Rebel Nation Read online

  When he came in, Clover found him some matches, then stayed near while he got the fire going. Leanne’s presence, combined with being in her old house for any reason, was freaking her out. Mango picked up on her discomfort as well, so he stayed close to Clover, causing a three-being pileup every time Jude turned around.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “That’s done.”

  Clover sat back on the couch and patted the seat next to her until Mango climbed up and positioned himself between her and Leanne. Jude sat in a chair near Clover’s end of the couch. Leanne watched their ballet without saying a single word.

  “What’s wrong?” Clover finally asked. “Why are you here?”

  The firelight did nothing to make Leanne look less like she might be sick. Jude watched her gather herself to say whatever it was she had to say. It looked like a painful process.

  When she finally spoke, her words weren’t exactly profound. “I’m not sure I should be here.”

  Clover made a dismissive noise. “Has something happened?”

  Leanne ran her hands through her hair, hiding her face. Whatever was bothering her, it seemed to be causing her physical discomfort, as if the effort of holding it in hurt her. She finally lifted her eyes to look at them. She seemed like a reprimanded child who needed to confess, but hadn’t yet gathered the nerve.

  “You might as well just say it,” Jude said. “Whatever it is.”

  Leanne exhaled slowly, then inhaled again and said, “Langston Bennett is going to make you come back to the Company, as a Messenger.”

  Jude felt as though the air had been sucked from him. “He can’t do that.”

  “How do you know?” Clover asked.

  Leanne straightened herself, and for the first time Jude thought she looked like she might make it through the night. “I’ll be your trainer again Monday.”

  “Monday?” Mango lifted his head at whatever he heard in Jude’s voice. “This Monday?”

  “Yes, this Monday.”

  “Why are you so upset about that?” Jude asked Leanne. Sure, Clover didn’t want to go back to the Company and he had no intention of letting that happen. But Leanne shouldn’t be bothered enough to be out past curfew to meet with them when it might not be in her best interest.

  “I’m pretty sure—” Leanne stopped talking and cleared her throat. She looked into the fire for a moment, then turned to Clover. “I’m pretty sure that being here is going to get me killed.”

  “Killed?” Clover asked. “By Bennett?”

  Leanne shook her head. “By your father.”

  Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.

  —JOHN ADAMS,

  A DEFENSE OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT, 1787

  “I don’t understand,” Clover said. Except, of course, she did understand. Violent criminals from around the country were brought to Reno by train to face the execution squads. Her father was an executioner.

  Apparently, Bennett was prepared to force Clover back into that system. If he was successful, she’d be responsible for going into the future to bring information about those crimes back to the present. She’d travel there through Waverly’s portal in a steam-powered submarine named the Veronica after Waverly’s dead wife.

  “You know Frank, don’t you?” Leanne asked. “The train engineer?”

  Clover nodded. She’d met Frank and his daughter, Melissa, on the day Ned Waverly was murdered. They brought goods and sometimes criminals back and forth between Sacramento and Denver on a steam train. “What does he have to do with this?” Jude asked.

  “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” Leanne bent her real leg under her and kept her prosthetic foot on the floor. “Do you remember when I said that to you?”

  “Yes,” Clover said. “Roosevelt.”

  “And you’ve figured out what it meant?”

  “Are you telling me that there are meetings—”

  Jude put a hand on her arm, and Clover stopped talking. She had figured out that the presidential quotes that sometimes showed up in the virtual classified ads, which were the only real communication between cities, were a secret code used to set up rebel meetings.

  “You know what the quotes mean in other places,” Leanne said. When neither Jude nor Clover answered, she went on. “I get it. This is weird. I’m at least as freaked out as you are.”

  “Okay, let’s start here, then,” Jude said. “Tell us what you know.”

  Leanne leaned forward, toward Clover, but didn’t touch her. “I know your brother is alive.”

  Jude took Clover’s hand, and she jumped as though he’d put a hot coal in her palm. “Come with me,” he said. “Right now.”

  She let him take her down the hall. He opened the door to West’s room, but she pulled away and took him to her own bedroom instead.

  “How does she know about West?” Clover asked, as soon as the door was closed and only the light from Jude’s flashlight cut the darkness.

  “She could be guessing,” he said.

  “I trust her.” And she did. The trouble was, Clover couldn’t decide if she should. “She knows about West, otherwise why would she have mentioned him at all?”

  “She only thinks she knows. Or she could be bluffing.”

  A soft knock on the door made Clover jump. Jude opened it to Leanne, who stood with Mango in the hallway. “We just need a minute.”

  “Frank told me about West. I also know about Christopher, Marta, Phire, and Emmy. I know that Geena and Dr. Waverly were killed while you were away. I know this is weird, and I’m sorry that you’re upset, but we really need to talk. And I really need you to trust me.”

  “Frank told you?” Clover asked. It wasn’t like she knew Frank all that well, but it bothered her that he’d told. “How did he know?”

  “He brings them supplies,” Leanne said. “Just like he did for Waverly for years.”

  “And you know Frank?” Jude asked. “You talk to him.”

  “Can we go back out by the fire? It’s freezing in here.”

  As soon as she mentioned it, the cold hit Clover like an open-handed slap.

  —

  When they were all sitting around the fire again, with blankets wrapped around them to ward off the chill until the room began to heat up, Leanne said, “Bennett will send someone to collect you on Monday. He won’t trust you to come on your own. Even if he fully believes your story about West, you’ve escaped him before and he’s not stupid.”

  “But he said I could come to the Academy. He said—”

  “He’s changed his mind. I’m not sure why, or why you’re so important to him.” Leanne looked at Clover, and then shifted her gaze to Jude. “But you clearly are.”

  “It’s the autism.” The words blurted out, past Clover’s uncertainty at sharing information with Leanne that she didn’t already know.

  “Clover.” Jude had developed the same habit West had of infusing her name with reprimand. She didn’t like that much.

  “We have to trust someone, sometime. We can’t do this by ourselves.” Clover waited for Leanne to turn her attention back to her. “Only autistic people can travel through the portal. Waverly said it had something to do with brain chemistry.”

  “Waverly was autistic?” Leanne leaned back in her chair and looked into the fire. “I had no idea. I never met him, of course.”

  “She’s just a Messenger,” Jude said. He shot Clover an apologetic look and she raised a shoulder, dismissing it. He was right. She picked up a package from a glorified mailbox and brought it back through the portal strapped into a comfortable seat in a room in the Veronica. “Being autistic isn’t so unique that he can’t find someone else to get the disc and bring it back.”

  “It’s true,” Clover said. “I only traveled a few times. It isn’t like the
whole program hinges on me. Why is he so determined?”

  “You left the city,” Leanne said. “You know things you shouldn’t. He probably assumes you know things you don’t. You’re a liability.”

  “Why did you say that telling me might get you killed?” Clover asked.

  “Remember when Bennett told you I couldn’t work because I’d broken my leg in my future time line?”

  Clover’s stomach knotted and she pushed herself deeper into the corner of the couch. She did remember. That was why she was able to travel alone. Why Jude was able to meet her in the future and give her the little handprinted zine that changed everything. “Yes.”

  “I was executed. Or, I mean, I will be executed,” she said. “Sometime between now and then. I think this might be why. Warning you. Helping you get away. Obviously, Bennett is going to find out that I’m part of the resistance.”

  “There really is a resistance?” Clover asked. “Waverly said so, but it seems so impossible.”

  “There are people who know that the Company is too big and too powerful. People who know that the suppressant isn’t what the Company says it is.” Leanne took a breath, then turned all her attention on Jude. “And now things are getting restless here. People are talking about Foster City, especially. It’s not a big deal yet, but it’s being talked about.”

  Clover looked at Jude, too. There was something she was missing. She felt it, but couldn’t put her finger on it. The look that passed between them was like some kind of secret language that she didn’t understand. “What?”

  “I can’t stop helping them,” Jude said.

  “The only thing you have going for you is that Bennett has no idea who you are. You know that, don’t you?” Leanne sat back in her seat. “You can’t help anyone if you’re dead. You’re nothing to him. He’ll just—”

  “Stop it.” Clover rocked back against the couch arm. She’d done it so many times before that she’d worn a groove where her body fit perfectly. Mango wiggled in closer to her and leaned his heavy body against her legs. “Stop it. Stop it.”

  “Clover,” Jude said, softly. “Look at me.”

  She opened her eyes, but covered her ears with her hands. Her breaths came hard, like stones falling down her throat. Leanne was warning Jude. She knew his name when they’d seen her on the street. “He’s going to kill you.”

  Jude waited until she lowered her hands. “I’m not going to die. I’m teaching them how to protect themselves, that’s all.”

  “I’m not planning on dying, either,” Leanne said, firmly. “Certainly not by execution. Now that I know, it changes everything.”

  “You might get killed for helping me get away from Bennett.” Just a few weeks ago, Clover would have been upset at the idea of leaving school. It was all she’d wanted, what she’d worked for as long as she could remember. Suddenly none of that mattered. She hadn’t come back to the city to sit in classes that didn’t mean anything—nothing at all—to her anymore. “And he’ll figure it out. He’ll realize, eventually, that Jude is my friend and that he’s the one helping those kids.”

  “Like I said, now that we know”—Leanne looked at Clover, then Jude—“it changes everything. I don’t know if I’ll be executed. Maybe I won’t get caught, if I know it’s supposed to happen. I’ll be more careful. I’ll do something differently than I would have otherwise. And the two of you can change things, too.”

  “What exactly do you think we should do?” Jude asked.

  “Leave. Get back out of the city.”

  Clover felt Jude tense beside her, and said, “That won’t be so easy a second time. It wasn’t that easy the first time.”

  Leanne pulled her hair back from her face and used a rubber band from around her wrist to secure it in a messy bun at the back of her neck. She was fidgety, which Clover translated into nervous. “I have an idea for getting the two of you out of the city.”

  “I should go to work for Bennett.” Clover lifted a hand when Jude opened his mouth. “No, I’m serious. This is what we came back for, to do something important. Sitting in those stupid classes—”

  “Shut up,” Jude said. “Just stop.”

  An awkward silence filled the room while Clover and Jude looked at each other.

  “What’s your idea?” Jude asked Leanne, without looking away from Clover.

  “I don’t know how you got out before.” She waited again. That was starting to get to Clover, and she wondered if Isaiah had done the same thing to Bridget. “But I do know you’re not going to get through the gates again. Not now.”

  “We figured that much out already,” Jude said.

  “The wall crosses over the river, almost like a bridge.”

  As soon as Leanne said it, Clover saw the place where the wall bridged the river. Not just the concrete stretching from bank to bank, but the water rushing under it, frothy and white where the current crashed over the rocks. “You want us to go under the wall?”

  “Can you think of another way?”

  She tried. She pressed her forehead to her knees and rocked back against the couch, and brought up everything in her mental files about the wall. The shape of it, curved like a giant C so that it bulged outside and went concave inside, made climbing it impossible. The only door was the gate, which they’d already breached once. They’d never make it through that way again. Bennett wouldn’t allow it. “Not off the top of my head. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We aren’t going.”

  “We are going,” Jude said. Clover lifted her head. “Don’t look at me like that. You can’t go back through that portal. All he’d have to do is leave you there.”

  A slow, deep shudder went through Clover. If Bennett left her longer than thirty minutes in the future, she’d start replacing her memories with memories made out of time. If he left her long enough, she’d eventually lose everything that made her who she was. “Why would he do that? He obviously thinks I can do something for him. We need to know what.”

  “No we don’t. We need to survive. We need to—” Jude bit off his words, but Clover knew what he was going to say. They needed to get the kids out of the city. “Please, Clover.”

  There was real pleading in his voice, and it made Clover uncomfortable. It made her doubt herself in a way she wasn’t used to. “The water is freezing. We can’t get out that way, anyway.”

  “It won’t be comfortable, but we could,” he said. “We all could.”

  All. She was right. He was thinking about the boys in the Dinosaur. And maybe the rest of the kids in Foster City. “We can’t save them all, Jude.”

  “Save all of who?” Leanne asked.

  “They don’t all need to leave,” Jude said, ignoring her.

  “Are you talking about the kids in Foster City?” Leanne rubbed a hand over her face. “You need to get out of here, Clover. Bennett—it won’t be good if you go back to the Company. You understand that, right? If he forces you back to the Company, if he makes you travel, it won’t be good.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. So why are you talking about kids in Foster City?”

  Clover looked at Jude, who shook his head again, once, just enough for Clover to notice. She kept her mouth closed, which was the best way to make sure she didn’t say the wrong thing.

  Leanne hesitated a minute, as if she were still considering pursuing the Foster City line of questioning. Her face tightened, too, and Clover thought she was frustrated. She didn’t blame her. “Can you find your way to where your brother is, once you’re on the other side?”

  “We haven’t decided to go.”

  “Fine,” Leanne said. “If you decide to go. We can seal some clothes and towels in a plastic bag, so you can get dry once you’re through, but you’ll need someone on the other side.”

  “If we go— Come with us, Leanne,” Clover said. “Bennett will realize th
at you warned me.”

  “He will if I’m gone, too. It’s essential that he never figures out how you get out of the city, Clover. If he does he’ll be waiting for us.”

  “If you’re not here, he can’t question you.”

  “If I’m here, you’ll have more time to get away.”

  “If you come with us,” Jude said, “you can’t turn us in.”

  That hung in the room like a dark cloud.

  “Do you know where the wall crosses the river?” she asked. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” Clover said. “I’m sure.”

  “Meet me there tomorrow, just before sundown. You’re going to have to travel on the other side in the dark, but it’ll be safer for you that way. Bring warm clothes, coats, socks.”

  “You’re not leaving.” Clover sat up, startled enough to ignore that Leanne was still talking like leaving the city was a done deal. “It’s after curfew.”

  “I can’t stay here.” She stood up and, when Clover did, too, pulled her into a hug. Clover stiffened against the sudden contact but didn’t pull away.

  “You should stay,” Jude said. “If you’re caught out after curfew—”

  Leanne shook her head. “I’ll be okay. I have to be at the barracks in the morning.”

  “We’ll see you at the bridge, then, either way,” Clover said. At the very least, they’d get the Foster City kids out. “You’ll be there.”

  “I will, half hour before curfew, tomorrow.”

  And then she was gone.

  —

  Jude started to set up a blanket pallet on the floor in front of the fireplace, but Clover stopped him. “The couch pulls out,” she said. “West and I sleep—slept—on it in the winter.”

  She pulled the cushions off the couch, like she had a thousand times before, and stacked them against the wall. Jude yanked on the handle and the bed unfolded.

  “I can make a bed out of the pillows,” Jude said.

  It took a minute for Clover to figure out what he was talking about. She’d shared that bed so many times with her brother. Jude wasn’t her brother. And he was trying to do the right thing. Clover didn’t know how to argue with him about that, so she didn’t.