Death Valley. Less than five hours from Palm Springs. I knew Marcus was right—that there really was no way I could’ve known Sydney was there—but it was still a hard thing to accept. So close, I thought. So close this entire time. Equally maddening was that although this was a huge leap in information for us, we were still powerless to act yet. The best we could do was finish coordinating with Eddie and Trey before Amberwood’s curfew split the guys and girls up for the night. When we finally logged off, Marcus made a couple more calls and then stifled a yawn.
“I’ve got to get some rest,” he said, heading for one of the double beds in the room. “Keep the TV on if you want. I can sleep through anything. I’ve learned to take advantage of solid sleeping conditions when I get them.”
I didn’t doubt it after his years on the run, but I still turned the volume off and just watched the pictures as I sprawled out on my own bed and tried to make contact with Sydney. It was past the time she normally went to sleep, but I didn’t reach her, presumably because she was off on whatever other secret errand she’d wanted to take care of tonight. TV without sound turned out to be pretty boring, and I nearly drifted off twice before finding a channel with closed captions that I could read along with. I watched it for a good part of the night, fighting sleep as I continued to make periodic checks for Sydney. The last thing I remembered was a talk show around four in the morning …
… and then I was waking to sunlight streaming in the room as Marcus emerged from the bathroom.
“Good morning,” he said. “Ready to hit the road?”
“I …” I stared around stupidly, trying to piece together what had happened. “I fell asleep.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Before you talked to Sydney?”
“Yeah, but I mean, it wasn’t for lack of trying. … I tried a dozen times to connect to her. It didn’t work.”
“Maybe she went to bed late,” he said.
“After four?” Even with the previous night’s secret errand, I’d finally connected with her before one. “I’m worried she never went to sleep.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Actually, no,” I said. “At least if it was by choice because she was doing her errands. What would be a problem is if she was asleep … and blocked from me again.”
CHAPTER 15 Sydney
TIME WOULDN’T ALLOW ME to charm all the syringes at once, seeing as I could only do it in my rare moments of privacy. I managed five at first and distributed them to Emma and the select few Emma thought we could trust.
I felt emboldened after Adrian had told me he’d gotten Keith’s address from Carly, and I couldn’t wait to talk to him tonight about further progress. Knowing he and Marcus were advancing toward their goals drove home the importance of dealing with the “emergency protocol” situation as soon as possible. Equally pressing was knowing I would make the most progress if my stolen ID card was still working. For all I knew, once that guy reported he’d lost it, the Alchemists would disable it, and sabotaging an entire system was going to be difficult if I couldn’t even use the elevator. I needed to act fast.
Emma was impressed to hear I’d been in the operations room but had little help to offer with the larger problem. “The gas controls weren’t there?”
“The controls were,” I said. “Including the power to render us all unconscious at once, anytime and anyplace. But I need access to its more basic parts—like where the gas comes from in the first place. How it gets into those pipes in the ventilation system.”
She shook her head, looking legitimately sorry she couldn’t help. “I have no idea. I don’t know anyone who would.”
I did, and I brought it up with Duncan later in art class. Whereas Emma had been perplexed by my inquiries, Duncan was shocked. “No, Sydney, stop. This is crazy. Bad enough you disabled it in your room! The entire floor? That’s madness.”
We were still working on clay bowls, our assignment now being to make a set of identical ones, which went right along with the Alchemist ideology of conformity. “What’s madness is that with a push of a button, they can knock us all out within seconds.”
“So?” he asked. “They’d only do that if there was a revolt or something. No one’s that stupid.” When I said nothing, his eyes widened. “Sydney!”
“What, are you saying you want to stay here forever?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “Just play the game, and you can get out. It’s a lot easier and a lot less trouble than staging some ill-fated prank.”
“Get out like you did?” My retort made him flinch, but I only felt a little bad.
“I would if I could,” he muttered.
“I don’t believe that,” I said. “You’ve been here so long, you should know the game better than anyone else. You should be able to say and do exactly what it takes to get your walking papers, but instead, you do exactly what it takes to stay put! You’re afraid to act.”
The first glint of anger I’d ever seen in him flashed in his eyes. “To act on what? What is it exactly you expect me to do, Sydney? What’s out there for me? There’d be no security. They track re-educated Alchemists forever. To not get sent back here, I’d have to either push all my morals about Moroi aside or constantly watch my back to hide my true feelings. There’s no winning for us. We’re screwed. We were born into a system we don’t agree with, and we got caught. Here, out there, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing left for us.”
“What about Chantal?” I asked quietly. “Isn’t she out there?”
His hands, which had been so deftly working the clay, faltered and dropped to his side. “I don’t know where she is. Maybe she went to re-education in some other country. Maybe she killed herself rather than live a lie. Maybe she went on to some worse punishment. You think solitary confinement and monotonous art projects are the only weapons they have? There are worse things they can do to us. Worse things than purging and public ridicule. Being bold sounds great in theory, but it comes with a cost.”
“Chantal was bold, wasn’t she? And that’s why you’re afraid.” The grief on his face was so intense, I wanted to hug him … yet at the same time, I wanted to shake him for cowardice too. “You’re so afraid of acting! Of ending up like her!”
Swallowing, he returned to work on his bowl. “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me to.”
He stayed silent.
“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll figure out the gas control system myself and won’t bother you anymore. I suppose you might as well go ahead and throw this away too.”
I knelt down as though I’d dropped something and swiftly transferred a capped syringe from my sock to his, neatly covering it with his pant leg before anyone saw. “What’s that?” he hissed.
“The last of my current stock of syringes with the ink-repelling solution in them. I’d saved this one for you, but you’ll probably be happier not using it. In fact, maybe you should just go ask them for an extra-strong re-inking so you don’t have to think for yourself anymore.”
Chimes signaled the end of class, and I turned to go, leaving him gaping. That evening, while getting ready for bed in the bathroom, I was able to charm a few more syringes that I smuggled back to my room. I also did the gum trick again, sticking it in place in the door to disable the lock after lights out. I might not know exactly where the main gas controls were, but based on the explorations I’d done, I could make some educated guesses. Emma noticed when I stuck the gum in the door’s side and said, her voice barely audible, “You’re serious about this?”