He sends me the coordinates on the satellite.
“I’ll talk to you soon, when it’s . . . when I have more time. I love you.”
“I love you too, Papa.” The call disconnects.
“We gonna do this?” Ashiva shakes me back to present. “No doubts, there’s no turning back from here.”
“I can’t go back. You know that. I wouldn’t, even if I could.”
She switches on her comms and says, “Bhai? You there? We’re in position.”
I hear a deep voice, “Tiger, we’re online and ready for your signal. And don’t forget our deal, if this dumb plan works, eh?”
Jai. What a jerk. What deal did she make with him now?
Ashiva speaks quietly on the comms, “You alone or with friends?”
“I’ve got a pal. He’s from the North and ready to do what’s necessary. A skilled driver.”
“Okay then. Wait for our signal.” She switches it off.
It’s break time down on the docks. I count and all twenty C.O.R.E mecha-suits are charging. Guardians are probably doing what they do best, harassing people in the Narrows and bottom Stratas.
“There are two guardians, one at each entrance.” I see them pacing.
Ashiva speaks into her comm, “It’s time.”
We watch as Jai limps up to a guardian. “What’s he up to?” I ask.
Jai looks to be questioning him. What the . . . ? Is he crying? Clever dog. The guardian becomes more and more confused, but takes him inside the hangar, and that’s where I assume Jai puts him at ease.
When he waves from below, wearing the guardian’s uniform, I laugh. How he manages to pull that off, I don’t know. We run down to the hangar. Once inside, Ashiva stands guard with Jai at the entrance and I make my way to the C.O.R.E. I’m in awe by their epic size. My eyes look to their batteries, searching for the one with the most juice.
Level Seven, Level Four, Level Five. Finally, Level Nine. That will be about two hours of power. I decouple the suit from the charging station and climb the ladder. When I’m on top, I glance at the entrance and they’re waving for me to hurry. I slide into the mecha-suit and pull the helmet on tight.
Power up. Whoa, I’m going to like this a little too much. The suit buzzes as the control system awakens around me with a massive buzz.
I switch on my comms. “I’m in. This is crazy.” I lift a weapon from the charging station and synch the electro cannon. “Ready for massive destruction.”
I hear Ashiva’s voice. “Don’t get too excited. We’ve got work to do.”
Stepping off the charging station is exhilarating. The C.O.R.E walks like a beast; its steps are loud and crushing as I head toward the back entrance. If we line this up right, we could take out the charging station and also make the explosion big enough to knock down one of the Ring’s supports. That’ll get their attention in Central.
Out back, I meet up with Ashiva, who’s now also wearing guardian gear. A flatbed Central transport barrels down the road, like a demon. I jump on to the back of the vehicle and the others climb inside, and they cover me with a tarp. The driver is a tall boy with a turban.
“Halt!”
The sound stops my breath. A real guardian.
Ashiva walks up to him and says, “We have orders to take this mecha in for testing. Its battery isn’t holding charge.”
“I haven’t received any orders for the transfer.”
“Not my problem,” Ashiva says. “It’s above your level. Get out of the way before you make us late.”
The guardian sees he’s outnumbered and probably cares more about his own hide than his political views. Ashiva jumps in and, just like that, we’ve stolen a transport and a C.O.R.E mecha-suit and we’re well on our way to starting a riot.
39 //
Ashiva
I really don’t know if he has the guts to do the job. Synch is impressive though. Shedding your old life is tricky business. I know well that the ties that bind us are hard to break. I’ll keep a close eye on him.
For the three of us to fit, we have to squeeze together. My chrome arm rests against the Northerner as he drives the transport to our destination just outside the Central Ring, under the cover of the tallest buildings around.
“I’m Ashiva,” I yell above the engine noise.
“Jeet,” he says and nods. “You’re the new boss?”
I nod. “Just a grunt, but I’ve got my orders.” I lie. “You ready for it?”
“Been waiting for something like this since I was a kid.”
He seems honest enough. I have no choice but to trust him. Jai doesn’t suffer fools, but he is the definition of insane. He said he knew a guy who could take a transport, who will do it for free. I promised Jai a chance to fight with the Red Hand, to put his past with the Lords of Shadow behind him. Turns out, that’s all he wants. It’s a four-person job. Well, six, if you count Saachi and Zami, who are working behind the scenes to keep the comms quiet along our route. Block by block, I pray the cameras in Central cast images of the last ten minutes in a loop. We speed up, up and up, into the border between the Liminal Area and Central’s Strata One.
“We have about two minutes until the whole Central District is on top of us. So just get us as close as you can and we will do the rest. Clear out and save your own asses after I set the charge.”
“Right,” Jeet says.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Jai smirks.
We come up to the border and Jeet parks the transport in an abandoned building. Synch jumps down and all of us get to work: Jai secures the area with Jeet, I focus on activating the charge. We are on the outside of a wall, on the other is the storage center. I look up at the wall and smile. Inches from our destiny.
When it’s ready, I place it in Synch’s robot hands. “Listen, this is the switch. It’ll give you only a minute to clear out, so make sure to be at least three yards away. Thik hai?”
“Got it. Okay.” Crap, he’s grinning.
“This isn’t a game, Synch. This is as real as it comes.”
His expression tells me he understands, but I can’t be sure.
“Let’s go!”
Jai and Jeet take to the streets, and I stay in the shadows of the building to watch it all go down.
“Comms on. Acknowledge,” I say.
Jai: “I’m here, mate.”
Jeet: “Achcha.”
“Mech1?” I ask.
Finally, Synch says, “Copy. Going in.”
I set a charge and it breaks the wall. Jai and Jeet run about two yards ahead of Synch, making sure the entrance to the Solace storage center is clear. Sparsely guarded and underfunded, the storage center isn’t Central’s main concern today, AllianceCon is. They focus on Solace, not her back brain. Everything happens too fast.
There are two unarmed guardians, fat from their lack of training and lazy lives without many threats to pursue. They aren’t ready for what comes next.
Synch charges the entrance, with his mecha-suit fully crushing the ground. The guardians’ weapons are useless against the armor, but they still shoot at him with their electro-pulse guns. Synch breaks through the wall of the data center and then disappears from sight.
I flinch. I should be the one to set the device. I know what to do, when to do it. This is my job. This is Taru’s explosive. I want to control the actions, not just the orders. Being a leader is going to take some getting used to.
Too much time passes. I jog toward the entrance and go straight at the guardians, who are still aiming and discharging their weapons.
With everything I have, I slam against one of them. They fall to the hard ground. The other one hits me with a blast and I fly back a bit stunned, unable to move. But I count, and by ten I am back in control of my body. I rip her electro-pulse gun from her belt and toss it far away. The other I slam with my fist and he goes down. I feel his bones break.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jai and Jeet signaling for me to run. Then Synch is running s
traight at me. He didn’t follow the timeline.
He already set the charge.
There isn’t enough time.
The blast rips through the building and blows me back and back and back, until I hit something hard and everything goes dark.
40 //
Taru
We all have our jobs.
The littlest: to stay alive.
The strongest: to infiltrate and gather supplies.
The wily: to gather intel.
I am the fox. Lomri. Just like my sister called me my entire life. But I’m not the broken one, the glass girl. Something in me feels different just knowing I likely will not shatter. I walk on my feet with an even pace, without a limp, instead of shifting my weight. I’m an infiltrator. I see too much, almost more than I can bear. I managed to contact the Lal Hath. Two elders are at the helm, with Zami and Saachi. They are alive. We work together to smuggle children into the abandoned wing. We’ve amassed a small army they think have all just died from the testing or the Fever.
But Ashiva hasn’t linked up in a while. She is MIA.
Together, we build a plan. The other kids tell me about the Shaanti campaign, what it really means, that the Narrows will be underwater soon. I tell them what is happening here. At least what I know. But unless we do something massive, we will all suffer the same fate. I’m going to have to build something big. Something that will blow this facility and its leaders into the stratosphere.
These people, their experiments are horrific and nearly always lead to the death of the test host. The Uplanders are short-handed because this is a big secret project of theirs, so they take our help willingly, without questions. I guess, if we are willing to do the horrible things they ask, move bodies, clean rooms, why would they question how we come to be here? Dr. Qasim vouches for us as his assistants. They never question him.
The only thing keeping me going is that I will find a way out. That I’ll see my sister again.
Until I’m called to Exam Room Five.
It’s Jasmine.
She doesn’t even smile when she sees me, they’ve taken so much from her. Or maybe she doesn’t recognize me. I hope she is pretending.
“Lay her back, and administer CX29,” the medical lead barks orders, like Jasmine is a machine to be tested, not a beautiful girl.
I step forward. “I’ll do it.”
The doctor keeps typing and analyzing numbers on their tablet screen.
When I am close to her, I realize how fully they’ve hurt her. I stroke her beautiful cheek. I want to cry, but I don’t and I’m proud I keep it inside. I keep so much inside that I think I might burst soon.
“It’ll be okay,” I whisper.
She says, “I want this to end.”
I pretend to insert the fluid into her IV.
“Follow me, girl,” the doctor snaps. “This one will sleep soon.”
Then I realize what they think I’ve given her. I want to take the scalpel from the table and jab it into the doctor’s neck. If only I were Ashiva. But she’d just bash through the place. This is more delicate and will take patience than I have. I’ll need to be able to overtake this entire place in an instant. Instead, I slip the injector into my pocket, still full of the death dose.
I lean close to her and say, “I’ll get you out of here, Jasmine.”
She doesn’t respond. She needs food, water. I’ll have to return fast to grab her before the cleaners are sent to transport her body to the cold room. I go with the doctor, pretending to do what she asks, and save a little boy from certain death. Then I return to Room Five.
Jasmine is gone.
I go to the cold room and can’t find her. Rao finds her in a different room, probably taken there by mistake. I cover her with a sheet and wheel her into the dark room, then wake her and slip her into the vent. The children catch her, pull her gently into the tunnel and down below the facility into our room. They’ll feed her, bring her back to life, as they have so many others.
When I am sure she’s made it into the tunnel, I finally breathe. But then, I hear a voice in the hallway. A voice so familiar, all my yesterdays come flooding back.
The voice says, “There were about fifty of them, hidden in a catacomb beneath the Narrows. I know because I built it.”
Someone else replies, “That’s more than enough to begin.”
She is alive! I want to run to the voice. I want to call out “Masiji!” but I know I have to be careful. Instead, I peer through a crack in the door and watch like a good fox.
“They’re well-hidden, but alive. We could bring them here by air-transport.”
The other person, a short, thin woman wearing a bloodred tunic and pants, replies, “They’re all we need. Bring them here.” When she turns, I know that face: the Minister of Comms. “Then we’ll send them to the next location.”
“Right away.” Why is Masiji taking orders from her? She is alive, which makes my heart sing, but there is something different. She’s different. For a second, her face turns towards mine. And though I know she can’t see me through the crack, it feels like she does. Her eyes pierce my heart.
I want to scream, to shake her. To tell her what they’ve done to us all. But I stuff that down too. Holding in my outburst feels like trying to contain a nuclear explosion.
Masiji is working for Central. Was she all along? No. They must have done something, threatened her somehow. She wouldn’t do this willingly. Not her. Not ever.
When they leave, I close the door to the room, press my face into a pile of old linens, and scream. I scream about being here. About losing my family and home. But, most of all, I scream because the one I trust the most has abandoned us to this horror. Nothing in the world makes sense to me anymore.
41 //
Kid Synch
Present Day
We wanted to get picked up. I remind myself of this and it still feels so wrong to be giving ourselves up to containment on purpose. I watch Ashiva and take comfort. She’s the leader here; I’m just her student. The transport rickshaw tears through Central with its blaring siren forcing people and vehicles out of the way. There are a few others on the transport that aren’t from our team; a woman in particular, who’s pregnant, stands out. We planned to be picked up, but we couldn’t have planned who’d already be on the transport.
“Hey, girl, where’d you get your replacement?” the turbaned Northerner yells to her. The transport engines growl as we go up and up, through Central.
“Why? You want a referral?”
He laughs. He’s good at this. “Sharp tongue in your mouth must hurt.”
“Not always.”
The engines drown out the rest of their conversation. That, or my nervous heart throbbing in my ears. I watch as my city pours past the windows. AllianceCon below is disturbed by our explosion; several blocks are blacked out. I’m lost in my thoughts and fears when there’s a sudden fight that breaks out on the transport as we careen across the bridge. The pregnant woman stands and denies the guardian her arm for testing. I want to beg her to sit. That we will try to get her out safely, but I can’t make any promises. Our objective is to free the people of the Narrows. Not save a woman on a transport.
The woman stands and yells, “For the Rani, the Lal Hath.”
Ashiva is too late as she lunges to stop her. The woman throws herself against the glass of the transport and falls down, down and down, into the city below. We are shaken. The woman dies on impact.
The guardians restrain us and continue through Central. Out the windows, I watch the city whip by like ghosts of my past life: the holo-adverts in Central displaying the newest Solace Corp campaign, the AllianceCon, my sky-rise apartment building that splits the sky. I remember the little fire I started there, to keep my bot at home. All the small rebellions that led me to setting off an explosion in Solace’s storage system. The disruption will be unavoidable. They’re going to close the Ring for maintenance, which will ruin AllianceCon. The effects could be even larger tha
n we planned. At least we’ve succeeded in disrupting Solace’s memory. I hope. I want to tear her apart.
Though I knew the risks, I went anyway. When your world is turned inside out, there’s no way out but through. Kanwar Uncle used to say that.
It doesn’t matter anymore. Uplanders think I am a criminal, just another person on a transport. I want to call out to the people commuting to Solace Corp on their rickshaw transports, passing by the windows heading to AllianceCon, and tell them to stop and go home. That this is all a façade. I see their eyes as we pass. They back away, like the contents of our transport is diseased, to be feared. The problem with Uplanders is believing the harsh reality of the rest of the world because they are so damn comfortable. Why worry about anything when the Ring keeps you cool, Solace keeps you busy? Why worry about the world outside and the millions burning alive in the heat or drowning in the rising saltwater? The comfortable only care when they themselves are in pain. Then they scream. And it’s too late.
And that’s when I know: Riz-Ali Singh is truly dead, and he won’t be coming back.
I feel the thick, caked blood on my lips. Though I was in the suit when the explosive ignited, I was thrown hard against the ground, and the face shield exploded into shards. Engineering mistake. I put in my plans that the face shield be made from next-gen flex-polymer, not a cheap, hard plastic. Cutting corners is Central’s MO.
Zami and Saachi’s faces are plastered on the Info-Run signs that we pass. Which means the authorities are onto the Lal Hath. They’ll go into hiding. We won’t have them in our final assault on the containment. We’ll have to make do. Then I see Ashiva’s face too. They’ll figure out her identity soon enough.
After the pregnant woman leaps to her death on the highest bridge in Central, we are devastated and reinvigorated with our revolution, all of us. I can see it in Ashiva’s eyes, in Jeet’s grimace. Even Jai seems to care for once.
The wind whips through the transport like an evil spirit demanding more souls. Guardians push us up against the back of the transport with their batons. Jeet fights them and for that he gets a bash in the gut. We help him stand.
Rise of the Red Hand Page 26
