The Treasure Map

by Tyler Scott Hess

“HOW MANY DAYS?” Maia asks.

  I wake up and rub my eyes. I must have dozed off for a few minutes after lunch.

  “Two if we’re lucky,” the Elder suggests. “But I’m not counting on anything. We need to prepare as quickly as possible if we’re going to give ourselves any chance for success.”

  “Where do we start?” I mumble as I try to push myself off the floor.

  The Elder looks at me for a moment, then barks out, “Where do we stand, Rafe?”

  “Just a minute and…I’m in,” Rafe answers. “I can hear everything.”

  “And the other locations?” the Elder asks. “Are they all online?”

  Rafe waves his hand dismissively, flips a few switches, then repeats the process several times. “A few glitches here and there, but mostly good. I’ll work on them if and when they happen, but I’m receiving communications from the command stations clear as day.”

  “Good,” the Elder commends him. “Then I need you to keep an ear out for what we discussed. The rest of you…you’ve got a lot to learn in a short time frame.”

  What they discussed? He’s still leaving some of us in the dark.

  “You three, over here,” the Elder orders.

  Maia, Felicity, Wiley, and I walk over to a table where the Elder has drawn out a rough schematic of the prison system from memory. He’s no artist, but I spent enough time up there to recognize most of the rooms I had been able to access before we were isolated in our cells.

  “How do we get up there?” I ask.

  “The area where we are currently located has been shut down long enough that only the oldest guards even know it exists,” says the Elder. “It’s been left to decay, but a few of the Faithful found it to be…useful to our cause at times.”

  “Why wouldn’t they at least have it destroyed or secured?” I ask. “How were we able to get down here so easily without alarms sounding up there?”

  “Rafe isn’t the only expert in electronics who has belonged to the Faithful,” the Elder says bluntly. “We’ve had a number of things - well, let’s just say that the guards up there aren’t seeing what they think they’re seeing. As far as they know, nothing down here has functioned for years, and no one comes to visit down here except for an occasional gopher.”

  “But they know we’re out there somewhere,” I remind him. “And after that truck followed us, they at least know the general area we’re in now. Is there anything that could lead them here?”

  “Not from the chatter I’ve been picking up,” Rafe chimes in. “They think we’re trying to flee the region altogether…they suspect we might have passed the southern border by now.”

  “And that wouldn’t have been a bad idea,” the Elder nods. “It would have been cowardly, perhaps, but I hope we’re all past such aspirations.”

  “My father won’t be freed by cowardice,” I shake my head. “So how do we get up to the prison without detection?”

  “That’s the other reason why they aren’t worried about what’s down here,” the Elder says, wincing. “The closer we get, the higher the security gets. It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be clean. We’re going to have to…”

  “Climb through the sewers?” Wiley asks before taking a deep breath.

  “That’s the simple part,” the Elder frowns. “Disgusting, but simple, if your stomach can handle it.”

  “We haven’t eaten much the last few months,” Maia reminds him. “I don’t think our stomachs are going to be any problem.”

  “I could use something to eat,” Wiley suddenly remembers. Has anyone found anything good to…”

  “We’ll get to that,” the Elder says. “You’ll need your strength to climb through whatever mess has built up over the years. Now I need you to study these tunnels I’ve drawn out. Our best path is most likely the one that spirals around to an entry point. It’s a longer path, but the door is easier to crack open than the others”

  “Is it locked?” I ask.

  “It’s a prison,” the Elder says flatly. “Every door is locked in a prison, even the garbage chute. That’s why we’re so glad you’re around, Wiley.”

  Wiley’s face lights up, but his eyes are still scouring for where he might find a box of crackers or anything that hasn’t rotted away.

  “Now, we’re not likely to find anyone in the area if we can manage to get up there in the middle of the night as I plan,” says the Elder. “So if you need to make a little noise with this one, that’s okay. But after that, we’re going to need precision and timing down to the last detail.”

  “Where do we go from there?” I ask. “Getting into prison isn’t so hard, we’ve all done that, but how do we get out with the rest of the Faithful intact?”

  The Elder then takes us through the schematics and shows us room by room where the guards are known to be located, why it was designed the way it was, and the best path to get to the prisoners and lead them to safety.

  When the Elder finishes, no one says a word for a long time, each calculating in our own minds the likelihood that a group of six escaped prisoners have the guts, the knowledge, and the luck to pull off such a magnificent feat.

  “I don’t suppose you know how to trigger an earthquake at just the right time, do you?” I ask as I rub my chin. “I don’t know how else we’re going to pull all this off without getting ourselves back in line for execution.”

  “It does sound a little…” Wiley shakes his head as he tries to agree with me politely. “What are the odds we can pull this off?”

  “It’s not for the faint of heart,” the Elder affirms. “And I can’t promise any of you that we will succeed. If you all want to hang out here and die when the rations run out, then that’s an option we can put on the table. If you want to make a run for it in that government truck we stole, well, we can hop in there and see how far we get before we run out of gas. But if you…”

  “No!” I say, slamming my fists on the table. “I don’t care if there’s a one percent chance of survival. I don’t care if I have to do it alone. My father is up there with a bunch of other people that don’t deserve to die for believing the truth. I’m going up there no matter how foolish it might seem. Though none go with me, I will still go. Just tell me the best path.”

  “This is the best path,” the Elder sighs. “I’ve been over it in my head every day since the moment I first escaped. It’s the most dangerous, but it is also our best chance of success. If we are meant to succeed, then we will succeed. If we are meant to fail, then it is because it must be so.”

  “Then it’s time to prepare,” I say, though my thoughts are drifting from me as I think of what my father must be thinking. Does he know I made it out of the stadium? Did they lie to him? Did they tell him we died just to watch him lose all purpose and hope? Would he have believed them? If I know him, he’s more worried about me than about himself, which is why I’m doing what I’m doing. I might not be as smart and cunning as my father, but I can at least try to act like him.

  The Elder waves his arm and says, “Maia and Felicity, you two follow me. I’ll start with your training. Wiley and Niko, you two can scrounge up some rations for the rest of us while you wait.”

  “Looks like we’re partners, then,” Wiley says as he puts his arm over my shoulder. “Always thought it would be Rafe that would be next to me in these situations, but I understand why the Elder wants him down here in the command center.”

  “He’s a hard guy to replace,” I admit to him. Rafe and Wiley have impressed me with their knowledge in cracking into systems, each in their own way. I wonder how they were ever captured in the first place, but that’s not the thing most of us like to talk about. Maybe one day, if we get out of this alive, if the Elder’s plan works like we hope it does, then we’ll share our stories. But now is not the time to think of past failures.

  “It’s okay, Niko,” Wiley says. “I know you’ve got it in you. You survived just like the rest of us. That doesn’t happen by accident.”

 
“It does seem strange to me,” I say as we walk through the corridors to where the Elder believes we’ll find the best rations.

  “What’s that?” Wiley asks, opening the door and swinging it wide open.

  “Did you think about who escaped during the earthquake?” I ask. “It was all the young ones. I wonder why that was.”

  “Young legs, perhaps?” Wiley suggested.

  “Maybe,” I shrug. “Or were we of less concern to them than those with more experience. Maybe they think we’re not really capable of much on the run. If I were them, that’s what I’d be telling the people, that they got people like my father because they were the most dangerous.”

  “I guess we get to prove them wrong,” Wiley nods. “It doesn’t really matter if anyone believes in us. It matters what we believe.”

  We begin to rummage through the cabinets of the supply room and realize that while the Elder had made a correct assumption about this room having the rations we need, the supplies were little more than the basic necessities. Water, crackers, canned tuna, some beans. Not the meal I was hoping for, but the kind I should have expected, and there’s plenty of it to keep us going.

  “You’re not a cook, are you?” I ask.

  “Afraid not,” Wiley says shaking his head. “But I can get a fire going in a pinch. At least we won’t have to eat those beans raw.”

  “Well, that’s something,” I say. “Not sure there’s much even the best cook could do with these ingredients anyway. I don’t remember my mother ever talking about preparing beans and tuna with crackers when I was growing up.”

  “Your mother was a cook?” Wiley asks as he begins to pile the rations into my outstretched arms. “Any good?”

  “She was the best,” I tell him, knowing that it’s the first thing to really cause me to smile in months. “You should have tasted the things she could whip up with the simplest ingredients. We never had all that much to spend on food when I was young, but she would pick up a few items at the market and turn it into something like you hear about from one of those fancy restaurants for the wealthy.”

  “So you’re saying it was better than prison food?” Wiley asks as he slaps me on the back and we make our way to the command center. “Wish I could try it someday.”

  I try not to think about my mother too much. It hurts not knowing where she’s been all these years. I’ve feared the worst, that she was locked up, tortured, and ultimately executed. I take little comfort in the fact that she never made an appearance on Independence Day. I don’t know if the State ever thought of her as the threat they considered my father. Whatever they’ve done, I hope she was never treated the way we were.”

  “That didn’t take long,” Rafe shouts as he swivels around in a worn-down, black leather chair that squeaks whenever he shifts his weight. “Good thing…we don’t have much of it to spare.”

  “Did you learn something?” his brother asks him immediately.

  “Two days,” Rafe says as he scratches his forehead. “They’re cleaning up what’s left of the debris from the earthquake. The stadium will be ready tomorrow, the roads will be clear the next day. They’re going to do a makeup session for Independence Day.”

  “Executions?” I choke on my own word as it comes out.

  “Twelve,” Rafe says softly. “The six who were recaptured, plus six to replace us. They’ve been telling everyone that we’ll get what’s coming to us, one way or another, and they’re certain we’re in no condition to be an immediate threat to the citizens of Ariel or the surrounding nations.”

  “That’s what they want people to think,” the Elder says. “But they’ll be looking for us until they have each of our heads in a bucket. We’re going to make it either very easy or very difficult for them in the next few days.”

  “Let’s pray it’s difficult,” Rafe says as he swings his chair back around. “Let me know when the food’s ready!”

  Wiley lights up a flare and uses it to spark the kindling we had fashioned out of a few broken cabinets from the corner of the room.

  “There aren’t…sprinklers in here are there?” I ask.

  “Would have gone off by now,” the Elder claims. “But the water has been cut off for years. That’s not something we’re going to have to worry about. I’m more concerned with Wiley smoking us out of the one room down here that’s of any use to us.”

  “It’s all under control,” he assures us. “This isn’t my first fire, you know.”

  “You got me there,” the Elder shrugs. “And I’m counting on that. I need you to be every bit of an expert on explosives that you seem to think you are. I wish we had months to train for this heist, but we only have the time we have been given.”

  “You won’t have to worry about the explosives,” Wiley says. “But none of us know much about this prison beyond the bars of our cells and a few hallways they pushed us through. We need to know the ins and outs of this place or we’re going to find ourselves stuck in a dead-end or electrocuted by secret traps.”

  “Well, that’s what we’re going over the rest of the day,” the Elder says as we begin to prepare our meal. “And you won’t have to worry about going down any dead ends as long as you stick to the plan. I need you to execute everything to the smallest detail. We can’t afford mistakes.”

  “Execute might be a poor choice of words,” Maia tells him as she notices Felicity shaking. “Remember why we’re doing this. People are counting on us, even though they don’t know it. This isn’t some silly war game where we win a trophy. This is life or death.”

  We are all aware of that, of course, but her words silence the room. Most of us don’t know each other that well, but we are putting our lives in each other’s hands. We don’t know if there will be another miracle to rescue the Faithful from the next execution.

  “What do you have the girls doing?” I ask the Elder before jamming a cracker in my mouth.

  “I need them to acquire some objects for me by stealth,” he tells us. “Felicity already proved herself worthy in this manner. Maia knows how to follow a path. If we are to free the prisoners and begin a revolution, I need them to make their way into a supply cabinet near the prison’s offices. It won’t be easy, even at night, but there are ways around this prison known by only a few.”

  “A revolution?” Wiley asks. “I know the Faithful can’t keep living like this, always on the run, praying to keep away from the gallows, but how are we going to start a revolution? There are so few of us.”

  “And we have such little power and influence,” I add. “Even if we free every prisoner in Justice Hall, they’re going to round many of them back up. Tell me there’s more to your plan.”

  “The people need to see the truth,” the Elder nods. “And thanks to Rafe’s infiltration of their communications, we are going to be able to tell the world of our plight, our true beliefs, and the lies of the State. But we have to time things perfectly or they’ll never know.”

  “And where do we come in?” I ask as I point to Wiley, then back to myself. “I know what he can do, but I don’t know anything about explosives, and any noise will cause guards to come running.”

  “Precisely,” the Elder says. “You wouldn’t know how to stay quiet if your mouth was stapled shut and your feet were made from feathers. Which is why I need you two to confuse the guards. You’re going to set up a series of distracting explosions that will divert their attention.”

  “Won’t that cause a panic?” Wiley asks. “Won’t it cause them to shut down the entire system? No one would be able to escape if every door in the prison is put on lockdown.”

  “Did you forget about me so soon, brother?” Rafe shouts from his command.

  “Rafe is staying down here to give us directions as we go,” says the Elder. “I retrieved some communication earpieces at the last safe house. You will each wear one and listen for instructions as we maneuver our way to our eventual destination. Rafe will be in our ears the entire time, making sure we don’t run into any unfor
eseen problems. He will also be hacking into the system to make sure certain doors work properly…and others don’t work at all.”

  “Great,” I say. “Then show us where to go.”

  “I will,” he says. “But let’s get something to eat first. I don’t know about all of you, but I’m starving.”

  It was only at this that I remembered how we all looked. We aren’t well-fed spies who have been dining at fancy restaurants. We aren’t even poverty-stricken peasants living off our own modest income. We have all been at death’s doorstep. I don’t know how we’ve managed to make it this far without constantly collapsing.

  “If we get out of this…” I start to contemplate.

  “When we get out of this,” Maia says confidently.

  “I’m going to learn how to cook like my mother did,” I say. “Maybe find a place to live far out in the country. Away from this madness. You all can come over any time you like for some home cooking.”

  “I think I’d like that,” Wiley tells me. “Anything has to be better than this rat food.”

  “I’m not sure the rats would touch this stuff,” Felicity says.

  “The girl speaks!” the Elder laughs.

  “I talk plenty,” she says. “At least I used to. But my heart hurts too much to talk the way I once did.”

  “You miss your family?” I ask.

  “Of course I do,” she says. “But it’s not that. Not entirely. It’s just…the world we live in. It isn’t right. I don’t understand how people can live with what they’re doing to us. They ripped us away from our families, they shut us up in prison and beat us, and if it weren’t for the earthquake we’d all be dead already. How can they live with themselves?”

  The Elder shakes his head. “Those who are blind, do not know what they can’t see. They might have ideas, they have some understanding of the world around them, but nothing can replace true sight. The State has blinded these people from reality. They think us to be so evil that killing us is no worse than stepping on a spider. No one feels sorry for the spider. We need to open their eyes. That’s what this is all about.”