“I vote no,” Mills said.
“You seem to be laboring under the impression that this squad is a democracy,” I said icily. “It isn’t. I’m in charge, I make the decisions, and when I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. Don’t hold your breath.”
Mills’s face colored; he was pissed and I knew we’d have to have a showdown soon. But not yet.
Instead, I gritted my teeth, all leaderly, and said, “Weapons ready!” Then I went first into the deep blackness. ’Cause that’s what a leader does.
20
CASSIE
WE WERE IN AN… ATTIC? A huge attic that went on and on, though it was hard to tell because of all the stuff everywhere. I couldn’t see any windows. In the middle where the room came to a peak it was maybe six feet high. Tim couldn’t stand up straight.
Ms. Strepp was silent as Tim and I tried to understand what we were looking at. The whole place was just full. Full of stacks of dusty cardboard boxes, some of them split and spilling their contents. There were old beat-up trunks, with boxes and sacks of paper piled on them. I saw a table covered with maybe thirty small, weird machines. Suitcases were stacked sideways against the knee-high wall. Old newspapers, bundled and tied with string, were layered high enough to make a maze barely wide enough to walk through. All of it was covered with a thick layer of dust.
“This is what’s left of the world,” Ms. Strepp said, sounding sad and angry at the same time.
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to read a headline on a newspaper.
“The world still exists,” she clarified. “But not its history. People have forgotten. People have buried it. People have lost themselves.” She turned to Tim and me and said, “You two are going to help them find it again.”
“How?” I asked.
Ms. Strepp
moved through the attic, weaving between stacks and piles, almost disappearing behind mounds of paper. “Something happened that made our country like it is today,” she said as I followed her. “Today with the cells and separation and Provosts. The rumor is that it wasn’t always like that—but no one knows why it changed, or how or by whom. Or no one admits to what happened pre-System. These bags”—she gestured at this stunning amount of crap—“are full of… artifacts. Things from the past. Forbidden things, things that would get us all killed if anyone knew they were here. Forbidden knowledge.”
That sounded a little interesting. Sure, I could spend an hour or two every day looking through this stuff.
“You two are going to sift through all of this,” Ms. Strepp went on. “Make notes. Put together the pieces of the puzzle. You two are going to come up with the lesson that will save the world. Save humanity. Save all of us. Before it’s too late.”
So, no pressure, I thought. “Okay,” I said. “But what should we do with the rest of our time?”
Ms. Strepp made the dreaded face—the frown, the narrowed eyes. “You won’t have any other time,” she told me coldly. “This is your job, your only job. And it’s every bit as important—perhaps more important—than being in battle.”
Tim made an incoherent grunt. She ignored him. “You will report here every day,” she said. “You will make sure the hidden door is completely shut. When you’re up here, you will pull up the rope ladder and keep the trapdoor shut and bolted.” She pointed to a large, rusty hasp bolted to the floor. “And every day, I want a progress report. What you’ve done. Every single item catalogued. Each piece of everything examined. We need answers, and you’re going to provide them.”
Giving us each a final glare, she nodded and began going down the rope ladder. When she got to the bottom she called, “Pull up the ladder!”
Tim pulled it up and I closed the trapdoor, struggling to get the bolt through the old hasp.
Thinking that she might still be able to hear us, might still be listening, I whispered, “Holy shit,” and he nodded.
He was hunched over, looking incredibly uncomfortable, and I pushed a desk chair over to him. He sat down and put his chin in his hands. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Shit.”
21
BECCA
BEING A LEADER DOESN’T MEAN you have to like bats. Or rats. Or pitch-darkness. It means you have to keep going even if you’re afraid of that stuff. Within a few minutes of entering the tunnel we’d lost any light coming in from outside. All of us had miniature flashlights on one shoulder. Their light was small, but at least we could see each other.
“Single file,” I ordered quietly, shining my light on my face so Jolie could see me. “This place looks empty, but we don’t know. Be on guard, keep your weapons ready, and pay attention to your surroundings.”
My team mumbled and nodded. I put a hand to one ear and whispered, “Excuse me?”
That got me a chorus of whispered Yes, ma’ams.
I led slowly, trailing my left hand along the dirt wall, trying to see what was in front of me. Thick wooden beams braced against the dirt of the sides and ceiling. They looked way too puny to hold up a mountain. This tunnel had never been used by cars—solely for trains. A few withered weeds grew unenthusiastically between the rotting wooden railroad ties, and every so often we disturbed more bats or rats that squeaked and hurried past us.