The Harvest (18 page)

“Speaking of cloaking,” I start, “how are we supposed to hide here with an airship in the backyard without some Sector drone taking notice of our activities?”

“Firestone took care of that for us.” Miah sits at the head of the table. “Engineered up a dozen little multi-frequency scramblers that we've strung from the highest branches we could reach. Created a nice little perimeter in which we should be able to operate without notice.”

There's a long pause while Soren and Osprey take all this in. Saara, for her part, looks completely overwhelmed. Eli stares at her as if noticing her for the first time.

“Who are you?” he asks. Eli's never been one for pleasantries.

“Saara Lyon,” she says automatically.

“You're Hana's sister.” Eli's eyes widen as he realizes who she is.

“Older by a year.”

“Eli, Miah, I'd like to formally introduce you to Saara Lyon, our newest Resistance member.” Remy gestures for Saara to sit next to her. “She was at the vigil today. In some of the finest body paint I've ever seen.” I can see remnants of the red and gold paint on Saara's arms and chest, but most of it has sweated or rubbed off.

“You never said how that went,” Eli says, turning to Remy.

“We can tell you over dinner.” I pick up a bowl of poached apricots and begin to serve. “Saara, Soren, and Osprey need to eat after hiking all the way out here.”

“And I need to take my boots off,” Saara says, already unlacing. “I think I have blisters the size of dinner plates.”

16 - REMY

Spring 89,
Sector Annum
106, 22h21

Gregorian Calendar:
June 16

A hush falls over us as we as stretch out around the fire crackling in my grandfather's old stone fireplace. It's closing in on eleven, but my bones feel like it must be two or three in the morning. For the past ten days, we've been loading and unloading, helping various Resistance teams move food, seeds, and MealPaks. Unlike teamsters working for the Sector, we don't have the benefit of heavy-duty loading drones. We do have the benefit of the newfangled scrambles Firestone put together. Besides the ones Eli and Miah used to create a perimeter around the house, we've got another dozen or so we set up around every loading and unloading site.

“Another bottle?” Jeremiah pops the stopper on yet another one of my grandfather's older vintages and holds it aloft.

“If anyone said no, would that have stopped you?” Soren asks, his voice loaded with a heavy dose of Soren Skaarsgard sarcasm. Stretched out on the floor, he holds out two glasses while Osprey, curled up on the couch behind him, runs a fingertip up and down the back of his ear lobe, making me want to scratch my own.

Since we arrived at my grandfather's, we've had several visitors, including Chariya, one of the Outsiders we met a few months ago, but mostly, we've been doing backbreaking labor, strategizing with Zeke's team, and arguing about our next moves with the Director. We've also been brainstorming about what Meera's final message,
follow the acorns to the tree
, might mean. Chariya had some ideas, but she left shortly after she arrived, promising to return as soon as possible. What “soon” means to an Outsider, I have no idea. Osprey says, with Chariya, it could mean tomorrow or next year.

But tonight we got the best surprise of all: Zeke arrived with Bear in tow, grown at least a few centimeters since the last time I saw him. He's on his way from Farm 5 to 3, colloquially called Mill Town and Cloverfield. When the Director told him Eli and Miah were setting up a waystation outside Okaria, and that Soren and I had made it here safely, Bear decided to take a detour and visit us between stops.

“It's been wild out there, ya know?” Bear says, adding another log to the fire, settling back, and watching as the flames lick at the wood. “Lotta people coming to our side. Stepping up, telling others, wanting something different. Something
more
. Many still don't understand, but our numbers are growing. And we're getting ready to show what we're made of.”

So much has happened since Vale and I went to Okaria nearly three months ago. While Vale was isolated with his parents and I was connecting with Meera, Snake, and the other Outsiders in the capital, Bear has led the charge to rally Farm workers to the cause of the Resistance. He says many of the workers have begun to see how their lives have been manipulated. How they've been used. The devastation at Round Barn was the spark that lit the torch, and now the darkness has been illuminated, as he put it so eloquently. As he talks, I feel like a proud parent, my heart expanding with every word. I suppose I still feel responsible for Bear—and for Sam.

“It's really Gabriel,” Bear says, with a nod my direction. “Without his inspiration, we never would have been able to recruit so many so quickly.”

I look across the room, locking eyes with Eli. For a moment, the deep ache of memory, of missing what used to be—the happy family with the quiet poet, the passionate doctor, the brilliant older sister, and me, the eager, inquisitive artist—threatens to breach the wall I've built up around that part of my life. I blink back tears.

Vale squeezes my hand. “What's Gabriel's role in all this?”

“He helps me work out what to say.” Bear holds up his glass to the firelight as if seeking wisdom within the shifting, swirling liquid. “But mostly, he tells stories about long ago heroes who stood up for their rights without hurting anyone. Dr. Rhinehouse says us workers have been programmed to shy away from violence. That's why some of us just kinda turn off. Like a light goes out inside. Since folks don't want to hurt anyone, they turn away from what frightens them or makes them angry. So Gabriel tells stories about other folks just like us. To make us brave. Folks like Thoreau, Gandhi, King, Havel. Folks I never even heard of in the whole of my life 'fore now.”

I'm not surprised Bear and the other Farm workers are inspired by my father's stories. “Stories have power,” my dad used to say when we'd talk about our passions: me, drawing and painting; him, stories and poetry. “Artists tell stories with pictures so those who are deaf to the truth can
see
it instead. Poets tell stories with words so those who are blind to the truth can
hear
it instead.”

“But most of all,” Bear says, “Gabriel listens to the workers' own stories. Prob'ly the first time a livin' soul's ever bothered. Now we got lots of folks willing to stand up for themselves, workers from every Farm in every quadrant, all willing to tell their stories, say what's on their minds. And town folk, too. Working with Zeke, we got real, educated people ready to stand beside Farm folk. And there's a whole lot of them. We're gettin' well mobilized.”

“What are you mobilizing for?” Saara asks.

“We can't fight back without guns and airships like the Sector has, like Evander has. And we don't want anyone else to die, ya know? So we've got to go at it different way. Right now, we're keeping things quiet, acting like nothing's changing. But soon, things'll be different.”

“How?” I ask, leaning forward.

Bear looks at the floor.

“Well, I've been workin' on this idea …”

“What idea?” Soren presses. Ever since Soren and I met Bear on that boat two seasons ago, we've tried to welcome him into our fold as much as possible.

“None of us want a repeat of Round Barn. But what if we take that same concept, the idea of taking a stand, rising up peacefully, and demand that all of us be treated with respect. That each one of us be treated like human beings. And what if we did this in the capital? Right in front of Assembly Hall, where everyone can see us. Evander can't bring his fireships down on us then. So my idea is to organize a march with workers from every Farm and every factory town coming in to the city of their own free will. Thousands of people standing in front of
our
capital demanding
our
liberty. What happens then?”

No one says a word. I lean back and close my eyes, listening to the pop and crackle as a piece of damp wood catches. I can see the people, shoulder to shoulder, silent, facing Assembly Hall. Is it even possible? How could Corine or Evander or Aulion take violent action against a peaceful demonstration in the middle of the city? I turn to Vale.

“What do you think?”

“How many can you mobilize?” he asks.

Bear glances at Miah and then says, “We estimate we've got almost three thousand volunteers so far.”

“Three thousand?” Saara nearly chokes on her wine.

“And we're aiming for more.”

Vale lets out a long low whistle. I can almost hear his mind working as he pushes himself up from his relaxed slouch. The enormity of Bear's plan is overwhelming. All this time I've been hiding out in Okaria, Bear has been spreading his message—and now the message has gone viral. If he's got three thousand people who have already volunteered to march to the capital city at his command, how many more will rally to our cause when the march begins?

“Do you have a date picked out?” Vale asks. “What are you thinking in terms of logistics? Communications? Coordinating the movement of so many people so that everyone arrives at the same time?”

“Workin' on all that,” Bear says. “It's a big project, ya know? We're shooting for right after the solstice, maybe the twenty-third or twenty-fourth. Miah and Eli been workin' with Zeke and some of Osprey's friends to monitor Sector freight lines. There's some maglev trains that run between the Farm depots and Okaria once a day. Same thing with the factory towns. Moving stuff back and forth 'tween the countryside and the capital. We're hopin' to get a lot of folks on board those trains.”

Vale nods, considering. Of all the people here, he probably has the most comprehensive knowledge of the Sector's large-scale infrastructure. “You've got the schedules?”

“The routes are controlled remotely by computer,” Zeke says, “but there are onboard operators with override capabilities in case of delays or mechanical problems. I've got an old friend who helps set the schedules.”

“So you can get people loaded without the central system knowing,” Vale says, following Zeke's train of thought.

“And,” Eli says with a dangerous look, “we'll take care of the onsite operators if we have to.”

“Replace them with our own people,” Miah says.

“Still,” Zeke says, “it's easier said than done. It used to be the train operators rode unaccompanied, no guards. Since Round Barn, no train leaves a station without four soldiers onboard.”

“There's been growing malcontent on the Farms over the last few years.” Vale leans back in his chair, stretching. “But nothing on the scale of Round Barn. I'm not surprised they increased security.”

“Are you worried about infiltration?” I ask. “Someone overhearing your plans and tipping off the Enforcers? Or loyalists in the Factory towns? What about Evander?”

“'Course we're worried about that,” Bear says. “But ain't nothing we can do but tell everyone to be hush-hush and go right on about our work.”

“What happens if you're discovered?” Saara asks.

It's Bear's turn to shrug. He looks at Zeke and Miah, neither of whom has an answer. Finally, he says, “I'd best not be caught, I guess. All I know is I can't stop what I'm doing. Not now. There's no turning back. We've just got to hope everyone will see the truth, and support us rather than fight against us.”

From the very first day I met him, Bear was taking on responsibilities beyond what should have been asked of him.

The smoke trails lazily up the chimney and a log crumbles in the fire. The chilly night air blowing in from broken windows smells like promise. But with every promise made, there is the chance of a promise broken.

Finally Saara says, “What do you hear about this bug that's been going around?”

By the third day after we'd all arrived at my grandfather's, we got word that a full-fledged health crisis was taking place on the outskirts of the Sector and was quickly spreading into the city. The medevac trucks Vale and I saw zooming around Okaria were no coincidence, and it became clear that Meera was called into work the morning of the vigil because dozens of people were falling ill.

Saara went into the city a few days ago and caught the tail end of one of the OAC's broadcasts, in which Corine announced that the OAC was looking into the illness, trying to find a cause and a cure.

“They're claiming they don't know what it is,” Saara had said upon her return. “I don't believe it for an instant.”

“What's the vector?” Soren asked.

“They're not sure yet, but they don't think it's contagious.”

“What do you think?” Vale asked Saara. “You're the nurse.”

“It's too soon to tell. But I don't think it's natural.”

“You think the Sector is spreading it?”

Saara didn't respond.

Now, Bear shifts uncomfortably in his seat, frowning. “Rhinehouse doesn't know what to make of it,” he says. “First folks start complaining about dizziness and nausea, followed by seizures caused by swelling of the brain. Many of the patients end up in a coma.” He shakes his head.

“But that's not the worst part,” Zeke says. “Before they lapse into a coma, patients exhibit extreme paranoia, what some doctors are calling sudden-onset schizophrenia. Only a few people have died so far, though, and all deaths have been before the coma stage. One woman told her husband that people were spying on her, chasing her. She ran out of the house and disappeared. Watchmen fished her out of the river the next day. Drowned.”

“Any statement from the chancellor?” Vale says.

“Nothing official,” Eli pipes up. “Except that they're dedicating all their resources to identifying the source of the outbreak and trying to identify preventative measures, ways to contain it before it spreads throughout the Sector. Zoe, back at headquarters, has been monitoring their broadcasts. We'll know when they put out a statement.”

“Epidemics grow, spread, kill hundreds, if not thousands of people,” Vale says. “They eventually mutate, die out, or someone finds a cure. Fifty years later, the same thing happens. It happened all the time in the Old World. The Black Death. Influenza. Polio. Small pox. Dengue. AIDS. Ebola. And many of those were just in the last two centuries before the Religious Wars, which, naturally, caused many of the viruses that had previously been contained to come surging back.”

I smile inwardly, knowing that Vale was that kid in class always paying attention. Soaking everything in, even arcane information on ancient diseases.