“Shh,” I said, smoothing her hair. “So. Did you see it all?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded like a child’s. Tiny/afraid/far away. “I can’t help it,” she repeated.
“I’m not mad.” I held her until she fell asleep again, her breathing deep and even against my collarbone. I felt weary, but I didn’t allow myself to sleep.
If I didn’t, then Vi wouldn’t have to witness my nightmares.
Zenn
18.
The buildings of Lakehead shimmered against the horizon, blocking the sun like a partial eclipse. My back hurt. My head too. My heart also sang with pain. Strangely, because I’d spent most of the last seven hours thinking about Saffediene instead of Vi.
Which hurt in a new, weird way.
Gunner made a great companion in that he didn’t ask questions. He didn’t feel the need for useless chatter either. But his silence had made the last several hours almost unbearable in comparison to the flight with Saffediene, her cool hands holding mine, and her perky voice telling stories about her life.
Half of me preferred Gunn’s steady, sure approach to our missions. The other half longed to watch Saffediene rebraid her hair as she went over the finer points of our assignment.
“Hey,” Gunn said. “Are you alive?”
“Huh? Yeah.” I took in his disbelieving expression.
“Look, you’ve got to stop pining over Vi.”
I glared. “I am not pining over Vi.” But the way he just came out with it reminded me of Saffediene. Could I be pining over her?
He rolled his eyes. “I can feel stuff, Zenn.” He wasn’t like Saffediene in his specificity. Right now, I appreciated his “stuff” more.
“What do you know about the Evolutionary Rise?” I asked. He regarded me for a moment in surprise. “I can figure stuff out too.”
“Ask Jag,” Gunn said. I didn’t want to ask Jag—and it annoyed me that Gunn knew something I didn’t. I looked away.
Lakehead was a blip on the radar, a tiny city surrounded by lakes. Mostly a water filtration city, the people lived packed on top of one another in a narrow neck of land between two large bodies of water.
“The Director sent an e-comm several weeks ago, claiming to have stopped all transmissions.” Gunn flipped through his dad’s journal, any apprehension about my question gone. “But I don’t see how that’s possible. For one, Indy said she never sent the software. For another, the Association would need to be fed a fake feed, and there’s no record of that, either.”
I slowed to a stop as we approached the border. “What does the journal say we need to do here? What’s the mission?”
“Install the software, send the live feed,” Gunner said. “Then we’ve got to find the . . .” He checked the book. “The West End Lakehead Treatment Facility and locate a man named Phillip Hernandez.”
“At least we have a direction. There’s got to be a million treatment facilities here.” One loomed just below me, white curls of smoke painted into the ebony metallic surfaces of the one-story building.
“You’re right. Super,” Gunn muttered. “Well, let’s get this done already.”
No wasted words, no wasted time. Gotta love Gunn.
Half an hour later, we hadn’t succeeded in even one of our objectives. The city was closed.
That’s right. Closed.
The fences had been activated, creating a dome of techenergy over the main group of buildings. Guards stood at every ground entrance. Gunn and I had retreated to a small stand of trees near one of the smaller lakes, about ten miles away.
Gunn pulled a cube from his pack. “What do you want to eat?”
I smiled, but didn’t answer. The best part of being on the traveling team was the food-generating cube. We only had two in our possession as a Resistance, and we used them while traveling.
But it meant I didn’t have to eat out of a can.
A moment later Gunn handed me a stack of toast as high as my head.
The wind rippled through my hair, whispering a word of greeting. The sun beat down on my bare arms, charging our boards with its rays. I took a bite of buttery toast.
Ah, this was the life.
“Can you do something about the dome?” I whispered to the breeze. It scampered away, leaving me too warm and wanting.
Insider Tip #6: Use what resources you have, as long as you can do it without detection.
Ten minutes later the dome went down.
Gunn and I managed to float over the city at four hundred feet, well out of range of any guards, even if they had vision enhancements. When we hovered dead center, I gave the signal to descend.
We landed on the roof of a medium-size building, where I fondled a cool westerly and said, “Thanks.”
The air current zipped away, buzzing with pride.
Before we could even begin, the dome regenerated, trapping us inside.
“At least we can get two things done,” Gunn said, folding his board and shoving it in his pocket. He looked to his right, then his left. “So, which way do you think we should go?”
Shouts filled the sky, and that same crazy-unsettling unease I’d felt in Harvest filled my gut.
“Toward that sound,” I said, though every particle of my being wanted to get back on my board and fly far away.
Gunn looked at me, shock darkening his features. “What’s going on?”
“I’d say a rebellion,” I answered calmly. I felt it deep, deep down. And I wondered—again—if canceling the transmissions and providing the general population their free will was a good thing.
Free vs. functioning? If Saffediene were here, I’d ask her. But I didn’t dare voice anything with Gunn, lest Jag hear about it and question my loyalty again.
I led, walking fast across the close-knit rooftops and waving off Gunn’s repeated questions. He’d see for himself soon enough.
After only a few minutes, we arrived on the scene. I blinked, activating the recording capabilities of my cache before I looked down.
Gunn and I stood on a ten-story building, looking down on complete mayhem. The open area was circular, with banners and flags waving every few feet. A celebration had obviously been interrupted, but by whom and for what reason I couldn’t determine.
All I saw were crazy-mad people crying in crazy-loud voices about something I didn’t understand.
A group of Thinkers stood in the middle of the fray, wearing bright-as-the-summer-sky blue robes, holding their hands out in the same placating gesture.
“What are they saying?” Gunn asked.
“I don’t know.” I listened, but the voices combined into a cacophony of anger and fear and desperation.
“Equal rights,” a voice nearby said.
Both Gunn and I startled. A boy, not more than ten, stood on the roof about fifteen feet from us, surveying the madness below.
“Who are you?” Gunn asked, edging the tiniest bit closer to me.
“Stone,” he said, still not looking at us. Like we didn’t even matter.
“Equal rights?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know, like education and food and water and stuff.”
“You don’t have food and water and . . . stuff?” I asked. I liked this kid already.
“We used to. Everyone did. Everyone had the same stuff, actually. Same clothes, same rations, same houses. Now—” He finally turned to look at me, and I saw how sunken his cheeks were. “Now we don’t.”
“What happened?” Gunn gestured down to the open area. “What happened to make them act like that?”
“They woke up,” Stone said.
Jag
19.
I don’t want him here, I don’t want him here, I don’t want him here. I couldn’t stop thinking it. Even when Vi smacked me in the chest and glared my face off.