The Refuge Song Read Online Free PDF Page A

for those serving on the Council  . . .”
    â€œAs if they haven’t all had their twins locked up for years, if not tanked,” scoffed Zoe.
    Piper kept reading. “. . . and indeed for all Alphas. This attack on the very head of our government is further proof that the growing threat of Omega dissidents endangers both Alphas and Omegas. The General, reluctantly stepping forward to fill the Judge’s role, expressed her sadness at his untimely demise. ‘Through this cowardly act, these terrorists have robbed the Omegas of a steadfast ally, and have demonstrated that the ruthlessness and brutality of those who claim to be agitating for Omega “self-determination,” and who are willing to kill their own kind in order to undermine the work of the Council. ’ ”
    â€œThey’ve killed two birds with one stone,” he said, tossing the paper onto the grass. “They’ve got rid of him, finally, and by pinning it on us, they’ve stoked the anti-Omega sentiments, strengthened their own argument against the moderates.”
    â€œSo it’s the General in charge now,” I said.
    â€œ Reluctantly stepping forward, my ass,” said Zoe. “She’s been pushing for this for years. And the Reformer and the Ringmaster will be neck-deep in the whole scheme.”
    None of the Councilors went by their real names. In the past, they’d chosen their Council names to disguise their identities and protect themselves from attacks on their twins. These days, when nearly all the Councilors kept their twins imprisoned in the Keeping Rooms, if not in the tanks, the elaborate names were just pageantry. Each of the names was a statement, a way of announcing to the world their agenda.
    The General; the Ringmaster; the Reformer. I remembered the trifecta of faces from Piper’s chart on the island: the three young Councilors who were the real power in Wyndham. The Ringmaster, his smile half-hidden by his mass of dark curls. The General’s angular face, hercheekbones unforgiving. And Zach, the Reformer, my twin. His face frozen in the artist’s pen strokes. The person who I knew best, and not at all.
    â€œThe three of them have already been running things for years, really,” Piper said. “But it’s a bad sign, that they felt able to get rid of the Judge once and for all. They’re confident enough of their support that they don’t even need to hide behind him anymore.”
    â€œMore than that,” Zoe said. “You’ve heard it, everywhere we go—the unease after the numbers who died at the island. I’d bet that even some Alphas were a bit restive about the killings. A stunt like this with the Judge shores up their own support—makes it seem as if it’s a righteous battle, against an Omega resistance that’s ruthlessly aggressive. Justifies their own brutal tactics.”
    It was a network of fear, expertly manipulated by the Council. Not only the Omegas’ fears, but the fears of the Alphas, too. I had seen how they cringed away from us, how they viewed us as walking reminders of the blast, our deformed bodies a poisonous residue. The fact that my mutation wasn’t visible didn’t make any difference: the Omega brand on my face had been enough to provoke spits and insults from Alphas who’d passed through my settlement when I was a teenager. Alphas had always shunned us, even in good times. Then came the drought years, when I was a child, and even Alphas had gone hungry. And the year the harvests failed, when I was at the settlement. People turn on one another when they’re hungry and afraid, and the Council had made sure that it was the Omegas they blamed. This lie about the Judge’s death was just the latest part of the narrative that the Council had been constructing for years: that it was us against them.
    I picked up the paper, still warm from being crushed in Piper’s