Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(75)

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says. I can tell he’s deeply embarrassed at having to be rescued. He’s always been the fighter, the strong one.

Lark just shrugs. “Well, I am here. Good thing, too.”

“You can’t come inside with us,” he insists. “You don’t fit into our plan.”

“Luckily, I have my own plan,” she says flippantly. There is a row of lockers against the far wall. She takes out a sealed package, tears it open, and slips on a set of pale green coveralls. She hides her lilac hair under a cap and flashes an ID.

“I’ll pick up some tools and the things I need in another supply closet, and be waiting for you right outside the holding cells. I won’t be able to get any closer than that, but I’ll be ready for anything.”

“You can’t . . .” Lachlan begins, but I cut him off. I know arguing with her is useless at this point. The only thing left to do is make sure she’s in a good position. A safe position.

“You can’t be so close, or you’ll be affected, too. Wait for us near the lobby. We may need your help there.” If all goes according to plan, we can make it out without anyone the wiser. I’m hoping not to involve Lark anymore at all. After Lachlan, Ash, and I get out, she can slip out on her own, shed her disguise, and go home. I need her to be safe. I don’t think I can go through with all the hard things ahead of me if I can’t picture Lark in her bedroom, lying on her mulberry-colored bed, safe and secure.

I latch onto this future, trying not to think about the in-between. After all, we only just made it inside, and we already almost died.

“That’s okay,” Lark says. “I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve. If you get in trouble, I’ll be able to provide a distraction.”

I envision her screaming to draw Greenshirt eyes, or even fighting. “Don’t draw attention to yourself!” I insist.

She pulls the cap down lower. “No one will even notice me,” she says with utter confidence. She looks exactly like an ordinary maintenance worker, so she might be right.

My clothes are dry, thanks to the automatic seal on the exposure suit that bonded to my skin as soon as the mask was breached. Most of my hair is even still dry. When I ripped the mask off, the hood section of the suit bonded instantly to the skin around my hairline. For a second I marvel at the technology humans can create. How did we get to be so powerful, but so destructive? With so much intelligence, couldn’t we see the point past which one begets the other?

We dressed for the mission in the typical gray suits of the Center elite. The pants are slim, light steel-colored with the faintest iron-hued pinstripes, the high-necked form-fitting jacket just a shade darker, layered over a black shirt for him, an iridescent silvery mother-of-pearl for me.

I don’t know about myself, but he looks the very image of every young Center official I’ve ever seen on news vids. Except for that scar on his face. That might raise suspicions. That, and the perpetually rakish look in his second-child eyes. He covers them with green-tinted glasses, the kind he says are popular with pretentious young bureaucrats on the rise.

“You have to look more serious,” I insist as I tie my own hair into a businesslike knot at the back of my head. The colors Lark added are mostly hidden, and with the severe hairstyle I know I can pass for at least a few years older.

He immediately assumes an intensely bland face. “Better?”

I can’t help but chuckle, my default mode around Lachlan no matter how terrible the circumstances. We might have just come close to death, and capture (maybe worse than death) looms ahead of us as a very real possibility. But somehow he can always make me smile. Are other people like that? Somehow, I don’t think so. How is it he can always make me happy no matter how bad things get?

I catch Lark watching our interaction, and I bend my head, flushing. Then I straighten defiantly. What’s wrong with having two friends? Why can’t two people make me happy? I had so little for so long. I think I’m entitled to have both Lark and Lachlan without them getting prickly whenever I pay too much attention to either.

But now isn’t the time to dwell on that. I steel myself as I’ve learned to do, and together we head up the long, narrow steps first to the official sub-basements. There, Lark branches off from us, to gather the tools that will be part of her cover, and then wait for us in the main lobby. She blows me a kiss as we separate. I see Lachlan try to hide a scowl. Lachlan and I then go to the data storage floors, and finally to the ground floor, the headquarters of all Center law and security.

We’ve made it so far without incident. My father’s security card buzzes us through every barrier, and the few people we’ve passed hardly glance at us. Lower down, I think most of the people were just trying to finish jobs that had taken longer than expected, so they could go home. They were maintenance types and lower-level data clerks, who probably wanted nothing to do with what we appeared to be—powerful young officials on the rise. People who could make trouble for them, assign them extra tasks, criticize their work. So they lowered their eyes, pretended we didn’t exist, and hoped we showed them the same courtesy.

Here on the ground floor, though, things get harder. Now we have to make sure our story is perfect.





WE WENT OVER it as many times as possible before we broke in so I’d know exactly what to do. Lachlan, buoyant with confidence, explained that even though the Center was the most secret and secure place in Eden, it relied far more on technology than on people.