Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(44)

“That answers that question,” he says, and starts walking. I scurry to catch up, feeling somehow that he’s disappointed in me.

“When we get back into the city, you need to do exactly what I tell you. Understand? They’re actively looking for you, and the next hours will be extremely dangerous. Luckily, I know someone who can reduce the risk considerably.” He slows to wait for me. “Good thing you’re tall. You’ll look the part.”

He knows an easier route through the tangle of rubble than the one I took, and I make it through with hardly a scratch. We emerge at the back of a building and he leads me inside, through a door barely hanging on its hinges.

“Are these the second children?” I ask. In the dim light I see bodies sprawled in corners, lying on makeshift mattresses or on the cold bare floor. It’s hard to make out details, but their faces look gaunt. As we walk swiftly through, I see a young woman with a band tied tightly around her upper arm. Below it, blue-black veins bulge. There’s a needle in the crook of her arm . . .

Lachlan takes my elbow and hustles me away. “No. We’d never let a second child come to this. We take care of our own. We protect each other, from the Center, and from ourselves—to the death.”

I feel a deep shiver run down my spine.

“Don’t these people need protection, too? Even though they aren’t second children?”

I think I touched a nerve. “They have every opportunity that legitimacy can provide,” he snaps. “If they choose to destroy themselves, it’s not our problem.”

I don’t know. There’s something in his eyes as he looks at the addicts that makes me think his inner thoughts don’t quite match his words.

We’re through the building in a moment, exiting onto a narrow alley that takes us within a few steps to another building. We slither through a street-level window into an empty basement apartment, and wend our way through corridors until we emerge somewhere else. Over and over we do this, traveling mostly through basements of decrepit buildings, through abandoned warehouses and empty businesses, emerging only for a few seconds at a time, using the structures like a warren of tunnels to travel out of sight.

It isn’t long before I’ve lost all sense of direction. I don’t know if we’ve traveled miles toward the Center or in a circle. Finally we slip from one basement into an adjoining building, climb five flights of stairs, and stop at a door locked with a thumbprint scanner. Lachlan presses his thumb to the pad. He seems to shift it restlessly as he presses down.

I frown. “Is it a good idea to have your prints on record?” I ask.

“Good thinking,” Lachlan replies. “Luckily the scanner is just a decoy. The door unlocks from the rhythm I just tapped in with my thumb pressure. It only scans the fingerprint if someone doesn’t tap the code. Then we can track whoever is trying to get in without authorization.”

Clever. There’s apparently a whole world of trickery in Eden that I never imagined.

Inside we find a businesslike middle-aged woman in the sort of suit typical of a Center official. Instinctively, I flinch behind Lachlan, but he greets her by name. “Hey Rose, do you have the day’s roster?” I peek around his shoulder and look at her eyes. They have the flat, dull sheen of the implants. Not a second child, then.

“Of course, whippersnapper. When do I not have the roster?”

He gives her a quick hug, a peck on the cheek.

“Who’s this then?” she asks.

“No one—yet. I’m taking her to the others.”

Rose raises her eyebrows and looks me over. “Has she been tested yet? She really shouldn’t be here if she hasn’t been tested.”

Lachlan glances at me. “In the last day she’s been tested as much as many other second children.”

“But not as much as some,” she replies, looking at him hard. “Still, if you say she can be trusted . . .”

“I do.”

“Then follow me.” She leads us to a back room, and then to a closet full of Greenshirt uniforms. “The usual lieutenant for you, Lachlan?”

“Rank without too much responsibility, that’s me.”

“And I’m guessing recruit for this one.” She pulls two uniforms off of the racks and thrusts one at me. “Change. There.” I step behind a screen and strip off my dirty, torn clothes, feeling so strange being naked in the same room as strangers, my height making my shoulders and half my chest stick up over the screen. When I’ve struggled into the uniform I step out and Rose yanks the fabric into order. “Straighten your gig line, recruit!” she says, pulling my belt into alignment with my zipper.

I look at myself in the mirror, wearing the uniform of the enemy. My eyes look frightened . . . until Rose hands me a pair of darkly tinted glasses. Then I look as menacing as any Greenshirt. I’m a little scared of my own reflection.

Dressed as authority figures, we move through Eden unmolested. In the outer circles, people sidle out of our way. Closer to the Center, they mostly ignore us, though some nod in greeting, believing their elite position in society means they have nothing to fear. Some of the time we travel by autoloop, but at the end we’re on foot again. For my backpack, which would otherwise look out of place, Rose has given me a large tag that reads “Evidence.” I’m just a recruit finishing up a case.