by Julie Wright
“But they didn’t send me back.” I shook my head realizing there was no way around her. I’d have to play the part of a New Youth so she would drop her suspicions. “Because I deserve to be here. I’m the elite. I—”
Kathleen let out a grunt of disapproval. “Oh stop! You don’t believe that. I told you I’ve been watching you from the beginning, keeping track of where you go, who you talk to. Professor Raik doesn’t trust you. He lets you stay because you’re intelligent and strong and those are attractive traits. If you go to him like a sacrificial lamb, he’ll have no problem slaughtering you. You already know he’s capable.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I saw Jay Savage come to your room the other night. Are my assumptions right about why he was there?”
“You haven’t told me what your assumptions are,” I said carefully.
“The marrieds were all separated, secreted away, and then they lost their babies. Why wouldn’t they keep these people together so that any offspring they create would grow up together, intermarry, and create more offspring? Why would they all lose their babies when nothing was wrong with any of them? Jay knows about the babies, doesn’t he?”
Careful. I had to be careful. But I was also so afraid, and her questions jumbled my senses. I stared at her black skirt.
Her hand went to my chin, and she forced me to look at her. “You’re not like them. Your heart is good. If you want to help Jay and Jennifer, then you can’t face him directly. He’s crazy, you know.”
The word crazy made me jerk my chin from her hand.
“Don’t act surprised. You know it’s true. That man walks an unstable line. You go to him and you will lose yourself.”
I threw my arms up in the air. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“Every fine home has a service entrance. And I happen to know the people who take care of that house.” She smiled. In that smile, I made up my mind to trust her.
I told her my whole plan. “Tonight’s too soon!” She insisted when I tried to get her to go with me immediately. “The only servers in his house after dark are cooks, and not one of his cooks is friendly enough to help you; plus, he’ll be home. You don’t want him home while you snoop about. Wait until morning. Be patient.”
Patience wasn’t my best virtue, if I could count it as a virtue at all. Sleeping was impossible, and I had to pull out my sun quilt after Alison had started snoring. That did the trick and soon it was morning. I acted sick so Alison would get ready and leave without me. Then I hurried to dress myself, repacked my backpack, and waited for Kathleen to fetch me.
Part of me feared she was setting me up, and it took every ounce of effort not jump up and run away on my own.
When the door glowed green and Kathleen appeared, I half expected a small army of soldiers to be with her.
She was alone and looked as nervous as I felt.
“I’ve done some looking into things, just in case he keeps things in his office here. I didn’t find anything, so it must be all at his house. I know some people handy with the IDR access who broke into his lapdesk. He doesn’t keep anything much there except student schedules and other things that don’t help. That means everything you need is physical—real paper and the like. That man may be crazy, but he’s smart enough to know how vulnerable the lapdesk access is to anyone with a whit of skill. I’d hoped we could keep you out of his house altogether, but it looks like you’ll have to go in.”
I nodded, anxiously awaiting her to lead the way, but she stopped me. “Leave your ring here. The IDR won’t grant you access to the dark and will alert to those watching that you’re trying to go into unauthorized areas.”
I yanked the ring off my finger, placed it under my pillow, and followed her to the dining hall. We didn’t go through the doors I typically used—the ones all the New Youths used. We went through the door that led to the kitchens. Dennis was there.
“Den, I got a package for you to deliver to your girlfriend’s mum.”
Dennis wiped his hands on the front of his food-stained white smock and looked up to find me there. He immediately shook his head and backed away. “Last time I took her to the dark levels, Natalie got tased.”
“Yes, well this time, you’d better be more careful because if anything happens to Summer, you’ll wish it was a just a good tasing you’d get.”
“What’s Natalie’s mum got to do with her?” He’d picked up a chopping knife and deftly sliced a carrot into little orange coins. He’d started another one when Kathleen grabbed his hand away from the chopping block.
“She needs to get into the professor’s house. She just needs information. It’s not like she’ll be taking anything he’d notice was gone. No one will know she’s ever been there. No one will get caught or into trouble.”
I didn’t mention that I’d gathered my things in case I couldn’t come back, in case I did get caught and needed to run. Dennis looked skittish about the whole idea as it was.
When Dennis consented, Kathleen turned back to me. “Good luck.”
“Why are you helping me?”
A shadow fell over her face, and her lower lip tightened against the upper one. “I lost two little girls to testing day.”
I nodded. The words testing day said everything that needed saying. That very first day Kathleen had indicated a great hope in the New Youth. If she now knew the professor was using that hope to make his own life more comfortable, she must be really angry.
Dennis took off his apron. “I’d better hurry. If we’re gone too long, you’ll be wrong about no one being in trouble—I’ll be in trouble.”
I threw my arms around Kathleen’s neck. “Thank you for helping me. You know, you remind me of my aunt Theresa.”
She smiled as though she understood the compliment I never thought I’d place in such words.
***
“Keep up!” Dennis called as he led me deep into the dark levels. I felt like I’d walked down enough stairs to reach the earth’s core.
We entered a wide cobbled sort of street off a narrow alleyway. It felt like we were in a neighborhood at nighttime, not in some weird underground sewage system. He knocked on the third door to the left. The knock made a tinging noise since the door was made from thin rusted tin sheeting. Natalie opened the door and nearly bowled him over in an embrace. “Did you tell them you were sick? How did you get off work?” Then she saw me and dropped her arms so she could fold them over her shirt that glowed an odd bluish white in the light over their door. “What’s going on?”
“We need to talk to your mum.” Dennis looked genuinely sorry to be standing there making such a request.
Natalie eyed us both before widening the gap of the doorway and letting us in.
Natalie’s mom, Maggie, shook her head to say no and shook her fists to say absolutely no. At least until I told her about the babies.
“Babies born naturally . . . and here I’d thought the world was about to end, when you’re telling me it’s just starting over.” She grabbed a bright white apron and placed it over my head. “Raik’s housedressers always wear these. You’ll stand out showing up without it.” She also made me wear a hat to cover my natural brown hair.
Dennis had gone as soon as he’d relayed his message to Maggie. I silently wished him well as he made his way back to the world in the sky.
Maggie gathered a few other things and we set off. We took several derelict elevators going to various degrees of up. She’d apparently had better clearance than Dennis because he hadn’t had access to very many elevators at all. Like Dennis, Maggie barked out orders to pick up my feet and keep up. “If I’m late, there’ll be questions!” She insisted. Once we reached a level she called topside but still seemed like the dark hallways of the cities under the earth, we caught a train.
“He’s almost always gone until five on weekdays.” She coached me on how many precious minutes I’d have. How I should keep my head down and not speak to anyone if I ran into them. “And don’t touch anything
you don’t need to, and absolutely don’t take anything out of the house. I can’t have trouble for my family, understand me?”
I nodded and agreed and tried not to catch her paranoia.
We exited the train and entered a for-hire car. The car took us to Professor Raik’s mansion, settling in the back close to some sheds. A couple of men moved in the garden area beyond the pond, but they didn’t bother to look up beyond a passing glance at the car arriving.
Once the car had taken off, Maggie set off for a small door at the back of the house. “Stay close to me. You aren’t getting in without me and my IDR,” she said in a low voice. “Once we’re inside, I’ll take you to his office. I won’t come back for you for forty-five minutes. His office is the only door in his house that requires an IDR for entrance and exit. You’d better be ready when I come for you because I won’t be giving a second chance by coming back for you.” I nodded even though I walked behind her and she couldn’t see me. I hoped it wouldn’t take forty-five minutes to find where the regents’ apartments were.
We crossed the main hall, where his big party had been held, to a hallway with several doors, his office was the last door straight back. I bounced on my toes a little as Maggie swept her hand over it and it glowed green. “Remember,” she said for the tenth time. “Don’t touch anything you don’t need and don’t take anything! None of the other housedressers have access to this room, so my entire family will be at risk if you get caught. Don’t get caught.” She gave a short nod to indicate she meant business and closed me inside.
I turned to face the office and grunted. The huge room would take hours to search. There were as many shelves in here as there had been in his library upstairs. And they were all full. The shelves seemed too daunting, so I made for the desk first.
The long top drawer held nothing interesting. An old fashioned fountain pen and ink pot sat in a thin marbled case. I snorted at that. Who did the guy think he was? King George? There was a key chain with a chunk of amber dangling at the end. A couple of real keys also dangled from the amber key chain. No one used real keys anymore.
I sifted through his belongings: the letter opener shaped like a dagger, and the odd paperweight shaped like an Egyptian scarab beetle, cough drops, packs of gum, and a few electronic things that could have been anything.
Nothing.
I cursed under my breath, furrowed my brow, and went for the second drawer. He had real paper files here. I opened a few of them, but nothing looked interesting except the one at the back that had a patent seal. It looked like an invention of some sort and had Raik’s name at the top. So was the man a frustrated inventor? I shoved the file back in the drawer. Who cared who the man was or what he wanted. I made a vow not to get lost in anything else I might find until I found the information Jay needed.
I kept that promise through the third drawer, ignoring the files with several names of marrieds and not quite yet marrieds that I knew personally. I kept that promise right up until at the very back I found a file with my name.
I forgot the promise immediately.
“What’s this?” I lifted the file out of the drawer and spread it open on the desk. It had Tag’s report of my life, all the information about who I was, what I liked and didn’t like, my test scores, my grades, my blood type, my physical exam records, news clippings of the accident and the coroner report. Tag had said many times to me in those few days we were together, “When you died in that accident . . .” But I hadn’t really felt dead until reading the news clippings of the accident, my obituary, the coroner’s report. “I really am dead,” I whispered.
In the background of the picture they’d taken of the accident, I could see Winter with her head buried in her hands. I traced my finger over her picture. “I should have stayed in school like you asked, Wineve. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I sniffed and blinked back the stinging in my eyes, and flipped over the newspaper to uncover the papers behind it.
I blinked again, but in confusion this time. It was a report on Winter. I read through it entirely. The report listed a series of dates with boys’ names and the level of infections they carried next to them. It listed her blood type, her physical health stats. There were words like low ovarian volume, low antral follicle count, PID, and the words fatal ectopic pregnancy with a date.
Fatal ectopic pregnancy.
I looked down to find the next paper in the file was her coroner report.
The paper seemed to be shivering as a result of my shaking hands. “She dies!” I started pacing, having entirely forgotten my reason for being in Raik’s office, having entirely forgotten everything.
What else mattered?
I’d done enough studying over the last year on STDs and STIs. I knew what PID meant—pelvic inflammatory disease. Chlamydia caused PID and had the potential for ectopic pregnancies. My sister died as a result of the same thing that was slowly weeding out all of mankind.
“She can’t die!” I yelled. “Not her!” If Jay was getting Jen and the twins out of this time zone, he was taking me with.
I was going home.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I still searched for the information Jay needed but couldn’t find it anywhere. There was nothing on the regent apartments. I took out the files on Jay and Jen and was starting to read them when the light glowed green at the door. I stood up—puzzled. Had it already been forty-five minutes?
The puzzlement drained into horror when I saw Professor Raik’s surprised expression. He took several awkward steps into the room. When his eyes fell on the open files on his desk, his surprise turned to anger. His face contorted into rage.
Three soldiers came in behind him—one of them the redheaded general. They, too, looked surprised to see me there, but none of them looked as surprised as Tag.
“What is the meaning of this?” Professor Raik shouted.
His anger alerted the soldiers that my presence here was unwelcome and the first two snapped their weapons to attention. They were like fine-tuned machines answering the push of a button.
I stood frozen to the spot, a few errant papers still dangling from my fingers. From behind Professor Raik and the soldiers, I caught a glimpse of Maggie’s pale face before she turned and sped away from the scene. I hoped she got her family moved and hidden before anyone realized how I’d gotten in.
“What are you doing here? Who sent you?”
I didn’t answer. My legs were tight and ready to spring into action. My heart pounded so hard that the blood rushing past my ears almost drowned out Professor Raik’s question.
Professor Raik didn’t wait for an answer. “Tase her.”
I should have been grateful he didn’t say, “Kill her.” But before I could even duck, I felt two tiny impacts—one at my chest, and another one at my collar bone. My body seized up like a huge single cramp. My arms curled inward, and I was on my toes as the shock arced through me. Pain coursed up and down my spine, but I couldn’t cry out. My forehead felt like it was being squeezed like a lemon, and my shoulders hunched into my ears. The whole moment felt like an eternity before my seized-up and cramped muscles released and I was on the floor, breathing hard. I yanked the Taser clips off me.
Professor Raik was shouting something and there were other shouts, too. I crawled out from behind the desk so I could see and know where to run, my muscles rapidly getting over the shock of the tasing effects. None of the soldiers had their guns anymore. Tag had a fistful of the general’s red hair and was using the general’s head to ram the other soldier in the chest. The one being rammed was knocked to the ground. The one doing the ramming toppled over, apparently knocked unconscious by the blows. The soldier on the ground pushed the general off and kicked out at Tag’s legs. Tag almost missed jumping the kick and danced back several steps to avoid another swipe. The soldier jumped to his feet and swung at Tag’s face. Tag ducked the punch and came up with two successive blows to the chest and one to the face.
Raik grabbed my ankles and pulled me back b
ehind the desk. He was sitting on me now, pinning my legs to the ground. His hands reached out to try to pin my arms down, too. “Always trouble with you. I should’ve sent you back.”
Instead of answering, I grabbed the lapels of his shiny black suit and used his weight to roll him. I got my leg out from under him and slammed my knee up in between his legs. I straightened my leg and brought it in twice more before daring to try to stand and get away. Raik grabbed for my leg, but I pulled myself up to the desk for leverage and slammed my foot into his nose. His head hit the floor, and he stopped moving.
Tag still fought the soldier, dodging as many punches as he caught. His face had several cuts. The soldier pulled a knife from one of the many pockets in his jacket and Tag punched the soldier’s wrist. With a terrible snapping noise, the soldier’s hand flopped to the side, the knife falling to the ground. Tag turned so his back was to me, swept up his leg and kicked the soldier in the face with his boot, knocking the soldier to the ground.
His chest heaved as he stood over them. His back rising and falling as he struggled for breath.
Raik woke up, moved to his feet, and dragged his hand across his nose, smearing the blood over his cheek. He glanced at the blood on his hand and growled as he lunged for Tag.
“Look out!” I screamed.
Tag turned in time to be caught by the sheer force of Raik’s momentum. They both fell to the floor in a tumble. They rolled and struggled, Professor Raik gaining the advantage, using his hand to keep Tag’s head against the floor so Tag couldn’t roll him the way I had. Tag bit into the fleshy part under Professor Raik’s thumb. Although Professor Raik screamed, he didn’t release Tag.
I grabbed the paperweight of the beetle and, using Tag’s example, in my other hand grabbed a fistful of Raik’s hair. I slammed the beetle paperweight into Raik’s face several times before he released Tag’s head and caught my hand, saving himself from another crunching blow. He twisted my arm, forcing me to cry out and drop the beetle. Pain shot through my shoulder.