In the After (32 page)

“I think it would be best for Baby to move to the dorm,” my mother said.

“The dorm? You just don’t want to be responsible for her,” I accused.

“I love Baby,” she told me. “But I have to help run New Hope and work on my research.
I cannot be responsible for a six-year-old mute.”

I looked at my mother, too angry to respond. I pushed back my chair and stalked off
into the bedroom. Baby was asleep, oblivious that her fate had just been decided in
the other room. I didn’t know how she’d cope without me by her side. What’s worse
is that I didn’t know how I could survive without her.

I wake to my door opening. Someone slips silently into my room. I freeze, my breath
catching
.

“Honey. It’s me,” a smallish man with silver hair whispers and steps forward. Gareth.
I exhale with relief
.

“Is it time to go?” I ask hopefully
.

“Not just yet, but I brought you these.” He hands me a small orange envelope the size
of my hand. “Keep it somewhere safe,” he whispers
.

I take the package. Inside are a few dozen pills
.

“Take one a day,” Gareth instructs. “They counteract the meds they’re giving you here.”

“The cameras.” My joy turns to fear
.

“I’ve disabled them for a few minutes. Put the envelope under your mattress. Take
the pills when you’re in bed, under the covers.”

I nod and he winks at me. “It won’t be long.”

“I’m scared,” I admit
.

“We’re doing what we can for now.” He stands and pauses by the door. “Stay sharp,
Amy.”

I take a pill and tuck the rest under my mattress
.

• • •

In the following weeks, I ran. I ran and I trained and I took care of Baby and Adam.
I didn’t bother to go to class anymore. No one cared. I avoided my mother and Rice.
It was easier than being with them and wondering what they knew.

I ran to the boundaries of New Hope and sometimes beyond. The sonic emitters were
checked daily after the Incident. But still, no one knew why they failed that night,
or at least that’s what they said.

I was at an emitter, beyond the farm. I’d never run that far south before and I was
eager to explore. The ground was grassy there, though there were plenty of trees,
and I wondered if the forest was a transplant, a way to hide the compound. It was
probably all done Before, when New Hope was a university funded by Hutsen-Prime. If
it was a top secret research facility, they would have wanted to keep it shielded
from curious eyes.

I stopped at the sonic emitter to stretch, and I heard faint voices. My first impulse
was to leave, not wanting to be around people. But then I recognized one of them and
crept closer, careful to remain quiet and unseen behind a tree.

“But I like it here. You don’t understand what they—”

“We stick to the plan, Amber,” a male voice interrupts her. “We’ve already made the
decision.”

“But this place is different from what we’re used to. It’s organized; the people are
good. They don’t have to hurt each other to get ahead. They’re all working together.”

“Because they have what everyone else wants. Safety and supplies. They take all that’s
left out there. Is there anything they don’t have a surplus of?”

I peeked out to watch them. The man was tall and pale with shadowy black hair. He
looked like Amber and I knew that this must be her brother, Paul.

“We could leave the gang. You can live here too. We can tell them everything, break
away, get on their good side.”

“Oh, come on, you can’t be serious. I wouldn’t want to live here with these brainwashed
idiots. It’s worse than a cult, Amber. Besides, what would we say? ‘Sorry we trashed
your precious anti-Florae devices. Sorry all those people died. . . . We’d like to
join your comfy little society now.’ I’m sure they’d welcome us with open arms,” he
spat.

“We could leave out that part,” Amber pleaded.

“Enough.” Paul shook his head. “You’ll get in line or I’ll tell the rest of the gang
you turned on us.”

“You wouldn’t,” Amber said, horrified.

“I may not have a choice,” his voice softened. “Not if you decide to ruin everything.”

I backed a few steps away, blending into the woods. As much as I wanted to run away,
I didn’t. Amber couldn’t be allowed to disappear again, it was too dangerous for all
of us. I moved back through the trees, their leaves catching at my clothing as I forced
myself to make noise.

“Hello?” I called, stepping into the clearing. “Is someone there?” I made a hell of
a racket before emerging. Even so, Paul barely hid in time and I pretended not to
see him.

“Amber! I thought I was the only one who ran this far out here,” I said loudly.

“Oh,” Amber’s face was frozen in shock. She looked down at her sandals and sundress,
unsure. “Yeah, I was out for a run.”

“Well, I’m glad we ran into each other, pardon the pun.” I forced a laugh. “Listen,
Amber, I’ve been meaning to have breakfast with you, to welcome you to New Hope.”
I made my voice sweet and hoped Paul would be convinced and think that all citizens
of New Hope were trusting and gullible.

Amber stared at me, then glanced to where Paul was barely concealed. She was debating
whether or not to bolt. I moved forward and grabbed her hand.

“Come on,” I said, pulling her back toward New Hope, away from Paul. “I think there
are pancakes this morning.”

I led her by the hand until we were nearly to the farm. I listened carefully, making
sure that Paul hadn’t followed us, but I waited until we got back to the buildings
to really talk.

“Amy, it’s not what you think,” she pleaded.

“Was that Paul?” I asked. She looked away. “You said he died.” I didn’t bother to
hide my disgust.

“I lied,” she said, looking up with tears in her eyes. Crocodile tears.

“I heard your conversation,” I told her. “I know you’re responsible for the Florae
breach. I also know you and your brother have something else planned.”

“It’s all Bear’s idea,” she blubbered. “He’s in charge. I didn’t want to be their
spy, but they made me. I told them we should just live here like normal people, but
no one ever listens to me. Not even Paul.”

“Look, Amber, I think you’ve let bad people influence you in order to survive. But
you’re here now and you can do more than just get by. You can live.”

She swallowed, wiped her nose on her arm. “I do like it here.” She looked up at me,
hopeful. “If I tell you everything, can I stay?” she asked.

“I don’t see why not,” I assured her.

“And Paul?” she asked. “I don’t care about the rest of them, but I want Paul to live
here too.”

“I’ll talk to the director about it, but Amber”—I made sure she understood—“you have
to tell the truth. You have one chance to get this right. If I find out you’ve lied,
I’ll take you out beyond the barrier and tie you to a tree. Then I’ll set off a car
alarm just out of your reach.”

She considered, trying to decide if I was bluffing or not. The thought of making anyone
Florae bait was abhorrent, but I could make an exception for Amber.

“Okay,” she finally said.

“The first attack was meant to cause panic, make the people here doubt the system.”
I explained what Amber had told me as precisely as I could. She’d already been apprehended
and taken by the Guardians to a secure location.

“Terrorists,” Marcus muttered. The meeting room was occupied by several Guardians
as well as Rice, my mother, and Dr. Reynolds. There were also a bunch of people I
didn’t know. The ones in lab coats were probably researchers who worked with my mother
and helped make decisions. The remaining handful were more imposing, and even silent
they maintained a commanding presence. Ex-military personnel, I guessed.

“Amber said that they estimated only a few people would die, not hundreds. When they
found out how much damage they did, they realized how unprepared we are for an attack
of any kind. They’re planning another sonic emitter outage tonight. They want to push
the Floraes toward us, then show up and save the day. Thanks to Amber, they know who
the key players are here. They plan to take you all out, leaving New Hope without
any leadership or direction. Since they will have saved New Hope and have a lot of
firepower, they assume that they can fill the power void.”

“They want to destroy everything we’ve worked for,” Dr. Reynolds said, his doughy
face grim.

“How many are there?” Gareth asked.

“Amber said forty-two men, eighteen women, and two Class Four children.” The categorization
slipped automatically from my mouth. “And they have a lot of firepower. Guns when
they want to make noise and bows when they don’t.”

“Which emitters are they going to hit?” Kay asked.

“All of them.” I paused. “Just like last time,” I stressed, letting them come to the
realization that I knew the true details of the earlier attack. I knew that the story
about only two emitters failing was a lie.

“They will enter to our south and split up, working their way around us to disable
the emitters. A main force will stay put, just south of the farm. That’s where I found
Amber today. They plan to push the Floraes in from there. Unfortunately I don’t know
if they’ll change their attack strategy now that Amber didn’t leave New Hope to meet
up with them. I heard her express her unease with their plan to her brother. If he
tells the rest of his gang, they may assume she’s turned on them.”

“Thank you, Amy,” Dr. Reynolds said, his voice crisp.

“If you remember anything else, let us know immediately. You can leave now.”

I swallowed hard. “No.”

Dr. Reynolds’s eyes narrowed, and next to him my mother’s mouth dropped open. Kay
smiled. My mother recovered first. “Excuse me?” she asked as though she hadn’t heard
me properly. “What did you just say to Dr. Reynolds?”

“I’m staying to hear the plan.”

“Amy, your presence is no longer required.”

“This is what you have,” I told them. “Twenty Guardians against sixty-two armed thugs.
You have synth-suits and technology, but they’re desperate killers who are herding
the Floraes back toward us. They let hundreds die without blinking an eye. How are
you going to patrol the entire perimeter of New Hope with twenty people?” I asked.

“Cameras,” Rice said. “Can we set up cameras in time?”

“We can try,” Gareth offered. “It will take too long to make a run to an electronics
store; first we’d have to find one that hasn’t been ransacked. Maybe we can take the
cameras from the research buildings and move them to the outer perimeter.”

“That will alert them to what we know,” I warned.

Kay stood up. “We need to deal with this now. If we spook them and they run away,
we don’t know when they’ll attack again, or who they’ll tell about us. Next time,
there could be a hundred armed thugs. We should take most of our people and wait at
the place Amber indicated. We’ll catch them before they start to disable the emitters.
We can have volunteers, trusted people, at certain strategic locations around the
perimeter. They can radio us if anything looks out of place.”

“I volunteer,” I said immediately.

“Kay, what’s your opinion on us accepting my underage daughter’s assistance?” my mother
asked.

Kay looked at me and sighed. “She’s a child. She can’t help us.” I glanced at her
and she gave me a hard look. Kay still didn’t want my mother to know she was secretly
training me.

“I agree,” Marcus said and, one by one, they went around the room and said that I
was too young. Rice was the only holdout.

“We need her,” he told the group.

“There is not enough evidence to suggest you will have a major effect on the outcome,
Amy.” Dr. Reynolds commanded everyone’s attention. “We cannot sacrifice our children
to fear. We have made our decision. Please leave the room.”

I forced myself to stay silent as I got up and walked to the door. Why did they get
to decide what I could do? I was the one who spotted Amber and her brother. I was
the one who got Amber to tell me all she knew.

The door shut. I was once again in the dark.

I take one of the pills Gareth gave me every morning. Along with being clearer, the
memories are coming back more quickly now. I’m careful when I speak to the nurses
and Dr. Thorpe, not to seem better or worse. I play nice, just as Rice advised. I’ve
managed to fool them so far, even under the watchful lens of the cameras
.

I haven’t seen Frank around, but I notice Amber in the corner. I know it’s Amber now;
she’s triggered a lot of memories for me. I go to sit next to her. No matter how I
feel about her, she’s something familiar in this awful place
.

“How are you?” I ask a little resentfully
.

“I’m fine. Just fine.” She looks at me. “Are you a nurse here?”

“No, Amber, it’s me, Amy.” I drop the attitude. “Don’t you remember me?”