Rebel

by Lu, Marie

  And I’d never understood. I’d never bothered to understand his abhorrence of this kind of surrounding.

  He shakes his head at me, then starts climbing back down the side of the stalls. I follow him.

  He leads me to the back alleys behind the markets, pointing out the trash bins. They are overflowing, with heaps of garbage piled around them. “This hasn’t changed much since I lived here,” he tells me as we walk. “Another place you could get food, albeit during more desperate nights. Sometimes Tess and I would camp in alleys like this one. The street police only did their sweeps through here every other night, you know. Lack of funding and manpower.”

  He pauses at the end of the alley, then points out to the water. “See that?” he says.

  I look closely. Rising out of the water some fifty yards from the shoreline is an old, abandoned skyscraper, hollowed out and long gutted for parts, its skeleton towering dark and foreboding against the night. These structures litter the entire lake.

  Daniel hops onto the end of a dilapidated, abandoned pier leading out into the water. He nods for me to follow. I do. Together, we make our way along the pier’s rotting floorboards, hopping over parts where it’s all caved into the lake. As we reach the end of it, Daniel jumps onto the lowest floor of the skyscraper rising out of the water.

  I take a running start, then collapse to my knees beside him. He gives me a grim smile as we settle against the edge of the building.

  “John always told us to stay away from the lake when we were kids,” I finally say through my gasps of breath. “He said these skyscrapers were full of dangerous folk.”

  Daniel nods. “He wasn’t wrong. You had to be careful which towers you chose to stay in, which floors you ventured on. Gangs would rotate in and out on these structures. I had to make sure I stayed out of their way and remembered what the schedules were. But it’s the nicest place that me and Tess were able to find. Whenever we had a chance to stay on these towers on the lake, we considered that a lucky day.”

  A stone sinks to the bottom of my chest. I’ve always known, to some extent, why he’s never told me his stories—why he doesn’t seem like he wants to remember our home, or seems so eager to stay in the Sky Floors of Ross City. I knew, and yet I didn’t know at all. I’ve never walked these streets like he has, never understood what he faced out here every day, a child with a family he could never contact.

  I was always drawn to the humble streets of Lake, always despised the luxurious ignorance of our current home.

  But I never had to fend for myself in Lake, either.

  The screaming, the blur of soldiers in our home. The sound of a shot to our mother’s head. The past crowds into my head, loud and relentless.

  Daniel watches me quietly. What he sees in my expression, he doesn’t say, but after a while, he looks away and leans back on one arm. “How much do you remember of John?” he asks.

  An old, rusty memory appears of Daniel and me waiting around our dining table, impatient for John to come home from his work shift so that we could eat. My oldest brother’s weary smile, his cheeks still red from heat and exhaustion, his arms outstretched as I’d dash from the table to greet him.

  Enough nights pass now when I forget that we had another brother. The realization makes me flush with shame. “Not as much as I wish I did,” I reply.

  Daniel smiles. “John was the one who taught me how to change your diapers, you know.”

  Now it’s my turn to smile. “That’s not where I thought this conversation would go.”

  “Who do you think was in charge of you as a baby when Mom had to work late shifts?” Daniel raises an eyebrow at me. “John would drag me over to the table where he’d change you, and the two of us would hover over you, arguing about the best way to pin a fresh cloth diaper on you while you screamed your head off. It was the worst goddy chore in the world. He taught me how to put you to sleep and how to tell if you were sick. I almost burned down our house once when I was trying to boil you some mashed carrots. John almost killed me for that one.”

  I try to picture two young boys bickering with each other while an infant version of me looked on. I try to imagine Daniel frantically putting out a kitchen fire while John watched in horror. The thought is so ridiculous that I can’t help a laugh from escaping my throat.

  Daniel laughs once, too, and shakes his head. “I used to fight with him even more than I do with you. Everything was a battle. He hated how impulsive I was, how sometimes I’d stand in the street and complain about the police loud enough for everyone to hear. How many questions I’d ask about why Republic soldiers had roughed up our father or where he’d gone. I lost count of the number of times he had to drag me home after I’d gotten in some argument about Republic history with the kids at school. He was convinced I’d get myself killed someday with my carelessness, or that you’d pick up my bad habits.” He sighs. “I guess he wasn’t wrong.”

  A breeze sweeps past us, bringing with it the scent of a Lake night—fried street food, smoke, briny water. I cross my legs and try to ignore the sudden lump that rises in my throat. “I should have listened to you,” I finally say, my voice so quiet that I can barely hear myself.

  “I couldn’t protect you any more than John could protect me. You’ve seen the wrong in this world, powerful forces that no brother could ever hope to hide from you. And no matter what John did—or what I do—those things stay with us forever.”

  I start shaking my head. “John shouldn’t have had that burden. You shouldn’t have.”

  “Keeping you from the truth of the world only made it worse for you.” Daniel gives me a sad smile. “This place was your home too. Every single one of these rotting streets, these back alleys. This is where we were all raised, yeah? But I’m so afraid of this place, Eden. I’m afraid, even now. I wanted to hide it from you, like somehow that would keep you from being drawn back to it, so that you’d never have to know what it was like.” He shakes his head and stares out at the water. “Like somehow, us leaving this all behind meant that it didn’t exist anymore.”

  I look out into the darkness, the voices crowding in my head. As always, I can feel myself pulling away, trying to shield the jumbled mess in my mind from Daniel, to turn it inward and let it churn there until it all fades again into the background. But it doesn’t fade.

  Daniel’s looking at me now, and I realize it’s because there are tears streaming down my cheeks. I hadn’t even noticed when I started crying. Embarrassed, I wipe them angrily away and try to force myself back into a state of calm. But the tears keep coming. I can’t stop them.

  Daniel reaches out and seizes both of my wrists in his hands. “Look at me,” he says, his eyes locking on to mine. They are fierce in the night, and in them I see the same brother who had once stood up to an entire nation. “It is not weakness to open your heart. It does not make you less of a man to ask for help. To turn to someone when you’re vulnerable. To need a shoulder to cry on. You don’t have to bear the weight of anything by yourself. Do you understand me? I know what it’s like to be forced to go it alone. I never want you to feel that way.”

  I find myself nodding through my tears, wishing I could have turned to him sooner, wishing I could be more like him in every way. “I see them every night,” I say to him, my words breaking. “They’re there every time I close my eyes. I jump at every sound. I see a soldier in every person standing at a corner. I thought—I thought if I could just drown it all out in the Undercity, if I could replace it with something else so loud and overwhelming, that it might go away—I thought if I could just see the Republic again, return home and understand my past…”

  The pain in Daniel’s eyes is raw and real. The fear of this was what had kept me silent for so long. He nods once, his hands firmly on my shoulders. “I see them too,” he says quietly. “I should have talked to you about my nightmares. I can’t expect you to open up to me if I don’t do the same.”

  I nod again. “I’m sorry. I—”

  �
�Don’t be.” His eyes soften, and he pulls me into a hug. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  It is his embrace that finally breaks my last barrier. I cry and cry and cry. I cry because I’d never let myself truly understand my own brother, because I’d never understood myself. I cry for all the lives that our pasts have set on different paths—for June’s loss of her family, for Tess’s loss of her childhood, for Daniel becoming a parent when he was himself just a boy. I cry because I’m grateful that we still, in spite of everything, have all found each other.

  Because sometimes, broken pieces find a way to make a new whole.

  DANIEL

  When we finally return to our apartment in the dark hours of the morning, Eden showers and collapses into a deep sleep. He doesn’t stir again until the sun has already risen high in the sky. At least he doesn’t seem to be dreaming.

  I spend most of the time awake, leaning against our balcony railing, watching the headlines and videos rotate on the city’s JumboTrons. News about what’s happening in Antarctica comes out in a steady stream. I watch the screens and see tanks roll through the Undercity, making their way down streets full of bonfires and angry people. There are police struggling to contain the chaos.

  ROSS CITY IN FLAMES AS TROOPS, BROKEN VIRTUAL SYSTEM STRUGGLE

  The President has called for an emergency meeting today in Batalla. But while all the politicians try to hash out a plan, time is ticking by. My lips tighten in frustration. The advantage that Hann has always had is the ability to ignore laws entirely. It was my advantage on the streets too. When you aren’t accountable to anything, you can move pretty goddy fast.

  I look away, sick, as police surround a protester and swing their batons down at her body. The rest of the crowds raise their fists, cheering for Hann. He had wanted to make his point about the city’s corrupt system. He’s just willing to sacrifice all the people he claims to be fighting for in the process.

  By the time my brother gets up, the sun has started to paint the sky gold.

  I glance at him with a wry smile. “You look awful,” I say.

  Eden lets out a single laugh as he limps over to join me. He’s holding his drone in one hand, its engine glowing with a faint blue light. “I don’t know how you climb all over the city like that without being completely useless the next day. My legs are killing me.”

  I offer him a sip of my coffee. He takes it, cupping the hot mug between his hands, and we’re silent for a moment while the light turns steadily stronger. Eden tosses the drone in the air, and we watch as it hovers in place, steady and straight. Eden seems lost in thought, but I don’t push him. There’s a new ease in the quiet between us.

  Finally, he straightens and nods out at the horizon, in the direction of Antarctica.

  “I saw the news,” he says. “The Antarctican military has imposed martial law on Ross City.”

  I shake my head. “No call signals are getting out of the city right now. It’s like no one knows how to function without the Level system in place.”

  For us, who came from the humble streets of Lake, functioning on days when the power grid died was something we were used to dealing with. But a place like Ross City suddenly stripped of its technology?

  Eden moves his fingers idly in the air, and his drone shifts to match his gesture, swerving right and then left. He frowns thoughtfully. “Hann said that his device would wipe the entire Level system clean,” he says. “But something about what Pressa said yesterday stuck with me. She mentioned that Hann might have taken down the entire system so that he could bring it back up again. Replace it with something to suit him.”

  I nod. “But?”

  He shakes his head. His fingers move again, and the drone obeys, flipping once in the air. “It’s stupid to dismantle the entire system only to rebuild it all over again. I don’t think he wiped it all clean. I think it’s just suppressed somehow, that he did something to disrupt the implementation of the system, but that it’s all still there somewhere. Intact. It’s much easier for him to work with something like that.” He shrugs. “I wouldn’t dismantle my drone completely if I wanted to change it. I’d just revise it.”

  I look on, marveling at the invention of his drone as it turns this way and that, its power source strong and stable. “Are you saying you might know how he did that?”

  There’s a long pause, but when Eden finally nods, I note the light in his eyes. “I’m saying I can find a way to reverse it. He’s using the engine that I built to power it. If I can get back into his circle, I can find a way to shut the whole thing down and get the Level system back up.”

  To prove his point, he waves his drone back into the balcony and lets it hover between us. Then he reaches for it, sliding his finger underneath the glowing engine. The engine gives a sudden, strange noise, and then it shuts abruptly down, clattering to the balcony floor.

  I look back at my brother. The old fear rises in my chest, and images flash through my mind of him captured in the Undercity, his face pale and frightened. “But you’d need to be back in his good graces to do it,” I say, echoing his words. “You have to find him, yeah?”

  He nods. “The machine needs a physical chip installed on it. I have to do it physically.”

  The terror of not knowing where the Republic had taken him; the uncertainty of what was being done to him; the paranoia of ever letting him go again. It all rises back up in my chest. Eden can see it on my face, because he leans toward me and fixes his steady gaze on mine.

  “You told me last night that I don’t ever have to go it alone,” he says. “Well, that goes for you too. I can do this, if you let me. But I’m going to need your help. June’s too.”

  Everything in me wants to pull him back, tell him to stay here, stay safe. But I know he’s right. His silhouette is long and lanky now, no longer the small boy I once carried through a war-torn street. There are no guarantees that he’ll come out of this safely—that any of us will. But I also know, without a doubt, that he’s the only one who can do this.

  At last, I nod. “What do you need from us?”

  “A diversion. I need to convince Hann that I’ve decided to go rogue from what you and the others are planning to do, that I want in on his plans. Come back to Ross City with me. Find ways to slow him down. If you and June then go after his device with what little we do know, if you’re acting from the outside, then maybe I can convince Hann that I’m helping him keep it safe from you.”

  It’s ridiculous. Too dangerous to play this kind of game with a mobster who has survived his entire life on tricks and double crosses. Hann is going to figure this out, and then my brother will be completely at his mercy.

  But I still find myself nodding at him. “I’m in,” I say.

  He blinks, and I realize that he’d been expecting me to push back. “Do we go to the President with this plan today? Do you think they’ll agree to this?”

  I shrug. “There’s no way in hell any of them will—not in a meeting, anyway. But that doesn’t change anything we’re planning to do. We don’t have time to wait around watching them debate issues.”

  He looks at me in confusion. “You mean you’re going to go behind the AIS’s back on this? On the government?”

  His words bring a smile to my face. My brother—the rulebreaker who has made me panic more times than I can count—has never actually rebelled on the world stage. The old part of me, the wildling from the streets, the boy who’d spent his life running the city and dodging the Republic, stirs.

  I shake my head. “I’m such a bad influence on you.”

  At that, a grin creeps onto his lips too. “You mean, we’re just going to go?”

  “As soon as we can sneak out of this country. By the time we discuss it with them, they’ll have no choice but to agree.”

  “They’re going to kill you for this.”

  I give him a sidelong grin. “They can try.”

  We laugh a little at that, then fall back into silence. “What if we’re doing the w
rong thing, Daniel?” Eden asks me. His voice is grave again. “What if restoring the entire system is exactly what shouldn’t happen?”

  I look at my brother and take a deep breath. “Then maybe we don’t restore it to exactly what it was,” I finally reply.

  I study his face, taking in how serious he is. “What are you planning?” I say.

  “I can add a chip to the machine that tweaks how it handles the Level system.” He digs papers out of his pocket and waves me over to the desk. There, we bend over it as he points out where his engine is installed. “The machine pulses a signal through the city’s entire Level system,” he explains as he scribbles. “So we pulse a new signal through it that tells the Level system what to do.” He glances up at me. “Maybe we add some things to that signal that changes how the Level system judges people hooked up to it.”

  I frown at him. “And you can do this before we leave?” he asks.

  “It’s the machine that’s complicated to put together. Not the signal. Once you understand how it works, you can run another signal through easily. I watched them test one, and it took a matter of minutes.”

  I think of the late nights I’d seen him up before, as a small boy and as a young man. The light of creation is bright in his eyes now, and as I consider his words, my emotions gradually alternate from uncertainty to wary hope. “A rebellion within a rebellion,” I murmur.

  Eden smiles a little. “Never let it be said that we take the easy way out.”

  * * *

  June seems even less enthusiastic about the plan than I am. But she still shows up at our apartment late in the afternoon, her outfit simple and black, her voice hushed. Beside her, Pressa has a backpack that makes her look even more petite than she is, but she stands tall and confident, the grief in her gaze now replaced with resolution.

  “If they come after our plane and we’re forced to stop, let me handle it,” June says. “I swear, somehow these things only ever happen when I’m with you two.”