Weeping Justice

by Jennifer Froelich

  “Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away…”

  I hum along where I can, but mostly listen to the words, rumbling through the vent in Jonah’s mahogany voice.

  Yes. Xoey sang this song.

  By the time he’s finished, my cheeks are wet. I swipe at them impatiently.

  “Jonah? Can you sing it again?”

  Jonah sings more songs. I don’t know any of them, but I wonder if Xoey does. Time passes quickly, so that when I hear the unmistakable click clack of high heels coming down the corridor, I’m not prepared. My muscles contract but my brain is still in denial. Jonah stops singing. I scoot back against the wall, into the deepest shadow, as if I could hide.

  Maybe it’s not Kino. Maybe it’s someone else.

  My heart thuds against my chest. The door unlocks.

  The darkness deepens.

  Kino steps into my cell, followed by men I’ve come to know well. She’s already smiling.

  “Hello, Oliver.”

  I raise my eyes to hers. I can’t speak, but something Jonah sang repeats in my head.

  Be my strength, be my shield.

  “You alright, son?”

  Jonah’s voice wakes me. He sounds close, so he must be pressed against the vent.

  I try to move. Pain rockets through my head, stealing my breath. I test my swollen jaw, hoping it’s not broken.

  “Son?” My voice sounds thick, but surly. Jonah hasn’t caused my pain, but I don’t care.

  Son? Whose son am I?

  My father called me son and I hated it. Whenever he came looking for me, I knew I was about to get smacked. Or, worse, he was going to make me do something I didn’t want to do.

  Crawl through the window. Unlock the door.

  Reach your hand into his pocket.

  You can learn to take a bracelet without even touching her skin.

  Slit a hole in her bag. Take the rice.

  I like Jonah, but I can’t handle this reminder of home. Not today.

  “I’m not your son,” I say.

  He’s silent, backing off or giving up. I don’t know. I’m so sore, I can barely breathe. Kino had energy to spare today, directing her thugs with enthusiasm for more than an hour.

  I doze and dream of my childhood. Of waiting in the snow for my mother. Stomping my feet, blowing on my freezing hands, then curling up on a frozen stoop while she…

  Jonah’s voice wakes me, soft as a snowflake. Still it startles me. I flinch in shame from my dream, then groan when my ribs protest. I think they might be broken.

  “What?” I finally manage.

  “Get up, Oliver.” His voice is louder this time. Insistent. “You need to stay awake. Force yourself up. Walk around your cell. Take some deep breaths, no matter how much it hurts.”

  I roll over, stifling my groan this time. “Not today, Jonah. Not today.”

  He’s silent for a few minutes, then continues, relentless.

  “I know those goons worked you over real good. But don’t let them win, Oliver. Pneumonia’ll kill you sooner than a cracked rib. Come on! Get up.”

  I ignore him. Ten minutes later, he’s harassing me again.

  “Oliver, get on your feet. Walk in circles. Take deep breaths. Then do it again until you think you’re losing your mind.”

  I smile, cracking open my bloody lip. “It’s already lost, man. Long ago. Maybe my first day in this place.”

  His chuckle is deep and soft. “I hear ya. But please try, Oliver. You saved me, you know. I’m just trying to return the favor.”

  “I saved you? Not possible.”

  “You couldn’t see how bad a shape I was in when I got here, son—uh, excuse me, Oliver. You harassed me every day, remember? Poking me like a bear in a cage—at least, that’s how it felt. But it got me up. It got me moving and gave me hope. Reminded me I have something to hope in.”

  I blink at the ceiling. The only movement that doesn’t hurt.

  “Hope,” I whisper.

  “Yes, hope.”

  I close my eyes. Tears leak past my lashes, rolling into my ears.

  “Hope hurts, Jonah.”

  “In this place, everything hurts, Oliver. Hope’s the only way to survive.”

  24

  Reed

  The sun shines in my eyes as it rises in front of the bus, making it hard to see Riley seven rows in front of me. I wish I hadn’t let her talk me into sitting separately. It seems stupid now. Reckless. If a guard starts dragging her off the bus, it’s not like I’m just going to sit here, pretending it’s none of my business. Now I’m too far away to get to her quickly, if anything does happen.

  But it’s too late to rearrange things. The bus is already moving.

  We pull out of the bus depot and head east for several miles. When we finally turn south, I look out the windows to get a sense of where we’re going. What I see is not particularly helpful. Suburban areas in the Dirt always look the same to me—building after building destroyed by bombs so long ago that the weeds, growing through cracked concrete, and graffiti on random walls make a stronger impression than any structure we pass. Most of the other passengers don’t even bother to look out the window. Instead, they watch each other with wary eyes while gripping their bags and crates. If Claire’s right, their livelihood depends on selling or trading their goods inside the city today. But she also calls it a lawless place where they can only rely on themselves for protection, so I imagine many of them will go home disappointed.

  When the bus begins to slow down, I crane my neck to see out the windshield. A high gate topped with razor wire looms ahead of us. Sentribot towers rise on both sides and I can see them swiveling in place, their weaponized arms already aimed at our bus. A quick glance left and right tells me the wire-topped fence continues on as far as I can see. Human guards are already moving into position as well, flanking the bus. It doesn’t stop but continues gliding forward as the gate slides open. As soon as we clear it, it closes behind us with a scraping noise that makes my skin crawl. The bus comes to a complete stop and the autopilot instructs us to remain seated while we are scanned for inspection.

  I try not to squirm. Riley went through something like this when she and Adam drove the Red Cross truck through the gate at Windmill Bay. If they could trick the system with the Liberty Bell in tow, surely we can today with nothing on our backs but a few threadbare camping supplies and a change of clothes.

  This is what I tell myself, anyway, but my thudding heart keeps making it hard to concentrate. Up ahead I see a second gate—the one that will slide open and let us into Slick City in a few minutes, as long as nothing goes wrong.

  As long as our fake IDs are accepted.

  “If you get caught between the gates, there’s nowhere to run, so don’t even try,” Neil warned us before we left Fort Unity. “You’ll be at the complete mercy of UDR soldiers, so cooperate. Do what they say. Live to fight another day.”

  I don’t want to even think about that happening, so I rub my wrist and hold my breath, thinking positive thoughts about Sam and Gwen and their hacking skills.

  Suddenly the bored guards on the left side of the bus stand taller, their hands gripping their guns. Their eyes sharpen and focus on the windows. Meanwhile, the bus door opens and two climb onboard. Marching down the aisle, they quickly pass Riley and head straight toward me.

  My heart thunders against my ribs. Riley is turned around in her seat, her eyes full of terror and boring into mine.

  I will her to read my mind: You can do this without me! But the fire in her eyes has me worried. She is gripping the seat back, half rising as she watches the guards approach me, ready to attack in a typical display of Riley passion and courage.

  I love her, I realize. I am madly, insanely in love with Riley Paca!

  I should have said it. I should have told her when I had the chance. But there’s no time left. It’s too late. Much too late. They’ve reached me now and, any second, they will drag me to my feet and down the aisle, just like thos
e SS officers who dragged me out of my state home bed so many months ago.

  Then the border officers do the last thing I expect. They grab the guy sitting next to me.

  “Citizen Darren Hood, come with us.”

  I’m paralyzed by shock, watching this guy I hadn’t even noticed before start shaking his head.

  “No.” He grips the seat, then my shoulder as they pull him to his feet. “No, you don’t understand. I have to get into the city. My daughter… I have to get into Slick to find my daughter!”

  The guards ignore his outburst, put him in cuffs, and drag him off the bus. My heart continues to pound as I stare at his back. When they pass Riley, I turn my attention to her face, which is drained of color. Seconds pass, or maybe minutes. I’m too lost to know for sure, then the gate in front of us slides open and the bus glides through. Soon we are picking up speed, passing a large, green sign that must have once read Entering Slick City, but which now only has the letters: E, S, L and C.

  It’s nighttime when I wake up, but it’s not dark. Somehow, lights from the busy city filter through the dirty window pane of our rented room, casting a prism of color across Riley, who is sleeping on the single narrow bed. We were both exhausted from our nighttime travel, and more than a little shaken after that near miss on the bus. When we stumbled onto the streets of Slick City this morning, Riley grabbed my hand and held it tight for the next hour as we made our way toward Chinatown and this hotel, which offers a dozen weekly rentals above a steamy Sichuan restaurant. We stopped only once along the way, at a food cart, where I watched Riley mindlessly chew skewered meat I paid for with one of the silver coins Claire gave us. I’m not used to this kind of exchange, so I accepted the smaller coins the vendor gave me in return without knowing whether or not he cheated me.

  By the time we handed over most of what we had left to the hotel’s hostbot, we were both running on nothing but survival mode. I hope Riley didn’t notice how my legs shook as we climbed four stories to our room.

  “We made it,” I said as she shut and locked the door. Riley didn’t respond, but headed straight toward the window, where she stared out at the colorful flags and lanterns that hang between the narrow streets.

  I crossed the room and stood next to her. “Riley?”

  “The guard on the bus. When I thought he was…that you would…” A great sob rose from her throat and she pressed shaking fingers to her mouth.

  I wanted to put my arms around her. To tell her about my revelation on the bus and how terrified I was too. Instead, I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Me too,” was all I could muster.

  “Are we going to survive this?” She pushed away her tears. “I imagined everything so different. So…heroic.”

  “I know,” I said lamely. “I never thought it would be this hard.”

  She turned back to the window. “And the hardest is still to come.”

  Tonight, not only are city lights streaming through the windows, so is the noise. Horns, music, and voices that shout in languages I don’t understand.

  How does Riley sleep through it?

  I push back the blanket she insisted I take and scoot across the floor until my back is against the wall. For a few minutes I watch her sleep. Finally, I stand and tiptoe toward the door.

  “Reed? Where are you going?”

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  She sits up and stretches. “I am. I was.”

  “There’s a WiFi hotspot down on the corner, at the tea house with a red dragon painted on the window. I thought I better send General Kelly a scouting report as soon as possible.”

  She leans down to grab her shoes.

  “You can rest longer if you like,” I tell her. “I won’t take long.”

  “No. I’m coming with you. It’s too noisy to sleep. Anyway, I want to see if we have any messages from the others.”

  We lock our room and walk to Chen’s Tea Shop. The tiny Chinese man at the front desk doesn’t speak, but nods when I ask to rent a tablet and half an hour of WiFi access. I hand him another coin, along with a small square of fabric tied with a string that has dried basil inside—a unit of payment Claire said would be appreciated in this part of town. I hope that’s true. We only have a few coins left to buy food until we find work, but we have an entire backpack filled with basil, marjoram, dill, and honey, which she said to only use as a last resort. “Honey draws attention,” she warned us. “Keep it hidden as long as possible.”

  Mr. Chen points to a booth nearly hidden by a potted plant and an enormous brass elephant, then brings me the tablet, along with a lacquered tray holding a pot of tea and two ceramic cups.

  “Password?” I ask.

  He smiles and nods, pointing to the tea before turning away.

  “He didn’t give me—”

  “It’s right here.” Riley points at the tray, where a mixture of Chinese characters and English numbers are painted in red:

  天安门1989

  “I wonder what it means,” she says.

  I shrug while searching for the Chinese symbols on the tablet and copying them into the password box. “Probably just meant to eat up more of our login time,” I mutter.

  “Cynic,” Riley says.

  “True,” I answer.

  But the password works, and I quickly open a browser and download the new cloud app I’m supposed to use to drop reports for General Kelly. I try to be both brief and detailed—not easy since so much has happened since I last communicated with him more than three weeks ago. I describe my illness and the help Claire gave us in the forest, including as much as I can about Captain Ogas, his team, and their practice of raiding homes like Claire’s. I also share coordinates for our travel route and the abandoned ski lodge where we watched fireworks on the Fourth of July, noting its size, defensive position against the mountain, and suggesting it as having great potential for Resistance refugees.

  By the time I add details about our travel route into Slick City, including the abandoned amusement park, our lodgings in Chinatown and, especially, our successful passage through the UDR checkpoint with borrowed IDs, our half hour is almost gone. While Riley tracks down Mr. Chen to barter for more time, I drop my report in the cloud app and move on to Dally. Signing in as Rick Preston is surreal, considering it’s the second alias I’ve used in the past twenty-four hours, but I forget all about that when I start wading through the seventy-plus notifications associated with my account.

  Riley drops into the booth next to me. “I might have missed something in translation, but I think I just got a job.”

  I look up. “Really?”

  She nods. “Enough work to cover our computer usage at least. Plus, Mr. Chen knows an agent who hires for The Rose. He’s a few streets away. You can talk to him tomorrow about applying for work there.”

  I try to keep my expression neutral as I return my attention to Dally, but I feel like pumping my fist in the air. If Riley is working here, she might be less likely to fight with me about going to The Rose without her. And the sooner I’m out there, the sooner we can find Lexie and get out of here—without any unnecessary risk to Riley’s safety.

  “Anything from the others?”

  “I don’t know yet. I was just reading Sam’s instructions for safely messaging each other. He posted them a few days after we left Fort Unity.”

  She bounces her knee for a few seconds, then tries to read over my shoulder. “Nothing about Oliver and Paisley yet?”

  “Hang on! You know Sam will kill me if I don’t follow his protocol.”

  “I’m going to kill you if you don’t read faster!”

  When Sam first explained his plan to use Dally, I was doubtful. “But it’s used by more than 100 million citizens, Sand to Sand,” Sam argued. “We’ll be buried in the data. Besides, I have an encryption/decryption process I’m working out.”

  I held up my hand. “Okay, I’m convinced! You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I told you before: I’m not as smart as you, Sam.”

&n
bsp; He smiled. “I know.”

  Sam promised to monitor all of our accounts, rejecting potential suitors who are not part of our group, and posting fake activity to make sure they don’t go dormant. Clearly he hasn’t had time to manage my account closely though, leaving me to slog through a bunch of notifications while Riley continues to fidget and grumble in the booth next to me.

  But a few minutes later, a message in my notification list catches my eye. I tap to open it.

  “Mia Mazon?” Riley asks.

  “Xoey,” I whisper.

  Riley presses against my side as we copy and paste Xoey’s message into the Operation Gunnerside app, decrypting it. For the next few minutes, we read in silence. My heart sinks with each word.

  “Oliver and Paisley weren’t there,” Riley says.

  “No one was there. Just Mr. Patrick, Xu, and…” I look up. “Brock is dead?”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t believe it.”

  We return to my notifications, scanning the list for more messages from Xoey, when an instant message pops up in the middle of the screen.

  “David Haller?” Riley frowns at me. “Is that an alias you recognize?”

  “No. But Sam’s protocol says our first message should test the waters, to make sure we’re talking to the right person.”

  I tap open the instant message box and read:

  Someone once said, “Nothing brings people together like being told who to hate,” but what happens if someone hateful brings people together?

  I think for a minute, then type:

  Sometimes they become the best of friends.

  David Haller responds quickly: How many friends?

  I look at Riley. “Do you think it’s—”

  She interrupts. “Just say seven. Say seven!”

  Seven.

  We wait more than two minutes for him to respond, which doesn’t sound like a long time until you’re staring at a screen, biting your nails.

  Then he answers: Seven marvelous friends.

  “It is Sam!” Riley laughs and hugs my arm. “It’s really him.”