“I’ve never seen those before, I swear !” the young man pleads.
Arch clears his throat and reads from the poster. “The Establishment is Lies. The Establishment is Death.” He turns back to Tim. “Sound familiar, Worm scum?”
Digory’s eyes are bulging. He looks like he’s about to spring from the sewer. Now it’s my turn to rest a hand on his shoulder and hold him steady.
Valerian strokes the Canid’s head. “Perhaps all this Worm needs is a little persuasion.”
The hound lifts its head and bays at the sun, a long painful cry that suggests it agrees.
Tim’s face dissolves into madness. “I ate a worm once … ”
A dark stain appears on his trousers, spreading into a puddle of fear that soaks his shoes.
Valerian releases the Canid. It pounces on Tim in seconds. I turn away. But the sounds of screams, mixed with the squishing and chewing, paint a more vivid picture than my eyes ever could.
“Let’s go.” I risk a whisper into Digory’s ear over the sound of nightmares.
And as I take his cold hand and pull him down into the city’s entrails, I can’t help but think that I now know what would have happened to Digory if I’d turned myself in.
Five
My feet sink ankle deep into the sludge marinating the sewer floor. I scan the gloom. “Which way now?”
We’re standing at a juncture of three catacombs, which glow from a series of gaslights that disappear into the mazes of rusted pipes. It resembles the arterial system of some biomechanical beast.
Digory doesn’t look at me. “This way,” he commands, sloshing toward the tunnel on the right. “We’ll skirt the alley and come up a few blocks west of the parade perimeter.”
“You mean, in the middle of all those people in broad daylight?” I wade fast to keep up.
“Yeah, like I’d be stupid enough to hide us down here and make a grand entrance on the other side.” I can hear his eyes rolling off his tongue as he splashes through the muck, oblivious to the septic wake he creates that’s sprinkling me with slime.
“Digory! Hey! Wait up!” I slog up to him and grab his arm, twisting him to face me. “What’s your problem?”
“Let go of me!” he snaps. “I’m trying to get us out of here.”
I glance above us. “Look, if it’s about that guy up there …
there’s nothing you could have done. He was a Worm. You saw the IDs. They were going to take him no matter what.”
He rips free of my grip. “You don’t get it, Lucian. It’s my fault. They wouldn’t have been in that alley if it wasn’t for me. I’m the one they wanted. That unlucky guy just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I might as well have sicced the Canid on him myself.”
He slumps onto one of the pipes, burying his face in his hands.
For a second, I’m not sure what to say. The Digory I never really knew at the Instructional Facility always seemed cool, in control, as though nothing could ever faze him. Seeing him like this makes me feel like an intruder, as if I’m spying on him naked. Even the Establishment’s idols aren’t immune to its corrosive touch, I guess.
I settle down beside him, resting a hand on his arm. “You had no way of knowing what would happen. I’m sure whatever you were doing with those flyers was important to you.”
He uncovers his eyes, which smolder in the tunnel’s hazy light. “What I was doing is important to everyone, not just me.” He pulls the crinkled poster from his coat and unrolls it. I sidle up to him, then take it and read:
RECRUITMENT IS FEAR.
RECRUITMENT IS CONTROL.
DOWN WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT.
PROTECT YOUR FAMILIES.
The words are accompanied by a silhouette drawing of Recruits, watching as a group of people, their Incentives no doubt, are being slaughtered by armed Imposers. One of the victims is the outline of a little boy. I shudder, but not from the draft stealing through the catacombs. Quickly rolling the poster up, I stuff it in my own jacket, against my heart.
“You really think you can stop them?” I whisper.
The spark on his face ignites. “Not by myself. But we can all stop them if we stand together. We can change it, make it better.”
I remember what it was like to dream, once. Before my parents died. “It’s not so simple, Digory. They’re strong, organized. They’ve got weapons.”
“We have to try.” He grabs my hand. “Don’t you care? Is this how you want to live the rest of your life? In a slum? Dead by forty, starvation and disease fighting it out for first dibs? Your little brother-”
“What about Cole?” My body stiffens.
“Is this the kind of life you want for Cole, assuming he gets the chance to grow older?”
“Stop it.” I turn away.
But he persists, like an insect in my ear. “If he survives, he’ll be drafted into the military-or worse. Recruited as a potential Imposer. Forced to undergo the Establishment’s mind games.” He squats on his haunches in front of me. “And you’ll be standing by helpless as he’s forced to choose whether you or any other person he dares to love dies.”
“That’s enough,” I say, turning off the mental images. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. Your insurrection, or the Establishment … I have to handle things my way so that Cole’s neck isn’t on the line.”
Digory’s grip tightens on my hand. “His neck’s already on the line-as are all of ours. That’s what Recruitment Day is. The Establishment’s way of spreading fear and breaking us … by making us have to choose which one of our loved ones is the most worthy to continue living. If you call this living.” The muscles in his jaw clench. “Do you know the Establishment’s been manufacturing biological weapons, testing them on innocent civilians? Genetically re-engineering them? I even hear that Reaper’s Cough is some kind of population-control experiment. There’s no limit to what they’re capable of.”
My mouth goes dry. “I don’t know how you know any of these things, and I don’t want to know. I have to think about my brother-”
“Maybe you’ll get recruited, Lucian.”
“That can’t happen … ”
“Maybe you’ll have to decide whether or not Cole lives or dies.”
“Digory, please-”
“Unless you run out of options, and one of the other Recruits bests you during the Trials. Then Cole dies no matter what.”
“No!” I shove him to the ground.
He just sits there in the putridness, staring at me, the fire in his eyes now embers.
“The fear controls us,” he says softly. “Makes us weak. And choosing which one of our loved ones has to live or die-”
“Keeps us isolated … alone,” I finish.
He rises to bended knee and clasps both my hands in his. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“I’m sorry I pushed you. It’s just … Cole … this day … so much is riding on it.”
Digory shakes his head. “I’m the one that’s sorry for pushing you. You were right. What happened up there”-he cocks his head toward the surface-“it messed with my head.”
“I understand. You don’t have to be ashamed.”
He looks confused. “Ashamed ?”
“Yeah, you know. Not wanting to reveal yourself to the Imps, admit you were the one hanging these flyers instead of that poor guy. Anyone else would have been afraid too.” Though if it’d been Cole, I wouldn’t have hesitated an instant.
His eyes register shock and indignation. “I wasn’t scared for myself, Lucian. If I’d have climbed out and accepted the blame, the Imps would have swarmed the sewer.” His gaze pierces through me. “And I wouldn’t have been the only one they found.” He looks away. “I couldn’t let that happen.”