“So, I walked with your people, thinking they were scum on the bottom of my boots, even when I looked worse for wear than some of them. Over the next few weeks while we marched back home, I tried to keep my chin held high, you see. I couldn’t be bothered with becoming a part of these cretins I was supposed to be ushering into slavery. I was better than that. Or so I thought. But then, something started to change. They had no idea who I was and they all assumed I was one of your pathetic citizens. Obviously, I kept my mouth shut because if they found out I was a blackcoat captain, I would’ve been begging Pollard for that bullet in my brain. They would’ve ripped me limb from limb.”
I want to be disrespectful. I want to tell him to go to hell, that the bullet wouldn’t have been good enough for him, not after what he did to my encampment, but I let him continue. Even as Nurse Lilly slips inside and hands me another bowl of strawberry gelatin, grinning apologetically, I don’t say a word.
I wait, and I listen.
“—then you’d never believe it, Mathers. She gave me her only blanket. By then it was a sopping wet mess that did nothing more than block the wind, but I couldn’t have been more grateful. I think that’s when it started. Me seeing things differently, I mean. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not under any delusion that what we were doing wasn’t a horrible thing. I knew it then and I know it now. I simply chose to ignore it because that’s the way we were raised. That’s the way our society has taught us to live from birth. Survival of the fittest, Mathers. If God or nature or genetics hasn’t deemed you worthy of being the better man—or woman, in your case—then you don’t deserve these so-called God-given rights. If you can’t defend what God gave you, then we’ll always win.
“Norma. That was her name. Norma gave me her blanket, then six hours later, she was dead. So was her daughter and her granddaughter. All three of them pulled to the side of the road and executed for daring to sneak extra food so I could keep my strength. This was about halfway through the march, and I was still weak from my punishment. They chose to help, and they died for it.”
I remember seeing it happen, the execution of those three women. The youngest was barely older than Merrin. James and I slipped into the camp that night, found the guard who’d done it asleep against the eastern side of an oak tree, out of the rain, and we slit his throat.
Tanner says, “I never thought I’d see myself rejoice at the death of a fellow blackcoat, but I said a prayer of thanks when they found him the next morning. Someone carved him an extra smile.” He gives me a knowing glance.
Maybe I shouldn’t admit this out loud, but I can’t stop myself from saying, “It had to be done. He deserved it.”
“Oh, I agree completely. You’ll find no judgment or reprimand here.”
“How’d you know it was us?”
“Because I had found a sharp piece of slate with an edge like a razor blade and was on the way to do the same thing. You beat me to it.”
“So you saw us? James and me?”
“It was pitch black, Mathers. I was thirty feet away, hiding in blackberry bush getting cuts over every inch of skin that wasn’t covered. I didn’t see you specifically, but I could tell it was a young girl and a bearded giant. Had to be you. Who else?”
“Could’ve been someone in the marching party. Somebody that had the same idea as you.”
“Please,” he scoffs. “Your people are resilient, I’ll grant them that, but they’re not the kind to take action. Meek, remember? Out of all of your people down there,” he says, pointing at some distant buildings, “not a single one of them has the drive or desire that you do. And, since I’d heard that you abandoned your army during the fighting and hadn’t been seen from since, it had to be you. Besides, what other brave girls do I know with a giant attached to her hip? It was you, Mathers. It was always you.”
The mention of my gentle giant, my brother, darkens my mood further. “He died.”
“The soldier? Of course he did.”
“No, James.” I hate the fact that my voice trembles when I say his name. I will never let go of that remorse but I don’t need Tanner to hear it.
Tanner turns his head toward me, angling his shoulders, keeping his posture rigid and his hands clasped at his lower back. “I’m sorry to hear that.” His tone is sincere.
I glare at him, burning holes into his eyes with fire from my own.
“I really am,” he adds. “We only get so many true friends in this world, and it’s a shame to see one of yours gone.”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t know that I do, exactly, but I can recognize potential when I see it.”
“Look, Tanner,” I say, pulling the covers up to my shoulder and rolling away from him. “If you’re here to recruit me, it’s not going to happen. I told you to shove it back in the encampment the first time you offered, and my answer hasn’t changed.”
“Mathers.”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
I huff and reluctantly roll over again. Everything aches.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Can you get to the point? I’m getting tired.” I’m not, really, but I don’t see where this conversation is going, or how it can change anything about my future, so all I want right now is for him to be gone so I can wait for my inevitable downfall into slavery.
I mean, I led people. I was a hero. People looked up to me, and I made important decisions. Even if I wasn’t entirely confident, I felt like I did a pretty good job at it.
And now what? Sewing army pants until my fingers bleed? Digging rows in fields of dirt to plant corn?
Really and truly, if I could have anything in the world, all I want is for life to go back to the way it was the day before I heard those drums. No, further back, before Grandfather got sick. I want it to be July of last year. The rains had started by then, but it was warm and new, and we were excited that it would do so well for the crops we’d planted that spring. Grandfather was spry and dancing around our nightly campfires. Brandon and I played and won so many games of Catch the Rabbit, the other kids wanted to change the rules. Food was plentiful. Our water was fresh and not so muddy from the constant runoff from the mountains.
We were happy. What a different life that was.
Tanner checks the clock on the wall. “I’m late already, so yes, I suppose I will get to the point.” He leans up against the giant windows and crosses his arms. Lightning streaks skitter across the sky behind him and renewed thunder rattles the whole building. “I don’t know what you were planning, coming up here. If I were you, and I still had my freedom, I would’ve escaped. I would’ve gone somewhere warm. I would’ve disappeared. But that’s me. I’ve learned now that Finn gave you the anti-serum, you lost all those amazing abilities, you let your people down and now they’re all workers for the DAV machine of progress.”
“Slaves, you mean.”
“Words, meanings. Trifling things. We call them citizen servants.”
“Held against their will.”
“While true, it doesn’t change the point I’m trying to make. We can go around and around, and it won’t solve anything. What I want you to hear is this: you lost everything. Your powers, your friends, your home, your family…the war, and still, you were tracking your people north. As I said, I have no idea what your plans were, but the fact that you were out there in the woods, watching that madness and obviously hoping to do something to help your people, that was all I needed to see that night.
“I’m risking a court martial for this, maybe even worse. But, truth be told, Mathers, you’re a worthy opponent, and you deserve freedom.”
“How brave of you, but I do? Why not my people? Huh? Why not them? What makes me any better?”
“You have to understand something. You cannot win this war. When you had your abilities as a Kinder, you still had no hope of winning. It was never going to be possible. Never. We marched on your capital and into your territory with a fraction of our available army.
I don’t care what lies and misinformation you were fed by Finn or anyone else you may have communicated with, the fact remains that for every one of those men marching on your soil, we had another ten back here.
“Our armies are a hundred thousand strong. Bend time, throw men like rag dolls, jump fifty feet, whatever it was you were capable of doing, it would not have been enough. It was never going to be enough. We would’ve found a way. Matter of fact, we had our way. Finn. The day we first met, it was all a complete lie. We knew Ellery was there because we’d been tracking her for years. With Finn’s abilities to feel another Kinder’s presence, we also knew she’d created another. Why do you think we sent our vanguard through your piddling little encampment? There were plenty of easier ways to get to Warrenville.”
He pauses to allow all of this to sink in.
“I have a question for you,” I say. “About him.”
“I think I know what you’re going to ask.”
“You do?”
“How was he able to seem so genuine? Why’d he blindly follow you for so long? Why didn’t he betray you sooner instead of pretending to fight for your side?”
Amazingly enough, he’s right. That’s exactly what I want to ask. Instead of showing my complete surprise, I only nod and say, “Tell me.”
Tanner sits forward with his elbows on his knees. He says, “Finn was programmed,” as if that explains anything.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. You’ve been living like cavemen for the past two centuries while we had the means and ways to advance our society. Really, if you want to blame anyone in this whole scenario, starting hundreds of years ago, you can lay fault with your government for refusing to embrace the future. There may have been some massive problems with life as they knew it back then, but the Old Wars didn’t end the world for everyone. The PRV leaders were either too stupid or too scared to join a movement toward a new life that was going to happen, regardless of whether they were on board with it.
“You see, Mathers, while you were out there shooting squirrels with slingshots, life up here went on. We expanded our lives with science and technology, progress and money. We defended our borders so that we could create a populace made up of efficient machines, and we thrived. Like I said before, that may sound like a prison without walls, but the citizens of the DAV are happy with direction, with life missions and clear objectives. Without all that need for free will and ‘look how special I am,’ we’re free to work on what matters, and that’s progress.”
“Good for you,” I say, not hiding the sarcasm. “But that doesn’t explain Finn. He was good. What did you do to him?”
“That was a manufactured good, Mathers. I doubt you’ll even have the ability to understand this, but he’s a product of technology.”
I pinch my lips together, frown, and shake my head. I have no clue what he’s talking about.
“We created Finn. He was chosen to be a Kinder. The most powerful Kinder ever birthed by man.”
“His dreams. Someone injected him.”
“That we did, but we also needed a way to control him, because you can’t allow the most powerful weapon known to man to have a mind of his own. I don’t know how to explain this any other way. Finn has a small device implanted in his brain that tells him what to do. He was always going to be on your side until it was time for him to come home. He followed you, he learned your strengths and weaknesses, and he learned what kind of opposition your people might have. When we gathered enough data to know that taking your people to further improve our situation wasn’t going to be a problem, we flicked a switch and the war was over.”
I can’t grasp the idea of how they controlled him—it makes no sense to me—but everything else does. “Why’re you telling me all of this?”
Tanner smiles and pulls a needle full of blue liquid from his coat pocket. I look at the scar beneath his eye again. I hadn’t noticed before, but the shirt underneath his blackcoat uniform is a soft shade of purple. He says, “Because you’ve earned a chance, child of Ellery.”
19
“What?” I can’t hide the complete shock in my voice. I’ve been trying to keep my emotions underneath the surface this entire time so that Tanner wouldn’t have any notion of having the upper hand. This, however, sends me reeling.
He examines the contents of the needle like he’s studying the secret to life. He stares at it intently, eyes focused, brow furrowed; a few strands of hair move on his mustache when he breathes. “I have a few conditions, first. I don’t mean to fill you with false hope, but you have to believe me when I say, you cannot save your people. It’s simply not possible, and they will never return to their old lives. Understand that. It’s the first condition.”
“But why not? If you give me that, won’t I be a Kinder again? I can try to—”
“Mathers! Pay attention. It’s that kind of nonsense that will make me walk right out of this room and save myself from the gallows. The serum that was used on Finn is long gone. They destroyed it because it was too dangerous. He’s the most powerful Kinder—the most powerful weapon—they ever created, and it was simply too risky to allow the possibilities to remain out there. This, however,” he says, holding up the needle to the light. The blue liquid swirls and sparkles. It’s almost as if it’s alive, swarming like snakes inside that small tube of glass. “This is a lesser version. You’ll have all the abilities you once had, maybe slightly less, but they’ll exist, and you’ll be a Kinder again, just like you were once Ellery passed it on to you. And what an honor. I hope you appreciated it then and what I’m about to do for you now.
“That said, you, my dear, are going to allow me to make up for all my sins with this one simple vial. Again, I want you to forget about your people, understood? They’ll work under a different banner, but they’ll be treated well; some of them will have it better than their living conditions in those hovels you called home. Forget them. You’ll never be able to free them, and that’s final. Second, you will, however, have the opportunity to rescue your parents. I know where they’re being held, and I can tell you how to steal them away without getting caught. Even with your Kinder abilities, you must not be discovered because the end result will be my death. I am risking everything, everything, for a worthy adversary, but I’m not handing over my life because you chose to do something stupid. Is that understood?”
I say, “Yes,” and nothing more.
“Lastly, after you’ve left your people behind and taken your family away from here, I want you to go as far as your legs will carry you. Use your abilities for the good of humanity, Caroline. Change the world somewhere else. There are better places out there. There are even places where the rains have already stopped. Oh yes, it’s true. California. Texas. Go somewhere warm. Go where the sun shines. Be a ray of hope in a distant land, because that ray can’t exist here. There’s no place for it.”
“But—but… My people.”
“Were they ever really your people? Did you know them? Did you grow up around them? Did you break bread with them?”
“No, but—”
“Sad though I must say, your people died the day I walked into your encampment. Your people, as you know them, are gone. You were united with the rest of the PRV in name only. Yes, it’s unfair. Yes, it’s unjust. They won’t have the liberty and free will they once knew, but they’ll have dry beds and hot meals. Some of them will get paid for their services. Some of them may even buy their freedom in time. It does not change the fact that you will lose your war, and you will die if you try to fight back against it. There is no freeing your people. It’s not possible.
“So I ask you this: will you grant me absolution for my sins by accepting the gift I’m offering?”
I want to spit in his face.
I want to tell him to go to hell.
I don’t care what he says about my relationship with my homeland; I have pride in my heritage.
I breathe deeply to calm my raging
heartbeat.
I have pride… Don’t I?
What he’s offering is tempting. If the citizen-slaves of the PRV will be cared for and have an acceptable life, maybe even a life that was better than before, then would it be so bad to let them go on that way?
Do I want to die trying to rescue them?
He’s right. I’ll lose. I can’t take on Finn and an army of a hundred thousand men.
It’s just not possible.
I’ve always, always thought of others first. I can’t remember a time I’ve done something for myself. Does it make me selfish? Does it make me a horrible person to consider what he’s offering?
I remember thinking the morning before the DAV arrived in my village and brought death with them, that we lived in the depths of what remained. I didn’t know any better. Other than the fanciful stories I’d heard from travelers, I didn’t know how far advanced life was beyond our borders.
I remember thinking about the roads, and how these dark, hardened paths that cut through the Appalachian Mountains, crumbling and filled with holes, went far, far away and that I would leave one day.
Is today that day? Can I rescue my parents and leave all this behind?
Can I do like Tanner says? Can I become a Kinder again and change the world somewhere else?
I lift the sleeve of my hospital gown and show him the inside of my arm, the place where the other nurses poked me as I drifted in and out of slumber.
I tell him, “Okay,” because it’s then I realize that some wars are never meant to be won; compromise is the best option for both sides.
Tanner takes my hand. The skin of his fingers and palm is rough and dry like tree bark. I’ve felt the same untold times while climbing up into perches for a better vantage point. It’s not a comforting sensation. My own skin crawls and instinctively, I react by trying to pull away. He squeezes tighter. “Stop now, this won’t hurt a bit,” he says. He holds the needle upright, pointing it at the ceiling and squeezing until a blue drop glistens at the tip and gradually crawls down the needle shaft. “There we go. Only a drop. Too precious to spare.”
The Light of Hope Page 13