“If we don’t have some idea what his plans are, we can’t anticipate where he’s going to be. We could find enough of the Unequals to take the DOE and then discover he’s over at the hospital, killing everyone who doesn’t agree with him. Or he could be driving around the city, fully armed and eradicating pedestrians.” Rue tried to determine if she was getting through to the girl, but Shiraz was a block of stone. “In any case, we need to try and divine what he’s going to do before we try anything.”
“It’s the smart thing to do.”
Bruno’s words changed Shiraz’s face from stony anger back to wild rage in an instant. “And if we’re following the doctor, we have to do the smart thing, don’t we? Well, if she’s so damn smart, why the hell couldn’t she save Justin? Why couldn’t she save Max? Why did she have to let Margaret die?” She poked a finger into Bruno’s face. “Answer me that. If being smart is the right way to go, why are all those people gone?”
The girl stormed from the room. The two of them caught up with her on the front porch. Bruno wrapped one thick hand around her arm, stopping her motion but not her anger. She balled up one fist and connected with his jaw. His head barely moved, but such a hard blow had to hurt.
“Stop it, little girl. We’re not so overflowing with fighters we can afford to brawl with each other.” He pulled her up until she was standing on her tiptoes. “Got me?”
Shiraz pulled back for another swing but let it fall before she followed through. “Got you.” The words came out but Rue could tell they were ground to a fine dust between her clenched jaws.
He picked the girl up and held her in front of him. “I didn’t mean any offense, you know.”
“I said I got you. Now let me down.”
“Not ‘til you apologize.” He pushed his shaggy face forward until they were nose to nose. “And mean it.”
All at once, the fight drained out of Shiraz. “I apologize, Papa Bear.” One slim hand reached up to caress the spot where her fist had connected. “I didn’t mean to hit you.”
“I understand. You were angry and since you can’t hit Crispin or Justin—”
“I’m not mad at Justin.” The protest was too ardent, but they let it drop. Time enough for Shiraz to sort out her feelings after this was over. If it was ever over.
“Then since you can’t hit Winston.”
“He’s too pathetic to hit.” She shot a sidelong glance at Rue. “Sorry.”
Rue nodded. She couldn’t refute the girl’s words. Her mind went back to the day her uncle disappeared. The teen who left her home could never be described as pathetic, but the man he’d become certainly was. The problem was trying to marry the two images into one person.
“So,” Bruno said, once he’d lowered Shiraz to her feet. “What say we go inside? Maybe together we can figure out Crispin’s plans.”
While Shiraz got an ice pack for Bruno’s jaw, Rue put on a pot of coffee. Within minutes, the kitchen smelled like home again. The cinnamon rolls had been bad enough, but this new scent added to the mixture almost made her cry.
“Once upon a time,” she said, half to herself, “my father loved coffee.”
“At least you had a father.”
“Shiraz, hush.”
“Let her be. She’s right. I had a father and she didn’t. I’m betting as a child, she spent her dreams on wanting to have one and I spent mine on wishing I didn’t. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
Shiraz opened her mouth and then closed it again with a snap. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for. I came into your life in a rush and ever since you’ve had nothing but misery.” The girl rolled her eyes. “Fine. You had misery before. I get it. But let’s let it go for the time being. We need each other. Can you at least admit that?”
She gave a grudging nod.
“Good. And you can always resume hating me once we make it through this.” Rue poured three mugs full and distributed them around the table. “First things first. How do we figure out where Crispin is going to be and when he’s going to be there?”
Bruno shook his head and then stopped suddenly. “Justin had spies. They couldn’t have been inside the hospital when it was taken.”
“Can you contact them?”
“No, but—”
“I can.” Shiraz perked up. “I can contact them.” The pale half of her face grew pink. “Justin was… I was in training to become one of them. Secretly. No one but he and I knew. He showed me a few ways they kept in touch so no one would realize they were communicating.”
Rue didn’t bother trying to hide her surprise. One glance at Bruno told her he was as shocked as she was. Neither of them addressed the issue Shiraz’s confession brought up. Justin had his own agenda. Training children to work as spies dovetailed into the view Rue had already built of him anyway. She just felt sorry for Bruno. He wasn’t nearly the follower Crispin pretended to be, but understanding your leader isn’t perfect is a far cry from knowing the same leader is willing to do anything to win.
Except a niggling thought at the back of Rue’s head made her wonder if she wouldn’t do the same—if situations were reversed. If Justin had kept Crispin out of the loop, it stood to reason the DOE wouldn’t suspect kids as spies. And even if Shiraz wasn’t a child anymore, her years of training made her better suited to this work than either of them.
“Okay. I guess I can see his thinking.” Bruno echoed her train of thought. “I don’t like it, but I can understand it.”
Shiraz stared at him as if she couldn’t understand what the problem was, but what either of them had going through their heads right then was better off sorted out later. Right then, like it or not, Shiraz presented a valuable tool they might be able to use.
“Alright,” Rue said. “Then it’s your job to contact as many free Unequals as you can, Shiraz. You know the safe spots better than I would, so pick some place where all of us can organize.” She looked at Bruno, who nodded his encouragement. “They might not appreciate the idea of answering to anyone other than Justin, though, so don’t tell them what’s happened. You can… I don’t know… lie. Tell them he called them together.”
“They won’t necessarily believe me. I mean, come on. It sounds like a trap to me, and I’m in on it.”
“Some of them won’t believe you, but some of them won’t bother to question it. You’re Justin’s girl, aren’t you?” Rue wasn’t sure it was true but from the glow Shiraz acquired, the praise worked. For the moment, the girl might stop arguing and get to work. The evidence became clear as a smile broke out on her face and she flipped her phone open.
With Shiraz busy, Rue turned to Bruno. “Are we totally screwed or what?”
To her surprise, he laughed. “We were screwed to begin with. Maybe it’s time we stopped being the screwees and started being the screwers.”
Rue wasn’t sure about Bruno’s words, but something had to change. If she had to be the one to make it change, so be it.
“Everything’ll be okay, you know.”
His words were meant to comfort, but instead they seemed to boil inside her head. A weight fell across her shoulders.
“No.” She shrugged away from his casual embrace. “I don’t know that. I didn’t want this. All I wanted was to save lives.”
“But they didn’t want you to, Rue. You had to fight against them for that. Why is this so different?”
“Aren’t you listening? I want to save lives. There’s a big difference between slipping around a few dozen, stupid rules to accomplish my goals and attacking innocent people as a means to an end. What I did? No one got hurt. No one got killed. I helped people when the DOE didn’t want me to. If you want to call what I did fighting for what I wanted fine, as long as you understand no real fighting occurred.”
She shook her head. “Justin thought the best way to stop the DOE was to fight for real. People get killed fighting for real, Bruno. You should know as well as anyone. You were out there the day the hospital was attacked. You
pulled bodies out of the wreckage.”
“Not Justin. Violence would never be Justin’s way. His means of fighting was defensive.”
“Until the time came to destroy the DOE, you mean. How many people would he have killed to achieve his goals?”
“How many more would he have saved by achieving it?” His eyes narrowed under his bushy brows. “And sure, the disappeared aren’t dying anymore. They’re being used as cannon fodder against the Unequals instead. Justin’s goal of ending the DOE would’ve saved them, too. He would’ve saved children like Shiraz from years of hiding in the shadows. Because whatever crap Crispin and Winston told you, no disfigured child would live to see the light of their new future. They want us to be Unequal but only in the way that serves them best.”
She wasn’t sure if he was right. She wanted to rail against his words. From the start, she believed Justin was the other side of the same coin Winston flipped. Heads you’re good different, tails you’re bad different. Either way, you’re just as dead.
“Max used to say something I always kept in mind, Rue. Too bad he didn’t get a chance to impress it upon you.”
“And what exactly did he say?”
“The day each and every person can be exactly who he is, without any interference from anyone, mankind can live in peace. He imagined a beautiful world, Rue, and his dream is what I fight for. Only then can any of us really be free.”
His words brushed past the anger. They broke through the wall she’d been holding like a shield. But she had too many thoughts, too many years wrapped up thinking them, to simply accept what he was saying. “Fight for peace?” she whispered.
“I have to study war so my children have the liberty to study philosophy… Or something along those lines.”
“What did you say?”
“Something I read a long time ago, although I probably didn’t get it quite right. The book was falling apart and some of the passages were smudged, but I got the gist. A former leader wrote it, long before the Equality Laws or a DOE. Back when people understood even though men were created equal, there was nothing to guarantee they would remain so.” He gave a lopsided smile. “Well, nothing but their own efforts anyway. Back then people believed nothing, especially not the government, should get in the way of people doing what they wanted to. Max said it was to keep people from being treated badly because they were different, not to force them all to be the same.”
Rue almost laughed. The concept of people who actually believed what he was saying, in the same country she was born in, was too unbelievable. The seriousness of Bruno’s gaze stopped her. As strange as it sounded, he wasn’t kidding.
“Promise me you’ll consider it before you condemn Justin to a hell of your making. He was a good man. Max would never have left us in his hands if he wasn’t.”
She hadn’t spent enough time in Max’s company to trust him without reserve. Nevertheless, in so short a time, he had made an impact on her. For one thing, she wouldn’t be in this mess if she hadn’t made him a deathbed promise. For another, she never would’ve met all the good people she worked with, and she never would’ve been able to openly practice medicine. If it all ended now, she could thank Max for giving her those short weeks in the open.
And all they really wanted, these troops she wasn’t sure she wanted to lead, was for everyone to have their time out in the open.
THIRTY-ONE
In spite of the blackness of a new moon, Rue regretted ever wishing to be out in the open. No one should be able to see them, unless the DOE equipped their people with the same night-vision eyewear Bruno somehow managed to scare up. He assured her they weren’t the most common pieces of equipment. But she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling they were being watched.
The shield around the hospital still functioned, which left them as blind about the opposing forces as the DOE was about them. On the ground, a few soldiers walked their appointed paths. Every once in a while, something would move in one of the windows, nullifying the illusion. Otherwise, nothing moved within a hundred meters of the seemingly derelict building.
Beyond the hundred-meter barrier, she watched the Unequal forces creep across the barren ground as slow as snails until each of them reached his mark. One hour. They would wait a single hour before storming the hospital. Bruno assured her it was plenty of time.
She didn’t feel assured.
A hand closed around her arm, causing her to stifle a yelp. “Ready?” Bruno’s voice was no louder than the wind in her ear.
She nodded and gripped Winston’s hand. “It’s time for our game, Howard. Do you remember how to play?”
His mouth spread wide. Rue tried to smile in return, but her stomach heaved too much to manage more than a grimace. Good thing her uncle wasn’t wearing a pair of those goggles. She couldn’t afford to scare the poor man.
Tugging him along, they hunched across the open ground like a trio of Neanderthals. A few meters later, Bruno dropped to a crouch. Brushing away a thin layer of dead grass and dirt, he fiddled with something Rue couldn’t see. She heard the click before she could make out the lifted lid of a concealed trapdoor.
The large man motioned her in front of him. She nudged Winston forward and followed him downward. Once she was inside, Bruno slipped down the ladder, closing the hatch behind him. The tunnel before them brought reminders of running from the DOE, until she heard another soft click and the hallway glowed with fluorescent light.
“Straight on—”
“’Til morning?” The quip allowed a burble of nervous laughter to escape. She clamped her jaw down and took her first steps toward the culmination of this asinine plan she’d devised. Bruno, to his credit, didn’t say a word. She hastily added, “Or maybe I should’ve referenced a rabbit hole.”
“As long as you don’t channel the March Hare.” He dropped his voice and nodded toward the third of their trio. “We have enough insanity with Citizen Winston.”
“Winston is my last name,” Howard announced and then clamped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, Howard.”
“Does this mean I can’t win?” Once more Rue regretted this game she’d created, but there was no other way to keep his childlike mind focused on the task. She would beat herself up later. If she got a later.
“Of course you can win,” she said. “But you have to stay quiet until we reach some of the other kids who want to play. Understand?”
“Sure thing, Rue.” His words were muffled as he tightened the grip on his mouth.
“Come on, then.”
The three of them proceeded down the bright walkway until they reached a metal door. From an inside coat pocket, Bruno withdrew an old-fashioned key. “Let’s hope they haven’t changed the locks.” He turned toward Winston and held up a pair of crossed fingers. The man let out a boyish giggle, holding up two entwined fingers of his own. The whole scene curdled Rue’s intestines. She’d have a lot of beating herself up to do before any of it became marginally close to okay.
“Enough. Let’s get this over with.” She pulled Winston toward the door. “Time to play. You have to open the door and lead us up the stairs, the way we practiced.”
The big grin spreading across his face was a sure sign of the degradation of his mind, but she didn’t have the heart to wipe the smile away. Happiness had been a short commodity in Winston’s life. Why not let him have a little, even if it was simply the joy of ignorance?
As soon as his hand pushed the door open, though, all the joy drained away from his face. The glare he turned on Rue was so filled with malevolence, she sucked a breath in through her teeth.
“Like we practiced, right Rue?” he said in his little boy’s voice. Everything in Rue screamed at her to run. He wasn’t the brain-damaged uncle she’d been coaxing along all afternoon. He’d taken her game and made it his own. Only the Citizen Equalizer of the DOE could play a role so well.
Bruno grabbed her arm and whispered, “Run.”
Confusion rep
laced the evil on Winston’s face. “Are we playing a different game? You said we were going to play pretend. But if you want to race instead—”
Rue glanced from one man to the other. Bruno was poised for flight. Winston had stalled. “No one is that good an actor,” she said to the big man. “Let’s see how this plays out.”
“But—”
“If he’s messing with us, we’re already in too deep.”
“Whatcha talking about?” Winston said from his post by the door. “Are we going to play the game you taught me or not?” He pouted. “You told me I could play with you.”
She gave Howard a big grin. “We’re going to play. But Bruno didn’t understand the rules. It’s okay. Go ahead. We’ll see if we can find Crispin and maybe a few other friends along the way.”
“And they’ll want to play, too?”
Bruno let go of her arm and nodded at the man turned boy. “Sure they will. We just need to find them.”
They no sooner stepped into the hallway and closed the door than some new friends found them first.
“Stop,” said a guy not much older than Shiraz. “No one’s supposed to be down here.”
“Do you know who I am?” Winston had adopted his best stern voice. For a second, Rue was certain he was imitating her own father. The soldier leaned closer, but no recognition crossed his features. “I’m the man who decides whether you’re Unequal.”
The young man blanched and peered at Winston’s face. As the color drained from his cheeks, he stood ramrod straight. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize you were inside the building…” His eyebrows knit a fine weave across his forehead. “You’re not supposed to be here, sir.” In the blink of an instant, the soldier’s gun was pointed at Winston’s forehead.
They’ll be holding pretend weapons, Howard, so don’t be afraid. Don’t show them you’re afraid or you’ll lose the game. Her own instructions haunted her, but it was all she could do not to show fear herself. Any glimmer this was anything but a game would ruin Winston’s act.
Rue risked a sidelong glance at her uncle, but his focus was on the soldier.
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