I shake my head.
“But?” he adds.
“But what?”
“But there’s a reason you’re telling me about her now.”
I take a deep breath. “But every time I see someone in pain, someone really suffering, I start thinking about Mads. Something kicks in, deep in my guts. They might have wiped my memory of what happened, but my body somehow has this visceral reaction that it can’t forget.”
“So you think you were with her when she died?”
“Of course I was,” I tell him, as I feel tears welling in my eyes. “If I could get just one memory back from my time in the war, I’d want to know what happened to her.”
“Even if—”
“Yes,” I say firmly, before he can finish that sentence. “Whatever it was, I want to know.”
“And is that why you came to the island?” he asks. “Because you couldn’t handle the uncertainty?”
“I came to the island to die,” I reply. “The same as most people, I guess. I heard that no-one lasts very long here, and I was too much of a coward to die any other way. Besides, I had no family, no friends, nowhere else to go. But here I am, several years later, somehow surviving. Ironic, huh? I came to the island because I was done with the world, and I ended up establishing and running a small town. I wasn’t built for this, I was built for war.” Looking down at the knife on the floor, I can’t help imagining how it would feel to slice the blade through Harold’s throat. Even if it was the last act of my life, I’d know I was ridding the island of a dangerous man.
“You were engineered, weren’t you?” Deckard says after a moment. “I heard rumors about the soldiers they sent to the war. I heard they—”
“Why are you still here?” I ask, interrupting him.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m changing it,” I say firmly. “I thought you were going to look for your wife.”
“I am,” he replies, “but not while Steadfall is being run by a maniac. When I left the other day, it was because I wanted to observe from a distance, to see what Harold and his friends are really up to. I was also worried about that sickness that had started to spread.”
“You don’t think it’s a coincidence that it showed up just as they arrived?”
He shakes his head. “There’s something else, too, something about Harold and his friends. I’ve noticed one particular thing they do every morning, as soon as the sun comes up.”
“What?”
“I’ll show you at sunrise,” he continues. “I should warn you, though. Whatever’s going on with Harold and the others, I think it’s much about much more than just Steadfall.”
Chapter Thirty-three
“There he is,” Deckard whispers as Ben comes into view up ahead. “Right on cue, just like I promised.”
We’re crouched low in the soggy leaves, keeping out of sight as Ben hurries away from Steadfall. He glances over his shoulder several times, as if he’s worried about being followed, before heading over the next ridge. Wherever he’s going, he seems to be in a hurry.
“And this happens every morning?” I whisper.
“Every morning. It’s not always Ben, sometimes it’s Leanne, but one of them always rushes off into the forest.”
“And where do they go?”
He nudges my shoulder. “Follow me. You’re in for a shock.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“I don’t think you’d believe me.”
Keeping low as we make our way to the ridge, we quickly see Ben up ahead, getting further and further away. Still making sure we’re not spotted, we hurry through the forest until finally Ben stops in the distance. Crouching down behind another ridge of mud, I peer around the side and see that Ben has begun to pull something out of a small gap beneath a tree-root.
“What is it?” I whisper.
“Wait and see,” Deckard replies darkly.
I watch, and after a moment I see that Ben is holding some kind of communication device.
“Where the hell did he get that?” I ask, shocked as I turn to Deckard. “No-one’s allowed to bring anything to the island!”
“Unless the rules are different for them.”
I watch for a moment as Ben continues to set up the device.
“Harold, Ben and Leanne aren’t like us,” Deckard continues. “I think they’re agents of some kind, sent to keep an eye on what’s happening here.”
“That’s against the rules!”
“So? Did you really think the government would leave the island alone?”
“But they—”
I stop myself just in time. There’s no point protesting about the unfairness of the situation, not when it’s so clear that Deckard is right. Deep in my gut, however, I feel a grinding sense of anger as I realize that everything I was told about the island has turned out to be a lie. We haven’t been left alone out here at all.
Hearing a voice up ahead, I watch as Ben switches the device on. He glances over his shoulder and we duck down for a moment, but after a few seconds it’s clear that he has no idea we’re here.
“Island to base,” he says calmly, “this is the island calling. Do we have a line?”
Almost immediately, a voice replies to him through the device. I can’t make out what the voice is saying, but it’s shocking to realize that someone is able to communicate with the rest of the world. That’s a fundamental betrayal of one of the island’s core principles.
“Everything’s going according to plan,” Ben continues after a moment. “We’ve identified another of these little clusters, and we’ve determined that it needs to be dealt with. The process is underway now.”
The voice briefly buzzes from the device.
“I understand,” Ben says once the voice has stopped, “but Harold has his way of doing things. You know he likes to take his time and…” He pauses for a moment, as if he’s struggling to find the right words. “He likes to enjoy his work, Don’t worry, though, he’ll get the job done. After that, we’ll look for more clusters, but so far we see no indications of any more. If they crop up, though, we’ll get rid of them as usual.”
The voice replies, but I still can’t make out what it’s saying.
“She was identified,” Ben continues. “She’s absent right now, but Harold’s confident she’ll return soon. We were expecting her to try something last night, but maybe she’s playing the longer game. Everything’ll get done eventually, though. It’s just a matter of letting Harold play it all out. I hate to admit it, but he does know what he’s doing and—”
Suddenly he looks this way, and Deckard and I have to duck down. I’m sure we didn’t make a noise and that he can’t have seen us, but for a few anxious seconds we wait for him to say something.
“It’s fine,” he adds finally. “I’m just getting jumpy. I told Harold we should’ve dealt with her when we had the chance, but I think there’s something he’s not telling us. If I didn’t know better…” His voice trails off again. “I’m probably just getting jumpy. I’m sure Harold isn’t hiding anything.”
The voice replies for a few seconds, but the burst of sound is still impossible to make out from this distance.
“There’s another problem,” Ben continues. “We’ve lost contact with Walter. When we’re done here, we’ll have to go and make sure he’s okay.”
The voice says something unintelligible.
“Okay,” Ben mutters with a sigh, “but tell Logan not to stress. Next time I report, it’ll be to confirm termination. Should be about three days. Over.”
We wait, but after a moment Ben can be heard making his way back through the forest. Peering around the side of the ridge, I see that he’s heading back toward Steadfall, which means he must have finished his report for today. My first instinct is to run after him and make him tell me everything, but I manage to hold back.