“That’s just what they want everyone to think. We’ve got reason to believe this place is far more important.”
“What could be more important than water purification?” Sammy asks.
Adam grins from where he’s standing, slouched against the far wall. “Frank’s got enough water. He’s always had enough.”
Sammy shakes his head. “But it’s rationed. You need water ration cards. And my father . . .” He swallows, letting the statement fade out. His father died—was executed—for forging them in Taem.
“There was a time, right after the Continental Quake, when water was in short supply,” Adam says. “But our numbers are fewer than they were before the War, and this country is rich in forests and streams and lakes. There is water—plenty of it—if you venture beyond a dome to seek it out.
“The truth is that Frank’s convinced his people they need his protection. He controls what they know and what they read. He fabricates stories and with the right delivery, they are accepted as fact. Remember what we discussed when you first arrived here?”
I think back to the moment. Adam introduced us to Vik, who immediately assigned us greenhouse duties. Only Elijah and Clipper would be working directly with the Expats. I’d been furious, yelling about how the Expats were using us for their own needs, how I shouldn’t have been surprised given that they’d attacked Taem—a city filled with thousands of innocent citizens—just months earlier.
It was then that Adam had laughed.
“We live beneath a dome of the same exact strength,” he said. “If we were going to use precious resources to flatten Taem, don’t you think we would have known exactly what to drop?”
The attack as I witnessed it flashed through my head: planes flying in formation, the sirens blaring through town and inducing panic.
“Was it staged?” I muttered, barely believing my own words.
“Not quite,” Adam said.
“We act only when we have a chance for success,” Vik explained. “That’s meant small things. Along the border, on the Gulf. We’ve got some spies in Haven. But the last time the West truly attacked the East, it was our distant relatives, ages ago, with an engineered virus. And we will do everything in our power to not watch so many innocent lives fall again.
“We knew the attack last fall wouldn’t breach the dome, but I had to send Frank a message. He was tossing threats our way, growing land hungry along the border, and I needed him to know that I wouldn’t stand for it. I wasn’t going to submit or crawl back under his rule. The only united country I want to see is one without him in it. I should have known how he’d twist everything—broadcasting that the Order barely held us off, that Taem had been just moments away from annihilation at our hands.”
Another lie. Another brilliantly altered tale Frank passed off as fact. And now . . . with the water . . .
He’s always had enough. Years of water rationing just helped him create a constant state of uncertainty. It gave civilians another reason to rely on the Order and never leave the safety of a dome. The world outside might have been deadly once—during the War, when the West’s virus spread rampant—and Frank’s made sure that fear never died.
“So if the Compound isn’t a water treatment facility, what is it?” I ask.
“That’s exactly what we want you to find out. If you’re willing to take the job.”
A handful of problematic details surface: how far we are from the place, the way it’s surrounded by water and heavily fortified, Isaac’s comment about the number of guards patrolling it night and day.
Vik senses my hesitation and goes into compassion mode. “I understand your concern. Truly, I do. It’s a lot for us to ask, but we wouldn’t ask at all if we didn’t think it could mean something huge for our side.
“We’ll arrange transportation for you and assign a specialist to guide the team. But Frank—the Order—is up to something there. We need to learn what, and plan our defenses accordingly. Maybe we can even use whatever he’s hiding to our advantage.”
Blaine and Sammy glance sideways at each other, looking skeptical.
“This idea that the Compound is more than the Order lets on . . . ,” Bree says. “Where did it come from?”
“What do you mean?” Adam looks insulted, like Bree’s questions are a personal attack on his character.
“I mean,” she drawls, “if we’re heading to a seemingly unbreachable location and being asked to breach it, you had better tell us what led you to believe it’s worth checking out.”
“Some of our spies on the Gulf have been suspicious of the place for a while,” Vik says. “They claim boats come in and out, but not frequently enough to be handling mass provision shipments of drinking water.” Vik pushes another photo across the table, this time of a man I’ve never seen. “That’s one of our best spies, Nicholas Bageretti. Sells water to AmEast under the alias Badger. He says he’s found a way in.”
For me, it’s enough. More than enough.
Clipper and Sammy don’t hesitate when I tell them to get ready. Even Bree refrains from being difficult. But Blaine has yet to pack a single possession.
“I think it’s a death wish,” he says as I toss clothes into a bag.
“I think it’s a great lead.”
He stops pacing between the bunks. “A lead? How? Vik’s asking us to approach a heavily patrolled area and stick our noses inside. I bet all we find is a bunch of weapons and war provisions. I don’t see how that can help us.”
I take a deep breath and squeeze the handle of Pa’s carving knife, pressing the etched shape of our last name—Weathersby—into my palm.
“We blow the place up. Or steal the supplies. Sabotage it. It doesn’t matter what we do so long as it’s some sort of setback for the Order.”