Children of the Uprising Read online

  “Chris, why don’t you come down here so I can introduce the two of you?” Max stood up and took a few steps toward Christopher. The lights in the room were on a dimmer. Max turned it up just enough for the three of them to be able to see in color but left it low enough that it wouldn’t draw attention from anyone outside.

  Addy stood up. Max led Christopher over to her. She held out her hand. Christopher shook it.

  “Christopher, this is my friend Addy. Addy,” Max said, now stretching out each word as if teasing them out of his mouth, “this is Christopher.”

  Addy stood there, speechless. “It’s nice to meet you,” Christopher said to her before she could find the right words to say.

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” Addy echoed.

  The three of them sat down. Max moved so that he was sitting on the couch next to Addy. Christopher sat in the leather chair. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Christopher began, apologizing to Max.

  Max waved off Christopher’s apology with a flick of his hand. “It’s not my job to keep secrets from you, Chris.”

  “He needs to know,” Addy said to Max, her voice stern.

  “I need to know what?” Christopher asked the two of them, not caring who answered.

  “Addy believes that the War’s been getting worse since your parents wrote their journals,” Max said.

  “I’m not the only one,” Addy argued.

  “What does that mean? Worse?” Christopher asked.

  Addy answered before Max had a chance, before he could sanitize what she was going to say. “More people are getting killed. People are getting killed younger.” Addy looked at Max. “More people are running,” she said. “You know that’s true, Max. You can’t deny that.”

  Max nodded. “Yes, more people are running,” he agreed. “But there are a lot of reasons for that.” Max glanced at Christopher when he spoke those words.

  Addy kept talking. This was her chance to do something noteworthy, something worth a posting on the Web site. “And the more people run, the angrier both sides get and the more violent. And the angrier both sides get and the more violent, the more people get scared and run. Third verse, same as the first. It’s a snake eating its own tail.” Addy glanced over at Max. “Tell him about Englishman’s Bay.”

  Christopher looked at the two of them, scared that he wasn’t going to be able to keep up. “What’s Englishman’s Bay?” Christopher asked.

  “I’m not sure that it’s really relevant,” Max said. “It’s more a story about poor planning than anything else.” But it was too late. Addy had planted the seed in Christopher’s head and now Christopher needed to know. Max could see that on Christopher’s face. “Englishman’s Bay is a small bay on the island of Tobago, just off of South America. It leads up to a steep, crescent-shaped beach. To get there by anything but boat you had to hike or drive through miles of jungle.” Christopher listened without any clue as to where any of this was going. “Anyway, a few of the different groups in the Underground decided that, instead of trying to clean certain people by changing their identities and hiding them in normal society, they should send people to Englishman’s Bay and let the exiles start their own community there, inland from the water, where no one would find them. The idea was to create a community that the two sides of the War didn’t know about, a place where people could live unafraid.”

  “Some sort of utopia?” Christopher asked.

  “No.” Max shook his head. “Just a place with less fear. The truth is that they were scrounging for other options because there were so many refugees from the War that it was becoming almost impossible to hide them all. So the Englishman’s Bay community had grown to about thirty-five people. It went well at first. They built buildings, dug a well. It was turning out exactly like they planned, a new world hidden away from the paranoia of the War.” Max paused, not wanting to tell the rest of the story. Christopher stared at him, unwilling to let him stop. “But it turns out that you can’t keep a secret like that. One night, after they’d been there for about five months, the hunters came. They came by boat. They anchored near the shore and waded through the water onto the beach. They were trained. They were armed with machine guns, flamethrowers, and night-vision goggles. The community had set up a night watch, but the hunters came too fast. The night watchman was merely the first one they killed. When they got to the little village the people had been building, the hunters used flamethrowers to raze it. Some people say that a few of the buildings were set on fire with people still inside. More members of the community were killed trying to fight the hunters as they flooded in. It wasn’t long before the hunters outnumbered the remaining villagers. Those that weren’t killed in the raid were taken away and never heard from again. The only people to make it back out into the world were two kids who were under the age of eighteen. The kids’ parents had run away with them, trying to save them from the War.” Max shot Christopher a knowing look. “After the raid, the kids were allowed to rejoin the War. They were given new homes and new names, but they didn’t forget what happened. They were the ones who told the stories, exactly like the hunters wanted them to.”

  “And the hunters were from both sides of the War. They were working together?” Christopher asked, remembering how Max told him that the two sides were working together to try to kill him.

  “We don’t know,” Max answered.

  “Did you guys know any of the people that were sent down there? Were any of them people you saved?”

  Max shook his head firmly. “No,” he said. “Reggie never sent anyone there. He always thought it was too risky.”

  “Where does Reggie send his people?” Christopher asked, but everyone in the room knew what he meant. He wanted to know where Reggie might send him.

  “It doesn’t matter where they go,” Addy answered him. “They just keep running—forever.”

  They kept talking until Addy left about an hour later. Max suggested that Christopher try to get some sleep, as if that were even a possibility. Instead, Christopher waited until Max went to bed and then he took out his phone. “you there?” Christopher texted to Evan.

  He got a reply in a matter of seconds. “yes,” was all it said. Christopher closed the office door and dialed Evan’s phone number.

  “What the fuck, man? This is not how you treat a friend,” Christopher heard Evan’s voice say before he even heard the phone ring.

  “I’m sorry,” Christopher said, happy to hear Evan’s voice even if he was angry.

  “What the hell is going on?” Evan asked, the anger in his voice already slipping away.

  “You’ll never believe me if I tell you,” Christopher said, staring at the empty walls around him.

  “Don’t give me that shit,” Evan ordered.

  “I can’t even really talk,” Christopher said to Evan. “I wanted to get back to you so that you would know that I wasn’t ignoring you. Things are a little crazy now.”

  “You can’t leave me hanging like this,” Evan said, his voice full of nervous excitement. “At least tell me one thing—did you kill those guys in the woods?”

  Christopher thought for a second about how to answer. He knew that he was eventually going to tell Evan everything, as soon as he figured out how. Maybe this was a good place to start. “Yeah,” Christopher said, “but only because they tried to kill me first.”

  “Holy shit.” Evan spoke half into the phone, half into the air.

  “Listen, Evan, I’ll try to call you again soon. Check in on my parents for me. Don’t tell them that you talked to me, but try to make sure they’re okay.” Christopher hung up the phone without waiting for a response. What response could he hope for anyway? Then he eased himself back down on to the pull-out sofa and put his head on his pillow. Since sleep wasn’t coming anytime soon, he stared up at the ceiling and began to count every day of his life that contained at least one distinct me
mory. He’d been alive for roughly six thousand five hundred days. He finished counting the ones that he could actually remember long before he fell asleep.

  Twelve

  Addy marched straight into Reggie’s office early on the day after she’d met Christopher in Max’s apartment. She hadn’t been invited, never mind summoned. She wasn’t about to sit around and wait for an invitation this time. Reggie was surprised when he saw her walk through his door. Reggie always claimed to have an open-door policy, but no one ever took him up on it—until Addy that day. “Addy?” Reggie said as she closed his office door behind her.

  Addy got right to the point. “If he agrees to let us hide him, I want in. I want to be a part of it” were the first words out of her mouth.

  Reggie was caught off guard for a second, but only a second. “Christopher?” he guessed.

  “Of course, Christopher,” she answered him. “Who else would I be talking about?”

  “You know that he hasn’t even agreed to let us help him yet, right?” Reggie asked her.

  “I know. But if he does agree to go, I want to be on the team that helps hide him.”

  “And if he doesn’t agree to let us clean him?” Reggie asked. Addy swore that Reggie was more than staring at her—he was staring into her. Reggie had known for quite some time that Addy wasn’t happy. He did what he could to make her happy. She was good at what she did, but she was also so young and so hungry. Addy understood what Reggie was asking her. Reggie was asking if she was planning on going with Christopher even if he refused to let them hide him.

  “I hope I don’t have to answer that question.”

  “Me too,” Reggie agreed.

  Thirteen

  The three of them drove away from the compound in a car that same afternoon. Max drove. Addy sat in the passenger seat. Christopher sat alone in the back. They were driving farther south. For now, they were only headed to Palm Beach. The drive took about an hour and a half—door to door—from the compound to the house where they were supposed to spend the night. They didn’t know where they’d be headed after that. Reggie didn’t want to waste any time. As soon as Christopher told Reggie that he was willing to be cleaned, Reggie started working the phones and making arrangements.

  Christopher wasn’t sure when he actually made his decision. He wasn’t even sure that he actually made a decision. He just didn’t see any other options. He did negotiate one point, though. He told Reggie that he was willing to be cleaned only if Max went with him. Christopher was surprised when he learned that the girl from the night before, Addy, would be going with them too. He wasn’t upset about it, just surprised.

  Even though it was hot out, Max drove with the windows open and the air conditioner off. It wasn’t something Christopher would have ever done, but the wind whipping by him felt good on his skin. Without saying a word to Max, Addy leaned forward and turned on the radio. She had to turn the volume up really loud so they could hear it over the sound of the wind.

  About ten songs later, they pulled up to the house where they were staying. It was the biggest house any of them had ever seen. “See, Chris,” Max said as the three of them stepped out of their car, “running ain’t so bad.” But Christopher could still hear the surprise in Max’s voice.

  “Holy shit,” Addy whispered to herself as she stared at the mansion in front of them. It was set back from the road, surrounded on all sides by ten-foot-tall bushes. Until you pulled into the wide U-shaped driveway, you couldn’t tell how large the house was. It was seemingly as wide as a city block and three stories high. Even with the tall shrubs surrounding it, you could see the entire expanse of the Atlantic Ocean from the upper two floors.

  “Welcome!” a voice shouted from the doorway. “Welcome, welcome, welcome.” A tall, tan man walked out of the house. He had on loose-fitting linen pants and a long-sleeved white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His hair was silver and slicked back but hanging loose at the sides. The man walked up to Addy first. Christopher half expected the man to bend down and kiss Addy’s hand, but he shook it instead. “It’s a pleasure,” he said to Addy. Then he turned to Max. “My name is Jay,” the man said as he shook Max’s hand. He didn’t wait for either Addy or Max to answer him before he turned toward Christopher. He took Christopher’s hand in his. “And you must be Christopher,” he said slowly, staring at Christopher as if studying him. Christopher nodded in response. “Where are your bags?” Jay said to the three of them without taking his eyes off Christopher. “I can get one of my men to carry them inside.”

  Max opened the trunk of the car and pulled out all three of their duffel bags. “I think we can manage,” he said, slinging the bags over his shoulders and walking toward the open front door.

  “Barry,” Jay shouted into the house without moving, “can you come and show these folks to their rooms?” At that, a big man in a blue polo shirt and khakis stepped into the doorway, blocking Max’s entrance.

  “Sure thing, boss,” Barry boomed in a deep, resonant voice. Then he took the duffel bags from Max without any further objections on Max’s part.

  “We’ll have dinner in an hour,” Jay informed them. Then he nodded to Barry and Barry led Max, Addy, and Christopher to their respective rooms.

  Their rooms were on the same floor, spread out along a long hallway. In between their guest bedrooms were sitting rooms and studies and a pool room. Addy was dropped off first, then Max, and finally Christopher. “So you’re the kid,” Barry said to Chris as he led him into his room. Christopher’s room was at the far end of the hallway, at the corner of the house. The massive room was bigger than the entire ground floor of the house that he’d grown up in. Christopher walked over to one of the windows. It looked out over the ocean. The sky was turning pink, and he could see whitecaps out in the water.

  “I guess so,” Christopher answered. Barry smiled and nodded and walked out, leaving Christopher alone.

  It was new to Christopher, this sudden aversion to being alone. For most of his life, all he’d wanted was to be left alone. Circumstances had, however, changed. Christopher waited until he could no longer hear Barry’s footsteps in the hallway and then he went to the door of his room and peered outside. He stared down the hallway in the direction of Max’s and Addy’s rooms, though he couldn’t even remember which doors they were stashed behind. He was hoping that they, like him, would open their doors and they would all look toward one another for comfort. Christopher waited like that for a few minutes, but neither Max nor Addy opened a door, so Christopher went back into his room. The room was large but cold. There were paintings on the wall, but they were abstract paintings and there were no pictures of family or friends. Christopher figured that maybe it was impolite for rich people to put personal pictures in their guest rooms. He walked over to the north-facing windows. From there he could see the road that they had driven down on, winding north along the coast until it disappeared from sight. Then Christopher went into the bathroom attached to his room to wash his hands and face. He honestly wondered if the next hour would actually pass or if he would be alone in this giant room forever.

  While Christopher stared out his window, waiting for the time to pass, Addy, having never seen a bathroom as large and luxurious as the one attached to her room, took a bath. Max spent the time rummaging through his room, unsure of what he was looking for or even whether he would know it if he saw it.

  Barry came to get them when it was time for dinner. Another member of Jay’s staff, a woman named Alice, served them while they ate. They could see a third servant in the kitchen cooking. None of the servants spoke as they worked, but Christopher caught each of them staring at him when they thought no one was looking. Christopher, Addy, Max, and Jay all sat at a rectangular table in a large dining room on the ground floor with the view of the courtyard and the fountain in the back. Jay and Christopher sat at the head and foot of the table, with Addy and Max facing each other on the sho
rter ends.

  “Well, I hope you all like your accommodations,” Jay said to them as they were served the first course.

  “Your house is beautiful,” Addy told Jay. Christopher could smell Addy from a few feet away. Her scent wasn’t overwhelming. It was simply noticeable. She smelled like rose petals.

  “It’s amazing,” echoed Max, looking around him.

  Jay looked at Christopher, waiting for his approval. “It’s big,” Christopher said.

  “Yeah,” Max agreed. “How did you come by your money?”

  “Speculating,” Jay said with pride. “It’s amazing how simple the rest of the world seems when you grow up in a system as fucked up as ours. More wine?” Max, Addy, and even Christopher all nodded. Alice came out of the kitchen and refilled their glasses. “Though the wealth wasn’t the original goal, it’s merely a necessary means to an end.”

  “So what’s the end?” Christopher asked, staring across the long, shiny table.

  “Avoiding having to fight in the War.” Jay swirled his wine in his glass before taking another sip. “It’s something my father taught me. If you make yourself valuable in other ways, they won’t ask you to fight. So I made myself valuable by literally becoming valuable.”

  “How does that work?” Max asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Jay laughed. “I pay more in tithing to the War than I do in taxes and nobody from the War ever comes to fill in the potholes on my street.”

  “So what do they do for you in exchange for all that money?” Addy asked. This was new to all of them. Max and Addy knew about tithing, but this was different.

  “They leave me alone and they try to keep the other side from finding me and ruining their sweet little deal.”

  “Are you married?” Christopher asked Jay, somewhat out of the blue.

  “Divorced,” Jay answered.

  “Why’d you get divorced?” Addy asked, her lips loosened by the wine.