The drugged haze eventually faded from my mind, and Soren was kind enough to inform me that I may have put our lives in far more danger than they already were. I remember the shifting, dancing shapes in front of me, the almost hallucinatory revelation that came from being able to see the shape so vividly in my mind. I remember watching, almost as though the transformation was beyond my control, the sunflower broaden, expand, shift into the lotus. And I remember coming down out of that euphoria to hear Soren calmly inform me that I’d probably destroyed everything.
Thanks, Soren.
He’s right, though. Now that my eyes are working again, I can see the cameras up in the corner of the room, recording everything we do or say. If we thought our project was a secret, it certainly isn’t anymore. And if Corine is after the key to the DNA, she’ll know we have it, too.
Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how I look at it—no one seems to have noticed. We’re still being ignored, driven to insanity by our hunger, thirst, real sleep deprivation and uncomfortable position. My sense of time has disappeared altogether, but even I can recognize that it’s been many hours since our encounter with Vale and the old man with the scars. I asked Soren why he was so afraid of the old man, but all he would tell me is that he’s a general in the Sector Defense Forces, and his name is Falke Aulion. I pressed him, but he wouldn’t say more in front of the cameras.
Since then, I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep, trying to dream that I do not in fact have to pee. Just when I’ve finally convinced myself that I don’t, the door opens, and at the prospect of getting let out, I suddenly have to pee so much worse. The stream of bright light hurts my eyes and my heart lurches. I try to focus. It’s not General Aulion or Vale; that fact alone sets my heartbeat at a steadier tempo. It’s just a guard, carrying what looks to be a tray heaped with food.
“Breakfast! Eat up, kiddos.” I scowl at him and can only imagine the look the kid’s getting from Soren. He kneels down and, with a smirk, places the food just out of reach. “The best and the brightest, huh. Maybe you can figure out how to eat with your feet.” Then he leaves.
The rage is hard to contain, and the hunger overwhelming.
“They’re goading us,” I say.
“Assholes.” Soren curses in agreement, but we can do nothing but wait and seethe. The smell wafts towards me, and after so long without food, my stomach is twisting into nauseated coils. I simultaneously want to vomit and devour the entire tray. I close my eyes and force myself to relax.
Something like an hour later, the door opens again, revealing the same freshly scrubbed, pink-faced guard.
“I thought you’d be hungry by now! Guess not.” He picks up the tray and leaves, but the door remains open, and after a quick, hushed conversation, Aulion strides in. Soren tenses, and my heart pounds in time with the clicks of his boots.
He stops a few strides away, feet planted firmly, hands clasped behind his back. I look up and study his face. A large scar runs down the left cheek, matching his crooked nose and burned neck. He’d clearly been through hell at some point. He has small, snake-like nostrils and prominent lips enhanced by finely trimmed white facial hair. His well-groomed and starchy composure overcompensate for what I decide is a bitter and astonishingly ugly man. I can’t help but wonder how Vale can tolerate working with him.
“Remy Alexander,” he says, turning his unblinking, gargoyle-like stare on me. “We have not been properly introduced. My name is Falke Aulion.” He turns to Soren, and his lips twist in a capricious sneer. “Soren. I apologize for giving you such a fright last night. I thought a fully grown man like you would have learned not to be afraid of monsters in the dark anymore.” Behind me, I feel Soren shiver. Who is this man, and what has he done to make Soren so afraid?
His eyes dart back to me, and he just barely shakes his head, frowns, and looks me up and down. Not leering, simply looking, as if I were a specimen under observation. He speaks abruptly: “You both have appointments to keep now.” My heartbeat quickens and I start salivating, wondering for a half second if they’re going to feed us, bathe us, let us pee. Aulion turns on his heel and walks out. The door remains open, though, and four guards enter the room. Two walk to Soren and the others toward me. One of the guards slaps a wet cloth firmly over my nose and mouth and holds it. I panic and tense up, struggle, try not to breathe, but after a moment, I gasp and instantly feel a wave of relaxation—euphoria, almost—flood through me, and I feel like I do when I’ve had one too many of Eli and Firestone’s home brews. It’s a happy drunk and I can feel a silly smile tugging at my lips. As the two guards detach my bindings from the pole in the center of the room and pull me to my feet, I grin stupidly as my knees wobble and the world twirls around me. The guards have to steady me, hands under my arms. I’m overwhelmed with the desire to turn toward Soren, try to talk to him, tell him I don’t really hate him as much as I pretend to, that, in fact, we could be friends, maybe better than friends since Vale ... but I don’t want to think about Vale. I will not think about Vale!
I glance at Soren and see that he’s biting his lip so hard a bead of blood rests against his white teeth. My legs don’t work right, and I nearly crumple to the floor, but the guards hold me up by my armpits and lead me out into the hallway right behind Soren. I fight to keep my head up but find I lack the strength, and my chin lolls down to my collarbone. I close my eyes and allow myself to be dragged. It feels like my whole body, inside and out, has been stretched to its limit and then left to sag in the languid sun. My eyes flutter open and closed, open and closed, my legs move forward only because I’m being half-propped, half-dragged down the hall.
We arrive at a door, and one of the guards moves around me to key it open. We enter and the guards deposit me in a deep, comfortable leather chair facing an empty desk, behind which sits another elegant chair. Clarity slowly returns to my mind, but I find I still can’t operate my limbs the way I would normally. Something stinks. I strain to look around, focus and stretch out my neck muscles, and then I realize my pants are wet. Oh fuck, I think. I’ve pissed myself. The smell, coming off of the relaxant, is nauseating. But there’s nothing I can do about that now. Where is Soren? The guards bind my hands, but nothing else. It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t make a run for it no matter how hard I tried. My legs might as well be made of jelly rather than bone and muscle.
The room is expansive, luxurious, but strangely empty. Only the two chairs and the desk decorate it. It’s as though someone prepared this empty office especially for me. Maybe someone did. There are no windows. The walls are decorated only by maps of various parts of the Sector—a map of the city, right down to the neighborhoods and streets, of all of the locations of the Farms and factory towns, and of open land that the Sector has claimed and guards carefully from the Outsiders. There is nothing on the desk except a plasma, which is dark right now.
I start to fully register Soren’s absence. Where is he? They haven’t brought him in yet. Wasn’t he just behind me? Or was he in front of me?
I hear the door open behind me, try to crane my body to see who it is, but I’m not quite functional enough for that complex action. But when the man walks around the desk, my heart stops.
Chancellor Philip Orleán. Vale’s father. The most powerful man in the Sector.
Memories come rushing back. The first time I met him, at a formal event celebrating my father’s designation as Poet Laureate of the Sector, long before Vale and I became friends. Shaking his hand and thinking how nice he was. How genuine. The first time I visited Vale at the chancellor’s manor, when he offered me a ginger beer and a plate of fresh figs. How did he know my favorite foods before he knew anything about me? He always liked me, I thought. Philip always seemed happy that Vale and I had become friends.
Now, I’m not a guest at his dinner table, talking with him about his art collection. I’m a political prisoner working for an organization that opposes everything he believes in, trying to bring down the government he represents. My heart is thumping, thick in the back of my throat. I feel like I am betraying him as much as he betrayed me. I wonder if he agrees.
He sits down at the desk opposite me with a slight smile. “Remy,” he says, somewhat fondly. Distantly, as though he too is awash in memories.
I feel the muscle relaxant wearing off and the energy return to me, gradually. I nod my head in some pathetic half-greeting, half-acknowledgment. He shakes off the reminiscence and glances at the plasma on his desk, then sits back in his chair. He interlocks his fingers, setting his hands on the empty space in front of him. As he stares at me, takes in my haggard appearance, his smile quickly fades into concern, or something like it.
“I’m so sorry that you are here,” he begins. “I’m sorry it’s come to this.” He sounds genuinely contrite.
“What is this?” I ask hesitantly.
“I believe there’s an unnecessary chasm between us, an unfortunate misunderstanding. I know you’ve grown and matured, but to me you’ll always be Vale’s friend, the girl who had a love affair with fresh figs.” He smiles sadly.
“Is this the way you treat Vale’s friends? Leaving them handcuffed to a pole and sitting on the cold floor for—I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”
“Ah, I’m sorry about that. You should know I only want the best for you.” His eyes are full of compassion, and I wonder if it’s real. I grind my teeth and try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, to stay as deadpan as possible.
“The best, huh? So that explains the luxurious accommodations and delicious meals.” His gaze hardens as I continue. The compassion disappears, replaced by coldness. “And the injections, very nice, thank you for sharing. Thank you for providing only the best for me.”
“Remy, I know Vale cared for you at one time. For months all he talked about was ‘Remy this’ and ‘Remy that’ until he practically drove us crazy. Vale had never talked about another girl like that, and we thought at one time that the two of you might have a future together.”
The coppery taste of blood fills my mouth as I bite into my cheek to keep from crying. His words pierce me like a volley of arrows slicing through a paper target, and I wonder if it’s true—if Vale really talked about me. If he really cared.
“But I’m much more than a father. My responsibilities go far beyond you and me, and even Vale. As chancellor, I am sworn to protect all the people of The Okarian Sector, and you have chosen a path that is dangerous to the safety and security of those people. I wish we were meeting under happier circumstances, but that was your choice to make, not mine. And I’m sorry that you’re here, because it means we’re enemies. I wish that was not the case. ”
I push Vale to the back of my mind and lean forward. “You know what I wish wasn’t the case? I wish Tai wasn’t dead. I wish I had my older sister back. But I can’t get her back, not ever,” I say, fighting to keep my voice calm. “Your wife was responsible for her death, and you sit here and say it was my choice to make?”
Philip looks down at his hands, and an expression of pain and sadness crosses his face. When Tai was murdered, he cried at her cremation ceremony. I remember watching him brush the tears out of his eyes with his leather gloves, trying to avoid being caught on camera. I wonder for a second if he’s grieving again for Tai’s death, and I am almost touched. But then he looks up again and responds, and his voice is hard:
“Remy, your sister’s death was avenged. The Outsiders who perpetrated the crime were destroyed. Your accusation against Corine is ludicrous, and the fact that you’re willing to say such things pains me. I’m afraid we’re going to have to move on.”
I am so stunned by his willful ignorance that I have nothing to say. No words form in my mind or come to my lips.
Philip continues: “Remy, perhaps you don’t realize the danger the Resistances poses. If left unchecked, it will lead to disaster. A return to famine and violence. We won’t risk the future of the entire Sector for the simplistic and idealistic beliefs of your leaders. Now you have to choose between your fellow citizens of the Okarian sector or the backwards beliefs of the Resistance. It’s up to you.” Here he takes a deep breath and looks at me very seriously, leaning forward. “I know you’re a good kid. I watched you grow up. I worked side by side with your parents for years. You know I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” He pauses, maybe for dramatic tension.
At this point, I’m awash in desperation and cynicism. How can he be so deluded?
“But I also need you to understand that the choices you’ve made in the last three years have consequences.”
He settles back in his chair slightly and relaxes when I say nothing. Maybe he was expecting more of a fight. “You’ve been brought to see me for a reason, Remy. I can help you. We need information, and once you’ve provided it, we’ll be happy to feed you, give you access to the showers, give you real beds to sleep on.”
“Where’s Soren?” I demand. “I’m not giving you any information until I know at least that.”
Philip seems to consider this question, deciding whether or not to answer me. “Soren is currently meeting with General Aulion.”
I shudder, imagining the pain and horror Soren’s in, being locked up in a room alone with that man.
“Classic ‘divide and conquer,’ then?” I say, working up a grin, trying to put on a brave face. This is what Soren would do if he were in my place. Be as bold and uncooperative as possible. I shrug and look around, pretending to examine my surroundings. “Well, at least it’s a change of pace.”
Philip glares at me. “Now is not the time for attitude, Remy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Why don’t you let me know when would be a better time, when you can fit ‘attitude’ in on your calendar? I’ll have my people contact your people,” I growl back. He holds my gaze and for a second looks like he might let a trace of anger show on his face. But after a few seconds, something in his face softens and melts. He sighs and stares up at the ceiling.
“I know you’re in pain. I know you despise me right now, that you think I’m the bad guy. But whatever you think of me, I really do only want the best for you. I don’t want you to suffer any longer. Talk to me. I just want to help you. When you help me, I can give you everything you need.”
My stomach is empty and my body feels like it might start to devour itself soon. The hunger is already making me lightheaded and dizzy, and I struggle to prevent my thoughts from tripping over themselves. I need food. Something, anything. I let my face crumple. I can play-act at regret and sadness too, Philip. I look down at my hands.
“I’m really hungry,” I say softly. “They haven’t fed us since we got in here.” I peek up through my eyelashes and see Philip lean forward eagerly as I start to give in. How could I have ever thought he was genuine and kind?
“We can feed you, Remy,” he says. “The information we need is simple. Names and places. Just answer my questions.”
“What do you want to know?” I ask, praying that Soren isn’t going to give us up either. But I know he’s not. Aulion and a few puny hours without food won’t break him. Philip’s mouth twitches upward in one corner, and he glances briefly behind me, presumably at the guards, who I assume are still in the room.
“What’s the name of the person you call the Director?” Philip asks.
“I don’t know his name. I’ve only ever heard his voice.” The Director is a woman. Her quarters are down the hall from mine. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to bring up tears of regret. My “betrayal” has to feel real.
“Where is your base? Where are you located?”
“Just feed me, please, Philip, I’m starving,” I sob. It’s a good one, almost genuine. “I can’t betray my friends!”
“Then I can’t help you, Remy.” He looks at me with tragedy written all over his face. “Think of the lives you’ll save by helping us. We’re either going to kill them when we find them without your help, or we’ll offer them a deal, a surrender, amnesty maybe, if you help us.” He suddenly reaches out his hand across the desk, as though offering to comfort me. Like Vale, at the mission site, reaching out his hand, offering to take me to a safe place, to help me. There might still be hope for Vale. The way he looked when I told him about Tai—his shock, his panic, the way he stared at me as though he might dare to believe me—but there’s no hope for Philip. I stare at his outstretched hand across the table. “You didn’t make the choice to leave, Remy. Remember that. Your parents made that choice. Now you can make a different choice.”
I drop my head and try to fight off the tears. He’s making it so easy for me to maintain the act. “Okay, okay,” I manage. “We work out of an abandoned industrial area.”
“What’s the name of it?” Philip continues, his voice calm, insistent, encouraging.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not an idiot, Remy.”
“Hartford,” I gasp, staring fixedly at my knees, looking as embarrassed and contrite as possible. Truth is, Hartford is a ruins. We tried to scavenge there, but the place had been blown to smithereens.
“Hartford,” he repeats, again looking over my shoulder. “Why Hartford?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t pick the base.”
“But there had to be a reason … what did they manufacture there?”
Hartford, Hartford … what do I know about Hartford? We tried to scavenge there once, but it was useless, an abandoned, overgrown mess. But the Director said that they used to be known for … what? “Fuel cells. Those old-fashioned fuel cells.”
“Ah, that’s right. If I remember correctly, Hartford’s on a river. Out in the Wilds. Can you show me on the map where it is?” He points at one of the maps, a rough sketch of what the Wilds to the south of the Sector look like. Their maps aren’t very good, I notice. We have better ones. I can throw them off. I nod. One of the guards releases my cuffs behind me and I stand up, then collapse back into my chair. The guard starts to help me, but then Philip abruptly stands up and darts around the desk, putting his hands under my arms to help me. His touch is abhorrent. An enormous shudder runs up my spine, and I desperately hope he’ll think it’s because of the hunger and not my revulsion at the fact that his skin is touching mine. I want to be sick, to throw up everything left in my body all over him. Instead I offer him a weak smile.
He helps me limp over to the wall where the map is displayed. I scan it quickly and find the location where I seem to remember Hartford actually is. I hope I’m right. I point and look at him nervously, my lip trembling. He smiles magnanimously at me.
“Thank you, Remy.” He helps me back to my seat, and I cringe with relief when he lets me go.
“Are your parents with you?”
“No.”
“Where are they? They’re the ones who betrayed the Sector. They’re the ones we want. If you help us find them, I’ll personally make sure they’re treated well.”
Over my dead body. At least this question I can answer honestly. “I don’t know. They’ve never told me.”
“What do they do?”
“Set up communications systems for other bases.” They pose as modern-day troubadours, an itinerate healer and a musician who travel to the Farms and factory towns offering alternative medicine and nutrition information and evangelizing for the Resistance. Their job is incredibly dangerous, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to lead Philip anywhere near them.
“Where are the other bases?” His expression is blank.
“I don’t know. We’re not allowed to know where the other bases are specifically for this reason.” I wipe the tears from my eyes. Of course I know where the other bases are, but they’re much smaller than mine, well hidden, and I’m pretty sure there’s no way in hell the Sector has gotten wind of their locations.
“Do you know where Dr. James Rhinehouse is?”
“I know what base he works at….” I sniffle.
“Which one?” He leans forward, betraying his eagerness.
“Base Five. I don’t know where it is.” Shit. That was stupid. I wish I’d come up with a cleverer name. In reality, the bases are named after some of the greatest battles or strongholds of ancient resistance fighters—Normandy, Antietam, Yorktown, Bannockburn, Teutoburg, and our main base, Thermopylae.
“What does Rhinehouse do for the Resistance?”
“I don’t know. The Director doesn’t tell me anything,” I whisper. At least that part is true. For once, I thank the stars that I’m low in the pecking order. “I’ve never met him. All I know is where he’s stationed.”
Philip sits back in his chair. Does he know I’m lying? I try to read his face but his expression is emotionless. I know they could use the truth serum and lie detector machines, but Philip obviously wants me to come over to his side of my own accord. Before we left for the mission, Rhinehouse gave us truth serum antidotes in case we were captured. Standard procedure for all risky raids. They biodegrade after a few days, though, so if we’re stuck here and they shoot us up with the serum, we could be in trouble.
“Why don’t you tell us what were you after at the Carbon Seed Bank?” Is this a question about the DNA? I wonder. Do they know about what I said this morning? Does Philip know about the DNA, too?
“Why don’t you give me something to eat?” I say, avoiding the question. “I’ve answered your questions. Please,” I put on my most pitiful stare, appealing desperately to whatever traces of kindness might linger within his perverted being. “I’m starving.”
“You can eat when you’ve answered all my questions, Remy. What were you looking for at the Seed Bank?” My mind races. What can I tell him? I don’t want to tell him anything that resembles the truth. What else are they well known for having at Carbon that I can pretend we were looking for?
“Technology,” I whisper. It’s the best I can do. “Charge multipliers, faster cloning devices, more efficient DNA sequencers, proton couplers.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you lying to me, Remy?” He asks. I stare at him. Was it really that obvious? Or is he playing with me?
“I’m not,” I say determinedly. He leans back, studies me, and I think back to everything I was ever taught about lying. Hold his gaze. Relax. Don’t fidget. Believe the lie. I believe it. My life and the lives of all my friends depend on it. Finally, he sighs and waves at one of the guards.
“Remy, Vale has done his homework. We know for a fact that Dr. Rhinehouse works with you at the base you call Thermopylae, that Hartford is nothing but a shell, and that your parents do not in fact set up communications networks. We know that Thermopylae is located in the middle of an old world city, not some abandoned industrial scrap. And we know that the Director is, in fact, a woman.”
I keep a straight face, but my heart might very well be bleeding out my toes right now.
He looks at me again, sadly. “I really thought better of you, Remy. I thought you would be able to recognize truth when you saw it. I thought you would be willing to help your parents and your friends escape a devastating fate.”
Suddenly one of the guards is at my side. I start in surprise, but then he quickly lashes each of my wrists to the armchair. The second guard pulls my shirt apart at the collarbone and slaps on a few charge multipliers. He looks down at me and makes eye contact for a second, but then I realize what he’s doing and he averts his eyes and turns away.
“No—what, you can’t, this is—” I start to fight, throwing myself back and forth, wriggling fiercely, but my hands are bound, and now my feet, too, to the chair.
“You’re obviously not willing to help yourself, so I’m going to provide another incentive. Remember, this was your choice.”
“Philip, no—this is torture, this is—” I cry out but he pays me no heed.
“Just answer the questions, Remy, and this will all be over,” Philip says to me in a reassuring, almost comforting tone.
“Fuck you,” I spit. “This is insane.” Pain lances through my back, shoulders, temples, a vicious throng of spasms, ripping my muscles to shreds. I cry out, but it’s over in a heartbeat. I gasp for breath and fall limply back against chair, panting.
Then again, it rips through me like shards of glass, and my muscles torque uncontrollably, twisting and curling viciously around my bones. The pain blinds me, deafens me, to everything but the screams echoing in my ears and the blood pounding through my skull.
It seems to last an eternity, this time, but then it’s gone. Just an echo resounding over and over again through my body. Philip nods at the guards, who start to strip off the charge magnifiers.
“Does Vale know you’re doing this?” I sputter, gulping air like a drowning victim. Philip regards me thoughtfully.
“Yes,” he says after a moment. “He’s the one who authorized it.”
“You’re lying.” He cocks an eyebrow at me, and I conjure up an enormous quantity of saliva and spit it across the desk in a move that would have impressed Eli.
He doesn’t even flinch. “No, I’m not. But I’m sure Vale will be thrilled to hear that you thought so highly of him.”
“So you admit that what you’re doing is despicable.”
“Remy, I am willing to do whatever is necessary to keep my people safe. After years of experience, I’ve realized that sometimes that means doing things that I don’t like or enjoy. This is one of those times. I regret that you’ve put yourself in this position, but I’ve offered you a way out and you’ve refused. Now, I’m going to send you back to your cell, and you and I will try again in a few more hours. And,” he gives me a slight, conciliatory smile, “when you give us what we want, I’ll personally hand you a bucket of fresh figs, just like I used to.” He stands, waves to one of the guards, and walks out of the room as a hand from behind me presses a cloth back over my nose and mouth. In a second I’m euphoric again, wobbly, giggling like a happy little child, all the pain forgotten.
Ten minutes later, I’m tied to the pole again, back to back with Soren, who looks awful. The euphoria has already faded and the pain and trauma have returned tenfold.
“Did they shock you, too?” Soren asks hoarsely when the guards have left. Not that it matters. The red lights of the corner cameras are still winking at us.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “What happened to your voice?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he whispers, barely audibly. I suspect his encounter with Aulion went about ten times worse than mine with Philip. I change the subject.
“Did they ask you about the you-know-what?” A shudder runs through my spine as the memory of my revelation returns, and I try to quell it. I lean my head back against the pole and close my eyes.
“No,” he says. “You?”
“No. Maybe they don’t know what I was talking about. Maybe they thought I was just a crazy person on drugs.” Normally I would expect a scoffing noise from Soren right about now, but either he’s too tired to bother or he actually thinks I might be right.
“Either way,” he sighs. “Get some rest. I’m sure they’ll be back for more later.”
I nod in agreement and let the sweet memory of electric shocks, starvation, and Philip’s promise of figs lull me to sleep.