The Eden Conspiracy: Book 2 of The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  I hoisted the satchel Jackson had brought back higher on my shoulder, and listened to the noise inside my head. Several equally important trains of thought battled it out for my attention. The jammers: Will would help me build them. Well, that was good, although I’d really wanted to build them by myself, just to prove I could.

  But this wasn’t about me; I needed the jammers built no matter who did it. We needed them built of course, too, but also, I needed them. Because I was going to get Charlie the second I could. I was going to send that broadcast, one way or another. I was…

  A shaft of moonlight up ahead illuminated Jackson, Nick, and Molly. I felt a pang and closed my eyes, remembering last night.

  When Jackson offered to help me build the jammers, I realized he was trying to keep me safe, just like Will would have done. But unlike Will, Jackson also supported my purpose. He wanted to let me help.

  The words that had almost slipped out of my mouth were, I think I’m falling in love with you.

  I’d only just stopped myself. I hadn’t even fully known it until that moment.

  But as soon as I did know, I couldn’t be Will’s fiancee anymore. It wasn’t fair to him, or to me.

  After that, I’d taken the long way back to where Will and I had made camp, trying to work out what I’d say to him. When I arrived, Will knew exactly where I’d been. He was waiting up, livid with anger. Finally I’d choked out the words I’d rehearsed.

  “Will, you and I are different people now.”

  He whipped his head around to face me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I bit my lip. “The girl you fell in love with… she still believed in her government. She looked to you to keep her safe, and really to make all her decisions for her. And you—for heaven’s sake, since then you’ve killed a man in cold blood!”

  “I did what I had to do,” he said through gritted teeth. “I did it for you!”

  “I know that, and I’m not blaming you,” I said, almost pleading. “I’m just saying, we’ve both been through some major life-altering events here.” It’s what Jackson had told me, and it made sense. “Ever since my memories of McCormick came back, I feel like the rebel I was back then again. I’m different. You’re different.”

  I saw his jaw lock. “What are you saying, Kate? Spit it out.”

  “I’m not saying anything definitive, except that maybe you and I should… slow things down a little.” When he didn’t reply, I added, “Get to know each other as we are now.”

  His silence terrified me more than anything else he could have said.

  “Fine,” Will said at last. Then he stood up and walked out into the night without another word.

  We’d said a terse goodbye before the raid this morning. But the Will that returned this evening was a person I hardly recognized. He was trying to win me back, I got that much. And even though I hadn’t said anything to him about Jackson, he knew. Of course he knew. Worse, I was sure Jackson knew, too.

  Well, so what? I thought, deliberately throwing my shoulders back. Not like it mattered anyway. I wasn’t planning on throwing myself at Jackson—I knew there were bigger things going on right now, and none of us could afford to be distracted. That was actually part of why I said what I did to Will last night—I just couldn’t stand the guilt anymore. I wanted to be emotionally free to do what I needed to do, and that was to focus on building the jammers, finding Charlie, and sending a broadcast to the citizens of the Republic to tell them the truth. I wished I wasn’t falling in love with Jackson, but since I was, at least I needed to not feel responsible for Will’s jealousy anymore.

  I bit my lip, staring at the back of Jackson’s head—trying not to feel too humiliated that he could see through me to my backbone. I knew he didn’t feel the same way, and that’s a good thing, I told myself fiercely. If he did, there would be a whole new set of problems, what with Will and our tiny community…

  As it was, the problem was entirely mine. And I was tough. I was the scrappy little Kathryn Brandeis that got shipped off to McCormick for rebellion.

  I could handle this.

  “Look where you’re going there.”

  I started, and felt a hand hook on the inside of my elbow, pulling my face out of the way of a bare tree branch just in time. I blinked, seeing Jackson at my side, though I’d never heard him approach.

  “I think I was actually falling asleep on my feet!” I told him.

  “I think you were too. That happens when it’s four in the morning and you don’t have anybody to keep you awake.”

  We walked in silence for a few minutes after that. I tried to think of something to say, but came up blank.

  “So… what happened with you and Will?” he asked at last.

  My heart sped up. “Oh. Um… well, it was like what you said in the forest. We just have to get to know each other again as we are now.” He didn’t reply at first, and I added, “Also, it was just getting exhausting, trying to keep it together when we had so many other things going on—all of us.”

  “So you didn’t actually break up, then? You’re just… scaling it back, or whatever?”

  I shrugged. “No. I guess we’re broken up. I didn’t think of it in those terms, because it’s not like we’re not going to see each other, you know? And I mean, who knows what will happen when this is all over and the world is different. If we even both survive.”

  Jackson nodded, thoughtful, and still didn’t say anything for a long moment. “You know Will thinks it was about me.”

  I felt the blood rush to my face. Even though he probably couldn’t see it in the moonlight, I knew he knew anyway.

  “He’s just looking for someone to blame. That’s typical Will,” I said with a short laugh. Then I prayed he would drop it. Leave me some dignity, even if everybody knows the truth.

  Maybe he heard me. Jackson said, “So he’s going to help you build the jammers though? That’s helpful, it’ll go a lot faster that way.”

  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Yeah. And once we’re in Beckenshire we can probably scavenge anything we want with no risk at all—”

  “Shh!” Jackson hissed, putting out an arm in front of me, and then he said in a slightly louder voice that somehow carried, “Everybody stop!”

  The whole group of us froze. Nick tiptoed back to Jackson, a look of concern on his face.

  “What is it?”

  We all listened, but I couldn’t hear anything. I closed my eyes and tried to tune in like he’d taught me, but all I heard was the wind in the trees.

  “We’re being tracked,” Jackson whispered to Nick. “But there aren’t that many of them.” He pulled his automatic weapon out of its holster and loaded it, gesturing to Alec, who did the same.

  Jackson turned back to Nick. “Stay here and stay quiet; we’ll take care of this.”

  I shivered as Jackson and Alec disappeared into the trees. Most of the group didn’t move at all, but we were all wide awake now. Molly tiptoed over to Nick’s side and wrapped her arms around him as he stroked her hair, but all of us kept our eyes glued to the spot where Jackson and Alec had disappeared.

  We stood there for what felt like hours, until the chill crept into my bones. At last the sound of gunshots rang out.

  Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

  I jumped with every one, and dug my fingernails into my palms. After a minute I tasted blood and realized I’d bit through my lip.

  We waited and waited. No one came.

  “How much longer are we gonna wait for them?” Rachel asked in a whisper. “What if that was them getting shot and the Potentate’s men are coming after us? We have to get out of here!”

  “Shh,” Nick told her sharply. “Jackson and Alec aren’t that easy to kill. They’ll be back, and we are not leaving without them!”

  “If we stay here, we might all die!” Sam protested. “If they’re alive, they can find their way to Beckenshire without us—”

  “
Then you go!” thundered Nick. “Find your own way, and maybe we’ll see you when we get there!”

  That shut him up.

  I trembled hard, watching the trees, and begging. Come back, come back, come back…

  Alec suddenly emerged, Jackson behind him.

  “That was all of them,” Jackson announced. “Let’s get going. The others won’t be too far behind. The sooner we can get to Beckenshire, the better.”

  Chapter 14: Jackson

  The first pink rays of morning streaked across the sky when Alec and I rejoined the company. I fell into step beside Will and Jean this time.

  “We counted five shots,” said Jean, her voice quivering.

  I nodded but didn’t say anything. Alec and I had picked them off one by one long before they’d ever spotted us. If I’d been able to think of any way I could have accomplished the same end without killing them, I’d have done so… but at this point, I couldn’t. This was war.

  “Were there more?” she asked quietly.

  “Not nearby. But if you heard the gunshots, I wonder who else did, too.”

  “That’s why we’re all still moving even though we’re dead on our feet, I’m sure,” said Will, his eyes bloodshot.

  “So we get to Beckenshire,” I said, “and we make the jammers. Then what? That only helps to protect us from detection, and from government influence. But it won’t wake anybody else up.”

  “I’d been thinking about that,” Will murmured, running a hand through his hair. “We still have to come up with a way to wake up the public slowly.”

  Alec grunted. “I don’t see why we don’t just blow up the control centers, like Kate suggested at first. Might not be as elegant as your ‘disruptive code,’ but it’ll work.”

  “It’s suicide,” Will argued. “Might as well send out an announcement, ‘Here we are! Come and get us!’”

  “Plus, then we’d have anarchy on our hands,” I said. “Will’s right, we need something slower, something that gives people some semblance of choice.”

  “What if we destroy the repeaters?” said Jean.

  We all looked at her.

  “Repeaters are devices that basically amplify government signals,” she said. “That way we wouldn’t have to destroy the signals from the source, just prevent them from broadcasting to a particular area.”

  Alec narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you suggesting we break into a heavily-guarded building with a pair of wire-cutters?”

  Jean shook her head. “Repeaters and other network equipment should be housed in smaller buildings throughout the districts. I think they’re labelled ‘JSTRs’ on the schematics, but I haven’t seen the diagrams for a long time. Hopefully they will have few if any guards, though, because the Potentate wouldn’t think they’d be in any danger.”

  Will said slowly, “I’ve seen them on schematic diagrams too, and you’re right, they’re JSTRs.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know where they all are, but if I can get to a netscreen, I should be able to locate the schematics for the various networks… I know where to look.”

  “Fantastic, just what we need,” muttered Alec. “A repeat of the last fiasco.”

  I thought Will might punch him for a second. “Start coming up with some of your own ideas, and then you can criticize, all right?”

  I asked, “What are the chances that there might be working netscreens in Beckenshire?”

  “Slim to none,” Will said. “We’re probably looking at another raid on the grid once we get the jammers built. But anything’s possible, I guess.”

  “And once we find them,” Jean cut in, “we break into the JSTRs and cut the cables. Simple as that.”

  “Once a repeater is destroyed,” I asked, “how long before they repair it and resume sending the brain control signals?”

  “That’s anybody’s guess,” Will said. “I don’t think they monitor the downstream signals very carefully, though. Near as I could figure, the attention is focused mainly on the source broadcast systems. Once the signals are propagated to the districts, the local agents tend toward laziness. They may not notice the disruption until the population begins to show signs of independence. That could be minutes or days.”

  “Unless they discover us cutting the cables,” Alec muttered.

  “What if we make it look like an accident?” I suggested. “We can fray the wires and put some dead rats right near the damage to make it look like it was a rat that did it. That way we could break them without announcing our presence.”

  “Good idea,” Will nodded. “That should accomplish the ‘slow’ approach, too—for a few days until the government manages to fix the repeaters, the entire sector that that repeater services will begin to wake up. Then if we do that systematically in every sector…”

  Jean nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly!”

  “Um, one more problem?” said Alec.

  “Of course,” Will muttered.

  “How do we get to these repeaters that are scattered all over the Republic? Even with the jammers, we obviously can’t go on foot. And even the Crone pointed out that there’s no way the Potentate hasn’t tightened security on the bullet trains yet.”

  “We might have a small window of time in which that won’t matter, though,” said Will.

  “What’s the window?” I asked.

  “The Potentate’s security before was pretty lax—all you needed was a government ID chip to board, but it didn’t have to be your own. My guess is, he’s gonna fix that as fast as he can: the ID chip will have to correspond to the brainwaves of the carrier after that. That’s a big job though—essentially it means they’ll have to match up two sets of data: the ID chip and the brainwaves of the person carrying it. Even once the technology is in place, that’s a massive amount of data for the entire Republic. It’ll take some time to correlate it all. Until that happens, in theory we should still be okay. But I have no idea how long that’ll take.”

  “And once it’s all correlated?” asked Alec.

  “If we’re using jammers, it’ll mean scanning an ID card will trigger a search that will come back with an error, because there won’t be a corresponding brainwave to go with it at all. But at least initially, there will be enough bugs in their new system that they’ll probably assume it’s just a system glitch and wave us on board anyway. Remember, most of the agents are your average lethargic, brainwashed citizens. We have time, but not a lot of it.”

  The sun rose fully, and started to feel warm. Still we did not stop.

  I hadn’t slept in about thirty-six hours, hadn’t eaten in about twenty-four, and had been on my feet for maybe twenty.

  That was okay in and of itself. I could do that. I’d gone up to seventy-two hours without sleep once, and fasted for up to a week as an exercise with Grandfather, so that he could teach me not to allow myself to become dependent upon anything. I’d hiked through the night plenty of times before this. I knew what my body was capable of.

  Still, this felt harder somehow, if only because I was carrying food on my back and simply couldn’t stop to eat it. Not without everyone stopping for a full meal anyway, which would waste precious time… and if we all stopped, I wasn’t sure some of us would be able to get back up again.

  “Hey,” said Will, falling into step beside me again. “Keep me awake, will ya? I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  I glanced at him sideways, smiling to myself. So we were friends now. That was unexpected.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Well, you backed off from Kate yesterday, even though she was all—” he stopped himself. “Well. That was pretty okay of you. So on top of everything else, apparently you’re a saint too.”

  I laughed.

  “So come on, for real. Tell me a flaw. Just give me something.”

  I knew what Uncle Patrick would say to this, or at least the general gist of it.

  “You’re thinking of somet
hing,” Will accused. “What?”

  I thought for a minute, trying to decide where to start. “I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Iceland. My aunt and uncle were missionaries out there, so they didn’t have a lot of money. I learned how to fish professionally and started selling when I was nine, just to help out. My aunt home schooled me, and my Grandfather taught me everything she didn’t.

  “When I was fourteen, I unexpectedly won a scholarship to go to a private school in Reykjavik, the capitol of Iceland. But I turned it down at first.”

  Will snorted. “I ask him for a flaw, and he has to go back to when he was fourteen…”

  “Heh, I’m getting there. I told my aunt and uncle and my Grandfather I didn’t want to go. I had no interest in Reykjavik or fancy private schools. I didn’t want to be a spoiled little city kid, and blah blah blah.

  “But my uncle called me out for lying—to everyone else, but mostly to myself. I’d convinced myself that I didn’t want to go to school, because deep down I was worried that my aunt and uncle needed my income to help support them. Not a lot of money was coming in at the time, and I thought if I left…” I shrugged. “Anyway, my uncle accused me of lying to myself about what I really wanted. He sent me to Reykjavik in spite of me, and I went practically kicking and screaming… but, he was right. As soon as the decision was made and I couldn’t turn back, I realized that was what I’d wanted all along, from the very beginning. I’d just buried it so deep I didn’t know it. I never would have chosen to go, if he hadn’t forced me into it.”

  Will stared at me for a moment. Finally he said, “That is the lamest flaw I’ve ever heard.”

  I laughed. “Really? The poster child for seeing truth, lies to himself? I thought that was a pretty good one.”

  Chapter 15: Kate