by Amy Tintera
DEDICATION
For Mom
CONTENTS
Dedication
One: Callum
Two: Wren
Three: Callum
Four: Wren
Five: Callum
Six: Wren
Seven: Callum
Eight: Wren
Nine: Callum
Ten: Wren
Eleven: Callum
Twelve: Wren
Thirteen: Callum
Fourteen: Wren
Fifteen: Callum
Sixteen: Wren
Seventeen: Callum
Eighteen: Wren
Nineteen: Callum
Twenty: Wren
Twenty-One: Callum
Twenty-Two: Wren
Twenty-Three: Callum
Twenty-Four: Wren
Twenty-Five: Callum
Twenty-Six: Wren
Twenty-Seven: Callum
Twenty-Eight: Wren
Twenty-Nine: Callum
Thirty: Wren
Thirty-One: Callum
Thirty-Two: Wren
Thirty-Three: Callum
Thirty-Four: Wren
Thirty-Five: Callum
Thirty-Six: Wren
Thirty-Seven: Callum
Thirty-Eight: Wren
Thirty-Nine: Callum
Forty: Wren
Forty-One: Callum
Forty-Two: Wren
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ONE
CALLUM
WREN WAS SILENT.
She stood completely still next to me, staring straight ahead with that look she got sometimes, like she was either happy or plotting to kill someone. Either way, I loved that look.
The other Reboots around us started jumping up and down and yelling in celebration, but Wren just stared. I followed her gaze.
The wooden sign must have been hammered deep into the orange earth, because it didn’t move even though the wind was brutal. The sign was at least a few years old, the words slightly faded. But still, I could make out every one:
REBOOT TERRITORY
ALL HUMANS TURN BACK
But “Reboot Territory” appeared to be nothing but flat, dry land and powerful, gusting wind. I was sort of bummed, to be honest. The Texas I knew was lush and hilly and green. This Texas was flat and orange. Who’d ever heard of orange dirt?
“It should be a couple miles that way!”
I turned at the sound of Addie’s voice. She brushed her long, dark hair out of her face as she studied the map to the reservation that the rebels had given us. She glanced back at the two crashed shuttles behind her, then turned and pointed straight ahead to empty space. The flat land gave way to a small hill in the distance, so perhaps there was something over there we couldn’t see yet. I certainly hoped so, otherwise Reboot territory was looking pretty pathetic.
Wren held out her hand and I laced my fingers through hers. I caught her eye and smiled and she attempted one in return, the way she did when her thoughts were elsewhere. A strand of blond hair escaped from her ponytail and she pushed it back, as usual not appearing to care where it landed or how messy her hair looked.
We started walking and the Reboots around us stole occasional glances at Wren. They all slowed until they were slightly behind us, letting her lead, but I didn’t think she noticed. I was pretty sure Wren was proud of her One-seventy-eight—her impressive number of minutes dead before the KDH virus caused her to Reboot—but she often seemed oblivious to the way people treated her because of it. Or maybe she was just so used to it that it didn’t faze her anymore.
Personally I would have been freaked out if everyone stared at me like that.
We walked in silence for almost half an hour as the Reboots behind us chattered, but now didn’t seem like the time for conversation. My stomach was in knots, my mind buzzing with what we were supposed to do if the reservation wasn’t here. How much fuel was left in those shuttles we just abandoned? Would Wren’s even work after that crash landing? It had only been hours since we escaped HARC. What if they were on their way to find us right now?
I held Wren’s hand tighter as we approached the hill. It wasn’t terribly steep, and we climbed to the top quickly.
I stopped, my breath catching in my throat.
If that was the reservation, then someone hadn’t explained it right. Someone should have piped up and said: “Oh, it’s not really a reservation. It’s more like a huge compound in the middle of some ugly orange dirt.”
They’d built a fence all the way around the compound, not unlike the HARC fences that surrounded the cities of Texas. Except this fence was made of wood and stretched at least fifteen feet high, hiding the interior from our view. Towers even taller than the fence were at either end, and there was a person standing at the top of both of them. The towers were simple wooden buildings that seemed to only function as lookouts. On each one, long blocks of wood crisscrossed in between the four beams of the tower, and a ladder ran up one side. At the top was a bare slab of wood with a roof, but it was open on all four sides.
Beyond the reservation was a lake and large patches of trees, and past that more flat, orange dirt. I couldn’t get over how big it was. That was a Reboot city? It had to be almost the size of Rosa.
Wren took in a sharp breath and quickly pulled her hand from mine. “They have guns,” she said, pointing. “Look at them. They all have guns.” She glanced around at the other Reboots. “Put your helmets on if you took them off. Raise your hands!”
I squinted at where she was pointing and took in a sharp breath. In front of the compound, lining the gate, was an army. There were maybe seventy-five or a hundred people, and it was impossible to tell if they were Reboot or human from this distance.
I tightened my helmet strap and raised my hands. “They could be humans, couldn’t they?” We had a hundred near-invincible Reboots, but if those were armed humans we could be in a lot of trouble. Only a shot to the head could kill a Reboot, but a few of us didn’t have helmets, and we hardly had any weapons at all. I swallowed as I looked at them again.
“They could.” She squinted as she raised her hands. “We’re too far to tell.”
If it turned out we escaped from HARC—the Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation, which enslaved Reboots and made us do their dirty work—only to get killed by a bunch of humans living in the middle of nowhere, I was going to be pissed. If they killed me, I was coming back from the dead (again) to hunt down the human rebels who told us about this reservation.
“If they’re humans, let’s pick a state now,” I said in an attempt to stay calm.
Wren’s expression twisted into confusion. “A state?”
“Yeah, you know. Those things they used to have in the rest of the country. I vote for California. I’d like to see the ocean.”
She blinked at me, that “Are you being serious right now, Callum, we’re in the middle of a very tense situation” blink. But a corner of her mouth turned up. “I vote for North Carolina. We can go to Kill Devil Hills and see where the virus started.”
“That’s great, Wren. I pick the ocean and you pick the death state.”
“Doesn’t North Carolina have a beach? Wasn’t it on the water?”
I laughed. “Fine. Death state it is.”
She grinned at me, her bright blue eyes searching mine for a brief moment. I knew what she was looking for. I’d been cured of the drugs HARC gave us to make us better, more compliant Reboots, but instead just made us insane, flesh-craving monsters. It had only been a few hours since she’d given me the antidote, and she was watching to see if it didn’t work, if she’d have to stop me from kill
ing and trying to eat someone again.
She hadn’t been fast enough in Austin.
I quickly dropped my gaze to the ground.
One of the men pulled away from the group and strode across the dirt, his black hair shiny in the morning sunlight. A gun swung from one of his hands and he had another tucked into the waist of his pants.
“Reboot,” Wren said quietly.
I looked from her to the man. How could she tell from this distance? I couldn’t even see his eyes yet.
“The way he walks,” she clarified, off my confused expression.
I turned to the man. He walked quickly, but evenly, like he knew where he was going but he wasn’t going to panic about it. I didn’t see how any of that said “Reboot,” but I wasn’t a badass five-year veteran Reboot who could take down nine men by myself. So what did I know?
The Reboots around us slowed as the man got closer, and many of them were watching Wren. I lowered my hands, nudging her back, and she looked at me as I tilted my head toward the man.
“What?” She took a quick glance around at the other Reboots, then turned back to me with a slightly exasperated expression. “Am I elected to talk to him or something?”
I tried not to grin, but I failed. Wren was so oblivious sometimes to how other people saw her, interacted with her, looked up to her. She’d been elected to talk to him miles back, before we ever saw anyone.
“Go,” I said, giving her another gentle nudge on the back.
She sighed that “What do you people want from me?” sigh and I bit back a chuckle.
Wren stepped forward and the man stopped, lowering the gun slightly. He was in his mid to late twenties, but his eyes were calm and steady. He didn’t have any of the insanity of the adult Reboot I’d seen on an assignment in Rosa, meaning he must have Rebooted as a child or teenager.
Adults who Rebooted couldn’t handle the change, but if you were younger when you Rebooted, you could age normally without going crazy. Not that I’d ever had that theory confirmed until now, since I’d never encountered a Reboot who’d turned twenty. They all “mysteriously” disappeared from the HARC facilities before they reached that age. I suspected HARC either killed them or experimented on them. Wren and I were seventeen, so we would have had less than three years left if we hadn’t escaped.
“Hello,” the stranger said. He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head to one side. He scanned the crowd briefly and settled on Wren.
“Hi.” Wren glanced back at me for a moment before turning to the man. “Um . . . I’m Wren. One-seventy-eight.”
He had the same reaction as everyone else. His eyes widened. He stood up straighter. Wren’s number earned her extra respect, even here. The reaction bugged me every time. Like she didn’t matter without that number.
Wren lifted her wrist, and the man stepped closer to examine the number and bar code printed there. I closed my fingers over my own 22 and wished I could scrub both numbers off our arms. A higher number supposedly meant a Reboot was faster, stronger, less emotional, but I thought that was just a line HARC fed us that the Reboots bought into. We all used to be humans, before we died and came back to life as Reboots. I didn’t see why the number of minutes dead mattered so much.
“Micah,” the man said. “One-sixty-three.”
One-sixty-three seemed very high to me. Wren had been the highest number in the Rosa facility, but I didn’t think any of the other Reboots had been that close to her. A guy named Hugo was the closest and he was, what, One-fifty?
Micah held up his arm. His ink was more faded than Wren’s, and I couldn’t make out the numbers from this distance. But Wren tilted her head and stared at him blankly. She gave people that look when she didn’t want them to know what she was thinking. It worked.
“I see you brought a few friends,” Micah said, a smile spreading across his face.
“We . . .” She turned and found Addie in the crowd and pointed. “Me and Addie broke into the Austin facility and released all the Reboots.”
Addie unhooked her helmet, her dark hair blowing in the wind. She ducked her head behind the taller Reboot in front of her, like she didn’t want to be recognized for this feat. I couldn’t really blame her. She hadn’t really asked for any of this. Wren came to rescue her as part of a deal made with Addie’s father, Leb—one of the HARC officers at Rosa—in exchange for helping Wren and me escape. Addie had just gotten caught up in the whirlwind.
Micah’s smile disappeared. His face was expressionless, his mouth open a tiny bit. His eyes flicked over the crowd again.
“That”—he pointed—“is the entire Austin facility?”
“Yes.”
“You released all of them?”
“Yes.”
He stared a moment longer before taking a step closer to Wren. He put his hands on her face and I saw her body jolt. I resisted the urge to tell him only a dumbass would touch Wren without her permission. He’d discover that one for himself if she decided she didn’t like it.
His hands covered most of her cheeks as he gazed down at her. “You. Are my new favorite person.”
Yeah, get in line, dude.
Wren laughed and stepped away from his grasp. She tossed a look back in my direction like, “Really? You made me deal with this guy?” I grinned, stepping forward and offering her my hand. She slid her fingers between mine.
Micah stepped back to address the group. “Well, come on then. Welcome.”
A few cheers erupted, and people began talking excitedly all around us.
“We already took their trackers out,” Wren said to Micah. “Way back near Austin.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” he said with a chortle.
It doesn’t? I frowned in confusion and saw a matching expression on Wren’s face, but Micah had already turned away to talk to a cluster of eager young Reboots. He began leading the way to the reservation and I started to follow, but I felt a tug on my hand as Wren stood her ground, watching the Reboots stream after Micah.
She was nervous, although it had taken me a while to learn what that particular expression looked like. She took in a small breath, her eyes darting over the scene in front of us.
“Everything okay?” I asked. I was nervous, too. When Wren was nervous, I was nervous.
“Yeah,” she said softly like it wasn’t. I knew she wasn’t as excited to go to the reservation as I was. She’d told me she would have stayed at HARC if it weren’t for me. I couldn’t begin to understand that, and it occurred to me for the first time that maybe she hadn’t just convinced herself she was happy as a HARC slave. Maybe she really was.
I wanted to think that she’d adjust and be happy here, too, but it was hard to say. I wasn’t even entirely sure what made Wren happy, besides beating people up. Of course, if I were as good at that as she was, it might make me pretty happy, too.
She barely nodded, as if convincing herself of something, and began walking in the direction of the reservation. The Reboots lining the gate were still as we approached, their guns all pointed at us.
Micah stepped away from the group, holding one hand up to his troops. “Weapons down! Hold your positions!”
As soon as he shouted the command, every Reboot lowered their gun. Their bright eyes were glued to us, and I took in a breath as I glanced down the line. There were so many. Most of them were about my age, but I spotted a few who seemed closer to thirty or forty.
The reservation Reboots were dressed in loose, light-colored cotton clothes, nothing like the black uniforms HARC made us wear, with the exception of the helmets on their heads. They were strong and well fed, and even though they were positioned for what they thought was an attack, no one seemed scared. If anything they were . . . excited?
Micah lifted a black box to his mouth that looked like one of the coms HARC used. He spoke into it, glancing up at the tower to our right. He listened for a moment, nodded, and said a few more words into it before sliding it into his pocket.
He took a
step backward and beckoned in our direction with two fingers. “Wren.”
She stood still next to me, her shoulders tense. Micah gestured with his head for her to come, and she let out a tiny sigh as she slipped her fingers from mine. People moved aside as she walked toward him, and I felt uncomfortable on her behalf. They were all staring.
Micah beamed as she stopped next to him. He reached down and grabbed her hand, making her jump. He had an expression of such pure adoration on his face that I would have been jealous if she weren’t looking at him like he was an alien.
Okay, maybe I was slightly jealous. She’d looked at me like I was an alien at first, too, but now I was pretty sure she liked me.
Well, more than pretty sure. Mostly sure. As close as you can get to sure without being totally sure. She had left her “home” (prison) for me, and then risked her life and took down an entire HARC facility to save me. I thought that was like Wren’s version of “I’m totally into you.” I’d take it.
Wren yanked her hand from his, but Micah seemed oblivious, beaming as he faced the reservation Reboots.
“Guys, this is Wren One-seventy-eight.”
A few of them gasped and I sighed inwardly. Any hopes I’d had of our numbers not mattering here were being further dashed by the second. Some of the Reboots were gazing at her with such awe and excitement that I wanted to slap them and tell them to stop being weird.
“She brings with her the entire Austin facility,” Micah continued.
More gasps. At least they were excited to see us.
“I didn’t do it by myself.” Wren scanned the crowd, but didn’t seem to find Addie. “Addie Thirty-nine and I did it together.”
Micah sort of nodded in that way people did when they weren’t really listening. He was grinning at the crowd of reservation Reboots. They were whispering, their faces cautiously optimistic.
Wren cast a confused look at me as Micah raised his hand. The crowd went silent.
“All right then,” he said. “I have good news.”
Thank goodness. I needed good news. I hoped it was something along the lines of “I have food and beds for all of you right now.”
Micah gestured to the tower. “I just got word that there are more HARC shuttles coming. They’re on their way right now.”
