Текст книги "Sunset Rising"

Автор книги: S. McEachern

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“That caused a huge rift between President Taylor and General Holt. His callous behaviour bothered Taylor so much that she started looking into Holt’s military career, and during her investigation she discovered that Holt had betrayed her. It’s complicated, but I’ll try to explain. In order to launch missiles, two people were required to enter secret codes into a computer that controlled the warheads. It was a safety precaution to make sure that a bomb was never launched accidentally. The two people who held those codes were President Taylor, the leader of our nation, and General Edward Holt, the leader of our military. President Taylor reluctantly agreed to launch the warheads after General Holt informed her that both Russia and Korea had launched theirs at us. But General Holt had lied to her. No one had launched. When she punched in her secret code and activated the missiles, she started World War Three. Countries sent their missiles in retaliation against us, not as an offensive strike. Our Allies launched in our defense, their enemies launched in their defense… and on and on it went until the earth was devastated by a global nuclear war.

“When Taylor discovered the betrayal, she was going to have Holt formally charged. She had already confided in Vice President Kenner about everything she had found out, which is why all this ended up in his journal. But from this point on, much of what Kenner wrote is hearsay. The president and her husband were murdered just hours after she made her discovery, and General Holt was the first one at the murder scene. He took complete control of the investigation and claimed to have found evidence that their murder was the result of a conspiracy by the civilians—the same civilians they had so generously given shelter from the bombs—to take over the Dome and throw everyone else out. As the head of the military, it seemed natural for Holt to be the one to step up as leader to get the civilians under control. That’s when he made the famous treaty with them—the treaty that turned you into slaves.”

What Jack was saying was a lot to take in—especially after the day I’d had. I was exhausted. How was I supposed to react to all of this information? He seemed so self-righteous in his confession, yet I saw another side to his story. If the Dome had been built right in our own valley, why hadn’t the president and her entourage invited us in when the bombs were launched in the first place? Why did the civilians have to fight their way in at all? It sounded like there should have been more than enough room, if they were driving vehicles in…

“Considering the amount of time and effort the ruling class put into building a secret shelter to protect themselves from a nuclear holocaust, it seems to me they had damned us long before they launched the bombs,” I said. Jack looked surprised at my words. I wondered if he was going to hit me, but I pressed on. “So the Kenners have known this all along and haven’t exposed the Holts? Why? Why didn’t anyone fight for us? Why didn’t Vice President Kenner step up and have him arrested?”

Jack looked at me thoughtfully. I wasn’t sure if he was mad or not. “I’ll try to explain, if I can. By right, Vice President Kenner should have become president, but General Holt had control of the military and felt it was in the best interests of the Dome to retain a military government. And not only did he have the military behind him, but he was also in possession of both his own codes and President Taylor’s codes for the warheads. Remember I told you that two people are needed to launch the missiles? There are warheads inside the Dome. It’s part of the Dome’s defense system.

“The codes get passed to each president when he’s sworn in and only the Holts have held that office since the beginning of the Dome. There are a lot of people living here who would like to see a return to our democratic government, but the Holts still control the military and the warheads. Every Holt who has come to power has threatened to blow up the entire Dome if there’s an uprising—and each Holt has been crazy enough to do it. They would rather see the end of civilization than relinquish their power. So we try to have a quiet revolution. We plan and plot and hope that one day we’ll find the codes and usurp their control. I’ve searched the computer memory banks, but I can’t find them,” he said.

“I don’t understand why General Holt wasn’t exposed back then. I mean if he had the president’s codes, then the only way he could’ve gotten them was from Taylor herself. But if he found her already murdered…” I shook my head. If I could see the flaws in Edward Holt’s story, couldn’t the people back then see them too? “Maybe he doesn’t have the codes. Maybe the Holts have been lying all along in order to stay in control.”

“That’s a really astute observation, Mrs. Kenner,” he said, giving me an appreciative look.

It annoyed me that he was surprised I had a brain, but he went right on talking, oblivious to my irritation.

“We have medical evidence that President Taylor’s husband was badly tortured before he was killed; however, there are two different stories to explain this indisputable fact. Holt’s explanation, which is in the official report, claims that the civilians tortured President Taylor’s husband in front of her. This was supposed to be an attempt to manipulate her into giving the order for all officials to leave the Dome to the civilians. But VP Kenner wrote in his journal that he believes Holt tortured President Taylor’s husband in order to get the codes out of her. Officially, Holt claims the president whispered them to him before she drew her last breath.” He pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them. His anger seemed to have been replaced with melancholy.

“It doesn’t change anything, though, does it?” I asked. “I mean, knowing the horrible history of how everything came to be doesn’t change it. People in the Pit will continue to live as slaves, you and I will be executed as traitors, and the bourge will continue to win.”

“That’s not true. The Kenners know, and we’ve shared the information with as many people as we can trust. We do have supporters. We’re trying to change things the only way we think we can without harming the entire Dome. Try to understand that our family was cast way down after Edward Holt became president. He didn’t want any reminders of the old regime. We clawed our way back up, getting back into the good graces of the other influential families. My marriage to Leisel was the moment my family has been waiting for. Once I became president, we would have the codes. The Holts would lose their power.”

“If the Holts dislike the Kenners so much, how did you become engaged to Leisel in the first place?”

“Because there is no one else. When Edward Holt claimed the presidency, he made it law that the title can’t be passed to a woman. And they’ve been lucky because every generation has produced at least one son, except this generation. Usually the Holts choose their spouses from the West, Powell, or Forbes families, but right now there’s a generation gap. The only boys in those families are under the age of twelve. It’s the first time in the history of the Dome that this has happened. My mother noticed last year that Leisel was showing interest in me and told me to pursue her. When I asked the president if I could marry his daughter, I promised she would keep her last name and all our children would carry the name Holt as well. He liked that. It also helped that Leisel said I was what she wanted, and the president always gives his daughter what she wants.”

“So you were prepared to spend the rest of your life with someone you didn’t love in order to restore democracy?”

Jack nodded. “I just wanted to be honest with you. After all that’s happened, you were owed an explanation. I am truly sorry you got caught up in all of this.” He reached for my hand and held it in both of his. Slowly he brought it up to his lips and tenderly kissed it, then placed my hand back on my lap. “Time’s up,” he said.

And he went back out into the living room.

Chapter Ten

I kept my hand in my lap exactly where Jack had put it down. A tingling sensation lingered where he had pressed his lips against my skin. I stared at my hand, but it didn’t look any different. I never expected kindness from a bourge, especially one so aristocratic. If he thought I had anything to do with Leisel’s betrayal, why didn’t he just beat me? Or kill me? No one would care. But instead of hurting me, he confided in me. In fact, his openness about his feelings toward President Holt and Leisel shocked me. Treasonous words were never heard in the Dome.

I didn’t know what to think of Jack Kenner or his story. If his family really was intent on restoring democracy to the Dome, they had had almost three hundred years to do it. Yet there we all were, still at the mercy of the Holts. I wondered if life would be any different if Liberty succeeded. For all Jack’s talk about wanting to get rid of the Holts, never once did he actually say life in the Pit would get any better.

He seemed kind enough, but he was definitely conscious that I came from the Pit. I felt it when he questioned if he could trust me to be alone in his apartment; I heard it when he congratulated me on pointing out some of the obvious flaws in his story. He thought of me as an inferior. I wanted to tell him that we are educated in the Pit. Maybe not in elaborate schools like the bourge attended, but our common rooms in the Pit served as classrooms during the day when the adults were working. Although in the Pit, the most valuable lesson was to learn to think on your feet. Every urchin needed a quick mind to get him or herself out of situations that might otherwise result in a beating or death.

Maybe that was the problem with the Kenners and Liberty. They were over-educated in the classroom and no longer had the ability to think for themselves. After all, they’d had almost three hundred years to confront the Holts with their evidence, and they were still in the planning stage. Perhaps they weren’t as desperate for change as we were in the Pit.

My stomach growled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten anything in more than a day. My last meal had been the breakfast Jack had given me before he left for his interview with Leisel. I looked under the bed, relieved to find the tray of food right where I had hidden it. There was an egg, one and a half pieces of bread, and almost a whole piece of ham left. I was about to take a bite of the bread when I remembered Jack. He had been kind to me, so maybe I should share it. I returned to the living room, the dress dragging behind me, rustling.

“Decided to join me?” he asked without looking up from his computer.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing my farewell letters.” He put the computer down and raised his eyebrows at the sight of the tray. “You’ve been hoarding food?”

“It’s what every good urchin learns from an early age. That or starve.” I offered him some of the food.

A barely concealed look of disgust crossed his face. “Cold eggs and ham. No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” I guessed you had to be an urchin to appreciate that a meal was a meal no matter what temperature it was. I picked up the piece of bread and sat in the chair across from him. I almost choked on it when I heard the apartment door unlock. Leisel walked in, a Domer following closely behind her. Jack was instantly on his feet.

“Well, here’s the happy couple!” Leisel said with a smile. “Oh, and look, you’re sharing a meagre breakfast. What is that anyway? Cold ham?”

“What do you want, Leisel? Come to finish off the job yourself?”

“Well that’s hardly the response I expected from my jilted fiancé. What, no mourning the loss of my love?” Leisel sneered. Jack just glared at her. “I thought not. I knew you never loved me, Jack, and as much as I would love to finish the job myself, I would never deprive my father of that pleasure. He’s really mad at you. I mean, it took some convincing to get him to let me marry a Kenner in the first place and then you turn around and do this to me.” Leisel pouted. “Your family’s never going to recover from this.”

“Leave them out of it, Leisel. They had nothing to do with it. This is between you and me.”

“I think we both know that’s not true. Your family has been trying to take mine down for hundreds of years, and now my father has a legitimate reason to destroy you all. Starting with you.”

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” Jack asked between clenched teeth.

His hands were balled into fists at his side, and every muscle in his body was tensed and ready to spring across the room at her. The guard standing behind Leisel tensed up too, his hand reaching for his weapon. Without really thinking about it, I jumped up and grabbed Jack’s arm with both my hands. If he went for Leisel, there was no doubt in my mind that the guard would kill him, and I didn’t want to be left here all alone. I didn’t want to be executed alone. I hung on tight.

“Sunny, how touching. Oh, wait. I think I have a… a… tear in my eye,” Leisel said, pretending to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.

I wanted to slap the sarcastic expression off her face. “Shut up, Leisel,” I snapped. My words shocked even me.

“So the urchin has a voice. Not that you need one. I mean no one is putting you on trial for anything. You’re going to die simply for wearing that dress and marrying above your station. And, by the way, I lied to you—that dress looks way better on me.”

Jack scoffed. “You wish!”

Leisel looked taken aback but she recovered quickly when her guard stepped forward to be at her side. “Keep your little insults to yourself. I only came to say thank you. Thank you so much for playing your roles in my little plan so flawlessly. I really do wish I had been there to see the look on your faces when Sunny’s scan actually worked. I bet you were so surprised.” She laughed. She was actually enjoying this. Her guard was smiling, too.

“So what’s your plan, Leisel? You might as well tell us. We’re going to die anyway,” Jack said.

“Why not? My plan has always been to become president. I mean, who came up with the rule that a woman can’t be president? You know, when I went to my father saying that a Kenner was the most eligible bachelor in the Dome, I had hoped he might consider changing the rules. I was absolutely flabbergasted when he said I could marry a Kenner! He’d rather have a male Kenner as president than see his own daughter inherit the title. So that little plan backfired, and I ended up engaged to you.” Leisel shook her head. “It was frustrating, you know? So I had to come up with something else. That’s when I saw Sunny. We’re the same height, and I knew I could alter the dress. I couldn’t believe my luck when you both agreed to go along with everything. I mean you both must’ve been so desperate. You to become president, Jack, and you, Sunny, to save your little friend.”

Summer! All that time I had been thinking about how Leisel betrayed me and never thought that she probably went back on her word about Summer, too. A knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I did this all for nothing. Now I wanted to kill Leisel myself. I dropped Jack’s arm and headed straight for her, but he grabbed me around the waist, preventing me from reaching my target.

“Let me go!”

“She’s not worth it, Sunny! She’ll just kill you.”

“Listen to him, Sunny, because I will,” Leisel said, all business now. Her guard drew his gun. “Desmond, put that away. Jack at least knows better.”

Leisel placed her hand over the guard’s, a familiar gesture that was hard to miss. She caught me staring at them.

“Desmond has been a huge source of support to me. Without him, my plan would never have succeeded. He’s captain of the guard on this level.” A smile played around her mouth. Now I knew how she was able to get rid of all the guards so I could come to her apartment this morning. “When I’m president, we’ll live in a world where he and I can get married. You see, I do want change in the Dome.”

“I still don’t see how you’re going to become president. Your father won’t agree to that,” Jack said.

“Are you kidding me? After the public betrayal I’ve gone through? The humiliation of being the jilted bride… the broken heart I’m suffering…” She pouted, shaking her head. “When I tell my father I never plan on marrying again, he’ll understand completely. I mean, who’s left for me to marry anyway? I’d have to start scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with someone who’s eligible, and Daddy would never stand for that. I’ll convince him the only way to keep a Holt as president is to let me succeed him.”

“I guess you have it all worked out then. Thanks for stopping by.” Jack gestured like he was dismissing her.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Jack. We did have a few good moments during our… relationship.” Her voice was a purr.

“To be honest, Leisel, I detested the sight of you. So you can imagine what inner strength it took for me not to run every time you touched me. I guess I should thank you, too. Turns out the thought of getting a bullet in the head isn’t nearly as bad as the stress I was under wondering how I was going to get through my wedding night with you.”

By the look on Leisel’s face, Jack’s words hit home. She curled her lips into a snarl.

“Good bye, Jack. The next time I see you, you’ll be with your executioner. Enjoy the rest of your short life.” And with that, Leisel turned and left the room, her guard close on her heels.

I wanted to run after her—claw the door open and race down the hall to find her. A creature that evil should not be allowed to live, let alone have a chance to become president. Life in the Pit was already bad, but it would be intolerable under that monster. And I had unwittingly helped her. She had to be stopped. I tried again to get to the door, and then realized Jack’s arms still had me in a vise-like grip. I tried to pry his arms off me. “Let me go!”

“She’s gone, Sunny. She’s gone.”

“I’ll get the door open. Let me go before she’s gone.” Why did he want to stop me? He must hate her, too.

“Sunny. Sunny.” His lips were by my ear. “Relax. She’s gone. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

My strength left me. He was right. The door was locked, and I couldn’t get at her.

“How did she get in here? You said there are cameras everywhere, but she got in here and said all those things. She wasn’t worried about being caught.”

Jack grabbed his computer, did something on it, and then looked at me triumphantly. “You’re a genius. She has the cameras jammed on this entire floor. And I just locked it in. She won’t be able to unjam it for quite a while.”

“Then I’m not going to waste it. I’m going home.”

The determination I felt was stronger than anything I had ever felt before. I knew I wouldn’t get far. The Dome was only so big. But if I could just get enough time to go home! I didn’t want to die wondering if Reyes thought I betrayed him. I had to let my father know I wasn’t long for this world and he needed to get out of bed and look after himself. I wanted to make sure Summer was okay and that she knew Leisel had betrayed us.

I marched into the bedroom to look for something less conspicuous to wear than the wedding dress. I opened Jack’s closet doors. My green dress was still there. Nothing else would fit me.

“Um…what are you doing?” Jack asked, standing in the doorway watching me.

“Can you help me get out of this dress?” I remembered how long it took Leisel to do up the buttons this morning. It would take forever to undo them. “Just rip the buttons off.”

“Where are you going?”

“You have your computer to say your farewells, but I have nothing. I need to go home and see everyone before I’m executed. Will you help me?”

He considered me for a moment. “Only if you take me with you.”

“Then help me get out of this wedding dress. I might get noticed in it.” I took the green dress out of the closet and put it on the bed.

“Trust me, you’re going to get noticed in that dress, too.”

“There is nothing else.”

Jack went over to his bureau and took out pants and t-shirts and then came up behind me and ripped the back of my dress apart. “Have you thought about where we’re going to go once we leave the apartment?”

“Home.”

I let the dress fall to the floor in a heap and stepped out of it. I was still wearing the bulletproof vest. Jack took off his military uniform, and I could tell he was thinking about my plan.

“Keep the vest on,” he said as he threw a shirt and pair of pants at me. “The Pit’s on lockdown. There’s no way for us to get down there.”

He stripped down to his underwear. I was surprised by how muscular he was. He wasn’t as muscle-bound as Reyes, but he was in good shape. And he needed to be physically fit to get down into the Pit the way I was going to take him.

“I can get us down there. Can you get us out of here?”

“I don’t think my chip will unlock the apartment door anymore. In fact, we’re going to have to dump our chips and get new ones. We’ll have to make a quick stop along the way.”

I pulled out all the stuffing Leisel had shoved down the vest to make me look bigger then yanked Jack’s t-shirt over my head. He gave me a curious look, but didn’t say anything. I put on his pants, but they were way too big. He got a belt out of his dresser and a knife from the drawer of the bedside table. He handed me the belt, and I pulled it through the loops on the pants. Then he pulled the belt together until it was the right size, punched in a new hole, cut off the excess leather at the end, and cinched it around my waist.

He studied me for a minute. “You better cover up that hair.” He took two hats out of the closet and handed one to me. He put his hat on and pulled the visor down to cover his face. I did the same, glad my hair was still in a tight bun.

“Ready,” I said. We walked out into the living room and stared at the door.

After a few moments, Jack said, “This is crazy, Sunny. We’re never getting out of here, and if we do, they’ll catch us and kill us right away.”

“So you’d rather sit here waiting to die? If you want to stay, then stay, but I’m getting out of here. If I actually make it to the Pit, then at least I have the chance to say goodbye to my father and friends before I die.”

“Okay. We need a plan to get out of here. I’m sure there are guards on the other side of the door. If we can create some kind of diversion to bring them in here, we can —”

I screamed at the top of my lungs.

The door opened and in rushed two Domers.

Jack grabbed the gun away from one guard, and his leg came up to snap the other guard in the face. Neither one was expecting the assault, so Jack had the advantage. He almost had the gun when the guard jerked back to wrestle him for it. The other guard was shaking off the pain Jack had inflicted and was reaching for his weapon. I ran forward to snatch the guard’s gun to prevent him from using it, but he easily overpowered me. Jack swore under his breath. He brought his knee up and rammed it in between the legs of the guard he was fighting, seized his gun, and cracked him under the chin, knocking the guard’s head backward. Then Jack had the gun. He turned on the guard who had me locked in a choke hold and whacked him over the head with it. The guard dropped to the floor. The door stood wide open.

“You want to give me a little warning next time?” Jack asked.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” I was truly impressed with his skills. After that display, I thought we actually stood a chance of reaching the Pit.

“Military training. Next time, stay out of the way.” He went back to the table and retrieved his computer. “Come on.”

We looked up and down the hall before exiting the apartment. It appeared the guards Desmond had sent away hadn’t come back yet. The carpet in the hallway muffled the sound of our footsteps, so we were able to make fast progress. Jack led us to a door with an exit sign above it. He paused for a moment to look at his computer then tapped on the screen. “Go,” he said, opening the door.

We entered the stairwell and looked up and down—no one but us. We headed down to the second floor and stopped in front of another door while he tapped away on his computer. I could hear movement and voices on the other side of the door. This was a busy part of the Dome.

“Through the door and to the right,” Jack said. “Follow me. Keep your head down. Don’t make eye contact with anyone.”

Jack opened the door, and we joined the flow of traffic as if we had every right to be there. For the second time today, I found myself parading in front of people trying to be someone I was not. The first time didn’t end so well. I was hoping this time I would be luckier.

As we walked along the hall, I overheard many conversations. It seemed everyone was talking about the wedding and how Jack ditched Leisel for an urchin girl. And everyone was wondering who that urchin girl was. I pulled my hat down just a little lower.

Jack found the room he was looking for and knocked on the door before walking in. I was shocked by his boldness, but I followed him, trying to act with the same confidence. We entered a large storage room with shelving units lining the walls. A few sealed bins stood off to one side.

“What are we looking for?” I whispered.

“We’re looking to replace our chips. According to the map, the surplus chips are stored somewhere in here. I don’t know exactly where, though.”

I studied the shelves and quickly picked up on the pattern that organized them. The bins were grouped by size, and each group was in alphabetical order. I started with the smallest bins first, looking for the words “chip” or “scanning.” Jack was looking in the sealed bins off to the side.

“I found a bin labelled ‘microchips,’” I said. I pulled the bin out and looked inside. There were millions of tiny chips in a protective bag, a pair of tweezers, and an implantation device with the word “Spritze” written on the handle.

“Perfect!” He popped open a drive on his table and, using the tweezers, took one chip and placed it in the drive. He closed it. “Who do you want to be? Name?”

“What? You can’t just change the chip?”

“No, I have to make us new ones. And we can’t be Jack and Sunny anymore—that will get us killed. So what do you want your new name to be?”

“Well if we need new names, we might as well have new identities, too. You know, just in case we go unnoticed down there for a while. We’ll need jobs.” An idea was beginning to form in my mind. If I could get a new identity and job, then I would still be able to make enough credits to keep my father’s apartment. It didn’t matter if it was Sunny O’Donnell with him or someone else, as long as he had a partner to support him.

I could tell by Jack’s wry expression that he doubted we would be down there long enough to need new identities. “You’re making it more complicated.” He tapped on his computer. “Laundry?”

“Fine.”

“And for me…” He continued to tap on his computer. “Definitely not sewage… Mines. I can work in the mines. So we need names. I’ll be Benjamin. According to the records, every other guy down there is Benjamin, so I’ll blend right in. And for your name… lots of girls named after the seasons… Summer, Winter, Autumn… weird, there’s no Spring.”

“The Cull happens every spring. Who’s going to name their daughter after that? Use Autumn.”

“Okay… so Autumn and Benjamin Jones are now employed, and they need a place to live.”

“What? We’re going to pretend we’re married?” I needed to live with my father. And it was bad enough Reyes saw me marry Jack on television without actually dragging a “husband” down to the Pit with me. How was I going to explain it was all a mistake while Jack was living with me?

“Well, technically we’re not pretending. We actually are married,” Jack said absentmindedly as he continued to tap away on his tablet. “And you’re not leaving me on my own down there.”

“Your presence will… complicate my life.” I hoped to change his mind. I was sure I could find someone to take him in so we didn’t have to live together.

“Boyfriend?”

I nodded.

“Don’t worry. I’ll stay out of your way.” Somehow I wasn’t reassured. “Okay, your chip is ready.”

Jack took a Spritze out of the bin and felt the back of my right hand until he found my chip. He placed the device over my chip and extracted it. It was painless. He fitted the new chip into the Spritze and injected it into the back of my hand.

He placed a new chip into his computer and programmed it.

“My turn,” he said, handing me the device. “Just press this button for extraction and this one to insert.”

I did to his right hand what he had done to mine. Jack took our old chips and crushed them on the floor with the heel of his boot. “There go Jack Kenner and Sunny… I don’t even know your last name, although now that we’re married, I guess it’s Kenner. Anyway, say goodbye to them.”

“O’Donnell. My name is Sunset O’Donnell.” I looked down where he had kicked our chips under the shelf and was struck by sadness. Why did it feel like a little death to see my chip destroyed?

Jack gave me a strange look. “Sunset?”

“My mother named me Sunset because of the color of my hair. I always hated it… until now. Now my name seems like a gift she gave me… something that was special to her… and it’s all I had left.” I needed to shake off the melancholy that suddenly gripped me. I was still Sunset O’Donnell. I didn’t need a chip to tell me that.

“I remember that the night we met you were interested in a painting of a sunset. Why? Did the picture mean something?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I guess I was wondering how my mother knew what a sunset looked like.” Why was I confiding in him? Why did I even bring this up? We were in the middle of an escape. “Forget it. We’re running out of time.”

“You lead the way.” Jack held the door open for me. The hallway was still busy, and once again we joined the moving crowd.

I was halfway home.