by Pond, Simone
Grace slumped over, barren of any hope. “So why are you here, then?”
“To say goodbye,” he said.
No, that didn’t sound right. Faraday wouldn’t have let Lucas get anywhere near Grace, not even to say goodbye. He wouldn’t take the risk of any information leaking out. She finally caught on. Lucas was using a layered tactic to communicate the truth––he was letting her know not to trust him. She’d have to play along to see what he really wanted.
“I don’t want things to end like this. This isn’t fair,” she cried.
“I’m sorry. It’s horrible. Innocent people have died and many more will die. But maybe you can help the natives?”
“How? I’m stuck in this cell.” She paid careful attention to the meaning between his words.
“If you tell me the village location, I can warn them before the missiles strike.”
So that’s what Faraday wanted––the location coordinates of the various villages throughout the surrounding area. That way he could do strategically targeted missile attacks. Remove the pestilence without causing too much destruction. It’d be easier to convince potential migrators that the city was a safe haven.
Lucas knew she’d never give him the coordinates. Not that she didn’t trust him––because she did. He had earned her trust a long time ago. Somehow he had convinced the council that he could get the information out of her, just so he could see her one last time before her termination. He really was there to say goodbye.
She tried to smile. “You know I can’t do that. I’m not an idiot. I know we’re being monitored. Whatever I tell you goes directly to Faraday.”
A tear trickled down his cheek and he stared at Grace, taking in every inch. Sadness pulled her down. Her lips quivered and she held back a sob. They stayed locked together in the silence; their love didn’t need words to define it. Lights illuminated from the hallway, signifying the visit was over.
“I love you, my Grace.” He reached out to touch the cell.
“No! Don’t!” she yelled.
Without thinking, she lunged forward to stop him from getting shocked. Her palm smacked against the glass to the same place Lucas had placed his hand. The electric current shot through their arms, jolting into every cell. They locked eyes and endured the agonizing pain. Everything around them faded and they stayed glued together, not letting go. Bolts of white and blue light splintered across the cell panels, but they held on. It took two guards to pull Lucas away.
Grace collapsed to the floor, unable to move. Lucas slumped back in the glider chair, his head dangling off to the side. His one good eye remained open, staring at Grace. She tried to open her mouth to shout I love you, but she was paralyzed from the shock. Instead she repeated the words in her heart, hoping he could feel each letter.
Faraday squatted down and peered into Grace’s eyes.
“She’s still alive,” he said, disappointed.
A pair of sparkly shoes stepped into view.
“The Officer failed. We vote tomorrow morning. It won’t be long,” the woman said.
Grace strained her eyes up the pair of legs to the woman’s face, catching a glimpse of President Sullivan’s blonde hair just before she passed out.
*
Grace awoke to a mosquito buzzing around. She swatted the air, trying to make it stop. How did a bug get inside the containment cell? It would be impossible. She slowly uncoiled and sat up to investigate the irritating noise.
Along the edge of the cell in the bottom corner, a faint blue light flickered where the panels joined. She leaned forward to get a closer look. That’s where the buzzing was coming from. A minuscule fissure appeared in the glass and the electrical system was glitching out. She wondered if the containment cell was shutting down. The tiny dot of blue light began to spread like a spider web until the entire front panel lit up.
Grace scooted back, terrified the wall would shatter into pieces. She went so far back that her shoulders pressed into the glass. Something had definitely changed because she wasn’t getting shocked. The panel continued to glow and strands of coding trickled down. The code began pixilating into images. Was this her final miracle?
26
The first missile hit the south side of West Lake just before dawn. The impact shook the ground and scattered debris throughout the area. The crash site was about fifteen miles from the village, but the jolt woke Cari from a deep sleep. Jumping up from her mat, she ran to the front door to assess any destruction and check for collateral damage. She grabbed her winter fur and gathered up her bow and quiver, although she wasn’t sure how much good they’d do.
Right outside her cabin, Grayson stood alert, waiting for Cari. She regretted not being sterner about the kid getting too attached. Attachments weighed you down.
“You need to stay with your parents,” she told Grayson.
“I’m stayin’ with you.”
She didn’t have time to argue.
The natives scrambled out of their cabins, making their way to the middle of the village. It had been raining all night, making the ground muddy and the air damp. They gathered together, debating what had happened. Some claimed it was an earthquake, while others believed one of the mountains had erupted again. Cari half listened, knowing the combustion wasn’t caused by a natural disaster. The only mountain that had caused the upheaval was the shiny one in the far off distance––the Seattle City Center. The deliberate attack had obviously come from the Insiders. She wasn’t sure what had triggered the strike, but she had an idea. Grace had lost her fight to keep the city center closed, and now the government would start a war effort to remove the natives. The sacred lands they had claimed centuries ago would be blown away to make room for technology and advancement.
The previous year, when Grace and the others from the academy had come to Seattle searching for her mother, Cari had predicted it would lead to more people coming north. When Grace showed up at the village, she suspected change wouldn’t be far off. She hadn’t expected it to be that soon.
A man who had been stationed at the lookout tower for the night ran over to the group. “It came across the sky, like a flash of lightning. Swooshed in and lit up the night, crashed into the ground, and caught the trees on fire.”
The natives murmured among themselves, fear spreading. Cari needed to break the chain reaction before it got out of control. She stood before the melee and yelled out their battle cry. Everyone stopped chattering and looked at Cari.
“This was not of the earth or the skies. This was an attack and we need to leave now. Get your weapons and whatever you need to stay warm,” she told her people.
“But where are we goin’?” one of the natives asked.
“Shiny Green Mountain,” she said, talking about the Seattle City Center.
“Why not the mountains?” he argued.
“We’re under attack. The mountains will be targets and we won’t be safe. The closer we get to the city center, the greater our chances are for survival. If you want to live, get your gear and follow me on the trail north.”
A few of the older villagers turned away and headed to the ceremonial gathering place. Others started to follow, grabbing pieces of dry wood to throw onto the fire pit.
“Stop! We need to go, now! No time for any rituals,” Cari shouted.
But they ignored her and continued to the gathering place.
“Stubborn old fools. You stay––you die. They’ll shoot more lights across the sky. One will hit our camp and turn it to ash.”
Adyar waddled up through the crowd and tugged the sleeve of Cari’s fur wrap. She motioned for Cari to bend down.
“Some of us don’t wanna leave our home,” Adyar said.
“Home won’t be here much longer.” Cari frowned.
“I was born here, so I will die here. Most of the elders feel this way.” Adyar leaned closer so their foreheads touched––a gesture that said this goodbye would be final.
“Old fool!” Cari grunted through clenched teeth
to keep from crying.
Adyar held Cari’s hand and put a small pouch into her palm. “You know we can’t go up against the Shiny Green Mountain.”
Cari examined the pouch. “What is this?”
“It helps with sleep. The long one. If the Insiders capture you, you take this to free yourself.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“There is a time for everything, Cari. Life runs in cycles. Some stronger and longer than others.”
“Wisdom doesn’t cover up stupidity. You will die out here.” Cari quickly brushed a tear from her cheek.
“If we die today, at least we’ll be in our home. Like you, we have already made our choice. Now you go, do your best to lead your people. If you don’t see a way out, make one.” Adyar turned and ambled across the muddy camp to join the other elders by the fire, where they would pass their medicine pipe and most likely meet their end.
Cari pushed away any lingering sentiment; emotions would only dim the path. Her job was to lead her people to safety. Taking a moment to focus, she conjured up the fearless and fierce warrior from within her soul. There would be tough decisions and loss ahead. She needed to be brave.
Cari instructed her team of warriors to organize the people into groups: strongest in the front, weakest in the back. It wasn’t fair, but not much is during war. Of the four hundred or so natives from her village making the journey to the city center, she knew there’d be no prisoners, only casualties. Most of the others hadn’t experienced violence or brutality, Cari and her warriors had protected them from it.
As the caravan of people left the village and moved into the forest, Cari heard the low chants of a song. It rose up like flames, growing more and more powerful, until the melodic rhythm drummed throughout her entire body. Like the rumble of thunder. Like the roar of waves crashing to the shore. The song bore into Cari’s heart, giving her the strength to continue onward.
27
Grace stared at the cell panel, watching as the pixilation morphed into flashes of images. First, they were just quick flickers: boots running on endless white, a crinkled handkerchief, a kiss between a man and a young woman. Their faces were too washed out to find any definition. Then the images blended together in a swirl of colorful light. As the light spread out, a beautiful room appeared: glittering crystal chandeliers and tall windows, a sweeping view of the ocean. The place looked familiar. The room morphed into more flashes of light, displaying images of a garden with twinkling lights and a hilltop, where two people looked off to something in the distance. The scene pulled back to reveal an enormous black structure that glinted under the moonlight. The Los Angeles City Center.
Then the panel lit up again and blended into another swirl of light. It slowly unraveled to reveal a long hallway, with doors similar to the Administrative Building. Guards escorted a young woman, who was limping. The footage zoomed in on her face. Though a much younger version, she’d recognize those eyes across any universe.
“Mom!” Grace shouted.
Ava was still in the younger version of herself. The same way she looked the last time Grace had seen her inside the program Dickson had designed, sending them back to Ojai three-hundred years earlier to retrieve Morray’s son from Lillian’s people. Grace had merged with the program and tracked down her mother, but before she could do anything, Morray and Ava had vaporized.
Whoever was displaying the images wanted Grace to know her mother’s location. She was still locked inside Dickson’s program within the layers of the mainframe. It had to be the same program. It was the same Ava. Grace could reach her––she just needed to connect to the mainframe. Someone was trying to help her. But who? Whoever it was had some serious abilities to jailbreak Dickson’s program coding. Was it Blythe? Had she finally figured out a path back into the program?
More images appeared of the guards shoving Ava into a containment room that looked much different than the one in the Seattle City Center. Instead of a lounger, there was a long glass table and a couple of uncomfortable metal chairs. After the guards left, Ava sat on top of the table and began to perform surgery on her wounded leg, using hair clips to dig into the bullet hole. Grace turned away. Even with medical training at the academy, she still had trouble stomaching the sight of blood.
If only she could contact Blythe to figure out what was happening. The images disappeared and the panel returned to its normal state. It was over before she had a chance to do anything. Faraday’s guards would come for her in the morning, and she would be silenced forever, taking knowledge of her mother’s whereabouts to her grave.
Reaching forward, she placed her hands on the glass, where the images of her mother had been displayed. “Mom,” she whispered.
The buzzing sound returned and the cell began to vibrate. Sharp electrical currents zipped through her fingers and diced up her arms like knives. The wall lit up again in a burst of light and strings of code filled the entire panel. The same pattern kept coming up over and over in previous searches—her mother’s birthday. 06-14-2310. She concentrated on the coding until the date was the only thing she could see. Her body began to pulsate and the steady currents grew stronger. The entire containment cell illuminated and a tunnel of radiant colors spiraled before her eyes. She kept her palms planted, until the tunnel sucked her in like a kaleidoscope, shooting her through the glowing lights, spinning faster and faster.
“Mom!” she yelled. The tunnel continued twisting and curving around. “Stop!” she yelled, trying to control the network system with voice command. And like before, her body slowed down. She remained still, while rivers of iridescent light rushed by.
“System panel,” she said. The tunnel opened up below her feet, plunking her down into a white space that had no beginning or end. This wasn’t the typical command center, but hopefully it operated the same way. First, she needed to locate the program Dickson had designed for the Phoenix mission. That’s probably where she’d find her mother. “Access programs containing coding variables: 06-14-2310.”
A row of doors appeared: silver, some black, and a single red door. When she had tracked Morray in her previous search, she had come across a red door. It signified the markings of a digital footprint. The red door had to be the direct route to her mother. Unless it was a trap, leading her deeper into the mainframe. The only way to know would be walking through. With termination hours away, she really didn’t have anything to lose. It was too late to save herself, but she could make one final attempt to save her mother––find a way to get her out of the mainframe and back to her body. Grace could go to her final resting place in peace.
Approaching the door, she paused a moment and prayed. “Dad, wherever you are, please watch over Mom and me. I’ll try to remember everything you taught me and put it to good use.”
There wasn’t a handle or even an access panel on the door. She closed her eyes and merged with the surface, expecting another round of electrical shock to jolt through her body. But nothing happened. When she opened her eyes, blackness surrounded her. Had she walked right into death? Instead of panicking, a peaceful sensation rested over her, though she wasn’t sure she had a body any more. No point in fighting death.
“Sorry I couldn’t help you,” she whispered.
“What? Who said that?” a familiar voice echoed––it was the same voice that had given her life, she’d know it anywhere.
“Mom! I found you!” Grace shouted with excitement.
“Grace? Where are you?” Ava’s voice filled up the space.
“I don’t know. I’m surrounded by darkness.”
“It feels like you’re right here with me in this room. Only I can’t see you,” Ava said.
“Am I in your head? Because that would be really weird.”
Silence.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure. I’m inside the Los Angeles City Center, in the Admin Building, trapped inside Dickson’s program. I’ve been trying to get to the servers, but I can’t. And if I don’t,
he’s going to take over the entire mainframe. I’m not sure how he’s doing it, but he was able to distribute himself throughout the network. How did you even find me?”
“It’s a long story. But the shortest version is, I was in my containment cell awaiting my termination, when the thing started glitching out. For some reason, I was able to connect to the mainframe by touching the glass. I found you the same way I found you last time, by tracking your birthday. It’s strange, though, we’ve been searching over a year, and even the experts haven’t been able to track you down. Now, suddenly I’m able to pull it off? Something has definitely changed. I’m thinking it might—”
Ava interrupted, “Did you say awaiting your termination?”
“Yeah, I got into some trouble. Remember that pompous prick Faraday from the academy? He framed me. And I think he’s working with that skank President Sullivan. They devised a false flag and made it look like I plotted an attack on the city center.”
“What are you talking about? What city center?”
“Oh, right. You wouldn’t know about that. The one in Seattle. The one everybody thought was a dead cell. Well, Morray and Dickson were using it to breed new humans. Sam, who was actually Dickson, took you from the academy and flew up to Seattle, where he and Morray, who was pretending to be Miss Atwood, plugged you into the mainframe. It’s convoluted as all hell, but that’s how you ended up in the mainframe with your body in Seattle. That’s where I am now. But not for much longer.”
Ava stayed quiet a few minutes, absorbing the information. She asked, “Morray and Dickson were breeding humans? What were they planning to do?”
“I guess they were planning to start over with a new generation. I’m sure they had a plan to wipe out the entire West Coast.”
“Is the Seattle City Center currently active?” she asked.
“Not fully. Just a small team of people. First, we had to take care of the babies. And there are people tending to you, keeping your muscles strong and making sure you’re still breathing. And there are a few people doing mainframe searches, looking for you. I decided to stay in Seattle and wait for you to return.”
