Children of the Uprising (12 page)

“You're where?” Evan asked, pulling aside his blinds and looking out his window to see if the strangers were still out there watching him. He couldn't see them, but he didn't find much comfort in that. Sometimes they chose to be seen. Sometimes they didn't.

“I'm not really sure. Oregon, I think.” Christopher had lost track. They'd spent so much time moving forward and then backtracking again. He wasn't sure if Addy was trying to protect them or if she was stalling.

“That's crazy,” Evan said, dropping the blinds back in place.

“I know,” Christopher whispered into his phone. Addy was sleeping. Christopher didn't want her to know that he'd been calling Evan. “These people, apparently they think I'm some sort of hero.”

“So be a hero,” Evan told Christopher. Christopher didn't say anything. He didn't tell Evan about Max. He didn't tell Evan about the arrows or the blood. “Where are you guys going? I want to come out there. I want to meet up with you guys. After everything we've been through together, you can't do this on your own now.”

Christopher hesitated, knowing that he was about to make a mistake, but then he went ahead and made it anyway. “I think we're going to Los Angeles but I'm not sure. I'll try to find out. I'll let you know.”

Evan sat in the airport terminal waiting for them to announce his row for boarding. He was doing his best to stand off to the side without looking suspicious. Mostly, he stood near the window, staring out at the planes, blocking his face from everyone else in the airport. Still, every so often, he took his eyes away from the window to scan the terminal and try to find out if anyone was watching him. He was pretty sure that he hadn't been followed. Even if they had followed him out of Maine, he was pretty sure he would have lost them by now. He'd pulled out every trick that he and Christopher had practiced growing up. He drove. He took the train. He traveled on foot much farther than he needed to. He used misdirection, going the wrong way more than once, then secretly turning back and retracing his steps. All that and he never saw anyone behind him. Not a single person.

He had followed Christopher's instructions. He'd done everything Christopher told him to do, but he was still nervous. He purchased the plane tickets with the credit card that Christopher had glued to the bottom of the desk in his room. Evan had found two of them down there and noticed the glue marks from where a third had already been pulled off. He'd thought that he knew almost everything about Christopher, but he didn't know about the credit cards. The credit cards that Evan found were in two different names, neither of them Christopher's. He had no idea if they were stolen or fake. As long as they worked, he didn't care.

They called Evan's row. He took one last look around to make sure that he was what he'd always been, unnoticed. He knew that this was his last chance to run. He walked toward the woman who was collecting the tickets and handed his to her. He tried to act calm. He tried to act like he'd done this before, even though he hadn't. It wasn't merely the running and the fake credit cards that were new to Evan. He was also walking onto an airplane for the first time in his life.

Evan stepped through the gate and walked down the short hallway toward the plane. It was a direct flight, Boston to Los Angeles. Christopher had confirmed that he was going to L.A. He didn't know where exactly, but he and Evan figured that they could contact each other once they both had their boots on the ground in the same city. Christopher tried to protest, but Evan knew that Christopher wanted him to come out. He knew that whatever else this War that Christopher kept blabbering about was, it was what the two of them had been training for since they were little kids. Evan wasn't going to let Christopher ditch him right when things started getting good, not after putting up with all the crap they'd been through together for the last seventeen years.

Evan found his seat, a window seat near the back of the plane. He checked his phone one last time before powering it off for the flight. Nothing. No news from Christopher. No messages from his parents wondering where he was. Evan felt his stomach drop as the plane sped down the runway and lifted off the ground. He stared out the window as the city of Boston became smaller and smaller below him. The plane circled once before straightening out and Evan had a clear view north toward Maine. From that high in the air, all he could see was thick forest and a few roads cutting through it like veins.

Evan didn't sleep on the flight. He didn't watch a movie. He did nothing but stare out the window at the clouds.

Christopher and Addy were in a motel room outside of Fresno. Their car was parked only a few feet from the door to their room. The red neon light from the motel sign cascaded through their window, drenching everything in lush red color. They were finally heading to Los Angeles the next day. Addy had noticed a change in Christopher ever since she'd told him where they were going. She liked what she saw. She couldn't be sure, but she thought that maybe Christopher was beginning to accept who he was.

Christopher still hadn't told Addy about Evan. He didn't know how. He didn't think it made much sense to tell her until Evan actually made it to L.A. Christopher was looking forward to seeing his friend. He missed Max. He liked Addy, but there was something blocking any sort of friendship between them. He felt it every time Addy looked at him. She never saw him. She always saw something else, something that he wasn't. When Christopher looked at her, all he saw was the fire of her hair and the image of her face covered in specks of other people's blood. She had saved his life, but even that hadn't brought them together.

“Were you and Max ever a couple?” Christopher asked Addy. He was lying on one of the beds. She was standing behind a closet door, changing into the clothes that she would sleep in. The clothes Addy slept in weren't much different from the clothes she wore during the day. She wore black stretch pants and a gray T-shirt to bed.
You always have to be ready for them,
she'd told Christopher,
even when you're asleep.

“No,” Addy answered. “Max and I were always just friends,” she finished with more than a hint of sadness in her voice.

“I miss him,” Christopher confessed to Addy.

“Nobody in my life has ever stuck around for very long,” Addy said to Christopher in lieu of agreeing with him.

“But you believe that we can change that?” Christopher asked, still unclear about what the Uprising was all about.

Addy stepped out from behind the closet door. She was wearing a white tank top this time instead of her usual T-shirt. Christopher could see her nipples poking through the fabric of her shirt in the red glare shining through the window. “Stand up,” Addy ordered him.

Christopher stood up. When he did, she walked toward him. She lifted her hands to his face. She pulled his face closer to hers. Then she kissed him, softly, on the lips. The first kiss lasted only a second. Then she pulled him in again and kissed him harder. When their lips separated, they stood there, staring into each other's eyes. But there was nothing. They both knew it. They both wanted there to be something for their own selfish reasons, but merely wanting it wasn't enough to make it happen. “Yes,” Addy said to Christopher, her voice straining to hang on to even the slightest sliver of hope. “I believe we're going to change that.”

Umut sat outside the café and sipped his tea. It was hot and sweet. He swirled it in his glass and watched the last bits of sugar spin in circles before it dissolved in the heat. The men sitting behind Umut punctuated their game of backgammon with bouts of shouting and eruptions of laughter. Umut wasn't listening to their words. He merely liked the sounds of the game—the dice shaking in the cup and being thrown onto the board, the clicking of the stones as the players moved them, the voices of the players as they taunted each other and, of course, the laughter.

Umut rolled his shoulders. The muscles in his back were tight. His trip to the baths earlier that morning, the first time he'd been to the baths in months, had done little to relieve the tension in his body. He watched as another ferry left the terminal, this one headed farther up the Bosporus before crossing over to the Asian side of Istanbul. The ferry was teeming with people. The passengers filled up the inside of the ferry and then flowed out onto the outer benches that ran along the ferry's sides. Umut counted three women in burkas. Many more were dressed in the fashionable clothes of American television shows. Umut wondered how many of the women in burkas were going to get off in
Üsküdar. He wondered if he and the others would stand out when they got off the ferry in Üsküdar later that day. Each of the fifteen of them was coming on a different ferry, but all were wearing burkas to hide their faces and to hide the fact that eleven of them were men. Umut had tried his burka on earlier that morning. He stood in front of the mirror wearing it, staring at his own reflection. He walked past the mirror, slightly hunched to disguise his height, and noted the disguise's effectiveness. Then he strapped the guns and the knives that he would carry with him later that day to his chest and legs. The burka provided ample space to conceal the weapons, even for Umut, who had volunteered to carry a double load of weapons so that he could meet up with Tor Baz, the Afghani, in Üsküdar and arm him too. Tor Baz was too tall to be mistaken for a woman in a burka but was too brave a fighter to be left out of this battle.

The burka disguise was an old trick and one quickly losing its utility in a westernizing city like Istanbul. The fewer burkas there were, the more likely someone would look into your eyes and know too soon that they should be afraid. Nevertheless, Umut and his fighters were counting on the ploy working one more time. If the plan went right, each of them would cross the river separately and then they would descend upon the Intelligence Center together, all draped in black like vengeful ghosts, armed to the teeth, only their eyes showing their fearlessness.

Umut watched as another ferry pulled into the terminal. The passengers got off the boat, their eyes gazing past Umut at the fountains and the pillars surrounding the Hagia Sophia. Umut loved this city. It was a shame what they were going to have to do to it. An unexpected friend walked by as Umut took another sip of his tea. “Umut,” the friend said. Umut stood to embrace him. “May I sit and join you?” the friend asked.

“Of course,” Umut replied and motioned to the café owner to bring out another tea. Umut's friend was an innocent, at least as far as Umut knew. He was one of the few innocents that Umut had ever been friendly with. They'd met haggling over groceries. Umut was happy to see his friend. He wanted to forget about the War and enjoy the next few hours. Then he would have to go home and start getting ready.

“What brings you here, Umut?” his friend asked him as he dropped sugar cubes into his tea.

“I like to watch the ferries,” Umut said, motioning toward the water. Umut's friend laughed at Umut's childishness, but Umut was not ashamed.

Umut had lost his sense of time and was surprised when the midday call to prayer echoed in the air. He did not move from his seat but instead silently mouthed the words as they were sung from loudspeakers all over the city. If he survived the day, he promised himself, he would wash his feet, enter a mosque, and pray. Until then, Umut put all his faith in the Child and was determined to follow him either to heaven or to hell, if there really was a difference.

They were chanting his name, fifty or more of them. Christopher had never heard anything like it before in his life. It thrilled him and scared him at the same time. “If they can't stop a single boy,” Dutty shouted to the crowd, who ate up every word, “how can they stop an entire movement?” The building was nearly shaking as the crowd stomped their feet and shouted back at Dutty. Dutty had been speaking for more than twenty minutes. Christopher stood, hidden from view of the crowd but still able to see Dutty as he spoke. Christopher wondered how anyone could talk for that long, let alone drive the crowd of people into a frenzy with nothing but words. He wished that he could see the crowd, but they were hidden from his view. All he could see was Dutty and Addy and Evan. But he could hear the crowd. He could hear them shout his name. Christopher was so enthralled by the sounds of the crowd that he could barely remember more than a few sentences that Dutty said, but that was okay. The speech wasn't for Christopher anyway. It was for the crowd. It was
about
Christopher.

The one person in the room who might have been more shocked than Christopher by Dutty's speech and the crowd's reaction was Evan. Everything Christopher had told him turned out to be true. Evan had never admitted to himself that he didn't believe Christopher's story, but deep down, it all seemed far too insane to be real. Then Christopher showed up at the airport with the sexy redhead, and the insanity started to feel less crazy. Evan had so many questions that he wanted to ask his old friend, but the questions had to wait. For now, Evan merely tried to take everything in. He listened to Dutty. He listened to the words that Dutty shouted over the crowd, and even though Evan had no dog in this fight, he liked what he heard. He liked the message about taking control of your destiny. He liked the message about not being afraid. And he heard about how his friend—his crazy, obsessive, loner, loser friend—had finally come to show them all how to do this. To Evan, it all felt right. He barely understood any of it, but it all felt right. Suddenly all that time that he and Christopher had spent together, training to fight unknown enemies, seemed justified. It seemed like all the faith that Evan had put in Christopher when no one around him believed that Christopher deserved any faith was going to pay off. They were chanting Christopher's name, for Christ's sake. They were cheering for Christopher, and Evan took his natural place next to his friend.

“Should I bring him out?” Dutty shouted to the crowd and the crowd erupted. Fifty people sounded like a thousand people.

It had not been easy for Christopher to get Addy to accept bringing Evan into the fold. She told Christopher that Evan didn't belong, that he wasn't part of the War, and that he was unnecessarily endangering the life of his friend. Christopher didn't deny any of that, but he threatened to walk away if Addy didn't bend. Addy knew that he wasn't bluffing. She also knew that he wouldn't survive two weeks if he walked away on his own. They met up with Evan at Venice Beach. Evan had already been there for two days. He'd slept on the beach one night and in a cheap motel room the other. He'd nearly lost faith. Nearly.

“Do you want to meet the proof of our impending victory?” Dutty shouted to the crowd. Addy remembered something she'd once read about rock bands, that they waited until the crowd was on the verge of a mass revolt before coming onstage because people are never more enthusiastic than when they are on the edge of rebellion. The response to Dutty's question was utter insanity. It was loud enough that Addy worried that the sound would travel out of the building and down the block until somebody on the outside heard and began to wonder what was going on.

From the stage, Dutty looked over at Christopher. Dutty was a powerful-looking man. He was tall, with broad shoulders. His skin was tanned dark and his black hair ran in waves away from his face. He beckoned to Christopher, motioning for him to step out from the shadows where he was standing and face the crowd. Christopher hesitated for a second. He felt like he was about to step into some sort of chasm that he would never emerge from. Dutty motioned for him again, nodding to Christopher as if to tell him that, yes, this was his purpose—this was what he was meant to do. Christopher still didn't have the courage to step forward on his own. He didn't need it, though, because before he could build up the courage to step forward, he was pushed. Addy and Evan, without even looking at each other, simultaneously reached out and pushed him gently toward Dutty. As they pushed Christopher, their fingers brushed against each other.

Christopher almost stumbled as he stepped toward Dutty, but he was able to catch his balance before careening to the ground. He took two stutter steps forward and then stopped, only halfway to Dutty. Before moving any closer, Christopher turned and looked at the crowd. When the crowd saw Christopher, a roar went up and fists rose in the air. It wasn't a huge crowd, but they made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers. They came in all shapes and sizes, though they appeared to be disproportionately young, most of them about Addy's age. A few older members stood out. Other than their age, the crowd was a nearly perfect cross section of the people on the streets outside.

“You're almost there,” Dutty whispered to Christopher, urging him closer. When Christopher was close enough, Dutty reached out and grabbed his hand. Dutty got a good grip on Christopher's wrist and lifted his hand high over his head, which had the effect of pulling Christopher closer to him. Christopher's eyes didn't leave the crowd as they cheered each step he took toward Dutty.

“Speak!” someone in the crowd shouted once Christopher and Dutty were standing next to each other. “Speak!” another echoed. The room went silent as everyone waited for Christopher to say something. They hadn't asked for a speech. They merely wanted to hear him speak. “Go ahead,” Dutty said to him. Christopher stepped forward, toward the crowd, unsure of what he was going to say, unsure if he was going to be able to say anything at all. The silence went on. Christopher wondered when it would end. He wondered when they would realize that he had nothing meaningful to say. Dutty stepped closer behind Christopher. Christopher could feel his presence. They had spoken earlier that day, but only for a moment. Dutty didn't want to waste any time. He wanted to get Christopher in front of his people as quickly as possible. He told Christopher that they would have time to talk later. Then Dutty turned to Addy and said, “I knew you were going to be special as soon as they told me about you, Addy. I knew that you were going to do something special for us.”

Christopher began to get nervous that the crowd would turn on him if he didn't say the right thing. Then he heard Dutty whisper into his ear. “Just tell them that you're one of them. That's all they want to hear.”

The silence didn't stop. The crowd kept waiting for Christopher to speak. They all felt that they'd been waiting for a long time for this—their whole lives, in fact. They were willing to wait a few minutes more. Christopher coughed, clearing his throat. He looked into the crowd, at their faces. Their eyes met his. “For eighteen years,” Christopher finally said to the crowd. He still didn't have the courage to yell like Dutty had, but he didn't need to. The silence that they'd given him was amplifier enough. “For eighteen years, I haven't had any idea who I was. But now I know.” Christopher was going to finish by telling the crowd what Dutty had told him to tell them, that he was one of them, but he never had the chance. The roar that went up from the crowd after Christopher merely told them that he now knew who he was drowned out every word after that.

Dutty stepped up next to Christopher, grabbed his hand, and again pulled it up toward the sky in both victory and defiance. “Now go meet them,” Dutty said to Christopher. He wasn't whispering anymore, but Christopher knew that no one else could hear what he was saying over the din of the crowd. “They're your people.” Then Dutty began to pull Christopher toward the crowd. As Dutty and Christopher neared, the crowd parted, creating a path for them through the middle. Once they stepped into it, the people closed in around them. People began reaching out so that they could touch Christopher. They didn't crowd him. They didn't move to crush him. They merely reached out to try to run their fingers over his skin, to touch his shoulders. The room became quiet again, almost eerily so. Christopher tried to look into the eyes of all of them. He wanted to remember each of their faces, but there were too many. Then one of them spoke. “I'm Ryan.” Christopher looked at the man's face. He was a short, blond man of about thirty years old, with striking blue eyes. He smiled when Christopher looked at him. “I'm Sarah,” another voice called out and Christopher turned his head to see an olive-skinned woman who seemed to be in her early forties with dark, curly hair. “I'm Patrick,” another man called out. He was a tall man with red hair and freckles. The older ones spoke first, as if more entitled to speak, but the young people followed. “I'm Jennifer,” a black woman with short cropped hair yelled. When Christopher made eye contact with her, tears rolled down her face. “I'm Michelle,” another woman called out. “I'm Steve.” Christopher stopped walking. He stood in the middle of the crowd as it circled him and, one at a time, they each called out their name to him and, as each person did, Christopher looked at them without saying a word. More than one of them cried when Christopher looked at them. “Why are they crying?” Christopher whispered to Dutty as he looked from face to face.

“Because those are their real names,” Dutty whispered back to him. “Most of them haven't used their real names in years.”

It took almost twenty minutes for all of them to shout out their names to Christopher. A few more reached out and touched him with gentle, grazing fingertips. One, a black man nearing fifty, who was easily the oldest person in the room, stepped forward to actually shake Christopher's hand. He introduced himself as Brian. As they shook hands, Brian reached out with his other hand so that he was cradling Christopher's hand in his. “I knew your father,” the old man said. Christopher wanted to say something to him, but Dutty kept Christopher moving forward through the crowd until every person had their chance to greet Christopher.

When it was over, Christopher met up with Evan and Addy again. Dutty led the three of them out of the building. Dutty knew the secrets. He knew not to give the crowd too much exposure to Christopher, not yet. “That was insane,” Evan whispered to Christopher as they followed Dutty down the empty L.A. street, Addy a few feet in front of them, next to Dutty.

In all the time that they'd known each other, Christopher had never been so happy to have Evan by his side. Max had done his best to keep Christopher grounded, but only Evan could help him keep his head amid the insanity. “Fucking crazy,” Christopher said back to Evan, and simply having someone there to tell him that the madness was madness made Christopher feel better.

“You're like a god to these people,” Evan continued, his voice full of confused awe.

Christopher glanced at Addy and Dutty, hoping that they hadn't heard Evan. Either they didn't hear him or they chose to ignore him. “Like you said,” Christopher answered him, “that was insane.”