When We Wake (32 page)

Operation New Beginning had nothing to do with dead soldiers. It had never had anything to do with dead soldiers. It was about allowing the elite, the powerful, and the wealthy to escape to a new world, from the mess they’d made of this one.

I stared at the Father, and I hated him for telling me the truth at last.

“I thought you cared about the sanctity of life! You say you don’t kill people, but you just let all those refugees die!”

“They would have died anyway, of starvation or disease.” He shrugged. “Or perhaps lived, according to God’s will. It is bringing them back to a semblance of life that desecrates God’s
sacred will, and that blasphemy I must expose. I have always had faith that my father’s fears were well founded.”

“Marie said they couldn’t make starships,” I said. “She said the technology wasn’t there yet, that the ships would cost too much, that people wouldn’t stand for their governments’ doing it.”

“Indeed. So they have done it in secret, because they are full of hubris and greed,” he said, and laid both hands flat upon his desk. He did it with terrible gentleness; I could see he wanted to slam them down, and the self-control it took him to be soft scared me even more than the anger he was suppressing. “They do this, because they are not
content
with the one world God gave us to rule over.”

“How do you know?” I demanded.

I was remembering Trevor Dawson’s face when I’d challenged him.

What is the Ark Project?

Humanity’s last chance
, he’d said, and ranted about ocean anoxia.

The end might not come for some time. But this project had started over sixty years ago. They had been looking to the future, to their children’s escape route.

Humanity’s last chance.

Maybe it was just a way to justify the project to himself; maybe it was the only way he could cope with knowing what he was doing. But what if he was right?

“What if they’re doing it because this world is dying? You’ve got a computer. You must have seen the climate news, the drying
rivers, the rising oceans. You know that things are getting worse, not better.”

“God will not allow it,” the Father said. “The world will end as the prophets predict, not by any tools of man.”

“How stupid
are
you?” I demanded.

The Father hit me in the face.

It was an open-handed blow, almost contemptuous, but with enough force to snap my head around. I was completely taken aback, with no chance to put my basic training into motion.
Zaneisha would be ashamed of me
, I thought. I got to my feet somehow, and stumbled to put my back against one of the side walls, fists up in case I needed to use them. The Father sat there watching me, his anger carefully put away again. It wasn’t fake. He genuinely hated me, blasphemy in person, mouthing defiance against him. But he’d pull the rage out and use it only when he needed to, like a weapon.

A
weapon
.

I still had the knife in my pocket. It was all I could do to stop myself from grabbing for it. He was bigger and stronger than I was, and it was too chancy. I needed to wait for an opportunity. I shifted my weight and felt the knife move against my thigh.

“So,” I said softly, “you want me to kill myself because you want to prove I’m unstable, is that it? You want to scuttle the Ark Project by proving that someone from a hundred years ago can’t make it?”

“I want you to reunite yourself with God,” he said. “I will reveal with your body the blasphemy these secularists seek to
perpetuate. And when I do, my people under the mountain will rise up and destroy the Ark starship.”

“You’re going to use my dead body as a signal for sabotage? Why don’t you just leak the news?”

“It is God’s will,” he said simply. “You are the first; you must return to him.”

I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I am so tired of being
used
. The army tried to do it, Tatia tried to do it, and now you’re trying to do it. I’m a person, not a symbol, not property, and not a prop. If you want me dead, I can’t stop you, but I won’t make it easier for you, either. Dirty your own fucking hands.”

“Murder is a sin,” the Father said flatly. “And you are not a person. You are an empty shell mouthing excuses in an attempt to delay the inevitable, and I will not allow you to continue.” He raised his voice, pitching it to the office door. “Bring in the boy.”

My heart squeezed painfully as they brought Abdi in, Conrad and Joseph on either side.

“Tegan,” Abdi said, his eyes going straight to my face.

“I’m all right,” I lied, ignoring the stinging in my cheek.

“Say your good-byes,” the Father ordered, and allowed himself a smile at my outrage.

“What?” Abdi demanded.

The Father ignored him. “My followers have been much too kind to you, Tegan Oglietti, misled by their soft hearts.” Conrad and Joseph shifted, looking abashed.

“This is what will happen now,” the Father said. “You will be imprisoned underground. You will be given sufficient food and
water to maintain yourself, no more. You will speak to no one, hear from no one, see no one, for there will be no light for you. Once in a while, I will come, and ask if you are done with this charade of life.”

I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, a muffled drum. I’d fight it. I could hold out. Maybe Abdi would escape and lead a rescue, maybe Rachel would have a crisis of faith and help, maybe the army would storm the compound and release me.

The Father’s voice was very soft and utterly relentless. “And how long do you think you can last?”

Not long enough
, I thought dully. The army thought I had escaped, and they knew I had no reason to trust the Inheritors; they’d never look for me here. Rachel was too loyal to her people to assist me, and they’d be watching Abdi closely. There would be no rescue from outside. There was no way to fight from the inside.

I could resist the Father for a time. But eventually I would give up.

And giving up, I would die.

“Now say good-bye to your friend. Forever.”

With an inarticulate yell, Abdi Taalib, that caring, studious musician, flung himself across the Father’s desk and tried his very best to strangle him with his bare hands.

It was a futile effort; Conrad and Joseph were shocked but acted swiftly, pulling him off the Father and giving him a couple of punches to the head for his trouble. But they were fully occupied trying to deal with Abdi’s frantic struggles, and the Father
was leaning back in his chair, watching him with wide eyes. It had probably been a long time since anyone had tried to smack him around.

For that moment, no one was looking at me. Abdi had given me the opportunity I needed.

Slipping the little knife from my pocket, I moved behind the Father and placed its sharp point against his throat. He froze immediately, but the others were still fighting.

“Stop,” I said. It didn’t entirely sound like my voice. “Stop, or I’ll kill him.”

I promised to tell you the truth.

And the truth is, I think I would have done it. I’d never felt that kind of hatred before, not for Dawson or Tatia or Carl Hurfest. Not even for the sniper who accidentally shot me on the steps of Parliament House.

But I felt a killing kind of fury for the Father, who told people God said I wasn’t a person, who refused to recognize that I had a story of my own, who let refugees die until it suited him to intervene. If things had gone wrong, I would have slit his throat with no hesitation, thou shalt not kill be damned.

I don’t know whether Joseph and Conrad could see that, or if they just weren’t prepared to take the chance. They immediately stood away from Abdi, holding their hands up in plain view.

“Abdi, can you find something to tie them with?”

“Uh,” he said. His eyes were wandering slightly.

“Abdi!” I snapped. “I
need
you.”

He pulled it together. “Tie them up. Right.”

“This is foolish,” the Father hissed.

“Try the cabinet,” I said, ignoring him. Well, half ignoring him. I might have pushed the knife in just a little deeper. The Father sucked in a breath and shut up. “Bethari’s computer is in there.”

Abdi shoved the computer in his pocket and rummaged around until he came up with some sort of flexible metallic strips. Conrad and Joseph both looked resigned as he made them kneel and wrapped the strips around their wrists and ankles.

“Please,” Conrad said. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“That’s going to depend on you, isn’t it?” I said. “I don’t owe you any favors. You were going to lock me underground!”

He flushed and looked away. I didn’t have a lot of sympathy. He might have felt bad about it, but he’d have done it.

Abdi tied the Father’s wrists, too, and then looked at me. “The boats?”

“Yes. I think he’ll be able to turn off the burglar alarm, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said, and glanced at the Father. If anything, he looked even less forgiving than I felt. “I should take the knife. I’m taller.”

That made sense. I let him take control of it, sliding out from
under his hand. I grabbed the Father’s computer, with its footage of the starship, took a deep breath, and looked around the office. There was nothing else we needed, and speed might be our best ally. “All right. Let’s go.”

I stuck my arm under the Father’s and heaved, counting in time with Abdi. It was awkward, but we got him out of the chair and into the doorway.

“If you come after us,” Abdi said, looking directly at Conrad and Joseph, “if we run into
any
trouble, we’ll cut his throat and push him over the side.”

“No, no,” Joseph whispered. “No trouble.”

We’d have to trust their fear. I closed the door behind us, and we set off. Once outside, Abdi moved the knife to the Father’s back. I was absolutely certain he couldn’t reach the heart with that small blade, but it didn’t matter. The Father could hardly run, encumbered as he was, and this way we wouldn’t murder him by accident.

Besides, whatever curfew had been placed on the other Inheritors was still in effect. Cows were wandering the high pastures untended, and the buildings were quiet. There were more boats in the harbor, fishing boats that must have been brought in.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, and Abdi pushed the Father’s wrists up his back until he answered.

“They are in silent contemplation of God’s will,” he gasped. “You hell spawn!”

Abdi shoved his wrists higher.

I smiled. “It doesn’t matter what he calls me, Abdi. He’s a stupid, insignificant person under the delusion he speaks for God.”

The Father choked on his own rage. I helped Abdi get him down onto the boat deck, and then it came to the moment of truth.

I don’t think the Father was a coward, exactly. But I think he weighed his options and decided God would rather have him guiding his flock than dead at the hands of a thirdie atheist and a soulless husk. He deactivated the burglar alarm, and the computer banks hummed into life at Abdi’s touch.

“All right,” Abdi said absently, and guided the boat free from its berth. I grinned at the movement.

“And what are you going to do with me?” the Father asked.

“Can you swim?”

“And if I said no, devil’s child? Would you toss me in to drown?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Can you swim?”

“Yes,” he growled.

“Take us out a little way, Abdi,” I said.

“I’m coming up with you,” he said, and his voice brooked no argument. In the end, I sawed through the Father’s wrist bindings with my little knife, and we both shoved him over the rail before he had time to recover. The sound of his belly flop was immensely satisfying.

I watched, for a little while, just to make sure he hadn’t lied. He
could
swim, with a strong freestyle stroke that would get him back to shore all right. He would definitely call for help,
maybe mobilize their fishing fleet to follow us. But we had a head start.

Abdi had gone back into the cabin, and I followed him, clinging to the back of his chair as we picked up speed. “Will we get caught?” I asked.

“This boat’s got some heavy-duty electronic shielding,” he said. “And the navy isn’t worried about people breaking into the mainland from the South.”

That was true. It was the North that caused the problems, the North where refugees were crossing in increasing numbers. Not in fancy cloaked vessels, but in anything that would float. And as a reward for their bravery and perseverance, they were caught and held in the camps.

It was the North where they killed those people, storing them in cryocontainers and waiting for a time when they could be resurrected to a new and distant world—if they could be resurrected at all.

It was a beautiful afternoon, the sun glinting on the water. I didn’t want to break the peaceful silence, especially when Abdi put his arm around my waist.

But I had to.

“Abdi,” I said, “let me tell you what the Father said about the Ark Project.”