The Harvest (27 page)

But we don't get far before several SDF airships appear in the sky ahead of us. The big guns are here. A clear voice sounds through one of the Watcher's speakers.

“Halt! You are in violation of Sector Ordinance 43. You have not been granted a permit for this gathering, and all participants are subject to immediate arrest and detention. Furthermore, you have knowingly participated in the hijacking of Sector cargo lines. Whoever is responsible for these acts of lawlessness, step forward and we'll show your followers leniency.”

Bear steps forward, his megaphone to his lips. “We are citizens of the Okarian Sector and have the right to walk freely and unhindered on the streets built with our labor.” The Watcher tries to cut him off, but Bear's voice grows louder, more fierce. “We are Farm workers, the men and women who feed this nation, and will use Sector transportation as needed—including Sector trains!”

Bear turns around to face the crowd. “As full citizens of the Sector, we will march.”

Everyone repeats: “We will march!”

Watchers step out of their hovercars and raise their Bolts. Although they're blocking our path, there are only ten cars and about twenty or thirty officers. The Watchers position themselves between their cars, standing shoulder to shoulder as the drones descend, green lights blinking rapidly, photographing faces to ID protesters in the Personhood Database—or to arm themselves for firing.

Discreetly, I set my bolt to DISPERSE and see Eli do the same from the corner of my eye. I nod at him and on the count of three, we raise our left fists, gloved in crimson cloth. Others, positioned throughout the crowd to echo our movements and amplify our message, follow suit and everyone armed with a Bolt readies their weapon.

“To the sowing!”

Bear begins the chant again, and the voices of the people rise into the air, the righteous roar of thousands. There are too many of us for a small contingent of Watchers to stop. We start to move around and push through their line when a Watcher raises her bolt at me. Eli drops her with a flash, she crumples behind her vehicle, and her Bolt clatters to the ground as I raise mine and send a cloud of electricity toward the nearest cluster of drones. In a heartbeat, up and down the line of marchers, the air crackles with static and Watchers and onlookers turn their heads to the sky as drones stop moving, immobilized, listing to the side. Bolts set to DISPERSE not only sting when they bite flesh, but will scramble a drone's guidance system, sending it either wandering aimlessly or, with enough repeated fire, dropping to the ground like a fly.

We move ahead quickly, and I try to blend in with the crowd. Another Watcher sees me with my Bolt and aims, but I fire before he has a chance to pull the trigger. I step over him and pick up his weapon, handing it to a marcher behind me.

The Watchers are in disarray. For the most part, they have no idea how to react, clearly unwilling to shoot into a crowd flush with children where very few people are armed. One Watchman shouts orders, another calls for help from the SDF, and others are scuffling as they try to grab a marcher here or there. I turn and see a Watcher throw a young girl to the ground, drop and dig her knee into the girl's back. I run toward them, plowing into the Watcher from behind, sending her sprawling. I grab her Bolt and pull the marcher to her feet as others bend over the Watcher, picking her up, holding her arms behind her back, and carrying her in front of them as they keep marching forward. One winks at me and says, “We found a new recruit!”

“You okay?” I ask the girl.

“Fine, just bruises.” And a nasty scratch on her face, but that will heal.

“Thanks,” she calls and runs to catch up to her friends as more drones appear, following us, awaiting orders. We try to disable as many as we can, but they just keep coming. They move like hummingbirds, thrumming overhead, flitting between buildings, darting out again. By this time, Corine, Philip, Aulion, and Evander will have received the Red Alert and been notified of the protest. But even they know attacking peaceful protestors in the heart of the capital would be unwise. At least I hope they know that.

I run along the left side of our group to make sure no one's fallen or hurt when I find Reika leading her contingent of marchers. “Any trouble getting in?”

“Nothing we couldn't deal with,” she says with a tight smile.

“Injuries?”

“A few. We had to leave a couple of folks behind before boarding. I think one woman broke her arm in a fall. But she'll be okay. Her son stayed with her.”

I look around and see an old man with a limp struggling to keep up. One either side, he's supported by two young women. The sight fills me with an odd combination of hope and sadness. We're in this fight together. When all is said and done, who will be there to pick up Corine? Who will support Philip? Or Aulion and Evander? Who will stand by them when power, position, money, and greed are not at stake?

I nod. “I'm going back to the front. Don't forget the safe spots.” Before the march, everyone was briefed on where to stop and rest or hide if they needed to regroup or escape.
Safety matters
, Bear told everyone.
We are worth more to the cause when we are alive and strong. So stay alive, stay strong.

Reika gives me a mock salute. “Yes, sir! Tell Bear we're right behind him.”

With one last look down the line at Reika's group, I cut away from the march and into an alley, running ahead to get back to the front. As I run, I feel the adrenaline course through me, focusing my mind. I think of the chemicals flooding through my body and imagine them as swirling colors: crimson, like the cloth wrapped around my hand, azure like the arcs of electricity from my Bolt, and pure white, like the rage that blinds me when I think of everything that has led us here.

When I reach the front of the march, my heart drops. Eli's arms are pinned behind him by two Watchers, and Bear is on the ground with another Watcher standing over him and pointing a Bolt at his head.

“No!” The word is out of my mouth before I realize it. The Watcher looks up, and I see a flash of electricity travel its short distance. Bear spasms and lies still.

And that's all it takes. The marchers swarm the scene. A giant of a man with ragged scars on his hand slams a fist into the side of one of the Watcher's heads, then quickly frees Eli from the other one, bending the Watcher's arms up at impossible angles, all the while smiling down at the officer.

“Sir, we don't aim to hurt no one,” the giant says, “but if you're figurin' on causin' pain to my friends, I will break your arms first and then twist your head plum off its stem.”

A red-headed woman, with arms nearly as thick as the giant's, plucks the Bolt from the Watcher standing over Bear as two others bend over him. “You should be ashamed of yourself shooting a Farm worker! This nation was built on our backs, and this is how you repay us? We walk peaceably, and you shoot us in the street?”

I push through and press my fingers to Bear's neck. I look up to see Eli standing over me. “He's got a pulse,” I say with relief. “Can someone carry him?” Another worker steps forward and scoops Bear into his arms as if he's no heavier than a child.

Eli turns to the crowd and motions at the two Watchers. “Let's take our new friends with us.”

I pick up Bear's speaker and put it to my lips. “March on.” We have less than two kilometers until we reach our ultimate destination: the Sector Sunflower monument at the steps of Assembly Hall.

When the shadows of more SDF airships cast darkness on the streets, the energy of the march shifts. As the airships approach, several open their bay doors, and soldiers attached to magnetic lines drop from the hulls. They land on all sides. They group into squadrons and form blockades, preventing us from dispersing onto side streets. The fear builds. Instead of marching of our own volition down Rue Jubilation, now I feel hemmed in, herded, claustrophobic. But still we walk. One of the other workers has taken the megaphone and is leading the chants. Beside me, still cradled in the big man's arms, I see Bear stir, his eyes fluttering open.

He shakes his head and the worker stops and sets him down, steadying him.

“You okay?” I look into Bear's eyes. “You got a nasty shock.”

He shakes his head as if trying to clear it of cobwebs and turns to focus on me. “
Oui
. I'm fine.” He looks up at the man holding him. “
Merci
, Leif.”

“If you're okay, I'm going to keep marching,” Leif says. “I want to be at the very front when we stop.”

“I'm fine now.”

“My honor, Miss Remy and Mister Bear,” Leif says, nodding in respect, then striding off to rejoin his friends.

I look up as Bear stretches and shakes life back into his limbs. The airships are nearly one hundred meters away now, and in less than a minute they'll be right above us. I hear shouting in the distance and a flash of blue. Not good. Are they attacking?

“Bear, we have to get back to the front. The SDF is here. Evander's airships could be deployed at any minute.”

He winces as if bracing himself against an invisible attack. Then he shakes it off and nods. “Let's go.”

We jog along the edge of the march until we catch up with Eli. “Let me show you something.” He motions us forward. At the very front of the line, marchers have unfurled a banner, seemingly stitched together from canvas grain bags. As it flaps in the wind, I read the words painted across it:

We Are Citizens, Not Slaves

Rise Up For The Revolution

Eli's face glows with crazy energy. And then I notice what's different, and my eyes grow wide. He's wiped his makeup off in smudges.

“I was getting sweaty,” he says with a shrug. “Guess they gotta deal with the real me now.”

“It's not going to be long before the drones recognize you.”

“Let's not delay the inevitable.” He slings two extra Bolts he's found, presumably from some of the Watchmen, behind his back and holsters two more. Looking up into the sky at the drones and the looming airships, he looks like someone about to jump off a cliff. I know Eli doesn't want to die today any more than I do. But we both know that today is our chance, our moment. And Eli is ready to give everything he's got. “These drones are annoying as hell,” he says. In a move that looks as natural as his crooked, easygoing smile, he sets his Bolts to DISPERSE and, using one after the other, sends waves of electricity humming through the air. Drones spin out of control, list sideways, or drop to the ground. Bear and I join him, shooting as many as we can.

The sun has risen to a full morning glow, bathing the streets in light. Everything is surreal. The sky is too blue. The leaves are too green. The flowers too vivid. The air is soft, warm, but with a cool, comforting breeze. Perfect. Surely nothing bad can happen on such an exquisite day.

And then I see Evander's dragons appear ahead of us like black storm clouds, casting huge shadows on the streets. The sight of these beasts enrages the marchers and the chants grow to a fever pitch, voices raised in fury and fear. These workers know what fire means. They saw fire. They saw how it melts flesh. How it burns and crackles.

Surely
, I tell myself,
this is an empty threat. Surely they won't rain fire on us.

I raise my left hand and Eli does the same. I turn and see crimson-wrapped fists rising above the crowd. “March on!” I shout, and the order echoes down the line. We're only blocks from where the road circles around before the steps of Assembly Hall, cradling the Sector Sunflower, a maze of trellised vines and hanging flowers leading to a central fountain.

While the dragons hang in the air above Assembly Hall, other smaller airships approach from the left and right. I look at Bear and Eli, wondering what will happen next. And then I know. A shower of tear gas shoots out from the bottoms of the airships, clouds of choking, blinding smoke drifting to the ground. Almost in a single movement, the marchers pull the scarves they've been wearing around their necks up over their faces. A few stumble, but they march on.

I grab Bear's hand and shout to Eli. “Sunflower!”

If Snake has done his job, all Bear and I have to do is shoot a few targeted Bolt blasts and the flames will spread through the maze, igniting the whole thing.

We saw fire at Round Barn. We know fire. But the only way to control what scares you is to embrace it. So today we will know fire once again.

24 - VALE

Summer 5,
Sector Annum
106, 5h55

Gregorian Calendar: June 25

“What time is it?” I whisper, as quietly as I can, for at least the fourth time.

“Five hours fifty-five minutes,” Demeter says patiently. The sky outside my window is already a brilliant blue, promising a cloudless day.

I've been awake for at least three hours. I slept fitfully, still in my clothes from the day, knowing that Remy wouldn't get a chance to sleep, that my teammates don't have the luxury of feather pillows and down comforters, knowing that today could be our only chance to destroy the empire my parents have built. I try not to get too impatient, wondering when I will be woken by the guards, or by my parents. Will they believe my plea from last night, hear that all I want is a compromise, a reconciliation? Will they ask me calmly what I know about the revolution at their doorstep? Or will they drag me out of bed, throw me in a cell, and lock me in with Aulion until I tell them everything I know?

“What's happening?” I ask Demeter.

“The march is gaining steam. Defense Forces are gathering on the edges of the crowds, and the chancellor's airship has arrived at Assembly Hall.”

I might be locked in my room, but Demeter can tell me everything that's happening. By monitoring the Sector navigation system, she can see every Watchman's steps, every hovercar's movement, every airship in the sky. By tapping into the security feed, she can see through the eyes of every camera drone in the city.

I hear boots pounding outside.
Is it time?
The door is thrown open, and a bright light from the hall illuminates my room. I sit up in an instant and throw an arm over my face, shielding my eyes from the light. But I have no way to defend myself when a strong pair of hands forcibly turns me onto my stomach and shoves my face into the pillow. There is pressure against the back of my head and for a moment I panic—
are they trying to kill me
? I start to fight back, kicking out against my attacker, and then feel cold metal against my wrists. Handcuffs. The pressure lets off my head, and I am pulled out of bed and down the hall, a pair of hands on each elbow. I might have slept fully dressed, but I took my boots off. I am hyperconscious of my bare feet against the floor as they half carry me down the hall.

I guess they went with the drag-me-out-of-bed option.

I don't bother to resist, choosing instead to stumble along with them as they rush me down the stairs and out the back door to where there's a small airship landing pad. This is okay, I remind myself.
This is good. This is all part of the plan
. There are two more soldiers waiting there. They watch as the first two—I realize now they're black ops, not SDF—load me onto the waiting airship and push me into one of the seats. One of them throws my boots at me, as if I can put them on with my hands pinned behind my back, and the second pair loads up behind us. All four of them remain at my side as the ship lifts into the air. The destination must have been pre-programmed, because no one so much as touches a control panel, and the airship starts gliding without direction.

Where are we going?
I want to ask.

“Destination programmed for Assembly Hall,” Demeter says on cue.

I wonder where Moriana is, if she, too, has been dragged from her bed, handcuffed, and loaded onto an airship. Or is she sleeping peacefully, undisturbed by this morning's events? Demeter is silent, and I can only assume she knows nothing.

It doesn't take long to get there. It's not even a ten-minute flight from the chancellor's mansion to the capitol complex. My mind is racing so fast I can't keep track of my thoughts. I remember the meditation exercises Remy and I did a few nights ago, and I tell myself:
breathe
.

But my head is spinning, too full, too chaotic. Instead of clearing my mind, emptying myself, I focus on channeling my thoughts into what must happen next.

As if anticipating my questions, Demeter whispers, “Everyone's okay.” For now.

The airship lands on the rooftop docking bay at Assembly Hall, the same place I began and ended my days when I was Lieutenant Orleán, Director of the Seed Bank Protection Project. I want to erase that part of my history, to take some of Remy's charcoal and black it all out, paint over it with vibrant new colors that tell a different story. But I can't change who I was then. I can't change what I did. All I can do is fight the battle in front of me today.

As soon as we've landed, the soldiers lift me to my feet. The bay door slides open and they drag me off the ship. I keep my feet under me as they race ahead, toward an elevator, where one of them puts his eye to a retinal scanner and keys in the code to the top-security basement level. The elevator drops with a
whoosh
, but judging by the hollow pit in my gut, I'm guessing my stomach opted to stay on the roof.

The elevator door opens. The soldiers pull me between them down a windowless hall. I know now where we're heading: the Security Center. I've only been in there twice in my life. There's a giant vidscreen in a half-circle on the wall that allows officials to view live or recorded footage from every single camera drone in the Sector. Built for crisis moments, national emergencies, or even war from beyond our boundaries, the C-Link database was partially designed to navigate and control all the drones in the system. Algorithms were created to enable the C-Links' personalities to filter video data, displaying only the most important footage from well-placed drones to those watching.

General Aulion, flanked by four soldiers, is waiting outside.

“Stand down,” he orders the soldiers behind me. They release their grip. One of them pushes me forward, and I find myself face to face with Aulion.

I wish I still had that fire extinguisher.

“Search him,” he orders. “More thoroughly than those fools last night. I want to know how he's helping those damn rebels outside.”

As the two soldiers step forward and take off my handcuffs, the outer door to the Security Center slides open. I recognize the stony-faced servant who attended me during the weeks when I was a prisoner at the chancellor's estate, the same servant who brought me Remy's message encoded in
Les Mis
é
rables
, and who handed me the teacup that contained Demeter's new incarnation.
Soo-Sun
. Our eyes meet as the door closes behind her. She stands for just a second, watching me. I notice she has an empty platter in her hands.
The peyote. Did she give Corine the tea?

I dare not acknowledge her as the soldiers pull off my jacket. “Hands over your head,” one of them commands. Soo-Sun turns away, walks down the hall, stands with her back to the wall attentively like a servant awaiting a command. I comply, and one of the soldiers pulls my shirt off. He spins me around, pushes my hands into the wall so my limbs are exposed. The other guard produces a long, thin instrument I recognize as a subcutaneous scanner. She rubs it up and down my whole body, searching for implants, weapons, or devices. When nothing beeps, they push my hands back to my side and turn me roughly around to face the general.

What's this?” Aulion asks, stepping forward, noticing the acorn at my neck. He reaches his gloved hand to my throat. My heart pounds. With more finesse than I would have believed possible, he puts his fingers under the fine gold chain around my neck. He pulls it up and away from my chest, letting the pendant rest against his fingertips. “An acorn?” Aulion stares at it. His voice is so quiet I can see the soldiers behind him lean forward ever so slightly, straining to hear. “I've seen this before.” His eyes harden, and for a moment it looks as though he's disappearing, gone, remembering something from a different world. Then he snaps back, his stony grey eyes zeroing in on me. “On the neck of a dead Outsider.”

His hand clenches around the pendant, and he jerks the chain. A mild sting at the nape of my neck, and the pendant comes free, swinging loosely in his hands.

I take a deep breath.
It's okay
, I remind myself.
You don't need the pendant for this to work.

“There's an Outsider out there,” I jerk my head to indicate where the march is happening, ignoring his question, “with plans to put a knife in your heart.” I pause, cock my head to the side, as if thinking. “Soren Skaarsgard is with her. Personally, I'm betting you won't make it through this day alive.”

He narrows his eyes.

“Soren Skaarsgard is going to die today,” he rasps, his hot breath on my face. “Along with his Outsider friend. As for you, I have no doubt your parents will find some way to exonerate you, to spare you once again. But rest assured, Valerian, the moment you and I are alone, when this whole thing is over, I'll slit your throat, and your pathetic story will finally come to an end.”

He drops the pendant in the pocket of his military jacket and, finally, takes a step back. Soo-Sun, I notice, is watching this whole encounter, though her expression is still as stoic as a statue's. Aulion's eyes never leave mine.

“Anything else?” he barks.

“Nothing detected, sir,” the soldier with the scanner replies.

Aulion nods. He turns to the door to the Security Center behind us, and holds his hand out to the DNA scanner. As the needle descends to prick his skin and confirm his DNA, I watch out of the corner of my eye as Soo-Sun turns away from us and walks down the hall, back to the elevator that leads to the rest of the building.

She knows Aulion has the pendant.

Before we walk in, the guards pull my hands behind me and slap the cuffs back on. The outer door opens, and I am flanked by four soldiers as I follow Aulion into the Security Center. Inside is a second identity check, and here Aulion presses his eye to a retinal scanner that emerges from the wall. A few seconds later the inner door slides open, and I walk in to see the enormous curved vidscreen lit up by dozens of separate video feeds, some small and tucked into the corners, cycling through different angles and images, others blown up into larger-than-life size and spread front and center across the screen.

“Laika, show us what's going on in the city's east quadrant.” I recognize both my father's voice and the name of his C-Link, and sure enough, the videos quickly change, bringing up feeds from the team of marchers coming in over the Bridge of Remembrance. Have they identified any of my teammates? Demeter hasn't updated me, so I assume for now, everyone is safe and no one has been targeted.

As I walk into the room behind Aulion, my wrists bound behind my back, shoeless and shirtless, clearly a prisoner, the first thing I notice is Moriana.

She's standing at my mother's side with a shiny, new holographic plasma in her hands and her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. She is not handcuffed. She is wearing shoes. She hardly looks like she was dragged from her bed by two large soldiers and searched with a body scanner before being allowed into the Security Center. She glances up at me as I stare at her, the muscles in my jaw tensing, my worst fears confirmed. She doesn't even acknowledge me, glancing back down at the plasma as if I am no more to her than a speck on the wall.

I never should have believed you.

“The cameras in here are linked to the firewalled C-Link database,” Demeter says. “I can't access them. I'll be relying on aural input only.”

“Vale,” my mother's voice rings out, sharp and commanding. “Good. You're here.” I force myself to turn away from Moriana. I glance around the room to see who was called when the security briefings came in and the full extent of the protest became clear. There are several members of the Board of Directors, every member of the OAC Corporate Assembly's Security Committee, and two of my father's advisors. Everyone in the room is wearing light military clothing, designed for movement, not for glamour. No one is here this morning to look pretty. Everyone is prepared for action.

Corine has a saucer in her hands, and she takes a sip of the liquid in her teacup as she surveys me from across the room. I stare at the teacup, hoping against hope Soo-Sun did her job. Corine takes another sip and then sets the saucer down on a nearby table. She marches over to me, and heads turn as the whole room waits to see what will happen.

“Tell us everything you know about the march.”

“I don't know—”

“I am tired of being lied to!” she shouts. “I am tired of trying to save you, to redeem you, to bring you back to the security of the world we built for you. You fought for the Resistance. You shot Sector soldiers—our soldiers—for them. You have worked against everything we once fought for together. You have lost your way, and I am tired of picking you up and putting you back on the right path. Now, I only want the truth. Tell me what they're planning, Vale, and maybe one day, when all of this is over, our paths will reunite again.”

I gape at her. It's the most forthright she's been in front of me—in front of anyone, I'd wager—in years. When I was a child, she would have storms of rage where she would shout, throw things across the room, punch the walls with a violent energy I didn't recognize and didn't know how to contain. Only on very rare occasions—maybe three times before I was fifteen—did she do this in front of me. Most of the time she was wise enough to cordon herself off in a different part of our house, or walk outside to a secluded spot in a park. But I could still hear her, sometimes, through the walls or windows. Later, I realized that as twisted as it was, I actually enjoyed seeing her in those moments—she was normally so polished, so presentable, that her fits of anger seemed like the only times I ever got to see who she really was.