Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(8)

Ms. Barlow signed off with the FBR motto: One Whole Country, One Whole Family.

“Someone tried to take out Reinhardt?” Cara finally said. She looked shocked, just like everyone else. I tried to picture the man, but couldn’t. He’d come into power post-TV, during President Scarboro’s formation of the FBR, to oversee the functions of the soldiers.

“Wonder how he got close enough.” There was a definite edge of scheming to Wallace’s tone, but he did make a point. The president and his advisors traveled in secrecy, never taking up a permanent residence, never staying anywhere too long. As far as I’d known, they’d done this since the War, when the threat of attack on any politician had been high.

“Who cares, someone did it, that’s all that matters!” yelled the guy behind me. The others agreed.

“Next is our move,” said Cara. “Now’s the time for something big. We’ve got to hit them while they’re limping.”

It was all too much: the nodding, the bloodthirsty grins. They were getting swept up in the momentum of a new war.

“Hit them back, and they’ll take it out on everyone else!” I shouted above the noise. “You heard the report, they’ve already extended curfew. We know they’re withholding rations. It’s only going to get worse.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” said Cara. “Shouldn’t you be making dinner or something?”

I glared at her, fuming while the others laughed.

“Our actions send a message,” explained Wallace. He didn’t look particularly patient, as he had on the roof.

“What message? Look, we got seven of you? They’ve got thousands of soldiers to replace each one of them!” My voice grew thin.

“It’s not a message to the FBR. It’s a message to the people.”

I spun toward the door and the low voice I’d recognize anywhere. My gaze swept over Chase quickly. No blood. No bruises. When I found his eyes, that part inside of me that had been clenched in his absence released. You’re back, I said to him in my mind, and as if he could hear me, he gave a barely discernible nod.

“A message to the people,” I repeated, irritated that I was the only one who didn’t seem to understand. Sean had elbowed in through the back row to stand beside us.

“It says there are more of us than of them,” said Wallace. “That we don’t have to take what they give us. That some of us are not afraid.”

“You want all those people, who have nothing, to fight against men with guns? They’ll die.” The people in this room, we were different. We’d signed up for this. But what about my friends from home—Beth? Ryan? My mother? There was a time I would have found the thought of them in a place like this outrageous; now it was just sobering.

“They’re dying now,” Cara pointed out. “If they fight back they won’t have nothing, they’ll have each other. And that, little girl, is the FBR’s biggest fear.”

I resented her tone, but Wallace looked positively proud. I remembered what he’d said on the roof about making your own values, but sacrificing yourself for a cause didn’t make you realize who you were. It just made you dead.

“No one’s doing anything, not yet anyway,” said Wallace, in answer to my earlier question. He breathed in through his nostrils, as if annoyed by his own proclamation.

“Come on,” Billy whined.

“I mean it,” said Wallace as the others settled down. “Much as I want to ride this wave, you know the drill. We hold until Three gives the go-ahead.”

I glanced at Chase, but he was looking to me for the same answers. Subtly, I snagged Sean’s wrist and pulled him down to my height so that Cara and the others couldn’t hear.

“Who’s Three?”

Chase edged closer.

“Three’s not a who, it’s a what,” Sean answered. “It’s the center of the web—the piece that ties the underground together. All known branches, like this one, report their operations to Three, and Three tells them where to go from there.”

“How do they make reports?” Chase asked.

“Through the carriers,” said Sean.

“The carriers work for Three?” It made sense that they would be connected to some branch of the resistance, rather than risking their necks on their own.

Sean shook his head. “It’s all top secret, hush-hush stuff. The way I heard it, the carriers don’t know who works for Three, they just collect messages when they go to the safe house and deliver them back to their local setup. The carriers, they’re more like independent contractors.”

“So Wallace reports to someone.” I’d thought the Wayland Inn acted on its own, independent from the rest of the underground, as Sean had called it. Now that I knew differently, the whole operation seemed a little bit sturdier, like we weren’t a tiny boat floating on the ocean anymore.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Wallace whispered beside me, making me jump. “But yes, believe it or not even I report to someone. As all of you report to someone,” he called out for the rest to hear. “And in case you’ve all forgotten, we’ve still got packages to deliver, people to feed, and a recruit to keep tabs on.”

Cara groaned. “Can we please stop being so serious? We’ve just been upgraded to terrorists! We should be celebrating!”