To say that Commander We Suffer looked astonished would have been an understatement.
“Are you certain?”
“You’ve been talking about the Convoy,” Nona said eagerly, pleased to have any sign of encouragement. “We all know about them, or at least my gang does. At school. Honesty went down there to make money by stealing air-conditioning systems, but it ended badly and he says he’ll stick to drugs.”
“But this—this is a story being told by—what, a child? A teenager? About some other person who says they saw some people in a truck— Is your friend to be trusted?”
Nona dithered. “I don’t think he was lying this time,” she said. “Really. Seriously, ask the Angel—I mean, ask Aim.”
The commander put her flip-top computer in Crown’s arms and stood up. She kept her balance using the swaying handholds at the top of the truck, and she turned her face away from Nona so that Nona could not see what she was saying, which made hearing and understanding nearly impossible. While she was talking, a muffled crack—boom of thunder sounded overhead, then another, softer crack—boom, followed by long whistles, like something breaking a far-off sound barrier.
Pash said, “Missile launcher?”
“Wrong sound,” said Pyrrha.
The commander turned around. “Nona,” she said, “would your friend Honesty tell us the exact location where he saw the trucks?”
Even in the circumstances, Nona had to laugh.
“No, never. Honesty says never tell anything to anyone in uniform.”
“Would he tell you?”
Nona felt very grave. “If you had asked me that yesterday,” she said, “I would have said, probably yes, because Honesty’s my friend, but—Hot Sauce shot me when she found out I was a zombie, so I’m out of the gang.”
“Ah … children, they are very forgiving,” said the commander, proving to Nona she had never been around children. She said into her receiver: “The Messenger will tell you the street. Split us off and take us there.”
Pyrrha leant over. “Do you want me to go with you, junior?”
But Nona knew that she couldn’t take Pyrrha either; it just wouldn’t work.
“No,” she said drearily, “at least, I want you to, but you can’t. At least if Honesty tries to hit me,” she reasoned, cheering herself up, “I can do one of my horrible screams. That’d impress him.”
A hard wind had whipped up when they dropped Nona outside the decrepit building where Honesty lived. Pash jumped out of their idling truck, and so had several other Blood of Eden soldiers bristling with guns. Nona felt very vulnerable ducking up the rickety stairs—the wind suddenly blew upward so hard as she mounted the second staircase that she thought she would fall backward and off—but she pulled herself along doggedly. It seemed to her that her entire brain now lived somewhere in her forehead. Her body knew it was tired, but it was as though someone else were feeling it; or maybe that she weren’t feeling it at all.
Honesty lived in what had used to be a utility room, so it didn’t have any numbers on the door. Honesty always said he found that comforting, staying in an unlisted apartment. She hammered on the door, and when nobody answered, she despaired. She hammered again and hissed, desperately— “Honesty, it’s me! Let me in!”
There was still no sound from within. What if Honesty had gone out? But then the door cracked on a rusted chain, and a watery blue eye was visible in that seam between door and frame, and she heard his familiar hoarse voice—
“Nona?”
“Honesty, please let me in,” she said.
“I can’t.”
“Will you talk to me, then? Just here at the door?”
His eye flashed one way, then another. He said, more conversationally: “I mean, it’s not—it’s not like I don’t want to, Nona, but … you gotta understand, it’s that … well, you see…”
Nona knew immediately, and was miserable. “You’ve talked to Hot Sauce.”
“Is it true?” said Honesty. “Are you a zombie?”
“Even if I said I wasn’t, would you go against Hot Sauce?”
“Hell no,” said Honesty.
“Good,” said Nona, “I would think less of you if you did, you know, Honesty, because—because even if I’m not in the gang anymore, I want you to know, I think it’s important to believe Hot Sauce first.”
Honesty looked backward and forward again, his pale eye roving restlessly over her and her surrounds.