by Meli Raine
Our own people systematically killed some of the very children she raised for the cause.
That alone isn't a complete surprise to me. I've seen the records of how Stateless handles people they deem lesser. The Test showed how little regard the leaders have for a human life. Being alive, in itself, isn't enough to deserve respect. Our philosophy says that you have to earn respect.
Simply being human isn't enough.
Proving oneself worthy is required. And it starts with being strong enough, and smart enough, to survive.
All these teens can fathom, as trauma sets in and adrenaline is processed by the liver and kidneys, pulse returning to a normal rate, limbic system completely shot, is that this is the fault of Stateless' leadership.
And I am a leader.
Their contempt grows as the ride continues and Kina writhes in my arms, hand in a fist, pounding my shoulder like she's nailing a coffin shut.
The helicopter pivots at a sharp right angle, the slow descent still making air pressure push against my eardrums. I open my mouth to equalize it, jaw clicking, the tension turning to a soothing pain.
Kina sniffs, hard and sharp, and sits up. Chilly air separates us now, her eyes dead.
“I wish I really were Glen,” she mutters, mouth close enough for me to hear it, Duff's eyebrow arching with questions I refuse to even try to answer.
In the dark, the acres of forest below us look like the fur of an enormous beast, treetops lush with evergreen and deciduous leaves. A sliver of moon peeks out from behind a thick blanket of grey clouds, the light just enough to show a large lake to our right.
We land slowly in a large field with baseball diamonds painted on short grass, the white lines like airport signals.
“Where are we?” one of the twin teen girls shouts. Their names escape me.
“I don't know,” Kina and I answer in unison as she shoves me away, turning her entire body toward the kids, message loud and clear.
I've been rejected.
I've been used.
I am no longer needed.
And I don't blame her.
What I did to her back in that car was harsh. Warranted, yes, but brutal in the face of what she just went through. Her emotions are going to be a roller coaster. Even a well-trained operative can't fight the swings inside. I should know.
I'm going through it right now.
“Callum. Inside,” Duff says as he bends to talk in my ear. “There's a central lodge where everyone will bunk tonight. We have rooms that are more secure than others for debriefing.”
The pilots chatter as the kids and I climb out, Kina last, Duff guiding us to a large stone building. It looks like something out of a photo shoot for tourism in New England, but I know we're not that far north.
“Where the hell are we?” I ask Duff.
“Northern Pennsylvania. God's country.”
He says the last sentence so steadily, I wonder what it means.
Double oak doors, worn and scratched as if wolves fought for admission, greet us as we walk up stone steps into a warm, inviting place. Soft lights are supplemented by an enormous wood fire in a beehive fireplace.
Tension lessens with each step, even the teens releasing pent-up anger, shoulders sagging, mouths opening for yawns to let out. The smaller kids instinctively cling to the bigger ones, craving security.
I know the children are accustomed to rugged environments, at least those out of the nursery. Plenty of the older kids have been in Woods. A cabin is fine. A tent would work, too.
Hell, we could send the tweens into the forest around the campground with nothing but their clothes and most of them would be just fine.
But just fine isn't good enough tonight.
“Philippa,” Kina says in a voice filled with too much sorrow. “Go take care of them all. I'll be there shortly.” Her eyes flicker with anger when she looks at me, then Duff. “I'm about to be informed of every detail involving our future.”
The command isn't missed by either of us, Duff's eyes narrowing, not with suspicion but with interest.
Philippa does as asked. There are two cases of diapers stacked on a table against one wall, and cartons of formula and juice. She herds everyone in that direction and starts opening boxes. Candace looks back at us over and over, keeping Kina in view. Tim is trying not to shake as he plays ball with a toddler. Someone thought to bring toys. Exactly where they came from is a mystery, but they're here, a few bright objects intended to distract.
In mass society, parents fixate on toys as a necessary part of development. I went to enough baby showers at my old job–hurried affairs involving a sheet cake and a cash collection to buy a stroller, a crib, a car seat–to know that the toys resulted in the greatest cries of pleasure and wistfulness.
We were raised with the woods as our fixation, the sticks and greenery our toys. Store-bought toys were for shallow parents and lesser minds.
But a simple ball can work magic on a scared tween and a toddler.
Kina marches toward one of the rooms behind the big stone fireplace, her back to us, body language clear: we're expected to follow.
She halts abruptly in the doorway. As I get closer, I see why.
It's a command center.
Computers cover folding tables, cheap white plastic held up by thin black table legs, the monitors blinking like beacons. I count twelve people manning the computers, headphones on, only two of them bothering to look up when we enter. To our left is another door. Duff moves in front of us, hand on the doorknob as it's yanked open from the inside.
Drew Foster's icy gaze meets mine.
“Welcome,” he says. I almost snort.
Kina walks past him and moves to a table cluttered with notes and electronics, three laptops and two small phones all pinging with notifications.
“You have us. What are you going to do with us?” She sounds like her sister.
“Same as before,” he answers.
She cuts him off. “Before it was me and Callum. Now you have my children. This is different.”
“No kidding. Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with a decent cover story to keep more than twenty kids together?”
“Together?” she gasps, the mask of Glen melting away with a single word, eyes lighting up with possibility.
My heart tweaks. Of course. I can't believe I didn't understand sooner.
She's terrified the children will be taken from her.
“Kina,” I say, moving closer, wanting to hold her, touch her shoulder, rub her back–anything to assure her.
“First, we had to get them to safety,” Drew says. “Now we’re working to keep them together.”
Her eyelids close, lips curling in. She's trying not to cry.
Then they fly open, wretched relief turned to action.
“Now that they're together,” she says, the acid tone on the last word making it clear she's referring to the five- to nine-year-olds and the three who were taken by Gentian for medical help, “what are your next steps?”
Drew isn't fazed by her tone, his body moving with a tight focus that makes me realize he's accustomed to leadership far above my limited experience. “Here,” he says, handing out manila folders. “Everything's been set up. Execution is key.”
I open my file and read along as Kina scans the documents.
“It's imperfect. We'll tighten as we proceed,” Duff adds. “Basic story is that the campground housed a crazy couple who collected foster kids and abused them. Homeschooled them in isolation. Didn't feed them properly. The locals and other campers didn't realize the extent of it. The crazy foster parents had hidden housing in the woods for the older ones. It took an aerial drone from a surveying company to discover what was going on.”
Kina's eyes widen as Duff speaks.
“Foster parents were religious freaks. Isolationists who think the end of the world is coming, and technology is the cause. They fled when authorities came. Kids abandoned.”
“You think the press
will believe this?” Kina asks, mouth pursed, jaw tight. It's clear she doesn't.
“We've planted seeds–and operatives–here in the campground and local towns. Lots of 'I saw the kids in town but never imagined' and 'The parents seemed fine but I always thought he was a little weird' cover actors are already in place. We have it all set up.”
“You do this routinely?” she inquires, the anger bled out of her voice, fascination creeping in.
He blinks exactly once. “We do it enough to do it well. The chances that Stateless would blow the cover story are nil. They don't want to be uncovered.”
“They blew up our compound. They're capable of anything,” she hisses. “So are we,” she throws out, looking at me for confirmation.
Every man's eyes turn to me.
“I know,” Foster and Duff say in unison.
“We know,” Duff adds quickly, blue eyes like mine, face a stone slab of concentration. “No one is underestimating what you and Wy–Callum–are capable of. And those kids in there are damn sharp.”
“The older ones can hold their own,” I say.
“No joke. One of those twins already bagged a deer with a bow and arrow,” Foster mutters. “Who does that within twenty minutes of being here?”
“Jocelyn,” Kina murmurs. She looks at me. “When I saw her with her bow and arrow, I often thought of you.”
My fingers itch with the memory of so much time in Woods. Duff studies me, slowly and carefully, his eyes jumping to my hands, mouth twisting into a smile.
“You've still got it?”
“Got what?”
“The gift?”
“Gift?”
“You were one of the best archers Dad had ever seen by the time you were three.”
Dad. Archer. Best.
Three.
“What?”
“Dad was an elite archer. Olympic competitor. It was part of what got him brought into the intelligence agencies. He could shoot like no one else. Tried to teach me. I'm decent, but you were two and a half when you begged to try my bow. Shot like you were an adult. Dad always used the word uncanny to describe it. By four, you were nailing the evening dinner from fifty yards.”
“I was taking down deer at age four?” I choke out.
“No. Rabbits.”
Kina shivers, our eyes locking.
“But another year or so with Dad's training and I don't doubt you could have.”
“We'll never know, will we?” I spit out, needing to move the conversation to any topic but this. I face Foster. “How will we make sure Kina gets custody of the children?”
“Working on that. Documents establishing her identity in regular society are being created. Need to get foster care licensing in some state–not sure which. Once that's done, we can try to get her into a home where she can take three, maybe five of them.”
“Five? There are thirteen!” she cries out. “Maybe fourteen! Plus the trainees!”
“Keeping them all together is going to be hard.”
“Why?”
“In mainstream society, we don't have private homes where twenty unrelated children happen to live.”
“A group home,” I venture. “One run for children with special needs?”
“Special needs?” Kina rants, turning on me. “They don't have problems! Stateless made sure of it. They weeded the children out very carefully.” Her expression makes it clear she found the process distasteful. “I spent years protecting the 'weak' children!”
“I know,” Duff says in a soothing voice. “But it's a cover story, remember? Nothing has to be true. It's about preservation.”
“I see,” she says with a sigh. It's not a capitulation.
Just an acknowledgment.
“I want them all,” she says hotly. “If you have to use 'special needs' as a way to keep them together, then do it. If Stateless ever thinks of them as being weak, though...”
“Nothing they believe matters,” I say softly. “This isn't about our leaders. We need to shift our thinking to a new paradigm. We're on the outside, in mass society, and we need to make our story fit in here.”
“Shifting my thinking like that is a lot to ask when I'm still covered in Thomas's blood.”
“I know,” Foster says, his voice surprisingly compassionate. “But we have to get this right. You can recover later. Were you taught how to compartmentalize in your training?”
We both snort in unison.
“We were taught to elevate,” she says.
Questioning eyes meet mine.
“You would call it dissociation,” I explain to the men, knowing how crazy it sounds only because I spent nine years learning how American society works.
“I know what it is. You were taught that?” Foster asks, the pain in his voice mingled with an eerie respect.
Kina gives me a puzzled look.
“In mass society, dissociation is a response to abuse. People do it to escape being tormented,” I explain.
“I know,” she answers simply. “That's how they interpret it. We were taught to use it to our advantage. Their inability to harness it as a weapon was part of what made them so weak... oh.”
That oh snaps my heart in two.
Duff jumps in, the words that come out of his mouth surprisingly rushed, as if crowding out emotion. “We need you to use all your tools to make this happen. Buy into it. Trust us.”
Trust us.
“This is your plan?” she asks, the words moving out of her mouth, the rest of her face frozen. She speaks like a ventriloquist.
Who, then, is the dummy?
“It's the best one we have right now,” Foster replies. “Keeps the kids together for now. Gives you options outside of Stateless to raise some of the children, if you want.”
“Of course I want that!”
“Then it's settled.” Foster moves to the door, opens it, and says something to a woman wearing headphones. She glances in, nods, and disappears. He returns, clearly relieved to move forward.
“What did you just do?”
“Triggered the plan. Next step's being launched.”
“Where are the five- to nine-year-olds?” Kina asks him. He looks at Duff, who looks at me. “The ones who lived,” she says in an arch tone.
“We got them out. That's all I know.”
“Are they all safe?” What happened to Janice seeps into her words, the real question too hard to say aloud.
Because of emotion. Because of empathy.
“Don't know.” Duff's simple reply is filled with his own version of feelings. It's a lie. An obvious one. “We’re working on getting them to a place where you can see them, but — ”
Kina leaves without another word.
“This plan better work,” Duff mutters to Foster.
“It has to. It's all we've got,” I add.
I head toward Kina, who is surrounded by children in the main room, being peppered with questions as the tweens and teens seek information. Most of their expressions are blank, but their eyes are sharp and calculating. Training has kicked in after the shock.
This is a dangerous time.
It's always a dangerous time in our world, but the schism has divided these young ones from all that they know. Which direction they will choose–to ally with us or to reject our premise–is unknown.
Kina is key to keeping them moving forward.
Then again, there's nothing to go back to.
A sob, a shout, a series of murmurs fill the air, the sniffle of sad little ones changing as an operative appears with a tray of food, more people setting up a meal. The normality of it makes me choke down a laugh. If you didn't know the circumstances, you would think this was an extended family gathering, a fun, light event designed to connect and reconnect.
When I lived in Pittsburgh, I was invited to many of those gatherings. Work colleagues included me in family holidays, birthday parties, and more.
Pittsburgh seems a million miles away now. Nothing I had there is real. My job, my apartm
ent, my connections–all gone. Stateless will have told them I am injured, or mentally ill. The newspapers may have already run stories designed to ruin me, to put me in law enforcement databases, to get mass society to hate me for crimes I did not commit.
“Callum?” One of the twins comes to me, nostrils flaring, chewing on the inside of one cheek as if holding in a beast that is crashing the gates. “Why did you do this? Why did you let Romeo die? Why did everything change after you came back?”
I look over to Kina. She averts her eyes.
But not her ears.
The teen looks up at me, her face solemn and angry, eyes accusing. Youth is a double-edged sword. She knows enough to cause damage, but not enough to have good judgment.
“I don't know,” I answer, the honesty making her head snap back in surprise.
“What?”
“I do not know. That is an unacceptable answer, but it’s the truth. I can tell you that I've done nothing to make Stateless destroy the compound. Why they did so is a mystery.”
“And these men!” Her twin comes forward, emboldened by her sister's willingness to confront me. “Who are they? You’re working with the enemy,” she hisses.
This time, Kina makes eye contact.
This time, she doesn't look away. Hands on hips, her body language changes from fearful and concerned about the children to a warrior stance, primed for battle.
I appear to be the battlefield.
“No. Not the enemy.”
“YES!” screeches Candace, who comes from around one of the twins. “Mary's right,” she says, grabbing her arm in solidarity. “You're acting like a double agent. We were warned about those. Some of us get out into mass society and we’re turned. Our training fails. Maybe that's what happened,” she says eagerly, looking to Kina as a touchstone. “Maybe you were wrong to trust Callum. Maybe he's working against us.”
“What if he got the leaders to bomb our compound?” the other twin, Jocelyn, asks in a breathy voice.
Just as she looks at me, Duff's phone goes off. I hear the mutter of his voice, low and vigilant, as Kina takes a step toward me, one of the little blonde girls in her arms, her dress streaked with blood and dirt. We escaped just over two hours ago.
