the one who’s always going on about how important my visions are. What they’re worth. Didn’t it occur to you that there was a reason that Elsa was the person I went to in New Hobart? That something could have drawn me to her house, even if I wasn’t aware of it, the same way I was drawn to the island?”
I’d been wondering about this since Kip’s death. I’d been thinking of all the tanks lined up in that chamber I’d discovered under Wyndham. Had I found myself at Kip’s tank, of all the tanks in that room, because something had led me there? Had my fear of the Confessor drawn me, unwittingly, to find her twin?
“Whether your friend is involved or not,” said Simon, “it makes no difference—we can’t free the town. That would mean open war, outnumbered and under-resourced.”
“It’s already war,” I said. “Just a slow war, and we’re losing. They’re looking for something in New Hobart—something important enough for the Council to hold the city all this time. It’s something that could help us to find the Ark, or even Elsewhere. It could make all the difference.”
“How?” Simon’s voice was weary. “Even if we could free the town and find the papers, what will some dusty documents offer us? More details of the Before? More taboo machines that we can’t understand?”
“You’re sounding like the Ringmaster,” I said. “We can’t run from this, just because the machines scare us. Zach and the General have been using machines all along. That’s always been at the heart of their plans. They’ve already found the Ark. The papers could lead us there, or to Elsewhere. You want to let the Council find the papers first? The more information they have, the more dangerous they get.”
For an hour, we argued. We kept coming back to the necessity of freeing New Hobart, and the impossibility of doing so. The conversation was a closed loop, like the wall around the town itself.
“If we lose the battle,” Simon said, “it would be the end of the resistance.”
Sally had been sitting in silence, Xander’s hand in hers. She spoke quietly.
“That’s all we focus on these days, isn’t it? The massacre on the island. Shifting out to the east, like you’re doing now. Call it what you like—it’s a retreat. But when did we stop thinking about what we’re fighting for? We’re just running and hiding, trying to forestall the end of the resistance. I understand the fear—I’ve seen how hard things have got. I know what we’re up against. But what if this Ark could really change things? What if we stopped thinking about the end of the resistance, and started thinking about the end of the Council?”
Ω
Just before dawn, Simon gave the order to strike camp and head for New Hobart. Troops were sent to the woods to retrieve the horses hidden there and to lead them down to the quarry to be loaded with gear. Two guards were being left in the quarry, but tents and gear still needed to be shifted. The white clay clung to everything, including the tents, and the horses slipped on the paths that had become troughs. Twice I tried to help with the loading, but each time I approached, the guards would turn from me, dragging the horses away without a word.
Our group set off before noon, and we rode late into the night. Piper and I were at the front, next to Simon. Behind us rode Sally, holding Xander in front of her, with Zoe beside them, and two of Simon’s scouts. After all the time I’d spent traveling with just Kip, or Zoe and Piper, it was a luxury to ride on horseback, with scouts navigating and keeping watch, and others to set up the camp and cook. We traveled in small groups, mainly at night, joining others occasionally when we camped at rendezvous points. But whenever we joined the other troops, I caught them staring at me. I recognized the look; all Omegas were familiar with it. It was the same look that the Alphas gave us: a mixture of fear and disgust. The troops were hostile to Piper and Zoe, too. Once, when we camped for a day in a boulder field, I heard a man scoff as he saw Piper.
“There he goes, with the Alpha and the seer again,” the man said.
A woman joined in. “More interested in them than in his own kind.”
Zoe had spun around, but Piper gripped her arm and