Broken Lands (Benny Imura 6)

Finally Karen said, “That’s all I know. I have to get back to my daughter. The soldiers can’t know I’m here.” She started to rise.

“Where are the Rat Catchers?” asked Gutsy. “I need to find this Captain Collins and make her tell me the whole truth.”

“She’ll never talk to you,” said Karen.

“I’ll make her.”

“We’ll help,” said Alethea, tapping her bat. Spider nodded, and even the Chess Players agreed.

“She still has to pay for what she did to my mother,” insisted Gutsy. “So you need to tell me where to find the base.”

“I don’t know where it is. I know it’s close, but I never went there and they’re very careful about never giving a hint of where it is.”

“What about the field lab?” asked Ford. “Do you know where that is?”

“Well . . . of course . . . ,” said Karen.

“Then I’ll start there,” said Gutsy fiercely. “Where is it?”

Karen looked at her with evident surprise. “I thought you understood. . . .”

“Understood what?”

“This town . . .”

“What about it?”

“It’s not a real town. It never has been.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Gutsy. “What are you talking about?”

“This town was never a relocation center for illegal immigrants. Not really, or not entirely. Even before the End it was always a cover for something else.” She looked at each face around the table. “This town is the lab. Everyone who lives here is a lab rat.”

That rocked Gutsy.

It hit everyone. And yet . . . Gutsy could understand it now. It explained a lot about the strange rules and weird behavior.

“I don’t understand,” said Spider. “Does that mean the Rat Catchers live here?”

Karen shook her head. “Here? You think the handlers live in the same cage as their animals? They’re at the base. Now, please let me go home to my daughter.”

69

THEY SAT IN STUNNED SILENCE for a long time after Karen left.

Everyone erupted into chatter at once. The din filled the whole kitchen, but they soon realized they couldn’t be heard and couldn’t hear one another, so they lapsed once more into silence.

Mr. Urrea held up a hand. “Gutsy, it’s your house. You go first.”

She nodded and glanced down the hallway to the closed front door, as if she could still see Karen Peak. “I want to say this first,” she began. “Karen could have told us a bunch of lies and—”

“And if she did, I’ll knock her head off,” promised Alethea.

But Gutsy shook her head. “No, that’s not where I was going. Karen could have lied to us and done it pretty easily. She could have told us a lot less. She didn’t. She told us a lot. Maybe everything she knew.”

Alethea snorted. “Sure, and she could be marching right over to the town council. Or to rat us out to Captain Collins.”

“I don’t think so,” said Gutsy.