The Last Uprising (Defectors Trilogy)

by Tarah Benner

  “They believe it,” I said, remembering Mary Beth. “They believe all of it, or it wouldn’t be so easy for World Corp.”

  Logan whipped her head around to look at me, and I wondered for a moment if they all thought I was justifying World Corp’s actions. I wasn’t. I was appalled by everything we’d witnessed at the commune.

  “Listen to this,” said Greyson. He was skimming the small white book he and Amory had stolen. “Each Community should be built upon the shared values of its intended inhabitants as long as these values are congruent with World Corp International’s philosophy of Order, Compliance, and Progress.”

  “That’s the PMC’s ‘philosophy,’” I said quickly.

  Amory nodded. “They’re not even bothering to hide that World Corp owns the PMC now.”

  Greyson continued. “For any Community to thrive, there must be a morality code, both to protect the Populace and to ensure the longevity of the Community. That code must serve the values of World Corp International and protect shared resources.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” muttered Roman.

  “Population control,” said Logan quickly.

  I thought back to what Mary Beth had said about men and women sitting apart.

  “They leave all their doors open to discourage hoarding and stealing.”

  “This is unbelievable,” said Greyson. “They have all these rules: curfew . . . required daily worship . . . chaperoned courtship . . .”

  “It’s just that commune, though,” said Amory absently. He was scanning a long list in the packet of papers he had found. “There are hundreds, by the looks of it. All founded on different values. Look!”

  “Science, progress, responsibility . . . altruism, order, peace . . . sacrifice, family, security. And here.” Amory pointed to a list of codes running down another column. “Some of these are the same. I think they sort them by state, religion, political ideology . . . then they feed them these supposed ‘values’ that already align with what they believe. They just make sure they’re values that don’t interfere with World Corp’s mission.”

  “So the commune we saw near the Infinity Building justifies their actions with science.”

  Greyson nodded. “It makes sense. It’s the only way you could get all those people to live together under one roof.”

  We all sat back for a moment and let Amory’s discovery sink in. If World Corp was controlling people with their own beliefs, it would be much harder to break its chokehold on the New Northern Territory.

  “We need to show this to Ida,” said Logan.

  Amory shook his head. “She’s not due back at camp for another day at least. We should be gone by then.”

  “We can’t move on yet,” said Logan. “Not until she gets back.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Why? They’ve already raided the camp. They think we’ve scattered. The old camp would be the safest place.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Roman. “We’re way too close to that commune. What if they come looking?”

  “They’re not the PMC,” said Logan. “Those people don’t leave, much less go out looking for rebels. Don’t you see? World Corp wants to draw their focus into the community so they don’t see what’s going on outside.”

  Amory sighed. “We’ll see what the others say. But I don’t like it. I say two days max. If Ida isn’t back by then, we leave.”

  We waited for hours, eventually cooking the frozen meals Amory had stolen from the commune. They were preassembled packets with pieces of real chicken and vegetables harvested from the commune’s fields.

  I savored all the flavors, wishing the rebels could assemble meals just like it. I hadn’t eaten a fresh vegetable all winter. Everything at the rebel camp came from cans salvaged from abandoned grocery stores and warehouses. Even at the World Corp facility, everything had been heavily processed and tasteless.

  “No wonder they don’t want to leave,” said Greyson through a mouthful of chicken. “The food is fantastic.”

  Logan scowled at him, but none of us stopped eating to form a reply.

  Finally darkness fell, and we decided it was time to begin making our way back.

  I didn’t like being in the dark woods caught between the commune and the raided camp. Every snapping branch and rustle of an animal in the snow made me jump. I was sure the PMC was lurking in the shadows, waiting to capture us and brand me a traitor to the cause.

  It was slowgoing. No one was talking, and Amory seemed to be deep in thought.

  After two hours of walking, the trees suddenly thinned, and the hulking outline of a tent emerged in the darkness. We all slowed down considerably, barely breathing as we listened for signs of life.

  Amory motioned for us to lay back, and he and Roman fanned out in opposite directions to scan the perimeter of the camp.

  For several moments, no one spoke. All I could hear was the thudding of my own heart against my ribcage.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The destruction was unimaginable. Deep muddy tracks cut across the snow like fingernail scratches, and dead bodies lay strewn across camp like forgotten dolls.

  Near the smoldering embers of the campfire, I could just make out a woman hunched over one of the bodies, her shoulders shaking with grief. It was Ida.

  My heart ached for her as I watched her weep, sending a burst of pain across my temple. Though the memories weren’t there, I recalled that Ida had always treated me with unfailing kindness.

  The man lying next to her in the snow had a bushy gray beard. His weathered brown face was completely slack, so it looked almost as though he were sleeping.

  Logan let out a soft gasp, cupping a hand to her mouth. “Murphy.”

  That name stirred a memory inside me, but it was a foggy recollection. I remembered he’d run a camp for defectors in upstate New York, and I wondered absently how he and Ida had gotten here.

  “Oh, thank god!” cried Ida when she saw us. “I didn’t think there was anyone . . . I c-can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “Where are the others?” Amory asked.

  Ida shook her head, lost for words. “We came back early. I thought . . . I thought they’d taken everyone.” The way she said “everyone” made me realize that the rebels were Ida’s family. Fighting in the revolution was all she had left.

  Logan sank down into the snow next to her, draping an arm over her shoulders. Kneeling there, crumpled over Murphy’s dead body, Ida looked much smaller and frailer than I remembered. Her white-blond hair hung in a raggedy braid over her tattered coat, and her hands were wrinkled, shaking, and covered in liver spots.

  “We should see who survived,” Roman muttered.

  Logan shot him an icy look, but I understood. He wanted to know who else hadn’t survived.

  My legs seemed to move of their own accord as I followed Roman around the perimeter of camp, helping him turn over the fallen rebels one by one to identify them. He didn’t speak to me, which made it easier somehow. He didn’t even appear angry or disgusted when I flinched away from one man who’d been shot through the eye.

  A few people began trickling back to camp, looking tired and defeated. Some clapped hands to their mouths and started to cry; others took in the devastation with blank stares.

  One woman staggered over to Roman weeping hysterically and asked if he had found her husband. His mouth tightened into a hard line, and he shook his head. The woman dissolved into tears, though I couldn’t tell if she was terrified or joyful. The three of us were all thinking the same thing: Anyone who wasn’t accounted for may have survived, or they could have been arrested by the PMC.

  After a while, Amory appeared at my shoulder. “We need to bury them and regroup,” he said to Roman.

  “We can’t dig graves for all these people.”

  Amory’s eyes narrowed in anger. “A proper burial is the least they deserve.”

  “The dead outnumber the living three to one. We need to get out of here before we’re next.�
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  “We have to wait for the rest of the survivors.”

  “Look around you!” snapped Roman. “These are the survivors. This is it. Everyone else is either dead or in the PMC’s custody.”

  Amory held his gaze. “We need to wait. People are in shock.”

  “You think this is smart? We’re sitting ducks right now. If the PMC comes back —”

  “They won’t be back tonight.”

  Roman sneered. “Oh, right. I forgot you’re the all-knowing PMC brat.”

  Amory’s eyes narrowed. “They think they’ve scared us off. We’ll be all right for a while. The PMC has bigger problems to deal with.”

  Roman made an exasperated noise in his throat. “I’ll give you until morning to get your shit together. If you don’t have a plan by then, we’re doing it my way. I’m not going to get myself killed just because you want to throw these people a funeral.”

  As he stormed off, I couldn’t help thinking Roman’s words were much harsher than his actions. He’d told Amory I was a lost cause, yet he’d dragged me out of that sanctuary. He was doing it again now: pretending he didn’t care about the dead after he’d painstakingly identified each person.

  Amory and I were alone now. He looked at me for a moment, and then his expression changed abruptly, as though he’d suddenly remembered that things were different between us. I wasn’t sure why this hurt, but it did.

  He left me on my own in the middle of camp, very much apart from the shared grief. I didn’t belong here. As far as the rebels were concerned, I belonged with the enemy.

  Tree branches snapped behind me, making me jump.

  A boy stumbled out of the woods. He was tall and lanky with sandy brown hair and freckles scattered haphazardly across the bridge of his nose. It was Kinsley. The entire left side of his face was covered in blood. He staggered forward wearing a huge grin and nearly collapsed against me.

  “I made it,” he said with a laugh.

  My back bowed as I tried to hold him upright. He was only sixteen, and yet he towered over me by a good six inches. Back screaming in protest, I wondered why he didn’t treat me with the wariness the others did. Surely he knew what had happened to me.

  “Oh my god. Kinsley!” Logan was running toward us through the snow and grabbed his other side just as my knees gave out. Together, we lowered him to the ground and propped him against a tree.

  “What happened to you?” Logan demanded.

  “The PMC.” He laughed, sounding a little insane. “They weren’t going to take me alive. I brought two of those bastards down and ran as fast as I could.”

  “Did you see how many were captured?” I asked, feeling a sudden responsibility for the people at camp.

  He shook his head. “They only took a few. I don’t think they cared too much about arrests. I think they wanted to make a statement.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Raiding the camps . . . making arrests . . . killing anyone who runs away . . . It’s just a scare tactic.”

  I felt a surge of anger that the PMC would go after Kinsley. He was just a kid — completely harmless. It was wrong.

  “What about Godfrey?” asked Logan.

  He shook his head slowly, as if trying to string the facts together. “I didn’t see them take him. Didn’t see Godfrey at all, actually. But everything happened so fast. I just ran.”

  Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought I detected a subtle note of shame and defeat on his last word.

  Once Kinsley had recovered, I helped Logan steer Ida back to her tent. I ran to make them a pot of tea, my hands and legs busying themselves without consulting my brain. The pain in my temple had become a dull ache, but I ignored it.

  These people were clearly trouble, but I was one of them now. I couldn’t fight for World Corp. I was mixed up and confused, but all my instincts told me Amory and the others were good.

  Night blanched into a cloudy gray morning, and Amory, Greyson, and Roman helped drag the dead out into the woods. The ground was frozen, so they buried them in the snow. More was falling in huge wet flakes, and I hoped it would be enough to cover the bloody patches, the muddy tire tracks, and the evidence of death that hung over the camp.

  Amory and Greyson went into Ida’s tent to share what we’d learned about World Corp’s control of the communes, and I felt sorry that Ida couldn’t even spend one evening grieving for her friends without worrying about the fate of all the people who were depending on her.

  By the afternoon, the sky was still a sickly gray, and I heard a shout from outside Ida’s tent. I ran out in a panic — not knowing what to expect — and saw a hooded figure approaching from the woods. The limp, pronounced by the uneven ground, and the bushy black beard were unmistakable.

  “Godfrey!” Amory shouted.

  Godfrey didn’t break stride as Amory and the others surrounded him, demanding to know what had happened and where he had been. He was headed straight for me — straight for Ida’s tent — and I instinctively stepped out of the way.

  As he ducked into the tent, a memory danced through my head: Godfrey in a rumpled white PMC uniform. It clashed wildly with his unruly beard and weathered face, but it was real. He was a mole, and he had helped me break Amory out of Isador. As poignant as the memory felt, it was like watching a movie about someone else’s life. I felt so disconnected from that person I had been.

  Logan’s hand on my arm snapped me back to reality as she pulled me away from the tent.

  “He kicked me out,” she hissed indignantly. “As if Ida’s not going to turn around and tell me everything he says.”

  As Logan pulled away, I noticed the strained look on her face and the way her hand clasping my arm shook a little.

  Everything she said was pushed aside by the question that had been burning in my mind. “Logan, what happened? What did the cure do to you?”

  She released me abruptly and took a step back. From the way she was looking at me, I couldn’t tell if she was angry, surprised, or both.

  “It’s just . . . you weren’t like this before.”

  Logan’s startling green eyes went cold. “Oh, really? Tell me, Haven. What was I like before? I guess you know everything about me, but you don’t remember that we’re supposed to be friends.”

  I staggered backward, the smack of anger stinging my insides. “It’s not my fault I don’t remember. I don’t know why I don’t, but —”

  “You don’t know why? World Corp brainwashed you into thinking we’re the enemy. They turned you against all your friends and left you with nothing! And today when they raided camp, they left you here.” She said the last few words with relish. “Did you ever think that maybe they’re not your friends and we are? Maybe if you tried to remember us, you’d see the truth.”

  I had thought about that — more than I was willing to admit. I understood why Logan was angry with me, but it was all too much to take in.

  “Look around, Haven!” She gestured wildly at the destruction. “We’re at war! This is why the rebellion is happening. They kill people. They poisoned them with the virus, and now they’re hunting down innocent families who escaped those horrible communes. Is that the world you want to live in?”

  I stared at her, utterly lost for words. My head was throbbing.

  None of it fit with what I had been taught. It made sense, but if what Logan was saying about the virus was true, I couldn’t justify anything World Corp had done. They had killed too many people — civilians. They had killed my mother.

  “Amory may be in denial, but I’m not,” said Logan. Her words sounded confrontational, but her tone was steeped in hopelessness. “We’re done holding you prisoner. If you want to leave, leave. If you want to stay, you’re with us. But you can’t stay here and be loyal to World Corp.” Logan shot a glance at two grown men weeping together in the snow. “Not now.”

  Even though I knew it was a test, her words fortified me. It didn’t sound as though she was pushing me away at all; she was asking me
to make a choice.

  As tough as she was, Logan could never hide how much she cared. She cared so much about Amory and Ida and Greyson that it physically hurt to watch, and her tone told me she cared deeply whether I stayed or left.

  Right then, that meant everything to me. And for the first time since I’d arrived at camp, I felt that maybe I had friends after all.

  It was nearly dark by the time Ida and Godfrey emerged from the tent.

  I was sitting next to Kinsley because he was the only person who didn’t make me feel wildly out of place.

  The camp fell silent as she stepped into the center of the circle near the fire. The frailness and grief were gone. She was Ida again.

  “Friends,” she began. “We lost a lot of good people today.” Ida dragged in a breath, and I knew she was thinking of Murphy.

  “We feel beaten because the PMC took them from us, but they have not won. As long as we are still fighting, we are still a threat to them.”

  The crowd was silent, soaking in the sorrow.

  “Our friends and loved ones wouldn’t want us to surrender. Many of those we lost were good friends of mine, and I know they’d want us to pick ourselves up and keep going. This fight is bigger than us. It’s bigger than today.”

  There was a murmur of assent in the crowd, and this seemed to strengthen Ida for what came next.

  “But our situation has changed. We cannot stay here now that the PMC knows our location. Godfrey has been gathering intelligence, and it is his assessment that we should be safe for a few days at least. What we really need are new strongholds south of the border to demonstrate the power of the resistance and force them to divide their resources.”

  The crowd bristled, and the fearful muttering spread like a horde of wasps.

  “I have not forgotten those living in terror in the World Corp communes. We still intend to infiltrate those facilities and free those who wish to join the cause. Some of them could be great allies in the fight against World Corp, and thanks to some new information we’ve uncovered, we have a greater understanding of how Aryus Edric has been manipulating those under his control.