The Phoenix Project (The Liberty Box Book 3)

by C. A. Gray

  “I didn’t, we can’t broadcast with a jammer,” I said coldly.

  “But… it couldn’t have been you then,” he spluttered, truly perplexed now. “You’d be brainwashed too!”

  “It was me,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I heard all those things in my head.”

  Joe stared at me, dumbfounded. “Yet—you weren’t brainwashed? Even for a little while?”

  “You might have the power to suggest ideas to me, Joe, but you don’t have the power to make me accept them. I knew they were lies, and I rejected them.”

  After a long pause, Joe murmured, “Amazing.”

  We’d reentered the usual stream of traffic now, and I knew we were almost into the city. I tried not to think what I was thinking.

  If I could resist, then why couldn’t Kate?

  I turned over the list of lies Joe had intended for me, and got stuck on, she hates you.

  That one I might have believed a little bit.

  “Doesn’t look like we’ve got a lot of fuel left,” Charlie cut in as we reentered the usual stream of traffic into the city. “We’re gonna have to do something soon.”

  I sighed. I’d think about all this later. I added, “I still need some pants other than the prison ones, too. For that matter, I’d like to get a disguise.”

  “Not sure how we can disguise your face, although that shiner helps a little,” said Charlie. “Maybe a hat with a really wide brim. We can make you a cowboy, if we can find a sombrero…”

  “That’s helpful. You could make me a ninja if you could find that outfit, too.” As long as we were being ridiculous.

  “Or a bank robber. If we can find a ski mask,” he returned, grinning.

  “That’ll blend in great,” I agreed. “Nobody would look twice.”

  We merged with traffic on the interstate, which thankfully was light that morning, as the sun had only just risen. It had been relatively light the last time I was on this highway too, since only a small percentage of the Republic could afford cars.

  Nobody said anything for a little while, which I appreciated, and Joe stuck to his side of the backseat, which I appreciated even more.

  I needed to get my head on straight. I felt shaken by the revelation that there had been targeted signals against me too. It was different when I thought Kate was up against something brand new, manufactured all for her—I could excuse her then. But knowing that I faced the same signals she had, and they’d bounced right off of me made it harder to excuse.

  But I was never susceptible to the generalized signals, I reminded myself. All the rest of the rebels still were, even after they knew they were there. Why is this any different?

  It isn’t, I told myself, as firmly as I could. I only trained Kate for a few weeks. I’ve had a lifetime of it. We didn’t start at the same level. She’s spent her whole life being brainwashed—by Joe, I silently added, but decided I’d let that one go for the moment. I’d have to deal with the issue of Joe separately. My background and Kate’s couldn’t be more different. I can’t compare her to me.

  Charlie glanced at me in the rearview mirror once. “Okay back there?”

  “Sure,” I said, my voice tight.

  Charlie arched an eyebrow at me. “That was convincing.”

  All right. Joe. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye—the feeble little man who’d created the Liberty Box technology. Who’d turned Kate against me. Who had attempted to programmed me to kill myself.

  I might just go ahead and hate him.

  My mental Uncle Patrick could keep his opinions to himself.

  Charlie looked at the fuel gauge, and sighed. “Afraid we can’t wait, we’re about to run out of gas. In lieu of a ninja costume, Jackson, I’ll drop you both behind some bushes and then come back and get you once I’ve filled the tank.”

  “I assume you mean with the ID chip you got from me when we first met,” I said. I’d given Charlie the chip I’d had on me when I’d rescued him and Kate from the palace. “But if they tightened security for the bullet trains, don’t you think that chip would set off alarm bells somewhere?”

  Joe nodded. “Yes, if Barrett’s new technology works,” he said. “All inactive government ID chips have been flagged.”

  “Does it work though?” Charlie pressed. “You said if.”

  “Well, they were still getting error messages last I heard; it'll take awhile to work out all the kinks. But it’s a risk.”

  “Yeah well, it’s also a risk that we won’t be able to find another car I can hotwire,” Charlie muttered. “It’s only the old ones that are easy. Keep your eyes open for an empty lot with a car that looks ancient, but if we don’t see an easy target we’re gonna have to risk the ID chip.” As we exited the interstate and entered the city, Charlie added, “Keep your heads down.”

  I slumped in my seat as we approached an intersection, too low to see anyone on the streets but still able to see the silver screen on the side of a two-story building across from us. It crackled to life.

  “Uh oh,” Charlie muttered under his breath. “Here it comes.”

  My heart beat faster, but I wasn’t sure why. “The Potentate won’t want anybody to know about our escape. He won’t even want people to know Joe exists or what that signifies—so what are they gonna say?”

  The seal of the Republic filled the screen, and it faded to show Jillian’s plastic smile in its place, waiting for her cue.

  “Good morning, citizens, and welcome to another wonderful day in our glorious Republic. This morning I bring you news of a mixed nature for myself—it is good news for the Republic, yet sad for me personally, and especially for the residents of Greensborough.”

  Two photos filled the screen briefly, and Charlie swore under his breath. My heart sank too. The photos were of Michael and Grant, two of the news team who had helped with Kate’s broadcast in Greensborough. We both knew what was coming.

  “Grant Pool, veteran news anchor in the city of Greensborough, and Michael Cox, their executive producer, were caught engaging in treasonous activities in the city of Trenton. Thankfully, both men were apprehended and shot on site, before they could incite riots.”

  “But she doesn’t say what they were doing,” I murmured.

  I could tell Charlie was gritting his teeth. “Of course not,” he said, his voice tight like his throat had constricted, “I’m sure she was ordered not to. Voltolini doesn’t want the other rebels to know he knows about the repeaters—he’s hoping more of us will show up to try the same thing, and get shot, too.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret Charlie’s emotion, but I suspected it had something to do with his mother. I patted his shoulder from behind, and said, “I hope you’re not thinking you share any guilt in this.”

  He let out a ragged breath. “I’m the one who told Will we had to take my parents with us to the palace. He didn’t want to do it. He wanted it to just be us.”

  “Why did you insist?”

  On the screen, Jillian had already changed the subject from our fallen comrades. She now rattled off the bio of some historian she was about to introduce, beaming that infuriatingly peppy smile of hers.

  Charlie said, “I insisted because I figured if we didn’t take them, something like this would happen,” he gestured at the screen. “They’d be helpless, and next thing we knew, they’d get captured and spill all the rebels’ plans.”

  “So it probably didn’t matter what you did, then,” I said. “This was the inevitable outcome either way.”

  Charlie shrugged. “I guess.”

  An elderly man with a gaunt face and gray hair encircling a shiny pate now sat opposite Jillian.

  “Benjamin Voltolini was a precocious child,” he was saying, “Exceptionally bright for his age, but that comes as no surprise, of course.” Photos of a young Voltolini filled the screen as the historian narrated over them, “He displayed both his entre
preneurial acumen and his humanitarian bent from the time he was twelve—”

  “I can’t listen to this or I’ll be sick,” Charlie declared, stepping on the gas to cross the street while everyone else continued to obediently watch the broadcast. If they hadn’t noticed the two pairs of eyes hovering in the backseat before, our defiance certainly attracted attention now—but no one else dared leave the broadcast in progress to follow us. There was probably some kind of law about that.

  “There’s a gas station,” said Charlie. “We’re running on fumes, think we’ll have to risk it. No bushes to hide you guys, though. You’ll have to just stay low.” The city planners of the Republic were exceedingly fond of concrete—there was almost nothing else.

  “Man, this place is ugly,” I murmured.

  Charlie gave a grim laugh. “Yeah, imagine if you’d grown up here thinking it was wonderful, and then saw it this way.” He glanced at Joe, who grimaced. “Sorry, Joe.”

  “It has changed,” Joe murmured in wonder, peering up above the seat just enough to look around. “I see now why those bits of the broadcast were necessary.”

  I snorted. “Necessary? Is that what you call them?”

  When we stopped at the gas station, Charlie said, “Joe, do you have my ID chip in your pocket?” Joe, still dressed in Charlie’s clothes, fished it out and handed it to him.

  I saw the gas station attendant watching as Charlie talked to an apparently empty backseat. Then he must’ve seen a disembodied hand give Charlie the ID card.

  The reflected light of the broadcast inside the gas station still danced on the attendant’s face—it apparently wasn’t over yet. I hoped the broadcast would be enough to distract him from our strange behavior.

  Meanwhile, Charlie frowned at the pump. The screen beside it flashed, “DENIED: Invalid Card.” He swore. That probably also meant a tipoff after all, to any agent who was watching. Plus, now we had no transportation.

  “Psst!” I hissed to get Charlie’s attention, and he irritably jogged back up to the window. I told him, “You’d better say something to the attendant so he doesn’t call the agents on us.”

  “Oh yeah, like what?” he grumbled.

  I glanced at the attendant, whose expression of scrutiny had now become suspicion. He stood up.

  “Leave the car, let’s get out of here!” I hissed. “Joe, come on!”

  I opened my car door and spilled out onto the pavement, and Charlie took off running. I gasped in pain as I tried to get up again with a few false starts, struggling to catch up with Charlie. Joe trailed behind even me, yet again. I immediately regretted this decision—I should have learned from our experience on the palace grounds that running wasn’t a great plan for us.

  “Hey! HEY!” shouted the attendant. “Come back here!”

  “Wait for Joe!” I called to Charlie.

  Charlie stopped, watching Joe huff and puff as he ran almost in slow motion. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  The attendant easily could have overtaken Joe at least—but by some incredible stroke of luck, his interest in the broadcast seemed to outweigh his interest in us. He hadn’t pursued us beyond the door to the fueling station.

  “I’m—sorry,” Joe panted. “There’s—no—exercise—in—prison.” He stopped and clutched his chest, and for a second I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack.

  “Let’s just walk,” I growled, hoping he could handle even that. “Slowly.”

  Joe struggled to move again, wincing as he did, but he did not complain.

  A few other people on the streets watching the narration of the Potentate’s probably fictionalized life story stared at us as we passed by. I couldn’t blame them: to the outside observer, we were an agent, an emaciated older man dressed in the ill-fitting clothing of a twenty-something, and me, in a bloody shirt and prison jumpsuit bottoms.

  “We need to find another car,” Charlie murmured, even though it was obvious.

  “Around this corner,” I pointed to a condemned business with cracked windows on the edge of a block. A few buildings down, Charlie pointed at a large, industrial-looking van, large enough to seat eight or nine.

  “It just might be old enough. Thank you, God.”

  Charlie jimmied the lock, and Joe crawled into the backseat, breathing heavily with a wide mouth, like he was starving for air.

  “You gonna die on us back there?” Charlie asked him as he worked his magic on the dashboard.

  “I’m—fine,” Joe gasped unconvincingly.

  “Are you having chest pains?” I asked.

  He started to shake his head, but one of his hands clutched his chest and he winced. “Just—a touch.”

  While Charlie worked, I turned all the way around to face Joe. “Joe, close your eyes,” I commanded. He obeyed. “Breathe, in to the count of eight, and out to the count of eight. Don’t think about anything but your breath. When your mind wanders, just bring it back to your breathing.” I watched as he did this, and I coached him in a couple of rounds of it. Then I said, “Okay. Picture the arteries that feed your heart. Really visualize them as well as you can. Now, imagine them opening up wide. Just picture them expanding in your mind. Those wide arteries carry lots of life-giving oxygen, and your heart feels nourished and relaxed.”

  Charlie finished hotwiring while we did this, and I heard the engine hum to life.

  “Three quarters of a tank,” he whispered to me, exultant, while Joe sat in the back and breathed. “That should get us to Friedrichsburg.”

  I nodded at him absently and gave him a thumbs up, still focused on Joe. “Keep breathing,” I coached. “With each inhale, imagine the oxygenated blood rushing in to feed your heart. With each exhale, imagine that blood leaving through the vessels that carry it away, as fresh blood rushes in to take its place.”

  Charlie glanced at Joe’s face in the rearview mirror as he put the van in gear. Joe’s expression, formerly a mask of pain, now looked relaxed and almost peaceful for the first time since I’d met him.

  “Looks like it’s working,” Charlie whispered, and I nodded.

  Charlie drove in silence for a little while, and Joe just stayed like that, breathing quietly with no additional instructions from me. Eventually he opened his eyes. I heard when his breathing ceased to be rhythmic and returned to normal, and glanced at him.

  “Feel better?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Thank you,” he added, timid. Somehow I knew he meant for more than just the meditation lesson.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, and meant it.

  We drove straight through the day and into the night without stopping. I was hungry, but by the time we got into Friedrichsburg, on the very outskirts of the Republic, all I could think about was my thirst. I felt a spark of hope when we got into Friedrichsburg, though—a city I remembered from the first time I was here. Maybe we’d find Jean and Alec and Nick and maybe not—but even if we don’t, soon we’ll get some water, I told myself. Soon.

  “How do you know where to meet them?” I asked.

  “Alec said it was the same house where they were before…” Charlie murmured, biting his lip and peering out the windshield intently. “He gave me directions. I’m just trying to remember what he said—”

  “Oh, same house? I was there, I can tell you,” I said. I recognized the street we were on now as the one Kate had walked down after donning her absurd disguise, where she’d talked to the family sitting on the porch for directions to the train station. “You’re almost there,” I told Charlie. “Go straight till the road dead ends, and then go right… yep… and it’ll be the very last house before the edge of the forest. It’s an uninhabited neighborhood and furthest away from the city, nobody should be around there.” A few minutes later, I said, relieved, “That’s it! The one with the darkened windows.” They must have hung sheets on them to conceal their activity inside, just in case there were any passersby.

  Suddenly I felt nervous. Who wo
uld be there? Did Nick make it back? Did he find Molly’s body in Beckenshire? How was he handling that—or how was he handling it if he didn’t find anything but rubble? Were Roger and Jacob with him too? Or would it be only Alec and Jean waiting for us?

  I tried not to think about Will and Kate. If Charlie had known that this was the rendezvous location, then Will would have known it, too.

  I wasn't at all prepared for what greeted me when I knocked on the door.

  Chapter 22: Jackson

  “Molly?” I blurted.

  The older woman beamed at me, and whooped, “Jackson!” before throwing her arms around my neck. I started laughing in astonishment, and she laughed with me. I pulled back to inspect her more carefully—her face and one arm were pretty scraped up, and she’d lost some weight since the last time I saw her. The bags under her eyes seemed more pronounced now, as did the depth of her wrinkles. Exhausted and dehydrated, I assumed—but here, nevertheless.

  “How did you survive the blast?” I asked, incredulous, craning my head over her shoulder. I couldn’t help it. “And—who else is here?”

  At the mention of the blast, her face grew somber. “Only me from Beckenshire, I’m afraid. Looks like you’re a little the worse for wear yourself,” she gestured at my face, and my bloody back.

  She didn’t answer my second question, I noted.

  “Well, this isn’t my blood, at least,” I said, of the shirt. “Just a pitiful attempt at a disguise. I’m sure I’ll tell you the story very soon.”

  She gestured for Charlie, Joe, and me to come in, shaking hands all around. I decided to stick with only very basic introductions for the moment.

  “This is Joe,” I said, “and this is Charlie, Kate’s brother.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, is he? Where is Kate, then? Is she with Will?”

  So they’re not here. On the drive over, I’d mostly dreaded the encounter, but now I felt a spike of fear. Had they been captured? Were they okay?

  “There’s some clothes here that I think will fit you, Jackson. Let me find you something. You probably all need a change of clothes, actually,” Molly added, glancing at Charlie in the agent uniform and at Joe in Charlie’s clothes.