“Easier to control, you mean,” Flame says. “The ones she’s manipulating are the ones with the most susceptible brains. The rebels are the ones genetically better at resisting mind manipulation. Wipe them out, and there may never be another uprising again.”
“Exactly,” Lark says. “Which is why you have to stop her. Too many people have died. You can’t let more die.”
“The Greenshirts are under mind control, too,” I remind them. “They might be soldiers, but they are still people, citizens of Eden. They have to believe that Eden is about preserving human life. I bet if we shut down her mind control, the soldiers themselves would rebel. If they had the capacity to realize what she’s making them do, there’d be a mutiny.”
“That means we have to attack tonight,” Lachlan says grimly.
“Yes!” I say. “If we can shut down the mind control broadcast, who knows? The Greenshirts might join the rebels. We can save them!”
“That sounds awfully pretty, Rowan,” Flame says. “But it’s impossible. We got the seed so that a team of a hundred people could plan and train for weeks to launch an attack that was already suicidal, and probably doomed to failure anyway. It’s the bikking Center! This little ragtag group can’t just march in and . . .”
“Maybe we can,” Lachlan says, halting his pacing abruptly, a light of hope illuminating his face. “In fact right now, and only now, may be the one time we actually can.”
“Explain,” Flame says.
I understand what he means, and jump in excitedly. “This is the one time the Center will be lightly guarded. The only way she can hope to take the outermost circle completely is if she commits all of her forces.”
“Exactly,” Lachlan says. “It won’t be easy, but with most of the forces elsewhere, it might just be possible. Getting in will still be a problem, though.”
“I can get you inside,” Lark says.
“How?” I ask her. I remember when she helped us break into the Center before, through the sewers, and I can tell she’s thinking of those days, so dangerous but somehow more simple. Her eyes shift away again. “Do you have access codes?”
“Some, but the easiest way is if I just walk you right in. I go to see Chief Ellena or one of the psychologists or doctors once a week, sometimes more often. She’s had me bring some of my friends from school. Well, people from school. I don’t think I have any friends. I’m kind of a terrible person, I think.”
“Does she experiment on them, too?” I shudder, as Yarrow remembers her ordeals at the Chief’s hands.
“Not really. She gives them psychological tests, I think to see if they’d make good candidates. Like me. Or you. Or you, Pearl.”
For a moment Pearl doesn’t react. Then she sees that Lark means her, and she says, “Sorry, my name is Angel.”
“No one told her?” Lark asks.
“Told me what?”
“We knew you. Rowan and me. You’re another victim of Chief Ellena.”
“This isn’t the way I wanted her to find out,” I say hurriedly. “Pearl, I mean Angel, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your past. I will, I promise. As soon as we have time.”
She gives me a look I don’t expect—one of calm acceptance. “Thank you, Rowan, but I don’t want to know.”
“What?”
“I like who I am. I’m happy with what I’m doing. I think . . . I don’t remember my past, but I don’t think I was happy then. I feel like this is who I’m supposed to be.” She looks at my brother, who gazes back with loving eyes. “And who I’m supposed to be with.” She gives a little laugh. “Anyway, when would you ever have time? We have an invasion to thwart, and a government to topple!” She turns back to Lark. “Now, you say you can walk us right in the front door?”
“Well, not the front. I use the staff entrance, but . . .”
“She can’t come with us!” Flame says. “Are you crazy? She’s okay now, but for how long? Look, Lark, when this is over I’ll try to fix you. Permanently. But for now, with the Center on the attack, we just can’t have someone who might randomly turn into an enemy spy at any moment.”
“But I want to help. I need to help you, to make up for the way I betrayed you. Rowan, I’m so sorry I hurt you. And oh, your dad! I remember when I’d visit Ash. I didn’t come over very often—of course they were hiding you from guests—but whenever I did he was so nice to me.”
“She needs to come with us,” I tell the others. “She’s our best chance of getting into the Center and putting a stop to the woman who killed my dad. It’s the only way we can set every one of the people free. I want that to be my father’s legacy.”
“I agree,” Mira says. “We need some advantage against these forces, and she’s our best chance.”
Lachlan glares at Lark. “She comes, she helps us . . . and at the first sign of treachery I snap her neck.”
I see a shiver travel through Lark’s body, but she nods. “If I betray you, that’s exactly what you should do. But understand I won’t betray you voluntarily. If she takes over my mind again, if I become a danger to you, then I want you to kill me.” She locks eyes with me. “In fact, I beg you to kill me if that happens. I don’t want to live like that.”
“We go at dawn,” Lachlan decides. “That will give us time to plan—and rest—before the troops move away from the Center. We can keep watch from the wall. As soon as they pass, we head in the opposite direction, toward the Center. Flame, Carnelian, I want you to go over exactly how you plan to disable the mind control. Carnelian has the skills to be a good tech backup. Are you sure you know how to disable it, Flame?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” Flame says. “But the seed will unlock it, and I can reprogram or disable it for a while anyway. Once I’m inside I hope to be able to find the resonator that is broadcasting the signal. If I can, I can stop it for good.”
Lachlan nods. “Lark, Rowan, you both know the inside of the Center better than anyone. We need to plan exactly how we’ll make entry, the route to the control station, and what kind of resistance we’re likely to encounter. And as soon as we shut it down, we can go to the prison wing for your mom.”
We plan fast, Yarrow helping me recall things about the Center I’d rather not remember. We draw a map, and go over and over our plan. It is a simple one, relying on Lark bringing us in unopposed, and then surprise and brute force. People will die in our plan. But more people will die if we don’t succeed.
The whole time, Lark talks to Lachlan. Or I talk to Lachlan. If at all possible, Lark and I don’t ever address each other. The tension of our avoidance is almost as bad as the tension of planning for battle.
When it is only a couple of hours before dawn, Lachlan says, “Everyone should try to get some sleep. It will be a challenging morning.”
Ash and Angel go to our parents’ room. Mira and Carnelian cuddle on a chaise. Lachlan stretches out on the floor, while Flame paces.
I go to my room and flop down on my old familiar bed, burying my head in the pillow that smells like my childhood. How strange it is to see my old things. It feels like so long ago that I left.
I see more of my art supplies in the corner, and even though I’m dead tired my curiosity gets the better of me. I pull Aaron’s journal from where it is pressed against my skin under my clothes and paw through my supplies until I find a piece of ocher-colored chalk. With the lightest touch I brush it over the inside back cover, gradually revealing the imprint of words written more than a century ago.
I can’t read every word, but by shifting the page at all different angles I can decipher most of it:
My end is near, and when my body is no more I join . . .
I will be buried with my child . . .
Where the feet of the colossus tread on the sea amid flowers of every land, there lies the Heart of EcoPan.
There my child was born, there his cradle, there, one day, his grave.
There the very language of his existence is stored, the code of his creation and his destru
ction. When my child is no longer needed in this world, it is there that he will die.
I don’t immediately understand it. Aaron had a child? But I’m too impossibly sleepy to puzzle it all out, and a moment later my heavy eyes close . . .
* * *
I WAKE UP with a hand over my mouth, a pressure on my body. My eyes fly open. Lark is straddling me, and I can just dimly see her finger pressed to her lips. Has she come here to finish the job she started earlier? Is she going to try to kill me?
She takes her hand from my mouth and leans so close I can feel the warmth of her breath on my lips. So close . . .
She dismounts from my bed and holds out her hand. When I don’t take it right away, she beckons wordlessly.
We slip silently out of the house into the courtyard. Now that I’ve been in the living world, it seems so strange to be outside at night without the sounds of crickets and nightjars, owls and cicadas. The silence is unnatural.
I guess she’s not planning on killing me, but why are we out here when we should be resting for the coming mission?
I have my answer when Lark suddenly shoves me against the courtyard wall, cradling the back of my head with her hand to protect it from the stone. Again I brace for an attack, but her body is soft against mine, and then she’s kissing me. Suddenly everything is simpler, and I’m back to that happy moment of our first kiss. It was confusing and delirious and blissful, but pure and easy, too.
“Oh, Rowan, I’ve missed you so much,” she says breathlessly a moment later. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She releases me to clutch her own head, and I notice that she’s crying. “Ahh, I can feel thoughts in my head that aren’t mine. Or like some wicked version of me. I know you still have parts of Yarrow in you. How do you stand it without going insane?”
“You remember me, and us, and . . .” I prompt.
“I remember meeting you, everything we did together. I remember getting eaten by the nanosand, and then . . . There’s a gap. Somewhere in there, everything got turned around. Everything that mattered to me changed. When Chief Ellena was talking to me, everything suddenly seemed so clear. I hated you, hated the second children, wanted to do everything I could to keep Eden safe.”
“You always wanted that,” I point out.
“But it came to mean something different. I was . . . not a good person. And now, I’m still not. I think. Or I feel like I’m the old Lark and the new one. Both at the same time. But I’m scared. It’s like the new Lark is sleeping for a while.” She sits up and clutches at my hands in a panic. “I don’t want the new Lark to wake up! She’s a terrible person!”
“The Chief changed you,” I say as I hold her hands.
“Like she did to you? But I remember who I am.”
“Flame said she used a different method on you,” I tell her. “She said can probably undo it, with a little time in her lab. But right now, she thinks your epileptic seizure reset your brain. Your old self came to the fore again.”
“Will she stay?”
“We don’t know.”
“I don’t want to be that person!” Lark says miserably. “She’s not me.”
“The Chief said she just massaged parts of your own thoughts, your own psyche,” I tell her. “She didn’t add anything.”
“How do you know?” Lark asks. “I don’t really know what she did to me, and Chief Ellena isn’t exactly known for her honesty.”
“She would be likely to tell me the thing that would hurt me most—that you decided to turn against me of your own free will, that the hate was within you all the time.”
“It wasn’t,” she says. “I swear it wasn’t. I hate that even now, in the back of my head, all those disgusting thoughts are lingering.” She clutches her head like she can hold it all in, never let me see it again.
“We’ll fix you, Lark. If you can just hold on to yourself for a little while longer, Flame will make you like you were, permanently, and we can go to the outside world, and . . .”
I break off, thinking of my love for her, and Lachlan, how I must be doomed to make them unhappy, unable to choose—or else make myself unhappy.
“I talked to Lachlan while you slept,” Lark says, reading my thoughts. “We talked about you, how we feel about you. He’s an okay guy, you know.” It looks like it almost hurts her to admit this.
“Will you do something for me, Rowan?” she whispers in my ear. “Will you tell me about the outside? In case I never see it.”
“You’ll see the living world!” I vow adamantly. “And I’ll be with you. I promise!”
Then, nestling close to her, I tell her about the wonders of a butterfly, the beauty of a flower. I tell her about the cheerful, melodious little birds that are her namesake.
She interrupts me a moment later. “I need to tell you something. Now, while I’m still myself. I don’t know how long it will last, and I couldn’t bear it if I became that horrible other version of me without you knowing. Rowan, I love you. From the night we met, and every night in between. Ellena might take away my memory, or implant some new personality, but she can never change the truth of my heart. I need you to remember that, in case I ever change. In case I turn against you.”
I feel a warmth, joy deep in my heart. It’s a feeling that makes the world look rosy in spite of everything that has happened.
“Oh Lark, I love you too,” I breathe, and kiss her like the night will never end.
WE’RE ALL AWAKE and restless at dawn. I doubt any of them slept more than I did. I feel alert and alive, full of determination, my nerves held at bay by the stunning things Lark and Lachlan said to me. It feels like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I am buoyant, energized.
All I have to do now is launch an attack-and-rescue mission on the most tightly guarded place in Eden.
Our plan is simple—just walk in. Lark says she has brought other kids to the Center on several occasions.
“Ever people from other schools?” I ask her.
She hasn’t, but there’s a first time for everything. “It will be plausible,” Lark says, hopefully. “Chief Ellena wants to see any promising candidates, but she didn’t specify just from Oaks.”
Our scheme is to all dress in Ash’s old uniforms, posing as kids from the Sahara School. It’s not quite as lofty as Oaks, but it is a very good school, and Chief Ellena would probably be interested in candidates from those wealthy, important families. They are elites, too.
Her philosophy seems to be co-opt the wealthy and educated, and crush the lower classes.
We’re all in Ash’s old golden sand-colored uniforms. Angel seems to have a moment of confusion when she looks at herself in the mirror. Is she remembering her old Oaks uniform? Or, if she’s not remembering, is there just some small spark in her brain that tells her something is off? I wonder if she’ll ever get her memories back. I think brains are too resilient to be beaten down for long.
The clothes are too short for Carnelian, but passable. Mira loves her outfit. “Perfect for climbing, or fighting!” she says of the fitted tunic over leggings.
The only difficulty is Flame. She is small and trim, and easily fits in one of Ash’s old uniforms . . . but she is obviously in her forties. She’ll never pass for a young woman.
“I can be the suspicious parent,” Flame suggests. “The one who assumes you’ll be taken advantage of.”
“No, having an adult there will raise alarms,” Lark says. “Isn’t there anything we can do to make her look younger?” She holds up her hands quickly, afraid of offending the woman she is relying on to fix her addled brain. “Not that you look old or anything . . .”
Flame snorts. “I own my age, thank you very much, kid. But you do have a point.”
Angel has been studying her. “Do you have any makeup? I think . . . I don’t know why, but I just have a feeling I can do something.”
“The Pearl is coming out,” I murmur to Lark.
When I check the drawers of Mom’s mirrored vanity, though, we fi
nd something even better than makeup. It’s a device with the same sort of simulator that kids use to give themselves tiger stripes or snake eyes. But this one is marketed for adults. Concealed in a headband is a highly sophisticated projector that creates the illusion of youth without surgery. When Flame pushes it down over her red hair and turns it on, her skin is immediately dewy and youthful, the lines around her eyes smoothed. The illusion is perfect—she looks no more than eighteen.
“God-like technology, and this is what we use it for,” she gripes, looking into the mirror. Yet, I see her smile at her own image, even if she tries to hide the fact. “At least if I die on this crazy mission, I’ll make a beautiful corpse.”
Though our nerves are all on edge, we can’t leave right away, and the waiting is the worst. Over and over, I climb the inside wall of the courtyard and cautiously peek at the surrounding circles of Eden. For a long time, everything is quiet—unnaturally quiet. The streets are empty, and I wonder if the Center sent out a notice keeping people inside, or if it was some tweak of the mind control, making the populace so indifferent that this morning they don’t even bother getting out of bed.
Finally, I hear a sound coming from the direction of the Center. I duck back and beckon the others over, then peer over, reporting what I see.
“The bots are coming first,” I say. “Securitybots.” These used to be mostly sentinels, keeping an eye on things to make sure there were no crimes. They would report, and at most apprehend. But more recently, all securitybots were armed. They are supposed to be under the control of human handlers. They aren’t supposed to be able to make independent decisions about lethal force. But at this point, I’m not sure. They might be programmed to open fire without specific instruction.
Bots wouldn’t have any problem slaughtering the outer-circle rebels. They will simply do what they are told.
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