The Harvest (3 page)

“I'm off in five minutes,” he says. “Thankfully, I make the schedules here. I'll bring the indica with me and we'll get to know one another.”

When he slides into the booth beside me, it occurs to me that we must look like lovers. He sets the water pipe on the table, hands me the tonic water, and wraps an arm around my shoulders. For a moment I feel uncomfortable, but his gesture is reassuring, not sexual. He nods at the glass in front of me. I take a drink. Then he leans in and whispers in my ear.

“He's being held at the chancellor's estate. He's been there the whole time.”
Of course
. It was the most likely place. I'd thought about trying to get near, to scope it out—I'd even daydreamed about mounting a rescue, all by myself, as stealthy as Chan-Yu and as deadly as Soren—but there was no safe way, no way to do it without risking more than I dared. “The chancellor's staff is carefully vetted,” Snake continues. “Cooks, cleaners, butlers, plumbers. They're all interrogated, tracked, and monitored. You know the drill. Even then, very few were told of Vale's presence. One or two maids, the chancellor's Dietician, and a security guard.”

“I'm not surprised—I suspected as much—but how did you find out?”

“One of the guards is a frequent patron of The Elysium. After several well-packed pipes and a few flirtatious gestures I got it out of him that security around the building had been tripled. After that, it was just a matter of asking the right people the right questions.”

“What else do you know?”

“He's being treated as a hostage. Locked in his room day and night. Guards at all points of entry around the house. No one except his parents, the chancellor's personal doctor, and a single chambermaid have been allowed to make contact with him. Far as we know, he hasn't been allowed outside at all.”

I am crestfallen. How am I supposed to tell him I'm safe, I'm waiting for him, if he's being treated like a prisoner in his own home? I expected this, even feared worse. But it doesn't make it any easier.

Snake cocks his head at me.

“Why do you look so sad?”

“I need to get a message to him.”

“Why does that make you sad?”

“Because it seems impossible.”

“Says who, little lady? I was just getting to the part where I gallantly offer to take a message to your dearest Valerian, in exchange only for a simple favor.”

I lean into him.

“Let's talk about the favor in a minute. How are you going to get a message to him?”

“I have friends in high places, Remy Alexander.”

“Shhh!” I hiss, glancing around urgently as if Watchmen were about to materialize out of the walls and arrest me, and take me back to face General Aulion or Philip's electric shocks. “Don't say that out loud.” Snake smirks at me. I glare at him. “Can you do it without putting anyone at risk?”

“Risk?” He raises his eyebrows, and I notice that they, too, are dyed a brilliant purple. “
Life
is risk. We risk our lives every day. Do you want me to get a message to him, or not?”

I take a deep breath. “Yes. What's your favor?”

“You haven't touched the indica. It's an Outsider specialty, I promise. Of course,” he waves his hand at the crowd of luminous patrons, “
they
don't know that.”

“What's your favor?” I ask again.

“I hear that Meera has some delightful strawberries this time of year. Bring me a dozen, and I'll make sure Vale gets your message.”

I almost laugh out loud. “How about you send Vale the message, and I'll repay you with strawberries.”

He narrows his eyes at me, and says in a lighthearted voice, “You drive a hard bargain, Sparrow.” I had suggested Little Bird as my Outsider code, but Meera dubbed me Sparrow, and it stuck. Now, it's the only way I dare refer to myself in the city. “But I will accept your terms. Tell me, what message would you like to send?”

I reach for the water pipe in front of me. The pipe is green and blue semi-opaque glass. Meera said this marijuana has been flavored with a concentrated apple resin. The smoke is smooth, crisp, and very, very apple. The indica is heady and deep, sinking into my bones. I relax into the booth and look to the ceiling, illuminated with glowing green biolights. I imagine I'm underwater, drifting, that everything around me is safe and warm and comforting.

What is my message? What do I need to tell Vale? What am I doing here, hiding out in the dens of the city, surviving on smoke and secrets and the generosity of Outsiders?

I open my eyes and look at Snake. “Tell him I'm here. I'm waiting. Tell him, do not lose hope.”

2 - VALE

Spring 61
, Sector Annum 106,
8h00

Gregorian Calendar:
May 19

A cup. Hands. Lips. Water on my tongue. “Drink.” A soft command.

Light. Blue, purple, yellow: colors like a bruise. A flower—pain—blooms behind my eyelids.

Bones. Muscle. Fingers. More hands, not mine.

“Oh, darling.” The voice angers me. Everything fades to white, and all emotions are forgotten. White on white on white.

Feathers don't float because they are weightless; they float because the force of air resistance is almost equivalent to the force of gravity. They are pulled to the ground slowly, drifting, buffeted by invisible currents in the air, pushed this way and that by powers wholly outside their control.

I am a feather. My whole life, I have been pushed and pulled. I have surrendered to ideas, wishes, and demands not my own. I am falling. I am not weightless. I will die when my body hits the ground. For the first time, I am not afraid.

“He'll wake up in a few moments. Brain activity is already spiking in the frontal lobe.”

“Current mental state?”

“Difficult to read. Guilt is there. Sadness, too. Confusion, but that's normal in these situations.”

“Fear?”

“None. No autonomic or endocrine changes. No spike in glucocorticoids from the adrenal cortex or catecholamines from the adrenal medulla or sympathetic nerves.”

“Strange.”

“It's not uncommon for those who come back from near-death experiences to lose the sense of fear they had before, General.”

“Does he know I'm here?”

“Images associated with you have appeared on his dream scans. But we have no indication that he knows you've been present.”

“Where is Madam Orleán?”

“I expect her any moment. She wants to be here when he wakes up.”

“
Moriana, are you with Corine?” I ask. I don't recognize my own voice. It sounds different. Stronger. I already know what the answer is, and what I have to do.

“Vale, is that you?” Her voice comes out as a sob. I wince at the sound. Her pain is harder to bear than my own fear. I key in a set of final instructions to Demeter.

Relay all information about the virus targeting Elijah Tawfiq to the Resistance base. Instruct headquarters to send a rescue group for the Resistance squad currently in the capital.

Demeter
: Vale.

Vale
: What?

Demeter
: The Resistance base has been destroyed. Corine Orleán's C-Link just disseminated this information to the entire C-Link network.

Vale
: It's a lie.

Demeter
: It's not. They have aerial photographs of the destruction. It was carried out entirely via drone and airship assault.

Vale
: Survivors?

Demeter
: None.

My heart thuds to a stop. I have only one thought. Only one choice. Find Remy.

“Vale? Can you hear me?”

Stiff eyelids bat against dry eyes. Shapes, colors, and sounds crystallize as I begin to wake. My body is parched, like I've been asleep in a desert. I look to the side: brown hair, soft hands, and green eyes. So like my own.

“He's fully conscious, though it may take him a few moments to readjust to all the input.”

The rest of the room pans into focus as does the full sensory array of my body. Plush pillows against my neck, silk sheets, warm leggings. Dark green walls adorned with paintings, mirrors, a plasma screen by the door. Words, numbers, and charts scroll down the screen. To my right, a short, neat stack of books, exactly where I left them.
My bedroom. The chancellor's mansion
. I am surrounded by the comforts of my past, yet I am not comforted.

I focus on the faces. There, a scarred man. Burn marks on his neck and face. Peppered grey hair and a permanent scowl. I fight the urge to recoil.
General Aulion.
A woman in a grey coat to his right. A doctor, or a dietician, I'm not sure which. Young, with black hair and dark olive skin. I search my memory for a name, but I can't find one. I don't know her. She puts her fingers to my temple, presses gently, and turns back to the plasma. A whole new set of data appears.

“Where's my father?” My voice comes out unbidden, hoarse. “Where's the chancellor?”

Corine's smile never fades.

“Your father will be here in a little while.” She reaches a hand out to rest on my shoulder. “Oh, Vale, we've missed you so much.”

“How do you feel?” the doctor asks.

For a moment, I contemplate silence. I want to brush them away, turn my head, ignore them. I want them to know I am not on their side. But then I remember.

Remy
.

My footsteps pound against the metal floor as I sprint down the hall, out of the building, toward the soldiers who are doubtless pursuing Remy, Chan-Yu, and Miah.

“Guide me, Deme,” I say. I'd already switched channels so I'd be communicating with her alone, and not on the mic with the rest of my team. “Take me to them.”

She knows I'm not asking her to take me to my team.

“Left,” she says. “There's a surveillance drone there. It'll ID you and report your location to the grid.”

I veer left. I stare grimly into the blind eye of the drone, which dutifully photographs me and then starts flashing red. Alarms sound through the streets. I turn away, fleeing, keeping up the guise of the fugitive on the run.

“I need to make a scene,” I say. “Distract them for as long as possible.” I have to give Remy time to escape, to get out of the city, to get away from the people who want her dead.

“Straight ahead. There's a six-story complex with a docking bay.” I take off running. “Head for the roof.”

“What now?” I throw the door open and take the stairs two at a time. “Are you suggesting I throw myself off a building?”

She doesn't respond.

She's never done that before.

“I'm okay.”

“Any nausea or headaches?”

“Headache, definitely,” I say, forcing a chuckle. “But it's tolerable. How long have I been out?”

The doctor's faint smile flickers, and she glances at my mother, whose gaze remains steadfast.

“What do you remember?” the doctor asks, dodging my question.

“A building. Stairs. I remember climbing. And then I remember falling.”

I hold my hands up in surrender. With twelve soldiers surrounding me and a twenty-meter free fall behind me, my options are drawing to zero.

“Target surrounded,” one of the soldiers says. A second later, a creature from my nightmares emerges. Scar tissue rips across his face and neck, burn marks from a fight I'm thankful I didn't have to witness. Grey hair. Stiff lips. Hooded eyes.

He stands as rigid as he did during my military training, staring across the roof, his expression unreadable. The sneer he wore when he confronted Soren in the interrogation room, the condescension, is gone, replaced by something colder.

“You look like you're ready to throw your life away,” he says, his eyes meeting mine as he takes a step forward.

“I don't think of it that way.”

“Everything you've ever fought for has been destroyed.”

“Not everything. Not yet.” The same words I whispered to Remy just days ago. Everything is a lie, she had said. Not everything, I told her.

“Do it,” he says. I can hear scorn in his voice, disbelief, the conviction that I am a coward. That I don't have the strength to make the sacrifice for what I believe in. That I am still a child, afraid.

So I turn, a half step, away from the soldiers, away from Aulion, away from the sightless eyes of the weapons staring at me.

Fly, little bird, I think. Fly, Remy.

I step off the ledge.

I love you.

“Luckily, there was a rescue drone not far from your location,” the doctor is saying.
Lucky? I bet my life on those drones
. “It detected movement patterns similar to those normally associated with a desire to jump.” Rescue drones were designed to patrol the skies of Okaria to prevent suicides. With catch-nets, perimeter monitoring, and thermal tracking, the Sector had reduced the number of suicides by free fall to less than ten a year. When I stepped off that ledge, I knew my chances of hitting the ground were slim to none. The goal was never to kill myself.

“We came so close to losing you,” my mother says, her eyes fixed on me, burrowing deep. Digging for something—the truth. She leans in, presses her arm against my body, clutches my hand, her skin white as bone. I can't hold her gaze. I let my eyes roll back as if I'm about to black out again, then struggle to regain focus. I stare at the minute lines in her hands, lines that match the grain of the wood dresser behind her. Polished, shiny, hard. It's difficult to believe she is flesh and bone. More likely something I've dreamed up, a monster of many faces, some that draw me in, some that repulse me. “You're so lucky to be here now.”

I close my eyes against the swirling nausea in my gut and lay my head back. With more effort than it took to step off that ledge, I finally meet her eyes. I force a smile and squeeze her hand.

“I know,” I say, after a moment. I cough, clear my throat, and then ask again, “How long was I out?”

My mother looks away and sets to smoothing one of my blankets, pressing it against my thigh until all the creases are gone. General Aulion hasn't moved. He stares at me the way he did on the rooftop. His expression is calculating, appraising, but neutral. I've got to be careful.

“You were unconscious about two weeks, but—” the doctor hesitates as though that was only part of the story, but my mother interrupts.

“Doctor, General, would you please give me a few moments alone with my son?”

Aulion narrows his eyes, and moves toward the door. The doctor checks the neural scanner one last time before following in Aulion's footsteps.

My mother sighs softly when the door clicks shut, as though relieved by the privacy we've been granted. She turns and gives me a sad little smile, one that looks more honest, more real, than I remember.

“Oh, Vale,” she says, and despite the honesty, I hear the grasping, the pretending-to-understand, in her voice. “I know the last few months have been hard.”
Hard? It was the first time I felt truly alive
. “It's been hard for me too. Ever since you graduated, I knew the time would come when you'd have to look at your father and me and see the hard choices we've made.”
Like executing a classroom full of students, or ordering death without trial for prisoners
? “I always knew there was the possibility you wouldn't understand what was at stake, that you would judge us for our choices, that you would hate us for what we had to do.” Tears cloud her eyes and she blinks a few times, but she never pulls her gaze from mine even as she chokes on her words. “You can't imagine how I felt when I saw you step off that ledge. You can't imagine a mother's horror when you've come a second away from losing a child.”

I don't have to imagine
, I think, anger clawing at me. I
saw Brinn Alexander the night Tai was murdered.

I keep my mouth shut.

“Please, Vale, promise me,” her hand strays to my cheek, just like it did when I was a child, “whatever you may think of me, of your father, or of the world we've built, please, promise me that you will never again try to take your own life.”

I could tell the truth. I could tell her I will never promise that, that nothing could stop me from stepping off that same ledge again or jumping in front of a Bolt if it meant saving my friends. I could tell her that nothing will stop me from dying, if it comes to that, for the things I believe in, for the people I love. But here in this den of deception, where will the truth get me?

Feeling like I could bite through graphene, I nod, try not to grit my teeth with the lie. “I promise.”

She lights up and a smile changes the contours of her face, softening it, rendering it even more beautiful. She squeezes my shoulder, her grip strong and confident, as if by force of will she can keep everything under control.

The door swings open, the minute squeal of the hinges grating against my ears, exacerbating my headache. My vision goes black around the edges, but comes back clearer a moment later. I look up to see my father standing in the doorframe, his black hair greying at the temples, lines around his eyes I don't remember from before. Philip Orleán, Chancellor of the Okarian Sector. The man I once thought could do no wrong. I study his face, see the telltale signs of aging, and a choking sadness wells up from somewhere deep within.
These are my parents. I can't escape that, no matter what they've done.