E (27 page)

"Thanks," I say, nodding.

He just looks at me, like someone might look at a lost puppy they
feel sorry for, but aren't really convinced they like.  He looks, and then
he walks away without a word.

Now Oscar and I look at each other.  His brow is furrowed
with concern.  It's like he's waiting for me to fall over, or do something
crazy.  It takes a lot of effort, but I manage a smile.  I am feeling
a little clearer now, whether it's from the food, or from being fully
awake.  I start to get up.  He grabs my hand to help me, leaning
backward as he digs his heels in.  We wander down the street together,
and, tired or not, I feel something vaguely akin to happiness.

Morning has thawed into a sunny day, despite the wind.  In
between its icy bursts there are small pockets where my jacket gathers the
sun's energy and warms my skin.  Our chatter has done much the same for my
soul.  Oscar is doing great.  He's well-fed and talkative. 
Happy, even, in the midst of everything else that's going on.  I'm
grateful that he's being taken care of.  I don't regret my decision
anymore.  It was the best thing for him.  Even if I miss him.

We're walking through the marketplace when Jonas waves us down and
joins us.  We meander together, through greetings and catching up. 
But we haven't gotten very far before Jonas starts with the questions.

"So, what's happening with the wall?" he asks. 

Oscar catches his eye.  He shrugs.  "They're still
working on it."

"What kinds of weapons have they built in?"

Now Oscar's eyes flick to our surroundings, then to me.  His
eyes are a bit wider.

"Jonas," I say.  I give him a hard look.

He persists, licking his lips and paying attention only to
Oscar.  "Do you know?"

"Guns," Oscar says, quietly and carefully.  Again,
he looks around.  "Some sort of explosive thing..."

"Explosive?"

"It like... throws explosives...."

"What about outside the wall?  Are they adding anything
there?  Mines?"

Oscar shakes his head.  "...I don't know...."

"Can you find out?"

I punch Jonas in the arm.  Hard.

He scowls at me.  "Eden," he says quietly, "I
need to know."

I grind my teeth as I say it, to keep from shouting at him. 
"You don't have to involve Oscar."

His eyes dart between me and Oscar, finally fixing on my
glare.  He sighs.

"OK," he concedes.  "Eden's right.  You
don't need to find anything out.  But is there anything you can tell me
that you already know?  Anything that's going on?  Anything Matt's up
to?"

Oscar thinks about it for a moment before he answers. 
"Just the wall," he says.  "And making more weapons. 
Lots.  He's got all the recyclers collecting metal for him."

"He's
forging
them," I ask, unable to stop
myself.  I bite my lip and look away.

"Dan and Lloyd are," Oscar replies.

"Coyote Dan?" 

Oscar looks at me with a cautious frown.

Jonas' mouth turns downward as he struggles to control a
smile. 

I frown at him, then turn a calm face on Oscar.  "Coyote
Dan is forging weapons for Matt?  He agreed to do that?  I mean, I
know Matt kicked the crap out of him, but still..."

Oscar looks nervous now.  He licks his lips, his eyes darting
as he thinks.  He says, "He didn't argue.  Lloyd was the one who
didn't want to do it.  Matt put him in the VR machine.  Now he's
forging weapons."

Jonas and I look at each other.

I turn back to Oscar and say quietly, "How do you know
this?  Did you see it?"

He shakes his head.  "Jess told me."

"Jess?"

"The girl who answered the door when you took me there."

The image of the half-burned, half pretty face flits through my
mind.  

Jonas places one hand firmly on Oscar's shoulder and looks him in
the eye.  "Go on home," he says softly. "Keep out of
trouble.  I'm going to walk Eden home and see if I can get some food in
her."

I want to tell Jonas that I've already eaten, but somehow I
can't.  Can't tell him that Matt fed me.  Oscar looks at me, but says
nothing.  He nods and skitters off down the street.

Jonas turns to me, takes me by the arm, and starts walking. 
"So it is VR," he says, like it's the answer to a question he's been
trying to figure out. 

Well, it's not surprising.  Slave masters use all sorts of
inventive practices to transform their victims into willing slaves. 
Slavery is forbidden by the Fourth Law, so slaves have to be absolutely broken
to not pose a risk to their owners.  The process usually involves torture
that won't leave a mark.  Virtual reality is perfect for a slave master
who can get his hands on the right equipment.  Simulated torture that
feels real, but doesn't leave any physical imprint.  Sure, sometimes
slaves might be lost to cardiac arrest, but that's not the point.  The
point is that the end product is perfectly trained.  Like the young girl I
saw on the platform at the slave market when I first got here.  Thinking
about her-- thinking about all of it-- makes me feel sick.  My stomach
threatens to reject the meal I had earlier.  I swallow repeatedly and try
to move my mind to other things.  Really, I'm thinking about sleep. 
I would love to just go to sleep.

But Jonas is talking.  Slowly, my mind focuses in on his
words part-way through a sentence.  "...hope we're OK.  You
know... I was worried about you last night."  He glances at me,
clearly expecting some reply.

A few beats later, I manage, "Yeah.  OK."  I
feel like I should say more, but again, my mind wanders toward sleep.  I
really just want him to leave me alone so I can go crawl into bed.

His eyes linger on me for a second, then drop away.  He looks
deflated.  Disappointed.  We walk on in silence.  When we come
to the gate in our junk wall, he stops, takes something out of his pocket and
passes it to me.

I look at it for a moment before I realize there's food wrapped in
this bit of cloth.  I shake my head and push it back toward him.

"Eat it," he says, shoving it toward me. 
"Please."

I open my mouth to tell him that I've already eaten, and still, I
can't.  Sighing, I accept the package.  I turn and slink
inside.  No one else is home.  In the quiet, I collapse face-first
onto the bed, dropping the packet of food beside me.  I am asleep before I
can even rearrange myself.

***

The days fly by, bleak and cold.  I spend yet another night
lying awake.  On one side of me is Miranda.  On the other,
Neveah.  There are gaps between us that used to be occupied by the rest of
our family.  We're starting to become accustomed to being on our own--
just us girls.  Neveah and Miranda are starting to become accustomed to
calming me when I wake kicking and screaming, or running for the door. 
This is how we are now.  Dwindling.

Apollon and Jonas have started spending the nights away, doing
whatever it is they do.  Every night I imagine them getting caught. 
Beaten.  Shot in the head.  Or cut apart bit by bit.  In my
mind, I stop on the edge of that cliff, teetering, trying to hold back thoughts
of Oscar-- of what would happen to him if Apollon and Jonas were
discovered.  I have to trust them, I tell myself.  Have to believe in
their competence.  But there are so many factors they can't account
for.  So many things that could go wrong.

Not Oscar.  I won't think about him.  Where he is now,
he's safer from the more immediate threat of starvation.

He brings food to share with me every day.  Not part of his
breakfast like he occasionally brought before, but full portions for me
alone.  He says Matt insists.  That he says I "had better eat
it".  At first, I answered that Matt didn't have to know whether I
ate it or not.  Oscar gave me the raised eyebrows, the stubborn face, chin
up, jaw set.  "I'll tell him," he said.  He meant it,
too.  He won't let me get away with not eating.  And, since it's not
so different than how I've behaved regarding Oscar, I can't really argue. 
All this time I've been trying to avoid accepting help from Matt, and turns out
I take more and more.  I'm in his debt, like it or not.  And really,
if I think about it, maybe I have been all along.  Just one more thing to
keep me awake at night.

Now, as I lie here, I clamp my eyes shut against the thought of
food.  Jonas brings me bits and pieces, too.  I'm probably eating
three times as much as Miranda and Neveah, and no one really knows.  I
hate myself for it.  I want to give them part of what I have, but I feel
like I'm not supposed to.  I want to refuse what Jonas brings me, but I
don't.  I wonder if my friends are eating extra bits in secret as well,
hiding it from me, trying to stay alive.  If they are, I'm hurt, for the
deceit.  If they're not, my own guilt is unbearable.  Surely they
are.  Surely they come by small bits somewhere.  Surely they're not
still subsisting on one bite of stale bread per meal.

I've laid here so long that light starts to ooze in through the
cracks, dull at first, then insistently brighter.  It's still early, but I
crawl off the bed as quietly as I can and slip into my jacket.  I drink
some melted snow from the pan on top of the stove, open the metal door and add
another board to the decaying embers.  I'm just about to sneak out of the
house when Miranda stretches and sits up. 

She squints at me.  "Going out?"

I nod, glancing at Neveah, who's still sleeping soundly.

"Where?"

"To see the boys."  I've been keeping my distance
from their operation, mostly, but I like to have some idea what's going
on.  In a very small amount of time, Jonas has managed to recruit a
sizable force.  Each time I've been to the warehouse hideout there have
been different people there.  Orange shoelaces, red stripes, beggars and businessmen. 
All of them seem to defer to Jonas.  I don't know how he's managed to do
it, or what he's promised them, but Jonas is running his own small army. 
Meanwhile, Apollon is up to something else, though I'm not sure what.  He
has his own tight group that is in and out, and always passing murmurs and
meaningful looks.  I don't ask what they're doing.  I really don't
want to know.

Miranda grimaces, but climbs out of bed.  "I'll come,
too," she says, as though the task is unpleasant.  I'm not sure why
she wants to come.  Or why I want to go.  Maybe we just miss Jonas
and Apollon. 

As she gets ready, my eyes fix on Neveah.  She's breathing
steadily, resting.  Part of me is jealous, and part is worried. 
She's usually an early-riser.

"She just needs the rest," Miranda whispers, waving me
off.  She nods toward the door.  We shuffle quietly out and walk down
the path through an inch or so of snow.  It's frozen over, crusted and
crunching under our steps.  I keep my arms extended to keep from slipping
on the ice underneath.

We walk briskly toward the warehouse, taking a roundabout route
and sticking to quieter streets.  Someone disguised as a beggar slumps
against a wall by the door, watching for intruders.  I glance at him, but
don't say anything.  We move past him and open the door.  Inside,
you'd think it would be warmer.  But there are no fires burning to give
away a human presence here.  No sun coming in to warm the rooms. 
Shivering, rubbing my arms, we move deeper inside, our eyes scanning the dark
for our friends.

Jonas is standing over a table where a group of men are seated, in
the middle of some discourse.  He looks over and sees us.  There are
circles under his red eyes.  His hair is mussed.  He must have been
up all night.  But more than that, he looks startled to see us.  His
eyes dart to Miranda, then quickly back to me.  He strides toward us-- to
get rid of us, I think-- but he's too late.  The men at the table turn
around to see what's going on.  Miranda's eyes go wide on Donegan.

She lets out a small squeal, but shuts it down, her fists clamping
in trembling hands.  Her eyes dart from Donegan to Jonas, who is now in
front of us.  Anger spills over, raw, bubbling with betrayal.  She
lunges at Jonas.

He tries to catch her hands to hold her back, but Miranda is like
a mad cat, clawing at him, beating him.  She sounds like a cat, too, her
words coming out in wild screeches.  "How could you," she
shrieks.  "You know!  You know!  How could you!!!"

I try, half-heartedly, to peel her off him, but really, she doesn't
stop beating him until she's ready.  She moves away from him with a deadly
glare, then turns her back on him and marches outside.  The door slams
shut behind her.

I look at Jonas, who is breathing hard through his nose, jaw
tight.  At the table behind him, Donegan's men are stirring, looking
uneasy.  Jonas will have more problems than just me to deal with.  I
shake my head at him, turn, and leave him to it.  I go after Miranda, who
is already long gone. 

I track her footprints through the snow until they join the nexus
of morning traffic, then wander into the fray.  I spot her up ahead. 
She's marching along, fists still clenched, each step smacking solidly into the
frost-bitten snow.  For just a second, I waver.  Maybe I should let
her work this out on her own.  Maybe she just needs some space.  Then
I remember the night Oscar left us, and I sigh.  I trudge onward.

She glances back as I hurry to catch up with her, her eyebrows
drawn down in the middle to form short diagonal lines.  She's scowling,
fighting back tears.  At least I'm not Jonas.

"Hey," I say, falling in beside her, sticking my hands
in my pockets.  I'll let her do the talking, if she wants to.  Or we
can just walk in silence for a while.

She throws me a look that is definitely not companionable.  I
pretend not to notice.  We crunch onward through the snow.