by Laura Martin
“Helpful,” she said as she shrugged out of the coat she was wearing, inspecting it for a second before grabbing at something, a thread I think, and giving it a yank. She did the same thing two more times, picking at tiny threads and pulling until the entire sleeve dropped neatly from the coat. That done, she bent to wrap the sleeve around my bleeding leg, and as I watched her knot off the makeshift bandage, I became aware again of the clamor around us. Barrel after barrel was being rolled across the deck to be maimed and tossed into the sea. Every now and then one of the disguised men would yell out something about no taxation without representation and everyone would cheer. What had started as a covert and sneaky operation was now a full-blown mob scene.
“Get up,” Regan said, already hauling on my arm. “If you keep sitting on the deck like a beached whale, someone is going to notice you.” I tried to shake her off and succeeded in freeing my arm only to have my bad leg give out and drop back onto the deck with a tailbone-bruising thump. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Smooth. Really smooth.”
“Just stay out of my way,” I said, getting awkwardly to my feet, careful not to put too much pressure on my throbbing calf.
“Your gratitude is heartwarming,” she said. “A simple thank you would be fine.”
“Thank you?” I sputtered. “This is your fault! If you hadn’t distracted me I wouldn’t have almost chopped my leg off. Now scat. I might still have a chance at this.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, and stalked away. I turned my attention back to the chaos of the ship. Zeroing in on every colonist, looking for something, anything that would show them to be a Butterfly. But there was nothing. Everyone seemed to be working with the same resolute focus as they systematically destroyed barrel after barrel of tea. Meanwhile, I was running out of time.
In desperation I turned, just in time to see Regan dart belowdecks with a single-minded purpose I’d recognize anywhere. She’d spotted the Butterfly.
Chapter Twelve
Regan
Spotting the Butterfly was 100 percent dumb luck. Not that I’d ever in a million years admit that. But it was. Pure. Dumb. Luck. For one thing, he practically took me out as he charged away from the action at the rail of the ship. I barely managed to get out of his way before he shoved past me, making a beeline for one of the hatches that led belowdecks. And it was that word, deck, that brought me up short and made me give him a second glance. I was almost positive that the word deck had been in the Cocoon. The fact that I noticed any of this at that moment was a minor miracle because I was still fuming over Elliot’s rude dismissal.
Going on gut instinct, I turned and followed the man. There was nothing about his outfit or his haircut to give me the usual clues, but there was something off about him all the same. This was what I was good at. The actual catch. The nitty-gritty details of the historical event itself might slip in and out of my brain like water through a screen, but this, this I could do. I waited a half second for him to disappear down the hatch before slipping in behind him. Right before my head dipped belowdecks, I looked up to see Elliot watching me. And I know it was childish, and I knew my mother would roll her eyes when she saw it live on the simulation, but I pulled a face and stuck my tongue out at him anyway.
Grinning wickedly, I hurried down the last few rungs of the ladder into the darkness of the ship. Above me the thud and scrape of thirty-plus men shoving barrels of tea around was almost deafening and the interior of the ship had an overpowering musty smell that made my stomach roll a little. The joy of sticking it to Elliot faded quickly as goose bumps prickled up my neck. Remember, Regan, said the voice in my head that sounded suspiciously like my mother, people are never more violent than when two powerful entities collide—the soul-deep conviction of being right and the liberating freedom of having nothing to lose. I squinted in the dark, looking left and right, not sure which way the Butterfly had gone, and that’s when I saw it. The flick and click of a lighter being lit. A lighter that wouldn’t be invented for another two hundred years. Bingo.
I put my hands out to either side of me, using them to feel my way quickly down the passage in the dark, using the memory of that flash of light as my homing signal even after it went out. A sense of urgency pushed me faster and faster, and I barely registered the pain as my shins hit stray barrels and crates in the dark. The farther down the passage I got, the less it smelled like must and the more it smelled like something else. But what was it? Gasoline? No, that couldn’t be right. The smell was definitely chemical, though. It had a sharpness to it that set off alarm bells in my head.
The flash of light came again less than ten feet, but this time it didn’t go out immediately. The Butterfly moved it in a quick arc, and with a speed I wouldn’t have thought possible, that flickering speck of light leaped from that lighter to the wall of the ship’s passageway and ignited. The flame illuminated the face of the Butterfly just as he turned toward me, a look of shock and surprise on his face at being discovered mid-arson. I skidded to a stop, yanking my shirt up above my mouth and nose as the flames licked hungrily up the walls. Smoke burned and blurred my eyes as the Butterfly whirled and raced away down the passageway.
I felt frozen, unsure what to do. Should I turn and run back the way I’d come and hope I could find the ladder to the top deck in the dark? Or should I charge through the flames after the Butterfly? The damage was done, though, I realized. It was too late. Even if I caught the Butterfly now, this entire ship was going to go up in flames. There would be fatalities as the Sons of Liberty leaped into the sea to escape. Not only that, this ship was moored dangerously close to other ships. Ships that were also made completely of wood. On a night like this one, with the cold December wind pushing at the flames, the harbor would ignite. The entire town of Boston could go up in flames, for all I knew. I might be foggy about my history, but I knew what a fire could do in this time period, and it was devastating. What was supposed to be a violence-free protest would turn into one of the most horrendous events in America’s history. If America even existed after this, I realized, remembering the vital importance of this very night to the United States gaining its independence.
I’d just made up my mind to turn and run for help when a bucketful of ice-cold water hit me in the back, drenching me and knocking my hat off as it hit the crackling wall of flames. They sputtered for an instant, and some of them even went out, but the old wood of the ship was too flammable, and it quickly regained momentum. I turned to see who’d thrown the water just in time to catch the second bucketful right in the face. Elliot didn’t even pause to acknowledge me. He ripped off his coat and began beating hard at the last of the flames that were still valiantly trying to spread. Within moments they were out and the passageway plummeted into a smoke-filled darkness.
“Which way did he go?” Elliot asked.
“How did you—” I started, but my words were choked, and I bent over, hacking hard as the smoke tightened in my lungs. Elliot asked the question again, and I pointed down the passageway. He charged past me, using the sides of the narrow passageway as a makeshift crutch as he hobbled on his bad leg. Still coughing, I followed him, my wet hair hanging in soggy ropes around my face. I made a half-hearted attempt to find my hat in the dark but gave up almost instantly and stuffed my hair haphazardly into the neck of my shirt. It would just have to be enough.
I caught up to Elliot just as he reached the cargo hold. What had once been filled wall to wall with barrels of tea was now almost empty. The few remaining barrels were being rolled to the open hatch to be hefted on deck by a handful of waiting men in their haphazard blanket and coal soot disguises.
“What did he look like?” Elliot said, his face a study of intensity as he searched each of the men’s faces in the moonlight.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Tall? Short? Dressed like a Mohawk or in a different disguise?” Elliot said, his words fast and efficient as he scanned the remaining men.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Tall,�
�� I said. “With blue eyes and no beard. He definitely didn’t have a Mohawk.”
Elliot rolled his eyes. “Not the hairstyle. The tribe. Was he wearing something like this?” he asked, grabbing at the rough blanket around his shoulders.
I shook my head, “No. Normal 1800s dress.”
“It’s 1773,” Elliot said, his tone as condescending as it could possibly be.
“Whatever,” I said, throwing my soggy hands in the air so a few drops of water sprayed out. Elliot flinched and stepped farther away from me like I was a snake he didn’t want to bite him as he continued scanning the crowd. “How in the world did you know to bring two buckets of water down with you?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” he said, and he turned to look at me for the first time, an amused smirk on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Elliot said. “So, he was tall. I can work with tall.” With that he turned and hobbled awkwardly toward the small group of men who were just hefting a barrel up toward the waiting hands of their fellow Sons of Liberty. It was then that I noticed the smell that the smoke-filled tunnel had been masking. A blast of what I could only describe as raw sewage hit me full on, and I gagged as I realized why Elliot had smirked like that.
“You threw a chamber pot on me?!” I screamed. Every man in the ship’s hold turned to look at me, but I couldn’t have cared less. I had a right to scream. Elliot had essentially thrown the contents of a toilet used by a boatful of sailors over the top of me.
Elliot turned, a huge grin stretching from ear to ear. “Two chamber pots,” he said. I stared at him in horror.
“I had to put the fire out somehow,” he said. “I probably could have missed you, but”—he paused and shrugged—“where’s the fun in that?”
An inarticulate scream ripped from my throat, and I charged, careening past the gaping Sons of Liberty to launch myself at him. I didn’t have a plan other than to do some damage. Rip out his hair? Punch him? Smear some of the nastiness on him too? All of the above would be fine, thanks.
I hit him full force, and he fell backward as his bad leg gave out. Our combined momentum sent us right into the small group of men just as they hefted a barrel of tea toward the top deck. The barrel they’d been holding fell sideways, cracking open on impact. For a minute it was just one jumbled mass of arms and legs and yelling men, but I think I landed at least one solid punch to Elliot before everything got too tangled to tell which way was up.
Luckily, I ended up on top of the heap, and unluckily for Elliot, he ended up somewhere on the bottom. I managed to roll myself clear of the fray and stumbled to my feet as the men angrily attempted to untangle themselves. I took a wary step backward. Taking out a group of hyped-up colonial rebels was probably not my best idea. Before I could decide if now was a good time to run for it or not, I spotted the Butterfly. He must have been lurking near the back of the men hoisting barrels, because he was struggling to get out from under a rather large man. I hesitated a moment. This guy was way bigger than any Butterfly I’d ever dealt with before. My hesitation cost me the element of surprise as he spotted me and redoubled his efforts to free himself.
My Chaos Cuffs found their way into my hands without my even realizing I’d grabbed for them, and I lunged and snapped the first one onto the Butterfly’s right hand just as his left connected with the side of my head. I lurched backward, black spots blooming in my vision as he attempted to pry the cuff off his arm. Blinking hard, I ducked his next swing and grabbed ahold of his left hand. His elbow popped me hard in the jaw and I bit down on my tongue, my mouth filling with the sharp, metallic taste of blood. Then Elliot was there, grabbing the man’s flailing left arm and holding it steady for the half second I needed to get the other cuff on. I hit the activation button on the cuffs and everything around us went instantly dark. The simulation was over.
Chapter Thirteen
Elliot
I sat bolt upright in the freezing simulation room, breathing hard as the very real adrenaline from the very fake simulation raced through my system.
“Disqualify her!” I said, yanking the probes from my arms. The simulation technician rushed forward, all fluttery hands and big worried eyes as he tried untangling me from the costly machinery before my temper could do any real damage. Usually I’d care about something like that, but at the moment I felt like nothing mattered except how unfair this all was.
A wire managed to get tangled around my arm and I flapped at it in frustration, only looking up when I noticed that the small group of test evaluators had come out from behind their panel of computer screens, where they’d watched every nightmarish detail of what had to be the worst simulation test in the history of simulation tests. There were only supposed to be six evaluators at a leveling simulation like this one, but of course Regan’s mom had decided to sit in as well, so there were seven. I wasn’t quite sure if she was participating in the final panel or not. All the members were wearing similar expressions of disapproval on their faces, although more than one looked like they were trying very hard not to laugh. My blood felt like it was boiling inside my veins. Nothing about this was funny. Nothing. Regan had not only hijacked my entire test, but she’d broken every single rule with the flippancy of someone who’d been getting away with it her entire life. Which, as the commander in chief’s daughter, she had. I gritted my teeth to keep from saying something else stupid and stopped moving so the poor technician could attempt to untangle the mess I’d made.
“Me?” Regan said, sitting up and pulling off her own probes in a way that made the technician still busy with me flinch. Poor guy was having a day. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me. You threw a chamber pot on me!” she yelled. “A chamber pot! After I saved your life!”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “You didn’t save my life. It was a simulation! I would have figured out how to stop the bleeding.”
“Well, you were doing a bang-up job of it,” she said. “Standing there staring at your bleeding leg like a moron. Brilliant strategy.”
“It was two chamber pots!” I shot back.
“Enough!” said Commander Fitz, her voice sharp, and we both stopped yelling and snapped to attention. The commander in chief of the Academy did not ask twice. I glanced over at Regan out of the corner of my eye and saw her grim expression as her mother looked from her to me and back again. “Cadets,” she went on, her voice quieter but no less commanding, “you will not scream at one another and make a bigger scene than you already have. Now hold still so you can be unhooked properly.” She paused, eyeing us both so we knew just how much she disapproved of our yanking at our expensive simulation probes. To her credit, Regan didn’t even flinch. I, however, felt the distinct need to hide underneath my simulation chair. Commander Fitz waited for us both to nod before continuing. “Obviously, this test went off the rails.”
Regan snorted, and her mother gave her a sharp look. “As such,” she went on, “we will deal with the consequences for both of you and your actions in private.” Commander Fitz flicked her eyes upward and Regan and I both looked up to the observation balcony. A balcony that had been empty when we started this simulation but was now full of students. Students who, unlike the supervising professors, were doing nothing to hide their amusement at our situation as they laughed and pointed.
Commander Fitz looked like she was about to say something else, but a professor I’d never seen before came up to whisper something in her ear. Her face stayed neutral and detached as she listened, but her eyes did flick to Regan for the tiniest half second. I wondered if anyone else had noticed. Finally, she nodded and turned her attention back to us.
“Meet me in my office in ten minutes for your recap,” she said, turning to stalk out of the simulation room before either of us could reply. My heart sank. This was bad. Really bad. I’d sat in on enough of these tests to know that protocol dictated that we sit and watch our recap in front of the panel. I’d never heard of a private recap in the commander’s office.
My mind flicked back to the Cocoon, and I felt my skin prickle. What if the private meeting was because somehow they’d figured it out? I tried to remember what Regan and I had said to each other in the simulation. We were too smart to mention the Cocoon when an entire panel of Academy officers was watching. Right?
A quick glance around showed that Ella, Calvin, Molly, and Sid were very busy pretending that Regan and I were invisible. Which was exactly what I would have done had the situation been reversed. I noted that Calvin and Sid looked enormously pleased with themselves, a look I’d worn on more than one occasion when I won a sim test. But not today. Today the last thing I felt like doing was smiling. Today I was a raw nerve.
“How much trouble are we in?” I asked Professor Brown as she came over to help the technician remove the probes from my left leg with a painstaking slowness that set my teeth on edge.
“It might not be as bad as you think,” she said as she gently removed the two from my calf muscle, the calf muscle I’d hacked into in the simulation. If I’d done something that dumb during an actual time-travel mission, I’d have Glitched back to the present missing a chunk of my leg. The thought made my stomach turn a bit, and I felt a familiar rush of relief that real time travel was still a long way off. I was going to be the best of the best someday, commander in chief, but today’s simulation showed just how far I still had to go to get there. Especially with Regan’s shenanigans. She was deadweight, and the sooner I could distance myself from her, the better.
As though my thoughts had called her, I looked up to discover Regan standing inches from me, her arms crossed as she waited for Professor Brown to remove the last of my probes.
“What are you doing?” I asked when Professor Brown finally finished up and walked over to help one of the other kids.
“Waiting for you,” she said. “I thought that was obvious.”
“Why? Haven’t you done enough?” I asked.