He knew he should say something to her. Tell her about finding Saben’s family. Tell her about his decision to resurrect the Ghost. Tell her that he wanted to do something more to help people. The words ate at him from the inside, and still he kept his mouth shut.
While she watched their surroundings, he watched her. There was the occasional squint when she overextended the arm on her wounded side. It was miniscule, really. No one would notice unless they studied her. Arden was whole. Relief filled him. For the first time in weeks, he felt hopeful. That was, if he could find a way to come clean.
“Where have you been the last few days?” she asked.
Dade swallowed, trying not to take too much time to find his answer. He knew she was upset with him for being MIA. That much was obvious. She had a right to be, honestly. Though she hadn’t treated him much differently from before, except maybe a little more coldly.
It might be best to tell her a partial truth. “I’ve been working out. Getting back into fighting shape. Doing some physical therapy with my hands.”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. He knew that she wanted to talk about things just as much as he did. And yet, she knew that they couldn’t speak here. Not for hashing out future plans that might be at odds with one another. And wasn’t that the crux of it? He didn’t want her to tell him that she wanted something different.
Each time she looked away from him, tilting her chin up, his stomach tightened.
Dade would explain to her about Saben and his family eventually. He couldn’t handle the rejection quite yet if she didn’t agree. Plus, he wanted to figure things out first. And he was afraid that if he told her now, she’d tell him that his future was best served by focusing on how to get away from Mina.
Arden didn’t press. Instead, she changed the subject entirely. “I’ll probably end up bunking with Annem and Coco.” She let out a breath. “It will be better than listening to the beeping machines in the med bay.”
They entered the command center that Mina used to plan their missions. It was also where Venz spent his time. The room had an elaborate display of electronic gadgets. A desk and a data monitor set up for Venz ran along one wall. He had multiple light boards and other tech to access all the feeds in the city. He watched screen after screen of current vid-feeds and seemed to take it all in. It looked like he was monitoring the entire city grid.
Multiple vid-projectors lined another wall, simultaneously showing several channels of visicast airing current news.
In the center was a long glass table with insets at each seat in which individual vid-projectors could switch between 2-D, 3-D, and 4-D with the flick of a control.
Coco, Annem, and Roan were already sitting at the table, talking to one another. Saben was there as well. He sat apart, quiet. But he didn’t look uncomfortable.
Venz was at his desk with his back to the room. His hands worked over the various light boards as if he were playing an instrument. He hummed, his head bobbing, but there was no music. Small in stature and slight in weight, he appeared quiet and unassuming. Dade had found that while that assumption was partially true, Venz also thought on an entirely different plane of existence.
Dade directed Arden over since Venz was the only one she hadn’t met yet.
Venz looked up, eyes blinking behind round goggles. He pushed them up onto his forehead, sliding his dark hair back.
After they were introduced, Arden pointed to the goggles. “Those are cool.”
The lenses resembled halo-glasses, but while halo-glass was slim, this was set in a casing of metal and plastic that molded across his face. Dade could just make out the faint blue edge of the information as it was spread across the screen in front of his eyes.
Venz smiled, showing his crooked teeth. “Thanks. I modified them. Halo-glass can’t process the information as fast as I need it.”
“Venz,” Coco snapped, “don’t give away trade secrets.”
Venz’s face flushed.
Arden chose a seat not too far from the door, yet close enough to the others so it looked like she wasn’t purposely keeping herself apart.
Sliding into the chair next to her, Dade gave Saben a nod. He needed to speak with Arden later to gauge her thoughts on this group. He was warming up to them, admittedly. But by the way she carried herself with stiff shoulders and a straight spine, he figured she hadn’t thawed yet.
“You made it,” Coco said. “We had bets going on how long it would take.”
“Yeah, I had you down for next week,” Roan said. “You sure you don’t need more beauty sleep?”
Annem offered Arden a smile. “I’m glad you feel better.”
Arden blinked. Her facial expression stayed placid. “I heal fast.”
“Note to self: if you want to kill Arden, try harder,” Roan snickered.
“Not funny, Roan.” Annem glared at him.
It was evident that they’d worked as a group for some time. There were inside jokes, fighting, laughing, and they were free with one another’s space. It felt oddly welcoming. He’d never been part of a group before. Not like this. He’d had Saben, and Clarissa, but they’d never worked together except for that one disastrous time.
Mina walked into the room, followed by Nastasia. She positioned herself at the head of the table. The group snapped to attention, instantly quieting, though not in a militaristic way. It felt more like respect, with leashed anticipation. As if they knew there was something exciting about to start.
Nastasia snagged the seat to Mina’s right and took a moment to set out her things: a datapad that she plugged into the mainframe, a steamy cup of something that smelled like citrus, and an electro-pen that could be used to write on any surface and would save data to her digi-stream.
“Good, we’re all here,” Mina said.
Nastasia set to work typing into the light board to bring up the information from her datapad to the flash-feed so that they could all access it from their spots at the table.
Dade placed his hands flat on the table on either side of where the projection hovered. Then he flipped up his hands so that the projection was in front of him and spread his hands wide for a bigger visual. The projections were transparent, so they could still see and speak to each other across the table.
He stared at the schematics. It took him a second to realize what he was looking at. Dade blinked, not believing the truth of what he saw.
“She’s got to be kidding,” Arden said under her breath.
Mina leaned in and pulled up her own screen. “We have two items on the agenda. The first, as you can see from this visual, is that we’re going to break into the CRC.”
There were mixed reactions from around the room. Coco let out a barking laugh. Annem darted confused glances between Coco, Mina, and Nastasia, while Roan whistled and leaned back in his seat.
Across the room, Venz nervously chewed his bottom lip. He didn’t look surprised. If he’d been the one who’d managed to get the floor plans, he was more tech savvy than anyone Dade had ever met. Dade didn’t have a clue whom he’d stolen them from.
Beside him, Arden didn’t make any sound, but her face looked thunderous. She gripped her hands into fists on the table and stared with cold fury at Mina.
Dade was numb. He heard the words, he saw the projection, and yet he still couldn’t believe it. This was what she’d manipulated him here to do? It was a suicide mission.
No one had ever successfully broken into the City Reeducation Center, let alone broken out. It was a mind-conditioning location, where the govies took people to interrogate them, where they’d disappear. But it was also whispered to house some of the items too important to be kept in the city vault.
“You’re joking,” Coco said.
“Do I ever joke?” Mina asked. Yet Dade could tell that she enjoyed shocking them. There was an amused twist to her mouth and a lightness to her eyes.
“Why would we do that?” Annem asked. “Going into the CRC is suicide. Everyone knows that.”
“The
govies keep the recipe for VitD inside a CRC vault. We’re going to figure out where exactly it is, and then we’re going to steal it.”
“Wait a second,” Arden said, her voice low and intense. “We’re going to figure it out? Are you saying you’re not positive that it’s there?”
Mina raised one eyebrow. “My sources say that it is.”
Arden grunted. “No offense, but that’s not good enough.”
“I’m with Sunshine on this one.” Roan ran his hands through his perfectly coiffed hair. “What if we break in and it’s not there? Moons, we may not make it out again.”
“We’re going to make sure it’s there before we go in, and we’re going to have a plan for getting out.” Mina’s voice didn’t waver, and her chin remained high. If it weren’t the most insane thing he’d ever heard, Dade could have almost trusted that she knew what she was doing.
Annem did a little wave to get Mina’s attention. “Why would the Solizen give the recipe to the govies?”
Roan crossed his arms. “The most important recipe on the entire planet and the Solizen didn’t keep it? Why would they allow the govies to lock it up where they couldn’t get to it?”
This Dade could answer. It made sense to him. “Because it keeps it safe. Information on the digi-stream could be stolen. There’s a lot of infighting among the families. They all share ownership of the recipe, and it’s programmed into the mainframe so that no one can see the actual dosage specifications. The machines mix it. By giving it to the govies, it keeps any individual family from making its own and undercutting the market. The CRC would be the one place that no Solizen would be able to get their hands on it.”
It was brilliant and reckless to trust the govies. To put it where it would be impossible for the Solizen to take it back. And if the Solizen couldn’t get to it, Mina’s crew had no chance. What awaited them if they tried was a mind wipe at the very least, and if they were really unlucky, experiments on them beforehand. There wasn’t any other light to see it in. And yet, Mina looked cool, as if what she suggested would be easy.
“What are we going to do with the recipe if we manage to steal it?” Annem asked.
“One problem at a time,” Mina said.
It was a naive question. Everyone at the table knew it, except for Annem. Mina wasn’t going to make the VitD. She would sell the recipe. It would be worth hundreds of millions of credits on the open market.
Arden looked to Dade. Her eyes were hot and bright, and her mouth was pulled tight. She gave a single shake of her head before she looked away.
“That brings us to the second item on the agenda.” Mina looked directly at Arden. “I need your brother.”
Arden showed little reaction. “I don’t even know if my brother is alive.”
Very few had made it out when they’d blown up the joint refinery. Most of those who did had been rounded up by the govies. By and large, it was unknown how many people had died that day. The fire burned so hot that the bodies were turned to dust. With no body count, the people who were missing were presumed dead. It made sense that Arden had assumed that her brother was one of that number.
“We tagged him years ago,” Mina said as if that weren’t a bombshell. “Niall made it out.”
“Does he know you tagged him?” Arden’s voice was edged with venom.
Mina raised an eyebrow, her perpetual smirk a little wider. “Of course not.”
Dade blinked. Today’s information was one improbable thing after another. They’d managed to tag the leader of Lasair without his knowledge? If that was the case, what else was Mina capable of doing? As comfortable as he felt with them, maybe Arden was right to be wary.
It made him question whether Mina would keep her promise to let them go at the end of this—if they were even still alive. Mina sounded sincere when she offered to work together, but honestly, he didn’t know anymore. She was also sincere about doing whatever needed to be done to get what she wanted.
“Would you have tagged me if I hadn’t agreed to join you?” Arden asked.
“I’ve always wanted you as an ally, Arden. Subterfuge wouldn’t have been my first choice.”
Arden’s lips thinned. “And if I don’t fall into line?”
Mina stared but didn’t bother to respond.
The tension in the room felt strangling. Everyone reacted to it. Venz turned back to his wall of data monitors. His body hunched as he tapped on his light boards, attempting to disappear. Coco, Roan, and Annem all avoided eye contact as well.
Dade wasn’t sure what to say. He understood why Arden was upset. He was upset too. But he wasn’t about to make a public point of it. Not with the new plans that had started to take form in his mind. He needed to use this to his own advantage, though he wasn’t sure how to do that quite yet.
“It’s best we focus forward,” Mina said to Arden, but her gaze swept the room. “Maybe if I tell you some things, you’ll feel less resistant.”
“I doubt it,” Arden said.
Mina nodded to Nastasia, who changed the projection feed to show several recorded vids of Undercity. The footage was grainy, obviously from a street cam, and focused on members of the Lasair gang. From the angles of the feed, it looked like they originated from the city grid. Most of the cams were nonfunctional in Undercity. Had Mina fixed them to spy? Or had the govies fixed the cams, and Venz had managed to piggyback the feed?
Each clip was from a different street with different gang members, and yet they all seemed to show the same thing: Lasair members running in groups of three or four, intimidating people. The first clips were of them targeting ordinary people on the street and taking them down, stealing anything of value before they wanded each victim’s data sensor to mine credits. The later clips showed groups entering shops, presumably intimidating the owners to pay for protection. It seemed as if in the absence of new VitD, they’d focused their gang on running the streets. No more than bottom-of-the-barrel thugs.
Dade had never been a Lasair member, but even he could see how they’d changed. They’d become a lot more like an organized crime syndicate. Their movements were precise, casting their net of power wide and locking down more and more territory. They were more overt in the way they openly displayed their phasers and manned the streets of Undercity.
Arden watched intently. The furrow in her brow deepened, but she didn’t comment.
When the clips ended, Mina said, “Lasair has been under surveillance for some time, before the joint refinery mess, by the govies and me as well.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Arden asked.
“Because I know you don’t trust me.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“Uri is in charge now,” Mina said. “There is more going on in that gang than you realize. And has been for some time.”
“Like what?” Arden’s voice was flat and low.
Mina blew a breath. “I need Niall, both for the job and also because if I tell you what has happened right under your nose, you won’t believe me. I need proof first. Trust me, getting your brother is in the best interest of us both.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dade was sick of waiting. He sat on a bench outside of a café that he knew Clarissa preferred. It was located in an upscale mall near the skywalk. He’d been here for hours, and he couldn’t stay much longer.
He wore a cloak that covered his head and a synth-mask that hid his face. They were expensive and hard to requisition, which made him thankful for Mina’s supply. If he and Arden had been on their own, he’d have had to traverse the city with his own face. Maybe he could have changed his hair color, but even then people would know who he was. He’d been plastered on all the pap-feeds for years. It was far too dangerous.
From his position, he could remain innocuous while keeping an eye on the customers who strolled around him. The synth-mask didn’t make him feel less vulnerable. Knowing there was only a thin layer of nanotech between himself and the rest of the city concerned him. Though he
had to admit that he enjoyed the anonymity.
Dade shifted in his seat, unsettled and frustrated that Clarissa still hadn’t shown up. It had been a long shot that she’d be here. More of a hope than a true plan. Clarissa was predictable with her shopping habits, or she had been. He hoped that eventually she’d appear, because he didn’t have another means to reach her. At least one that wouldn’t alert everyone in her Tower to his overstated demise.
He couldn’t very well walk up to her on the skywalk. She was watched constantly. The gossip-vids had always been obsessed with her—with them. Clarissa was a wealthy Solizen socialite. Of course they’d want to document her every move. While he’d avoided that kind of attention as much as possible, she’d pose for mags or docu-stories in which they’d detail the lushness of her life.
Why any of these people would be fascinated with that life when they had no possibility of having it, he didn’t understand. But they were. They liked seeing all the frivolous things she did, cataloging how she dressed, how she styled her hair, what she ate for lunch.
They liked even more when one of the Solizen fell from grace. Which was exactly what had happened. The news-vids had begun to give daily briefings of Clarissa’s run-ins with the govies. Circling as they readied to feed from her bones.
After everything the govies had put her through and the nightly court of public opinion on the visicast, Dade knew she was stubborn enough to show her face in public simply to spite them. However, he hoped that “eventually” would be today, because he didn’t have many more opportunities to come back.
Saben sat on a bench farther down the skywalk, pretending to read a datapad. They took turns strolling around the shopping area so that no one would notice them sitting in one place for too long.
Dade hadn’t seen Clarissa since their last mission had imploded and he had “died.” It was public knowledge that the govies had taken Clarissa in for questioning for working with both Dade and the Ghost. Every visicast had covered it. Vid of her coming out of the blown-up building, crouched behind the vehicle as they took incoming phase-fire, helping them to escape. The speculation had been rampant.
The Stolen Sky (Split City Book 2) Page 9
