The Eden Conspiracy: Book 2 of The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  I looked around to see if there was any cover nearby that wouldn’t require any additional expenditure of energy. I didn’t see anything, though. We’d have to climb through the window once they got the car going, but maybe a few extra moments of rest would be enough for Kate’s mother to recharge. I hoped.

  “I’ll stay out here with you, just in case any agents happen to see us here,” I conceded finally. I could still pick them off with the rifle, though that would give away our position. If Kate and Charlie got more than ten feet away from us, that would give away our position too, since Kate had the only jammer. So I hoped they’d be quick. “What we’ll have to do, then, is keep an eye on those helicopters. Just rotate around the sides of the garage opposite to the side they’re on, and maybe with some luck they won’t see us.” Then I called through the window, “How long do you think this will take, Charlie?”

  “He’s got a vintage!” Charlie whooped back though the window. “I was hoping he did. Give me another… five minutes!”

  I didn’t know what he meant by vintage, but the length of time was all I cared about anyway. I could keep Kate’s parents alive for five minutes. I hoped.

  “Hurry up!” I called back.

  Chapter 30: Kate

  I jumped down from the windowsill to the ground inside the garage, and noted that there was enough light filtering through the windows that I could still see. Charlie peered inside each of the cars in turn, one by one. He was looking for something, though I didn’t know what.

  “‘Course, we can’t do this without doing some serious damage to a very nice vehicle,” he murmured, more to himself than to me, “but as it belongs to the Potentate, I don’t feel too bad.”

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “An older model,” Charlie said. “Car collectors tend to like vintage, but I need something really, really vintage for this to work. Like from back before 1999.”

  “Are you serious?” I couldn’t imagine anything that old would still run. “You can tell just by looking at the panel how old they are?”

  “Shoot, you can tell looking at the body of the car,” he told me, “they’re distinctive. But so far, none of these…” He gestured at the walls. “Find me some tools while I look, will you? It’s a garage, they’ve got to be in here somewhere.”

  “What do you need?” I asked, following where he pointed. The garage looked pretty pristine and empty except for the cars, some large barrels I could only assume contained gasoline, and oil cans. But I kept looking.

  “Wire cutters and strippers, if you know what those look like. Pliers, a flathead and a Phillips-head screwdriver. A hammer. Gloves if you can find them, and electrical tape would be awesome.”

  “Wow,” I murmured. “Glad we didn’t try this in a parking lot, then.”

  “I’d have improvised. I’m awesome like that.”

  Bingo. I found a little storage shed with a toolbox inside. “Think I found most of it,” I told him.

  “Good, because I think this beauty will work!” Charlie opened the driver’s side door to a long, shiny black car triumphantly. “It’s a 1996 Jaguar XJS! Never thought I’d see anything like it in real life…”

  I just grabbed the whole toolbox and brought it to him, climbing in to the passenger side of the vehicle. Charlie then put out a hand, not even looking at me.

  “Flathead screwdriver, please!”

  I fished around in the toolbox and found it, placing it in his palm. He inserted it where the ignition key should go, and stuck out his hand to me again. “Hammer, please!” I gave it to him, and he pounded the flathead into the ignition.

  Jackson’s voice called through the window, “How long do you think this will take, Charlie?”

  “He’s got a vintage!” Charlie shouted back to him. “I was hoping he did. Give me another… five minutes!”

  “Okay, hurry up!” Jackson called.

  “Why are they waiting outside?” I murmured to Charlie.

  “No idea, but we can blast through the door like old school action movie heroes in a second here.” Charlie turned the flathead, cranking with both fists. It turned, but nothing else happened. He seemed to think it should have, and frowned.

  “Okay. Phillips head, please.” I fished around in the toolbox and handed it to him. Then Charlie set about unscrewing the screws in the front plastic paneling above and below the steering column. As he worked, he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “So did you and Will break up, or what?”

  My mouth fell open. “How did you know—?”

  “Because you’re looking at that Jackson guy like rainbows shine out of his ass. I figured something must’ve happened.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Charming as ever, Charles.”

  “I try.” He finished unscrewing the panels, and removed them. Underneath there were a mess of wires. “Okay, find the two red wires. See them? That’s the power.” He reached another hand out to me. “Gloves?”

  I found some, and handed them to him. He put them on, and held out a gloved hand next. “Wire cutters?”

  “Not sure what those look like,” I said, rummaging around in the toolbox.

  He looked over in the toolbox in my lap, and picked them out, saying, “These. Now, cut both ends of the red wires, and you want to strip away the insulation.” He started scraping it away as he spoke.

  I felt the need to add, “Will and I are just taking a step back, that’s all. Jackson and I aren’t… anything.”

  Charlie glanced at me sideways but didn’t comment on this right away. “Pliars?” I handed them to him, and he said, “Okay, now twist the ends of the two opposing red wires together,” he said as he demonstrated. “Next, brown wires. These connect to the starter. Cut these and strip them.” He demonstrated that too. Then he added, “Jackson is definitely a badass, I’ll give you that. But I always thought Will was too good for you anyway.”

  “Thanks, Charlie!” I blinked, stung.

  “I meant I thought he was too good for the old you,” Charlie amended. “You used to be super annoying, you know? You thought you were so amazing just because you were famous and pretty, like the whole world owed you something for it. Basically you were just… decorative and useless. But now, I mean… you’re kind of becoming a badass yourself.” He gave me a sideways grin. “So maybe you don’t need either of them, I don’t know.”

  I was speechless. Nobody had ever described me that way… at least not to my face. I was at once appalled and embarrassed, yet also a little flattered.

  Charlie didn’t think I was useless anymore.

  When he finished stripping down the brown wires, he touched the two ends together. The engine turned over.

  “Yes!” Charlie crowed, giddy. “All right, electrical tape, quick!” He reached a hand toward me. I rummaged through the toolbox as fast as I could, found it and gave it to him. As he wrapped the ends of the brown wires, he said, “Okay, get the others in here! Let’s blow this joint!”

  Chapter 31: Jackson

  Kate’s dad coaxed her mother toward the garage window, one labored step at a time. He glanced up at me, apologetic.

  “She’s close to a breakdown,” he told me, as if I couldn’t see that for myself. Another shuffle, and he added, “I wish you could have met her under different circumstances. In the last day and a half, she found out her daughter was alive, but a traitor, and then that we were duped by the government we adored, abducted and nearly executed… and now suddenly we’re fugitives ourselves…” He shook his head, ducked it low and encouraged her to shuffle forward again before looking back up at me. “Denise isn’t a bad person. It’s just all too much for her.”

  “Denise?” I asked. “What’s your name?”

  “Albert. Sorry.” He smiled at me weakly. “After all we’ve been through together, I haven’t even introduced myself properly.”

  Since Denise wasn’t helping us much, Albert crawled in the window
first, and I lifted her up on my side and shoved her through while he caught her in the interior. She understood what was going on enough to grasp the windowsill and make a feeble effort to pull, but there was no muscle strength in it. Albert and I did all the work.

  Albert pulled Denise over to the car and helped her to climb into the middle of the backseat. Before I got in, I pointed at the large cans against the wall of the garage and looked back at Charlie and Kate, who were each sitting in the front.

  “Think these are gasoline?”

  Charlie stared at me for a minute, and then said, “Oh. Good call.”

  I unscrewed the top of the canister to make sure, and got a good whiff: definitely gas. We carried one to the trunk, and then I glanced around to see if we might be so lucky as to find a funnel, too. Charlie grabbed a toolbox, presumably the one he and Kate had been using, and carried that to the trunk too before he climbed into the driver’s side.

  Kate got out of the front seat as I walked around to get in.

  “I’ll sit in the back, you don’t have to console my mom anymore,” she told me under her breath.

  “No, it’s fine,” I told her. “You know your way around the Republic, you should be navigating.”

  “Guys!” Charlie snapped, leaning across the front seat. “Would you stop flirting and get in? Kinda in a rush here.”

  Kate blushed a little and wouldn’t look at me as she ducked in to the front seat. “Why are you always such an ass, Charlie?” I heard her say.

  “Because you’re such an easy target,” was his reply.

  I suppressed a smile and climbed in beside Denise.

  “Okay, everybody strapped in?” Charlie asked us. “This is gonna be a little bumpy at first.” Then he punched the accelerator as we sped directly towards the closed garage door. I felt a brief spike of terror as I realized the front seat was going to get the worst of it—somehow I hadn’t thought of that before—

  Crunch. We crashed through into broad daylight, but did not stop. When the debris cleared, I saw that the windshield had a few cracks in it, but there was no major damage.

  “Did you even check to see if we could open the garage door?” I demanded. “The windows were unlocked, so I’m sure the door was too!”

  “Ah… no.” Charlie shrugged, and grinned at me sheepishly in the rearview mirror. “I guess that would’ve been smarter, huh?”

  I felt another spike of terror: the helicopter. Of course it would see us, and would immediately know who we had to be. I rolled my window down to peer up into the sky as Charlie raced down the very long driveway leading away from the palace. I could hear the agents shouting after us and shooting, but I ignored them, scanning the sky. But no helicopter.

  Albert turned around and spotted the cluster of black sedans behind us first.

  “We’re being followed,” he announced.

  “No problem,” said Charlie. “They’re not equipped like this bad boy.” I saw the accelerator spike to 125 miles per hour, and climb.

  Denise started to moan under her breath, “Ohhh… ohhh… ohhhh…”

  “Mom!” Kate snapped. “Stop it, you’re making us all nervous!”

  Denise stopped moaning, but started rocking back and forth instead. She wasn’t making a sound anymore, but I could see her lips forming the words, “We’re all gonna die… we’re all gonna die…”

  Eventually the long straight driveway to the palace emptied on to a highway, which Charlie entered. Then he suddenly jolted over to the city exit with very little deceleration. A few of the sedans sped by the exit, evidently thinking he was going to keep going straight. But the ones further behind managed to follow him off the exit ramp. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but enough that Charlie had to weave between the cars on the off ramp, bumping in to a few of them as he went. He laid on the horn as he moved into city traffic, trying to blaze a trail. I could see his eyes gleaming in the rearview mirror as he navigated the sports car through a series of hairpin twists and turns.

  “I have always wanted to do this,” he said over and over.

  Kate gripped the edges of her seat so tightly her knuckles turned white. I glanced at Denise and Albert: he was ashen, and she looked like she might throw up.

  At last, the sedans vanished, unable to keep up with Charlie’s maneuvers. He slowed down and merged with the flow of traffic, headed out of the city and in the general direction from which we’d come.

  We were all silent for awhile. When Kate’s mom finally stopped rocking back and forth and regained some of her color, she stared blankly out the window. Then abruptly she said, “They’re going to find us. They’re going to kill us all.”

  “Not if I can help it,” said Charlie.

  “The Potentate wants us dead. So we’re all going to die…”

  “Denise,” said Albert under his breath. “That’s not helpful right now.”

  She turned big, pleading eyes on him—the kind I imagine Kate used to use on Will when she was still brainwashed herself. “Even if we escape him, if we get outside the Republic into the forest, we’ll starve or we’ll be eaten or we’ll die of exposure—”

  “We have Jackson, Mom,” said Kate. “We’ll be fine.”

  Denise went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “And if we get to Beckenshire, we’ll all die of radiation poisoning! How did this happen? How could this possibly happen?” Her voice faded away until she was mostly moving her lips again, just saying, “How? How?”

  I thought she was done. But then suddenly Denise screeched, “The Potentate is good and kind, and we live in Eden! He only wants our welfare! We have to turn ourselves in! Stop the car!” She lunged over her husband and grabbed for the door handle, but Albert caught her hand easily. She railed against him, beating his chest with her fists as she burst into tears. “Stop the car! Stop the car! We… live… in… Eden!”

  After all I’d seen of the brainwashed citizens, I still wasn’t quite prepared for that outburst. I stared at her, wide-eyed, and watched as she wore herself out pounding on her husband, and he stroked her hair, shushing her and waiting for her to cry herself out. I caught Kate’s eye, and saw my own horror reflected in her expression.

  When Denise finally calmed down, Albert murmured, “For my part, after all we’ve seen, I feel like a fool for never questioning anything.”

  Charlie looked at him through the rearview. “What do you mean, Dad?”

  He glanced out the window, and then said, “We saw the collapse of the United States. You guys were little, and I was desperate to feed you… but there was no work and no money and no food. I started raiding empty homes and ransacking grocery stores like everybody else, but even those were mostly picked over… we went hungry a few times.”

  “More than a few,” Denise muttered. She seemed a little more lucid now. “Kathryn almost died.”

  “I did?” Kate said, startled.

  “Not from starvation, from fever,” said Albert. “It got up to 105, and we were so scared, Katie. We needed antibiotics to give you, but there weren’t any. So many people died from infections that would have been easily curable before the collapse. Denise just kept bathing you in tepid water and crying and praying, and there was nothing I could do to help. I’ve never felt so helpless in all my life.” He shook his head. “And then Ben Voltolini came along. He reorganized the government and promised us food and rations, and all we had to do was go and register ourselves. Can you blame us for thinking he was a savior?”

  I tried to imagine what that was like for him, but I couldn’t. Had my stepfather not beaten me, had my mom not sent me away to live with my aunt and uncle in Iceland… I’d have lived through the Crash too. I’d never have met Grandfather, never have trained my mind or learned how to feed and defend and protect myself. Maybe I’d have been just as much a sheep as any of the Republic’s citizens.

  Who would have thought that an abusive stepfather would have been a blessing in disguise.

  Charlie sa
id, “All I remember was getting tired for a really long time, when I was seven. Like I could barely move, and didn’t want to get out of bed.”

  Denise sniffled and shifted her position restlessly. I thought she was about to start shouting again, but she settled back into Albert’s arms. He rubbed her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head.

  Charlie went on, “Somehow over that next six months or so, after I was so tired and sick, the whole Republic was transformed and rebuilt.” He shook his head. “Come to think of it, we never saw it being rebuilt. It just suddenly… was.”

  “Because he only rebuilt it in our minds,” said Kate.

  They all fell silent. Then Denise looked at me, and said, “Why are you helping us?”

  I thought for a minute, not sure exactly what she meant. “You mean, why did I follow you? Because… you have a very strong-willed daughter, who would have refused my help, had I offered it directly.”

  “No, I wouldn’t!” Kate protested.

  “Oh yeah?” I leaned forward. “This from the girl who ripped open a deer’s ribcage while gagging down vomit, insisting she could do it all herself?”

  “My sister did that?” Charlie gaped, glancing at Kate. “My prima donna sister? Never a hair out of place?”

  Kate snorted, and gestured to her current appearance. “Right. Look at me, I’m a regular fashion plate.” Admittedly she wasn’t looking her best at the moment: she was disheveled and in her prison jumpsuit, still wearing half her disguise makeup with the other half smeared, mostly on my shirt.

  “If I had to sum you up in one sentence,” Charlie went on, “it would be, ‘I can’t possibly do anything for myself!’” He affected a high-pitched fawning tone.

  “Do you even remember me before McCormick’s?” Kate demanded, heated now.

  “Vaguely. You were paranoid and combative—”

  “Wouldn’t you be, if you saw this,” Kate gestured at the gray, bleak world around us as we sped by, “and everyone else, including your own family, insisted the Republic was filled with roses and gum drops? Do you know what it was like at McCormick’s?” She spluttered, “The normal brainwashing didn’t take on me, so we had exams, and if we didn’t give them the answers they wanted, there were rumors that they’d ship us off to ‘Special Projects,’ which we knew was just a euphemism for death camps. That’s what it was like! I don’t know what they did to brainwash us there was different than what they’d done to you or just more intense—but whatever it was, it was worse. It was more targeted. Is it surprising that they sent me home with a whole new personality that was never mine to begin with?”