“Unless we were still linked somehow at that point,” Brynn mumbled.
“What?” Royter asked, looking at if she thought Brynn might be unstable.
She wasn’t quite ready to share her suspicions with the girl she didn’t trust yet, and so instead she said, “I thought they only terminated entire continents, not individual towns.”
“Apparently this town was too useless. It didn’t give them what they wanted, so they got rid of it.”
“How did no one else find out about this?” Brynn asked. “It’s so close to The Moor. Surely someone has wandered out here and found an empty town?”
“I think Rift knows about it,” Royter said quietly. “But I don’t think he wants anyone else knowing that we’re all a button push away from being killed. I think he wants us to feel safer than we are.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Brynn protested. “If anything, this would help his cause.”
“He wants us to feel picked on,” Royter said. “He wants us to feel out of control enough to do something about it and join his cause. He doesn’t want us to feel like no matter what we do we’re beat. If that were the case, no one would join him, they’d all be too scared to cause problems because we can be so easily destroyed.”
Royter didn’t continue, though she looked like she wanted to. Instead she walked into the empty city, Brynn following closely behind her. They wound through silent cobblestone streets past small homes and large factory buildings. Brynn sniffed the air a few times, swearing she could still smell the sugar that clung to the walls and for the first time in her life, she didn’t crave sugar cubes.
“How did you find this place?” Brynn asked as they neared the center of the small town where a dried up fountain marked the town’s main focal point.
“I like to know things so I make it my business to collect knowledge,” she answered, walking on silent feet to the fountain and siting on the dusty stone there.
“How do you know this town was destroyed by Eris? Maybe the citizens left because of something else.”
Royter gave Brynn a pitying look and suddenly made her feel very naive for asking such a childish question.
“Hadlock isn’t the only one who can look up records from A1,” she said.
“Does Rift know that you’ve found this city?” Brynn asked, beginning to wonder how much she could really trust the man she didn’t know at all.
“I don’t think so,” Royter answered uncertainly. “I feel like he would have talked to me about it if he did. He’d want to make sure I didn’t tell anyone else so he can keep them all blissfully ignorant enough to follow him.”
“If you think he’s so awful, why are you a part of his movement?”
“I don’t necessarily think he’s awful,” she answered. “I think his heart is in the right place for wanting to get rid of the A.I.s and carry out Rachel’s wishes.”
“But?”
“But, I don’t think withholding information is the way to do what he wants. He pretends he wants to teach his followers the gritty truth so that they’ll be scared into helping him, but he doesn’t tell them everything. A little fear is a good reason to join a rebellion; a lot of fear is a good way to break a rebellion.”
“So you don’t think he should withhold information from us?” Brynn asked, slightly incredulously.
“I don’t,” she confirmed.
“And yet you don’t think I should tell him what I found out tonight?” Royter’s mixed signals were beginning to give Brynn a headache.
“If he does it, why shouldn’t you? It only seems fair, right?” she asked.
“I guess,” Brynn answered, still confused. She had been right, this trip hadn’t offered her any answers, only more questions.
“Brynn, do me a favor,” Royter said after a moment of silence. “Don’t be so trusting of people when you leave for Halcyon tomorrow. It’s just going to get you into trouble.”
Chapter 20: Strategy
The trip to Panurgic had seemed endless when they’d taken it the first time. Returning to Halcyon, however, Brynn almost felt that she hadn’t had time to mentally prepare herself for encountering A1 again before they were all practically there. Even though she had come to terms with the fact that she may actually have to face Eris again, it didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.
The woman could reduce her to a sobbing mess just by speaking and Brynn wasn’t proud of the power the Angel had over her. She felt as if the memories Rachel had left her with were more of a hindrance than a help. Because of her constant nightmares Brynn was completely unbalanced when faced with anything having to do with Eris. It was as if her dreams had conditioned her to fall apart the minute she heard the Angel’s voice.
For someone who prided themselves on being strong and adventurous, the effect was quite a nuisance.
For the duration of their journey through the water, Brynn had sat by herself, thinking of every possible scenario she may come up against in A1 and avoiding speaking to the others with Royter’s advice echoing through her mind.
She thought of all the ways she could stop Eris: 0.
All the ways Eris could capture her then torture her for information: 387.
All of the reasons they shouldn’t go into the deathtrap of a facility that would probably end up killing them: 15.
And finally, the reasons why they should go in: 1.
The odds didn’t exactly appear to be in their favor, but Brynn didn’t have the heart to point that out to her friends. In fact, she was pretty sure they already knew, but it seemed like everyone was putting on a brave face and trying to ignore the facts.
She was glad that Royter hadn’t come on the trip with them. She knew the girl was trying to help her, but their conversation had left Brynn feeling very uncertain about where Royter stood with the rest of the group. She presented yet another mystery that Brynn couldn’t solve and at that moment, that was the last thing she needed.
Now, as Brynn sat on the bench of an old Worker train car that Rusty swore she had ‘debugged and repaired’, she couldn’t help but feel that everything was happening much too fast. They were hardly prepared for the assault they were about to lead on A1 and on the best of days, Rusty and her friends could barely keep from killing each other.
Rift had opted to stay behind on the mission, directing Hadlock through his tablet as to what he should do. He had claimed to stay behind because he’d be of more use to them with Hadlock’s technology at his hands, but Brynn knew the truth. Rift had lived a hard life on a difficult planet and he didn’t possess the youth that an easy life brought on. He was too old to come on the mission but he didn’t want to be out of the loop where his life’s work was concerned.
She couldn’t really say she blamed him, though she did feel sad for the man who had dedicated so much of his life to bringing down Eris. A task that monumental was bound to disappoint time after time. Not to mention the fact that Brynn now felt that he was putting all of his hope on this mission that was definitely going to fail.
“Where did you find this train car again?” Ty asked Rusty who sat at the front of the compartment with her hand poised over a control.
“It’s one of the Worker’s trains,” she answered absentmindedly.
She kept her eyes focused on the tunnel ahead of them with a purpose. Their train car resided on a set of tracks that ran parallel to the main train route underground. Rusty had informed the group that the tracks were used for damaged trains so they didn’t actually go anywhere, they just got the damaged car out of the way.
“Won’t they notice you’ve taken it?” Amber asked.
“I haven’t moved it from its original spot yet,” Rusty replied, still distant as she watched some unknown spot in the dark tunnel ahead.
“But you plan to, right?” Amber pressed.
“Why else would we all be crammed in this place?”
“What are you looking at?” Bennett asked, causing Rusty to sigh with annoyance at the consta
nt stream of questions.
“I’m waiting for the train going from A1 to Eastern Metropolis. Once it passes by us, I’ll put our train car in motion towards A1. Ours isn’t as fast but I’m hoping that with their stop in Eastern Metropolis, we’ll be able to outrun them to the facility,” Rusty said, unconvincingly.
“You’re hoping we can outrun their train?” Brynn asked, suddenly wary.
“Most of what Rusty does is hoping something works,” Tate put in from his bench.
He had his long legs crossed and was fidgeting with something that Brynn was sure would explode at any minute, given what Rusty had told her about his tendency to build unstable bombs.
“And most of what you do is singeing your eyebrows off because you can’t make a stable explosive to save your life,” Devey shot from the back of the train.
The submarine ride from Panurgic had been a tense one to say the least, with Devey constantly launching rude comments to anyone who crossed her line of sight. Rusty and Hadlock had bickered the entire ride about who was smarter. Tate sat in the corner by himself causing sparks between his fingers every once in a while from one experiment or another. Ty and Jonah had (apparently) not forgiven each other yet for whatever argument they were in and sat as far away from one another as possible. Amber and Bennett sat together whispering behind their hands and shooting Hadlock secretive glances every few minutes. Dash sat quietly by himself (though Brynn suspected he was listening in on everyone else’s conversations). And Brynn tried to be the mediator between the ship full of crazy that was passing between Panurgic and Halcyon, all the while giving herself pep talks and trying to forget the image of the empty town outside of The Moor.
“As compared to the girl who doesn’t actually have a job so we just call her the ‘medic’ and hope none of us ever get hurt?” Tate answered with a raised eyebrow.
His tone wasn’t particularly malicious. If anything it sounded as if he were egging Devey on, but all she did was shoot him an icy look, cross her arms, and turn away, leaving Cambria to try to piece things back together.
“I think we all have an important role in the group,” she offered helpfully.
“Except for those two,” Devey said, looking over at Amber and Bennett.
They had definitely not gotten off to a great start and the longer they were in closed quarters together, the worse it seemed to get.
“Glad I finally get to visit the land of the bimbos with the two leaders.”
“I hope you realize I could kill you with any article of clothing on this train and make it look like an accident,” Amber said with pursed lips, trying to contain her rage at the small angelic devil.
“Look, it speaks,” Devey answered with mock shock.
“Will you guys shut up?” Rusty yelled, watching the tunnel intensely. “The train will be passing by soon and if we don’t leave the second it passes us we might be smashed to pieces on its return trip. So be quiet,” she finished dramatically, giving everyone a good enough reason to stop bickering for at least a few minutes.
“I still don’t know how she rigged this thing in a way the A.I.s won’t be able to detect,” Brynn whispered to Jonah.
She had decided to sit by him for the train trip, feeling like she had neglected him too often lately in favor of shielding Ty’s feelings.
“I’m a genius,” Rusty called from the front of the train. Happy to break her concentration to remind the group of this ‘fact’.
“And she has scary good hearing,” Jonah whispered to Brynn behind his hand, laughing as he said it, his blue eyes creasing in the corners as he looked at Brynn.
“Here it comes,” Rusty exclaimed, just as a single light could be seen in the distance of the otherwise darkened tunnel. “I’m turning off the lights in our compartment so they can’t see us,” Rusty informed them just as the train went pitch black.
It was an eerie feeling, sitting in the dark of a train car that actually had windows, unlike the civilian trains Brynn was so used to.
The single beam of light grew larger as the ground underneath them began to rumble. Brynn grabbed Jonah’s hand, hoping that Rusty really did know what she was talking about and held her breath until the train passed right alongside their stationary car; so close that the train swayed back and forth but not close enough to actually hit.
The second the train passed by them Rusty went to work. She got the train in motion slowly at first, but it soon picked up speed and Brynn had to admit that she was, yet again, impressed by the girl’s ability to do things she could never attempt in a million years.
By Rusty’s calculation, the ride from Eastern Metropolis (which they currently resided under) to A1 would take them a little less than six hours. The Worker tunnel was a more direct route than the civilian train route above ground and even with their slower train car they were making good timing.
Despite the fact that Brynn was sure everyone was panicking slightly, most of their now large group somehow managed to sleep on the way to A1. Brynn couldn’t even imagine sleeping with the possibility of seeing Eris again hovering over her like some inescapable nightmare.
Unable to take her own silence anymore, Brynn wandered to the front of the train where Rusty sat at the controls. The girl didn’t actually have to do much once the train was in motion, but something told Brynn she liked to look like she was in charge.
“I’ve got a question for you,” Brynn said quietly, not wanting to wake those who were sleeping or attract the attention of the few who weren’t.
“Color me surprised,” Rusty said sarcastically before glancing over at Brynn and smiling her wide smile to show she was joking.
“Why does everyone on Panurgic work so hard? Why not just refuse?”
“We don’t work because the A.I.s tell us to,” Rusty said indignantly. “I mean… we do. But we work because hours of work earn us food, clothes, and supplies. No one has to work but those who don’t, die off because they don’t have anything to eat. The way they’ve set up our society we don’t really have much of a choice.”
Brynn thought this over for a moment, wondering if there were some way to break that cycle before realizing that if there were, the house full of orphaned geniuses probably would have figured it out.
“I want to know what that third thing is that Rachel talks about in the video,” Rusty began, looking at Brynn sideways. “You really don’t know? You haven’t dreamed about it yet?”
“I don’t know for sure what it is,” Brynn began cautiously, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening to them. “But I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“I think it might be Jonah,” she said quietly.
“Jonah?”
“I swear I saw him in one of my dreams once. Inside of A1,” Brynn explained, trying to remember the brief flash of the side of a face she’d seen. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough to convince her that Jonah might have a bigger part to play in their story than she had originally thought. “I think he might be made from human DNA like me.”
“Why though?”
“I think he might have been a scientist who worked with Rachel. Maybe he knew some secrets too and Rachel was hoping he’d pass them on to his generation.”
Rusty looked over her shoulder at Jonah who slept on one of the benches inside of the train car. She studied him for a moment, watching him as if she could understand exactly what he was by looking at him long enough.
“Have you told Jonah about your idea?” she asked.
“Not really,” Brynn admitted. “I didn’t want to sound crazy or anything. Plus he hasn’t ever told me about dreaming in memories and I’m pretty sure, based on my situation, he would have mentioned it by now if it was something he was plagued with.”
“You should probably tell him about your suspicions pretty soon to see if he thinks there’s any stock in them,” Rusty said. “You never know, maybe he’s not realizing that he’s dreaming in memories until you mention it to him.”
>
When the group was only one short hour from A1, Hadlock gathered them all together to ‘debrief’ them, as he put it.
“Everyone needs to change into their white clothing after we’re done with this meeting,” he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose once more and looking very happy to be commanding such a large audience. Rusty huffed that she had been demoted from the center of attention for a moment. “Also, I’ve made each of you an ear piece to wear. I’ll be able to hear you from the train, you should all be able to hear each other, and I’ll give you instructions on where to go and what to do.”
“He has permission to boss us around. It’s like his dream come true,” Devey whispered to Cambria, though it was more than loud enough for everyone to hear.
Hadlock shot her a dirty look but continued on with his speech.
“I’ll be splitting you up into three groups because, unfortunately, Eris is also a genius and split all of her important files up so that we couldn’t just break into one room and have every secret they’ve ever kept.”
“Smart lady,” Tate said with a sigh.
“Yeah but she never planned on people working as a team to get her files,” Rusty pointed out.
“Rusty, Devey, and Cambria,” Hadlock said, looking at each of them in turn. “You guys are in charge of getting the files on ‘Earth’,” he said, the word sounding odd and foreign coming out of his mouth. “Since we have the man power, we might as well get as much information as we can on the place. We don’t want to be caught completely off guard if it plays a bigger role in Eris’s plans than we thought.”
“Plus it probably won’t be that difficult to get,” Rusty said. “I don’t think she’s too concerned with us learning about that other place.”
“True,” Hadlock agreed before continuing, not worrying about the fact that Brynn and her friends were completely in the dark on what they were talking about. “Amber, Jonah, and Brynn,” he began, getting their attention right away. “You guys will be in charge of stealing any of Rachel’s old files related to Eris, her inner workings, and how in the world we shut her down or corrupt her file or whatever we need to do to get rid of her.”