.

  Not everything had changed, though. For example, Isaiah spoke before I had a chance to identify myself. “Char, baby.”

  “Let me guess. Eyes in the back of your head?” The idea that anyone could know me so well gave warmth to the little thrill of being found out. “I don’t know why you keep calling me that. Not anymore.”

  He returned my smile in spite of his serious tone. “And here I thought I wasn’t getting through. You never cared before. When you’re ready, you can pick a better name.”

  I grimaced. “We’ll see. Maybe when I’m not stealing.”

  His fingers stopped. “Now, don’t get like that.”

  “I’m not. I just needed to talk to you first. Before I go… do this. I have questions.”

  Isaiah paused, then laid the book aside in a deliberate motion. “That’s fine, that’s just fine. But first, let me show you something.” He crossed the small, spare room and felt his way to the latch of a small cabinet and shifted a few things aside. He spent less time rummaging around than most people. I guess he kinda had to know where things were. As a result, he barely made a move he didn’t need to make. The effect was intimidating.

  So was the gun he produced. It was suddenly shiny and present between us. I felt myself reeling. “How did you get that? No, don’t tell me. You brought it up here.”

  He held it up for me to see. “We couldn’t bring guns. Had to get through the screening process to get here. Take another look.”

  I paused, suddenly full of a thousand new questions. “I know that gun. Is it from the cargo bin I told you about? Wait, how did you get here?”

  Isaiah sighed. “Same as you. Used a starpass. Although, ours weren’t real. We had a few connections. Once we got up here, we met up.”

  I’d been doing some figuring. By my estimate, there were at least two thousand people in the Remnant. We were never all in the same place at the same time, so it was hard to say. The truth is that it could have been twice that many. “How did you get that many fake starpasses through unnoticed?”

  “Now Char, baby. You’re not asking the right questions.”

  Isaiah raised his eyebrows. This was the only response I was going to get, apparently. When I nodded, conceding defeat, he sensed the change in the atmosphere. He had been in control the whole conversation, but now I was aware of that.

  His voice was gentle, though. “All right. Look here.” He pointed the top of the gun at me, pulled the chamber back, and pumped a bullet out.

  I caught it, reflexively. But when it hit my palm, I frowned. “It feels weird.”

  “It do, don’t it.”

  I turned it over in my hand. “This isn’t metal.”

  His head did the tilty thing again. “That is a steel-plastic polymer. The scientists tell me it’s harder than flesh, but not as strong as—”

  “The rest of the stuff on the ship,” I said, understanding. “In other words, it’s not going to break through the hull and suck us all out into space. It’s a safety bullet.”

  “Nothing safe about it. They got all the molecules stacked up in a certain pattern. If it hits glass or steel, it stops. If it hits skin or fabric? Now, that’s a different story.”

  I pressed my thumbnail into the bullet. It dented slightly. I was on the verge of figuring something out, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  I looked at him, expecting more, but Isaiah just sat there, patiently waiting for me to draw my conclusions. “So, where did this come from?”

  “You already know that, now.”

  “It was engineered on Earth, obviously. Brought here by someone who was already looking for a fight. It’d have to be the Commander.”

  He crossed his arms and leaned back a little. “Wouldn’t have to be. But I think it probably was.”

  “So he brought the armory up here with him.”

  “I’m thinking he brought a lot more than that.”

  “You think he brought an army.”

  “There are a hundred thousand people on board this Ark, little bird. He didn’t have to bring one. They were already here.”

  I turned the bullet over in my hand. “How many of his guns did you get?”

  “Just that one. They got away with all the others.”

  “Isaiah. They’re armed. You can’t hope to win this.”

  He pursed his lips. “This?”

  “This.” I spread my arms. “Whatever game you’re playing. Whatever war you’re planning.”

  “It’s not a war, Char. Can’t you see that? This is a revolution.”

  “Either way, we’re gonna lose.”

  “Hmm.” Isaiah leaned back again the wall, frowning. He had the look of a guy who’d tasted something he didn’t like. “I may not have the weapons. But I have you. And you’re gonna steal that program.”

  “Not if you won’t tell me what it is.”

  His voice was suddenly distant, careful. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, little bird.”

  A flush of anger rushed over my skin, and I turned to leave.

  When I reached the doorway, Isaiah gave a sharp rap against the rail of the bed, causing me to jump, and stop. “All right,” he said. “It’s the algorithms for the lighting patterns in the other sectors.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “The lighting program? That’s it?”

  “Yeah. If we have that, they can’t throw us into the Dark Ages.”

  “And they keep this program in Mission Control? Are they paranoid much, or what?”

  “That’s what I hear.” Isaiah scratched behind his head. “Space is a big, dark place. We all know that, but we don’t want to know that, you understand. That’s why they light the place up like a theme park all the time. They can’t afford the dark. It makes people crazy. If we get our hands on it, we could turn the tables easy enough.”

  “That’s the plan? Turning the tables?”

  “Not just now, Char. Don’t you worry about that. You just come home with the program, and then we’ll talk about the plan.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  He pursed his lips almost imperceptibly. “Yeah. It is.” Isaiah stood suddenly. “You got any other questions for the Mole King?”

  I was taken aback. “No. I guess not.”

  “Good. ’Cause I got some questions for you.”

  I straightened. That was when it occurred to me that he hadn’t asked me to sit, or anything. I was still just standing there, too stiff to be considered a guest.r />
  I wasn’t a guest, though, was I? I was an underling. More like a soldier than a friend, or a girlfriend.

  No, not a soldier. A thief.

  I squared my shoulders. Isaiah would never, ever hurt me. So there was no reason for the small curls of nerves that began to stir in my belly.

  I cleared my throat. “Go ahead, Ise. You can ask me anything. You know that.”

  “This gun’s been fired.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re the one who fired it.”

  “Yes.”

  “You said there was a whole bin, at one point. My spies tell me there was a blast, and the guards started moving. But they got there first.”

  “Adam?” I asked.

  “Yes. And Amiel, among others. They were close enough to see you running, but we didn’t know who it was. I had my suspicions. Made me happy to think you were out there. Helped me get to sleep some nights. Anyway, they grabbed the gun off the ground and got outta there before the guards saw them.”

  “That’s not a question, Ise.” I took a step back, and then another.

  “No, it’s not. Be patient, little bird. We’ll get there. Seems there were hundreds of guns. Now, the Char I used to know would never have left a weapon behind. And I know you’re not armed now.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was near enough to the door that I didn’t worry about getting away. Not that I had anywhere to go.

  But surely that didn’t matter, because like I said, Isaiah would never hurt me.

  “And the Char I know wouldn’t have kept all this hidden from her old friend Isaiah, would she. So here’s a question: Where were you?” He rubbed the back of his neck, then looked at me again. “Where were you hiding? Do I wanna know the answer? Here’s a better question: What changed?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but he spoke again, taking a step toward me.

  “You know what? I don’t care. Because this is my real question: Why are you so afraid of me?”

  My belly tightened, making me overly aware of how I held my face and hands.

  “Look, Isaiah—”

  “He knows, baby. He knows about the Remnant.”

  “The Commander? How? Wouldn’t he attack?”

  “He sure will. Central Command is coming after us. Thanks to you, we know he’s armed. That’s who you should be afraid of.”