An hour later, Jasmine escorts me to the general’s office.
“You have five minutes.”
Inside I find organized chaos. Soldiers are packing up equipment, loading them onto rusty robo-dollies. I guess Bess’s plan to move to Windmill Bay has been approved.
“We’re moving then?” I feel sick to my stomach.
General Kelly gives me a curt nod. “And soon. One of our operatives in the Western Sand has gone silent. Worst case scenario, he’s been tortured and given up the location of this base. Critical operations need to be out of here in twenty-four hours. In a week, Fort Unity should be a ghost camp. Well, aside from Neil, of course. He’s staying and will be ready to accept another unit down the road, when the need arises. What can I do for you, Miss Stone?”
I clear my throat. “Oliver Penn and Paisley Hart are still missing.”
“Along with everyone else from the school.” General Kelly sets down his tablet. “Listen, I know these friends are important to you, but do you understand how many people on this base have missing family members? Or loved ones locked up in UDR facilities like Windmill Bay?”
“No one is locked up there anymore,” I say. “If we could find any of them…”
“My guess is that Windmill Bay still exists. It’s just been moved.”
“Moved?”
He nods. “That’s the pattern. The same happened with Cable Bay, another reeducation school operating near the Eastern Sand. More importantly, the current location of Guantanamo is unknown. And that”—he sits down and rubs his eyes—“that is where I would be keeping Oliver Penn, if I was running things on their side.”
“Why are they all called something ‘bay’?”
“Guantanamo Bay was once a real place—a controversial American prison built on the island of Cuba to hold terrorists.” He pierces me with his eyes. “Real terrorists. The kind who bombed ships and orchestrated airplane attacks on buildings. Over time, the definition of terrorist gradually changed, just like a lot of other definitions in the last days of America. Politicians—aided by the media—started calling political opponents ‘terrorists’ if they expressed ideas that differed from theirs. Eventually, the president began locking up these dissidents. Then, when power shifted from one party to another, the prison gates would open, prisoners would be freed, and ‘terrorists’ from the other party would get locked up.”
“So it was all political.”
He nods. “Indeed. Not long after the first shots were fired in the second civil war, Guantanamo Bay was breached and most of the prisoners escaped. When the bloodbath ended and the UDR was formed, the government took over an abandoned prison in the Dirt somewhere and gave it the code name Guantanamo Bay. Then they went on to do the same thing: lock up people who disagreed with the government. When they realized those people had raised kids to think like they did, they founded the reeducation schools: Windmill Bay and Cable Bay. All of them have been kept secret to avoid another mass prison break, but they are relocated from time to time—usually not long after a breakout, like yours.”
“So you knew we might find Windmill Bay empty?”
“I hoped you would get there in time, but yes. I knew it was possible.”
“But you sent Oliver into Windmill Bay to rescue Sam,” I say. “So if we can find the new location of Guantanamo…”
“That’s a big ‘if’, Miss Stone. And Lieutenant Penn’s situation was unique. We didn’t even know where he was all those months. That’s how good UDR intelligence is at hiding their prisons. As of today, we have no leads, and no resources to authorize a second SAR operation.”
“And if I have a lead?”
“Then share it.”
“I think he’s being held somewhere near Wanda Kino.” My voice shakes, but I push on. “Since she didn’t leave him behind with Mr. Patrick and the others, she must be hoping to get something from him. Information or just her delight in torturing people. He was her favorite target.”
“Lieutenant Penn knew what he was signing up for when he went under deep cover. Fewer than half of such operatives find their way back to us. It’s just a sad reality of the job.”
“But Oliver—”
“I’m sorry, Miss Stone. I can’t do anything else to help you right now. My advice? Grab a crate. Help us pack. Productivity is the best way to get through tough times.”
My cheeks flame. “I do not want to get through it—I want to find my friends! And you’re just telling me to give up hope?”
“No. I’m telling you to keep busy while hope is all you have.”
General Kelly was true to his word, moving out the next day with all critical operations. Sam left with them, assigned to help tech officer Gwen Jepsen with surveillance cover and systems setup as soon as they reach Windmill Bay. He almost had a meltdown when Captain Strong gave him the news.
“No. I don’t want to go back there! This isn’t…this doesn’t…” He kicked a chair across the floor, then started hitting his head with open palms. I wanted to comfort him, but I knew he wouldn’t let me, so I stood by, helpless.
Captain Strong crossed his arms, looking annoyed. “Son, you need to get it together.”
“You need to give him space,” I said.
“With a little discipline—”
“Can I speak with you privately for a moment?” I pointed him to the corridor and followed him out. “Sam was beaten there. Tortured for more than a year. We got him out just before he would have been executed. Do you understand that?”
Captain Strong crossed his arms and set his feet. “Many among us struggle with PTSD. He needs to compartmentalize. To control himself.”
“But Sam is neurologically different from you and me. What works for others might not work for him.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s just an excuse for a lack of discipline.”
“No, it is not!” Frustration crept into my voice. My friends tease me about my patience, but it was running thin in that moment. “You cannot just shame him into ‘getting it together.’”
“Some things are mind over matter.”
“But not everything. Would you tell a blind person he could see if he just tried harder? Would you tell a deaf person that her sense of hearing was ‘mind over matter’? We may never understand the way Sam thinks, but we must accept it with patience and compassion.”
“We don’t have time to coddle people.”
“But you need him, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
“If we want to use Sam’s genius, we need to be patient with his difficulties.”
I went back inside the bunk room without waiting for a response. By then, Sam was sitting on the bed with his head on his knees, rocking back and forth. His kitten, Grace, was curled up next to him, sleeping. I sat on the floor in front of them.
“Tell me what you are thinking, Sam.”
“I don’t want to go back there.”
“I didn’t either. I still don’t. But if we stay here, the UDR might find us.”
For a few minutes we just sat there. Eventually, he stopped rocking and sat up, pushing himself back to the wall and drawing his long legs up until his knees were even with his chin.
“Xu is there, right?”
My heart broke a little at the fear in his voice and tears stung my eyes. “Yes, but he’s so weak, Sam. He almost died. He can’t hurt you, even if he wanted to. And Brock—”
“I’m glad he’s dead.” Sam’s voice was filled with venom.
I nodded, not at all surprised. He is too honest to say anything but what he thinks.
“Windmill Bay is different now. It’s empty of students and teachers. No gates or Sentribots. No Kino, Haak, or Lura. Most of it is burned to the ground—I told you that, right?”
Sam nodded, but his frown stayed in place.
“They are renaming it too.” I took a deep breath and continued with my least favorite detail. “Most of the time we will be underground, in the tunnels, where you will have ac
cess to all the books and media. Where you can mess with all that antique electronic stuff without having to rush or worry about the Cit-Track.”
Just then, his cat yawned and rolled over. Sam put down his knees and began petting her.
“You can take Grace back with you. I bet she will like it there, where she won’t be confined to a bunker. The shed is still standing, Sam. The other cats might still be there too.”
“All except Charity.”
I reached out to pet Grace and tried not to think about the night Brock killed her sibling. “I know. But the rest of them…well, maybe they need you.”
Jasmine joined us then and I left them alone. Later that day, I found him packing his stuff. He didn’t look happy about it, but since General Kelly promised to let Jasmine go with him, he was at least resigned to the idea.
“Goodbye, Xoey.” Jasmine’s eyes teared up as she pulled me into another hug. “Stay safe until you get back to us.”
I nodded. “I’ll join you soon.”
Only a handful of us are left at Fort Unity now, packing up nonessentials and dealing with Neil Franklin’s complaints about the stock we are leaving behind, which—depending on who he is complaining to—is either too much or not enough.
“Not to mention the gear I loaned your little friends,” he tells me. “How much you want to bet I’ll never see it again?”
I bite my tongue and excuse myself, not willing to argue with yet another person today. Truthfully, I am worried about Riley and Reed. The general received one report from them about a week ago, but nothing since. The closer we get to departure time, the more uneasy I feel. Going back to Windmill Bay is not going to be easy, no matter what I told Sam. And I will be worrying about Reed, Riley, Paisley, and Oliver every waking moment. It does not help that I can so easily conjure up images of Xu, Mr. Patrick, and Brock.
But General Kelly was right about keeping busy. It’s not so much that it takes my mind off my friends, as that is has given me time to pray.
“That’s the last of it.”
I seal a storage box and shift it to the waiting robo-dollie, which Ozzy controls, sending it up the ramp into the waiting transport. Captain Strong orders us to get to bed early and be prepared to leave at first light. A few minutes later, I stand under the flagpole with my hand over my heart while he and two other officers lower the Stars and Stripes for the last time. I feel strangely emotional about this symbol that I have only felt allegiance to for a short time. I think about the first time I saw it flying over Zak’s funeral pyre, enraging Kino and setting her off on a rampage like none before.
I have read so much about this flag since—what it was meant to stand for, the people who carried it into battle, those who protected it from harm—and even those who burned it and turned against it, not understanding, I guess, that they were burning the symbol of the liberty they were exercising.
But, then, they never lived in a country like this one—the one that came of all their narrowing of ideas and legislating thoughts and words. Handing over their lives to a patriarchal government that would waste it and eventually betray them. Which brings us to today, where a small band of rebels salute the same flag and vow to offer their lives in the service of liberty—freedom for anyone willing to raise the banner with them.
The short ceremony is over, and I turn back to the bunker. Is it worth it? I wonder. Is anything we do here going to make a difference in the face of such vast UDR control?
Sometimes the hopelessness of it all overwhelms me. I know how to hold onto hope too, but not hope like theirs. My hope is simple and focused on the people I love. I want my mom back. I want Riley and Reed to rescue Lexie. I want Paisley and Sam back together again and arguing about malware.
I want Oliver.
“Xoey?”
I wipe my eyes and turn to see Ozzy, who looks uncomfortable and, for once, at a loss for words.
“Yes?”
“Umm…” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “I just turned on the streaming feeds from the Sand. They’re about to show an interview with Jez Rodriguez. You know how she interviews people? Celebrities, victims, officials, that kind of stuff?”
“So who is she interviewing tonight?”
“Your father.”
10
Oliver
I wake up and groan. Shifting hurts. Blinking hurts.
Confusion beats alertness to the punch. I’m in a bed, but my cell has no bed.
Where am I?
A ceiling comes into focus and I remember. I’m in the infirmary again and everything hurts. I think it through. A UN Inspection must be coming soon.
They can’t find me hanging by my ankles, can they?
I turn my head. Green tiles. A barred window that’s cracked. I picture someone throwing a chair, trying to break through. Desperate to break out.
Is there a way out?
I doze, then wake again. The room is off-kilter, like the bed is slanted. Or the ceiling. Water-stained tiles tilt awkwardly, ready to fall on me. Or jump.
Do other people question the intentions of inanimate objects, or is that just me?
Breathing hurts. Lifting my arm hurts, but I touch my face. I find a great wad of gauze shoved up my nose and crusted over with blood. One of my eyes is swollen shut. Ah! That’s why everything looks so lopsided.
A nurse comes to check my vitals. I try to talk to her. I want to joke about suicidal ceiling tiles and my lopsided view of the room, but I only manage a grunt. She ignores it, tap, tap, tapping on her tablet.
I thought I was charming. Apparently not.
“Hey!” It’s someone in the bed next to me. “Hey, nurse! Give me something for the pain! Give me something!”
She ignores him too and leaves the room. The door clicks locked behind her. Now it’s just the two of us, trying to out-groan each other.
My mind sidesteps, doing its thing.
I didn’t get a good look at the nurse, even with my good eye, but nurses don’t wear funny white hats. Why can I picture them, then? They used to; I think. There might have been a book in the Hidden Library…and maybe a movie we watched…Star Wars? Reed and I watched Star Wars, but no nurses. No white hats, just white helmets.
I’m out again. Then I startle awake when the lock clicks. High heels click, click, click, clack across the floor. A familiar pattern, getting closer. I don’t want to open my good eye, but I do. She’s already standing over my bed, watching me.
Director Kino. No, Major Kino now. She got a promotion. After Windmill Bay, anyone else would have gotten a bullet in the head. She got bumped up the food chain.
How does that happen?
“Well connected, by virtue of what she knows…and who she spends her nights with.” That was from the Resistance intelligence officer who briefed me before I went undercover at her prison school.
“Hello, Oliver.”
Kino’s army uniform is crisp and fitted, but she’s no soldier. Not really. Her red lipstick and long, red nails give it away. Her silky voice touches my skin like shrapnel. She trails one fingernail across my cheek. I jerk in response. Fresh pain burns through my muscles and joints. She smiles broadly and her eyes dilate. My pain pleases her.
I look away and swallow hard. Try to be a man. But I’m back at her school, playing the boy again, playing the hero.
Paisley was already in the server room when I got there that night, poised to override the school’s lockdown. I offered help, but she shooed me away, distracted. Mumbling a mile a minute.
“But what if you get caught?”
“You think Kino or Haak will come in here? Now?” She shook her head.
“Okay but join the dance as soon as you can. Make sure you dance with your date—Mark, right? He’ll be your alibi.”
She nodded. “Yeah, good idea. But Oliver? They’ll be looking for you, not me. So be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
I wasn’t.
I was cocky. Too sure of myself as I crouched out of view fr
om the Sentribots, tapping codes into Reed’s tablet to explode the first landmine, then the next.
One more, I told myself. One more, then I’ll run.
Run for the train.
Run for my life.
Run for Xoey.
One more was all it took. One more brought Kino running. One more meant Xu and Brock came too, then Haak, all in time to surround me and pin me down behind the bleachers before I could run for anything.
Still, taking time to set off one more explosion wasn’t my biggest mistake. That came next, when I laughed.
Stupid, stupid.
Kino pressed her stiletto heel into my hand, breaking bones. I would never have guessed how much that hurts. If she had been armed, I would have been dead, no doubt about it. But she had no gun in her hand that night. Not with the president visiting. Meanwhile, Haak was finding the sweet spot between my ribs with his boot and Brock was talking game, spitting vengeance. Xu stood back, rocking on his feet, ready to follow orders that didn’t come.
Meanwhile, my friends were escaping right under their noses with the ever-lovin’ Liberty Bell.
It was too much. I couldn’t help myself. I spit blood in the dirt and laughed at them.
But Kino’s not dumb. My laughter made her suspicious. She turned around and saw smoke rising in the distance. A stack of greasy pallets going up in flames to draw attention away from the Liberty Bell, which Reed was hopefully loading onto the truck that very minute.
Haak stopped kicking me. I could have kicked myself. Why did I have to be such a cocky idiot? And why did we think setting a fire on the same side of campus as the train yard was a good idea?
“Come with me!” Kino kicked off her high heels and took off, running full-bore toward the fire. Haak, Xu, and Brock were quick to follow, leaving me alone.
I started to run for the train. I did. But it was too late, and I knew it. I could have run toward the pallet fire too, I guess. See what I could do to help Riley and Adam with the truck. But there was no escaping with them. I would not be escaping that night at all.
Weeping Justice Page 7
