Mindstormer Page 12

  We step into the room, and the doors clang shut behind us.

  I stare, dazed. “Where are we?”

  “The Citadel,” Rhee replies in that matter-of-fact way of hers, as if it should be self-evident. She keeps walking, down the center of the room and through one of the doorways. The hallway is constructed in the same way, from bolted-together sheets of metal.

  Steven cranes his neck. He seems to be trying to look in every direction at once. “Did you guys build this place?”

  “No. It was built a long time ago, by the Canadian government, as a bomb and chemical weapons shelter. After the war ended, it was abandoned. The Blackcoats discovered it and modified it for their needs. There are about four hundred of us here. Of course, we aren’t the only Blackcoats living in Canada. But we are the largest single group anywhere in either country.” She stops suddenly and cocks her head, as if listening to something. I notice the tiny silver earpiece glinting in her ear. She nods and says, “Yes, they’re here.” A pause. “All right. I’ll bring them.”

  Her gaze snaps back into focus, and she resumes walking.

  “Bring us where?” Steven asks.

  “The Assembly starts in a few minutes. Attendance is mandatory.” At our blank stares, Rhee adds, “The daily Assembly is when we’re given updates about the situation in the URA. Once it’s over, I’ll show you to your rooms.”

  Right now, the last thing I want is to stand in a crowded room filled with armed Blackcoats. What I want is to eat something, take a hot shower, and collapse into bed, in that order. But we might as well get this over with.

  My backpack is still on the floor. I slide it on and tighten the straps. “Let’s go, then.”

  Rhee leads us down another hallway. The echoes of our footsteps bounce off the metal walls. Beneath the floor, there’s another sound, harder to define—a low rumble, like distant machinery, combined with a steady, deep thunk. Thunk. Thunk. It’s faint—you can’t even hear it unless you focus—but it sends a cold tremor through my nerves. Like we’re in the intestines of some gigantic metal monster, listening to its heartbeat.

  Rhee stops in front of a towering set of doors. She pushes, and they swing ponderously open.

  Beyond lies a vast, dimly lit room resembling a concert hall. The floor is packed with people. Dozens of heads turn toward us. At the front of the room stands a massive wooden stage, and behind that, a huge screen—currently blank—takes up most of the wall.

  The blood beats in my throat as we enter. I grip Steven’s hand tightly, not wanting to be separated from him. As we make our way deeper into the crowd, murmurs spread outward from us like ripples in a pond. Eyes widen, and lips frame my name.

  My gaze flits from face to face. Most of these people are teenagers. They would look perfectly at home walking through the hallways of Greenborough High—well, if not for the rifles strapped to their backs. Those that don’t have guns are armed with knives in sheaths at their hips or strapped to their arms. “So many children,” I whisper.

  Rhee glances at me. “The average age here is eighteen. Same as yours.”

  A good point. Still, it makes me uncomfortable that most of the people involved in this rebellion aren’t even technically old enough to drink in the URA.

  A man steps up onto the stage, followed by a spotlight. He’s tall and thin, wearing a long black coat—which, logically enough, seems to be the standard attire here. He appears to be in his twenties, but despite that, his hair is a shock of pure snowy white. His features have an androgynous, classical beauty; they might have been sculpted by an artist. He faces the crowd and spreads his arms, and all at once, the murmurs fall silent. Every pair of eyes latches onto him.

  Steven leans toward Rhee and asks quietly, “Is that Zebra?”

  “No,” she replies. “It’s Nicholas Claybird, his right-hand man. Zebra himself rarely attends the Assembly in person. But he’s watching and listening.”

  A leader who observes everything from the shadows but doesn’t like to show his face. Already, I don’t trust him.

  “Brothers and sisters.” Nicholas’ voice is deep and silky-smooth, amplified by the microphone pinned to his coat collar. “We are on the brink of war. The time draws ever nearer—the time when we will come out of hiding and show the world that we will no longer stand for these injustices.” He gestures to the screen with a sweep of his arm. “What you are about to see is IFEN propaganda, tainted and twisted by their lies… but it is progress, nonetheless, because they’ve finally acknowledged to the public that we exist. They can no longer pretend otherwise. We’ve grown too strong.”

  An image appears on the screen behind him—a news program, judging by the banners scrolling along the bottom of the screen. An aerial shot pans over IFEN headquarters, which is visibly damaged. The doors have been blown out, and rubble is strewn across the parking lot. There are police and construction crews all around. “The nation is still reeling from the unexpected terrorist attacks which occurred last week,” an announcer says, her voice low and solemn. “Four IFEN employees were injured in the explosions, and two more were killed. Their families and communities are devastated.”

  The screen displays a pair of closed caskets decorated with sprays of white roses and lilies. I taste blood and realize I’m biting the inside of my cheek.

  Ian and his friends set off those bombs, to help Steven and I escape.

  The camera cuts to a woman, her face pale and streaked with tears. Her eyes are hollow and distant. I recognize that look, because I felt it myself after Father’s death—that numbness, the mind’s unwillingness to accept the reality of loss. Beside her, a tiny blond toddler clutches her hand and looks around with wide, uncertain eyes. A child too young to understand the concept of death. How long, I wonder, before it sinks in? How many days before she stops asking, When is Daddy coming home?

  Beside me, Steven squirms, and I realize I’m clutching his hand too hard. I force myself to relax my grip.

  The announcer continues: “In the wake of this national tragedy, a public memorial service will be held tomorrow to honor the dead. Those responsible for the attack have not yet been identified. This means another attack could happen at any time, in any place. IFEN’s Board of Directors has discussed temporarily strengthening certain security measures until the terrorists are apprehended. Lain Fisher, former Mindwalker-in-training, is among those still missing from the blast. There is speculation of her involvement in the incident, but to date that remains only hearsay.”

  My stomach hurts. I press a hand against it.

  The image on the screen cuts back to the caskets, surrounded by weeping mourners, then freezes. Nicholas stands in the center of the stage, silhouetted against the screen’s glow. “Two IFEN employees die in an explosion, and they’re treated as heroes. Their deaths are held up as a national tragedy.” His voice is calm and cold. “I ask you now—how many Fours died by Somnazol in the past year? Does anyone know?”

  Silence.

  “What about the political dissidents who have been mindwiped behind closed doors? How many? Do you suppose their families will ever be given a national ceremony to honor their loss?” He smiles, showing a sliver of white teeth. “Of course not. Their loss will never even be mentioned. Why? Because to IFEN and the government, not all human lives are equal. While the whole country sheds crocodile tears over those two dead guards, doctors will quietly write out prescriptions for another few hundred suicide pills, and it will be viewed as an act of mercy. Of compassion. Because they think we’re lost causes, better off dead than alive.” He flings his arms open wide. “I ask you now, brothers and sisters—are you a lost cause?”

  “No!” the crowd thunders back.

  “Will you be swayed by this propaganda? Will you allow them to bring down the hammer of shame on your heads and beat you into submission?”

  “No!”

  His smile widens. “No, of course you won’t. There can be no compromise when it comes to freedom. Freedom is life—it is th
e blood in our veins, the air in our lungs. It is the basic right of every man, woman and child who walks this Earth, and we will not let them take it! Will you fight with me?”

  “We will fight!”

  There’s a dark energy in the room, like fire and shadow. Nicholas has them all by the throat. Every pair of eyes is locked onto him, even Steven’s.

  “Oh, but there’s more,” Nicholas says. “Watch.”

  The image on the screen unfreezes, and the announcer continues: “We take you now to Dr. Swan, Director of IFEN, for comments.”

  And suddenly, there he is—Dr. Swan sitting in an armchair, his expression professional and neutral. At the sight of him, the hollowness in my gut becomes a cold weight. The camera angle widens to show him sitting across from a woman in a suit. “Thank you for taking this time to speak with me, Director,” the woman says. “I’m hoping you can clear some things up for us.”

  “Certainly,” he replies in his smooth baritone.

  “First of all, you’ve mentioned an upcoming trip with your new protégé, isn’t that right?”

  New protégé? Already? He didn’t waste much time replacing me. The thought stings unexpectedly.

  “That’s correct,” Dr. Swan replies. “Mr. Freed and I are visiting Toronto.”

  I hear the soft hiss of breath from between Steven’s teeth, and his hand twitches against mine. Dr. Swan will soon be in the same city as us. It’s not a comforting idea.

  “And what is the purpose of this visit?” the woman asks.

  “Simply to foster better relations with Canada and open the door for future trade and cooperation. The URA’s isolationist policy cannot last forever, after all. Canada is our neighbor. It’s necessary to maintain tight border control for the sake of our national security, but that doesn’t mean we can never talk to each other.”

  “He’s got something up his sleeve,” Steven mutters, and I nod in agreement. Swan’s words sound innocuous enough, but I don’t believe that’s all there is to it. Why would he be visiting Canada now, after ignoring its existence for years? It can’t be coincidence that he’s chosen to do this so soon after I exposed the truth about St. Mary’s.

  The interviewer speaks up again, pulling me out of my thoughts: “On a more serious note, Dr. Swan, there are a lot of rumors floating around about Lain Fisher, the young Mindwalker who recently leaked some of her own memories onto the Net. What can you tell us about the incident?”

  “First of all,” he says, “I should mention that memories are inherently subjective and flawed—particularly in individuals with higher Types—so they shouldn’t be taken as fact.”

  The woman purses her lips and leans forward. “Are you saying, then, that what appeared on the Net was a fabrication? A hoax?”

  “Not a hoax in the ordinary sense of the word, but they are indeed fabrications. Lain is in a delusional state. Before her disappearance, she’d been behaving oddly. She’d become secretive and distrustful, very unlike her usual self. She was seen frequently in the company of a Type Four, and though her own Type had already started to slip, she repeatedly refused treatment. It’s a pattern I’ve seen many times over the years… and it can happen to anyone. Sick individuals slowly lose touch with reality, and their illness prevents them from seeing how desperately they need help. They become infected with a sort of paranoid narcissism, which leads to feelings of persecution, which—in turn—lead to violent behavior and criminal activity. Lain herself probably believes that the misinformation she spread about IFEN and myself, which is what makes this case so tragic.”

  I hear an odd sound, like rocks scraping together, and realize I’m grinding my teeth.

  The interviewer presses a pen to her lower lip. “You’re saying, then, that IFEN never actually experimented on children?”

  “Of course not.”

  He says it with such surety, firm and direct. If I hadn’t seen the truth with my own eyes, I might believe him.

  Now Steven’s the one squeezing my hand too hard. “That piece of shit,” he mutters. “He’s still denying it.”

  Dr. Swan continues in that quiet, calm, poisonously reasonable-sounding voice: “I must stress, this is not Lain’s fault. She’s an impressionable teenager infected by conspiracy theories. But unfortunately, her sickness poses a danger to the stability of our society, so we must treat her as a threat. Too many people are willing to believe the worst about IFEN, the very organization designed to keep them safe from the real dangers. Fear is an easy trap to fall into.” His expression tightens—the first sign of emotion he’s shown, though I don’t doubt it’s as calculated as everything else. “I consider this my own failing. I was her legal guardian, after all. I should have taken action sooner.”

  “What about Lain? Do you have a message for her?”

  “Yes.” He looks straight at the camera. “My message is this. Come home. It’s not too late to do the right thing. Let me—let us—help you.”

  The screen freezes again, Dr. Swan’s face still staring out at us. I stand in a bubble of silence and stillness, my breathing filling my ears. My chest is hot, and there’s a dull burn behind my forehead. I’m shaking. Not with fear. With anger.

  How can he do it? How can he sit there and lie so easily, so smoothly, to the entire country?

  Nicholas’ gaze locks onto me, then he reaches out and curls a finger in beckoning. “Lain Fisher, will you step forward, please?”

  A lightning bolt of terror goes through me. Rhee didn’t say anything about this. Does he want me to make a speech?

  Nicholas nods to the stairs leading up to the stage. I give Steven a panicked look, and he squeezes my arm in encouragement. Bracing myself, I push forward, through the crowd. My legs wobble as I ascend the steps and stand in the center of the stage, facing everyone. The stage lights dazzle my eyes, blinding me so I can’t see their faces. Maybe that’s a mercy. I’m already so nervous, I’m starting to feel nauseous. It’s a good thing there’s nothing in my stomach; the protein bar I ate feels like eons ago.

  Nicholas places a hand on my shoulder. His long, bony fingers clamp down like a bird’s talons, making me flinch. “This girl needs no introduction. She risked her life to expose the truth about IFEN. And now, she is one of us.”

  Sweat trickles down to the small of my back as I stand on the stage, pinned in place by a burning spotlight, my legs like jelly.

  Nicholas smiles at me. His teeth are large and very white. “Dr. Swan wants you to come home.” He leans closer. His blue eyes drill into mine. “What do you say to that?”

  Panic flutters in my chest. My mind is a white blank.

  Nicholas reaches up and brushes back a lock of his hair, discreetly switching off his microphone in the process. He hisses into my ear, “Swear allegiance to the Blackcoats. Tell them you intend to take down IFEN, no matter the cost.”

  My pulse thunders in my head, and more sweat worms its way down my back. I want to get off the stage, away from the pain of his fingers biting into me, the heat of his breath against the side of my neck.

  Nicholas squeezes my shoulder, making me flinch. “Say it.”

  Deep within me, there’s a small, steel-blue flash of defiance.

  Nicholas switches his microphone back on. “Well, Lain? You’ve just heard Dr. Swan call you a delusional, frightened little girl. You must have something you want to tell everyone.”

  My gaze locks with Steven’s. What would he say, in my place? I brace myself, take a deep breath, and raise my voice: “Dr. Swan can—can go fuck himself.” My voice cracks a little over the word fuck. “With a red-hot cactus.”

  Silence fills the Assembly Hall.

  I interlace my hands behind my back. “That’s all I have to say.” I give a small, awkward bow. “Thank you.”

  Another heartbeat of silence passes. Then, all at once, the crowd bursts into laughter. The dark, focused energy dissolves. Cheers break out, applause punctuated by whoops and whistles. A few people raise their voices:

  “Yeah
, Dr. Swan! Go fuck yourself!”

  “Fuck yourself with a rabid porcupine!”

  “Fuck yourself with a chainsaw!”

  Nicholas smiles tightly at me, lips framing bared teeth. He releases me, and I quickly descend from the stage, dizzy with relief. My shoulder throbs from his grip. I rub it, wondering if it will leave a bruise.

  ‌

  12

  The Assembly is over. People filter out of the Hall. They sound like normal teenagers, talking and laughing, giving each other high fives. A girl jumps up onto a boy’s back and wraps her legs around his waist, and he carries her through the open doors.

  Rhee leads Steven and I into a long, empty hallway. The quiet is deafening.

  “Nice speech, Doc,” Steven says, grinning. “I was inspired.”

  “Thanks.” I blush. Then I think about Nicholas’ icy smile. He doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who likes being defied. Already, I’m treading in dangerous waters.

  “Hey.” Steven’s voice softens. “You okay?”

  I don’t trust Nicholas. I don’t trust any of this. That’s what I want to say. But Rhee is standing right there. “I’m fine. Just… overwhelmed.”

  Rhee points to two doors, side by side. “Your rooms are here. Just press your thumbs against the scanners and they’ll log your biodata, so only you’ll have access.”

  I place the pad of my thumb against the small, black square next to my door, and Steven does the same with his. The scanners flash green.

  “There are rations inside,” Rhee says. “Get some rest. Tomorrow, you’ll start your simulation training.”

  “Simulation…?”

  “Pretty much what it sounds like,” she says. “If you’re going to stay here, you’ll participate in missions.”

  “What sort of missions?” I ask, uneasy.

  “Currently, most of them involve helping refugees across the border.”

  “Oh.” I relax a little. Helping people. That’s something I can do, surely. Then again, even rescue missions can result in casualties. I saw that for myself.