Jonathan looked at the boy in front of him with polite incomprehension.
"I told you to remember something for me?" he repeated, for the fifth time.
"Yes," Puck snapped. "Do you want to find out what it is now?"
"By all means," Jonathan sank into a chair. "Does this mean...do you have answers? Do you actually know something?"
Puck sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Before you went away, you spent a lot of time with the high command. I mean, you were with them more than you were with us. And you overheard something."
"What kind of something?" Miriam asked, eagerly.
"I'm getting to that," Puck said, irritably. "You overheard something about the Nevera papers."
Jonathan stared at him, uncomprehending. "What are the Nevera papers?"
Puck ignored this interruption. "You came to me and said you needed my help to break into the archives of the high command. You needed to find the original papers and see what they said. You came to me, and told me that I couldn't mention this to anyone else."
"Why you?" Jonathan demanded. "Why did I go to you?"
"Because I wasn't going to be put to sleep," Puck explained. "So I wouldn't forget. You needed someone from artillery and you said Quinten was too careless, too reckless. I quite agreed. We made a plan to break into the archives and steal the papers."
Jonathan jumped to his feet. "You didn't used to be in that chair, did you? You didn't used to be blind!"
Puck frowned. "No. I didn't."
"I remember it!" Jonathan's voice cracked with excitement. "I remember talking to you!"
He'd never been particularly close with any of the artillery soldiers. They kept themselves to themselves, a tight-knit family. But he knew Puck by sight, tall for his age with bright eyes and a wicked smile. He would be safer by far to trust than the rest of the buffoons who repeatedly blew themselves up.
He cornered the boy after a meeting, trapping him in a room. Puck's face betrayed nothing as John boxed him in.
"What do you want, sir?" he asked. "Is something wrong?"
"I need your help," John told him. "And your silence."
Puck raised an eyebrow and smiled. "My help? Don't you have a devoted following of your own?"
"Your help," John insisted. "Will you trust me or not?"
YOU ARE READING
Awake
Science FictionWhen Jonathan Sand died one night trying to save the girl he loved, he did not expect to wake up the next morning and find that everything he had ever known was a figment of his imagination. Rising from a simulated dream, six members of the Junior...
