Read Online The Hangman's Revolution by Eoin Colfer - Free Book Online

told those Jax animals a thing.”
    “I saw it, Sister Clover. Inspiring stuff.”
    Chevie got the feeling that perhaps Witmeyer wasn’t as devout as her partner, but she played along for politics’ sake.
    Witmeyer pressed a button on the armrest, and the windows darkened until all Chevie could see was her own worried reflection staring back at her through round brown eyes.
    “Just entre nous, ” said Witmeyer, “where did you pick up those combat moves?”
    Chevie was surprised to hear the Thundercat using a French phrase. Coming from any other mouth, those two words could be considered traitorous. One of her classmates, a snippy local London girl, had been shipped off to the Dublin factory for describing the gluey canteen soup as an apéritif.
    Perhaps Sister Witmeyer was slipping a Jax phrase into the conversation in an attempt to trip her up.
    Chevie replied. “They were not moves ,Sister. I panicked and lashed out.”
    “Believe me, little one, they were moves. I have been in enough fights to know the difference between panic and training.”
    “I can only apologize, Sister. It won’t happen again.”
    Witmeyer chuckled. “That it won’t, little sister. That it won’t.”
    “Little sister”—that’s a little ominous, said Traitor Chevie. I’d watch my back if I were you. Wait a minute. I am you, only less stupid.
    Chevie bit her bottom lip in case a whimper should leak out.
    The drive to Mayfair would usually take up to thirty minutes during morning rush hour, but service vehicles parted before the luxury sedan’s high curved prow as soon as drivers spotted it in their rearview mirrors, and barely ten minutes later Sister Vallicose was parking outside Charles Smart’s town house, which was sandwiched between two monolithic apartment blocks.
    I know how that house feels, thought Chevie.
    “Look at this,” said Witmeyer. “An honest-to-goodness house. This Smart person must be something special to merit a house in the city center. I’m living in a cupboard, and this scientist who probably never killed a single person for Box is living it up in a house.”
    A professor with a house was unusual, as most citizens were squashed into mega-blocks comprised of identical utilitarian apartments with barely enough room to swing a cat—if owning a cat had been legal inside Greater London’s boundaries.
    “Citizen Smart may have left for work already,” said Chevie, hoping for a reprieve.
    Witmeyer opened her door. “We called ahead. Though he doesn’t know it, Smart is waiting inside for us to come and execute him.” She handed Chevie the standard-issue sidearm. “Or should I say for you to execute him, Cadet.”
    Chevie took the gun, and it felt like a cold block of guilt in her hand.
    A cold block of guilt, said Traitor Chevie. This timeline is so moody.
    Chevie was surprised that her legs carried her to Charles Smart’s door, but they did—a little shakily, maybe, but they managed to avoid buckling. She curled her fingers into a fist to knock, but before she could, the door was wrenched open and an old man appeared in the doorway.
    “Just tell me,” said the man in a Scottish accent. “Is he dead?”
    Chevie was taken aback. Dead? Is who dead?
    “Dead? I don’t understand, Citizen.”
    “I get a call from a Thundercat. ‘Stay at home,’ she tells me. ‘Don’t go to work.’ So is my boy dead? Was he killed in France?”
    Felix, whispered Traitor Chevie. His son’s name is Felix.
    “Felix,” she said aloud, which was a mistake.
    The old man reeled as though struck and clamped his hands to his skull.
    “I knew it!” he cried. “I knew it. You’re here about Felix. So which is it? Dead or captured?”
    Witmeyer bent low, whispering into Chevie’s ear. “You know about his son. Curious.”
    I don’t know about him, Chevie wanted to protest. The Traitor knows.
    But this made no sense. How could the Traitor know things that were true yet outside her experience?
    Perhaps I have the