The Eden Conspiracy: Book 2 of The Liberty Box Trilogy

by C. A. Gray

  I lifted Kate’s chin, and kissed her.

  It took a moment for her to register what was happening, but when she did, she kissed me back with a vehemence that surprised me. I hadn’t been prepared for it, so I bumped my elbow into the doorframe trying to stabilize us both.

  A few seconds later, someone pounded a flat palm against the door.

  “Dude,” said Charlie’s voice. “Guys. We can all hear you.”

  Kate and I pulled apart, and I’m sure I looked as abashed as she did. We both whisper-laughed, and I rested my forehead on hers.

  “Ten feet isn’t very far,” I whispered.

  Kate looked up at me, her eyes less than an inch from mine.

  “I love you,” she whispered back.

  I hadn’t expected that either. Before I could reply, she said, “I know you knew that already, and I know you don’t feel the same way, or don’t know if you do, or whatever. I’m not asking you to say it back.”

  Now I blinked at her, confused. I had no idea what I was supposed to say, then.

  Kate looked down, and whisper-laughed again, more to herself than to me. “It’s funny. The old me, the me from the Republic, would never, ever in a million years have said ‘I love you’ first, let alone to a guy she thought might not feel the same way. But if I die tomorrow, I just need to go… knowing that you know.”

  “You’re not going to die,” I whispered, stroking her cheek with my thumb. “I’m gonna keep you safe.”

  She met my eyes, and hers were so deeply sad. “Truth or a lie, Jackson?”

  Chapter 35: Voltolini

  It was a marvelous feeling, being up in the air, Voltolini thought as his helicopter crested above the trees just as the sun slipped over the horizon. He hadn’t been in any sort of aircraft in decades. The bullet trains and his own vehicles had been sufficient. But ever since he’d started to hear rumors of planes every now and then, which he still felt certain belonged to enemy spies, he’d begun to refurbish his own aircraft as well. His helicopter was such a symbol of luxury that now he could hardly imagine having lived without it as a personal means of transportation.

  There were four other individuals in the helicopter with him: the pilot, his chief bodyguard Kurtzman, Williams, the head of Secret Service, and his speaker, Jefferson Collins. They had to shout to communicate over the chopping of the helicopter blades, so after he’d received word that Beckenshire had been flattened to the ground, they’d spoken little. That was fine with him: he wanted to savor what victories he could. He’d enjoyed watching the rebels beg for their lives as they were gunned down—especially Stone. He’d despised the man as a self-interested coward.

  He turned to Williams and shouted, “Send a comm to the agents on the ground. I want updates on MacNamera and Brandeis. I assume we’ve caught them by now, but I want to know why the hell I haven’t heard about it yet.”

  Williams nodded, pulling out his netscreen. A few minutes later, Voltolini saw him frown, and hesitate.

  “Tell me,” Voltolini demanded.

  “We don’t know where they are, sir.”

  Voltolini’s eyes narrowed. “We—what?”

  “We don’t know where they are.”

  It took Voltolini a moment to understand the meaning of the words. “Can we or can we not track the brainwaves of an individual?” he demanded.

  Kurtzman interjected, “They might be dead. Or already off the grid.”

  Voltolini swore. “If they were dead, we should have found their bodies already. Didn’t we have at least a dozen agents on their tail? Get Barrett on the line. Now.”

  As Williams contacted the Chief Technology Officer, Jefferson Collins snuck furtive glances at Voltolini and the other two, not daring to say anything. Voltolini despised him too. One of these days he’d come up with a reason to have him killed, just so he wouldn’t have to put up with his simpering mannerisms anymore. Collins reminded Voltolini of a scolded dog.

  Barrett’s haggard face appeared on Williams’s screen. She looked like she hadn’t slept in maybe a week. Williams turned it so that Voltolini could see.

  “First question,” Voltolini barked at her without preamble, “Did you or did you not complete the project to link brainwaves to ID chips to board the bullet trains, like you promised me weeks and weeks ago?”

  “Completed, sir,” confirmed Barrett.

  “About damn time,” Voltolini said, and looked at Kurtzman. “So there’s no way they’re off the grid yet, then.” He looked back at Barrett. “I understand we cannot track MacNamera’s or Brandeis’s brainwaves.” He looked at Williams again. “What about the parents and the brother? Where are they?”

  Williams shook his head. “Also vanished.”

  Voltolini swore again, and then fixed on Barrett. “So we have five people, all still on the grid, who nevertheless appear to have vanished. How is that possible? Do they have some kind of cloaking device?”

  Barrett opened her mouth and then closed it again, clearly weighing her words carefully.

  “Spit it out, Barrett,” snapped Voltolini. “I want explanations, and I want them yesterday.”

  “Perhaps… Faraday cages?” she said. “I understand a few weeks ago, agents saw a group of rebels of whom they speculate MacNamera was one—”

  “Wearing ski masks, yes. But they weren’t wearing those at the palace. What else could it be?”

  She floundered. Finally she said, “I’m—afraid I can’t think of anything they wouldn’t have to wear that could disrupt our ability to read their brainwaves, sir.”

  Voltolini licked his lips and looked out the window without really seeing anything. Then he said, “The targeted brainwave project I asked for weeks ago. Is it done?”

  Barrett looked visibly relieved by the subject change. “It’s in testing, sir. At the reform schools. We can now send targeted messages to the brainwaves of individual students. So far it appears to be working beautifully on some of our toughest cases.”

  “Perfect,” said Voltolini. “Pump it out to the control centers, then. Eventually MacNamera and Brandeis will slip up and reappear on the map, and when they do, we need to be ready.”

  “But sir, we’re still in testing—we don’t know yet if the program will interfere with other signaling—”

  “Make it happen!” Voltolini snapped. “We don’t know where they are right now, so I want those two targeted across every control center in the Republic!”

  “Telling them what?” Barrett choked. “After all that’s happened to them, with all due respect, sir, I’m not sure even our most targeted programs will convince them of your… benevolence.”

  Voltolini bit his lip. She was right about that. At last he said, “No. No, perhaps not. So we’ll turn them against each other.”

  Williams, who still held the netscreen, shook his head. “Not gonna work on MacNamera,” he said. “The guy is a machine.”

  “Try anyway,” Voltolini ordered to them both. “But focus on Kate. We got her once, even without targeting—surely we can do it again. And if we get her, she’s the key to him.”

  Chapter 36: Kate

  I fell asleep in Jackson’s arms that night. Funny, how life can be such a mixture of pleasure and pain; how the anticipation of loss made the moments I had with him, and even with my whiny and difficult family, that much sweeter.

  He didn’t tell me he loved me back, but as soon as I told him how I felt, I could see in his eyes that he did. It was the reason why he’d come after me. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, since I hadn’t felt it that last day in Beckenshire together—and maybe Jackson still hadn’t recognized it himself. But I could feel it in how tightly he held me, like he was trying to protect me from even my own fears.

  The idea that I knew something about Jackson that he didn’t know yet himself was oddly empowering. It was the first time I felt like maybe, just maybe, we were equals.

  The sun rose the next morning like usual. It always su
rprised me when that happened: you think life will go on just as it always has, until one day, everything changes. Yet the sun rises anyway.

  The light was gray and washed out, filtering through the frosted windowpanes that were cracked and moldy at the edges. Jackson was still asleep beside me, which was a first. I thought he always rose before everybody else. I studied his face for a few seconds, memorizing every curve and line—delaying the inevitable. The moment I got out of bed, the day would have to start.

  But at last I picked up the blue dress he’d given me and went to the little bathroom again. I’d found some toothpaste in the nasty house, which tasted off—I wasn’t sure whether toothpaste could go rancid or not; if it could, this stuff had definitely done it. But it was better than nothing, and I wanted to feel as fresh for today as possible. I stripped off my clothes and used the bar of soap and the little sink to wash as much of myself and my hair as I could. Since everyone was still asleep, I figured I’d have time to let it air-dry before we left for the studio.

  If only I had some makeup, I thought. Not that it really mattered, but I would like to look like myself on camera, today of all days.

  Someone knocked on the door. I quickly put my clothes back on, rinsed the soap out of my hair and wrung it out over the sink. Then I opened the door a crack. It was my dad.

  “Morning Katie,” he whispered. “I have a surprise for you.” I looked down: he held a cracked ceramic mug filled with steaming hot liquid, and I could smell the pungent aroma of coffee. In my former life, everyone knew how obsessed I was with coffee, but I hadn’t had any since the day I received the comm that Will had been killed.

  “How did you—?” I started to ask as I took it from him.

  “It’s nothing special, it’s just instant,” he said. “Found it in the house, and I took a mug too.”

  “But how did you heat the water?”

  “Magic,” he said, his eyes twinkling. As I sipped, he leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Actually there’s a little kitchenette with a tea kettle, believe it or not.”

  I closed my eyes and savored the flavor. The old me would have been much too snobby to drink it, but now even instant coffee was an unbelievable luxury.

  “Come on,” Dad whispered, “let’s go chat in the kitchenette until the others wake up.”

  “Is it within ten feet?” I whispered, concerned.

  “No, but it’s within twenty, so I’ll take the signal disruptor with me and put it in the middle between us and them,” he held it up. I followed him, and he set the disruptor on the floor between the sleeping arrangements and the kitchenette. In the tiny room, there were white plastic chairs, and, of all things, a can of sardines.

  “Breakfast of champions,” Dad grinned at me, pulling the tab. “I think there’s enough for us each to have two.” He shoved the can in my direction, and watched as I ate, washing down every bite with coffee. At last he pointed to the room where we’d slept.

  “So when did that happen?” he asked.

  I knew he meant Jackson. “Last night,” I said honestly.

  “Looks like it had been a long time coming, though?”

  I smiled and nodded. Then my smile abruptly faded at the thought of Will. “I—broke up with Will as soon as I realized how I felt about Jackson. I just didn’t know how he felt about me until last night.”

  My dad nodded back, solemn. “Will is a good guy,” he said. “But he never did seem right for you somehow. He was right for who you… seemed to be, I suppose. After you got back from McCormick, you were never really you again.”

  “But—but you and Mom sent me there! You wanted them to make me into something different! You wanted me to be less rebellious—”

  Dad reached out a hand and put it on my forearm. “Katie. Do you know how it’s possible to want one thing on one level, but then when you get it, you never feel quite right about it? That’s how that was for me.” He looked at the hand on my arm. “I don’t quite know how to explain this, and I don’t know if it’ll help if I do. But I want to try. Katie, I thought—I thought we were happy. I did. I didn’t question the messages, and I believed what I saw and what I was told. When Will was supposedly killed, and when you disappeared, of course I was worried sick. But there was something else nagging at me, and I realized it had always been there. Always. It was like…” He shook his head. “It was like being in the middle of a dream, yet being aware that you’re dreaming at the same time. Do you know what I mean?”

  I nodded, stacking my hand over his on my forearm.

  “Then when you showed up at our house two days ago…” He stopped. “Wow, was that really only two days ago? It feels like a lifetime.” It took him a moment to regain his train of thought. “When you showed up, it was like… I woke up. But I fought it still, because I didn’t want it to be true. I don’t know if that makes sense either. But sometimes when you’re confronted with an unpleasant truth, you react even more strongly than if you still believed the lie.” He squeezed my arm, and turned pleading eyes on me. “What I’m trying to say, Katie, is that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You saw the truth when you were little, and instead of believing you… we sent you to McCormick. The girl we got back wasn’t our little girl anymore. I knew it, but I didn’t want to know it. And then when you came to our house and you had that signal disruptor with you, and Charlie believed you too… it felt the same. I knew, but I didn’t want to know. So we called the agents on you. All of this is our fault—my fault,” he amended. “If I’d told your mother we weren’t going to call the agents this time, then we wouldn’t have, no matter what she said. So I have to take the responsibility. If I hadn’t done it, you never would have been arrested. We wouldn’t be on the run right now.” He hung his head. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  I set my chipped mug down and threw my arms around him, now crying in earnest.

  “I forgive you,” I whispered as I pulled away, wiping my cheeks. Now I was glad I wasn’t wearing makeup. “Not sure if I forgive Mom, though.”

  “Your mother…” Dad trailed off. “There’s a lot of your mother in you, Katie.”

  “There is not!”

  “There is,” he insisted. “You both have the same stubborn streak, you just apply it differently. Once you got it into your head that things were a certain way, you closed your mind to all possibilities to the contrary. It took brainwashing to convince you otherwise.” He smiled wistfully. “Your mother had absolutely decided that what the Potentate said was gospel. She was open to no evidence to the contrary, no matter how strong. It was impossible to reason with her, short of the barrel of a gun to her head.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t see how that’s like me at all.”

  Now Dad gave me a genuine smile. “But you’re doing it right now,” he said. “You don’t want it to be true, so you’re not even listening to me. Do you know how similar you were to her from the time you got back from McCormick to the time you disappeared? You worshipped the ground that the Potentate walked on. That and your beauty got you on camera at twenty-two years of age! The same quality of stubbornness can work in either direction.” My scowl deepened, and Dad laughed. “That whole wilting violet thing your mother did yesterday? A lot of that was shock, I grant you. But you used to act like that too, you know. Like you were incapable of doing anything for yourself. Used to drive Charlie crazy, because everybody knew it was an act, except you. I couldn’t believe how tough you are now.” He beamed at me. “But this finally feels like the real you. The girl I lost all those years ago—she’s back.” He turned around and pointed in the main part of the warehouse. “And that guy in there sees you for who you really are. I like that about him.”

  I smiled. “Ha. Yeah. That, and the fact that he saved all our lives.”

  “That helps, too.” Dad grinned back. He patted my hand, and the smile faded. “As much as I don’t want you to have to do this today, Katie, I just want you to know that I’m proud of
you. I think you’re doing the right thing.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I whispered.

  We were all silent on the drive to the broadcasting studio, except for when I gave Charlie directions. We resumed our positions in the car: Charlie driving, me riding shotgun, my parents and Jackson in the backseat. Jackson reached up and held my hand openly this time. I clung to him like a life raft.

  “This is it,” I said, pointing to an industrial-looking building with antennas on the top. I was a little surprised at the contrast between my memory of the glamorous studio I’d toured a few times, and this place. Everything was gray for blocks and blocks. I only recognized the building by the street names, and the antennas.

  “What a ghetto,” Charlie muttered. He turned to our dad. “I’ll leave the engine running and the car in park so you guys can make a quick getaway.” We’d agreed that our parents would come in to the studio with us initially before we started broadcasting, because they had the signal disruptor. Clearly it didn’t work on everyone, but it worked on some people, and nothing could lend credence to our story like the window of reality the signal disruptor offered. Charlie told Dad, “When you guys come back down, you can take the car over to the service station there.” He pointed to a boarded up gas station a block from the studio, close enough that we could all run to it.

  “Hold on,” said Jackson as we all reached for the door handles. “Before we do this—everybody needs to stop and breathe.”

  “I just want to get this over with,” Charlie muttered. My mom let out a little whimper.

  “I know,” said Jackson, “but we’re all in fight-or-flight mode right now, and we don’t necessarily want to do either one. We just want to go in there and have a reasonable conversation. So let’s get centered first.”

  He led us in a few deep breaths, counting to eight as we breathed in and out. Honestly I wasn’t even listening to him. I felt impatient to get in there, too.

  “Kate,” he said pointedly. Apparently he could tell. “We’re about to be without the signal disruptor, and last time that happened, you saw what they wanted you to see. Remember?”