“I’m sure they’re fine,” Ian tells me as he drives.
“I wouldn’t be sure about anything when Crane’s involved,” I tell him.
“You think he’d harm Raven?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“I mean, I know Crane is fucked in the head, but he wouldn’t hurt a child. Raven’s nothing but a baby.”
I remember how much Ian has missed. “You know what he did last time? When Crane decided that all of the Sovereign needed to be tattooed, so that their rank would be easily identifiable?” I hold out my wrist and pull up my sleeve so he can see the mark burned into my skin.
Merely glancing at the mark, Ian slows the SUV considerably, preparing to pull into the hidden driveway of the Pasture as I continue. “He beckoned me to the hospital with some bull-crap excuse of needing my help. And while I was gone the Volker stormed the Pasture and tattooed the children.” Ian shifts in his seat. “I know you saw the mark on Lina’s wrist. Sam tried to stop them. That’s when he was new here, before he learned how Crane runs things and how the rules seem to change to accommodate his agenda.”
“What happened when Sam tried to stop them?” Ian asks.
“They sedated him. But that didn’t stop one of the Guardians from killing the Volker that stabbed Sam in the neck with the needle.”
“Hmm,” he responds thoughtfully. “Hang on.” Ian gets out of the vehicle and punches in the code to open the gates to the Pasture. He returns to the driver’s seat. “So these Guardians, I thought they were pretty innocent. Now you tell me that they are capable of killing?” he asks.
“I’ve only seen it happen once,” I tell him.
“What are they?” he asks, gripping the steering wheel tightly as he drives down the gravel road of the Pasture. “I mean, what are they really? I’ve never seen any dog like them before.”
“Crane told me once that he created them. So I can only assume that they are some genetically engineered species.”
Ian nods as he processes the information. He pulls up next to the barn that holds Elvis’s office. “Seems Crane has a thing with manipulating nature,” he finally responds.
We both get out of the SUV and look around the courtyard. Everything seems to be in order.
Elvis walks out of the barn.
“Welcome back,” he tells us, walking towards us.
“Elvis, did we have any visitors today?” I ask.
“No one has come through here,” he tells me. “Why do you ask?”
I shake my head at him. I’m still not fully trusting Elvis. He is an Entity. Morris told me for certain. “I’m going to get my children,” I tell him. I start walking towards the schoolhouse, expecting Ian to follow me but he doesn’t. I turn to find him speaking with Elvis. I’m sure they are talking about what just happened in the meeting. I have to let Ian know that Elvis is not one to trust. None of the Entities are. And I guess that means that he can’t even trust me.
--
It’s been days since Crane threatened Raven’s life. I’ve been working away like a good little Sovereign, waiting for the children to wake up. Hoping that my compliance with Crane’s terms will distract him from Raven.
“Andie?” Ian asks.
Turning, I find him standing in the doorway. I save my work and take a break from assigning the Residents into pairs. “Yeah.” I shut down the computer.
“We need to talk.”
“About what.”
“Something important.” He looks around the room before walking towards me. “Meet me outside. At the ruins.”
“For what?” I ask. I haven’t been to the ruins since before Raven was born. They are just some broken down old buildings out in the forest.
“Just meet me there. After the children are in school.”
“Why, Ian? What’s this about?”
“Andie, just come. Trust me.” He gives me a look, a pleading, trust me look.
“Okay.” I agree, watching as he walks out the door. Great. I don’t know what he’s planning, but meeting in the overgrown ruins in the woods is not my version of a hot date. He’s up to something.
I get the children ready for school. And as we walk to the schoolhouse, I pass Ian in the courtyard. He stops to hug Lina and Raven.
“Fifteen minutes,” he whispers to me.
I nod at him, still unsure of what he’s planning. He smiles, and gives me that look. I’ve seen it before, the one that tells me he’s thinking of other things. He nods. My fingertips tingle. I’m not ready for whatever he’s planning. I don’t want a date in the woods. I want to formulate a plan to keep my children safe and get rid of Crane for good.
After leaving the children with Blithe, I head for the south fields and the ruins. I zip my jacket to my chin to ward off the morning spring chill. The walking should warm me up. I notice the Guardians of the forest as I pass. They watch me. Only one follows behind me, they know I’m on my best behavior.
I pass the small lake and before long I can see the dilapidated buildings ahead of me. I follow Ian’s tracks, the disturbed leaves and footprints in the spring mud.
“Ian?” I ask as I come upon the first house. Stepping up onto the sagging porch and looking inside, I see nothing.
I move on to the next one. The roof is gone, the cavity inside filled with small trees and thick moss. A bird flutters as I walk by. The door is open on the third house. This one still has a roof. I peer inside and see a glow coming from under the floorboards. I remember this one; this is the house with the hollow floor, the one the Guardians wouldn’t let me explore. I take a deep breath. A date in a musty basement, still not my idea of fun. As I walk closer, the floorboards groan under me.
“Andie?” I hear Ian’s voice.
“Yeah,” I respond.
“Come down here.” He holds out an old oil lantern, illuminating the aged stairs that lead into the ground.
“Ian?” I ask as I take his hand when I reach the last few steps. “What are we doing down here?”
I let my eyes adjust to the darkness, taking in the sight before me. There’s a table, chairs, lanterns. Sam and Elvis are here, seated and waiting.
This is not a date, this is some secret meeting.
“What are you all doing down here?” I ask.
“Formulating a plan,” Ian answers. “We can’t risk Blithe seeing us. She answers directly to Crane.”
I look to Sam, he nods.
I look to Elvis, he nods.
“A plan for what?” I ask.
“To overthrow Crane,” Ian tells me.
I look to Elvis. “You can’t be here,” I tell him, pointing so everyone in the room knows exactly who I’m talking to.
“It’s alright, Andie,” he tries to soothe me.
“No, Elvis, you can’t be here. I know who you are, who you really are. And you know what I am now. You can’t be here. They don’t know about you, who you really are. You’re not just a rancher out here watching the farm.” I don’t say that he is a Funding Entity. I don’t say that I am now either, it is forbidden. I turn to Ian and Sam. “You’re worried about Blithe seeing us? You need to be worried about him.”
“I’m on board, Andie,” Elvis says. “I went to Ian and Sam first.”
“It’s true,” Ian speaks up.
“What do you think will come of this?” I ask Elvis. “When Crane finds out, this is just what he needs.”
“We want Burton Crane gone. A lot of us have wanted Crane gone for a long time now.”
“Why didn’t you come to me then? Instead you go behind my back and involve my family!”
“You were in Crystal River. I approached Ian in case anything happened.”
I look to Ian, who nods in agreement.
“Crane has a lot of friends,” I tell them.
“Crane has a lot of enemies,” Elvis retorts. “A lot of people, powerful people, who are afraid of him, who would like to see him gone.”
“What does he have on them?” I ask.
&
nbsp; “He knows their secrets, all of their secrets,” Elvis replies.
“Their secrets mean nothing to me,” I tell Elvis. “I don’t care about their secrets. I just want him out of my life for good.”
“So do many other people.”
“And then what happens?” I ask. “What happens to this new society; the Sovereign, the Residents, the Survivors?”
“It is all set up. The Districts are running smoothly. There’s not much else to do but continue on.”
I turn to Sam and Ian. “You two realize what you’re getting into?”
“I think we’ve known for a long time, Andie,” Sam replies.
I don’t think they really know. I don’t think they understand what I’ve gone through to get them all back, to have peace, just a tiny bit of peace.
“Who else is involved?” I ask Elvis.
“No one else is on board yet, officially.”
“And how do you intend to get them on board?”
They all stare at me.
I get that dropping, free-falling feeling in my gut. “Are you kidding me?”
“What?” Ian asks.
“Me?”
“You’ve been to all the Districts,” Elvis tells me. “You’ve met all the other Sovereign. Some of them trust you. Some of them trust you a lot. Like the ones with weapons.”
He’s talking about Hanford, the District that’s bursting at the seams with weapons and technologies we don’t have here.
“There are others too,” I respond. “There are other Sovereign who are just as much a psychopath as Crane, like Sakima in Tonopah,” I remind Elvis. “Sakima will never be on board, he’s brutal, and there are more Residents there than anywhere else. He has thousands of medicated minions. I’m sure you know, Elvis, because you are privy to these details. Sakima refuses to take any of his Sovereign off of the medication. We wouldn’t stand a chance against them. We don’t have the population.”
“We aren’t talking war here, Andie,” Elvis tells me. “We’re talking about taking one orange-haired denominator out of the equation. The rest of the pieces are already set into place.”
I don’t like this. But then again, I dislike following Crane’s orders more. “Fine,” I tell them angrily. “I only ask one thing.”
“What?” Elvis asks.
“Tell them how your family died.”
He told me a few years ago, his wife and daughter died in a car accident. But that’s an easy excuse and it sounds like something I’ve heard before. Adam’s family died in a car accident and he didn’t think it was really an accident. I don’t think it was for Elvis either.
“Why?” he tips his head.
“Tell them one of your secrets. The real reason why you want Crane out. What happened to your wife and daughter, Elvis? What truly happened?”
He gives me a hard look, presses his lips together. Ian and Sam watch him. “Crane killed them.”
I turn to Sam and Ian. “You see what you have to look forward to? If we don’t succeed in getting him out, we have a lot to lose.”
“You’re on board then?” Elvis asks, not giving them a chance to answer my question.
I look to Sam and Ian. “I have no choice now,” I tell him.
“There will be plenty of choices, and some you will get to make. Let’s break for now. We’ll meet again soon.” Elvis points to Sam and Ian. “Separate paths back home,” he reminds them. “We don’t want to be spotted exiting the forest together.”
They blow out the lanterns. Sam and Elvis head aboveground first. Ian and I wait a few minutes.
“Ready?” Ian asks me.
“Sure.”
Ian takes my hand, leading me up the stairs. He stops to close the opening to the cellar, letting the floorboards drop and cover the open space. We walk towards the fields.
“I bet you didn’t think I had it in me,” Ian tells me proudly as we step out from under the protection of the forest.
“What’s that, Ian?
“Back there.” He thumbs towards the ruins.
“No, Ian, it never crossed my mind that you were suicidal.”
“What?” he asks incredulously.
“That’s all this plan is going to get us. It’s suicide. Someone will die or all of us may die. Crane is not one to be played with, he doesn’t play nice.”
Ian places his hand on my arm, stopping me. “I’m not suicidal.”
“Then what is this? What are you trying to prove?”
“I’ll never forgive myself for not protecting the both of you. I sat by for two years and waited, Andie. Crane used me as his tool and he still is. You think I don’t know that he’s using me?”
I let out a sigh. This is something I’ve wanted to hear for years, an apology from him for not protecting Lina. But now, after everything, it sounds wrong. Deep in my heart I know he’s not truly at fault. “You can’t take the blame. There’s no one here to blame but these people who planned this. Crane is using all of us.”
“You mean that?” He steps closer to me.
I look into his eyes. They’re hopeful, waiting for my response. “Yes.”
He reaches for me, pulling me into his arms. And for the first time in ages, it seems, I wrap my arms around his neck and let him press our bodies together. I don’t do it because I feel like I should; I do it because I want to, because for the first time we are on the same page, we are in this together, finally.
Somehow we manage let go of each other and immediately I miss the familiar warmth of him being so close. “Come on.” I take Ian’s hand and head for the water tower.
As we come to a stop, Ian admires its height and rustiness. “What’s up with this?” he asks.
“Climb,” I tell him as I begin to scale the ladder.
The water tower creaks and groans.
“Do you think this is safe?” Ian asks from below me.
I don’t answer. I just keep climbing and pull myself to the enclosed walking platform that surrounds the top of the water tower. Ian follows and soon he is standing next to me taking in the view.
We can see all of the Pasture from this height; the cooling towers for the nuclear reactors, the lake, the forest that separates us from the surrounding cities and towns. The tree branches are swollen with spring buds and soon the forest will once again become dense and green, enclosing us in a barrier, protecting us from what is outside.
“Why are we here?” Ian asks me.
“This is where I used to come to think,” I tell him.
“Hmm,” he nods and continues to appreciate the view.
I watch him from the corner of my eye as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in. The breeze tugs at his hair, shifting the shaggy blond strands. I sit, my back against the chain-link barrier of the enclosed walking platform. Ian sits next to me, cross-legged.
“I spoke with Dr. Akiyama,” he breaks the silence.
I tense. “About what?”
“Us.” Ian stares at my face, his features softening.
“What did he say?”
“He said that we need to talk. Really talk about everything that’s happened.”
I look away from him, trying to hide the shamed flush that I know is shading my cheeks. A lot has happened in four years, a lot that he doesn’t know and that I’m too ashamed to tell him. My stomach twists with nausea at the thought of everything; how I’ve betrayed him and our marriage.
“Andie?” Ian asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Dr. Akiyama said we could try this game, that it might help, you know, us.” I look at him and his face looks so hopeful with the idea that we might be able to regain what we’ve lost, what we once had.
“Fine,” I tell him. “What do we do?”
“We just say, ‘Do you remember when,’ and then we tell each other a memory, from before… before all of this.” He waves his hand in the air, gesturing to the Pasture below us and towards the demolished city to the south.
I’m not
sure I want to relive any of my memories. I’ve pushed so many of them to the dark recesses of my brain that I can’t think of much now. I just know that I want to stand and climb down the ladder and run away to escape his hopeful gaze. I don’t want to remember our life before. I know we can’t go back to that and I don’t want to remember what’s happened over the past four years, all the changes, because of the things I’ve done and the things Crane required from me. I don’t feel like the person I once was. And truthfully, I’m afraid Ian will see that and he will be just as disgusted with me as I am.
“So, what do you think?” he asks.
My mouth is suddenly dry. “Sure.”
“Okay. I’ll start,” he tells me, his face turning serious.
I nod at him, preparing myself.
“Do you remember when I met you for the first time at that campus party?”
“We actually met in Biology class the day before,” I remind him.
“Oh, yeah. Well, I offered to get you a drink and you told me no and then we got paired up for Chemistry lab the next day.”
I adjust my legs, fidgeting as nervously as I did that day we were paired up. I knew who he was, and his reputation, but I was quite sure he had no idea who I was. “Yeah,” I tell him quietly. “I remember that.”
“Okay, your turn.”
I stare out at the spring forest. I can’t pull one memory. “Can I skip?”
“Just this time.” He continues, “Do you remember when we went to that Japanese restaurant and I forgot to tell you I was allergic to shellfish? I swelled all up and we spent the night in the emergency room.”
“Yeah,” I giggle lightheartedly. “I remember that.” His face was swollen and red and I threatened to take a picture and send it to all of his friends.
“Okay,” he tells me. “Your turn.”
“Do you remember when…” It’s still so hard to pull a good memory of us to the forefront.
“Andie, come on, just try,” he urges.
“I am.” I stare out at the forest again. Finally, I think of one of the most important aspects of my life, what I did all of this for, what I risked everything for. Lina. “Do you remember when Catalina was a baby, and we brought her home and she was so small she barely fit in any of her baby clothes?”
The Phoenix Project Series: Books 1-3: The Phoenix Project, The Reformation, and Revelation Page 67