I nodded. “They say he couldn’t stand you being out of the game. So when the Treaty was announced, he blinded you. He knew you’d never get a spot on an OPT if you were disabled.”
The Mole gave a short laugh. “It wasn’t my old boss. Turns out, he didn’t miss me either.”
“Who, then?”
He was quiet for a long time. “I was young enough to enter the lottery. Did they tell you that?” He was referring to the lottery for OPT spots, which was open to “all citizens of upstanding status under the age of forty, with no physical, mental, or moral infirmities.” If you’d been convicted of a crime, you were no longer eligible, unless you were under the age of fourteen when the crime was committed.
I shrugged. “We all were. Until we weren’t.”
“My last conviction was under the age cut-off, so I didn’t lose eligibility. Even if I’d come clean about breaking out, I had a few months to spare.”
“So?”
“So, I’m trying to warn you, little bird. My boss didn’t do this to me. He had bigger fish to fry.”
“Then who did?”
He closed the book slowly and laid it on the retractable shelf near his sink. “I broke my mother’s heart. You might know something about that.”
“Surely your mom didn’t—”
“Didn’t want to deal with me in space. I reckon she would have, though. Mothers are like that. But my brother, that’s another story. He was sick of watching me hurt her.”
That took a long time to sink in. I shuddered. “Your own family.”
“They made sure I’d never see the Ark. And now, my family is the one in here. So’s yours. The Remnant doesn’t exist, you know. Fairytales. Hope keeps people sane.”
I leaned across the book and placed my hand on his, mulling over his story. His nickname seemed cruel now.
We were still for a moment, but my breathing didn’t slow. His, by contrast, was as steady as the waves of the ocean. I wanted his calm, his acceptance, but I knew I wouldn’t find it here. His thumb flicked up to touch my forefinger. Every instinct I had told me to keep the starpass a secret, but it was the only play I had left.
I pressed the silver and blue card into his hand. “Isaiah. My journey doesn’t end here.”
He ran a thumb over the letters, and his dark glasses couldn’t conceal his surprise. “Alright, little bird. I’ll show you how I did it.”
Minutes later, we were standing in front of the walk-in freezer in the kitchen. Isaiah heaved the door ajar and waited for me to step inside.
“Back there.” Isaiah indicated the far wall with his cane, and I climbed inside. The cold hit me immediately, but the pleasure of a momentary chill faded when the frigidity coated my skin. Thanks to a raid several days earlier, the shelves around me were bare. There was a sucking pop sound as the door closed behind him. “All the way back.”
“Wait. It’s dark.”
“Always dark for me. Leave it closed. Don’t want to be followed. Go on.”
I stumbled forward in the cold. A few steps later, a pale green pin of light came into view on the back wall of the freezer. When I got closer, its dim light fell on the things around me—shreds of cardboard boxes and my own outstretched hands.
Isaiah’s hands appeared a second later. He slid a flattened palm across the wall before us until his fingers met a seam. This he followed to a screw, which he loosened with a thumbnail, then twisted until it dropped into his outstretched hand.
I shivered as he repeated the process three more times.
“Here we go.” Isaiah took a slow breath and heaved the panel onto the floor. “Watch your feet.”
A gaping hole yawned in the wall in front of me. “What is this?”
“Used to be the vent to the air conditioning. My guess is the workers didn’t much care about fixing it up when they installed the freezer during the last renovation.”
“How did you find it?”
“I was always looking, back then. Always searching for my way out.”
“Wish I could say the same.”
“You follow this to the outside. Leads to the south gate. You can’t get to it any other way, so it’s not as secure as the rest. I got out by climbing the old unit and hoppin’ down the fence. Here.”
He shoved an industrial-sized kitchen mat into my arms, which he must have picked up at the entrance to the freezer. “I had to take this with me, when I made my journey, so that they wouldn’t know how I did it. Won’t much matter now whether you leave it there or not.”
He was right about that.
“What’s it for?”
“Razor wire on the fence. Won’t stop ’em all, but you’ll make it just fine. If you want to come back, in the very end, I’ll be here.”
I stood facing him, paralyzed by the moment. “Isaiah, please. Come with me. I already got one starpass, maybe we can figure something out. You can’t stay here.”
He smiled again and shook his head. The green light shone against his teeth as they swung back and forth. “It doesn’t suit you, you know.”
“What?”
“Your name. Char is the end of the story, the cooked goose. Maybe you were right, and your story’s just getting started good. But look at me. I’m blind. They’ll never let me on the transport. And if they see you with me, you’ll have the same fate. And then you will be Char.” He chuckled, a soft, deep sound that swallowed the steady hum of the freezer. “But don’t think that this will be your freedom. You may find nothing but a bigger cage.”
“Or maybe I will fly.”
“Maybe so. Maybe so.” He grasped my arm, briefly, by way of a farewell.
A door slammed, its sound muffled by the walls of the freezer. I hesitated, one foot in the vent. “Did you hear that?”
“Kitchen. People want food.”
The freezing air made me suddenly aware of the tiny beads of sweat on my forehead. “No one here thinks there’s food in the kitchen.”
A series of methodical clangs danced around us. “Someone’s looking for something else, then,” Isaiah whispered. Cabinets were being slammed open. A louder bang announced that one of the pantries had been searched.
“It’s Kip. He’s going to find us.”
I expected Isaiah to protest, to say that I couldn’t possibly know who was out there, or that Kip had surely already left the prison by this point, but instead, he said, “Better go, then.”
The bangs were getting closer. I knew, without any doubt, that it was Kip, and that he would find me. “He must have waited, then followed me. They’re looking for the Remnant. They knew I’d go to you. Isaiah. Come with me.”
“Ain’t nothing for me out there. I’ll stop him.”
“You can’t. You can’t stop Kip. You haven’t seen him when he’s… You can’t stay here.”
“It’s the only thing I can do.”
“Take my hand.”
His hand was warm and firm, and a lot stronger than his final protest. “Charl—”
“Come on. We’re leaving. Your journey doesn’t end here, either.”
The duct was warm, but relatively ventilated. My hands shook as I replaced the