I drank so I wouldn’t have to speak first. Apparently my ability was out in the open. The coffee went down hot, and I was glad for the burn. It felt like shame. Tasted like it too.
“So,” Zenn said, glancing up. “What’s up with Vi?”
As if he hadn’t seen the spectacular fight she’d put up against those needles. I’d never heard such profanity or such anguished screaming. I checked the ceiling too, noticed a flash of blue indicating a scrambler, and immediately knew we had a few minutes of unmonitored conversation.
Thanks, Trek, I thought. He was always one step ahead of the game, always assisting us when we needed a few minutes to talk.
Ten minutes, he warned, his voice over the cache garbled and too low, probably to avoid detection.
“Raine?” Gunn reached for me but yanked his hand back before touching me.
“She remembered Jag,” I said carefully, watching Zenn for his reaction.
He gave none. Instead he watched me back, waiting for more. When I didn’t offer anything, he said, “And you remembered him too, yes?”
“When I saw him in the lab, I knew who he was. I didn’t—I didn’t drain him.”
“I know,” Zenn said. “Your father is rather interested in how you can suddenly control your ability.”
“I don’t know how,” I said. The coffee felt like slush in my gut: cold and heavy. Zenn wasn’t merely making conversation. He was asking, and not because he cared. Because my dad did.
“I just couldn’t,” I said. “I’m never going to do another drain.”
At that, Zenn grinned. He cut a glance at Gunner, and I followed his gaze. Gunn was leaning forward, his jaw set. “You better tell her now, Gunn.”
“Tell me what?” I asked.
Gunn threw Zenn a glare and went into my kitchen.
“Tell me what?” I repeated, suddenly cold all over. Gunn kept his back to me, and Zenn kept right on sipping his coffee-milk like nothing was happening. “Zenn?”
He drank from his mug, maddeningly silent.
I watched Gunn in the kitchen instead. His shoulders were so tense; his movements jerky. What could he possibly have to tell me? Had he seen the Alias list? Was his dad’s name on it, with deceased next to it?
I already knew about his voice ability and his genetic ability to control tech. We’d spent enough time together in genetics class.
Maybe his secret was something else entirely. Starr’s face floated in my mind. “Someone better tell me something,” I said. “And fast.”
“I have a special ability too,” Gunn said, turning around and leaning against the kitchen counter. “I can, well, let’s just say that I can tell you were embarrassed a few minutes ago. And now you’re … defiant? Yeah, I think that’s it.”
“Don’t you dare tell me how to feel,” I snapped.
“That’s just it,” Zenn said. “Gunn can tell how you feel. He’s an empath.”
Before I could fully process that, Gunn murmured, “And now she’s mad too.”
“I’m not mad,” I argued. How perfect. The guy can talk to me in my head and detect how I feel about him. About everything. No, I wasn’t mad. More like furious. Here I thought he’d been in genetics all this time because of his voice. But no—the guy had two major talents!
I squinted at him, as if I might be able to see his DNA that way. I couldn’t help wondering what else he could do.
“She’s really mad,” Gunn said to Zenn, like I wasn’t sitting a few feet from him.
“It’s a very useful skill,” Zenn said, as if that would make it all better.
“How long have you known?” I practically spat at Gunn.
He shrugged. “My whole life.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. All this time he’d been emotionally eavesdropping on me. Humiliation made me hang my head so I wouldn’t have to look Gunner in the eye.
Zenn set his mug on the floor. “So let’s get back to Jag. What do you think we should do about him?”
“Well, he was the leader of the Resistance,” Gunn said, his tone somewhat softer now. “We can’t let Thane keep him.”
“I agree,” Zenn said. “But what I meant was: Should we reintroduce him to Vi? Or send him back to his rebels in the Badlands with a new weapon?”
Those words fizzled some of my anger and embarrassment. “A new weapon?”
Zenn inclined his head toward Gunner. “He’s willing to accompany Jag out west. It might be our only chance to get them both out.”
With everything else going on, I’d forgotten about Gunn’s desire to leave Freedom. I looked back and forth between him and Zenn, trying to formulate a response.
“She’s stunned,” Gunn reported.
“Stop it,” I spat. “It’s getting really annoying.”
“As if I couldn’t tell,” Zenn quipped. “Do you still think I’m a beast, Raine?”
I focused on my coffee, the apology I owed him pooling in my mouth. “No,” I murmured. “It’s just that Vi—she—well, how come she can remember stuff when she’s with me but not with you?”
Sad silence filled the living area. I didn’t have to look up (or possess a special ability) to know how Zenn felt.
“Because I haven’t really been trying,” he said simply. “We all have our roles here, and I’m the only one playing both sides.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “What do you think I’ve been doing?”
Zenn leaned his elbows on his knees. “You really think your father doesn’t know what you’ve been doing?”
“Have you told him?”
“Of course not.”
“Then, no. He doesn’t know.” My dad gave his permission for my midnight flying sessions, but if he knew about the Insiders, he’d put a stop to that. Immediately—and probably with my death. “He allows me clearance to be out after curfew. He thinks I’m flying. I promise you he doesn’t know about anything else.”
I raised my eyes to meet Zenn’s, and we had a conversation without speaking. Without using the cache. Without special talents.
I looked at Gunn as if to say so there.
Gunn cleared his throat. “About Jag?” he asked. “Do we get him out and send him back? Let him and Vi”—he did that awful grinding in his throat again—“hook … I mean, remeet? Do you guys need me more here, or can I, you know, go with him?”
I appraised Gunn. As much as I hated to admit it, he couldn’t stay here. I wanted him to, wanted it deeply, but I could tell he felt caged here. He kept running his hands up and down his arms, like he had an itch he couldn’t scratch.
So I told them everything I knew, everything about Vi’s dreams and how she’d remembered Jag.
A few exhausting minutes later, I concluded, “So we’ve got to bust Jag out of high-security confinement somehow, and get him and Gunn over the wall, which we don’t know how to do, and past the barrier, which, when breached, alerts every Citizen over their cache and raises an alarm. They need hoverboards, which we have, and food generators, which we don’t.” I swallowed my now-cold coffee. “Sounds easy.”
“By Monday,” Zenn added. “Thane’s ordered a trial for Jag on Monday morning.”
“What day is it today?” I asked, suddenly feeling very weary.
Gunn blinked, checking his cache. “Thursday, 6:42 a.m.”
“Is it Thursday already?” Zenn asked innocently.
“Like you didn’t know,” I grumbled into the last drops of my coffee.
Gunner
19.
Zenn left on his hoverboard while I turned back to Raine’s food-dispenser. I could feel her eyes on me as I worked, and I shifted so my body blocked her view. “Zenn said this isn’t working right,” I said.
“Is that what he said?”
I allowed myself a small smile. “Zenn’s language takes some getting used to, that’s for sure. But I can fix the dispenser for you. You’ll be able to have longer conversations.”
I set the timer to seven seconds, just like my dispenser.
I noticed another tic in the gadget. I paused, letting the tech stream into my bones. The codes twisted, danced away from me, so I couldn’t get a clear view of what that portlet was set to do.
Raine’s gaze became a laser, so I deactivated the portlet, hoping the girls wouldn’t get ice when they ordered ice cream.
“You shouldn’t have a problem with that now,” I said, turning toward her. “Seven seconds.” She nodded her understanding.
I wanted to order something—anything—just so I had seven seconds to apologize for not telling her about my empathic ability.
Then I’d order whatever, whatever just so I could kiss her without anyone knowing. Instead of doing any of that, I leaned against her counter and watched her settle into the ergonomic.
I wanted to stay in her flat until she fell asleep. Because no matter what she said, she wasn’t fine. When she stood, her legs shook. Her eyes sunk into her skull despite eight days of “rest.” She seemed on the brink of dying.
I couldn’t feel anything but exhaustion from her, and my welcome was officially worn out. So I mumbled a good-bye and ascended up to Thane’s office. Since the break-in, new passcodes generated every hour. Unbreakable windows and fingerprint portlets had been installed on Monday. Security cameras monitored both sides of the door.
Like any of it mattered. He must know who had broken in. Everyone should’ve known. But I had yet to receive a citation for staying up too late or deviating from my schedule. My sessions with Thane had produced no conversations about my new sleeping habits, my new diet, my new flight plan. He acted like he didn’t even know.
As the first week of classes had worn into the second, I realized he didn’t. Someone very high up was on my side, making sure of that. I’d spent a sick amount of time speculating about who was assisting me. The logical assumption was Trek, but he was still a student, whether he lived in a tent full of convo-canceling equipment or not. I puzzled over how he’d get clearance to cache during school, during all hours of the night. Then I’d remember that the voice didn’t sound exactly like Trek. Maybe he’d teched it up so he wouldn’t get caught.
I dismissed Trek Whiting and strode to Thane’s foreboding door and pressed the portlet. “Dr. Myers?”
He didn’t answer. I felt the lenses on the cameras zoom in, catching every wisp of breath, every bead of sweat collecting along my forehead.
I shifted to the side to block the view, and held my thumb above the fingerprint console. Tech streamed between my skin and the pad, electrifying my cells until I thought they might catch fire.
When I pressed my finger down, the door unclicked. I entered the office quickly-but-not-too-quickly, so I wouldn’t look like I was breaking in. With my back pressed into the wall, I said, “Unrecord.” The four security cameras in the room powered down.
I didn’t know what I was looking for, only that I’d find it here. The cabinet gaped open, totally gutted. That didn’t matter. During my training over the last eight days, there’d been no discussions about “voice practicalities” or “useful ethics,” but I had seen where Thane hid the important stuff. I crossed the room, slid into his desk chair.
There, on the steel support leg of his desk, a series of slots had been carved. About half of them housed a microchip. I took a deep breath and started at the top.
My thoughts churned with Jag, his powerful voice, and what that meant for me. With Raine, her debilitating ability, and what she might see if she ever touched me skin to skin. With Zenn, his not really trying with Vi, and what instructions from the Resistance he was following. With Starr, and my mom. Would she be notified of my absence? Did I have time to sneak back and say good-bye the right way?
And I’d been dreaming about life in Rise Twelve for eight days. Asleep, awake, didn’t matter. There wasn’t a minute that passed that I didn’t wonder about that place.
It’s raining. What would a gardener do when it rains?
Do they have spider maid service? Or do they clean their flats themselves?
How many pots were thrown today?
Are those people dancing tonight?
Finally I put my head down on the glassed desk and pound-pound-pounded out the thoughts.
When I received the citation for missing my first class, I pulled myself together. That would be forwarded to Thane, and who knew when he’d start caring about me keeping protocol. I slipped another chip into the port on my wrist and waited for the material to come up on my vision-screen.
I flipped through it all and found nothing useful. Nothing on the second chip. Or the third. Or the fourth. I received a second citation for missing another class; I expected Thane to come roaring over my cache, demanding an explanation. He didn’t. My assistant must be screening my citations too.
My stomach clenched. I squeezed my eyes shut, saw white lines on the backs of my lids. This one, I thought. This one will have something.
I inserted another chip. And another. This one, this one, this one.
I was flipping so fast through the docs, I almost missed her name. I flicked back one, two, three screens. Violet Schoenfeld.
In family tree style, the branch above her name read Thane Myers with another leg leading to Alias: Lyle Schoenfeld. The branch below Vi’s name was labeled with her mother’s name: Laurel Woods. All the names were clickable.
I went straight to the alias, Lyle Schoenfeld. His picture came up on my v-screen, and the first thing I noted: Thane Myers Lyle Schoenfeld.
But I recognized myself in the real Lyle. The sloping jaw. The flecked eyes. The long nose.
I couldn’t scan the information fast enough.
Born in the mountain region, before it had been split into the Goodgrounds and the Badlands. Political activist. Opponent of the Association. Writer of books. I cataloged “Badlands” as the first possible place to search for my father’s journal.
Under Lyle Schoenfeld’s “Family Information” I found two more branches: Elise Jameson (match) and Gunner (product).
The sound of my blood rushing in my veins became the only noise. I’d discovered my father’s name, but immediately wondered why I had my mother’s last name. I decided to ask her when I went to say good-bye.
I downloaded the document and replaced the chip in the desk support. I wiped my face, squared my shoulders. I had one easy thing to accomplish before I left Freedom. Hug my mom.
But I also had one very hard thing: Rescue Jag Barque.
* * *
I didn’t bother with school. I’d missed most of my morning classes anyway, so I went back to my flat and ordered anything I wanted to eat. We got to choose from holiday menus exactly twice a year: on my birthday and on my mom’s. First I ordered her favorites: Mashed potatoes with pork roast and gravy. Baby carrots with spicy green beans. Then I ordered mine: Rich honey wheat bread with butter and raspberry jam. And soda. Lots of soda.
Briefly, I felt like a resident of Rise Twelve. The thought made my food taste that much better.
My cache alerted me that Thane had canceled our afternoon training session. I took the opportunity to fly above Freedom. I worried briefly at the cancelation, since Thane hadn’t missed a session yet. But I decided not to dwell on it. Instead I nosed my board away from Rise One and toward the Confinement Rise beyond the southern orchards.
Inside, I felt restless, conflicted. Dangerous.
The branches of the trees seemed to reach for me, trying to claw me back to earth. I imagined how they looked in the summer: full of the sweet smell of flowers and dangling red apples. Now they only held the emptiness of death.
Two guards stood outside the Confinement Rise. Before I considered what I was doing, I landed and commanded my board to fold. We all waited as it flopped and bent into a square the size and thickness of my palm. I picked it up, put it in my back pocket.
Then I leveled my gaze at the guards.
Don’t do it. Thane’s voice roared in my ears, not over my cache, but as a brainwashing message.
I suddenly realized I?
??d been listening to his voice every night over the transmissions. I’d been obedient. And I didn’t want to listen and comply anymore. I took a step forward.
What are you doing, Gunner? Thane sounded dangerous.
The truth was, I had no idea. I knew I was sick of genetics and engineering classes and begging for extra flying hours. I hated eating oranges and apples and yogurt without nuts.
I wanted toast. Lots of toast.
I wanted Raine Hightower all to myself.
I wanted to do something wild, something spontaneous, something that wasn’t planned, calculated, predictable.
Making my own decisions, I replied, calmly striding within taser-firing distance. The guards pulled out and activated their tasers.
You can make your own decisions, Thane broadcasted. That’s why I’m training you.
No, you’re training me to make decisions for everyone. I don’t want to do that.
You’re going to ruin everything. His thought held an edge of … panic? Or was that rage?
I didn’t know what he meant anyway. And I didn’t care. Both guards had just taken a step forward.
“Stand down,” I commanded. “Deactivate the tasers.” With my most powerful tone, the guards didn’t stand a chance. They relaxed, stuffed the now-useless tasers into their pockets.
“Tell me where Jag Barque is.”
Inside my head, Thane roared with rage.
One guard blinked, probably checking his cache. “Floor nine, cell one,” he monotoned.
“Get me in this building,” I ordered. The two guards punched in the codes, and the door hissed open.
I remembered to say, “Thank you,” before ordering them to “Make sure Thane Myers doesn’t set foot in the Confinement Rise.”
Then I did something I swore I’d never do. I e-commed Trek and asked for his help. How much time can you buy me?
Ten minutes, came his instant reply. If that.
* * *
Getting to floor nine required no skill. No ability. Just an ascender ring, which I took in a blaze of yellow stars. I landed in a sterile hallway with four sealed doors lining one side. On the other wall, high-up windows let in stale winter light.