The Expedition

by Chris Babu

  Mayor Sullivan continued. “We imprison people who commit crimes and try to rehabilitate them. We don’t exile. We care for our sick, less fortunate, and elderly. Boston is a wonderful place.”

  Drayden shook his head. “We need to get back to New America immediately. Mayor Sullivan, can you help us? What’s going on in New America is a humanitarian crisis. They’re exiling innocent people—murdering them. I appeal to your sense of compassion. Any help is welcome. Weapons to use against the Bureau, manpower, deep-cycle batteries in case the Bureau is telling the truth about the power problem. We could use a ride home too.”

  “I feel for you, Drayden, I really do. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do. I understand you came in with some weapons; we’ll resupply you with ammunition. Obtaining batteries these days is a major problem, so your best bet is to visit an old windmill farm near New America. We can help you research that before you go. As for getting you home, we haven’t sent a boat to New America in many years. It would probably be attacked. The next boat making a trip down the East Coast, however, could drop you off a few miles away. It would be our pleasure to put you up as our guests and let you enjoy life in our city until then.”

  “That’s very generous, Mayor Sullivan. Thank you,” Drayden said. “We just have a few details to work out. We need proof we made it to Boston, because the Bureau threatened our families if we didn’t make it. Can you give us something?”

  “I’ll personally draft a letter on official Boston letterhead for you to deliver to your Premier,” the mayor said. “I’ll also give you several blank sheets of letterhead so you can each carry one, in case you become separated.” She stood, walked to a table on the side of the room, and returned with a gold coin in her hand. “Take this. It’s an old commemorative coin with Boston’s seal on it.”

  Drayden read the inscription. Bostonia Condita AD. 1630.

  The privates each thanked her for her consideration.

  He recalled his final conversation with Kim Craig, and though they no longer needed help finding someone trustworthy, he figured if Kim’s aunt were alive, she’d want to know that Kim was alive too.

  “One more thing,” he said. “I know this will sound crazy, but do you know a Ruth Diamond?”

  Charlie, Catrice, and Sidney looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

  The mayor checked with the other senior officials, and they all shook their heads. “I’m sorry, no,” she said. “We haven’t rebuilt electronic records yet.”

  The door flung open and Susan Murphy entered. “I sent a team down to the mud pit you described.” She hesitated. “The Guardians were gone.”

  The privates returned from an evening walk through Boston Common. They stopped in front of the former XV Beacon Hotel, their temporary home. A stone’s throw from the Boston Capitol, it still functioned as a quasi-hotel. Now it accommodated visitors from other colonies who’d come to Boston to trade goods.

  “I miss Eugene,” Charlie said. “But the nice Euge, not the evil one.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” Sidney said. “He must be like an evil genius.”

  Charlie wrapped his arms around Catrice’s shoulders. “Don’t feel bad. He had us all fooled, not just you.”

  Drayden cringed at that comment. Catrice had been quiet the entire day and remained so.

  Sidney waved a finger. “He didn’t fool Drayden.”

  “Yeah, he did,” Drayden said, trying to make Catrice feel better. “I thought I’d look like a paranoid jerk for making sure he didn’t double-cross us in the marsh.”

  “Fine, but it’s not like you fell in love with the guy,” Sidney said. “You even told him you didn’t trust him.”

  Catrice blushed and balled her fists. “Why does everybody think I had something going on with Eugene? All I did was talk to him. Jeez.”

  After an awkward silence, Charlie fanned his arm across the skyline. “I think I’d rather stay here than return to New America. Boston rocks.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting our families?” Sidney asked.

  Drayden thought about Dad and Wesley, hoping they were safe. “I can’t believe that stuff about New America. Who knew, right? It’s crazy to think about. We suspected the Bureau was corrupt, but not like that.”

  Before the expedition, Drayden had committed to help overthrow the Bureau. Back then, all he thought they were doing wrong was exiling people unfairly. Little did he know he was only scratching the surface of their duplicity.

  “I can’t believe we’re a hostile colony.” Charlie rubbed his chin. “We don’t seem hostile.”

  “What about the drugs?” Sidney asked. “Who would have thought? Alex was onto something, dealing drugs.”

  Charlie put both fists on his head and pulled them away in a brisk motion, extending his fingers out. He did it again. “You know what this is?”

  Sidney looked flummoxed. “What are you doing?”

  “You see this?” Charlie repeated the fist thing. “This right here.”

  “What, Charlie?” Drayden asked, annoyed.

  “Mind. Blown.”

  Drayden whacked him on the arm. “You guys, I need to tell you something. I wasn’t honest with you about why I entered the Initiation.” He told them about the forced exiles in the Dorms, and that he’d found out when he overheard the conversation between Lily Haddad and Thomas Cox.

  “Holy shkat,” Charlie said. “Thank God we passed.”

  “That’s not the craziest part though,” Drayden said, finally realizing his friends’ need to know about the overthrow plot outweighed the risks of telling them. He gave them a rough outline, which was all he knew anyway. “This time I didn’t tell you guys what I was up to because I didn’t want to endanger your lives. Look what happened to Thomas Cox. He was executed. So, there’s already a plot in the works, and Kim Craig said it involves some Bureau members and some Guardians.” Drayden recalled Kim’s note, the one he wasn’t supposed to open unless she was dead. Against her advice, he was going to open it when he returned to his room. Circumstances had clearly changed.

  “That’s great.” Sidney held a hand up. “We can try to get involved, right?”

  Drayden shrugged. “I’m not sure. Knowing Holst, he’s already onto it. We might need our own plan.”

  “I have a plan.” Charlie lumbered up the steps to the hotel, yawning. “It involves sleeping for about three days.”

  Everyone headed inside.

  Catrice gripped Drayden’s arm. “Can I talk to you?”

  He glanced at Sidney, who gave Catrice some serious stink-eye before entering the hotel.

  Catrice dragged him a few feet down the sidewalk so the two of them were alone.

  Before Drayden had a chance to say anything, she hugged him, weeping a little into his shirt. Although he wasn’t sure what to do, he hugged her back. He was kind of with Sidney now.

  “I’m sorry.” Catrice pulled back. “About everything on the expedition. I was so scared, and everything reminded me of my parents. I guess physical separation doesn’t mean I’ve escaped them. Between your mother possibly being alive, the suffering we saw, and being held captive…my mind was back in my parents’ apartment. It was traumatizing. After our capture and rescue, I don’t even remember the entire next day, like I blacked out.”

  She wiped her tears. “The expedition was really difficult for me. But one thing that never wavered was how I felt about you. I don’t understand why everyone keeps saying I had something going on with Eugene. I didn’t at all; I was never interested in Eugene like that. I just enjoyed making a new friend.”

  It was remarkable how effortlessly Catrice could make Drayden like her again. Had he imagined everything? Or was she playing mind games? Her recollection of the expedition was quite different from his.

  “Catrice…I…I’m sorry for how difficult the expedition was for you. That’s
just not what I saw. It was pretty clear to me and the others that you ditched me for Eugene. You barely spoke to me. If you were having such a hard time, why wouldn’t you talk to me about it? With Eugene, it was like you were conducting a four-day interview. I’ve never seen you talk so much.”

  Though Drayden didn’t want to fight, he grew bitter recounting the details. “From the time we met Eugene, you never gave a single indication that we were a couple in front of him. But you did rest your head on his shoulder when we stopped to boil water the last time, and you did lock your arm inside his for around five hours. I don’t think I misread the signs.”

  Catrice’s eyes narrowed. “You know, I’ve never had many friends, something Sidney loves to point out. Because of you mostly, I’ve learned I don’t need to be afraid of people. Eugene was one of the first friends I’ve ever made. Maybe I don’t understand how to do it right yet, what you’re supposed to do, and how you should act. You and I were already together. I didn’t think you were so insecure that talking to Eugene would make you leave me.”

  Her cheeks glowed red, which happened when she got upset. “What did you actually see, Drayden? Me talking to Eugene. That’s it. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to talk to other people. I don’t recall resting my head on his shoulder, and it didn’t mean anything if I did it. If Charlie were standing next to me, I would have done the same thing. I have no recollection of locking my arm inside his either, but if it was after the camp, I was literally blacked out. Being tied up like that wasn’t too different from what happened to me at home, okay? Holding his arm sure as heck didn’t mean we were a couple.”

  Catrice had tears in her eyes again. “Did I not cuddle up to you every night? I’m shy, and it’s embarrassing, like, hanging on your boyfriend, being all public with everyone watching. I guess I don’t know what I’m doing yet. I think you imagined a lot of things that weren’t there, Drayden, and I bet Sidney was real helpful getting you to see them, wasn’t she? So just like that, I talked to Eugene, and you leave me in four days? What kind of person are you? What kind of man do you want to be, Drayden?”

  He had no answer. He was so confused.

  Catrice shook her head, crying. She stomped past him and entered the hotel.

  If the expedition had taught Drayden anything, it was that he needed to accept who he was. He was a skinny, smart, compassionate, yet insecure and inexperienced boy. He probably needed to tack on neurotic to that list.

  He stepped into the hotel, walked through the black and white lobby, and rode the elevator to the fourth floor. As he approached his room, he tried not to dwell on everything that went wrong on the expedition, but what went right. He’d defeated the Guardians, led his friends safely to Boston, and uncovered the truth about New America.

  All he’d needed to do was embrace who he was.

  The privates’ rooms were grouped together on the fourth floor. His was 406, Charlie was in 405, Sidney was in 404, and Catrice was in 403. Catrice’s room and Sidney’s were directly across the hall from each other. He stopped in the hallway between both rooms and looked at Catrice’s door, full of sorrow and regret. He raised his fist to knock, then hesitated.

  The door behind him opened.

  He spun around.

  Sidney stood there, a weak smile on her face. She leaned against the doorframe in a white T-shirt and sweatpants. “Hi.”

  Butterflies flitted inside Drayden’s stomach. He smiled back. “Hi.”

  “My turn. Can you talk?”

  Drayden peered back at Catrice’s door and let out a deep breath. He hated how much he craved being appreciated and needed, but that was who he was. Sidney needed him too.

  He stepped inside her room, wrapped his arm around her waist, and closed the door behind him.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I assumed writing my second novel would be easier than the first, but I stand corrected. I needed a great deal of help and encouragement along the way. From those who edited my work to those who offered passing words of praise: thank you.

  I’d also like to thank Anthony Ziccardi and everyone at Permuted Press, especially Michael Wilson, Devon Brown, and Madeline Sturgeon. I would be lost without you guys. The Expedition would be a word salad of disparate plot elements without the keen eyes of editors Deborah Halverson, Maya Rock, and Felicia Sullivan. As with The Initiation, the first person to untangle the writing was Christiana Sciaudone. Credit for the gorgeous cover goes to designer Cody Corcoran. Many thanks as well to Simon and Schuster, and to all the booksellers and librarians I’ve met along this journey.

  To my young beta readers—Jack Babu, Taylor Manett, Samantha Miller, and my daughter Lily—thank you for keeping me grounded in a young adult’s world.

  I so appreciate the help of Jason McCarthy, photographer Greg Berg, and Captain Ryan Bryla of The United States Navy.

  There were many difficult writing days I couldn’t have survived without the guidance and wisdom of author Renita D’Silva.

  A special thank you is needed for my wife Michelle, daughter Lily, and parents for their unwavering support.

  Lastly, for the lovely poem “Memory” by Violet Wiggins Newton used in this book:

  Newton, Wiggins. “Memory.” Poetry Explorer. Accessed August 28, 2018. www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10112480.