Justice (14 page)

Mr Fence came up behind her, cutting her line of thought short.

‘Okay, soldiers, we have an assignment. Directs, you are to change into uniforms immediately and meet us at bay three. Cadets, follow me. We’re embarking on perhaps the most dangerous journey of your lives; there’s no getting around it. And it would be prudent to give you more time to train for this, but maniacs wait for no one. We need to stop Beatrice Freeman before she destroys this world as we know it.’ He turned his bright eyes on M. ‘I trust that won’t be a problem for you, Freeman.’

‘No, sir,’ M responded. She had a lot of problems to deal with, but if she were being honest, hunting down her mother was something she looked forward to. ‘It isn’t a problem at all.’

CHAPTER 15

FOLLOWING ORDERS

M followed Mr Fence through a series of winding tunnels and up an elevator to what was presumably bay three, another glass dome canopy bubbling up from the iced earth. The sight of rows of jets made M’s stomach lurch with a nervousness she hadn’t expected. Jets had come to represent a bridge to her, always leading her to another level of life, each more difficult than the last. Just once, she wished she were boarding a plane to return to somewhere familiar or someone happily expecting her.

‘It’s gonna be okay, M,’ comforted Merlyn. ‘I’m sure these jets are the safest in the world.’

‘It’s not the jet,’ she said. ‘It’s everything on the other side of the jet that scares me. Let’s get this over with.’

M climbed into the black plane to find a slender, windowless tube with seats bolted to the walls like benches, and seat belts dangling limply from the ceiling. She slid down and took the last space on the right, latching her buckles into place for safety’s sake, but also to keep her from
escaping before lift-off. The lack of windows was a blessing, since the last plane window M gazed out of had given her a bird’s-eye view of destruction on a scale she had never imagined.

The directs loaded in shortly after, dressed in their uniforms and quickly taking their seats. Keyshawn, whose Fulbright suit looked brand-new, sat opposite M. His knees would not stop bouncing and he stared beyond her as if he were trying to bore a hole into the side of the plane. Ben looked relaxed, as did Devon, both leaning back with their eyes closed. Vivian, though, displayed a wide smile and a spark in her eyes that M could read from across the cabin. This was the action she had been waiting for. She’d shown the same eagerness in the Maze and now her knee brace couldn’t stop bouncing up and down, too.

‘All go!’ announced Mr Fence, who lowered himself into the copilot’s seat in the front of the plane after giving a smile and a wink to Cal, who sat nearest him.
How strange
it must be for them
, thought M. Here was a father so excited to take his son on their first adventure together, but Cal sat as lifeless as a statue carved from a chunk of limestone rock. The contrast was shocking, how different the smooth-cornered statue of Cal was from the sharp-edged slab of his father. It was hard to believe they were made out of the same substance.

Merlyn and Jules kept their eyes on M, looking for signs of a freak-out, but she did a good job keeping it together. The jet had become the last thing on her mind. Mysteries were piling up around her faster than she could count.
How do you eat an elephant?
her father used to ask her
teasingly.
One bite at a time
. Maybe he’d been trying to tell her something.

Rockets from underneath propelled the jet straight upward like a helicopter, but faster, and the sudden movement pressed M down against her seat. Once the jet was airborne and gliding forward, the ride was no smoother. Gusts of wind rocked the cabin in pockets of turbulence, nudging the passengers to remind them who or what was in charge. M gripped her harness and leaned forward.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked Keyshawn.

‘Don’t know,’ he said blankly.

‘You all right?’ she pressed.

‘Don’t know,’ he answered.

‘Well, everybody has to know something, Keyshawn,’ said M. ‘What
do
you know?’

‘We’re following orders,’ said Keyshawn. ‘That’s all I know.’ He slipped out of his thousand-yard stare and met M’s gaze. She saw fear in his eyes. But fear of what?

‘Okay, so what are our orders, then?’ she asked. ‘Besides finding my mom.’

‘Don’t know,’ said Keyshawn, like a sound bite stuck on repeat.

‘How does Doe know where my mom’s going?’ she asked.

‘I presume she revealed something during interrogation,’ he answered, exasperated. ‘Look, I’m being honest with you: I don’t know much of what’s going on. I don’t know where we’re going or what we’re after, but I know it’s a major prize.’

‘What do you mean,
major prize
?’ asked M.

‘I mean that your mother won’t be the only person searching for it,’ Keyshawn said with certainty. ‘There’s been
chatter on the wires. Others are close to finding whatever it is, and we need to keep that from happening.’

The rock
, thought M. What else could it be? She had wished for a light at the end of this darkening tunnel and maybe she’d stumbled onto her wish. Could she really be on her way to kill two birds with one stone? Find her mother, find the rock, and stop Ms Watts
and
the Fulbrights from endangering the world.

‘I think I know what we’re going after,’ said M.

Glancing around, Keyshawn made sure the others weren’t paying attention to their conversation. He leaned closer to M and whispered, ‘No matter what you think you know, keep it to yourself for now. Your mother’s escape … it was an inside job. I mean, come on, the timing didn’t seem suspicious to you? Conveniently all your directs are absent, the halls are emptied of cadets, and the Fulbright soldiers don’t get their man? No way. You were set up.
We
were set up. But I bet you weren’t supposed to get that close to her. I bet you weren’t supposed to almost get away.’

M listened as the plane rushed through the unseen sky to their unknown destination. Could he be right? Could it be that she was conned by Doe, led directly to her mother’s staged escape, and given just enough rope to trap herself with?

Of course, she never would have attempted it if Merlyn hadn’t cracked Keyshawn’s coding …

‘You were lying,’ she said. ‘You knew all along that Merlyn hacked the suits, didn’t you?’

‘Just following orders,’ admitted Keyshawn. ‘Why else would I give him so much free time away from oversight?
And the Maze match, that was my idea. I needed to give him time with all of you away from your directs. He did a great patch job, for what it’s worth. I didn’t make it
too
easy for him.’

‘You used us,’ M whispered harshly.

‘We’re all using one another, M,’ said Keyshawn. ‘The sooner you get that through your head, the sooner you’ll appreciate the magnitude of this situation.’

‘Big words coming from someone who doesn’t even belong here,’ she answered. They locked in a death stare. ‘I’ve seen your file. You’re not one of us and you’re not one of them. So what is John Doe holding over you to make you do his bidding?’

‘More than you’ll ever know,’ he said as the corners of his lips turned down. M saw clearly that an awful truth was hidden behind his eyes. It was something he wasn’t ready to admit, or didn’t know how to admit, and it meant the end of the discussion for now. Keyshawn kicked against her bench and pushed himself as far away from her as possible.

Fine
, M thought. She leaned back and felt her eyelids grow heavy. It was, after all, nighttime in the underworld of the academy and she hadn’t slept in some time. In the end, as she closed her eyes ‘for just a minute,’ sleep overtook her.

She awoke when the plane touched down hours later. Silently Mr Fence guided the directs and the cadets out of the plane and onto a dark field surrounded by empty bleachers, which stretched up into the night sky.

‘Are we in a soccer stadium?’ asked Jules.

‘More like six football fields wrapped in one stadium,’ said Ben, looking around.

‘It’s a Communist-era sports complex called Strahov Stadium, to be exact,’ said Mr Fence. ‘Excellent cover for an unlisted jet landing. This way, Fulbrights.’

As he led them across the overgrown grass, crisp with frost, M could see that Mr Fence loved being out in the field. If his confident steps and blithe tone weren’t enough of a tell, then not reprimanding Ben for speaking out of turn was a dead giveaway. They walked into a set of open gates and through the insides of the derelict stadium. The walls were covered in indecipherable graffiti, and the halls stunk of mold, rotten food, and urine. Keyshawn gagged at the smell and ran ahead to try and escape the unpleasant atmosphere.
If the poor kid wasn’t ready for this kind of surprise, what will he do when the Lawless agents show up?
thought M.

‘You always pick the nicest places to take me, Dad,’ said Cal.

Mr Fence smiled at his son and took a deep breath as they stepped outside again. The exterior of the stadium looked even worse than the inside; the concrete façade was in utter disrepair. It made the ancient, crumbling Roman Colosseum M had seen in pictures look downright cozy. The air was cold, but nowhere near as cold as it had been outside the Fulbright Academy. Mr Fence led them across the street, where two monolithic towers stood on the edge of a cliff. Below the cliff, a dimly lit, time-worn city unfolded before them. Instantly M knew where they were.

‘Prague,’ said Devon. ‘Your parents ever steal anything from here, M?’

‘All of our parents have,’ Cal laughed.

As the Lawless students snickered, Vivian focused intently on the city, like a cartographer sketching out newly discovered coastline. M knew that determination. It meant that nothing was going to stop her from completing this mission.

‘Ah, our ride is here,’ said Mr Fence as a van with dark windows crept around the corner. Its doors slid open. ‘Everybody, in, and I will brief you on our quick visit.’

Everyone poured in, with Ben jockeying to nab the seat closest to Mr Fence.

‘Our target is in the Prague Orloj,’ he started. ‘Now, for those who are unfamiliar, the Orloj is basically a giant clock in the middle of the city. Somewhere in this structure there is a box. We must retrieve this box and return it safely to the academy. Understand?’

‘Got it,’ chirped Cal from the back of the van. ‘We’re looking for a box. Will any box do? ’Cause you’re not telling us much about what this extremely valuable thing looks like.’

‘We only know the
where
,’ answered Mr Fence sternly. ‘The rest is up to your squad.’

‘Oh, I get it,’ said Cal. ‘You need us to break in and steal this box. You need us to be thieves.’

‘Right now, we need you to shut up, cadet,’ snapped Devon. ‘You’ll follow the orders given, no questions asked.’

The rest of the ride remained awkwardly quiet as the van curved through the winding streets. The closer they got to the city, the narrower the roads became, until the van was practically brushing up against the buildings that lined the block. The buildings were vibrant in color even at night. Buttery yellows, bright brick reds, and picture-perfect
white – these structures were a far cry from the drabness of Strahov Stadium. It was as if the squad had stepped into a fairy tale.

Finally M broke the silence. ‘Okay, you want that box, then you need to tell us more about this clock before we face it. What’s the deal?’

‘It was built in the year 1410 and was famous for being an astronomical clock,’ Keyshawn said, surprising M – she hadn’t expected
him
to give this briefing. ‘But it’s been through a lot.’

‘What do you mean by
astronomical
?’ asked Jules.

‘It’s designed to tell more than time. It can depict the positions of the sun, the moon, the Earth, and the stars.’

‘How do you know so much about it?’ asked M.

‘It’s a hobby,’ Keyshawn answered her flatly.

‘When you say,
It’s been through a lot
,’ said Cal, ‘what do you mean?’

‘He means that the Orloj has had a lot of renovation done since 1410, as you can imagine,’ said Mr Fence, almost like a loving father answering a son’s innocent question on a sightseeing tour. ‘But it was also burned by Nazis at the end of World War II. Parts of the clock and its interior have since been replaced.’

‘But we have no idea when the box was hidden in the clock tower, right?’ said M.

‘Right,’ confirmed Mr Fence.

‘So are we sure the box still exists and that it wasn’t destroyed?’ asked Merlyn.

‘Our intel leads us to believe that it remains hidden,’ said Mr Fence.

The van slowed to a stop. ‘This is as far as I go,’ said Mr Fence. ‘Move through the alleyway ahead of us to get to Old Town Square. There you will find the clock, get inside, and uncover the box.’

The group exited the van and walked along a thin street lined with beautiful buildings. As they pulled on their masks, the night disappeared. In its place, an unnatural sunlight lit up the city, bathing it with otherworldly clarity. ‘It’s just like being in a maze,’ said M as she passed through an open archway that led to a courtyard. Below their feet, ancient cobblestones made every step uneven. Above, M saw floor after floor of balconies with wide, arched windows and exquisitely crafted, wrought-iron railings that swirled as artistically as elegant cursive script. For a moment, she remembered the pristine handwriting in the Chaucer book from Keyshawn’s hidden library lair, but that was forgotten as an even more opulent sight unfolded before her.

The courtyard opened onto a wide square that gave the city a luxurious amount of breathing room. The surrounding buildings looked majestic but tired in the darkness, leaning on one another for support, while the shops and cafes at ground level were locked behind metal gates. The picturesque streets were empty at this time of night. The tourists were all asleep, thought M, as a cold wind whipped through Old Town Square.