Z 2134 (9 page)

Duncan said, “I don’t know.”

Without warning, The Watcher fired a
blast of energy that thundered through the basement, followed by Duncan’s and
Iris’s screams.

“Why?” Duncan screamed, his voice torn by
anguish.

The only voice Ana couldn’t hear crying
was the woman, whom The Watcher must’ve murdered.

Tears began to stream down Ana’s face,
and she felt her whole body shaking.

She couldn’t believe what was happening.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“Tell us,” The Watcher said, with zero
emotion in his warble.

“I swear, I don’t know,” Duncan said.
“I’ve seen him, lots. He comes in here, but I haven’t seen him today.”

The second Watcher returned from
upstairs, saying, “We have three independent confirmations. The boy was down
here before we arrived.”

The other Watcher asked, “Is that true?”

Duncan said, “No, sir.”

“I’m going to ask you one more time. If
you lie, I shoot the child.”

Iris screamed, and suddenly the sound of
tiny footsteps raced across the floor above Ana.

Iris ran into the storage room, just
above them, crying as she ran.

Ana pulled away from Liam, shoving him
back, and reached up for the floorboard, to get to the girl before The Watcher.

Ana looked up, seeing the girl’s eyes
look down at the floor. She saw them hiding, knew they were there. She cried
out something, but her cry was cut short by the blast of the shock stick, which
reverberated through the room.

The girl, or what was left of her, hit
the ground with a sickening thud, and blood poured through the thin slits in
the floor.

Ana screamed.

The Watcher stomped across the floor and
immediately ripped the false floorboard away, exposing her and Liam. He grabbed
Ana by the hair and yanked her up while aiming his shock stick at Liam. “Up!
Now!”

Ana screamed as she was dragged from the
hole. She glanced down and immediately regretted it when she saw Iris’s body
with a giant, charred hole eaten into her back. Ana nearly vomited and was
shoved forward, snapping her attention back to the men with weapons. A third
Watcher stormed into the storage room and forced Liam out, gathering them in
the room that everyone had been chatting and eating in just moments ago.

“Hands up!” the first Watcher ordered.
Two aimed guns, while a third held his shock stick, poised to deliver pain or
death.

Ana raised her shaking hands, unable to
stop crying over the murder of the little girl.

Liam raised his hands slowly, then said,
“Easy, guys. We can work this out. You want The Underground, and I’m not
Underground. But I can take you there, and we won’t even have to get in a van.
We’re close. Real close.” He paused and said, “The leader’s here.”

Liam pointed his finger outward and aimed
it at Duncan. “Right there,” he said.

Two of the three Watchers spun toward
Duncan, weapons ready. The closest, and the one with the best shot, stayed
trained on Liam.

Duncan said, “OK, OK, you got me. I’ll
confess everything, but first, I need to get your word on something.”

“What is it?” one of The Watchers said.

“I need you to take off your helmet and
look me in the eye.”

All three Watchers were looking at
Duncan, waiting for him to make his request.

That’s when Ana realized it was all a
ploy, maybe even one Liam and Duncan had coordinated in advance, just in case
of such a situation.

Unwatched, Liam pulled his a pistol from
behind his back — an antique from back before The Walling — and squeezed the
trigger twice, both shots tearing through the black material that covered The
Watchers’ necks, sending them to the ground, writhing in pain.

Liam shoved his elbow into Ana, sending
her flat on her ass before turning to fire two shots at the third Watcher as
Duncan grabbed one of The Watchers’ sticks and bashed it into one of the
wounded men’s helmets, cracking the glass. He sent an electric shock into the
man’s helmet, causing his whole body to shake and burn. Liam fired two more shots
into the glass masks of the downed men, killing them, too.

Ana stumbled to her feet and raised her
head to Liam, shocked. Duncan was blinking slowly, without surprise. “Get out
of here, NOW!”

Liam nodded, a silent confirmation, then
pulled Ana’s hand and dragged her past Duncan and up the stairs.

Just as they hit the top stair, they
heard footsteps thundering toward them — more Watchers.

Liam shoved Ana down the stairs just as
bullets split the door behind them.

Liam followed her, tumbling down to the cold
basement floor as bullets blasted the stairwell above them.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Ana
cried out.

“Just wait,” Liam said, holding up a
finger as if waiting on something.

Ana wasn’t sure whether Liam knew what
would happen or simply had faith that
something
would.

Gunfire erupted upstairs, not as loud as
The Watchers’ weapons, but faster.

Liam laughed, “Fuck yeah!” and headed
back upstairs, carefully, his gun held out in front of him.

Red Beard, the guy from the bar who had
slipped her the message on the street, was suddenly in the doorway, holding a
weird-looking gun that Ana had never seen before. It looked like a shortened
rifle, and antique.

His eyes were all business, no
celebration of the three Watchers lying dead on the ground behind him.

“What’s the score downstairs?” Red Beard
asked.

“Three Watchers dead. But they killed
Rose and Iris. Duncan’s all alone downstairs now.”

“Fuck,” Red Beard said, looking down for
only a moment since a moment was all he had for mourning.

“OK, three down up here, and Scout says
there’s two more Watchers on the way. You all have to split. I’ll get Duncan
out.”

“Thank you,” Liam said, and pulled Red
Beard’s fist toward his own in an embrace.

Then they split, and Liam led Ana through
two doors in the back of the church to a long alley that led to the back of
several small stores on one side and tall apartment buildings on the other.

Liam searched the sky for orbs. None were
there — yet. But Ana knew if they waited around, it was only a matter of time
before the sky was full of the things.

“Come on!” Liam said, shoving Ana forward
until they reached a manhole.

Liam bent and pulled the thick metal
cover aside, and pointed down a rung of ladders in the wall, which led to
darkness below.

“Ladies first.”

“The sewers?”

“Unless you wanna take your chances on
the streets,” Liam said with a sarcastic grin.

She ignored his attitude, kneeled down,
and climbed into the sewers.

Liam followed and pulled the cover over
them, plunging the tunnel into darkness.

The sewer was dark and smelled of waste.
A stream of filthy water ran over their shoes.

“Oh God,” Ana gasped. “This is
disgusting.”

“It gets worse when it rains; goes right
up to your chest. Just keep moving. Up ahead, there’s a manhole that leads to a
crash pad we’ve got. You can shower there and change into some clothes. But
then you have to get back to the orphanage before someone comes looking for
you.”

The “crash pad” was a row of tiny
apartments hidden in the basement of another apartment building. The rooms were
cramped and the denizens shady looking, but a safe harbor was a safe harbor,
and for that, Ana was grateful that The Underground had planned for such
events.

Though the shower was cold and the
bathroom small and dingy, they did have plenty of soap, which helped to cleanse
away the stench of the sewers.

As the water rushed over her, Ana
couldn’t wash away the memories of the dead child.

The Watchers had killed two people in
cold blood.

They would have killed all of them if
given a chance.

What the hell is going on?

And what does my father have to do with
this?

After the shower, Ana dried off and
looked at the clothes Liam had left on the sink — plain black pants, white
underwear two sizes too big, and a black shirt. Plain enough to blend in with
other people, but different from other clothes she owned. She hoped nobody at
The Rock would notice.

As she finished getting dressed, Liam
rapped on the door.

“Come on,” he said sharply.

She opened the bathroom door, surprised
to see him glaring, angry. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You have to ask?” he said, his eyes
wide.

She stared at him, and then it dawned on
her.

“What?” she asked. “You’re blaming me for
this?”

“You should never have come to the
church!” he said.

“I came because Duncan asked me to! After
you got arrested at The Social.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have gotten arrested if
you
had just kept your mouth shut!”

“Me? Me?” she said, shocked. “Don’t blame
me!
You’re
the one who started the fight.
You’re
the one who had
to go all macho and pick a fight with a girl.”

Liam glared at her, like he wanted to say
something else. Or maybe even wanted to hit her.

His fists shook, and he looked down,
closing his eyes.

“She was just a kid,” he said. “She died
because of us.”

Ana wanted to fight the accusation, but
then let out a long sigh.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry’s not gonna bring her back. Now
get out.”

Ana wasn’t sure if he was crying or
holding back an angry scream. Either way, she heeded his advice and left, heading
back to The Rock, knowing that nothing would ever be the same again.

Inside The
Walls of City 6

A
na wandered through the next few days in
a fog. Concentration was impossible, though still easier than forgetting the
massacre in the church and the million truths it unspooled into the haunted
hallways of her reality.

The second day was a pale echo of the
first, long and lingering, as Ana moved as mechanically as the factory machines
she handled at her job. Hours blurred with memories that felt as real to Ana as
her first memory of ice cream — not the “taste” you could buy at The Arcade,
but the real stuff she ate on her birthday. She thought of her mom painting,
walks with her parents in the park, her first fight with her mom, and her
first, and last, kiss with Bobby Long — the only boy she had allowed herself to
like, until he turned out to be a big jerk.

These memories blurred with that of her
father standing over her mother’s dead body.

They seemed no different. No less real.
But if one was a lie, how could she know that all of them weren’t? If the truth
wasn’t memory, then the truth was a lie. If memory could be faked, then what
else in her life was false?

Ana found no solace, no matter where she
went. Every eye was on her, even when they weren’t. She had no clue whom to
trust, or worse, what to do. She was no longer confident of where the line
stood between fact and fiction and had no idea where in her world was a true
window to truth.