The Capture (17 page)

Goodman Dougherty looked like the kind of guy who might be a first-rate poker player—his expression veiled behind a tangle of beard and facial hair—but at that moment there was no hiding his shocked expression.

“Eliminate? What do you mean,
eliminate
?”

“Wipe out. Murder.
Kill us all.
”

He gave his head a shake. “That ain't right.” He paused in disbelief. “Where'd you hear this?”

“Read it in a letter from Chancellor Maddox.”

“That
beauty queen
.” He spat as he said it, and we went back to our tasks.

Watching him that afternoon, I couldn't help but notice he spent much of the time engaged in hushed conversation with his friends. I had thrown the bait out there. Whether the fish would bite, I didn't yet know.

H
OPE LIES IN THE
back corner of the cell, thinking of Book. She remembers their shared smile and can still feel the caress of his outstretched fingers. In all her life, Hope has never felt so vulnerable and so alive.

The sensation is both thrilling and scary as hell.

She daydreams and then chastises herself for it.
Why am I getting my hopes up when we're going to be separated by metal bars for the next thirty years?
Her fingers rub the tiny locket that dangles from her neck.

She hears a tiny
click
as her fingers glide along the locket's edge, and she realizes that she's accidentally opened it. She's about to snap it closed when she notices a slight bend in one of the photos—her father's—bulging his face outward.

She's not surprised. The locket's been submerged in
water, roasted by fire, baked by the sun, shot at, sat on, you name it. It only makes sense it's starting to warp and buckle.

But when she places the tip of her index finger against the photo, trying to push it flat, she finds more resistance than she expected. She sits up and pinches the photo free from its chamber . . . and sees there's something behind it. A tiny scrap of paper.

Heart pounding, she removes the folded slip. It is yellowed and tattered, with a series of permanent creases. She is careful to iron it out. The crumbled edges waft to the stone floor like snowflakes. When she's unfolded it, her breath catches.

To Faith and Hope

Dear girls. Either you get this or you won't, but if you do. Know that I love you. Know that I believe in you. Either way, your mom and I have been so proud to raise two such amazing daughters who don't give up. Remember your mother and do what's best.

Dad

Hope has to force herself to breathe. She knew nothing about this note, despite the fact it's been dangling around her neck all these months. She doesn't know when her dad wrote it, or why, or when he expected his daughters to find it.

The realization that Faith isn't around to read it brings
tears to her eyes. She tries to fight them—it was her father, after all, who taught her:
Live today, tears tomorrow
. But the tears come anyway, racing down her cheeks.

She tucks the note into its chamber and lies back down, her face away from the others. Her mind races as she picks absently at the cell's limestone wall, its grains pebbling on her fingertips.

And that's when she gets the idea.

The next night, after the guards have taken away their dinner trays, Hope announces she has a surprise. As everyone looks on, she reaches into a pants pocket and produces . . . a spoon. Its curved shape catches flickering torchlight.

“Where'd you get it?” Flush asks.

“Washing dishes.”

“I don't get it. What's the big deal about a spoon?”

“Not a spoon,” Hope corrects him. “A shovel.”

Flush's expression shows he still doesn't understand.

“It's how we get out of here,” Hope explains. She scrapes it against a wall. Granules fly.

“You're going to use that little thing to dig a tunnel?” Flush asks.

“We'll get more silverware later on, but this is where we start.”

“And you really think it'll work?”

“We did it before. Why not now?” Diana and Scylla nod their support.

“But the guards? Won't they hear?”

“Not if there's noise to cover it.”

As if on cue, Cat begins singing, a sea shanty he's picked up from somewhere.

“Come all ye young fellows that follow the sea

To me, way hey, blow the man down.”

Hope looks at Book. It matters that he approves—that he wants to escape. She needs to know that he wants to be with her as much as she wants to be with him.

“What do you think?” she asks.

Book hesitates only a second. “What're you waiting for? Start digging so we can get the hell out of here.”

Hope ventures a smile and begins scraping the wall as the others join Cat in song.

“I'm a deepwater sailor just come from Hong Kong.

You give me some whiskey, I'll sing you a song.”

I
'D JUST FALLEN ASLEEP
when I heard my name.

“Book.”

My eyes blinked open. Two guards stood outside our cell.

“Come with us,” one of them said. Nothing more.

I scrambled to my feet, casting a glance into the Sisters' cell. Hope's eyes were open, her face stroked by the orange flames of the wall candle. I felt her gaze long after the blindfold was slipped over my eyes.

As the guards led me through the tunnels, panic started to set in: Where was I being taken? Was I going to be one of those political prisoners who mysteriously “disappeared” in the middle of the night?

My blindfold was whipped off, and I found myself in
a small chamber. Sitting behind an oaken slab was the leader of the Council of Ten. I hadn't seen him since our trial, weeks earlier. The guards pushed me into a chair and marched out.

I looked around. It was a small room, maybe fifteen feet square, its only hint at opulence an enormous fireplace where flames licked the limestone black.

“It's silly, I know,” the Chief Justice said, his eyes never wavering from the document he was writing, his quill pen scratching paper. “It's not for pride I requested the largest fireplace in the Compound. I just get so chilled in this subterranean world. I hope you don't mind.”

Confusion overtook me as sweat trickled down my sides.
Why is he talking to me in this way?

He slipped the pen into its holder, pushed the paper to one side, and looked up. His eyes met mine. “Book, huh?”

“That's what they call me.” I wondered if he was going to get all chummy with me. Colonel Westbrook had done that back at Liberty, trying to get me to rat on my friends. Fat chance I was going to fall for that again.

“So you read?”

“I
did
.”

If he picked up on my sarcasm, he ignored it. “Favorite book?”

I shrugged. Why should I confide in him? He was the reason we were imprisoned. “
A Tale of Two Cities
is good,” I said.

“Ah, yes, who doesn't like a story of selflessness, even if it means one's own death in the process? And all set against a backdrop of revolution.” He sat back and stared at me. “You don't like me much, do you?”

“Why should I?”

“Indeed, why should you? What convict approves of his sentencing judge?”

“We're not convicts. And we're not spies either!”

“Now, now,” he said, calming me with his hands. One of the guards looked in, and the Chief Justice merely shook his head. The guard disappeared.

“Like me or not, the fact remains: you were found guilty of spying. The Council of Ten had a duty to do.”

“I don't know anything about your ‘Council of Ten,' but my guess is you're supposed to provide justice.”

“That's right.”

“Well, I assure you that we're innocent, so this is
in
justice.”

“And that map you had?”

“I told you. We never saw that map before the day of the trial.”

He regarded me for a long moment, absently tugging at his earlobe. A log exploded in the fireplace.

“Tell me about the Final Solution,” he said.

So. The fish had taken the bait. “You're telling me you've heard of it?” I asked.

“That depends. There was a Final Solution many years ago, long before you were born, but I doubt that's the one you're speaking of.”

I explained what I knew about Chancellor Maddox's intention to kill us all off, all the Less Thans and Sisters.

“And you saw this letter with your own eyes?”

“That's right. Me and one of the Sisters.”

“You understand why I ask. The claim of genocide is nothing to be bandied about. We need actual proof.”

“Like when you accuse someone of being a spy?”

He sighed wearily and steepled his fingers. “You know, Book, you may think us an ignorant, backwoods people, but in fact, many of the adults here were at one time distinguished professors. Respected scholars. Once our children started getting drafted into the army, that's when we realized we wanted nothing to do with the fascist principles of the new Republic. So we created our own society.”

While what he said made a certain sense, I wasn't in the mood to hear it.

“I didn't know there was a University of Skull People.”

The Chief Justice actually smiled. “Let me ask you something: before you came here, had you heard of us?”

“Of course.”

“And what had you heard?”

“That you were the meanest, most ruthless people in the country.”

“You've been around us a few weeks now. Are we really so ruthless? So mean? Cannibals who eat their young and sacrifice virgins into fiery pits?”

“Well, no . . .”

“So the branding has done its job.” A pleased expression painted his face.

“You're saying your reputation is just a ploy?”

“I'm saying we want to be left alone.”

I took in what he'd said. Maybe the Skull People were even smarter than I'd thought.

“Okay,” I said, “if you're so open-minded, then you'll be willing to help us out.”

He eyed me warily. “What do you have in mind?”

This was the moment I'd been hoping for—an audience with the head of the Skull People. I took a breath and launched into the world as I knew it—everything I knew about the slaughter of Less Thans and the medical experiments at Camp Freedom. As I spoke, his expression darkened.

When I finished, he rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “I understand your passion, I do. And your claim might very well be legitimate.”

“But?”

“I'm sorry, Book. We enjoy our freedoms and the
civilized
society we've constructed. For us to take sides would put all that in jeopardy. While helping the few, we would sacrifice the greater good. Surely you can understand that.”

I let out an angry sigh. “All I understand is that people are going to die unless we help them, and even though you may not have heard about the Hunters, I can guarantee you they've heard of you. Especially since your head prosecutor is friends with their leader.”

The Chief Justice's head snapped up. “What're you talking about?”

I explained what Hope and I had seen back in Bedford: the conversation between Goodman Nellitch and the Man in Orange.

“Now I know you're wrong,” the Chief Justice said. “There's no way Goodman Nellitch would be caught dead with the Crazies. They're nothing more than an uncivilized mob.”

I shrugged. “We saw what we saw.”

The Chief Justice studied me with tired, bloodshot eyes. The longer he contemplated my words, the angrier I grew. What more did he want? I'd revealed to him things he had no way of knowing—Chancellor Maddox's letter, Goodman Nellitch's dealings with the Crazies—and here he was, too cowardly to act. This was the problem with the world: too many people afraid to do the right thing.

I pushed my chair back and got up. “Are we done?”

“No.” He dipped the quill pen into ink. “I'm changing your work assignment.” He signed the document on his desk with a flourish—the one he'd been working on when I came in. He folded the paper and sealed it with wax.

“Is this the punishment I get for speaking the truth?” I asked.

“Something like that.” Then he added, “Book, we're not your enemies.”

“Maybe not, but you're not our friends, either.”

I took the document and exited.

The blindfolds ended the next morning. While the guards still locked us up each night, we were free to travel to work and back on our own. With one stipulation—we had to wear symbols on our clothes. A black square with an embroidered eye in the middle, as if to remind us we were always being watched. I wondered if we'd ever not be branded as somehow different.

The red-haired guard took me down an entirely different path, and my chest tightened with anxiety. Where was I being sent? To dig ditches? Clean outhouses? Haul irrigation pipes in the broiling sun?

When we came to a stop, I nearly lost my breath.

In the midst of this subterranean world, buried deep beneath the earth's surface, was a library. Hundreds—
thousands—
of volumes lined the walls. Not since
Frank's cabin had I seen anything so heartbreakingly beautiful.

I couldn't tell if the red-haired guard envied or pitied me. He stomped away without a word.

There were three others in the library—one old man and two middle-aged women—each sitting at tables and scribbling furiously. One of the women put down her pen and came over to me. She was short, with a shock of white hair and tight facial features. A tattered sweater was pulled over her faded blue dress. She took the document from my hand, sliced open the seal, and scanned it quickly.

“You're Book?” she asked.

“That's right.” I expected her to comment on the appropriateness of my name.

“I'm Goodwoman Marciniak.”

“Nice to meet—”

“You'll meet the others presently. In the meantime, there's work to do.”

She sat me down across from the old man; if he noticed I was joining him, he didn't acknowledge it. He was stooped so far forward, his face was mere inches from the table. Goodwoman Marciniak slid four objects in front of me: a ream of paper, a quill pen, an inkstand, and a leather-bound book.

“There,” she said. “We're under a deadline, so no dallying.”

She began to walk away. “Wait. I don't know what you want me to do.”

The look she gave me was one of pure exasperation. “You can read, can't you?”

“Yes.”

“And write?”

“Of course.”

“Then what're you waiting for? Copy that thing. We don't have all day.”

I soon learned that while most of the books could be checked out, some of the law volumes were deemed so important that it was necessary to have multiple copies, especially for Council justices. It fell to the library scribes to create those copies.

That's what I was now: a library scribe.

And it wasn't just the four of us; apparently there were others who worked different shifts. So while I toiled over
An Exposition of Fecial Law and Procedure
by day, someone else copied it at night. The handwriting alternated, of course—mine for a few chapters, and some anonymous old geezer's for the next few—but that didn't seem to matter.

I asked if typewriters wouldn't make more sense, but Goodwoman Marciniak informed me that the Republic had confiscated them all years earlier.

For eight hours a day I sat hunched over a sheaf of papers, scribbling away. By the end of my shift, my
fingers cramped, my back ached, my eyes stung from strain . . . but I was surrounded by books, breathing their heady, musty,
heavenly
smell.

Still, there was a cost. With each passing day, the Less Thans back at Camp Liberty were getting that much closer to the Rite—to their cruel imprisonment in the foul-smelling bunker, followed by their release into the wild, where they'd be hunted down like animals.