The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy)

by Benner, Tarah

I nodded. “I was with my friend Greyson, who’s undocumented, and we were identified by one of the rovers. The PMC ambushed us, and he was captured.”

  Ida shook her head sympathetically. “I am so sorry to hear that.”

  “He and I were supposed to leave together to go west. We’d been planning it for weeks.”

  “Are you telling me you were flagged by the PMC?” Roman asked.

  “Is it true?” Logan interrupted. “What people are saying? Are there illegal settlements and no carriers at all?”

  “That’s what we hear,” said Ida. “Although I’m sure they have their outbreaks just like anywhere. The difference is the PMC never really got a strong foothold out west.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Amory muttered. “It’s not as if the federal government didn’t turn its back on them, too!”

  “The government made a choice that seemed to be for the best at the time,” said Ida. “And they had their supporters. Nobody could have predicted the outbreaks —”

  “Oh, you can’t possibly believe that!” Amory snapped, slamming his hand down on the table with enough force to make the silverware jump.

  “Amory!” Logan shook her head at him.

  “You are all so blind to what’s been going on! The Collapse was no coincidence. It’s such a lie!”

  “Stop!” Logan yelled. “Just stop! I can’t hear any more of your crazy conspiracy theories.”

  “Will you open your eyes and look around?” Amory brandished his hands around him, his eyes gleaming. “With the food shortages and the oil crisis, the government was already on the ropes! When the outbreak started, people were terrified, and the federal government looked completely incompetent. Are you telling me that wasn’t the perfect opportunity for the PMC to seize power for good? Are you telling me that the ‘Collapse’ just happened overnight?”

  “You’re fucking crazy! It’s not some big conspiracy.”

  Amory slammed his hand down. “Doesn’t it seem a little odd to you that the U.N. hasn’t stepped in to help? Not one country — not a single one — has offered foreign aid. When the PMC took control, no one was paying attention to the fact that we were losing our rights or that the PMC was alienating all of our allies. Everyone just said please and thank you when we invaded Canada, and suddenly the PMC has the perfect opportunity to brand us like cattle and track our every move!” He punctuated the last two words with bangs on the table, and his jagged scar shone in the light of the lantern as a glowing, pearly “X” etched into his skin.

  I sank lower in my seat. I’d had plenty of similar dinners with Greyson and his heated outbursts of theories, but with Amory, it was different — somehow more personal.

  “You can’t really think that!” Logan’s eyes were shining. “They were brought in as our protectors. The federal government wasn’t doing anything!”

  “So why is it just us, huh? The virus isn’t killing off the Chinese or the Germans. Why hasn’t it spread?” He paused a beat for dramatic effect. “Because it’s a controlled outbreak!”

  “You can’t be serious!” Logan’s voice was dead quiet. “They’re not monsters!”

  “Not monsters? You think what they do can be justified?”

  “N-No, of course not. Things got out of hand. There was a lot of corruption in the PMC after the vaccination came out.”

  “Do you hear yourself? Nobody knows how the virus spreads really, but then some scientist comes out of nowhere with a vaccine. Pretty convenient that the only way to ensure a citizen has been vaccinated is with a CID.”

  “I just don’t believe it. I won’t. They wouldn’t knowingly jeopardize millions of lives just to mandate the CID.”

  Amory sat back, looking grim and satisfied. “Believe what you want. The outbreak and the migration and the ID bill were all part of a carefully orchestrated coup that essentially dismantled every democratic ideal this country has held for the last three hundred years. But by all means . . . live in your happy bubble of ignorance and denial.”

  Logan pushed her chair away from the table and made to stand up, but Ida placed a wrinkled hand gently on her arm. “Sit down. Nobody leaves the table in anger.”

  “Are you all deaf?” Roman’s voice startled me. “Or are you just ignoring the small detail that we are housing an illegal who probably led the PMC right to our front door!”

  I froze. He was talking about me. The PMC had identified me, and it was possible that they had tracked me there.

  “They can’t trace her,” said Amory. “She was too far away for any street rovers to pick up the signal.”

  Roman cut him off. “Satellite rovers fly over the trail all the time.”

  Amory shook his head. “Ida has the signal jammer.”

  “That might not even work.”

  “It’s worked fine so far.”

  Roman shot him a dark look. “That sure makes me feel better.”

  “If it doesn’t work, we’re all going down anyway. Undocumented illegals aren’t a hell of a lot better than known defectors.”

  “Says the defector,” Roman shot back. He sighed, clearly disappointed and annoyed that his concerns were so easily dismissed.

  Amory looked smug, and Ida smiled toothily at us all. “I like a little spirited debate among friends at dinner!” Her eyes lingered on Amory as she pronounced the word “friends,” but she did not appear cross.

  Roman settled back into his chair, not bothering to conceal his glare in Amory’s direction. But somehow, miraculously, the fog of tension seemed to dissipate slightly.

  “So Haven,” Ida said, changing the subject again. “You probably need some clothes and supplies. I don’t imagine you managed to bring very much with you.”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay. I go to the Exchange tomorrow, so I can pick up whatever you need.”

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t ask you to do that,” I began. “You’ve done so much already . . . opening up your home, sharing your food.”

  “Please, dear. It’s what I do.” She smiled. “It makes me feel useful, like I’m actually doing something to help.”

  I hesitated. “If you don’t mind me asking, what is this place? Why do you take us all in when we’re —”

  “When you’re undocumented and I’m not?”

  I nodded.

  “Just because I have a Citizen ID doesn’t mean I agree with what’s going on out there. I chose to comply with documentation because I enjoy teaching my students, and I intend to keep teaching them until they are all forced to migrate north to join their parents. I think I’m more useful to the cause that way. Being documented allows me to move around the city, bring back supplies. It also keeps this house beyond reproach. Since I’m complying with the law, teaching at the university, paying my taxes, nobody bothers me out here very often.

  “But I knew that there were many people who did not want to submit to such a disgusting breach of personal liberty. So I thought I could offer my home as a safe house for travelers and as headquarters for The Patriot Press.”

  I must have looked puzzled, because she elaborated.

  “I am first and foremost a journalist, Haven. And the press was not fulfilling its watchdog role. Besides, Internet access is not widely available to those without a CID. Not like it matters much — anyone publishing anything perceived as revolutionary online is facing serious repercussions these days.”

  “So you’re publishing your own newspaper,” I breathed in awe.

  “Not me alone, but yes. According to my information, no government body tied to the PMC is monitoring the U.S. mail right now. They’ve got bigger fish to fry. I have lots of old contacts in the press — journalists who have retired or gone into hiding. I still receive reliable correspondence from all over the country.”

  My heart thudded in my chest. I couldn’t believe there was an entire movement of people defying the PMC. “How are you distributing it?”

  “I have some connections with other patriots who offer their homes to travelers
. They help get word to those on the run.” She leaned forward and made intense eye contact. “When people so desperately want the truth, they will seek it out.”

  “So what is ‘the Exchange’?” I asked Logan.

  “It’s a cross between the farmer’s market and the black market,” she said with a grin. “It’s held every Saturday at a location that changes constantly. You can get anything there: food, clothes, weapons, ammo, jail-broken smartlenses — anything. You can pay in cash or trade.”

  I opened my mouth to ask something else, but I was cut off by a high-pitched, blaring wail. Although it seemed to echo through the night, the sound was coming from within the house. Everyone froze, their forks clattering to their plates.

  “PMC,” Logan whispered.

  “Okay, everyone, you know what to do,” said Ida. “Evacuate as planned.”

  Everyone moved silently at once, methodically carrying out duties they had clearly rehearsed. Max snuffed out the overhead lantern and lit a smaller one, going from room to room, putting out lamps and the fire. Logan and Roman left the room and returned with several rifles slung over their shoulders and a box of ammo.

  I followed Amory to the kitchen, unsure what to do. He flipped over the rag rug near the hearth and felt around until his fingers found a crevice in the wood. He gripped the edges and pulled up the planks to reveal a two-by-two-foot opening.

  “This house was used in the underground railroad.” He looked up at me. “Go ahead. I’ll be right down.”

  I hesitated, perched over the opening. It was pitch black.

  I swung my legs over the side, feeling for a foothold.

  “You have to jump,” said Amory, retrieving a lumpy sack from the pantry.

  I took a deep breath and pushed myself off the ledge.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It wasn’t as far of a drop as I thought, but since I couldn’t judge the distance, I wasn’t prepared to catch myself. I fell forward onto my hands, the side of my face making contact with something soft and lumpy. It was a canvas bag.

  “Haven,” Logan whispered. “Take these.”

  She was hovered over the hole, holding a rifle.

  I got to my feet and reached up to take the gun. The metal felt cold and heavy in my hand, and I shivered as she passed them down to me one by one.

  She jumped in after them, followed by Ida in her billowing carpet skirt.

  I heard Amory’s voice from overhead. “Here, take this.”

  “What? Where are you going?” Max hissed.

  “I forgot something.”

  “No, Amory. Don’t be stupid!”

  Max appeared above the opening, clutching the bag Amory had grabbed from the pantry. He passed it down first, followed by the lantern. He jumped down, and Roman followed.

  “Where’s Amory?” I asked.

  Logan and Max exchanged a look.

  “He’s coming,” Max said.

  My heart pounded in my chest, guilt and fear constricting it in a viselike grip. If I had brought the PMC there . . .

  “Let’s go,” said Roman.

  “We have to wait,” Logan snapped. In the flickering light of the single lantern, I could see the terror in her eyes. “Amory —”

  “Amory knows the protocol,” Ida interjected.

  Logan looked close to tears.

  “He can catch up to us.”

  Reluctantly, Max pulled a crate under the opening and reached up to pull the floorboards back into place.

  My eyes took a while to adjust, but when they did, I saw that we were not in a cellar, but the mouth of a narrow tunnel. The floor was packed dirt and gravel, but it was supported by huge wooden beams that made it look like an old mine.

  Everyone grabbed one of the canvas sacks I had landed on and slung it over their shoulders. Since I did not have an emergency evacuation bag, I took a rifle and Amory’s bag from the kitchen. It was heavy and clanked a lot, probably filled with food from the pantry.

  I followed the others through the tunnel, worrying about Amory. What had he gone back for? Was he showing himself to the PMC to give us more time to escape? The thought was too terrible.

  Judging by the silence in the group, the others were wondering the same thing. I could no longer hear the blaring wail of the alarm from the house, but it seemed to be burned in the back of my mind, making my ears ring.

  The tunnel narrowed the farther we went, the ceiling dropped lower, and the floor seemed to slope upward. It was as if the tunnel were closing in on us.

  At first, I thought maybe I was imagining it, but after a while, I noticed the others were moving much more slowly, heads bent.

  Max, who was leading the way, stopped and set down his lantern. The light illuminated the passageway, and I could see we had reached the end of the tunnel. He reached his hands up and pushed. I couldn’t see any light coming through the opening, but it appeared to be another false floor.

  There was another crate off to the side, which Max used to climb up through the opening. He helped Ida up next and then Logan. Roman turned to me, looking unfriendly, but he let me pass through first. I stepped onto the crate and poked my head up through the floor, which came up to my chest. Once I put down the things I was carrying, it wasn’t difficult to pull myself up and out of the tunnel. We were inside a tiny shed. Roman followed behind me and slid the false floor back into place.

  The shed was crowded with old farm equipment, so the five of us stood hunched shoulder to shoulder in the small space. Ida was peering out of a crack in the wood, her long silvery hair catching the bright, artificial light. The searchlight moved, throwing us back into total darkness.

  Nobody moved or spoke. Then the false floor over the opening rattled, making everyone jump. I looked at Logan, who raised a rifle and pointed it at the opening. Everyone watched, holding their breath.

  The boards slid over, and I leaned forward to stare into the tunnel. Magnus the cat flew out, propelled by an unknown force, hissing with his orange fur standing on end. Nobody moved.

  Then Amory stuck his head out, and I felt my body relax. He was alive.

  “Are you crazy?” Logan hissed, putting down her gun. “The PMC is flying over as we speak.”

  “What? Were you just going to leave him?” Amory asked, looking aghast.

  Logan rolled her eyes and sank down onto an upturned wheelbarrow. We waited for what felt like hours, although it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.

  Finally, the search light disappeared completely, and the sound of the chopper faded into the darkness.

  “What the hell was that about?” Max asked. His face looked especially white in the bluish glow of the night sky trickling in through the cracks in the walls.

  “Were they looking for me?” My voice shook a little, but I had to ask. I knew everyone was already wondering the same thing.

  “No,” said Amory. “They wouldn’t send out a chopper for something as minor as aiding and abetting a defector. You’re off their radar by now.”

  “I agree,” said Ida. “They must be searching for rebel cells in the area.”

  “Do you think they’ll be back?” Logan asked.

  Ida shook her head. “I don’t know, but it seems they didn’t find what they were looking for tonight. Our greatest advantage is that we don’t operate the way they think we do, so they don’t really know what to look for.”

  As we trudged back through the tunnel, I felt the exhaustion wash over my body. Nobody spoke much. I expected that the gravity of the situation was still sinking in, and I understood what Logan had meant when she said the safe house didn’t always feel very safe. Was this what it was like being undocumented? The constant threat of the PMC and the fear of discovery looming over you?

  When we reached the other side of the tunnel, Max muttered something about reheating the food, but his heart wasn’t really in it. We all helped clear the table and climbed upstairs to bed.

  The next morning, I awoke to the feeling of my legs being crushed by someth
ing . . . or someone. Sitting up in alarm, I realized it was just Logan perched on my shins, looking far more awake than I felt and somehow managing to look glamorous wearing a baggy flannel shirt, ripped jeans, scuffed boots, and her hair piled into a golden bun near the top of her head.

  “Get up! It’s your first day on the farm!” she squealed, slapping my kneecap. “We’ve got a lot to do today.”

  I groaned, unable to behave like a polite guest so early in the morning.

  “Let’s grab a bite to eat and bring it along. We’re first watch.”

  Logan tossed me a pair of her jeans, a sweater, and a lumpy jacket. Thinking privacy wasn’t really an option, I changed quickly while she bounced on the balls of her feet.

  As soon as I had buttoned the jeans, she flew through the door and thundered down the stairs to the kitchen. I followed her, groggily pulling my hair into a low ponytail. She grabbed us each a napkin full of coffee cake, shoved one in each of her pockets, and bounded out the front door. She led me across the yard out toward the barn.

  “You’re late,” grumbled Amory, who was carrying a large bucket of what looked like livestock feed. His hair stuck up a little in the back, and he looked as though he’d been up all night.

  Logan stuck up her middle finger at him. “I’m teaching,” she said, smiling and pirouetting into the barn.

  “Yeah, well every hour you ‘teach’ is an hour one of us has to pick up an extra carrier shift.”

  She rolled her eyes, donned an old Carhartt jacket hanging on a hook inside the door, and turned her back to me to fiddle with the padlock on an old cabinet. Finally, I heard the metallic click that freed the door, and she turned to face me, holding a shotgun in each hand.

  I took an automatic step back, an icy wave of apprehension shooting down my spine.

  She put one on her shoulder and, as if thinking better of it, turned back to retrieve a smaller one. “Here,” she said, holding it out to me.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know how to shoot.”

  Logan rolled her eyes. “It’s just a BB gun. You’ll get some target practice, and then we’ll let you try later with the real thing. No sense wasting ammo.”