“I am being serious.”
“That’s not possible. Voices don’t work that way. If you have voice power, you have it all the time, over everyone.”
I didn’t like the superior edge to his tone. He almost sounded like he thought he was better than regular people. Like he subscribed to the Darwinian ideas. I knew Gunn, though, and he didn’t feel that way.
I frowned, thinking of how I could erase the barrier in Vi’s mind, allowing her access to her memories. “So says you.”
Gunn cast me a wary glance. “What did you do today? Besides streak your hair blue.”
I looked up into the sparkling, star-filled sky. I contemplated telling him about my little convo with his jealous girlfriend. Wondered what he’d say then.
“I helped Vi remember,” I finally said.
He made a noise of disbelief in his throat but didn’t answer otherwise. Annoyance swept through me, and when he cocked his head in my direction, I remembered that he could feel my emotions.
Which only made me angry on top of annoyed. I leaned into my board, urging it to go faster. Flying with Gunn had lost all its appeal. He left me alone for a few laps, just long enough to cool down.
And, of course, he would know when that happened.
But I couldn’t blame him for his abilities. I certainly didn’t choose mine. So when Gunn floated next to me, I reached for his hand. He let me take it between my gloved fingers, and then he squeezed.
Flashes of Freedom burning stole through my head. Images from Vi’s drain—especially the one where Gunn flew up behind me and kissed me—filled my mind.
My throat felt too narrow and too hot. Just one glance toward the wall reminded me of my dead mother. I don’t think you should leave Freedom, I chatted, because it felt safer to say it in my head than out loud—even if it could be monitored easier this way.
I have to.
He didn’t, but I couldn’t say that. He thought he did, and nothing I could say would change his mind. Which reminded me … “Is Trek in your mind, helping you?”
“Someone is. Not sure it’s Trek all the time. Or at all.”
“That’s just because you don’t like him,” I said.
“No, I don’t like him, but sometimes the voice is … weird. Too high or too low.”
“Yeah, but it’s nice to have our own personal secretary.”
Gunn did that sideways-lookie thing, and my heart rate picked up. “I call him my assistant.”
I liked that. “Good one.”
But we were skimming the surface of what really needed to be chatted about.
“Once, I though the voice was Starr,” Gunn said a little too casually.
I cast him a glance, thinking—again—about his match, and how I wasn’t her.
“Sure, it could be Starr,” I said, forcing casualness into my voice too. “Zenn could be helping too. Maybe he’s the lower voice.” I’d never heard a voice that sounded like a girl, let alone Starr.
“Let’s just call them a collective assistant,” I said.
“Sounds good.”
We lapped the track in silence, each second bringing us closer to the convo neither one of us wanted to have.
“I—I’ve seen the end,” I finally said, finding the strength to say it out loud. “And it’s here, Gunn. Not in the Badlands. Here. In Freedom.”
He raised his eyebrows at me.
I nodded, and fear from several scenarios (Gunn dying in the wild, my role in the end battle, how to help Vi get her memory back) boiled upward. “Please don’t go. I have a bad feeling about it. You’re needed here, in Thane’s office. I’ll unbrainwash Vi, and then we’ll proceed with, well, whatever.”
For half a second he seemed like he’d concede; then his jaw tightened again. “I can’t, Raine. You do what you have to, and so will I.”
“What do you have to do, Gunner?”
I’d rather not tell you, he said over the cache. Then if anyone asks, you won’t have to lie for me.
I took a deep drag of frosty midnight air. I want to lie for you.
There. I’d laid it all out. I let my feelings for him surface, let them dance across my face, let them infiltrate the air around us.
He nudged his board closer again, and this time I didn’t move mine away. His eyes, deep pools of black glass, searched mine. I put my hands on his shoulders to steady myself; he wrapped his arms around me. Our boards flew side by side, barely an inch between them.
When his lips met mine, the oxygen in my lungs ignited. I expected dark images to form from the contact, and when they didn’t, I relaxed into him even more.
By the time he pulled away, my whole body vibrated.
“I’m sorry, Hightower,” he whispered out loud. “That wasn’t right. Or fair.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to kiss him again, wrong, unfair, whatever. So I did. He let me for a few seconds, long enough to make me want to kiss him forever and short enough to make me miss his mouth when he moved away.
His lips caught mine along the edges as he whispered, “I’m still leaving.”
I laid my head on his chest and listened to the slow thump of his heart. “I know.”
Gunner
21.
I could’ve stayed in the air holding Raine forever. But all too soon she whispered, “The meeting’s about to start.”
And so we separated and flew to what I hoped was my last Insider meeting. I’d been cached the coordinates, but I let Raine lead so I could admire her flying one more time. Okay, maybe I admired more than just her sick flying skills.
I had one more day of school. One more weekend in Freedom. One more, one more, one more.
Inside the warehouse on the edge of the western orchard, I lingered in the shadows. Like that worked. As soon as Trek emerged from his dingy office, he searched the crowd. “Where’s the voice-wonder?”
I wanted to ask, “Where’s the jackwagon?” But of course I didn’t. I simply stepped next to Raine.
“Ah, there you are. Your petition to leave the city has been filed and approved.”
All undercurrent whispering ceased. Every eye volleyed back and forth between Trek and me, like he had the power to banish me from sheer dislike. “Thank you,” I murmured.
Trek filled the group in on Jag Barque and why I was leaving with him. He didn’t mention where we were headed. He snapped his fingers at Raine. “When’s the breakout?”
“Monday, nine a.m.,” she responded, annoyed at what I assumed was the demeaning finger snapping. “His trial is set for ten, and we can’t afford for him to attend.”
“That’s three days, people. We’ll all need to work around the clock to pull this off.” Trek glared at me, as if I’d determined the date and time of Jag’s hearing. I stared right back, daring him to say something stupid so I could deck him. He didn’t. Instead, he started issuing orders.
Things like, “Saffediene, make sure the beams on the floodlights are set as low as possible on Sunday night.” And, “Dammit, Suri, I need you to make sure the barrier is down for inspection at 8:45 a.m. Can you do that or not?”
She glared at him. “Dammit, Trek, I’m working with our contacts on the maintenance crew.”
I almost started laughing. Suck on that, Whiting, I thought.
“Just make it happen,” Trek said. “The fifteenth sector needs to be down at 8:45 a.m., Monday morning.” He blinked before barking more orders. I listened but didn’t really take stock of much. Trek would forward the complete plan to Zenn and we’d live, breathe, eat, dream about it for the next three days.
But when Trek said, “Raine, your petition to view Violet Schoenfeld’s file has also been approved.” I stood straighter. “Gunner, before you go, I need you to retrieve it from Thane’s archives,” Trek continued. “Get it to Raine, stat.”
Every nerve in my body screamed for me to look at Raine! but I didn’t. I blinked as if Trek and I were discussing homework. “Super,” I said out loud. Would it have killed him to say p
lease? I mean, seriously.
“Super,” Trek mocked, and I wanted to punch him so he’d stop glaring at me. What had I ever done to him? Well, aside from the whole flight trials thing. Surely all his hatred didn’t come from that; it’d happened almost two years ago.
Below his vein of dislike rode another emotion. It took me a moment to identify it as apprehension, but when I did, I knew where it came from.
Raine.
Now it poured from her in waves, and I employed every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep from turning toward her so we could have a private conversation. I didn’t know she’d requested Vi’s file. She could’ve just asked me for it. She didn’t have to go formal and request it from the jerkiest jerk alive.
I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets while Trek finished his orders and everyone shuffled away. When Raine slid her hand into my pocket and twined her fingers with mine, I couldn’t help but look at her.
“Don’t be mad,” she whispered.
Even with her gloved touch, all the madness drained out of my body. “I’m not mad,” I said.
She smiled and looked like a frightened child doing it. “I don’t need a special ability to tell,” she said. “You stopped breathing when Trek asked you to get that file. And then you wouldn’t look at me, even when I chatted you.”
“My cache is off,” I said, then I lowered my voice. “You could’ve just asked me.”
She squeezed my hand inside my coat pocket. “I know. But I didn’t want you to have to do me any favors. This way, it’s an order.”
I studied her face, trying to figure out what she wanted me to say. Because this conversation? Strange. And the way she watched me with that hopeful glint in her eye? Even weirder. Which meant there were words to say here that would be correct, and words that most definitely would not be.
Her face fell just a bit as the seconds ticked by. Finally I got it.
“Raine, I want to do favors for you.”
She grinned. “You do?”
I put both hands on the sides of her face, feeling her skin, her bones. I wanted to memorize her so I could see her while I flew away. So I could picture the way she’d smile when I came back. So I could always have her with me, no matter where I went or how long I was gone.
“Yeah, I do,” I whispered, wondering when doing favors for someone = loving them.
* * *
I slept maybe two hours after the meeting, mostly because I was trying to figure out a way to get Vi’s complete file from Thane. I didn’t think he’d give it up willingly. And the thought of using my voice on him made me feel shady inside.
Zenn hadn’t been home last night—had he gone to Rise Twelve? I seriously needed to stop thinking about that place. When I got up, Zenn sat at the kitchen table behind a giant stack of toast. We didn’t speak. We didn’t have to. I clicked through my cache and found the information.
In the southwest corner of Freedom sat an expansive peach orchard. The wall towered 150 feet over the trees, just like it does around the whole city—except for the ocean on the east side. Each sector of the wall burned with tech surveillance, and it only went down for inspection once a week.
On Monday at 8:45 a.m., the fifteenth sector—beyond the peach orchard in the southwest corner—would be down for approximately twenty-three minutes.
Above the city, a tech filter cleansed the air we breathe. This invisible barrier created a dome that encompassed the city wall and never went down. When it needed to be replaced, it happened at night. All Citizens are required to stay indoors during dark hours, and back-up filters pump in oxygen while the new filter acclimates and ensures we don’t asphyxiate in the morning.
The barrier can’t be shut off. Jag and I will breach it, which will raise the alarm, dispatch the Enforcement Officers in their special oxygen-generating suits, and force everyone else into their homes for a minimum of two hours.
Director Hightower will have to make up a lie to tell his Citizens, because Jag and I aren’t planning on getting caught.
Lying should be easy, since Director Hightower’s been doing it for years—if my dad left, the air must be just as breathable outside the barrier as inside. Maybe-hopefully. I pushed the images of the suited maintenance workers out of my mind.
The details of how to get Jag out of the Confinement Rise were still in the beginning stages. Zenn wondered why I couldn’t just voice-order the guards around like I did yesterday. He had a valid point.
Perhaps that’s what I’d do. I purposely didn’t have a game plan; then I wouldn’t freak when it didn’t work the way I’d envisioned. I read through Trek’s list of preparations and thought he’d done more than enough planning for both of us.
He had people stationed outside the Director’s office to slow him down. People sending incorrect breach locations. People to unclip all the EOs’ hoverboards the night before.
“If you can pass that test in ancient civ today, anything is possible,” Zenn said.
“Yeah,” I said, hearing the hidden message in his words. What he meant: If we can bust Jag out of prison, we can take down the Association. “Yeah.”
* * *
That afternoon I entered Thane’s office for my training session, still stewing over how I’d get Vi’s file. I froze. The sight of him staring out his newly installed windows did little to calm me—nothing new there. But today he wasn’t alone.
Director Hightower also loitered at the glass, looking down his nose at the city below. Immediately I thought, Rise Twelve, Rise Twelve, Rise Twelve. My heart rate doubled as I tried to bury those two words under something else.
All I could think of was kissing Raine while we flew outside after hours.
If the Director was here, it could mean anything. He could know about the midnight sneak-outs. The dietary citations. Kissing Raine.
He might know I was responsible for the break-in at the Confinement Rise.
Because even though nothing had been said, nothing over the transmissions last night, nothing at school today, surely the Director knew.
I swallowed hard and tried to wipe my sweaty palms dry in my coat pockets. I thought about school, about ancient civilizations, about engineering, about my strict genetics Educator who wouldn’t let me leave class five minutes early so I could make it here on time.
“Come in, Gunn,” Thane said without turning from the window.
I wiped my mouth, as if the memory of Raine’s lips would somehow be visible to her father. He turned as I lowered myself into the ergonomic and, stars alive, he could see everything. His gaze lingered first on my kissed-by-Raine mouth, then traveled to my please don’t kill me eyes, my too-long hair, and landed on my clenched-into-fists hands.
“Hello, Gunner,” he said, pleasantlike but with a river of ice underneath. He pulled the curtain closed, eliminating all sunlight.
“Good afternoon, Director.” My voice came out hollow, yet still veined with fear.
“I invited the Director to sit in today,” Thane began. “He’s always taken a special interest in our voice students.”
I bet he has, I thought. I somehow managed to arrange my mouth into a close-lipped smile.
The silence that ensued drove my already frayed nerves into a frenzy. The Director didn’t look away from me as he settled in a second chair that had been positioned behind Thane’s desk. He steepled his fingers. “So, Gunner, how’s Starr Messenger?”
My throat dried up. “She’s fine.”
“My reports say you haven’t spent much time together lately.”
My stomach sank. His reports? Of course his junior assistant would have to send him something on me. “I’ve been busy here over the past few weeks,” I said. “Starr understands.”
“Does she?” The Director clasped his hands together, gazed at my mouth. I rubbed my hand self-consciously over my lips, expecting my fingers to come away black or something.
The all-knowing Director smirked. I made a mental note to log some hours with Starr, stat.
&nb
sp; “We believe some recreational activity sessions might help,” the Director said. “Beginning next weekend, you and Starr will have mandatory free time together.”
“Super,” I said, half-believing myself and wholly knowing I wouldn’t be here next weekend for “mandatory free time.”
The Director’s smile faded. “So, Gunner, I have a few questions.”
“Okay.” I did my best to keep the tremor out of my voice. I felt pinned by his gaze, the same way I had when he’d spoken in my mom’s memory. I tried to imagine how Zenn would play this. I leaned back, swept something invisible from my shirtsleeves. “Shoot.”
The Director’s lips thinned into a smile while I contemplated my word choice. “As a voice, can you manipulate clones?”
I almost scoffed. “Of course.” What a weird question. Anyone could manipulate a clone.
“What about Mechs?”
“Yes and no,” I said, again surprised at the question. “Robots don’t have a brain to be affected by the sound of my—a voice. But they generally do whatever a human tells them.”
“Unless?” the Director prompted.
“Unless otherwise programmed,” I answered.
“What about Enforcement Officers?” the Director asked.
“I believe they undergo extensive training to block voice power, sir.”
He cut a quick glance at Thane, who took a chip out of his wrist port and deposited it in the slots carved into his desk supports, seemingly bored by the convo.
“Very good, Gunner.” The Director leaned forward, and the brown in his eyes seemed to deepen into shades of gray and black. “What about Confinement Rise guards?”
My tongue felt too heavy for my mouth. Saliva pooled because I couldn’t swallow. “I don’t know, sir,” I managed to say. “I’ve never encountered any Confinement Rise guards.” I purposely kept my eyes on the Director so I wouldn’t look at Thane. Apparently he hadn’t told the Director about my escapade in the Confinement Rise. Or had he?
“But you’ve met EOs?” The emotions coming from the Director bordered on aggressive, yet he put forth the picture of passivity.
My foot bounced about fifty times a second, and I worked to calm it. “Well, yeah. They’ve come recruiting at my house. You know, because of the flying.”