The Phoenix Project (The Liberty Box Book 3)

by C. A. Gray

  I glanced at Nick. He looked troubled. He met my eyes, and I raised my eyebrows, as if to say, what do you think now?

  He turned away.

  Nick drove the rest of the way to Liarrow, and Charlie took shotgun. The rest of us resumed our previous places. Alec didn’t look at me, but Joe tried to catch my eye. I read his expression, plain as anything. Help me, it said.

  Alec threatened him, I realized. I tried to send him a message back: Don’t worry. I will.

  “Anything?” I breathed to Molly as I took my place beside her and the car started up again.

  She shrugged. “He said Alec just wants to know all about Voltolini, since Joe had interacted with him personally over the years. But his answer sounded rehearsed.” She thought for a minute. “That might just be because he’s terrified of what we’re about to do.”

  “Is that what you think?” I asked.

  “I have no idea what to think,” she admitted. “But after Alec’s shouting match with you, I agree that we should watch him.”

  *

  “What’s all that?” Jacob asked a few hours later, breaking the silence as he pointed out the window. He sat on the opposite side of the van from me so I couldn’t see what he was pointing at, but I could hear them.

  “Same thing we saw in Beckenshire,” Molly observed. “Planes, I think we decided. Though that seems strange.”

  “Wonder if they’ve got cameras on them,” Alec muttered. “Maybe the Potentate’s tracking our every move.”

  *

  We arrived in Liarrow just as the sun dipped low, and drove around looking for a parking lot with an abandoned vehicle. We drove for miles without finding anything.

  “Too new,” Charlie said about one Nick pointed out. Then, “Not big enough, we need a van to hold all of us.” Then, “Dude, there are agents crawling all over that parking lot, no! Keep going!”

  Most of the parking lots we came to were empty. Liarrow apparently didn’t have enough government workers, or workers favored by the government, to warrant many cars.

  “Can’t we just find someplace to crash and worry about this in the morning? I’m hungry,” Jacob complained after we’d been driving around for an hour.

  “No, because there’s less chance of us getting caught at night,” Nick returned.

  “Plus, now that we’ve been looking for this long, we’re really almost out of gas,” Charlie added. “I doubt we’d have enough to go find a place to crash, and then do it all again in the morning. We have to find something now.”

  Roger murmured, “I think we’re going to have to go back to one of the well-lit lots.”

  Nick let out a long slow breath through pursed lips. “Charlie?”

  After a pause, Charlie replied through gritted teeth, “I’m thinking that too, unfortunately.”

  The van idled for a minute in the darkness of an abandoned street, as if we were all hoping for an alternative to present itself. Then Nick said, “Fine. Joe and Molly, get out and wait here, with all our supplies. We’ll come back and get you in the new vehicle, once we have one.”

  “Wait, why aren’t we coming?” Molly protested.

  Nick turned around from the front seat to face her. “Because this is is going to be dangerous, and if anything happens to us, I want you two protected.”

  “Notice he doesn’t care if we die,” Jacob muttered.

  “You’re not critical to the operation,” Roger pointed out. “But without Joe, it’s all over.”

  I saw Joe squirm in his seat.

  “Also, you know how to shoot, and they don’t,” said Nick to Jacob. “Hopefully it won’t come to that, but just in case.”

  We all got out and unloaded what supplies we had left, which wasn’t much. There weren’t any streetlights, so we just left Joe and Molly on the side of the road in the darkness.

  “Easier for you to see us, and for us to see you if you’re right on the road,” Nick explained. “We’ll find a large enough van in the lot furthest away from here. We’ll be back as quick as we can.”

  “And by ‘we,’ he means me,” Charlie pointed out with a smirk.

  That earned him a half smile from Nick. “What he said.” He kissed Molly, while the rest of us loaded our handguns just in case. Alec and I both loaded rifles too, should we need more precise shooting at a distance. We didn’t so much as look at each other.

  All of the remaining hunters drove back to the lot in silence, until Alec said, “Drop off Jackson and me. We’ll spread out on either side of the lot and pick off any agents that get too close.”

  “No!” said Roger and Nick in unison. Roger added, “You can’t just kill them before you even know they’re a threat!”

  “These aren’t your buddies, Roger,” came Alec’s exasperated reply. “This isn’t even your city.”

  “Not the point,” Jacob growled. “These are people.”

  “They’re not people, they’re sheep, and you all know it!” Alec retorted. “You want to risk our entire operation and condemn the Republic to never-ending tyranny, just so you don’t have to kill one brainwashed automaton?”

  “We wound them if absolutely necessary, and we don’t shoot to kill unless they’re endangering our lives,” Nick said, his tone decisive. “You won’t be able to tell that at a distance. We stick together.”

  After a long pause, Alec growled, “Fine. But if any of us die, it’s on your head. I hope you can live with yourself.”

  I watched Nick, keen to see how he’d respond to this. He didn’t turn around to let me see his expression, nor did he reply.

  Charlie exhaled heavily, pulling into the lot. It was almost full and lit with street lamps. We could see upon closer inspection that the building itself bore the emblem of the Republic—it was some type of government agency. “All right. I see our target: that blue one with the stripe down the side. It’s the only one both big enough and old enough. I’m just gonna park next to it unless anybody has any objections?”

  I suppose none of us were sure which would be less conspicuous: parking next to the car we were about to steal, or six armed men sauntering into a government parking lot and fixating on a single vehicle. The former seemed preferable, so no one protested.

  “Everybody, roll down the windows and crouch below them with your guns in position,” Nick whispered. “Alec, get out and jimmy the lock for him, then Charlie can get in quickly and do the rest.”

  “He can pick it himself!” Alec retorted.

  “He can, but he can’t shoot like you can. Scoot in and take shotgun once you get the door open. Charlie, follow right behind him.”

  Huffing with great injury, Alec did as he was told, his rifle in one hand. It took him no more than three seconds to break into the van, and another two to open the door and get in. I was impressed.

  “Charlie, you’re up,” said Nick, handing him the tools he’d need in the canvas bag we’d found in the house in Friedrichsburg. Charlie took the bag, slipped out of our van and into the blue one, and went to work.

  “Hey!”

  My heart sank. I saw the agent approach from across the parking lot: first one, then two.

  “Steady,” Nick whispered. But within a second, the agent fell, a bullet through his forehead. It was Alec’s.

  Nick swore. The game was up now. “Everybody out!”

  Alec picked off the second agent before we could even join the fight. I heard Alec shouting at Charlie to work faster. Nick dove through the open door of the blue van just as the volley of agent bullets began. I spilled out onto the pavement, ducked down between the two vans, and straightened to use the roof of our van to stabilize my rifle. I picked off the agents as they ran toward us, guns blazing. Behind me, Roger shouted, “Jackson, look out!”

  I heard Roger’s and Jacob’s gunshots behind me just after this, but I couldn’t even turn around; there were too many of them in front of me. All I knew was, somehow I didn’t get hit.

  The b
lue van started up.

  “Get in!” Nick shouted.

  I stopped firing, crouched down to the pavement, and dove in to the first backseat of the blue van beside Nick, crawling into the row behind it to make space for Jacob and Roger.

  “Go go go go go!” Alec shouted, and Charlie put the car into gear.

  “No, wait!” I cried, “What about—” It was only then that I turned around and saw Roger and Jacob.

  Both of them lay dead on the pavement, eyes open and glassy.

  “They’re gone, Jackson!” Alec snarled, “Charlie, go!”

  The agents’ bullets riddled our van with holes as we drove away. Why they didn’t think to shoot the tires, I didn’t know—probably for the same reason the guards at the palace let us escape so easily.

  It was a few blocks before the emotion caught up with me.

  Roger—the agent who had believed me. He’d followed me to the caves, and his faith had convinced the first wave of citizens who came along also, even without signal disruptors. All of them had died in Beckenshire; Roger had been the last of that group.

  Jacob, whom I trained in the woods before we left the caves, the way Grandfather had trained me. He had been my first protégé.

  There were only six of us left. Just six.

  Charlie burned rubber back to where we’d left Joe and Molly. At first I assumed he wouldn’t go straight back there, because he had to know we were being followed, but presently I realized he didn’t know. He was probably too distracted.

  “You have to lose them!” I called, “Don’t lead them straight to Joe and Molly!”

  “What?”

  I was in the back of the van. Maybe that was why he couldn’t hear me, or maybe it was because of the adrenaline. I tried again, “We’re being followed! Lose them!”

  “There’s nobody behind us,” Alec snapped. “They didn’t get to their cars fast enough, they couldn’t have followed us.”

  “I’m telling you—” but Charlie rounded the corner where Molly and Joe and our remaining supplies awaited, and screeched to a stop. Our best hope now was to pile them in as fast as possible.

  “It’s us,” cried Nick as he thrust open the sliding door, “Charlie, pop the back open! Get our supplies loaded up as fast as you can—”

  “Leave the stuff!” I shouted, “just get them and go—!”

  Too late. First one, then two, then three agent cars with flashing lights framed us squarely in their headlights. Almost in unison, six agents jumped out and cried, “Freeze!”

  Molly and Joe were unarmed. So was Nick—he’d only gotten out to help them load our supplies.

  “You are under arrest for first degree murder—” the first agent began, but another cut him off with an oath and a low whistle.

  “Lyle, that’s them, those are the rebels! Look real close!”

  The first agent, Lyle, took another step closer and presumably recognized Nick. His eyes popped wide. Then Lyle grabbed Molly, wrangling a cry from Nick’s throat.

  “All right, out of the car, all of you, hands in the air!” Lyle shouted, his gun pressed to Molly’s head. She trembled and whimpered.

  Charlie and I obeyed at once, and after a moment’s hesitation, Alec did too. The agents took one look at me and swore again.

  “That’s Jackson MacNamera!” said one agent. “Ain’t it?”

  “The Potentate said to kill him on site!” Lyle hissed.

  “Naw, that ain’t him,” said a third agent. “His face is all wrong, look at him. Plus he’s like two decades too old.”

  I silently blessed Molly for the soggy cotton stuffed in my upper lip, and Nick for the white hair.

  “Well—even if they ain’t, they’re rebels,” hedged the second agent. “Better take ‘em to the palace, just in case. The Potentate will execute ‘em either way.”

  “Keep your hands up!” repeated the agents as they approached us—eight of them in all, now that they were all out of their cars. There were two apiece for Alec and for me. I suppose we looked the most dangerous. They cuffed us and loaded Nick, Charlie, and me into the back of one car, and Molly, Joe, and Alec into the other. Two agents drove in the front seat of each car, and we had an escort of another car behind us.

  “What are we gonna do, drive all night?” I overheard one agent complain to the other just before they closed the doors to our sedan.

  “Well, we can’t risk taking ‘em by bullet train,” the other said. “Ain’t got a choice.” Then the door shut.

  The front of the car was sealed off from the back. We could neither see nor hear the agents after that.

  The silence was deafening.

  Chapter 34: Kate

  After my unceremonious strip search, Ingrid dressed me again forcibly and marched me downstairs. By the time she was done, my hair was askew and my face flushed, but at this point I don’t think anybody cared what I looked like, least of all me. One good thing that came out of the ignominious experience was that the control center suggestions now seemed almost laughable, or would have if I wasn’t so terrified—“The Potentate is good and kind. He has your best interests at heart.”

  Contrast that with “I want you to kill your father.”

  If only I could have recorded our exchange, and put that on the air.

  “Move,” barked Ingrid behind me. “They won’t wait forever.”

  I thought we were heading to the ballroom, but instead we took a left turn, and crossed a hallway into a separate section of the palace that I’d never been in before, except perhaps from inside the walls.

  I couldn’t imagine the purpose for which it had been built, unless it was exactly this moment. There was a desk set up in front of a green screen, a hardwood floor all the better for acoustics, a camera just like the one my studio used, and a portable sound panel. It was a broadcasting studio, no question about it—though whenever the Potentate went on the air to the Republic, it always looked as if he was in his study. Maybe he’d had it built for broadcasts and then decided he couldn’t be bothered to come downstairs and use it.

  A collection of people stood around the sound panel, talking in low, concerned voices. One of those people was Ben Voltolini, of course, and I recognized several members of the Tribunal as well. They were all here, all those that were still alive anyway. Then I saw the glass panel behind them, and let out an involuntary cry.

  An enormous man stood beside a set of gleaming, razor-sharp metal instruments, and two figures, bound and gagged. My parents.

  I could see Mom had already started wailing through the gag, but I couldn’t hear anything. The glass must be soundproof. Like Voltolini told me it would be.

  He can literally torture them during the broadcast, and no one will hear a thing.

  Dad sat still, but made eye contact with me. It’s okay, I told him with my eyes, willing him to understand. I’m going to get you out of this. I promise.

  Except I had no idea how.

  Voltolini stepped forward from the little cluster, his hands clasped behind his back. He approached me, but not so close that I could lash out at him again.

  “My dear,” he smiled at me, gesturing to the seat behind the desk. “There is a hard copy of the script waiting on your desk for you, and as you can see, we have the teleprompter up here,” he gestured to screen on the wall behind the cameras, “just like you are used to. Every time you say anything off script, even just an ‘and’ or a ‘but,’ Hurst will see that your parents lose an appendage. All right?” Still smiling, he gestured to the glass behind us. I couldn’t look, for fear of vomiting all over my shoes. I’ve never experienced hatred so acute in my life.

  “Please,” said Voltolini, gesturing to the desk. Ingrid grabbed my arm like a vice and dragged me to it, forcing me into the chair.

  I skimmed the script without really reading it, a sense of desperation and defeat welling up inside me.

  There’s nothing I can do, I realized. When the broadcast ends, h
e’s going to kill all three of us anyway.

  Maybe that was true, but at least it wouldn’t be slow torture. Presumably it would be by firing squad—or perhaps he wouldn’t even bother with all that fanfare and would just shoot us right here. Either way, all I knew was that I couldn’t cause my parents’ torture. No matter what the price. I just couldn’t.

  “Sir,” a guard entered the room, addressing Voltolini before he even reached him. “Six rebels are being transported here for execution. They were caught stealing a government-issued vehicle and murdered seven agents in an attempt to escape.”

  I caught my breath. Six. Was that them? Shouldn’t there be eight?

  “Who are they?” Voltolini barked.

  “The agents transporting them couldn’t be sure, they’re wearing disguises, sir. But they believe them to be the rebels we’ve been searching for.”

  Voltolini broke into a grin. “Excellent! Are they close enough to cut to a live execution at the end of the broadcast?”

  “The agent reported that they were about thirty minutes out. If you delay the broadcast just for a few minutes, the timing should work quite well, sir.”

  “Well! Isn’t that wonderful news, Kate?” Voltolini winked at me. It was all I could do not to break down weeping right there.

  They failed. We all failed.

  Think, Kate, I commanded myself. I had a few minutes before the broadcast started—it was all up to me now. What would Jackson say?

  I remembered the first time we’d really talked, in the caves after my fever broke. He was explaining to me the purpose of emotions, and his example had been similar to this one. He’d already been bested in a fight, and he woke up bound to a chair with electrodes on his head inside the Liberty Box. What was it he’d said? “Anger is an aggressive emotion. It makes me want to fight. I did fight at first, but I lost—that’s how I ended up in the chair in the first place. I could have fought them all off again when I woke up, but I had to stop and ask myself, was that course of action in line with my ultimate goal of escape? No. The odds were too stacked against me. So in that case, my emotions prompted me to take an action that was inconsistent with my reality. Once I recognized this, I had to master it instead.”