Ben would buy it and leave me alone. Riley would never know I’d considered betraying Jude. And Jude would never have to know any of it.
Things could go back to normal, whatever that meant. And they did—for about six hours.
I was sitting on the sidelines of the skate park, a wide plain of concrete just left of the poolhouse. It was the perfect spot for rollerslam, a game some of the newbie mechs had invented when one of them stumbled across some retro skates on the network. Spinning out of control while a fleet of wheeled mechs sped toward you and smashed you into a cement wall wasn’t quite my thing, but Sloane had become slightly addicted, and I’d promised her I’d at least give it a try. I was just gearing up the nerve to strap on a pair of wheels when Jude grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet.
“What do you want?” I said, shaking him off.
He shook his head. “Not here.”
“You better come back!” Sloane shouted as she saw me follow him into the nearby orchard. “You promised!”
“In a minute!” I called back. Then glared at Jude. “This better be good. What?”
Once we were safely shielded from the others by a thick crop of trees, he stopped. “I just didn’t think you’d want the others to hear what we’re about to discuss.”
“And what’s that?”
“Your true colors.”
I decided to take the chance, however unlikely, that he didn’t know anything. Bluff it out. “Color doesn’t matter to a mech, right, Jude? One of the many valuable lessons I learned from you.”
“And what did you learn from BioMax?”
So much for bluffing.
He was watching me carefully. And once he was sure I’d given up the game, he began a slow clap, the smirk creeping across his face. “Just wanted to say congratulations. You can always be trusted to live down to expectations.”
“Spying on me?” I guessed. “What, you bugged my ViM? Hacked my zone somehow?”
Jude shook his head. “Didn’t have to. Haven’t you heard? I have a source on the inside. Oh, that’s right,” he said, playfully slapping the side of his head, as if to jar loose the memory. “You do know. And you just couldn’t wait to tell your friends at BioMax.”
“I didn’t tell them,” I pointed out, without bothering to excuse myself with the circumstances, the blackmail. Either he knew or he didn’t, and most likely, he wouldn’t care. Much as I didn’t care what he thought of me.
But Riley will.
“I know,” Jude said. “That’s why I’m here. Or why you still are, to be more precise. Points off for not telling me about this Ben guy to begin with. But in the end, you picked the right team. Passing grade, just barely.”
“You were testing me?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Jude snapped. “You figured that out the moment I showed up.”
“Get away from me.”
“Don’t tell me you’re offended.” Jude started to laugh again. “You’re the one who was considering passing information to BioMax.”
“You’re the one who said they’re not the enemy,” I reminded him.
“And what are you?”
I didn’t reward that one with an answer.
“Now I see why you were so determined to convince me that Ani can’t be trusted. It’s because you can’t be trusted. No wonder you don’t trust the rest of us. Projection—you think everyone’s as craven as you.”
“Maybe some of them are,” I said.
“She’s not.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I wasn’t talking about her.”
“I know how to read people,” Jude said, ignoring the implication. “I know her. And I guess now this proves that I know you.”
“Get away from me,” I said again. He took a step toward me, then another. I wasn’t about to back away from him.
“I’m not angry,” he said. “You did what you needed to do. You looked out for yourself.” Jude grabbed my wrist, forcing our palms together. “See? We’re the same,” he said. “That still scares you. But you can’t make it disappear.”
I tried to pull away, but he was holding on too tight. So instead I closed my hand into a fist. He wrapped his fingers around mine. “I’m not scared of anything.”
“Then remember this,” he said, squeezing my fist. His other hand tightened around my wrist, nails digging into the skin. “Remember what you are and where your loyalties should lie.”
“I don’t need you reminding me. And I don’t need you testing me. I’d never betray one of us. Not to BioMax, not to anyone.”
“Not even to save yourself.”
“Not even.”
His eyes were golden, his lips turned down, missing their smirk. Strands of silvery hair swept across his forehead, nearly brushing his long lashes. His face was cold. His eyes were cold.
His hands, though made from the same material as mine, fueled by the same energy as mine, identical to mine, were warm.
He leaned toward me, his two hands still clasping my one.
I put my free hand on his chest.
To push him away. But I didn’t.
“We’re the same,” he said again.
“Not in any way that matters,” I whispered.
“In the only way that matters.” He drew closer and dropped his voice so low, I couldn’t hear it anymore. I could only watch his lips move. “You know it.”
I pushed him away.
Ripped my hand out of his. “You’re disgusting,” I said. Shouted.
Surprise skittered across his face, and then was gone. Composure, perfect control, returned. “You’re confused,” he said.
“You want to talk about loyalty?” Space, I thought. It was important to put space between us. But I would not back away from him. “Riley’s supposed to be your best friend.”
Jude nodded. “Your point?”
“That doesn’t mean anything to you?” I wanted to throw something at him. But the tree branches were bare. “No, don’t tell me, that was just another test of my loyalty. Guess I passed, right?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I wonder if that’s what Riley would say.”
For a moment, I thought he was going to lunge at me. But he stayed where he was, unnaturally still. “Riley knows who I am and what I would do—and what I would never do.”
“Never betray a friend?” I laughed. “Tell that to Ani.”
“That was a mistake,” he said quietly.
I shot an exaggerated look of horror up at the night sky. “You’re admitting you were wrong? Is the world about to end? Should I take cover from the storm of lightning and the rain of fire?”
“And suddenly you’re so perfect?” He sneered. “So you gave your buddy at BioMax the wrong name—what do you think’s going to happen to that guy now that BioMax thinks he’s their leak?”
I hadn’t thought about it at all.
And Jude knew it.
“And then there’s poor, sad Ariana Croft,” he said with a slow shake of his head.
“Sad she didn’t kill more orgs, you mean,” I muttered.
“If she killed any.”
“You think they got the wrong mech?” I asked, surprised. The vids had made it sound like they had iron-clad evidence against her.
“I think that if BioMax could forge evidence to get you out, they could just as easily forge evidence framing someone else to take your place. And I think that’s occurred to you too. You’re not stupid. Just selfish.”
“Are you guessing, or do you know something?” I asked in a low voice.
“Guessing that you’re not stupid? Well—”
“Guessing that they framed her!” I shouted. “Just shut up and tell me.”
He let me hang for a long moment. “Just a guess,” he admitted. “But what if I knew for sure, what then? Would you go crying to BioMax? Would you risk turning yourself in if it meant clearing her?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“And you didn’t answer
the question,” he pointed out.
“Because I don’t owe you any answers.”
“I told you once that you were in denial, because you were afraid of facing the truth about yourself. You didn’t listen to me then,” he said. “And someone got hurt.”
“You don’t have to remind me.”
“I guess I do. Because you haven’t changed at all.”
He was still too close to me.
“Shut up.” I took a step forward.
“Still running away,” he said. But he was the one who took a step back, then another, until his back pressed against bark.
“Shut up.” Another step forward.
“Still picking the easy choice, the safe choice over the right choice.”
“Shut! Up!” I forced my anger down. I was close enough to grab him. To make him stop. Control.
“Your clever comebacks are getting harder and harder to rebut,” he taunted.
“I’m not hurting anyone I care about. Never again.”
“Tell it to Riley,” he said.
I was close enough to press a hand over his mouth, to force his words back inside.
“Like you care about him.”
“I care about what you’re doing to him,” Jude said. “Picking him because you’re scared and you think he’s safe. Instead of—”
“You?” I forced laughter. “You know what I miss about having an org body? The ability to puke.”
Jude’s mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I won’t let you ruin him the way you ruin everything else.”
“Funny. That’s exactly what I’ve been meaning to say to you.”
Jude just laughed without mirth. “The irony in all this is that Riley’s about as far from safe as you can get.” He reached up a hand as if he was about to touch me, my hair, my hand, my face. I slapped him away. Turned my back on him.
“Like I’d believe anything you said about him,” I said, already walking away.
“Believe whatever you want,” he said. “You always do.”
TRESPASS
“People don’t change just because you want them to.”
The Temple of Man was a dark, hulking shadow against the night. Overhead, a smear of moonlight filtered through the cloud cover, our only light beyond the pinprick beams that guided our footsteps. There were five of us hiking the mile between our hidden car and the southernmost entrance of the Temple, a team of volunteers, handpicked by Ani: Sloane, maybe figuring this for another suicide mission. Brahm, who’d been hanging around Quinn like a lost puppy ever since she’d gifted him with his d-day tongue bath. And Ty, the fuchsia-haired newbie mech I’d once done my best to woo, who was already on her second body—in a fit of grief-fueled rage, her mother had gone after the first one with a carving knife. Jude, of course, was nowhere to be seen—the general doesn’t fight alongside his foot soldiers. It was agreed: Jude couldn’t put himself at risk, not if getting caught meant implicating all of us in the operation, not to mention depriving the mechs of his wit and wisdom going forward. Quinn, whose credit kept us all afloat, was similarly indispensable. The rest of us, apparently, less so.
Riley had wanted to come too, but Ani had vetoed it. “Too distracting,” she’d said. “You’ll be too focused on protecting each other, not focused on the mission.” Ever since Jude had officially put her in charge, she’d started tossing around words like “mission” and “raid,” like we were soldiers and she was leading us into battle. So it was one or the other of us, and I’d gotten Riley to agree that I could be of more use—after all, I’d been to the Temple, I knew Auden, I’d be better for the mission. He was forced to accept it, because the mission was all that mattered to Jude, and Jude was all that mattered to Riley.
But I wasn’t there for the “mission.” I was there because it was the only thing that guaranteed Riley wouldn’t be. And because when things went wrong, I would be ready.
Ani and I fell into step together, leading the way toward the Temple. The other three clumped together a few feet behind.
“I’m sorry about before,” Ani murmured as we tromped through the dark. It was the first thing she’d said directly to me since our fight.
“I didn’t meant to call you stupid,” I said quickly. I’d tried to apologize several times already, and she’d refused to listen. I wanted to get this out before she changed her mind again. “I just wanted to make sure we covered all possibilities.”
“I know.” Ani gave me an embarrassed smile. “It just … threw me off, having him there.”
“Jude.”
“Yeah. It made me a little crazy.” She raised her hands, palms up, a silent capitulation: What can you do? “But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“Please don’t,” she said. “You were right to ask the questions, I was wrong to shoot you down, that’s it. Can this just officially be over now?”
It felt weird, letting it go without getting out a real apology. But I didn’t push it.
“So what happened with Jude yesterday?” Ani asked, shooting me a mischievous grin.
“What?”
She laughed. “Everyone heard you two last night.”
“Everyone?”
“Don’t look so horrified,” she said, giggling. “It was only Sloane, and she couldn’t even hear what you two were fighting about.”
You, I thought, and suddenly felt like crap. I’d been so sure that Ani had changed, that since the Quinn thing, she’d turned into this angry, distant person—but talking like this, it was just the same as always. It was just Ani, tentative and soft, with just enough unexpected edge to make her interesting. And I started to wonder if I’d imagined the distance between us—or worse, inserted it, because it was easier to believe she was running away. Because it was convenient for me, freeing me up for Riley.
“We weren’t fighting,” I said. “Jude was just being obnoxious.”
“Shocking,” she said, laughing again. It was an incongruous sound here, at the moonlit edges of the Temple of Man.
“You won’t believe what he tried to tell me,” I confided, repeating everything he’d claimed about Riley, waiting for the inevitable flood of derision, the He’s jealous, he’s spiteful, he’s slime.
It didn’t come.
“Is he right?” Ani asked. “Is Riley your safe choice?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why are you so mad about it?”
“Because Jude’s being an asshole!” I snapped, too loudly. Ani shushed me. We were nearing the perimeter of the main Temple buildings, which according to Ani were guarded at night by an electrified field. We slowed down to let Sloane, Brahm, and Ty catch up with us. All Temple personnel had been issued ID chips that allowed them to pass through the field without harm—Ani had gotten her hands on one and we were pretty sure that if we stayed in physical contact with one another while passing through, one chip would do the trick.
“If Jude’s the one you really want—”
“He’s not,” I insisted.
“But if he is—”
“Did you hear the word ‘not’?”
“I’m just saying that if you’re just playing around with Riley until you get bored and drop him, it’s one thing. But it would be such an evil bitch move to drop him for Jude that you would deserve any fucking thing that happened to you.”
There it was again, a flash of something dark and angry, like a shadow gliding below the surface of still water.
“What would … happen to me?” I asked carefully.
“I’m just saying, maybe Riley isn’t as safe as you think he is.”
“If you’re trying to tell me something, just say it. Otherwise, you should stop.” And for a few moments, she did. We walked silently, our footsteps slapping against the asphalt, our flashlight beams casting narrow tunnels of light. Behind us, the other mechs were just twinkling flashes in the dark.
“You don’t know who he used to be,” Ani sai
d.
“It doesn’t matter,” I reminded her. “It doesn’t matter who any of us used to be.” It wasn’t just a line I’d borrowed from Jude, something useful to reel in the newbies. I believed it, or I wouldn’t be sneaking through weeds at two a.m., breaking into the Temple of Man; I’d be at home, at Lia Kahn’s house with Lia Kahn’s doting parents, tucked safely away in Lia Kahn’s comfy bed.
“People don’t change just because you want them to,” Ani said. “Trust me.”
She sped up, gaining several feet on me. I jogged to join her, reminding myself not to let it get to me. That it wasn’t even about me, not really.
“Ani, wait.”
She kept walking. I touched her shoulder.
She scowled at me.
“You want to talk about it? Quinn?”
“Here?” We’d reached the electrified perimeter. Once we made it through—if we made it through—there’d be org guards prowling, and we would need to be silent and invisible.
“Fine. But if you ever do, you know where to find me.”
“Riley’s room,” she muttered. Then she sighed and gave me a tired smile. “Sorry. Again.”
“Forgotten.”
Mostly.
As the others caught up with us, we switched off our lights and went to infrared. The other mechs glowed a dull purple in my sights, nearly the same color as the pavement. Ani pulled out her ID chip.
“You sure this is going to work?” Ty asked, clasping Sloane’s hand. I reached out for Brahm’s hand, and Ani took my other, squeezing tight. The ID chip was pressed between our palms.
“If it doesn’t, we’re mechs, right?” Sloane asked, sounding like she was expending a considerable effort to seem carefree about the whole thing. “Electrocution could be exciting. Aren’t you curious?”
“Not particularly,” Ani said. “So let’s get this right. Ready?”
“Ready,” I agreed. The word rippled down the line and, as one, we took a step forward.
Nothing can happen to me, I thought, waiting for 50,000 volts to sizzle through me as I crossed the field. It wouldn’t be enough to kill an org, but who knew what a shock like that would do to a mech body, a mech brain. We were nothing but electricity, elaborately wired computers, and surely it would take less than 50,000 volts to fry the circuitry—maybe enough to send us careening into a brand-new body, but maybe just enough to warp our brains. When the wiring inside your head fused into a tangled knot, would you notice, or just think it was the outside world that had gone askew?