by Lan Chan
Unable to stand the lies for another second, I flip to my schedule and find it empty for the first time. I wonder if this means it’s Harlan who has been deciding my schedule, or if Tom has had a hand in keeping it free for me? I don’t know which is worse, and at the moment, I don’t care, except it means I have time to myself for a change. I dress quickly and call for the car, then stick my head out the door to see if the coast is clear. That’s as far as I get. The barrels of four rifles greet me and stay in firing position until I retreat back inside the room. So much for not being a suspect.
Over the next few days, I’m let out of my room to visit Tom and to train for the circus. The rest of the time, I’m confined to my apartment and it would seem visitors are forbidden, as my meals are left for me by wait staff who are as quiet and quick as ghosts. Nothing is said about continuing my work in the lab. Each day that passes, I grow more and more anxious that I haven’t seen or heard from Aiden, Ace, or Yuri. At one point, I’m even tempted to injure myself so I’ll need to see Gloria, and maybe she’d be able to give me some information. I think better of it when I realise if I’m injured, I won’t be very useful to the Seeders, and who knows where I might end up.
The Chief Warden’s visits with Tom grow more frequent, and though these visits pain him both physically and mentally, he tires himself out pretending his health is improving. It’s obvious she sees him now through a mist of self-delusion.
It doesn’t take a doctor to realise Tom is slipping. Each day the bruises under his eyes grow darker, and he spends most of his time cocooned in blankets and muttering gibberish. Those rare moments when he’s lucid he spends in the rooftop garden, wantonly eating seeds and pouring over the diary for a hidden clue of the seed bank’s location.
I watch Shelia closely each time she visits. The sickly tinge of her skin has become a permanent shroud. Her sentences are peppered with irritating coughs, and I would bet she’s having trouble breathing. Each day she too gets a little weaker. I’ve seen these symptoms before. I’ve had these symptoms when I first tested the various parts of Micah’s Rose on myself. I think back to the seedpod in Yuri’s coat. Somehow, Yuri is slowly poisoning the Chief Warden.
I barely have time to consider Yuri’s bold actions because the circus puts on nightly memorial performances for a week in honour of those who died in the explosion. There were twenty-nine dead in total, half of those being support staff. Many of the others were second-tier Seeders. Only three children of Council members died, including Rosie, the girl I stabbed through the hand. I should be happy, but all that runs through my mind is three Seeders aren’t worth the lives of so many others.
Given my association with Gage, I’m not written into the performance. In fact, the other performers go out of their way to avoid me, no longer knowing where I stand in the Seeders’ esteem. When Dory attempts to engage me, I make up an excuse and move away. The bitter disappointment and embarrassment that washes over her face is better than the alternative, or so I tell myself.
Dreading the overwhelming solitude of my apartment, I linger after training for as long as I can. Nobody takes any notice of me skulking in the folds of the curtain as Crispin gathers the performers together for the closing night pep talk. It doesn’t occur to me until I see the green cloaks and tri-leaf facial tattoo on the leading male that that the show makes reference to the Wanderers. Of course it would. Because Gage couldn’t possibly have come to his own conclusion about the Seeders. He had to have been in league with the Wanderers.
Suddenly, a weight falls on my shoulder. I open my mouth to scream and a hand reaches out and stifles me. Panic coils inside the pit of my stomach until a breath warms my ear and a voice I thought I’d never hear again speaks.
“Slip into the curtain folds,” the man says. I hang on his every word, fearful that my mind is playing tricks on me and he’s not really there. “Hurry, there’s not much time.” I do as he says, taking measured backward steps until the curtain parts and I’m engulfed in the dim corridor between the stage and the curtain. I catch a whiff of damp and mothballs and feel my chest constrict. It’s too enclosed in here for my liking.
Even though he’s garbed in the same green cloak as the other performers, only a fool would mistake his muscled build for that of an actor. But that’s not what makes me hesitate. It’s the golden Roman mask he’s wearing. I make a lifting gesture, signalling to him that I want him to remove his mask.
“I see you’ve grown up as paranoid as Henry,” he says as he tilts the mask upwards. I may as well not have bothered, because most of his face is covered in a thick beard. It’s the bemused expression in his eyes that convinces me, though. “Satisfied?” Gideon says.
In response, I draw back and slap him hard across the face. It’s hardly satisfying considering my hand probably hurts more than his face, but it does release some of the anger I’ve been harbouring.
“Happy now?” Gideon says. He lets the mask drop again and turns, indicating for me to follow. He takes a few rapid steps and then just before the curtain runs out, he pushes gently on the stage wall. The plaster gives a soft click as though a locking mechanism turns, and then a section of the wall slides away to reveal a hidden corridor. It’s even darker inside there than where I’m standing. There’s no telling how big the space is, but I’m willing to bet it hasn’t been made for comfort.
Gideon squeezes himself through the opening and then sticks his hand out to help me through. I don’t want to follow but it’s too late and I’ve already committed. I can tell he senses my unease because his grip on my fingers is tight. The wall slides back once I’m through and the meagre light extinguishes altogether. My breath comes as shallow rasps as Gideon produces a small flashlight and proceeds forward.
There’s barely enough room for me in this corridor and Gideon has to slide through sideways. I keep my eyes locked on the yellow beam of light and try to ignore the occasional scampering of vermin over my feet. We walk for what feels like forever. The deeper we go into the warren, the harder my heart beats against my ribcage. Sweat pours down my back and each step I take is torturous. I hear the tiny shriek of a mouse, and then Gideon’s boot crunches over flesh and bone. A strangled cry lodges in my throat. I have to get out.
Unreasonable panic takes hold of me, and I begin pounding my fists into the walls. I need to get out. The narrow corridor amplifies each hit until it sounds like the whole thing is going to cave in on us. I don’t care if it does. I have to feel fresh air in my lungs.
Without warning, the light is turned on me. It burns into my retina and I have to stop pounding the wall to shield my eyes. I stumble and lose my footing, but it doesn’t matter because Gideon grabs hold of my wrist and drags me forward. Wave after wave of panic crashes over me, and I close my eyes in an attempt to imagine I’m somewhere else. It doesn’t work very well. I don’t have a very good imagination.
Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, I hear another door open. This one sounds metallic. I open my eyes as a gust of stale air hits my cheek, followed by the wretched stench of stagnant water. We’ve come out into an underground sewer system. Even though water is rapidly soaking my slippers and travelling up my tights, I am so happy I can barely stand it. The sewer pipe we’re in is ten times the width of the corridor, and the oppressive weight lifts from my shoulders.
“You could have warned me,” I say to Gideon.
“Most kids grow out of being afraid of the dark by your age,” he says. Before I can remind him it’s not the dark, but the confined space that frightens me, he’s moving again.
I’m so relieved not to be inside the corridor that the discomfort of being cold and wet doesn’t perturb me too much. We continue through the sewer tunnels for what feels like an hour, until Gideon suddenly comes to a stop beside a rusty metal ladder bolted to the wall. He shines the torch at the ceiling, revealing a pressurised manhole.
Gideon hands me the torch and ascends the stairs. He makes a couple of rhythmic knocks on the manhole, fol
lowed by silence. He repeats the pattern three times before we finally hear answering knocks from the other side. Then suddenly, the manhole squeaks and hisses and the lid is popped open. The orange glow of candlelight illuminates the sewer. Gideon must know I’m not keen on whatever might be on the other side, because he climbs back down the stairs.
“After you,” he says.
I’m putting more faith in him than I really should, but right at this moment, I am so desperate to have someone on my side that I barely even flinch when several pairs of hands reach through the manhole and lift me up through it.
I swap one smelly, dark room for another as the arms set me down in what looks like a basement. A rough pair of hands encloses my shaking ones. I peer up at their owner and can’t help but return his smile.
“Welcome to the rebellion,” Aiden says.
Thirty-Nine
Five hard faces stare back at me around the dining table. The basement turns out to be attached to a nondescript home in the servant quarters of the Citadel. Members of the rebellion have been using the Arts Centre as a dispersal point, and with so much activity, it was the perfect cover.
Besides Aiden who is on my right and Gideon on my left, there’s a woman named Alice with corkscrew red curls that she keeps under a blue bandanna, a pretty brunette girl about my age named Phoebe, and then there’s my driver, Clive. It’s odd seeing him without the glass between us and even odder to speak to him and get a response other than a change in direction.
“Where are Yuri and Ace?” I ask.
“They’ve been arrested,” Aiden says. “The components used in Gage’s improvised explosive device were traced back to her workshop. And members of the Council have been getting sick over the past few weeks. My guess is they’ve figured out they’re being poisoned. Yuri was hauled in after that.”
“Why didn’t you try and stop him?”
“I didn’t know about it until the arrest,” Aiden says. “But even if I did, I probably wouldn’t have stopped him. It’s the best shot we’ve had at eliminating the Wardens without casualties on our part. He took a risk. We all take risks.”
His words sink in slowly. Although he tries to be as neutral as possible, I can’t help feeling the guilt that I’ve managed to escape the Seeders’ clutches for now because Tom Dempsey spoke out for me. How much longer do I really have until Tom passes, though?
“They tried to catch Aiden soon after the explosion too,” Phoebe adds. “It was just lucky he knew to come here right away. If he’d stayed with you any longer, he’d be in a cell in the barracks too.”
I glance at Aiden to confirm what she’s saying, and he winks at me as though to tell me he doesn’t blame me for what happened. I glance up and catch the baring of Alice’s canines as she regards Aiden with what I confusingly interpret as hostility. That’s odd.
Gideon must see the turmoil in my expression because he clears his throat and says, “Acacia’s and Yuri’s arrests are inconvenient, but not unexpected. What we need to focus on now is getting them out of the Citadel safely.”
“What about the mission?” Alice says. The spiked stud in her left brow bobs up and down as her eyes dart quickly to me and then back to Gideon. He gives her the smallest nod, the kind I would have missed if I weren’t looking for it. I picture the rebels arguing amongst themselves about whether I can be trusted. Obviously, Alice still has her doubts, because it takes her a long time to continue. “Who knows when we’ll have another opportunity to plant an operative?”
“We’ve barely mapped out a quarter of the silos,” Clive counters. “Without Yuri, we have no access.”
Alice slams a fist on the table, making everybody jump in their seats. I peer at the monitor to check that the sound hasn’t carried into the street. Thankfully, all is still. “We have to at least try!” Alice continues, oblivious to the racket she’s making. “We’ve spent years trying to find a way into the silos. The least we can do is attempt the mission. Or take down the research centre!”
If I’m right, the rebels are talking about a long-hatched plan to steal seeds from the silos. I should be giddy to be in the presence of co-conspirators, but I find myself muted. Besides Gideon, I don’t know any of these people. I barely even know Gideon beyond the memories I have stored away.
“You’re missing the point.” Gideon sighs. “Yuri and Acacia are more valuable to us than a few more seeds.”
“Besides,” Aiden says, “even if we can get past the guards without a complete map, we’ll be running around blind waiting for the Seeders to flood the silos. It’s not worth it.”
“Maybe not to you,” Alice mutters, knowing she’s outnumbered. “The world is running out of viable seeds, in case you’ve forgotten.” She settles back into her chair in seething resignation and crosses her arms over her chest.
“You’ll be all right to sit tight until we come for you tomorrow night?” Gideon asks me. “We can’t break you out any earlier or the Council will get suspicious.”
I nod. “Your building is heavily guarded, so make sure you wait for Aiden to come get you. If something goes wrong, you’re going to have to go over the balcony using Acacia’s glider suit. Go towards the forest and we’ll find you there.”
It all seems so surreal. Aiden takes my hand under the table and squeezes it. I find myself squeezing back. Once upon a time, this gesture meant an allegiance against whatever trouble Gideon was lecturing us for getting into. Today, I’m not exactly sure what it means, except he understands my inability to trust these rebels.
All this talk of low supplies brings to mind the Landing and the Council’s accusations that we were supplying the Wanderers with food. A mixture of unsettling emotions swirls inside my chest. I want explanations for everything that’s gone wrong since before I left the Landing, but there’s no room in the conversation for an interruption.
Now that my part of the escape plan has been settled, Gideon fires off a checklist of instructions.
“Kit and the other pilots will fly the decoy choppers into the dome of the Forgotten Garden and the Chief Warden’s mansion at two a.m. The Seeders will detect them long before they can make impact, but it’ll be enough of a distraction. Once most of the guards have left to deal with the attacks, Phoebe and I will break Yuri and Acacia out of the barracks. Aiden, Clive, and Alice will go to get Rory. We make for the pickup point as soon as we can. Kit picks us up at three fifteen sharp. Anyone not there will be left behind.” He’s looking directly at Aiden when he says this last bit. A testament to the fact that he never meant to leave his son behind the last time he disappeared, perhaps?
Gideon dismisses us with a resolute nod. I get up when Aiden does, not at all looking forward to taking the tunnels back to the Arts Centre. Clive leaves through the front door, which means this is probably his house. The rest of us take turns down the steps of the manhole. I shiver automatically as my feet touch the murky concrete floor. The damp stench fills my nostrils, and I swear I can taste it in the back of my throat.
Alice turns in the opposite direction and disappears into the darkness without so much as a good-bye. After a hushed conversation with Aiden, Phoebe does the same. Though she does turn at the last minute and wave back.
“Be careful,” Gideon says to Aiden and me.
“We will,” Aiden replies for us both.
They stare at each other for a long time, knowing this might be the last time they see each other.
“It’s just for now, Aiden,” Gideon says. “They’re not all like Alice.” I’m not sure what he means but the words make Aiden turn away in disgust. Watching their reluctance to part brings up a sense of longing for Papa and Micah that I’ve tried to suppress. It also hits home to me how utterly alone Aiden must have been when Gideon and I both left him. That’s why it kills me to have to take his hand now and steer him away. Especially when he could be going with his father instead of escorting me back to the stage because I’m too afraid of enclosed spaces to make it on my own.
We do
n’t speak again until we’ve reached the door leading to the corridor behind the stage. My anxiety spikes and I find myself backing away.
“Isn’t there any other way?”
He draws me unexpectedly into his arms and for the first time since we were children, it doesn’t feel awkward to be there. I listen to his steady heartbeat and try to make mine match. “It’s not all that far,” he says. His lips rest on top of my head, and each word sends electricity down my neck. I think of a time when he would tease me mercilessly about my fear of enclosed spaces and I would taunt him for being afraid of heights. I admit to myself that playful, unassuming friendship is gone, and in its place is something terrifying and exciting at the same time.
“One foot in front of the other, that’s all you need to think about,” he says. “I’ll be there the whole time.” His voice is soft and coaxing, and that’s what I hang on to as he releases me and leads me through the confined corridor. He doesn’t stop talking about trivial things the whole time. How irritating it is to be under Gideon’s command again after so long. How furious the Council will be when they realise they’ve lost their prisoners. How much he’ll miss the sabrewolf kennels once we leave. Most of it is just prattle to keep me calm, but I recognise some of it as him airing out his fears in comparison with mine.
The walk feels long and I have one tiny bout of panic, but it’s not as bad as before. When the orchestra music begins to filter through, I even manage to pick up the pace until we reach the hidden door leading behind the stage. I press my palm to the latch, but just before I can push against it, Aiden catches my wrist. He puts a finger to his lips.
“What?” I strain to hear what’s spooked him when I feel his left arm snake slowly around my back. He presses his cheek to mine, and when he speaks, his voice is filled with a husky tenderness that makes my chest constrict.
