Rebellion (32 page)

She glares out over the crowd, but no one stops. She holds her hand up, calling for quiet, but again no one listens. They just keep up with their chant.

The microphone turns on with a click and her voice fills the Square. “Attention, Citizens. I call for your immediate silence and attention.” Her voice is stern and not just a little unnerving and scary. It's laced with the insanity that we guessed at earlier, but there's something else there. Determination? Conviction? For the first time since I got down here, terror freezes my bones. Not for me or Evie, but for the people around me. Those rallying against Mother. Who knows what Mother really has planned? She's already proven she has no fear of death. Or murder of innocents. Even of her precious Enforcers. As long as it suits her needs, she'll do whatever it takes.

The crowd doesn't quiet. In fact they only get louder. Even from my spot I can see the anger spinning in her eyes. She's edging closer and closer inside the door of lunacy.

I sneak a little closer to the stage. If Evie's compromised, I make a promise to myself for everyone standing here, I won't let Mother get away with it. Not this time. Not after everything Evie's done to make sure they get a chance at freedom.

She raises her voice louder. “Citizens of Elysium! Control yourselves, before I'm forced to restrain you myself.”

“Like you did with that family?” someone yells from the back of the crowd.

Mother glares into the crowd, her eyes rolling with madness as she tries to find the person. She leans to the Guard standing next to her in front of the stage. “Find whoever said that and take care of them.” Her voice echoes across the room since she didn't cover the microphone.

Apparently she realizes that her people aren't going to quiet so she can spout her lies, and she speaks even louder into her microphone, almost screaming. “I apologize for the lateness of my reply to the traitor who feels it necessary to use my late daughter's effigy to make her futile point. But I wish to reassure all those who may believe her, that her accusations that one of my Enforcers killed that poor family under my orders are completely untrue and unfounded.”

The buzz blares into my ear again. “There's no one left in the Palace Wing and the Enforcers' quarters are empty,” Eli says.

“… I am not sure why this traitor is targeting our city, but I assure all of you that Elysium is still the completely safe and wondrous place it's always been. I want also to remind the renegade that all traitorous actions from anyone will be dealt with swiftly and as harshly as the law allows. Renegade, that family's blood, and anyone else's who sides with you, is on
your
hands, and the only one to put it there is yourself…”

“There's still no Enforcers or even Guards in the crowd that I can see,” Asher says a few seconds later.

God damn it, Evie! Where are you?

Just then there's a movement to my right, and I quickly turn to see what it is. My entire world rights itself again as I watch someone that can only be Evie slither onto the knee-high wall around the fountain and push herself up onto it, pulling herself to her full height. She stands there, staring at Mother, and I have to force myself not to run to her. To grab her off that wall and hold her to me, to kiss her until I'm sure that she's not just a figment of my imagination.

Instead, I say, “Evie at my six.”

“She's there?” Eli says so loudly I wince.

“Yes,” Asher confirms and the joy in his voice is nothing compared to what I feel.

My smile is glued to my face, and I don't think I could rip it off even if I wanted to.

Mother must finally notice Evie, because she stops in the middle of a word. I turn and see her staring at Evie in shock, her eyes following Evie's hand with the mask in it as she lowers it to her side.

The crowd slowly turns in the direction Mother's staring, but I keep my body angled so I can see both her and Evie. I don't want to leave anyone from my sight. When the crowd sees Evie, they stop shouting, and the entire Square is filled with the kind of noise that can only be heard in complete silence. Silence can sometimes be even louder than shouts.

Evie stares at Mother, who swallows, then smiles wickedly at her. The look isn't even directed at me, but it still makes me shudder.

Then Mother turns to her Enforcers. “Get her.”

They don't move. They just keep their ramrod-straight stature, staring over the heads of the crowd as if the people don't exist at all.

Did she do it? Did Evie actually convince them to join us? Shock makes me numb.

The screen behind Mother now shows Evie. Asher's got all the monitors in the entire facility focused on her.

Evie turns her attention to the people standing around her.

“I
am
Evie. And I live.” A cheer goes through the crowd. She waits until they quiet before going on. “People of Elysium, I want to first thank you for all the support you've given me these past few months. Just you being here with these,” she lifts the mask, “shows what a group of people can do when they stand together.”

A cheer goes up in the crowd, and my own smile grows larger, pride flowing through me. She's absolutely the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The power and confidence I knew was there is bursting out of her, brighter than the sun.

She puts her hand up like Mother did earlier, but unlike with Mother, the people instantly quiet. “But it wasn't me who did this. It was you.” She smiles. “It was all of you. Pulling together and coming to the realization that you weren't really living in paradise. Not when everyone has to be the same. When you can't make your own choices on anything. Not who you're friends with, where you work, what you say, or even who you can mate with.”

A murmur grows through the crowd and Mother calls for her Enforcers to do something again, but while they're focused on Evie now, they seem to be listening as intently to what Evie's saying as the Citizens are.

“Look at what you've done. No one told you to do this. This was all of you. Working separately, yet coming together for a single cause. You knew that life didn't need to be the way it was. That being afraid to breathe the wrong way, or look at someone wrong, isn't really living. And that ‘living' every day in fear isn't and won't ever be acceptable.”

I want to stand up and cheer, but I don't. I just keep staring at her and marveling at how far we've come.

As if thinking the same thing, she glances in my direction. I don't think she sees me, but it feels like she might when the smile on her face softens. She moves her gaze to encompass the crowd around her again. “But
you
didn't choose to live like that.
You
chose to realize that a leader who has no more respect for her Citizens than she does for the floor she walks on doesn't deserve her place, and you've rallied together to oust her. Look at all that you've accomplished.” She spreads her arms out and spins in a circle as if encompassing all they've done. “All because you believed in something. Someone. It didn't even matter if I existed or not because I only gave you the ability to see that things were not as they seemed.
You
decided that things here weren't what you wanted.
You
decided
you
wanted to change it. And
you
accomplished it.”

She focuses her attention completely on Mother, who seems to have lost her ability to speak. “The people have spoken, Mother.
Your
people.
Your
Citizens.
They
don't want you in power anymore. They don't want someone in your position who could massacre a toddler's entire family in front of her and then leave her to wander around covered in their blood.” She narrows her eyes as the crowd turns, refocusing their attention on Mother. “As the rightful heir to your throne—the Daughter of the
People
—I am the people's voice.
They've
demanded
your
abdication.” She places the mask back over her face, and while the next sentence is slightly muffled, I'm sure it carries directly to Mother. “I am Evie. I live and I
am
part of the people.”

This time there's no cheer. Only people, their own masks still on, facing Mother. The monitor behind her blinks and shows Mother now, as it was originally intended to do. I feel a small bit of satisfaction as she remains quiet. She glares out over the people, and I can see her rage in the whiteness of her knuckles as she clutches the podium, but her blue eyes swirl with something close to madness—not anger. Insanity.

My heart thumps in my throat, competing with the ever-growing lump as I wait for her to say something. She turns toward her Enforcers again. “What are you waiting for?” Her voice squeaks. “I don't care what she or they say.
I
am in charge.
I
am Mother and
I'm
Governess. Retrieve her.
Now!
” Her voice steadily rises with each word and she shouts the last bit so loudly I'm tempted to cover my ears.

Again the Enforcers stay motionless. She did it. Evie did it. Enforcers are programmed to follow orders implicitly; if they're not following them, something big has changed.

Then a movement toward the stairs leading from the left of the stage catches my eye. I immediately tense, focusing on the Enforcer standing there.

Without moving her gaze from Evie, the Enforcer slowly removes her hands from behind her back and moves them to the front of her body. I nervously lick my lips, but stand my ground. Evie isn't moving. She doesn't even seem surprised. Since I trust her, I wait and see what the Enforcer does. But I'm completely astonished it isn't a gun in her hand, but one of the masks. She slowly pulls it over her head and adjusts it on her face, so she looks just like everyone else here.

The next Enforcer does the same, then the next and the next until the entire line of them from stage right to stage left has masks on. Then, in one movement, as if they've practiced this move for hours, they all turn toward Mother, their boots making a thumping sound on the stage.

“Long live Evie!” They say it together in their emotionless voices.

“Whoa!” I can't help but say aloud. Not at all what I expected to happen.

Then something else I didn't expect to happen, happens. The people chant for Mother to step down.

You can tell she has no idea what to do. She stares at her Enforcers, then at the people, then at Evie, then back at the Enforcers. Then she bolts. Straight past the Enforcers and me, jumping down the stairs.

Evie

After everything that had gone wrong this morning … the fight to the death with Dr. Friar. The murderous goo. Nearly drowning, only to be rescued by the very people I'd been trying to find in the first place—the Enforcers. I was sure the entire plan was doomed to failure. But my heart is singing in triumph. We did it. I can't believe it, but we did it.

But I don't even have time to let that sink in. Mother races away from the Square, toward the Palace Wing and the Tube Station. The Enforcers immediately give chase, along with one of the Citizens—one I'm almost positive is Gavin. I rip off my mask to push through the crowd.

By the time I catch up to her, she's already at the Guard station in front of the tube leading to the Palace Wing. The Guard tries to stop her, but she only shoves him down and runs down the tube. An Enforcer takes aim and shoots at her, but the bullet misses by mere centimeters. I hear it hit something metal.

“Stop shooting. We're not like her,” I shout.

She suddenly makes an abrupt turn and disappears into a stairwell. I put on an extra burst of speed. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, pushing me to go faster and faster, and I bypass the first Enforcer and plunge into the stairwell directly after the only person between Mother and me: Gavin.

I keep them just in sight as we run down the stairs and watch them vanish through a door at the bottom. I follow after them, the Enforcers immediately behind me. I'm sure we've got her trapped. This should be a storage room with only one door. The other walls are exteriors. The Enforcers will apprehend her and we'll continue our plan to exile her without any further surprises until Lenore can free the rest of the Citizens and myself from our invisible bonds.

But when I rush in, I stop in my tracks. It isn't a storage area. It's another submarine dock. Similar to the one in Sector Three, only smaller. And Mother is in the lone submersible—also much smaller. The circular door that leads to the spherical vessel slams shut just as Gavin reaches it.

She waves her fingers at him with a smile so bright it's manic. She presses a button and with a burst of bubbles the sub rushes away from the glass into the open ocean.

Gavin slams his hand against the glass door hard enough to shake the whole thing.

“Stop that,” an Enforcer hisses. “You'll break it and the pressure will kill us all.”

Gavin ignores her. “What is that?” he demands, though the answer is obvious.

“It's obviously an emergency escape pod.” My voice is devoid of emotion. How could this happen? Father had to know of this. Why didn't he tell us this was here?

“She's going to get away?” Gavin demands. “That's it?”

But I'm studying the little round vessel. Why isn't she trying to get away faster? She's not that far from the building. A meter at most. And the submersible is just slowly floating upward, as if the vessel doesn't have its own power and is reliant on the air inside it to make it buoyant.

“Come on.” I turn away toward the door. “As slowly as that thing is moving, there's plenty of time for us to get to the other subs and tow her back.” The Enforcers immediately follow my command, vacating the space in just a few seconds. I hear their footsteps moving up the stairs, but then a speaker crackles and Gavin and I jump and look around for the sound.