I’d existed in that pod for what felt like lifetimes. I was sure that if I ever got out, the world as I knew it would’ve died. A new society would’ve emerged, and Vi would have been long gone.
But I’d still be sixteen, my body frozen in time while my mind advanced through decades of endless darkness and excruciating heat.
I imagined myself with hair down to my waist, and a beard to match, when I finally took my first step outside the capsule. Of course, I wouldn’t even be able to walk, because the muscles in my legs would have atrophied from disuse.
Oh, the dreams I dreamed.
In each one, Vi was long dead. It was merciful, really. I didn’t want to think of her struggling along in a crap world. Without me.
An Insider in Rancho Port rescued me from the capsule. He brought me up from the depths of hell and told me to run until I met the ocean. He said a boat would be waiting to take me to Fort Houston, and I’d be able to recover there under the protection of Director Ramirez. I knew Ramirez, and I knew how to run fast.
The way the man spoke stirred a memory inside my muddy mind. “Who are you?” I asked, though my voice was still silenced. But the man understood.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter who I am.”
“Were you part of my Resistance in the Badlands?” I asked.
“You don’t have much time.” He paled as several voices shouted. “Go!”
I went. I ran as hard as I could. My legs were weak from disuse, and I stumbled over patches of grass on the uneven ground. I fell with the first round of taser fire, but I wasn’t hit.
“Xander Bower,” a voice boomed. “I should’ve known you’d be the one to deceive me.”
I stayed down, incredulous that Zenn’s father had released me from the capsule. That, and I recognized the fury-lined voice chastising him.
Thane Myers had found me again. My heart pumped double time with fear, and I couldn’t stop myself from leaping up. Across the distance, my eyes met Thane’s. He looked toward me as guards flowed around him. I saw a guard pick up Xander Bower, his bright, blue eyes open and staring into nothingness.
I spun and ran, but not fast enough. There is no escape from the haunting blue eyes that belong to both Zenn and his father.
* * *
“Hey, you alive?” Raine asked, nudging me with her booted toe.
I made an indistinguishable noise. The ocean rocked me, and I didn’t want to open my eyes and release that comfort yet.
“Dinner’s on,” she added. “And Vi’s looking for you.” She started to move away, her boots making sucking sounds in the surf.
“Raine,” I said.
“Yeah?”
I pushed myself up on my elbows. “How well did you know Zenn?” Raine froze with her back to me, her shoulders very, very still. She remembered almost everything about her life now. Surely she could tell me what Zenn had been like in Freedom.
“Not that well,” she said, her voice guarded.
“Did he ever talk about his father?”
Raine turned toward me. “No, never.” She sat just out of reach of the waves. “I lived with Vi for months.”
I wasn’t sure what she really was trying to say. “I heard you were the one who woke her up.” But when I studied her, I found the true meaning behind her words. She’d lived with Vi, and that’s how Raine knew about me. “Thank you for not draining me.” My voice barely left my throat, but it was loud enough.
“Thank you for coming to get me before I could drain Thane.”
I stood up and waded to shore. “How’s Gunn?”
“He woke up about an hour ago,” Raine said. “He’ll survive.”
“He’s tough,” I said. “I need to talk to him.”
“I think you better find Vi first,” Raine said, pulling herself to her feet.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” I said, and I meant it.
Raine paused. “Thank you,” she said simply, and left.
I returned to my troubling thoughts about Xander Bower. Why was Zenn’s dad in Rancho Port? He’d worked with Blaze before he became Assistant Director of Seaside. I’d heard of Xander Bower’s fame, mostly from Zenn before he quit the Resistance the first time.
After Zenn defected, Xander kept our transportation hub alive in the Goodgrounds. Then his older son joined the Resistance, and they both requested new assignments out east. I’d let Indy take care of it, as I’d just started training with Ty in Seaside. My chest filled with bitter pain as my mind flashed with memories.
Ty and Pace and how they used to smile and hold hands. Both now gone.
Zenn, defected again.
Indy, lost before I had a real chance to say good-bye.
Everyone in the Resistance had a list of people they’d lost. Mine was particularly long, and I didn’t know how many more names would be added before this war ended.
* * *
Terror edged out excitement when I saw Vi walking toward me. Walking didn’t adequately describe her movement. Stomping was a more accurate word.
“I hate it when you disappear,” she said. “Would it have killed you to say, ‘Hey Vi, I’m going to swim out fifty miles into the water, then float back to shore. Don’t freak out, okay?’ ” She cocked her hip and crossed her arms.
I couldn’t help it—I laughed. This didn’t help her anger, and she threw her hands into the air and stormed back down the beach.
I gathered my clothes and rejoined the group, who had set up camp where the land met the sand. And by camp, I mean a huddled heap of backpacks. I wiggled in between Vi and Raine, ignoring my girlfriend’s heavy sigh of annoyance.
“For the record,” I said to her, my voice low, “I’m going to swim out fifty miles in the water, then float back to shore again in the morning. Don’t freak out, okay?”
She slammed her fist into my thigh. A strangled grunt tore through my throat on impact. “That’s nice,” I said.
“For the record,” she said, not bothering to keep her voice down. “You infuriate—”
I didn’t let her finish that sentence. She’d regret it later, and besides, I liked kissing her when she was mad. It always made her less-mad.
Except for this time. She actually bit my lip.
“Dammit,” I said, putting my fingers to my mouth and tasting the stickiness of blood on my tongue. I leaned closer. “Are you really that mad?”
“Yes, Jag, I’m really that mad.” Vi got up and stormed away, leaving me gaping at Raine.
“What the hell happened while I was swimming?”
Raine edged closer to Gunner, and I wanted to voice-control them both to sleep. “You went swimming,” she said.
“We’ve established that.”
Raine glanced at River, and I almost commanded them to tell me the truth. Girls had this thing about protecting each other. This girl rule had frustrated me in the Resistance, just as it did now. “Someone tell me.”
“She was left here alone, and she didn’t know where you were,” Raine said. “She doesn’t like being alone.”
I wanted to argue that Vi had just left the group to be alone, but I didn’t. “Thanks,” I said, standing and following Vi into the darkness.
She’d tried to hide from me, but her feelings were too strong. I found her leaning against a rock, staring out over the moonlit water.
“I’m sorry,” I said right up front, hoping to avoid getting punched and/or bit again.
She didn’t respond, so I continued. “See, we—my brothers and I—have a tradition when we’re at the ocean. We always dive in, swim out, then float back.”
She kept her lips pressed into a thin line. Vi could be absolutely stubborn when she wanted to be.
“I should’ve told you,” I tried again. “You could’ve come with me.”
“I can’t swim,” she said, sullen.
“Yes, you can.” I bumped her shoulder with mine as I sat beside her. Her anger deflated until it was wisped away in the breeze coming off the water.
&nbs
p; “You leave me a lot,” she said. “At the border, in Seaside.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t like being left behind.”
“Noted,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”
We sat in silence. After a minute I reached for her hand, and she let me hold it.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“Me too,” I admitted. “Rancho Port doesn’t exactly hold fond memories for me.”
“Sorry I bit you.”
I released her hand so I could put my arm around her. “You bit me?” I asked, playing the game we’d started in the Badlands, where I had indeed left her to cross the border by herself. I’d explained the reasoning behind that act, but it was clear that all Vi saw was me leaving her.
She laughed, but it quieted quickly. “You can conquer anything in Rancho Port,” she said.
I heard her words, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.
Zenn
48. Freedom felt foreign, almost like I hadn’t spent the better part of the last year inside the city. The silence permeated the Blocks, pressed on the budding orange trees with stillness.
The faint sound of my hoverboard roared like a jet engine. I sped through the streets toward the skeleton of Rise One, gripping the sleeve of transmission microchips in my jacket pocket.
I stood in the once-magnificent foyer of Rise One, looking up through dozens of empty floors to the blue sky above. A strange sadness filled me, but not because the Rise had been gutted.
I was sad because I hadn’t been here to see it. And most of all, that I wasn’t strong enough to get back on my hoverboard and find the Resistance. Beg every one of them for forgiveness. Spend the rest of my life proving that I was on their side, that I believed in their cause.
I thought of what Vi would say to me should I ever see her again. I wondered what I could say to Saffediene to make things right between us. I touched my fingers to my lips, remembering what it felt like to kiss Vi. Then Saffediene. The feel of their mouths on mine was different, yet each wonderful. I pressed my eyes shut.
Sure, Jag’s way of doing things was different from mine. Different shouted in my mind. I’d never truly taken the time to see things from his point of view. To be fair, he’d never offered me the same courtesy. We’d spent years as rivals, long before Vi entered the picture.
“I can’t help loving her,” I said aloud, my voice reverberating through the cavernous space.
Maybe he can’t either, a voice responded, sounding very much like my own, as if it came from the bones of the building.
I fingered the transmission microchips in my pocket as I thought of Tyson, Vi’s sister. I’d met her at the border of the City of Water, deep in the night. She’d breathlessly given me the Resistance password before she recognized me.
Then she cried, the same way Vi had that night she’d climbed through my window, claiming her mother loved Ty more than her. I’d taken Ty to Jag, both of us silent during the trip across the desert to the Badlands.
Jag spoke eleven words—Thank you, Zenn. I don’t know where we’d be without you—before I turned around and made the lonely trek home. I’d gone straight to Vi’s, though she was at school—where I should’ve been. My father had provided an excuse, citing he’d needed me for an on-site Transportation Department meeting.
I’d entered Vi’s house using the passcode she’d given me and basked in the silence I found within. It was nothing like the quiet stillness I now endured in Freedom. No, Vi’s house felt like home to me.
Her presence was there, calming me. I sat on her front steps that day until she arrived home from school.
“Run away with me,” I’d said.
She’d half laughed, half snorted as she joined me on the porch. “Right.” She peered toward the lake. “Where would we go? The Southern Rim? The forest?” She laid her hand on mine for half a second, but it was long enough to say I’d go with you. Anywhere. I’d go.
And she had. She’d broken rule after rule for me. She’d sent me multiple illegal e-comms. Crossed borders to see me. She’d believed the best of me, always.
She still did.
And I’d repaid her with hidden trackers and half truths and stolen kisses with another girl because I was hurt. And lonely. And so, so jealous.
I bent my head and let the shame pour over me. I fell to my knees, my bones cracking against the hard concrete. I welcomed the physical pain, though it only added to my torment.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to myself. “I will—” I didn’t know what I could do. Abandon Freedom?
If only I could. General Darke would hunt me to the ends of the earth if I did. He had more than one way to find me, and none of them were pleasant.
I fisted the microchips, feeling them give just a little. Could I break them? What would that accomplish, exactly? The General—Ian, I corrected myself—would know what I’d done. He was expecting my transmissions.
I wouldn’t be able to lie to him.
“Not until evening,” I said. “He doesn’t expect me to have the transmissions until this evening.”
I still had time. I could return to Arrow Falls, record new messages. General Darke—Ian—wouldn’t listen to them. Thinkers never did. I could perpetuate the unbrainwashing in Freedom.
Hope flared inside me. I could do this, right under Ian’s nose. Then I remembered the sneer on the Harvest man’s face as he’d asked me who I’d voted for. I heard the cries of those whose Transportation Director didn’t get elected. I heard that little boy’s voice say, They woke up.
Again I felt myself break in two. Complete compliance and brainwashing on one side, with freedom and chaos on the other.
Could some semblance of order stem from that chaos? Could people govern themselves?
Instantly I heard my father’s voice: Give them correct principles, and they’ll govern themselves. He’d said this over and over during my childhood. I’d forgotten his words during these many months away from him.
How I missed him. How I needed his wisdom. I didn’t know what to do, or who to follow.
Once again my father’s voice resonated in my head. Don’t follow, Zenn. Lead.
I got to my feet, the edges of the microchips biting into the flesh of my palm. I opened my hand and looked at them, and then threw them to the ground. With the thick heel of my boot, I ground the chips into the cement, feeling nothing but satisfaction.
I left the Rise and headed west on my hoverboard. I was going to make new transmissions, transmissions that would teach the people in Freedom to govern themselves.
I’d just entered the outer Blocks in Freedom when I heard the buzz of approaching hover tech behind me.
I almost didn’t turn to look. I didn’t care. Let them have Freedom.
I glanced over my shoulder. A trio was coming in off the ocean. I recognized Trek Whiting immediately.
He shifted to the side, and there was Starr Messenger. My stomach twisted, but one thought kept me from heaving: At least it isn’t Jag.
Jag
49. That night, after everyone fell asleep, I slipped away from the group. Even with Vi curled in my arms, I couldn’t settle my nerves. I kept hearing falling dirt, burying me farther and farther underground.
I returned to the rock where Vi and I had sat earlier that evening. The gentle lapping of water against sand sang to me, and I watched the waves in an attempt to purge my mind of more troubling thoughts.
I felt Gunner approaching before I saw him. Exhaustion poured from him, with a little bit of shame.
“Hey,” I said as he sat next to me. “Good to see you awake.”
He grunted in response, and I knew that I’d be doing most of the talking. Another side effect non-Voices don’t understand: Once you do something truly horrific with your voice power, you want to stop speaking. Maybe then you won’t say something you’ll regret.
“You did what you needed to do,” I said. “You enabled the Resistance to wipe out Freedom.”
He scoffed, and I heard what he meant. I kil
led a whole lotta people. Including Raine’s father.
“You didn’t kill him,” I said. “And she knows that.”
Gunner wouldn’t look at me. “I’m not going to lie to you,” I said. “It’s hard. Remember that day you tased Thane? That was hard too. Holding someone’s life in the grip of your voice never gets easier.” I paused, remembering some of the more negative ways I’d used my voice.
“The fact is, you have a voice that people will obey. You need to use it for the right things. I believe using your voice to escape and help the Resistance was the right thing to do. Our lives should be our own, and I’m using my voice to accomplish that goal.” I touched his arm. “So are you.”
He finally faced me, and his eyes looked shiny, almost as if he was crying. “Thanks,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Dealing with the voice sucks sometimes. I know how it is.”
“You ever kill someone?” he asked, his words quiet and strong—the way he’s always spoken. That’s Gunn. He’s got some real resolve.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”
* * *
Rancho Port perches right on the ocean. The wind blows constantly, and it’s hot as hell most of the year. Even now, in early April, as I led our small band of Insiders to the swampy areas on the eastern border, the heat oppressed me.
Dread settled in my stomach. As if Vi sensed it, she nudged her hoverboard closer to mine. I didn’t look at her. I wouldn’t like what I found reflected in her eyes. My fear. Her reassurance.
Sometimes I really hated that my girlfriend could see inside my head.
Vi moved away, leaving behind a wake of her wounded pride. I let her go, needing to be alone. I flew over miles of swampland, breathing shallowly at the stench of warm earth, stagnant water, and dead fish. I found myself flying slower and slower. Everyone had pulled ahead of me by the time the first buildings came into view.
I drifted closer to the open water. I imagined the path I’d used to escape just several short weeks ago. That tree, had I paused behind it? That stretch of beach, had I run as hard as I could, my feet sinking into the wet sand even as the next wave obliterated my footsteps?