Children of the Underground (6 page)

The man behind me got one wild shot off before I heard the thump as his body hit the back window. The window didn't break but the whole car shook when his body hit. I tried not to think about how badly he might be hurt. I looked in front of me. The other man was running toward the car now. He had the gun in his right hand. I looked down at the transmission again and put it into drive. I slammed on the gas for a second time. I aimed the car right for him. He lifted his gun and aimed it at me. I could almost feel the spot where the bullet would have hit if he'd fired. It burned my skin. He didn't shoot. At the last second, right before I hit him, the man tried to dive out of the way. By jumping, he kept me from hitting him dead-on. I only clipped him. Some part of his body ricocheted off the front corner of the windshield and his body careened off to the side. I pulled the car back onto the road. I checked the rearview mirror one more time. The driver of the jeep, the one I'd backed into, was on the ground—moving but not getting up. The other man was lying there, as still as a corpse.

I hit the gas. My foot was still pushed all the way to the floor when I heard a clicking from the backseat again. I'd almost forgotten that Michael was hiding there. “Slow down,” he said, popping his head out. “You don't want to draw attention to yourself.” With that, I felt all the muscles in my body relax. I eased my foot off the gas until we were moving at a normal speed.

“Where exactly are we going?” I asked.

“The Grand Case Airport,” Michael said. “I have friends who can get us on a plane to Miami.” I didn't want to go back to the Grand Case Airport. I didn't want to see the water where we'd dumped those bodies. But if it meant getting off the island, I was willing.

“Okay,” I said, steering the car around another winding turn in the road. My hands were still trembling.

“You all right?” Michael asked, still dangling there, half in the trunk, half in the backseat. I had seen a lot of things since your father and I started running, but up until that point, I had never hurt anyone. I didn't answer Michael's question. He knew better than to ask it again.

Eight

The hum of the airplane's engine outside my window was strangely soothing, almost loud enough to drown out the voices in my head. “Are you okay?” I heard Michael ask over the din of the engine. I opened my eyes. We were flying above some low-lying clouds. They were soft and white and looked surreal and perfect. Through the breaks in the clouds I could look down at the water. For miles in every direction, all I could see was blue water.

I looked over at Michael. He was sitting in a seat on the other side of the thin aisle from me. If I reached out my hand, I could touch him. “I'm fine,” I said, with no force behind the words.

“You're mad at me,” Michael said.

I could feel tears rushing into my eyes, but I was determined to hold them back. “You used me,” I said, sure now that Michael's plan all along was to use me as cover for his escape.

“Sure,” Michael replied. “I used you to get off the island, and you're using me to take you to people who might be able to help you.”

I could barely believe he was comparing the two. “I was honest with you. I asked for your help. And I didn't make you hurt anyone.” I looked away, staring at the wall in front of me, caught between looking at Michael and staring out the window at the reminder of my own insignificance.

Michael laughed. “Is that what this is about? It's about those thugs you hit with the car. You didn't seem to mind too much when I took care of the guy pointing the gun at you the other night.” I didn't want to respond. The more we spoke, the angrier I got.

“Let's drop it,” I said.

“Listen, Maria,” Michael said. His voice had the same inflections as your father's. I could hear their shared youths in Michael's voice. “If you really want to get your son back, you have to be ready to fight. Nobody's going to hand your kid back to you. You can't rely on anybody else to do your dirty work.” He was right. I have to become colder.

“I'm just not used to it,” I said. “I've never hurt anyone before.”

“Well, you'll get used to it. You'll be surprised how easy it is to get used to.”

“Do you think they died?” I asked.

“I don't think about it at all,” Michael answered. Then there was silence. The only sound was the sound of the airplane's engine. I wanted Michael to reach out and grab my hand and tell me that everything was going to be okay. I stared out the window again. The plane was too small for Michael and me to escape each other, even if we wanted to. I heard movement and looked over to see Michael leaning down, unzipping his duffel bag. “I think I have something of yours,” he said, reaching into his duffel bag and pulling out your father's journal. He'd promised to return the journal. He kept his promise.

“Did you read it?” I asked. If he read it, I thought he'd have to help me. If he knew how much your father loved you, he'd have to love you too.

“Yeah.”

“What did you think?” I asked, expecting no more than a full conversion.

“I think you're a little minx,” he said through a slightly crooked smile.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. When I realized, I could feel the warmth run to my cheeks. “You mean the sex?” I asked.

Michael merely smirked at me.

“It wasn't like that,” I told him. “It wasn't like Joe wrote it. It wasn't like a cheesy romance novel.” I looked over at Michael. For the first time since I'd met him, Michael was acting like the Michael from your father's stories. “Joe must have been trying to impress me with what he wrote. Or maybe he was afraid that I'd be insulted if he wrote the truth.”

“What was the truth?”

I thought back to that first weekend I spent with your father, the weekend that we made you. I decided I would tell Michael this one thing. “It was beautiful. It just wasn't like Joe wrote it. It was clumsier and more tender. And scarier. It was so much scarier. And more special,” I finished, nodding. “So much more special.”

“Well, thanks for ruining that for me,” Michael replied with a smile. I could feel some of the tension break.

“What about the rest of what Joe wrote?”

“You want to know what I thought?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I was glad that Joe never gave up fighting, that he just found something different to fight for. It hurt when he ran off. I didn't understand it.”

“Do you understand it now?” I asked. I wanted him to say yes. I wanted him to sing it.

“No,” Michael answered, shaking his head. “I still don't understand why he ran. I'm just glad that he kept on fighting.” Michael is so different from your father.

I looked down at my hands. “It takes a baby's eyes a few months to develop,” I blurted out. “Until they're into their third month, they can't really recognize people—not by sight anyway.” I looked up at Michael with pleading eyes. “So Christopher has no idea what I look like. If I'm lucky, he may remember my voice, but he won't know why he remembers it.” I started to cry. “He'll be a year old in a few months. When babies are a year old, they start to fear strangers. That means that when I meet my son again, he's going to be afraid of me.” Then he did it. Michael reached out and put his hand on top of mine, but he didn't tell me that everything was going to be okay. He didn't say a word.

Nine

I studied the postcards, trying to figure out what they might mean, as Michael drove. I read the one with the picture of the White House on it:

Michael, don't be afraid. We can protect you.

Don't doubt the rust,

Don't doubt the fall,

Don't doubt the clock

That is ticking on the wall.

On the fifth day, freedom can be found in Malcolm's park.

None of the postcards are signed. Each one seems more cryptic than the next. I flipped over the one with the picture of the Lincoln Memorial:

Michael, you don't have to be alone.

Five is a lot,

Three is not many,

One is too little,

Four is just plenty.

On the third day, freedom can be found on Einstein's lap.

We rented a car when we landed in Miami. All of the postcards are from Washington, D.C., so that's where we're headed. We plan on stopping for the night in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to give us more time to try to decipher the postcards' riddles and to get some rest.

I asked Michael what he thought the postcards meant. He said that he had no idea. I asked him how he knew it wasn't a trap. “I don't,” he answered. “You can never
know
that it's not a trap. Sometimes you roll the dice and you take your chances.” He kept his eyes on the road in front of him.

Then I asked him what he knew about the Underground.

“
Know
is a tricky word. I've heard rumors. I don't know what's true. Like I said, until I started getting these postcards, I thought it was a myth. What I've heard is that they're just the disaffected, the nonbelievers. Since they don't believe, they try to help other people who don't believe either.”

“Don't believe in the War, you mean?”

“Yeah.” Michael nodded. “Well, they believe it exists.” Michael smiled. “They just don't believe it's worth fighting.”

“Have you ever heard of them reaching out to someone before?”

“No,” Michael said. “But I know a lot of people who died in the War and I've seen only so many bodies, if you know what I mean.”

“So you think that some of the people you were told were killed might have run to the Underground?” Is that what he had hoped had happened to your father? Had I killed his hope by telling him what actually happened?

“No,” Michael answered. “All I'm saying is that if I don't see a body, I suppose anything is possible.”

The drive from Miami to Fayetteville is supposed to take us about twelve hours. Hopefully by then, I'll have figured out what some of the writing on these postcards means.

Ten

Addy took out her phone again. Evan was lying in the sand next to her, sound asleep. She looked down at his face and at the stubble on his chin. She liked how the stubble looked, even with the eighteen-year-old's empty patches along his jawline. In front of her, the sunlight glistened over the calm, seemingly endless ocean. Addy could hardly believe how serene the ocean looked. After everything that happened over the past two days, she half expected the sea to be boiling over. Addy and Evan had made it all the way up to Santa Barbara. They snuck out of their hiding place before dawn and hitched a ride up Route 1 out of Los Angeles. Addy made Evan hide in the shadows along the side of the highway while she flagged down a ride. He jumped out only after a car had pulled over. Their plan—Addy's plan—was to take the ride as far as the driver would let them go. That got them as far north as Santa Barbara. It was far enough for now. For the moment, Addy felt safe from the fire and the smoke and the men with guns.

Addy had known enough to keep her phone, her money, and her identification on her before the fire. She'd had enough experience being forced to stand up and run without having time to gather her things that she learned to always keep everything within reach at all times. Sleeping with empty pockets or without her hand curled around the strap of a duffel bag were luxuries Addy had nearly forgotten. Evan had never learned those lessons. He grew up innocent, free from the running and the paranoia. Unlike Addy, when Addy and Evan ran from the burning house, Evan left everything behind. Addy prayed that Evan's cell phone and ID melted into the ground as the house burned down. Addy hoped that Evan could still have what she knew she would never have: the chance to disappear into the world without having to be afraid of every stranger he walked near for the rest of his life. His only chance was to remain anonymous. If they found his wallet, that chance was lost. He would be a marked man, just like the rest of them.

Sitting on the beach, Addy checked her e-mail on her phone. She'd checked it a few times already during the car ride up to Santa Barbara. When Evan found out that Addy still had her phone, he could barely contain his excitement. He saw the phone and assumed that Addy could simply call for help. The phone, Evan thought, would be their savoir. What Addy knew that Evan didn't understand was that it doesn't help to be connected to a world you don't belong to. People in Addy's world didn't give each other their phone numbers. They didn't text each other about how their days were going. It was too dangerous. Everything was monitored. Everything was tapped. Addy knew that her phone would not be their savoir. It was only a tool. They would have to save themselves.

Addy looked down at her phone. She still didn't have any messages. She didn't expect to. Addy was almost certain that everyone in the world who knew how to contact her had died in the raid. She didn't know how to contact anyone that she knew was still alive either. She kept checking her e-mail anyway, hoping for a miracle. Since her e-mail was still empty and Evan still asleep, Addy took the opportunity to see if she could find any clues about what had happened the night before in Los Angeles. She didn't want to look while Evan was awake. She wanted to see if she could find anything first. She was used to scanning the news for coded language about the War. She was good at deciphering the misinformation and the cover-ups. It was like a cipher. What Addy expected to find was a story buried deep beneath the headlines about an electrical fire in a small house in central L.A. or a freak accident at a meth lab. The information she'd found before had always been buried. She always had to dig. She didn't think this story would be different. She never expected to see Evan's picture on the top of every Web site she went to looking for news.

She read. The headlines were all a derivation of the same thing:
TERRORIST GROUPS RAIDED
or
DEADLY TERRORIST GROUP STING.
Addy's worst fears were confirmed. Their house wasn't the only one that had been raided. Three separate SWAT team raids had taken place across Los Angeles. The raids were coordinated. At least twenty-eight people were killed. It didn't mention how many were taken into custody. Addy felt sick. The queasiness in her stomach grew with each word. It wasn't the facts—the three raids, that it was an actual SWAT team, even the twenty-eight dead—that frightened Addy the most. What scared her the most was the simple fact that the story was everywhere in big, bold letters. It wasn't supposed to be like this. The War wasn't supposed to be out in the open like this. Nothing was hidden. Nothing had been covered up. Either the raids had nothing to do with the War—and Addy knew that wasn't possible—or someone wasn't playing fair anymore. Addy kept clicking from one site to the next, scrolling through stories more quickly than she could actually read the words. It wasn't possible that all of the law enforcement officers involved in the raid were part of the War—too many had taken part. They were genuine LAPD working in conjunction with the FBI. The fucking FBI. Addy read the description of the raid. The words were almost identical on each site. The quotes had come down from somewhere. The raids were described as “coordinated attacks on the compounds of a growing, dangerous domestic terrorist organization.” The stories differed on motive. Some said it was unclear. Some hypothesized that the terrorists were anarchists. They all echoed the fact that authorities had reason to believe that the terrorists were planning additional attacks on American soil. Some of the stories included pictures of the dead. Addy knew many of them. She saw Dutty's picture and Soledad's. Addy might have taken a moment to mourn if she believed that she had any time to be sad.

Addy recognized other pictures too. She recognized the picture of the single fallen hero of the stories, the cop that Evan killed. She recognized him because she'd stared into his face over the barrel of a gun right before his life was taken from him. He was the authorities' only casualty. Twenty-eight deaths to one. Addy wondered if anyone else would question those numbers. Every time a site had a picture of the fallen officer, it had a picture of Evan too. The picture was a couple of years old, probably from Evan's driver's license. They must have found it on the floor of the burning house. The articles included Evan's real, full name. The articles branded him. He didn't need to have been born into the War. Now he was a terrorist and a cop killer. Sending Evan home to his parents and the peace and quiet of the small town he grew up in was no longer an option. In only a few short days, Evan had gone from an innocent eighteen-year-old boy to the most wanted man in the country.

Addy tried to think of what to do. She would have been able to clean Evan all by herself if Evan was still anonymous, but he was more than not anonymous now. He was infamous. She looked around them at the surrounding beach. The sun was rising higher in the sky. The air was warming up. People were beginning to make their way to the beach. Addy felt the eyes on her. She knew that someone might recognize Evan. His picture was everywhere. Addy needed help. She needed serious help. The Underground. Addy would have to go back to the Underground, if anybody was left. She worried that the Underground might have been raided into oblivion too. She wondered if the raids were bigger than just Los Angeles, but circumstance simply made Los Angeles dominate the news. She had no way of knowing. It was a new game now, and Addy no longer knew the rules.

Before turning off her phone, Addy checked her e-mail one last time. This time, she had a message. It was from an e-mail address that she didn't recognize. The e-mail itself didn't contain any words. It simply had a link to a Web site with a thirty-character URL made up entirely of gibberish. Addy hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was some sort of trap—if they'd be able to trace her if she clicked the link. In the end, she was too curious, too thirsty for information not to take the risk. A new page opened. The new page had a bright yellow background and dark green font. Addy recognized the colors. They were the colors of the revolution. Only eight words appeared on the entire page. Someone must have sent this message out to everyone who may or may not have escaped the raids. Someone had Addy's e-mail address. The message read simply,

THE REVOLUTION IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION . . .

Addy didn't know what the message meant. Maybe it was simply meant to let everyone know that people were still out there. If it had a greater meaning, it was lost on Addy. She didn't need a greater meaning. It was enough for Addy to know that she and Evan weren't alone.

The crowds began to pour onto the beach. It was only a matter of time before someone recognized Evan. Addy reached down and shook Evan awake. His eyes opened.

“You ready?” Addy asked. She didn't wait for an answer. She didn't even know why she bothered asking the question. Whether Evan was ready or not was no longer relevant. “Let's go,” she said.

Addy didn't tell Evan what she'd learned. Not yet. She made him keep his face hidden as they walked, but she didn't tell him why. She was afraid of how he'd react. She was already dealing with enough unknowns. For now, Addy simply wanted to get the two of them moving again. The revolution is dead. Long live the revolution. Someone was out there still sending messages. Addy just had to figure out how to stay alive and keep Evan alive long enough to find them.

“Where are we going?” Evan asked.

“Have you ever heard of the Underground?” Addy answered.