The Eden Conspiracy: Book 2 of The Liberty Box Trilogy Read online

  I’d caught Jackson watching Will and me a few times, and I wished I could talk to him. But what could I say?

  This morning, the hunters went out to find food for what was left of the refugees, while Molly and the other women went to forage for berries, root vegetables, and herbs in the forest. I saw Will glance at me before he slipped off by himself, and I knew he wanted me to follow him.

  But now that I stood watching him, I didn’t know what to do or what to say.

  He turned around and saw me. But instead of a greeting, he said in a flat voice, “You took your ring off, I see.” Before I could answer, he said, “And you and Jackson seem awfully familiar. How long did that take?”

  I covered the distance between us. “That’s not fair,” I said, sitting beside him and taking his hand. “I thought you were dead.” I paused. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”

  He let me hold his hand, but his remained limp. “When I was researching your old roommate, I hit a firewall that must have alerted the agents what I was up to. They showed up at my office, and invited me out for a ‘chat.’ I thought that was it. But instead, they told me the Potentate decided I was too valuable to kill. They wanted me to hack into New Estonia’s mainframe and deliver classified information that would enable them to infiltrate it and build control center technology there, too. They told me they already had you in custody, and they threatened to kill you if I didn’t do what they wanted.”

  “It was a lie,” I murmured. “They tried, but they never caught me.”

  “I figured that out later,” Will said, still not looking at me. “At first I thought it was true, because I went to your apartment and found a half-packed suitcase, and I didn’t see you on the news broadcasts anymore so something had obviously happened to you. I started to wonder why they didn’t ever let me hear your voice. Once I started investigating, it didn’t take me long to find out that you’d vanished, and they were looking for you.” He paused, and turned to me, his expression bleak. “I still played along for awhile, delivering little bits of information here and there so they’d still think I was on their side. But meanwhile I set up what I hope was a secure, encrypted server, and sent classified information to New Estonia, leaking the Potentate’s plans.”

  I gasped. “Did they get your message?”

  Will shrugged. “I have no idea. I’d only just completed it when I discovered that there were refugees hiding in the forest, and the Potentate sent a battalion to blow up their headquarters. I figured if you hadn't already escaped to New Estonia yourself, that’s probably where you were.”

  “But with the control centers, how did you sneak in undetected?”

  “The control centers can only track the undocumented, or people they’re specifically looking for,” said Will. “I figured it would take them a little while to start looking for me, and by then I’d be off the grid.”

  “But the uniform, and everything?”

  He paused, and took a long, deep breath.

  “How did you get the uniform?” I pressed. “How did they let you in to the battalion?”

  “I found someone about my size,” he said. “I tracked him. I waited until I could get him alone. And then I slit his throat.”

  I didn’t react for a moment, sure I couldn’t have heard him correctly.

  Will turned back to face me. “These are desperate times, Kate.”

  I realized I’d been holding my breath, and exhaled.

  “So your turn,” he said. “Since your last broadcast, you fled for your life and found the refugees. I got that much. Anything else?”

  The wind ruffled my hair and I shivered. “That’s the basics,” I told him at last. “Everything else has just been happening inside my head I guess. So far.”

  Will withdrew his hand from mine. “Oh yeah?” His voice was flat.

  I wrapped my arms around my knees. “I feel—different,” I told him at last. “I mean, it’s a lot to take in. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but I found out in that time that everything I thought I knew and believed was a lie. It felt like before I was just… sleepwalking. But now… I think I know how I can help the resistance, Will!” I looked at him, getting excited. “The people in the Republic are all still brainwashed, but they trust me, like they trust no one else except maybe Jillian and the Potentate himself. So what if I can use that? What if I can find some way to go back on the air and tell everybody the truth?”

  “No,” said Will. “Not a chance.”

  “Why not?”

  He paused, like he was trying to decide whether or not to say what he was thinking. Finally, he turned to face me.

  “You’re weak, Kate.”

  I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

  “I know you. You’re not a fighter. When things get rough, you don’t rise to the challenge. You panic. You’re not a problem solver and you’re certainly not brave. Look, this isn’t supposed to be a criticism,” he interrupted when he saw my expression, “it’s just a fact, all right? The only reason you survived this long is because you stumbled upon the hunters. Otherwise I guarantee you would have died out here long before now.”

  “I’m not the girl you remember, Will,” I whispered.

  “Not the girl I remember from like two weeks ago, the one I’ve known for years?” he retorted. “Come on, Kate, be real. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior—bar none. The second you catch sight of an agent you’d lose it, and it would be up to me to save you, as usual. No.”

  I fell into an angry silence for a long time, and Will didn’t speak again either. It felt like a showdown.

  “Besides, there might be another way,” he said at last. “Nick told me you discovered that a bunch of citizens all started to ‘wake up’ around noon or one pm last Thursday, corresponding to time zone changes in different parts of the Republic. He said you all figured that happened because the control centers must have been centrally disrupted all across the Republic at exactly that time.” He turned to look at me and gave me a humorless smile. “Guess why?”

  I gasped. “You?”

  “I didn’t know if it had worked or not until I got here. But as far as I know, the Potentate and the Tribunal aren’t even aware that it happened, which means they’re not expecting it to happen again.”

  “How long was the interruption?” I asked.

  “Only one minute. I didn’t want to call any attention to the program at first, I just wanted to see if I could do it. Now that I know I can, though…” He turned to me, the wind rustling his blond hair. Gooseflesh raised on my arms in the breeze. “What if I can go back in and set the program on a loop? At regular intervals, it’ll disrupt the signals, a little longer each time. Not all at once, not long enough to draw any agent attention. But enough to wake people up gradually, so they won’t have the rude shock you and I had.”

  “But you’ll have to go back on the grid to do that, and they know you’re a turncoat now,” I argued. “Even if they didn’t find out about that program, or that you leaked secrets to New Estonia, at least they’ll know by now that you killed and impersonated a military officer. They’ll be looking for you. You’d never make it out alive!”

  “I might have a solution for that too,” Will swung his legs out in front of him, letting them dangle over the ravine.

  “Of course you do,” I muttered.

  He ignored my comment and went on, “The thing about the brainwave program is that they have to be able to detect your brainwaves for them to work, right? So all we need to do is block their ability to read us. Thoughts are electromagnetic energy. So in theory, we should be able to block the control centers’ ability to read our thoughts with any conductive material. If we strip the copper wire from lamps or small appliances and weave it in with yarn from wool sweaters or whatever, we can make faraday cages to insulate our heads. Ski masks would be safest, but even just a cap should be enough to obscure our brainwaves from the control centers enough tha
t we’d fly under the threshold of detectable electromagnetic energy, and it would be a lot easier for us to blend in. We’ll have to wear something non-conductive underneath, though, or else they’ll act like antennas, and amplify the government’s control signals…”

  “What’s a faraday cage?” I interrupted, annoyed that he was mostly talking to himself at this point. He always did that. He didn’t care whether I followed his train of thought or not.

  “Oh. It just means an enclosure of conductive material that will pick up the external charge and distribute it evenly so that the effects are canceled out. Technically in order for this to happen it would have to be grounded so the charge has somewhere to go, but we can’t do that easily on our heads. Hence the need for insulation. A latex swim cap should do it.” He gave me a real grin this time. “After that, it’s just a matter of not being recognized. There aren't that many people in the Republic who will know to look for me, though, or who even know what I look like. As long as I don’t run into those people, and the control centers can’t identify my actual brainwaves, I ought to be perfectly safe.”

  I almost tuned him out at the end. I was too busy thinking about where I could get my hands on some copper wire, yarn, and a pair of knitting needles. I knew how to knit. Not too many people had swim caps, but wouldn’t a shower cap work just as well? And if I could find all that, surely I could get my hands on a disguise of some kind.

  “Kate…”

  I looked up at the warning note in Will’s voice.

  “You’re going to stay here, out of the way, where you belong. Say it.”

  I bristled. Has he always spoken to me like I’m a child? I tried to remember, but my relationship with Will back in the Republic felt like a lifetime ago.

  “I need to hear you promise me that you are not going to do something foolish and make me go in and rescue you,” he insisted.

  “I’m not promising you anything,” I snapped, before I could stop myself. “You don’t control me, Will Anderson. Not anymore!”

  A look of shock registered on Will’s face, but I didn’t stick around to listen to his objections. I stood up and walked back into the forest, my head high.

  Little Kathryn Brandeis, the rebel who had landed herself in McCormick Reform School, would have been proud.

  Chapter 2: Jackson

  We hunted in silence, even after we’d brought down a deer and a couple of rabbits, which was more than enough meat to feed the remaining refugees. We had to be careful building fires of course, but we also had to eat, and the agros—those who specialized in gathering—were having a hard time finding enough root vegetables, nuts and berries to go around.

  Nobody felt like talking—the tragedy was too fresh. Jacob and Pete skinned the rabbits, and Nick and Alec cleaned the deer. I offered to help, but Nick told me it was okay, that he needed to stay busy. It would distract him. I couldn’t argue with that.

  I wandered off by myself while they worked, grateful for a bit of peace to sort out my chaotic thoughts. I needed that, if I wanted to regain my usual calm and focus. I took stock, examining one thought at a time as Grandfather had taught me to do: acknowledging it, and then letting it go again, like waves upon a shore.

  The caves were destroyed.

  Most of the refugees were dead.

  The Potentate knew where we were; chances were high that his troops would find us again here, unless we continued to move. We had elderly and children among us. We couldn’t move quickly. The odds were stacked against us.

  If we wanted to survive, defense wasn’t going to be enough. Our previous strategy of growing our numbers little by little wouldn’t work anymore either—they were looking for us now.

  Our next move, then, would have to be bold. The element of surprise was our only chance. But what did that mean exactly?

  Also… Kate’s fiancé was alive. I had mixed feelings about that, but ultimately I respected him. I was glad he'd turned up when he did. If he hadn’t been among the soldiers nobody in the caves would have survived. Including Kate.

  I gathered Will didn’t like me much, but I couldn’t blame him for that. I’d just have to win him over, and prove to him that I didn’t intend to be a threat. Not anymore.

  After our somber dinner back at our new home, consisting of game meat and root vegetables, the Crone stood up, along with her two bodyguards.

  “It is time,” she announced. “Council members, you will please follow me.”

  “Time for what?” asked Rachel, Kenny’s widow, in a tremulous voice. I saw that she was sitting next to Kate. Will was not. I frowned.

  The Crone did not even look at Rachel when she spoke. Uruguay Stone stood to follow her, and so did the five other remaining Council members.

  Nick called out, “If you’re planning to discuss our situation, I think we all have a right to hear it!”

  The Crone whirled on him, her sharp eyes flashing. “How dare you! If not for you and yours, the rest of our kind would still be alive! We would all still be in the caves!”

  “It’s not his fault what happened!” cried Molly. But nobody else came to Nick’s defense. Most of the remaining refugees stared at their feet or their food—anywhere but at Molly.

  “What’s going on?” I heard Will ask in a low voice. I turned and saw him sitting beside Brian, whose arm was still in a sling from the fake bullet he’d encountered on our first raid. Brian whispered a reply that I did not hear.

  “If you expect to make a decision that affects the rest of us,” Alec challenged, “then have your little meeting right here. No secrets!”

  “Yeah, we should all be Council members now,” cried Nelson, one of the recent rescues. “It’s our lives too!”

  “We cannot trust your judgment,” said Uruguay Stone curtly. “If not for your interference, our entire community would still be alive and undetected today. The Council intends to preserve what’s left of us, and you will abide by our decision, whether you like it or not.”

  “Excuse me?” demanded Brenda Halfpenny. “Everyone here has risked his life to flee from a dictatorship. We fled for freedom. Don’t think for a minute that after that, we’re going to voluntarily subject ourselves to another oligarchy. You include us, or we go our separate ways right now!”

  Molly, Nick, Alec, and most of the other hunters murmured their agreement. The Crone fixed Brenda with an unpleasant smile. Then she glanced at Uruguay and said, “Did I not predict it?”

  “You did, Madam,” Stone affirmed.

  The Crone leaned over to Stone and whispered in his ear. His jaw locked and he gave a short nod. Then the Council moved to sit back down again.

  “Our desire is for harmony and cooperation, not division,” said the Crone as she seated herself. “Please understand my position. My wish is to keep us all alive, and flee to a new land where we can live in peace and obscurity, as we have for decades already. Yet I see that we have among us some… alternative viewpoints. I cannot afford to entertain those viewpoints, however, as evidenced by the previous disaster… and yet, I cannot afford to leave behind our most valuable hunters.

  “Threats are a last resort for us, and certainly too much blood has been spilled already. We must stand together. Though we are ready and willing to use force if necessary, we counsel you to give us your voluntary support.”

  That was a veiled threat if I ever heard one. My eyes shifted to the guards on either side of the Crone. Both of their right hands were concealed inside their threadbare coats. They’ve got loaded weapons. I glanced at Uruguay Stone next, and saw a revolver casually resting in his hand, its barrel pointing straight at me—intentionally or not, I could not tell.

  I understood the reason for the show of force—the Crone thought it was the only way to make us all fall in line with her wishes. But was it just for show? Or would they actually shoot if it came to that?

  My instincts told me that for the Crone herself, it was show only. She wouldn’t kill her own people. B
ut I wasn’t so sure about the rest of the Council.

  I could move out of range and cross the distance to Stone in about a second and a half. I’d have no trouble disarming him. But I feared Stone might fire in the process, and hit either Will or Brian behind me. It wasn’t worth the risk, at least not yet. I stayed put, but decided to draw their attention to myself. Maybe they’d be reasonable yet.

  “We can’t stay here,” I said. “We’re only ten miles from the caves, and I’m betting the Potentate knows by now that some of us escaped. If he hasn’t sent soldiers to comb the forest for us yet, he will very soon.”

  “He’s right,” said Will. “I never intended this place to be permanent. It was just a place to stay the night and it was near water with a little bit of natural shelter.”

  “The Council agrees that we must leave,” said Stone, “tomorrow morning at the latest. We will head for the docks, through the forest when we can and the wasteland when we cannot. We estimate the journey will take us just under two weeks on foot, if we want to stay outside of the control center purview as much as possible. It will still be risky at the end, but it’s our best chance.”

  “The docks?” called Rachel. “Why?”

  “They’re planning to flee to New Estonia, I’m betting,” growled Nick. I looked at him perplexed. He added, “Her home country.”

  “Really?” I mouthed at him. I didn’t know much about the Republic given my brief time in the country, but I had heard New Estonia referred to as their number one Enemy of State quite a few times. I wondered why she’d come here in the first place.

  “New Estonia is the safest place for us,” said Stone. “Though she has been gone for decades, the Crone is still a baroness. We will be protected and well cared for in New Estonia.”

  A baroness? I glanced around. For the briefest of moments, I saw the faces of most of the refugees light up with hope.