There is one period during the year when our efforts must be redoubled. For the enemy knows that when we are at our most exultant, then we are at our most vulnerable. Haters would love nothing better than to drag us down to abject humiliation in the midst of our greatest celebration. What a “triumph” it would be if terror and fear could be sown amongst us at this moment!
Watchers must be extra vigilant during Triumph season. Haters will mewl about poverty or lack of resources or unemployment or some such. They will attempt to use our live entertainment for their own destructive propaganda. We must make every effort to ensure they have no voice.
(Elite Watcher Training Manual, 51st edition, page 118)
“What did you see?” Wil says as soon as the door to Akela’s bunker office closes behind us. My hand still feels warm from where he held it. But he’s moved further away into the room, waiting for my news. No thoughts of hugs or closeness now.
“Crucible took me to Watcher headquarters,” I explain. “I saw someone being arrested. Well, I saw lots of people being arrested, but this one you need to know about.”
“Who?”
“The guy in the warehouse. The one who didn’t want me to meet him.”
Wil lets off a string of curses.
“Are you sure?” he presses.
I raise an eyebrow and tap the side of my temple.
“You’re sure.” He starts to pace around the room, muttering to himself. He pauses. “What happened?”
“He was meeting a guy with a truck when the Watcher flagged him. That’s all I saw. I don’t know anything else.”
Wil resumes his pacing, face stormy with rage.
“That means they’re onto the plan.” He curses again.
“They know we’re collecting Song fragments?” I ask, feeling my throat constrict in fear.
“Not that one.”
“There’s a different plan?”
“Of course there’s a different plan,” he scorns.
He’s almost scaring me. “Does Akela know about it?”
The snort Wil gives in reply tells me everything. “She doesn’t need to know.”
“Why not? They’d still blame her for it.”
“Ah, Flick, you don’t understand.” Wil’s pacing across the room grows agitated. “Nothing is going to change unless we change it.” A fervor animates his face in a way I’ve never seen before. “All of this sneaking around in the dark is never going to get us anywhere. We have to fight. Don’t you see?”
My mouth goes dry. “You were planning to . . . to fight the Collective?”
He throws his hands in the air. “They’re killing us. We have to fight back.”
“That sounds like Midgate’s way, not Lyric’s way.”
“Rubbish. We have to do Lyric’s work for him. He won’t come back unless he can see that we’re fighting the fight.”
“But Akela said—”
“Akela is wasting time we don’t have, Cadence,” Wil says tersely. “She just wants to quietly sing while the world burns. But we can’t afford to just sit around and do nothing.”
“I’m not doing nothing. I’m collecting the Song.”
Wil pauses in his frenetic pacing for a moment. “For how long? You saw the Watcher operations on your special tour. Their eyes are everywhere. How long will it take to pick us off one by one?” He glances around the ceiling as if a thousand eyes might be watching us.
The thought makes the hairs rise along my arm. “Lyric will protect us,” I say, voice faltering.
“Maybe. But think about what they did to us. To you.” His hands are on my shoulders. “How many children will they steal and reprogram before we finally get it? We have a chance, Cadence. A once in a lifetime chance to overthrow the status quo. We can take back our rightful place in this nation. We can be free to meet together the way we want to be.”
This is not my way, croons the Muse in my head.
In his current agitation, Wil looks dangerous. I decide to take the path of least resistance. If I can placate him for a few minutes, I might be able to defuse the situation and get out of here.
“But how?” I try to make my voice sound calm and interested.
“We are going to make a statement. One that finally gets the world to pay attention,” he says cryptically. “One that could bring down this oppression and give us the freedom we’ve wanted for so long.”
“What are you going to do?”
Wil searches my face. “The closing ceremony of the Triumph festival. Where do the Supreme Executive watch?”
“They’re always in that VIP observation box,” I reply.
Wil nods. That feverish glow in his face intensifies into a look of eager anticipation. “It’s not just the Haterman effigy that’s going to burn this year.”
“That’s treason,” I breathe, horrified.
Wil gives me a look that drips with condescension. “The Supreme Executive are evil, so it’s not treason,” he says. “It’s loyalty to justice.”
“You’re insane.”
His bitter laugh is mirthless. “I’ve finally come to my senses, Flick.” He steps away from me, resuming his manic walk around the room. “The Collective stole my family from me. Forced me into years of this mindless loyalty training. They’re a cancer, eating away at us until we’re empty shells that hold nothing but Love Collective slogans. I’ve had enough.” Going over to Akela’s desk, Wil pulls out the photo album he showed me months ago. “This is what they do,” he says, thrusting the open pages toward me so I can see the bulldozer images. “This is the only language they know. Unless we speak their language, they’ll never get it.”
“But we’re supposed to be like Lyric, not like them. We can’t become murderers just because we’re treated unfairly.”
“We’re not murderers,” Wil scoffs. An eager smile creases his face. “We’re the Composer’s avenging angels, bringing his judgement on those who’ve failed.”
“So your friends are Sirens, then?”
Wil’s eyes flick from side to side. “It . . . it isn’t just Sirens who have been mistreated by the Collective, you know.”
My sense of dread grows. “So you’re partnering with people who aren’t Sirens?”
Wil shakes his head. “This is the right thing to do, and you know it.” He points a finger at me. “You’ve been helping us do it, too.”
“Me? I would never . . .” My words die as I see where his finger is pointing. My locket. With trembling fingers I lift the silver oval from its hiding place. Smooth and round, it rests coolly in my hand. “What does that have to do with—”
“I knew you were the right one to choose.” Wil utters a short laugh. “You’re so naive you’d never question anything. So willing to please. You’ve kept our data safe all this time so I could take it to the people who need to use it.”
“This is a data bank?” I drop the locket from my grasp as if it burns. The weight of the chain seems to bore into my neck. As the words pass my lips, I feel my heart breaking into a million tiny pieces. “What . . . what am I to you?”
“I had hoped you would join us,” Wil said, his casual shrug crueler than a knife wound. “But even if you don’t, you’ve done your job. You can’t report us, because you’d be arrested as a co-conspirator. You can’t get me arrested, because I’ll have to tell them about the secret Siren chapters we’ve been visiting all over the city.”
I grasp the locket tightly in my fist again, thoughts racing. What a moron I am. All of his flattery, his dizzying physical closeness, all of it was just a game. It was there all the time, and I refused to see.
“I can tell Akela.”
Wil shrugs, unconcerned. “Go ahead.”
The maelstrom of my internal conflict coalesces into a burst of white-hot rage. With a superhuman effort, I wrench the chain from my neck and throw it across the floor. It slides across the concrete, and bounces off Wil’s feet.
“I won’t be a part of this.” The back of my neck burns, but I don’t care. “I will never be a part of this.”
I don’t wait for him to respond. Gathering the remaining tatters of my self-respect, I turn and run out the door.
Stamping through the undergrowth, I formulate a plan. Wil’s insane terrorist plot will bring us all down if we’re not careful. Every single one of the Sirens could be arrested.
I have to find Akela. She is the only one who has the power to stop him. She needs to know her years of meticulous planning are in danger thanks to Wil’s brainless desire to conquer the world.
I’m so angry and distracted that I nearly walk headlong into disaster. A branch snaps somewhere out beyond the veil of trees. The noise comes from a spot out on the obstacle course. I freeze. From the same location comes a faint crunch that can only be the sound of a boot on grass. Then it stops.
Crouching down, I train my eyes on the location of the noise. My heartbeat starts thudding in my ears so loudly I wonder if it could be heard in the darkness. The low bushes form an impenetrable screen. I can’t see but I know there is at least one person out there. I thought all the other Apprentices were supposed to be in the atrium, hypnotized by the beats and the general vibe of the celebration. So who could be out in the darkness at this time of the night?
Moonlight filters through the leafy canopy overhead, casting ghostly shadows. With as much stealth as I can muster, I creep away from my last noisy position. There’s a small indent behind dense foliage a few more meters away from the bunker entrance. In this near darkness, someone could walk within an arm’s length of me and not know I was there.
For a few tense seconds, the only sounds that filter through the undergrowth are the soft sigh of leaves in the breeze and the muted thumps of Triumph music vibrating through the walls of the Academy building. Then a soft squelching tells me that a foot somewhere in the darkness has taken a slow step into the thicket. Another footfall follows soon after.
Help! I think to the Muse. Wil is still in the bunker, but he will probably return soon, and the last thing we need is to have our secret haven exposed to some random stranger.
There’s a pause, and then I hear a quiet step. Another pause. Then a rattling of branches as if someone is pulling them back to clear the way. A few more steps crackle into the border of dense bush. Branches snap and whip back, growing louder with the effort. It sounds like the person—whoever it is—is heading for the direction of the bunker entrance, where my angry noises first erupted. I’m glad now that I shifted out of the way, or they’d find me in no time at all.
Help! I think again. Now would be a good time!
A sudden gust of wind ruffles the tree canopy, making the slivers of moonlight seem even more spooky. Trees sway and bend in the wind. The boughs creak.
My pursuer has heavy footsteps. It sounds like combat boots, the way the leaves and sticks crunch beneath their feet. Was there a Love Squad patrol out tonight that I didn’t know about? I tense, ready to bolt away if I can, but it feels as if I won’t get a chance. The footsteps are closing in.
The breeze intensifies, and I flatten myself further. Then, with a snap and a crash, a branch tumbles down from the treetops, loosened by the wind. It rustles down through the leaves, and lands on the ground with a thud, somewhere between me and the bunker entrance. I force myself to stay still, not wanting to let the slightest sound give away my position.
A deep, familiar voice curses—Fuschious. There’s a pause. I hold my breath for a few seconds, waiting to hear what will come next. Above our heads, the wind gusts through the treetops again. Leaves rustle. Boughs creak. Another small twig snaps down through the branches, making rhythmic footstep-like rustles as it bounces off other tree limbs.
Meters away, Fuschious’s footsteps begin to crunch through the undergrowth again. But this time, they’re retreating. I listen as the sound squelches out into the obstacle course. I let out a long, shaky breath, my heart pounding wildly. Fuschious marches out of earshot, back toward the Academy. Only after I’ve heard a small burst of music from the doors opening to the Academy do I let myself stand.
Trying to imitate the graceful steps of a Pleasure Tribe dancer, I make my slow way through the bush away from Fuschious, where the wide-open drill yards lie in silvery-grey rectangles. A weird, giddy feeling sends my mind into a spin.
I’m not brave enough to run into Fuschious, so I jog around the drill yards until my breath is ragged and the sweat pours down my face. Only then do I turn back for the Academy building.
Why was Fuschious out on the obstacle course? It was Triumph opening ceremony, so all the Love Squad Apprentices had to be in the crowd. That meant nobody was on security patrol. So maybe Fuschious stepped in to do his duty. But as a Love Collective citizen, shouldn’t he have been watching the ceremony, too?
The longer I think about it, the scarier my thoughts become. Maybe Fuschious knew Wil and I were out there. Have Wil and I jeopardized our whole operation with this one, clandestine meeting?
There’s no point trying to find Akela now. I race up to the Watcher Dorm, cocooning myself into the Watcher room as fast as I can. Now more than ever I need to put on a show for the cameras. I’m still mad at Wil but grateful he at least gave me the cover story when he woke me out of hypnosis. Now, if Fuschious asks why I was outside, I can sound plausible. What was I doing? Getting some air and clearing my head for an assignment. Why was I outside when everyone else was supposed to be at the Triumph opening ceremony?
“That’s Watcher business. Which means it’s none of yours.” I practice saying.
The Watcher room whirls into life, and as if Crucible himself has commanded me, I look for thieves and gangsters to flag. There’s enough shadowy behavior going on behind tents and marquees to keep me busy for hours: groups of scary-looking Lovers coercing smaller Lovers into darkened corners, drunken brawlers throwing careless punches, a man wandering the crowds with a large weapon that looks like a homemade knife of some sort.
I stay in the Watcher room until the early hours of the morning, when the vision shows me a sky tinged with soft yellowy-white light on the eastern horizon. Only then do I drag myself away, eyes dry and limbs stiff from standing so long in one place. I fall into bed, exhausted but also relieved.
By some miracle, I’ve managed to dodge a bullet, thanks to the falling of a chunk of wood. It can’t have been sheer chance that turned Fuschious away at the last moment.
“Thank you,” I breathe to the Muse. It’s the only explanation I can fathom.