Taken (10 page)

“Like I said, I can’t discuss that,” Marco says, standing. “But after you clean up, we’ll take you to Frank. Come on.”

Emma and I climb out of the car. “Who’s Frank?”

“Just the only thing holding this crumbling country together.”

I don’t understand the differences between towns and cities and countries, but given what I’ve seen today, if a city is a large town, I’d guess a country is a large city. Or something even bigger. “And he has answers?”

“Yes,” Marco responds. He shifts his weapon in his hands and adds, “This is where we split. Emma, you go with Pete. Gray, this way.”

“Emma stays with me,” I say.

“That’s sweet of you, Romeo, but she can’t.” Again with that name. I want to correct him, but he keeps talking. “Boys have one washroom, girls another. That’s just the way it is.”

We never divided outhouses in Claysoot. The idea is ridiculous, not to mention inefficient. So much more construction and upkeep and maintenance.

“It’s okay,” Emma says to me. “I’ll be fine.”

I nod in agreement even though I’d feel better if she never left my sight. Everything about this place makes my skin crawl, and since climbing the Wall we’ve met not answers but more questions. If Emma is not with me, I am incapable of ensuring her safety. I stare over my shoulder as she disappears with Pete. Marco and I head in the opposite direction.

“You regret climbing yet?” Marco asks, his voice condescending. He’s walking ahead of me, but I would bet a week’s worth of hunting game that he’s smirking.

I scowl. “Not at all. Besides, I didn’t get Heisted like I was supposed to. It was worth risking the Wall.”

He freezes. “Wait. Say that again. The part about the Heist.”

“I didn’t get Heisted like I was supposed to.”

He turns to face me, slowly. He looks as dumbfounded as I felt taking in Taem moments earlier. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean I was the only boy who stayed
in
Claysoot when he turned eighteen.”

“Impossible.” His mouth hangs open.

Why would he think that impossible? Why does he even recognize the term
Heist
? I shiver, cold, and against my better judgment I add, “It’s not impossible. My twin brother—he disappeared and I stayed.”

“Twin?” Marco gasps. He runs a hand over his head, looks off down the hallway, and then back at me. “Change of plans,” he says. “This way.”

And then he practically sprints down the corridor, backtracking. My feet work feverishly to keep up. We step into a box. It lurches downward, metal walls surrounding us. Doors open and Marco leads me through a hallway, down stairs, around corners. I lose my sense of direction. One thing is certain, though: the area of Union Central through which we are now walking is not nearly as glorious as its outer shell. The walls are a gray stone. Dust gathers in the crannies, moss clinging furiously to damp corners. Hallways are lit overhead with odd panels of light that flicker and cast an unnatural bluish glow about the space.

We head down a final set of steps and the moisture in the air seems to triple. A man in black sits on a lonely stool within the hallway we’ve entered. It is narrow, lined with doors to the left and right that are too short to walk through without ducking.

“We’re all full,” he calls out.

“Well, double him up,” Marco says. “Throw him in with our pal Bozo the clown. He’ll be good company.” Marco pushes me at the man with impressive force, and then darts off the way we arrived, looking more frantic than ever.

“Where’s he going?”

The man says nothing but shuffles me toward a door at the far end of the hallway, where he presses his thumb to a metal plate before it slides open.

“Sorry, kid,” he says to me. “This guy’s a bit of a loon.” And then he shoves me through the doorway. It’s dark inside and smells of mold and urine. The door slams behind me and it takes the click of metal echoing in my ears before I realize I’m in a prison.

THIRTEEN

AT FIRST I PANIC. I
tug on the door frantically, and when it doesn’t give, I sink to the floor and bury my face in my hands. I shouldn’t have trusted these people. Maybe this was Marco’s plan all along. Maybe he never had any intention of helping us. My stomach twists at the thought of Emma also in a cell, trapped somewhere in this massive building, and me, powerless to help her. I lash out in frustration, punching the door behind me.

“That won’t do any good, you know,” a voice croaks from the corner, “losing your temper.” I’d forgotten I had a cell mate. I can’t see his face and I don’t really care.

“You’re new,” he remarks, his fingers tapping against stone in the dark. They create a funny little rhythm, an awkward beat that is always just a hair off, as if a finger has darted out against his will and struck rock prematurely. “Which group did you come from?”

“I’m sorry?” I don’t feel like talking, especially not to some man so gone he’s been given a nickname that induces ridicule.
Clown
means nothing to me, but I heard the way Marco pronounced it, saw the way his lips curled around the word.

“Group,” the man says again. “What group are you from? A? B?”

“Look,” I snap, unsure what he’s talking about, “I’m not from any
group
. And I’m not from Taem, either.”

He shuffles out of the corner, crouching beneath the low ceiling, and into the little light that filters through the window of our cell door. The man is gawky, thin. There are creases and wrinkles on his face, and he has a gray beard that grows in haphazard patches. His eyes appear as if he has not slept in weeks, and his dark clothes are tattered and worn.

“An outsider, eh?” He flashes me a crazed grin. “You like it there? Outside the city?” His fingers dance over the stonework again, tapping frantically as he speaks.

“It was better than here,” I admit.

The man breaks into a terrible cackle at this comment, throwing his head back like a wild dog and howling deeply. “I like you,” he says. “Quite a sense of humor.” I don’t tell him I wasn’t trying to be funny. He laughs until he’s worn himself out, and then his fingers are back to tapping.

From behind us, somewhere down the hall, there is the sound of footsteps approaching and then guards talking. I try to make out what’s being said, but Bozo’s tapping grows louder, as if he is deliberately trying to block out the conversation. He rocks back and forth on his heels, and mumbles—no, sings—to himself.

“Five red berries in a row, sown with love so that they’ll grow. Five red berries in a row, sown with love so that they’ll grow.”

He repeats it, over and over, his voice raspy. It almost sounds like a lullaby. Almost. The words are echoing in our tiny cell, and soon I can’t tell which are his and which are just bouncing back to me off the walls.

“Will you shut up?” I snap. He freezes, looks at me, tugs at the hair on his head. “I’m trying to hear what they’re saying. At the end of the hall.”

He doesn’t seem to care. The tapping continues, as does the singing, the same two lines and nothing more. His hands are moving across the stones so quickly that they become a massive blur of flesh. I notice the faded imprint of a triangle on his dark, fraying top. Was this madman once like the uniformed men in Taem? Like Marco and Pete?

“Five red berries in a row, sown with love so that they’ll grow. Five red berries in a row, sown with love—”

“So that they’ll grow! I get it. Enough already.”

He stops tapping and sits bolt upright, nearly banging his head on the low ceiling. And then he’s scuttling across the floor like a spider, until he’s right before me, his face so close I can smell his sour breath.

“Do you know that song?” he asks, his nose practically touching mine.

I push him away. “I’ve got the first two lines memorized, thanks to you.”

He deflates. “And the rest?”

I shake my head. He starts tapping and singing, but doesn’t move back to his corner. I lean away from him, put my ear to the door, and listen for the guards. I hear nothing but footsteps. They are growing louder and louder, until they come to a standstill just outside our cell. Someone is wrestling with the door. Bozo clutches his knees and rocks. “Five red berries in a row, sown with love so that they’ll grow.”

There’s the click of the plate and then light floods the cell.

Bozo chants louder. “Five red berries in a row, five red berries in a row.”

“You there, kid,” a voice calls to me from the hallway. “They want you upstairs.”

The guard steps into the cell and grabs my wrist. Bozo starts screaming, mostly to himself, “Five red berries in a row, five red berries, five red berries, berriesberriesberries!”

“Hey!” the guard yells, kicking at the old man. His boot connects with the faded triangle on Bozo’s chest and sends him tumbling into the corner.

The guard slams the door shut and tugs at my arm. “Shall we?” It’s quiet for a moment, and then the frantic tapping picks up again, followed by Bozo’s eerie melody. We turn a corner. I can no longer hear Bozo, but I know he is still singing—about berries and love, two things that will never, ever save him from that damp prison cell.

Frank’s office is an oblong room that has so much decoration I am unable to tell what is functional and what is for show. The guard tells me to sit in one of the chairs that face a massive desk, its wood a deep red, and wait. I lean back to admire the ceiling as I do.

I never knew ceilings could be so intricate. Square panels impressed with patterns fill the space above my head. In the center of the room is a massive, hanging object. It has perfectly spaced arms that each hold a candle, only the candles don’t flicker or melt. Instead, they transmit an even and unfading glow about the room.

Everything is carefully positioned; a coatrack beside an immense window, a plant near rich purple curtains. Even the papers that are spread about the desk match up, their edges aligning beneath a stone weight. Artwork hangs on the walls, framed in materials that glisten under the light. One piece shows a family, two parents and two young boys, standing with their backs against a shiny black car. It’s not like the other art, which is clearly the result of a paintbrush on canvas. This image looks like the maybe-drawing of Harvey in Taem, stunningly authentic. The mother has an arm slung over the younger boy’s shoulder, while the second child eyes something of interest beyond the frame. It looks sunny where they stand, and windy, too, given the way the mother’s hair whips into her smile. I’m wondering if the father depicted is Frank when the doors behind me swing open.

The man who enters is too old to be the parent in the maybe-drawing. His skin is softly leathered, as if he spent one day too many in the sun. Cheeks droop delicately into the corners of his mouth and his lips are chapped. The little hair he has is a brilliant white, wispy and thin about the tops of his ears. He is built lean but not very tall. Nothing about him indicates that he would be a man in charge. A man with answers.

“Gray, right?” he says, smiling as he extends an arm toward me. Dozens of fine lines bloom around his lips. His voice is soft like cotton, smooth like butter. It instantly makes me confident that I might finally find the truth here. This man, with his unassuming face and organized papers, might have answers.

But even still, I hesitate to shake his hand.

“Ah, yes. Why trust me? We swiped you from the Outer Ring, explained nothing, threw you in a cell.” He puts a finger to his lips and sits. “I cannot apologize enough for how you were treated when you arrived here, Gray. You and your friend . . .”

“Emma.”

“Yes, Emma. You are the first we’ve been able to save, so our procedures are not quite ironed out. Marco reacted rashly to some very interesting information that you shared with him. I want you to know that if I could do it all over again, a jail cell would have absolutely no place in your entrance to Taem. None whatsoever.”

He pours two cups of water from a clear pitcher and hands one to me. Not having had anything to drink since dawn, and not knowing how much water exists in Taem, even for someone like Frank, I take it and drink eagerly. Frank sips his with equal parts grace and formality. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes do.

I put the water down. “So you’re Frank,” I say.

“Dimitri Octavius Frank.” He extends his hand once more, and this time, I shake it. His fingers are long and slender, but his grip, firm.

“Gray Weathersby.”

“Ah, I see.” Again, a finger to the lip.

“See what?”

He puts his elbows on the desk, aligns his hands so that pinky is to pinky, ring finger to ring finger, and so on. They move in a steady wave as he thinks. He looks not at me but through me, deep in thought. My patience runs out quickly.

“Look, forget the cell and Marco and all that. Apology accepted. But I can’t just sit here while you tap your fingers. I need to find Emma. And then I need to go back to Claysoot. I need to tell them there’s more and I need to get them out. You can wait with those car things while they all climb and then we can—”

“We’ve tried, Gray,” he says softly. His eyes stay focused on something behind me, some item of interest that must lie square between my eyes on the far side of the room. “We’ve . . . how do I put this?”

I feel like throwing my cup into the wall and watching it shatter. “Just say it. I can handle it. Just tell me already.”

“There is no easy way to explain.” He stumbles, pauses, stares at the top of his desk. “God, you’d think it would get easier, but each time is as hard as the first.”

He looks at me now, not through me. His face appears as broken as my mother’s did the day she closed her eyes for the final time. Frank’s eyes have gone dark, too, just like hers.

“You saw some posters on your way in. Wanted posters.”

It’s a statement, but he waits for me to nod in confirmation.

“Harvey Maldoon is a scientist, and one of the best that this country has seen since the Second Civil War. Many years ago, Harvey started something—an experiment, if you will. He wanted to study human nature and the building of societies and I’m not certain what else. We only know so much. I’m sure once upon a time he had good intentions, but his work was unethical. When we discovered what he was doing, we tried to arrest him. He ran. But the experiment, the things he started, it’s as if they are on autopilot. Pieces of it continue to function even though it has been a long time since he set foot in Taem.”