by Platt, Sean
“I’ve been thinking,” Egan finally said, nibbling on a fingernail while narrowing his eyes at Jonah. “You said you were set up for your wife’s murder, right?”
“Yes,” Jonah nodded.
“And you’re sticking with that story?”
He nodded again.
“So, how was The State able to manufacture such damning proof against you? I mean, the evidence had to be airtight, right? They couldn’t throw you out like they did me. No, you were a Watcher. So, what did they have on you, Jonah?”
“My daughter testified against me.”
Egan’s eyes went wide as his mouth split into a giant smile.
“Oh, reeeeeally?”
His cheeks twitched, but Jonah refused to satisfy Egan by revealing his anger.
“Your own daughter testified against you? She must’ve really hated you.”
“No,” Jonah shook his head. “She didn’t.”
“So, what was it then? Why would she help set you up? Was she corrupt like her daddy?”
“I don’t know how they did it,” Jonah said. “I suspect The State planted memories in her mind. A good friend of mine swears there’s a chip inside every citizen living behind the Walls, and that the Cities use these chips to plant false memories at will.”
“A chip?” Egan said, clearly trying to suppress a skeptical laugh as he raised an eyebrow. “And who is this friend?”
“Someone in The Underground. Name’s not important.”
“How could this friend possibly know about such a chip, if it really did exist?”
“I don’t know whether he actually knows or suspects.” Jonah shrugged. “He has plenty of conspiracy theories and no shortage of outlandish ideas, so it’s hard to know what to take seriously. I thought it was far-fetched until I stared at my daughter in the witness box, listening to her swear she saw me murder her mom in cold blood.”
“So you think they somehow corrupted your daughter’s memories?”
“I don’t know,” Jonah said, hoping honest answers would color him as cooperative or at least sympathetic, and that Egan might be more willing to grant leniency. “I can’t see any other reason why she’d testify as she did. She seemed so certain during the trial, so filled with rage — the sort of anger that could never be faked. I don’t think she was intentionally lying. She believed that she saw me murder Molly.”
“Hmmm,” Egan said, stroking his chin as if considering Jonah’s situation. “Why would The State want your wife murdered?”
“I’ve no idea.” Jonah shook his head.
“Did you have any information on The State, or Keller? Did they somehow discover your role in The Underground?”
“They questioned me on The Underground. I don’t know if they knew, someone told them, or perhaps it was just one of Keller’s many witch hunts.”
“Are the tunnels still open?” Egan asked. “Can The Underground still get people in and out of City 6?”
“They were working when I was arrested, but without me there, I don’t see how they could keep them running unless they had someone else — someone I didn’t know about — on the inside. They might be open, might be closed. Your guess is exactly as good as mine.”
“Could you find the tunnels now?”
Why is he asking this?
Egan’s people had to know many, if not most of the end points. There were catacombs and abandoned tunnels running beneath most of the land from The Barrens to The City, a winding maze few people knew well enough to navigate, but if Egan had been living here and receiving new citizens to his underground city, then surely he was aware of at least some of the tunnel locations.
Something wasn’t adding up. But Jonah would hide his suspicions for the moment, in hopes that Egan would spill some information that might shed light on the confusion.
Jonah looked Egan in the eyes. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about my involvement with The Underground. However, I’m not willing to give away any information that might compromise the organization or put anyone’s lives at risk. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Egan said, then stared, just long enough for Jonah to start squirming in his seat.
Egan then stood up and looked down at Jonah. “The Underground sounds like quite the noble enterprise, helping people escape the treachery of The City. Yet, when I was forced into The Games, no one thought to help my family, no one came to retrieve my wife or children and usher them to the other side of the Walls. Why do you think that is, Lovecraft? Any theories you’d like to share?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t part of The Underground then. Maybe the tunnels weren’t operational, or maybe used only on rare occasions. All I can do is speculate, and I don’t see how that helps either of us.”
“So, if you had been with The Underground then, you’re saying you would have helped my family escape to the outside? You would have laid your life on the line for theirs, made sure they were spared, safe outside The City?”
Jonah was walking into something, blind and empty handed. Egan’s logic was spinning, but he had no idea what it was spinning around.
He should say that yes, of course he would have helped. But that wasn’t the truth — that wasn’t how it worked. Jonah didn’t always do the right thing because sometimes the right thing was wrong for the greater good. He had interests to weigh, and things were never as simple as the needs of one family. The cause was most important, and protecting the interests of The Underground, or maintaining his cover at City Watch, meant innocent people were often denied passage.
The truth wasn’t kind, but in his seat, it was all he had. “I don’t know what I would’ve done,” he said, hoping his honest answer might surprise Egan enough to nudge him closer toward his point.
Egan chewed on Jonah’s response, pacing in a small circles around Jonah’s chair, looking like he wanted to sit. “Why do you think no one helped your children escape?”
Jonah was confused, and uncomfortable with the edge in Egan’s voice.
“What?”
“When City Watch came for you, you were finished. You and everyone else had to know it. Have you ever known City Watch to make a high-profile arrest, then let their prisoner go?”
Egan paused, as if waiting for Jonah to answer, though both knew there wasn’t any need. City Watch arrested plenty of citizens, often for questioning, hoping to turn neighbor against neighbor, or even better, sibling against sibling or child against parent, but if an arrest made the monitors, suspects were guilty of something — regardless of the truth.
“The Underground must’ve known you were arrested and must’ve been aware that your children could be used against you or would be shuffled off to the orphanage, right? So why weren’t they spared? Why not get them out of City 6?”
Jonah whispered the same answer he’d turned in his mind so many times already. “Because my children were under watch. They had to be, especially Ana. The State needed her testimony, and they weren’t willing to let anything stand in their way.”
“Ah,” Egan sneered, “so now that she’s outlived her usefulness, it’s off to The Games with her? Maybe they had to get her out of The City since those false memories don’t exactly last forever. They had to destroy evidence, which is, after all, what you Watchers are so excellent at doing — besides manufacturing it from scratch, of course.”
Jonah met Egan’s eyes, surprised by something he’d said. “What do you mean the memories don’t last forever? What are you talking about?”
“Do you know what I did for credits before my inconvenient arrest?” Egan said, ignoring Jonah’s question.
“You were a factory worker, making circuit boards for the orbs, right?”
“Wow,” Egan said, grinning. “They really didn’t tell you anything, did they? Perhaps you weren’t as complicit in my frame-up as I suspected.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t work on the orbs. Well, I did, at least when I started, but I’m good with co
de and was quickly moved to the seventh floor. By my third year at the factory, I was with a small team — six of us working full-time on their chip program.”
“The identity chips?”
“No.” Egan shook his head. “Chips used to alter your reality, to control you.”
“They’re real?” Jonah nearly gasped, relieved at least to finally understand his daughter’s betrayal, and sick that The State would go to such lengths to control its citizens.
“Yes, they’re quite real,” he said, “though far from perfected. At least they were, but I can’t imagine they’ve inched much further. They’ve been crashing into the same development walls for decades.”
“What do the chips do?”
“Initially, they were designed to control violence by turning citizens docile, making and keeping them happy. That was simple enough, but the older developers, most of whom loved to whisper, said it was barely a minute into development before The State started looking into other applications.”
“Like what?”
“Finding other ways of controlling people — to manipulate memories and even bloom new ones from a seed of suggestion. I was involved in the earliest stages, though. I’ve no idea where development is now, or how close they might be to perfecting them.”
“Lord,” Jonah whispered, as many pieces of the unseen puzzle started snapping into place. Duncan was right, or was at least on the right path. “Does everyone have a chip?”
“No, not everyone.” Egan shook his head. “But most of us, yes. The delivery mechanism for Version 1 was crude, but Version 2 made things much better. If you’ve had a vaccination in the past decade, you’ve probably been implanted with the nano chips without knowing. You know of anyone who hasn’t had a vaccination in the last decade?”
Vaccinations were required by all citizens under penalty of banishment.
“Do you have one?” Jonah asked.
“No, I destroyed mine. I’m sure that’s why I was arrested, at least in part.”
“Why did you destroy the chip?” Jonah asked.
“I didn’t like the things it was making me do, or the thoughts I was having.”
“What sort of thoughts?”
“Dark thoughts,” Egan said. “Once I got rid of it, I started seeing the light. You will too.”
“What do you mean?” Jonah said, suddenly wondering what in the hell Egan was planning to do.
“While you’ve been more forthcoming, I still have the feeling you know more about my arrest than you’re saying.”
“I don’t know anything other than what I’ve said. As far as I know, they thought you were working with The Underground.”
“Yeah, I know; you said that.” Egan finally sat back in his seat. “And I believe you believe it. But I also think you know something more. Since you probably have no idea what you don’t know, I’m going to have Father Truth get rid of your chips. We’ve got something that will seek out and destroy both chips inside you — your ID and the control one.”
“Well, why the hell didn’t you use it before now?”
“Well, sometime’s there’s… side effects,” Egan said.
“What kind of side effects?” Jonah asked, trying to mask his nervousness.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Egan said. “If you have any, you’ll be too far gone to care.”
Jonah held Egan’s eyes without flinching. “Then what? What if you find something? What does that mean for me and my trial?”
“Oh, you’ll still face the Council. But perhaps, if you’re helpful, we can grant leniency.”
“And if not?” Jonah said.
“Well,” Egan shrugged. “Then you die.”
CHAPTER 25 — Adam Lovecraft
Adam woke up sometime in the middle of the night, terrified before he opened his eyes. A hand, not a grown-up’s, was pressed hard on his lips. He lifted his lids. Morgan was above him, whispering, “Say a word and you fucking die.”
Behind Morgan stood Tommy and Daniel, both glaring down at Adam even though he could barely see them in the scant light of the sleeping hall. They looked angry.
Adam tried to stay silent, knowing Morgan meant what he said, but as he squirmed against the mattress, an involuntary whimper fell from his mouth. Morgan’s hand pressed harder on his face, pinching his cheekbones tight.
Tommy leaned in, slipping the tip of a knife just under Adam’s chin. “We’re going for a little walk,” Daniel said.
Adam managed to hold his second whimper inside as Daniel pulled him from the bed and roughly whispered, “We’re going to the bathroom. You make a sound or try to run away, then Tommy will cut your throat. We’ll leave your body in the hallway and put the knife in Johnny Ross Wells’s locker. Nod if you understand.”
Adam nodded, trying to hold back the tears.
They cut through the sleeping hall as Adam wondered how many kids were awake, pretending to sleep so the same thing wouldn’t happen to them. They stepped into the hallway, then crept to the bathroom. Once inside, Daniel slammed Adam into the cold tiled wall of the bathroom. Pain crashed across the back of Adam’s head as it hit, and likely cracked, the wall.
Adam saw Daniel’s fist as it pulled back like the band in a slingshot. He was prepared to take a punch in the gut, but the punch came lower, an explosion of ungodly pain in his balls. He fell hard to the filthy bathroom floor, crying.
“How do the grapefruits feel now?” Daniel said, curling his fingers into Adam’s hair and dragging him over to a stall.
What are they gonna do?
Adam’s heart raced. He wanted to cry out, scream, something, but was so afraid of being cut, he kept his cries stifled, a hostage to whatever ride they planned.
Daniel shoved Adam through the door of the bathroom stall and then shoved him down hard to his knees. The stench of caked urine immediately greeted Adam.
Tommy was on top of him again, pushing the cold knife against his neck. Tommy was pressing it so hard, Adam was sure he was cutting into him, or close to it.
Tommy said, “You better stop your crying, or we’ll leave you for dead. No one will doubt it was Johnny that done it.”
While Johnny had always been nice to Adam, he was prone to violence and would be an easy kid to set up with a stabbing.
Morgan crammed into the stall between Tommy and Daniel, though Adam couldn’t see anything with his face near the toilet.
Morgan asked, “Why’d you rat on us?”
Adam could barely think through his terror. He’d say anything they wanted if he knew what it was. He could swear innocence, insist he had no choice, but would that be enough?
He never wanted to hurt anyone, especially his only friends, but he’d had no choice. What was he going to do, upset Keller by not telling? Choosing to disappoint either his friends or Keller, his friends had seemed the obvious choice — until now.
“I’m so, so sorry,” Adam whimpered, hating himself for not being able to hold his tears inside, worried that Tommy would slit his throat at any second. “I never meant to do anything wrong; they took me to the schoolmaster’s office!”
Tommy pulled the knife away, turned Adam around, facing all three of them in the tiny stall, then reeled back and punched him hard below the throat.
Adam gasped, clutching at his neck, swallowing to keep from vomiting.
Tommy said, “I can kill you right now, and no one will know it was us.”
“No one would even care,” Daniel added, taunting him. “Fucking freak!”
Adam surprised himself by swallowing tears. “I had to tell on you guys! Mr. Keller already knew, and if I didn’t admit the truth, they would’ve done something even worse. I was trying to protect you! Besides, he said one of you, or the girls, had already told on me! So I figured he already knew and was just testing me to see if I’d lie.”
“Yeah, right!” Daniel said, punching Adam hard in his left ribcage.
Adam ignored the pain, insisting, “I swear, why would I ever want anything bad t
o happen to you? You’re my only friends.”
All three laughed out loud, but Morgan said, “You think we’re friends? We’re not friends, Freakshow. We only talked to you because your daddy was in The Games, and then your sister. Without your fucked-up family, you’re just another freak destined to end up in the Quarters!”
Tommy’s knife was again under his throat. “Give us one reason not to kill you now.”
Adam had at least 100, but couldn’t get a single one out. He tried speaking, but only stuttered.
Morgan turned to Tommy. “What do you think?”
“That he’s dumb enough to believe everything he said.” Tommy dragged the knife from Adam’s neck to his chin, then around his lips as Adam shuddered and tried not to bawl. “But if we let his deed go unpunished, people will talk. Then maybe they’ll start disrespecting us, too. That can’t happen inside The Rock.”
Tommy pulled the knife back and turned to the others. “So, should we punish him, or just go ahead and kill the freak and get this finished?”
Morgan said, “Kill him.”
Daniel laughed. “Yeah, I can’t think of a reason to keep this asshole alive.” He punched Adam again in his side, pulling him into a headlock while Tommy brought his knife up to Adam’s face.
Adam sobbed and whimpered, squirmed and squealed, certain he was seconds from dying.
Hot piss poured down his pajama bottoms. The smell, along with the fear churning in his guts, made Adam feel like he was going to vomit.
No sooner had he felt it than he did it.
Daniel’s fist landed on his guts, launching a violent spatter of liquid chunks from Adam’s mouth.
Daniel threw Adam down, the toilet seat smacking hard into his jaw. Adam’s world was an explosion of pain as the three laughed, taking turns kicking and punching him. Adam couldn’t move. Every time he tried, another hand shoved him back down, his face against the filthy toilet seat.
And as the abuse continued for what felt like forever, Adam wondered how long it could go on. He wished to God that he would die right there on the spot.