Nothing was remotely the same.
I got up abruptly and went into the tiny kitchen. I’d meant to get a glass of water, but out of sight of the living room, I found myself weak with fear for him. I closed my eyes and gripped the edge of the counter, trying not to shake.
Please stay safe, I thought to Ingo. I have to see you again. Two nights later, Anton drove Mac and me to a broadcasting location in his neighbourhood. I sat beside Mac, feigning calm.
My first broadcast after our near-capture had been like forcing myself back in the saddle after a bad fall. I still felt skittish, and was sick of it – I’d had more courage as a ten-year-old. Back then I’d been fearless, ready to conquer the world.
As I fiddled with the hem of my dress, suddenly I started to notice something.
“Mac, look.” I gripped his arm. Even through the auto’s window, I could see them – drawn on a signpost; chalked on a doorway; painted over a crumbling section of ancient ruins.
V. V. V.
“Holy hell,” whispered Mac, straightening. From the front seat, Anton gave a short laugh. “I’ve counted twelve so far,” he said fervently. He half-turned in his seat, grinning. “About time, huh?”
By the time we reached the location, we’d counted twenty-seven. I could hear the passion in my voice that night as I urged the city to keep on – to stand behind us.
Five more days. The attack was to happen on Friday.
On Monday, I was in the kitchen when Mac came in. “Hey, kiddo, have you seen this?”
I’d been making a cup of tea and was feeling on edge. Pierce still hadn’t mentioned Ingo. If he was all right, he should be back the day after tomorrow.
I buried the thought and glanced at the piece of paper Mac was holding. Surprise lurched.
I dropped into one of our shabby kitchen chairs, reading rapidly. My fingers clenched the paper. “Is this – is this one of ours?”
“Nope,” said Mac, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. “Jimmy found it over on the East Side. Roddy says he saw a couple in London Village too. They’re all over.”
My own face gazed out from the poster. The photo had been taken just after my Peacefighter induction ceremony; it was the same picture that had been used in all the papers when I’d been on trial for murder.
This time the wording underneath it was very different.
V FOR VANCOUR!
On the night of September 10th, Amity Vancour, known as Wildcat, was interrupted by the arrival of Guns as she broadcast a message of hope to our occupied, terrorized city. Thousands of covert listeners heard the commotion and the calmness in Wildcat’s voice as she told us that she might be about to die, but to keep fighting.
Wildcat did not die. She eluded the Guns and has since continued to broadcast. Her unflinching courage in that moment is an inspiration to us all. Amity Vancour is only twenty years old and is willing to give her life for the cause of freedom. Can any of us be less brave and still look at ourselves in the mirror?
Follow Wildcat. Keep rebellion in your heart and don’t lose hope. Pierce WILL and MUST fall.
V FOR VICTORY!
The only sounds in the small apartment were the faint ticking of the clock and the murmur of Sephy and Hal in the other room. Slowly, my eyes met Mac’s.
“All those Vs we’ve been seeing,” I murmured.
“The others have been seeing them everywhere too,” Mac said. “I saw some more myself today – in the dust on autos, drawn on shop windows. There was even a broken matchstick shaped like a V left on a cafe table.”
I stared down at the poster again and couldn’t speak. Mac sat across from me and pulled it towards him, reading it again. His shirtsleeves were rolled up against the heat.
“Well, I guess now we know why,” he said. “Amazing what having Guns busting in on you can do for your reputation.”
I took a gulp of tea, my hands tight around the mug. “It’s a farce though,” I said harshly. “I was terrified. You know that.”
Mac shrugged and lit a cigarette. His lips quirked. “Does it matter?”
In an undertone, he added, “Listen, kiddo, with the city on our side, we might actually stand a chance on Friday.”
My bedroom in the cramped apartment was windowless, barely larger than a closet. That night I lay awake for a long time, stifled by the heat and my own thoughts. I knew Ingo couldn’t possibly be back yet, but part of me craned to hear his footsteps anyway.
Staring into the darkness, I touched the tattoo they’d given me in Harmony Five, tracing its curves from memory…and seeing again Collie handing me over to Sandford Cain while the Guns’ spotlights blazed. I’d thought I’d known him better than myself.
Damn you, Collie, I thought bleakly.
I knew Ingo wasn’t Collie. I knew that. But I still wasn’t sure how I could ever trust my judgement again when it came to being with someone.
That night on the roof. My chest tightened. Was I really surprised that when I’d thought I was about to be captured, Ingo was the one I’d thought of?
I scraped my fists over my hair. Stop, I ordered myself. This felt too complicated to deal with now. All that mattered was getting rid of Kay Pierce’s regime in a few days and obliterating my father’s legacy.
Later, I could figure this out.
Later, I could have a life again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Tuesday before the attack, a group of us worked on what we hoped was the last edition of Victory.
Cranking ten thousand copies took hours. Hal joined us towards the end, helping to wrap batches of the dried newspapers in plain brown paper. It was after midnight by then.
“Tired?” I asked my brother. He’d been working all day with Sephy.
He shook his head. “It’s good to get out and actually do something.”
“You already are doing something.”
He grimaced slightly. “Yeah. Doesn’t feel like it sometimes.”
Part of me wanted to tell him what was happening Friday. Conflicted, I turned away and tied another packet. He and Dwight resumed their conversation – some longstanding argument about a Peacefighter story thread. They were both fans of the old comic.
An hour later, the three of us were in a passage just below street level, carrying stacks of the plain brown parcels. They had to be delivered to rendezvous points around the city.
Our lanterns picked out our route. Death to Pigs! read faded graffiti on an old metal beam. “I wonder what the ancients had against pigs,” Dwight murmured. He nudged me. “Hey, Amity, did you hear the one—”
We all froze at a volley of gunfire from above.
Hal glanced quickly at me, his face pale. I tensed at the faint sound of breaking glass – the muffled echo of more gunshots and screams.
“Sounds bad,” I muttered. We were directly beneath Midtown. This time of night, all should have been quiet.
Dwight stood staring upwards, his thin form rigid. This was his neighbourhood. He lived only a few streets away.
“What’s happening, do you think?” Hal whispered.
I shook my head and took a step further down the tunnel. “I don’t know. Come on.”
“Can we see what’s going on?” Dwight blurted.
I wanted to say no, then saw the look on his face. I hesitated, my fingers tight around the packets.
“All right,” I said finally.
The nearest exit was one we didn’t use much. I climbed the makeshift ladder left by some long-ago explorer and slid aside a piece of board. I peeked out.
It led to ancient ruins left as a monument in a small park. What had been part of the building’s peak was now a rubble-filled basement. Above, street lights shone through symmetrical triangles that were once windows.
“Clear,” I whispered over my shoulder. “Be careful.”
Modern cement stairs led to park level. We slipped up them and crouched behind the monument’s front wall, peering out through a triangular slash.
My fi
rst dazed thought was: Diamonds. That was what all the broken glass in the street across from the park looked like, sparkling in the light from a burning auto.
“Holy shit,” breathed Hal.
It was the Harmony Helpers again, dozens of them. They wore red-and-black uniforms and carried baseball bats and torches.
A girl swung her bat at a store window. The glass shivered, shattered. “Take that, Discordant scum!” she yelled as her comrades cheered. One had a pistol. He howled and shot out a street lamp.
Hal swallowed hard. “How…how do they know who’s Discordant?”
“They don’t,” murmured Dwight.
The streets surrounding the park seemed huddled and fearful. Let’s get out of here, I started to say…and then more Helpers appeared, yelling, “Just like Truce! Just like Truce!”
My stomach lurched.
They had a photo of Dad blown up on a large placard. I could see it in the street lights. It had been taken just after he became a Peacefighter – he looked young, smiling, his hair combed back just like Hal’s was now.
The words read: Truce Vancour – a traitor just like his daughter!
“Just like Truce! Just like Truce!”
The Helpers punched the air. Dad. Feeling sick, I glanced at Hal. He looked bitter, his features carved in stone.
All at once more people burst from a street across the park. “V for Victory! Down with Pierce!”
They started hurling rocks, bricks. The Helpers stampeded towards them. The one holding the placard of our father swung it at someone’s head. Suddenly there was a riot – fists flailing, people shouting.
Guns arrived, seemingly from nowhere. “Stop, Discordant scum!” Pistol shots thundered. Several people wrenched away and ran, followed by the Harmony Helpers.
With most of the Guns in pursuit, they vanished down the street. One rebel was left. He scooped something up from the ground and took off across the park.
A remaining Gun gave chase, closing in fast. The goggles of his riot helmet gave him a blank, impersonal look. “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop or I’ll have to shoot!”
The rebel spun, panicked. He held a pistol.
The shot echoed through my brain. He’d gotten the Gun at almost point-blank range. The Gun jerked backwards and went down in a sprawl.
The man raced off. Shouts from the surrounding streets drew closer. I crouched frozen, staring at the Gun’s body, seeing again the sight that had greeted our arrival in New Manhattan.
Fifty people could be killed for this.
I couldn’t stop to think. I clasped Dwight’s arm. “Hurry – we’ve got to hide the body,” I gasped, scrambling up. “Hal, stay here!”
Dwight and I sprinted out from cover towards the dark, still shape of the Gun. As we got close I slowed. I swallowed hard, then crouched and pressed my fingers against his upturned wrist.
He was dead all right. With a shiver of distaste, I grasped his still-warm arms, hating the heavy, pliant feel of them.
“Grab his legs,” I said urgently to Dwight.
Dwight was trembling, but did it. Between us we dragged the Gun quickly into the monument, out of sight. Hal had half-followed us, standing on the grass uncertainly, his fists tight.
“Inside!” I cried.
Sirens howled through the neighbourhood. Dwight and I angled the body down the stairs to the basement. My hands were clammy; I glanced behind us with every step. Triangles from a ruined time fell across the floor.
We got to the dark corner and shoved aside the board. Our lanterns still burned below. No point in being gentle, yet I couldn’t bring myself to just drop the body through the hole.
I clambered down and Dwight began lowering it. The Gun slumped as if only asleep, apart from his wide-open eyes – I caught a flash of them in the faint light. I grasped the corpse by the knees, guiding it as it came down the ladder in a loose slither that made my skin crawl. Dwight followed and we laid it on the ground.
Hal came after us, pushing the board back in place. For several heartbeats I stared tautly upwards, listening. No sound of pursuers.
I turned to Hal. “Get going,” I whispered urgently.
He tore his gaze from the body. “What?”
I shoved the newspapers at him. “We still have to deliver these.”
“But what about—”
“Dwight and I will take care of it!”
“I’m not a child, Amity! I can help.”
“I know you can! But we have to get those papers delivered.”
His bitter expression was the same as when the Helpers had been shouting Dad’s name. “The newspapers? What do they even matter? They’re just more words – words! When are we going to—”
“In three days!” I cried. “We’re attacking Pierce in three days! And we have to get that newspaper out – she can’t suspect anything!”
Hal stared at me, his eyes wide. “Why…why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t my call. I shouldn’t be telling you now. Just go, Hal.”
He swallowed, glancing at the body again. “Did you know?” he asked Dwight.
Dwight looked up, dazed. “What? Oh. Yeah.”
Hal winced. He turned away and picked up the newspapers and one of the lanterns. “I’ll see you later,” he said gruffly. “Be careful with…that.”
“Hal…”
He left, moving away through the darkness of the tunnels.
Frustrated, I gazed after him, wishing there’d at least been time to talk about the poster of Dad. Yet what could I say? His long-ago thrown Peacefight had put John Gunnison in power. He had been a traitor, just like the poster said.
Dwight stood hugging himself, not looking at the shadowy body. “What…what are we doing with it?”
I swallowed. “Burying it, I guess.” It, not him.
“Down here?” There wasn’t much soil.
The grim thought came that we could just take the body deep below, to one of the old graveyard rooms. The idea of it slowly turning to a skeleton with the others made me feel sick.
“That section a little ways back,” I said finally. “There’s that old chamber off to one side – we should be able to dig a hole in there.”
“With?” Dwight said faintly.
“Let’s just get it there first.”
The short journey seemed to take a century. Finally we got the Gun to the small chamber off the main passage. There was old graffiti on the walls and, incongruously, a modern hubcap.
Good, I thought tiredly. We could use it to dig.
We lay the Gun on the floor. Sitting down, I slumped against the wall. “You know, this night really hasn’t turned out very well,” I murmured. “I could use one of your jokes right about now.”
Dwight didn’t answer. When I looked over, he was crouched, studying the Gun, so pale that I sat up in alarm.
Before I could speak, Dwight tugged the Gun’s helmet off. He sucked in his breath as if he’d been punched.
“Dwight?”
He started to sink back to his haunches, then fell to a sitting position, shoulders trembling. He pressed a hand against his eyes.
In a scrabble, I quickly crawled across the tiny space. Uncertainly, I touched Dwight’s arm.
His voice was hoarse. “When I saw his eyes, I…I tried to tell myself that it just looks like Nate, that’s all…it’s just someone who looks like him…”
“You knew him?”
“I…he…” Dwight gulped and wiped his face. “He’s the one I was involved with. Last year.”
I stared at him, remembering the conversation about Harmony Five we’d had back in July. “Did…did you know he’d become a Gun?”
Dwight shook his head, staring at Nate’s face. His eyes were wet. “I didn’t even know he was back in New Manhattan. He’s a good person, Amity. He really is. We only broke up because of his family.”
Suddenly I remembered the Gun – Nate – running after the rioter. Stop or I’ll have to shoot. “I’ll have to” didn’t
sound as if he’d wanted to do it. Plenty of Guns enjoyed their freedom to be cruel. But maybe for just as many, becoming a Gun seemed their only choice for survival.
The silence felt absolute.
“We still have to bury him, Dwight,” I said softly. “We can’t…give him back to his family, or anything like that.”
“I know.” Dwight visibly tried to regain himself. “It’s…it’s okay,” he got out. “Nate wouldn’t have wanted anyone to die because of him. This way when he doesn’t come back, they’ll think he deserted.” He swiped an angry wrist across his eyes. “Come on. Let’s get on with it.”
“Go home, Dwight,” I said.
He looked up in dull surprise. “What? I can’t…”
“You can.” My voice was harsh. “Leave. I don’t want you to have to deal with this. I’ll do it.”
Dwight looked at Nate and shivered. I could see him imagining the realities of scraping a hole in the earth – of lowering the corpse into it and then throwing dirt over it.
“I loved him,” he whispered. “I can’t just leave.”
The small room was on a higher level than the rest of the tunnel. I slid out of it and dropped to the uneven ground. I tugged Dwight out after me and handed him a lantern.
“Go,” I said. “Believe me – this isn’t a memory you want.”
Dwight hesitated, looking back in at the body. “You’ll, um…you’ll…”
I nodded and gripped his arm.
“I’ll take good care of him,” I said.
Once alone with the body, I felt drained. Nate had brown hair and a mouth that looked like it had once laughed a lot.
There was dust on his eyes. I swallowed hard. I pressed my hand against the smooth chill of his skin and got his eyelids closed.
I started to reach for the hubcap, then realized something. I tensed, studying Nate’s too-still features. But thinking of Dwight, there was no help for it.
I forced myself to search Nate’s pockets, my fingers fumbling in one after the other. I’d searched a dead man’s pockets once before: those of Russ, my team leader, back when I’d been a Peacefighter. Then I’d been acting on adrenalin and instinct. This was deliberate, as cold as Nate’s body.
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