I mumble something when Adam says goodnight, then head straight for my bunk, where I lie down and face the wall. After a few minutes I pull the thin blanket over my head and swallow the knot in my throat.
It doesn’t matter why Reed did what he did. He can’t be trusted. He never could.
Secret Service investigators arrive at the House the next day. Some question students, others examine the bomb site for evidence. I guess Kino’s not only relying on Reed to figure out who’s responsible.
The interrogations last several days. It’s not pleasant. I get off easy, limping in and out in less than ten minutes. As one of the bomber’s victims, I’m only asked to answer a few simple questions about where I was and what I saw. Other students are not so lucky, emerging with bruised cheeks, bloody lips, and black eyes. When I see Sam later in the cafeteria, his eye is swollen shut and dried blood crusts around his nose.
“Oh, Sam!”
He turns away from me, still angry I broke my promise. Xoey sits next to him and offers me a sympathetic shrug. When Reed joins us, he sits as far from me as possible.
Dinner is quieter than usual. The House has never been a happy place, but this is something altogether worse. When Director Kino enters (her expensive shoes click-clacking as she strides down the center aisle) my thoughts grow dark. I imagine her dying like Jeanine. I imagine it as justice.
Kino clears her throat and doesn’t waste words. “The bomb was made from a land mine, stolen from our school’s perimeter. One of the most powerful ones used to protect this facility. We do not know how it was unearthed without exploding, how it was detonated outside the science lab, or who detonated it. This is what we do know: those responsible, along with anyone who helps them or hides them, will be caught and swiftly punished. The rest of you will watch and learn.”
She walks out and we resume our meal, our hunger too sharp to be weakened by her threats. When everyone is done, Xoey leans across the table.
“Sam,” she whispers. “Remember how we were wishing there were two of you? For the…special assignment?”
He nods.
“I think I found her.”
Chapter 18
Xoey
* * *
The night after Xu attacked Marie in the stairwell, she came to my room.
“I wanted to thank you for helping me. I...”
A great hiccupping sob interrupted her words. I dropped the hat I was crocheting and crossed the room to hold her hand. We sat together for a while without talking, then she wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
“What are you making?”
I shrugged. “Hats. Mittens. There is so much yarn, and everyone is cold.”
We never talked about Xu again, but she volunteered to help. Since then she has been coming to my room at night and leaning against my bunk while we crochet and talk. Marie loves to talk. Her words pour out in an endless stream, flowing from one thing to another, buzzing like a bee.
That’s how I learned about her gift with computers.
Tonight, I introduce her to Sam on the roof. Oliver is here too, streaming music through his tablet, turning up the volume to mask our conversation. A funky tune fills the air, almost old fashioned with its walking sub base and syncopated drums. I might enjoy it if his speakers were any good, but they crackle like foil inside an aluminum can.
“I’m Oliver.” He shakes Marie’s hand.
She giggles and dips into an awkward curtsy that makes her chestnut curls bounce. “Hi. I’m Marie. Paisley. Paisley Marie.”
Sam frowns. “Which is it? Paisley or Marie?”
“Both. Either.” Her laugh is musical. “Marie is my legal name, but my folks rejected government labels when we escaped to the Red Zone. They believed in finding your own path. Being in harmony with your true self, you know? Naming ourselves the way our ancestors did. So when I was seven, we had a naming ceremony and I got to pick my own name.”
Sam wrinkles his nose. “And you picked Paisley?”
“Sam,” I warn.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to like it.” She bobs her head up and down, like she approves of him for having his own opinion about things. “But I figure you should know it…because it’s me. The real me, anyway, no matter what the UDR says. And if we’re going to work, uh, study together…you know, on your special project...” She trails off with an awkward laugh.
Sam doesn’t join in. She clears her throat and continues. “It’s just…well, there was this old man at one of the refugee camps and he was sweet. Like a grandfather, maybe? We had gotten separated from my dad a week earlier, and we had almost nothing left. And he was gentle and kind, which we needed after some of the people we met along the way. So he told us where the showers were and then guarded our stuff, even though all we had was pathetic: just a few things stuffed in the bottom of Mom’s backpack. But mostly I thought he was cool because he fed scraps to our dog.”
Sam’s eyes widen. “You had a dog?”
“Yes! And just like in the Sand, most camp people think food is wasted on pets, so we had to watch him, you know? To keep him safe. But Gene — did I tell you the old man’s name was Gene? Anyway, he was great with Hugo. Even figured out how to feed him with stuff no one else wanted. What a trick, let me tell you! Then when I started to cry because I was scared of all the weird noises and smells and the different languages I heard after dark, Gene gave me this pillow and said I could keep it. It was purple with turquoise and orange swirls on it. I had never seen anything so pretty. So I said, ‘Oh, look at the pretty flower,’ but Gene said, ‘That’s not a flower, it’s paisley.’”
Her eyes dance. “Paisley. I never heard of it before, but it stuck with me. And I carried that pillow all over until it was old and threadbare. Mom had to burn it when there was an outbreak the next winter. Gene died soon after, just before my naming ceremony. The last time I saw him, he pointed at me and winked. ‘Paisley,’ he said. So I knew. I knew it was my name.”
“You can’t have two names,” Sam says stubbornly.
“Yes she can.” I think her story is beautiful.
Oliver rubs his hands together. “Well, I like both of your names, Paisley Marie. Now let’s talk turkey.”
Five minutes before curfew, we say goodnight to Sam and Oliver and return to the dorm.
Outside the bathroom, Paisley stops me.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “This is totally doable.”
I go to bed, hoping she is right.
Riley props up on one elbow. “Well?”
“Totally doable,” I repeat.
“What does that mean?”
I yawn. “I think it means she is going to help us. Goodnight, Riley.”
I lie down and turn toward the wall. I can almost feel Riley staring at my back. Finally she sighs and lies down.
We are all healing from the explosion physically, but while Riley’s wounds heal, her anger does not. She is still raw from Reed’s betrayal. I wish she would talk about it. She never liked Reed, but I think she was starting to trust him. Now their relationship is worse than ever.
After we all took turns hearing Reed’s full confession, Riley cornered Oliver by the fountain.
“You’re okay with Reed feeding you and Adam to Kino?” she asked. “He told her about our code, O! Doesn’t it bother you?”
“But he didn’t.” Oliver shifted from foot to foot. “He told her about Xu and Brock’s code. And the only reason he tied it to us was to save Xoey.”
“Still, it doesn’t—”
“Kino was going to send Xoey away after she broke her ankle,” Oliver interrupted. “What would you have done?”
Riley stormed away and has been stewing ever since.
The next morning I catch up with her on the way to the munitions plant. I blow on my hands to ward off the cold. The fog has not lifted in days, matching her mood.
“Sam and Paisley are going to be able to do it,” I say.
“So you said last night. I wa
nt to know how.”
“You can ask Sam. I never understand the tech, but—”
Riley glares at me so I stop talking and quicken my pace.
I wish I could tell her how funny it was, listening to them plot last night. Sam is so rigid and logical and Paisley is such a free spirit. It was like watching a dam and water work together to create energy.
“Can you explain your hack? I’d love to hear how you got in.”
“It’s not a hack, it’s a ghost,” Sam said.
“Which needs to change, right? I mean, ideally? If we’re going to, you know…”
Sam frowned. “Yes, but to evade the filters, we need to install two Trojans at the same time, one from the mainframe and—”
“I get how it works,” Paisley interrupted. “I’m not some script kiddie. I just want to talk through the code a little. You know? It’s beautiful sometimes. Like art.”
Sam frowned. “It’s not art. It’s code.”
Paisley shrugged. “Same thing. I guess you’ll want to time the attack with the initializing sequence of the system backup?”
“Of course.”
“Which means phishing for multiple passwords.”
“Yes. Then attaching to the OS…”
I’ll admit I lost the thread of their conversation somewhere around there. I know they are planning to stretch out the time each of us can be offline. If it works, we will rotate off in random batches just like before, but with an extra segment of untracked time tacked onto the end. Paisley also thinks she can disable monitors in certain hotspots like the common room roof, the courtyard and the library basement, looping tracks from old vids to trick the system.
“It’s too risky,” Sam said. “A hack like that is ripe for detection.”
Paisley crossed her arms. “So use it sparingly.”
I worry though. The whole plan is hinged on getting access to the mainframe, which is locked in a server room next to Kino’s office.
“How long will it take you to write the program?” Oliver asked.
“A week,” Sam said.
“A week?” Paisley’s eyes widened. “My part will take longer. Maybe two.”
Oliver nodded. “Okay. Get started and leave the server room to me.”
Riley seems doubtful of their plan, even after she talks to Sam at breakfast.
“He doesn’t trust Marie,” she tells me as we head to class.
“I know.”
“Do you? Trust her, I mean?”
I think about what Paisley told me about life in the Red Zone. The government describes it as wild and unstable, filled with terrorist strongholds and maybe even contaminated by environmental sabotage.
“Lies,” Paisley said. “I’ve been all over it. Mostly you find pockets of people just trying to survive.”
She told me about the reservation she now calls home. Camouflaged in the mountains under tree cover, some of them live in caves.
“It’s small, isolated. But we all have the same goal there. To stay free.”
“How did you end up at the House?”
“I begged to go on a supply run with my parents,” Paisley said. “They had left me behind so many times before, I kind of threw a fit. I told them I was old enough to be useful. They didn’t want me to come, but I just kept talking until they caved.”
Her eyes swam with tears. “Be careful when you turn someone’s philosophy against them. It doesn’t always work out like you plan.”
“What happened?”
She rubbed her eyes, catching her tears before they fell. “We were scavenging for tools in an abandoned Dirt city. I think it was called Springfield. There are hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Did you know? Big cities just left to rot after the contagion, the Muslim Exodus, and the mass migration to the Sand. But this time we were spotted by a UDR patrol. My parents aren’t fighters. We tried to run, but they gunned us down and my parents died. I spent two months in a Sand hospital, recovering.”
She lifted the edge of her nightshirt and showed me the scars on her abdomen. “Two bullets, straight through. I don’t know why they didn’t let me die. Why they saved my life, only to bring me here.”
I thought about the way society talks about children living in the Red Zone. The State Press tells us they are abused, ignorant, and pitiable. There are organizations whose sole mission is to “save the RZ children.”
“They probably thought they were liberating you,” I said.
Paisley set down her crochet hook. “Well, I’ll never thank them for it, or let them reeducate me. All they liberated me from was my family, safety, and freedom. From my real name.” She bent her head and focused. “Someday they’ll regret it.”
Riley is stamping her feet in the snow, waiting for my answer.
Do I trust Paisley?
“Yes,” I say. “I guess I do.”
Chapter 19
Reed
* * *
Nobody is going to like it. Riley might even try killing me again, but it has to be said. I clear my throat. “We have to board up the tunnel.”
“What?”
“No.”
“No way.”
I put my hands up defensively. “Just listen. I’m already out of library detention, right? Spending my afternoons trying to find the bomber. Any day now, Kino is going to pull you out too. You’re clearing out the basement — a place nobody cares about. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already. And when it does? If we haven’t covered our tracks? We can’t let her find the tunnel. The books. She’ll destroy them — you know I’m right.”
We’re in the common room, bent over an ancient gaming table, playing digital pool. Whispered conversations are growing old. We’re all impatient for Sam and Paisley to finish writing their hacks so we can talk freely. For a moment, everyone is silent.
“We can’t lose the tunnel.” Xoey grabs my hand. “Please. There’s so much there. So much we haven’t read yet.”
“Better we lose it than Kino destroys it.”
“There’s got to be another way,” Riley says. “We just need to explore our options. Have any of you ever gone down the tunnel to the right?”
No one has.
“Who’s offline next?”
“Me,” says Oliver. “Four a.m. Wednesday.”
“Me too,” says Xoey.
Riley nods. “Good. Find another way through.”
“Wednesday morning then?” Oliver high fives Xoey. “It’s a date.”
“Hey Oliver!” Tom Benedict yells from across the room, where the next tackle game is about to begin. “Are we playing or not?”
“Keep your shirt on,” Oliver yells, all while madly pressing buttons on the game console. “I’ll be there just as soon as I sink this ball.”
When we head toward the tackle crowd, Tom is still complaining to Oliver about last week’s games. “Your spread offense doesn’t work! Our QB just doesn’t perform from the shotgun—”
“Hey, Reed.”
“Hey, Jay.” I bump fists with a guy on my team — one I never see in class. I like him, though. And his players are so good, we’re in first place. Not that I care much anymore. But Oliver thinks we should keep the league going, despite the bombing.
“It’s the best way to get back to normal, to see what everyone’s up to. Besides, it’s only a few more weeks.”
I guess he’s right. It won’t be easy, though — Riley’s presence on my team makes it impossible since she hates me more than ever.
I try and remind myself it could have been worse.
The night Riley told everyone I was spying for Kino, Oliver and I were the last ones to leave the tackle field. The temperature was plummeting and my teeth were chattering, telling me to get inside. I couldn’t. Not without talking to Oliver first.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
I laughed. “For covering for me, I guess. How long have you known?”
“The full truth? About as long as everyone else.”
/> “What? Then how—”
“It’s not hard to figure out.” He squinted into the wind. “Every one of us has passed through Kino’s office. She has our records, our files, our family histories. She knows which buttons to push. Worse, she enjoys it.”
He shook his head. “I may not have known the details, but I knew she’d be messing with you somehow.”
Maybe it was all part of Kino’s manipulation — counting on my pride, making me think I was uniquely important. Even hating her, it’s hard to learn I’m just one of many pawns.
“Did you know she posts reports on Riley’s tablet every week?” Oliver asks. “All kinds of stuff to torment her about her older sister?”
My heart lurched. “You know about Lexie?”
Oliver nodded. Fresh shame washed over me.
“Does Riley know where she is?”
“Not exactly. Kino’s subtle in her sadism. She sends Riley stuff about these service ranches — outposts in the Dirt where UDR officers go when they’re off duty. There are always girls there — pretty ones they call ‘escorts’ — taken from the House or labor camps.”
I remember Kino’s warning about such places on our first day at Windmill Bay, but I didn’t know that’s where Lexie ended up. The idea made me want to throw up.
Then a more horrifying thought skittered across my brain.
“Wait. Is Kino threatening to send Riley too?”
“Not as far as I know. She’s just torturing her for fun, like most of us.”
There’s nothing good about that, but still, I breathed a little easier.
“How does she get to you?”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m a lone wolf — no family to torture, resistant to all forms of manipulation…”
“No wonder she hates you. What about Sam? Adam?”
“She gives Xu and Brock open license to bully Sam and lets teachers treat him like he’s less…well, you’ve witnessed it. I don’t know about Adam. He’s a capped bottle. Plus, he’s been around longer than Kino.”
“I wonder about Xoey.”
Oliver’s expression turned serious. “You don’t know?”
Stealing Liberty Page 11