by Amy Tintera
I’d always been aware I lived in one of the poorest areas outside of the slums, but I’d liked my neighborhood. The guy who lived in the blue house across the street used to tell me I was “growing like a weed” every time we ran into each other. Even if he’d just seen me the previous day.
My house still had the auction sign in front and I took in a deep breath as I stepped onto the front porch. I hadn’t locked it when I left a few days ago, and the doorknob turned easily when I tried.
It was empty, exactly as I’d left it. The kitchen cabinets were still open from where I’d hunted through them for food.
I trudged down the hallway to my room. The door was cracked slightly and I pushed it open.
I hadn’t made the bed before we left, and it was the first thing my eyes found. The sheets were rumpled, one of the pillows half hanging off the bed. My chest tightened. I’d barely slept that night, the first and only time I’d had a girl in my bed, and the memory of the way Wren had curled up against me while she slept hurt suddenly.
I took in a ragged breath and tried to stop my brain from going down that path. A corner of my mind was trying to prepare me for the fact that she might be gone, and I refused to listen. Giving in for even a second was so painful I had to squeeze my eyes shut and focus on something else.
I yanked open one of my drawers and started shoving clothes into my empty backpack. I finished and meant to head for the door, but instead I found myself plopping down on the bed. The bag slid to the ground and I swallowed as I closed my eyes.
What was I supposed to do if she was gone? Lead the Reboots into Rosa? Find the bounty hunters and exact revenge?
That night we’d spent at Tony’s, I’d told Wren she should help the humans and keep fighting if I died. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to live another day, and I was also pretty sure she had no intention of helping or fighting anyone. She’d tried to reassure me, but I could see in her eyes that she didn’t mean it. I understood that now. The thought of jumping back into the fight if Wren was dead was exhausting. I would probably still do it, though, if only for vengeance.
I rubbed a hand across my forehead. If she came back—when she came back—we’d do whatever she wanted. Leave, stay, fight, whatever. Maybe she’d been right about staying out of it. Maybe I’d already done enough for the humans and we should leave. Taking charge of the Reboots and leading them to Austin had been easy. Getting humans to side with us? Not so much. Maybe I needed to focus on saving the Reboots, and let the humans solve their own problems.
The sound of the door opening made my head pop up.
Someone was in the house.
I jumped to my feet and swung my backpack over my shoulder. Would my parents come back? Why hadn’t I considered that? HARC was gone; they could come back and reclaim their house if they wanted. Or had Wren found me? My heart soared for a moment, until I remembered that someone at the gate would have radioed to let me know. Everyone knew I was waiting for her.
“Callum?”
I blinked at the sound of my younger brother’s voice from the front of the house. How did he know I was here?
Footsteps headed in my direction as I pulled open the bedroom door and strode into the hallway. David stopped short a few feet away, jumping when I emerged from my room.
“Hi,” he said.
It had only been a few weeks since I’d died, but he looked older, different even than when I last saw him after tracking my parents down in the Austin slums with Wren. He was almost fourteen, but the dark circles under his eyes and tight expression on his face made him appear closer to my age.
“Hi,” I said hesitantly. I’d often pictured his face when I came to the door that night. My parents had been horrified, but David’s expression was more one of shock. I’d clung to the idea that maybe he didn’t hate me as much as they did, and I found that my hands were shaking now that I was faced with him again.
He swallowed, shifting from foot to foot. We’d been close before I left, friends even, and I’d never seen him nervous around me. I took a small step back, trying to hide my own nervousness.
“I talked to some of the Reboots in the slums,” he explained. “They said you’d come over to the city side. I figured you’d come here.”
I tightened one hand around the strap of my backpack. “Do Mom and Dad know you’re here?”
“No.” He shrugged and sort of laughed. “They’re holed up in the apartment. I snuck out. When I heard there were a bunch of Reboots in town I knew it was you.”
I cocked my head. “How’d you figure that?”
“Because you came to our place and then, like a day later, the whole city explodes and all the Reboots are gone. Then the city explodes again and all the Reboots are back.” He grinned. “You kinda bring trouble with you.”
“Hey, that first time wasn’t my fault. I was basically unconscious.” I smiled at his perplexed expression. “It’s a long story.” Relief started to wash over me, and I pushed back the sudden urge to hug him. We weren’t really the hugging type when I was a human, so now seemed like a weird time to start.
He nodded, clearing his throat. “You probably have a lot of stories, huh? You were at HARC?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your number?”
I held up my bar code. “Twenty-two.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re, like, practically still human.”
I almost laughed, almost opened my mouth to tell him that was what all the Reboots thought, too, but I hesitated. Was I practically still human? I would have said yes last time I saw him, but now everything felt different. I’d killed someone and I’d been fully prepared to kill Micah, too. I hadn’t, but I certainly never threatened to kill anyone as a human. On the other hand, I wasn’t the monster my parents thought I was, either.
I shrugged, still not sure how to respond, and his gaze slid down to my waist, like he was noticing the two weapons there for the first time. “Mom and Dad feel bad about what happened. They just weren’t expecting . . .”
I started down the hall, walking past him into the living room. “It’s fine. Other people had warned me about what could happen if you drop in on your family. I should have listened.” I kept my face turned away from him, not wanting my expression to betray how much that had hurt.
“No, you shouldn’t have,” David said, following me as I headed for the front door. “We didn’t even know you Rebooted. Personally I’m glad you’re alive. I mean, again.”
A smile crossed my lips as I reached for the doorknob. “Mom and Dad are going to freak out when they realize you’re gone, you know.”
“Like I care.”
I opened the door and turned to him. He was thinner than last time I’d seen him. We’d rarely had enough to eat, but he looked worse now, and it occurred to me that I must look better. I’d gained some weight and muscle at HARC, faster than I would have if I were a human. I’d never considered it before, but maybe I was the lucky one.
“You should tell Mom and Dad to come back, reclaim the house,” I said. “You don’t want someone else moving in.”
“You could come tell them yourself.”
I stepped onto the porch. “I’ll pass on that.”
“I think they want to see you.”
“Then they can come see me. I’ll let you know where I’m staying in the slums.” I frowned as I headed to the auction sign in the front yard. “I should figure that out, I guess.” I threw the auction sign on the porch and glanced at David. I didn’t want him to go yet. I wanted to talk to him, to make sure he knew that even though I was different, I wasn’t a monster.
I jerked my head toward the street. “I’m doing some rounds, letting the humans on this side know where they can meet with people in the slums. Want to come? Sometimes people run away when they see a Reboot coming. Might be helpful to have a human along.”
He cocked his head. “Are you sure it’s because you’re a Reboot? It could just be your face.”
I smiled
as I tried to hold back a laugh. “Do you want to come or not?”
“Yeah, all right.”
Two hours later, I headed back to the slum wall with David. There had been more people than I expected in the cities, ignoring HARC’s order and curious to find out what the Reboots were doing. Tony and the rebels had done a good job of spreading the word about their partnership with Wren and Addie, and the human attitude toward Reboots seemed to be more one of cautious hope than fear. Luckily the rebels hadn’t had time to explain about Micah, and I decided to keep it that way.
“Have you ever been shot?” David asked, continuing his endless stream of questions.
“Yes. A lot, actually.”
“Stabbed?”
“Yes. And burned. And electrocuted. And I’ve had a lot of broken bones.”
“Electrocuted?” David asked, mouth hanging open.
“On the Rosa HARC fence. It wasn’t actually that bad. Getting burned is the worst, I think.”
He kicked the dirt as he frowned at the ground. “So I know HARC said you were all bad or whatever, but obviously they were wrong. Do you think that maybe you’re actually all better? Like, maybe they should be trying to make us all Reboots instead of fighting with you.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Why not? We’d all be practically invincible.”
“And we’d all be the same. I think we should all just be who we’re supposed to be.”
David shrugged. “I guess.”
I stopped as we approached the slum wall and cocked my head toward it. “Go ahead. I’m headed to one of the watchtowers for the night.”
“Why? Are you making sure HARC doesn’t come back?”
“Among other things.” Thinking about Wren out there somewhere made my stomach churn.
“All right.” He started to hoist himself over the wall, turning back to me. “I’ll come find you again tomorrow, okay?”
A smile spread across my face. “Okay. Be careful, though. Tell Mom and Dad where you’re going next time.”
He snorted as he started to climb. “Yeah, right.”
“David.”
“Fine, whatever.” He grinned at me before disappearing over the side of the wall.
TWENTY-FOUR
WREN
THE OFFICERS PUT SOMETHING OVER MY HEAD.
My vision was black as they dragged me across the dirt to where the shuttle was humming. It was getting increasingly harder to breathe through the bag, and I clenched my fists as I wriggled my hands in my handcuffs. They were too tight.
“Secure her legs before she gets on this shuttle. You can’t take any chances with this one.”
I took in a tiny breath at the sound of Officer Mayer’s voice. He sounded so pleased with himself.
Someone shoved me to the ground and I kicked my legs, coming in contact with nothing but air.
“Give her one of the shots. I’m serious about keeping a short leash on this one, boys.”
A needle pricked my neck and I pressed my lips together, stuffing back the urge to scream.
The world went dark.
My eyes wouldn’t open right away. I was awake, and I could hear the bustle of humans around me, but my lids were glued shut.
“She’s coming to, I think,” an unfamiliar voice said.
“Is everything secure?” Officer Mayer asked.
“Yes.” There was the sound of jiggling chains, and I felt them rub against my wrist. “All set.”
I took in a sharp breath and tried to blink, letting in a tiny portion of light. The bag that had been over my head was gone. My left leg ached, and I squinted down to find the knee smashed, blood soaking my already-dirty pants. Lovely.
We were in a shuttle. I lay on the metal floor, handcuffed to a bar on the side by my wrists. Someone had chained my ankles together as well. Officer Mayer sat in the seat in front of me, an expression of supreme satisfaction on his face.
They hadn’t killed me. I met his eyes as I realized this fact. Was I still valuable to them, after I’d caused all this trouble?
I shifted slightly and Officer Mayer watched my face closely. He looked down at my leg, which clearly was going to take hours to heal from those drugs they’d given me. Longer, if I wasn’t able to put the bone back in the right place. He was almost eager as he searched my face.
“Does it hurt a little, One-seventy-eight?”
I snorted. Was he kidding?
The shuttle began to descend and I tried to twist around to see where we were. The pilot’s door was closed.
We landed and the shuttle door slid open to reveal four guards, weapons pointed at my chest. Suzanna Palm, chairman of HARC, stood behind them, her face excited.
“All four of you,” Officer Mayer said, gesturing to the guards. “Two carrying her and two keeping a gun on her at all times. You can’t let her out of your sight, even for a minute.”
One side of my mouth hitched up into a smile. It was flattering, how scared they were of me.
A guard unchained me and handcuffed my wrists together. He grabbed me underneath the arms, hoisting me to my feet, and the pain screamed through my leg. Another guard snatched them up and I had to clench my fingers into fists to keep from crying out.
The guard holding me by the boots wrinkled his nose, turning his face away from me. I was cold to him, dead and gross.
For a moment, I saw Micah’s point about getting rid of them all.
They carried me out of the shuttle and I twisted in the human’s arms, trying to catch a glimpse of where they were taking me. I didn’t recognize the large, brick building. It wasn’t Rosa. Or Austin.
As we passed through the entrance, the cold artificial air hit me and I shivered. The floors were white tile, the walls a nice cream color.
“Downstairs,” Suzanna said. She glanced back at Officer Mayer. “Is she prepped already?”
“She is.”
“Good. Put her in the cell for now.”
The guards took me inside an elevator and we dropped several floors before the doors slid open again.
It was not as nice down here.
Rows of empty cells stretched out in front of me. HARC cells were usually glass and white and sterile, but here they were dirty little rooms with bars.
They dropped me on the floor of one in the middle, and I pressed my face into the concrete floor to distract myself from the pain.
The bars slammed shut behind them and I struggled to a sitting position. There wasn’t even a bed in the cell. Just a toilet in the corner. The cells in front of me were empty, and silence engulfed the room.
I scooted back against the wall and looked around the tiny space. No windows anywhere. There was no way to tell what time of day it was. And judging by how many floors we’d dropped in the elevator, we were well hidden.
My heart sank as I took a deep breath. If I accepted I was going to die here maybe that would make it easier. Only a few weeks ago, I’d lived with the possibility that I could die at any minute and would certainly die within three years. I needed to get back to that place.
But that place was gone, apparently. That place was taken up with Callum, and my chest kept tightening as I wished I’d given him a better good-bye. I had no idea what that good-bye would be, but the one we had seemed inadequate.
I moved my legs slightly, forgetting that one was still broken. I closed my eyes against the blinding pain, trying to push it back to where I couldn’t feel it. It was getting harder the longer I went without healing. I wasn’t used to having to deal with broken bones for more than a few minutes. Even in training, when Riley had broken multiple bones a day, I’d had a short recovery period between each one. This pain was constant, and I didn’t like it.
I leaned back against the wall, examining my mangled leg. What if it never healed? What if they figured out how to stop healing altogether one of these days? What if each shot was worse, and that leg healed all wrong and ugly? It would probably look worse than my chest.
I s
tarted laughing, a hysterical laugh that got louder as the panic began to fully set in.
TWENTY-FIVE
CALLUM
THE AREA BEYOND THE WATCHTOWER WAS QUIET ALL NIGHT, AND still except for the occasional swaying tree. I found the tower closest to the rebels’ tunnel and paced alone in the small space all night. When morning came, I trudged past the fence and scouted the area, but there was nothing.
It was time to go find her.
“Leaving my post,” I said into my com. “Coming in.”
“Got it,” Riley’s voice replied.
I headed over the hill and past the outskirts of town to the slum wall. The city was starting to move, and there were a lot more humans out and about today. Their attitude seemed to be one of avoidance, like they were going to ignore the Reboots and pretend none of this was happening. Whatever worked for them.
I hoped my parents and David had come back last night to the house; otherwise it was probably in the process of being claimed by someone else.
I reached the wall and hopped over, landing softly on the other side, then I started down the dirt path in the direction of the schoolhouse. I wondered how much equipment HARC had left in the Austin facility. Any transport vans or shuttles? Maybe I could snag one and head out to look for Wren and Addie. Screw what everyone said about it being too dangerous. She would search for me, even if there was a high likelihood of HARC spotting her.
A Reboot ran across my line of vision, and then another. I frowned, turning to see where they were headed.
I could see nothing but houses and trees, but beyond that was the HARC fence.
I broke into a jog.
There were no shuttles, no shooting, no panicking. It wasn’t HARC at that fence.
“Reboot at the south fence.” Riley’s excited voice came through my com.
I ran faster as a clump of Reboots came into view. They were standing in front of the fence around someone. I couldn’t see who but—
