Recompense (Recompense, book 1)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  “Emerson, don’t do this,” I plead, pounding on the window. I don’t understand. He and Markay have been friends for so long.

  Emerson’s face has lost its usual pleasantness, replaced with an intensity of purpose that frightens me. He presses a series of controls and the pod begins to move. He’s left me no choice. I reach for my gun.

  It’s not there.

  I left it in my locker.

  The pod makes a U-turn and speeds up. As far as vehicles go, it doesn’t travel that fast, but I can’t hope to follow it far on foot. I slam a button my holoband and scream into it, “Ethan, get here fast! Emerson’s taking Markay!”

  His voice crackles back at me immediately. “Where are you?”

  “In front of the school and to the left. Almost to the main road. They just left in a pod.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I jog after them, trying to keep them in sight. Emerson turns into traffic and I pace in frustration on the corner, knowing I must wait for Ethan. I lose them around a far corner.

  It takes only minutes for Ethan to pound up behind me. In that time, I’ve intercepted another autopod. We pile inside and he starts keying in commands. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he says. A dash light blinks on and a joystick levers upward from the floor. Ethan grips it, and the vehicle slams into motion. I’m thrown back into my seat.

  Ethan throws me a rakish grin. “Military override. Which way did they go?”

  “Left!”

  I brace myself as Ethan sends us lurching around the pod ahead of us. Though our vehicle emits only a low hum, our lack of compliance with the uniform traffic grid makes us conspicuous. I can see people on the street pausing to watch.

  “They turned here.” I point as we near the corner.

  Ethan pulls a hard right. The pod turns with the precision of a rollercoaster and I slam into him. We blast onto the side road.

  It’s empty.

  Ethan eases up on the throttle. “Where’d they go?”

  “I lost sight of them once they rounded the corner. Check the next crossroad.”

  He powers us forward and then stops in the middle of the vacant intersection. We’re off the main grid in a residential neighborhood. There are no autopods, no people in sight. Not even a squirrel. “Which way?” he asks.

  “You know the city better than I do. Where do you think he’d bring her?”

  “No telling. Did he know you were on to him?”

  “He knows. He tried to stab me with a syringe.”

  “Then he probably led us this way to shake us in all the side streets. When he’s sure he’s lost us, he’ll slip back into traffic somewhere and be on his way.”

  My heart twists with dread at what could be happening to Markay. To have come so close and then lose her. I pound the seat. If only I’d grabbed my gun.

  “Are you all right? He didn’t hurt you?”

  “I’m fine. Just frustrated.”

  “What happened?” Ethan chooses a direction and just starts driving, banking on blind luck.

  “They were leaving together. I forgot to give Markay her necklace, so I was trying to catch up to them. When I got close, they embraced and Markay slumped over. Emerson tossed her in the pod. I thought she’d just passed out or something until he came after me with that syringe. I knocked it from his hand when we fought.”

  “Did you grab it?”

  “I didn’t think to. It fell on the street.”

  “We’ll go back later and see if we can find it. I’d like to know what’s in it.”

  We cruise through the neighborhoods, up and down random streets, hoping for a glimpse of them. Now that our pace has slowed, I realize I’m still clamped down on the locket. I can’t believe it’s still in my hand. I slip it around my neck.

  Not many pods travel this part of town. And every single one looks exactly the same. We have to pull in next to each and peer in the window to see who’s inside. We get some funny looks. Every time we turn a corner and spot one in the distance, my heart leaps, only to land back on the floor in disappointment. Desperation overwhelms me. Markay isn’t just a face on Willoughby’s holoscreen. She’s a real, breathing person. She’s my friend.

  After half an hour, Ethan pulls over to the side of the road. “We could be at this all night.”

  “We have to keep trying.”

  “We will, but first let’s think. Do you have any idea where they were going? Where he might have taken her? Anything at all that might help us know where to look?”

  I press my fingers to my temples, but I’m a total blank. I don’t even know where Markay lives. Not that Emerson was actually taking her there.

  “Did Emerson have anything with him? Was he acting odd? Did he say anything?”

  “Nothing. He seemed completely normal until he turned on me.”

  “There’s got to be something we’re missing.” Ethan slams the dash in frustration. “We can’t let this thing slip through our fingers. The people behind this aren’t playing games.”

  “Games,” I murmur. And then I spring forward. “Ethan, the game!”

  “What game?”

  I catch his arm in my excitement. “Yesterday after school, I played a hologame with Markay. I’m still linked into her holoband!”

  He grabs my wrist and starts pushing buttons. The holoscreen flashes up in front of us and Ethan scrolls through files and images faster than I can take them in.

  “Can we find her through this?” I ask, almost forgetting to breathe.

  “I don’t know. We can try. What was the name of the game?”

  “Um…Galaxy Invaders?” I try to remember. “Galaxy Warriors?”

  “Galaxy Quest?”

  “That’s it!”

  “I’ve got it.”

  He pulls up the file and his fingers begin flying through it, sometimes on the buttons, sometimes manipulating the hologram itself. I’m not skilled enough on the device to follow half of what he’s doing.

  “I’m into her holoband.” Another half a minute and he adds, “I’ve got a location. They’re in the Warrens.” He drops my arm and grabs the joystick. “Don’t lose that screen.”

  As we careen down street after street, I do my best to hold myself in place without knocking the holoband on anything. One more turn and the modern architecture cuts off. Before us, as if the city has been cleanly sliced into sections, lie the ruins where the Lowers dwell.

  “This is as far as the autopod can take us.” Ethan pulls over to the side of the road. “No grid out there. We’ll have to go in on foot.”

  I climb out of the pod and glance warily at the old city. It’s as desolate as I remember. The building across from us rises fourteen stories, but one whole side is missing. Rotting carpets, sodden drywall, and tattered insulation spill out like the innards of a carcass. I’m thinking it should be demolished for public safety reasons when I see the blur of a face in one of the paneless windows.

  “Are there people in there?” I ask in shock.

  Ethan follows my glance. “The Lowers have taken over all the abandoned buildings. The whole place is a maze of rat holes.”

  “But surely they don’t live in there.”

  He unholsters his gun and snaps an ammunition cartridge in place. “You see any new apartment complexes springing up? We’re going into a rough area. You ready?” He gives me a quick glance and notices I’m still in my cross country uniform. “Where’s your weapon?”

  “Locked in the school.”

  His face tightens with disapproval, but he just reaches under his shirt and unsheathes a wicked-looking blade. “Take this.”

  He might as well have armed me with a lollipop for all the damage I can do with it, but I thank him anyway and hold it in a death grip.

  “Follow me.”

  He jogs across the street, into the wreckage of the neighborhood, and pauses behind a pile of moldering furniture halfway down the first block. I’m close on his tail with my knife at the ready and my holoscreen st
ill active. Every nerve is taut. The moment we stepped inside the Warrens, the atmosphere turned unfriendly.

  We’re following a wide, straight avenue that must have been a main thoroughfare. We scan our perimeter and continue another few hundred yards. There’s nothing moving, nothing in sight, but I can feel unseen eyes watching our progress. We’re in the open and so obviously out of place.

  After four blocks, Ethan dodges into an alley to consult the holoscreen. An ancient automobile lies on its back with four tireless wheels pointing up to the sky. It’s oddly sad, like the skeleton of some long-dead beast.

  “We have to continue west down this road another three blocks then jog south about a mile. That will take us to what looks like an old industrial park. Markay’s being held in there.”

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “Only from the map. I’ve never been here before.”

  There’s a flash of motion at the mouth of the alley. Ethan already has his gun up, watching warily, but whoever or whatever it was has vanished.

  “I think we should continue out of sight,” I say in a low voice. “That thoroughfare is too open for my tastes.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  I route us deeper into the alley and thread through a tiny space between buildings. We cut across a back lot, over a fence, and then through the bottom level of a parking garage. It’s not so different from navigating through the woods at home. Easier, actually, because the streets all meet at right angles. Using every narrow, hidden avenue we encounter, I wind us deeper into the old city, always moving south and west.

  Once we dodged into the alley, the new city disappeared from sight. I feel like I’m in a different world. One of broken asphalt and trash-strewn gutters. Weeds choke the alleyways, and some old parking lots have become so overgrown they look like second-growth forest. The air reeks of decay.

  We haven’t seen anyone yet, but I’m appalled at how these people live. The Warrens form a stark contrast with the beauty, clean lines, and fresh air of the new city. These people have been forgotten. Abandoned. They might as well be casteless the way they’ve been overlooked, as if they’re not even human. No wonder the Lowers at school are so hostile.

  We’re creeping through the overgrown backyards of a neighborhood with dilapidated wood-frame houses that contain more evidence of occupation. Clotheslines strung on rusty poles hang low with damp laundry. Broken toys. A vegetable garden. The obvious odor of outhouses. And heaps of reeking kitchen waste. I can hear children playing somewhere nearby.

  We pass an old man sleeping in a rocking chair on his back porch, head thrown back and mouth open. He’s dressed in rags, with a stubble of white hair on his chin. In the next yard, we make it halfway across before we’re assaulted by a large mixed-breed dog. We sprint for the fence and scramble over the top, barely avoiding its fangs, and find ourselves on the sidewalk of another main avenue.

  We cross the road, and Ethan dodges inside the open doorway of an abandoned business. A carpet store, according to a faded sign above the door, but not a shred of inventory remains. Just a counter, an old cash register, and some toppled shelving. Dried leaves and a layer of debris coat the floor.

  Ethan seats himself in the back corner where he has a clear view of the door. “Let’s take a break and check that map again.”

  He tosses me an energy bar and opens one for himself. I recognize them as the same brand Coach laid out on the refreshment table after the race.

  “Thanks.”

  My holoband has turned itself off. I click the power button and the holomap flashes back to life. We’ve made so many twists and turns that it’s difficult to pinpoint our exact location, but judging by the main streets we’ve crossed, we’re very near to the industrial park.

  “We should probably hole up here until daylight fades,” Ethan suggests. “Another hour or so. I still feel too visible. Then we’ll have the element of surprise when we reach our destination. In the meantime, I want to know everything there is about our friend Emerson Price.”

  I agree and settle in to eat my energy bar while Ethan pulls up his holoscreen and scrolls through page after page of information. In a moment, he starts spitting facts out at me. “Age eighteen, six feet one, no criminal record. He lives at 204 Locust with...” Ethan pauses for half a dozen heartbeats and then meets my eyes. “Jack, he’s another ward of the state. Never adopted, but he’s been living with his current family since he was ten.”

  I bristle and begin my protest again. “Ethan, just because he was an orphan—”

  “Doesn’t automatically make him evil,” Ethan breaks in with controlled impatience. “I understand that. But we now have three suspects who came up through the system. It’s time to consider whether the system is part of the problem or if it’s just been used in some way to create or further the problem.”

  The coincidence still rankles, but I can’t argue with him. It is uncanny the number of times the CDS has come up.

  Now Ethan begins spitting out facts about Emerson’s time in state care. “Dropped off as an infant in an orphanage in Coastal Zone. Spent four years there. Fostered out to Settlement 11. Returned three months later.” Ethan’s voice fades out as he reads then comes back to deliver a summary. “He’s lived in twelve different locations. Medical records indicate a pattern of abuse until he settled in his current situation.”

  My heart cramps within me. I didn’t know Emerson well, but he seemed well-adjusted. And Markay wouldn’t have fallen for him if he was a creep. Was he just hiding his true character all along? Or had he suddenly changed?

  Ethan must be thinking along the same lines. He muses to himself, “What would possess someone to kidnap one of their own friends?”

  Our attention is diverted by a sound at the back of the store. A soft scraping, like a window being forced upward or a warped door sliding across concrete. Ethan nods his head toward the sound and we rise on silent feet, our weapons at the ready. There’s a door in the wall that must lead to a back room. We creep toward it, picking our way carefully through the litter on the floor. Ethan waves me aside and, with his gun trained on the door, splinters it open with one powerful kick.

  We rush in and surprise two men, one with henna-red hair, the other with jet-black. Lowers in their late teens or early twenties. They drop into crouched stances. Between them, they carry a carved wooden club and a length of jagged metal. Ethan aims his gun at the nearest one’s chest. “Leave the way you came in and we’ll let you live.”

  The redheaded one grins at us. “I don’t think so.”

  And then I hear the commotion at the front of the shop. Five more men stream inside, all sporting piercings and denim and darkened eyes. All brandishing makeshift weapons. I recognize Linc right away. Ethan swings his gun in their direction and I guard his back against the first two, but our odds don’t look good. We’re surrounded and outnumbered.

  The leader seems to be a broad-chested man in his late twenties with bleached blond hair and a ring in his nose. He’s not as tall as Ethan, but he’s more heavily muscled. He walks to the center of the front room, a length of steel pipe clasped in his hand. “How do you like that, boys?” He grins. “A pair of Uppers, delivered right to our door.”

  Ethan has his gun aimed at the center of the man’s torso. “Our presence here has nothing to do with you,” he says, managing a tone of nonthreatening authority. “Leave us to our business and no one will get hurt.”

  “Oh, someone’s going to get hurt,” Nose Ring says with a smile. “You can’t expect us not to have a little fun when guests come to call.”

  He steps nearer and the others follow his lead, spreading out on either side. I readjust the grip on my knife as the two men in the back room advance.

  “We’re Military,” Ethan says. That’s half true. “We’re here on assignment, and we’re being tracked. If you kill us, the entire operation will descend on this shop.” I doubt if there’s any truth to that, but it sounds good.

 
This makes Nose Ring laugh out loud. “You think they’ll be able to find us? We’ll just melt back into the scenery before they get here. We’re on our own turf.” He smacks the pipe into his hand and takes a step nearer. “You’re intruding.”

  “I’m warning you.” Ethan’s grip tightens on his weapon. His voice has turned deadly. “Start anything and you’ll be the first to die.”

  This gives the leader pause. Every man in the room halts in place, muscles taut, weight on the balls of their feet. The shop crackles with tension.

  Footsteps pound outside the shop and a woman bursts inside. She pauses in the doorway. I recognize her henna-dyed hair immediately.

  “Was Linc right, Jewel?” Nose Ring throws over his shoulder at her. “Is it that new girl from school who’s been following you around?”

  “Her brother too,” Linc adds.

  Jewel meets my eye, but I can’t tell what’s passing through her head.

  “It’s almost providential,” Nose Ring says.

  “Let them go,” Jewel orders.

  Nose Ring’s eyebrows reach his dyed hair. “Are you crazy? Look at them. They’re Uppers. We’ll never get another opportunity like this.”

  “Let them go, Berg,” Jewel repeats. “She’s just as much a Lower as you and me.”

  FOURTEEN

  Berg hesitates. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  He jerks his head and his men back off. I relax my knife hand, my whole arm aching with relief.

  “Leave us.”

  “Jewel,” Berg protests, but she cuts him off.

  “I said leave.”

  He nods to his men. They file out one by one. Berg is the last to go. “We’ll be right outside.”

  “Thank you,” I tell Jewel once he slips through the door. “I thought we were goners.”

  Jewel doesn’t smile. “What are you doing here?”

  “You’ve heard of the kidnappings?” I ask.

  “Everyone has.”

  “They’re reaching epidemic levels, both here and in other cities. Ethan and I have been sent to help stop them.”