When We Wake by Karen Healey Page B

he created them. God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number; fill the Earth and subdue it. God gave us this world. But the greed of your masters exceeds his bounty. Ask. Ask them about the Ark Pro—”
    There was a sound so loud it was no sound at all, and his chest exploded into chunks of red.
    The stone walls were ringing.
    Gregor, his weapon out, was carefully approaching the downed man. There was no need for caution. That limp body wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t used the sonic pistol; he’d gone straight for the gun on his other hip. Lethal force.
    “You killed him,” I said.
    “He was reaching for a weapon,” Gregor said.
    “He didn’t have a weapon!”
    Gregor turned to Zaneisha. “You’d better get the ween out of here. She’s about to go hysterical.”
    I was
not.
“You killed him,” I repeated. “You shot him. How could you do that? He was just an old man; he said he wasn’t going to hurt me, and you killed him.” My voice climbed until I almost shrieked the last words. I hugged the stone column, leaning on it for strength, as my vision began to gray out at the edges.
    “That was an order, Sergeant,” Gregor said, and Zaneisha pushed me away from the column and toward the door. We had to skirt the corpse as we went, and I saw the pool of blood inch out from under him. There were thicker pieces in the pool.
    “Did I look like that?” I asked. “Was I all limp and bloody? Were there bits of me everywhere? Oh my god, Zaneisha, this is a church; he shot him in
church
. Did I look like that?”
    “Don’t look,” Zaneisha ordered. “Shhh, Tegan, you’re safe. It’s fine.”
    “I know I’m safe—that isn’t the point. I was safe in there. What was he talking about? What weapon? Did you see a weapon?”
    She shot me a troubled look, so fast I nearly missed it, before her face smoothed out again. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, and pushed me into the backseat.
    Bethari looked up from her computer to smile at my return, but her eyes widened as she saw me. “What—?”
    “Gregor killed him.”
    “Killed who? Are you okay?”
    “The Inheritor! I’m fine, I’m fine.”
    “One of those religious nuts? Did he attack you? Oh, Tegan! Are you okay?”
    “He was talking; he was just talking.”
    “What did he say?”
    “Seat belt,” Zaneisha snapped from the driver’s seat.
    Bethari had to help me get it on.
    “He shot him in church,” I said. I hiccuped twice and burst into uncontrollable tears.
    But underneath that genuine grief and horror, I was thinking.
Ask them about the Ark Pro—.
Ark Pro what? Ark Professional? Ark Protectorate? Ark Project? Ark Procedure?
    Don’t worry about it
, Zaneisha had said.
    Too late. I was worried.
    Wriggling closer to Bethari, I whispered, “Something’s wrong. I need your help.”
    If I haven’t screwed up her future forever, Bethari is going to be the best journalist in the world. She didn’t flinch. She just curved around me and turned her mouth close to my ear, out of Zaneisha’s sight.
    “What do you need?” she breathed.
    “A computer,” I whispered back. I wanted to do some hunting around the tubes, and I wasn’t stupid enough to do it on my army-issued computer. I loved Koko, but I didn’t trust her not to spy on me.
    Bethari pulled me tighter into her arms, and I felt her hand shift in the tight space between us, concealed from view. A moment later I felt the cool, flat square of a tightly boundcomputer slip behind the scarf around my waist. Using my sobs as cover, Bethari twisted it securely inside.
    “One condition,” she said quietly, ostentatiously patting my hair for Zaneisha’s benefit. “You have to tell me everything.”
    “You bet.”

    I wish I hadn’t said that. I’m sorry I dragged her into it, and I hope that telling this story will make them let her go.
    Listen to me, you liars.
    By the time I’m done, you won’t have any secrets left that she could reveal.

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