“I’m leaving.”
Idris considers me for a long moment, perhaps wondering if he heard correctly. “No.”
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. I don’t belong here. I’m not an insurgent, I’m a bio-chemist. I already knew that, but today showed me what I need to be doing. I need to be in a lab, working to eradicate the damn locusts. I can help with that. This”—I gesture to take in the ship, the Defiance, the fighting—“this . . .” I peter out, unable to verbalize the reasons I don’t belong here. “I’m going to the Ministry of Science and Food Production to offer them my help. They might shoot me on sight—I’m a fugitive, after all—or they might toss me back in prison, but I’ve got to try.”
“I can’t let you go. It’s too big a risk.” Idris stares at me stonily. “I told you when you first got here that no one leaves.”
I keep my calm. I knew he might react like this and I’m prepared. “I won’t betray you. In fact, if I can, I’ll gather intelligence for you.” It’s the only carrot I have to offer. Sitting on my hammock, planning this, I knew I’d need to offer Idris something to have a prayer of getting him to let me go. This was repugnant, but it was all I could come up with.
His brow quirks up. “You’ll spy for the Defiance?”
The word is ugly. “I’m not going to run around eavesdropping at people’s doors or ransacking their computers, but—”
“You’ve already got experience with that, haven’t you?”
I can’t tell if he thinks he’s being funny or if he’s serious. “If I come across something that I think you need to know, I’ll get the information to you.”
“What if you’re tortured again?”
“I know what to expect. I’ll do better.”
He shakes his head. “Not good enough.” He gives me his profile as he stares out into the darkness, thinking. Finally, he turns back, expression grave. “I need two guarantees.”
I’m elated that he’s giving in so easily. I was half-afraid he’d slit my throat on the spot. “Name them.”
“First, Wyck stays. He’s my hostage. He doesn’t need to know it, but if I ever get a hint, the slightest idea, that you’ve given us up, he dies. As far as he needs to know, the situation hasn’t changed. He’ll plan and go on missions as normal, interact with the others like usual. This is just between you and me.”
“That’s not fair! Wyck’s not—”
“Non-negotiable.”
I chew on his ultimatum. I hate it, but I don’t see that I have a choice. I reason that since I’m not planning to betray the Defiance, Wyck is not in any danger. Well, no more than usual. “What else?”
“You let me implant a suicide micro-capsule in your cheek. It’s a nerve agent—very quick. You swear to me that if you’re caught, if the Prags get you in an interrogation cell again, you’ll end it. You give me your word.”
“You’d trust me?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?” He sounds testy, as if trusting me is against his better judgment.
This promise is easier than the one about Wyck because I can’t contemplate the thought of an interrogation session without trembling. “Agreed. I swear.”
“Someone will meet you in Atlanta, be your contact to funnel intelligence back to me.”
I swallow hard and nod.
Idris steps forward, closing the gap between us. He puts his hands on my upper arms, gripping lightly. “I’ll say this for you, Jax—you’re not short on courage.” He sounds reluctantly admiring. Before I can guess what he’s planning, he bends his head and kisses me on the lips, hard and brief. I don’t hate it.
He releases me abruptly and strides to the door. “Don’t get yourself killed. I almost think I’d miss you.”
Then he’s gone and I’m alone in the cabin. A colony of bats swoosh by, hunting insects over the water, and I murmur, “Why couldn’t you have been here a few hours ago and eaten a million locusts?”
They don’t answer. I leave the cabin and linger at the rail for a moment, letting the wind sift my hair. Then, I head below.
It takes mere minutes to fold my one change of clothes and tuck them into a military-issue knapsack. I’ve tucked a couple of vegeprote bars in, too, and some water. Packing like this reminds me of leaving the Kube. I sit on the edge of the hammock, swaying gently back and forth. Hopefully, this journey will not be so long or perilous. I didn’t think to discuss it with Idris, but surely he can spare one of the Defiers and an ACV to deliver me to the Atlanta outskirts. I can make my way from there.
There’s a knock on my door. I open it to find Wyck standing there. His shoulders are hunched in slightly, his chin tucked. His gaze goes past me to the knapsack.
“You’re leaving.”
I invite him in with a gesture, leaving the door cracked. “Yes.”
“I knew it when you came down from the hide. I could see it in your face.”
His perceptivity startles me. “I didn’t even know it then. I only decided this evening.”
“You’re going back to the Kube, aren’t you, to work on locusts with Dr. Ronan?” He stands by one of the bed supports, twiddling with a loose hammock fiber.
“No, I’m going to Atlanta. To the MSFP. I’m going to offer to help. Minister Alden once said she’d give me a job, remember? During the Assembly?”
“Atlanta! You’re a fugitive. You can’t just stroll up the steps of the Ministry and say, ‘Hi, I’m Everly Jax, escaped murderer. I’m here to help with the locust problem. Can you please direct me to the nearest laboratory?”
His voice is almost savage, and I eye him warily. “That’s not what I’m planning to do.”
“Oh, you have a plan?”
“Of course I have a plan. Why are you being like this?”
“You’re going to get yourself killed! Either that, or thrown in a prison cell again. It was torture for me, Ev, when they had you before. I knew what they must be doing to you, but I didn’t know. I imagined your suffering, but there was nothing I could do to help. At least, not until we got word about you being transported to the RESCO. I wondered if you were still you, or if they’d hurt you so badly or done a memory wipe, that you were gone, like Fiere.”
His intensity makes me uncomfortable. “Fiere’s not gone. In fact, she’s—”
“I don’t give a damn about Fiere,” he shouts. “I care about you, I love you, Everly. Don’t go.”
I hate myself for causing him so much distress. I put a hand on his arm. “I have to, Wyck. Can’t you see that? The locusts . . . they have to be stopped. I don’t pretend to know how—yet—but I’ve got ideas I can test in a lab, years of experience working on this.”
“You’re seventeen. You think you can come up with something that scientists with twice your training and experience haven’t thought of?” He gives a harsh laugh. “That’s some kind of egotistical, don’t you think?”
I know he’s hurt and worried about me, so I hold onto my temper. “I don’t think so. I might have something to offer that might become a small part of the solution. If there’s any chance at all that I can contribute, I have to try.”
Some of the anger drains out of his face. A new light gleams in his green eyes. “I’ll come with you. We can—”
“You can’t.”
He jerks back like I’ve slapped him. “You don’t want me to come?”
“It’s not that.” I search desperately for words that will discourage him from coming, yet not hurt him or reveal what Idris and I discussed. Impossible. “I can’t put you at risk, too. If they shoot me on sight because I’m a fugitive, well, I can live with that. Or not, I guess.”
He doesn’t smile at my morbid humor.
“But if you got hurt because of me, if the IPF captured you or killed you, I could never forgive myself. Besides”—I reach out again and touch his cheek—“you belong here, with the Defiance. You believe in what they’re doing, and they need you. You’d have nowhere to live in Atlanta, nothing to do. You’d hate it.”
/> He turns his head so my hand slides off his cheek. “We’re never going to travel west together, are we? We’re never going to go to an outpost, make a new life away from the Prags, all this. It was all a lie.” The bitterness in his voice bites like chicory.
“A dream. It will happen, Wyck. Have faith. In me. In us.” I’m blinking fast to keep the welling tears from falling. Do I believe what I’m saying? I want to.
“Make love with me, Ev. Now. So I’ll have that to remember, at least.”
“What about Cas?”
He knows what I’m really asking, but he says only, “Cas is dead.”
He draws me into his arms and kisses me. Somehow, he seems resolute, rather than impassioned. His hands explore my body, one working its way between us to cup my breast and the other pulling my hips closer as he grinds against me. I return his kisses and rake my hands through his hair, but instead of rising passion and longing, I feel melancholy swelling within me. I don’t know what’s wrong—I love Wyck, I want to share this with him. I try to force a passion I don’t feel and our kisses become fierce, almost painful, but then Wyck draws away.
“Not like this.” He shakes his head. “You’re not . . . we’re not . . . Not like this.” He leans down to kiss my cheek gently. “Good luck, Ev.”
Stepping around me, he slides through the gap and closes the door behind him with a quiet click. I stand still, listening to his footsteps fade until I can’t hear them anymore.
Chapter Fourteen
I don’t sleep at all. When I sense morning approaching, I go up on deck, carrying my light knapsack. I expect Idris to emerge soon, to indulge in his solitary fishing, and I’m going to ask him for transportation to Atlanta. It’s not Idris who comes up first, though, but Fiere. She joins me on the deck where I’m sitting with my arms wrapped around my knees, staring inland.
“Idris told us,” she says.
I nod.
“Bits and pieces are coming back. Ever since we fought—Anyway, thank you. I owe you.”
I brush that aside. “I only gave you back what you gave me.”
Footsteps approach. We look up to see Alexander standing over us, a faint smile etching his face. “Time to be going if you’re going to catch the train.”
Fiere and I stand. “Train?”
He slips a disc on a chain over my head. I know it’s got travel documents embedded on it, readable by scanner. “Your travel pass and ticket,” he confirms. “Idris arranged them. He’s tied up in the comms center, or he’d be up here to see you off. For the moment, you’re Derikka Ealy. But first, Idris told me you agreed to—” He gives me a questioning look.
I nod, ignoring Fiere’s puzzled frown. “You’ve got it?”
He withdraws a syringe-type gadget from his pocket. “Come into the light.” At his command, I open my mouth. Sliding the syringe between my teeth, he presses it against the lining of my cheek. There’s a sting, the taste of blood, and then it’s done. “You’ll need to chomp down hard, if it comes to it,” he says. “It won’t explode accidentally. When—if you activate it, it will only take seconds. Painless.”
I nod. My tongue probes the very slight ridge by my molars. “Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”
“It won’t,” he says with confidence.
“Come on,” Fiere says. “I’m your chauffeur to the train station. As if I don’t have better things to do.”
She tries to sound disgruntled, but I can tell she doesn’t mind. I hug Alexander. His arms come around me and he hugs me hard. He smells vaguely of the licorice-scented medicine he takes. I’m grateful that he doesn’t try to talk me out of going. “Rain death on those locusts and come back soon,” he says, releasing me.
“Will do.” I wonder if I’ll ever see him again. “Say goodbye and thanks to Idris for me, will you?”
“Of course.”
Fiere heads down the gangway and I follow with a last look over my shoulder. Alexander lifts one hand and smiles somberly. There’s no sign of Wyck. Just as well. We get into a two-seater ACV and Fiere points it downriver.
“Where’s the station?” I ask.
“There’s a water purification plant five miles south at West Point Lake. Trains stop there to add on tanker cars full of water bound for the capital. They take on the occasional passenger, as well. Not as much security as at a larger station.”
“Sounds easy enough.” Not really. I look over my shoulder, but the Chattahoochee Belle is already out of sight behind a bend in the river.
As I face forward, Fiere cuts me a look. “How are you going to pull this off—get into the Ministry, I mean?”
I’ve given this a lot of thought. Being a fugitive makes the whole thing a lot harder than it has to be. “I’m not exactly sure,” I say slowly. “I think my best bet is to approach Loránd Vestor, my lawyer, and see what he recommends.”
“Isn’t he the one who sold you out to the RESCO?” Fiere shoots me a doubtful look.
I nod. “Yes, but I think he might also have been the one who gave the Defiance the intelligence on my route. Who else could have done it? So maybe the RESCO was a ruse all along.”
“Any other options?” Fiere doesn’t sound as if she’s in favor of trusting Vestor.
“There’s Proctor Fonner . . . Minister Fonner, now.” I explain who he is.
“You think he would help you?”
I chew on my lip. “I don’t think he would turn me in, at any rate. On the plus side, he knows my capabilities and my training. On the negative side, he’s a stickler for following the rules and he never liked me much. Still, he spoke in my favor at the trial.”
A lake appears in the distance, and I know we’re almost there. I fall silent. In minutes, Fiere pulls up alongside a stretch of track. A hundred yards away, workers are remotely linking tankers to a lengthy train, activating the magnetic couplings. Fiere and I look at each other awkwardly for a moment.
“I guess this is it,” I say, unsealing the door which rises like a wing.
Fiere stays in the cockpit, probably to avoid a hug. There are all sorts of things I want to say to her, like thank you, and I wish you were my sister, and I hope I can make you proud, but I don’t say any of them, of course. “Don’t let them do anything stupid,” I say instead, meaning Idris and Wyck and the whole lot of them.
She rolls her eyes. “Men.” She smiles so the corners of her eyes crinkle, but then she grows serious. “Rule number one, Jax, rule one.”
Be alert.
“Always,” I promise.
She gives a curt nod, pushes the button to seal the door, and glides away. I’m on my own. I’m alert as I approach the sleek black train, alert and poised to run as I present my disc to the guard, alert and on edge as I find a seat. No sooner do I sit than the train lurches forward.
“Sixty-four minutes to Atlanta,” a robotic voice announces.
Sixty-four minutes to decide what to do, who to trust. Either choice could mean death or imprisonment. My tongue pokes at the micro-capsule. Sixty-three minutes and counting.
Part Two
Chapter Fifteen
When I get off the train at the Atlanta station, I look around, trying to spot the Defier Idris said would meet me. No one is craning their neck as if looking for someone. Most people walk staring straight ahead or down at the ground. A man jostles me on the platform, hurrying toward a distant track. A baby cries but is quickly hushed. The smells of hot metal and fermenting mud from half-dried puddles left by a rainstorm permeate the air. No one approaches me, even though I stand still for several minutes, as long as I can make myself not move. Finally, slowly, I make my way off the platform and into the station, its roof inexplicably caved in at one corner and covered with wire mesh.
I glance around casually. If only Idris had given me some clue about who to look for. Could it be the raven-haired woman studying a train schedule? The elderly man sitting on a bench, clenching and unclenching his hands on his knees? The young man rushing toward me, eyes darting, searching
for someone? Hope blooms in me, but he passes me, and greets a woman behind me. I straighten my spine and start walking like I know where I’m going. If I’m on my own, I’m on my own. I still don’t know if I’m going to seek out Vestor or Minister Fonner. I join a group of five or six and let them sweep me toward the exit. Outside, in the muggy air, I look up and down the street, still hoping to see Idris's contact. No one approaches. I can’t stay here, looking out of place. I begin to walk. Vestor or Minister Fonner? Sheer practicality makes the decision for me: I have no idea where to find Vestor, but the Ministry of Information is in a yellow brick building behind the capitol whose golden spire can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. I see it rising above the lower buildings. It’s close, no more than half a mile from the train station. I head for it, like the Magi toward the star in Halla’s Bible story.
Being on my own in Atlanta is both exciting and terrifying. I try to walk normally, but my shoulders keep hunching forward because I’m afraid everyone I pass is going to recognize me and sound the alarm. I’m not being egotistical, I tell a mental Wyck. My trial was widely broadcast; it’s not an unreasonable fear. No one seems to be looking at me though, or indeed, at anyone else, so I relax incrementally. Although the walk is short, I’m damp with sweat—from the heat or nerves—by the time I reach the Ministry of Information. It’s in the shadow of the capitol; indeed, the spire’s shadow points to it. Elevated, enclosed walkways, much like the tubes our lab rats scurried through, connect an upper floor of the capitol to the MOI and two other ministry buildings . . . so the ministers can come and go unseen, I speculate. At just after nine o’clock, there’s a steady trickle of people reporting for service. There are more people milling about this section of Atlanta than I’ve ever seen outside an Assembly. They’re a mix of men and women, young and old, but geneborns predominate. Two men pass me, arguing. A middle-aged woman brushes against me as she hurries past, leaving the scent of lilacs.
I’m caught up in people-watching when two IPF scooters round the corner, lights flashing, and I go numb, certain that they’re here for me. I edge toward the corner, thinking that if I can get around it, I can run. A larger ACV with an Amerada seal on the side appears, however, with two more IPF scooters behind it. They all hover in front of the capitol and guards stream from inside, forming a corridor by facing outward, blasters at the ready. Whoever was in the ACV gets out, head bowed, and disappears into the capitol surrounded by the protection detail. I suspect I’ve just witnessed the Premier’s arrival. My breathing slowly returns to normal as the IPF vehicles pull away again.
Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) Page 10