Authors: Eva Gray
T
he second thing I see is Helen’s face. She whispers, “If you value your friends’ lives, you’ll come with me quietly. Do you understand?” I nod.
She pulls me up by the wrist, not roughly, and leads me from the car wash into the cool night air. There’s a tarp on the ground and a pack suspended from an old drainpipe. “Sit,” she says.
“You’re camping out here?” I ask. She puts her finger to her lips. “We have to be quiet. I don’t want to wake the others.” She follows my eyes and realizes I’m staring not at her but at the Alliance uniform.
She thumbs the collar. “Don’t look at me like that.
This is yours.”
“I told you, we stole it.”
“I know. I believe you now. I’m just wearing it for warmth.”
It’s freezing out in the open. “What are you doing here?” I ask her in a whisper. “Where’s Troy? What do you mean about waking the others?”
“He went on alone,” she says, with a finality that makes me think I shouldn’t ask any more questions. “I decided to follow you. I woke you up first because you seem the most … reasonable. Your other leader, the dark-haired angry girl —”
“Rosie?” I manage to say through chattering teeth.
“Yes. I didn’t think she’d listen. But you will. And then the others will listen to you.”
I’m too cold to be flattered.
She tosses me a hat and some gloves. “Here, put these on.”
I pull the hat low over my ears and tuck my hands under my arms. Helen sits down next to me and draws her legs up, wrapping her arms around them. As she shifts I see a flash of yellow at her neck. Like a scarf.
“That was you!” I exclaim. “In the Settlement Lands, you’re the one who threw that smoke bomb.”
“I thought you could use some help.”
“Why did you decide to be our ally?”
She holds up a hand. “I’m not your ally. I didn’t follow you because I wanted to help. I followed you to head you off if you tried to turn us in. I couldn’t risk you figuring out where we came from and reporting us, or you turning out to be scouts.”
That word again. “What’s a scout?” I ask.
Her head goes up and down. “Yeah. That’s one of the things you’re going to need to know about.”
“Know about for what?”
“To get your friend away from Phoenix.” She stares out at the night. “The plan you have, to go up there, look around, blend in? That’s not going to work.”
“Wait, you were listening to us?” I ask, and she nods, but I don’t have time to focus on that now. “Why isn’t it going to work?” I ask instead.
She bites the inside of her cheek, like she’s trying to figure out how best to put something. “The way Phoenix
is organized, everyone watches everyone else all the time. They’ll say ‘watches out for’ but it’s really much more evil. If a cadet — that’s what the students are called — sees something out of the ordinary, he or she is supposed to blow the whistle on it. Even if it’s a friend. And I’m not talking meteorically; I mean for real.”
“Metaphorically,” I suggest.
A muscle in her jaw tightens. “Whatever. What I mean is, it’s a real whistle that brings real guards. The cadets are told it’s a game, to help others be better Phoenix citizens, by helping them remember to follow the rules. The more people you can blow the whistle on, the more points you get. Points lead to privileges and promotion.”
“But it’s not a game,” I say.
“No,” Helen agrees, shaking her head. “And part of the way it works is that everyone is supposed to know everybody else. There’s no way for you to blend in, especially not all of you. One, maybe two of you could pretend to be new students or transfers, but not all six, not all at once. And since you’d be likely to be challenged, you’d need to know all the Recitations.”
I move to sit on my hands for extra warmth. “What are those?”
“The Phoenix motto, the creed, the founding principles. ‘Submission is strength.’ ‘Belonging is beautiful.’ ‘The group is good.’ That kind of thing.” She shudders, but not, I think, from the cold.
“If students are called ‘cadets,’ what are scouts?”
“Scouts are the more advanced cadets, the ones who show the most enthusiasm. Inside Phoenix, they watch out for anyone who might make trouble. And outside, if a cadet doesn’t perform properly on a mission or leaves without permission, scouts are sent to bring them back. They’re spies.” She says the word like it leaves a bad taste on her tongue, and it reminds me of what happened in the Settlement Lands earlier.
“That’s why that kid, Bailey, said it that way,” I say as much to myself as to her.
“Yeah. No one likes scouts except scouts.” She’s staring into the night, like part of her is somewhere else. “They’ll try to trick you into trusting them, too, like by
not wearing their badges, or trick you into doing something wrong just so they can take you in.”
“Why would anyone want to be a scout?”
“If you believe in Phoenix, then being a scout is an honor. It means you belong somewhere; you have a place and a purpose. You probably can’t understand that but for some of us, that’s — It can be appealing.”
“I understand the appeal of knowing where you stand,” I say.
She looks at me like she doubts it but goes on. “Troy and I thought you and your friends were scouts to start with.”
“What changed your mind?”
She looks at me squarely. “Phoenix Center is a place for bad kids. Really bad kids. No offense, but you and your friends aren’t tough enough or ruthless enough. You’re not Phoenix material.”
I can’t imagine Maddie with kids like that.
“And there is just something about the way you all are together. You don’t wait for each other to mess up. You’re — nice.” She picks up a stick and draws lines in
the dirt next to her foot. “I don’t know about this girl you’re trying to rescue —”
“She’s like us. She’s not a bad kid, either.”
“Then you better get her out fast. Because it just gets worse the longer you are there.”
“She was classified as AL-five. Do you know what that means?”
Helen pauses in her drawing. “Are you sure about your friend? That she’s just a good, normal kid?”
“Yes, why?”
“‘AL’ means Asset Level — how important you are to Phoenix. Which means to the Alliance. Everyone starts at level one or two, depending on what kind of useful abilities you have. As you progress through the Phoenix classes, you move up levels. But I’ve never known anyone above a level four. Level five is like —” She fans her hand in the air at some mythical height of achievement. “Your friend must have some special skills. It also means they’ll be watching her extra closely.”
I ransack my brain to think of anything that would set Maddie apart like that. She was okay at putting up a
tent, but that doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Or maybe Alonso was right. Maybe it has something to do with Maddie’s dad.
I say, “The other thing on her record was that she’s being moved somewhere called Bright Spa tomorrow. Would it be easier for us to get her from there?”
Before I’m done saying the words, the color has drained from Helen’s face. “I had a friend who was moved to Bright Spa. They said it was for medical tests. She didn’t come back.”
Well, that takes care of that.
“Troy said the only way out of Phoenix is through the chute,” I say, pressing on.
“That was the only way we could think of. But you won’t be able to do that again. I’m sure they’ve closed it up. And frankly,” she says, still fiddling with her stick, “getting out will be the easy part.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. I have the feeling she’s avoiding my eyes.
“You’ll be spotted as fakes at some point, and once you are, there will be a general scramble with everyone trying to
catch you. Phoenix is built on maintaining order. The one thing it isn’t designed to deal with is full-scale chaos. You shouldn’t have trouble getting away in the middle of it.”
I feel myself brightening. “That’s good news. So if getting out is the easy part, what’s the hard part?”
“Getting in.” She continues sketching with her stick. “And I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.”
I feel completely chilled, but I don’t know if it’s from the cold or her words. “What
can
you help with?”
“I can tell you what you’ll need to know if you get inside, and to keep from getting spotted right away. But there’s a lot to learn. It will take two or three days.”
I look at the sky. I don’t see a hint of dawn yet but it can’t be that far away. “We probably have about five hours.”
“Then we’d better get started,” she says, and stands.
“Why are you helping us?” I ask as we circle around to the front of the car wash.
“Because no one should have to stay at the Phoenix Center,” she says, and I think she means it. But I also don’t think it’s the whole answer.
I decide to wake the others by gently shaking them rather than shining flashlights in their faces and yelling, “On your feet!” which is Helen’s suggestion.
“Do what you want, but you’re the one with the schedule to keep,” she says, slouching against the wall.
I start with Rosie, because I suspect she’ll be the most, well, volatile.
“You have got to be kidding,” she says, instantly alert. “We can’t trust a word she says. That girl is a thief and a sneak.”
“Which is why she can help us,” I reason. “She’s been inside.”
Rosie glares in Helen’s direction. “She’s setting us up.”
“Maybe. But since this is our only shot at getting Maddie, we might as well listen to her. Besides, Helen is the one who saved us in the Settlement Lands,” I add. “She threw the smoke bomb.”
Rosie’s eyes haven’t moved. “Sure, according to her.”
It’s clear Rosie isn’t happy, but she goes along with it. Louisa is easier — hearing Helen has information that
might help us find Maddie is enough to convince her. And with the two of them on board, the boys all agree.
Helen makes us line up and stand at Phoenix attention, which means feet together, hands at your sides, shoulders back, eyes at a sixty-degree angle downward.
“That way you see everything from your peripheral vision but don’t make eye contact. As much as possible, avoid looking people in the eye,” she explains.
The next four hours are exhausting. First Helen tells us an overwhelming number of facts about Phoenix. She says:
“There are two sets of morning classes but your best bet will be to arrive before the first bell. Whatever you do, do not get caught in the halls between classes. All superiors are addressed as ‘sir’ whether male or female. Touching the outer corner of your eye with your finger can be friendly and mean ‘I’m looking out for you,’ or threatening and mean ‘I’m watching you.’ Got that?”
We have no choice but to nod. We have no choice but to get it.
Next Helen observes the way we stand. She yells at us to stand up straighter, raise or lower our chins, stop
fidgeting, take our hands out of our pockets, keep our shoulders even.
“I think this is all made up and she’s just playing with us,” Rosie says out of the corner of her mouth.
“What is that, Cadet Marquez?” Helen demands, getting in Rosie’s face.
Marquez is the fake name that Rosie’s chosen for herself for our Phoenix mission. All cadets have to spray their names on the backs of their jackets using stencils when they first get to Phoenix. We don’t have any paint or stencils, so we’re going to be hand-lettering names on our jackets, using black ink, in what will hopefully look the same as the stencils. But we decided not to use our real names. Instead, we’ll use the name of a close relative, which should be easy for us to remember. Marquez is Rosie’s aunt’s last name.
Helen goes on to explain other things, like: never walk around in groups of more than two; don’t trust anyone; don’t smile.
“Older cadets are allowed to stop you at any moment and demand an answer to any question, including where
any other cadet is,” she says. “You are supposed to learn to observe others. They say it makes you a good citizen but really you are always watching to report on their behavior. You’ll be called in and asked what you saw someone do. The more detailed a report you can give, the happier they are. So you get really good at spying on your neighbors. Or making stuff up.”
She paces in front of us. “Everyone will be watching you. Everyone will be hoping you slip up. No one is on your side. Salute!”
We salute.
“You need to be faster and sharper. And those two,” she says, pointing at Alonso and Drew. “They can’t go. Anyone who is injured is locked in the infirmary ward because injury weakens the team. ‘Don’t be the weak link’ is one of the Recitations.”
“We’ll stay here with one of the phones,” Drew says.
“And maybe Helen will stay with you. To help out if we have any questions.” Rosie says. The gleam in her eye is a challenge.
“You still think I’m trying to betray you,” Helen
states. “You think if I went with you, I’d blow the whistle and turn you in.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Rosie says.
Helen nods with real appreciation. “You’re good. If anyone gets in your face, show them that attitude. I may have been wrong about you; you may have what it takes to make it at Phoenix.”
Rosie says, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Yeah. But it doesn’t matter; no way I’m going anywhere near there.”
Finally Helen makes us practice the Recitations so many times my tongue is tired. “I may never speak again,” I say, and I try not to be disheartened by the sort of laughter that comes out of Rosie and Louisa.
We decide that we will divide up into two teams: Drew, Alonso, and Helen at the car wash with one phone; Louisa, Ryan, Rosie, and I at the library with the other. While those of us who will be going to Phoenix hand-letter our jackets with “our” names, we also hash out a plan for getting in.
Rosie isn’t sure she likes what we come up with until Helen announces, “That plan stinks.”
Rosie nods. “It’s a go.”
Dawn is breaking, which means if we want to get to Phoenix before morning classes, it’s time for us to leave. I’m exhausted but I also feel jangly. It’s like a group of mice is inside me, playing the kind of jazz Mr. Peña likes to listen to when he’s cooking.