Loe raamatut: «Queen»

AIMÉE CARTER was born and raised in Michigan, where she currently resides. She started writing at age eleven and later attended the University of Michigan, graduating with a degree in screen arts and cultures. Aimée is the author of The Goddess Test series of fantasy novels and the dystopian trilogy The Blackcoat Rebellion. Catch updates on her website, www.aimeecarter.com, and through Facebook, or Tweet her: @Aimee_Carter.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Dedication

About the Author

I: Speak

II: Supply and Demand

III: Crack

IV: Burn

V: The American Dream

VI: Sacrifice

VII: Déjà Vu

VIII: Oasis of Sand

IX: Ghosts

X: Noose

XI: Ashes

XII: One Chance

XIII: Bugged

XIV: Room of Horrors

XV: Gilded Cage

XVI: Checkmate

XVII: Death by a Thousand Cuts

XVIII: Scars

XIX: Cottage in the Woods

Extract

Copyright

I Speak

I gazed out across the gathering crowd, my heart in my throat. The citizens of Elsewhere shifted restlessly, their red and orange jumpsuits bringing color to an otherwise gray winter landscape, and I could feel them growing impatient.

They weren’t the only ones.

“Knox, everyone’s waiting,” I said from my corner of the stage the Blackcoats had constructed over the past several days. It was made of whatever materials they’d been able to salvage from the buildings that had been destroyed during the Battle of Elsewhere. Two weeks later, they were still pulling bodies from the wreckage.

Knox Creed, one of the leaders of the Blackcoat Rebellion—and my former fake fiancé—looked up from his spot at the base of the stairs. His forehead was furrowed, and the annoyance on his face was unmistakable. “I’m aware, thank you,” he said. “There’s only so much I can do to hurry things along.”

I hopped down the steps to join him and the other Blackcoats who lingered nearby. He’d made no secret of his distaste for my less-than-obedient attitude, and though I’d done my best to play by the rules after the battle ended, we were still on shaky ground. I wasn’t so sure our friendship would ever be mended completely, no matter how the rebellion turned out. But right now, we both had more important things to worry about: he had a rebellion to lead, and I had a speech to give. As soon as the cameras were ready for me.

“Benjy said the test run this morning went fine,” I said. “Is there a problem now?”

“There’s always a problem,” said Knox. Turning away from me, he spoke into a cuff on his wrist. “What’s the holdup?”

I waited in silence as he listened to the reply in his earpiece. He muttered what sounded like a curse, and it was my turn to frown. “How much longer?”

“They’re having trouble breaking through the network’s security,” he said. “Something about encryptions and passcodes.”

In other words, nothing I could help with. Or Knox, for that matter. “Why don’t we just record the speech and broadcast it once they’ve found a way around it? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“If it comes to that, we will, but we can give them a few more minutes.” As if realizing for the first time that I was standing next to him, he did a double take, his dark eyes looking me up and down. “Did you bathe?”

I blinked. “Are you joking? I spent an hour letting them do my hair and makeup.”

“What did they do, stare at you the entire time?” He ran his fingers through my hair in an attempt to do—something. I didn’t know what. “You look nothing like Lila anymore.”

Lila Hart—one of the founders of the Blackcoats, who also happened to be Prime Minister Daxton Hart’s niece. Four months ago, on my seventeenth birthday, I’d been kidnapped and surgically transformed to look exactly like her in order to take her place. She had been Knox’s real fiancée. I was only playing the part.

But now, after the dust had settled, the entire world knew there were two of us. Lila was working for Daxton, who had to be holding something over her. Whatever it was must have been a matter of life or death, because the Lila Hart I knew, while not particularly brave, would have never openly supported the government that had murdered her father and turned her mother into a fugitive rebel. Not like this. Not unless there was a gun to her head—or someone else’s.

There was little we could do about Lila’s sudden change in allegiance now, though, and in the meantime, I was working for Knox and the Blackcoats. He had plenty to hold over me, but none of it mattered, because Knox didn’t want me here. I was in Elsewhere because I wanted to be. I was about to speak in front of countless Americans because it was the right thing to do. And no matter how many times he tried to intimidate me into leaving, nothing would make me change my mind.

“I look exactly like Lila, and everyone in this damn place knows it,” I said firmly. “You’re just beginning to see the differences more clearly. There were two boys in my group home—they were identical twins, and no one could tell them apart at first. But the more we got to know them, the easier—”

“You can spare me. I know how telling twins apart works.” His scowl deepened, and I wondered what I’d said to upset him. But it was gone as soon as it came, and someone must have talked in his ear, because he stopped fussing with my hair and touched the piece. “All right. Kitty—they’re ready for you. Remember your talking points, and for once, would you please stick to them?”

I shook my hair out, letting the shoulder-length blond bob fall wherever it wanted. “Do I get to tell my version of events, or yours?”

“I want you to tell the truth,” he said. “The entire truth. We can’t afford lies and misdirection anymore, not when Lila and Daxton are the ones feeding them directly to the people.”

The corners of my mouth tugged upward in a slow smile. “Really? The entire truth?”

His dark eyes met mine, and he leaned in until I could see the gray that ringed his irises. “Every last bit of it.”

Whatever his reasoning was—whatever he was using me for—I didn’t care. He was giving me permission to be myself for the first time in months, and I wasn’t going to turn him down.

Someone had fixed a bright light over my spot behind a makeshift podium, and I climbed back up the steps and walked over, my boots thumping against the wooden planks. Hundreds of faces stared up at me expectantly, but the more I focused, the more discontent I saw in the crowd. The people of Elsewhere, who had not only survived the battle, but in some cases an entire lifetime of captivity, were less forgiving than most. During my few days here as a prisoner, I’d been beaten up and threatened more times than I could count. They were hostile, merciless, and quick to protect their own skins above all else.

But this was different. The government had cut off several of Elsewhere’s key supply lines and destroyed most of the stores in the battle, and the more time that passed, the fewer resources Knox and the Blackcoats had to take care of everyone. They were going hungry, slowly but surely, and if I didn’t do this—if I couldn’t convince the people to listen—then we would soon starve. And they knew it.

I cleared my throat. The microphone hooked up to the podium amplified my voice, making it echo through the square. Two weeks ago, a cage had stood in the center, and every evening, insubordinate citizens had been forced to fight to the death for a second chance. Now only a twisted lump of melted steel remained.

Things in Elsewhere weren’t easy, and they wouldn’t be for a long time. But at least that ruined cage was a reminder that they were marginally better than before.

In my peripheral vision, Knox stood with his arms crossed, giving me a look, and I didn’t need to hear him to know what he was trying to tell me. They wouldn’t be able to hold the broadcast channel open forever. If I wanted the five hundred million people who lived in the United States to hear me, I had to start talking.

I pushed the number from my mind and held my head high. This wasn’t about me. This was about the rebellion, about freedom, about doing the right thing for the people—I was just the mouthpiece. Nothing more.

“Good afternoon,” I said, and for the first time, I used my own voice and accent instead of the dialect I’d painstakingly learned in September. “As I’m sure you’ve put together by now, my name is not Lila Hart.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd, and Knox took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling slowly. His lips were pressed together, and even from twenty feet away, I could see the fear and anticipation in his eyes. We were both keenly aware of how much was riding on this.

“My name is Kitty Doe, and seventeen years ago, I was born here, in Section X of Elsewhere,” I said. “My biological mother is Hannah Mercer, and my biological father was Prime Minister Daxton Hart.”

These were facts I had only become aware of two weeks earlier, when Hannah—my mother—had confessed her affair with the Prime Minister. The words stuck in my throat, and even after repeating them countless times to myself, they still didn’t feel real.

“I was lucky,” I continued. “Because of who my father was, he had the power to make arrangements for me outside Elsewhere, in a group home for Extras and orphans in Washington, D.C. I am, as far as I know, the only person to ever leave Elsewhere.”

Once someone was convicted of a crime, no matter how innocent or small, they were sent to Elsewhere for life. Population control, I’d been told by Augusta Hart, Daxton’s cold-blooded bitch of a mother. In reality, it was just one more way for the government to assert control over the people.

“I was raised in a group home with thirty-nine other children,” I said. “I thought it was a relatively normal life. I went to school. I played with the other kids. We dodged Shields, snuck into markets, and imagined what our lives would be like after we turned seventeen, when we would take the test and become adults. But there was one thing no one had ever told us—that the freedom we’d imagined, getting to make our own choices and deciding what our lives would be like...that was all an illusion.

“We were naive to believe it, but we never knew to question it until it was too late,” I added. “We’re all given ranks based on that single test. Compared to the rest of the population and put in our place. A low II, a high VI—it doesn’t matter. Our lives are never in our own hands. Our rank dictates everything. Our jobs. Our homes. Our neighbors. Where we live, what we do all day, the amount of food and care we’re allowed—it can even decide when we die. Some of you have been lucky enough to have easy jobs, ones that don’t take an insurmountable toll on your body. But others aren’t so lucky.

“I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.” I turned around and swept my hair aside, revealing the VII tattooed on the back of my neck and a scarred X running through it. I let the camera linger for several seconds before I turned around. “What you see now is a VII, but the ridges underneath will tell you my real rank—a III. I was assigned to clean sewers far away from my home and the only family I’d ever known. It’s good, honest work,” I added. “But it wasn’t what I’d dreamed of doing. I was one more cog in a machine too big for any of us to fully comprehend, and because I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving my loved ones, I chose to go underground and hide in a brothel instead.”

At some point while I’d been speaking, Benjy had joined Knox on the side of the stage, his red hair fiery in the sunlight and the look on his freckled face relaxed and encouraging. I flashed him a small smile. He was the reason I’d risked my life and entire future to stay, but he was mine—he was private, and while anyone in Elsewhere could see the pair of us walking around together, working on target practice or tending to the recovering victims of the battle, I wasn’t going to tell the world about him. He was the chink in my armor, and I wouldn’t give anyone the opportunity to use him against me.

“If you’ll bear with me, I promise this all has a point,” I said as more and more people began to shift and glance at their neighbors. The revelation that I was really the Prime Minister’s illegitimate daughter was only good for so much rapt attention, and I was rapidly burning through it. But the Blackcoats wanted me to tell my story. I wasn’t the only victim of the Hart family, but I was the only one who the people already cared about, without even realizing who I truly was.

“At the brothel, Daxton Hart bought me. But instead of—well, you know—he offered me a VII.” The highest rank in our country, one you had to be born into in order to receive. “I had no idea I was actually a Hart at the time, but even then, no one turns down a VII. No one. A VII meant luxury, enough to eat, and what I thought would be a good life—it was an easy choice, so of course I said yes.” I leveled my stare at a painfully thin woman in a red jumpsuit. I didn’t recognize her, but I needed to look at someone. “On the way out of the brothel, my best friend saw us together by chance. Daxton Hart had her murdered in the alleyway, and while I was screaming, he gave me something that made me black out. When I woke up, it was two weeks later, and I had been Masked—surgically transformed into an identical version of Lila Hart, whom her family had secretly assassinated days earlier.”

More murmurs ran through the crowd, and the woman I was watching held my stare. I had their attention again. Good.

“I was given a choice. Pretend to be Lila, or die. It wasn’t a real choice at all. It never is when you’re staring down the barrel of a gun and waiting for someone to pull the trigger. And I thought that was what my life was going to be—a series of dodged bullets until one day, I wasn’t lucky anymore.

“But when I agreed to impersonate Lila, it opened up an entirely new world to me. Not just the unparalleled luxury of the Hart family’s day-to-day lives, but a real opportunity to change things through a revolutionary group called the Blackcoats. As soon as my education on becoming Lila began, Celia, Lila’s mother, and Knox, Lila’s fiancé, made sure my education on the Blackcoats did, too.

“They didn’t have to tell me about the injustices our citizens face day in and day out. How Shields often kill and arrest innocent people in order to meet their quotas, or because they’re having a bad day and have the power to take it out on us. I already knew that—I’d been dodging Shields since I was a kid. But Celia and Knox did tell me how IIs are given rotting food, houses with leaking roofs, and no respect or support from anyone above them. How most extra children born to IIs and IIIs are sent to Elsewhere, to be raised inside a prison, and never see the outside world. How our entire lives are dictated by a single aptitude test that only caters to one type of intelligence, and how children who are lucky enough to be born to Vs and VIs get certain advantages. Tutors, inside information—in fact, every single one of the twelve Ministers of the Union received VIs, not on their own merits, but because of the family they were born into. They never took the test, and neither will their heirs.

“Before I became Lila, I believed the lies the government feeds us—that we’re in charge of our own lives, that if we just do well enough on the test, they’ll take care of us. They’ll tell us where we belong, and that every single one of us has a place in society. I believed them when they told us we were all important and needed. I may have rejected the life they wanted for me, but I still believed them.

“The first lesson in my education came the day I was finally declared ready to impersonate Lila. Daxton Hart brought me to a wooded area for a hunting trip. But we weren’t hunting deer or quail,” I added. “We were in Elsewhere, and we were hunting humans.”

I let this sink in for a moment, and the crowd stared at me with slack jaws and pale faces. During my few days as a prisoner, I’d quickly discovered none of the other citizens of Elsewhere knew why so many of their ranks were plucked without warning, never to be seen again. Now they knew. Now everyone knew how VIs and VIIs had hunted humans for sport, all because there was no one to stop them.

“All of the VIs and VIIs took part in these hunting trips, and as Lila, I was expected to shut up and go along with it. And I did, because while I hated watching innocent people die, I knew that blending in and doing what was expected of me then meant a chance to help others now.

“America is supposed to be a fair meritocracy. We’re all supposed to receive what we deserve based on our skills and intelligence. But unlike the rest of us, there is a small section of the population that is born into a life of luxury that they never have to work a day in their lives to earn. The Hart family included.

“But being born into a life of privilege isn’t the only way to get a VI or a VII. I received a VII after I was Masked, for instance. And I wasn’t the only one.” I gripped the edge of the podium so tightly that I felt a splinter wedge its way into my palm. “Over a year ago, another citizen was Masked as a Hart—a man named Victor Mercer. Except he wasn’t Masked as a background figure like Lila, too many steps away from power to be anything more than a pawn. Victor Mercer was Masked as the one and only Daxton Hart—Prime Minister of the United States.”

An audible gasp rose through the crowd, and they began to push forward in their eagerness to hear more, jostling for a better position. Victor Mercer had been a high-ranking official who ran Elsewhere with his brother for years, and no doubt many of the former prisoners remembered his particular brand of sadism. Several shouted at me, demanding proof, and I shook my head, my voice rising.

“I’ve felt the V on the back of his neck myself. But he’s done a masterful job of destroying nearly all of the evidence that he was Masked. Some still exists, though. And when the time is right, the Blackcoats will release it and prove that the man who calls himself Daxton Hart—the man dictating our lives, the most powerful man in the country—is an impostor.”

I had to shout the last few words into the microphone to be heard over the audience’s roars of outrage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Knox give me an approving nod, though he still didn’t smile. Either way, it was enough. At last we’d agreed on something—that telling the truth, the full truth, was what would eventually help lead the rebellion to victory.

“This country belongs to the people, not to the ruling class,” I called above the noise. “We’re the majority—we’re the ones their policies and decisions affect, while they constantly hover above the law. They kill the lower ranks for sport. They live in luxury while IIs and IIIs starve. And we have the power to stop them. Yet not once, in the seventy years the Harts and the Ministers of the Union have been in power, have we risen together to face these injustices. But now we can. It’s our responsibility to stand together against these monsters—against the impostors that rule our government. This is our country, and we need to take it back before the man who calls himself Daxton Hart destroys it completely.”

At last a rousing cheer rose from the crowd, and I exhaled sharply. My hands shook, and my heart pounded, but I felt as if I were floating. I wasn’t done yet, though, and the next portion wouldn’t be so easy. I’d gone back and forth with Knox, arguing about it for days, but ultimately telling the truth meant telling the entire truth—and that meant calling out the real Lila Hart.

“Daxton will try to tell you that every word I say is a lie,” I said. “He’ll ask for proof. He’ll call this a trick to gain sympathies. He’ll insist I’m only acting as a puppet for the leaders of the Blackcoat Rebellion. But the real puppet here is Lila Hart. I’ve seen the speeches she’s given since the Battle of Elsewhere. I’ve heard her cries for peace. And we—the Blackcoats—will do all we can to make sure no more blood is spilled in this war. But when peace means lying down and allowing the government to execute us, for standing up for our freedom and for those who can’t stand up for themselves, I’m afraid we can’t do that. Peace without freedom is imprisonment. It’s oppression. They can try to scare us. They can try to threaten our families and our lives, but ultimately we won’t have lives if we can’t decide for ourselves how we live.

“I don’t blame Lila,” I added. “I know that, if she could, she would be here with me, giving this speech much more eloquently than I ever could. And I say to her, right now—” I looked directly into the camera. “You are not alone. Whatever Victor is holding against you, whatever he’s doing to make you obey—we know those aren’t your words, and we know they aren’t your beliefs. And we will do everything we can to help you, the way we’re doing everything we can to help the people. You are one of us, and we will not forget you.”

I paused to allow that to sink in. While the citizens of Elsewhere couldn’t have cared less about Lila, the rest of the country did, and they had to know she was a puppet. It wouldn’t completely cut off Daxton’s counterpoints, but maybe it would be enough to plant the kernel of doubt.

“This isn’t about Lila, though,” I said at last. “It isn’t about me, and it isn’t even about Victor Mercer posing as Daxton Hart. This is about you—every single person watching right now. This is about your future, your family, your health and happiness and hopes. All our lives, we’ve been living under a dictator masquerading as a friend, with no way to overthrow him and take back the freedom Americans enjoyed a hundred years ago. But the Blackcoats have opened the door of possibility. They’ve paved the way for real change, and it’s up to us to take this opportunity and turn it into a reality. Our reality. Not a dream, but something we can live. The chance to choose our own paths in life. To be more than the numbers on the backs of our necks.

“The Blackcoats have crippled the military and seized control of their main arsenals. They have infiltrated the government, and they have worked tirelessly to give us back the inalienable rights that were stolen before any of us were born. But it’s up to us to finish the job. We need to stand together against the Shields, the Harts, and the Ministers of the Union. We need to remind them that we are the ones in charge, not them—that this is our country, and after all they’ve done to us, our families, and our friends, we are revoking their privilege to rule. Because it is a privilege,” I added fiercely. “Not a right. A privilege we gave them through our compliance. And the time has come to take back what is ours. Together, we will prevail, and we will be free.”

The cheers from the former prisoners were deafening. I could see it in their faces—for these few moments, they forgot about their hunger and their despair. They believed in what I was saying. They believed in hope, and that alone had made everything I’d been through worth it.

Knox joined me on stage, but instead of saying anything to the audience, he set his hand on my shoulder and led me away. “Good,” he said. “Lila couldn’t have done it better.”

High praise, considering she had managed to rally the initial support for the Blackcoats from nothing but mild discontent. “Do you think they’ll listen?” I said.

He pressed his lips together as we descended the stairs toward a waiting Benjy, the crowd’s screams ringing in my ears. “They’d better. We can’t do this alone.”

And if we didn’t have the support of the people outside Elsewhere, too, then we were already dead.