Z 2135 (26 page)

Jonah felt uneasy, being passed from person to person—from
Captain Pete to Maya, and now to the mystery man leading him away from the
market and down a fairy-tale path that cut through a swath of perfectly
manicured trees on either side.

“Why all the shadows?”

The man turned to Jonah and smiled. His features were almost
effeminate, sharp and small, but his walk was brusque and masculine—perfectly
controlled. He looked around.

“I see few shadows, Mr. Lovecraft. So I’m assuming you’re
referring to a pilot who likely left you outside, a driver who must have
brought you in, and now me tending to your custody?” He smiled politely,
waiting for a response.

Jonah patted his hand on the medical bag’s side. “I was
supposed to deliver this and then leave. But now I’m with my third escort.
Can’t you just take it and I’ll be on my way?”

Jonah thrust the bag out toward the man, almost violently.
“Take it,” he repeated, his voice insistent.

The man inhaled deeply, straightened his shoulders, smiled
at Jonah in a way that made him think the man knew one million things that he
didn’t, then turned and started walking away. Jonah had no choice but to
follow.

When he caught up after a hundred or so strides, the man
laughed loudly, like Maya had as she rolled down her window. After catching his
breath from the artificial guffaw he whispered, “Don’t do anything aggressive
again. People are watching. You endanger yourself by existing, and are a danger
to me by proximity. I’m willing to help, but won’t die by your lack of care.”

The man broke from the whisper long enough to issue a louder
laugh, then continued. “We have orders and protocol. One loose thread can rip a
stitch and ruin the seam. I’m sure you know what happens to the garment after
that. Orders and protocol, Mr. Lovecraft, make for stronger thread and tighter
stitching.”

The man laughed again, even though there was no one around,
then led Jonah the remainder of the way down the path, past a group of happy
children skipping rope and then a group of chatting people on a picnic, and
down to a wide road, freshly paved and at least three times wider than the
single vehicle streets inside City 6.

They approached a corner with a lamppost, taller than any
Jonah had ever seen. Instead of a light, it held a rectangular computer
display. He wondered if it spilled light in the dark. In the daylight the
display poured bits of information into a wide grid of letters and numbers that
Jonah couldn’t make out from where they were walking, though the image did seem
to sharpen by the step. Behind the grid, as if the lamppost were broadcasting
specifically for it, was the most beautiful vehicle Jonah could possibly
imagine. It wasn’t like any car or truck he’d ever seen in person. It was
something else, with the shiniest black paint Jonah had ever seen. The
vehicle’s body was wide and sloped in front, rolling forward like the frame was
embracing the wheels. The back flared like a woman displaying her backside.
City 6 vehicles—all sizes—were metal boxes dropped onto wheels.
This
vehicle looked like a
sculpture in the City Museum, or one of the cars he’d seen from the Old Nation
movies and pictures.

As they neared the grid, Jonah could see that it was
displaying maps, weather, and streaming news with blinking dots and
multicolored lines.

They reached the black vehicle, which looked even more
beautiful up close. The vehicle’s door opened. The man beside Jonah turned and
pointed inside. “Get in. They’re waiting for you.”

“Why? Why can’t you take it? Why do I have to go with one
more person?” He looked nervously back at the car, unable to swallow his
fright, holding the bag out for the man again, pressing his luck. “I don’t like
it.”

“Everything will be fine, Mr. Lovecraft. I can’t promise you
one more stop, rules and protocols and such, but I can’t imagine you would have
more than that, and even if you do, I’m sure it will all be over very soon.
Step in the car, close the door, and smile, knowing your duty’s been done.”

The man smiled like he was selling something, then turned
and left Jonah alone, staring at the beautiful car. Like climbing inside a
coffin, he got in and closed the heavy door behind him.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Lovecraft,” said a man beside him.
The driver was tall, skinny, and young looking, beautiful like everyone else.
He looked happy from the inside, like nothing could bother him.

City 1 was supposed to be filled with monsters, responsible
for the world’s misery, but everyone here looked like they wouldn’t (and maybe
couldn’t) hurt a fly. But Jonah knew that wasn’t true, and that made the
omnipresent danger scream louder, and the truth that he had no weapons or way
to defend himself sit heavy like old food inside him.

“Good to meet you,” Jonah smiled and patted the bag. “Do I
give you this?”

The man laughed. “No, that won’t be necessary. But I’ll get
you where you need to go, and hardly take a minute of your time on the way.
Well, eight and a quarter minutes to be precise. Ready?”

“Yes,” Jonah said.

The vehicle hummed into motion, and Jonah realized the
driver wasn’t a driver. He sat where the driver normally would, but the vehicle
did all the work, keeping pace behind the road’s only other vehicle as they
drove from one gorgeous scene into another. Woods surrendered to the beach
Jonah had spied from the glider. About a minute after Jonah saw water—at what
he figured was eight and a quarter minutes after they started—the car hummed to
a stop in front of something Jonah had seen only in old movies: an actual
house.

The richest people in City 6 lived in the higher apartments.
Houses didn’t exist. Certainly not anything like what Jonah was staring at. The
home was gargantuan, the size of an entire apartment building, but a single
sprawling structure, rather than a behemoth chopped into 64 boxes per floor.
Some of the home’s windows looked four stories high; the columns in front were
the same size as those at The Capital.

“I suppose you leave me here, and I go in there, right?”

The driver who had done no driving laughed. “Nope, we’re
going in together.”

The man got out of the vehicle. Jonah followed, stepping out
onto bright white concrete as a medium-sized wave pounded the shore.

“Follow me,” the man said, still impossibly cheery.

He led Jonah through the front doors into what could only be
described as a palace. The ceilings were higher than the tall windows, and the
staircase was like nothing Jonah had ever seen. Stairs in City 6 were always
metal and mostly rusty, unless you were in one of the newer buildings. The
higher apartments were painted routinely, so they didn’t look as shabby through
the window. The City 1 stairs (at least in this house) were made of some sort
of polished stone, rising to meet the second floor with a strip of carpet up
the middle, so bright white it was like daring dirt to try and sully it, same
as the home’s walls and ceilings. Color in the room came from ample splashes of
art that hung on the walls and accentuated the angular furniture, all of it
gorgeous and unusual.

They passed the stairs and stepped into a large library on
the right. “Now, I leave you,” the man said as he opened the door for Jonah.

As he stepped through, the driver bowed his head and said,
“Thank you Mr. Lovecraft, for your service,” then ducked out of the way.

As the door closed behind Jonah, a man who had been standing
with his back to the door turned and smiled. He was old, ancient even, and
looked somehow rich enough to pay for the opulence around him.

“Ah, Jonah Lovecraft,” the man said, sounding relieved.
“I’ve been waiting forever to meet you.”

Adam clutched the pad tightly to his chest and stepped out
from the bathroom, gritting his teeth to keep from slamming the door behind
him. Again, Adam wished he were allowed to carry a shock stick.

“What the hell is this?” he yelled at Michael.

Michael jumped like the couch was on fire, then shoved Adam,
hard but not violently, back through the doorway and into the bathroom. “I told
you not say shit in front of the cameras,” he whispered as he slammed the door.
Louder, he said, “What do you mean you clogged the toilet?” and then, a moment
later, added, “Oh, man, help me fix this before it floods the place!” to buy
them a bit of time in the bathroom, away from the camera’s constant gaze.

Michael had sweat on his brow, and his cheeks had gone pale.
His breath was hot and fast. “You can’t do that. You have to take me seriously.
I said it isn’t safe in front of the TV.”

“I don’t care,” Adam said. “You didn’t have to trick me. Why
didn’t you just tell me what I was going to see? Why did you have to show me
like that? What was that, and when is it from? How did you get it?”

“It’s new video,” Michael said. “Taken the other night. One
of our guys intercepted a transmission that came from The Barrens. We’re not
sure who sent it, other than an orb, or who the recipient was.”

Adam wasn’t sure whether he felt happy or scared.

“So Ana’s alive? Do you know what happened after the video
ended? Did she make it off the roof? Have you heard anything else? At all?”

Adam’s questions tumbled from his mouth like one rock
pushing the next down a mountain. He had plenty more, but Michael stopped him.

“Calm down, Adam. I’ll tell you everything I know, but only
if you promise to listen. And trust me. Can you do that, at least for a while?”

“How can I trust you if you wouldn’t even tell me what I was
going to see?”

“I told you, I couldn’t. That’s part of trusting me, Adam. I
know it’s hard to sometimes tell the difference between right and wrong,
especially when everything you’ve been taught is upside down, but that’s the
first step. Before anything else. Without your confidence we’ve nowhere to go.
So do I have it, or not?”

Adam said nothing.

Michael assumed consent.

“We don’t know anything more than what you’ve seen on that
video, but that in itself is a lot. The Underground has its eyes and ears
waiting for more transmissions. If Ana’s alive, we’ll know soon—hopefully where
she is as well.”

It was too much to believe, Adam had just started trying and
it already hurt.

He thought of City Watch, and how they were taught that
evidence is subjective. Sometimes people didn’t know what they knew, and part
of a Watcher’s job was to help them remember.

“Who can I talk to?” Adam asked. “Can I talk to the people
who found this transmission? I want to know everything they do.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Michael said. “Besides, it
doesn’t matter. Even if you could, it wouldn’t make a difference. I told you,
there’s nothing to say right now. That video was it. All you can do is keep
your eyes open, and understand that your world is different than what you
think. You’re lied to every day. The Academy, City Watch, The State—they all
profit when you’re in the dark. I keep trying to tell you, keep trying to show
you, but you refuse to see.”

Adam said nothing.

Michael continued, “Can you see it now? Can you see the
truth? They lied about Ana dying. How many other things have they lied to you
about?”

“How?” Adam asked. “How could they lie about Ana dying? And
why? You saw it same as me, she and Liam were dead!”

“No,” Michael said. “They showed mangled
remains
. That could have
been anyone, it could have been anywhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“They make flix, why couldn’t they
make
news footage? What’s the difference? How
would we ever know? How many movies have you seen that take place in The
Barrens?”

Adam shrugged. “A lot.”

“Exactly. So they shoot that stuff somewhere; it’s not live.
They could have easily staged Ana’s and Liam’s deaths.”

“But why lie about
that
?
Who benefits? The Network? The State?”

“The Network is The State, and who knows. Maybe it’s closure
so one question—Where is Ana Lovecraft?—doesn’t lead to too many others. Or
maybe just another message letting citizens know not to fuck with The State.
They don’t want people in the cities to see that Ana and Liam escaped The
Games, right? Why give people hope?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Adam said.

“Only because you’re still thinking like the old Adam,
refusing to see what’s in front of your face. If people stand against that
system, even if it’s as simple as making their own way outside in The Games and
not being a prisoners to The Network, individual freedom could spread like a
virus. For The State, that’s a more terrifying infection than any zombie
outbreak.”

Adam turned from Michael and looked at the spotted bathroom
mirror, staring at his own reflection, feeling enlightened
and
stupid.

He had never been so conflicted.

Until recently most things in his life were a constant. He
was happy, so were his parents. Ana too. Adam had no cause to question
anything, until he had reason to wonder about everything. Then the Chief was
there to make everything better, to let him know that everything would be OK.
But now nothing was OK. If his life was two halves of a whole story, one was a
lie.

And one part was dead regardless.

Adam thought of all the wonderful things the Chief had
taught him, about ways to be a better Watcher and man. The Chief had not only
saved him from the Chimney Rock bullies, he had been kind to him ever since. He
made sure Adam’s needs were met, and that he had everything he needed to feel
less alone.

Maybe The State
was
lying about Ana and the Chief didn’t know. Maybe even he would be
surprised to learn this, and would help Adam find out what happened.

No. He
would know it. There’s no way he wouldn’t know the truth.

Michael softly said, “Keller’s been lying to you since the
beginning, and has turned you into a puppet for City Watch. Please Adam,
please
tell me you see it
now.”

It was awful, but Adam couldn’t deny it. He
did
see it, did know it was
true. And that awful truth made him want to curl into nothing.

“Even if everything you say is right—about The Network
lying, and City Watch grabbing innocent people, about them setting up my dad
and sister—that doesn’t mean Keller’s one of the bad guys. Maybe he’s been
fooled, just like me.”

“He’s as corrupt as they come, Adam.”

“No he’s not,” Adam could believe the rest, but just couldn’t
make himself think that Keller was complicit. “What proof do you have?”

“Proof? Why would I need proof? He’s head of City Watch.
That’s all the proof we need. Do you really need to talk to The Underground
again? Hear more horror stories? Oh, the things your buddies do when they go
into The Dark Quarters—robbing, raping, murdering.”

“Sometimes the good guys have to do bad things,” Adam said,
desperately clinging to his training. “For the greater good.”

Michael turned, laughing, loudly with a hand over his mouth.
“Is that the sort of horseshit they’re feeding you, Adam? Good God. How the
hell is robbing, raping, and murdering part of some
greater good?
”

While Adam could
maybe
believe The State had lied about Ana, he couldn’t believe that Watchers were doing
such horrible things in The Dark Quarters. Especially not the last two.

Michael continued, “You said yourself, that you were
starting to become disillusioned, right? Why can’t you believe what I’m saying?
I just showed you video of your sister and Liam, alive. And it
wasn’t
made by us, because
we
can’t do that. If that
doesn’t open your eyes, I don’t know what will.”

Adam returned to the mirror, “Why are you showing me this?
Telling me this? What am I supposed to do? Go outside and find Ana in The Barrens?”

“No,” Michael said, narrowing his eyes. “You fight.”

“Fight?”

“Yes, Adam. Join us.”

“Are you crazy? I’m a Cadet, I can’t join The Underground!”

“That’s what makes you perfect, Adam. I can’t think of
anyone better. You could help us from the inside.”

Adam stared, then swallowed the growing knot in his throat.
When the evening started, he’d hoped to discover the truth about Michael. Now
he had it, along with an invitation to join The Underground. If Adam was on the
clock, then he’d just earned his first bonus.

But that was before the video of Ana and Liam.

The video changed everything, cast doubt on the world Adam
thought he knew.

“Well?” Michael said. “What do you think?”

Adam suddenly knew (in a way that couldn’t be doubted, like
how the sky sat like a lid on the planet, and that his mom and dad loved him
before leaving forever) that everything Michael said was right, and that not
helping him would be wrong.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

Michael practically jumped in excitement.

“This is perfect,” he said, louder than he probably should
have. “When do you want to start?”

“Right now,” Adam said, not wanting to give himself seconds
to doubt or double back. “What will I have to do?”

“I don’t know what you’re comfortable with, but I know what
we need more than anything.”

Adam wanted to do that thing, whatever it was. He wanted to
be a Cadet because it made it easier to be the best Watcher. If Adam was going
to be in The Underground, he wanted to be best at that too.

“Just tell me what you need.”

Michael said, “We need you to drug Keller,” as if he’d been
waiting forever to make the request.

“Drug the Chief?”

“Yes, the next time the two of you have dinner. It will be
easy. He trusts you. I’ll give you a stunner; it shoots a paralytic into his
blood, along with a jolt of electricity. One shot and he’ll have no power over
you.”

“That won’t work,” Adam said. “At least not right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because the Chief is mad at me. I’m sure he doesn’t want to
have me over for dinner.”

“Do you
know
Keller’s mad, or are you guessing?”

“Guessing, but I know.”

“Why?”

Adam said, “Because I stood up for you. When you thought I
was ratting you out, I wasn’t. The Chief asked a bunch of questions, and I lied
about the answers, saying I didn’t know anything about you being in The
Underground. When we finished talking he was short with me and didn’t want me
around. I could tell by his stare that he knew I was lying.”

Adam expected Michael to look upset. Instead, he seemed
happy. “That’s great!” he cried out, slapping the countertop.

“Why is that great?”

“Because this gives you the
perfect
excuse to see him. Tell him you have ‘big stuff’ to talk about, then ask him if
you can meet for dinner at his house, as you don’t feel safe talking in public,
or even at City Watch. Tell him about me, The Underground, everything else. Set
up a mission. It won’t matter that you’re ratting me out because Keller will be
too late to do anything about it. We’ll take him somewhere, question him, force
him to tell the truth, and then we’ll broadcast it to the people.”

It seemed like a good idea, if it worked, but Adam wasn’t
sure.

“I don’t know,” he said. “This is so big. If I do this,
there’s no going back. I’m Underground forever. Maybe I’m too young to hide for
the rest of my life. I can’t see returning to City Watch. I’d feel guilty and
get caught, or never show up and they’ll know I did it. Besides, what if he’s
not alone? What if his wife is there?”

Adam didn’t want to be a baby, and wasn’t a coward, but
drugging Keller seemed sort of stupid. There was no way out if he did that. No
matter what, Adam would have to sacrifice himself. He probably wouldn’t have
minded before since there was so little that mattered, but now that he knew
about Ana, Adam wanted to stay alive.

Michael said, “There’s nothing to worry about, Adam. As for
his wife, we won’t hurt her. Trust me. Despite the rumors, we don’t harm
innocents. You do this, and you won’t ever need to go back, or hide. The
streets will spill over in revolution, and you’ll wake to a new city by
morning.”

“Will you kill him?” Adam asked. “I don’t want him hurt.”

“No,” Michael said. “We don’t
need
to hurt him. Though I can’t promise you won’t want me to once he starts
talking.”