Set Me Free (7 page)

L
ouisa stops dead in her tracks. I peer out again carefully, and I see Dr. Ballinger opening the apartment’s front door.

On the other side is the construction worker–slash–Alliance spy.

My blood goes cold with fear. Dr. Ballinger is in danger! The operative must have recognized her when she entered the building — the Alliance surely has files and photos on all of us “escapees” and our families — and followed her inside.

“May I help you?” Louisa’s mom asks courteously.

“Yes, ma’am,” says the phony pothole specialist.

“We’ve had reports of a gas leak and I need to check all the apartments in the building.”

I detect only a hint of an accent, one I can’t place. I hold my breath, praying Dr. Ballinger won’t let him in.

“I don’t live here,” she explains. “I’m only here to gather some things for the tenant’s daughter, who’s away at school with my daughter. You see, I heard on NewsServ that a severe cold front, somewhere in the eighty-below-zero range, is going to hit the entire Midwest region later this week, so I thought I should send some warmer clothing….” She trails off, laughing self-consciously. Something about him must be making her nervous. I hope she realizes what’s really going on, and can get out in time. “Oh, I’m sure you’re not interested in that.”

“No, ma’am,” says the enemy.

Anguish fills me. My first thought is that even if Louisa and I manage to get out without the operative seeing us, we’re still leaving Dr. B alone with him. But then I realize that the Alliance has known of the Ballingers’ whereabouts — and the other parents, too — from the start. If they were going to cause them any
harm, they’d have done so already. I’m sure the Alliance is convinced they’ll be able to recapture us, a bunch of eighth-grade runaways, so it’s still in their best interest to keep our parents alive and well. Then they’ll be able to act on their original plan, which was to ransom us in exchange for the power and influence of our families.

Of course, if the spy finds us here
with
Dr. Ballinger, all bets are off. Who knows what he’d do to all three of us under those circumstances?

I explain this all to Louisa in a frantic whisper. She frowns, then nods just as we hear Dr. Ballinger telling the spy that he can come in. She suggests he begin his check in the kitchen, where the gas appliances are.

Thank goodness the kitchen and my bedroom are at completely opposite sides of the apartment.

“We have to go,” I tell Louisa. “Now!”

She looks around desperately. “But we haven’t found anything to help us decipher the code on the flash drive.”

She’s right, of course. I am so frustrated I could scream. Why does everything have to be so hard? It’s like a giant puzzle, and
none
of the pieces are fitting together.

The word explodes in my mind:
puzzles!
Puzzles, codes, cryptograms, ciphers. I think of the crazy mess on Ivan’s flash drive and the cryptograms in my puzzle book. Could it be that they’re all connected?

The flash of hope nearly blinds me. I run to my night table, tug open the drawer, and grab the book my mother gave me so long ago.

Then I point to the window. Louisa is there in the blink of an eye. I help her onto the ironing board and she makes it across in seconds flat. She quickly unlatches the fire escape’s sliding ladder, which we’ll use to climb down to the alley. I am about to step onto the “bridge” when we hear a long, shrill whistle coming from the street.

Not the kind of whistle you execute by sticking your fingers in your mouth.

This is the kind that can only be produced by an official Phoenix School cadet whistle.

Jonah! The warning signal.

Sure enough, just as I duck back inside the bedroom window, I catch a glimpse of the mail carrier entering the
alley from the street side. Louisa ducks into Joey’s window just in the nick of time.

Like the construction worker, this spy must have seen Dr. Ballinger enter my building, and now she’s checking the perimeter. I doubt she knows that Louisa and I are here, but she is definitely on alert.

And if she happens to glance upward, there’s no way she’ll miss the giant ironing board spanning the alley. I’m pretty sure that will pique her interest even further, and we can’t have that.

I don’t have time for thinking, only for action.

Quickly, I turn from the window and drag the heavy comforter from my bed, along with my sheets and pillow. Then I fling all that bedding out the window. My aim is good: the sheets and comforter land right on the mail carrier and cover her like a net, trapping her underneath. The element of surprise must also make her trip and land facedown.

In a heartbeat, Louisa appears on the fire escape landing again and swiftly lowers the ladder. Below us,
the mail carrier is struggling to get out from under the bedding. I climb up onto the windowsill, grasping my puzzle book, but my hurry makes me clumsy and my fear makes my palms sweaty. The book slips from my hand at the same moment that I lose my footing, catching the ironing board with my heel, and nearly pitching forward out the window.

Louisa has clambered halfway down the ladder but stops to look across the alley at me with terror-filled eyes.

I manage to grab on to the window frame and regain my balance, but the ironing board is not so lucky. It wobbles, then drops, free-falling nine stories to land in the alley with a crash, right beside my puzzle book.

The noise of the crash scares the spy, who stops wriggling under the blanket for a moment.

My mind races as I consider my options, none of them good. I can hide here in my room and hope the Alliance spy (who is surely done with his pretend inspection of the kitchen and making his way to this side of the apartment) doesn’t find me.

Or I can get out of this window somehow.

But how?

I could probably sail across the alley on an impromptu zip line, which I could fashion out of my old jump rope and a coat hanger.

Yeah, I could do that.

If I had, like, five hours to spare.

Clenching my teeth, I climb onto the windowsill.

I look across the alley.

I look down at the ground, nine floors below me, where the mail carrier is again trying to push the comforter off herself.

Bravery is doing what you have to do
.

Even when you’re scared to death
.

Once again, there is no thought. Just action.

So I brace myself.

And jump.

I am airborne for mere seconds. But the sensation is a terrifying rush as I hurtle through a three-and-a-half-foot span of nothingness toward Joey Dennison’s fire escape.
Unfortunately, I’ve misjudged the propulsion, and even in the fraction of a heartbeat it takes to soar across the alley, I know that I will fall short of my target. My feet are not going to make it to the landing.

All I can do is reach for the rail and hope I connect with it.

I stretch my arms out in front of me, leaning, reaching, fingers grasping….

I hear Louisa gasp in horror one split second before I collide with the fire escape. But only one of my hands makes contact with the rail. Frantically, I close my fingers around the slender section of metal and hold on for dear life. I can already feel the burn in my biceps, the ache in my shoulder, as I dangle there by one arm, my own weight pulling me downward toward the cement of the alley beneath me.

“Don’t let go!” Louisa cries.

I want to tell her to whisper — the Alliance agent can hear us — but right now I’m focused on surviving. My legs flail wildly as I attempt to swing them high
enough to get a foothold on the landing. No luck. Somehow my baseball cap stays on my head. Sweat is pouring down my back. Then I hear Louisa clambering back up the metal rungs of the ladder.

“No!” I hiss at her. “There’s no time. You have to get away.”

But she’s back on the landing now; she reaches over the rail to clasp her hand firmly around my wrist. “Give me your other hand!”

Somehow I manage to raise my other arm toward Louisa’s outstretched hand. She catches it and holds tight, grunting as she hauls me upward.

My right knee reaches the edge of the landing, then my left, and I steady myself but I just can’t find the power to lift myself any farther. My whole body is throbbing with pain.

“You have to get out of here,” I command, my voice breaking on a sob. “Leave me!”

But my best friend does not let go. With her breath coming in strained gasps, Louisa summons a burst of
superhuman strength and pulls me to my feet. I swing one leg, then the other, over the railing to safety. Panting with exhaustion and fear, I crumple to the metal grid floor of the fire escape.

Louisa helps me up and we hurry down the ladder. We’re out of breath after nine stories. The second our feet hit the ground, the mail carrier manages to free herself from beneath the blanket. She stands up. When her eyes meet mine, the hatred in them is so immense that I go cold inside.

She touches her ear and speaks softly into what must be a communication device.

“Spotted: two boys in the alley. Possible fliers.”

I feel a mix of relief and terror. She doesn’t know who we really are. She thinks we’re boys. But we’re still about to be trapped, unless we flee now.

“Come on, come on,” Louisa urges, tugging me toward the end of the alley.

“Wait!” I cry, pulling free of Louisa’s hold. “The book!”

I take a tentative step in the direction of the book, which is lying less than a foot from the Alliance agent’s
toe. Her eyes are fixed on me as I approach. I don’t think either of us is breathing.

Keeping my gaze locked with hers, I lean down slowly, slowly….

My fingertips touch the spine of the book. In a lightning-fast movement, I snatch it up and spin away, ready to run….

“Aaaaaghhh!”

A raging bellow erupts from her. In a whiplike motion, her hand lashes out and clamps around my elbow like a vise. I stumble, almost dropping my book. That’s it. I’m caught.

Then I hear a boy’s voice call out from behind us.

“Hey, you Alliance creep!” he shouts.

It’s Jonah. His voice seems to echo off the bricks of the buildings.

The spy and I turn around to see him standing at the mouth of the alley. Then he takes off at top speed across the street and down a narrow side road.

The spy looks from me back to Jonah, clearly torn about what to do. Then, a split second later, she charges
after Jonah. This time she is shouting into her earpiece: “New flier on the move. Go go go!”

I flatten myself against the alley wall and watch from the shadows as Dr. Ballinger and the “construction worker” exit the front of my building. Dr. Ballinger is making polite small talk, but the Alliance spy is listening to something in his earpiece. In the next instant, he takes off at a run, joining his partner as they thunder after Jonah. He is practically a blur of speed as he vaults over a fence, and the Alliance agents give chase.

“Maddie! We have to go!” Louisa hisses from the other end of the alley.

I know I should be running toward her, running as fast as my legs will carry me, but I just stand where I am, plastered to the rough bricks of the building. What was Jonah
thinking
? Why would he do something so crazy and so dangerous?

And then I realize: To save us. To get the attention off Louisa and me.

I feel as though the alleyway has turned to quicksand and it’s trying to swallow me up.

“Come on!” Louisa urges, jerking on my elbow. “Run!”

My stomach is turning over and my head is pounding. But I do what I’m told.

I run.

We make it all the way to the L tracks before we stop to catch our breath.

“Jonah …” I gasp. My lungs are searing as I gulp air into them, and the muscles in my legs feel like they’re on fire. “We can’t leave without Jonah!”

Louisa is bent over, her hands on her knees, sucking in oxygen. She can’t speak, so she simply shakes her head.

I shake mine back at her, even more vehemently. “I’m not going back to the stadium without him!”

Louisa frowns in response. After several more moments of deep breathing, she straightens up and looks at me with serious eyes. “It’s not safe out here in the open, Maddie. And besides …” She trails off, dropping her gaze to the pavement.

“Besides what?”

But I know: we have no idea what’s happened to Jonah. There’s a good chance the Alliance agents caught him. Even if he managed to avoid them, he might have run right into a police officer, or got picked up by the scouts from the Phoenix School. Or maybe he met up with another gang.

I know Louisa is right. We can’t just wait around here and hope that Jonah will show up.

As we climb the stairs to the El tracks and begin the long walk back, I feel tears burning behind my eyes. I struggle to hold them back, but Louisa puts her arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze.

“You’ve been brave enough for one day,” she whispers. “Go ahead and cry.”

That’s all the encouragement I need. In the next second, the tears are spilling down my cheeks, and the frigid wind turns them icy on my skin.

W
e arrive back at Wrigley, tired, frozen, and hungry.

“Did you find the legend?” Drew asks as soon as we appear.

“Was it on a flash drive like we thought?” Evelyn chimes in.

Numbly, I hand off the little puzzle book to Evelyn. She, Rosie, and Drew stare down at it, befuddled.

“Where’s Jonah?” Alonso asks, sounding worried.

I collapse onto a hard bleacher as Louisa quietly fills everyone in on what happened: our run-in with the Daggers and the dogs, sneaking into my apartment, seeing Louisa’s mom, the spies, and then Jonah running off.

“I’m sure he’ll be okay,” says Evelyn, giving me a hug.

“He’s tough,” Rosie concurs. “Don’t worry.”

“I can’t believe you saw your mom,” Ryan tells Louisa, studying her thoughtfully. Louisa nods, looking as if she wants to cry but fighting it.

Then Ryan turns to me. “You’ll feel better after you eat some lunch,” he says. And it’s such a thoughtful and predictable thing for him to say that I actually smile.

After a quick meal of soydogs that I can barely make myself choke down, we all return to the press box. Dizzy is resting, so we’re on our own for now.

Evelyn takes her place at the computer again. The encoded document looks as jumbled and unreadable as ever, but I open my book and flip through the pages.

It’s like going back in time. Every page is a different game, a different challenge. The earliest pages, from when I was younger, feature simple games of Hangman. My sloppy block letters seem to teeter clumsily on the blank dashes my mother had drawn there.

“What are you looking for exactly?” Alonso asks.

I explain to my friends about how my mother and I used to write messages to each other in code and then have contests to see who could solve the puzzles faster.

About a quarter of the way through the book the games become more complicated. I remember the day my mother first taught me the word
cryptogram
. She wrote something on a fresh page in the book that to me looked like pure nonsense — letters, numbers, symbols — and told me that by the end of the week I’d be able to read it; all I had to do was discover the key. It was one of those snowy weeks in May; the blizzard conditions kept us indoors but I wasn’t bored for a second. My mother had prepared a very involved scavenger hunt through which the secret of the code would be revealed to me. I’d go to brush my teeth, for example, and find a strange squiggly symbol drawn on the countertop in toothpaste. Since toothpaste begins with a
T
, I knew the squiggle represented that letter. I ran to my puzzle book and wrote it down. It went on like that for seven days, and by the end
of the week, I’d compiled a complete legend with which to crack the code.

I’d sat, delightedly hunched over my puzzle book as the snow piled up outside. I matched the letters with the symbols until finally I could read that unreadable thing my mother had written. It was the Pledge of Allegiance.

Feeling a surge of hope, I flip to the page that holds that legend.

“Try this,” I say to Evelyn.

She begins banging on the keys, referring to the book, and banging some more.

“Oh my gosh!” she breathes.

“Is it working?” Louisa asks.

“Yeah, I think so!” Evelyn replies excitedly. “I mean, I’m getting actual words here.
On the afternoon
… Maddie, quick, turn the page….”

Obediently I reach over and flip to the next page in the book for Evelyn to copy. “Brilliant,” she mutters. “This is positively brilliant. I’m not sure it’s totally
precise,” she adds, typing away. “But it’s close. Oh, and it ends with numbers. Hmm.”

“Well, I’m sure the Hornet never expected Maddie to ever have to decipher an official Resistance document,” Drew points out.

“So, Evelyn,” Rosie urges, “can you make sense of it or what?”

“I think so!” says Evelyn, hitting the last key with a flourish. “Come look.”

I can almost cry from relief. Now everyone rushes over to the computer, jostling for a position to better see the screen.

With the help of the legend, Evelyn has typed out:

On the afternoon of the storm, the bird knows to leave the nest
.

The storm shouldn’t occur
.

Advise the Queen of this at the meeting at the Hive
,

Where Christopher Columbus and James Monroe Meet in the New Millennium
.

The utterly bizarre lines of text conclude with a
series of numbers that I can easily recognize: tomorrow’s date.

“What does this all
mean
?” Ryan sputters, shaking his head.

“It’s like a code within a code,” Rosie says, squinting at the words. “Let’s take it one thing at a time. What’s up with the bird and the nest?”

I immediately think of myself —
Sparrow
— but I’m not sure that’s on the right track.

“The phoenix is a mythical bird,” Alonso reminds us. “So maybe the nest is the school?”

Evelyn nods excitedly. “That absolutely makes sense,” she says, and Alonso blushes.

“But what about the ‘afternoon of the storm’?”

“Something about the superstorms, maybe?” Louisa says. She glances at me. “Didn’t you say the nurses in the Phoenix School were talking about the weather, Maddie?”

The realization is like a lightning bolt. “No, wait,” I say, my heart racing. “Not ‘storm,’ the noun. ‘Storm,’ the verb.
To
storm. Another way to say
attack
.”

Ryan claps his hands. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“Ivan’s talking about an attack!” says Rosie, her dark eyes sparkling. “On the Phoenix School.”

I stand up and begin pacing the press box. It’s all beginning to add up. “So what I thought the nurses were saying about something being
irresistible
,” I say, working through it, “must have been them talking about the
Resistance, storming
the school!”

The implications of this information hit all of us at the same time.

“They know!” Louisa gasps. “The Phoenix School knows the Resistance is planning an attack!”

Drew nods grimly. “I think we can be pretty sure they’re planning a counterstrike.”

“That’s horrible!” Evelyn looks furious. “The Resistance won’t have a chance without the element of surprise. Someone must have tipped them off! There’s a mole, or a double agent.”

Rosie gives her a challenging look. “I hope you’re not thinking this so-called mole is Ivan.”

Evelyn shrugs.

“It’s not Ivan!” Rosie plants her hands on her hips. “Absolutely not.”

“You’re defending him now?” asks Evelyn, confused. “The other day you nearly knocked him out.”

“It was different then,” Rosie snaps. “And besides, he’s the one who’s warning the Resistance.”

“Maybe he’s just making it look that way,” Evelyn counters. “That’s how conspiracies work!”

“Look,” says Alonso, pointing to the screen. “Ivan isn’t just warning them that the Phoenix faculty knows they’re coming; he’s advising they call off the attack.
The storm shouldn’t occur
.”

Rosie shoots Evelyn a look that says,
I told you so
.

Evelyn rolls her eyes. “Well, it was possible.”

Before we find ourselves in the middle of our own battle, I hold up my hands for silence. “Guys, please!”

Evelyn sighs, and Rosie relaxes, offering her an apologetic look. “Sorry. I guess I’m just anxious because Ivan said if we found the Hornet …”

“We’d find Wren,” I finish for her. Rosie nods.

“So Ivan wanted us to get this flash drive to Maddie’s mom,” Louisa recaps, “to warn the Resistance not to storm the Phoenix School.”

“Right,” I say, pacing the press box some more. “And if we don’t warn her and her soldiers in time …”

“There’s no telling what will happen to them when they show up at the Phoenix School,” Ryan finishes glumly.

“The problem is we still don’t know where my mom — where the Hornet is,” I say.

“There’s more here,” Evelyn speaks up, scrolling down the document. She checks my puzzle book, then starts typing again.

Drew leans closer to the screen to read the new words and his eyebrows lift. “According to this, the Hornet is going to meet with the Queen at some place they’ve coined ‘the Hive.’ And if those numbers just mean the date, then that meeting is tomorrow morning!”

“Who’s the Queen?” Evelyn asks, but Drew doesn’t look up at her.

“The Hive must be a Resistance hideout,” Rosie guesses, “like a base camp or a headquarters or something.”

“Maybe that line about Christopher Columbus and President James Monroe meeting in the new millennium is the clue to the location,” says Evelyn.

“Whoever wrote that must have flunked American history,” says Louisa, “because Columbus and Monroe lived, like, three whole centuries apart. And neither one of them was around for the new millennium.”

Desperate, I pick up my puzzle book and search the pages. I am surprised when something falls out of it: a ticket stub I must have tucked in there for safekeeping. It’s from the Chicago Art Institute.

“What’s that?” Evelyn asks, turning and taking the stub from my hand. “Oh, the Art Institute.” She gets a faraway look in her eyes. “I think I went on a field trip there once.” Then her eyes widen. “Wait. The Art Institute. Hang on.” She hits a few keys on the computer and a map of Chicago comes up.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Look!” She zooms in on the map and points to a spot. “See where South
Columbus
Drive crosses over East
Monroe
Street?”

Drew is smiling now. “At Millennium Park!”

“Right!” Evelyn exclaims. “And across the street is the Art Institute of Chicago. Well, what’s left of it, anyway.”

I can feel my pulse ticking faster. “My mom always said the Institute was a ‘hive’ of artistic genius. You guys? I’m betting the Institute is the Resistance headquarters.” I squeeze Evelyn’s shoulder. “You’re a genius for figuring it out.”

“You totally are,” Rosie tells Evelyn, who beams at the compliments. Then Rosie turns to me. “But, Maddie, you were the one who figured out all the passwords and codes.”

Her words please and surprise me. I know she didn’t think very highly of me back at CMS, but clearly, that’s changing.

Truth be told, I’m beginning to think more highly of myself, too.

“So the meeting at the Hive is tomorrow,” Drew says. “And it sounds like … so is the planned attack.”

The urgency sets in. It dawns on all of us that the only way Ivan’s hard work will pay off is if we can get this message about the counterstrike to the Hornet immediately — before the Resistance storms the Phoenix School tomorrow.

“We should leave for the Art Institute now,” I say, bursting to see my mother. I look at Rosie, who nods. I know she’s also overwhelmed by the fact that she is now closer to finding her sister than she’s been in three years.

“No — we should wait,” Louisa advises, pointing outside. I look over and see a swirl of black clouds gathering overhead. The wind is picking up, and fine veins of lightning are appearing in the distance. There’s no doubt that a major weather disturbance is about to occur.

Rosie wrings her hands. “This superstorm could go on all night. I need to do something with my nervous energy.”

“Let’s go tell Dizzy,” Drew suggests. “He’ll be glad to hear we’ve cracked the code.”

“I’ll go with you,” says Rosie immediately, and they leave the press box.

“Hey, you guys?” Louisa looks at Evelyn, Ryan, and Alonso. “Would you mind giving Maddie and me a few minutes alone?”

Evelyn and Alonso exchange glances. “No problem,” says Evelyn.

“Yeah, I think I’ll go see if there are any more peanuts,” says Ryan.

When they’re gone, I sit down in one of the chairs, trembling. It’s all been so much — going home, solving the code, knowing I might see my mother tomorrow.

Louisa sits down beside me. “Maddie, I’m so sorry,” she begins, her words coming quickly and nervously. “All that awful, terrible stuff I said to you back at your apartment. It was just … and I was so —”

I cut her off by throwing my arms around her and giving her a huge hug. “It’s okay,” I assure her. “I understand. Your mom was right there, and I know how much you wanted to see her.”

“But I shouldn’t have said … I didn’t mean any …”

“I know.” I pull out of the hug to smile at her. “It’s okay.”

Her face registers her relief.

“Now,” I say, “we should start brainstorming a plan —”

I’m interrupted by a noise from the field below: A spine-chilling scream of pure, abject terror.