Olivia took a deep breath. “You’re not a captive here, Lark. Yes, we want your help, but we’re not going to force you to help us. We’d be no better than Prometheus. If you wanted to leave right now, this second, I’d show you the way to the surface myself. Well, if I knew how.”
“If you knew?”
Olivia tilted her head back, eyes on the ceiling. “We don’t have a way out,” she said softly. “There are a few known routes to the surface, but Prometheus’s Eagles patrol them all. We’d have to fight our way out, and even if we made it out alive, there’d be nowhere for the non-Renewables among us to go. We can’t even get to the surface to gather food, or to patrol for other Renewable survivors that might be out there.”
“You’re trapped here.”
Olivia nodded. “Most of us wouldn’t want to leave, but we don’t even have that choice. Those among us who are Renewables live every day in fear that they’ll be discovered. And that’s nothing to what our undercover operatives face— Renewables living in plain sight, hiding what they are.”
Her voice was quiet, her face tight and hard. I think of her brother, and that only makes me think of my own. I keep trying to imagine him in this place. Had he ever sat here on this roof, looking up at the ceiling, figuring out what Prometheus had done to the Star? Had he struggled with his conscience, trying to figure out if the city’s safety was worth the mistreatment of a few people unlucky enough to be born Renewables?
“I’d like to stay.”
I heard Olivia’s breath catch—her surprise was almost as tangible as my own. Until I’d spoken the words, I hadn’t known what I wanted.
“My brother died for this,” I continue. “I don’t know anywhere near as much about engineering or magic as he does, but if there’s anything I can do, anything I can read in his journal that you can’t, I’ll do it.”
Olivia’s fingers closed around mine, squeezing tight.
“Good,” she said. “Because we’ve got nothing else.”
CHAPTER 14
In the morning, I discovered that someone had left a fresh set of clothes on the chest for me. It was so like the moment when I discovered the architects had left me clothes at the Institute that I hesitated. Olivia’s words came back to me:
I followed the distant sounds of conversation until I wound up in what had once been a building. The place was half-crushed by the weight of the newer buildings constructed on top, but someone had shored up the walls with metal beams. A motley assortment of mismatched tables and chairs occupied the floor space, the seats about half-full of resistance members. A door to one side was propped open, allowing the smells of something spicy and sweet to float through.
I’d located breakfast. And to judge from the sudden wave of hunger that swept through me, it was just in time. I scanned the room and saw Oren sitting across from Parker, the man who’d recognized me from the journal.
“Wesley’s our highest operative,” Parker was saying to Oren as I moved across the join them. “But even he hasn’t seen all of CeePo.”
Oren looked up as I approached and slid down to make room for me on the bench beside him. That was all the greeting I got, though, because he turned his attention back to his bowl, which contained some sort of porridge.
“Good morning, Miss Ainsley,” said Parker. He had a quiet, kind voice. He reminded me, oddly, of my father. I swallowed the pang of homesickness and sat.
“Lark,” I corrected him. “Please. The only people who call me Miss Ainsley want something.”
He smiled, rueful. “Well, if what Vee tells us is true, you’re well aware that we want something from you.” He raised his gaze a moment, signaling to someone behind me who brought me a bowl of the porridge.
I lifted a spoonful, giving it a cautious sniff. Some kind of grain, sweetened and spiced with something I’d never smelled before.
“If your cause was good enough for my brother, then it is for me too,” I replied, lowering the spoon again.
Parker took a deep breath, looking relieved. “Then Vee was right. You are staying.”
“At least for now.” I tried a bite of the porridge, pleasantly surprised to find that the spicy smell made it taste strangely fragrant, the sweetener counteracting the slight bitterness of the spice. “What were you saying about CeePo?”
Parker glanced at Oren. “Your friend was asking about the complex, and I was explaining that we don’t actually know too much about it. Prometheus is careful. No one except him gets full access everywhere. Wesley— you met him yesterday—is one of the deployment officers and has free rein in the Eagles’ dormitories, training facilities, and so forth. But he’s not allowed, for example, into the records room, or into the machine workshops. And whatever else is down there.”
“Down?” The building covered a large area, but it had only looked two or three stories tall at the most.
“The building goes on down, underground. We don’t know how far. Which is why we don’t know how much there is that we don’t know about.”
I glanced at Oren, who was staring at the remains of his porridge, moving clumps of it around with his spoon. I took another bite of my breakfast, willing my stomach to register that I was feeding it and stop grumbling. It had been long enough since I’d stolen the Eagle’s magic that I was beginning to feel another type of hunger altogether. I could see, scattered here and there throughout the meal room, glints and glimmers of shielded Renewables.
I dropped my gaze and ignored the fact that I could still feel them, like little flames radiating heat.
“You, at least, we can register with CeePo,” Parker continued, looking at Oren. “And we can get that done today. You’re not a Renewable, so there’s no risk that they’ll catch you. If you’re a registered citizen, you’ll have a lot more freedom of movement. And be a lot more useful to us.”
Oren set his spoon down. “Registered?” His expression was wary.
“You have to be registered before you can do business here or get a job. If you’ve got any special skills, aptitudes for science or organization, you might even be able to work in the CeePo complex.”
I stared at Parker, uncertain whether to be horrified or amused. The idea of Oren working behind a desk in the government building, or doing scientific experiments, was absolutely ludicrous. But then, Parker know where Oren had come from.
I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Oren. But instead of snarling his disgust at the small-minded pettiness of city life, he just sat there, face set in a thoughtful scowl, hand clenched around the spoon. Like he was actually considering it.
A commotion outside the mess hall saved me from having to speak. Raised voices caused heads to turn all across the room. Suddenly, a man in a familiar blue waistcoat burst into the mess hall, trailed by a couple of rebels I didn’t recognize.
“You two!” Wesley, sporting the most magnificent black eye I’d ever seen, jabbed a finger at me and Oren. “Come with me. Parker, you too.”
Parker was on his feet before Wesley had finished turning and walking out. It took me a moment to scramble to my feet without getting tangled up in the bench. Wesley didn’t sound angry so much as agitated.
With Oren following silently half a step behind me, I headed after Parker and Wesley. We ended up in the War Room again, and though I’m not sure I could have found it on my own, the corridors were already starting to look more familiar. I was good at finding my way underground.
