The Treasure Map

by Tyler Scott Hess

  “You know how to be quiet,” Wiley tells her. “You didn’t make a noise when we were walking through the forest. I can’t say that about anyone else here. You might not be the strongest person here, but you don’t need big muscles to silently hold a wire for me while I set off this explosive.”

  “Which explosive?” the Elder asks Wiley before Felicity can respond to his request. Wiley needs her for this. We don’t have time for arguments.

  “This one will have them putting out a fire,” Wiley assures us. “A fire which won’t want to go out, no matter what they use on it. A fire that will give us enough time to get through that hatch undetected.”

  “Go,” the Elder says to them. “We will wait.”

  Felicity is frozen, except for her delicate green eyes, which are rapidly going back and forth as they search for one of us to give her a way out.

  “It’s okay, Flick,” Maia tells her, leaning in and putting her hand on Felicity’s shoulder. “We’ve been through worse. We got out of that arena, didn’t we? This is a simple job. We need you to do this.”

  Felicity takes a deep breath, nods her head, and follows Wiley into a darkened path. I can barely see them as they weave through a maze of crates which conceal them from the guards, who have been getting louder by the minute.

  “Think they’re suspecting we might be down here by now?” I ask the Elder.

  “No,” he says quick and to the point. “No. I’ve seen this before. They’re arguing because they have nothing else to do with their time. How often do you think a security issue comes up in the sewers? No, if they were onto us, they wouldn’t be arguing, they’d be in pursuit.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take Wiley to do the job?” Maia asks.

  “Not long,” Rafe answers. “He’s been training for this his entire life. He might not even care if he gets caught tomorrow if it means he has the pleasure of demolishing something today. He lives for this.”

  As if on cue, a light explodes from around the corner.

  “Wait,” the Elder holds us back. “Let them get out of sight.”

  “Wiley!” Rafe muffles a shout into his hands. “That wasn’t enough time!”

  “Flick!” Maia gasps. “I shouldn’t have…”

  We were all thinking the same thing. That should have been on a timer. There’s no way they could have made it over there, set up an explosion, and escaped in time.

  “Now!” the Elder begins to pull us up with him to run to the hatch two hundred feet from where we were hiding. No sign of Wiley or Felicity. They should have been waiting for us closer to the hatch. They should have gotten there before us. This isn’t good.

  The Elder points to the hatch door and motions for me to twist the handle. “It’s stuck,” I say too soon. It was tight, but it moves after the third attempt. Sheffield jumps through first, followed by Maia, Rafe, and the Elder. I turn around and see the flames still going strong. Wiley was right. They haven’t put it out so easily. I begin to climb up the ladder with my stomach feeling like it had been punched. I grab the latch, but a hand stops me.

  “You weren’t going to forget us, were you?” Wiley asks before Felicity slides around him and follows me up and through the hatch. Wiley takes one last look over his shoulder, lets a smirk spread across his face, then seals us in.

  “Is this it?” I ask as I behold a small metallic room with no furnishing and low light. “Is the safe house?”

  “Not yet,” the Elder tells us. “But we’re close. No more guards in our path.”

  We follow him through a small trap door, then a narrow maze of white walls which look like they’ve never been touched by man or beast, lit only by the Elder’s flashlight. Within five minutes, we’re at another hatch, this time a ladder leading us straight up to the safe house.

  The Elder opens the hatch door and has to bite his tongue before a foul word can escape his mouth. He slams his hand against the wall, shakes his head, and moves forward, muttering for a moment.

  “What is it?” I shout from the bottom of the stairs. “Guards? Do we need to run?”

  “Just get up here,” the Elder shouts, trying to hide his anger, but failing miserably. “No guards. No anything. Someone else got here first and didn’t leave us anything.”

  “Nothing?” Sheffield complains. “No rations, no change of clothes, no weapons?”

  “That’s what I said - no, wait a minute,” the Elder says cutting himself off. “I remember now. Everyone get up here immediately. The side rooms of this safe house have a thousand little secret compartments. It was a safety measure Niko’s father came up with years ago. Not many were installed when the State turned on us, but this was one of them.”

  “Should we be looking out for traps?” Wiley asks instinctively. I wouldn’t have thought of it. The Elder shakes his head, then explains to us what to look for and how to find it.

  My mind feels miles away from my body as I consider how little use I have been through this entire trip to Akiva. I’m nothing like my father. He should have been here, not me. I can’t help these people and I’m not entirely sure the Elder wants to. I gather he would be better off doing this alone, but he must have enough of an allegiance to keep him from ditching us, even if he’s been cut off from the Faithful all this time.

  “Found something,” Maia shouts first. I’ve been through at least a dozen drawers and have come up empty. Her nose shrinks and her lips contract. “Sardines. Yuck!”

  “I’ll take those,” the Elder says as he snatches it out of her hands.

  “Whatever floats your wagon,” she tells him.

  “You haven’t been on the run nearly long enough,” the Elder replies. “A month turns into a year faster than you realize. Sardines help your brain function right. You’re young, but you still need your wits about you.”

  “Here’s something,” Rafe shouts.

  “Dibs,” Wiley says as he snags it from his brother. “This will come in handy.”

  “What is it?” I ask as everyone shifts their eyes back and forth between what Rafe had found and the next cabinet, trap door, or hidden compartment we can get our hands on.

  “Something to make the sky really pretty for about three seconds,” he answers. “Which might be the three seconds we need to get out of another tight jam.”

  “Keep looking,” the Elder orders us. “Check every door. We need everything this place will afford us.”

  The safe house is larger than I imagined. I didn’t know something this large existed within the Faithful’s meager means. There must be two dozen rooms, each lit brightly from a generator I assume must be connected to solar panels above ground. No one among the Faithful could pay for the amount of electricity this place would be racking up.

  “What are we looking for exactly?” I ask him as I open an empty cabinet with each hand. “Why are there so many empty secret compartments?”

  “We’re looking for anything someone thought important enough to keep in a safe house for starters,” he says gruffly as if I couldn’t have asked a more foolish question. “Food, of course, even if you’re too good for sardines like little miss fancy pants.”

  Maia rolls her eyes. If the Elder hadn’t forgotten what prison food was like, he’d know we’ve had worse. Some people just don’t like sardines. I know I’d settle for some crackers right now if I could stuff a handful in my mouth. A bottle of water to go with it wouldn’t be so bad.

  “After that,” the Elder continues, his breath getting heavier as the night wears on us all. “We need exactly what Sheffield was complaining about when we entered. Rations, clothes, weapons. Survival is our number one priority. We can’t do anything for anyone if we’re dead - or worse - captured.”

  I clear my throat. “Weapons?” I ask.

  “What about them?” the Elder says roughly.

  “That’s not our way,” I tell him. “We’ve never had weapons.”

  The Elder looks at me dead in the eyes. “Weapons have more than one purpose. No wonder
you were captured so easily. You never learned half of what your father knew, did you?”

  “Enough to get me this far,” I snapped back. “But I never had to use weapons. Who did? We’re a peaceful group. We’ve never done anything but promote peace. Yet they rounded us up like lost dogs and slammed us inside their kennel. So maybe I’m not a wilderness expert. But here I am, so why don’t you quit your complaining and lead us like the wise sage my father said you were.”

  The Elder leaned back against a wall and took a deep breath. “Weapons,” he says without apology, “are a vital tool in a survival situation. Not all animals scare off so easily, some might need to be shot through the heart or the head. And we could all use some protein if we can come across a proper target.”

  “The State hasn’t allowed guns since long before we were rounded up,” Sheffield reminds him.

  “Guns aren’t the only things that shoot,” he says. “Do any of you know how to use a bow and arrow?”

  “Anything that causes devastation,” Wiley pipes up. “A nice little explosive tip can do a fair amount of damage.”

  “Good,” says the Elder. “Maybe we’ll find one here. Look for a knife, a dagger, or a machete. Anything with a blade to get us through thicker parts of the forest. Tools in case blowing something up isn’t the best solution.”

  “The solution to what?” I ask him. “What are we even doing here? Do we have a plan or are we just waiting around to get captured again?”

  “Do we have a plan?” the Elder chuckles.

  “Well…do we?” Maia backs me up.

  “President Shah has had his men looking for me since before most of you knew there was trouble for the Faithful,” the Elder says with a scowl forming on his face. “You all remember the prison numbers on your uniforms, don’t you? I was number zero zero zero zero zero one.”

  “Why?” Maia asks. “What did you do?”

  The Elder sighs. “They wanted to find out what I knew,” he shakes his head. “There was a time when we were great in numbers. The Faithful had influence in Ariel, all the way up to the president’s palace. They listened to us. They confided in us. Then they turned on us when it became politically expedient.”

  “But why…you?” Maia clarifies. “What’s so…”

  “What’s so special about me?” the Elder laughs until he has a short coughing fit. “I asked myself that every day as they poked and prodded me, looking for secrets I would die to protect. They must have thought my pride would have led me to turn on the Faithful. They thought I’d prefer power and prestige over truth. But that’s not really how we operate, is it? None of us are all that important. Some of us just know where to get bread and water.”

  “You still haven’t told us your plan,” Sheffield said with a fierce stare.

  “I know,” the Elder stared back. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  “Well out with it then,” Sheffield demands without wavering.

  “I’m going to need more than ten seconds to give the full answer,” the Elder grumbles. “And I promise I’ll get to it, but for now we need to keep working. That is, if you don’t mind preparing for our next move. We’re going to need as many supplies as we can gather here. Electronics, explosives, rations we can take on the go, weapons, and a lot more. We’re going to need to search every little door in this place if we’re going to find everything we need.”

  “Need for what exactly?” Maia interrupts. “What are we going to do with all these…things?”

  The Elder looked to the heavens and says, “Take courage, if you have any, because we’re going to break the other prisoners out of Justice Hall.”

  “Are you mad?” Sheffield screamed.

  “How on earth could we even think of doing that?” Rafe asks as his brother Wiley’s eyes shoot wide open.”

  “We are not going back there!” Sheffield angrily slams his fists against the wall. “I was there far too long. I can’t go back. I won’t go back.”

  “There are no other options,” the Elder barks. “You’ve seen with your own eyes what the State has in store for those of us who are among the Faithful. We don’t have many more options for safe houses. We’ll run out of rations before you know it. We have to break their system and find a way to tell the world about it before they catch us again. We have to strike at the heart of the people or we will be no more.”

  “He’s right,” I tell them, shaking my head in disgust. “The State won’t stop at finding us. Killing us isn’t enough for them anymore. Making an example out of us won’t satisfy them. They’re going to extinguish the Faithful from the strongest to the weakest. If there is truly any faith left in us…”

  “Then we have to take down the system,” Maia says, standing up to shake her fist. “We have to fight back.”

  “We were born for this,” Wiley says shaking hands with his brother.

  “I’ll go,” Felicity answers softly. “I have nothing else.”

  Sheffield shakes his head and says, “You’re all nuts. You know that?”

  “Better to be insane for a just cause than to be a coward,” I stand firm.

  “Fine,” he says with his nostrils flared. “If that’s it, then that’s it. Everyone keep searching for supplies. The Elder can tell us his brilliant plan after we know what’s been hidden in all these drawers.”

  The rest of us agree and spend the rest of the night searching the safe house from wall to wall in every room for supplies. I hope it’s enough. I hope my father would be proud of me. I pray he’s still alive.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Disappeared

  “HE’S GONE,” RAFE shouts.

  “He can’t be,” Wiley says in disgust, not wanting to believe it, but knowing it to be true.

  I clear my groggy eyes and see that everyone else has been gearing up for a busy day while I’ve been fast asleep. “Not again.”

  “Have we checked every room?” Maia cries out. “He can’t have just disappeared without a trace.”

  The Elder must have been as tired as me. He shakes off the cobwebs and clears his throat. “He left in the middle of the night. He won’t be back.”

  “You saw him?” Maia gasps. “And you didn’t stop him?”

  “He was never going to go with us,” the Elder says, shrugging his shoulders as he pulls himself up to his feet. “We should be thankful he only took a dagger and a pack of rations with him on his way out. He must not have wanted to make too much noise.”

  “But you saw him?” I ask for clarification.

  “I was still awake when he left,” the Elder nods his head. “Working out some details. I do my best thinking when no one’s bothering me.”

  “I thought you said you already had a plan,” Maia says, throwing her hands up to her hair and streaking them back down.

  “I do have a plan,” the Elder says lowering his voice. “But we have to work with what we have, not what I wish we had. And we need options for when things don’t go well. This is more art than science.”

  “We don’t have much at all,” Rafe says with Wiley nodding in agreement. “Are you sure this is the last safe house that’s…safe?”

  The Elder’s eyes fade away and from the looks of it, he doesn’t want to answer.

  “There is another,” the Elder finally admits. “And it has everything we need. But I…”

  “What are we waiting for?” Maia asks.

  “It has everything we need - but we have to go through hell to get there.”

  “We are already in hell,” Maia says without skipping a beat. “We’ve been in hell ever since President Shah was elected…if you can call it an election. The Governor is even worse and he’s supposed to be next in line if anything ever happens to him. I’m sick and tired of living in a prison - here or there it’s all the same. Either we take care of business or we wait for the next noose to come along. I’m not going to waste away without a fight.”

  “Do you all agree?” asks the Elder.

  I look around and ha
ve never seen more determined eyes in a group of individuals in my life. I nod my head and say, “What are we waiting for?”

  “Everyone take a pack,” the Elder orders as a commanding officer would. “And from here on out, everyone does as I say, or we will all die a very terrible death. Every aspect of this rescue mission must be followed to the most precise detail. Everyone needs their own rations, though we are running low, and their own tools. We must go out a different way than how we came in. They’ll be looking for us to come out of that first hatch.”

  “What other way is there?” I ask, assuming everyone else is as confused as I am.

  “There’s another hatch that leads to the street,” the Elder suggests.”

  “The city?” Maia asks.

  “But it’s daylight now,” I remind him. “Won’t we be spotted?”

  “Not exactly,” he tells us. “But we are left with only one option. This safe house is built directly under a secret base that very few know about. They keep their vehicles directly above us. We’re going to have to…”

  “Steal a truck?” Rafe says with excitement. “Leave that to me.”

  “I was going to say sneak out,” the Elder says with one eyebrow raised. “But I like the way you think. Does everyone have their packs? We need to leave immediately. We have no time to spare.”

  “Ready,” I say as I slide a knife into the side pocket of my pack.

  “Me too,” says Maia as we watch the twins exchanging handshakes.

  “Follow me then,” the Elder says, his voice sturdy and resolute. “We have no time to waste.”

  He leads us to one of the rooms and points to a trap door above us that I hadn’t given much thought to as we were checking for supplies.

  “How are we supposed to climb through the ceiling?” I ask.

  The Elder, the tallest of us all, simply slaps his hand up through the low hanging ceiling and we see a ladder slide back down like a magic trick.

  “How’d you…never mind,” I say as the Elder begins to make his climb with the rest of us following behind. Maia follows him and Felicity is next. Rafe and Wiley hop up the steps with ease. But I hear something.