“They?”
“Whoever controls you. Who do you report to?”
“We have unit captains. They get their instructions from the Commander.”
My hearts skips a beat. “And who is the Commander?”
“He’s in charge of protecting the city. A hero.” Rogue stands a little straighter. “He’s a—”
He stops suddenly and gives me a suspicious look. “Why do you want to know?” He lifts the helmet up to place it over his head.
“Wait!” I step forward until we’re almost touching. “I’m just trying to understand why you’re different from the others.”
A flash of anguish and indecision passes across his face. “I don’t want to understand,” he says finally. “I just want to do my job.”
“But they’re lying to you!” The words burst from my lips before I can stop them. “You’re not helping people, you’re killing them!”
He pauses, the helmet hovering above his head. “We do not kill!”
“Come back here.” I reach out and place my hand on his chest. “Come back, and I will show you what it’s really like out here. Then you can decide for yourself what the truth is.”
He hesitates for a second, then lowers the helmet over his head.
“I’ll wait here for you. Every day at noon. I’ll wait …”
My voice dies as the helmet clicks into place.
“I must go. They are waiting.” The gravelly, inhuman voice is back again. All trace of the man underneath the suit has gone. He turns and trudges up the alleyway, scattering litter in his wake. I wonder if he’ll remember any of this when he returns to the compound.
I stand there, lost in my thoughts, until a faint rustling noise causes my ears to prick up. An earthy scent mingles with the background smell of decay.
Uh oh.
“Aleesha.” Samson smiles as I turn around. He looms up, almost as tall and bulky as Rogue, and I take a step back. The more distance I have between us the better.
How does he manage to sneak up on me like that? He’s too big to move that quietly! And how much did he see?
“I didn’t see you as the type to be making friends with the Metz.” His voice is completely neutral.
“Friends?” I force a laugh. “Why would I be friends with the Metz?”
He looks amused. “I saw your exchange, just now. Good work managing to get his helmet off. I’m not sure anyone’s had the audacity to do that before.”
Audacity? What does that mean? I curse inwardly. I hate not knowing things.
“Though I’m surprised you didn’t just take the opportunity to put a knife through his neck.” Samson raises an eyebrow. “Seems more your kind of style.”
I fold my arms and draw myself up tall. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him intimidate me. “Well, maybe you don’t know me as well as you seem to think.”
He steps toward me and I step back before I can stop myself.
Stand your ground! He’s just doing it to make you scared.
But, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s kind of working.
“Perhaps you’re right. But why, Aleesha? What are you trying to get out of him? What have you been told to get out of him?”
His voice is hypnotic and I feel my mouth open to speak before I’ve even worked out what I want to say.
“I … He let me go, once,” I manage. “He could have captured me, or killed me, but he let me go. I-I wanted to know why. If there were others like him.”
Samson’s eyes widen for a split-second and his jaw goes slack. But in a heartbeat, his face is hard again and his eyes narrow suspiciously.
“It’s true!” I protest.
“Interesting … a rogue officer. I didn’t know such a thing was possible.” His eyes flash again. “So the Chain want you to figure out why? To see if you can get a spy inside the hive?”
“The hive?”
He flicks his fingers impatiently. “The compound. That’s their plan? To try to infiltrate the Metz?”
I meet his eyes and force my expression to stay neutral. “I don’t know what the Chain are planning. They don’t trust me with their secrets.”
“And the new leader? This woman who’s in charge now – who is she?”
I shrug. “Sounds like you know as much about her as I do.”
His huge hands close around my shoulders. I can feel the strength in them, strong enough to crush my bones.
“Don’t mess with me, Aleesha.”
His fingers tighten and I wince as a flash of pain shoots up my neck.
“Her name is Katya. She’s from out of town. That’s all I know.” I glare at him. “Now let me go.”
The pressure on my shoulders eases, then disappears completely. I roll them back, trying to loosen off the tense muscles.
“Remember what I said, Aleesha, about their motives. They do not have Outsiders’ best interests at heart.” He takes a step back and his face drops, his eyes, for a moment, almost sad. “I hope you’ll realize that. Before it’s too late.”
“I—”
He whirls around, and the tips of his long dreadlocks whip across my cheek. Before I can retort, he’s striding off down the alley and I’m left alone again, more confused than ever.
12
Trey
I’m walking back to Abby’s after another trip Inside to see Ella when I run into Bryn and Aleesha, hurrying in the opposite direction. The frown on Bryn’s face clears when he sees me.
“There you are, Trey. Good timing.”
“Where are you going?” I ask. Aleesha is alert, her feet dancing on the street, resenting the pause.
“Meeting at HQ.” He lowers his voice. “To see where we’re at. Figure out if we can get into the compound. Katya asked for both of you to be there.”
I sigh and put off the idea of lunch for a little longer.
We’re the last ones to arrive and as we enter the large room on the first floor of the Chain’s headquarters, Katya closes the door firmly behind us. Murdoch’s sitting at the large wooden table. To my surprise, Milicent sits opposite him. Next to her is a geeky looking man with glasses who I vaguely recognize. He’s toying with a black box.
Katya motions to the table. “Take a seat.”
We sit down and Katya takes the chair at the head of the table. She looks at Aleesha. “Any luck finding your rogue officer?”
Aleesha nods. “I managed to get his helmet off.”
There’s a moment of shocked silence. “Go on,” Katya says finally.
I’ve already heard the story, so I tune out while Aleesha repeats it. “Do you think he’ll come back?” Murdoch asks when she finishes.
“I don’t know. It depends how much he remembers when he gets back to the compound. He still believes the Metz are doing the right thing, but now he knows that what he sees through the helmet isn’t what’s really there …” She shrugs. “He’ll be back.”
“How about you, Trey? Bryn mentioned you managed to speak with your father.” Milicent looks at me expectantly.
I nod and report back on what little I know, surprised that Bryn hasn’t already updated them. “This Metz Commander sounds like he’s in charge of everything. The government doesn’t have much to do with the operations anymore. He must be powerful.”
“He is.” Katya holds her wristband up to her mouth and mutters something. A holo of a man appears above the table. He’s frozen in the act of speaking, unaware that his image is being captured. I’ve never seen him before in my life but something about him sends a shiver down my spine.
“This is the Metz Commander,” Katya says.
“Nice looking chap, isn’t he,” Bryn comments, his voice laced with sarcasm.
I glance sideways at Aleesha. Her face is expressionless, but I notice her shift uneasily in her seat.
The man is younger than I’d thought he’d be. In his forties, perhaps, or early fifties. Black hair is slicked back from a widow’s peak and his face is long and thin, matching his nose and c
olourless lips. His whole face is twisted on one side, as if someone’s put a screw into his cheek and turned it, dragging the skin around. But even that, on its own, isn’t what frightens me.
It’s his eyes. So dark they’re almost black, they are both piercing and empty. As if behind them there isn’t a person but an empty void.
“He’s a tough one.” Katya’s voice quivers and she visibly shakes herself. “Almost inhuman himself. And very secretive. He rarely leaves the Metz compound. I have managed to find out a few things though. Firstly, as we expected, security at the compound is tight, tighter even than the government HQ. Most staff who work in the compound never leave, and the officers only go out on patrol.”
She pauses to take a breath. “Secondly, at the moment, they can only control officers’ movements from within the compound. They are given their orders there, but once outside, it’s difficult for the Commander to give fresh orders if the situation changes. They are working on a mobile control solution, but he seems to be having a raging internal conflict over this. Part of him likes being holed up in the compound – I’m not sure if that’s because he feels safe there or just because he doesn’t like people – but part of him wants to be closer to the action on the ground. Or, as he put it, to be able to ‘see them bleed’.”
Katya closes her eyes and a shudder racks her body. “As I said, not a nice man.”
The room falls silent.
“How did you find out all that?” I ask. Perhaps I underestimated her.
Katya gives me a withering look. “He may seem inhuman, but in many ways, he’s still a man.”
Oh. I feel the heat rise in my cheeks and stare down at the table. No more stupid questions.
“What about your rogue officer?” Milicent looks at Aleesha. “Can we get him to spy for us?”
Aleesha shakes her head. “He doesn’t trust me yet. He needs to see for himself that what the Metz are doing is wrong. That they’ve lied to him and the other officers.”
“What are you suggesting? That we set up a Metz attack so he can observe?” Murdoch sounds dubious.
“No. That would be way too risky. People would end up getting killed.” Katya looks thoughtful. “But they must keep records of operations. True records, I mean, not what the officers see.”
“If we could get access to their records database, I know the name of the operation my mother was killed in,” Aleesha says. “If we were to show him that—”
“Why not just show them the footage of what happened in Rose Square?” Bryn narrows his eyes.
Aleesha glares back at him. “’Cos at Rose Square, Outsiders were attacking Metz. My mother was unarmed. And she was one person against a hundred Metz – there was no reason for them to kill her without a trial.”
Milicent barks a laugh. The sound is so unexpected, and unlike her, that I turn to stare. “Show him what happened in the Rose Rebellion then, if he wants to see death without trial.”
Something in her voice makes me think she’s not talking about the events of last week. “Rose Rebellion?”
“They didn’t teach you about that in your history lessons then?” There’s pain and hatred in her eyes and her mouth is pinched.
I shake my head, wondering what she’s talking about.
“The Rebellion was a long time ago, Milicent,” Bryn says gently. “Many people don’t remember.”
“Well they should!” Her eyes glisten, and the perfectly polished nails on her lined hands dig into the wooden tabletop. “It is never too late for justice.”
There’s an awkward silence.
“Well, we can’t access the system from outside the compound anyway,” the guy in glasses says eventually. “We’ve already tried that.”
“So we figure out how to get in.” Aleesha leans back in her chair and folds her arms. “What? That’s what you really want, isn’t it? And once we’re in, we can see where they’re at with the mobile control device thing the Commander mentioned.”
Geek brightens. “If we could find out how far they’ve got, we may be able to figure out where I’m going wrong with this one.” He looks dolefully at the black box.
“You’re overlooking one important point. There’s no way in.”
“Come on, Bryn. You of all people should know that there’s always a way in.” Murdoch’s Irish lilt is mocking.
Katya raises a hand to forestall Bryn’s protest. “Let’s talk through the options. Ground level entry is next to impossible. The only time an entrance opens is when the Metz shifts change, twice a day. They get their supplies delivered to an underground basement, but the supplies are searched thoroughly before being taken up. How about the tunnels?”
Murdoch shakes his head. “We scouted out the underground tunnels but they’re all blocked. Besides, if there were any way in from below, I’m sure they’ve got extra security on it now after we got into the government headquarters that way. They’re not stupid.”
“The Commander believes the compound to be impenetrable,” Katya says.
“That in itself is a weakness,” Bryn comments.
“What about new recruits? They take in older kids as well as babies.” Milicent has composed herself, her face once again emotionless. “Couldn’t we grab a couple of their latest intake and give their chips to Aleesha and Trey?”
I bite my lip to stop myself shouting out. How can they think it’s right to just take someone’s chip?
But Katya shakes her head. “They only have one intake a year of kids their age – after they’ve finished school. It’ll be another six months before they come in.”
Another pause. I search my memories of what my father had said about the compound, trying to find something that may help us, but all I can remember is him telling me to stay away.
“Well, if we can’t go in at street level and we can’t get through underground, there’s only one option remaining,” Bryn says, rocking his chair back. “Go in from above.”
Milicent looks surprised. Katya looks thoughtful. Murdoch looks pissed – but then I imagine he’d react that way to anything Bryn suggests. “Impossible,” he dismisses with a flick of his fingers. “Even if we could access a pod, there’s a no-fly zone around the compound.”
“Yes, but perhaps we can do something about that,” Katya says slowly. She turns to the guy with the glasses. “Jameson, the Commander gets in and out by pod. Anything you can do to scramble the codes?”
He nods enthusiastically. “That shouldn’t be hard. We experimented with it a while back and it seemed to work. We’d need to time it right, of course.”
“We can do that,” Katya smiles wryly. “He’s keen for us to meet again.”
Bryn looks at her sharply. “You have a way of getting in touch with him?”
“Not directly,” she admits. “We leave messages at one of the hotels Inside. A rather antiquated way of doing things. He thinks it’s romantic. You wouldn’t have long though. Perhaps an hour or two at most.”
“It might be enough.” Murdoch furrows his brow. “I could take Matthews in—”
Aleesha coughs. A loud, deliberate, unnecessary cough.
“What do you mean you’re going in? I doubt you can just break in from the roof. We’ll need someone to let us in from the inside. And I’m the only one Rogue’s seen, let alone trusts.”
There’s a silence. Murdoch glowers at her.
“She’s right,” Katya says reluctantly. “But Jameson, you’ll need to go with her.”
“Me?” The man lurches forward and his glasses almost drop off the end of his nose. He pushes them up with a shaking finger. “I-I can’t go in there!”
“You’re the only one who understands how the device works.”
“Which is why you need me here.” He presses his finger into the table for emphasis. “You lot are useless with anything to do with technology. If I get captured, there’ll be no one to fix your comm units or hack devices!”
“He’s got a point, Katya.” Murdoch sighs.
The
room falls silent.
“I could help, perhaps?” I reach for the black box and turn it over in my hands. “Show me how it works, what the setup is inside and where you think the issues might be.” I push it back across the table. “I know the basics of electronic systems and programming. Enough to ask the right questions if we do find someone in the compound to help.”
“No!” Bryn bangs his fist on the table and glares at me. “We are not sending them in alone again. They barely escaped with their lives last time.”
“And proved their capabilities,” Milicent intercedes.
Bryn glares at her. “They were lucky. I’m not having you risk their lives needlessly again.”
“We’re not risking anyone’s lives needlessly,” Katya soothes. “They may be the only ones who can get in, but we’re not going ahead with this until we’ve worked out every detail of the plan. The last thing we want is to make the government suspicious of our ultimate goals.”
Ah. And for a moment I thought she actually cared about us.
She looks at Aleesha. “Once inside, you could pretend to be recruits. You’ll need to find out from your officer if he can help you get around without arousing suspicion. I don’t know what level of access recruits have.”
“I can’t imagine they have access to the main information system and records, particularly those the Metz and government want to keep hidden,” Milicent says acidly. “Besides, it seems unlikely that this officer will just let them into the compound, however rogue he seems to be.”
A flicker of annoyance crosses Katya’s face. “Let’s see what Aleesha can find out. Hopefully the rogue officer will be curious enough to try to find her again soon. If not, then we’ll have to rethink, but we don’t have much time. The Metz aren’t used to people fighting back, to losing officers. At some point they’ll put a stop to it.”
The words hang in the air.
“What do you mean?” I ask eventually.
“They can’t let this go on much longer. They rule by fear, and that fear is starting to diminish now people have got desperate and have seen that it’s possible to take them down. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they’re planning something already. They’ll bring all their forces together to stamp down their authority once and for all. And kill anyone who gets in their way.”
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