In the months since they’d lost Joe, Alessa had been training with the rebels to become a stealth soldier like Isaac, and though they’d initially assigned her another partner, Alessa’s sense of responsibility toward Isaac had led her to ask if he could train her instead; after what Joe had told her about Isaac’s tendency to blame himself for every misfortune that befell his loved ones, she wanted to be able to keep an eye on him. Over the course of their missions, though, Isaac and Alessa had had ample opportunity to reminisce about Joe, and their shared grief had brought them closer than either of them had expected.
As Alessa got to know Isaac’s quirks and values and dreams, she could feel the beginnings of something deeper blossoming towards him. She was surprised to see how quickly Isaac was growing into a man, emulating all the good qualities of his brother while adding his own brand of kindness and humor and intellect. She’d never thought she’d fall for someone younger than her, but Isaac had been through enough to mature him well beyond his 21 years, and Alessa respected him immensely.
And as much as Alessa tried to ignore it, there was something else there lately as well, a maddening fluttering in her chest that she couldn’t seem to quell whenever Isaac was around. Peeking through the rack of uniforms, Alessa caught a glimpse of his broad bare back, the taut muscles in his shoulders rippling as he slipped on the stiffly starched uniform shirt. Alessa could feel something stirring inside her, something she hadn’t felt since… well, since Joe.
Feeling guilty, Alessa knew she should look away, but her eyes lingered on Isaac just a moment longer. He began to turn in her direction and she quickly turned aside. Reddening, she hoped he hadn’t caught her spying.
“Ready to go?” Isaac peeked around the rack and Alessa smiled in affirmation.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Isaac led the way back out into the hallway, striding calmly but purposefully towards the location of the main dining room. Pausing at the threshold, he tossed one quick glance over his shoulder to confirm they’d found their mark and continued in.
Alessa rounded the corner behind Isaac and her eyes bulged as she took in the magnificent room before her. She’d known the Ruling Class was housed in what was once a lavish hotel, but she hadn’t been prepared for the opulence that now barraged her senses.
The room itself was exquisite, a massive ballroom bedecked with intricate wood moldings and extravagant sparkling chandeliers hung from high arched ceilings. Unlike the other structures in Paragon – most of which struggled to maintain even their current level of shabby disrepair – this room gleamed and shone from every surface. Even before the war, Alessa had never seen anything so grand.
Hundreds of well-heeled guests sat poised around long tables, beautiful women – attentive and smiling – silently flitting amongst the bevy of mostly older men who slurped their goblets of wine and eyed the women greedily. Laid out before them all was a sumptuous meal of roasted meats and hearty cheeses and vibrant fresh vegetables. Alessa’s mouth watered at the smell of hot bread and garlic wafting in the air.
Alessa had heard rumors that the Ruling Class was living a more comfortable life than did the workers, but this was beyond even her wildest imagination. Compared to this feast – which Alessa had been led to understand was a normal everyday meal – most of the people of Paragon were living in what could only be described as abject squalor. Alessa hadn’t known that this much food even existed within the colony’s borders, let alone that an upper class of bureaucrats was gorging themselves on it on a daily basis. She was appalled – there was no other way to describe it.
After a quick nudge from Isaac, Alessa realized her jaw was hanging open and she quickly snapped it shut. Following the lead of the other waiters, Alessa and Isaac cleared empty plates and refilled wine glasses, staying as inconspicuous as they could. Alessa did her best to muffle the rumbling of her empty stomach so that she could listen in on as many conversations as possible.
What she heard aligned well to her expectations – some mild debates about housing policy, discussions of proposed job assignment procedures, one pair of guests arguing vehemently over how many children each family should be entitled to have. And all the while, the lovely, impassive concubines passed new platters of delicacies and popped fresh bottles of wine, their expressions eerily dead-eyed despite their unbroken smiles.
From what the rebels had learned, these men were tasked with determining suitable laws and policies for Paragon’s society, but even years after the compound’s gates had been closed, little progress had been made. And given what Alessa was seeing, she could easily understand how the Ruling Class had ended up in this state – who would want to resolve these disputes when every minute they delayed saw them plied with more food and drink and flesh than any man could want?
As the meal concluded, Isaac and Alessa hurried back to the supply room where their jumpsuits were stashed. Locking the door behind him once more, Isaac turned to Alessa.
“So what’d you think? Was it what you were expecting?”
Alessa just shook her head and swallowed – the scent of roast beef clung to her nostrils as she closed her eyes in envy. She couldn’t put her feelings into words.
Isaac understood. “Sickening, isn’t it? The rest of us are practically starving out there, laboring 12 hours a day to haul their trash and dig their wells and clean their city. And these people barely even know we’re alive, stuffed as they are with bacon and brie and cabernet.” Isaac was practically spitting.
His bitterness was mirrored in Alessa’s gut, which roiled uncomfortably. Alessa had really believed that the rumors were exaggerated; she’d even been willing to concede that perhaps if these people really were working for the benefit of everyone in Paragon, that perhaps they deserved some special perks. But not like this. This was just an insult.
“Those women…” Alessa looked up at Isaac. “Are they all… like Lizzie?”
Isaac sighed wearily. “Did you see their eyes, Less?”
Alessa shook the memory away; she was afraid she might throw up.
Isaac tentatively took her hand. “Come on. We need to go report to Regina what we heard.”
Still curled under the covers in her bed, Alessa clutched her shoulders as her memories continued to surface. Gradually, the onslaught slowed and her headache began to subside.
She and Isaac had spent the next two years taking on ever more dangerous reconnaissance missions in an effort to gather the information they would need to bring their enemies down. Isaac continued to be Alessa’s constant partner, and together they had become some of Regina’s most trusted soldiers.
But despite their many small triumphs, Regina and the other leaders of the movement soon realized that they were fighting a losing battle. Some devastating losses throttled morale within the ranks, not the least of which was Lizzie Green’s recapture, which forced Regina to go into hiding to escape the Ruling Class’s subsequent investigation. One by one, important rebel affiliates seemed to disappear, occasionally cast on the TV dramas in a thinly-veiled effort to provoke those who were still undercover.
Without being able to wage open mutiny, the rebels were limited in their resources, and the threat of discovery put them in constant danger. In order to take down the Ruling Class and free the people of Paragon from further manipulation, the rebels needed to escape the confines of the colony and create their own stronghold. But with the deadly virus still potentially lurking outside the gates, it wasn’t clear if the rebels could survive an exodus.
To determine the feasibility of escape, Isaac and Alessa had been entrusted with a mission to sneak offsite and conduct reconnaissance, looking both for any remaining traces of the plague and for a suitable new home for the rebels. Janie – who had by this point become enthralled with the Rebel Alliance despite Alessa’s best efforts to keep her from getting involved – supported the leaders’ decision to send Isaac and Alessa. She was convinced that fleeing was their only long-term means for survival, and there was
no one she trusted more to carry out this crucial mission.
But something had gone awry the night that Alessa and Isaac had set out on their fateful mission, and they’d been apprehended while trying to steal across the compound’s borders. Painfully, Alessa remembered that their detainment had almost been her undoing.
Tap, tap. Tap tap tap. Tap.
Alessa listened closely to each cue, the code Isaac had taught her during her early training days proving immensely useful now that they were locked up down the hall from each other and under constant surveillance by the prison’s guards.
After four weeks in Paragon’s penitentiary, Alessa and Isaac had figured out the prison’s routines and pinpointed the weaknesses in its security procedures. They’d been able to communicate coded messages to the other prisoners during mealtimes and recreation, and they had a plan in place to break free. Now they were only waiting for their chance.
Alessa had been shocked to find that the detention center was surprisingly primitive, with the same cinderblock cells and iron bars and metal cuffs that’d been used to keep people locked up for hundreds of years. Only the high-tech locking mechanisms that secured the bolts of her cell door – and the clinical white interrogation rooms decked out with shiny monitors and insidious mechanical torture devices – marked this place as a modern dungeon. But what the guards hadn’t figured out yet was that a regular old steel lock would have been far more effective than the fancy fingerprint scanners they currently employed.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap.
That was the signal – two guards were working their way down either end of the hall to release the prisoners one by one for the evening meal. Isaac was planning to delay the guard at his end of the cellblock until the guard on Alessa’s side reached her cell. Already, she could faintly hear commotion stirring from Isaac’s direction.
Tugging at his rifle strap with only mild interest in the disturbance at the other end of the hall, the guard approached Alessa’s cell and gave her a quick once-over before reaching for the scanner pad. The locks banged, and the bars slowly slid up. Alessa rose from her cot and strode tentatively towards the cell door, in the same manner she had every day for the past four weeks. The guard didn’t suspect a thing.
The moment she was through the threshold, Alessa loosed a vicious, spine-tingling cry, alerting Isaac that it was time to make their move – “Now!”
Simultaneously, Alessa and Isaac each took out their guards with a couple quick diverting jabs and one powerful blow to the head. The guards hit the floor with a simultaneous thump, to raucous applause from their fellow inmates.
Heaving the unconscious guard over her shoulders, Alessa dragged the bulky man towards the security station in the center of the hall. For the first time in weeks she locked eyes with Isaac; he mimicked her movements from the opposite side of the hall and worked his way towards their meeting point. Seeing Alessa, Isaac’s face lit up, a smile Alessa knew he reserved only for her, and Alessa’s heartbeat skipped in response. The uprising was almost complete, and soon they would be together once more.
In just a few more steps, Alessa and Isaac would meet at the security station and swipe both guards’ fingerprints, releasing the master lock on all of the cells in their wing and unleashing hundreds of riotous inmates on the prison. In the chaos, Alessa and Isaac would be able to slip through to freedom.
Grunting, Alessa slogged up the hallway, lugging the weight of the guard as best she could. Isaac was already at the security station, waiting for her. Alessa puffed with each stride, reaching out toward Isaac’s gleaming blue eyes. Just… one… more… step…
Alessa slumped the guard against the wall and brought his fingertip to rest upon the scanner pad. Almost instantly, the hall reverberated with a hundred clanks as the locks on the cells unlatched and the cell doors began to slide open. Alessa flashed an ecstatic grin in Isaac’s direction.
Still holding the guards in place to complete the release of the doors, Isaac reached towards Alessa, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close to his side. He beamed down at her, his sapphire eyes filled with pride. Her eyelids fluttering shut, Alessa reached her lips towards his, craving his touch after so many weeks apart.
But as Alessa closed the space between them, her lips met nothing but air. Opening her eyes with alarm, she found Isaac crumpled on the floor, a massive snarling guard looming over her holding a heavy baton.
“Isaac!”
Alessa dove to the floor on top of Isaac, shielding him from the guard’s oncoming blows.
“…Alessa?” Isaac croaked. His whisper was almost inaudible over the din of the cell locks slamming back into place. Alessa could see that Isaac was dazed, just coming to after being knocked unconscious by the guard’s powerful strike, but before she could react, she found herself soaring.
Another guard wheeled her through the air, carrying her effortlessly away from the racket of the uprising. Before she could get her bearings and resist, she hit the floor with a thud and heard the slam of a heavy door. All she could sense was blackness and silence and cold.
Scrambling to her feet, Alessa felt for the metal of the door and pounded furiously against it. Bang, bang, bang, bang. No reply. Realizing her frantic knocking was futile, Alessa lashed out in frustration.
“Isaac! Isaac! ISAAC!” She screamed until her throat was raw, but a heavy, pervasive silence was the only response.
Sinking back to the floor, Alessa cringed as a wretched sob rang throughout her lonely cell, almost inhuman moans of fury and desolation. She realized with a start that they were her own.
Following the uprising, Alessa had suspected that she would never see Isaac, or Janie, again and she couldn’t have imagined anything worse. That’s when she’d started overhearing the torture.
For months, the muffled wails of her fellow inmates were the only sounds to penetrate Alessa’s thick-walled cell. She’d known it was only a matter of time until they came for her.
But when they finally did, it’d been nothing like she had expected. She’d been prepared to be battered and abused, but a guard had simply immobilized her as a lab coat clad doctor injected something into her arm. At first she thought it might be some sort of tranquilizer, but then she noticed an odd tingling in the back of her head, almost a knitting sensation, gently at first but growing more intense. And then the pain had kicked in, sharp twinges coursing through her brain as she screamed and writhed and begged for it to end.
And the next thing she knew, she’d woken up in this very same bed, on her first day of class at ESU.
Alessa had certainly suffered in her life, but her memories of solitary confinement were the most excruciating of anything she’d yet experienced. All those months alone in the dark, Isaac’s absence had become a constant panging throb that had replaced her heartbeat, leaving a gaping hole in her chest where Isaac should have been.
And suddenly Alessa knew it, viscerally, could feel it deep within her core. Isaac was hers. He was as much a part of her as her own blood, as the oxygen that seeped through her lungs.
No wonder the last months had been so agonizing. The teasing glimpses of him had torn her apart, left her feeling hollow and empty. They might as well have taken her innards with the void his absence had left inside her.
If there was one thing Alessa was sure of, it was that she needed Isaac to be whole again. And she would do everything in her power to have him once more.
27. Opportunity
Over the following days, time roiled tumultuously for Alessa, each moment seeming to alternate between dragging on listlessly and whizzing right by. After regaining so much of her memory, Alessa was eager to tell Janie of everything she’d recalled and she waited anxiously for an opportunity to speak with her shielded from the camera’s ever-watchful eye. But with the producers monitoring Alessa’s every step, she was frustrated to find that that opportunity had not come, and every minute she was forced to wait seemed to last an eternity.
At the same time, w
ith her memories flooding back, it was almost as if Alessa was living in double time. Her mind was constantly flitting back and forth between life as a college student at ESU and life as a rebel in Paragon. She was startled on more than one occasion to look up and find that over an hour had passed while she daydreamed about some past event. But in the present, Alessa could feel every single second ticking by.
The knowledge that she was under constant surveillance was disconcerting, to say the least. Suddenly, every decision she made was a matter of life and death – she was constantly coaching herself to look “natural,” to act “normal,” to make sure she stuck to whatever she knew of the producers’ planned storyline. To do otherwise – as Nikhil had regrettably discovered – would be to put herself, and Janie and Isaac, in mortal danger.
Knowing that cameras were trained on her at all times, even the most routine tasks became stressful. It took all of Alessa’s strength not to hesitate when getting undressed in her own bedroom; though she yearned to scoot out of the camera’s sight, she forced herself to change in front of the closet as she always had. Even the notion of falling asleep felt eerie, with thousands of pairs of eyes pricking her back as she lay on her side facing the wall. Just preventing herself from tossing an errant glance in the direction of any of the numerous cameras on campus was a constant battle. Alessa had thought she’d been mentally and emotionally exhausted before, after her visits from the “ghost.” She realized now that she hadn’t even known what exhaustion meant.
Alessa had been cataloguing questions in her head, trying to prioritize what was most crucial to ask Janie the next time she got the chance. She knew it was likely they would only have a few moments together and there were so many things she wanted to know. How did Janie manage to resist the stitch? Of all the shows that were filming, how did she manage to get placed on this one, and cast as Alessa’s best friend no less? And where exactly was Isaac? Most importantly, how were they all going to get out of this alive?
Stitch (Stitch Trilogy, Book 1) Page 17