His words gave me a zing of satisfaction. “Really?” I asked, smiling wide.
“Really. Look at you!” He gestured up and down at me. “And I can’t even kiss you!” He reached out and wove his fingers with mine. He closed his eyes and dropped his head slightly so that his face was shadowed in the dim light. “When I’m touching you, it’s like everything slows down for a minute. All my thoughts finally narrow down to focus only on the feel of your hand in mine. The rest of the time everything is pressing down so hard. The past. The future.” He shook his head and swallowed hard. “Sometimes I feel like I’m gonna break under the strain.”
“You’re not going to break,” I whispered, squeezing his hand tighter. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
He let out a scoffing noise and shook his head again. “Hardly.”
“It’s true,” I insisted. I paused, watching the tension tightening at the corner of Adrien’s mouth.
“How are we really doing?” I asked quietly. “You’ve been working with the Rez. You’ve seen visions. Do we really have a chance? Can we really take down the Chancellor and the Community?”
He was quiet a long moment, as if he was trying to find the right words. “I don’t really know how to answer you,” he finally said, looking down. “Sometimes I worry we’re fighting a war we can never win. We’re impossibly outnumbered, we don’t have enough resources, and now that the Chancellor has joined the war, we’re stretched too thin. We were always fighting an impossible fight—that’s life in the Rez for ya. But now…” his voice quieted. “I don’t know. It’s harder to hold on to hope. We’re fighting for a dream, for a life unlike anything we’ve ever known. Maybe it can’t be done.”
“Then why—?” I stopped myself.
“Why fight?” He finished. “Why risk everything for something we might not win?” He turned his face back to me, his aqua eyes sparking to life just like they always used to when we talked. “Because if we don’t fight, we’ve already lost. Without hope, without trying, there’s no point. There’s no future. And you, Zoe,” his voice softened. “I would fight forever to have a future with you.”
“Maybe hope alone can make a difference,” I said. “Maybe having something to fight for will make us stronger than anything they can throw at us.”
He nodded, but I wasn’t sure if he was really agreeing with me. Then he looked back at me and smirked. “You know, we’re talking about war and revolution, but really this is supposed to be when you sneak into my room just to make out.”
I laughed. “But I’m trapped in this suit.”
He lifted a hand and caressed down the side of my head. “You must be exhausted.”
“But I can’t sleep.”
“I have an idea. Here, lay down on your stomach.” He moved to arrange the pillow for me.
I laid down, and he put his hands on my shoulders, squeezing and rubbing his thumbs in circles. I felt like I was about to melt into the mattress. He moved from my shoulders up to my neck, and then back down again.
I felt myself growing drowsier with each passing minute. Even though I wanted to stay awake so I didn’t miss a moment with him, I quickly dropped off to sleep.
Chapter 4
I WOKE EARLY, confused about where I was until I felt Adrien’s arm draped lazily across me. In spite of everything, I couldn’t help smiling. I tried to slide out of Adrien’s grasp without waking him, but he stirred anyway.
“Hey,” he said as I sat up.
I looked down at him, his hair crumpled from sleep, his eyes blinking open slowly. I’d never seen him this way before. All dreamy, before the weight of the world had fully settled back on his shoulders. I loved the way his brow jutted out to shadow his eyes, and the smooth aquiline cut of his nose. I could have stared at him forever.
“Keep sleeping,” I whispered, but he rubbed his eyes and sat up.
“Nah, I’m alright. What time is it?”
I raised my arm and looked at the readout on my suit. “Six. I’m serious, you should get more sleep.”
He got to his feet. “Can’t,” he grinned, his eyes still sleepy. “View’s too nice to close my eyes again.”
I smacked him on the shoulder, but felt a slight blush come to my cheeks anyway.
He pulled me close and nuzzled a kiss in the curve of my neck. Even through the suit I could feel the gentle pressure of his touch. But still it wasn’t the same as really being able to touch him. I cursed my allergies for the millionth time.
He pulled back and gestured to the curtain that hung as a sleep partition. “After you.”
Jilia was already up. She stood at the counter with her back to us.
I looked around the room, impressed again at how many conveniences they had in spite of the fact that this was a mobile building in the middle of nowhere. A small kitchen area was set up in the corner, complete with a sink and a food thermal unit. A table with six chairs took up half the room, and the other half was filled with research equipment. An extensive four-screen console was open on the desk in the corner. The screens were filled with text and diagrams of the brain.
Jilia filled a pot with steaming hot water. Her hair was in a bun again, but with the full morning light coming through the plastic window, I could see a few gray tendrils tucked in against the brown above her ears. She wore a simple faded red tunic. She paused when we came in and smiled warmly at us. “You two are up early.”
“Is that coffee?” Adrien yawned loudly. “I could really use some.”
“What’s coffee?” I asked.
Jilia laughed. “You Community dwellers really are deprived. But since you both are up so early, there was something I was hoping to do this morning.” She set the pot down.
“What is it?” Adrien asked, grabbing a mug from a hook on the wall and pouring out some of the steaming black drink.
“Well,” Jilia said, “I’ve been studying glitcher brain phenomena for a long time, almost as soon as the Rez rescued me and I could get my hands on a console system.” She turned to me. “I was hoping I could do a scan of your brain to further my research. I’ve been eager to study you ever since Adrien told me about the things you’ve been able to do with your power.” Her eyebrows were raised, the excitement clear on her face. “I have some theories about glitcher mutations and I think gathering data points from a scan of your brain would really help.”
I thought of all the years getting poked and prodded at the hands of the Community when they implanted new hardware. I swallowed nervously. “Will it be invasive?”
“Oh no, not at all. All external. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I should let you get some breakfast first.” She leaned over to pull some protein pouches out of a box.
“No, that’s fine,” I said quickly, my stomach turning at the thought of the thick goo she was offering. Until they learned more about the extent of my allergies, it was all I was allowed to eat. The bottom of my helmet had a complicated mechanism whereby a straw could be inserted safely. But I knew from trying it last night that the grainy protein mix tasted horrible.
“Great.” Jilia’s face lit up. “Come on over here, then, I’ll show you.” She hurried across the room to her console station. She clicked a button and a 3-D model of the brain rotated in a projection cube beside the desk. I leaned in to look closer. It seemed like a normal brain.
“Help me grab this exam table,” Jilia said, and Adrien helped her pull out a padded black table that had been folded in half against the wall.
“Zoe, if you’ll just lay here.”
I laid down and Jilia rolled over another machine level with the table. She positioned three metal arms around my head.