The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  We’d only just destroyed the repeaters in Raven a few hours before, so most of the citizens were still in the shock and disbelief stage. But the fact that the Potentate had already sent troops here meant he either suspected we’d come here next, as a neighboring city to Pensington, or else he’d already been tipped off that the signals weren’t getting through. I’d seen a few pockets of protesters as we’d made our way out of the city, but not enough to warrant all this.

  Jean, Alec, and I crouched in the shadows, scanning for a way out of here without being seen. We still had the advantage of our signal disruptors, but it certainly appeared that the soldiers were looking for something, or someone, in particular.

  “Over there!” one of the soldiers shouted to another, holding his rifle in the air. “You! I know you’re there, freeze and come out with your hands up!”

  Jean and I exchanged a puzzled look. They weren’t pointing anywhere near us.

  One man I didn’t recognize came out of the shadows: he was probably in his fifties or so, lean and muscular, with dark hair matted to his skull with sweat. His expression was impassive.

  “Come on, there’s more of you than that! Out!”

  Another man emerged from the shadows beside him—this one looked a bit familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him. He was late twenties to early thirties. Next came a woman, a bit heavyset, biting her lip like she was trying to keep from crying.

  “Who are these people?” Jean hissed at me. “Protesters?”

  I shrugged. “I guess…”

  I peered into the shadows from which the three captives had just emerged, trying to determine how many of them there were, and what they possibly could have been doing to warrant all this attention.

  I caught my breath. “It can’t be…”

  “What?” Alec hissed. He and I had barely spoken since he’d overruled me about going to the palace to rescue Kate. But I forgot about that now, and ran out into the square.

  “Behind you!” I shouted, waving my arms in the air. All the soldiers turned their eyes and their weapons on me. I could feel Alec and Jean both frozen in shock behind me. The soldiers looked nearly as stunned.

  “That’s Will Anderson!” one of them gasped.

  It suddenly occurred to me that after my disappearance, I’d probably had a few Public Enemy broadcasts of my own. I was infamous now.

  The soldiers seemed to have forgotten all about the captives who had just emerged from the shadows. I locked eyes with the one who had prompted this insane move of mine: it was Kate’s brother, Charlie.

  “Run!” I mouthed at him.

  The soldier in front of me pulled the trigger. I saw it a split second before he did it and hit the ground. One of the soldiers yelled at the other, “Don’t kill him, arrest him, you idiot!”

  After that I wasn’t sure what happened—there was shouting and mass pandemonium. I looked up to see several soldiers running towards me, but they fell one by one. Alec joined the fray at some point, and I glanced across the crowd to see Albert, Kate’s dad, beside Charlie. Both of them gunned down the soldiers before they could reach me.

  What in the world? Where did they get guns?

  Behind me, Alec and Jean fired on the soldiers too—I seemed to be protected from all sides. I got to my feet.

  “Come on!” cried Charlie, who had at some point crossed the square to where I was. He grabbed me by the arm and started to pull me down one of the many intricate passages out of the square.

  “Wait—” I looked back at where Jean and Alec were hidden.

  “No time, we’ve gotta get out of here!” Charlie shouted back.

  I looked back at Jean and Alec, telling them with my eyes to follow us. I knew that was dangerous. The soldiers weren’t gone. Many of them had run down one of the intricate passageways leading into the square, perhaps looking for escapees. I didn’t know how many of the newly awakened had been in Charlie’s company.

  He led me down one path between a faded neon pink and yellow building, turning this way and that until I felt dizzy just trying to follow it.

  “Wait up!” called Jean behind us, breathless.

  I tugged on Charlie’s arm. He didn’t want to stop, but I yanked hard enough to pull it out of socket if he resisted me.

  “Wait for my friends!” I insisted. Jean caught up, along with Alec.

  “Introductions later,” Charlie said. I glanced up and saw Albert, who briefly clapped me on the back. Then we were off again.

  I wasn’t quite sure when the rest of them joined us, but out on the street again there were four more: the two men and the woman I’d seen first enter the square, who all must have escaped when I distracted the soldiers, and—of course—Kate’s mother. She’s here too?

  “How are you all—?” I started.

  “They’re still tracking us! We’ve got cars!” Charlie interrupted. “We won’t all fit, but we can cram—”

  “We have cars too,” Alec cut in.

  “Have you guys got signal disruptors?” Charlie demanded.

  My mouth fell open. “How do you know about signal disruptors?”

  “Because we have one, but only one for the lot of us,” Charlie shouted back.

  “We each have one,” said Alec, “Will, Jean, and me.”

  “Ok, how many can you fit in your car?” called Charlie.

  “Two more,” said Alec.

  “Three more,” I corrected, pointing at Charlie. “I’m going with them.”

  “What?” Alec balked, “Who the hell are they?”

  Charlie ignored all this. “Right. Grant, Michael, and Maryanne, you’re with Will’s team. Will’s with us.”

  Kate’s mother Denise started to whimper and wring her hands. “Let’s get out of heeeeere…”

  Charlie told Alec, “Meet at the edge of the forest that way, at the juncture between Raven and Haverstown. We’ll talk there.”

  I jumped into the front seat beside Charlie. Kate’s parents huddled together in the back. Charlie focused intently on the road as long as we were still in Raven. Once on the interstate he relaxed, glanced at me, and broke into a grin.

  “How are you alive?” he asked, slapping my leg on the seat beside him.

  “How are you involved?” I rejoined. “When did you guys become rebels?”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “Did you see Kate’s broadcast?”

  At the mention of Kate, my heart sank again. “Yes. We all did—”

  “Well, we were there with her. I was anyway, Mom and Dad were waiting with the getaway vehicle nearby.”

  “Only Kate didn’t get away,” I finished.

  Charlie glanced at me, and said, his tone heavy but unsurprised, “How did you know?”

  “She’s at the palace,” I said.

  “What?” demanded Albert, leaning forward. “Katie’s a prisoner again?”

  “Again?” I repeated, confused.

  Charlie glanced at me sideways as he pulled the car onto a deserted highway which shortly turned to dirt. “We have a lot to catch you up on. In a nutshell, Kate came to get me to help her with the broadcast, but we didn’t get far. We both got arrested, taken to the palace and put on trial for treason, and they brought Mom and Dad in as leverage to get us to tell them where the rest of you guys were hiding out. Jackson showed up and rescued us—he was the only reason we got out alive. I assume if Kate’s a prisoner in the palace again, then Jackson must be, too. I left them both behind when the agents showed up after the broadcast.”

  Ah. So Jackson did go after her. That must’ve been when he’d killed the Tribunal members. I should have guessed that was where he was going as soon as he ditched our group in Friedrichsburg. I should have known Kate would go off by herself to do the broadcast as soon as I was out of the way and couldn’t stop her. I should have known Jackson would go after her, too. The bastard.

  It should have been me.

  When Charlie reached the end of the r
oad at the forest’s edge, he killed the engine. Behind us, Alec did the same. Now that I was more relaxed, I recognized Michael and Grant as they got out of the car. I must’ve met them with Kate at some point.

  “…others all dispersed as soon as they understood how dangerous it was going to be,” Michael was saying to Jean. “It’s only us three left.”

  “What others?” I asked.

  “The rest of the broadcasting team,” he told me. “Can’t say I blame them. When Kate and you all—” he gestured to Charlie, Albert, and Denise—“showed up with the signal disruptors, convincing the team that her story was true was one thing. But none of us knew we were signing up for all this.”

  The plump woman, whom Charlie had called Maryanne, gave a tiny laugh that sounded like a sob.

  Alec looked at me. “I briefed them on what we’ve been doing to the repeaters, and the people’s responses—it’s powerful, and it’s working. If Voltolini is sending troops now, not even agents to try to quell the uprisings, that means he’s scared. So we think we should divide into three or four groups and divvy up the remaining repeaters. Every opportunity we have to pass the torch to people on the streets who are waking up, we take. Imagine if every city we go to spawns another one, two, or three groups to break more of the repeaters—we’ll have them all wiped out within a few weeks!”

  “But—what about Nick and Jacob and Roger?” Jean protested. “Alec, we can’t just leave them… they’re gonna be waiting for us in Friedrichsburg!”

  He looked very annoyed, but said, “Fine, you and I will go back to Friedrichsburg first then.” He muttered, more to himself than to her, “We should’ve destroyed the repeater there first anyway, it would’ve been more efficient. If they’re there, they’re there, and they can take half of our list. If not, oh well.”

  Maryanne sniffed and wrapped her hands around Grant’s forearm. He patted her fingers absently.

  “Not us,” I announced. “We’re going to the palace for Kate.”

  Alec glared at me. I glared right back. When I didn’t back down, he took another few steps toward me and dropped his voice so that only I could hear.

  “You asked me what I would do if it were Maggie,” he growled. “Well, I can tell you what Maggie would want if it were her: if I had to choose between rescuing her and starting a revolution, if I had that power like you do right now, she’d tell me to let her rot in prison in a red hot minute—”

  “I don’t give a damn what you think, or what your precious Maggie would have thought!” I raised my voice. “I should have gone after Kate in Friedrichsburg in the first place. It should have been me, not Jackson. I’m not abandoning her again!”

  Alec clenched his hands into fists. I watched them in my peripheral vision, just in case he took a swing at me. Finally he snarled, “You’re a fool. This is bigger than her, bigger than you, bigger than any of us. We’ve finally found something worth dying for—”

  “Katie’s worth dying for,” said Albert quietly, stepping forward and taking hold of his wife’s arm. “Maybe a revolution is too, but my little girl comes first, and that’s all there is to it. We’re going to the palace with Will.”

  “What about me?” Denise burst out, wrenching her arm away and whirling on Albert. “What about what I want? Did you ever even think to ask me? No, you just decide for me, and drag me along from one city to another, one life-threatening situation after another!” He was too stunned to reply, so she went on with a melodramatic whimper, “Do you know how tired I am? I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in I don’t even know how long, and we’re barely eating, and you…” she pointed a finger in her husband’s face, self-righteous tears in her eyes, “you don’t even care!”

  I exchanged a look with Charlie, who shook his head and sighed. Albert looked appalled, and stammered, “But… it’s Katie! It’s our daughter!”

  “Who has been rebellious ever since she was a child, hasn’t she? She wouldn’t listen to us when we called the agents—she could have had her wonderful, perfect life back, but she chose not to, she ran away! And I’m tired of running after her, cleaning up all of her bad choices! I’m just—I’m just sick of it!” With that, she burst into tears.

  I’d never thought much of my almost mother-in-law, but even I was appalled at this speech. I approached Charlie while Albert coddled his wife, trying to calm her down.

  “I’m not taking her with us,” I informed him, pointing at his mom. “She’ll slow us down. She’s a pure liability.”

  Charlie shrugged at me. “I know, but I don’t think it can be helped. Dad wants to rescue Kate, and he won’t leave Mom.”

  “Then we leave him behind too,” I hissed. “We’re in a war here, it’s not about everybody getting their wish list!”

  “Well, if it comes to that, you’ll have to leave me too, then,” Charlie snapped, “because Mom’s too much of a handful for Dad to be able to do anything else, if he’s the only one she has to protect her. How would they even eat? He can’t do any raids with her acting like that. If the agents discover them, they’re definitely execution candidates at this point. They need protection. Not to mention that Mom knows too much and if caught, she’d tell the agents all about what we’re doing to the repeaters. Plus the Potentate could use her and Dad as leverage to make Kate and me do whatever the hell he wants! They did it once. And frankly, Will,” he crossed his arms over his chest, “how would you even get to the palace without my help? Because the bullet trains are out, and I doubt you’re the one who hot-wired that car.” He gestured to the one Alec was driving.

  I glared at Charlie, feeling my temperature rise throughout this speech… but he was right about the car. I’d watched Alec do it, but didn’t think I could replicate the process.

  I glanced at Denise, feeling a wave of disgust roll over me.

  “Fine,” I barked, hoping I wouldn’t regret this. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Chapter 12: Kate

  The rest of the day after I left Ben in the garden was unbearably long. Why wouldn’t he let me leave, and go back to my old apartment? He said it was for my own protection—that I was a “patient” here—but there was something he wasn’t telling me.

  There was a lot he wasn’t telling me, actually. He didn’t want me to know about the rioting in the Republic, and he didn’t want to tell me what had happened to my family. All he wanted to do was dress me in pretty imported clothes, feed me elegant food, and call me ‘his pet.’

  Why? What does he really want from me?

  These thoughts spun in my head as I counted the hours until the sun went down. I told Ingrid that I refused the Potentate’s offer to dine with him that evening. She arched a judgmental eyebrow at me.

  “You refuse?”

  “Please tell him I do not feel well,” I corrected.

  Ingrid stared, her expression condemning my bold-faced lie, and I knew she would be reporting the entire conversation to Ben exactly as we had had it. But she gave me a curt nod.

  “Very good, Mademoiselle. I shall bring up a tray for your supper.”

  I half-feared that Ben would deliver the tray himself, but he did not. I ate alone. It might have felt more isolating than ever, if not for my plan that night.

  After supper, I had only to bide my time until bedtime, and then another few hours after that, when everyone else in the palace would be asleep.

  I had to see him again. I just had to know if he had any answers.

  It was after midnight when I crept back into the dungeons and tiptoed up to Jackson’s cell. He was asleep. I stared at his face—there was a new moon outside, but a shaft of starlight fell across his cheek. I couldn’t tell for sure, but he looked bloated and bruised. And… was one of his eyes swollen shut?

  I shivered, wishing I’d remembered to bring a wrap or something with me instead of just my thin blue silk nightgown which Ingrid had dressed me in for the evening. I should have remembered it was chilly down here from the last t
ime.

  Jackson’s breathing seemed labored tonight, too. Had he really been hurt? I grabbed the bars and pulled my face through them, trying to get a closer look.

  He must’ve felt my eyes on him, because he jarred awake. Before even looking around, I saw him grimace. No doubt about it, he was in pain.

  “Kate,” he groaned.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  With obvious effort, he sat up. “In some of the districts the control center signals aren’t working anymore,” he told me. “The Potentate wanted to know if I knew why.”

  I blinked, waiting for him to explain more, but that was all he said.

  Control centers. Those were the ones that tracked the movement of citizens so that the government could anticipate the needs of the individual. If they weren’t working, that would mean people might go without help when they needed it. But… was Jackson implying they’d beat him up for the information? That didn’t make sense.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “You’re saying… Ben… tortured you?”

  “Not personally,” Jackson muttered. “He had a guy named Hurst do his dirty work for him. I didn’t even know humans came that large. But yeah. Voltolini was standing there directing the whole thing.”

  I thought of the rioting in the Republic that Ben wouldn’t tell me about. Was this related somehow? I repeated, “Ben wanted to know if you knew why the signals weren’t working?”

  “Would you please quit calling him Ben?”

  “What should I call him, then?”

  “Anything else.”

  Jackson and I watched each other for a long moment. A flash of memory came to me: waking up on a bed of heather, inside a cave. He’d brought me a plate of root vegetables and berries.

  “Do you know why the signals weren’t working?” I asked him.

  He bit his lip, and didn’t answer for a long time. “Hurst and his cronies eventually decided I didn’t know, and left before they beat me to death.”

  It wasn’t an answer. He doesn’t trust me, I thought.