“Look, I know this all sounds crazy—”
“Crazy?” Her mother was practically bursting out of her lenses. “You run off in the middle of the night—someone points a gun at us, asking where you are—you disappear—”
“I can explain everything, Mom,” she said, “but not now. You have to trust me. It’s safer for everyone that way. I know what I’m doing.”
“But what are you doing? Playing trains in the middle of nowhere when you should be in school—”
“Monday’s a free day.”
“You know what I mean!”
“I didn’t know there were trains anymore,” said Tash. “Where did you find it?”
“That’s a long story.” Clair didn’t want to go into every detail. “I just need you to help me spread the word.”
“What word?” asked Ronnie.
“Tell everyone what I’m doing. Start discussions. Post updates. Make a lot of noise, any way you can. I need this to be big, or . . .” She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t alarm her mother even more. “. . . or something really bad will happen. I swear. And not just to me.”
“I think we should call the peacekeepers,” said Oz, her stepfather’s long, sun-warmed face uncharacteristically grim. “They’ve been looking for you. They’re as worried as we are.”
“Yeah, but about the wrong thing. Remember that guy with the gun to your head?” Clair said with calculated harshness. “How much use the PKs were then is exactly how much use they are now. This is between me and VIA. We have to make them fix it.”
“But what is it?” Allison asked. “Why didn’t you talk to me about it? Why won’t you tell me now?”
“We did talk about it, kind of. Someone’s using d-mat to hurt people. They hurt Libby, and they want to hurt me.”
“And Zep?” asked Tash. “Is he with you?”
Clair couldn’t answer immediately. That wasn’t a question she had anticipated. The surge of emotion it provoked was difficult to control.
“Clair?” asked Ronnie.
“He . . . I’ll tell you later.” From their point of view, he was still alive, just missing. She didn’t know to break it to them. “For now, just do as I ask. Please. I’ll send you a message in a second—Counter-Improvement, Jesse calls it. Pass it to everyone you know. Generate a buzz.”
“Jesse Linwood’s with you?” asked Tash. “The Lurker?”
Clair bristled at the old nickname but didn’t have time to defend him.
“You can follow me via the link in the message. It’s important you do, but don’t freak out if I disappear every now and then. I’m with people who literally move in mysterious ways.”
“If that’s what I have to do to make sure you come back in one piece,” Allison said, “then I’ll do it. But be careful, please.”
“I will,” Clair promised. “I’ll do my best, and I know you all will too.”
She signed off, feeling a sharp tug in her heart. Her hands were shaking again, and it was a moment before she could look up.
58
AS THEY CAME into Mandan, the gleaming lines of a train track became visible on her right, along with the train itself, a long string of wheeled containers trailing behind an engine that issued neither smoke nor steam. Clair was faintly disappointed. She had imagined something more antique than an electric locomotive but at the same time much faster. The farmers easily overtook the train as it trundled into town.
Mandan was large enough to have eye-in-the-sky drones surveying the empty streets. Clair waved at them, half expecting dupes to burst out of doorways and windows at any moment. There could be booths coming into life all around them, building another death squad.
But there weren’t, or if there were, the dupes stayed hidden. The drones watched them without overt curiosity, and the small expedition reached the train station unmolested. Under the eaves of an ancient wooden building, they unloaded and stretched their legs. Clair could hear the train approaching from the west. The light of the morning sun caught it, making it shine. It pulled up to the platform in a cacophony of metal, grease, and glass.
Turner went to the front of the train to talk to the engineers or drivers or whatever they were called. Clair paced back and forth, wishing they could get moving. The station was surrounded by trees on two sides. There was plenty of cover for anyone wanting to sneak up on them.
Gemma joined her at one end of the platform, fidgeting restlessly with her cross. She had exchanged her sling for a bandage, allowing her injured arm greater movement. They stood together, staring out into the vegetation and seeing nothing.
“This is your plan,” said Gemma, “so why do you look nervous?”
“I never expected everyone to agree to it,” she said.
“Is that true?”
Clair shrugged. It was, if she was honest with herself. “We’ve never agreed on anything before.”
“Fair point.”
One of the drones swooped lower, as though trying to overhear their conversation.
“You think we’re out of our minds,” Gemma said to her.
“It goes both ways. Dylan Linwood called me a zombie.”
“That sounds like him.” She hung her head. “It’s not easy being in the minority. I mean, what are the odds that everyone else in the world is wrong, and you’re right? The moment you start to doubt, everything turns upside down and the world comes crashing down around you. . . .”
Clair understood that feeling well.
“Don’t tell me you’re starting to change your mind about d-mat.”
“Never. It gets in your brain and softens it. Stop using, and you get better fast. You can see that now, surely.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at yourself, Clair Hill. You were like everyone else before—weak, soft, compliant. Now you’ve changed. You’re strong. Look how you stood up to the dupes back there. Could you have done that a week ago? I don’t think so. D-mat was holding you back. Now you’re free.”
“Free to do what? Ruin my life?”
“If that’s what it takes to be yourself.”
Even when Gemma was staring straight at her, she seemed to be tilting her head, putting a question mark at the end of every sentence she said.
Turner called them from the other end of the platform, but before Clair could go, Gemma grabbed her tightly by the arm and pulled her close.
“Dylan made me promise to look after Jesse if anything ever happened to him,” she whispered. “You’ll have to do it for me.”
“Why?” Clair forces out. “Where are you going?”
“The world is turning upside down, Clair,” Gemma said. “Not everything—or everyone—is going to survive.”
“Don’t be crazy. Of course we’re going to survive. That’s what the plan is for, right?”
Gemma shook her head. Clair pulled free. There wasn’t time to deal with Gemma’s doubts on top of her own.
She turned to head toward where Turner, Ray, and Jesse stood, waiting.
“Promise me, Clair,” Gemma hissed after her. “Look after Jesse. Promise me!”
Clair kept walking, rubbing her arm where Gemma’s strong fingers had gripped her.
59
“IT’S STARTED,” SAID Turner. “See?”
Two people had appeared at the other end of the platform, a mother and young daughter, both dressed in patched clothes. They stood hand in hand and watched as the expedition prepared to move out.
“Abstainers,” Turner explained. “There’s a handful in every town, invisible, excluded, but very loyal. Put the word out, and they will come.”