Office of Mercy (9781101606100) (24 page)

With the power out, America-Five became visible only when they reached the green. The Dome curved in the dark, silent and still, though Natasha knew it must harbor a world of movement and agitation inside.

“I'll see you soon,” said Natasha. “I'll be waiting at the steps to lead you into the settlement.”

“Be careful,” said Raul.

“You too,” said Natasha.

“We'll wait for you to get inside,” Axel said.

Natasha moved swiftly over the dewy grass. She knew no one could see her, but still, crossing the open green gave her a tickling feeling on her neck. Once she had reached the supplyhouse, she relaxed. With the power off, getting back into the Dome would be easy. Even if someone caught her at the door of the Office of Exit, she could say that she was all turned around, that she couldn't tell what was what in the dark. Besides, either Mercedes, Eduardo, Sarah, or Ben should be there, keeping a lookout for her. Natasha passed through the two cubes of the airlock, prying the doors apart with her fingers. She still had plenty of time. Raj had given a full twelve hours and she had only used eight. She curled her fingers into the crease of the last door and pulled. Her mind registered the blue light just long enough to make her freeze in confusion, and then two strong hands reached out and grabbed her shoulders.

16

“W
hat in the Father's name are you doing?”

Natasha felt herself being yanked violently out of the airlock.

“What are you thinking? Have you lost your mind?”

“Jeffrey.”

Blue lights bathed his furious eyes. Backup power. The backup generator. They must have fixed it.

Jeffrey kept asking the same questions, shaking her shoulders, but she hardly heard the words.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked. Panic was overtaking her thoughts. She tried to push Jeffrey's arm away but he held on.

“The first team down to fix the power found Raj,” Jeffrey said, his voice trembling with fury. “As soon as I heard, I came here. I caught Mercedes, Ben, Eduardo, and Sarah coming out of the airlock. Who orchestrated this? Was it you or Raj? I know it was one of you.”

Natasha looked past him at the closed door of the Office.

“Do they all know?” she asked. “All the citizens?”

“Not yet. Not until the Alphas tell them!”

“But they can't—”

“What do you mean the Alphas can't? They can and they will. This is it, Natasha. Two months ago you looked me in the eye and told me that you'd never go to the Outside again. Not for the Pines, not for all eternity. How will I ever trust you now?”

“Yeah, well, what about me trusting you?” Jeffrey's indignation had suddenly reminded Natasha that she was in the right. That she had nothing to be sorry for. In a burst of anger, she wrestled free of his hold. “Half the people in this settlement have been lying to me my whole life!”

“What did they say to you? No, Natasha.” He blocked her way out of the room. “You can't honestly be listening to the Tribes. How many times have I told you that?” His left hand hovered near his sleeve, as if he wanted to show her his burn.

“Forget it, Jeffrey. I've heard the whole story. I know about the attack. The Pines told me everything. About how you set the fire. You trapped those people, you killed them in the worst possible way. And I was there, wasn't I? I was one of
them
.”

The life had withdrawn from Jeffrey's face; for a brief moment, he looked as old as an Alpha.

“No,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered viciously. “And it's not just the Pines who remember. I've seen it all in the Pretends. It's there, in Free Play, the computer has the whole attack. Raj told me how to find it. Your thoughts aren't as private as you think. You stole me. First you tried to kill me and then you stole me. But you never would have told me, if I hadn't found out on my own. You would have let me kill them!”

“Oh, Natasha.”

He reached out and grabbed her roughly around the middle, and for some moments she did not have the will to pull away. She realized only now that some deep and quiet part of her had expected him to deny her accusations, to prove to her with a few simple but brilliant explanations that the Tribe
had
tricked her, that she had been born a citizen, and to assure her that everything could go back to normal now. But the seconds lengthened and he made no denial. It was all true; the past was fixed; no person on Earth could undo it.

“You have to forgive me for starting that fire. It drives me crazy when I think of those people. How easily you could have burned with them.” He choked on his words.

“Tell me what happened,” she said. “I've heard the truth, so you might as well tell me.”

At first he was silent, and Natasha thought he was either too weak or too proud to confess. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, and for a terrible moment Natasha thought he was sick. But then he began to speak—to speak willingly and freely, as if he wanted very much to tell her everything.

“We tried so hard to avoid a second manual sweep,” he said. “The sweep of the fighters was inevitable, of course. They had attacked us at our home. But we thought if we could drive the other ones north, away from the settlement, that we could nova them in the usual way. The Alphas put me in charge of the team. Claudia and Arthur were with me—this was before Arthur became Director—and also a Beta, Gaurav Gandhi. He moved to another department a long time ago. I was rushing. The settlement was under attack and I was distracted. I set off the fire bombs without checking the wind speed and direction, without consulting the weather log to get a good read on the forest humidity. We set off too many fires and we lost control almost immediately. The Tribe scattered in two directions. We followed the larger group toward the mountains, while the smaller group fled for the shoreline. We never caught up with them. That's as much as we know about those people. That part of the Tribe must have escaped the perimeter.”

“And come back as the Pines.”

Jeffrey nodded. “That's been the suspicion.”

“We were always taught that the Palms started the fire,” Natasha said with quiet fury. “You said so yourself.”

“Yes,” said Jeffrey, his eyes tearing up. “The Alphas did that for me. They thought it would help alleviate my suffering. My guilt.”

“What happened to the larger group of Palms?” Natasha asked, moving on. She refused to feel sorry for Jeffrey right now.

“We realized pretty quickly that we had inadvertently cornered them. But there was nothing we could do. Nothing. They were up against the cliffs, and there was fire all around them. Our airfilters let us breathe through the smoke, and our biosuits gave us a limited degree of protection from the heat. But what good was that? There were over a hundred people, many of them passed out or nearly dead from the smoke already. We didn't have the means to save them. We couldn't ask the Office of Mercy for help. The fire retardants we have today only came later, as a result. And everyone else was fending off the attack on the green.”

Jeffrey took a breath, briefly closing his eyes; clearly, this was difficult for him. But Natasha didn't care. She needed the truth.

“I heard you crying,” he said. “You were trapped behind a wall of fire about as high as my waist. It was so hot, your face was bright red but you weren't burned at all. I saw you and I knew I had to save you. It was hard, I missed you twice. The ground was dry and the flames kept getting bigger. But then I lunged over the fire and I grabbed you. Once I had you in my arms, it was the best thing. The best moment of my life. Claudia couldn't stop me. She tried, but she wasn't strong enough. I managed to knock her down and hold on to you at the same time. Claudia and I, we've always had a complicated relationship, but she definitely hated me after that. And then, I left them all in the field. I took off in a sprint for the settlement. They tried to pry you away from me in the Office of Exit, and again in the Dome, but I wouldn't stop until I had you on a stretcher in the Department of Health, with a team of doctors swearing on the Mother and Father that they wouldn't harm a hair on your head.”

“Your arm?”

“Yes, the burn. I got it reaching to get you. The biosuits were fire resistant, but they started to melt in direct flame.”

“You said it was a trick.”

“It was a trick. A good trick, a wonderful trick. You were so perfect and innocent. I would have thrown myself into the fire to save you.”

Behind the door, the muffled voice from a loudspeaker rang out through the settlement, ordering the members of certain Offices to checkpoints in the Dome.

“So all the older generations have been lying to me,” said Natasha. “They know I'm not a real Epsilon, they must.”

“The Deltas don't know. They were only nine years old at the time. It wasn't hard to slip one more little baby under their noses. We said you'd been sick, tucked away by yourself in the medical wing. As for the Betas and Gammas—and the Alphas, of course—well, you couldn't really call it lying, after a while. You were still so young when you came here. Only about twenty-three months, according to the medworkers. The Epsilons had just turned two. It was perfect. You fit right in. Of course, early on, there was outrage over what I had done, but none of it was really directed at you. Then, as the years passed, people stopped thinking about it. You were here. That was what mattered.” He shrugged, at a loss for words. “They loved you. We all loved you. As much as if we had made you ourselves.” He looked her in the eyes, suddenly trying to impart to her a very important lesson. “You are just as much a citizen of this settlement as anyone else.”

Natasha was silent. While Jeffrey had been speaking, the reality of her immediate situation had been slowly setting in. The citizens had managed to get the backup generator running. The Alphas had Raj and the others locked away in their private wing. What could she do now? Natasha wished that she had not returned, not now, not ever. She should have stayed with the Pines. She could have run away with them—she should have convinced them once and for all to run away.

“Will you remember that?” asked Jeffrey.

“Okay,” said Natasha, unsure of what the question had been.

His smile was odd; he was forgiving her too easily.

“Good,” he said. “Then go down to your sleeproom and clean yourself up and meet me in the Dome in one hour. Raj and the others have refused to talk to the Alphas, but I'm sure that will change soon, once they stop worrying about themselves and resume a more universal perspective. Don't be afraid. The Department of Government is a lovely place. Reeducation will be the best possible thing for you right now. I'll be sorry to lose you from the Office of Mercy, but I'm sure that, before too long, you'll come to a career that suits you even better.”

“You're kicking me out of the Office of Mercy?”

“It's hardly a severe reaction, given what you've done.”

“But I haven't done anything!” Natasha protested, reaching frantically for a lie. “I never even talked to them. Well, once before—when they took me—but that wasn't my fault. This time we only looked at them, from a distance. It didn't do any harm. The Pines never knew we were there!”

“That,” Jeffrey said, undeterred, “you will need to discuss with the Alphas.”

She was desperate. If they shut her away in reeducation, if they banned her from the Office of Mercy, then the Pines would not be able to get Inside. Everything depended on her silencing the alarms on the green.

“Please,” she begged. “Give me one more day in the Office of Mercy. The chance to say goodbye. I love it there, and I love our team so much. Ever since I was a kid, it was my dream to work there. Let me say goodbye the right way.”

He did not answer her immediately, but the hardness in his face was softening.

“Fine,” he said. “One more day. The Alphas have enough to deal with at the moment. But tomorrow evening, you're coming with me to the Department of Government. No complaints.”

“Yes, thank you, Jeffrey, thank you.”

They walked out of the Office of Exit and into the eerie blue dim of the hall. Once the door had closed, Jeffrey touched the genetic code reader and began to reprogram the lock.

“So you're not tempted,” he said.

The lock beeped three times fast; the change was complete. Jeffrey crossed the hall to the Office of Mercy without another word—confident, apparently, that Natasha was under his supervision. With a trembling hand, Natasha touched her finger to the reader. The light glowed red. She was trapped. Unless she took a nova to the lock, she no longer had any way into or out of the settlement. She looked to the yellow door of the Strongroom, actually wishing they had stolen a second nova for good measure. If only the settlement had more than one exit, if only they did not build the wings so solid . . .

But then, all of a sudden, Natasha knew what to do. And a moment later, she was racing into the Dome, darting inconspicuously between the hordes of citizens trying to find their checkpoints, and others who simply did not know where else to go. How long had it been since she had parted from Axel and Raul at the edge of the green? Five minutes? Ten at the most?

Natasha slipped swiftly through the door of the New Wing without looking back. Eighty-three incuvats glowed at the center of the room and, inside, the Zetas bobbed in the cloudy liquid; they were all thankfully unharmed by the blackout, as Raj had previously assured. As she moved around them, one tiny Zeta leg kicked in such a muscular flash of motion that it made Natasha jump.

The building tools lay scattered around the New Wing, abruptly abandoned when the power shut off. Natasha found a pair of pliers like the ones she had used on her first day of construction; she climbed the scaffold and began to work away with all her strength at one of the panels that she had installed just last week. For some seconds she thought it wouldn't give. But then, with a final pull, the panel dropped to the scaffold with a thunderous clang, and a rush of cool air met Natasha's face. There was no time to worry about the sound. No chance to check behind her. She stuck her whole body through the now-opened rectangular gap in the wall; and, holding the frame at the top, she jumped a half story to the cushiony grass below.

With her heart pounding, Natasha gathered herself to her feet and ran across the green and into the woods. Her calls found answer quickly, more quickly than she could have hoped. She reached Axel and Raul well before the river.

“They caught me,” Natasha said before they could ask. “They were waiting for me at the door. They locked me out of the Exit and by the end of tomorrow, I'm going to lose access to the computers too—to the Eyes—they'll see you coming across the green.”

They began to interrupt her with questions, but she didn't have time.

“Listen,” she said. “The plan has to change. You'll have to get in through the New Wing. I'll mark the panel. It will look secure, but I'm going to leave it propped in its frame, without the bolts screwed in. Just pound on it a few times and it will give. I'll be waiting for you on the other side. On the scaffold. It's this thing like a raised platform. Well, it doesn't matter, you'll see. It will be harder for us to get to the Strongroom. We'll have to pass through the Dome. But I'll show you the way. That should be fine. The important thing is that you'll have the nova. Just show them the nova and they'll have to let us through.”