“What are they going to do with us?” I ask.
“Whatever they want, now,” Ashiva replies. Then she whispers, “Stick to the plan.”
An air-transport comes and we are loaded onto a windowless machine. There is no escape from this one. And this is what we wanted. The guardians look pleased.
“Get in, come on, hurry up,” the woman says from behind her face shield.
I can tell she would be happy to give us all a good thrashing; her expression dares us to do something stupid. They sit us all beside one another in the armored transport. Three guardians positioned across from us, unmoved by the recent suicide we all witnessed. To them, it’s like it never happened. I’ll never erase her death from my memory. Never.
That she called the Rani’s name means there is an underground movement in the Upland that still believes in liberty and revolution. That there are civilians who believe in the mission of the Red Hand. That gives me courage.
Ten, twenty, thirty minutes pass. I calculate how far we’ve come and know we aren’t heading for the Central authorities, but somewhere else. In flight, it’s harder to know.
“Where are you taking us? It’s our right to know!” I yell above the engines.
Ashiva’s arm presses against mine, a subtle question. We can’t let on that we know each other. She was a passerby. I was the problem in the C.O.R.E. mecha-suit. Jeet was just squatting there. Jai was just being a goonda. None of us were trying to hijack this transport.
The guardian reports, “F1 Terrorists and unpermitted vagrants found in Central are now detained in an undisclosed location during AllianceCon. Orders of the President.”
“It feels like we’re heading to the North. Maybe just beyond Central?”
“Chup, now.” The guardian’s threat is clear. Shut up or I’ll make you shut up.
My lips press together like a steel trap.
The transport slows and the doors open. Bright lights rush in. I crane my neck and see row after row of clear, walled areas, going in every direction. And inside the cages are people, young and old. This is the new containment we’ve been searching for. The Void. The mythic off-site is real.
We are greeted by the hard batons of white-uniformed guardians who enter the transport. It only takes a few minutes before they subdue all of us. I am the last one. A guardian places a signal disruptor on the ground and activates it—all the cameras and devices in the room stall. Whatever happens now is off the record. I see a massive mountain moving closer, almost absorbing the light in the room, like a black hole.
The considerable man stands in front of all of us. “Look at how you’ve changed. Shame it’ll all be for nothing.”
“Khan Zada. What the—”
His eyes glimmer.
Ashiva growls, and I’ve never heard that before. Not from her. Not from anything. She isn’t scared, she is rage itself.
Ashiva shouts, “What’re you playing at?”
“It took a lot of favors to be here when they brought you in. I wasted so much currency trying to find you. You could have paid me. You could have taken the kid to the Upland and dropped him off. Clean, simple. You could have killed him. You had to blow up a memory bank and get picked up on a transport. Everything has a price, girl. I don’t like being made a fool.”
“Did you make a deal with the Minister?” Ashiva says.
He turns to us and shakes his head. “Nah, didn’t need to. Her people aren’t all so loyal.” He points around the room to the guards. “But yes, we once needed each other. I kept the balance between the Narrows and Central. They let me be, and I gave them intel. We had a tight, symbiotic relationship. They were my biggest customer.”
I struggle against my restraints to stand and help Ashiva up. Khan says, “Looks like you’ve found your courage, boy. Or you found your girl.” His gapped-tooth grin expands.
“You’re as charming as I remember, Khan,” I say.
Ashiva speaks up, “So what? You’re here to complain about business? Get back at me? I’d rather you let me free of these, so we can just work out our differences hand-to-hand, like respectable people.”
Khan Zada shakes his big, sausage finger. “No claws for the Tiger.”
She yells and makes a grab for him, “I don’t need to use my replacement to take out your tongue.” She chomps her teeth at him.
“Bas!” Khan pushes her away. “You don’t understand. I get it. Look, I need you to take care of some business here for me. Then we’re done.” He brushes his hands like he’s wiping off dust.
“What?” I say.
“The Minister crossed me. You and me? I’m used to our tiffs, Tiger. But she, she cleared the Narrows, disrupted the balance, tricked me about her son and now the PAC is going to have their eyes on me. That woman destroyed my business.”
“So, you’re saying . . . ?” Ashiva asks.
He signals to a guard who goes to unbind Ashiva, but pauses. “You’ll play nice,” Khan tells her.
When her hands are free, Khan gives her a palm-sized device, thin as paper. “I want you to blow this place to bits. It will cost them dearly to lose this prison.”
“A micro charge. This is . . .”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty mark. Just rig an explosive and it’ll vaporize the place.”
“All that way for this ball of fire . . .” she says.
“Can’t be too careful. I want them to pay. Some projects you must oversee yourself. I’m sure you know what that’s like.”
The guardians shove us forward into the prison facility. But this is no ordinary facility, it’s high security. The place is clean. The floors, the walls, not a single nob or button anywhere. Everything is controlled by a hidden system.
“And you, Jai . . .”
Jai looks terrified. “I don’t work for you anymore, Khan.”
Khan smacks Jai.
“Lies come so easy to you, Jai. You can never leave me.”
“Get on, then.” Khan kicks Jai, and Jeet, forward too.
“This isn’t my problem, yaar,” Jeet says. “I’m just a driver.”
“A driver, you say?” Khan makes the sound of sucking something from his teeth. “You drove my product, so you are involved.”
We all stumble as guardians push us to follow the large man. The off-site, or wherever we are, is different than I thought it would be. It’s organized. There’s a reason for the arrangement of things. The doors in the all-metal hallways are sealed. Cameras are everywhere, watching us as we pass below. There are sensors in the air. Everything is being monitored. And it has an antiseptic aroma that verges on the bitter, like the smell you get when burning nonflammable things.
People move aside when we come through. Guardians, men and women, who I assume are doctors or scientists because of their clean suits. When we reach the last doorway, we are pushed inside. Five guardians wait with weaponry I’ve never seen before. We are pushed to kneel on the hard ground.
Khan waves to his guardians and then unshackles the rest of us. “I’ve never been here. You’ve never seen me. You’re on your own. I haven’t given you permission to take out this off-site. I’m a goddamn ghost and we are even.”
“Deal.” Ashiva and Khan Zada hold each other’s forearms.
She shakes her head. “We have work to do.”
Khan picks up the signal disruptor as he backs out of the room with Jeet and Jai.
The cameras click back on. We are left with the guardians. There are five of them and two of us. But they have weapons, and we don’t stand a chance. Before long, we are both subdued and separated. I hope she knows what she’s doing.
42 //
Ashiva
My dream begins with my voice whispering her name: Taru, Taru, Taru . . . I watch her float backwards, away from me, her silhouette against the rising sun. The dream is so real it pierces my body, shakes me to my bones. I feel her and then drown in failure. I can’t put the images into words, but I don’t have to. I know what it means.
Taru is go
ne.
I’m frozen. The pressure of a thousand warm blankets surrounds my body, making it impossible to open my eyes, move at all. I’m not sure I want to anyway. A sedative runs like thick poison in my veins. At one point, I see the world flashing past, and one person in a white coat and one in a gray tunic are leading my cot down a white tunnel.
When I open my eyes again, this time with awareness, I’m in an all-white room. White floors, white walls, white everything. I can’t see a door anywhere. I’m sitting on the hard ground. My clothes are gone and I am wearing a white gown. My arm exposed, metal. I wondered if this is real.
“Hello?” I stand and feel pain shoot up my leg. Someone stitched me up. Why? Then I remember the explosion. Synch, where is he? Memories flood into my mind.
A light flashes in front of me and a holo-screen plays. President Ravindra looks so clean and confident in her bloodred sari.
You are here because you’ve been infected by the Z Fever. You will become very ill and most likely will die. But there’s one thing you can do to help: Allow us to test the inoculation. By being a part of this project, you can save the lives of millions and, possibly, yourself. It’s the only way. We thank you for your service and bravery.
When it’s done, it disappears like smoke. I’m inside containment. Taru, if she’s alive, is here.
“Bullshit,” I yell. “Liars!”
I feel like a caged animal, without anything to take my anger out on. My head shakes with every step as I pace across the white floor. White floor, white walls, outside of time and space—it feels like drowning. My thoughts quicken with every heartbeat. Buried alive. That’s how I feel.
I must have hit my head pretty hard in the explosion. I try to calm, settle. We are inside containment. That was one of our goals. It didn’t happen the way we wanted it to happen, but still, I’m inside. I can get Taru and Masiji, and whoever else is trapped in this nightmare, out as soon as I get out of this goddamn room.
“Hello?” I whisper because my voice is hoarser than I expected. A minute or two passes, then the white panel on the door slides open.
A team of three Uplanders move in. A woman with the confidence and ego of a doctor, someone who seems like an assistant, and a grunt who lingers behind, nearly invisible.
I hold my tongue. I’m compliant. They love that crap.
“Doctor? Where am I? Why am I being held?” I ask, as clearly as my injuries allow.
She shakes her head and motions to her assistant to pull a cart and cot toward me. They hesitate. I don’t blame them. I can smash him into bits if I want. I probably look wild.
The doctor speaks, almost bored, “If you comply with our tests, it will make things easier. I find stressed subjects don’t give clear results.” It’s the business-as-usual doctors who do testing that scare me the most. She’s done this a lot. She’s not even thinking about the moral ramifications anymore. When we cease to be people to them is when they frighten me the most.
“I’m being held against my will. I was supposed to go to containment, not a medical facility.”
The medical assistant clamps restraints around my ankles and wrists.
“Take it up with the President. New law. Any and all prisoners of Central can be held in the medical facility for testing of the Fever.”
“I intend to,” I say.
“Will you comply?”
I nod and stuff my fire deep down. Wait. Just wait. Be patient.
“Don’t worry. Most of it won’t hurt,” she says.
The small grunt who’s been standing like a shadow behind the group moves into sight. She shakes her head and puts her finger to her lips.
Taru, my sister.
My dear sister.
My body fills with fire and every molecule tenses up.
I fight hard not to jump up, take her hand, and run. To not kill these devils and carry her far, far away from this place, away, away, away. They’d destroy us if we try to escape now. I must wait.
She knows what I’m feeling and again puts her fingers to her lips. Her face says, “Wait.” She’s different. Changed. Strong.
The team installs an IV port in my neck and plugs me into their system. The doctor takes some blood, tissue, and hair samples.
When it comes to the physical exam, the doctor spends a little too much time on my replacement.
“Such beautiful and crude work you do in the Narrows. How do you do it?”
“You wouldn’t expect such genius from a low-life Downlander, would you?” I say.
“No, not that,” she replies. “But without the proper surgery, cybernetics is complicated.” Her hand strokes my hacked plexus that Masiji built to connect my replacement to my neurological system. “This took some insider knowledge of the technology.”
“You’d be surprised how simple your systems are to hack,” I say. How could she go through with this work, and be so completely enamored by me, while treating me like an animal? I can’t understand.
Taru is in the background, handing tools to the team as they work. What’s the plan here? I try to read her body language, but come up blank. She turns from me as they continue to measure my body and take notes. They feed my blood into a cart where a computer runs tests. All I can see is data. I have no idea what it means.
I watch Taru, trying not to give her away. Her face is bruised; I can see that. She is scared, but strong. Her replacement foot is hidden under boots that are two sizes too big. There’s a distance between us I’ve never felt before. It’s more than these circumstances. She’s different.
“Lay back on the cot. This will hurt,” the doctor says.
I close my eyes and feel a surge of electricity shoot up my spine, into my limbs and head. My whole body seizes. They take measurements. Analyze me. When they are gone, I’m exhausted. I watch them leave the room. As the door is about to close, I feel a warm presence and a hand on my forehead.
“Ashiva, I . . .”
Sister.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “We need to get the boy who came with me, Synch, in front of a computer. I need to get to the transport. We’re here to get you out of here. To save everyone.”
She nods. But pauses. “We have a group of children already working on an escape. We didn’t know if anyone would find us.”
I’m so proud of her. “Good. That’s good. Let’s connect our plans and teams. Work together. First, can you get to Synch?”
She says, “Yes, I can.”
“Good.” We discuss how long we might have until the guards are alerted to our actions, the signals to watch for. She doesn’t sugarcoat the risks. “There’s no guarantee. This all could go very wrong, Taru.”
“I know. But we have no choice. We’re not dying here.”
I hold her hand longer. I don’t want to let go. If she leaves my sight, I can’t be sure I’ll see her again. “Here take this.” I pull the micro charge from a gap in my replacement. “When the place is cleared out, use this to vaporize everything.”
She says, “Shiv, you have to listen to me carefully. Masiji, don’t trust her.”
“What?” I recall what Ghaazi and Suri told me about her working on Solace.
Taru’s face is more serious than I’ve ever seen—it is stone. “I think she’s working for Central, for the Minister of Comms. Don’t trust her.”
My heart shatters. “That can’t be. Surely you’re mis—” But I know my deepest fears are confirmed. Maybe her work was more important to her than we were.
She shakes her head. “There’s no time for doubt. I must go. Stay alive. And I’ll do the same. I love you.”
“I love you. We need to get Synch a moment with their computers. He needs a chance to access it from the inside, download their internal files as evidence. Can you manage that?”
She cocks her head sideways. “Yes, I think so. It won’t be easy. I have to go. Wait for my signal,” Taru’s voice is a young lieutenant’s. She slips a thin piece of metal i
nto my wrist restraint, then puts it in my hand.
Lock picked. Good girl.
The door closes behind her.
She isn’t the young, fragile girl I forced her to be. She is fierce and beautiful and strong, in spite of me and all I’ve done to shelter her.
Sister.
43 //
Taru
When I saw her for the first time, I wanted to scream at her. To yell and demand information about the tests that were run on me in the orphanage. Why she and Masiji determined I had juvenile osteoporosis. Ashiva must have known about this. I need to know why they told me I would break. I need to know if she knew. If it was true or a mistake. But there isn’t time for that. Not yet.
By the time Ashiva and her friend arrive in containment, I’d been busy. The small network of teens who reintegrated into the workforce of containment had connected with others. Our reach is now across every unit. The only way something like this can work is if we do it together.
In our small room, we plan, plot, coordinate. The little ones are listeners and thieves. The older ones have made connections with doctors and assistants who are here against their will. The ones who have families. We make promises to smuggle notes to their families in exchange for small favors.
I found the boy Ashiva came in with and get him her message. I’m not sure if he believes me, but the boy named Synch, he seems to understand. I can tell he is one of us because he is kind to me, not frightened or superior. I’m surprised I haven’t met him before, but there are so many of us living in the Narrows and Liminal Area outside the Ring.
“Today, we have only one chance to get this right,” I say to the children in the contaminated room. “Deepak, did you pull the data from their charts?”
The small boy nods.
Rao says, “And everything else is set. We’re just waiting to go.”
“Okay,” I agree. “If anything goes wrong, come here straight away. Don’t look back.”
Rise of the Red Hand Page 27
