“There you are, Zenn,” Vi’s mom said from the doorway. The light haloed her, and she looked younger than I remembered. “I need you in the tech department. Have you got a minute?”
“Sure.” I followed her down the hall, through the war room, and into the opposite wing. Immediately the stench of burnt metal and hot smoke filled my nose. My dad used to smell like that when he came home from work. My stomach twisted, and I felt a profound sadness. I hadn’t seen my father in so long.
I forced away those thoughts when Laurel turned into a brightly lit room and gestured me inside. Counters ran the length of the room, some covered with bits of tech and others overflowing with bare filaments.
“It’s all raw,” I said with a sinking feeling.
“See why I need you?” Laurel introduced me to a couple of guys whose names I forgot as soon as she said them. I nodded at Trek, who instructed the two guys in words that sounded like English but held no meaning for me.
Laurel and I moved down the counter to a station stacked with bins of what looked like scrap metal with wires sticking out of one end. “I need you to weave these filaments into receivers.”
I took a step back. “I know next to nothing about tech,” I protested. “I don’t even know what a receiver looks like.”
Laurel pointed to a spherical silver ball the size of my pinkie nail. “That’s a receiver. We need about fifty more to complete the teleporter rings.”
“We have fifty rings?” I asked, incredulous.
Laurel glanced at the two guys in the front of the room. “We will when you get those receivers made,” she said. She left, and I knew those of us working in the tech department had been tasked with the impossible.
Jag
37.
Vi woke up twelve hours before Ian Darke was scheduled to arrive in Castledale. I’d just finished my disgusting breakfast of a fruit-and-nut TravelTreat. I’d been going crazy, waiting for her to wake up, half believing she never would. When her eyes fluttered open, I drew a sharp intake of breath. Vi blinked a couple of times, her pupils too large. “Mom?” she said, her voice little more than breath.
“Vi, babe,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
Her head turned toward me, almost robotically. Fear flashed through me. What if she couldn’t remember me?
A slow smile spread across her face. “Jag.”
I hugged her and cried into her neck. Just as quickly as the relief filled me, anger took over. I pulled away. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again,” I said.
“Okay,” she agreed, probably a little too fast. I didn’t care if I’d influenced her with my voice.
“Where’s my mom? I swear I heard her singing earlier.”
“Raine was singing,” I said. “Some of us have been sitting with you in shifts.”
“Zenn?”
I stiffened, though I tried not to show it. “He’s been really busy in the lab.” Translation: He’s alive, but he didn’t want to see you.
“He completed the receivers we needed for the teleporter rings. He’s never worked with tech, but your mom said he’s brilliant at it.”
Vi’s eyes grew wistful. “He’s brilliant at a lot of things. Most everything he does, actually.”
“I know.”
“We hurt him,” she said simply.
“I know,” I said again, wishing it could be different, but accepting that it wasn’t. That was something Vi hadn’t quite done yet: accept us.
Choose me over him.
“I have,” she said, her voice whisper quiet. “And he knows it, which is why he hasn’t been to see me.”
Did this surprise me? I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. Vi wasn’t super great at making choices, and I didn’t know she’d gone so far as to decide between Zenn and me, and communicate such a thing to Zenn.
“I punched him after he tried to kiss me. Well, I mean, he kissed me, and I punched him.”
I laughed, the sound echoing through the infirmary. “No wonder his nose was all swollen a few days ago. He wouldn’t say why.”
Vi pushed herself into a sitting position. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Against my many protests, Vi suited up for flight after a late dinner. T-minus fifty-eight minutes until we would launch the second wave against the Association. We’d received word that Darke had indeed arrived in Castledale. He’d flown into the Security Department with a contingent of guards, and my report said he would depart at five the next morning.
Seven hours.
I paced, the anxiety a living, breathing thing inside my chest, pumping right along with my heart. Everything was set; everyone had been prepped. Now we just waited for the moment to strike.
I gripped the teleporter ring in my pocket. Zenn stood nearby, talking quietly with Saffediene. Besides checking with him about the receivers, I’d only seen him for five minutes during the past two days. We’d spoken maybe ten words.
I suspected he was hiding something from me, but I couldn’t feel any deceit from him. Just sadness and loneliness and indecision. Maybe he’d really moved on and didn’t need to spend his energy being angry with me anymore. I remembered when we used to play cards and laugh, and as he leaned closer to Saffediene with a small smile on his lips, I missed my friendship with him.
Zenn would be flying with Saffediene and a handful of others, leaving the city from the south and circling around to the Security Department on the fourth leg of the attack. Laurel had her team clustered together, their faces identical images of determination. They were flying out east and coming in hot on the second shift.
Thane stood with his back to me, Starr Messenger at his side. Since our earlier conversation, we hadn’t spoken. He’d taken a few shifts with Vi, but when I relieved him, he simply left and I sat down in his place.
He’d been assigned the third leg, which would attack from the west. Raine and Trek and a handful of others were staying behind, monitoring our tech and checking the feeds. I couldn’t afford to lose another technician, especially one as capable as Trek. And Raine, though she was improving greatly, still forgot her real name on occasion.
I was leading the first wave, and we were due to fly directly into the Security Department. I’d assigned Vi to my team because she refused to stay behind, and I hated to admit that her newfound ability might be useful in this fight.
As the hour drew near, the mood in the room shifted from eager anticipation to a dull fear. The talking gradually quieted, and finally I raised my hand. “Let’s move out.”
I led my team to the roof, where we stepped onto our hoverboards, and flew.
The night tasted bitter, like leftover smoke. Darke had forced everyone out, either with fire or mind control. Rumor had it that Harvest had taken in thousands of refugees. So had Arrow Falls, and I’d heard reports from cities as far north as Lakehead.
It didn’t matter. We had Darke’s agenda, and he was due to visit Harvest the day after tomorrow. After he changed their transmissions, the people would be forced to flee again.
I set my jaw. No, they wouldn’t. We’d stop him tonight.
We have to, I thought. If we don’t . . . I didn’t finish, because I was afraid of what might follow.
Zenn
38.
Jag marched out with his team of twenty, his chin tilted up and his hand clutched in Vi’s. Seeing them together didn’t hurt as much as it used to. Certainly not as much as her fist connecting with my nose.
Ten minutes later Laurel’s team exited the building, leaving me with Thane and Starr. I hadn’t talked much with them. I hadn’t talked much with anyone since arriving in Grande, besides Saffediene. She was the only one who didn’t kindle old arguments and strained memories. I’d enjoyed being with her without a mission objective.