Taken (14 page)

“No,” I say firmly. “It didn’t have to be that way. His family was sick. He just needed a little extra water.”

“They all want more water, Gray. Each and every one of them. And what I wouldn’t give to provide it. But we only have so much. He took what was not his, and, sick or not, he is not privileged to receive any more water than his neighbor. Surely you understand.”

“But he never even got to defend himself.”

“He was guilty,” Frank says.

“But what if he wasn’t? What if it isn’t that black-and-white?”

“It is. He was fleeing with the water. He knew what he did was wrong.” Frank leans forward on the desk and lowers his face to meet mine. “You did the right thing by stopping him, Gray. Taem is a more just place today because of your actions.”

I nod, but the thief’s final words echo in my mind. His begging, pleading. I feel like I’m missing a critical piece of the puzzle, like I’m staring at the situation from an incorrect angle and if I could only get a better view, it would all make sense. The only thing I know for certain is that I don’t agree with Frank. No matter how obvious something may seem, there are two sides to every story, and the thief never had a chance to tell his.

I want to tell Frank this, and yet he’s been so good to me. He’s clothed me and fed me and he’s trying to free the rest of Claysoot, all while juggling his own country’s problems. Maybe he’s justified in having the Order act so swiftly. What do I know? Claysoot is so small, and things here are far more complex.

“What you saw is not typical, Gray,” Frank assures me. “We reserve such treatment for thieves and criminals only. The corrupt.”

I nod, but something has sprouted in my gut, a tiny seed of doubt, a seed that feeds off an idea the thief had planted.
What would you know . . . following the orders of a corrupt man?

I excuse myself and head for the door. Before I step into the hallway, Frank calls after me. “And, Gray? I don’t know how it happened, but we must have mixed up your access codes during your Cleansing. The front doors should not have opened for you. Taem is often in an unsettled state, the world beyond the dome even more so. I can only ensure your safety if you stay here, in Union Central. I’m sure you’ll understand when I ask you not to wander until further notice.”

Just yesterday I might have thought his words endearing. Today they sound like an order, a demand.

“Absolutely,” I say.

But when the office doors click shut behind me, I head straight for Emma. There is a seed in my gut and only she will know if I should stamp it out before it has a chance to secure its roots.

SEVENTEEN

BY THE TIME I GET
to Emma’s room, I’ve made up my mind. The doubts I have are too real. The thief must know things I do not, to think Frank corrupt. And then there was the conversation I overheard earlier, Frank’s sounding upset at my beating the Heist, when the idea should make him hopeful. Something doesn’t add up.

Emma pulls her door open within seconds of my knocking. Her room has windows on the far side, and they illuminate her from behind. Her hair, damp from a shower, hangs on her shoulders. She’s stopped shaking.

“Remember when I said walls could talk?”

She nods.

“There’s a hallway marked Authorized Personnel Only down by the infirmary. I saw it when Marco took me to get Cleansed. I figure those types of walls know more than others.”

She looks at me cautiously. “Those walls sound like the type that you shouldn’t mess with unless you are Authorized Personnel. Maybe you should talk to Frank. He seems to like you.”

“I already did. And he does. But he likes me because I escaped the Heist and nothing more.”

“All right,” Emma says, stepping into the hallway. “What exactly are we looking for this time?”

“A library.”

She pauses. “Why?”

I look over my shoulder. We are alone, but I lower my voice anyway. “Because no matter how many questions I ask, we’re not getting all the details. But libraries are full of details. This place is mountains larger than Claysoot, and even we had a building housing historical notes and facts. There have to be scrolls or books
somewhere
in Taem.”

Emma says nothing but offers me her hand. I take it, and the search begins.

When we get to the hallway Emma has started shaking again. I keep stealing glances over my shoulder, but no one has followed us. I don’t even bother trying my wrist at the door’s silver box. I know I won’t have access. Instead, I eye a unit on the wall that says, In Case of Fire, Pull. Whatever happens after will probably create some sort of distraction. I hesitate for a moment, wondering if there is another option. But Emma nods reassuringly and I figure the only way I’ve ever gotten answers is by following my gut, by taking risks and hunting down the truth myself. Before I can change my mind, I reach out and pull the small handle. A series of alarms ring through the corridor and water erupts from the ceilings.

We are definitely going to get caught.

A group of Order members bursts through the locked door, but miraculously, they don’t even look at us. They run for drier corridors, papers held over their heads for protection. Before the door slides shut behind them, Emma and I slip through unnoticed.

Inside, the hall is poorly lit, long and narrow. The floor is a deep blue and with the water raining from the ceiling, it takes on an eerie, underwater feel. The alarm echoes endlessly. Emma, shivering, searches for my hand and lets her fingers fill the spaces between mine.

We pass a series of offices and meeting rooms. Their doors are locked, but we can see chairs and tables through a window in each. There is a lone door at the end of the hallway, its windows frosted in a way that distorts everything behind them. We can make out one thing though, a figure moving on the other side. The shadow grows larger. It’s approaching us, about to burst into our hallway.

I tug Emma’s hand and we skirt to the side, frantically trying offices. Just as the door at the end of the hall begins to open, I find a handle that twists, and Emma and I spill into a room. We press our backs against the wall, panting. I peer out the window of our door. A figure is racing up the hallway.

I take a deep breath. “I think we’re okay.”

Emma breathes a sigh of relief, and as the raining water shuts off in the hallway, we turn to explore the office. We are in a plain meeting room. There is one long table, surrounded by chairs and covered with odd-looking books. The page contents are not stitched into a spine, but merely resting within their pale covers. Emma grabs the top one, marked Operation Ferret, and flips it open. Inside is the same maybe-drawing that is plastered all over Taem. This version holds additional information.

“Target: Harvey Maldoon,” it reads. “Age 55, Caucasian, height five foot eleven. Brown hair, brown eyes. Wears glasses; nearsighted.” Those must be the things surrounding his eyes and resting on his nose. I wonder if they improve his vision rather than serve as protection, like I originally thought. “Wanted alive.”

We look at each other, and then pull up chairs hurriedly.

Emma flips to the next page in the unbound book. It is a map. We had one in Claysoot, a bird’s-eye view of the town center and surrounding woodlands, drawn by Bo Chilton before he was Heisted. This map shows Taem, as well as an expansive batch of trees marked the Great Forest north of the city. Far within the forest, nearly at its most northern point, is a vast range of mountains, one of which is labeled Mount Martyr. Someone has circled it and scrawled “possible Rebel headquarters” in red. Several areas of the forest leading up to the mountains are marked with arrows.

There are other pages as well, full of scouting reports and landmarks and areas where Harvey has allegedly been spotted. We don’t read them all; there are far too many.

“I hope they capture him,” Emma says when she closes the record.

“Me, too.”

The rest of the records are thinner. Each houses several sheets of paper, urgent words pressed upon them, crisp and uniform, too precise to be handwriting.

Emma holds out one of the pages for me to see. On it is an image of a boy, roughly my age. His head hangs forward a little, but his eyes are narrowed defiantly. “Elijah Brewster” it reads beneath his maybe-drawing. “Rebel.” Emma runs her finger over the word.

“I heard Harvey is gathering followers—Rebels—outside the city,” I tell her. “He’s working with them to leak information to AmWest.”

“Why would people want to help Harvey?” Emma asks, her lips curling in disgust.

“Here. Look.” I point to a paragraph within Elijah’s records.

Brewster suspected to be one of the first to start the Rebellion. Subject took to the woods after the burning of his father’s business. Sister was taken for questioning, but deemed useless. Exact whereabouts of Brewster unknown. Believed to be manning Rebel troops from hideouts within the Great Forest. Brewster is to be shot on sight.

“That’s odd,” I say, thinking aloud. “Frank made it sound like Harvey started the Rebellion. But here . . . it sounds like Elijah did.”

Below the paragraph, Elijah’s family is listed, his mother as
deceased
, his father and sister as
executed
. I shift uncomfortably in my chair.

“Executed?” Emma repeats. “Does this mean Frank . . . the Order . . .”

I look back at the words.
Deceased
would mean the mother simply died, but
executed
. . . “I think they killed them, his father and sister. I think Elijah did something bad and so they killed his family.”

“Like the thief today?”

“Maybe.”

We look through the remaining papers. They show similar stories. Some of the people are marked as Rebels and Traitors. Others are marked as executed. But all have something in common: They are targets. Frank wants them all dead.

Sometimes it is justified to execute someone, I suppose. In all the years of Claysoot, it happened only once. I read about it in the scrolls. A boy by the name of Jeq Warrows went mad with jealousy. He was just sixteen and infuriated that the girl he admired could not return his affection. She had eyes for someone else, continually arranged her slatings with that someone. Jeq snuck into that boy’s home one evening and attempted to slit his throat. He failed. Jeq was called to Council for attempted murder and was sentenced to climb the Wall. His body came back a day later; and in this sense, the people of Claysoot executed him.

But this seems different from the stories filling the pages before me, where people are targeted for things not comparable to murder: for reading a certain book, for speaking in a public square, for teaching subjects deemed inappropriate. Elijah seems innocent. As do most of the people. Especially the ones marked executed. I felt conflicted about the thief’s fate earlier, but these records are indisputable. These people had done nothing wrong.

“Gray, what do you think this means? These records?” Emma’s face has grown pale.

I glance at the door and then back at the table. Frank knows about these executions. His signature is at the bottom of each page. Frank, who put his hand on my shoulder and talked to me like a father and wanted me to help him. And maybe I still need to help him. Harvey is the true enemy, but Frank feels less and less like an ally with each record we read.

“I wonder if the Rebels are just victims,” I offer, trying to make sense of what I’ve read, “banding together, rebelling against Taem.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “And against Frank.”

“But to join sides with Harvey? That’s disgusting.”

“Maybe they think he’s the lesser of two evils. Frank is killing—no, executing—their friends and family. Harvey ran one experiment, on people they don’t even know. If they don’t have all the details, I can see why the Rebels chose to join Harvey. Or Elijah, I guess, based on these files.”

Emma twists her fingers anxiously. “Gray? What if Frank’s not the good guy?”

I think about that for a moment. I can’t say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind since reading the documents. “But then why did Frank even bother helping us? Why waste efforts saving us from the Outer Ring?”

Emma keeps kneading her fingers, thumbs over knuckles. “Because he wants us to think he’s on our side. Maybe it’s all part of an act.”

If I had any hesitations, Emma is watering that seed of doubt. The details in these records don’t match up with what I’ve been told. And even if Frank does manage to free Claysoot, is his world the kind I want to live in? One where a seemingly harmless act can get you killed?

“We need to find Blaine,” I say. “We need to tell him about these records and we need to get out of here. We can find Harvey ourselves, break Claysoot free; and when we do, we have to take everyone as far from this place as possible.”

“What a valiant plan.” Marco is standing in the doorway, his smile malicious. “And to think Frank was actually enjoying your company, Gray. He’s going to be so disappointed when he hears you’ve both turned against him.” Marco looks thrilled with himself, and it’s all crashing down on me—what this means, how much trouble I’ve gotten not just myself into but Emma as well. Why had I thought this was a good idea? Why did I have to pull her down with me?

Marco grabs Emma first. I’m shouting and shoving him, but he’s stronger, and then there’s another Order member in the room, seizing Emma so that Marco can bind my hands. He snaps two metal links around my wrists, tethering my hands like the water thief’s, and then grabs my jaw. He leans in so close I can see my reflection in his good eye.

“Seems I was right from day one, putting you in a cell. How ironic.” He straightens up. “Now let’s go see what Frank wants done about this.”

EIGHTEEN

EMMA IS DRAGGED TOWARD THE
prison and I’m brought to Frank’s office even though Frank is not there. The windows are open, giant panes of glass pushed outward, and the curtains flanking them flutter in a late summer breeze.

Marco drops a set of keys on Frank’s desk and then shoves me into the seat before it. Two guards stand at either side, guns in hand. I struggle against my restraints, and the metal digs into my skin more deeply. I quit struggling and take to staring out the window instead. The truth wasn’t worth this. My mouth suddenly tastes sour, like spoiled milk.