Saints Astray (Santa Olivia #2)

Saints Astray (Santa Olivia #2) Page 61

Bradford Prince was quiet.

Military experts debunked the refugees’ testimony, pointing out that they had no way of knowing what measures had been taken to evacuate the remaining civilian personnel.

“None,” Loup muttered. “Not a fucking one.”

“You don’t know that,” he said. “You weren’t even born.”

She eyed him. “Well, all those civilians were still there when I was. And they were still there when I left. I’m pretty sure they’re still there now.”

After two weeks of testimony, they called in the big guns.

Loup took a sharp breath when the name Pilar Ecchevarria was announced. She scooted as close as she could to the television, sitting cross-legged before it.

“You’ll wreck your eyes,” Bradford warned her.

She ignored him.

Her heart hitched painfully as Pilar entered the chamber. She was wearing the navy-blue polka-dotted dress that Vincenzo Picco had complimented and she looked worn and worried and utterly lovely. Loup stroked her hair on the television screen with her manacled hands, her eyes burning.

“That’s your girl?”

“Yeah,” she said softly.

“She’s pretty.”

“I know.” Loup sat glued to the television as Pilar was sworn in and testified, relating in a steady, unfaltering voice her life story as a child born in forgotten Santa Olivia and orphaned there.

They asked her how she’d gotten out and why.

She told them.

“Wow.” Bradford had moved to sit beside Loup, transfixed by the testimony. “She really loves you a lot, huh?”

“Yeah.” She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyelids. “A lot.”

He gave her an awkward one-armed hug. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Loup dropped her hands, watching the screen hungrily as Pilar was escorted from the chamber. “Aw, fuck! Just a little more? Please?”

There wasn’t.

Loup sighed and rested her forehead against her knees, encircled by her manacled hands. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “It was just nice, you know? Nice to see her. I miss her so much, that’s all.” She gathered herself. “Cell time?”

“Yeah.” Bradford Prince helped her unnecessarily to her feet. “You got a book to read?”

“I almost finished one. Why?”

“I might not be here tomorrow and I don’t know if the guy taking my place will be willing to supervise your rec time.”

“Why? I thought your rotation lasted three weeks.”

“Don’t ask questions.” He didn’t meet her eyes. “You want to take another book to read or not?”

“Pick something out for me.”

He plucked a dog-eared copy of Great Expectations from the nearest shelf.

“You like Dickens?” Loup asked. “My friend T.Y. read all of Tale of Two Cities to me while I trained on the treadmill. He thought it was boring, but I liked it.”

Bradford shrugged. “I dunno. Thought the title suited you.”

The next day he was gone. The guard who took his place was professional and impersonal. When Loup asked about watching the hearings, he informed her that her rec time had been curtailed due to staffing issues.

She missed Miguel Garza’s testimony.

And she missed the dam breaking.

The influx of new prisoners was the first sign of it. Two days after Bradford Prince vanished, Loup heard the doors onto the empty cell block opening, sensors beeping. And footsteps, lots and lots of footsteps. She pressed her face to the cell door’s high little window, standing on tiptoe.

The prisoners were GMOs.

All of them—every one of them. They were all men at least five to ten years older than her. They varied in height and size and coloring, though all bore some stamp of mixed racial heritage. They had close-cropped military haircuts.

All shared an intensity of physical presence, dense muscled and sleek, moving with a precise fluidity, even in handcuffs.

Like her; like her cousins.

Loup stared, awed. One caught her eye and flashed her a fierce grin. He turned his head and said something she couldn’t hear to the prisoner behind him, the cell door muffling his words. After that, every prisoner that passed acknowledged her.

Somewhere toward the end was John Johnson.

His was a face she would never forget. He’d killed her brother by accident. She’d beaten him in the boxing ring. And his was the one face she wasn’t surprised to see, because his fate had been sealed from the minute Pilar told the truth about their escape from Outpost. He stopped outside her cell door, cool green eyes meeting hers in a fearless gaze. The guard escorting him prodded him to no avail.

“What did you do?” Loup whispered, her breath clouding the security glass. “All of you?”

Unable to hear her words, he gave her a hard smile and moved onward.

Doors slammed, door after door.

Days passed.

Different guards came and went, harried and overworked. They delivered MREs to cell after cell. After being rebuffed a few dozen times, Loup gave up on asking for rec time or news and lay on her cot, reading Great Expectations.

At last, Tom Abernathy came for her.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Loup asked, sitting across the table from him in the official interview room, her hands manacled before her. “Those guys! There’s like a hundred of them. All GMOs.”

“This.” He played a video clip for her on his laptop.

It was from the hearings. A man in an army dress uniform was sworn in before the congressional committee.

“I know that guy.” Loup squinted at the small screen.

“Staff Sergeant Michael Buckland,” Abernathy murmured.

“Yeah! He took me to the hospital the night Tommy died.” She glanced up. “He was dating Kotch when I left. Katya. One of the Santitos.”

“Yes.”

She watched him testify to having served in an Outpost with a civilian population. Watched him beckon to someone offscreen. Congressional aides began pouring into the chamber, steering wheelbarrows full of sealed envelopes. One by one, they dumped their loads on the floor and withdrew. A pile of paper grew and grew.

“What—”

“They’re affidavits, Loup.” Abernathy gave her a weary, victorious smile. “From tens of thousands of military personnel. All affirming more or less the same thing. The Outposts exist. They have civilian populations.”

Her eyes burned. “That’s what Bradford meant. So the dam—”

“The dam has broken.” He nodded. “Yesterday, under considerable pressure, the president signed an executive order. There will be a bipartisan investigation into activities in the cordon. The no-fly zone has been revoked.”

“We won?”

“We won this round.” Tom Abernathy sighed. “Now comes the next. They can’t punish thirty thousand men at once, but they can pick their targets—especially the ones that scare them. Every single GMO serving in the military signed an affidavit. One hundred and twenty-seven, to be exact. And every single one has been rounded up and detained here. But you, you were the first. And you’re the only one not subject to military regulations. You’re ground zero. It starts with you.”

Loup gazed at him with shining eyes. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”

“I hoped.” He closed his laptop. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Thanks.” She slithered across the table with her manacled hands to kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Abernathy flushed to the roots of his neatly parted blond hair. “We’re not out of the woods. A little propriety?”

She smiled. “Are you a one in a hundred?”

He blinked at her. “Huh?’

“Never mind.”

FORTY-SIX

Days dragged into weeks.

Loup finished reading Great Expectations and started it over again.

Outside, the world was in an uproar. Tom Abernathy visited to give her periodic updates. The investigation had confirmed the existence of the Outposts and their civilian population. The news media was filled with outraged editorials. Decades’ worth of foreign and domestic policy was under review.

“What about us?” Loup asked.

He sighed. “There’s good news and bad. I filed a petition on your behalf for a writ of habeas corpus. The right to a hearing in court,” he explained, noting her puzzled expression. “The judge dismissed it.”

“Because of the Human Rights Amendment?”

“Exactly.” Abernathy nodded. “The good news is that your story’s still very much on the radar, and it’s been validated by the Outpost findings. The government’s under a lot of pressure to review the amendment.” He smiled. “Seems there’ve been a record number of irate young people contacting their congressional representatives and writing to the president.”

“Kate fans.”

“It seems to be spreading.” He showed her the cover of Newsweek magazine. It had a photo of Loup onstage at the concert in Osaka, the young Japanese fan in the striped socks perched on her shoulder. Loup was laughing, while the girl on her shoulder beamed with sheer delight, her arms spread wide. The headline read REDEFINING HUMAN? “You’ve captured the public’s imagination.”

“I remember that night.” Loup smiled. “Wonder where they got the photo.”

“They’re all over the place. I imagine they bought the rights to one.” Abernathy gave her a curious look. “What in the world gave you the idea? How much of this was orchestrated?”

She shrugged. “It was a fluke at first. Then it turned into a gimmick. I thought maybe I could use it to make people aware. Once the band decided they wanted to make it their thing, it just kind of took off. Can I keep the magazine? Ever since Bradford left I can’t get anything new to read.”

“No, sorry,” he said apologetically. “I’m not allowed to give you any materials.”