“I have more protection than her, a lot more,” Jacob responded. “Especially once I return to New St. Louis. When we expose the corruption in Medical, the programs will get shut down. I will surely be safe then.”
“But suppose you don’t make it to New St. Louis and they get to you first,” pleaded his father. “Then your work and mine is all for naught. The story dies when you are reset, just as it did when I was outcast. How does that help our cause?” he asked. “It happens every time the Whisperers get close to a discovery. That’s no coincidence,” Niles continued. “If you come with us, I will show you outcast after outcast like myself, each with a different piece of the puzzle. We are closer now than we ever have been. You and Ella could be the final pieces. If you go back in, you will be lost, and a portion of the puzzle gone forever.
“Much has changed since you left, father,” Jacob responded. “We, too, have made progress.”
“Don’t be naïve, Jacob,” Jasper said. “Don’t think because you have found the mole that you are close to anything. Plenty came before her, and there will be many more. The cogs may break, but they are all just replaced or the machine would fall apart. Those invested in the success of the ‘Haus would lose everything. They won’t let that happen.”
“You are no closer to the truth than you were yesterday. Your progress is an illusion and quite literally nothing has changed Inside, except maybe the names and the faces,” Niles said. “You uncovered the mole, and you have verbal proof of the existence of these programs, but you haven’t gained an iota of concrete information to help you, to prove your accusations. Without that, you are slinging baseless slander. They will make you look crazy and your reset will be the only result.”
Jasper and Niles exchanged glances, waiting for the other to make the next point. Jacob’s head shook back and forth ever so slightly.
“You have no idea who is running things on the other end,” Niles said. “Or their exact locations, just that they are underground. You killed her before we could get it out of her.”
“You’re right,” Jacob agreed. “I don’t know locations or other specifics, but she does,” he said as he spun and pointed to Ella, whose ear-to-ear grin hadn’t left her face since Jacob viciously attacked Sylvia. “You just worry about disposing of her body once I’m finished with it,” Jacob instructed. Then he pulled out a small roll of plastic sheeting, duct tape, and a short blade, which he used to dig the EPC from her arm. He wrapped it tightly in the plastic before taping it all up and placing it in his backpack.
“What are you doing?” asked Niles.
“Taking her EPC, so it will register in the system,” he explained. “It will buy me enough time to get back to New St. Louis. Once they figure out she is not in the ‘Haus, I will already be home and all of this will be over.”
“Jacob, there are safer ways to get the information back to Doyle,” Niles said. “And we can do it without putting your neck on the line in the process. Once they find her EPC, they will know she is dead and will start poking around for answers. Once they find you, the reset will be guaranteed.”
“I’m not worried. I knew a day like this was coming. It’s why I had the blade and the sheet of plastic. Everything else is set,” Jacob explained. “I will make it back to New St. Louis, because I have to. There is just no other way. And we will finally have justice against Needles and the rest of his gang. But first, I need to talk to Hazel. Or Ella. Or whatever your name is.”
Niles shot a glare at Jasper, then asked, “Are you going to tell him or should I?”
“Tell me what?” Jacob inquired.
With all other efforts to keep Jacob on the Outside failing, out came the trump card. “Well, I dunno how to say this without it comin’ out wrong, but…” Jasper paused and took a deep breath while he rubbed his hand around the top of his balding head. “I don’t fully trust Doyle. I think he may have been involved in your father’s setup and may be planning the same for you.”
“Nonsense,” retorted Jacob. “He’s trustworthy. I’d bet my life on it.”
“That just it,” replied Niles. “If you return to the ‘Haus, you are betting your life on it.”
“What proof do you have?” Jacob asked.
“Well, nothing, but that’s how slippery they are,” Jasper answered.
“So it’s all speculation. No proof? Are you suggesting he is a double agent too?” asked Jacob, now visibly upset.
“Possibly,” replied Jasper, shrugging his shoulders.
“Pffft,” Jacob dismissed Jasper’s suggestion wordlessly.
“Son, don’t turn your nose up at all of this,” Niles interjected. “I’d bet that before today, you wouldn’t have guessed she was a double agent either.”
This made Jacob think. And he knew they were right. The possibility that Doyle had also betrayed the Whisperers had never crossed his mind until now. But it was worth the risk. ‘Everyone has their own agenda,’ Sylvia’s words raced through his head. What was her agenda? Better yet, do I even know my own?
“Then how come his division is the most advanced?” the stubborn Jacob asked. “And how come all of the discoveries made recently are made by his people?”
Jasper didn’t answer Jacob’s questions right away, but instead offered one of his own. “How come his people are always the ones who go missing?”
“Sylvia was the double agent. The betrayal was on this end, in Newer Orleans,” Jacob answered as he delivered a swift kick to the dead body, causing the smile on Ella’s face to widen. “But you still haven’t answered my questions.”
Their efforts to convince Jacob to stay on the Outside were failing.
Jasper responded, “Could be that Doyle is spoon feeding people the information, to see what his agents can figure out. If he is working on the other side, they would want to know how tight their operation was. What better way to test it? Whenever we get close to a discovery, and this goes all the way back to your father, we get erased or reset.”
“Or frozen,” Ella piped up, entering the conversation. “You’re right Jacob, we do need to talk, in private. I will fill the rest of you in later.”
Niles made his final plea to keep his son with him. “There is much I need to tell you, but the story is long. Nothing is as it seems, Inside or Out. Many things you know are not even real. Your life story and mine, as well as all the others in the ‘Haus, have been fabricated. The story of the Founding Fathers is a crock of crap too, and I can tell you how I know that if you stay.”
“Sorry, father, that will have to wait. I am going back in,” he informed him. “But don’t stress, I will be coming back out. For now, we need to clean up this mess. Another search party will be coming shortly,” Jacob said.
“We’ll move the body and meet you back at the clearing in the woods. There is one last thing we need to discuss,” Niles said. “But first, gather around and join hands.”
The group made a circle around Sylvia, which normally would be followed by the customary blessing Insiders gave their dead. Jacob broke the circle and protested. “She isn’t deserving of the farewell blessing. She betrayed us, and could have gotten me killed.”
“All people, good and bad, are deserving of the blessing,” Niles said. “Corruption and a thirst for power are all part of the human condition. It’s how we ruined the world the first time, and it will ultimately be our downfall again.”
Jacob reluctantly joined the circle, and they chanted the blessing in unison. “From Earth we have come. To Earth we will go. Mother watch over us, until we too, are called home.” The circle broke, and though he was tempted to kick her again, he thought better of it now that she had received the blessing. Whatever she had done in her life, it was now over, and all of her misdeeds had died with her. Now that the blessing was given, her body belonged to a greater power. Even through his anger, Jacob knew better than to incur the wrath of Mother Earth.
Jacob and Ella drifted away from the group, while Ren, Jasper, and Niles hauled the body of
f.
“Ella, is it?”
“You can call me Hazel, if you’d like, but my name is Ella, Ella Storm. And first, let me apologize,” she started.
A wave of the hand dismissed her apology. “If you go back in, you’d be reset. It’s better this way. It put wheels in motion that had been stuck for far too long. I do need to know what you know about what’s going on Inside, and fast,” Jacob said, stopping in the narrow space between two towering evergreens.
“I don’t know much myself, but I eavesdropped through the walls plenty. I heard Lorelei and Perry talking about six subterranean zones. I remember waking up in a white room once. It was huge, with hundreds of other bodies, all asleep. I can only assume the room is located in one of those zones,” she explained, as she leaned back against the trunk of the tree.
Jacob leaned forward slowly, in a nonthreatening manner, placing both arms on the tree behind Ella. “Where are the underground zones located?”
“That I don’t know, but my guess is under Medical HQ. It’s the only place big enough to house anything that big in Newer Orleans. Jacob, you are right about some things. You mentioned mind control and breeding programs, but that is just the beginning of it. They are running out of something they call ‘the green.’ It has many uses, but keeps people in suspended animation, and without it they won’t be able to continue their experiments. They often talk about the freezer and how the bodies there are dwindling. I’ve heard several mentions of the nine lives theory being the cause, but I can’t really explain what it is,” Ella said.
“What about names, can you give me any names?”
“The only names I can tell you about are Lorelei and Perry. They only mentioned one other name. Ever,” she informed him. Her stare intensified.
“Well, who is it?” Jacob asked.
Ella slithered out of her position between Jacob’s arms, putting some space between them. “It’s you, Jacob. There is something you and only you know. Something they need, but haven’t been able to coax out of your memory. Codes to something. You need to stay out here, like your father said. It’s too dangerous to go back in.”
“And let the corruption continue? I can’t. I took an oath. I’m the only chance to put an end to it. My father started this, and I will get to end it. This information will force Doyle and the Rangers to take action. They will finally be able to confront the forces conspiring against the Green Constitution, the fringe element trying to destroy the mission of our Founding Fathers. If this starts a war, so be it.” But what if Jasper and my father are right? What if Doyle can’t be trusted and the Founding Fathers were frauds? Now that the seed of doubt had been planted, he couldn’t completely banish the thought. This is either the greatest bet ever placed or the dumbest, he thought, knowing full well the stakes were his life. “Thank you for the information. You have no idea how much this will help our cause.”
“It’s all I can do. After all, I was the cause of all of this trouble,” Ella said with regret. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I was desperate and had to escape.”
“Like I said, no apology necessary, but I do have to go now.”
“What about your father? He wanted to speak with you at the clearing,” Ella said.
“Time is precious, but I will say my goodbyes to him and Jasper. Before I do, there’s something I must say. You being here will give me another reason to come back more often when I’m finished riding the storm out. I look forward to seeing you again very soon.” He leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek.
Jacob waited for a response, but Ella said nothing. A push of a button fired up the ATV.
“Goodbye. I look forward to seeing you too, Jacob.”
He glanced back to see Ella rubbing her cheek lightly. Jacob opened the throttle and sped toward his father. Knowing time was running out, he kept the farewells brief, promising to return soon, then he sped away.
Wind rushed past him, and the vehicle left a dusty wake behind it as he cruised over the wasteland. For the entire trip back, he second guessed his decision to return, hoping he was right. He wondered what the codes were for, and why only he knew them. Alarms went off in his head, but his chance to turn around had passed. The ATV pulled into Newer Orleans.
Jacob parked in the return area, but left it running. He kept his head down, to avoid eye contact with all but one person. Jacob whispered something in his ear.
The man reached inside his suit and exchanged something with Jacob before giving him a wink and waving him along.
He hoped to get back to the main level without incident or inquiry until he heard a voice call from behind him. “Hey wait, where are you going? The register shows you left with two people. Don’t tell me you were attacked again,” a different man said, only half kidding.
“Too many more of them and they we’ll have to shut down travel,” another voice added.
“No guys, no attack this time,” Jacob replied, adding a half chuckle, spinning around and backpedaling as he talked, doing his best to appear calm and natural, even if he was a bit hurried and his mind frazzled. “My plus-one is safe and sound at the Oasis. Sylvia forgot her binoculars,” he lied again. “I’m going to get them and then head back out. I won’t be long, I promise. You can keep her running if you want.”
The man Jacob had interacted with piped up, “It’s fine, gents. He has clearance from the top.” Then he shut off Jacob’s ATV and parked it.
Jacob knew that there would be a Bullet leaving for New St. Louis within the hour. All the time he and Sylvia had spent studying the travel schedules had paid off. She really was a double agent, working equally hard for both sides.
Jacob reached the Decon chamber, where a potential cleanse, or even worse, a reset waited. The same story wouldn’t work there. The Med Techs weren’t influenced by the Whisperers. They wouldn’t clear him if he wasn’t clean, and a cleanse could put him under with no guarantee he would ever wake up. He sat in the chair, tapping his foot while he waited for the Med Tech to arrive. The object he had received from the man at check-in rested on the table next to him.
“Hard day in the ol’ salt mines, or coming back from some leisure time?” asked one of the Med Techs assigned to the Decon chamber for this shift.
“Neither,” Jacob replied. “I’m going back out. Just need to retrieve some things.”
“Then I’ll just need to draw some blood,” he said, pulling his syringe out of his case.
“Actually, Phelps drew this already, but his spinner wasn’t working,” Jacob told him, making up both the name and the scenario. He handed the present he received from his friend at check-in to the Med Tech. Jacob was taking a huge chance, but he remained outwardly calm, using breathing techniques he learned during his training.
The Med Tech stared at him as he took the sample. He opened the container and removed the vial, inserting it into his centrifuge. The blood spun at high RPMs for a time, producing a whirring sound. The test gave Jacob a passing reading and clearance to leave Decon.
As fast as his feet could take him, Jacob made his way to the hospitality desk, stopping to talk to no one, hoping all the while a familiar face waited for him, someone who could green light him on the next Bullet to New St. Louis. Getting past guards who are part of the Whisperers and a Med Tech was one thing. Evading all the eyes that would be on him within the ‘Haus was another. Walls, elevators, SkyBridges, all made of glass, putting him on display. He was being hunted, or at least he suspected he was. Maybe my father was right. Maybe there are better ways to get the information to Doyle.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as his pace quickened. Jacob arrived at the desk, and pushed the alarm for the attendant. While he waited, he nervously tapped his fingers on the desk while his foot bounced a thousand times a minute. Cole appeared through the floor, much to Jacob’s delight.
“Cole, oh thank Mother Earth it’s you,” a relieved Jacob said. The feeling wore off quickly, Jacob’s upper body slumped as the tension released. Before he could speak aga
in, Cole cut him off.
“Goodness, what’s happened to you? You look a hot mess Jacob, is everything alright?” he asked from behind the cover of his hand.
“Yeah, everything’s great, couldn’t be better,” Jacob responded. “But I need a favor, and fast.”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I need to get to New St. Louis, on the next Bullet. It’s imperative I get home. There is something I have to tell Doyle,” Jacob said.
Cole tapped his monitor several times before responding. “Well, it looks like the next Bullet leaves in half an hour, but she’s all full. You want a ticket for the trip after that?”
Jacob wiped the sweat from his brow again. “That won’t do. I can’t wait that long. Bump somebody. I have to get home and I definitely have to get out of here.” Then he leaned in and whispered, “I’ve found the mole and need to report immediately to Doyle. Things are getting very hot for me. I already dodged a reset by Medical, so it’s only a matter of time before they get me if I stay.”
Cole tapped his monitor several more times as he whispered back, doing his best not to move his lips as he talked. “Jacob, you’re doing it again. Sweating profusely, tapping your feet. If they are watching, the signs will be easy to spot.” Then he grabbed his wand and he spoke with a higher frequency in his voice, “Alright, I’ll need to scan your arm to complete the transaction.”
Jacob pulled his arm away and pretended to look for something on the ground, joined by Cole as he jumped over the desk and got on all fours to assist him in his search. “I don’t wanna scan yet, just reserve me a spot. I don’t want it to go into the system until just before departure. It’s safer that way, just in case they have access to this system,” he whispered. “I need you to hide me until then.”
“That will be hard to do in a city made of glass, buddy. Just lay low and stay calm,” Cole instructed him.
The minutes ticked away, but not nearly as fast as Jacob wanted. He sat quietly in an inconspicuous corner that would see little traffic, but gave him a clear view of the exits. Jacob spoke to no one, making sure anyone who came close could not get a good look at his face. He constantly checked the departure station he would leave from, and scanned through the glass checking for those who may be watching. Every person that entered the hospitality center caught a quick glance before he returned to his shell.
Greenhaus:Storm Page 33