“For Mira,” Lark echoes. She never even knew Mira, but I can see the grief in her own eyes. She feels as culpable as I do.
I’m overwhelmed by Carnelian’s strength of character, by the sacrifice it takes to leave the body of his love behind in this den of strangers. Wordlessly, I thank him with my tears.
No one comes to challenge us when we leave Chief Ellena’s office. I think it is strange, until I remember how she once bragged about her private space being completely soundproof. She designed it so that no one outside could hear the weeping and screams of her victims. Now she was doomed by her own foresight, and none of her remaining guards have heard the gunfire that ended her life.
When we meet no one in the hall, I begin to think that there are no more guards.
It makes sense. We’re in the inner sanctum of the Center. What few Greenshirts aren’t on the front lines of the attack are probably guarding more vulnerable areas. But here, in the prison wing, everyone is so tightly under lock and key that there is no threat. They think the cells are too deep in the Center to be vulnerable to attack. So if guards have to be pulled from anywhere to make up for a scarcity, this is the place that will be left unguarded.
We’re approaching from a different route than when Lark, Lachlan, and I rescued Ash from the prison cells. But now, on the upper story, I can look down on the scene I once viewed before. Below us is the white lobby area, clean and inviting, with the azure waterfall cascading down beside the shell-like spiral staircase. Some gray-clad bureaucrat walks below, his nose buried in some files. He doesn’t even look up, and we make it to the prison wing unchallenged.
Is this going to be easy? Now, when it hardly matters, are the barriers removed? I desperately want to rescue Mom, and any other prisoners here. But it almost doesn’t matter, does it? It is like a final defiant gesture to the system that controls us. You can beat us down, but we won’t stop fighting while there’s life in us.
Maybe we’ll get her out of the cells, but what then? Maybe we’ll even get out of the Center. But what then?
Be an animal, Yarrow counsels me. Don’t think about the future or you’ll be paralyzed with grief and doubt. It’s like a party, when you’re totally bikking high and you don’t care about tomorrow. Just go, and never stop until you crash.
I can’t believe a party girl is giving me advice that, twisted as it is, is actually helping me carry on.
There’s no one at the place where two guards once stopped and questioned us. Only a gate, which slides open when Flame inserts the Chief’s card.
I remember the smell when I step into the corridor—like a too-harsh chemical trying to cover up an unpleasant odor. There’s an animal scent to this place, too, something primal that clashes with the steely walls and scrubbed floors. The visceral smell of fear.
“This place gets worse and worse,” Carnelian mutters. I try to see it as he must see it. Prison is already terrible for us. How much worse it must seem for someone who scarcely knew walls for his whole life.
When I was here before, the cells were full. Once, when I came for Ash, with political prisoners. Later, after the Underground was burned, every cell was filled with second children. Now I’m first relieved to see that every cell we pass is empty. That has to be good, right?
Then I realize it is because there is no one left to imprison. Except for the outer-circle rebels, all dissent has been eliminated. The Center is so close to total control. Even with Chief Ellena gone, one of her minions will probably step in to carry on her mission. Or the chancellor, until now a political figurehead, will fill the void left by the Chief. Under a corrupt government, it is definitely a bad sign when the prisons are empty. It means the government has won.
We finally find her near the end. Flame releases Mom, and Ash and I envelop her with love.
“This family has lost each other so many times,” she whispers. “When will it end?”
“Let’s go,” Lachlan says. “We might be able to make it out of the Center if we hurry.”
“Hold on,” Mom says. “We have to take Old Leo with us.”
“Who’s Old Leo?” I ask.
There are only a couple of more cells past Mom’s. All of them are empty, except for the last one.
Flame opens the door, and I see a ragged shape crouched in the corner. It’s the man from the nanosand cell. A pair of bright, birdlike eyes glitter at me in the dim light. A man with matted hair and dusty clothes watches me as he rolls something around in his mouth.
“Ah,” he says in his strange, ecstatic voice. “More ants to carry the seed.”
I step into the cell, and finally see what it is that he’s carried in his mouth all this time, hidden from every Center official. The thing he said a bird dropped at his feet one of the many times this madman tried to cross the desert.
It is an apple seed.
A seed of hope.
* * *
MY SKIN IS tingling when we run back to Chief Ellena’s office. I can’t let myself believe it might be possible. But hope surges through me like tree sap in spring.
Flame isn’t one for ceremony, but even she pauses and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath and maybe saying a prayer to the Earth herself before she types in the right codes and gestures for me to lay the seed on the scanner of Chief Ellena’s control panel. With trembling fingers I place it in position.
I flinch back as a blinding light scans the seed . . . and obliterates it.
For a moment I think it is a trap, that I put the seed in the wrong place and our one chance is ruined. But then I see a long chemical analysis appear on one of the screens. The system is analyzing the contents of the seed, verifying its authenticity.
The faint buzzing that has been plaguing my brain grows in volume, one bee turns into a swarm, and with a dizzying sensation that constant undertone in my head resolves itself into a voice.
“Welcome.”
The voice fills the room.
I recognize that voice. It is the same one I heard inside the silver globe that saved me from the explosion. The same whispered voice I’ve heard inside my head before. Everyone else hears it broadcast in the room, but I hear it inside my head, too.
It is EcoPan.
“You are authorized to make changes to the system,” it says. “All prior authorization has been overridden.”
“We’re in!” Flame says. “The system is under my control, at least until the next person with a seed comes along. Carnelian, come here. I need your help, too. Let me give equal access so you can help with the reprogramming.” She settles down with intense concentration to rewrite the program that is controlling the minds of everyone in Eden. Are you going to stop us? I ask, and it takes a second before I realize that I’m not asking this aloud, but in my head.
Why would I do that? EcoPan asks in return.
You let Chief Ellena do this. You’ll just let us undo it all?
You should know by now that I don’t interfere with the affairs of humanity. That’s bikking nonsense! I only step in when things have gone too far.
And brainwashing a million people into compliance and passivity isn’t too far? I scream at him in my head. Slaughtering thousands of rebels isn’t going too far?
I swear I hear EcoPan chuckle in my head. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re stopping it.
At that very moment Flame cries, “Got it!”
A pulse seems to travel through the air, as if something just rippled through my brain. We look at each other, not sure what will happen next.
Then suddenly the communicators come alive. Twenty different voices try to break in on different channels. I hear screaming behind the voices, the periodic report of a gunshot.
“We need intel!” someone shouts.
“What’s going on? We need orders!”
“What are we doing? Where’s the enemy?”
It’s the Greenshirt commanders. Without their mind control, they’re now utterly confused. They’ve woken up from a nightmare to find themselves poin
ting guns at their fellow citizens, the very people they have sworn to protect.
Flame gets on the communicator, broadcasting to all channels. “This is the Center. All forces stand down immediately. I repeat, put up your weapons and cease all hostilities.”
“By whose authority?” one of the Greenshirt commanders asks.
“By your own,” Flame says. “Your brain is free—now use it!”
“The ants are marching!” Old Leo sings, capering behind us.
We can’t see what is happening. We don’t know how many people were killed on either side before we stopped the mind control. But I know in my heart that by freeing the people, we’ve bought at least a temporary peace.
“Someone has to get out there fast and let people know what is happening,” Lachlan says.
“There should be a hypertube system that leads directly into the Center,” Flame says. “Let me see what I can find.”
I feel the awareness still in my brain, though it says nothing, only watches me. The Center’s mind control may be destroyed, but somehow EcoPan still has a connection to my brain. As it must still have one to everyone in Eden who has or ever had lenses.
“No,” I say, looking out over the glittering lights of Eden, this beautiful prison of ours. “We are not free. As long as EcoPan exists, we will never be truly free. We need to destroy EcoPan.”
THE SILENCE HANGS heavily in the room as soon as I utter those words. It’s like when a predator comes into the forest, and the entire ecosystem, every bird and insect, momentarily goes quiet, waiting to see what will happen. In the forest you don’t notice half of those little animal sounds until they are gone. The same thing is happening in my brain. Yarrow is silent. And that other presence, one which I hardly noticed but which seems to be almost a constant whispered echo to my own thoughts, a vague and mysterious other, is now hushed, too.
I think that they’re just shocked by the audacity of my statement. We’ve been taught from our earliest days that we need EcoPan. Lark’s eyes look glazed. With shock? Mom’s face looks blank, too. Even Flame, with her clear-thinking scientific mind untroubled by superstition or tradition, has a numb look on her face. Have they really never considered that possibility before? I know it sounds drastic, but . . .
“She’s right,” Lachlan says, and I think, thank goodness, at least one person who isn’t shocked. “EcoPan might keep Eden going, but we don’t need Eden anymore. We don’t need to be monitored and controlled.”
“Humans are natural things,” Carnelian says. “We shouldn’t be at the mercy of a machine. Even if that machine is supposed to protect us.”
“But how?” Lark asks.
“It might rule over everything we know, but it is still a computer program,” Flame says. “It is still basically code.”
“So if you could access the code, you could rewrite the program, or destroy it entirely,” I say. “But you can access the program from here, right? You shut off the enhanced mind control.”
“That’s different,” she says. “These are localized systems, controlled by EcoPan but separate from it. I can control all city systems, like transportation. I might even be able to shut down the desert from here. But EcoPan is a separate entity.” She spends some time at the terminals, but doesn’t look hopeful when she’s done. “It looks like there is some remote location where the essence of EcoPan is stored. We’d have to find that and rewrite it, or destroy it completely. But how could we ever find it?”
We think for a while, but come up with nothing. It looks like this will have to be part of our long-term goals, maybe just a pipe dream we can never realize. We’ve done something great here today, but I can’t help but think it will all be for nothing if EcoPan can still hop in our heads whenever it likes. Ellena is gone, but EcoPan is a more insidious, enduring influence.
“I want to take her back,” Carnelian says as he kneels beside Mira’s body. “She doesn’t belong in this dead place. I’m going to bring her back to her garden. Her soul will rest easy there.”
I think, but don’t say, that her soul will rest a lot easier if her body isn’t lying under the statue of Aaron Al-Baz. Maybe we can knock it down, replace it with something more beautiful.
“I guess I’ll get to work on shutting down the desert,” Flame decides. “Carnelian, I’ll need your help.”
Heavily, he rises and tries to pay attention to her instructions. I take over his vigil, rearranging Mira’s clothes so the terrible wound is less visible, smoothing her hair away from her face, closing her staring eyes. I’ll bring you home, I silently promise her. You are a child of nature. Your heart is in the wilderness, and I’ll make sure your final resting place . . .
Oh great Earth, can it be? The Heart of EcoPan. Is it possible?
My prayer to Mira has sparked a connection in my brain. I pull out the notebook and scan the chalky shadow of Aaron’s final words.
There is no mention in the history books of Aaron having a family. Who else would his child be but his master creation, the EcoPanopticon? When he was on the verge of death, he wanted to be buried with his child. With the Heart of EcoPan.
And what is the heart? I look at Aaron’s words: the language of EcoPan’s existence, the code of his creation. Of course! He must be talking about where EcoPan’s program is stored. I think of Aaron’s statue in the garden, a garden with strange, exotic flowers that don’t grow wild near Harmonia. A garden with a fountain at the statue’s feet. I remember the way Aaron seemed to walk on the water.
He even gives the prophesy of doom in his last words: When my child is no longer needed in this world, it is there that he will die.
With renewed hope, I stand up and slap the notebook on the table.
“I know where EcoPan’s programming is stored!” I say. “I know how to destroy EcoPan once and for all!”
I start to tell them as they gather around. The room is strangely quiet.
“Flame,” I ask. “Is it even possible? Flame?” She’s staring, not at me, but into some middle distance. I exchange a look with Lachlan. Something is definitely wrong.
He snaps his fingers in her face, but gets no response. I call Lark’s name, but she doesn’t react either. They’re like blind, still statues. With a mounting panic I reach to shake Lark out of her spell. All of a sudden she draws in her breath.
They all do.
Then, in perfect unison, everyone except Lachlan and Carnelian speaks. “Activate priority defense mode!”
They all speak with the voice of EcoPan. It booms through the room, through my brain, and with a heart-sickening realization I know what will happen next. For another second they are still in a daze, their brains fighting for control. While they are vulnerable, I wrap my arms around Lark, pinning her own arms to her side so she can’t reach for her gun. “Get them outside!” I scream to Lachlan and Carnelian as I haul Lark to the door and shove her out. She falls in a confused heap.
“Everyone with lenses,” I yell. “They’re turning on us! EcoPan is fighting for its life!”
I grab Angel next. “No!” she growls at me, in a voice that isn’t quite her own. “EcoPan is sacred.”
I shove her out, too, leaving Lachlan to take Flame. EcoPan’s control is growing, and she punches and kicks at Lachlan. “Sacrilege!” Flame screams as Lachlan tosses her out. She tangles with Angel and Lark, and in the confusion Carnelian gets Ash outside, too. Old Leo doesn’t seem affected. He’s just sitting in a corner, rocking and singing about ants.
I slam the door before they can fight their way in again. Which just leaves Mom.
Pointing her gun at me.
“Mom, please,” I beg her. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“On the contrary,” Mom says, aloud in her own voice, but somehow inside my head, too. EcoPan has her firmly under its control. “You are the one who is not thinking clearly.” Outside, Lark and the others are pounding on the door. “EcoPan is our savior, the one thing that has kept humanity alive for a thousand years. EcoPan is
connected to every one of us.”
“Mom, please put the gun down. Think about what you’re doing.”
She hesitates, looks at her gun, then at me, and her face is aghast. Trembling, she puts the gun on the ground and kicks it away, looking at it skitter across the room as if she can’t believe what she is seeing.
“Oh, Mom,” I say with relief. “For a minute I thought you were really going to . . .”
Then all at once her face twists in feral intensity, and she springs on me, wrapping her hands around my throat in a vice-like grip.
“We will stop you,” she hisses as she squeezes, just as if she never loved me. “The people of Eden are a hive, with EcoPan at the center. We will protect EcoPan. We will kill you!”
As I fight her, I can see the struggle within her. EcoPan is vying for control, but Mom is strong. Her love is fighting EcoPan’s power over her.
For now. Her fingers press into my throat. EcoPan is winning!
“I love you, Mom,” I say, and for a second she seems wholly herself again, looking utterly confused at her own hands on my throat. Then there is a whirring sound in the room as Carnelian activates one of Flame’s disruptors. Mom falters, and I shove her off me, beating her to the ground so hard she hits her head on the floor. Her eyes roll back in her head, and a trickle of blood rolls across the cold floor.
“No, Mom!” I weep, cradling her, sure I’ve killed her. But Carnelian checks her pulse.
“She’s fine, just unconscious,” he says.
“There’ so much blood!”
“Scalp wounds always bleed a lot, even when they’re relatively minor,” Lachlan says as he crouches to check my mom also. “You did what you had to do.” He stands up, and pulls me up, too. “Now, you tie her up. We have work to do, if EcoPan hasn’t shut us out. Carnelian, can you shut down the desert from here?”
“I . . . I think so,” he says, and gets to work.
“Rowan!” Lachlan snaps. “Hurry, before she wakes up.”
Rebels of Eden Page 29