Authors: Erin Bowman
“We’ve always seen them as the enemy,” Bo answers. “And I know Ryder. He wouldn’t go through all the trouble of sending this message back if it only meant to keep viewing AmWest exactly as we always have.”
“So you think it means . . . ?”
“I do, yes. We were right to wonder if the Expats were another group of Rebels, not unlike us.”
I glance toward Clipper and Sammy. They both look like they’re not sure what to make of this news.
“Little help this does us now,” I say to Bo.
“Are you entering a control room tomorrow or not?” he responds. “Get Titus on your side; then Clipper can go to work. We could have both Burg and a few Expats manning the Rebels’ newest base by nightfall.”
I promise Bo updates as soon as possible, and Clipper stows the radio away. After retying him to his pole, I put the gear and candle back near the doorway and return the small knife to its hiding place within my boot. I manage to secure my arms behind my back and kick the excess rope I cut when freeing myself aside, hoping Bruno won’t notice the difference come morning. The candle hisses out moments later, and I realize, despite everything, that I am hopeful.
I listen to the others, their breathing slow as they sleep. My eyelids are finally growing heavy when Jackson whispers through the dark.
“I guess Frank didn’t overestimate you after all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“AmWest. He feared you were going to join forces with them from the beginning. Naturally, they’d be your best ally.”
Of course he would admit this to me now, when we’ve finally worked it out ourselves. Not earlier when we could have more effectively used the information. Not when we asked him for it. And he claims he wants to help us.
“Are you still planning on stranding me here when you’re released?” he asks.
“Are you still planning on torturing us for headquarters’ location?”
“I know I should. And it wouldn’t even be that hard. You, Gray, would tell me what I want to know in an instant.”
I think of all those people still holed up in Crevice Valley. Ryder, the captains, families, and children.
Blaine
.
“I’d die first.”
Jackson laughs. “Oh, I wouldn’t touch you. I’d start by cutting up one of the girls and you’d give me the location before I could even get creative with my blade.”
“And you still have the nerve to ask if I’d spare you?”
“Caring for people is a weakness, Gray,” he says. “Let your enemy know what’s closest to your heart and you’re as good as beaten before the fight even begins. But the thing is, I don’t—” He coughs, and when he speaks again, it sounds as though he is forcing out the words. “I don’t think I
want
to be your enemy.” A few rapidly drawn breaths. “And I don’t want to hurt Emma or Bree either
.
”
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, Jackson. It really is. If you don’t want to do something,
don’t
.”
I am so sick of his games, the lies.
“Did I ever tell you about Kay?” he asks. “He’s my youngest brother, and was right around Aiden’s age when I was taken from Dextern. Aiden reminded me of him. The way he wasn’t afraid to smile, how he didn’t let the cruelness of life turn him bitter. I played hand games with Kay, too. They always made him laugh and that sound could brighten any day.” He chuckles at his own memories. “I loved him so much.”
These words aren’t right. They are impossible. Harvey claimed as much the day I arrived in Crevice Valley. I spoke of Emma and how much I loved her during a series of Harvey’s tests, and he immediately said I couldn’t be a Forgery because they were incapable of the feeling. But if Jackson still loves his brother now, in his Forged state, what else is he capable of? Remorse? Pity? Can he feel emotions as strongly as I do? Maybe the Wall really did cause something to break down in his programming after all. Maybe he truly is a Forgery with a heart.
I must be crazy to think this. Jackson is a machine. He doesn’t have a conscience, and even though he’s musing about right and wrong now, the mere thoughts hurt him. I doubt he could truly lift a finger in a manner that goes against his commands.
“I wonder if Kay misses me,” he says.
“Kay doesn’t know you exist. He only knows that his
real
brother was Heisted on his eighteenth birthday. I’m sure he misses the
real
Jackson.”
“What makes me less real?”
“If you choose to act the way Jackson would, maybe nothing.”
“The real Jackson would help you. I—” He coughs once, twice. Gasps in pain. “
I
want to help you.”
“Then when the time comes, you should.”
“Al—” He cuts off, cursing. I listen to him groan. “Allies,” the Forgery says, panting as though he’s just sprinted a long distance.
“Allies.”
I’m surprised to discover that I want to trust him, that I’m hoping with every fiber of my being that the pain in his voice is real. If a Forgery can become a Rebel’s ally . . .
“I know you won’t believe me,” he says, “but I
am
sorry about your father. It was a horrible thing.”
A shred of humanity. A declaration of remorse. I should be happy, but the possibility that Jackson is now on our side is so promising, so huge, so unprecedented, that it also makes me doubtful. My muscles tense, like I’m already bracing for the letdown.
I AM WITH MY BROTHER
in Claysoot, tracking a deer by the light of a full moon. Blaine startles it purposely, and then it’s fleeing, away from him and along the Wall, directly toward me, just as we planned. When it appears, white tail upright, eyes wide, I take it down with a single arrow.
“We should make stew,” Blaine says when he catches up to me. “The way Ma used to.”
“I’ll go to the market in the morning. Trade for some vegetables.” I stoop to retrieve the carcass.
“Let me help.” But despite the long haul back to town, I want to do it alone. He grabs my shoulder when I ignore him. “I want to help you, Gray.”
A series of clouds swallows the moon and as I glare at Blaine, annoyed he’s pressing this, I catch something unnatural in his eyes. They are lifeless, inanimate, his pupils barely growing as the world darkens. I realize that this is a sign. A terrible sign that up until now I’ve never been able to identify. A girl warned me about it once. I can’t remember who she is or what the sign even means, only that I can’t trust Blaine—not after I’ve seen this. I step away from him, heart hammering.
“Where are you going, little brother? We are allies, a team, twins.” He pulls a knife from his waistband. “I want to help you.” He turns the blade over. “Let me help you.”
I run. The wind is howling and his footsteps pound after me. I trip on a tree root and tumble forward. When I roll over he is above me, diving, pinning me to the earth. I barely get my arms up in time. The knife glints, held at bay inches from my neck.
I throw an elbow into his face and he flinches enough for me to free myself. He slashes with the blade as we scramble to our feet. My shirt tears open, but not my skin. Grabbing Blaine’s forearm, I bring it against my knee—once, twice, again—until he drops the knife. I grab it and then I’m backing away, panting, the weapon out-held.
Blaine watches me for a moment, head tilted in amusement. And then he charges. He’s running full-out, a sprint, no sign that he might slow. He is going to crush me, tackle me, strangle me with his bare hands. I jump aside at the last moment, swinging the weapon in defense.
Blaine staggers to a standstill, arms on his stomach. When he moves them, his palms are wet with blood.
“Gray?”
His voice has changed somehow, grown softer. He drops to his knees and stares up at me. The moon reappears, lighting Claysoot with the strength of the sun. The world grows brighter and brighter, like it is about to explode, and Blaine’s pupils shrink so drastically it’s impossible to miss. I take a step toward him. My shadow falls across his face and his pupils grow. His eyes are normal again. They are normal but I swear I didn’t imagine it before. He wasn’t himself just earlier.
Blaine coughs—blood spatters the clay earth—and he collapses.
I run to him, roll him over, but he is already dead. There is an arrow in his forehead and around us, the clay earth has become snow. Bloody snow, starting beneath Blaine’s skull and then blooming outward: searching, fanning, covering the world in red. And then the blood is everywhere. On my clothes, my hands, my face.
Blaine sits bolt upright and grips my elbow. His eyes are black now, every last inch of them, blood streaming from them like tears. “You murdered me.”
I jolt awake—sweating, shaking—and bite on my knuckles to hold in a sob. In the darkness, all I can see is Blaine. My brother was in that Forgery I killed back near Stonewall. Just like Jackson, the real Blaine existed somewhere beneath his programming, and I killed him. I killed him before he could surface.
You didn’t know,
I tell myself.
And even if you did, it’s not the same thing. It wasn’t truly him.
I close my eyes.
I can live with this. I
will
live with this.
I have to.
Titus and Bruno come to retrieve us in the morning, but only Clipper and I are untied and led from the room. I get an uneasy feeling that I’m in attendance solely in case Titus needs to revisit our bargain. I hope it doesn’t come to this.
We pass a large group of Burg’s citizens as we head for the Room of Whistles and Whirs. They are paired off as couples and filing into a separate hallway. Bringing up the rear is Bleak. I can see him properly for the first time and he looks different than he did under moonlight. He is definitely around my age. Unlike most of Burg’s citizens, his hair hasn’t given itself over to a matted mess; he’s kept it incredibly short, as though he drags a blade over his scalp every few evenings. He walks with his shoulders held back, an almost bored look on his face, but the girl at his side doesn’t seem to mind. She’s smiling at him playfully.
Bleak’s eyes find mine and before rounding the corner he gives me a small, indifferent shrug. I know exactly what he’s feeling. I experienced it during every Claysoot slating. It’s hard to hate what awaits, because it’s far from torture, but the formality of the entire affair is both draining and depressing. I don’t blame Bleak for his emotions. If anything, I’m surprised there aren’t more people in Burg that share nicknames like his.
“Get to it, boy,” Titus says, shoving Clipper forward.
We’ve reached the Room of Whistles and Whirs. The door is a heavy thing, thick and solid, no hinges or handle. Its edges are recognizable only because the door is recessed from the rest of the hallway, set back about a palm’s width.
Clipper opens the small silver box mounted near the door to reveal what looks like a series of buttons. He pops these off, exposing a mess of wires and small panels that glint beneath the torchlight. This seems to make more sense to Clipper than the buttons, because he bends to retrieve something in the bag. Several moments later, he’s attached his own wires to the box on the wall, and then attached those to some sort of thin, handheld panel.
The boy slides to the floor, the device resting on his knees, and waits. The screen keeps flashing sporadically, but it’s not until it goes still, a constant blue light illuminating his face, that Clipper seems interested. He taps at the device frantically, tongue hanging out the corner of his mouth, eyes squinted in concentration.
“A knife,” he says, jumping to his feet. “I need a knife.”
Titus hesitates.
“Do you want to open the door or not?”
Titus snaps his fingers and Bruno complies. Clipper takes the knife and gathers the wires that spill from the silver box, flattening them into some semblance of order against the wall. He counts, recounts, moves his blade between them. Biting his lip, he puts the knife behind two of the wires and tugs. They split. He uses the blade to strip back some sort of casing on the wires and then twists two of them together. Bruno snatches back his blade.
Clipper returns to frantically tapping at the blue-screened device. I’m wondering why he bothered to cut the wires if he only wanted to rejoin them, when a deep, mechanical click echoes behind the door. Titus darts forward.
“Ya did it,” he whispers.
And Clipper has.
The door moves. We stand there, breath held, as the Room of Whistles and Whirs opens.
IT SMELLS WEIRD.
Not bad.
Just weird. Like dead air. Like lost space. Like a place time forgot to touch.
And there’s this noise. The steady whir that gave the room its name. Louder now that the door is open.
Clipper goes in first, using the illuminated screen of his device to light the way. Moments later there’s a dull bang, like him throwing open a very stubborn window, and shoddy light fills the room.
The room is dull in color—grays and tans, like dead crop fields under a winter sky—and square. To our right is gear that reminds me of Crevice Valley’s technology wing. Computers sit on a long table gathering dust, and additional screens hang on the wall above them. The other walls of the room are lined with large, rectangular components, all metal and flush edges. The whirring noise is coming from one of them.
“Generators,” Clipper says, looking them over quickly. “Just like I suspected. Not enough to power the whole town, though, so they must be for these computers. And the cameras, too, probably. Power and fuel lines must be underground—I mean, we didn’t see any on the way in. The Tolling is the sound of generators kicking on and off while they take turns powering things, but I still don’t really get it: Why waste resources keeping cameras on in a place you think is extinct?”
“Maybe Frank’s not keeping an eye on the inside. Maybe he’s watching the Outer Ring. Making sure no one wanders across his project.”
“Destroying the place seems easier, although I guess that takes resources as well.” Clipper’s eyes go wide. “If they
are
monitoring the Outer Ring, wouldn’t they have seen us entering the other day?”