To Miriam's profound relief, Jonathan didn't make a speech. At least, not a dramatic, rehearsed speech designed to get the blood boiling and inspire people to lay down their lives for the cause. He simply stood in front of the youth corps and talked.
What's more, he told them everything. He told them all about their distrust, about the break-in at the archives, about the risks they had put things under. He didn't hold anything back, not their rule-breaking or the information they'd found or even the doubts they had. Jonathan laid it all out in front of them, bald and truthful and unadorned.
Miriam was glad. She wasn't sure she could have coped with him painting a picture of a perfect revolution. It would have been a lie too far. While the others might be raring to go, itching to get into the fight, Miriam felt sick to the stomach at the thought and the idea of making it some kind of glorious martyrdom only made things worse.
It wasn't that Miriam disapproved of the cause they were fighting for. The treatment of people in this place was all wrong, from start to finish. It was as if all the humanity had been taken out of them. They were being treated like things, data, numbers in system, and that is where real evil starts.
But Miriam wasn't a warrior. She wasn't like Carmen, who could look you in the eye and smile while she slit your throat, or like Jonathan, who seemed to think anything was worth it for victory, or Natalia, whose detachment had been trained into her all her life. Miriam couldn't help but empathise with the people she might otherwise be killing.
She wasn't proud of it. She looked around her at the people she was tied to by this strange, unexplained project and she wished she could be more like them: more confident, stronger, more daring, less afraid, less emotional. She wished she could trot out snappy lines like Carmen and threaten death as if it meant nothing. But if she had ever been able to, she couldn't now.
Miriam had seen death, lots of it. It had haunted her every day, a ghoul watching over her shoulder while she fought against it with everything she had but every time she calculated the perfect attack, it appeared behind her again, laughing. She couldn't remember the things she had seen and still be a killer. Miriam put people back together again. She didn't take them apart.
The youth corps watched Jonathan silently, standing to attention in their perfect rows, dressed in white, distinguished only by their varying heights and the colour of their identical haircuts. Miriam scanned over the crowd, trying to figure out what they were thinking. She didn't know.
"Miriam?"
She looked down at Puck as he sat, face still turned forward. He had spoken very quietly, out of the corner of his mouth.
"Yeah?" she replied. "I'm here."
"Do they look convinced?" he asked.
"I don't know," Miriam admitted. "It's hard to tell. They're just listening. They're not doing anything at all."
"I don't like this," Puck told her, quietly. "I don't think this is a good idea at all. It's too rushed. It's too raw. We don't have all the facts."
"I wouldn't like it anyway," Miriam whispered. "I don't like killing things."
Puck smiled faintly. "You never used to be like that."
"I've seen more death now than I saw before. I'm not going to be a part of it. I don't even want to authorise it. People shouldn't have to get hurt for things to improve."
"You still think that life was real, huh?" Puck murmured.
"You're never going to convince me otherwise," Miriam replied. "I know what life feels like and that, that felt like life. Almost more than this does."
Jonathan had finished talking and was looking over the ranks of soldiers as if waiting for a reply. There wasn't one. They just stared impassively back at him.
"If anyone has anything to say," Natalia added, "you may speak. You have our permission to say whatever you need and ask whatever you want."
Nobody said anything for a little while but people relaxed slightly, glancing at one another, exchanging looks. It was another of those moments that Miriam had never been a part of, where people held conversations with their eyes before making a decision.
"How do we know all of this is true?" someone called out. "You could be lying to us!"
"Would I lie to you?" Natalia raised an eyebrow. "Never mind about the sleepers. Would I lie to you?"
There was another pause as people considered this. Miriam watched Natalia in admiration. The young woman (girl seemed far too demeaning a term) had a kind of gravitas to her manner and a weight to her certainty that made her power undoubtable. She was the kind of person you could count on to be calm in crisis, strong in pain and brave in the midst of disaster.
"No," the person replied, at last. "You wouldn't lie to us. Not knowingly."
"But what about the fighting?" a very young boy asked. "I mean...you want us in combat?"
"Isn't that what you've trained for?" Nigs questioned, without any sympathy.
"Well, yes," the boy hesitated. "But...I mean...I've never been shot at before."
"Duck," Carmen said, taking one step forward.
The boy had the self-preservation instincts to hit the floor. The gunshot echoed around the room. Carmen lowered her arm, unconcerned.
"Now you have."
There was a shocked, uneasy silence but Miriam would have been a fool not to feel the admiration that came with it.
"I have a question." Kaede stepped out of the crowd. "Once you've taken over the high command, once you've spent our lives on this mission, what exactly do you intend to do? The adults in the sub-dwellings won't just let us run the show."
"We can come to a compromise," Jonathan said, in a tone of voice that betrayed how little he had thought about it.
"Really?" Kaede raised an eyebrow. "I don't think you can. I don't think any one of those adults is going to be happy letting an upstart youth soldier take command of Subterra."
"Are you saying you won't fight for us?" Nigs demanded.
Kaede fixed him with a stare. "No. Because I am a soldier and you, standing up there like some kind of rulers, are my officers and my first loyalty is to you and always will be. But that doesn't mean I think your plans are good ones."
"So you will fight?" Jonathan looked confused. "Or you won't?"
Kaede sighed heavily. "Sandor, I'm a soldier. I follow orders. It's my entire life. If your orders are to die on some fool-hardy mission, or to sacrifice my life on some idealistic bullshit, then that is what I'll do. I live by orders. But I'm advising you, for the sake of all of us, to think about your plans before you put them into action."
"Well, yes," Jonathan looked wrong-footed. "We will. They've only been so rushed lately because we haven't had much time."
"Really?" Kaede countered. "What are you racing against? As far as I can see, you've got the rest of our lives to plan this out. And the more time you spend thinking about it, the longer that's likely to be."
Miriam could see that Jonathan was surprised. They all were. They'd all had this idea in their heads that they were running up against some kind of time limit which, all of a sudden, they couldn't map or name. Their haste had all been imaginary.
"Thank you for your contribution, Kaede," Natalia said, hastily. "Anyone else with something to say?"
"Well, it's like Kaede said, isn't it?" Quinten shrugged. "We're going to follow your orders. That's the point of having us and you. You command, we obey. Isn't it?"
"But we're giving you the option not to!" Jonathan cried, sounding frustrated.
"Leave it," Miriam heard Natalia mumble. "They don't think like that."
"Ok," Jonathan said, louder. "Ok. Thank you. You...you are dismissed."
The youth corps fell out of formation and into disorganised chatter at a shrill pitch. Miriam turned to Puck.
"So, he's won them, then," the boy said, gloomily. "I knew he would."
"Won them?" Miriam echoed. "They just said they would obey because they always did."
"People say that kind of thing," Puck nodded, "but if they really minded, they'd let him know. Maybe it's not the cause that's got them. Maybe it is just Jonathan himself. But nevertheless, he's won them. It's all going ahead. Blood, blood, blood, for months on end."
"It might not take months," Miriam said, hopefully.
Puck's eyes couldn't express anything but even so he gave her a look that was old and cynical and faintly affectionate.
"Miriam, you should know as well as anyone that blood doesn't wash out easily."
He started to wheel his chair away but then turned it back, as if a thought had just occurred to him.
"And by the way?" he added. "Don't go around wishing you were like Carmen. There's no point to it."
Miriam stared at him. "I...how do you...what?"
"I mean, sometimes we need someone to kick ass," Puck shrugged, "but sometimes what we need most is someone to save a life. And sooner or later, it's the latter that's going to matter most."
Miriam gave up wondering how he knew, how he could read her so well when he couldn't even see her.
"Maybe," she allowed. "But everyone will always like the ass-kickers better."
"Not really," Puck considered. "Not the people who are dying. So what if she's cool? Cool doesn't last forever. It wears off, as you get older and fade out. Good can last a lifetime."
Miriam couldn't help but smile. "You know, sometimes you sound so old. I can't tell if it's charming or clichéd."
Puck grinned. "I'm always charming."
That time, he did leave and Miriam couldn't help but feel better about everything. She would miss Puck, if she ever went back home.
Carmen watched as her team of scholars poured over plans of the high command centre. These things weren't hard to find, it seemed, because there would never be any point in studying them. If you wanted to see the high command, you could just walk there.
"We need to construct a plan," Alexei said. "The kind of plan that succeeds but doesn't get anybody hurt."
"People always get hurt," Carmen countered. "It's one of the sacrifices of war."
"Nevertheless. The fewer of our compatriots get killed, the better this is going to be. For one thing, I don't want anyone to die. For another, we don't have the lives to spare."
"That's true," Ashley added. "There're hardly any of us. Even if Jonathan's right and there aren't many in the sub-dwellings, you can bet there will be more of them than there are of us. We can't afford to lose anyone."
Ashley was easily the youngest soldier in the room and she had fixed her hair behind her head by shoving a pencil through it. She had a look of ill-groomed, scatter-brained genius. Everyone here did. Carmen was starting to realise that most of the soldiering was, for these people, just a show.
"So why not just follow the good old-fashioned plot of bursting in with guns blazing and taking out everyone there?" she asked, reasonably. "Works every time."
Alexei raised a hand, counting off the points on his fingers. "Because one, stray gunfire is hard to control or predict; two, we don't know how well-armed our enemies will be; three, too much random damage risks the chance of us destroying this important key card, whatever that is; and four, it's bad manners."
"No," Carmen shook her head firmly. "I absolutely refuse to let bad manners be a consideration. This is war, not cricket."
"Yes, and we're playing to win," Ashley said, seriously. "But you've got to do it right. There's an art to war. We're not just barbarians, Carmen."
"I am," Carmen muttered. "And I think this is bullshit."
"Yes," Alexei rolled his eyes, "but you put us in charge of this and we don't think so."
"Delegating doesn't mean I'm not still calling the shots," Carmen said, irritably, leaning forward to see what he was writing. "And if you make us lose because killing people would be rude and might get blood on the carpet, I won't be happy."
"Relax," Alexei dragged out the last syllable as long as he could. "Remember, I've trained all my life for this job. This is what I am designed for."
"What about your people upstairs?" Ashley asked, changing the subject. "Do you think they'll join us?"
Carmen thought of Pippa's bright eyes and Mama's anxious face and little Maui.
"No," she decided. "Some of them would join us but we won't be asking them. They're not soldiers. They'd just be cannon fodder and I'm not that cruel."
"Ashley, run and find Natalia," Alexei said, absently. "Ask her exactly how much weaponry we can get our hands on."
Ashley groaned. "Must I? Can't we send someone else?"
"I gave you an order, soldier."
Ashley made a face as she left the room but Alexei appeared unconcerned. He was tracing blue pencil lines over the plans, grinning as he did so, his mind alive and doing the job it had always wanted, for the first time in his life.
Kaede was training. Nigs watched her as she swung along the bars of the ceiling, hand over hand. She looked strong, her mouth set in a grim line and her eyes focused, visible even way up above his head. He didn't want to interrupt her, but he had his own problems.
"Hey, Kaede!" he called.
She stopped swinging and turned her head to look at him, hanging by one hand. He had no idea where people got the kind of strength in their fingers that allowed them to do that.
"What?" she shouted back.
"Can you get down here?"
In answer, Kaede let go of the bar. Nigs almost let out a cry as she dropped to the ground, landing in a perfect roll and coming up standing. It wasn't balletic like some he'd witnessed training; Kaede wasn't the dancing type. But she had the same kind of strong, loping grace as a large animal.
"What?" she asked again.
"How did you do that?" Nigs gaped at her. "Aren't you scared of heights?"
"No," Kaede looked mildly puzzled. "I knew I wasn't going to land wrong."
"You might have done," Nigs argued, for the sake of the debate.
"Why would I do that?" Kaede still looked bemused. "There wouldn't be any sense in it, particularly not just before our first real operation."
"Well, obviously, not on purpose but..." Nigs trailed off, realising that the idea of accidentally getting the landing wrong would never have occurred to Kaede. She was absolutely confident in her own abilities. That they might fail her was an alien concept.
"Listen," Nigs said, awkwardly, "you remember what you said the other night? About...about me?"
"I remember," Kaede answered, coolly.
"Well, I really am sorry," Nigs rushed out. "I'm not like that now. You know that. And, uh, if there's anything I can do...to, you know, repair any damage I might have done or...anything..."
"The sentiment's sweet," Kaede shrugged on a jacket, "but there's nothing you can do except leave it well alone."
"Then I'll do that," Nigs said.
"Good," Kaede turned to leave. "Get to it."
"Wait, that wasn't what I had to say!"
Kaede turned back again with an audible sigh. "Then what was it? Meaningless waffle?"
"Kind of," Nigs admitted. "Look, we're going into battle soon..."
"Hooray for us."
"Yeah, well, you know I can shoot a gun well but there's going to be a lot of close-quarters fighting..."
"Well?" Kaede stared at him. "Are you actually asking me a question or just telling me what I already know?"
"Were you always this spiky?" Nigs shook his head. "I don't remember you always being this spiky."
"You've just got used to Little Miss Sunshine dancing around you," Kaede replied. "Stroking your ego and singing songs all day."
"Do you not like Carmen?" Nigs was surprised.
"Oh, I like her well enough," Kaede said, quite sincerely. "We just have very different styles. Returning to the point?"
"Oh, sorry, I'm all over the place at the moment."
"Really?" Kaede said, sarcastically. "I hadn't noticed."
Nigs smiled. "What I was actually asking was whether you would teach me."
"Teach you what?"
"To fight," Nigs expanded. "Up close. I...I don't actually know how and you clearly do. I mean, I saw you fighting Carmen and..."
"Nigel?"
"Yes?"
"You're less irritating when you're confident," Kaede informed him. "And you mumble less. The stammering gets on my nerves."
"Right," Nigs looked at the ground. "Sorry."
Kaede blinked. "Wait, are you shy?"
"No!" Nigs looked up hastily. "I just...you know. I mean...my history..."
"Oh god, don't be embarrassed on my account," Kaede rolled her eyes. "That's really pathetic. Do you honestly want me to teach you?"
Nigs hesitated. "Yes?"
Kaede smiled and threw her jacket over a bench again. "Then let's get started."
Ebb curled up on his bed like a cat, resting back against the cushions. Sandy lounged on a chair beside him. The positions were so customary by now that it would have felt wrong to have it any other way.
"You don't want to do this, do you?" Ebb guessed. "You think this is all a terrible idea."
Sandy didn't bother to deny it. "I've been in hostile takeovers before. They didn't go well."
Ebb nodded thoughtfully. "Do you...uh...want to talk about?"
Sandy looked almost as surprised as Ebb felt. Never once had he asked a question about Sandy, or wondered how he felt or what he wanted. He almost took it back but Sandy had already started talking.
"I used to live in this inn," he said, in a rush. "It was my father's. My mother died when I was young. Don't say you're sorry because I know you don't give a damn."
Ebb shrugged. "It's not like I knew her."
"Right," Sandy nodded. "But anyway, it was good. I had friends. Cirino and Isidora. The three of us were always together. Cirino used to give us swimming lessons in the lake. We built a swing once. It was fairly idyllic."
"It sounds it," Ebb agreed, trying his best to be a good listener, not one of his greatest skills.
"Anyway, when I was about fifteen, there was all this talk of battles on the inland borders and armies advancing," Sandy's eyes were unfocused, seeing something beyond what was in front of him. "We didn't think much of it. It was all rumour. But, then, it turned out it wasn't rumour. They reached our town..."
Sandy broke off and Ebb watched with the fascinated eye of an observer as the blood slowly left Sandy's face, leaving him pale and misty-eyed.
"It only took one night," he said, softly. "It's not like we were some great outpost of the military. We were just a town. The burned almost everything to the ground. My father died in the flames. He didn't get out in time and I didn't even think to save him."
"Why not?"
"I was focused on saving Cirino," Sandy gave a bitter laugh. "As soon as I got outside, Isidora was waiting for me, said she'd managed to escape but she couldn't find him anywhere. I thought my dad could look after himself. After all, he was a grown man."
"And Cirino couldn't?" Ebb wondered.
Sandy shrugged. "Maybe. He always acted like he could. But he was...you know. My best friend. The three of us, before anyone else. Not going to rescue him was unthinkable."
"So, what? You pulled him from the burning wreckage of his house?"
Sandy looked away. "No. It took us a long time to get there. I mean, I couldn't leave Isidora alone. She was wearing a nightgown and, well, she was a fierce fighter but it wouldn't have been that hard to overpower her and the things we were seeing..."
"Point taken. Go on."
"Anyway, we got to Cirino's place eventually, after avoiding a lot of soldiers," Sandy swallowed hard, his voice catching. "He lived with his aunt in this big house in the better part of town. There was an apple tree in the garden. We used to climb it."
Ebb didn't know how to respond to this. He decided that keeping quiet was safest.
"It was all on fire. The house. The tree. Everything. Smoke pouring from the windows. But there was a pond in the garden and I thought that if I soaked myself in water, maybe I could run inside and save him before it was too late."
Ebb watched with a detached kind of interest as Sandy brushed away tears angrily.
"But then we saw it. It was...it was ghoulish, you know? The kind of thing real people don't do. It only happens in nightmares. But this was a nightmare. Anyway, someone had set this...trident, I guess, up in the road. It was wedged between the flagstones. And...on each spike..."
Ebb thought he knew where this was going but he wasn't about to interrupt. Sandy's shoulders were shaking and he wouldn't look at Ebb now. He was staring at the floor.
"One head on each spike," he whispered. "Their dog, Stella, on the middle one. His aunt on the right. She was so good to us, to Isidora and me. And then...on the left..."
"Cirino," Ebb finished for him, because it was clear Sandy wasn't going to be able to say it.
He nodded tightly. "It was...there was blood in his hair. Dripping from his neck. I can't...I can't unsee it. You know things like that? I have to fight not to see it every time I blink. I just...it was the worst thing. The very worst thing."
"What did you do then?" Ebb asked.
"Ran," Sandy said, vaguely. "Away. We couldn't think straight. Couldn't see anything. I got back to the inn and someone had dragged my father out but...he was dead. Long gone. It was just Isi and me."
Ebb waited, patiently, for the story to continue. It took Sandy a long time to find the words.
"We left town," Sandy managed, eventually. "Camped out beside the lake for the rest of that night. They didn't find us until the morning. I got away but Isidora didn't. She was a proper fighter, Isi. She tried to fend them off with a stick she found in the ground. They cut her in two. With an axe, for god's sake! Not even a sword. An axe."
Ebb could picture it. He tried to understand for a minute how it must have felt, to have lost your father and your two childhood friends so brutally within twelve hours. But he couldn't, because he'd never had a father and he'd never had any friends.
"I headed for the coast," Sandy said, dully. "Lots of refugees did. They hated us inlanders there, and we hated them back, but nobody was going to send us away. I ended up living on a boat in the harbour. It was crowded and there wasn't much food but it was better than nothing."
"How'd you die?" Ebb wondered.
"The winter was harsh that year," Sandy explained. "The worst in a long time. The harbour iced over. The streets were full of snow. It was so cold, so very cold. And there was an outbreak of this disease. The boneless disease. It...it makes it so you can't move. Everything hurts. Your bones are so weak. Everything is so weak. And then you die."
"And you got that disease?" Ebb guessed.
Sandy nodded. "Got the disease, was miserable and in pain for a bit, fell into a stupor, died."
"So that's why you were so happy," Ebb realised, "when you woke up. Because you were well again."
Sandy nodded. "But that's why I don't want to do this. This rebellion. This revolution. This...whatever it is. I've seen people try and overthrow a power before. It killed everyone I cared about. It was...it was the worst thing."
"But this time, the people you care about are the attackers," Ebb said. "They have the advantage. They're not going to be ambushed and killed."
Sandy gave him a strange, dead-eyed look. "I don't want anyone to die like they did. I don't...I can't live through something like that again. On either side."
Ebb hesitated. "It...it probably won't be like that. It'll be cleaner. People here are more military. Nobody's going to be sticking any heads on any pikes. And I don't think anybody round here even owns an axe."
Sandy didn't say anything. He just reached out and slipped his hand around Ebb's. Ebb flinched in surprise, but didn't pull away. Sandy was still staring at the floor, holding Ebb's hand gently, his thumb just over the pulse in his wrist.
"Thanks," Sandy muttered. "I mean, it doesn't feel better having told someone. But...you know. I'm still glad I could."
Ebb didn't know how to reply to that.
"I'm tired," he yawned. "I should sleep."
"Sleep then," Sandy seemed reluctant to leave. "It's all going to be busy from now on."
He went to stand up and, just before he did, Ebb tightened his grip around his hand. Sandy froze still. Ebb released him and settled back, closing his eyes. His hand slid from Sandy's and landed gently on the bed beside him.
"Goodnight," Sandy said, quietly.
Ebb heard him walking away but by then he was already asleep.
Cass was waiting for Sandy outside Ebb's curtained cubicle, his arms folded.
"He should really move back into his own cell," Cass said, "now that he's not an invalid."
"Cass..." Sandy hesitated, knowing from the look on his friend's face that the boy had something to say.
"You really shouldn't be doing that, you know," Cass nodded towards the closed curtains.
"Why?" Sandy said, irritably. "Because it's illegal? We're not even...I mean...you know what I mean."
"No," Cass replied, thoughtfully, "though it is illegal and I really should report you for it."
"Then why?"
Cass sighed heavily. "Because, Sandy, that boy will break your heart."