The Ask and the Answer (Page 70)

The sun rises before we get to the city. Wilf pushes the oxes as fast as they’ll go, but even so, it’s going to be a dangerous trip back, with the city awake, with Noisy men on our cart. We’re taking a terrible risk.

But on Wilf drives.

I’ve explained what I want to see, and he says he knows a place. He stops the cart deep in some woods and directs us up a bluff.

“Keep yer heads down now,” he says. “Don’t be seen.”

“We won’t,” I say. “But if we’re not back in an hour, don’t wait for us.”

Wilf just looks at me. We all know how likely him leaving us is.

Lee and I make our way up the bluff, keeping down in the cover of the trees, until we reach the top and see why Wilf chose the place. It’s a hill near where the tower fell, one where we’ve got a clear view of the road coming down towards the Office of the Ask, which we’ve heard is some kind of prison or torture chamber or something like that.

I don’t even want to know.

We lie on our stomachs, side by side, looking out from some bushes.

“Keep your ears open,” Lee whispers.

As if we need to. As soon as the sun rises, New Prentisstown ROARs to life. I begin to wonder if Lee even needs to hide his Noise so much. How could it not be possible to drown in it?

“Because drowning is the right word,” Lee says when I ask. “If you disappeared into it, you’d suffocate.”

“I can’t imagine what it’s like growing up inside it all,” I say.

“No,” he says. “No, you can’t.”

But he doesn’t say it in a mean way.

I squint down the road as the sun brightens. “I wish I had some binos.”

Lee reaches into a pocket and pulls out a pair.

I give him a look. “You were just waiting for me to ask so you could look all impressive.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, smiling, putting the binos to his eyes.

“C’mon.” I push him with my shoulder. “Give them to me.”

He stretches away to keep them out of my grabbing range. I start to giggle, so does he. I grab onto him and try to hold him down while I snatch at the binos but he’s bigger than me and keeps twisting them away.

“I’m not afraid to hurt you,” I say.

“I don’t doubt that,” he laughs, turning the binos back to the road.

His Noise spikes, loud enough to make me afraid someone’ll hear us.

“What do you see?” I say, not giggling any more.

He hands the binos to me, pointing. “There,” he says. “Coming down the road.”

But I’m already seeing them in the binos.

Two people on horseback. Two people in shiny new uniforms, riding their horses. One of them talking, gesturing with his hands.

Laughing. Smiling.

The other keeping his eyes on his horse, but riding along to work.

Riding along to his job at the Office of the Ask.

In a uniform with a shiny A on the shoulder.

Todd.

My Todd.

Riding next to Davy Prentiss.

Riding to work with the man who shot me.

[TODD]

The days keep passing. They keep getting worse.

“All of ’em?” Davy asks, his Noise ringing with badly hidden alarm. “Every single one?”

“This is a vote of confidence, David,” the Mayor says, standing with us at the door of the stables while our horses are made ready for the day’s work. “You and Todd did such an excellent job with permanently identifying the female prisoners, who else would I want to be in charge of expanding the programme?”

I don’t say nothing, not even acknowledging Davy’s looks at me. His Noise is confused with the pink of his pa’s praise.

But then there’s also his thoughts about banding all the women.

Every single one.

Cuz banding the ones in the Office of the Ask was even worse than we thought.

“They keep leaving,” the Mayor says. “In the dead of night, they slip away and cast their lot with the terrorists.”

Davy’s watching Deadfall get saddled in a small paddock, his Noise clanking with the faces of the women who get banded, the cries of pain they make.

The words they speak to us.

“And if they keep getting out,” the Mayor says, “they obviously keep getting in, too.”

He means the bombs. One every night for the past two weeks nearly, so many they must be increasing for a reason, they must be leading up to something bigger, and no women have been caught planting ’em except once when a bomb blew up while the woman was still putting it in place. They didn’t find much left of her except bits of clothing and flesh.

I close my eyes when I think of it.

Feeling nothing, taking nothing in.

(was it her?)

Feeling nothing.

“You want us to number all the women,” Davy says again quietly, looking away from his pa.

“I’ve said it before,” the Mayor sighs. “Every woman is part of the Answer, if only because she is a woman and therefore sympathetic to other women.”

The groomsmen bring Angharrad into a nearby paddock. She sticks her head over the rail to bump me with her nose. Todd, she says.

“They’ll resist,” I say, stroking her head. “The men won’t like it neither.”

“Ah, yes,” says the Mayor. “You missed yesterday’s rally, didn’t you?”

Davy and I look at each other. We were at work all day yesterday and didn’t hear nothing bout no rally.

“I spoke to the men of New Prentisstown,” the Mayor says. “Man to man. I explained to them the threat the Answer poses us and how this is the next prudent step forward to ensure safety for all.” He rubs a hand down Angharrad’s neck. I try and hide how prickly my Noise gets at the sight. “I encountered no resistance.”

“There weren’t no women at this rally,” I say, “were there?”

He turns to me. “I wouldn’t want to encourage the enemy among us, now would I?

“But there’s effing thousands of ’em!” Davy says. “Banding ’em all will take forever.”

“There will be other teams working, David,” the Mayor says calmly, making sure he’s got his son’s full attenshun. “But I’m sure the two of you will outwork any of them.”

Davy’s Noise perks up a bit at this. “You bet we will, Pa,” he says.

He looks at me, tho.

And there’s worry there.