New World Order

by S. M. McEachern

  She shook her head.

  “What’s your name?”

  She was silent. For the first time, I noticed that the branded cross on her cheek looked a little too red. Then I remembered she had been sweating during the day.

  “Mine’s Jack.” I waited for her to tell me her name. She didn’t. “Is your mom or dad in the city here too?”

  She nodded. Progress.

  “Have you seen them since you got here?”

  She shook her head.

  “You miss them, don’t you?”

  More tears accompanied by a sob.

  I would’ve tried to comfort her, but she was still afraid of me. “I miss my mom and dad too. And my wife. I miss her a lot.” A lump sprang to my throat as I said it, and I found myself blinking back tears. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I inconspicuously blotted them away. “Her name is Sunset, and she’s really pretty and really brave. You know what color her hair is?”

  She was looking at me, her expression still wary, but the tears had stopped.

  “Red,” I said. Her eyes opened bigger. “I know, right? Who has red hair? But that’s why her mom called her Sunset. You see, where my wife and I come from, we never had the chance to see a real sunset, or any sun at all, until just last year. You know why?”

  She shook her head, her rapt attention now on me.

  I made a show of looking around and then whispered. “It’s a secret.” She nodded. “Because we were born and raised inside a mountain. We believed the world outside our mountain was still too dangerous to live in after the War. Last year was the first time anyone left our Dome.”

  Her mouth parted slightly as she watched me. “For real?” she asked.

  It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. I might not be able to rescue my friends, but I could at least ease the fears of a little girl. “For real.”

  The shed door opened, startling us both. Annie, or whatever her name was, recoiled farther back into the corner. I jumped to my feet. Fadi and Amos were at the door, Amos carrying a tray of food and Fadi a knife—presumably in case I caused trouble.

  I appealed to Fadi. “I need some boiled water and a clean cloth.” I motioned to Annie. “Her face is getting infected.”

  “I’ll ask,” Fadi said.

  Amos set the tray on the shed floor and nudged it toward me with his boot. They shut the door and slammed the lock in place. I wanted to turn to Annie and tell her not to be afraid, that the men wouldn’t hurt her while I was around. But I couldn’t promise her that because I was just as vulnerable as she was. The need to protect her was overwhelming, and yet I couldn’t do that any more than I could rescue my friends. It was tearing me apart.

  And as I looked at her tiny little figure, curled into a fetal position in the corner, I knew exactly why Ryder had “given” her to me. Goddamn him.

  “You have to eat, okay, Annie?” My hands were tied, so I used my foot to slide the tray across the floor to her. “Wait, Annie isn’t your name. You still haven’t told me.” I sat down again, this time closer to her. She didn’t move away.

  She swallowed hard as she looked at the food. The steam coming from the hot food warmed the little shed and filled it with spicy aromas. I was happy to see the white, flaky meat of fish next to the vegetables.

  “Teegan,” she said in her small voice.

  Despite my mood, I was able to muster a big smile for her. “That’s a pretty name. I like it.”

  She swiped the back of her hand against her damp cheek but jerked it away as soon as it came in contact with her burn. “Not as pretty as Sunset,” she said.

  “I think it’s just as pretty.” I nudged the tray closer to her.

  Finally she reached for the food, tore off a piece of bread, and used it as a spoon. I reached for my own plate and ate my meal with as much decorum as I could with my wrists tied together. Teegan didn’t seem to mind my lack of manners, though. To keep her talking, I asked her some questions about her family while we ate, not really listening to the answers. I was too preoccupied with thoughts of escape and revenge. Tomorrow I would have to play it cool, let Ryder think all this brainwashing was actually working and he was winning me over. I needed to convince him to take me on a tour of the plastic factory so I could find a shiv, cut these damn plastic ties off my wrists, and find a way out of this shed. Easier said than done, I knew.

  We had barely finished our meal when the door opened again. The woman who had stood over me while I bathed came in carrying a basket in one hand and a lit lantern in the other. Fadi and Amos came in behind her. Without a word, she knelt down in front of Teegan, took the girl’s face in one hand, and shone the light on her cheek. She made a clucking noise when she saw how red it was.

  “This is bad and maybe too far gone. Why didn’t you tell someone about it?” she asked the girl in a harsh voice.

  Tears welled up in Teegan’s eyes.

  “Maybe because you people scare the hell out of her,” I said.

  Fadi kicked my foot. “Never speak to one of Father Ryder’s wives without permission.”

  The woman glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, upper lip curled. Ignoring me, she set about cleaning Teegan’s burn and applied a salve. It took only a few minutes, and then she was packing up her basket and leaving. As soon as the door was closed, Teegan burst into tears.

  I reached for her, silently cursing my tied wrists. “Are you okay? Of course you’re not okay. Does it hurt more?”

  She nodded her head. “It really hurts!” she cried.

  “Come here,” I said, gently tugging her arm. “Let me see. I promise I won’t touch it.”

  She complied, raising her cheek for me to take a look. Her show of trust wasn’t lost on me. True to my word, I didn’t touch it, but I couldn’t really see it either. It was dark in the shed, but the salve Ryder’s wife had applied was milky white and looked suspiciously like devil’s blood. I wondered if she used the poison as a sedative, in which case it wouldn’t help the infection, it would only put Teegan to sleep.

  “Is it the stuff she put on it that’s hurting?” I asked.

  She nodded. “It stings.”

  There were no sterile pads available, and I didn’t want to use my dirty shirt to wipe it off. My cup of water from dinner was still untouched, though. A little awkwardly, I picked up the cup with my bound hands and gripped it tightly. “Lie down and I’ll rinse it off, okay?”

  She gave me a dubious look, but laid her head on the floor with her cheek raised to me. “Put your hand over your eyes,” I said. Once her eyes were protected, I rinsed off as much of the salve as I could. The water was cold, so I knew it would have a soothing effect. “Better?” I asked when I was out of water.

  She nodded, even though she was still crying. “A little.”

  Our blankets from the night before were right where she’d left them in the morning, and I picked them up and tried to wrap them around her, but with my wrists tied together it was difficult. She took the blankets from me, pulled them around herself, and then surprised me when she nestled her bony frame against my side. I shifted to lean against the wall and get comfortable for a while.

  “Can you tell me about your mountain?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to think of what to say. “It’s a pretty cool place, I guess. Although the whole time I lived inside I wished I could go outside.”

  She turned her face up to look at me. “How did you see? Wasn’t it dark in there?”

  I grinned. The stuff I took for granted growing up were unbelievable wonders to people who had never seen that kind of technology. “It was never dark inside the Dome. We have electricity—do you know what that is?” She shook her head. “It’s a power source that lets us run things like artificial lights, replicators, televisions, computers, anything we need power for.”

  She yawned. “What are those things?”

  Knowing she was tired, I raised my bound hands and she ducked under my arm to lay her head on my chest. As she snugg
led against me, I felt her heartbeat, which was as tiny and fragile as she looked. Silently, I cursed Ryder again.

  “Well, replicators are machines that make things—anything we want, really. They make clothes, building supplies, weapons, televisions.”

  “What are televisions?” she asked in a slow, sleepy voice.

  “It’s a big screen where we can watch shows and movies that were filmed before the War.”

  “Movies?”

  “Hmm...that’s hard to explain. Did you ever pretend you were someone else? Like playing make-believe with your sister or a friend?” She nodded. “Movies and TV shows are kind of like that. They’re stories someone made up and other people act them out. It’s recorded so anyone can watch it.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “I’ve never made a movie, but they are fun to watch.” A cold draft whistled through a crack, and I pulled the blanket snugly around her. “We use the big screens to play video games too, which I personally think are way more fun than movies. My brother Ted and I always played them. I liked games of strategy best because I always beat Ted. In fact, I wrote my own game a few years ago with over twenty levels to get through, and last time I saw Ted he was still trying to make it past level fifteen.” I laughed at the memory, suddenly missing my brother a lot. “Ted always beat me at simulator games, though. You need fast reflexes and coordination for those. He was such a whiz on the aircraft simulator at school that he was chosen to train as a pilot for our air force—” And then it hit me. That whirring, whooping mechanical sound I had heard.

  Was Ted out looking for me?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sunny

  Something inside me snapped. The agony of losing Jack, my anxiety over being pregnant, the exhaustion that went with it, worry over Summer’s addiction, and putting up with the tension between Reyes and me all coalesced into one giant storm. I didn’t know emotional overload could send the human body into shock, but I trembled with it from the tips of my toes all the way up to the roots of my hair. My teeth felt ready to crack from clamping them so tight, but I couldn’t seem to loosen my jaw. I felt ready to explode.

  And then I did explode. Hurling myself at Reyes, with both hands outstretched like battering rams, I hit his chest with all the blunt force the suit could give me. He flew backward several feet, landed on his butt, and skidded to a stop. I went after him.

  “Sunny,” he said, gesturing for me to stop. “Calm down.”

  “Calm down?” I repeated. “You lied to me. You betrayed me again. And you’re part of a plan to start a war. Get up!”

  He didn’t move. “Nope. I’m not going to fight you.”

  “Was Doc in on this?” The thought turned the heaviness in my chest to a crushing force. Breathing became difficult under its weight, and I felt myself starting to hyperventilate. I kicked his leg. “Get up!” I kicked him again and finally got a rise out of him, but Summer was pulling me back.

  “Stop,” she yelled at me.

  Reyes got up, and I yanked my arm out of Summer’s grasp and took another run at him. Reyes was ready for me this time.

  “She’s pregnant!” Summer shouted.

  His arms snaked out toward me. I blocked his blows and struck out at him, but he backed up, and I lost my balance. He grabbed me roughly by my shoulders before I stumbled, his eyes shooting daggers. “A baby? Is that your special cargo?”

  His tone was laced with malice, his body tense with anger, but behind it all there was a glimmer of hurt in his eyes. A bit of my rage died when I saw it—a very little bit—but enough to snap me out of my blind fury. On some level I could handle the knowledge that Reyes had been duping me. Even though I didn’t like being betrayed, it wasn’t the first time he had done it. But to know that everyone, Doc included, had deceived me was more than I could handle.

  I was suddenly conscious that we had drawn a crowd, Jin-Sook the only one missing. A quick check assured me she was safe by the fire, asleep. The fight drained out of me as I turned my focus back on Reyes.

  Balling my hands into fists, I tried to get my trembling under control. “Why?” I asked, irritated by my shaky voice. “Why did you need me out of the way? Why was I ostracized from my own militia?” A tear slipped down my cheek, and I swiped it away with an angry fist. God, I hated crying when I was mad. “I’ve done everything I can for my people. I’ve spent every single day for ten months studying at the Academy, learning bourge ways, spending countless numbers of hours combat training, and then at the end of the day I put on this uniform,” I yelled, using my index finger to jab at my chest, “to teach our militia everything I learned—”

  “You did not do all that for us!” Reyes shouted. “You did it for your bourge husband. You did it for you. You did it because you wanted peace. But don’t you ever say it was for us!”

  I drew my brows together, remembering our heated discussion the other night when he had accused me of walking away from my own people. Is this what he’d meant? “Who do you think I wanted peace for?”

  Reyes raised his chin and looked me in the eye. “The Pit doesn’t want peace. We want justice.”

  “Oh,” I said in mock understanding. I fought the urge to hug my arms to stop my trembling and instead crossed them over my chest. “So you’re starting a war of justice?” I leaned in closer to him and returned his stare. “And are you declaring war on all bourge? Or do you intend to pick and choose who dies?” Reyes rolled his eyes. “You think that’s a stupid question? Okay. Let me rephrase it. Are you going to kill everyone from the Dome who helped free the Pit? How about Zach, here?” I said, pointing to him. “Yeah, he suffered at the hands of Holt, probably even more than you and I did, but he’s a bourge and deserves to die, right? And what about Hayley?” I unholstered my gun and held it out to him. “Go ahead. Kill them.”

  Hayley and her soldiers drew their weapons. Admittedly, it was a gutsy move, and the only reason I made it was because I didn’t believe Reyes would hurt them. Especially Hayley. Something was going on between them, and he confirmed that suspicion when he shot a quick glance in her direction.

  Ignoring my proffered gun, he said, “You know that’s not our intention.”

  I remembered Doc had said something about assassinations. Is that what they had planned? “It may not be your intention, but the outcome will be the same. War. And in war, no one gets to choose who lives or dies.”

  Reyes snorted derisively, stepped forward, and pointed a finger at me. “For almost three hundred years, the bourge happily chose who lived or died in the Pit. Or are you so wrapped up in your new life that you’ve forgotten your old one?”

  Our eyes locked as we silently acknowledged our shared past. Not the bickering or the failed romance, but our history together. Cleaning up a bloody nose, kissing bruises that never seemed to go away, bandaging broken ribs, and our constant reassurances that our lives were not worthless. That we were not worthless. It was always our worst days when we dreamed the hardest and talked the longest about a life outside the Pit, and the idea of a better future was enough to keep us going from one day to the next.

  Until it wasn’t.

  At some point Reyes had stopped dreaming. He’d stopped hoping for a better future and concentrated on hating the one he had. That’s when he turned mean.

  “I remember every single day, Reyes. So I very much resent your accusation that I walked away from the Pit after the doors were opened. I’m doing everything within my power to build a better future for all of us because, unlike you, I haven’t stopped dreaming. I’m still filled with hope.” I thought of my little guy. I have to be.

  He huffed a curt laugh. “I haven’t stopped dreaming, Sunny. I’m not a hundred percent cynical... yet. But unlike you,” he said mockingly, “I’ve realized that sitting around hoping doesn’t get me anywhere. Sometimes you have to destroy whatever’s in the way of your dreams in order to make room for them.”

  He finished our conversation by walking away.

  **
*

  Everybody was up and breaking camp before the sun even made an appearance. Hayley had scheduled her soldiers to take shifts throughout the night to keep watch, and I was willing to bet she’d given them special instructions to watch us in particular. We kept our own watch as well. It’s not that I was afraid of Hayley killing us in our sleep, but more like a fear of being thrown to the wolves if they happened to surround our camp. It had made for an uncomfortable, tense night made worse by Reyes’ brooding, my sulkiness, and our goal to avoid each other.

  Yet the night before we had all managed—urchin, bourge and heathens—to overcome our unease with each other long enough to work out a plan. With Alex and Sims gone, there were two extra bikes. Eli said that he was beginning to worry that we would end up passing the recruiters if we continued traveling on the river, so we made the decision to switch to land, which elicited a whoop of joy from Summer. It would also give us the opportunity to pick up their trail in case they were still in the vicinity. Our search party was about to get smaller since Hayley was sending two soldiers to escort Wilcox back to the Dome. She said it was because he needed to be reported for his crimes, but I was pretty sure that was just a ruse to send word back to the Dome about an urchin uprising. Although from what Reyes said last night, a confrontation was most likely already underway. I thought of my mother and prayed it wasn’t.

  In the morning we were a somber group once again, although some of the tension was gone since we each had a task to focus on. Reyes and Eli deflated the raft, Summer tended to Jin-Sook, and I filled the water flasks. I felt a little guilty for not being the one to help Jin, since she and I were good friends. But Summer had sensed that I didn’t feel like being with people and had volunteered. She was acting sheepish around me, and I was pretty sure it was because she was feeling bad about blurting out my secret. I didn’t blame her, though. She’d acted out of genuine concern and, to be honest, might have done me a favor. I hadn’t realized how much of my energy was being consumed with anxiety over what other people would think or the fear of my secret being exposed. Now that it wasn’t a secret, I had nothing to fear. And somehow the acknowledgement of his existence had made my little guy seem more real. It had given him presence.