Trellis

6

We leave the very next day, on foot, for whatever reason. Perhaps they thought it would be too un-dramatic and anticlimactic if we had a quick getaway vehicle. Or maybe they were just plain cruel.

We are not allowed to put on any of our suits. Yvet, to no one's surprise, makes a big fuss, only to get his foot stomped on by Ley. 'We're lucky they even let us take some clothes along,' she snaps. 'This is supposed to be twice as hard as the usual course!'

Once we are out of Gretya, they all turn to me. I am about to deliver a scathing comment, until I realize that I am supposed to lead the way. Sighing, I open a map on my computer. 

I know exactly where Blair lives, and whoever's been tracking my activity knows that I know. Well, leading them in the wrong direction will be completely impossible now. But I could re-route them a bit.

'Now, listen here.' I turn on my heel to face the kids. 'I know almost nothing about Blair, except that she's been travelling around the world before she started doing...whatever she did. Which is not an advantageous position, is it?' Hallett nods. 'So, what we can  do is track down the people she knew, the places she'd been, to get an overview of the type of person she is.'

'Now that is a plan,' says Yvet, adjusting the collar of his jacket. 'I was confused, at first, that they would actually have a fifth member of the team this year. But then I realized, none of us here are legally adults, and none of us here actually plan ahead.'

'That's some murder-suicide you pulled right there.'

'Shush.' 

Hallett and Cresswell don't say anything, which I take as agreement. 'So, one place she's been...uh oh. It's not in Arcadia.'

'Won't stop me.'

I turn. It's Cresswell, braiding her hair around her head. 'Family trade secrets. I can probably get you fake passports within a week...'

'Or you could do it the legal way,' says Yvet.

'Pffft. We should be remaining anonymous, should we not?'

To say that I am surprised would not cover it. I am absolutely affronted. She has a better idea than I do. I raise up my hand to vote in favour.

Hallett does it too.

Yvet takes two steps backwards. 'No! Not you too!'

Ley raises her hand.

Yvet breathes a sigh of relief. 'I can live with that.'

'I think that we should employ whatever is the most efficient method. Staying anonymous: that's one of them. Because if she finds out that we're after her, she's going to run. We can't have that.'

Admittedly, it's one of the longest sentences Hallett has spoken. I almost feel like clapping. 

Yvet exhales. 'Fine. But we can't ask for help from our families.'

'Who said we had to get in touch with my family?'

Ley whistles. 'Kertel, you're scary.'

She waves a hand. 'Trade secrets. We should probably find someplace to lodge while I go work my magic.'

~~

The jury is still out, but we decide to sleep in an abandoned train station. That I can deal with. It's dry, it has easy access to food and water, and there are no people to stare at you.

Yvet, obviously, hates it. Hallett tries to comfort him by allowing him to use his jacket for a pillow. Still, seventy-five percent of his daily activities is composed of complaining. 

Cresswell borrows my computer to make fake passports. She does her own first, obviously, and then each of the team members'. And then mine.

She asks for my personal information, because the best lies are always mixed with the truth.

'Birthdate?'

'Thirty-first May, year twenty-one eighty-eight.'

'Hm. Where were you born?'

'On a couch.'

'Fine. Full name?'

'What do you need that for?'

'Just curious.'

'Rheon Kasseida.'

'Which university did you go to?'

'That's not on a passport!'

Cresswell shrugs and continues typing. 'Just wanted to initiate friendly conversation.'

'I dropped out of high school. Family was dirt poor.'

'I noticed. Have my piece of bread.'

I take it. She types for another minute.

'Do you have parents?'

'They're both dead. And before you ask if I have siblings, no.'

Cresswell types furiously again.

'Where did you learn this? All the coding, I mean.'

'A teacher at school. He knew I had talent and offered to teach me. I studied under him until he was assassinated a year ago.'

'Assassinated?'

'He was leaking information, like I was.'

Cresswell goes back to typing. 

'You know, I never really understood why they made me do this.' Her typing stops for a moment. 'My family wasn't affiliated with anyone special.'

'Maybe they found out you were making fake passports and sent you on a suicide mission.'

'Hah, hah.' She wipes her brow. 'But—'

A blood-curdling scream almost shatters my eardrums. Yvet is standing up, pointing to something on the ground.

'A centipede!'

Ley doesn't even look up from the tracks she is examining. 'There's a lot of them here, I heard.'

Yvet leaps into Hallett's arms, vowing to never touch the floor again. Cresswell rolls her eyes.

'That one...I live in the same city as he does, and the rumours  I've heard.'

'Oh, what?'

'That he's thrown anti-government posters out of his school's window.'

'Wow.'

'It wasn't even some extreme stuff,' she says, 'just the usual "Care for the Poor" and a handy infographic about how our economic system isn't really working. But he nearly got expelled.'

'Holy.'

Despite all his complaining and mannerisms, I am beginning to feel more warmly towards Yvet. He feels sympathy. Towards me.

My mother died from a fever. It didn't go down after three days, which it usually did, and I I advised her to go to the hospital to get it treated. She refused, saying that the bills would put us in debt for the rest of our lives. 

And my father, from a hate attack. He was stealing Arcadian jobs, claimed one of the attackers. 

I was left alone at age nineteen. I could have walked out of the slums and found a job, but I didn't want to work myself almost to death in the mines just to get a barely liveable wage. I didn't have long in this world either, seeing as I haven't eaten something of actual nutritional value since age ten. 

I was going to drag everyone who had turned a blind eye to our suffering down.

But they got me in the end. They always did. 

And I would get back at them by sabotaging this mission.

That was if I could stomach killing Yvet after this.

I would leave him for last, then.

It looked like Hallett would be going first.