The Revelation of Eden Pruitt, page 8
The noise grew louder. She’d heard it from the ground level—the drone of multiple conversations unfolding at the same time. As the doors slid open, she immediately saw the voices weren’t coming from people, but several flat screens mounted along the walls of a large, open newsroom. All of them were on, as if whoever had been here before left too quickly to turn them off.
“I need to check the newswire,” he said, hurrying past cubicles and desks organized into groups of six, all with their own computers, toward two round tables in the back.
On one of the flatscreens, Concordia Entertainment was televising an interview with Brenda Lemming and a tearful Felicity McCoy, an actress who’d suffered multiple injuries at the Prosperity Ball Bombing. Felicity was immensely relieved to know Prudence Dvorak, the new leader of Interitus, was no longer at large. With her and Cassian Ransom behind bars, maybe the nightmares that had plagued her since that life-changing night in Chicago would finally relent.
Concordia Global was covering the worldwide response to the decimation of Interitus Headquarters in Washington, DC. Eden listened as the Prime Minister of France expressed her condolences to the families of military members who perished in the raid, sacrificing their lives not only for America, but for the world at large.
A late-night talk show on Concordia Sports had paused from their coverage of the World Series to pay tribute to the former Washington Nationals, who’d gone on a three-year World Series run and were on their way to a fourth when The Attack in Washington, DC, buried the franchise.
A myriad of Concordia Local stations discussed more nuanced, provincial reactions to this great victory while Concordia National aired a news conference with the press secretary.
Eden could process all of it. Every news feed simultaneously. With unsettling ease, she could tease apart each voice until there was no longer a buzzing chatter, but separate threads she could commit to memory and replay if needed.
This was a skill. A superhuman skill. People weren’t made to hear and process multiple conversations at the same time. Brains didn’t work that way. But thanks to Oswin Brahm, hers did.
Suddenly, she was no longer in a newsroom, but a glade. Sun dappled through the leaves in a world gone topsy-turvy as she stood face-to-face with Cassian. A lethal fighter ready to teach her how to fight.
“Then be a weapon. And use it against him.”
His boot had flown toward her face in an expertly executed roundhouse kick. She’d caught it on sheer instinct, with no training at all. Another superhuman skill. But how could she be the weapon—how could she offer her talents—without ending up inside a commercial refrigerator alongside the asset? She could still hear his agonizing screams after she injected the poison. She could still see the unnatural way he had writhed on the ground. Would she scream just as loud, writhe just as unnaturally, if ever she found herself on the receiving end of that syringe?
The sound of Cassian’s name punctured the disturbing thought.
Eden pinned her attention on Concordia National.
The press conference had ended, replaced by a brief address from Kendra Cruz, Chairwoman of America’s Board. She was talking about the fate of the prisoners and the importance of sending a strong message to any and all enemies of America.
Eden’s stomach churned.
They had sent a strong message before with Karik Volkova; he had been publicly executed. Would the same happen to Cassian? The possibility sat on her chest like an elephant.
It was a babel of lies. A snarl of deceit.
The air strike upon Washington, DC, wasn’t a victory against Interitus. Interitus didn’t exist. Oswin Brahm had concocted the regime to give the people a common enemy. Off-the-grid communities weren’t a threat. At least, not a threat to the truth. Concordia was lying, like her parents had lied.
The room spun.
Her heart beat faster. And faster. Gathering speed and energy until it struck her temple like a bolt of lightning—this mystery pain that came and went with no rhyme or reason. With a sharp intake of breath, she clutched the side of her head, and when the room stopped spinning, when she finally caught her breath, she heard another familiar name.
Barrett Barr.
A young female news anchor was talking about an incident in Minnesota. She stared directly at the camera, her expression sober as she issued a warning. What they were about to see was disturbing and graphic. Viewer discretion was advised.
Eden took a step closer.
There was Barrett. And there was Violet. They were climbing out of a red pickup truck at a highway checkpoint outside the city of Minneapolis.
What were they doing in Minneapolis?
Why were they at a highway checkpoint?
With eyes widening, she watched Barrett disarm the man in uniform. She watched Barrett turn the gun on the patrol officer and shoot him, point blank, in the face.
14
A dusky sky outlined the house as it squatted in a clearing amidst a tangle of weeds and knee-high grass. A doorless, detached garage leaned beside the stumpy abode, the gravel drive unfurling from its dark, open mouth like a long, dusty tongue. The property looked as if it hadn’t been tended to in over a year. It probably hadn’t. That was her job, after all—the upkeep of the property. When Father wasn’t working on her, she was working for him.
She listened for a heartbeat. But other than her own and Barrett’s and the non-human heartbeats of squirrels and birds, there wasn’t one to hear. Relieved, she exhaled forcefully and stepped out of hiding.
Together, they made their way toward the rickety porch. When she climbed the steps, the rotted slabs of wood bowed underfoot. Barrett drew his gun as she reached for the door handle and twisted. The rusty hinges groaned. The door creaked open, and the stench that escaped had her burying her nose in the crook of her elbow.
Barrett coughed.
Evening light poured through broken blinds, catching dust motes that floated in the air. Garbage overflowed from the bin. Rotten food had spilled onto the floor. Stacks of dirty dishes and empty liquor bottles battled for space on the countertop. Gray, stagnant water filled the sink like bilge from a ship, leaving behind a ring of scum where the water had once reached. Black mold climbed up one wall. A drop of water dripped from a brown patch on the ceiling.
Barrett stepped inside. He nudged a chewed-open garbage bag with his boot. A pair of mice squeaked and scuffled out of sight. He lifted his eyebrows. “Does someone live here?”
She flipped a switch near the front closet.
The light didn’t come on, but she could hear wires humming in the walls. The bulb was out, but the electricity was still working. At the sink, she turned on the faucet. With a deep groan, water ran from the spout. And at the table, a bowl of half-eaten congealed cereal sat atop a stack of newspapers that were only a few days old. Along with obscure scientific journals and even more obscure religious ones. Father enjoyed anything to do with the book of Revelation; articles about the apocalypse and the end of the world had always been his favorite.
Barrett set the cereal aside with a wrinkled nose and lifted a page of folded newspaper, his eyes going round as he looked from it to her. “This is you.”
He was right.
The picture on the page was a picture of herself.
She watched Barrett grapple, taking it in—his mouth opening and closing. Back at Dr. Norton’s, when he’d been trying to guess at her identity, he’d looked through every missing person’s report he could find. She hadn’t been in any of them. But those reports had been from Concordia. This newspaper was called America Underground. “Your name is Violet?”
She swallowed.
Barrett tilted his head, his expression as soft as Kitty’s fur. “I can keep calling you Jane.”
Jane.
It was a name with no past. It belonged to a girl who’d woken up in a scary room filled with strangers and met a nice boy named Barrett and a nice mother named Ruth. Jane was a common name given to people without an identity. Violet, on the other hand? That name had a bad past. It belonged to a girl who was meant to stop the apocalypse from happening and had to endure agony to do so. But Violet was also the name Mother had given her. A name Father regretted.
Something about that final thought popped the bubble of words stuck in her throat. “Violet,” she said, softer than the scuttling mice.
“Violet,” Barrett repeated. He looked down at the picture and bobbed his head. “Violet,” he said again. “It’s a pretty name.”
“Th-thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, nodding some more, smiling a boyish smile when something beyond her caught his attention—an old-fashioned radio. His boots clomped across the floor where the radio was perched atop a cheaply made end table beside a drooping couch. He turned it on and began twisting the dial, fiddling with the rabbit ear antenna.
Violet eyed the staircase for a moment or two, then slipped away.
By the time she reached the upstairs landing, a local news station had broken through the static. She crept away from the sound, toward the room at the end of the hallway that had once been hers. She set her backpack on the twin bed, got down onto her belly, and checked the loose board beneath. It lifted just like it always had, and unlike the puppies in the alley, these treasures were still here. She pulled them out—one-by-one—and sat cross-legged on the floor with her spine pressed against the metal bed frame, beholding her riches. She picked up the camera—a refurbished Canon—and tried to turn it on. When nothing happened, she snatched the black cord that might bring it back to life. She set them side by side on the floor. Then she gathered the rest of the treasure into her arms and carried them downstairs.
She thrust the loot onto Barrett’s lap like these were her friends and she couldn’t wait to introduce them.
He looked down at the tottering tower of dusty books while the radio blathered and lifted the first with a smile. “My mom used to read this to me.”
With a nod, Violet sat beside him. She took The Very Hungry Caterpillar from his hand and gave him the second. The Poky Little Puppy. She kept going until Barrett had met every single one. The Velveteen Rabbit. Stuart Little. Anne of Green Gables. The Secret Garden. Treasure Island. Where the Sidewalk Ends. And her very favorite, The Phantom Tollbooth. This one had been read so often, half the pages had come loose from their binding.
“Where did you get these?” he asked.
Violet gathered the books and grabbed his hand and pulled him up. She showed him the loose floorboard beneath her bed and the camera with the black cord.
“This is yours?” he asked, nodding at the camera.
She sat beside her backpack. “M-mother’s.”
“Mother’s?” he repeated. He looked at the books in her arms, his face stretching long. “Your mom gave you these?”
Violet nodded.
“Your mom,” he said, his voice tinged with awe. He’d told her so much about his own mother, his whole family. She’d never spoken a word about hers. He sat beside her. The mattress springs squeaked. He took the book on top of her stack, The Velveteen Rabbit, and peeled it open. The binding creaked. “What happened to her?”
Violet frowned. “Sh-she left.”
His brow dimpled. It was like he’d been expecting a different combination of words. Like a Mother who loved books couldn’t also be a Mother who left. But then his ears perked.
Hers did, too.
The radio had just spoken his name.
They raced downstairs.
The broadcaster was alerting the public. He said Barrett was armed and highly dangerous. He said Barrett was on the run with an unidentified female the same age as himself. He said Barrett shot and killed two patrol officers, along with an elderly civilian named Thomas Mueller.
With a sharp intake of breath, Violet tugged the power cord from its socket.
The lying radio went silent.
15
Eden clapped her hand over her mouth.
Shock and horror tore a deep, dark pit in her mind as Barrett turned the gun on the second patrol officer. Then the driver of the pickup. All three men were dead. Barrett had killed them. Talkative, affable, Golden Retriever Barrett. He would never hurt a fly, let alone shoot three people in the face. No matter what the circumstances. No matter the stakes, he just wouldn’t. Which could only mean …
The pit of horror stretched wider.
Eden shook her head, her hand still cupped over her mouth.
She could feel the gun in her hands. Her finger twitching over the trigger. Mordecai’s snakelike voice in her ear.
Barrett was being controlled. It was the only explanation.
The pit of horror morphed into a black hole that consumed all hope.
Even if they won this war, even if Eden and Cassian survived and they freed Barrett from Oswin Brahm, how would he ever be the same?
The footage switched to a swirl of reporters, hounding a pair of young men as they fought to get to a house much like the one Eden had left in Eagle Bend. Only this house was in Idaho, and these young men were Jameson and Graham Barr, Barrett’s older twin brothers.
“Did you know your brother was a member of Interitus?” a reporter asked.
“Do you have any idea when the recruitment began?” another shouted.
One twin shoved the cameraman away. Amidst a din of terrible questions, they disappeared inside their home.
Fear upon fear upon fear.
Eden imagined it expanding through the country like ripples in a pond.
How often had Barrett Barr’s smiling face been shown on Concordia? Portrayed by his parents as a nice kid with a good head on his shoulders. Viewers of Concordia had just watched that nice kid brutally murder three people with a look of mild disinterest. If that could happen to this smiling boy with loving parents and two supportive big brothers, then surely it could happen to anyone.
The news anchor was back, discussing the identity of the girl. “Not even our most advanced facial recognition has identified her, which leads us to conclude she has been living off the grid.”
More fear.
More ripples.
Further evidence that the rhetoric was true.
Off-the-grid communities were a breeding ground for terrorists. As such, they should be shown no mercy. People who lived amongst them were lawbreakers. Societal leeches. A cancer in need of eradication. It was nothing she hadn’t heard before. This was simply a more extreme version for more extreme times. She imagined herself sitting on her couch in San Diego, watching with her best friend, Erik. Would she have swallowed the rhetoric whole, quietly agreeing with the newscaster?
“How to take over the world, 101,” Dayne muttered. He’d come to stand beside her and was watching the same screen. “Step one, convince the public that your enemies are their enemies.”
First, the media. They were made into a scapegoat after The Attack. Dayne Johnson, chief among them. The media was to blame for the country’s divisiveness. The rotten, greedy, agenda-driven media. Because of them and their constant stream of fake news, America was tearing itself apart, which had left America vulnerable to attack.
Freedom of the Press was part of the problem, so that right was taken away. Now, that press was owned by the government, and the government was in Oswin Brahm’s pocket. Goosebumps marched across Eden’s skin.
When she first visited the Damen Silos in Chicago and saw the conditions in which so many young children were living, she’d been struck by how wrong Concordia was getting it. They were mistaken. Off-the-grid communities weren’t breeding grounds for terrorists. But now, she couldn’t help but think that they were getting it precisely right. Concordia wasn’t broken. Concordia had been built to do exactly this. Make Brahm’s enemies the public’s enemies. Free press had been his enemy. For as long as the press remained free, he could not control public thought. Now, off-the-grid individuals were his enemy. For as long as people lived off the grid, he could not control them either.
The news anchor returned to the terrible, awful footage of Barrett.
Acid burned up her throat.
She didn’t want to see it, but she couldn’t look away.
Beside her, Dayne pulled his hands from his pockets and picked up a remote from a nearby desk. He rewound the footage and played it over. Again, and again, and again. Confused, Eden closed her eyes. Why did he want to keep watching it?
“It’s fake,” he finally said.
Her eyes flew open. “What?”
“This footage is fake.” He rewound to the spot where Barrett disarmed the patrol officer. He pushed pause and pointed. “Look there, at Barrett’s hand.”
Eden peered at the screen.
And she saw it. Easily, in fact.
A squiggle where Barrett’s fingers were wrapped around the handle of the gun. It looked like visible heat waves.
“It’s a deep fake.” Dayne huffed and ran his palm down his whiskered face. He needed a good shave. “They made our jobs nearly impossible before The Attack. They were rampant and insidious and had conspiracy theories spreading like wildfire. We couldn’t trust our own eyes.”
He unpaused the footage. He set the remote back on the desk as Barrett shot the patrol officer. “They are highly illegal, for obvious reasons. But here Concordia is, airing one now.”
“So … it’s not real? Barrett didn’t—?”
Dayne shook his head.
Relief came like a flood.
“Was he even there?” she asked. “Outside Minneapolis?”
“That part’s real. Nothing’s altered until the first officer is disarmed.”
Eden tried to make sense of it. Barrett was in Minnesota with Violet and this stranger in a red pickup truck. They’d been stopped by highway patrol officers conducting retinal scans. What did this mean? Why were they there? And why the deep fake? Was it simply to feed the public an extra helping of fear? Or was this Oswin Brahm pulling more puppet strings? Did he know who Violet and Barrett were? Was this his way of apprehending two of his lost soldiers—get the entire country looking for them like the entire country had been looking for Eden?
