Set Me Free (5 page)

“Thanks,” I say, ducking my head.

“You’re welcome. I see a little of your dad in you, too, though.”

I feel a jolt of shock and happiness. Louisa gasps, too. “You know my father?” I ask.

“I do. Half the intelligence we have on the Alliance is a direct result of your dad’s communication interception work,” says Dizzy, his eyes resting on the flash drive. “So you can bet that whatever’s on that is highly classified and heavily encoded.”

I nod, my thoughts racing. So there’s a good chance my parents are together.

“But wouldn’t Ivan have encoded the drive?” Rosie points out, tossing her dark hair over one shoulder.

“Probably,” Dizzy says. “But it would definitely be something only the Hornet or those closest to her would know how to crack.”

“But to read it in the first place,” Alonso muses out loud, “we’re going to need a computer. And we don’t even have access to one right now.”

Dizzy’s eyes shine with purpose. “As a matter of fact,” he says, “we do.”

T
he
press box
, it’s called, this room high above the field, looking out from behind home plate. The entire front of it consists of various-sized glass windows, most of which, miraculously, are still in one piece. There is a long counter with chairs pushed up to it. And on the counter there are six laptop computers.

Old ones.

Like antiques
.

“Look at these dinosaurs,” says Drew in amazement. “I bet they don’t even have a 3-D function.”

“What’s the memory like?” Alonso asks, sitting down in front of one of the computers. “I bet it’s some
pathetically tiny amount, like, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four gigabytes.”

Louisa laughs. “Oh, please. My preschool laptop had, like, twice that.”

Dizzy snorts as he carefully takes a seat at one of the computers. “These babies, which were state of the art when they got left behind here, are probably about eight GB at the most.”

“Wow,” says Drew. “That’s actually kind of sad.”

“Will they be able to read the flash drive?” I ask, concerned.

“All we can do is try,” says Dizzy, hitting a button and waiting as the computer whirs to life.

I sit down beside Dizzy and wring my hands. Everyone gathers around us, holding their breaths. Dizzy inserts the flash drive, and types in some commands.

The screen goes dark.

I swallow hard, and feel Louisa squeeze my shoulder.

And then, in the next second, the screen brightens, slowly, steadily, to a brilliant yellow. A black speck in the
center expands into a swirl, which morphs into three broad black lines.

“The Hornet’s symbol!” Ryan says.

Under the symbol, in bold caps, are the words:
SECURITY CLEARANCE — LEVEL 10. CLASSIFICATION: MAX.

Then there is a place for another password.

Of course. I glance at Dizzy for assistance. But he’s wincing and reaching down to massage his leg.

“Are you okay?” I ask him.

“I’ve done a lot of walking today,” he says, and it’s clear he’s in a lot of pain. “More than usual.”

“Why don’t you go rest?” Louisa, ever the doctors’ kid, suggests gently.

“Yeah,” says Drew, “we’ll come get you if we get stuck.”

Dizzy clearly feels bad for bailing on us but his eyes show that he’s in near agony. He gives us a superquick tutorial to familiarize us with the laptop, then wishes us luck and limps off. To me, it’s a reminder of what our soldiers — the regular army and the Resistance alike —
are sacrificing for the safety of our country. I find myself wanting to help more than ever.

Unfortunately, I’ve never been much of a computer nerd. I confess this to my friends.

“Evelyn can do it,” Alonso suggests. “She’s got a way with these things.”

Evelyn smiles and her cheeks turn slightly pink as she slides into the chair vacated by Dizzy. Louisa and the boys pull up some chairs. Rosie hops up onto the counter, with her legs dangling.

“Okay, it wants a password,” she says, flexing her fingers.

“ ‘Sparrow’ again?” Louisa guesses. I’d filled in her and the others about that as we’d gone up to the press box.

“Probably not,” says Rosie, turning to me. “Remember what Dizzy said? That Ivan would have encoded it, but it would be something your mom would probably know.”

Words tumble through my mind. What would be something Ivan and Mom would both know?

“How about ‘Resistance’?” I offer hopefully.

Evelyn types the word in quickly. Instantly, a message comes up:
PASSWORD DENIED. AFTER TWO MORE INCORRECT PASSWORD ATTEMPTS, DATA WILL BE PERMANENTLY DELETED.

My stomach sinks. This is bad. I exchange glances with the others. We can’t guess wildly now. We have to be very, very careful.

I close my eyes and drift back to the last day I saw my mother, the day she was deployed. I was sulking and feeling selfish and angry. I asked her why she had to go. And she answered me with a single word.

My eyes fly open. “Try ‘freedom,’ “ I say.

Dutifully, Evelyn types in the word.

The cursor blinks once … twice….

This is it. If
freedom
doesn’t work, then we only have one more shot before we lose everything.

The cursor blinks once more….

Then the black lines disappear in a burst of white.

We’re in!

We all cheer. Louisa grabs me in a hug and Ryan and Jonah high-five again.

A document comes up on the screen.

Unfortunately, it’s written entirely in code.

“Seriously?” Evelyn groans.

Drew leans closer, squinting at the screen. “It’s like someone took a bunch of ancient hieroglyphics, translated them into a foreign language, then wrote them backward … with typos.”

It’s a pretty accurate description. Numbers and mathematical symbols alongside pictograms … inverted, transposed, repeated, upside down … It’s exhausting to look at. Everyone breathes a collective sigh of frustration.

“No way we’re going to figure this out,” mutters Evelyn, flopping back in the chair and folding her arms across her chest. “Not without a cipher or a legend.”

“You mean like the legend of the mutants?” asks Ryan, confused.

“No,” says Rosie, rolling her eyes and poking him in the Cubs patch on the front of his borrowed uniform. “A legend is like a key, a cheat sheet for breaking codes.”

“I knew that,” Ryan grumbles.

“There has to be a legend,” I say, reasoning it out, “and since this flash drive was going to my mother, she must be the one who has it.”

Drew taps his foot, thinking. “I’ll bet anything there’s a second one. You know, a redundancy safeguard.”

“Oooh, big words,” jokes Rosie, causing him to blush.

“But he’s right!” says Evelyn. “The Resistance would never allow just one copy of the legend to exist. I mean, sure, this is intended to be delivered into the hands of the Hornet. But if something ever went wrong, like, if something happened to her —”

She is cut off by a jab from Rosie’s elbow.

“Evelyn!” gasps Louisa. “Shhh!”

The boys are all looking awkwardly elsewhere.

Evelyn instantly recognizes what she’s said, and when she whirls to face me, she looks ready to burst into tears. “Oh, Maddie. I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean —”

I hold up my hands and smile bravely. “It’s okay. I know what you meant.” I swallow my fear and nod to her. “Keep going.”

She takes a moment to compose herself. “What I was going to say was that in addition to the cipher she carries with her, the Hornet would have to keep a second copy of the legend
somewhere
, for” — she chooses her next words carefully — “emergency purposes. Maybe the information is stored on a similar flash drive. There’s probably some cool overlay compatibility function that will combine the two documents and translate —” She breaks off, sighing. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter, since I don’t know how we can get it.”

The press box goes quiet, and when the silence is broken, it’s my voice that does it.

“Maybe I do.”

“Absolutely not!” says Louisa.

“I agree with Louisa,” says Rosie.

“And I agree with Rosie,” says Evelyn.

Louisa is standing in front of me and she’s clamping her hands on my shoulders. “No way are you going to your apartment, Madeleine Frye.”

“Yes,” I say, for the eight billionth time in the last half hour. “I am.”

I slide a sideways glance at Jonah. He hasn’t said a word, but he’s been pacing around the press box, looking concerned.

“C’mon, Maddie,” says Ryan. “We’ve been saying all along that going home is a bad idea. The Alliance will have people waiting for us.”

“It’s too great a risk,” Drew chimes in.

“Would you rather the Resistance doesn’t get this flash drive?” I ask them in my most reasonable tone. “Would you rather we don’t find my mom and Wren?”

Of course, no one wants that at all.

“Then it’s settled.” I stand up, surprised by the authority in my voice. “If my mother has a second legend, our apartment is where it will be. So I’m going home to see if I can find it. It’s the one hope we have of reaching my mom to give her this information.”

“Fine,” says Louisa, flinging her arms wide in a gesture of surrender. “But if you’re going, I’m going.”

“And if she’s going,” says Ryan, in a protective tone, “I’m going.”

Louisa gives him a sweet smile and Ryan turns bright red, all the way up to his ears.

Jonah stops pacing and comes to squat down beside my chair, putting us eye to eye.

“If you’re going, I’m going,” he says softly, and now I’m smiling, too.

But the mood is broken in the next second when everyone starts talking at once, volunteering and offering reasons why
they
should be allowed to go, until finally, Drew puts his fingers in his mouth and lets out one of those ear-piercing, attention-getting whistles that shuts everyone up.

“We can’t all go,” says Drew.

“He’s right,” I say. “So would anyone like to hear what I think?”

They all nod.

“Okay …” I pause to collect my thoughts. I’m usually not this logical, but the situation isn’t leaving me much choice. “It’s actually a plus that we know there will be
Alliance agents lying in wait, because we can plan around that. I think I need to bring two people — no more, no less. One to go inside with me and another to stand lookout.”

“I’ll be the lookout,” says Jonah, in a decisive tone. “Nonnegotiable. Me.”

I nod, and keep going. “And I think Louisa should be the one to go inside the apartment with me. I mean, she knows my place as well as I do, so that’s bound to be helpful, right?”

“Good point,” says Evelyn.

“Okay,” says Rosie. “It’s settled. Louisa and Jonah will go with Maddie tomorrow and see if they can find anything that will help us crack this code.” She turns a smile to me. “Good thinking, Maddie. I couldn’t have come up with a better plan myself.”

Her words are the best affirmation I could have hoped for. Evelyn is also looking impressed.

“What will we do?” asks Alonso.

“You mean besides pray?” sighs Louisa.

“I think you guys should work on a strategy,” I say,
“for what we’ll do on the outside chance that the information we need isn’t waiting somewhere in my apartment.”

We make a plan for Jonah, Louisa, and me to leave the stadium just before sunrise, to avoid as much of the commuting crowd as we can.

By now, everyone is exhausted, so we retire to the home team’s and visitors’ lockers. We use our sleeping bags, which Drew and Alonso toted from the car wash, and extra uniforms and Cubs windbreakers for additional blankets and pillows.

In a matter of moments, Rosie, Evelyn, and Louisa are sound asleep. But as tired as I am, I lie awake, thinking. Back at home, on nights when I couldn’t fall asleep, I’d take out my puzzle book and try to solve one of the harder ones my mom had devised for me. Sometimes I’d even attempt to make up my own cryptogram, but I’d usually fall asleep halfway through.

But now thinking about puzzles only tightens the knots in my stomach. Just getting from Wrigley to my apartment tomorrow is going to be dangerous enough,
but I’ll be walking willingly into the direct sights of hostile Alliance spies. But I’ve got to do it.

Because somewhere back in my apartment there just might be the key to finding my mother.

L
ouisa, Jonah, and I set out early. The sky is streaked dull gray and pale yellow, and a ghostly wind howls around the walls of Wrigley Field.

We’ve left the others sleeping. Dizzy limps to the exit with us, and gives us some last-minute reminders. He also gives me a special tool in case I need to pick the lock on our apartment door, which is good since I don’t have a key. As we walk away from the stadium I don’t look back, but I can feel his concerned gaze on us; I’m sure he’s still standing there long after we turn the corner and vanish from his sight.

We head northwest toward my apartment building. In the crumbling town houses that line the streets, only a
few windows are lit. I imagine sleepy employees getting ready for the early work shift or a world-weary insomniac sitting quietly in the early-morning gloom, wondering what will become of all of us.

Jonah is no stranger to the streets at this hour, so I give him the address and we let him take the lead. I can tell Louisa is terrified, jumping at every sound. She hugs herself against the brutal slicing of the wind and stays close at my heels. It occurs to me how courageous of her it was to volunteer for this mission. And how incredibly loyal. How could I have ever doubted her?

We pass an alley, and I get the distinct feeling there are eyes staring out at us. I walk a little faster. The buildings cast deep, charcoal-toned shadows, which make everything much creepier.

“It’s too dark,” Louisa says, clearly sharing my thoughts. “Why don’t we walk up on the L tracks? We’ll have better visibility.”

“And fewer dark alleys,” Jonah adds.

I nod at them, feeling grateful that they’ve thought of this.

The elevated trains haven’t run in years, not since the government decided it required too much energy to run them. The three of us carefully take the stairs to the elevated tracks. As we walk along the rusted rails, rats scuttle along at the far edges of the platform, and occasionally a filthy pigeon will swoop down so close I can actually see its beady little oil-slick eyes.

“At least we don’t have to worry about a train coming at us,” Louisa remarks.

The words are barely out of her mouth when I notice something approaching from the opposite direction, following the tracks at a steady, purposeful pace.

Heading right for us.

I squint into the growing daylight, hoping my eyes are playing tricks on me. But they aren’t.

There is something moving toward us, all right. On a collision course.

It is definitely not a train.

But I almost wish it were.

Jonah immediately puts himself in front of Louisa
and me. He pushes his shoulders back and I can see his hands flex into fists at his sides. His whole body is tensed, his jaw set in a menacing expression.

“Daggers,” he says through his teeth.

My knees wobble. Louisa actually lets out a whimper.

They are getting closer and I can see that these swaggering strangers — a quick count gives me three boys and two girls — are not an especially friendly bunch.

It’s strange to see kids of their age, which I guess to be between seventeen and eighteen, out in the world, because it’s mandatory for anyone over the age of fifteen to enlist in the military. Not doing so is punishable by imprisonment. Clearly, the Daggers have found a way to dodge not only the draft but the police as well.

Out in front is, I assume, the leader. He has a tall, stiff bristle of jet-black hair running right down the middle of his head from front to back. Around his eyes are two black smudges that look as though he’s darkened
them with soot. He has a tattoo encircling his throat that I think is supposed to look like barbed wire.

Lovely.

Behind him is a shorter boy, whom I take to be the second in command. His squat body is a knot of sheer muscle. He has stringy hair bleached perfectly white.

The two girls come next. The one on the right is pretty, with a metal hoop pierced into her lower lip and another in her eyebrow. She wears tattered jeans and a pair of yellow leather boots that come midway up her thighs. The girl to her left is dressed head to toe in shiny red vinyl — cap, jacket, and boots. She has slick black gloss on her lips and heavy green shadow smeared on her eyelids.

The last boy in the group has long dreadlocks and he wears a frayed denim jacket painted with a jewel-handled blade under which, in fierce silver calligraphy, is the word
Daggers
.

I guess that’s to remind him, in case he forgets who his friends are?

They stop, about four feet in front of us. The short, muscular one says, “This is Dagger territory.”

Dreadlocks tugs a chain from where it’s looped over his shoulder and begins to swing it in slow circles.

I might throw up. I might faint. I might jump from the elevated tracks and take my chances with gravity.

“Look at the little angels,” says the leader in a scornful tone. “Where you going? Sunday school?”

“Let us by,” says Jonah, his voice a low growl.

I’m shocked when the girl in the yellow boots darts behind me, flings out one long leg, and connects gracefully with the backs of my knees. It doesn’t hurt, but it does cause me to crumble to the ground. Louisa shrieks and Jonah lunges for the nearest gang member — the leader. Unfortunately, the über-muscular one darts out to place himself between Jonah and his target. He’s got the element of surprise on his side, and for Jonah, it’s like hitting a brick wall. Jonah goes down hard.

“Please don’t hurt us,” says Louisa in a strangled voice.

“You got any valuables, little princess?” the girl in red vinyl demands of her, then slices a glare my way.

I’ve managed to get back on my feet. “No, we don’t!” My heart is pounding so hard I’m afraid it might explode. I adjust the Cubs cap on my head.

Now Jonah has hauled himself up from the tracks and comes to stand beside me, shaking off his spill and looking like he’s not going to get caught by surprise like that a second time. His eyes are like steel.

“We’re just passing through this neighborhood,” he says. There is authority in his voice, like when he spoke to Brianna.

“If you’re planning to rob us, that would be a waste of your time,” he goes on. “We have nothing for you to take.”

The leader’s eyes are burning with fury, but so far he’s not doing anything. Maybe it’s Jonah’s height and broad shoulders that are making him think twice.

The girl in the red vinyl — obviously the most fashion forward of the gang — is looking at my Cubs uniform intently, admiring it. I see an opportunity.

“Do you like this?” I ask quickly, indicating the jersey. “I’ve got, like, a hundred more like it back where I came from.” I hope I don’t sound as terrified as I feel.

Luckily, Louisa and I both put on our long-sleeved shirts under our jerseys before we left this morning. As if it’s the most natural thing in the world, I tug the jersey over my head and hand it to Red Vinyl Girl. “Take it,” I say.

She looks at the leader, for permission, I guess. He gives a curt nod and she takes the shirt. I don’t get a thank-you. Not that I was expecting one.

Now Yellow Boots looks jealous. I motion to Louisa to hand over her jersey, which she does. Fast.

Then the leader slowly raises his fingers to his lips, like Drew did last night. His soot-smudged eyes bore into me a long moment before he whistles. It’s a quick blast, high and loud. He follows it with two more short ones, then a long one.

Nothing happens at first.

Then I hear it. A distant thumping sound, coming from the same direction the Daggers had. It’s a
galloping noise, and as it draws closer, there is another sound.

Barking.

“Oh no,” says Louisa.

I know she’s remembering the dogs we saw in the road yesterday on our way to Wrigley Field. And I’m trembling now because I’m pretty sure no amount of Jonah’s slick talking is going to work on a pack of wild animals.

They barrel into view, a gray and brown haze of fur, teeth, and claws. They charge toward us, growling and snapping.

Without even thinking, I push Louisa and Jonah behind me, just as the first dog reaches us. Ears back, teeth bared, he leaps, taking me down onto the tracks with a thud.

I cover my head with my arms and open my mouth to scream.

But there are no teeth sinking into my flesh, no claws tearing at my face and hair. Just a big tongue lapping at
my cheeks, and a cold nose nuzzling my ears. I remove my hands from my head and look at the dog. His big brown eyes are filled with nothing but love.

Two more of his canine cohorts join him now, pushing themselves onto my lap and rubbing their furry ears against my face. I’m still trembling, my body not catching up to my mind.
We’re not in danger
.

“Our pets,” the leader explains. “They’re trained to attack only on command.”

He steps forward and reaches down to give the first dog a gentle nudge, removing him from my lap so I can stand up.

Yellow Boots claps her hands twice. Without hesitation, the dogs sit. Hesitantly, Louisa crouches down to pet a small, black-spotted dog. He stretches his neck for her to scratch.

“Amazing,” says Jonah.

I see that the girl in the red vinyl has slipped the jersey on over her shiny jacket. She gives me a shy look. Not quite a thank-you, but close.

Now there is a silence in which something passes between Jonah and the leader — a look, an understanding, a mutual stand-down.

Jonah nods at Louisa and me. “Let’s go,” he says.

As we leave, a couple of them nod at us; the girl in red even waves. The leader actually smiles.

It’s a nice smile.

For some reason, it makes me hate the War more than ever.

It’s a long walk, but at least we don’t cross paths with any other people. The streets below are beginning to look familiar, and I recognize the buildings rising up from them in varying degrees of decay. We’ve reached my neighborhood.

We clamber down the El stairs. The moment my feet hit the pavement I feel such a wave of emotion I have to stop walking. The feeling is a mixture of sadness and joy, terror and comfort. I learned to ride my bike on this street; I watched my mother board the bus that took her to war at this corner.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Maddie?” Louisa asks.

“I have to do this,” I say, as much to myself as to her. A few more yards and my building will come into view. The pull is magnetic.

Louisa and I are wearing Cubs caps, which shade our faces pretty well. We’ve both smushed our hair up under the caps, and we’re wearing partial, baggy baseball uniforms. I hope all these efforts will make us look like boys. They aren’t the greatest disguises in the world (especially without the jerseys), but they were the best we could do. If the Alliance spies are looking for a girl to return to this address, maybe this will at least throw them off a little.

We pass the place on the sidewalk where I fell down Rollerblading; six stitches in my left elbow.

There’s the old mailbox Joey Dennison hid behind every time we neighborhood kids played hide-and-seek.

And there’s the stoop where old Mrs. Lorenzo sat and cried when she heard that her grandson was lost in the first wave of the War.

Home
.

I spot the first Alliance operative almost immediately.

“Spy,” I say quietly, inclining my head to make the most of the cap’s brim. “There, by the mailbox.”

Jonah and Louisa look. There’s a woman in an official government mail carrier’s uniform, lingering beside Joey’s favorite hiding place, pretending to shuffle through the parcels in her bag.

“Are you sure?” asks Jonah. “She looks pretty legit to me.”

But she’s not. “Snail mail” (as Mom said they used to call it) is pretty much obsolete, but there are still some things — like the packages in the phony mail carrier’s bag — that just can’t be sent electronically. So a few years ago, the government designated the postal system for that purpose. A handful of these federal mailboxes are still in use around the city to accommodate small packages, but they’re few and far between. And what Jonah and the Alliance operative don’t know is that this particular
mailbox hasn’t been operational since Joey’s twin brother, Ricky, stuffed an entire brick of firecrackers into it on the last Fourth of July before both he and Joey went off to join the army.

I continue to scan the area. There is a construction worker examining a pothole in the street, directly in front of the main entrance to my building.

“He’s a fake, too,” I whisper.

“How do you know?” Louisa whispers back.

“Almost no one in this part of town drives anymore, so why would the city waste valuable resources fixing the road?”

“Is there a rear entrance to your building?” Jonah wonders.

“Yes,” I say. “But I’m sure the Alliance is watching that one, too. I mean, you don’t take control of Canada by being lazy.” I figure the Alliance must be sending different spies, in different guises, here every day. Otherwise, neighbors would start to get suspicious.

“How are we going to get in, then?” Louisa hisses.

I spot the alleyway that runs between my building and the one next door, where the Dennisons live. Joey’s bedroom window is directly across the alley from mine. Sometimes we would open our windows and chat. Joey is two years older than me, but he was always sweet, and Louisa was convinced he had a crush on me. I doubt it, but Louisa always says she’s right about these things.

“Remember Joey and Ricky?” Louisa whispers. She sometimes seems capable of reading my mind — I guess that’s what happens after being friends for so many years.

I nod tersely, wanting to tell Louisa this isn’t the time or place for a trip down memory lane.

But Louisa goes on. “Didn’t you say you and Joey used to see Ricky sneaking home late at night, using the fire escape?”

I turn to Louisa, nodding more slowly this time.

Her blue eyes are bright. “I have an idea.”

The Alliance mail carrier is still lingering by the mailbox and the Alliance construction worker is trying to look busy, staring at the stupid pothole.

“There are only two of them,” says Jonah, who’s already made it clear that he is not on board with my plan, even a little. “There are three of us. Maybe we can …”