“I’m not allowed,” she says. “Since I’m an Elevated. At least on paper anyway.”
It saddens me to see Lillia still unsure of her ability, since it has been a few months since her GEMO treatment. I want to say something to console her, but anything I come up with sounds terrible in my head.
“We’d better head back if I’m going to sneak you in,” Aaron whispers.
We leave together and head towards the backroom. Aaron gestures towards the doorknob at the end of the hallway.
“If I scan myself in, you can just follow behind me,” he says.
I reach out to stop him.
"Just a second," I say. "Can I try something?"
I touch the doorknob with my hand.
“Stop,” Aaron says. “You’ll trigger the alarm.”
The doorknob glows blue, and then it unlocks. I open it to Aaron's shocked expression.
"How did you cheat the sensor?"
"The sensor looks for residue of GEMO radiation," I say. "Jex told me that my readings were very strange. Different than any reading he'd ever seen before."
Different.
I almost smack my head, now realizing what I was missing before. Ms. Ford’s reading wouldn’t come up in the doctor’s report. She hadn’t used the traditional GEMO treatment. That’s why the prosecution didn’t have anything to show. She was an enigma, a patient who shows all the signs of Elevated ability but without the radiation residue. Zach may have been right, and there might be a loophole after all.
I grab my phone and text Zach:
Elevateds made from a Catalyst won’t show radiation.
Aaron snatches the phone from my hand. “What are you doing?”
I take the phone back. “Just had to text Zach something.”
It’s hard to deal with my best friend being so suspicious. Something’s changed about him.
“Well, get it over with. There’s not much signal once we go inside.”
I receive a text back from Zach:
Brilliant. Loophole.
Putting the phone back into my pocket, I step forward into the dark, brushing metal shelves full of dusty boxes.
"It's hard to believe you guys can meet in here," I say.
"There's a room in the back," Aaron says, pointing to a door I'd never noticed before. "After Jex died, I was moving some stuff around and I found it buried behind some boxes."
I fumble my way around boxes and my hand accidentally smacks into one full of old Basic Brigade magazines, toppling them onto the ground. “Why don’t you throw this garbage away?”
“It’s history,” he says. “Besides, I’m lazy.”
Aaron opens the door to reveal a normal looking conference room with tables and chairs.
"What did he use this room for?" I ask.
"Not sure exactly," Aaron says.
A large abstract painting hangs on the wall. The black splotches form an outline of a large Flier, reaching out to hold hands with a man standing on the ground. The artwork reminds me of a painting I saw from an Elevated sidewalk artist downtown.
"Inker?" I ask.
Aaron nods. "Interesting artwork, isn't it?"
"Yeah," I say, but I'm wondering how it fits into Jason's world outlook. He was so down on Elevateds, wanting to reset the world to the way it was before their existence. The painting didn't reflect his low opinion of Elevateds at all.
"So," Aaron says. "The rest should arrive in a few minutes."
"What exactly do you do at these meetings?" I ask.
"Discuss Basic rights, what's going on in the world," Aaron says. "Our goals are to make sure that Elevateds don't discriminate against the right to be Basic."
"Seems reasonable," I say. But I can't help but wonder whether Aaron is holding back.
Not too long after, the first member arrives, a large man in a worn-out t-shirt.
“Hey, Victor,” Aaron says.
Victor just nods, his lengthy beard stretching halfway down his chest. Then he points at me and furrows his thick eyebrows.
“She’s fine,” Aaron says.
Victor nods again, takes a seat and stares blankly at the wall.
“Not a talkative guy,” Aaron whispers.
“I’ve noticed,” I say.
Some more people arrive, and it doesn't take long for a pattern to emerge. Of the ten people in the group, only two are women. All have a rugged appearance to them, as if they live out in the woods. They stare at me in suspicion, I'm quite a bit younger than most in the group. Only Aaron and me are less than middle aged.
"Who's leading this meeting?" I whisper to Aaron.
"Look who's here," Aaron says, pointing at a large man entering the room.
The same man I saw outside Carol's.
CHAPTER TEN
I jerk my head away, paranoid that he could somehow recognize me. I catch a breath, and when I dare to look back, his face doesn't show any sign he knows me at all. He wears the same expression, suspicious of everyone else in the room.
"Glad to see you, Ken," Aaron says, giving the man a big hug.
Ken? Maddock said his name was Eric. Must be going by a pseudonym. My face begins to flush.
"Are you ok?" Aaron asks.
"I-I-I'm fine," I say.
Eric holds out his hand, and I shake it, trying to hide my nervousness.
"Sorry, she's a bit nervous," Aaron says. "First meeting."
"I'll go easy on you then," Eric says.
Everyone begins to take their seats, and my heart threatens to beat its way out of my chest.
"Is he the leader?" I whisper to Aaron.
"No," Aaron says.
Victor coughs loudly, and everyone is quiet. He points at a clock on the wall.
"Thank you, Victor," Aaron says. "It's time for the meeting to begin."
I turn toward Aaron in shock. He's leading these meetings?
"Before we get started, I want to introduce my friend Rose. She chose last Elevation Day to forgo the procedure."
Everyone looks at me in astonishment. Victor holds out his hands and claps, his face still blank. It's awkward and a little creepy.
"I'm sure we can all make her feel welcome," Aaron says.
Nods around the room, but I can't help but feel that I'm still not wanted here.
"Now, the main thing we want to talk today is our campaign for Basic Cuisine," Aaron says. "Louis has told me he continues to get pressure on his hiring practices."
"It's disgusting they want to steal his right to hire Basics," a woman with red hair says. "He's just trying to give them a place to work."
“Want to force those horrible freaks on us wherever we go,” says a man with thick glasses.
“No break at all,” the red haired woman says. “Never a moment’s rest.”
“But Louis has been open for years,” says a man with a scraggly beard. “They have no way to do anything.”
Aaron leans forward. "Louis successfully argued he could choose an all Basic staff because the restaurant was licensed under entertainment. So just like that spikeball bar downtown doesn’t have to hire male servers, he could choose to hire only Basics. But with the recent passing of the Elevation Protection Act, Elevateds will be able to sue if they can prove their ability factored into the hiring decision."
"That's madness," the red headed woman says. "I run a clothing store. I don't want some creepy Scanner checking people out in the dressing rooms."
I want to pipe up Scanners probably would find it equally creepy, and that Scanning abilities are monitored anyway, but I have to keep a low profile.
"They've been robbing us of our rights for years," says the man with a scraggly beard. "They can't handle the idea we chose to not become freaks like them."
"It's surprising they haven't forced us into exile like the naturals," says the man with thick glasses.
The bearded man frowns. "It's only a matter of time."
I reach down to my cell phone to text my dad to let him know Eric is here, but I can't seem to get a signal.
"And of course," a woman with curly blond hair says, "it never works the other way. I have a brother who was passed over for a job for one of those brain crunching mutants."
The bearded man sighs. "Probably doesn't even know what he's doing. Those Thinkers get zapped with that ability to process fast, but a lot of them are terrible at applying it."
Aaron nods. He’ll compete with them soon for whatever job he plans on having. In theory, one might think Aaron would be easily eclipsed by an Elevated Thinker, but Aaron's skill has deeper roots than most of them, as he has been an avid mathematician since grade school. Thinkers have to master something handed to them right before college.
"So how do we stop that?" asks the woman with thick glasses.
"We can start by informing the news outlets," Aaron says.
Groans thunder across the table.
"You know they won't cover that," says the man with the scraggly beard. "They never talk any Basic stuff."
"We've got to keep trying," Aaron says. "There'll be a crack eventually."
"Hoping isn't going to keep Basics employed," says the red headed woman. She sighs, and looks up at the ceiling before lowering her voice. "Didn't keep my husband employed."
"We start with that, and then we move to demonstrations in front of the restaurant," Aaron says.
"Demonstrations won't work," says the curly-haired blonde woman. "We'll just be branded as old-fashioned cowards who can't accept humanity's progression, or whatever new age crap they throw at us."
Aaron takes a deep breath. “If all is lost, and people aren't willing to give others the freedom to make choices, then what’s the point?”
The room goes silent.
On the other end of the table, Eric speaks up, and I'm reminded again he's sitting here. "What do you mean?"
Aaron takes another deep breath. “If we’re just giving up, we might as well just leave now.”
“And go where?” Eric asks. “To run off to the woods to live in mud huts with the Naturals?"
“I don’t want to do that,” Aaron says. “No one here does.”
“What’s your point, then?” asks the man with thick glasses.
“The point is not to give up. To keep trying to—”
“Madness.”
I can’t figure out who spoke, but notice everyone looking over at Victor.
“Madness,” he repeats.
The room goes silent again.
Eric gets up and taps Victor on the shoulder. “That’s right, it’s madness. Trying the same thing over and over, expecting something new.”
“What do you have in mind?” Aaron asks.
“We need to show them how crazy the world has gotten. How disgusting humans with three heads, or squirting ink, or—”
"We can't turn back the clock," Aaron says. "Nothing will convince the Elevateds now to go back to their normal existence.”
“Something might,” Eric says. “If we could get them to somehow fear what the world will become unless they stop this insanity.”
“Jex wrote stories for years,” Aaron says. “Warning of what would happen.”
“But he didn’t reveal everything,” Eric says. Then he stares over at me. “He never talked about Catalysts.”
I sink in my chair. Did he know I was at Carol's? How he could have figured that out?
"I've been hearing a lot about this Catalyst," says the red haired woman. "Who is he?"
"What is he, is more like it," the man with glasses says.
The room turns to stare at Aaron.
“All our information shows the Catalyst is nothing more than a normal serial killer," Aaron says.
“And the weird messages?” the bearded man asks
“And the GEMO radiation?” the blond woman asks.
Aaron clears his throat. “All part of a massive cover-up of our inept police force. Have you seen the medical reports? No one has. The government has kept them all secret. Suspicious, right?”
The Brigade members nod in agreement. A part of me is angry with Aaron for his deliberate deception. But another part of me is glad he is keeping what he knows regarding Catalysts secret.
“You’re wrong,” says Eric in the corner.
My heart jumps into my throat.
“People are panicked now and suspicious of what the government is hiding about these Catalysts. Why create such an elaborate hoax to cover up bad detective work?”
Aaron sits there with a frightened expression.
“I can tell you know more, I can see it on your face.” Eric turns towards me and his wide-eyed gaze pierces my skin. “You do too, Rose.”
All the eyes on the room glare at me. I'm frozen in my seat, my brain unable to form any response.
"What is he talking about?" the man with the scraggly beard asks.
"I-I-I—"
"I knew she was hiding something," says the red-haired woman.
"I don’t know anything," I say.
"Sure you do," Eric says.
“Stop stirring up trouble,” Aaron says. “Unless you have some information to share.”
Eric clears his throat. “It appears they aren’t sharing. Some leader we have here. He thinks he can just waltz in here and tell us what to do. He may have been closer to Jex than any of us, but he’s not half the man Jex was.”
The rest of the room stares back at Eric in shock, but I can tell from their faces that many agree with him.
“He sits there, week after week, pitching peaceful protests. And where has that gotten us? More and more rights taken away.”
The other members nod in agreement.
Eric stands and paces around the room, gesturing at Aaron, whose face grows more and more red. “Our humble leader, trying to do the right thing, while the government grows stronger and stronger. And now, they are hiding the biggest threat of all: the Catalyst."
"But what is a Catalyst?" asks the red haired woman.
Eric sighs. “Honestly? Jex never told me. All he said was Catalysts threatened the whole system. And they would be the death of us all unless we stopped them.”
The faces of the Brigade members drop from the dark words that echo through the room.
Eric walks over to Aaron, his large body towering over him. “But he did tell me you knew all about them.”
“That’s a lie. Everyone knows Jex didn’t talk to many people. You’ve only been here a few weeks. How do we know he talked to you before he disappeared?”
Eric leans closer, until his face is inches away. “It’s more believable than your explanation. How could somehow who murders with no physical evidence be a normal serial killer?”
“Have you been keeping secrets from us?” asks the red haired woman.
“He’s been leading us in circles while hiding the truth,” says the man with thick glasses.
“You need to tell us,” says the blond-haired woman. “We have a right to know.”
Roars of approval echo around the table as the Brigade members stare back in suspicion.
“I’ve told you everything,” Aaron says.
The man with thick glasses stands briskly and stomps towards the exit. “I’m not sitting around listening to this Elevated-loving liar anymore.”
“Me neither,” says the blond haired woman, joining him.
One by one, the Basic Brigade members storm out of the room, until only Victor and Eric remain.
Eric turns his head and stares at me with his smoky hazel eyes. "You know something. Don’t you, Rose?"
I shake my head. "The Catalyst is a murderer, I know that."
"Ah, but look at how he murders. With GEMO radiation," Eric says. "Interesting choice, don't you think? Doesn’t seem to be much of a fan."
"So what you're saying is, he's on our side?" Aaron asks.
“You tell me. Maybe Jex thought the enemy of my enemy was his friend, as the saying goes," Eric says. "The Catalyst inspires fear in the Elevateds. We can use that fear to our advantage."
"How?" Aaron
asks.
"By showing the world what danger lives out there," Eric says. “That an Elevated society stands on the edge of destruction.”
“What you’re suggesting is violence. No, what you’re suggesting is war,” Aaron says.
Eric becomes serious. “War is exactly what we are trying to prevent, but you’ll need the Brigade on your side. You have to tell them.”
"You seem so certain I know something," Aaron says.
"Stop that, ok?" Eric says. "Jex talked to you. This ignorant act isn't going to work. They will tear you limb from limb."
"Why?" Aaron asks. "Because you'll ask them to?"
Eric stomps over to Aaron and presses him against the wall. "This is not about me, Aaron. This is about Basics. You are threatening our very existence."
Aaron stands, pinned against the wall. I want to break in, to pull him out, do something, but my knowledge of his power keeps me bolted to the ground.
"Get off of me," Aaron says, pushing him away. "You don't have any right coming in here off the street, ordering me around. What is this, your third meeting? I'm the leader. They chose me."
"Did they?" Eric asks. "Or did you appoint yourself? I've asked. No one can remember exactly how it happened."
"I know more about Jex and this operation than anyone else," Aaron says.
"That's my point. It's time you let that information out," Eric says. "How can we stand for honesty and transparency when you hold information like it's a treasure chest?"
Aaron shakes his head, breathing hard.
Eric turns towards me. "And as for you, I think an investigation is in order."
"An investigation?" Aaron asks.
"Yeah," Eric says. "I think she owes me a few answers to some questions."
"She doesn't owe you anything," Aaron says.
"You may be willing to risk the safety of the entire group for a friend, but I'm not," Eric says. He walks over and takes my hand. "She's coming with me."
My pulse jumps like electricity through my body. I can't go with him.
"Aaron, don't make me go with him," I say, trying to not make it obvious how much I fear leaving with him. I still don't know what his intentions are. It's possible he's just suspicious of me as a Basic Brigade member.
"If you don't let me question her, you'll regret it," Eric says, gripping my hand harder until I feel the need to let out a cry of pain.
Catalyst: (Elevated Saga Book #2) Page 10