by David Hardy
Blaise and Molly lay on the floor, and her heart beat so fast that it deafened her. She’d done what she was supposed to. She’d survived the attempt to capture her in the trip. She’d gotten alternate transportation. She—
There was a sound like someone was removing panels from the bottom of the flyer. Molly knew that the antigrav panels were down there, because her father often had to fix the family flyers. There was a sound of knocking beneath, and she thought the panels were being fixed.
Moments later three men – from the voices – came in, shouting things. The man answered them in measured sentences. Molly could hear, “No, didn’t see anyone by that description. No sir.”
There was more shouting. She could only hear their loudest words, since they weren’t right under the flyer. She heard “insurgent” and “dangerous” and “Usaian.”
She became aware that Blaise was looking at her, his eyes very wide. His mouth worked. He said “Usaian?” completely soundlessly.
She nodded. She was sure this meant he wouldn’t help her anymore. He might turn her in himself. But she had to tell him. If he was going to risk his life, he was entitled to know how high the risk was.
He didn’t say anything, but he turned his head away from her. They lay there on the floor of a not overly clean flyer. Molly would swear she could smell candy and baby diapers. She stayed very quiet, realizing that this man who had saved her might very well turn her in. She derived some comfort from the fact he wasn’t yelling at the mechanic to lower them right now and call law enforcement.
She didn’t know how long they stayed there, not talking, not moving. At one point she suspected Blaise was dozing, from his regular breaths and total immobility.
When the flyer moved down, the mechanic opened the door to them. He was wiping his hands on a greasy rag and said, “It’s closing time. They might be watching the front and the back. Let me show you another way out.” He took them down a corridor and up a flight of stairs, to a platform on the side of the building. From the smell of paint and the way it was littered with just painted and just tripped flyer carapaces, Molly guessed it was a work area, and not exactly an exit. But the platform was only about six feet from the ground.
Blaise swung down from it first, then looked up and said, just above a whisper. “Come down. I’ll catch you.”
Molly turned first and shook the mechanic’s hand. It felt calloused and slippery. “Thank you.” Mother had told her that even on mission, many times it was the thank you that turned a casual ally into a committed one, but it wasn’t even that. Molly just knew the risks the man had run and wanted to thank him.
The man blushed. “I did it first because we know Mr. Blaise Morel, and know he wouldn’t be doing something wrong, but then I heard what the peacekeepers said. I… I have my scrap of flag.”
This revelation that he shared her faith led Molly to hug him, impulsively, but it was a brief moment, because Blaise was calling, “Come on.”
She squeezed under the railing around the platform, and Blaise grabbed her around the waist, depositing her on the ground in a smooth movement.
“Is there any reason,” he asked her, “we can’t go to my flyer and away from here?”
“Your flyer might be watched.”
“No chance,” he said. “We were moving too fast for them to have more than my description. Get in the flyer, get away from here, and nobody will ever know. They can look for their insurgents till the end of the world. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll be safe, and you’ll be safe. I’ll get you back to your parents in one piece.”
Molly’s breath caught in her throat. She wanted this so badly. She could visualize herself getting back home, having dinner. Even the prospect of having a fight with Alex, her next older sibling, seemed like a wonderful thing.
But if she went back home now, without fulfilling her mission, it would be the last mission she was allowed to run for the Usaians. Certainly her last mission as one of the Sons of Liberty. Missions that went wrong endangered everyone. If she couldn’t be trusted with one, they wouldn’t give her another.
But besides all that, her mission was real. They didn’t have the people to send on redundant missions. This was real and needed, and she needed to deliver the list of people the authorities were watching, so they could either take precautions or escape. Before they were caught and killed.
“There are over two hundred people on Sea York who can be apprehended and possibly killed within the week, if they’re not forewarned,” she said ruefully. “I can’t secure my safety at the expense of theirs.”
He gave her a venomous look. “And by people you mean insurgents, of course; people who are breaking the law; people who have courted disaster, on their own.”
She sighed. She’d been afraid of this. She was not going to argue or to scream. If he turned her in the only thing she could do was destroy the coded pendant and save others. She just said, “Usaians. People who believe in freedom.”
“Yeah,” he said. But it sounded like he was saying no. “My sister was one of those.”
“You don’t need to help me,” she said. “I’ll go now. I’ll find a way to pass on the warning.”
But he only glared at her harder. “On the one hand,” he said. “If we separate we’ll be less noticeable. On the other hand, this situation has already proven too difficult for you. I don’t want your death on my conscience. Do you know Sea York?”
She shook her head. “I came here with my parents once,” she said. “To myth park.”
“Ah. I come here for parts a lot. Come on.”
He took her, unexpectedly, down an alley, then another, alleys so narrow that flyers probably couldn’t go in there, and then down a spiral staircase, to another level of the seacity, and then to yet another one.
Molly noticed that the buildings and surroundings looked less and less well maintained, and in the lowest level there were a lot of people wearing the sort of clothes people wore while doing hard, manual labor.
They were, however, blissfully ignored, even on the crowded sidewalks, except for a few guys who gave Molly an interested look.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Lowest level of the seacity. People here don’t often use flyers, and don’t bother with security bulletins much, if nothing else because many of them are on such bulletins.”
“Conspirators?” Molly asked.
Blaise laughed, a sort of quick cackle at the back of his throat. “Mostly illegal broomers and drug manufacturers and dealers. Not everyone, mind you, but it’s a thriving side line down here. At any rate, no one has much truck with what people up there want or think.” He pointed upwards on the seacity. “They keep the machinery of the seacity running and look down a little on the useless ones on more expensive levels. Here, let me treat you to some dinner, and we’ll discuss your moral quandary.”
Molly realized for the first time she was starving, and followed him meekly into the door of a chrome-and-glass establishment.
○●○
He should have denounced her. Blaise knew that. He should have called the authorities on her. Usaians set bombs, caused riots, killed people. They were a disruptive element in society, and it would be much better for everyone if they were all arrested, re-educated or even killed. It seemed heartless, but there it was. Without Usaians preaching sedition and seducing her to their madness, his sister would still be alive. And he wouldn’t have had to learn some really hard truths about life at too young an age.
But look at Molly. The girl was young. He’d guess sixteen or seventeen, even if she was trying to make herself look older. And she was obviously out on this kind of thing alone, for the first time in her life. And she was obviously scared. Also, and he didn’t think this was just because she was exceptionally pretty, with curly red hair and big innocent blue eyes, she seemed nice. He couldn’t imagine her, deliberately, hurting anyone. It was that which called out to him. He wouldn’t let her come to harm. He would protect her. And hopefull
y, he would convince her to take herself back home and stay safe. He wondered if her parents even knew what she was doing.
“Wow,” Molly said, looking around, as Blaise guided her to a booth at the back, almost completely surrounded by what looked like a stainless steel partition though Blaise knew it was really made of much cheaper ceramite. “Are there servers? I don’t see any servers.”
“No,” he said. “This is a Speedy’s.” And to her blank look, “They were a chain started centuries ago. No human cooks, no human employees. The untouched-by-human-hands quality of their food is a major appeal, as are cheap prices. You’ve never seen one? Where do you live?”
She shook her head. “Syracuse. We don’t have them.”
He almost whistled under his breath. Syracuse Seacity was a good half day journey away from where he’d found her. She’d been on this mission a long time by herself. And it would be a right pain to take her back there. But not as much of a pain as staying here and being arrested. Or having her captured. He was sure she was out of her depth. She didn’t deserve to be captured.
He sat her down and waited till she perused the menu projected on the table, picked something and clicked on it. He picked something at random. Moments later the table opened and ejected their drink orders.
Blaise took a sip of his cool soda and said, “Listen, Molly, those people you’re supposed to warn, if they’re Usaians, they made their choice. They chose to belong to a forbidden cult. They always knew death was part of the deal. You owe them nothing. Let me take you home.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide, as though he’d suggested fricasseeing babies.
○●○
“You’re telling me you think they deserve death because they believe the wrong things?” Molly asked. She couldn’t believe it. Mom and Dad had said there were people like this, but she’d never met them. She really must have had a sheltered religious upbringing as Mom and Dad said she had.
He shrugged. He looked sulky. “Well, you know, beliefs have consequences. If they go around killing people and setting bombs and stuff, they deserve what is coming to them.”
“You think that’s what Usaians do?” She felt vaguely ill.
“Well, not you, obviously, and maybe not your family. But all you have to do is read the news to know—”
“It’s made up. Usaians are used to cover up all sorts of things the Good Men do to each other in their trade wars, and their rivalry over continental territories.” She bit the corner of her lip and added, “It’s not that we don’t do stuff like that, I think, sometimes. Or at least in religious education we were told of people who were assassins and things, way back, but mostly when we kill it is people who are killing us, or people who are attacking us. And if we ever planted bombs – not that I heard of us doing that recently – it would be so that it delayed prosecution and some of our people could get away.”
A muscle worked on the side of his jaw. “But even if you don’t do that,” he said, and he didn’t look like he was conceding anything. “You know that your ideas can lead to that. Like this idea that everyone should be equal.”
Molly drew herself up in her dignity. He really was too stupid to live. “We don’t believe everyone should be equal. We believe everyone should be equal under the law. Like, say the Good Man decides he wants you dead. What happens?”
He stared. “I die.”
“Yeah, and what happens if you want the Good Man dead?”
He grimaced. “I’m out of luck.”
“Well, we think that should be equal. Both of you should be forbidden to murder each other.”
“But the Good Man is the ruler. If you’re the ruler, you have to do that stuff, to keep the peace.”
“No, you don’t. There is another form of governance in which the people choose leaders, and those leaders still have to answer to the law.”
“If your Usa was so perfect, why did it fall?”
“Because they forgot their own beliefs,” she said sadly.
He was used to this fallen-from-Eden story. He’d heard it from his sister. But while Suzy had delivered it with “I memorized the catechism” tones, Molly spoke as though she’d studied it and worked it out in her head.
“Look, it’s neither here or there. I don’t want you to die. Let me take you home.”
She shook her head. The blue eyes looked darker, probably because she’d half-lowered her eyelids as though in pain. “No. If I go home, they all die. Every one of them. Parents and children together. I can’t have that on my conscience.”
“The Good Man won’t have children killed.”
She looked saddened. “Ever heard the saying, puppies grow into dogs?”
○●○
Molly was exasperated. He looked very shocked the authorities would kill children. Was he really not informed at all? She told him some recent stories and saw his eyebrows rise almost to his hairline.
Her order was delivered by the table. She should be brave and principled, and walk out on him. But she was starving and she had no idea where to go. If she was going to slog it around the seacity blindly, she might as well have some food in her.
The stew was very good, and Blaise listened to her, with only the occasional frown. When they were done, and he had slid a credgem into the right slot, he said, “I’m not saying I believe as you do, but granting that entire families would be destroyed if you gave up now, I’m willing to see this message delivered. And then I’ll get you home. What do we do next?”
And that’s when she had to tell him she had no idea. “The man at the repair shop,” she said, at last. “He said he was—”
“A Usaian,” Blaise said. “I gathered from your look, but we don’t know where he lives and the shop is closed. And besides, they know we disappeared near there, so anyone connected might be watched.”
“So—”
“So I might know someone,” he said.
She was impressed that he might know a Usaian but hadn’t denounced him.
After that, Blaise was in control. He took them by a vending machine, where they got clothes, and turned his back while she changed. The clothes were whole-body rough-looking woven-ceramite clothes, the kind people wore for manual labor. He got her a hat, under which she could hide her hair. She realized, surprised, that it made her look like a boy, on reflection in the nearest shop window. As for Blaise, he looked just right, like the unlettered farm boy he was. Or was he?
○●○
Blaise had hoped he’d never have to come this way again, but there was nothing for it. He led Molly up two seacity levels, and then got an automated fly-taxi, which he paid with an unidentified credit gem. He punched in the address he’d hoped to forget, the one where he’d gotten news of his sister’s death.
Long before they landed, though, from the air, he could see that there were a lot of orange peacekeeping flyers around the address. He changed the landing coordinates to a few blocks away, but his heart had sped up and he became conscious of a deep sense of injury.
Mrs. Jordan was an inoffensive old woman, so obviously inoffensive that even Blake hadn’t denounced her, even while blaming the Usaian cult for his sister’s death. Why did they need twenty peacekeeping flyers to arrest her?
As they were landing, he told Molly what was happening. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She was the only person I knew was a Usaian, and she’s obviously being arrested.”
“We have to save her.”
“Molly, there are twenty flyers there, and only two of us. And she might be dead already.”
“We have to save her.” She grabbed his upper arm near the shoulder and squeezed. “We have to. No one deserves that. And if they interrogate her—”
○●○
It was obvious to Molly that Mrs. Jordan was the sort of woman who knew things, a contact point, possibly, between various groups of Usaians. There was no other way she could have known and told Blaise that his sister had been arrested and killed.
He finally seemed to underst
and how important it was that they get her, because otherwise even more people might be killed.
“But if she is a good person, she won’t talk,” he said.
“They have drugs. You can’t help talking. Unless you’ve been immunized against them, and only high risk positions are. We have to save her.”
“But what if she’s dead?”
“She won’t be. They want her information.”
○●○
It turned out exactly as crazy as Blaise expected. They’d walked, close the shadows of the wall, as close as they could to where the flyers were.
The door to Mrs. Jordan’s home was wide open, and people were coming and going inside. At first they could see no sign of her and then Blaise glimpsed her, inside of an open door flyer, in the periphery of the grouping. Most of the interest and investigation right now seemed to be in the house, and Mrs. Jordan was in the flier, handcuffed, with a single peacekeeper watching her.
Blaise looked at Molly. Molly nodded. Where had the girl found a burner?
He didn’t ask. Instead, the two of them moved around the circle, keeping as much to the edges as possible.
They were almost at the flyer, when someone called “Hey!” and Molly turned and burned him where he stood, before leaping to the flyer where Mrs. Jordan was captive.
“I thought you said we weren’t going to kill people!” Blaise said, though he was aware no such thing had been promised.
“I burned his knee,” Molly said, and then she was doing the same to the peacekeeper on the flyer who’d turned to Blaise as the obvious threat.