Z 2134

and asked the questions she’d been holding inside.
    “Why did you do it?” she asked, ignoring the Network orb hovering above — if they didn’t want citizens to know about her father’s being a part of The Underground, they’d either sever the audio or switch the broadcast feed. “Why did you betray my father?”
    “Your dad was one of the finest people I’ve ever known,” Liam said instantly, as if he’d been waiting for the question. “That’s why I was angry when you assumed he was guilty.”
    Ana expected Liam to say more, but he fell silent as they continued to slosh through the snow and another minute’s worth of tension-tainted silence until she finally turned to face him.
    “No,” she said, “you don’t get off that easy. You betrayed my father, Liam, and I’m on the wrong side of The Wall because of you. You owe me an explanation!”
    “No,” he said. “I don’t. I owe you and your father my life, and you can both have it. That’s fair, but that’s all you get.”
    He kept walking, trying to avoid more conversation.
    What an asshole!
    “Fuck you, Liam. If you can’t be straight with me, I’ll take my chances without you.” She took a step toward him. “And I mean it. You know how stubborn my father is. Well, I’m no different. So what’s it gonna be?”
    He said nothing, and for nearly a minute Ana almost believed Liam would call her bluff, then turn around and head in the opposite direction.
    Finally, and without looking at her, he said, “City Watch targeted my girlfriend.”
    Ana could tell he wanted to cry, even though she knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he would. “If I didn’t play ball, she would’ve been killed. I had no choice.”
    “ You had a girlfriend?” Ana said, not meaning to fill her voice with surprise but unable to stop.
    “Yes.” He turned his eyes.
    “What was her name?”
    “Chelle, and she was sweet, Ana, the nicest girl I ever met. You would’ve loved her. Anyway, Chelle got pregnant. The pills didn’t work, and we didn’t have a voucher. The baby was scheduled for termination, but we applied for an adoption waiver. But she never intended to give it up, or if she did, it was only at first. Chelle wanted to keep it. More than anything.”
    “Why?” Ana wondered out loud.
    There were plenty of citizens unable to have kids, who were eager to adopt a child, so long as it wasn’t a Quarters kid. It didn’t make sense to risk prison, Watchers, or ejection from The City, when you could get pregnant again with a voucher.
    Ana asked, “Why not give the child a safe home through adoption?”
    Liam shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure, since Chelle gave me 150 different answers, depending on the day. She was insistent, and more stubborn than you, if you can believe it.” His voice made another tiny crack, letting Ana know the worst was still inside.
    “We didn’t know what to do, but that was the first time I’d ever seriously considered leaving The City. There’s a secret village in The Barrens where I thought we could go.” He dipped his voice to a whisper to protect their discussion from the orbs.
    “I tried to set everything up, but passage doesn’t exactly happen overnight. Someone reported Chelle, and City Watch came to get me. They knew I was Underground, and said if I wasn’t willing to supply them with information, then they weren’t willing to let Chelle go. They’d already arrested her, and they assured me they would dispose of our baby, and in case that didn’t make me budge, they made it perfectly clear how easy it was to eliminate Chelle.”
    Ana gasped, “Oh God!”
    “Yeah,” Liam sighed. “So I started helping — barely, but enough to keep our baby alive; a few things here and there while Chelle was in custody, which ended up being a lot longer than expected. I reported a few citizens whose arrest wouldn’t affect the cause, and a couple of people who deserved it for one reason or another.”
    Ana didn’t like Liam playing junior Watchman, judging who was deserving of punishment. She let it go, knowing it was more important to hear the rest of his story while they had a moment’s respite from the dangers of The Games.
    “No matter how much I gave, the Watchers wanted more, and then more after that. Then they wanted something big…or else…” Liam paused, clearly not wanting to finish the sentence.
    Ana stared into his silence, swallowed, then said, “So you gave them my father?”
    “I had