When We Wake (34 page)

I raced through the rain that had started to fall in heavy drops, signaled the door, and waited. This bit, at least, might be fun.

He didn’t make any pretense of nonchalance. The door swung open immediately, and Carl Hurfest stared down at me. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

“That’s a long story,” I said. “Really exciting, lots of action and drama. Wanna hear it?”

“Get in, quick.”

“Just a second.” I signaled the van, and Abdi came out, guiding Mr. Harrison before him.

Hurfest’s eyes narrowed as he saw the strips of cloth tying Mr. Harrison’s hands. “What’s this?”

“We’ll tell you,” I promised. “Inside.”

We told him everything.

We had to; there was no way he was going to give us access to his networks without getting as much information as he
could. He was angry enough that we wouldn’t let him talk to a few army contacts to verify my story.

“Either your contacts don’t know anything, or they do andthey already didn’t tell you,” Abdi said finally. “And if it’s the second, what do you think is going to happen? The moment you get in touch with them, the army will be banging down your door.”

Hurfest looked unconvinced. “If we don’t warn the army, whatever the Father’s planned for this starship might go ahead as soon as they know you escaped for good. Are you willing to take responsibility for those deaths?”

“The Inheritors think murder’s a sin,” I said, more confidently than I felt. But even though he’d ignored the cryostasis of thousands, the Father had been clear that actually causing deaths was a no-no. “They’ll make sure no one gets hurt.”

Hurfest grunted. “People can find excuses for all kinds of sins if it suits them.” He sat back and eyed Mr. Harrison, sitting on the couch with his hands still tied in front of him. “What do
you
think?”

“They carjacked me, threatened me with a deadly weapon, and took me hostage,” Mr. Harrison said. “By my reckoning, they’re also guilty of trespassing, privacy violation, illegal data access, theft, and multiple counts of assault.”

I flinched. Abdi slipped his hand into mine.

“But dead weens in a freezer…” Mr. Harrison shook his head. “Put the footage on the tubes. The police can sort out who’s most to blame.”

“Stockholm syndrome is so popular this year,” Hurfest observed.

“So you won’t do it?” I said, my stomach plummeting. “You don’t care?”

“Oh, I care. I’m a cynical bastard, but I’m not a sociopath. I can also see the story of a career when it’s handed to me on a big shiny plate.” He gave me a direct look, and I began to let myself hope again. “Okay, this is the deal. I can bounce the raw data to a couple dozen colleagues as coming from an anonymous source. Between them, they’ll verify what they can and spread the story. Barring a massive natural disaster or one of the big nations declaring war on another one, in half an hour, it’ll be the only thing anyone is talking about.”

“But?” Abdi asked. “I think there is a but.”

Hurfest nodded. “But it’s not going to be enough,” he said. “In a week, they’ll all be talking about something else.”

“But it’s the facts!” I protested. “We can prove it; we have the footage we filmed in the warehouse; we have the Father’s records of the Ark Project and the footage of the starship—it’s all true.”

“That won’t matter,” he said. “Trust me, Tegan, it won’t. If you want to get through to people, if you want to make them understand why this is important, it needs to be personal. It needs a human face.”

“Dawson said the same thing. He said I was the face of Operation New Beginning.”

“You are. Which is why it has to be you. A journalist reveals
a military conspiracy and human-rights abuses—big deal, journalists have been doing that for centuries. Only rarely does it make a difference. If the Living Dead Girl discovers that she’s been betrayed and tells the world about it, it might be a different story.”

It was such a little thing, after everything we’d gone through. But he wanted me to talk to the whole world—not rehearsed, not with Tatia’s guidance and lots of makeup to hide behind. Just me, by myself, telling everyone my many faults and mistakes. Exposed, with everyone watching me.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered.

Hurfest sat back and spread his hands. “I’ll send the data anyway. But I’m telling you what’ll happen if that’s all we do.”

Abdi squeezed my hand. “Start from the beginning,” he suggested. “Tell them where you came from. You can do this.”

I thought of Marie, who’d driven off to lead them away from me. I thought of Bethari, who’d never hesitated and backed me all the way. I thought of Joph, who’d been bleeding and screaming at me to go.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

Hurfest nodded. “I thought you would.”

It made me feel better to realize I still didn’t like him or his smug, self-righteous face. But just because I was doing what he wanted didn’t mean I wasn’t doing the right thing.

It took him no more than a minute to send the data and turn off his EarRing and computer, as a zillion bells and whistles started. “Colleagues wanting to talk to me direct,” he explained. “They want access to my source. Come on, we can get a secure
signal from my bedroom. It’ll be easier if we aren’t all watching you talk. Abdi and I will work on finding a place to move to when they trace the signal.” He looked at me. “You know they will trace the signal, don’t you? They’ll find you eventually.”

I nodded.

Abdi went with me as far as the bedroom door and kissed me softly on the threshold. “You can do it,” he said again.

I kissed him back. My throat was too tight to speak, but I squeezed his hands in mine. Then I let go and sat cross-legged at the foot of the narrow bed, while Hurfest hunted out a clean computer and signed me in to a newscasting service, bouncing the signal through half a dozen bases.

“The storm’s starting in earnest,” he said. “That ought to buy you some time.”

“When you’re ready,” I said, trying to sound composed, and Hurfest gave me a silent three count with his hands.

I think I saw a glint of respect in his eyes before he withdrew.

I’m still not sure where the words came from. I thought back, that’s all, to my first lifetime, to my last day. Where else would I start but at the beginning, with my name?

I leaned in and spoke, hoping the computer was picking me up properly. “My name is Tegan Oglietti,” I began. “One of my ancestors was a highwayman, and another was a prince.”

And now you know.

There was some trouble when they tracked the signal to Hurfest’s house, and we had to flee, stealing bikes and riding through the storm. We let Mr. Harrison go when we went, and Hurfest stayed behind to slow down our pursuers by giving them false information about our direction. I hadn’t expected that of him. I guess you never know about people.

Even dying down, the storm was pretty rough, but we made it to a safe house Abdi knew of that had belonged to one of the medicine-smuggling teams. They must have all been alerted and cleared out when Abdi went missing, which is how I was able to tell you about him and Joph being involved. We broke in and set up there.

But we’re not going to get away again. We knew they were coming, too close to evade, and I only needed the time to finish. I can hear them outside now. I don’t know what else I can tell you.

Maybe I should go back to the beginning again. I’m Tegan Marie Mary Oglietti. I was beloved of Dalmar; befriended by Alex; tolerated by my brother, Owen; and cherished by my mother.

But that was in my first lifetime, and I don’t think I’m done with my second.

The Beatles sang that all you need is love. It would be nice if that were true. But, like everyone, they wanted a lot more than love alone; they wanted wealth and glory and freedom and peace. They wanted to travel; they wanted to investigate their spirituality; they wanted their children to be happy and
safe. Love is a good start, but we need more than that to get through.

My mother’s last words to me were, “Now you can go and save the world.” I died before I could. Some legacy I left you, huh?

But I give you this legacy, too: You can make a difference. You can help.

Not by yourself, not just one person. But I’ve been talking for a long time, and Abdi tells me there are nearly a billion people watching right now, one-tenth of the entire world. There are people boosting this signal in Samoa and Nigeria and Euskadi. There are people commenting and ’casting back. There are over two dozen nodes set up to verify the Father’s evidence and half a dozen more already planning expeditions to Mount Ossa to force the people there to open the doors. The reporters who used to bug me at school are ignoring the media lockout lists and are heading to refugee camps and those hidden warehouses all over the country. Government representatives are getting hard questions from their constituents. They’re all denying any knowledge, which is a pretty good sign they can be pushed into doing something about it. Someone’s started a fund to defend us, and it’s already raised a lot of money. Someone else has started the Free Tegan campaign before I’ve even been arrested. Others are trying to find Bethari and Joph, hacking away at government databases.

It’s really bright outside, and they’re shouting stuff at us.

Oh, the bastards. They brought Marie. She’s out there now, telling me to give myself up.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. The secret’s out,
and there’s no reason to kill us, but on top of everything else, I broke the supervised-only media clause in my contract pretty thoroughly, and I still belong to them. I’m going to need a really good lawyer, or I don’t think they’ll ever let me go again. I hope Joph and Bethari are all right. I hope Zaneisha can forgive me when she knows why I ran. I hope Mr. Harrison and Carl Hurfest didn’t get in trouble. And if they hurt Abdi, I don’t know what I’ll do.

But I’m giving myself up now. Without Marie, I’d never have met Abdi or Bethari or Joph, and they wouldn’t have made it possible for me to discover the secrets of the Ark Project. Without Marie, I would never have escaped from Dawson.

Without Marie, I could never have told you this story.

It’s my turn to help her, if I can, and so I have to go.

Thank you for listening.

Good luck.

Good-bye.

My first thanks go to the beautiful city of Melbourne and the lovely country of Australia, my home for four and a half years. You’re not perfect, but when you’re great, you’re amazing. I wish you a much better future than the one imagined here.

I’d like to thank my incredible editors, Susannah Chambers, Alvina Ling, Eva Mills, and Bethany Strout, for all their assistance, especially when the deadline loomed and I had the absolutely genius idea to replace forty percent of the plot with “something else, I promise it’ll be really cool.” Thanks also to the Little, Brown crew for many things, including beignets and karaoke, and the Allen and Unwin crew for many things, including gossip and Friday-night drinks.

I started listing the names of the awesome people who made me welcome in Australia, and then I went on for two paragraphs, so I’ll just say: You know who you are, and thank you all. For material assistance, hand-holding and cluebat-wielding beyond the call of friendship, I want to thank Robyn, Carla, Melanie, Willow, Avery, Deb, Tessa, Tracey, Keith, Gina, and the Shame-In ladies. My particular thanks to Sefakor Dokli, Willow, Guria King, and Chally Kacelnik for their comments on this multicultural cast of characters—all remaining errors are mine alone. Barry Goldblatt is an excellent man, and a good host, and a great agent.