Jaguar

by C. A. Gray

  She watched me, her mouth stretched in a sympathetic line. One thing I had to admit: in our time as Renegade refugees, Larissa’s social skills had improved considerably.

  I saw Larissa open her mouth to say something else, but I really didn’t want to go there. If we discussed Jake and Julie, or Andy for that matter, I might lose it. So before she could say anything else, I cut her off, pointing at Francis’s screen. “So once we release those, do we have any way to make sure they don’t just get lost on the labyrinth amid the millions of other things people could watch instead?”

  Francis glanced up at me, one eyebrow raised. “Sure. We tell everyone on the Commune to go watch them simultaneously.”

  I frowned. “But the people on the Commune already agree with us. What good will that do?”

  I braced myself for Francis’s sigh of exasperation, and he didn’t disappoint me. But then he explained, “The labyrinth is basically a big popularity contest. Between the various in-person meetings sparked by Liam’s first one in my pub, we’ve accumulated nearly six thousand Commune members. Not all of them will be online to hear the call at once, of course, but if enough of them are, and if they’re at least dedicated enough to do us this one small favor within an hour or so of each other, that alone should be enough to ensure that the videos go viral.”

  Madeline wheeled up beside me, eyes wide. “So you’re about to become famous, Rebecca!”

  I glanced down at her, and smiled absently, patting her head. Her expression was so eager to please that I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of affection for my old friend. I scooped her up beside me, as if she were a pet. That’s what she wanted, after all—to please me, by cheering me on. She knew how badly I’d wanted to be famous. Once.

  Not like this, though.

  At last we arrived in one of the most remote, deserted Exumas islands, so tiny that our compound seemed to take up about thirty percent of its land mass. Its perimeter was all a powdery sand beach, overlooking almost teal blue water, and the compound itself (if it could be called that) was a series of thatched huts on stilts. Most of them were directly over the water. It looked like an exotic honeymoon destination—and for reasons I didn’t much care to examine, this thought too brought tears to my eyes. I rapidly blinked them away, and wished we were staying in an ugly slum instead.

  Each thatched hut had either two or four rooms, a kitchenette, and a bathroom, though there was a main kitchen and dining hall centrally located amongst the huts. There were plenty of huts for each of us to have our own, but so that we’d all be closer together, Mom assigned us roommates according to our presumed tasks. Francis and Larissa would be together in one (whereupon Larissa inflated hopefully, sneaking glances at Francis to see if he was equally delighted). Dr. Yin, Giovanni, and a maintenance-mode Alex would be next door to them. Mom and Mack would occupy a third, and Val and myself would take a fourth, next to theirs. This either meant that Mom intended for Val and me to share basic group maintenance duties like cooking, or perhaps the two of us made up a ‘miscellaneous’ category in her mind with regard to our tasks. I tried not to take offense at this—and at the fact that she’d disregarded my obviously strained relationship with Val in the previous compound. Maybe she’d heard that we’d decided to try being friends on the hovercraft. I hoped she had, because otherwise, the assignment seemed a little insensitive of her.

  Regardless, the rooming assignment was a problem, because it meant Francis and I would have a hard time strategizing how to rescue Liam, away from the prying eyes and ears of the others. I guess Larissa, Dr. Yin, and Giovanni all knew we intended to go after him already, but they didn’t know any details. And if Francis and I were on the opposite ends of the compound from one another, the others would certainly see us walking back and forth and wonder what was going on…

  Just as the group began to disperse to their relative huts, I piped up, “Can—Francis and I share one? Actually?”

  Everyone stopped and looked at me, expressions ranging from surprise to incredulity to offense (from Larissa and Val). Francis widened his eyes at me, and I had the impression he was trying to silently communicate something that I wasn’t getting at all. I widened mine right back at him. What? I tried to say, You know we need to be able to talk freely.

  “No,” Mom said at last, her brows furrowed in confusion. “You’re with Val, and Francis is with Larissa. They’ll be working together. It just makes sense.” Then she went on, “The dining hall will have to double as our central command center. Mack and I will get set up in there, and alert Commune members in the Kansas area to be on the lookout for Rick and Nilesh. We’ll have someone approach them once they’re spotted, and explain what happened, where we went, and how to get here without being tracked.”

  “How can they get here without being tracked?” asked Giovanni, frowning.

  “The old fashioned way. By boat,” Mack said. “With sails and a steering wheel and everything. Those are too low tech to be outfitted with cameras and what not.”

  “And… you think they can sail?” asked Dr. Yin dubiously. “Because I know Nilesh, and seaman he is not…”

  “Rick used to be in the navy before he became a bodyguard,” Mom said, “he’ll know what to do.” She gestured to the hovercraft and added, “Once you’re all settled and unpacked, report to the dining hall for your assignments.”

  Val let out a tiny whimper, and I knew what it meant: can’t we sleep first? But it was not even dusk yet, and if we slept now, we’d wake up again sometime in the middle of the night. Besides, I knew Mom was eager to make some headway against the Silver Six before we lost one more day, after all they’d cost us. As was I.

  I unpacked my scant belongings as quickly as I could into my room beside Val’s (at least we didn’t share a room), and plugged Madeline in to charge before hurrying off. Madeline widened her digital eyes at me.

  “Where are you going? Are you okay, Rebecca?”

  My heart pricked at me again—she was trying to make sense of the change in my behavior. In the past, I’d have pulled her into one of the private rooms in the hovercraft, and poured out my heart to her while bawling my eyes out. But despite the massive changes since the last time she and I had talked, I hadn’t told her much of anything.

  But I don’t have the luxury of wallowing in my emotions right now, I reminded myself. I needed to focus if I was going to be of any use to Liam.

  And besides—after Liam’s letter, confiding in Madeline suddenly seemed little better than journaling. Useful, but still solitary.

  By force of habit, I dropped a kiss on Madeline’s forehead. “I’ll be fine. And I’m going to get my assignment from M,” I said Mom’s code name facetiously. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Done packing already?” Val called as I headed out the door. I glanced back, and hesitated in surprise. She was literally hanging gingham curtains in the kitchen window—or at least a swath of gingham fabric which she’d twisted to drape like a curtain.

  “Where in the world did you get those?”

  “Oh! I found it in the boutique in the previous compound, and thought, if M hadn’t had time to fix this place up, it might need some personal touches… do you like them?”

  I tried to say something encouraging, but what I really wanted to say was, I think you were born in the wrong century. I didn’t yet know Val well enough to know how she’d take this, though. So I ended up uttering an indecisive, “Ah…”

  “You don’t like them?” She looked so crestfallen. About the curtains, of all things.

  “No, no, they’re lovely,” I assured her. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

  The path from Val’s and my hut to the main dining cabin was overgrown with bushes and littered with shell fragments. The sun here felt very much like the sun in Arizona, only hotter because of the humidity. I started sweating almost immediately.

  Casually, instead of heading straight to the dining hall, I veered off in the direction of Larissa’s
and Francis’s cabin. If Larissa was still in there, I could just act like I’d shown up to walk to the dining hall with them. If not, Francis and I could at least make a plan of when and how to meet up later.

  “Rebecca!” Mom’s sharp voice called behind me. I turned around and saw her standing on a wrap-around porch. “The dining hall is in here.”

  What could I do? I rerouted toward the dining hall, my calves working extra hard against the pliant sand, wiping the sweat rolling down my forehead into my hairline. Mom stood on the porch with her hands on her hips.

  Great, I thought. She already suspected me of something, clearly—which would make it that much harder for Francis and I to do what we needed to do. I wondered if I’d tipped her off by asking to share a cabin with Francis, or if Dr. Yin or Giovanni had already said something to her about our plans… or if she just knew me well enough to suspect what I might be thinking.

  I climbed up the wooden steps to the platform where Mom stood, and tried not to notice how she narrowed her eyes at me, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Anything you want to tell me, Rebecca?” she asked pointedly.

  I sighed, affecting an ‘I’m-too-tired-to-deal-with-this-right-now’ expression. “Such as?”

  She wasn’t buying it. “I know you better than you think I do, young lady.”

  “Karen,” came Mack’s chiding voice from behind her, and he emerged from the sliding glass door, placing a hand on Mom’s shoulder. Just the way he pronounced that one word seemed to convey all the rebuke he might have enumerated: all that I’d lost in that one day. His dark eyes tracked to me, filled with sympathy, and answering tears pricked my own eyes. Sympathy had always been my undoing.

  “I know, Mack,” Mom snapped as if continuing a conversation from earlier, shrugging him off. “But first things first. Rebecca, are you planning anything rash involving Liam? Because—”

  “Karen,” Mack said again, more sharply this time.

  “Because if you are,” Mom went on inexorably, “I want you to know that I have eyes all over this place, and you will not get far, do you hear me? What, Mack?” she whirled on him sharply, responding to his pressure on her waist and shoulder. “She’s my daughter!”

  A lump rose in my throat, but my eyes flashed at Mom. “First of all, I’m a fully grown, adult woman—”

  “With about the maturity and the life experience of a ten year old!” Mom shot back.

  “How dare you!”

  “LADIES!” Mack roared, jumping between us. “That’s enough! Karen, you are not rational enough to have this conversation right now, and you know it. Too much has happened today—”

  “Fine, you want to try talking some sense into her? Be my guest!” Mom declared, whirling on her heels and stomping back inside the shack, sliding the glass door closed with enough force to rattle the whole side of the cabin.

  I realized I was trembling. I wanted to shout and cry and run away all at once, but since I couldn’t decide which to do, I did none of them. Mack and I both just stood there, him looking at me and me not meeting his eyes, until Giovanni and Dr. Yin approached.

  “We heard shouting,” Dr. Yin ventured. “Is… this a bad time?”

  “No, no, go on in,” Mack said heavily. “Karen’s waiting.”

  When they left us alone again, Mack watched me still, and I finally looked up. His expression decided my dominant emotion for me, and my chin began to tremble in answer. He reached out his arms.

  “Come here,” he murmured.

  I started to sob in earnest, letting him wrap me in his arms and stroke my hair as I cried. I felt Mack gesture to whoever else had just arrived behind us to go inside also. There certainly wasn’t a lot in the way of privacy in these cabins.

  “You know your mom better than I do, of course,” Mack murmured, resting his chin on the top of my head, “but I have figured out one thing: when she gets scared, she doubles down on her attempts at control.”

  I snorted through my tears. “Ya think?”

  He chuckled softly. “She knows that, in various ways, you lost four people that were very close to you today. She does care. But at the moment, her fear of losing you takes precedence, so she’s trying to mitigate it the only way she knows how.”

  “With ultimatums and demands, like I’m six! Or no, I’m sorry, ten. So much better.”

  Mack shrugged. “Your age and the fact that she’s your mother has nothing to do with it, other than the fact that that’s why you trigger her so strongly. She’s M, remember? Ultimatums and demands are what she does.” He cradled my head in one hand against his shoulder. “I tried to tell her that there’s an awful lot of her in you, and it won’t work for that very reason, but… she’s not rational right now. It’s been a rough day for all of us.”

  I nodded against his shoulder, sniffling and feeling spent. He pulled me back by my shoulders to look at my face, and asked tentatively, “Do you want to tell me what Liam’s letter said?”

  I felt my expression begin to crumple again, but I’d had enough of that. I looked away from him, sniffling and trying to get ahold of myself. I shook my head, even though I did want to confide in Mack. But I couldn’t. Anything I said would go straight back to Mom.

  As if reading my thoughts, he said, “If there’s anything you want to keep just between us, you can tell me so. I won’t say a peep.”

  I turned wide, watery eyes on him. “You’ll keep a secret from Mom?” I asked with a tiny smile.

  He shrugged. “I will if it’s not my secret to tell. As long as it isn’t something that compromises your safety,” he added pointedly.

  He knows, too, I realized. He’s telling me not to confide anything he’ll be forced to report. I gave a short little laugh. So much for secrecy.

  “Liam’s letter… told me the same thing you told me earlier,” I confessed at last. “To stop clinging to Madeline so hard, and to open up to actual humans instead.”

  Mack raised his eyebrows, nodding, waiting for me to go on.

  “That’s all. Essentially.”

  He blinked. “He didn’t say… anything else?”

  I shook my head, and he looked simultaneously confused and relieved. I realized several things at once: he’d told Mom about the letter. They’d both assumed it had said he loved me, and that because of that, I’d go after him. If I didn’t mention to him Francis’s later interpretation of Liam’s behavior, nor Madeline’s accidental message, Mack would tell Mom that Liam hadn’t given me any reason to follow him. They’d just think he’d broken my heart—as he’d tried to do. They’d understand the reason behind it as clearly as Francis had done, but they wouldn’t explain it to me, for fear that I’d do exactly what I was trying to do now.

  Most importantly, if they believed I didn’t know how Liam felt, they’d stop watching me.

  Mack squeezed me tight again. “Are you okay? I mean, I know you’re not okay, but…”

  I sucked in a breath and met his eyes bravely, feeling myself slip into a role. Now that I understood the subtext of what he was trying to find out, I knew what I had to do. “I’m okay enough,” I told him with a watery smile. “But I’ll be better with something to do. It’ll distract me. I—don’t want to think too much right now.”

  Mack nodded sympathetically, chucking me under the chin. “Yep. Like your mother, through and through. Well, I tell you what: I know what she was going to assign to you anyway, and it’s probably best to let you two cool off and get some space from each other for a little bit. We managed to get some of the Commune members in neighboring Bahamas islands to supply us with a manufacturing printer and the raw materials by boat while we were in transit. She wants you to build another VMI machine with it.”

  I frowned. “Why? What’s the point?”

  “Alex,” he said. “Giovanni reprogrammed her for compliance, so if we take her out of maintenance mode, now you’d be able to run the same experiments on her that you ran on Francis and the re
st of us, and could actually study her ‘emotional’ responses this time. We’re still hoping for something we could use against the Silver Six.” He pointed to another cabin a stone’s throw from where we sat. “The equipment to do it is over there.”

  I bit my lip. The truth was, Liam had built the last VMI almost entirely by himself—I’d been so aware of him at the time that I hadn’t paid all that much attention to what he was doing. But he had shown me the process, and it looked pretty easy, if I had the instructions. We could even go back on the Commune history and pull them down that way, without having to bother anyone again. Kyle, Francis’s bartender, had been the one to send them over the last time.

  “I could use some help,” I murmured. “Will Francis be available?” I said it as casually as I could.

  “Well…” Mack frowned, wanting to humor me, I knew. “I know Karen wanted him working on the virus, along with Giovanni, Ana, and Larissa. But Giovanni is the key on that project. I’m sure they could spare Francis for a little while. Hold on, he’s inside. I’ll get him to come out here.”

  Mack got up and slid open the glass door, and I heard his low voice talking to the others in the room, gesturing, then pausing. Next came the answering creak of footsteps on wood from the inside.

  I was right: if Mack believed that Liam didn’t love me (or at least he believed that I believed that), then he wouldn’t suspect me at all. I’d be free to move about as I pleased—and with whom I pleased.

  I was terribly impressed with myself.

  Chapter 4: Rebecca

  Francis emerged from the dining hall cabin with a glint in his eye, a netscreen tucked under his arm. He led me to the cabin Mack had indicated, which contained the manufacturing printer. As soon as we stepped inside, the stuffiness overwhelmed me, and I went to open the windows to let some of the cool sea breeze inside.

  “Released,” Francis crowed. “Your film, Giovanni’s interview, and Val’s interview. And several thousand Commune members went to watch them all at once, which means it’s going to be picked up by the major media outlets pretty soon—though of course the Six are going to try to suppress it. And Val was dynamite… her obvious discomfort, genuine emotion and self-consciousness lent an air of authenticity to it.” He set his netscreen down on a rustic wooden table by a window overlooking the ocean, scooting up a chair, before adding casually, “Also, I heard from Liam.”