Rebels of Eden

by Joey Graceffa

  For just a second, I hear, or maybe feel . . . something in my head. It isn’t me—either one of me. It isn’t a voice, exactly. It is a presence. A sort of nudge. It aligns me, settles me, almost as if I’d taken one of Yarrow’s pills that made me stop analyzing my past actions and focus on the task at hand.

  I shake my head, feeling a little better, and ask Lachlan, “What do we do now?”

  He has been conferring with Cliff and Cedar. They are outer-circle men, rebels.

  “We can take you someplace safe,” Cedar says. “For you second children there’s always someone willing to help.” He smiles at us. “You started it all. You’re the original rebels. And it helps that you’re immune to Center control.”

  The man in the sophisticated survival suit bids us farewell with a curt nod. He is on some mission of his own, allied with no one. The three elites strike out confidently in the opposite direction.

  We see a few other people, but they are all lost in their happy inner worlds and hardly seem to notice us. We duck down an alley, and make our way as unobtrusively as possible. Finally we reach the outermost circle. We slip in through an underground tunnel connecting a factory with a warehouse, and are met by an armed man and woman. After a hasty conference the woman takes charge of the three elites and leads them away.

  “There aren’t any securitybots out here?” I ask Cedar as we move on. “Surveillance?”

  “Between the legitimate rebels and the criminals who wanted their deeds to go undetected, the outer circles had been pretty much cleared of security cameras. Once we learned to hack the bots and use them ourselves, the Center stopped sending them out here. They rebuilt and repopulated farther in, but the outermost circle is holding out. So far. For now, we mostly come and go as we want. And for the last few weeks, anyway, the Greenshirts and the Center haven’t made any incursions out here.”

  “We made them pay a heavy price last time they tried,” Cliff adds.

  “It won’t last, though,” Cedar says darkly. “The mind control signal is getting stronger. We can block it for now, but there are other problems.”

  “They’re drawing all their resources to the Center, diverting power from the outer circles to the inner ones,” Cliff says. “Cut off food shipments, too.”

  “It’s a siege,” I say.

  “And if they capture the outermost circle, the resistance will die. They’ll control all of Eden.”

  “Luckily we won’t starve, at least for now,” Cedar says more cheerfully. “Most of the algae used for food is grown in the outer circles. Speaking of which . . .”

  We’ve come to one of the algae spires, the twisting, beautiful spirals of growing algae that people of Eden believed were one of the few forms of life to survive the Ecofail. The highly nutritious algae is harvested and converted into various forms that more or less resemble real foods. At least, that’s what I believed before I tasted real foods. My first wild blueberry dispelled that notion entirely.

  “This one was damaged during one of the early skirmishes,” Cedar tells us. “It’s no longer operational, so no one will come here to steal food, and the Center won’t waste resources trying to destroy it any further.”

  “So it makes a perfect hideout,” says Cliff. He leans near the door, mutters what must be a password, though I can’t hear what he says, and someone inside pushes the door open.

  “Hi, Angel,” Cliff says, drawing the person into a hug. Over his shoulder I can tell it’s a woman with a kerchief tied over what looks like gray hair. Her face is smudged, her body is gaunt, but she’s smiling in benevolent welcome.

  “I see you’ve brought us some new friends,” she says, straightening out of the hug to beckon us in. I’m in the lead, and she smiles directly at me, open and warm.

  I see that her hair isn’t gray, it’s silver, made dull with dust, unwashed, unstyled.

  I see that perfect face, greasy and dirty, still lovely. All the pride and arrogance are gone. Instead she looks caring, competent, almost maternal despite her youth.

  She holds out a work-roughened hand to me. A hand that a three short months ago was moisturized and manicured, the nails buffed and painted the most fashionable color.

  “Hello,” she says. “My name is Angel.”

  “No it’s not,” I whisper. “It’s Pearl.”

  SHE LOOKS AT me in sweet sympathy, as if she’s used to dealing with people who are deluded or confused. “Come in,” she says. “Are you hungry? We don’t have much, but there’s always enough for guests. Oh, what pretty hair,” she says to the elites behind me. “It reminds me of . . .” She breaks off with a quizzical expression. “Isn’t that funny? I can’t remember what it reminds me of!” She gives a little laugh and ushers us all inside.

  “It’s Pearl!” I hiss in an aside to Lachlan. He peers at her, but he only saw her for a little while in the Underground. I, on the other hand, worshiped and admired and feared her as Yarrow. For a while, Pearl was the most important person in my life.

  Wow, Yarrow says smugly in my head. She looks rough.

  Stop gloating, I chastise her. This isn’t a beauty contest.

  Maybe not, but if it is, I definitely win.

  “This is our Angel,” Cedar says. “She came to us a while back, and just took over—in the best possible way. We were a ragtag bunch out here. Bad communications, never had enough to eat. We found her wandering the street where there had been some heavy fighting about three months ago. She must have been disoriented by an explosion. Couldn’t remember her own name. We call her Angel because, well, she is one!”

  “We took her in to feed her,” Cliff says, “and she wound up taking care of us. I’ve never met anyone who can organize a group of people like Angel. She finds us food, healers, weapons. She goes out and chats with a few people, and comes back with more information than our best spies could get in a week. She’s turned this movement around.”

  “Yeah,” Cedar confirms. “When I look at Angel, I feel like we actually have a chance against the Center.”

  Pearl demurs. “I’m just a cog in the machine. Just because I have good organizational skills . . .”

  “You found out who the spy in our ranks was. You moved us into this place. Since you came, none of our children have starved to death. The movement continues because of you, Angel.”

  “Uh, Angel, can I talk to you alone?” She nods, and I beckon Lachlan to join us. The others are brought upstairs to rest.

  “You’re not Angel,” I tell her when we’re alone.

  “Oh, I know,” she says lightly.

  “You do?”

  “You heard them—they found me alone and hurt after a battle, with no idea who I was. But I had bruises on my wrists, my face. Signs of terrible abuse. Whatever life I came from, I’m not sorry to leave it behind. Whatever else I was, I was a victim. Now I’m doing some good.”

  I open my mouth . . . then snap it shut again, exchanging a look with Lachlan.

  I remember the haughty, prideful, cruel Pearl, the one who ruled the Oaks school absolutely, crushing any opposition. She could tear apart a reputation, destroy anyone’s self-worth. Once, she even drove a girl to attempt suicide. And yet she was no more the real Pearl than Yarrow was the real me.

  I am now, Yarrow interjects. Part of you, anyway. You can’t escape that.

  But then there was the other Pearl, a victim of Chief Ellena’s wicked machinations just like me. The Chief had taken a kind girl and transformed her into a monster, a tool to do her bidding. Pearl was threatened, coerced, and finally neurologically altered to turn her into the person Yarrow had both feared and admired. I only had a glimpse of the real Pearl. I think she was a kind person, but too weak to stand up to the Chief’s bullying and manipulation—and surgery.

  Then, after Pearl helped save my life, after the Chief decided she was no longer of any use to her, Pearl had her memories wiped. She could recall all the basic human things she’d learned, the functional things—how to dress herself, how to eat—but
she had no memory of her personal identity or history. She was a clean slate.

  The Chief told me that she’d send Pearl to the outermost circle, the slums where the dregs of society live. She meant it to be a punishment. Pearl came from an elite family (now probably programmed to forget they’d ever had a daughter) and had grown even more prideful of her elevated position after being turned into the queen of Oaks. Naturally, the Chief thought that would be what Pearl would hate the most.

  And it might have been what the Oaks Pearl, the manipulated Pearl, would have despised. But as it turned out, the qualities that made Pearl the ruler of the school—controlling all the students, inducing terror or worship whenever she chose, planning exquisite parties down to the last detail—all translated perfectly to being the guiding force behind a rebel cell. She might have forgotten who she was, but she still had the social skills to bend people to her will. Now, though, she used it benevolently.

  Left without the experiences that shaped her, her core self remained. For all her efforts, Chief Ellena couldn’t erase that. Pearl was her true self, and the best of her was coming out to meet this difficult challenge.

  I can’t get over how happy Pearl looks. How . . . fulfilled. She is messy and gaunt and tired, with an oily nose and greasy hair. But I can tell she’s found a place where she feels comfortable. She likes feeling useful. She likes putting her talents to use. I can tell from Cedar and Cliff that she’s loved and respected.

  She’s found all that for herself.

  Would she really want to know about her past? The way she was manipulated and tortured, her very brain changed as she was forged into a new and not very nice person? Would she be happy with the Pearl who ruled Oaks with a dainty manicured fist?

  There was pain in her past, and no doubt there would be shame at her actions. I don’t think knowing who she was would make her happy.

  So I make the decision not to tell her. At least, not yet. Maybe when all this is over. If this is ever over.

  “Did . . . did you know me? Before, I mean?” Her brow crinkles.

  “Um, no. At least, you look like someone I used to know.”

  She smiles in apparent relief. “What did you want to talk to me about, then?”

  “You’re in charge here?” Lachlan asks.

  “Well, no one is really in charge.”

  “But you’re the one who gets things done,” I say, and she nods. “We need to tell you a few things. And they’re . . . unbelievable.”

  “Try me,” she says, pushing a stray silver hair back under her kerchief. “I find life goes more easily here in the outer circles if I believe just about everything. Especially the unbelievable.” Her eyes unfocus briefly. “Of course, most of the time it is something unbelievably bad. But sometimes people can be unbelievably good.”

  I am loving this new Pearl. Er, I mean Angel.

  And so, we tell her not who she is, but who we are. And where we’ve come from. I don’t fill in every detail, but I give her the bones of the story.

  She listens with rapt attention, her hands clasped, leaning forward to catch every last word. “It’s like a story! Heroes from another world come to save us.”

  “We’re not heroes,” Lachlan says.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Pearl/Angel tells him. “The rebels tell stories of your escapades. No one here has heard of you in a while, since the explosion of the Underground, and the prison break.”

  “Now I’m back to save my brother Ash—my twin,” I conclude. “And to get Lark out, if she’s still alive.”

  Angel’s mouth drops open, and she gapes at me in a way Pearl never would have. “Rowan, I can’t believe it!” Angel says.

  “Wait . . . I never told you my name. You do remember me!”

  “No, but . . .” She gives me a sly smile. In the old Pearl, this would have been terrifying. I would have known she was up to something, and dreaded finding out what it was. But now her secrecy seems only to contain a surprise. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.” She runs out of the room, then almost immediately dashes back. “I’ll be gone awhile. I’ll send someone with food. Oh, you just wait!” She looks giddy as she dashes off again.

  The others join us, sitting around a table while we wait for food. One of the rebels comes in to serve us a meal. At first I don’t recognize her, but when she sets down the tureen of soup I jump up and hug her.

  “Mom, it’s Iris, the matron from the Underground!”

  Mom greets her happily. She’s heard a lot about the motherly woman who provided some comfort to me when my own mother couldn’t be there. As they start to talk, there’s a clatter from the door, and spoons scatter across the floor.

  “Bik it!” a little voice says. “I know, I know, Iris, now I have to write an essay on why I shouldn’t swear, but swearing seems to make everything better.”

  A little figure staggers in, overladen with plates and napkins piled so high in her arms that they cover her face. When she squats down to try to pick up the fallen spoons, the top plates almost slide out. I spring over to catch them . . . and then catch Rainbow in my arms.

  “Stop, or you’ll . . .” she begins, then sees who I am, and more importantly who is behind me. She shrugs out of my hug and charges for Lachlan. “Lach!” she screams. “You found us! Buttercup said she heard her dad say you were in the inner circles blowing things up, but no one would tell me anything. Why did you go away for so long?”

  “Well, I’m back now, little one.”

  “Will you stay?” she asks, looking up at him with hopeful eyes.

  Lachlan glances at me, and I know what he’s thinking. The same as me. I came for Ash and Lark, but can I really live with myself if I don’t save Rainbow, and Iris, and all the people like them—the other second children?

  And if I save them, what about the rebels? And the people being brainwashed. It feels overwhelming.

  “You better eat something,” Iris says, ladling out a big bowl for Lachlan. “You’re skin and bones.”

  “That’s what happens when you live in a sewer for months, and then cross a desert,” he says with an indulgent smile at the woman’s motherly ways.

  “You crossed the desert?” Rainbow asks in awe. “You mean the desert?”

  “Don’t know any other desert,” Lachlan says, and Rainbow clambers onto his lap while he tells her the story.

  It sounds like a fable, and she has probably heard similar tales her whole life—fantasies about an outside world, a future free of walls and prisons and government control. She listens, rapt, but it doesn’t seem to strike home that this is any different until Lachlan takes out the flower.

  It is crumpled, a little wilted, but its beauty is remarkable in this artificial world. Rainbow’s eyes are huge as she tentatively reaches out one finger to stroke a creamy petal. She has seen the camphor tree, but never has she witnessed anything as beautiful as this.

  “It’s real?” Iris asks, arrested in the middle of her bustling. “You mean, it’s not just a story? Or not just another city outside of this one, another ring behind another wall?”

  “It’s as real as the sun, Iris,” Lachlan says with a laugh. “And you’ll see it someday.” He places the flower in his water glass, where it floats like a water nymph.

  “Will I see it, too, Lach?” Rainbow asks.

  “Hmm . . . no, I don’t think so. The outside isn’t for little girls who curse.”

  “Not fair! I promise I won’t bikking curse ever again!” She claps her hands to her mouth, her eyes aghast. “I mean, starting now.”

  “Oh, I guess you have to come. If we left you all alone in Eden you’d just get into too much trouble.”

  She nods sincerely. “Yeah, I’d probably blow something up.” Making things go boom has been her lifelong dream.

  As soon as I can squeeze it in, I ask Iris if she knows anything about Ash. She draws in her breath, and I’m sure she’s going to tell me something terrible. But in the end she only says, “Let’s just wait a bit, and I’ll as
k around for him.” Which gives me no satisfaction, but is far better than bad news.

  Iris, practical, starts to talk with me about what this means for the second children, for the rebels, for all of Eden. I’ve never seen anyone look so happy. “This changes everything!” she gushes. “We won’t have to fight against something. We’ll be fighting for something. I can’t believe it! That I should live to see the day . . .”

  I want to tell her not to get too excited, that there’s a lot to do before anyone can leave Eden, that—selfishly—it isn’t even my main reason for being here. Rescuing Ash and Lark is my top priority. But it would be cruel to crush her with pesky realities like that, and I let her go on, while Rainbow assaults Lachlan with a thousand questions.

  “Are there snakes? Do you wear them like necklaces? What about the ground? Does it just go on forever? How far can you dig? Is there really such things as birds, or did someone just make that up? Really? And they fly? Can I fly out there? Can I have a pet? I want a lion! I want three lions! And I’ll hug them and brush them and ride them . . .”

  When I can, I ask Iris about what happened to the second children. She tells me that my father not only opened the prison cells that held her, Rainbow, and most of the other second children. He actually conducted most of them to safe houses or to the outer circles, where the Center influence was weaker.

  “He never went back to the Center,” Iris says. “The government has a huge price on his head. He’s as hunted as the rest of us.”

  “So you all made it?” I ask with tears of joy in my eyes.

  She nods. “There are a few unaccounted for. Some, like Lachlan, disappeared in the initial fighting. Others went their separate ways after we escaped from the Center.”

  I name as many as I can, and she tells me where they are, if she knows—here in the outermost circle, in other hideouts, or staying with sympathetic families in the inner circles, or living fringe existences in the alleys and sewers. Most of the second children are out here. I wish I could see them all, but they are scattered throughout this huge outer circle.

  “You need your strength, too, girl,” Iris says with authority, and makes me dig into the soup while we wait for Angel to return.