Rob twists the handle of the door, but it's locked. To my surprise, he pulls out a laser from his other pocket, which melts the metal handle in under five seconds. He puts the laser in the hole he created, and there's a small hum and a faint whiff of smoke.
The door opens soundlessly. The room is lit with dozens of monitors, like the Emerald City newsroom. The screens on the sides display images of the audience, but the block of screens in the center all show the Strand promotional vid. Silhouetted against the bright light coming from the screens are three men and two women.
All of the technicians are staring at the various monitors, occasionally pressing buttons on a dashboard that is so complex it looks like it belongs on a rocket ship.
Our research into the technicians was thorough, and I know what each of these people does. Four are Throwbacks, all trained in stagecraft. The fifth is an Evolved manager, and he stands, directing his minions.
Harriet, Rob, and I move in sync. Harriet uses her Taser on two of the Throwbacks in quick succession, and I take out the other two Throwbacks with a touch of a button. There's only time for one scream before the room is silent. All five of our targets are collapsed in their seats, and they'll remain unconscious for thirty minutes to an hour.
I'm breathing hard from fear, but I grin at Harriet, who smiles back. Rob is staring at the man he took down. His eyes are wide, and I worry that his target is still conscious. That's when I see something dripping down the Evolved's chair onto the floor.
"What did you do?"
Harriet and I race over, and I touch the man's head. He's bleeding. My fingers automatically go to his neck to find a pulse. There's none.
Shock, combined with the leftover effects of the headache, freeze my mind. "You killed him."
"Get moving," Rob orders me. "Get Crew connected to the video feed."
"You're crazy," Harriet says, and I see her body subtly shift into a defensive pose, in case Rob decides to attack.
"This trash deserved what he got. Sal researched him. He evicted thirty tenants from an apartment complex he owns, sending them onto the streets in the middle of winter. Kids too. One woman died from exposure."
"You're a murderer," I snarl, snatching the laser weapon he's holding before he can use it again.
Rob ignores me. "Get on with the plan!"
I press the button on my Taser again, and Rob drops to the ground with a heavy thud.
Harriet's face is still and stony. "What's the right thing to do here? Do we abort this mission or continue?"
I fight my rising nausea. There's no way to save the Evolved man, but going forward as if our plan is on track is unthinkable.
"Joan, look," Harriet says, pointing to a monitor on the far left side of the room.
The headmaster occupies a seat in the front row of the theater, with the rest of the Strand executives who are attending the screening. We knew that he somehow escaped from his office about eight hours after we confronted him, but it's still a shock to see him here, his smug smile in place. Isn't he afraid of what we've found on his tablet? Maybe he thinks we'll blackmail him personally. No one sees an attack coming here tonight.
He steeples his bony fingers, and the sight of his familiar tic makes my fists clench. "What Rob did is wrong, and he's going to face punishment for it. But justice can still be delivered tonight."
Harriet nods in agreement, and we try to make sense of the control panel in front of us. Eventually, I find the tablet that is displaying Blake's vid, and I connect to the Chrysalis from that tablet.
A message appears on my phone from Crew to all four of us.
We are connected and in control of the video feed from here. Lock down the theater.
An emergency door slams closed behind Harriet and me, and we both jump.
"It's Nic. He's sealing us in so no one can stop the vid until it's complete," I say aloud, as much to remind myself as to reassure Harriet.
The screens displaying To Each, His Place flicker and then go dark. Then a message appears in stark white letters.
To Each, His Place is a lie. What you are about to witness is the truth. Remain seated, and no harm will come to you this day.
Screams erupt from the audience as the emergency gates at every one of the theater's exits come crashing down. Nic has successfully sealed us all inside the Showbox by accessing a security protocol put in place in case of riots in the street, presumably from the Throwback rabble. The theater is in lockdown for the next twenty minutes, and no one is getting in or out.
The screens that were displaying the promo begin a new vid, one that I know well. Marie, Sun, Harriet, and I crafted it with the evidence we found on the headmaster's laptop.
Our vid is short because we have only twenty minutes to show the evidence against all of the Strand executives and the headmaster before the doors can be opened externally by the Evolved police. It starts with a statement.
Meet Julius Hunter. By day, he is the headmaster of Seattle Secondary. By night, he pimps out his students, blackmailing the ones who resist.
A vid shows the headmaster escorting girls down the streets of Seattle into exclusive Evolved clubs. The vid is interspersed with clips of scantily clad girls with gold in their vacant eyes, all students at Seattle Secondary, speaking into a camera and giving their consent to be sold in return for favors and money. Next is the most damning evidence, vids that the headmaster kept on his hard drive of the girls in private rooms with their "clients."
There are brief flashes of a girl resisting a man and getting hit, two passed out as their clients take advantage of them, and another crying next to an unconscious man. The clips are hard to watch, even after seeing them so many times when I helped create the vid.
Last is a clip of Sparkle.
In the background, the headmaster's voice says, "State your name."
"Sparkle Mol."
"You agree to comply with all demands that my clients require of you of your own free will?"
Sparkle gives a humorless laugh, and a tear streaks down her perfect cheek. "Sure, Headmaster Hunter. I'll comply."
On screen, the final words of our vid appear.
On August 3, Sparkle Mol hung herself. Her suffering at the hands of Dr. Julius Hunter is over. But for twenty-three other girls, the pain continues.
The screen fades to black, and my eyes turn to the monitors showing the audience. Tears stream down the faces of dozens of the Evolved men and women, and others wear expressions of openmouthed shock.
Headmaster Hunter rises from his seat. He's shouting something. Even from where we are deep underground, Harriet and I can hear the audience as their shock turns to rage. Headmaster Hunter yells back, his face red.
"I hope they mob him and beat him to death," I say, and for a second, I mean it.
The yelling of the audience quiets as the next vid begins, presenting evidence against Strand's Chief Financial Officer Trenton Gallo, who is guilty of participating in a Throwback fighting ring. After the evidence is shown, the vid switches to a live stream of a team of three members of our rebellion—Joseph, Sal, and Mary—knocking on the door of a tall, elegant house in a wealthy suburb of Seattle.
They are there to make a citizen's arrest of Trenton and haul him to jail. Joseph carries a camera, and we watch as they barge into the home, opening bedroom doors. In one, a child is sleeping, and she wails at the sight of three strangers in her home. I wince at the fear in her eyes.
The rebels open the door to the master bedroom. Trenton is pulling on his pants, and the rebels grab him. Now, they are supposed to present him with the charges he'll be facing for his crimes, but they don't. Instead, Sal pulls out a knife.
"He isn't resisting," Harriet says, her brow wrinkled in confusion. "Why would they—"
Her words are cut off as Sal plunges his knife into Trenton's right eye. Behind him, Trenton's wife screams as her husband drops to the ground, a pool of blood slowly forming beneath his head.
The screen fades to black before my mind can wrap itself around what I witnessed. Then words appear on the screen.
Every year, more than ten thousand Throwback citizens are "retired" for crimes as petty as shoplifting, while those who have "Evolved" into monsters go unpunished.
The next vid starts, presenting evidence against another Strand executive.
"What's happening?" Harriet asks, her voice shaking.
"We have to stop this. Something has gone wrong!" I shout.
I try to send a message to Crew, then Marie and Dennis, but there are no replies to my texts or the holographic chat window I have open on my tablet.
Harriet is banging on the exit to the control room, but it's still sealed. I message Nic, and he doesn't reply, either. Almost against my will, my eyes return to the center screens. A team comprised of rebels from Nic's class is in charge of the live feed when they confront the Strand's senior director of research and development. Sloan, I think her name is. Sloan opens the door herself, and a rebel steps forward and beats her with a laser whip until she collapses. When she's unconscious, one of the rebels slits her throat, and I gag as blood pours out of the wound.
Harriet stands next to me, and we stop fighting to get out of this room. Instead, we grip each other's hands. Right now she's the only stable thing on a planet spinning out of control. Neither of us cries as executive after executive is confronted and murdered by the rebellion that we planned, supported, and helped execute.
The cameras trained on the audience show people breaking down, crying, screaming, and attempting to get out of the theater. A group of people use a chair as a battering ram, trying to force their way out. Every time another person is killed on screen, the pitch of the screaming becomes more frantic.
At last, the doors of the control room open. The emergency lockdown is over. On screen, police pour into the theater, trying to control the chaotic mess of a hysterical mob.
"We have to run," Harriet says, snapping me out of my trance. "Do we bring Rob?"
"No," I reply, ignoring his unconscious body on the ground.
I know this decision is tantamount to a death sentence for him, because after what everyone saw tonight, anyone involved will be executed. But I won't risk Harriet's life to drag a murderer out of here, either.
Crew told us we would have a minute and a half before anyone would make it from the theater to the control room once all of the doors were open.
He was wrong. The headmaster is standing in the hallway with a laser whip in his hand and murder in his eyes.
Pushing Harriet behind me is a reflex. Then I launch myself at him with every ounce of rage and adrenaline inside me. His whip cracks against my chest before we both tumble to the ground. There is no pain. All I feel is relief to be doing something, after twenty torturous minutes of watching my world, my ideals, crumble before me.
The headmaster's whip is knocked out of his hand and skitters across the ground. He punches me in the face, and my vision briefly goes black. I don't wait for my sight to return before throwing all of my power into an elbow to his chin and a knee to his groin.
He curls up, groaning, and I press the button on my Taser to render him unconscious.
Bloodsprays on my shirt, my face, my hair, and I shriek. I used Rob's laser weaponon the headmaster instead of the Taser. I've killed him.