Children of the Underground by Trevor Shane Page B

to decide for himself.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked. It didn’t make any sense. These people seemed as brainwashed as everyone else. They’re not innocent. You still are. You can still be saved. If they couldn’t see that, then they’re still blind.
    â€œThat’s how it works,” Clara answered. I couldn’t even think of a way to respond.
    â€œWhat can you tell us?” Michael asked, breaking the silence. “Do you have any idea where Maria’s son is?”
    â€œNo,” Clara answered. She looked at Michael. “Are you sure this is what you want, Michael?”
    â€œTell us what you know,” Michael answered.
    Clara glanced at me again. I braced myself for what she was going to say next. “We don’t know where your son is, Maria,” she said. “We don’t even know where they’re keeping that information. We don’t track children. We concentrate on saving people who want to be saved.” She took out a blank piece of paper. “All I can do is explain the system for you.” She started drawing on the paper. She drew one large box in the middle of the page surrounded by a circle of smaller boxes. “It’s a shockingly low-tech, paper-only system,” she said. “There are different locations, each with different information.” She pointed to the boxes on the outer rim of the page. “There’s redundancy built in. No one piece of information is kept in only one spot.” She drew letters in each of the boxes. A few of the boxes contained some of the same letters. “Both sides are afraid of having one of their intelligence cells raided, so they won’t centralize the actual information. Then there are central hubs that contain the keys that map out the information.” Clara pointed to the box in the middle of the page. “If you want to find out where your son is, you need to find out where they keep that information.” She pointed to all the boxes on the edge of the page, the ones with the letters in them. “To do that, you either need to go to the central location to find that information or you need to find someone who already knows it. The central location is nearly impenetrable. So I’d suggest trying to find someone who might know where the information is first.”
    â€œThen what?” I asked. “What do we do when we find out where they keep the information?”
    â€œYou either break in and get the information or you bribe someone to get it for you. This War is not as pure as Michael thinks.”
    â€œI can’t do that on my own,” I muttered at Clara. “I need your help.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Maria,” she said. “I can’t risk one of my men on a child who’s in no immediate danger.”
    They didn’t realize how important this was, because it seemed small to them. They didn’t realize that it was my whole world. I felt cold, like I’d been stripped naked and pushed into icy water.
    Clara turned back to Michael. “If you want to escape, we can help you.” Then she looked at me. “If you want to go the other way, if you want to go deeper inside the War, you have to do that by yourself.”
    Michael stood up. “Take us back to D.C.,” he said.
    â€œAre you sure that’s what you want?” Clara said. “We’re not going to contact you again. If you leave now, you’re on your own forever.”
    Michael didn’t need to think about it. “Take us back to D.C.,” he repeated. “You’ve got nothing for me here.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that,” Clara said, standing up. I stood up too. “Good luck to the two of you,” Clara said. She reached her hand out to me. I shook it. Her grip was fierce. She shook Michael’s hand too. “Marcus and Dorothy will show you out,” Clara said, her voice sounding slightly defeated. She motioned toward the