Read Online Liberty by Annie Laurie Cechini - Free Book Online Page A

tell them we’ll give it back if they’ll give us one planet, one place we can call our own. Option two is you give us the vial while we put you into hiding.”
    “Yeah, ‘cause you all have advanced degrees in biochemical engineering. No! Besides, you think I’m just gonna hide in a corner and wait for you people to figure this out? You go to the SUN claiming to have this and they’ll blow you away before you have a chance to rally anybody. No way.” The thought of giving up the vial made my head spin. I wasn’t about to give up my chance at freedom so the Underground could corner themselves into a firing range.
    I stepped right up to Tess. “If those are your best options, I’m out of here.” I turned toward the door, but two men stepped in front of it.
    “Leaving’s no longer an option,” said Tess.
    I whirled around. “You wanna take this outside?”
    “I’m not keeping you in here to save my own skin. It’s your safety that concerns us now. Think about everyone in this room. You walk out of here, they find you, trace where you’ve been, and what do you think happens to every person here?”
    I didn’t have a good response for that. My arms flailed at my side as I fell again into a chair.
    “Let me try to help you understand my position a little better, Tabitha,” said Tess.
    “It’s Dix to you, thankyouverymuch.”
    “Okay, Dix. I grew up in the Settlements. I wanted for nothing. My parents were good people. Kind people. I believe they would have been generous, given the chance, but they thought the war was over and that the SUN was taking care of everything.”
    Tess knelt down next to me, taking care to avoid the clumpy sawdust. I noticed a scar across her jaw, another near her temple.
    “If you grew up in the Settlements, how’d you wind up with that?” I asked, pointing to her scars.
    “I wandered outside the Settlements one day. It was an accident, but I saw things, terrible things. People living like dogs, eating filth, wearing filth. Suddenly I understood what was happening, what I was contributing to. My parents believed me, but didn’t think there was anything they could do. The SUN gave me these pretty scars to remind me to keep my mouth shut. Clearly that worked well.”
    The others in the room laughed.
    Berrett put a hand on mine as I tried to wrap my brain around what Tess was saying. “You have a chance to change the course of the future, to give hundreds of thousands of people a shot at a world where they could find freedom. You could bring them hope, Dix.”
    I crossed my arms. “Assuming the grand master plan works.”
    Berrett nodded. “Yeah, assuming that the plan works. You say you want to do something instead of just talking. Here’s your chance.”
    I pushed back from the table. “You want me to choose between two impossible options! I want to be free, more badly than I can possibly explain in words, and my choices are to hand over my only shot at it or hide? Your Underground cronies here are cozy and all, but that’s not how reclaiming freedom works. If you expect the situation to change, you have to be willing to give up your life for it. And what does freedom mean to you, anyway? Are you really going to trust the SUN to honor any arrangement they make with you? And who’s to say you jackwagons won’t set up a government that takes away freedom all over again?”
    “Dix, you don’t know the whole story,” said Berrett quietly.
    I pounded the table with my fist. “Neither do you!”
    Tess just smiled at me. “You could be a valuable asset, Dix. Please, consider what helping us can do to make this System better.”
    “I’m not interested in making this System better! I want to get away from all of it and find someplace else, someplace outside the ... ohhhhh ...” The world began to spin again and I sank down into my chair and put my head in my hands.
    “Sorry, guys, she’s had a really hard day. I think she’s just tired,” said Berrett. “Now, if