“Maybe. But I’m a firm believer that the ends justify the means. Know who said – ?”
“Niccolo Machiavelli,” I spit. “And shut up! You stole Amy, tortured her, made copies! You’re trying to create people without souls, it’s inhuman! And you beat your own damn daughter! You’re a – a bad man!”
He begins to laugh in earnest now, and I flush, suddenly realizing how childish I must sound.
“A bad man,” he repeats, wiping his eyes. “That’s good, my dear. That’s good. Now,” he says, suddenly looking much more serious. “It’s clear we’re getting nowhere. So I’m going to cut to the chase: How have you been staying off the grid?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Wrong answer,” he says, jabbing me with the taser. A piercing pain jolts through my body, like a thousand tiny pinpricks jabbing into my scalp and up every limb toward my heart. It lasts only a second, but is more agonizing even than the bullet in my shoulder. The pain fades, but the panic returns more strongly than ever. My breath comes in gasps, and my heart beats so hard it feels like it might burst.
“That was just a taste,” he says. “I’ll ask you again: how are you staying off the grid?”
“I don’t know!” I answer, trying and failing to dodge him. The shock is worse this time, knocking me to the ground. My limbs spasm uncontrollably, and I wonder how much more it will take to stop my heart. Small sounds escape my throat.
“One more time, kiddo,” he says, standing over me. He waits, but I say nothing, and he reaches down. Now the pain is almost unbearable, and against my will, I scream, the sound escaping through a locked jaw. He pulls back.
I heave air. “Stop it! I don’t know! I don’t know!”
He pulls back, considering me. “You really don’t, do you?”
I shake my head, ordering myself to resist tears at all costs. Defiance is all I have left. Once again I try to call up the strange force in my palms, but I feel bereft, unable to muster even the faintest spark.
“Well,” he sighs, flipping open a small, white power pack. It looks exactly like Tate’s. “I suppose it was worth a try, but sadly we are out of time. I must confess, I expected more fight out of you.”
I glare at him. Oddly, he looks a little disappointed.
Just then, an aircar’s humming engine interrupts us. Panic claws its way through my chest. I consider running, but the taser has electric darts, meaning the Doctor could probably shoot me down from as far away as twenty feet. Something tells me he’s a good shot.
“You’ll never win,” I say faintly.
He smiles, now looking preoccupied, playing with something in his hand. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m certainly moving forward.” Suddenly he stills, holding the small object where I can see it: the chip to which Tate uploaded the Terminus program. The map to the portal.
I lunge jerkily to my feet. “You – ” But before I can finish the sentence, I fall, my legs melting out from under me.
“Careful,” he sneers, moving quickly to point the taser at me once more. “I’ll do it for real. You’re nothing to me.”
The cold tone in his voice makes me still. Together, we watch as a faint light enters the building, moving slowly through the aisles.
“Connor?” it calls.
“Over here,” Doctor Black responds.
“What’s going on?” I hate how my voice betrays me.
“He’s had his paws in my business for far too long,” the Doctor tells me enigmatically. “So now he can do his own dirty work. One last time.”
Just then, a very tall figure walks around the corner.
“Hello, Mayor,” the Doctor says obsequiously. “Didn’t I tell you we’d find her easily enough once she descended?”
The Mayor looks at him, clearly unimpressed. “Leave us,” is all he says. He sets a small portable light on one of the shelves, throwing the aisle into shadowy relief.
“But, Mayor,” Doctor Black protests weakly, glancing back and forth between him and I. I try to hide my disbelief that he would kowtow to anyone. He doesn’t seem capable.
“Go,” the Mayor barks, patience clearly running thin. “If you think I can’t handle one little girl, then you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Sir, I must insist – ”
“You’ll insist nothing,” he turns to the Doctor, his suave calm unbroken but for a rabid glint. For a moment I consider running, now, while their eyes are on each other and not on me. I twitch my legs, willing them to work, but they feel like jelly.
“Mayor,” Doctor Black says in placating tones, “listen.”
“I want to talk to this girl without your interference,” the taller man says carefully, loudly, as though speaking to the infirm. “Your help is no longer required.”
Shaking his head and pocketing his weapon, the Doctor turns to go. I can’t tell if I ought to feel relieved or upset by his departure. He turns to me one final time before rounding the corner, however, and I’m unsettled to see the vaguest hint of a smirk on his lips.
“That guy is useless,” the Mayor says. Fixing my eyes on him, I can see he’s hitched his oiliest smile into place, and is now regarding me with an almost fatherly patience. The gun at his hip belies the sentiment.
I say nothing. My body shakes with fear and spasms.
“Naiya,” he says after a moment, shaking his head. His hands are clasped loosely behind him in a vaguely military posture. “Naiya, Naiya, Naiya.”
Wiping a shaky hand across my forehead, I try to regain my composure.
“I think you’ve been badly frightened,” he says then, looking sympathetic. “I want to apologize for that. I never should have sent that man to do my work for me.”
I wait, trying to figure out which of Doctor Black’s games the Mayor and I are currently playing out.
“Should have realized it would be a botched job,” he laments. “When all we wanted was to talk to you.”
“My father is dead because of you,” I point out wearily, for the second time this afternoon.
“Well, yes,” he concedes. “But sometimes the people we love most are not good people. You must know that, my dear. And of course, there is the small matter of you running away and him refusing to help us. We have a word for that.”
“Let me guess.”
“Treason,” he sighs, as though he wishes it weren’t so.
“You killed him,” I repeat.
“That’s one way to look at it. Another is that I haven’t killed your brothers yet. Or your older sister. Or your charming niece.” He waits for this to sink in. “But I don’t want to,” he adds after a moment, judging his threat received. “I’d like us to be on the same side.”
The same side. Words identical to those Doctor Black used. Does the Mayor know who I am too?
“So tell me,” he says then, looking me straight in the eye, “what is it you’ve been looking for?”
I try to think of a convincing enough lie, but nothing comes to mind.
“Come now, Naiya,” he says, voice soothing. “Doctor Black insists you’re just running away, but I know better than that. What are you looking for?”
Just running away. I wonder what reports he’s been getting; clearly he knows nothing about the break-in at the University, the guards we’ve killed, the close call up above. So then how does he know I’m looking for something?
To him you are merely an escaped criminal, a thorn in his side.
“I am just running away,” I confirm slowly.
He smiles indulgently. “Just because you have him fooled doesn’t mean I’ll believe you so easily,” he says. “If you answer me honestly, I’ll protect your family, your friends. You can count on me.”
My forehead wrinkles in confusion. The Doctor knew everything … yet the Mayor knows nothing. So why give the Mayor time alone with me now? Why keep so many secrets, then set up a meeting where he can interrogate me? Doctor Black’s actions make no sense. The uncertainty adds to my fear; I wish I knew the right thing to s
ay.
The tall man fingers the expensive buttons on his leather tailcoat. “So what do you think, Naiya, can we be friends?”
I nod dumbly, clenching my fists to remain calm.
“Good. Then tell me, what have you been looking for?”
“Just a way out,” I repeat, playing for time. “A way out of the City. I – I hate it here.”
His expression falls. “You’ll have to talk eventually,” he admonishes, brushing one gold-ringed hand over his greased hair. Reaching down with the other, he unclips the top of his holster, pulling out his gun. “I’m not soft like the Doctor, you know.”
His words ring false. There is an answer here, if only I could find it.
“Don’t think I won’t use this,” the Mayor says dangerously, waving the gun ever so slightly in my direction, lifting it just a little higher toward my chest.
I summon all my courage. “Why are you so sure I’m looking for something?” I ask, letting my fear show.
“It’s obvious,” he says. “You ran away close on a month ago, yet you haven’t left and you haven’t died. What else would you still be doing here? I know you Collectors have your ways; you could be gone if that’s what you wanted.”
I’m surprised at his lack of faith in the City’s defenses.
“The Doctor doesn’t believe it,” he continues musingly. “I really may have to fire that man.”
I consider this, trying to quell my whirling thoughts. Doctor Black has clearly spent a lot of time insisting we’re not looking for anything, fanning the flames of the Mayor’s zeal. An obsession that would lead to this outcome: The Mayor wanting to meet with me alone. Why?
“Talk!” he barks, startling me. “Or I really will kill you.” This time he raises the gun and points it straight at my chest, finger on the trigger.
The sight brings a rush of heat to my face, and my muscles seem to freeze of their own accord. Belatedly, I realize I never had a chance.
“You’ll shoot me either way,” I say slowly.
Immediately I see the truth of it in his eyes. Of course he will. My face has been broadcast to everyone in the City for weeks; letting me go risks his reputation. He has only one choice, whether or not I tell him everything first.
The game clicks into place. Doctor Black has played it masterfully. He was right; he knows more about me than I do. He knew exactly what would happen here, and now I do too.
I am a pawn, but at least now I know the rules.
“Go ahead and try,” I say, suddenly more confident about this than I’ve ever been about anything. The fear and uncertainty fade, leaving in their wake a fierce conviction: If the Mayor tries to kill me, I will kill him first.
And Doctor Black knew that too. That’s it, then: He can’t end me, but he can use me to stage an accident.
Politics, I hear his snide voice. Should the Mayor die, it will be months before another election is held, and it will be rigged anyway. As second-in-command, the Doctor’s path to power is all but assured. I look for some way out, some way to avoid playing into his hand, to change the rules, but I cannot find one. Someone will die here today; The Mayor will make certain of that.
If only he knew what I knew.
“Listen, child,” he says, ever so slightly less certain. “I’d really rather talk to you, you know.”
“The time for talking is over,” I say, and begin to walk away.
There is a long silence, as I step determinedly through the gloom. Finally, he says, “I would have killed you anyway, Naiya Barrigan.”
And then he fires.
I feel no panic. I feel no pain. Glancing over my shoulder, I am unsurprised to see the bullet still in the air, only inches from his gun but moving toward me at a snail’s pace, as though all of time has slowed – except me. As if at my command, it picks up speed, now whizzing onward with a dangerous whirr and a backlogged roar that is the pistol’s report. Before it reaches my face, I summon everything I have, all my strength and all my will, and direct it at the little metal instrument of death almost upon me. With a monumental effort, I wrench it around, watch as it speeds backward the way it came. Almost clinically I observe the Mayor’s eyebrows rise slowly, and then more quickly, as time returns to its normal course.
I turn, hearing the bullet strike its mark, and walk away. Just then Enoch emerges from the darkness, looking wild-eyed as the crack of the gun finally catches up to my ears.
“What happened?” he demands feverishly, babbling. “Your signal appeared on my map as soon as we left, but I didn’t want to go back in and get you killed. I was waiting right here, but all I heard was talking, and then I heard a gunshot. Are you all right? What happened?”
“I’m fine,” I say tiredly as he pulls me into a hug. I wait for a moment, then disengage, anxious to be out of the old, damp store.
“I can’t believe you’re alive,” he says, touching my face gently and looking down at me. “You’re here.” Something in his voice makes me smile, but I don’t let the moment linger.
“Believe it,” I say, moving out into the dim fall evening. I feel strangely calm, though in the back of my mind something is screaming, long and soundless. “By the way, the City has a new Mayor now. You’ll never guess who.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Though danger seems to swirl all around me, I am so tired it almost doesn’t matter. The walk to meet the others is a daze of confusion, even as short as it is, and even with strong arms to guide me.
As Enoch and I emerge from behind a large pillar, they glance up in unison. Some look impressed, others anxious. Some, like Tate and Chen, have tears in their eyes, and rush toward me.
“Naiya,” Tate says softly, hugging me. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known what he was going to do … I couldn’t get a hold of you, they were on us so fast. I don’t know how they found us, but as soon as – ”
I make a shushing noise, my head about to split. “Tate, it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
Chen too reaches to hug me, and I return the embrace, though with some misgivings. It’s hard to forget how thoroughly Amy’s replacement mimicked her. Who’s to say I couldn’t be fooled again?
“It’s time to go,” Tate says then. “While Enoch was gone, I used the communicator to contact Achilles. He’ll meet up with us in a few hours.”
“Where?” I ask.
“The Western Tunnel,” she answers. “We should leave immediately. Besides the gates, there are only two ways out of the City: where the river enters, and where it exits. Whether or not they can see our signals, they’ll have both guarded soon enough. If not already.”
I nod. Doctor Black will give us a head start so it doesn’t look like he knew where we were going. But he will come. Now that the Mayor is dead, only one goal remains.
My death. And my family’s.
Even as I say goodbye to Amy in my mind, as I mourn Papa with every inch of my aching body, I prepare. There is not much to do, nothing but gather up the rest of my possessions and repack my knapsack, ready my followers for a journey that will be harrowing at the least, very likely deadly.
My followers.
It sounds so strange, but it’s true. I am the one they follow, almost as if Doctor Black wanting me has made me important to them. The person they already look to with their questions and their concerns, their fears and doubts. Even as we bunch up and begin to move along the wall, sticking to the protection of the overhanging airmetal of the deck above, they want to speak to me. I let them, but my mind is somewhere else.
All I can think about is what would happen if I started to climb. Up and up and up, in and in and in, reaching finally the point on which I desperately wish I could stand. What I wouldn’t give to be there instead of here, fresh from sleep, the wind blowing in my hair, the Broken Moon icy full at the Top of the World. Papa would return, Pip would stay unmarked, Amy would be herself. And Enoch …
But I’m not there, I remind myself. I’m here. And that will have to be good enough.
We have been walking for two hours when we reach the mouth of the Tunnel. I call a five-minute rest while Enoch and Tate dole out what weapons they can find: pitiful rebar clubs, railroad spikes, Pip’s small knife.
I sit on a stone, wondering how long the journey will take, where in it Achilles will meet us. The path out of the City delves underground beneath the river, extending for several miles before surfacing. It is dark and dangerous, and he may not be able to find us. We could be on our own.
Looking at the tunnel’s cavernous mouth, I think about Pip. Did he come this way? Was he afraid?
The thought brings tears to my eyes, so I banish it and stand. Drawing a breath, I gather everyone up and shoo them toward the entrance.
Our three power packs give off light, though not very much. Enoch lets Biyu hold his to give her something to do.
She smiles, waving it around, following the fleet passage of rats through the darkness.
“Like this,” he says quietly, holding it straight in front of him to demonstrate. Biyu smiles obligingly up at him, taking the pack and imitating his steady hand, and Chen looks grateful.
“Careful,” I hear an older girl whisper to a younger boy, urging him away from one of the steep, slick ledges that drops off into the gloom. The passageways are unpredictable, sometimes veering sharply without much notice, the sides that drop off changing abruptly as the minutes pass. The footing is treacherous, and it is wet. I draw deep breaths and try to stay to the middle, shining Enoch’s light straight in front of me.
Startling all of us, Eliah begins to fuss.
“Shh,” Tate whispers, bouncing her on one arm while she tries to light the way with her other hand. I take the power pack from her, passing it to Aidan, who pads dependably through the gloom with knife in hand. He’s steady. I like that.
I turn back to the baby. “What is it?” I ask Tate.
“I don’t know,” she shakes her head, surprisingly comfortable with her tiny charge. “She’s fine. Just tired of all this, probably.”
“I don’t blame her.” It occurs to me that I should be carrying the baby, but I don’t want to. I check the power pack to justify my empty arms, but there’s nothing to see.
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