Disclose

by Joelle Charbonneau

  Atlas turns and walks away, his hands curled into fists at his side. When I start toward him, Dewey grabs my arm and shakes his head. Atlas pounds the wall several times, then takes a deep breath and says, “Fine. Let’s go.”

  The elevator shakes as it lowers until we reach the old pedestrian walkway with its long fluorescent lights and cracked white-and-yellow ceramic tile that Atlas’s grandfather and the original Stewards walled off and repurposed for their use. Atlas’s resentment radiates off his long, angry strides. Finally, we reach what was once a maintenance closet. The last time we were here, the makeshift exit the Stewards crafted at the back of the wall was blocked off as part of the lockdown protocol Scarlett put into effect. Her way of keeping danger out and the Stewards—whether they agreed with her or not—in. The concrete lockdown barrier is now gone. Once again the old streetcar tunnels, which until a few weeks ago I didn’t know existed beneath my city, can be entered.

  While the others follow close behind Atlas and the lamp he has lit to illuminate the way, I hang back with Dewey.

  “You should have told us about Scarlett in the car,” I say. “You should have given him time to get used to the idea.”

  “It is harder for someone to ignore the path when you are already walking it.” Dewey stops walking. “Change requires sacrifice. I hope you will keep that in mind.”

  “What sacrifices are you making?” I ask when the glow from the lights inside the Lyceum comes into view.

  “I thought that was obvious,” Dewey says. “Until you came along, my life was simple. Now I have a revolution to lead.”

  We all pause at the threshold of the arching entrance built in the middle of a towering bookshelf. Only half of the mismatched lights swaying from the soaring ceiling of the massive underground library are currently shining, but the lack of light only enhances the magic of this cavernous place filled with piles and piles of books, ladders, and people.

  So many people.

  Hundreds of them lean on low shelves or sit on the colorful mismatched tile floor in various groups. Some are standing on chairs and shouting instructions, while others are weaving through the maze of books. People are passing out papers or bottles of water, and here and there I see several holding guns. From this vantage point, we can only see part of the Lyceum. How many more are there?

  Atlas’s eyes narrow. “There weren’t this many Stewards when they locked the Lyceum down.”

  “Atlas!” someone yells.

  “I didn’t think there were this many left in the entire city,” he says as one by one, heads turn to look at us.

  “As Scarlett has demonstrated in the past, she does not do anything halfway.” Dewey removes his hat and starts forward. “Scarlett and the remaining engineers have activated various networks—much like I did to transport you and Atlas. Stewards from a number of states responded. Many have come here, or to one of the other locations from which we will be launching our mission of truth.”

  Stewards wave and shout words of solidarity as Dewey leads us through the maze of books and Stewards and shelves to the back room I was in only once. The Stewards call it the firebox because that’s where the fuel that propels the train forward burns. The twins and several of the other teens from Stef’s group sit at the long silver-and-black table littered with bottles and wrappers, which spans the middle of the high-ceilinged space. A number of older Stewards sit across from them. All are talking rapidly to each other while punching screen keypads or tapping away on portable computers.

  But it’s the short, sturdy woman with a cap of white-and-dark-streaked hair that pulls my attention. She is huddled with a group of Stewards, studying maps and writing on whiteboards mounted against the far wall. I search for a flash of uncertainty or regret when she takes a tablet loaded with the images that I collected from Dewey. Instead, Scarlett looks at Atlas with a clear, unapologetic gaze and says, “Welcome back. As you saw on your way here, almost everyone who will be deployed in the city has made their way to the Lyceum. We have divided them into groups and have been giving them preliminary instructions.”

  “What instructions?” I ask.

  Scarlett gives me a flat, unwelcoming stare as if I were a bug that she was preparing to flick off her arm.

  “Want me to punch her?” Joy whispers.

  Dewey answers before I have the chance to take Joy up on her offer. “We’ll have four teams. They will spring into action once Rose and her mother launch the special edition of Gloss tomorrow morning. The largest group will lead a protest through the streets to the mayor’s office, calling for the Great American Farm to be shut down and their friends and family and neighbors to be set free. Groups of Stewards in sixteen other cities will be holding similar protests.”

  “Eighteen,” Scarlett corrects. “Boston and Seattle have confirmed since you dropped communication and another three hundred have convened in a location near the farm. The site was chosen by the Stewards who assisted Atlas. They’ll lead their team on a raid from there once we give the signal to begin.”

  Eighteen cities—all with protests. And a raid on the farm—where the Instructors are armed.

  “What about the other teams?” Atlas asks. His voice is cold and flat. “You said there were four.”

  Scarlett nods and walks to one of the whiteboards. “The protests should pull the focus of both the police and the Marshals. Then . . .”

  “We’re helping with that,” one of the twins says, looking up from his screen. “We’re creating content that will go live once the protests start telling everyone online to go join the crowd.”

  “Then,” Scarlett repeats, “the other two teams here in the city will have whatever weapons we have been able to manage. One will take over the Unity Center. And since our Telegraphers haven’t been able to hack into the television station systems, the third team will be deployed to the National Broadcasting Company. That will allow us to air the truth about what is happening to as many people as possible before they shut the signal down.”

  Dewey looks directly at me. “That’s where you come in.”

  “Me?” I glance around the room.

  “Someone has to report the truth of what’s happening to the people watching,” Dewey explains.

  “And you think it should be me?” I shake my head as Atlas steps closer to my side. “It should be someone better with words—you or Atlas or—”

  “You were taken off the streets. You know what the cages are like—the lack of food, what they do to those who don’t survive,” Dewey explains. “They need to hear the truth from the person who not only took those photos, but is pictured in them. They need to hear from you.”

  I swallow hard. “How long will I need to speak?”

  Scarlett turns to Huck. “How long can we hold the broadcast signal before the government overrides us?”

  Huck rubs at the scruff on his chin and leans back in his chair. “Factoring in the protest and the Unity Center raid both acting as a distraction, maybe three minutes.”

  Three minutes?

  Scarlett crosses her arms and looks at me. “You have until tomorrow morning to figure out what you are going to say. For the sake of the country, I hope it’s good.”

  How do you convince an entire country that everything that makes them feel safe is built on a lie? What words do you use to convince them that there is a need for change?

  Scarlett and the Telegraphers pull the images from the farm off the tablet I recovered and arrange for them to be taken to Rose. Then they clear the room so Atlas and Dewey can help me construct a message. Each word is debated. Each syllable and sentiment carefully conceived before I step in front of a camera run by the twins and try to bring the words to life.

  Sound natural.

  Don’t look away from the camera or people will think you’re lying.

  Don’t glare or they won’t like you.

  Don’t talk so fast.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I snap. “I can’t say these words the way you wan
t me to. I can’t pretend to be George Washington or Thomas Paine or whoever. I don’t know what words I am supposed to say. I just know how I felt when I was tagged like an animal and loaded onto a truck. What it was like to see people forced into labor—people starved and killed in a place that my entire life I was told was an example of how great our country was and proof that we didn’t need the rest of the world. I believed in it all, and seeing someone like me saying those words in front of the camera wouldn’t have changed my mind.”

  “Then we’ll come up with words that will,” Dewey says, sliding into a seat at the table with his paper and pencil.

  “This seems like a good time for a break,” Atlas suggests. “I could use food. I’m sure there’s some quote about inspiration coming after the soul is fed or something like that. Right, Meri?”

  I doubt I could keep any food in my stomach, but I agree because it’s better than seeing my wooden delivery replayed on the screen again.

  Once Dewey and the others are gone, Atlas asks. “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head. “This is too important to screw up.”

  “You’re not going to screw it up,” he says. “Just seeing you on the screen will get people’s attention. You’re . . .” He gives me a smile that tugs at my heart. “Unexpected.”

  The word—the memory of the first time he said it—melts the ball of ice in the pit of my stomach. Slowly, I reach out and weave my fingers through his. He draws me close. I let myself lean against him—to feel his belief in me, my trust in him. We are not the same people we were last week standing in that alley, but when his lips brush mine—the warmth that pushes everything else but us away is the same.

  When the kiss ends, I feel more—me—than I have since waking up in the Unity Center. More—settled. Closer to normal.

  Atlas runs a finger down my scraped cheek and says, “How about you hang here while I grab food for both of us?”

  “That sounds great.”

  He brushes his lips against mine one more time and heads out, leaving me for the first time in what feels like forever, alone. I take a tablet and stylus and sit on the floor against the back wall as voices from inside the Lyceum play in the air like a strange sort of music. I press a button on the screen and Dewey’s carefully crafted words vanish like smoke. Then, hoping to forget about everything I’m doing wrong, I do the one thing I can get right. I draw.

  People bathed in shadows come to life on the page. The only thing clear about each of them are their eyes—dusty hazels, deep blues, rich browns—all staring across a cavernous abyss to the sunshine-kissed hill on the other side of the screen.

  Something brushes against my leg.

  I look up to see George, the fluffy brown-and-white Lyceum cat staring at me with unblinking amber eyes. He bumps my leg with his head, purrs when I scratch him, and settles down beside me to snooze. The ill sensation that had been creeping up from my chest settles and I keep drawing.

  When I finish adding a fluttering American flag, I put down the stylus and study what I’ve done. The lines are imperfect. The colors not quite right. But as I look at it I realize why people say a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s because it takes almost no time to look at a picture. Words, however, take time to say. They take even more time to hear. Words take more effort than pictures, but the human voice is needed to make the powerful images real.

  Atlas is right—my face on screens across the city—the same face that looked into the camera in the Unity Center with the tag in her ear—will not go unnoticed. Only, it took more than seven decades to eliminate the words that changed our entire country. There’s no possible way we can convince people to wake up to the world they have been living in blissfully unaware in just three minutes.

  “How do we extend the broadcast?” I ask the twins, Zain and Van, from Stef’s team who are the first ones to return to the firebox.

  The two look at each other and blink.

  “We can’t.” The twin I think is Zain dumps several candy bars and a bag of cheese puffs onto the table. “Not with what we have to work with.”

  “What if you had more to work with?” I ask. “What would you need to keep the government from cutting the signal?”

  “A couple months of nonstop hacking and a lot of luck,” Van answers.

  My heart sinks.

  “Either that or a magic lamp and a genie to give us the override code,” Zain agrees.

  “What override code? What would that do?”

  Another look that is a cross between exasperation and pity is exchanged before Zain replies, “It’s the computer password the government uses to lock out a user.”

  “Typically twenty characters or more—so it’s basically impossible to break,” the other twin adds, with equal amounts of admiration and frustration.

  Zain nods. “We can broadcast at the source because an administrator will have already put in the current authorization code. But once they realize we’ve hijacked the signal, someone will use the override codes and change the signal’s authorization key.”

  “The signal will stop broadcasting until the new key is entered,” Van adds. “That will effectively shut us down with no way to turn it back on.”

  “And if you had the codes?” I place my tablet on the table—the image of the faces yearning to cross the divide stares up at me. “Then what?”

  “Then I’d basically be god of the screens,” Van says.

  “Until the Marshals hunt you down and prove you aren’t immortal.” Zain scoffs. “But yeah, if we had them when we take over the broadcast station, we could change both the authorization and override codes and make it impossible for them to shut us down remotely.”

  “So we could broadcast longer from the station?”

  “We could broadcast longer from anywhere in the city,” Van corrects.

  “Anywhere in the city?” I ask. “We could broadcast from the protest or the Unity Center raid?”

  “If you want the Marshals to know exactly where to find us—”

  “Do whatever you need to in order to be ready to make sure we can broadcast from the streets,” I say as I grab the bag with Wallace’s gun and head for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Van asks.

  “I’m going to get us more time.”

  Twenty-Two

  The sun is starting to set. Out the window, Lake Michigan shimmers in the last of the evening sunlight below. But while the view is stunning, I stand, back straight as a rod, with my eyes on the front door of the apartment that I have, until today, been inside only once.

  When the knob starts to turn, I step back out of sight and hold my breath. My eyes flick to the familiar faces smiling in silver-framed photographs on the living room wall and wait for the bump of the door opening, the click of it latching after it swings shut, the footsteps, and the deep, rich voice to say, “Rose? I know you said you needed to talk, but I have work and—”

  “I don’t care about your work,” Rose snaps.

  “If you are going to talk to me, you will not use that tone.”

  “Rose can use whatever tone she wants,” I say stepping around the corner.

  Mr. Webster turns, moves toward me, and I lift the gun I took from Wallace, immediately stopping him in his tracks. The safety is on, but he doesn’t know that.

  We’re here because Mr. Webster kept my secret in the Unity Center. He let me leave so I could try to find his son. I believe Mr. Webster will help us get the extra time we need to broadcast the truth out to the entire country, but I have learned that just because I want something to be true doesn’t make it real.

  Anger whips across Mr. Webster’s face like fire through dry brush. “Where is Isaac?” His eyes flick to the gun. “You claimed you were going to look for him. That’s why I allowed you to leave the city.”

  Allowed me to leave.

  I wait for him to take in the scrapes and bruises coloring my face and the bandage on my ear, but he doesn’t react to them. If he is moved by the inju
ries inflicted on the little girl he camped with and shushed in the middle of sleepovers, he keeps it well hidden.

  I fight for calm and ask, “Do you know where I was taken?”

  “Did you find my son?” He steps forward.

  I hold my ground. “Do you know where the Marshals send people they take off the city streets?”

  “Answer her, Dad,” Rose snaps. “Do you even know where Isaac was taken? And don’t bother trying to lie. I know he isn’t being held by the mythical street gang you and the police blamed for his disappearance.”

  “Rose, I can see you’re upset,” Mr. Webster says carefully. “But you have to realize that I did what I thought was necessary to keep you safe.” He reaches for her hand. “There are things you don’t understand—”

  Rose yanks her arm back and walks to stand beside me. “The problem is that I do understand. And I no longer believe whatever you say.”

  Mr. Webster straightens his shoulders. “I don’t know what Meri has told you, but you need to trust that I know what’s best.”

  “I know Isaac was taken because the people you work with thought he was looking for information they didn’t want him to have.” Rose waits for her father to deny the charge. The silence is damning. Hurt shimmers in Rose’s eyes. Her lip trembles before pursing into a hard line.

  Rose believed everything I told her. She convinced her mother to risk everything because she had seen the evidence of the government’s lies with her own eyes—the government her father worked for. Despite all that, there was a part of her that had hoped he would deny it. I get it. I knew my father was lying when he promised to stop drinking, but every day I looked for signs that would convince me I was mistaken. And every day, my heart got broken. Just like Rose’s was breaking now.

  “How could you be a part of this?” Rose demands. “How could you pretend that any of this is okay?”