He stopped, making Drake stop and look at him. “I swore to Riley that I wouldn’t put any of you in danger, Drake. Riley of all people knows that. Everybody I’ve ever loved is gone or damaged. I can’t keep doing this, I just can’t. And I can’t do nothing, not after what they did to Trina. What they did to her at Crylo… I know there are others there. Our people gave her to them, Drake. I have to end it somehow. But it’s my fight. Mine and Trina’s. That’s it. Why can’t all of you just let me do this?”
“Because you’ll get yourself killed, Brody, and you won’t get much done beyond that. And because I bloody like you too much to want to bury you.” And he smiled at him, a full-on smile, and he couldn’t be angry at him after that.
15
Huxer Genetics
Ella, May 17, 2236, The Flier
She didn’t know him from before the way Drake seemed to, but she liked how he was with Riley, liked that he was so ashamed of what he had that other boy do to him in the woods. She could see it on him, every time he saw the bandages around Riley’s chest, the way he lowered his eyes… he was good, deep down good. She could tell just from that.
When he ordered his soldier boys to shoot him like that, she grabbed onto Drake’s hand, pushing him forward, worried that they might, but he just leaned into her, and shushed her, telling her it would all be fine, and he seemed really sure of it all being fine. It’s as if they’d all arranged it beforehand. But looking at the boy, she knew he was nowhere near fine, and that one way or another, he would try again, even with the slave band on him.
After that night, the kid did what he was told. He drank his tea, ate his food, not saying anything to anybody, and then just slept or sat wherever they left him with his eyes closed. He wouldn’t even talk to Laurel, who was sweet to him, and who tried, really tried to get him to talk to her, but he just wouldn’t talk. He’d nod or shake his head at best, and the girl would walk away, looking every shade of sad. She felt for her, this little blue-eyed girl.
Everybody but him was in the clearing now. He sat in his seat on the flier, not moving anything, eyes closed, but there was no way he was asleep. It was well past noon, and she already knew he was one of them early to rise people. She came right up to him and waited for him to look at her. He did, surprised gray-blue eyes staring at her.
“I am Ella, the slave girl. Remember me? We haven’t officially met yet.” She put her hand out in front of her.
He shook it with both of his, the only thing he could do given the band around his wrists.
“I am Brody, the asshole. Nice to meet you.”
The kid still had spunk left in him. She could work with that. “I am going to sit down next to you, and we are going to talk, Brody. There are things I need to tell you, things I know that could help. At least I hope they’ll help.” And without waiting for permission, she sat down in the chair next to his, looking at him. He faced her, eyes calm, waiting, very much the soldier now. She hoped she wouldn’t make it worse for him by telling him what she needed to tell him. Hoped he was less fragile than he seemed behind all these walls he was constantly building around himself. She could tell she would do better just being straight with him, just what she saw and what she knew. She didn’t want him to feel that she was trying to protect him, the way everyone else seemed to.
“The babies, the ones that went into the tubes, they didn’t kill them. They took them to one of the orphanages. They treat them well enough, and then figure out what the kids would be good at, run tests on them and all that, and then they put them into the cities they built for them. Like the place we went to, Reston, only that was for Zoriner scientists, but they have a bunch more for other kinds of kids. Some of these end up as Alliance soldiers or the like. Anyway, it’s for kids who aren’t useful for the breeding thing. But they didn’t kill those babies. You need to know that. I lived in one of those places for years. That’s how I know. There were very few of us, the ones they took the way they did me, the ones who had parents. Most of them were born the other way, Trina way.”
He was looking at her strangely. “I remember Riley’s parents, and Samson, and your old house, even the way it always smelled from the different things Dave smoked. I remember all of that, but I don’t remember you at all. I should remember you as a kid before they took you, but I don’t. It’s been bothering me that I don’t. Like there is something wrong with me. Riley wouldn’t shut up about you when you were gone, vowing to find you even then, even as a little kid. I remember the stories, him talking about you, but not your face. I can’t picture that.” He turned away from her, his head down.
“I don’t remember you either, Brody. Don’t know if it makes it better or worse, but I don’t. I remember Riley being mad at you for a long time when you killed that dragonfly. I remember him sitting there with this dead bug on a needle, looking at it with tears in his eyes, hoping it would move, but it wouldn’t move, and him hating you for it, for making it not move anymore. I always thought of you that way afterward, as the boy who killed this bug that made Riley hurt like that, and I didn’t like you very much after that. So I guess we are even on that front,” she said quietly and looked at him, his head still down. She reached over and took him by the chin, making him look at her. “I know you now, Brody. That should count for something. I know how you are. I know that you’d rather die than hurt anyone you care about. I don’t need to remember or know anything else.”
He winced, and she let go of him, not wanting to embarrass him, and after a little while, he was looking at her calmly, the soldier again. She had to tell him the rest of it. She hoped she could do it right.
“Right after the first Rebellion, when most of the Zoriners were already pushed out of the cities, they, the Alliance realized that whatever they did to control the population growth backfired. It was an accident, but one they couldn’t reverse, and so the majority of the girls who were born were coming out with a gene that was turned off, the one they’d need to make babies, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about that. They tried everything, but it wasn’t working. So they had only a few generations to figure something out or they would all die out. Meanwhile, everyone who wasn’t in one of the cities was fine, and that was mostly our kind at the time. They gave every girl in the cities the shot that damaged the genes a few generations down the line, but we weren’t in the cities anymore.
“Anyway, there was this guy by the name of Huxer, a geneticist. He developed this test for the babies, baby girls, where they could tell if they were broken in that way or not as soon as they were born, hoping to find some that weren’t, and eventually, they did, but there were so few of them, it still wouldn’t be enough to keep the population going. That’s who Ams and Laurel are. That’s why they call them replenishers. I know you know some of this already. Here is what you don’t know. Huxer figured out that he could put an embryo of an Alliance kid into an unbroken Zoriner body and at about six months or so the gene that was turned off would get turned on again, so long as the host was healthy enough and didn’t have too many white blood cells.
“But instead of taking it to the Alliance, he created his own labs and clinics in their cities, all top secret and everything, and he got filthy rich selling girls who were made that way to any family rich enough to afford them. He just needed the hosts, and so he’d make a bargain with various Zoriner Councils in smaller places, places like Waller to trade these girls for things they needed, like basic meds, antibiotics, and such. That was over a hundred years ago. Huxer’s been dead for a long time, but his clinics are still there, and I don’t think either the Zorin Council or the Alliance are aware of what exactly they do there. The only reason I know what I know is because they made me work in one, and they thought I was a dumb slave who couldn’t read their screens. I think that’s why they took Trina. It wasn’t because of anything you did or anything your parents did. I thought you should know this before you do whatever it is you are planning to do. I haven’t told this to anybody yet. I thought
you should know first, before you decide to tell the rest of them.”
She got up then, and he stood when she did, looking at her face. “I wish I did remember you as a kid. I think we could have been good friends. Thank you, for this. For telling me.” He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it hard.
She took a step to him and hugged him, hugged him the way she hugged Riley, and he let her, not bolting from her. She liked this kid, really liked him, and she hoped with all her heart that whatever he was going to go off and do wouldn’t kill him. That he’d find something in between now and then to hold on to, the way Drake seemed to with her. “You should talk to that little blue-eyed girl, Brody. She means well. I know you know that already. I know she likes you, too. Everybody does by now, but she is wise, maybe wiser than all of us. She is a good friend to have, given that you won’t talk to Riley anymore. Talk to her,” she said softly and she let him be after that.
Drake was humming at that fire of his. She didn’t want to tell him any of this just yet. For the first time since they ran, she wanted to be alone, so she walked off to the cemetery where Trina was, and sat there by the elm tree trying to picture this girl when she was still alive. The girl who loved Brody. All the yellow flowers were blooming around her now, none hiding in their stalks anymore. She sat still, listening to the bees and the bugs move around, making their strange music, listening to the rustling of the leaves and the grass, smelling the fragrance of the blooms and the sap of the tree she was leaning against, and it all felt painfully familiar.
The breeze tickling her cheeks with her curls, the buzzing, the smells, all of it felt like memories, as if spilling out of her old diaries: her as a little kid running to the woods with Riley, only he’d have been too little to remember it the way she did. They’d sit there in some small clearing like this one, full of flowers and tree sap and bugs, silent and content for hours, forgetting the sadness in mom’s eyes or the anger on dad’s face when he beat Riley the way he did, forgetting the ugly shacks and the broken plants in their broken pots, and the icicles that tasted like dust. And she thought then that maybe that’s what she was missing about Waller all along, this running away from it, and Riley and Drake, of course, and poor Samson, and she wasn’t so sure she could stay here after that, in her old house full of sadness, full of ghosts of its broken people without it making her broken too.
She picked a few sweet-smelling flowers and put them neatly around the cross on Trina’s grave, and picked off the few dry branches and bits of moss that have fallen on the dirt that just started sprouting a few tiny blades of grass.
She would come back here for this, like Trina, when her time comes.
16
The Plan
Riley, May 19 2236, The Woods Outside Waller
Ams still wasn’t talking to him after he screamed at her for trying to steal the flier. He couldn’t help it. It’s the angriest he’s ever felt at her, and she didn’t even seem sorry for it. When he was finally done with the screaming, she just walked away from him and wouldn’t talk to him or anyone afterwards, not even Drake or Laurel. He didn’t have the patience for her now, not if she was going to act like a child, so he let her be, hoping she’ll come down soon enough.
He was more worried about Brody. He wasn’t sure he’d ever talk to him again, not after he put the band on him, but he didn’t see how he had a choice. Not after what Drake told him, and when Laurel ran up to him like that and told him that Brody really did want to die, that he as much as said it to her, he didn’t know what else to do. He remembered how calm his face looked when he ordered Trelix and Loren to shoot him, his voice too, as if he were ordering them to make a fire or put up their tents, not put bullet holes through him. He felt every shade of stupid for letting them walk over to him like that. Didn’t see it coming at all. He hasn’t heard him say one word to anybody since that night, days of just nodding or shaking his head, not looking at anybody, not saying anything. He was too calm for someone who had the band on his wrists, too calm for Brody who wasn’t free, and it scared him more than anything.
Riley found him in that clearing he liked, sitting against a birch, staring at the empty space in front of him. He crouched by him and leaned in to unlock the band.
“You don’t want to do that, Riley. I will beat the shit out of you if you do, or worse. I am pretty sure I am angry enough at you to kill you,” Brody said quietly, without looking at him.
He’ll have to do it this way then. He pulled his stun gun and knife from his belt, and set them down next to Brody, unlocked the band, and stood in front of him, holding his hands out to the sides, so Brody knew for sure he was unarmed. “Go ahead.”
Brody slid up the tree, slowly, looking at him for the first time, eyes angry, but sad, too, and didn’t move, keeping his hands in fists in front of him. “We’re done, Riley, you and I. I’m not going to touch you. Please, put the band back on and leave.”
“I can’t do that. We are going to figure this out. Right now, whatever it takes. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, but you know that. I was trying to protect you. So you’re angry at me for something else. Spit it out.”
He saw a muscle twitch in Brody’s jaw, and he wanted to just reach over and hug him, but he looked in enough pain as it was. “Please, just talk to me, whatever it is, Brody, just tell me.”
Brody stood still and silent, shutting him out, not even looking at him, and he couldn’t help himself. He lunged at his friend, hugging him, reaching for his head, and suddenly he was flying through the air, sharp pain in his jaw. He landed heavily in the grass, winded.
Brody towered over him, glaring at him. “I warned you. You need to put this on me, and leave me the hell alone.”
Riley felt the slave band land on him. He made himself sit up, and slowly got to his feet, the band sliding into the grass. It didn’t matter. He was done with it. It wasn’t working anyway. “I can’t. Just bloody talk to me. Spit it out, whatever it is you think I did to you…”
Brody turned and slowly walked back to the tree and picked up the stun gun, and without a word walked right up to him and put the gun against his chest. He felt the buzzing, the warmness of it. “You need to leave me be. Don’t make me do this, because you’re too stupid or too stubborn to not be where you’re not wanted,” Brody said in a strained voice and pressed the gun harder into his chest, his hand shaking slightly.
“I can’t, Brody. I can’t just leave you be,” he whispered, looking into his friend’s eyes.
Brody shook his head at him, and suddenly the gun wasn’t touching him anymore. It was tilting towards Brody’s head.
Riley hit him hard, without thinking, knocking him to the ground, the gun flying out of his hand. He ran over and picked up the still buzzing weapon, turned it off and stuck it in his belt before turning around. Brody was lying on his back with his arm over his eyes. He crouched next to him, trying to catch his breath, not saying anything. Didn’t know what he could say to him after that.
He waited, watching him, waited for a long time, and finally, Brody sat up, and looked at him calmly. “Do what you need to do. I won’t fight you anymore. Won’t fight any of you,” he said quietly and stood up and put his hands out for the band.
He had to, he knew. Didn’t have a choice, not after what Brody just tried to do, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He picked up the band, walked over to the closest tree, and smashed it against it over and over again, until the little light stopped pulsing, and then flung it into the woods, as far as he could, Brody watching him, hands still in front of him.
“What do you want from me, Riley? This game you are playing, I don’t get it. You won’t let me be, and you won’t let me leave. You promised to help me get Trina back, I get that. Well, she is back alright. What the hell else do you want from me?” he screamed at him.
“I want to help you with whatever it is you have planned. So does Drake. And your boys. I want you to let us. I’d rather not make you. So I’m asking you instead. As yo
ur friend, not your jailer.”
Brody shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t take you or Drake… You have Ella and Ams and Laurel, people you promised to protect, people who love you. I can’t take any of you. I bloody promised you. I won’t do it, Riley. I’ll take my crew and the flier.”
He wanted to laugh. For the first time in far too long, he wanted to laugh, so he did, letting all the tension go, Brody, staring at him, anger mixed with surprise in his eyes, but he couldn’t help it. This idiot friend of his was just trying to keep a bloody promise. He sat down in the grass, holding his head in his hands, trying to calm down, to wipe the last traces of laughter from his face.
“I’m glad I was able to amuse you,” Brody whispered, standing over him, hands behind his back, face serious.
He felt every shade of wrong for laughing then. He stood, facing him. “I’m sorry. It’s just… It was the last thing I thought you’d say after what I just watched you do with that gun. That you were worried about keeping your bloody promise. I’m sorry for laughing, Brody, I truly am.” And he was sorry, the way Brody looked at him.
“Am I free to go?”
A prisoner still, even without the band, someone who’s simply given up, and he had an awful feeling that he did this to him somehow.
He took a few steps towards him and put his hands on his shoulders, Brody not moving at all, just looking at him. “Please don’t do this. Don’t shut me out. I can’t take that. I’m sorry for laughing, and for keeping you here like this. Sorry for everything that I did to make you angry at me, but I swear I didn’t ever mean to hurt you, only I see that I did anyway. I was just trying to keep you alive… But you’re wrong about not having anybody. You do. You have all of us, and we bloody love you. Me, and Ella, and Drake, and Laurel and even Ams. And your boys… They’d rather die than do what you ordered them to. I know it’s hard to get it through that thick skull of yours, but what happens to any of us is not your fault… I know what you’re trying to do, but you can’t. You can’t protect us from you. It’s unfair to everybody.”
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 30
