I smile wryly, feeling a flash of our old comradeship, but say nothing.
“So it really is time to leave,” he murmurs then. “Seems so strange.”
“Yes,” Tate says. “I’ll have to come back for my brother.”
For the first time, Enoch and I exchange a glance. But neither of us says anything, both waiting for her to continue. When she doesn’t, I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Should we … do we need to go get him?”
“No,” she shakes her head. “Right now it’s too dangerous.”
“Okay,” I sigh. “Then in that case, there’s only one thing left to do.”
“Get Amy,” Enoch says.
“Get Amy,” I echo.
For a long time after that, we’re quiet. Enoch, as ever, is obsessed with the screen on his power pack. Tate has put her gun away and is simply sitting, knees drawn up, with her chin on her hands. I feel at loose ends, and so do what I always do when I’m uncertain: I pull out the Bible, leafing sadly through its onionskin pages. It always makes me miss Papa.
“Naiya?” says an uncertain voice.
Turning, I see Chen.
“Hi,” I say softly. “Sorry, I should have come and talked to you. This is all so weird.”
“Yeah,” she agrees quietly, sitting next to me. Biyu, only six, climbs quickly into her lap. “How are you?”
“Oh, you know,” I shrug, trying for lightness. The days when Chen and I giggled about teachers and boys seem like forever ago, or just a dream. “You?”
“Okay.”
“What happened to your dad?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. They must know he told people what he saw. They came for him only a few days after I saw you, and then they came for us. I hope it wasn’t my fault,” she finishes in a rush, her eyes filling with tears.
“For what, telling us? No,” I say soothingly, taking her hand. “No, Chen, it can’t be. If they’d known you were talking to us, we never would have made it this far. It isn’t your fault, don’t worry.”
She nods unhappily, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand.
“Chen,” I say slowly, feeling Tate and Enoch watching me. “I know this is a strange question but, at any point inside that lab, did you see yourself?”
She shakes her head. “No,” she says softly. “I saw a few copies of other people. So strange. I know there were a lot of experiments on the others,” she shudders. “But Biyu and I, we’re still just ourselves.”
“That’s good, at least.”
“What are we supposed to do?” she says then.
“Well, you probably can’t go home,” I sigh.
“None of us can,” a man’s voice says. It is the one who helped me guard the door, really closer to a boy than a man, now that I look harder. He can’t be older than me, is possibly even younger. “We’ve got nothing. They’d find us the second we stepped through our front doors, maybe take it out on our families.”
“So you want to leave,” I say.
“Leave?” He whips his head back and forth vigorously. “Not without my mom and dad. Not without my sister.”
Dread rises in my stomach. “We can’t stage rescue missions for two dozen families.”
“So what can you do?” he asks roughly.
“Hey,” Enoch says, standing. His tall, thin frame dwarfs the other boy. “Careful.”
“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m Aidan.” He extends a hand, and I take it.
“Naiya. We’re leaving, and there’s a chance we’re coming back, but right now we have to get out as quickly as possible. We can’t take the time to save anyone.” Hypocrisy grips me, and I wonder if anyone heard us making plans to save our own family. I console myself with the knowledge that of any left-behind siblings, Amy is the most likely to suffer retribution.
“Where will you go?” Aidan asks, seeming to have adopted the role of spokesman. Enoch, lip jutting slightly, watches with sparks in his eyes.
“We don’t know.”
“But one day, maybe, we can come get our families?” another boy asks. “Take them somewhere safe?”
“I – ”
“At least there’s some hope in that,” a young woman says, before I can answer.
“Hope? What kind of hope?” Tate asks levelly. “We can’t protect you. We can barely protect ourselves. Naiya’s been stabbed twice and shot. Her father is dead. Her brother was nearly killed. We don’t even know if he’s alive.” She pauses. “We can’t promise you anything.”
I swallow hard. Her words are like liquid fire poured into a wound that’s never healed. But they need to hear them.
“Where is Pip now?” Chen asks.
“We don’t know,” Tate answers.
“Outside the City?”
Tate nods.
“Then you do know a way,” says a different girl, tugging a too-thin sweater around her narrow shoulders.
“Yes,” I say, stepping forward once more, cutting off Tate’s authority. “We know a way.”
“Hope you know what you’re doing,” Enoch whispers, so that only I can hear.
I say nothing.
“Then we can come?” Chen asks hopefully, tears sparkling in her eyes. I wonder if her father will ever return, whether or not she lives to hear of it. “We can stay?”
“None of us are staying,” I tell her. I turn to face the mass of sad, hopeful, lost faces. “But we’ll leave together.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“I hope this is a good idea.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Enoch whispers back, clinging to the shadows of an archway as we navigate along the last street before we turn onto our own. “It’s a terrible idea. It’s maybe the worst idea we’ve ever had. If there’s anywhere they’re bound to be looking, it’s here.”
“Well, that’s hardly my fault, is it?” I snap, as though he’d brought the subject up.
“Calm down, Naiya,” Enoch hisses, pushing me into a puddle of blackness, eyes fixed worriedly on the gas lamps that flash bright orange-blue across the square we have to cross. A cat runs across our path, a snakelike shadow against the golden glow. Another follows. “Good idea or bad, you still need to be quiet.”
I grit my teeth, forcing myself to stay silent. It isn’t Enoch’s fault this is dangerous. Besides, he’s right: Our apartment is the last place we should go. Tate tried to convince me not to, but unsuccessfully. Instead I gave her the communicator, told her to call Achilles and leave if we weren’t back in a day. It was the most I could do for her, and for the small band of refugees that now rely on us.
“Sorry,” I whisper, moderating my tone. “But be honest: Could you really leave without seeing it one last time?”
He looks at me. “It doesn’t matter what I could or couldn’t do, does it? You need to go, so we’re going.”
The words are equal parts supportive and reproachful. I clench my jaw tighter.
“Come on,” he whispers, grabbing me with one hand and pulling me from the shadows. I try not to think of the same hand on Tate’s.
“Wait,” I whisper, pulling up as three workers stroll across the plaza, singing. Possibly they are drunk, on their way home from one of the Upper City’s seedy taverns. After a minute, all is silent once more. “Okay.”
We dart across the perimeter of the square and onto the last, narrow lane that leads to our house and the overwhelming vista of the Top of the World. We look like a pair of wraiths, dressed all in black. I carry only Tate’s small knapsack, containing the power packs and our most precious possessions. As we move, the Bible bounces comfortingly against my back. Enoch drops my hand once we’re across, and I try to think of the last time we enjoyed each other’s company, just laughing or talking. Has it been three weeks? Four? I’ve lost track.
“Quit daydreaming, Naiya.” The irritation in his voice is like a small whip. It used to be I who was the alert one, our eyes and ears while he lost himself in screens. This role rever
sal cannot be enjoyable for him. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Rounding the corner, I’m relieved to see that our house stands dark and unprotected. Half of me had expected a twenty-four-hour detail, but there’s not a guard in sight.
I inhale slowly, trying to calm my nerves, and we hurry forward. Enoch pulls the key from his pocket, and at the sight of the simple piece of metal, I feel a lump rise in my throat.
“I know,” he whispers, seeming to understand. Giving me an affectionate pat on the shoulder, he puts the key in the lock. It still works, turning with a barely audible click. We both breathe a sigh of relief.
Then he pushes the door inward, and the shriek of an alarm fills the night. Frozen with fear and bewilderment, we simply stand there. The shock of a second alarm in as many days practically snaps my self-control.
“What should we do?” Enoch asks urgently, grabbing my arm. “Naiya, think. We don’t have much time. Do we run? Or should I stand guard while you go inside? Think! Decide!”
His panic moves me to action, and instead of answering I simply dart through the door.
Enoch remains, a thin, crouched silhouette in the doorway. I know none of the neighbors will venture out; alarms are invitations to nothing but trouble. But although it’s comforting that they’re safe, I am terrified by the prolonged wail and the pounding in my chest.
I push the thoughts aside and fling myself onto my pallet, pulling a stack of old letters from the small nightstand beside it. Throwing the door of Enoch’s tiny bureau open, I remove the watch Papa gave him for his fifteenth birthday. I grab Pip’s favorite car, also a gift, then rush to the workbench at which I spent so many long, happy hours.
Papa’s bifocals lay on top, neatly folded. My eyes prick with tears once more, but I ignore them, grabbing the gold-rimmed glasses and shoving them in my pocket.
The alarm makes it hard to think. Frantically, scrabbling across the bench, I search for I know not what. Something from Papa, anything that might explain who he was and why he protected me. Something that might make clear the mysterious gift of the Bible. Even if it’s silly, even if he hasn’t left us anything at all, I somehow can’t bear to leave this City and this home, my father and my old life, without at least checking.
Sweating, I run my hands over the surface of the workbench, opening drawers recklessly, plunging my hands below to pass them along the smooth metallic undersides.
But just as I am giving up, pulling my hands free from underneath the desk, my finger catches on a small, rectangular envelope, taped to the inside corner with care, right at the very back where no one would ever think to look. Whipping it out, I stare at it in the gloom. It is nondescript and apparently unlabeled. Nevertheless, if it is there then it is important. I pocket it and run. As I leave, my side scrapes too close to the bench and I feel a sudden grinding pain in my hip.
Ignoring it, I grab Enoch at the door, and we race together down the street, the alarm on our heels like a pack of angry dogs. The street is bright with the still, cold light of the Broken Moon, newly risen, and it makes me feel exposed.
“Over here,” Enoch gasps, dropping underneath a railing. I follow, gripping a secret ledge, invisible from above, and swinging myself in onto the narrow metal strip next to him. As I do, my hip catches once more, this time on the handle of my knife, which must have come loose as I passed the workbench. Before I can get a hand free, hold it, stop it, the blade tumbles out of its holster, clatters once on the narrow metal grate, and soars silently past the edge and into the mess of houses, factories, and towers below. It is gone forever. I will never find it.
This upsets me more than it should, considering it is from Tate and I don’t even like it that much.
I just hate being unarmed, I tell myself, shutting my eyes to quell the tears of rage and fear. We smash ourselves backward into the mass of gas, water, and sewage lines that supply our street, while underneath us the City stretches down, down, down to the faint smudge of Wall and countryside beyond it. We wait, listening to the scream of the alarm and waiting for the tread of booted feet.
Nothing happens.
Eventually it shuts off, leaving behind it a deafening silence, only the snap of a cold night. A minute passes, then ten, as we hunch on the frigid ledge, blind to the predawn beauty spread before us: the sky magnificent, the two ends of the river shining like twin black gems. And still nothing.
“I guess they’re not coming,” Enoch whispers eventually, monitoring the power pack’s glowing screen.
“Guess not.” I stretch my arms and legs, dangling them out over the edge of the ledge. I rub the back of my head unconsciously. “Let’s get going, then.”
Just then he grabs my arm, gesturing frantically for me to pull my legs in. I do, silently drawing them back and folding them underneath me. I breathe quietly through my mouth, cocking my head to the side as the heat at the nape of my neck intensifies.
“They’re here somewhere,” someone says, his voice a familiar deep snarl. It’s the same guard who knifed me down in the Lower City, when I was separated from Enoch.
“Not showing up on the map,” a second voice responds. “No signal whatsoever. Door’s locked now. Maybe a cat or something triggered the alarm?”
“No,” the lead guard says. “Someone’s messing with us, I just know it.”
Their booted feet stalk by slowly, visible through the metal grid that forms the street in front of our home. From this angle I can just make out the sharp glow of two pairs of angry eyes. I stop breathing altogether.
“I know they were here,” he continues. “I can smell ‘em.”
Enoch and I exchange terrified looks out of the corners of our eyes, but remain stock still. The next fifteen minutes are a nightmare, the guards moving in and out of our home, murmuring into their headsets, passing by our hiding place four or five times. Once they stop for an entire minute, sniffing the breeze as they lean out over the ledge.
Sweat pools at the base of my spine. I force myself to keep my eyes open, stay alert, though like a child, all I want to do is close them and think about something else. I’ve never felt the loss of a knife so keenly.
“What?” the second voice says suddenly. He waits a beat. “Are you sure?”
My pulse quickens, wondering what new information the guard is receiving through his earpiece. It can’t be good for us.
“But, sir,” the first one protests, sounding furious with his superior, “I know they’re here. Yes! So why let the trail go cold?”
There’s another long pause.
“Yes, sir. Yes. No, sir.” Through the grate I watch as he reaches up and switches his headset off. “I’m getting tired of pretending that guy owns me.”
“The Doctor is providing us a valuable service,” the second voice says eventually. “And he doesn’t even know it. That’s what this is all about.”
Another long, frustrated pause.
“Come on, boss,” the subordinate continues. “Time to head in.”
The leader grunts, kicking the metal railing in a rage. Then he spits over the edge and stalks off with a low growl.
Five minutes later, we’re still too scared to speak. Enoch stares at the blue screen of his power pack, hiding the light with his hand as he checks obsessively for any signs of pursuit, but there is nothing. Finally, he draws a deep, shuddering breath and looks at me. I can tell we’re thinking exactly the same thing.
“They called off the search,” I whisper. “Doctor Black called off the search. Why would he do that?”
Enoch shrugs doubtfully.
“Enoch, they know we were there,” I say. Something feels wrong. “Even if they can’t find us, they know we’re in the Upper City somewhere.”
“Not for sure,” he says hopefully. “Could be one of Ekwensi’s buddies protecting us, right?”
I consider this. It’s possible, I suppose. Perhaps whatever is helping us has also cast a shield around our house, so that the security sensors picked up intruders but no
t our signals. Knew someone was there, but not who.
“But they could smell us,” I argue. “That guard said so!”
“Pip told me the sense of smell isn’t that powerful. Enhanced, sure, but they’re not bloodhounds.”
“Well it’s still pretty obvious, don’t you think? Who else even has a key?”
“Amy,” he says.
“That makes no sense. They must know she’s at home.”
“We hope.”
The words are quiet, and I almost don’t catch them. It takes me a second to realize what he said, and when they register, I feel a small wave of alarm.
“What do you mean?” I demand. “You think she might not be? We should go right away!”
“Keep your voice down,” he admonishes for the second time tonight. “And don’t be stupid. If they do know we were here, they could be waiting close by, just out of range.” He waggles the power pack at me. “They know we have this, they’re not idiots. Our best bet is to stay in one place long enough for them to really give up.”
“How long?” I demand.
Again he shrugs, the faint rise and fall of his narrow shoulders indicating his ignorance and exhaustion. “No idea.”
“All right, well, let me know when it’s safe.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth I’m ashamed of myself. I wrestle with a way to take them back, knowing he’s just trying to protect me. But the mention of Amy’s name has me in a fresh panic, and even though showing up at her door with guards on my heels is the worst possible move, it doesn’t make waiting any more tolerable.
Enoch accepts the rebuff for what it is, and we sit in silence for a long time, contemplating the airy beauty of the scene laid out before us without appreciation. It is cold, but crammed together on the ledge like this, I can hardly tell. Despite my irritation and impatience, I slowly sink into his warmth, and a liquid euphoria trickles into my veins. It’s the closest we’ve been in weeks, and if his body is anything to go by, tense as a coiled spring, I am not the only one who notices.
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