“Jag,” Zenn said. He seemed beyond relieved to see me alive. Was I thrilled to see him alive? I’ll admit that I was.
“Hey, bro,” I said. “You look rested.”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “Director Hightower detained me for a little speech.”
“Oh yeah? Did he have anything good to say?”
Zenn’s eyes flickered to Thane and back to me. “He said Thane’s a liar.”
The room erupted in laughter, and I allowed myself a chuckle. “Yeah, well, who isn’t?”
Zenn cracked a rare smile. “Saffediene and I intercepted a transmission from Baybridge. The city’s been destroyed. Sounded like they were evacuating, but we didn’t catch where.” He swallowed and exchanged a glance with Saffediene. I watched his body language, the way he shifted toward her, how she put her hand on his forearm.
Zenn had himself a new girlfriend—and his feelings seemed genuine. Nice.
“Have you heard from Starr?” Zenn asked.
“She’s here,” I said. “Everything in Baybridge was fine when she left. Our people got out.” I saw her hurrying out of the room, probably to check with her contacts about what had gone down in Baybridge.
“We checked Castledale,” Saffediene said. “We found a message there.”
“Well?” I pushed.
“Resist and die,” Zenn said.
“Was the city dormant?” Thane asked from the front of the room. “The people sequestered?”
“Yes,” Saffediene said.
“Let me guess,” Thane said. “The message was in a funky location or as a puzzle. Am I right?”
“As these weird painted ‘shadows’ on the buildings. We only found the message after we rotated the image,” Zenn confirmed.
“Okay, so what?” I asked. “We’ve known for years that Darke wasn’t going to just roll over. Why does this matter now?”
“Did you say Baybridge was burning?” Thane asked. “Or it was already burnt?”
“Burning,” Saffediene said. “Lots of smoke in the projection, and a fire in the building behind the guy.”
“What guy?” I asked. The Insiders in Baybridge had been evacuated with everyone else.
“Probably not an Insider,” Thane said. “Probably just someone trying to get a feed out, searching for help.”
“Where are you guys?” Zenn asked. “Can we fly in?”
“Arrow Falls,” Thane said. “We should be able to get you in tonight.”
Zenn and Saffediene nodded, but I wanted to go back to the burning versus burnt question. “Why does it matter if the city was burning or already burnt?”
Thane angled his body so he was looking at me and at the p-screen. “It lets us know Darke’s timeline. He’s not in Castledale right now; he left the message there and flew to Baybridge, which was burning. So he must have just launched the attack there.”
“So we can launch an attack on him when he returns to Castledale,” I said, seeing where Thane was going with his reasoning.
“Exactly. From Baybridge to Castledale, you’re talking a two-day flight. If the feed Zenn saw was in real time, then we’ve got a short window to prepare a second wave.”
I nodded, proud of myself for having a conversation with Thane without wanting to tase him. “Let’s pack up,” I said. “We’re heading to Castledale. Zenn, can you guys meet us there?”
“By morning,” he said.
“Can you check Freedom first?” Raine’s childlike voice piped up. “See if there’s any word on Gunner?”
Trek put his arm around Raine. “See if you can cache Ivory Bills. She’ll be in charge of communication now that I’m gone.”
Zenn nodded, his jaw set. “I’ll find out, Raine. I promise.”
I’d heard Zenn say those words before, but this time was different. This time I believed him.
Zenn
36.
Ivory Bills met Saffediene and me on the north side of Freedom, near where I’d met Trek a week earlier. She stood just beyond the wall, her eyes narrowed in our direction. I’d activated my cache, but I wasn’t sure I had a frequency she could hear. Pace had reset them all before the invasion.
I heard whispers of thought only from Saffediene, but Ivory had obviously received something. She strode forward, her reddish-brown hair barely brushing her chin. Her slate-gray eyes scanned me, then Saffediene, stalling on our joined hands for a moment longer than necessary. “Hey,” she said, her voice wavering as it passed through the barrier.
I squeezed Saffediene’s hand to signal that I thought Ivory would deal better with her than with me.
“Hey,” Saffediene said. “News?”
Though I didn’t expect anything different from Saffediene, I almost smiled at her all-business attitude. I tamed the urge when Ivory folded her arms and remained silent.
The loudest sound became the sighing of the breeze as it mixed with the crackle of the techtric barrier.
She squinted at us again, as if that might allow her access inside our heads. My skin crawled; I felt exposed, like that’s exactly what she was doing.
“Your caches have been altered,” she finally said.
“Yes,” Saffediene immediately responded. “Trek Whiting said you were his second and would be able to fill us in on any developments inside the city.” She took a deep breath as Ivory visibly relaxed.
“Trek sent you?” she asked. “You’re part of the Resistance?”
“Yes,” Saffediene said. “We’re most concerned about a talented Citizen, Gunner Jameson, and our tech developer, Pace Barque.”
I cleared my throat. “And the second-in-command, Indiarina Blightingdale.”
If any of those names meant anything to Ivory, she didn’t show it. Talk about one cool cat. With every passing second, my chest felt tighter and tighter. Maybe she was sending an e-comm to the Enforcement Officers with our location.
Ivory blinked, then focused on us again. She’d been checking something on her vision-screen. “Pace Barque and Gunner Jameson were logged into the Evolutionary Rise yesterday.” My heart skipped a beat at the mention of the Evolutionary Rise. Pace and Gunner wouldn’t come out of there alive, and their DNA was probably under fifty scopes right now.
“That’s not good,” Saffediene said. “What for?”
“Experimentation,” Ivory said, her delivery smooth and unemotional. She was the perfect Insider. She’d probably get along real well with Jag.
“Are they dead?” Saffediene’s tone pitched a little higher.
“Their status is ‘experimentation,’ ” Ivory said. “And Indiarina Blightingdale has been slated for Modification.”
I closed my eyes and felt my body slump. Modification. A new life. A new name. Like Raine, who still struggled to introduce herself properly. After the procedure was done, Indy wouldn’t remember Jag or me or the Resistance. Nothing.
“When?” Saffediene asked.
“Friday.”
What day is it today? I cached Saffediene.
Tuesday, she said.
“Can your team get them out?” I asked.
Ivory squinted at me again. “I think I know you.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yeah? How?”
“Couple of years ago, someone needed an emergency teleporter in an alley outside Eleven. I was sent.”
My blood ran cold. My heart raced double time. I’d tried to forget that night. The strobing lights. The barking dogs. That empty alley where I’d left the memory of Blaze and made Jag hate me forever.
I shook my head to disagree, but Ivory forged on. “It was you. You look older, but it’s you. I threw the capsule. You left without even saying thank you.”