by Maya Rock
“He’s lying,” I call out, pointing at him. Now people lift their heads from the programs and the dead cameras and turn to me, including the cricket at the podium. Uh-oh. I glance down at the insert in my hands and the faces on it, and I think of how Selwyn’s going to be joining them soon.
“It’s not a prank.” I’m standing up now, but my voice is still shaky. “They’re training the Patriots to kill people. Right here on the island.” The words hang in the air as Characters around me quiet down. All eyes are on me, and my heartbeat accelerates as I realize what I’ve done. So much for anonymity.
A frantic woman with a long nose calls out, “Is my son there? Revere Yucann? Is he part of this?”
I hesitate, aware of crickets within listening range. Revere’s mother looks up at me so plaintively, though, that I gulp and just plunge ahead. “He’s still here, training. But he won’t be safe for long; none of them will.”
Characters start tossing out more questions now. I see the glint of Mom’s glasses. Her mouth is pinched tight, and her fingers are clutched around the program as she watches me, petrified. I don’t respond to her or anyone, distracted by the streaks of black I see—Authority running into the plaza. My breath comes faster as I whirl around, trying to find a path out of the crowd, but I’m blocked on all sides. Scoop manages to push through and takes my hand. Authority plow through the crowd, shoving Characters out of the way, coming after me.
A cricket with soft brown eyes reaches us before they do and puts her hand on my shoulder.
“Nettie. Did you write this?” She waves the insert in front of me.
“No, I did,” Scoop says. He keeps his eyes fixed on the cricket’s, daring her to contradict him. “I wrote it and slipped the flyers into the programs while I was helping Lia Burnish. Nettie and Lia know nothing about them.”
“But that can’t be true,” the cricket says, voice gentle. “She just said she knows where Revere is.” Scoop squeezes my hand harder, so I keep my mouth shut. Three Authority break out from the now-silent crowd and circle us. I try not to panic. It’ll be okay, I recite to myself. It’ll be okay.
“You’ll have to come with us to the Center,” the cricket says.
“No!” my mother wails.
Scoop and I exchange looks. I know we’re thinking the same thing: we’re going to be locked up in the Sandcastle. My mother lunges forward, and one of the Authority holds her back. His grip on her arm looks tight, and my mind is made up.
“Okay, we’ll go,” I say. I don’t want to get any of the Characters in trouble. We did our part—they know the truth. “Okay?” I whisper to Scoop, and he nods.
An Authority approaches me, bearing handcuffs, and the nice cricket shakes her head adamantly. “Those aren’t necessary.” She walks up to the Authority, and I can read her lips as she murmurs in his ear, “We don’t want to upset the cast.” She turns back, smiling, like she’s inviting us to a party. “Come with us. We have some questions.” She coaxes us forward, and Scoop and I obey.
I search for Callen, but I don’t see him, so I just follow the path the Authority clears for us, leading toward the white van on the side of the road.
Chapter 25
We’re in a dark, cramped cell in the Sandcastle, with one slender window fronted by rusty bars and a rickety cot in the corner. We’ve been here for two hours. I can hear the ocean pounding the shore outside and gulls flapping and screeching nearby as I pace the floor. I’m worried they’re abandoning us here. Letting us starve to death. The solution to traitorous Characters. Media1 killed my father, and now they’ll kill me.
Scoop stands on his tiptoes and peeks through the bars. “The freighter’s still docked,” he reports. “I think we stopped them from shipping the Patriots out.” A note of satisfaction is in his voice.
I try sitting on the rusty cot, scrambling up when my legs make contact with surprise moisture. I pace again. I knock on the walls. No echo. Thick. There’s nothing behind there. In the joint where the ceiling meets the wall is a familiar sight. A camera, and it’s on. I’ve never seen a camera in the Center before. I look around the cell for mics. None—and ours are still off.
“They’re gonna come get us. Stop worrying,” Scoop says, turning away from the window. “Rest a little. You’re putting grooves in the floor from all the walking.”
“Fine.” I stop in front of a thin crack in the wall and stare at it, as if it’ll grow into a passageway we can slip through. And go where? Hijack the freighter? For a second, I think about it, letting my mind spin out a fantasy—grabbing a gun from an Authority, saving the Patriots, Scoop taking control at the helm and going . . . where? There must be places in the world that are free from Media1.
Scoop slides down and sits against the wall underneath the window, resting in the single pane of light stretching across the floor. The tick of his watch is amplified in the quiet cell.
“Some of the Characters were pretty mad,” I say, sinking to the floor next to him. I don’t mention the ones who seemed ready to pretend none of it ever happened. If there aren’t enough Characters brave enough to stand up to Media1, it’ll all have been for nothing.
Sensing my distress, Scoop reaches over and tousles my hair. “Let’s play a game,” he says. “I was thinking How Many Bugs? There’s a beetle.” He points toward a crevice in the floor, and I force myself to look, seeing the beetle toddle along. “One.”
I shudder and draw my knees up to my chin, then point to the floor. “The spider.”
The game goes on for at least fifteen minutes, and then we run out of bugs to count. We talk, trading stories of our earliest memories, then our favorite desserts and our worst teachers, our best teachers, our happiest spring days, our proudest moments. Scoop is the one who keeps coming up with the new topics. Then we run out of things to say and sit in silence, me fading in and out of a restless sleep.
A rattle—key in the lock—and a screech as the bolt slides open. We jump up as the door opens and fluorescent lights from the hall invade the room. Two Authority march in, with Luz following behind them, wearing his purple jumpsuit for once.
“Come with me,” he says tersely, turning and walking out of the room.
“That’s my producer, the guy who came up with the Initiative,” I whisper to Scoop as we follow him. Luz leads us through a labyrinth of halls, single file, one Authority in front of us, one behind. We pause at an unmarked door. The Authority unlocks the door, then Luz ushers us into the mostly empty, windowless room, gesturing for us to sit down at a round table. He sits, putting a megaphone I hadn’t noticed before in his lap.
Scoop tries to act calm, but his jogging knee gives him away. “I want to see Belle,” he blurts out.
“Not now,” Luz says sternly. He’s not looking at me. Is he mad? I guess I’m not one of his favorites anymore.
“Is she safe?” Scoop persists. “I have to know that she’s not going to be on that show.”
“I’ll let you see Belle, but I need you two to do something for me. For us. The Characters have ignored our orders to return to their homes. They’ve gathered outside the gates, and they’re refusing to leave,” Luz tells us. “The board is deciding how they want to handle it. Some want to deploy tear gas. Others think less violent means may be more effective. I’ve proposed that you help us by talking to the crowd, urging them to go home.”
“Are you kidding?” I break in. “I think you’ve forgotten whose side we’re on.”
“Nettie, if you don’t cooperate, things could get much worse,” Luz says, scratching his beard, agitated. “The board is furious.”
“We’ll do it if you stop Patriot Adventures,” Scoop asserts.
Luz just laughs. “No. I shouldn’t laugh,” he says. “It’s just that the board would throw you right back in that cell if I suggested that.”
“Fine, have them do it,” I retort. “We’re not going to help.
”
“Wait.” Scoop puts his hand on my arm. “We’ll talk to them, but only if you stop the next shipment of Patriots. Belle, Revere, all of them.”
“You can’t bargain.” I turn to him. “Patriot Adventures has to end. My father died on that show.”
“We need to do what we can right now,” Scoop says firmly. “What exactly do you want us to say?”
Part of me knows he’s right. There are no Authority in sight, but it wouldn’t take one long to barge in and make the same demand with a gun to our heads. Though we’ve shocked Media1 and scored a psychological blow, they still hold most of the power. “Okay,” I nod. “We’ll talk to the Characters if you free the next shipment.”
“Just a second.” Luz leaves the room, and I hear him whispering outside to someone.
Scoop yells after him, “And we need to see Revere, Belle, and Selwyn free before we say anything.”
Luz comes back in after a few minutes, nodding. “Done. This batch of Patriots will be released to their families while Media1 decides how to handle the dangerous situation you’ve created on the island,” he says, gesturing us to our feet. “Now it’s time to hold up your end of the bargain.”
“What do we say?” Scoop asks as we follow Luz through the winding subterranean Sandcastle halls, Authority trailing us.
“I’ll tell you when we get outside,” Luz says, standing and handing me the megaphone. “Nettie’s going to do all the talking.”
“I don’t say anything?” Scoop frowns.
“Media1 wants Nettie,” Luz says, leading us up the stairs and outside into the sunlight.
Luz moves close beside me as we climb the hill from the Sandcastle to the Center gates. “I feel so bad, Nettie,” he says softly. “To have put you all through this. It’s my worst nightmare. When I started the Initiative, I thought I was going to save you, get you off the E.L. forever, ensure that you made tons in ratings payments and could enjoy a good life on the island. But look what happened.” His laughter is tinged with bitterness. “It couldn’t have ended worse.”
“A good life?” I snort. “You thought threatening to cut me if I didn’t close up with Callen was part of a good life?”
Chastened, all he can do is mutter back, “I’m sorry. I did my best—the board just kept demanding more and more. They want Days to be doing as well as Adventures.”
“Scoop?” a voice cries in the distance before I can respond. Coming toward us, marching around the corner of Character Relations is a block of Authority surrounding three smaller figures in camouflage.
“Belle?” he calls out.
The Authority part, revealing Belle, Selwyn, and Revere, clinging tightly to one another as they stumble toward us dressed in Patriot fatigues and blinking as if they haven’t seen the sun in a hundred seasons. Belle frees herself and quickens her pace. Scoop runs to meet her and crushes her into his arms, her face buried in his shoulder.
I approach Selwyn and Revere more slowly, the guilt from both their cuts weighing heavy on me. Revere’s face lights up when he sees me, but before he can say anything, Selwyn recognizes me—she’s squinting in the bright midafternoon sunlight—and squeals, sprinting forward the last few yards to reach me.
We hug, and her bristly hair scratches my cheek. “I should have stopped you from talking so much in the bathroom,” I whisper into her ear.
She pulls back and says, “Nettie, it’s not your fault.” She notices my ears. “Your earrings! Our Double A earrings.” She touches her own bare lobes wistfully. Her voice is hoarse and dry. “You look so plus ten in them. Are you okay? I was worried—I heard you told everyone about what they’re doing to us. It’s all the Reals have been talking about all afternoon. How’d you do it?”
Before I can answer, Revere comes between us. “Nettie,” he says.
He’s thinner, and his weight loss makes his beaky nose stand out even more. When he looks at me, his brown eyes radiate pure gratitude. “I saw you that night,” he says, “looking out from Character Relations, and I hoped . . .” His voice trails off. When he speaks again, it sounds like he’s fighting down sobs. “Thank you.”
Scoop and Belle come over to us, hand in hand. “Do you hear the Characters outside the gates?” Belle asks.
I hear the roar now, rising up and down, a rhythmic chanting. The sound is a tidal wave that might take me under.
We want the truth. We want the truth.
Belle drops Scoop’s hand and runs ahead, toward the gates. Selwyn and Revere follow her. Their speed and tight coordination speak to their Patriot training. As they approach the gates, the chanting subsides, the crowd shocked out of their rage. No one’s ever seen a Patriot before. I hear Selwyn squeal out to her parents. Scoop takes a step forward, like he’s going to join them, but Luz yells, “Wait,” as he comes over to us, the other Reals flanking him.
“All right, Nettie,” he says. “You’re up. I’ll tell you what to say.”
All of us—the released Patriots, the Authority, Luz, Scoop, and I—approach the fence separating the Center from the set. Selwyn, Revere, and Belle are further ahead, standing right at the locked front gates, face-to-face with the crowd.
There are so many more Characters than I thought there would be. Word must have spread from the Double A, because it looks like almost the whole island knows and that, in the hours since we’ve told them, what’s going on has sunk in—the initial shock is over, and the anger has begun.
“Do you think they could stop the Reals?” Scoop whispers. “The police might do something.”
I shake my head. I hope they don’t. We can’t risk lives now. Ending Patriot Adventures is all about saving lives.
“Tell us the truth!” someone shouts from the other side of the fence, and something ripples in the air. Glass shatters against the pavement, and I hop back, narrowly dodging the shards. Someone hurled a bottle over the wall. Authority stand by the iron gates, impervious to the chants.
“It’s Nettie Starling! Nettie Starling and Scoop Cannery! They’ve been taken prisoner,” a man shouts, and the chants dissolve into epithets and curses at Media1 and unintelligible screams and cries. The gates creak under the weight of the crowd. The Authority watch, still as stones.
Luz steps close to me. “This is what I want you to say: We’re unharmed, and we ask that you return to your homes and wait for a Missive from Media1 about how we will proceed in light of the day’s events. Got it?”
“Say it again?” I whisper.
Luz repeats the words. I raise the megaphone to my lips, and sunlight bounces off it, slashing deep into the crowd, but when I open my mouth, no sound comes out.
Scoop strides up, reaching for the megaphone. “I’ll do it,” he says. I pull it back. “Nettie, c’mon,” he pleads. “I want to make sure Belle stays safe. Let me speak,” he demands, turning to Luz.
Luz shakes his head firmly. “It has to be Nettie.”
“Why not Scoop?” I ask. “Why does it have to be me?”
“It just . . . does. The board says so.” Luz fumbles with his answer, and I know exactly what he can’t bring himself to say. I’m Lia’s sidekick. Quieter than Scoop. More obedient.
I turn toward the crowd and bring the megaphone to my lips. “We’re unharmed—”
The chants and cries begin to die down, and they watch me with the same awed reverence they gave to Belle, Selwyn, and Revere.
“We’re safe, and—” I pause. Luz is watching me with steely eyes, and it’s as if he knows what I’m about to say even before I do. I take a deep breath. Media1 isn’t entirely wrong—I used to be more obedient, but I’ve changed.
“Scoop and I wrote the statement and put the ads in the programs. We saw Patriot Adventures with our own eyes. Media1 is sending our families to the Drowned Lands, where they kill people and get blown up and murdered. This isn’t what the Originals intended when they s
igned the Contract. They wanted security, but instead—”
Luz lunges toward me. I break into a run, but slip on a can someone threw over the fence, and my dress tears as I stumble to the ground. Scoop breaks free from the Authority and throws himself at Luz an instant before one of the Authority tackles both of them.
I scramble back to my feet. My knee is skinned, a bloodstain darkening my dress’s ragged hem, but I bring the megaphone back up to my mouth.
“We need to . . .” I search frantically for the right words. “We need to show them we can’t be ordered around. Patriot Adventures ends, or Blissful Days ends.” The roar from the crowd is overwhelming.
“Nettie, behind you!” Selwyn shrieks, but it’s too late. A sharp pain as a cricket rams into me, and I fall to the ground, the megaphone tumbling from my hands. The crowd’s roar grows louder until sharp cracks peal in the air, and then the roar becomes deafening, punctuated with screams. All I can see is the gravel beneath my face; in my mouth I taste the dull metal of blood.
“Get them out of here,” Luz yells from behind me.
Chapter 26
My head throbs. I rub my temple, trying to coax the pain away as we’re escorted into Luz’s office. Scoop is hovering next to me.
“Have a seat,” an Authority growls, motioning toward the sofa. Scoop and I obey. Luz comes in a few minutes later and orders the Authority to leave.
“Did they hurt anyone?” I ask, rubbing my head. “Is my mother okay? Was anyone shot?”
“Your mother is fine,” Luz says, resting back in the chair. “They used tear gas, but no one was injured. Those were just warning shots. The tear gas is what persuaded the Characters to return to their homes. We issued a Missive ordering them to stay inside while the board works out how to address today’s events.”
“They just . . . everyone went home?” I say, torn between happiness that no one’s hurt and fear that nothing is going to change.
“For now,” Luz says. He sighs and does the beard-scratching thing. “But I don’t know how long it will last—Characters were ripping their mics off and destroying cameras. If you wanted to sow discord and discontent, Nettie, you’ve succeeded, and you have most likely cost me my job. The board’s blaming me for your newfound, um, confidence. Which means the Initiative’s over.”