MiNRS (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hard Truths

I told everyone the truth
about Finn’s death and Jimmi’s betrayal.

Darcy sobbed and hugged Maria.

Everyone else just went to bed in a kind of shocked silence.

Not everyone.

Elena was still AWOL. Now I was worried. Where was she? Had she gone and done some stupid solo attack? Was she dead?

I didn’t know if I could cope with that, especially on top of everything else, and the idea gripped me as I took my turn on guard duty.

I pulled out
Oliver Twist
. Oliver, it turns out, was
really from a wealthy family. His mother had run away in shame, and that was why he’d been born in the poorhouse.

There was a locket that would prove Oliver’s heritage, but an evil guy named Monks had thrown it in a river. Charles Dickens put a lot of evil guys into the story. Monks actually turned out to be Oliver’s brother, and wanted Oliver dead so he could claim all the family’s inheritance.

Luckily for Oliver, Bill Sikes’s girlfriend, Nancy, overheard the truth and was going to run off to tell somebody and . . . That was where I’d stopped reading a few days before.

I flipped the pages, knowing some of the numbers were circled, but the code still didn’t make any sense, so I decided to lose myself in the final pages.

I flicked on my headlamp and continued reading. Monks was talking about killing Oliver. Fagin and Sikes were having Nancy followed.

I heard footsteps in the tunnel.

Fatima walked up to me and gave me a weak smile.

I realized I’d never told her the code I’d found using the flashlight. Before I could say anything, she spoke.

“I know where Elena is. I think you should go see her.”

A horrible sense of foreboding took ahold of me.

“Is she okay?”

“Let’s go.”

Fatima and I climbed into my digger, and we drove down Tunnel 1. I noticed that each turn we took was based on a simple one-one sequence. Very Elena. Straightforward.

“Stop here,” Fatima said. We’d reached the entrance to a newer section of subtunnel. There were no lights.

“She’s down there,” Fatima said.

I turned off the digger and walked silently into the tunnel.

A soft glow flickered ahead. I leaned a hand against the cool stone of the wall and edged closer. My eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, and I could see that the light was coming from a flare that had been set into a hole in the wall. A thought flashed in my mind that this might be a trap of some kind, but then I heard the sound of quiet sobs.

Elena was asleep, curled up on a bed of blankets and old clothes on the floor.

Fresh tears were on her face. I knelt down and gently touched her cheek. She was holding a weathered old teddy bear, Hector. I recognized him from when we were kids.

I could feel tears starting to well in my eyes.

Above her makeshift bed Elena had carved out a large hole in the rock. The flare was anchored in a slot next to it, lit like a memory shrine.

There was a picture of her family, taken as they boarded the ship to Perses.

There were books on military strategy, but also a book about a kid detective, and another about a girl who could talk to cats, which had been Elena’s favorite picture book.

I took it out gingerly. The cover was singed. I opened it, and a worn scrap of paper fell out from between the pages and landed on the lip of the hole. I caught it before it could fall, and I held it up.

It was a picture that Elena had drawn of her and me. It must have been from second grade. She and I are holding hands. We’re staring out from the paper, smiling.
Hapy Valtines dAY
was written on top of a giant red heart. It surrounded us like a crayon halo. My lips trembled as I noticed she’d written
LOVE
overtop of our hands.

I turned it over. There was more scribbled kid’s writing.

To: CrisTFer LOv: ELenA

“Christopher?” said Elena at my feet, sleepy.

I quickly tucked the paper into the book and placed it back inside the hole.

“Hi, Elena. Yes, it’s me.”

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I was worried about you. Fatima said you were down here.”

“Fatima.” Elena reached up with her hand. I took it. Her fingers were cold. She was shivering. I held her hand tightly as I got down and sat next to her.

“I didn’t know you’d saved so much stuff from your apartment.” I nodded back toward the hole.

“Only the most important things,” she said.

“We’ve got to move the camp tomorrow,” I said. “I didn’t want you to come back and wonder where we’d gone.”

“I wasn’t sure I was coming back.”

I put my arm around her and pulled her toward me.

She looked up at me. “I’m so sorry, Christopher,” she said. “I tried to be so strong. But then all of a sudden it was just too much.” She bit her lip to stop from crying again. “That little boy we buried.”

“Thomas.”

“Thomas. It was so horrible. So senseless. I tried to push it all away after that. Just focus on the combat.
That’s what I’m supposed to be good at, right?”

I didn’t say anything. She’d seemed so emotionless, and I’d misread what she was really feeling. I remembered how red her eyes had looked. How drawn her face had seemed.

“Then I couldn’t even do that anymore.”

“That’s not true. You were a huge part of those raids. We’re doing it. We’re stopping the Landers.”

“Jimmi’s recon was my idea, and it was a disaster. I almost got him killed.”

I realized with a jolt she didn’t know what had happened.

“Elena. It was not your fault. Jimmi was . . . He wasn’t what we thought he was.”

I explained everything that had happened.

The news hit her hard. “I should have known. He was my partner for those raids.”

“He fooled all of us, Elena, all of us.”

She cried into my shoulder. “I just can’t get all the images out of my head anymore. I feel so pathetic.”

“It’s okay,” I said, holding her. “Elena, you are the strongest person I’ve ever known. No one should have to see what you’ve seen. But we’re going to get through this. We’ll do that together. When I’m weak, you can be strong. When you feel weak, I promise I’ll be there for you.”

“I know. That’s what soldiers do. They look out for each other.”

“That’s what friends do.”

She nodded.

“You’re doing an amazing job, Christopher Nichols. If I’d been in charge, we’d all be dead.”

“Elena. I said I needed your help. I do. I also need you.”

She gave me a weak smile, then tucked her head back onto my shoulder. In no time at all she was asleep.

I sat there for a long time, listening to her breathing, thinking about the picture she’d kept since we were kids, and thinking about what she’d just told me.

Fighting, even just fighting to survive, was taking a toll on all of us. We needed to bring things to a conclusion. A plan was forming in my head.

But I couldn’t ask Elena to be part of it.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Progress

I woke up with a start.
I had to flick on my headlight to remember where I was. My back was against the wall. The cold made my shoulder ache. Elena’s head was resting on my uninjured shoulder, thank goodness. I tried to move without waking her, but she opened her eyes and smiled weakly at me.

“I was having a dream,” she said. “It was nice. We were kicking stones in the school yard.”

“Let me guess: we were seeing who could hit the bars on the swing set more times.”

“I was winning.”

“Big shock there.” I ran my finger over her cheek. “We should get back.”

“My digger is just down the tunnel,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone finding it and then finding me. It’ll take about ten minutes for me to get there.”

“I’ll walk you,” I said. She took my hand and kept holding it as I helped her stand and we walked back down the tunnel. The warmth between us was returning, and I couldn’t help feeling that we had rediscovered our connection, or had at least started to.

Fatima was sitting in the cockpit of my digger, reading
Oliver Twist
. She smiled when she saw us together.

“This is a very funny book,” she said. “Nothing like a real orphanage, of course, but very good anyway. And of course it turns out the kid is actually rich. No wonder you like it.”

“Did you ever find a map hidden inside?” Elena asked.

“Sort of,” I said. “It’s not really a map. It’s more like a sequence of numbers.”

Fatima nodded and held up her special flashlight. “I’ve been going through them. I’ve seen them too.”

“Any ideas?”

She stared at me for a long time before talking. “I need to ask you a question about your father.”

“Like what?” I said. I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

“Did he ever talk about his childhood?”

“Not much. He told me his parents died when he was quite young. I don’t even remember having any pictures of them. He said he worked in the mines to support his family.”

Fatima nodded. Then she put down the book and rolled up her sleeve. She turned her shoulder to me. Just above her elbow she had two dark
M
s.

“My father had the same tattoo,” I said, incredulous.

“It’s not a tattoo, Christopher.” Fatima rolled down the sleeve. “It’s a brand.”

“A brand?”

“My dad didn’t have a tattoo like that,” Elena said, confused.

“That’s because, unlike Christopher’s father, he had never been a grinder.”

I was stunned. “What?”

Fatima nodded. “Your father was a grinder when he was a child. That’s where he got the flashlight, and that’s where he learned this code.”

My head was spinning. “A grinder . . . But it doesn’t make sense. He would have mentioned it, wouldn’t he?”

“Maybe it was not something he wanted you to know about him, or about the reality of life in the mines.”

“Or maybe it was not something he wanted to broadcast,” Elena said.

I thought of how the others had reacted to the grinders when we’d first found them, and understood what she meant. I thought back to how angry he’d been when the miner had told him a couple of grinders had been trapped in a cave-in.

I also thought back to the inscription in the book. It said,
When he’s ready
. Had my father intended to tell me but had never gotten the time?

But why did my father allow Melming Mining to use grinders if he knew what that was like firsthand?

Fatima interrupted my thoughts. “This code he left in the book is a code grinders use in the mines when we, well, when we want to find something but don’t want anyone else to find it.”

“Stolen stuff?” I said.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Or possibly someone who is trying to escape.”

“So you can read the code?” Elena asked.

Fatima shook her head. “You need the beginning number, the key, for everything else to make sense. It’s like a lock combination. You need the first number, and then you know how many spins to go left or right after that.”

“It’s not in the book somewhere?” I asked.

Fatima shook her head. “Rack your brains. Did your
father say anything else to you? Anything that might have been the key to the sequence?”

I thought hard, but I came up with nothing. “Why would he make it so difficult?”

“He clearly didn’t trust somebody. He wanted the beacon hidden. Even if the map had fallen into the wrong hands, they’d be unable to break the code without knowing the first number.”

We sat there for a minute, trying to think of how we could break the code.

I was also thinking other things.

“I understand why this book was so special to my parents now. My dad said he met my mom in the mines. She must have seen him working as a grinder. . . . I wish I could ask them the story now.”

“It must have reminded him and your mother of their childhoods. Like I said, there are some very unrealistic parts in this book, but there are also parts that capture the sadness of a lonely life in poverty.”

“Wow.” I gave a quick ironic laugh. “Maybe this was a perfect birthday present for their baby boy after all.”

Fatima looked confused. “Baby?”

I showed her the inscription my father had written in the front.

To Susan

A gift for you and our new baby boy.

Read it to him at bedtime.

When he’s ready.

Jim

“But this book isn’t that old,” she said.

She took the book and opened it up to the information page. I looked at the publication date. This edition was printed after I’d been born. In fact, my dad must have bought it right before we left for Perses.

“Then why would he put that dedication in the book?”

“What day were you born?” Elena asked.

“May twentieth.”

“Five twenty,” Fatima said. She closed her eyes and starting making lines in the air with her fingers and hands, like she was working out a diagram on a chalkboard.

“You remember all the numbers?” Elena asked.

Fatima didn’t open her eyes or stop moving her hands. “It comes naturally. You get used to doing work without textbooks or computers.”

Finally she opened her eyes and smiled. “Got it,” she said. “The opening sequence is your birthday. The five is the beginning number, and then the sequence continues from there.”

Elena and I stared blankly at her.

I shook my head. “Okay, I might need some help figuring that all out.”

She looked at me and tsk-tsked. “Rich boy, I thought you were smarter than that. Your dad wouldn’t leave you a code you couldn’t break.”

“I’m not so sure about that. He was trying to tell me something about the map at the very end, right before the elevator doors closed. Maybe it was the key?”

“I will tell you this. The numbers that are circled once indicate left. The numbers that are circled twice indicate right. The numbers that are exed out, alternate left and right, but starting with the opposite of the first direction in the sequence.”

I turned to Elena, “Believe it or not, I got that, first time.”

“I believe it.”

Fatima continued. “Don’t worry about specifics yet, like location or distances. Just pick a starting point, and then think of the numbers and how they are telling you which turns to take and see what you get.”

I pulled out my notebook and marked an X in the middle of a page. Then I started with five, the first number of my birthday. I used dots so everything would fit on the paper. Following the sequence of numbers, I ended up with a final X in the upper left.

“Now, try it again with a different starting number.”

I went back to four and then followed the same sequence after that. I ended up with a second X in the upper right of the paper.

“See? Four was a misdirection. You discard it and start from five,” Fatima said.

“One wrong turn and you could find yourself as far away from the right place as possible. It was the same logic I’d used when I came up for a place to set up our first camp!”

Just for kicks I started with nine. I ended up in yet another part of the sheet.

“Wow.” I breathed. “That’s cool.”

Fatima smiled. “Good, so you understand how the sequence works.”

“And why it’s important to know exactly which number and direction kick things off. I’m not sure I could have figured that all out on my own, especially the left and right variations.”

“Perhaps your father knew you’d discover a grinder once you lived in the tunnels long enough. Or he hoped you’d have time to try out different combinations.”

“So how do we know what unit we need to measure?” Elena asked. I was glad to see her becoming more engaged again.

“That’s twenty. Each unit is twenty yards, twenty feet, twenty tunnels, or twenty miles.”

“Or?” I said. “That’s a pretty big difference. How do we know which one is right?”

Fatima closed the book and handed it back to me. “You look. I’d suggest trying feet first. It’s smaller.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I muttered to myself.

“And where do we start?” Elena asked.

“There are four tunnels,” Fatima said.

We nodded.

“Then I’d suggest starting with number one.”

“Okay, then one last thing. What do the numbers in the boxes mean?”

Fatima scrunched up her nose. “I have absolutely no idea.”