Enemy of Gideon (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
he pencil lead traces along the jaw line on the image. Then I darken the eyes on his face. I drew my father as he appeared in Corinth. Seeing him as who he really is has brought back new memories, both happy ones and troubling ones.

With my memory confirming Timothy as my father, I found the past few days away from Corinth especially difficult. My last encounter with Dad was encouraging, but his recovery is uncertain. If I return, he might be dead and buried. That would be too much to handle so shortly after discovering he is alive.

The familiar beep resounds throughout the classroom to end the period. I close my sketchbook and gather my belongings.

As I sling my backpack over my shoulders, I stand face-to-face with a classmate who usually sits at the front. With a blank expression, he offers me a folded piece of paper. I give him a puzzled look, so he extends the paper closer to me. I take the paper, and he turns and leaves the room.

Unfolding the note, I find familiar handwriting. The words read:
Your father is out of bed and walking.  -A.

I sigh and stuff the note into my pocket.
 

Thank you,
God.

Immediately after school, I rush back to Corinth, eager to see Dad in better condition. Arkin greets me with one of those grins he used to have before he lost his parents.

“Did you get my note?” he asks.

I dismount Fire and tie the horse to the post. “That's why I'm here.”

“I was afraid you wouldn't come back,” he says.

“I needed time to process everything,” I say. “Is he in his cabin?”

“At the sanctuary. He's getting ready to address the village with some announcement from the council.”

Droves of villagers head toward the sanctuary in the woods beyond the cabins. Arkin and I drift into the crowd.
 A few believers greet me when I enter the sanctuary, as though I never left. 

The sanctuary has become a special place for me. The Holy Spirit touched me there several times when I joined in worship alongside Arkin and Dad. Now Dad stands at the podium, waiting for the believers to settle in on the benches.

After the weak and elderly are seated, the children sit on the benches, leaving the remaining believers to fill in the gaps or stand around the edge of the sanctuary in a semi-circle.

When Dad raises his hand, the crowd’s chatter dies down, and he speaks.

“Let's begin with a word of prayer,” he says, his voice as strong as it was the day we all prayed for my memory to return.

I bow my head and close my eyes. The eloquence of his prayer amazes me.
Will I someday follow in his footsteps and lead the people of Corinth?
My future career will no longer be determined by a career placement test. The realization both excites and frightens me.

“God, guide us through this meeting and grant us Your wisdom in the coming months,” Timothy prays in closing. “In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.”

The crowd echoes, “Amen.”

Everyone opens their eyes, and tension spreads across the crowd. A nervous anticipation permeates from their silence. Dad’s gaze runs across the crowd, and his eyes stop at mine. He grins at me and then returns his attention to the crowd.

“Thank you for joining me this afternoon, my friends,” he says. “When we gather on short notice, the issue is usually imperative, and this time is no different.

“This morning, the council gathered to hear a report from our missionary leaders. As you know, believers have struggled to keep our villages hidden since the raid on Philippi. All of our villages are still safe, but we now face a new kind of threat. Orders from the officials of Gideon have been passed down to Code Enforcement to build a twenty-foot, defensive wall surrounding the entire border of the city-state.”

The crowd erupts in noise, and my knees weaken. 

“We all know what this means,” Dad says. “Our missions to Gideon will be impossible, and we will be permanently separated from anyone in Gideon we love.”

The villagers whisper with shocked expressions.

“We’ve received this top-secret information weeks late,” he says. “Work on the wall has all ready started in the area between Philippi and Gideon. Based on the work they’ve finished, we expect Gideon to be completely enclosed by mid-January.”

Some believers murmur while others weep in one another's arms. I blink away hot tears. Once the entire wall is built, I will never see my mother again.

“What will we do, Elder?” a man asks from the edge of the woods.

“We know our first and most important course of action is prayer,” Dad says. “The next step will be to increase our number of missionaries to Gideon.”

“What about the helicopter mission?” Josiah asks, standing not far from me and Arkin.

“We will forge ahead,” Dad says. “The council says the helicopter must now be finished before the wall's completion. That changes our mission date to December 31.”

During the New Year's Eve celebration.
The center of Gideon will be overcrowded on that one day of the year. Thousands of citizens would read the messages dropped by the flying machine.

“We expect a larger number present at the centennial celebration,” Dad says, “but by then, the wall will be finished. The people of Gideon will never be able to choose the Gospel and escape the Code if they are trapped inside.”

“We need more man-power, more tools and parts,” Josiah says. “That deadline is less than two months away.”

“We will recruit the help of every believer across the villages and across Gideon,” Dad says. “If this plan is the Lord's will, we will be successful.”

►▼◄

I have nightmares about the wall. The charcoal black structure
towers as high as my apartment building. Arkin and my parents scream at me from the other side, crying for help. When I reach out my hand toward it, the heat from the wall burns my fingers—no way over it and no way through it. I awake from the dream weak and depressed, yet the nightmare propels me to pray harder about the wall and the EP drop on New Year's Eve. It also pushes me to help Josiah with every free moment Dad gives me.

“We need a part from CE,” Josiah says, climbing out of the helicopter, “and we don't have any missionaries in the inventory department.”

“What kind of part?” I ask.

“It's for the on-board computer system. Do you know anyone in CE?”

I have to restrain my laughter. “There's no way the guy I know would do it.”

“Hunter probably wouldn't,” Arkin says, slipping out of the helicopter, “but what about Ogden? Couldn't he get the part?”

I chuckle. “Are you serious?

“I'm dead serious,” he says, wiping his filthy hands on a rag. “You told me he wanted to come back here. His loyalty to his father and the Code has been shaken. If anyone would help us, it'd be Og.”

I shake my head. “I don't see how he could get away with it.”

“Are we talking about that kid with the glasses?” Josiah asks. “What's his link to Code Enforcement?”

“His father is the chief,” I say.

Josiah grins. “To God be the glory! Put that kid on the mission.”

Although the entire idea is insane, I follow Josiah's orders and take the drawing of the necessary computer part to school, hoping to catch Ogden. With a little investigating, I find out he’s in the chess club.

“Og!” I call out to him outside the chess club room.

He turns and grimaces. “What?”

“I need a favor,” I say.

“I'm late for chess club,” he says, walking away.

“Come on,” I say, gesturing to an open janitor’s closet. “Give me a minute.”

He sighs and follows me inside where no cameras will eavesdrop on us. After I close the door, I jump right into the favor and show him the drawing of the part.

“Do you think I have some incredible power of authority in CE because I'm the chief's son?” he grumbles.

“Actually, yes,” I say.

He smirks. “Then you're right, but if Corinth has this technical genius at their disposal, then why can't he figure out how to get me to the outskirts without being bugged?”

“I bet Josiah could, or he could at least use some gadget to find the bug on you and scramble it.”

“That's the thing,” he says. “I assumed the tracking device was something on my glasses or backpack, but I found something weird under the skin on my heel. I never noticed it before, but it may be the tracking device.”

“Are you sure it's not a foot fungus?” I ask, unable to resist a wisecrack.

He punches my arm and laughs. I burst into giggles. It has been so long since the two of us goofed off together, I forgot how good it felt.

“So if I bring something to solve your tracking problem, will you get this part?” I ask, waving the paper before him.

He snatches the paper away. “I'll get your silly, little part. I could get it in my sleep.”

►▼◄

I use my wristband to search for information on ‘flight’, careful not to use any suspicious words. My search only brings up birds and insects. Sensing my curiosity, Arkin offers me several old books on flying inventions from the Corinth library, a sma
ller one than the library lost at Philippi.

“I don’t understand it,” I say, staring at the photograph of something called a jet. “There’s another world out there, a whole different history the Gideonites don’t even know about?”

“All because of that horrible war and Ulysses Gideon,” he says, wrapped in a blanket beside me.

We sit on the floor in front of the fire place in Arkin’s cabin. Bethany cradles her newborn baby in a rocking chair while Saphie sits on her bed playing with her wooden dolls.

“Why? Why did he ban aircrafts?” I ask.

“Because then people would leave Gideon and find out what was out there,” Bethany says. “Pretty soon, no one will even be able to leave on foot.”

“Have people left on foot?” I ask. “Where do they go?”

“Some have,” she says. “They find our villages, but they keep going. They believe we really are enemies, so they disappear into the woods. We never see them again.”

“What’s beyond Gideon?” I ask.

“Abandoned places,” Arkin says. “Your father went out there a long time ago. He was curious, but he found flat, barren land.”

“That war destroyed much of this country,” Bethany says. “My grandmother used to talk about it when I was very young.”

“But with the helicopter, couldn’t we fly beyond the barren lands to see the rest of the world?” I ask.

“That would be wonderful,” she says, smiling down at her baby. “I want my son to see more of God’s creation than I have.”

A knock comes at the cabin door.

Saphie drops her dolls and jumps up from the bed. “I’ll get it!”

When she opens the door, Josiah enters with a cotton bag no larger than a sheet of paper.

“Here’s what Ogden needs. Flip the switch and move it across his heel,” he says, handing the bag to me.

“What if he isn’t able to get the part?” Arkin asks. “Can we still let him use it?”

Josiah nods. “Be sure to keep it hidden and bring it back as soon as possible.”

“How will he know it worked?” I ask, peaking into the bag at the round, plastic device.

“It will flash a red light when it senses the tracking device,” Josiah says. “When the tracker becomes inert, a green light will flash.”

I slip the bagged device into my backpack. Maybe I could find Ogden at school tomorrow. I tried to catch him at chess club yesterday, but he missed the meeting. A full week has passed since we last saw each other.
Maybe Og isn’t as loyal to me as I thought.
I push such an idea from my mind. Mistrust and doubt nearly destroyed our friendship before. I can’t let it happen again.

Early the next morning, the street in front of the school fills with students wearing their standard wool coats under their backpacks. I arrived at school earlier. Maybe I can catch Og on the way into the building.

My hope meets success when Ogden floats toward the building with a group of pedestrians. I rise from the bench and rush toward him, fearing a grimace or pure avoidance from him. Instead, he gives me a proud smirk.

My spirit soars.
He has it!

“Do you have what I need?” he asks.

“I brought it with me. Do you have the part?”

“Do I
have
the part? I brought two, in case you needed an extra one,” he says.

I gawk. “How did you do that?”

“It’s lax in the inventory department. If I say, my dad needs it, they give it to me,” he says with a shrug. “He sends me in there for stuff all the time.”

“You’re awesome, Og,” I say.

He pushes his glasses up his nose. “I know I am.”

“Come on.” I pull his arm toward the school entrance. “Let’s get rid of that nasty foot fungus.”