“I’m coming,” a woman’s voice answers, and it sounds sweet and high and lovely. “Look for the purple vines,” she adds, and warmth expands in my chest.
I emerge from the orchard and scour the wall for wisteria. My mother needs the blossoms for her experiments in the bio lab, and she trusts me to help her find them. I used to be afraid of the wall, but now that I’m older (seven is so much better than six), I realize I’m safe on this side. It’s the other side that harbors the unknown.
I gather the wisteria flowers for a while. Long enough that my basket fills. I lie down in the greening grass and sigh as I look up into the sky. Helping my mom is way better than any leisure activity, even if it is the weekend and I have more options.
I sit up to find her. The wall towers a few feet to my right. The grassy strip between the wall and the orchard is empty except for me.
Fear rises in my tiny chest. “Mom?” I call.
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t come hurrying out of the orchard, her dark hair flying behind her, her pale skin pink from rushing to my aid.
I get up, abandon my basket, and run into the orchard. “Mom! Mom, where are you?”
The trees trap my calls, holding them somewhere no one can hear. I stumble out of the shadows and find my mother in the arms of a man—a man who’s not my father.
He kisses her. She leans on him in a desperate way, like she can’t support her own weight without him.
Something inside whispers for me to look away. But I can’t. Daddy never touches her, except when he’s dragging her to Association dinners in the chrome dining room. His touch said I own you, and the dining rooms were full of men wearing starched shirts and perma-frowns.
But this man holds her close. Strokes her hair. Wipes away her tears. I inch closer, desperate to hear what they’re saying.
“You need to leave,” he says.
“I can’t,” she cries. “He’ll kill me for breaching the wall.”
“He’ll kill you anyway,” the man says, right before he spots me with his golden eyes. He murmurs something to my mom, who beckons me forward. Anger flares at my mom for leaving me all alone so close to the wall.
“Raine, this is Gage.”
“Touching is against protocol.” I’m confused at why she’s here with this strange man and who he is and why she’s telling me his name.
Gage smiles as he crouches in front of me. “How old are you?” His eyes land on my gloves, and I unconsciously hide my hands behind my back.
“Seven.”
“Old enough,” he says, and I have no idea what that means. “You should tell her, Kyla.”
My mom shakes her head, making the tears fly from her face. She hugs me for the first time in two years. “Go get your basket, honey. We can’t be late for dinner.”
I don’t want to go through the orchard by myself, but I sense that my mom wants to be alone with Gage. So I take one last breath filled with her powdery scent before I go.
I’ve barely entered the grove when a team of Enforcement Officers descend into the orchard, broadcasting warnings and setting up a protective perimeter. I duck behind the closest apple tree and watch them silence and cuff Gage.
I don’t turn away fast enough—I see them tase my mother. I bite my lip so hard, I taste blood. I force myself to look back. They’ve bound her in black cloth, the symbol of disease. Even her beautiful face is robed—and I know: She’s dead.
Gage has been herded a ways off, his golden gaze swirling with sadness and anger. He catches my eye and lifts his head as if to say, Run! Get out of here.
So I run. Away from my dead mother, who will never comfort me with a forbidden touch again. Away from the golden-eyed man who’s not my father. Away from the happiness and safety I’ve always enjoyed.
I wander the orchards for hours. My feet ache and my throat burns as night settles in. I sit down and cry until finally, my father comes for me.
Gunner
33.
The first city I encountered squatted on the edge of a massive river. An equal mix of shock and relief flowed through me. Another city. The first I’d ever seen.
The buildings only stood about five stories tall, and I’d passed half of them in the time it took to blink. Transmissions jammed in my head. Everything from Severe weather warning for the next thirty minutes, to All Citizens must be tested by March 1.
I didn’t know what the people needed to be tested for, and I didn’t really care. The city didn’t bear a name. Or a wall.
A fence surrounded the central buildings, but beyond that, fields radiated from the city in sweeping arcs. The whole thing was circular, with only the center hub protected with tech barbs.
The sky threatened to erupt at any moment, which helped me pass the city undetected. But being out in the open with only the threat of driving rain and an endless horizon made my head pound.
When the rains came, I cupped my hands to collect the water and drank until my stomach felt sloshy. Then I leaned over Jag in an attempt to keep him dry. Like that worked. But at least he wasn’t taking the needlelike raindrops point blank.
We outflew the weather, but the sky stayed dark with night. I slept as much as someone sitting up on a hoverboard-built-for-one-but-carrying-two could sleep.
At dawn I slowed and stopped near a small stream. I drank again, but my stomach wanted more than calorie-free water. Trees grew thick along the banks, and I commanded my board to take Jag into a cluster of trees while I searched for something to eat. The bushes lay bare this late in February. I’d pretty much resorted to sucking on bark when an animal howled.
Which was my cue to get the hell out of there.
Jag moaned when I shifted him on my hoverboard. The board whined when I stepped on too. “I know, I know,” I grumbled as I directed it west. I smeared more med-gel on Jag’s wounds, already bone weary from flying.
But I flew all day. Passed another unnamed city. This one had no fence, no barrier, no nothing. But it did have a Thinker broadcasting transmissions. They infiltrated my thoughts, reminding me that other people existed in this world.
I felt muted emotions in the Citizens. Nothing significant. Nothing powerful. As I passed, I pulled on the tech, using it to rejuice my board. The weak sunlight had helped reserve some power, and the tech brought it up enough to fly all night.
All the next day, while I used the solar portlet to power the board, I thought about Raine and Starr, Vi and Zenn, my mom and the Insiders, Thane and Rise Twelve and the end of the world. I thought about my father and his journal. I studied his letter again, recommitting the lines to memory.
My lungs expanded and collapsed, expanded and collapsed. My eyes continued blinking. My stomach tightened with hunger. My throat cried for a drink. My body lived on; my heart kept beating.
As night fell the third time, I approached another city. This one was much bigger than the previous two, and I decided to stop and recharge my board properly. It shuddered as I landed in what was really a half crash and managed to get Jag wedged between two trash recyclers. More med-gel for him. Another hunger pang for me.
Keep it together, Gunn.
Moving under the stars, I felt the tech tingling in the back of my mouth. I could probably hijack the tech and force it into the board’s power chamber, but it’d be great if I could clip in. I slumped next to Jag, my muscles protesting with the littlest movement.
Twinges of tech emanated from the recyclers. I wondered how long I could unplug them before someone would know.
Taking a chance, I removed the recycler from the clip-in on the outer wall and connected my board. I leaned against the wall, my shoulder pressing into Jag’s.
My mouth felt so dry. I knew I needed to drink. Eat. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.
* * *
I’m flying over wastelands. City after city blurs by. I know the names and locations of all of them. Cedar Hills. White Cliffs. Lakehead. Harvest. Green River. Grande.
I’ve been to every city on
my father’s list. The Association encompasses land from ocean to ocean, has cities from tiny to ginormous. And I have people positioned in them all.
Next to me, Jag points to something ahead of us. A flash of annoyance at his refusal to wear an implant gets overshadowed by the flock of EOs blocking our way into the Goodgrounds.
Jag gains altitude, and I automatically follow him. We work as a team; his success is mine, mine is his. And we desperately need access to the Goodgrounds.
A spike in techtricity hits me as if I’d slammed into a wall. “Damn,” I say out loud.
“Maybe we can enter through the Fire Region.” Jag swings his board north. Before I can do the same, something crashes into my hovercraft from below. Techtricity shoots through my feet, sending tendrils of blue light rippling along the length of my board. It quivers, slows, stalls.
I’m falling. Jag grows distant, tiny. I close my eyes, all I can think is, So this is how I die, before someone yells, “Gunner!”
Blood surges through my body. My heart pulses in my throat. “Raine!”
* * *
Her name still burned in my mouth. I said it again—“Raine”—just to make sure I was awake and alive. My voice scratched, but came out. Maybe a little too loud.
I half-expected a spider to come scuttling along to find, detain, record, report my presence in this unknown alley. When it didn’t, I ran my hand wearily across my face.
That’s when I noticed the absence of Jag’s shoulder against mine.
Seized with fear, I glanced around.
My hoverboard = gone.
Raine
34.
The light played behind my closed eyes and made splintering lines snake across my vision. I existed in between asleep and awake, half-aware of movement in the room but knowing I couldn’t quite reach the surface. Images of my mother’s peach-colored skin and waves of dark hair swam alongside me. A pair of glowing, golden eyes flashed. Fear flickered inside me.
* * *
Daddy lets me sleep for what feels like a long time, but when he wakes me, it’s still very dark outside.
“Come on, Rainey,” he says softly, guiding me with gloved hands. I cling to him as we descend to a floor with one long hallway that dead-ends into a wall of glass. My legs quake from roaming the orchards, and the secrets I hold threaten to eat me from the inside out.
Dad takes me through the door and behind the glass wall. My favorite projection puzzle is already broadcasting. The air tastes wrong, though. Too sharp, too clean, like some piece of tech has been working very hard to get rid of all the blood.
The room feels like a laboratory, and I shrink further against my father. “Come now, Rainey.” He gently pries my arms off his waist and helps me into a chair that’s much too big for my body.
“Play this for a few minutes, okay?”
I don’t want to—I want to go back to sleep—but I pretend to solve the projection puzzle. I really watch my dad. He flicks through p-screen after p-screen on the opposite wall, tapping buttons on some and signing his name on others.
A few minutes later a team of physicians enters through the back door. They scurry around the lab, not looking at either me or my father. Another man follows—Thane Myers, my father’s top scientist in the Technology Rise. He attends all the dinners, but I force that thought away. The dinners remind me of my mother.
Four Enforcement Officers enter, and fear seizes my muscles.
Tears spring to my eyes, and I can’t look at any of the EOs. What if I see the one that tased my mom?
“Dad,” I whisper.
And then he’s there, rubbing something cold on my bare hand. “I’m sorry, Raine,” he says, and I wonder at it. First at the apology—my dad never apologizes for anything—and second at the fact that he used my real name, not that babyish nickname.
Before I can respond, Dad touches both of my temples, securing something sticky there, and Thane presses my hand against another, much larger one. Instinctively, I try yanking away, but my skin’s been welded to theirs.
I look up, right into the golden eyes of Gage. I scream, the sound loud and chilling, before the images begin flashing across my vision-screen.
The pictures are blurry, but that’s only because I’m crying. Gage enters a Rise, shaking the snow from his shoulders and escaping the chill of darkness.
The lobby bubbles with chatter, with laughter. I see people touch each other casually, a handshake there, a carefree brush of shoulders over there.
“AD Walker,” a man says in the vision.
My hand starts to shake, but only because it’s connected to Gage’s and he’s freaking out. I cry harder and try pulling my hand away again.
“Keep going, Rainey.” Dad’s voice carries a double-edged blade. Excitement and desperation. No concern. “I’ll protect you. Just hold on.”
The images come faster now. Gage ascends to an office. Reports are falsified. The clock strikes midnight. He retreats downstairs to eat in a café with a horde of people. They wear strange, brightly colored clothing. They smile and laugh, laugh and smile, like they don’t have a care in the world.
It’s all very strange.
A loud clanking noise accompanies the shaking in Gage’s body. Physicians shout. The air circulators can’t rid the room of the scent of blood. It comes, thick and tinny, filling the lab, permeating my senses.
For a second everything turns black. But I know the drain isn’t over. I’ve only seen what Gage wants most: a future where people choose for themselves.
A new show starts; now I “get” to see what will happen if Gage’s desires come true.
Gage and my father are facing each other. The room is indistinguishable, the walls all white.
“Rise Twelve is the model of the future,” Gage says just before he watches my father fall to his knees. The scene ends with Gage standing over the unmoving body of my dad.
I suddenly realize that everything in the lab has gone quiet. Too quiet. Gage’s hand in mine feels cold. Too cold.
My shoulders ache from the continued hunching. Tears spill from my closed eyes.
When I open them, I see Gage lying on a silver table next to my too-big chair. He’s restrained
bleeding
dead.
“Thane,” my father says. “You’ve just been advanced to Director of Rise Twelve. I’ll need a full report.”
“Yes, sir,” Thane says, glaring at me like his promotion is my fault.
Gunner
35.
I leapt to my feet, panic/fear/anger making my thoughts irra-tional. Something tugged against my elbow. A nourisher. I yanked it out, and clear liquid dripped onto the stones at my feet. Who’d hooked me up?
I didn’t have time to find out. The gray beginnings of dawn streamed down between the buildings, and a buzzing sound rattled in my ears.
My heartbeat pulsed in my throat. My hands felt slick. I finally located the noise as a warning to clip in the recycler. So I did, quickly, expecting a horde of EOs or a swarm of spiders to encircle me, arrest me. Something.
Before that could happen, I hightailed it out of the area. Jag! I thought, Where are you?
No answer.
I couldn’t believe he’d stolen my board and left me sleeping in the alley of an unknown city. What a high-class jerk.
Maybe he’d been found, I thought. But that made no sense. If he’d been found, why had I been left sleeping?
Maybe he’d protected me, maybe he’d led the captors away before they found me, maybe he’d used his voice to convince them to nourish me.
There weren’t enough maybes for what might or might not have happened. All that mattered: I needed a hoverboard, stat.
I walked straight down the street, growing more nervous as the sky continued to lighten. People would be up soon, going to work, attending their schools, living their controlled lives. A slow anger started in my gut.
Finally a worker—a trash recycler/maintenance/something or other—exited an alley abo
ut a hundred feet in front of me.
“Excuse me,” I called, grateful the first person I’d seen in this lifeless city was a simple recycler. “I need a hoverboard. Where can I get one?”
Confusion filled the man’s face. “A what?”
“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t have hover tech in this city.”
“Of course we have hover tech,” the man said quickly. His expression blanked, his voice deadened. “But it’s all kept in the City Center. Nothing this far out.”
Super. “How far to the City Center?”
“It’s about an hour into the city. The track will get you there faster, but it doesn’t activate until seven.”
“The track?” I asked, thinking only of the hoverboard oval in Freedom.
“Public transit.” He pointed down the street in the direction I’d been walking. “Daily jobs begin on the half hour, so if you want a spot on the seven o’clock track, you’ll have to be a bit early.”
Using my voice, I asked, “Once I get to the City Center, how do I get clearance for hover tech?”
The man stared straight ahead. “You’ll need the right job.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling deflated. “Forget you ever saw me.”
I took a deep breath just so my lungs wouldn’t stick together. The man moved along, continuing his mindless work, leaving me stranded in the streets of who knows where.
I didn’t have time for any of this. For some reason I felt an urgency to find my father’s journal and get back east. Raine would be waiting for me at the Insider’s safehouse.
I sighed—and distinctly heard an unfamiliar voice in my head.
Get off the street. A guy’s voice, not full of control, yet overflowing with authority, continued, Down the alley to your left. Hurry!
Without overanalyzing, I darted toward the specified alley. Not two seconds later the streets swarmed with people. They marched silently down the streets in the same direction the worker had pointed. Toward the track.