seeing signs where there are none?
I shake my head. I canât start doubting myself. Not now. Not before I know for sure. I turn to the page where the chapter on Morse code begins.
Morse, it turns out, is not a simple language, but itâs easy enough to understand. Itâs based on a standardized sequence of short and long signals, called dots and dashes, the same kind of system Eli uses when encoding his messages between Resistance bases.
Itâs not long before Iâm mapping the symbols out in my head, for lack of a pen or pencil. Classic prisoner treatment , I think. Denial of tools with which to write . For the first time, Iâm conscious of the intellectual improvements my mother imbued in me without my permission. I stare at the dots and dashes on the page in front of me, the symbols shifting and rearranging into something altogether different. I force my heart to maintain a steady beat as the words consume me.
Iâm here. Iâm waiting for you. Do not lose hope. Little Bird.
5 - REMY
Spring 65, Sector Annum 106, 18h30
Gregorian Calendar: May 23
The leaf comes with the food drop. Itâs not Meera this time, all dark hair and red cheeks, enthusiastic as she pokes her head through the door to her old apartment. Fear gnaws at me as I wonder where she is. I thank the messenger, a boy with intense blue eyes and hair that looks as soft as goose down. He canât be more than twelve, and he looks vaguely familiar as he smiles and scuffles off. I pick through the produce, eating handful after handful of gooseberries until theyâre almost all gone, then unwrap the meat and put it in the refrigerator. I rinse the leaves that had been used to wrap the meat under the sink, and thatâs how I find the message. The dots. I cut the water and run my fingertips across the bumps, feeling for the patterns, proud of myself when I can interpret the symbols without holding the leaf up to the light.
An ally we call Onion wishes to speak with you. He wonât hurt you. Heâs on our side. Sundown today. At the apartment. Meera.
Glad as I am to have a note from Meeraâshe must be okayâI canât make sense of the message. Meera trusts this person. He has an Outsider code name. He wants to talk. So why does she reassure me that he wonât hurt me, that heâs on our side? He must be someone I wouldnât know to trust unless she told me. Someone who works for the Sector. Someone on the inside.
My fingertips skitter across the leaf, shameless now as I hold it up to the light to make sure Iâve read it correctly. An ally we call Onion wishes to speak with you. He wonât hurt you.
I wonder who it could be. Someone like Chan-Yu, maybe, who was once a soldier of the revered OAC Black Ops, so trustworthy Corine Orleán appointed him to be Valeâs personal assistant, who was secretly an Outsider the whole time. But it must be someone I know, or should know, or she wouldnât have thought to reassure me.
Heâs on our side.
Every home or flat in Okaria comes outfitted with a special vidscreen for displaying notifications from the government, the OAC, or the Okarian News Network. Once a day, ONN collaborates with the OAC and the Sector to release a thirty-minute news update. When I arrived at the Resistance three years ago, one of the first things the Director did was explain that these broadcasts are entirely propaganda. Full of falsely beautiful images of the Farms, videos of productive, happy workers and engineers in the towns, and snapshots of the so-called No-Go Zones in the Wilds, takenâsupposedlyâby drones, these videos are deceptive and misleading. They are purposefully designed to direct the citizensâ eyes away from the Sectorâs real problems, so that the people in power can deal with them quietly and without public knowledge.
Theyâre pushed out every evening at 19h00. If youâre eating dinner with your family, watching a
I shake my head. I canât start doubting myself. Not now. Not before I know for sure. I turn to the page where the chapter on Morse code begins.
Morse, it turns out, is not a simple language, but itâs easy enough to understand. Itâs based on a standardized sequence of short and long signals, called dots and dashes, the same kind of system Eli uses when encoding his messages between Resistance bases.
Itâs not long before Iâm mapping the symbols out in my head, for lack of a pen or pencil. Classic prisoner treatment , I think. Denial of tools with which to write . For the first time, Iâm conscious of the intellectual improvements my mother imbued in me without my permission. I stare at the dots and dashes on the page in front of me, the symbols shifting and rearranging into something altogether different. I force my heart to maintain a steady beat as the words consume me.
Iâm here. Iâm waiting for you. Do not lose hope. Little Bird.
5 - REMY
Spring 65, Sector Annum 106, 18h30
Gregorian Calendar: May 23
The leaf comes with the food drop. Itâs not Meera this time, all dark hair and red cheeks, enthusiastic as she pokes her head through the door to her old apartment. Fear gnaws at me as I wonder where she is. I thank the messenger, a boy with intense blue eyes and hair that looks as soft as goose down. He canât be more than twelve, and he looks vaguely familiar as he smiles and scuffles off. I pick through the produce, eating handful after handful of gooseberries until theyâre almost all gone, then unwrap the meat and put it in the refrigerator. I rinse the leaves that had been used to wrap the meat under the sink, and thatâs how I find the message. The dots. I cut the water and run my fingertips across the bumps, feeling for the patterns, proud of myself when I can interpret the symbols without holding the leaf up to the light.
An ally we call Onion wishes to speak with you. He wonât hurt you. Heâs on our side. Sundown today. At the apartment. Meera.
Glad as I am to have a note from Meeraâshe must be okayâI canât make sense of the message. Meera trusts this person. He has an Outsider code name. He wants to talk. So why does she reassure me that he wonât hurt me, that heâs on our side? He must be someone I wouldnât know to trust unless she told me. Someone who works for the Sector. Someone on the inside.
My fingertips skitter across the leaf, shameless now as I hold it up to the light to make sure Iâve read it correctly. An ally we call Onion wishes to speak with you. He wonât hurt you.
I wonder who it could be. Someone like Chan-Yu, maybe, who was once a soldier of the revered OAC Black Ops, so trustworthy Corine Orleán appointed him to be Valeâs personal assistant, who was secretly an Outsider the whole time. But it must be someone I know, or should know, or she wouldnât have thought to reassure me.
Heâs on our side.
Every home or flat in Okaria comes outfitted with a special vidscreen for displaying notifications from the government, the OAC, or the Okarian News Network. Once a day, ONN collaborates with the OAC and the Sector to release a thirty-minute news update. When I arrived at the Resistance three years ago, one of the first things the Director did was explain that these broadcasts are entirely propaganda. Full of falsely beautiful images of the Farms, videos of productive, happy workers and engineers in the towns, and snapshots of the so-called No-Go Zones in the Wilds, takenâsupposedlyâby drones, these videos are deceptive and misleading. They are purposefully designed to direct the citizensâ eyes away from the Sectorâs real problems, so that the people in power can deal with them quietly and without public knowledge.
Theyâre pushed out every evening at 19h00. If youâre eating dinner with your family, watching a
Similar Books
