Meridian Six (8 page)

Red means life
.

My mother had been talking about the red light of the Sisters of Crimson. But now I realized there were many meanings. Right then, it meant that the only path to freedom--to a real life-- lay in spilling the Troika's blood.

"Well?" Dare said, her voice full of challenge. "What's it going to be?"

I sucked in a deep breath and held it, hoping the oxygen could dispel some of the fear. It didn't work, but at least my heart slowed a bit. Like it or not, I'd started this the moment I decided to run. In my hubris, I assumed I'd be able to outsmart my captors and manipulate the rebels to help me without having to get involved in the war.  But once I'd seen the world outside the Troika's walls and saw the truth without Castor's propaganda-colored glasses, I knew I'd been a fool. The Chatelaine had been right--no one survived in this world without choosing a side. And since I could never choose the Troika, the process of elimination left the rebels.

I blew out the kind of deep breath one lets out just before they dive off a cliff. "Okay. I'm in."

Mom would have been so proud.

#

Two hours later, we all stood over Saga's map again. Icarus and Saga seemed to accept my change of heart like they'd expected it all along. Only Icarus seemed confused about the newfound respect between Dare and me. I could see in the looks he kept shooting at her that he wanted to know how she’d changed my mind. The blank stares she shot at him and the secret smile she tossed my way told me she'd keep my secrets safe. Whether out of feminine honor or just because she was mad at Icarus for electing her my executioner if I'd refused to help, I didn't know. 

After the initial awkwardness when Dare and I had emerged, we got down to business. Rabbit sat nearby reading a book while the adults debated the plan.

"First we need to know who is most likely to be there," Dare said.

"Astyanax will be there," Saga said. "As head of the army and the Prime's personal guard, they'll want him there to oversee security."

The scent of brimstone and blood filled my nostrils as the scent memory of my last meeting with General Astyanax bullied its way in my brain. I shut down the memory of those weeks in the infirmary and focused on the mission.

"You can bet Castor will be there, too."

"But he's head of propaganda," Dare said. "Wouldn't they want to keep this quiet?"

I nodded. "Yes, but The Factory was his idea. He won't miss his moment of glory for anything."

"They need to know it was us," Icarus said suddenly. "Let Astyanax and Castor know that the rebels mean business."

I shook my head. "Absolutely not. You have to make it look like a mistake so they'll take it as a bad omen."

 "Explain," Saga demanded.

"Castor is incredibly superstitious. You don't have to destroy the Factory. You just have to stage a convincing enough accident that Castor believes it's a bad sign. At a minimum, it will delay the project while he tries to figure out how to reverse the bad energy."

Icarus frowned. "There's no way we'll be able to get close enough to stage an accident with the General and his forces there."

Dare forced a derisive snort. "And if we get caught, the Troika will scramble to kill the camp prisoners faster in retaliation."

"Astyanax isn't as much of a threat as Castor," Saga said, almost to himself. "She's right, if we scare Castor we'll gain the advantage."

Dare and Icarus frowned at his dismissal of their concerns. "How can you say that, old man? Astyanax is the fiercest vampire alive."

Saga waved a hand to indicate the millions of books bearing witness to this dangerous meeting. "Because he who controls the information, rules the world. No weapon possessed by the Prime’s army is more destructive than a single word from Castor's lying mouth."

"You'll never get to him, either," Dare said, turning away.

"It won't be easy," I said. "But it is possible. Castor is smart, but he's also got weaknesses."

"Like?" Saga asked, leaning forward.

"His ego, for one. He believes himself to be invincible. But he's also incredibly superstitious. I know for a fact that he's terrified of crossing the Sisters of Crimson."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea, but he goes to church every Friday."

Dare looked up quickly. "Really?"

I nodded. Our eyes met for a brief moment. "There's a special chapel for upper-level Troika in the city. Its location isn't made public for security reasons, but I've been there."

"Why would they take you there if it's so secret?" Icarus sneered.

"Because when you're seen as nothing more than a blood dispenser," I tossed his words back at him, "no one believes you're capable of remembering anything important. If you want the biggest bang for your buck, go after The Factory. Make them believe their gods have damned their actions. It’ll rattle their cages."

 Saga rubbed his chin for a moment and eyed the map. "If we want to make a statement that will scare the Troika, we need to go big." Everyone stopped and stared, waiting for him to continue. Rabbit looked up and even Polonius tilted his head. Saga smiled and addressed us as one. "We've got to blow up the entire damned thing."

Seven.

The Factory loomed in the distance-- a slumbering metal giant. The cold, blue steel of the place set against the harsh light of the full moon sent a shiver down my spine. Train tracks webbed out from the complex, creating silvery moonlit traces.

Air steamed out of my mouth creating billowy white clouds against the blue night. On either side of me Dare, Rabbit and Icarus shivered in their shirt sleeves. "You're sure Castor will be here?" Icarus demanded, keeping his eyes trained on The Factory.

"The last time I saw him he was discussing this meeting. He said it had to be tonight because it's auspicious to begin new endeavors on the Feast of the Blood Moon." The Sanguinary Church celebration of the Feast of the Blood Moon was the vampire church's New Year, and Castor had decided to add mass murder to his list of resolutions.

Before we could discuss the matter further, a grinding noise echoed through the valley. We all jerked from surprise. Three warning alerts sounded from sirens posted along the rooftop. 

"It's starting," Icarus said grimly.

Several windows lit up with bright orange and red light as the incinerators roared to life. A few moments later, white smoke belched from the thick chimneys that jutted from the roof like volcanoes.

Dare whispered, "They've woken the dragon." 

A shudder passed through me and I swallowed the sudden knot of fear. This was suddenly all too, too real. When I'd told them about The Factory, I'd just been talking fast enough to save my life. But now, in the harsh cold of night with that monster breathing fire in the moonlight, I was paying the debts incurred by my quick tongue. Blowing up The Factory was one thing. Doing it with the head of the Troika's propaganda machine inside and his entire army surrounding the complex was a suicide mission.

"Steady," Dare whispered to me.

I jerked my gaze toward her. Before I could respond, movement to my right caught my attention. Rabbit was backing away, shaking his head.  "I--I," he stuttered, face pale.

"Stop." Icarus commanded.

My vision filled with scarred Icarus in the foreground and the fires of the Troika's death machine burning in the background. Rabbit's head shook back and forth. I couldn't blame the kid for his fear. Icarus wanted that child to run toward Castor and his dragon, but anyone with an ounce of self-preservation would have run and kept running.

The kid stumbled on a rock. "Rabbit," Dare said, lurching forward. But Icarus shot her a look to stay out of it.

"I ran once, too." His quiet admission stilled my feet. He nodded. "During the battle of New York."

My eyes flared. "You were there?"

He nodded but kept his eyes on the kid. "I was twelve. Old enough to hold a gun, my father said. Old enough to fight."

I swallowed hard, remembering the chaos of those horrible days. The hunger and the noise and the smell of decay.

"Mom had died months earlier from an infection in her lungs. Dad tried real hard to teach me how to be brave in a fight. We sparred all the time and he made me practice shooting until I could hit a bull's eye every time." He licked his lips. "But all that training? It wasn't anything like the battle." His eyes went soft focus like he was watching a horror film in his head. Finally, he shook himself. "When dad got shot, it ... broke me. I'd been so gung ho to kill as many vamps as I could until the moment I saw the red of my father's blood on my own skin. He kind of slumped over and I just snapped. Before I knew what I was doing, I was running as fast as I could without looking back. It wasn't until a few blocks later that I caught back up with myself. I still had the gun but I'd left my father's body behind in a gutter." His voice thickened with remorse.

I blinked quickly to clear the stinging. Rabbit was frozen, entranced by the story.

 "I threw up twice before I gathered enough courage to go back. The battle had progressed and had taken over the block where I'd left him, so I had to be very careful. Luckily, I was pretty small for my age and could hide whenever a vampire patrol rolled past. It took me half an hour to get back the distance it had taken me five minutes to cover before."

Behind Icarus, Dare had gone quiet. Her expression was pained, like she couldn't decide whether this talk was what Rabbit needed or whether to protect him from the truth. I looked back at Rabbit and realized he was the same age as Icarus was in the story. Damn.

"When I got near the spot, a patrol had already found dad. I crouched behind a car and watched as one of the vampires nudged the body with a boot. It took everything I had not to rush out and attack that bastard for daring to disturb my father's dead body. But then the first scream reached me."

Rabbit squeezed his eyes closed.

"You see, my father hadn't died from the bullet."

My head started shaking to reject the horrors I knew were about to spill from his mouth.  "Icarus--"

"Once they realized he was alive, they decided to play a little game."

"Stop," Dare whispered. "Please."

Rabbit's eyes opened wide as saucers. I wanted to punch Icarus for putting the kid through this. But then I realized that Rabbit didn't have the luxury of innocence. None of us did.

"First they stretched his body over the hood of a car. Then they took turns wounding him in increasingly elaborate and creative ways. By the time I came roaring from my hiding place, they'd ripped out one eye and peppered his arms and legs with more bullet holes and bite marks." His voice had taken on an edge of steel. "I managed to put a bullet through my father's brain and kill the bastard who took his eye before they took me down. If a superior officer hadn't come by and stopped them they would have done the same thing to me before they killed me. You see, dad was old and wounded, so he didn't matter. But me? I was strong and young, and the officer said the Troika would need slaves to build their empire once the war was over." He pointed a finger toward The Factory. "So yeah, I understand the need to run, but I also learned the hard way the price for my selfishness. If we don't stand up for our own, who will, Rabbit?"

Rabbit looked at Icarus with eyes older than they'd been ten minutes earlier. "But if we die, who will be left to fight?"

"If we don't fight, we might as well be dead."

Rabbit's Adam's apple bobbed convulsively in his throat. A shudder wracked his body, but he gathered himself together and stood straight. "Okay. Let's go."

"You sure, kiddo?" Dare asked.

Rabbit looked at her with an expression I hadn't seen from his innocent face before. Rebellion mixed with resentment over her insistence for treating him like a kid. "I'm fine," he snapped. 

She quickly tamped the wounded look and nodded. "Let's do this."

Icarus smiled at the pair and then looked at me. "Well?"

I nodded, suddenly soul-tired. "Let's get it over with."

Eight.

Down near the water, the air was colder and damp. The kind of cold that grabbed onto your bones with skeletal fingers.

Icarus waved us toward a dark mouth jutting over the river. Closer, I realized it was a drainage pipe. "All right. Those incinerators need an external fuel source. Most likely they've got massive propane tanks nearby with pipes leading underground into the Factory." He pointed toward a large, lone building about a hundred feet from the fence. Three guards in Troika uniforms stood out front with large guns. "There."

"Assuming we could get past them," I said, "what's the plan?"

Icarus removed something from his backpack. "We only have one chance with this." I squinted through the dark and saw a black device with a mess of wires and some sort of putty on the back. "If we can set this off on near the tanks, it'll cause a chain reaction through the pipes and destroy all the furnaces. The trick is to get in and out undetected so they believe it was a malfunction instead of an act of aggression. We can’t risk the Troika retaliating against the people in the blood camps."

 When we'd come up with this plan with Saga I'd argued that we needed way more than the four of us to pull it off. But it had taken us two days of walking to reach The Factory, and it would have taken three times that to contact another patrol group. Even longer for them to rendezvous with us. So Icarus wasn't kidding when he said we had one chance. If any of us were captured this plan was toast.

"I'll do it," Dare said.

Icarus shook his head. "The only way in is through this pipe. You won't fit." He was right. The pipe was narrower than the expanse of an average adult's shoulders.

My eyes swiveled toward the twelve-year-old child to my left. Dare's face went ghost pale. "Icarus, no--"

Rabbit ignored her and perked up. "I get to do it?"

Dare grabbed Icarus's arm and dragged him away. Rabbit cringed, like his mom and dad were fighting, and looked at me. "She treats me like a baby."

“She cares about you. That's a good thing."