Fox Forever (8 page)

My park.
Maybe that was it. Those two words exploded in my head when she said them. With all the change I’ve had to deal with, the Commons is the only thing that still seems the same in Boston. It’s belonged to everyone here for hundreds of years, and in one dismissive sentence she bans me from it? In a—

I smile. Pig’s eye. One of my dad’s favorite phrases. I haven’t thought of it in years. I almost forgot it. But it fits perfectly.

That’s right. In a freaking pig’s eye I’ll stay out of her park.

The long walk to the Commons and the darkness of the park calm me. For 260 years, I hated the darkness. It terrified me. But now, for the second night in a row, I find this darkness freeing. It disguises the world I’m barely hanging on to. It blurs its edges. At least for a few hours, it makes it the world where I once belonged. No way will she ever ban me from the Commons. I plant myself on the same gnarled tree root as last night, looking up, just daring her to appear on the rooftop. I hear the rustling of the bushes. The nightlife better get used to me. I plan on coming here a lot.

“You don’t follow orders well, do you?”

I leap to my feet and whirl around, my heart pounding so hard I think it’s going to burst through my chest.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

I catch my breath. “I think that’s exactly what you meant to do.”

Raine grins. “Maybe.” She’s shed her drab gray clothes and wears a simple sleeveless blue shirt and some dark blue pants that reach only to her knees. Her feet are bare.

“Going to sic your rabid Bot on me?”

“I’ve dismissed Hap for the evening. He knows the routine. My nights are my own.”

“So it’s you who’s going to kick me out of your park?”

She shrugs. “I suppose you can stay. Tonight, anyway.”

“Wow. Thanks.”

We stand there, awkwardly. Or maybe it’s just me who is awkward. She seems comfortable with the silence. She comes closer and touches the trunk of the tree where I had been sitting. There are only a few feet and the massive tree root between us. “This is one of my favorites too. It’s a great tree, isn’t it? I’ve always loved how the root’s twisted and out of control.” She runs her fingers over a large knot like she’s familiar with it and then looks up at me. “What brought you here?” Her voice is soft and genuine, and I can’t deny I’m taking in the transformation of her appearance as well. The hardness is gone there too.

I see the beautiful Raine I saw last night on the rooftop, her hair loose on her shoulders and her movements relaxed. But I remember her sweeping disdain earlier this evening and remember too that chess is one of her hobbies. Is this a calculated move? I can’t forget that there was something about her picture in the file that disturbed me. LeGru’s words come back to me.
Trust your first instincts.
But I’m not sure what those instincts were telling me. I rely on my own new motto instead:
Watch your back, Locke.

I glance around me, wary of an ambush. The park is quiet, and even the bushes have stopped rustling. I look back at her. Is this sudden turnaround in her to make me let my guard down? I walk closer to her and she takes a step back.
“You,”
I say. “You’re what brought me here. I don’t like being told where I can or can’t go, especially by people who are a little too full of themselves.”

I’m waiting for her to come back at me with a snide remark, but she’s silent, her chest rising in deep slow breaths. She never takes her eyes from me and she finally nods.

“I think it’s time for me to go. Good night,” she whispers. Without another word she walks away.

The air is squeezed out of me. She’s already at the top of the steps that lead to the street but the memory of her eyes still pierces me. In her own clumsy way, I think she was trying to apologize. Have I become too much of a cynic? I want to call after her but she’s already crossing the street to her apartment, and then I see the oddest thing I never expected to see. She climbs a narrow rope ladder hanging from the roof, almost hidden in the shadows. Nine stories.

What makes a girl risk her neck like that, just to go for a three
A.M.
walk? That’s why she was barefoot. And why not just use the apartment elevator? She reaches the top and pulls the ladder up behind her and then briefly looks back toward the park before she disappears into the shadows.

I’m batting a thousand. Twice in one night. A double bonehead. I need to stop thinking so much and just listen. Maybe Xavier was right. Maybe for this Favor, they did choose the wrong person.

An Impression

“Good work. You’re in.” I finally turn my iScroll back on and Carver’s image looms in front of me. “Livvy will be over this morning in case anyone decides to stop by.”

“Wait a minute.” I’m still trying to wake up, rummaging through the pantry while my coffee brews. I pull the half-filled coffee cup from the brewer and pour in cream. “I’m in what?” I stuff half a protein cake into my mouth. “Who’s stopping by?”

Xavier’s image pops up too. He glares at me. “Were you out all night again?”

“No.” I swallow the cake and try to pay more attention to them.

“The Collective called,” Carver continues. “You have been invited into Raine’s group. Good work. You made quite an impression.”

Not as I remember. “Are you sure? When did they call?”

“Last night,” Xavier says. “I tried to call you to let you know but you didn’t answer.”

His call came long before I met Raine in the park and ticked her off even more than I had earlier. It couldn’t have been her who put in a good word for me. Maybe it was Vina? “Did the Collective say who recommended me?”

“You scored big. It was the Secretary himself. Apparently—”

“What? I never even met him. This doesn’t sound—”

“Would you just pipe it and listen?” Xavier grumbles. I hate that he’s echoing my thoughts from the night before.

“Like I was saying,” Carver continues. “It seems he was there last night and saw you help a boy up off the floor who just happens to be LeGru’s son. Smart move. The Collective quoted the Secretary as saying that he found you to be ‘very gracious in an unpleasant situation.’”

Sheer luck and timing. But if he saw that, he must have seen me grab Raine’s hand too. Is he the one who sent Hap over to choke me? Something about this doesn’t feel right, but if the Secretary is the type who keeps hidden prisoners in the city, choking his daughter’s classmates might be par for the course. Or maybe he’s already checked out my profile and my conveniently rich dad is what did the trick. “What now?”

“Their next meeting isn’t for ten more days but then it really ramps up—you’ll be on nearly every night. The meeting is at the Secretary’s residence, as most of them are. We’ll check in with you, but in the meantime stay put. The less you’re out and about, the better. Study the files, and make sure you have them memorized.”

I nod. Barely. I’m not thrilled about days filled with nothing but reading files in a quiet apartment.

Carver signs off but Xavier lingers, just looking at me.

“What?” I say. It’s more of an accusation than a question.

“You’ll come have dinner with me tonight.”

“Carver said no more face-to-face contact.”

“What Carver doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Some team they are. And I’m in their hands. But I agree to go with him because I’m sick of the food in the pantry, sick of the apartment, and curious about what kind of life Xavier leads outside of a basement.

I sign off and go sit on the living room couch to finish my protein cake and coffee, but I know it’s more than curiosity or being sick of the apartment that makes me want to get out. When I’m alone my mind wanders to places I never want to visit again. I think about where I am and how I got here. I think of all the people I’ll never see again. My parents, my brother, my sister. I think about how building a new life is too much work and how much I still want my old one. I think about all the wasted years trapped in a cube and not a single soul on the planet knew I was there but Kara. And Kara opens another whole new dark corridor of guilt for me to get lost in. I think about her and how I made it and she didn’t, and I still wish I could trade places with her. I hear her voice over and over again,
for you Locke … always there.
But I wasn’t there for her when she needed me to be. I still miss her even though she wasn’t the Kara I knew anymore. The Kara I loved was gone long ago. That’s the Kara I miss. And Jenna. I miss her too. I think about her even though I know I shouldn’t. She wants me to live life. Move on. Grow up. Can I ever do that fast enough for her?

The Favor at least gives me some relief, something else to think about, an area of my life where I’m making things happen instead of remembering what happened to me.

But if I’m honest with myself, I can’t deny there’s one more reason I want to go to Xavier’s. I can’t get the image of Raine out of my mind. I pictured her over and over again last night as I walked home, and then again first thing when I woke this morning. I see her climbing up the side of her apartment building, and then I hear Dot whispering,
Escapee
. Is this another odd hobby of Raine’s, or does she have something she’s trying to escape from too?

I shake my head and down the rest of my coffee.
Thank God for Xavier’s invite.
I can’t spend the whole day and night thinking about the complications of Raine’s privileged life when I have plenty of my own.

A Bot Named Dot

I take a cab for part of the way there. Not because I need to. According to Xavier’s directions it’s only about three miles away—in just about the same deserted section where the Network hid me and Kara in the basement when we escaped from Gatsbro. I’d rather walk the whole way there after being stuck in the apartment all day, but I’ve been in Boston for five days now and haven’t done one of the most important things I came here to do.

I didn’t need Miesha’s reminder. I remember Dot. She’s with me every day. It’s hard to forget someone who gave their— What do you call it? A life? She was a Bot. A half Bot at that. But she had hopes, dreams, she wanted to become more. I guess she didn’t realize she already had.

It’s risky for me to hail a CabBot. I know that. I could get an
infiltrator
as Dot called them, but her story has to be told so it can be passed on just the way she wanted, the way she
hoped
it would be. I owe her that much.

“Where to?” the CabBot asks.

“Just head toward South Boston. I’ll tell you when I want off.”

“Yes, sir.”

I immediately see he’s not chatty the way Dot was. I hope I made the right choice and he’s not a CabBot in search of a bounty and legs.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“BobBot#124, sir.”

“Mind if I just call you Bob?”

“That would be fine.” He glances at me suspiciously in his rear viewing glass.

“Did you ever meet a CabBot named Dot Jefferson, Bob?”

His brows rise and he hesitates. “No,” he finally answers. He knew her. But it could be he’s afraid to admit it—or he’s planning on turning me in for points, but there’s no going back now.

“There’s a story I heard about Dot. You might like to hear it?”

“If it pleases you. But we’re quickly nearing your destination.”

He’s right. Traffic has thinned. Cars headed toward this part of Boston are few. “The story won’t take long,” I tell him and I jump right in. “Dot used to drive for Star Transportation just like you. She was DotBot#88 but said she hated that name so she named herself Dot Jefferson. The way I heard it, one day she got a customer who needed to Escape. She decided to help him even though it meant she might be released or even recycled. You ever hear of
Escape
, Bob?”

“No, sir.”

“Really? That surprises me.” He doesn’t respond. “Well, Dot had and she risked everything to help this customer she didn’t even know because she understood what it was like to have no future. She retooled her cab and drove him and his friend halfway across the country but Star Security found the cab signal anyway and disabled the vehicle.”

“They got her?”

At least I know he’s listening. “Almost, but the guy she was helping couldn’t just leave her in the disabled cab after all she had done for him so he yanked her out and gave her some temporary wheels to get around. She continued on the journey with him and then went off in another direction to act as a decoy. She saw more of the world, more than she said she ever hoped to see—Texas, Mexico, California. When she met up with this guy again, she told him about seeing the mystic orange sunsets of Santa Fe, and the jewel blue sea of the Gulf. Jewel blue. That’s just how she described it. Can you believe that?

“She told him a lot of other things too. She told him she had hopes and dreams. She said as a CabBot she had always imagined where her customers went and what they did. She imagined their secret worlds and dreamed that those worlds would one day be hers too. She told him that Escape was not about moving from one place to another but about becoming more. She said she would do anything to help an Escapee—that it was her chance to be somebody too—the most she could ever hope to be. She said she would be able to share the story of Escape with others like her, and if for some reason she didn’t make it, then stories would be told about her because it might help other Escapees. That’s what I’m doing now, Bob, telling stories about her just like she wanted.”

“She didn’t make it?”

I shake my head. “Her last act was to save this guy and her last words were, ‘Mission accomplished.’ She was buried beneath a tree and given a marker with the full name she chose, including her title. Officer Dot Jefferson, Liberator.”

“A marker for a Bot. That’s quite a story,” he says.

“Yes. It is.”

“Have you told this story to anyone else?”

“No. You’re the first, Bob.”

He stops the car and swivels in his seat to look at me. “We’re at your destination.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“That’s all.”

I reach into my pocket for my money card. I’m not sure anything I said sunk in or if the story will be passed on, but there are other CabBots. There have to be others like Dot. I’ll find them.