Children of Jubilee Read online

  The bubblelike space helmet around his head was a dead giveaway, but I think I would have known anyway. The Enforcer’s eyes were too cold and beady; the human face he wore under the helmet looked a little too fake.

  But doesn’t Daniel Brockteau’s face look fake too? I tested myself. Like he’s had plastic surgery, like every pore of his skin is covered with makeup?

  It wasn’t the same. I couldn’t explain it, even to myself, but I still looked at Daniel Brockteau and instantly categorized him as human, and looked at the Enforcer and instantly thought, Not.

  And yet Edwy had told me that the entire time he’d lived in Fredtown—all his life until the past few weeks—he’d never realized that the Freds were aliens too. He’d never known that he wasn’t on Earth.

  So Freds and Enforcers are both aliens, but they’re not the same kind of aliens. Freds are better at passing as humans.

  Or Edwy had just been incredibly naïve. Like everyone else raised in a Fredtown.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” the Enforcer said. “I am General DeMonde, supreme commander of Enforcer operations on Earth. I thank all of you for inviting us to your lovely planet.”

  Enu’s jaw dropped farther. I clenched my teeth together as hard as I could, and still a gurgle sounded in my throat, the only remnant of the words I wanted to scream: We didn’t invite you here! You invaded!

  Enu put his hand on my arm, and I shook it away.

  “We also appreciate how cooperative we’ve found the native populace,” General DeMonde continued. “We are now in charge and in control of every part of Planet Earth. And I am pleased to report that the transfer of power has been entirely peaceful and without incident.”

  I thought about the Dumpster vanishing before my eyes. I thought about how the crowd running from the Enforcers had been screaming, and then . . . they weren’t. And they weren’t anywhere in sight.

  I thought about how many things I wasn’t letting myself think.

  “He’s lying!” I hissed at Enu. “We’re not going to find out anything watching TV!”

  But Enu wasn’t listening. Enu was springing to his feet. Enu was grabbing a chair.

  Enu hurled the chair at the TV screen, and it shattered in a spray of broken glass.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “That wasn’t very smart,” I whispered into the silence after the glass stopped falling.

  “You don’t understand,” Enu said. He was breathing hard. Enu bragged about being able to play three basketball games in a row without breaking a sweat; I knew he wasn’t worn out just from throwing a chair. “I had to do that.”

  I sighed.

  “I do understand,” I whispered back. “But . . . we can’t stay here now.”

  Enu looked at the door that led back to the basement, then to the door across from it, the one I’d been about to open when the TV came on. The one that led into the unknown.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  “If someone comes, we need to lead them away . . . away from the other kids.” Suddenly I had a huge lump in my throat. “We have to go now.”

  I made myself stand up and reach for the knob of the mystery door again. It turned easily, but a long moment passed before I could work up the courage to actually pull the door open.

  For the other kids, I told myself. You have to.

  The door swung back, and . . .

  More darkness. But no one leaped out at us. No row of Enforcers stood there, ready to shoot. Instead I saw hulking shapes taller than my head, bathed in shadow.

  Shelves, I told myself. They’re just shelves.

  Enu and I were facing the emporium part of the Emporium of Food. The store. And it was after hours, so the emporium was closed and empty. Or, no—it never closed. Enu and I had placed orders at three a.m. before, and then a delivery person always showed up at our door ten or fifteen minutes later.

  The store was closed and silent tonight because of the invasion.

  Just then I heard a crash coming from the opposite side of the store. Or maybe it was even outside, in the street.

  “Would the Enforcers break in to come and get us?” Enu asked, clutching my shoulder.

  Or would they just vaporize the entire building? I wondered.

  A second crash sounded, and then a thud. I put the sounds together: Enu wasn’t the only one throwing heavy things at glass tonight.

  “Rocks,” I whispered to Enu. “Through the windows. Doesn’t seem like an Enforcer strategy.”

  “So it’s people doing that?” Enu asked, craning his neck as if he had some hope of seeing over the tall row of shelves before us. “Other human beings?”

  Refuge City had always been one of the safest places on Earth—it had been designed that way from the very beginning. But unlike Enu, I’d watched my history lessons; I’d seen what had happened in other parts of the world, at other times. I could call up images in my mind of people rebelling, rioting, looting. Bricks or rocks thrown through a window were always followed by hordes of people streaming into a store, ripping items off shelves, maybe even starting fires that burned down entire buildings and trapped people inside. . . .

  I strained my ears, listening. I could hear nothing else from the other side of the store.

  No, I could hear one thing: a scraping sound. Was it actually a cricket? No one ever heard crickets in Refuge City, because of all the traffic and the honking horns and the music from street performers and just the crowds of people talking and talking and talking. . . .

  “We have to go see what’s happening,” I told Enu.

  He nodded. I was glad his face was entirely in shadow, because otherwise I might have seen how scared he was. This way I could lie to myself; I could tell myself he wasn’t afraid, and that no matter what, my big, brave brother would protect me.

  I took the first step. Staying in the deepest shadows, we tiptoed down an aisle to the center of the store, then skulked from one hiding place to another, one shelf to the next. Finally we reached the last row of shelves before the outside window.

  “We’re not going all the way out there, are we?” Enu whispered in my ear, and even speaking so softly his voice squeaked. He seemed as young as Edwy suddenly.

  He wasn’t going to protect me. He couldn’t. He was more likely to do something foolish and rash that put us both in more danger.

  Something else, I mean.

  “We’re just peeking around this corner,” I whispered back. “Be ready to run if we have to.”

  I inched forward. The last shelf held bottles of laundry detergent, and I peeked over the tops of the bottles.

  Now I had a glimpse of one of the major streets of Refuge City. I’d lost track of what time it might be. Was it nine? Ten? Eleven o’clock at night? But even if it was later than that—even if it was the middle of the night—the street should have been full of cars and trucks and taxis. The sidewalks should have been full of wanderers out for a show or a sports game or just a walk. This was Refuge City!

  The street looked empty and dark. The sidewalk looked empty and dark.

  Then I heard a slight whistling noise, and something big—a boulder? A TV? An office chair like the one Enu had thrown?—came sailing toward another plate-glass window. I hunched over, braced for another crash.

  It didn’t happen. The giant object dissolved in midair, leaving behind nothing but traces of ash that fell to the ground like spent firecrackers. Moments later, a light went on over a second-floor balcony on the opposite side of the street. Two Enforcers in dark uniforms stood over a huddled shape.

  “That man threw his patio table down at the Enforcers,” Enu whispered in my ear. “And the Enforcers vaporized it and were there to catch him two seconds later.”

  Enu sounded like he wanted me to tell him he was wrong, that that wasn’t what had happened. He wanted me to make him understand what he’d just seen in an entirely different way.

  In an entirely safe and peaceful way.

  But Enu was right. And the Enforcers on th
e balcony weren’t the only danger: Now my eyes could pick out a small group of Enforcers patrolling the dark street in front of the Emporium of Food. They were close enough to hear Enu and me if we raised our voices to a shout—or maybe even just a normal speaking level.

  Though, what did I know about Enforcers’ ears? What if they had superhuman hearing and could detect our whispering?

  My fingers itched to reach for my phone and look it up. Of course I’d looked up everything I could about the Enforcers last night, when Edwy and I had first found out that Enforcers had arrested Rosi back in Cursed Town, back in our parents’ hometown. Last night, nobody had known much of anything. The Internet had been full of rumors, with only kernels of confirmed fact here and there. And though I’d bragged to Edwy about hacking into the Enforcers’ own online network, that had been a painstaking process, requiring lots of trial and error (and dangerous errors) for every small crumb of success.

  But last night, Cursed Town was the only place on the planet where Enforcers had taken control. Surely now that they were everywhere on Earth, the online world was full of information. . . .

  Enu dug his fingers into my arm and hissed into my ear, “Did you see that?”

  My gaze snapped back to the Enforcers and the huddled shape of the one solitary rebellious man on the balcony across the street.

  The Enforcers were kicking the man in the stomach. They were kicking him hard.

  “But that’s—that’s not—” I stammered. “He deserves a trial. He’s innocent until proven guilty. He—No matter what he did, he . . .”

  “That isn’t how Refuge City handles criminals,” Enu whispered, and in spite of myself I admired the way he could boil down everything that was swirling in my brain into seven words.

  Refuge City had no prisons. It didn’t even have jails. People were banished from the city forever if they broke any of the truly serious laws.

  And no one who had earned the right to live in Refuge City wanted to be banished. So of course no one broke any major laws.

  “Do you think—” I began whispering to Enu. But before I could say another word, he tightened his grip on my arm. It seemed entirely possible he would snap my arm bone in two.

  “Shh!” he hissed in my ear. “Do you hear—”

  I slid my hand over his mouth, because if he was going to tell me not to talk, he shouldn’t talk either.

  I listened to the darkness around us so hard that my ears rang. Out on the street, the patrolling Enforcers stepped silently, their loud marching from earlier in the day replaced by stealth and sneakiness. That made them even more dangerous.

  But I can still see the same cluster of five patrolling Enforcers I saw a moment ago. Nothing’s changed there. I don’t have to worry about them any more than I did a moment ago. . . .

  Even the two Enforcers kicking the man up on the balcony did their terrible deed in silence. Maybe the man had passed out from the pain.

  I couldn’t watch that. I looked back to the Enforcers on the street. There had been only five of them earlier, right? Surely there was no way I’d missed seeing one or two or three others in the shadows, and those others were now patrolling inside the Emporium of Food. . . .

  I struggled so hard to talk myself into feeling certain that there weren’t any extra Enforcers. I wanted to believe it so much.

  Because now I could hear the same faint sound that Enu was warning me about.

  Footsteps. Behind us.

  Coming our way.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Enu pointed left and I pointed right, and without words, it was impossible to explain my strategy: No, no, of course any Enforcer would expect us to run away from the window and the street. We’ve got to out-think them and outsmart them and act completely unpredictable or they’ll catch us right away. . . .

  If they caught us, would they start beating us the same way they were beating the man on the balcony?

  Enu tugged on my arm, and I tugged on his, and I felt so light-headed, I wasn’t sure I could run anywhere anyway. Maybe I would just faint. Maybe I would just vomit, and that’s how the Enforcers would catch us.

  “Enu? Kiandra?” someone whispered.

  I whirled around, and—

  It was Edwy. No, Edwy and Rosi both, tiptoeing toward us, clutching each other’s arms like they were holding each other up, daring each other to be brave.

  “Are you trying to get killed?” I demanded. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”

  I barely remembered to keep my voice down, to contain my outrage in a whisper.

  “We were worried about you,” Edwy whispered back.

  “Yeah, and if we’d been in trouble, what were you going to do about it?” Enu snarled.

  In the darkness they both sounded so young. Like little boys arguing, their chests puffed out like miniature roosters. I wanted to roll my eyes at Rosi and complain, Boys and their egos . . . I wanted this to be about nothing more serious than making fun of my brothers.

  “We’re fine,” I whispered. “But there are Enforcers right over there. . . .”

  I pointed past the shelf. Any normal kid would have understood that I meant, Stay away! Go back now! But I kept forgetting that Edwy and Rosi weren’t normal.

  Both of them stepped up to the gap in the shelf full of laundry detergent bottles. Both of them peeked over top of the bottles. Rosi gasped, and Edwy grabbed Enu and me and yanked us closer.

  “They’re hurting that man!” Rosi cried, and she seemed to be having as much trouble as I had keeping her voice down. “Somebody has to stop them!”

  I threw my arm across her chest, holding her back.

  “Oh no,” I said. “You are not running out there to help. It won’t do any good. They’ll just start beating you, too.”

  I saw that Enu had mirrored my action, grabbing Edwy’s shoulders too.

  “But we have to do something!” Rosi protested.

  Something wet touched the crook of my elbow. She was crying.

  Edwy’s hand brushed my arm. He was reaching out to Rosi too.

  “This isn’t Fredtown,” he whispered to her. “You would have gone running off to help, there. But here . . .”

  “Here it’s even more important!” Rosi hissed back.

  She struggled against my grip.

  “No, no—we have to be smart about helping,” Edwy whispered.

  Rosi stopped struggling so hard.

  “Tell me how,” she begged.

  “We can’t overpower those Enforcers,” Enu contributed, leaning in close, practically touching his head to mine and Edwy’s. “We don’t have any power at all.”

  It was heartbreaking to hear Enu admit that. Enu normally acted like he had power and control over everyone and everything.

  “If the Freds found out this was happening . . . ,” Edwy began.

  Rosi shook her head frantically.

  “The Freds are obeying the rules,” she said bitterly. “They’ll abide by every edict and proclamation of the intergalactic court. And the intergalactic court says Freds aren’t allowed on Earth anymore. But the Enforcers have the right to be here. To do whatever they want. That’s the agreement.”

  “Then we have to get the intergalactic court to change its mind,” Edwy said. “If they saw this . . .”

  I had nothing to contribute. As far as I could tell, this was a pointless conversation. And a dangerous one. What if the Enforcers outside could hear our hissing and whispering? What if they were right this minute creeping our way?

  I kept my grip on Rosi’s shoulders, but I moved my head forward, to scan the streetscape once more.

  The Enforcers had stopped beating and kicking the man on the balcony. They’d balanced his unconscious body over the railing, as though they planned to come back later and scoop him up. (That is, if he didn’t fall over first.) They’d moved on to another balcony, more directly in my sightlines. Now they were beating a woman and a little boy.

  I turned my body sideways, because Rosi really shouldn
’t see this.

  But Edwy grabbed my arm, tugging it forward.

  “Kiandra can help,” he said. “Kiandra can record everything the Enforcers are doing on her phone. And then she can send the video to the intergalactic court without the Enforcers even knowing. She knows how to do that. She can hack into any system! She can do anything with computers!”

  He had such pride in his voice. Such pride in me. I didn’t think he was right—I didn’t think there was any way to stop the Enforcers. But Rosi started tugging on my arm too.

  “That . . . might help,” she whispered through her tears. “It won’t stop the Enforcers from hurting these people, but it could stop them from hurting anyone else. . . .”

  “That would show them!” Enu agreed.

  I thought about the snippet of TV news Enu and I had seen—how the Enforcers’ general was telling the world that their invasion had been a peaceful “rescue,” that everybody wanted them here.

  No—he wasn’t just telling the world, everyone on Planet Earth, I realized. The Enforcers don’t care what people on Earth think or believe. That’s what the general was telling the universe. That was their lie to the intergalactic court. The intergalactic court needs to see the truth. And I can show them.

  I knew the risks. I didn’t know much about the intergalactic court—maybe they wouldn’t even care. Maybe they already knew what the Enforcers were like. But I couldn’t let them pretend they didn’t know—or let the Freds on the intergalactic court pretend they were all saintly and good. Enu’s words woke up something deep inside me, something that had been numb ever since I’d seen that Dumpster vaporized. I was Kiandra Watanaboneset, and I might be about to die, but I wasn’t going to die for nothing. If I had to die, I was going to die trying.

  I had a purpose.

  My hand curled around the familiar curve of my mobile phone. I pulled it out of my pocket, turned it on, and aimed it at the pair of Enforcers looming over the woman and the little boy. I hit the record button just as one of the Enforcers smashed his fist into the woman’s face.

  A split second later, the phone was yanked from my hand.