MEMORIAM (12 page)

“Be careful. Skryers are patrolling the centicular.”

Mary nodded. “See you later.”

I pretended to examine a stack of sheets near the door as Mary passed. Sam had a guilty expression when I came back over.

“Sounds like the plan is in motion.”

“Or it just started. What we are about to attempt is dangerous; I want you to know that right now. We can’t have any fence-sitters. You’re in or you’re out.”

“I’m in.”

“Look at you, rebel.”

“You started it,” I replied in a snarky tone.

***

I joined Sam to meet up with Mary later that day. Sam told me they had found a hiding place that they deemed safe for the time being. It was a skylight dome right above the centicular. Hardly anyone knew how to get up there, including most of the skryers.

We took a lift to the upper level where we ventured up several flights of stairs. My morning runs seemed to pay off, as Sam was out of breath when we reached the top but I hadn’t even broken a sweat. We came around a bend and I stopped and rested against the railing, waiting for Sam to catch up.

“I guess having strong arms doesn’t really pay off, does it?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Just wait until you have to lift something heavy, then say that again,” he huffed. “Up there. There’s something I want to show you.”

Sam guided me around the corner to a railing overlooking the huge centicular where people bustled about. Funny how small they were from way up here. My chest filled with warmth.

“It’s amazing.”

Sam bent and leaned over the railing so his upper body was hanging over the edge.

“Are you crazy?” I laughed. It felt like a great warm balloon, making me swell.

“Try it.”

“Heights aren’t my favorite thing.”

“Says the girl who is supposed to be fearless.”

“Fine,” I retorted. I bent over the edge, feeling the blood rush down my arms and into my head. Sam’s red face brought a smile to mine.

“What?”

“You should see yourself upside down,” I said.

“Yeah?” He pushed himself back up and helped me back up. His blue eyes twinkled.

“Blue. I-I mean, your eyes are really blue. I don’t know why I said that.”

He smiled. “Mary’s waiting for us through that door over there.” He pointed over my shoulder.

We walked together down a small hallway that had a door at the end of it. The skylights above us poured light in as we walked. Sam opened the door and moved aside so I went in first.

The room reminded me of my old quarters in the tubes. Mary was perched on a small stool in the corner with a metal box on her lap.

“What is she doing here?” Mary said to Sam.

Sam sat down so close to me that I could feel his hips lined up with mine. My cheeks flushed.

“Mary, enough. You can trust her.”

“No. We never agreed to this. It was only us.”

“Well, now it’s her, too.”

I was surprised that Sam hadn’t told Mary about me before.

“You said we needed to be cautious around her.”

“At the time, but now she’s all in. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“She’s one of those hunters. Check her wrist.”

I was sick of her making rude comments at me, ignoring me and only talking to Sam. The branding on my wrist did not mean I was on the Trux’s side.

“You want to know what’s on my wrist?” I yanked up my sleeve to reveal the ‘H’ symbol. I pointed to the one below it, the Pax tattoo.

“You say I’m on their side. I’m not. I’m a Pax. I’m in this base for the same reason you are. We all are.” I tugged my sleeve back down.

“Violet can help. She knows information about the base that we don’t,” Sam said. “Hunters have full access, unlike healers. She can tell us things that I can’t. We need her.”

I knew Sam cared about me as a friend and wanted me to escape with him, but I wondered if he was motivated by the fact that I was a hunter. He was right in that I had skills he did not. Sam was all too eager as he continued.

“Trust me, Mary. She will help us.”

Should it have bothered me the way Sam said that?  I shook off the feeling. Sam and I were friends; we were on good terms. It was hard to think he’d use me like that.

“You better be right,” Mary said.

“I am,” Sam reassured her. Whether or not I could trust Sam was the biggest weight on my mind, but I needed to focus on escaping. If I was going to play such a dangerous game right under the Head’s nose then I needed to be careful. After all, hunters were watched more closely than other Pax in the base. The thought crossed my mind about what I’d actually do once I escaped. Would we go our separate ways? That meant I’d never see Sam again. I hated the idea of that.

“I’m not a threat like you think I am,” I said to Mary.

“You mean being a trained killer? Because I see that as a threat.”

“It’s not my fault that I was chosen to be a hunter, I can’t change that.”

“You could let your victims live instead of killing them.”

“It’s not that simple.” My stomach tightened and my arms shook. It was enough that I had to deal with the morality of my job on a daily basis, but to listen to Mary’s badgering was too much.

“If you so much as try to turn us in, so help me I will hunt you down and kill you,” Mary said to me.

“Mary-” Sam began.

“Deal,” I replied. “I’m not that kind of person anyway.”

“We’ll see.”

“Mary shouldn’t threaten you like that,” Sam said to me.

“You think I would turn you in?” I asked Sam.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what? That’s beside the point. If we are going to escape we need a plan. What have you two got so far?” I asked.

Sam crossed his arms and nodded at Mary, as if to signaling that it was her time to shine. She seemed quite proud of herself as she set a metal box on the ground in front of us. I bent over and opened the box.

“Mary has been collecting information from the file room for weeks now. We figure the more we know about this place then the easier it will be to escape.”

“Those are the documents you were telling me about?”

Sam nodded.

“And it’s just you two planning to escape?”

“Yeah.”

I skimmed through the papers in the box. Most of them were photographs of people I did not recognize, all with scribbles on the sides. I stopped when I saw one of the Head. He was younger in this photo; he stood in a field with a house behind him. Below the photograph was a clip of an announcement about two inches long titled, ‘Trillionaire invests in warehouses.’

“What is this?” I asked.

“Chip encryption that someone decoded and printed about fifteen years ago,” Mary said. “It was twenty years ago that Pax recruited the other rectors to help put the Trux back in their place. The Head must have been around to see it.”

“You think these bases used to be warehouses?”

“Yes, that he changed over time.”

“I can’t believe he set them up so long ago. How could he be sure he would win the election and become the new president?”

Sam’s brows furrowed as he took the article from me. “The Trux started taking over almost two years ago when the Head was voted into office.”

The simplest idea was to get Sam, Mary, and myself out. Another part of me wanted revenge. The Head deserved to pay for what he did. He had no right to destroy the Pax and wipe us off North Country – it was wrong. I would be insane to suggest an escape plan for the entire base, but I wanted to make this count. I wasn’t going down without a fight.

“I think we should get everyone out.”

Mary’s mouth fell open.

I held up the warehouse article. “We could do it- free everyone, steal weapons...essentially take over. Start a rebellion right under the Head’s nose.” I smiled.

“It’s impossible,” Mary said. “And crazy. Did I mention that?”

“Crazy enough that it might work,” Sam said.

“You’ve got to be kidding. An escape plan of that magnitude....there are thousands of people living in this base. There is no way-”

“The numbers will continue to drop,” I interrupted. The screen at the Head’s mansion with the Pax’s death count flashed in my mind. “I’ve seen the skryers. They beat people more often and without reason. At this rate we will all die if we stay here. I don’t think the Head intends to contain us. I think he means to wipe us out completely.”

Neither Sam nor Mary spoke.

I continued. “The least we can do is fight back. We can’t let him wipe out the Pax.”

“The Head is too powerful; we’ll never succeed,” Mary said.

“Not if we take out the skryers. They are his main weapon. If we can block any distress signal sent to other bases then we could escape. That, and dealing with the hunters,” Sam pointed out.

“AKA you,” Mary said to me.

“You need to trust me. We need to go bigger than anyone has gone before. It’s the only way to catch the Head off guard. He won’t be expecting it.”

“It’s suicide.”

Sam pursed his lips. “We should at least try.”

“You two can be martyrs but don’t expect me to follow in your footsteps.”

“What are you saying?” I asked Mary.

“I say it’s every man for himself, me included.”

“You want to get out first, you mean?”

Mary nodded.

“Fine. It’s not like we were expecting you to lay down your life, anyway What do you think is the simplest way to get everyone out?” I asked.

“No entrance is large enough to let that many people out at once.”

“What about the weaponry?”

“You mean the tunnel?” Sam said.

“What tunnel?” Mary asked.

“There is a tunnel in the weaponry that connects the base to the prison. I’ve been through a handful of times to heal prisoners.”

“There’s a prison?” I scanned the clipping. Exactly how many Pax were imprisoned? How far would the Head go to make sure we were extinct?

“The prison is where the Pax are brought before they’re integrated into the base,” Sam said.

“And there are seven warehouses…meaning seven bases,” I pointed out.

“There could be more, we don’t know,” Sam said.

I searched through the metal box and spotted a ring and a locket at the bottom but nothing else. “Can you get any more of this, Mary?”

“It’s not as easy as you think.”

“So then just the box...and us.” I nodded slowly. “We are either going to succeed or die trying.”

“Let’s start planning then,” Sam said. “What factors have we got to work with?”

“Everything. Security, trackers, skryers, and possible traitors.” Mary made sure to say the last one while looking at me. I rolled my eyes. “Can’t we just take over the base?”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay here.”

“Me neither. We should get out before another base has a chance to reprimand us. If we spread out then it will be harder for the Head to round us up,” I said.

“We should take down the Head for good measure,” Sam added. “I like it. Rebellion; it will be rewarding after all this time.”

“We need weapons if we are going to fight,” Mary said.

“I’ll do it since it was my idea. Besides, I’m the only one with complete access to the weaponry.”

Sam didn’t seem to like that idea by the way he hesitated. “Vi, you don’t have to-”

“It’s fine. Someone has to do it.”

“You sure you want to step up to that challenge?” Mary asked.

“Yes. We need a place to hide them, though.”

“I’ll cover that. I know the laundry division like the back of my hand.”

“That leaves the prison to you, Sam. We need to find any weak points and figure out patterns the Trux might use to stand guard.”

There was a loud clang.

“What was that?”

Sam held a finger to his lips and opened the door. His face was white when he turned back to us.

“Skryers. Two of them.”

Mary sprang to her feet. She ripped the metal box away from me and stored it under her arm, scurrying up the wall where a small skylight was. Sam was shoving me up, telling me to pull myself up.

“Who’s grateful for arm muscles now?” he yelled up.

“Yeah, yeah.” I heaved myself up, turning back to help Sam. He waved me off, his arms flexing as he pulled himself up.

“I’d start running if I were you.”

“Where? I don’t know where I am going!”

“Follow me.”

Mary was already taking off in the opposite direction. It took me a second to process that we were
on top
of the base. I stopped and took in my surroundings. There were trees for miles in every direction. Everywhere I looked was captivating. The sun was low in the sky and the trees swayed back and forth. The sky was an ashen pink fading into treetops, the stars barely visible under the cloak of darkness.

“You catching flies? Come on!” Sam took my hand and pulled me along. The sun was almost gone and the sky was swirling as night approached, the moon growing brighter.

We stopped after we made our way around the dome where we could see the greenhouses. They were laid out in neat rows; shadows moved inside like dancers on a stage.

Sam let go of my hand. “You should go. The skryers will be on watch.”

I wanted to tell Sam I didn’t want to sleep alone tonight, but I wasn’t sure it was safe because of the secretary’s threat. Her warning to end Sam’s and my friendship could have been an empty threat, but my gut told me she wasn’t lying.

“Thanks for today.” I wanted so badly to tell him about the secretary but I was worried we were being watched, even from up here. “I mean it. You’re a good friend, Sam.” I took a step closer to him. His eyes were a midnight blue, matching the sky forming around us.

“You don’t have to butter me up so you can hang out in my room tonight.” His eyes crinkled.

“I would, but…”
It does not bode well for you if this friendship progresses.
I wanted so badly to reach out and touch Sam’s face. I exhaled slowly and ran a hand through my hair. “…but I think I should keep my distance for now.”

“Oh.” Sam looked off at the trees. “It’s not the smell is it?” Sam joked.

He was so close. I refrained myself from skimming my thumb along his arm.