“I don’t understand,” Atlas says.
Maybe he doesn’t, but I do. Drip by drip. Little by little. A painting doesn’t just happen. It comes to life stroke by stroke—seemingly without shape or purpose at first until suddenly it bursts into view. “You were going to do what the government did. Change things a little at a time. If a dozen people do searches on those words, they’ll set off alarms. Then a dozen more. The more alarms that go off, the more people will notice and ask questions.” Which will lead to more questions and demands for answers. “Every question they ask will teach them, by degrees, that the life they have been living is a lie. And once they know this, they won’t be able to go back. They’ll question everything and tell others to do the same.”
Dewey nods. “Only now Atticus and Folio are gone and the Lyceum is going into lockdown for months . . . maybe years.”
“Which means we have to put this plan into motion now,” I say.
“How?” Atlas asks. “My father and Isaac will be long gone by the time Dewey’s dripping truth has any chance of making a hole in the government’s lies.”
“There are faster ways of putting holes in a stone,” I say. “We get all of this out, into the hands of people all at once. The government can’t pull that many people off the street or out of their houses without everyone in the city taking notice.” And the upheaval might just provide enough cover for Rose to search her father’s offices for information about where they are holding Isaac and Atticus.
“Sounds great—but there are only two of us.”
“Three,” Dewey corrects. “I’d rather be working up there than stuck with all these people down here.”
Atlas scoffs. “Fine. Three. The Marshals will figure out what we’re doing before we have a chance to hand out a fraction of this stuff.”
He’s right. As soon as we start putting paper on the street, people will notice and someone will report it. The only way this will work is if we can deliver all of these books and papers into people’s hands in a short period of time.
“There have to be other Stewards who would be willing to help,” I say, picking up one of the red-and-white hard-covered dictionaries. “You said a lot of Stewards trained to defend themselves against the Marshals. Would any of them be willing to make a stand?”
“A lot would never think to go against the Engineers or the Stewards’ preservation mission. But there are some who might.”
Atlas turns to Dewey. “What do you think?”
Dewey adjusts his hat again and smiles. “Couldn’t hurt to ask. But whatever you’re going to do, you’re going to have to do it now. The clock counting down to the lockdown is ticking.”
“Our best shot is talking to the Stokers in the hopper.”
When I give him a confused look, Atlas explains, “Stokers are what we call the Stewards on the streets who are trained to fight. There’s a separate area in the Lyceum where we practice. A bunch of us call it the hopper.”
“The coast is clear,” Dewey says, peering through a small hole. “Atlas, take her to the hopper. I’ll gather up whoever I think might be open to making a stand and meet the two of you there.” He flips a latch, opens the door, and turns toward me. “I hope you’re good with words, my dear. To convince that crowd to put their lives on the line for you—well, let’s just say you’re going to need all the words you can get.”
The gravel on the floor of the hopper crunches under my feet. The cave-like space is lit by spotlights of white and pale blue positioned near the dirt-packed walls. In the center of the room are sections of wrought-iron and chain-link fences—many taller than me. At least three dozen people weave around the fences. Some carry boxes. Others have bags slung over their shoulders. An older woman with long brown hair and a diamond stud twinkling from her left eyebrow is perched at the top of a rusted section of fence, shouting orders about sleeping arrangements.
“That’s Spine,” Atlas says. “She’s head trainer, one of the most fearless people I’ve ever met, and unofficial leader of the Stokers. If we can convince her, the majority of the others will follow.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Be glad you know how to run.”
“Lockdown doesn’t mean we slow down! And you don’t need to talk to each other right now,” Spine yells. “You’ll have a whole lot of time down here to talk once the doors are closed.”
Dewey appears behind us with the long-nailed Renu and a half dozen others in tow. He nods and Atlas whispers, “Let’s do this.”
The floor slants slightly downward as we walk deeper into the hopper toward the center, where Spine is shouting about final assignments for taking books to the vaults and people to out-of-town stations. While a lot of Stokers are paying attention to her, a number have turned to watch Atlas and me striding across the gravel floor.
“Anyone who doesn’t think they need to pay attention to what I’m saying will have to run extra drills when we resume our training sessions tomorrow. Do you hear me?” Spine yells to a group of Stokers to her right.
“We hear you, Spine.” A bulky guy in a white T-shirt with a mop of brown hair with almost glowing white-blond streaks points toward us. “But I don’t think those two are listening.”
Spine looks down at us. “Atlas, I thought you told me you had to deal with something important before the lockdown.”
“I am dealing with something important. That’s why I’m here now. We have something we have to ask you.” He turns and looks around the room. “To ask all of you.”
“‘We?’” Spine asks. “Whoever this is, she’s not even old enough to be in the Stewards.”
“I know you don’t like the idea of a lockdown,” Atlas says over the whispers from those looking on. “I know you hate the idea of hiding down here while my father needs our help. You train every day. You push yourself to be able to take on the Marshals, yet you are told to run from them even when you see someone who isn’t a Steward in danger. And you wonder about those people and whether you could have made a difference if only you had broken the rules and tried.”
Several Stokers nod their heads. I hold my breath.
“My father wanted to do more than just hide down here in the Lyceum. It’s the reason he’s not here with us now, and why I’m asking for your help to tell the people in this city what we know.”
“Yes, we train.” Spine leaps off her perch on the fence, lands gracefully, and strides across the gravel toward us. “Yes, we prepare to fight. But our mission is to keep the truth alive until people are ready to listen. We have to wait until the time is right. I’m sorry about Atticus.” She pats Atlas’s shoulder then starts to walk away.
The rest in the room begin to go back to their business. Panic bubbles. That can’t be it. They can’t just leave.
“And when will that be?” The words burst out of me. “Do you really think there will be a magical day when people are ready to hear the truth?” I hold up the dictionary as Spine turns back toward me—anger hot in her eyes.
“There’s a reason the Engineers don’t want people your age to be part of this.” She takes slow steps toward me. “Young is easy to influence. Young makes impulsive choices. And they speak about things they don’t understand.”
“I understand that hiding out waiting for the right moment to spread the truth hasn’t worked all that well. People have forgotten the words that were taken. Every day that passes takes them farther away from the ideas those words would give them and makes it harder for them to believe. There will never be a good time to tell the truth. It is never going to be easy. We have a plan, but we need more people for it to have a chance of working, and if it is going to help Atticus, we need to do it now. If we wait . . .”
“‘We?’” Spine barks a mocking laugh, and my stomach curls as she stares down at me. “You just got here. Now you’re telling us we should abandon the mission we’ve been following for years?”
“No.” My heart pounds hard and loud in my ears. “I want you to ask yourself
what you’re waiting for. I want you to stop hiding and fight for the truth you claim to believe in. I want the Steward mission to be fulfilled.”
“And you think you’re ready to lead that fight?” she asks quietly. When Atlas starts to speak, Spine cuts him off. “Not you. I know what you can do. If this child thinks she can lead people who have risked their lives for years, I want her to make me believe it.”
The room goes still.
I look at Spine, who is tall and muscular and confident. She is what a leader is supposed to look like. But I’ve faced Marshals. I was scared, but I didn’t freeze, and I survived. “Yes,” I say in a clear voice. “I am.”
“Then prove it,” she says. Spine kicks her leg out and hooks mine. My feet slide out from underneath me and I land flat on my back on the gravel. The dictionary drops with a thud beside me as laughter echoes.
I gasp for breath as Spine looms above. Her lips spread into a thin, satisfied smile. “Do you really think we should follow your lead?”
“This isn’t necessary,” Atlas says, holding out his hand to help me up.
But I ignore his offer of help, and my eyes never leave Spine’s as I pick up the dictionary and climb to my feet. “Yes,” I say. “I do.”
This time I’m ready when she launches at me. I dodge the punch she throws and swing the dictionary down on her arm with both hands. She stumbles. Pride flares for a split second before her leg once again sweeps mine out from under me. Breath kicks out of my lungs. My head cracks against the gravel. My heart thunders as I roll to my side, get to my knees, and shove slowly upright. The dictionary is still clutched in my hands when I set my feet under me and face Spine again.
She shakes her head and puts a hand on her hip. “We don’t have time for this.”
I straighten my shoulders and grip the book so that its edge is facing toward her.
She arches her eyebrow as if to ask, Really? And this time when she punches I step to the side and with as much force as possible slam the edge of the dictionary into her stomach. She gasps and turns. I block her kick with the book. The second one lands. Shock and pain bloom in my hip as Spine shoves me to the ground. The dictionary skitters over the gravel and Spine puts her boot on top of it and says, “Get out of here, kid.”
Kid.
I stopped being a kid when my mother was killed, I think as I push myself up and look around the room. The lights scattered around the edges seem to make the dozen or so Stokers’ eyes shimmer as they stare at me. Are they waiting for me to cry? To back down?
If so, they are going to be waiting a long time.
I climb to my feet, lift my eyes to meet Spine’s, and say, “That book belongs to me.”
Spine kicks the book across the gravel. As I reach to pick it up, she says, “I’m stronger than you are. I’ve trained for years. Why keep fighting if you are going to just end up on the ground?”
“Because I have to,” I gasp. Pain and fear and anger war inside me, but that is the truth that I know. “They killed my mother for searching for the facts. They’ve taken Atlas’s father and one of my friends. People deserve to hear the truth. If we aren’t willing to risk everything to share it with them, I don’t see how we are any better than the ones who took it away.”
Sixteen
No one says a word.
My heart pounds loud as I set my feet and brace myself for another attack. Only, Spine doesn’t charge. Instead, she places her hands on her hips and studies me.
There is the crunch of gravel as Atlas crosses to stand at my side. “I know the Stokers,” he says. “I’ve trained with you—worked alongside you. I know you are never comfortable with the idea of retreating. You want to do something. Now we’re giving you the chance to do it. Instead of locking up truth, we want to spread it.”
Spine slowly turns and scans the faces of her Stokers. Then she shifts her attention to me. “You really think that we have enough of us to make a difference?”
“I do,” I say, and I mean it. If we do this right, there are enough gathered here to bring the truth to the city. And hopefully, the spectacle we create will give Rose the opening she needs to find the location of Isaac and Atticus. “The history book I was given to read gave lots of examples of how small groups of people can create change by doing something hard. I guess we’re asking you to be those people.”
Dewey steps out of the shadows, his hat in his hands. “‘Informed, concerned, and thoughtful citizens can change the world.’” He shrugs. “Reverend Espy—his quote seemed appropriate at this moment in time. Also appropriate is reminding you that our little gathering here will not go unnoticed by the Engineers much longer. Perhaps a decision needs to be made.”
Spine glowers at Dewey, but there is a spark of excitement in her eyes when she lifts her chin and says, “I will not speak for anyone else, but I am not interested in hiding down here when there is a chance to fight for the truth up there.”
A bunch of Stokers cheer. Atlas puts his arm around my shoulders, and Spine continues. “I will not judge anyone who wishes to stay here in the Lyceum during the lockdown. You must make the choice that is right for you. If you wish to leave, you can do so now. All I ask is that you not say anything to anyone else in the Lyceum until those of us who wish to take this step have gone up to the city.”
Not one person moves, and a brilliant smile spreads across Spine’s face as she turns toward me. “Well, you’ve managed to gain a small army. What do you need us to do?”
We give her a quick outline of how spreading the truth is going to work—or as much of it as we have come up with so far. Handing out the books and the pages and our hope that people will ask enough questions or cause enough confusion for us to be able to locate the Unity Center where Atticus and others like Isaac are being held so we can free them.
“The Engineers are never going to let us operate from here,” Spine says.
“No,” Dewey agrees. “They ordered the lockdown because they’re worried about losing more Stewards. Scarlett and Holden will do their best to cause problems for us if they realize how many are defying their wishes.”
“So we move everything out of the Lyceum before they figure out what we’re doing,” I say. “Maybe the tunnels?”
“I’ll talk to Index,” Atlas offers. “The exit station is close, it has supplies, and there should be enough room for all of us to go over the mission and hide out once we’re finished.”
And Index wasn’t wild about the lockdown, either.
“That’s good.” Dewey rubs his chin, then snaps his fingers. “And if Spine can lend me a number of her Stokers, I can make it appear as if they are running books to the vault, but instead they’ll be moving our supplies.”
“Once everything is relocated, we’ll go over the rest of the plan.” Which will give me time to figure out exactly what it is. “Sounds good.”
“As soon as Atlas gets the green light from Index, we’ll get to work. I’ll send my Stokers to Dewey in groups of two or three, and you . . .” Spine frowns at me. “What do we call you? Have you even chosen a name?”
I hadn’t thought about it, but when I look down at the book in my hands I realize what it should be. “You can call me Merriam.” If nothing else, it’s close enough to my own name that I will remember to answer to it.
Spine smiles and holds out her hand. “Well, Merriam, it sounds like we need to get to work.”
I take her hand in my dirt-streaked one and hold fast. “Yes, we do.”
“Lockdown is in just over thirteen hours.” Spine turns, leaps up onto a wrought-iron fence, and starts shouting orders.
“Merriam,” Atlas says, “what you just did was . . .” He searches for the right adjective.
“Unexpected?” I repeat the word he used last night before Rose called.
“Yeah.” He gives me a slow smile. “Spine and the others would have heard me out, but you impressed them. That’s not easy to do.”
“I was impressed that you understood some of the book
you were given.” Dewey appears at my side. “We have people and, if Atlas is correct, a place to assemble. But we still don’t have a logistical plan that will make this work.”
“We will,” I say. “I just have to figure out what it is.”
“I’ll get you the map your mother, Atticus, and I were using.”
Dewey is back in no time with a worn city map as well as paper and a number of pencils. He then heads off to organize how to remove the supplies from the hidden room. Atlas goes to talk to Index, leaving me to figure out how best to get the truth into the hands of as many people as possible.
Since I don’t want the Engineers to spot me, I find an out-of-the-way corner of the Lyceum to spread out the map. Worry snakes through me as I study the small red X’s someone marked throughout the entire city. There are fifty of them in all. Some in the heart of the Loop. Others along L and bus routes farther out from the center of Chicago. We might have enough Stewards to hit every area my mother and Atticus identified. The Marshals will be alerted not long after we start. So we will have only a short window to operate. Spreading out seems like the obvious answer. The more areas in the city we share the truth in, the less chance the Marshals have of putting a complete stop to our work. It makes sense.
And yet I can’t help thinking that there is something wrong with that plan. Maybe if we were doing the slow release of information my mother and her friends had planned, I would feel more comfortable with the choices they made. But tonight’s operation is different and—
I jump as something brushes my arm and turn to see the shining green, unblinking eyes of a sleek gray cat staring at me. “What do you think, Margaret?” I ask quietly, wishing Atlas were here to give his opinion. “Should I just do it my mom’s way?” After all, she and the others had been working on this plan for months. They were Stewards. They knew all this stuff better than I do.
The cat saunters onto the map, sits in the center of the pages, and promptly puts up her leg to wash. And I take that as a sign. While my mom and the others knew the city, they were Stewards. They had been looking at the map for places to dispense the truth without drawing too much attention to what they were doing. But tonight, we want to be noticed. We want to get the attention of people who don’t know the truth. The grander the spectacle, the more curious people will be to find out what the papers and books say and the harder it will be for the government to deny. And the bigger the action we take, the better shot we have at distracting Rose’s father. We need lights and activity and people—places where there will be lots and lots of people.
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