Catalyst

by Lydia Kang

  “Stay here,” I tell her. “Watch Ana, okay? Make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone. She could get us in more trouble if she’s spooked.”

  Dyl nods.

  Kria and Marka head to the shuttle hatch with grim expressions. When they see Cy and me, they begin to protest, but Cy tells them firmly, “You’re not doing this alone.”

  He threads his fingers into Marka’s, and I marvel at how beautiful he is. This is what I fell in love with. In times like this, the strength of his love overshadows anything on this marble of a planet.

  Kria turns to all the kids. “Everyone stay in here. Please don’t fight. I don’t want anyone hurt or killed. There’s already been enough death today,” she says.

  Kria punches the button to open the hatch. The bright light gradually fills our space as it lowers. The other hoverpod has already opened and spilled its contents—fifteen armed police in an arc around us. They wear gray uniforms and helmets that obscure their faces. Shiny, narrow black neural guns are pointed at us.

  “Raise your hands,” one of the officers barks at us. We comply, and for a second I’m irritated that Cy’s no longer able to hold Marka’s hand. “How many are in your hoverpod?”

  “Twenty. Two are dead,” Kria responds. “We need medical care for a few others. There was an accident in our home.”

  “Cy. Do you think your trait will work through their uniforms?” I whisper through my teeth. “You might be able to do something.”

  I don’t think so. That would be a disaster. He’s staring straight at the officers with zero expression, but his voice is impatient, nervous.

  “We already are a disaster,” I growl.

  “Lie facedown, with your hands on your heads,” the officer commands. Cy, Marka, and I carefully drop to our knees, but Kria hesitates.

  “Please, may I have a word? We only want to—” she starts, when the nearest officer makes a tiny movement of his arm. A hissing zing sounds and the neural bullet strikes Kria straight in the chest. There’s an eternity in a second, when her body hovers between control and oblivion, before succumbing to the shot and hitting the grassy soil.

  “Kria!” I cry out, but immediately regret my word when the same officer pivots to aim at me. “Never mind!” I yelp, hastily flattening myself to the ground and slapping my hands on my head.

  “You’re a smart girl,” the officer says. “Let’s restrain these four. Don’t touch them,” he warns.

  My arms are twisted hard behind my back, and my wrists and hands are gummed together with something that feels hot and gooey, then cools immediately to a hard but rubbery material. Plasticizer cuffs. Nearly unbreakable and form-fitting.

  “Hmm. Look, these are Inky bracelets,” an officer comments. “You two are escapees, huh? Impressive. Hard to get out of there. They’ll claim you, of course, if you ever get out of prison. Alive, that is,” the gruff voice says.

  “May I go to prison too?” a man’s voice calls playfully from far away, beyond the clearing where our hoverpods are.

  I twist my neck around to find the source of the brash voice. I barely make out a tiny blur of yellowish white beyond the brush. Someone tall, with blond hair.

  “It’s Endall!” I whisper to Cy.

  The lead officer points to the woods. “I see him in my scanner. It’s just one guy. Unarmed, and skinny too. You three, go get him.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see the trio march toward the forest edge, holding their neural guns carefully in front of them. They disappear into the shadows of the looming trees. There’s a telltale zing sound, followed by two others. A faint thump sounds, like a body hitting the ground.

  That was quick.

  “All right, let’s get the rest rounded up,” the lead officer says as they walk toward the hoverpod. But they don’t get far. All the kids from Wingfield slowly exit the hoverpod with their hands in the air, like they’ve already been trained on how to surrender properly. Dyl and Ana are in the front, and Dyl blinks her eyes innocently.

  “Can we go to prison too?”

  What are they doing? Cy wonders. I have no answer for him. I suppose they’re making it easier for the police, but still.

  “All right. Everyone in a line. Facedown on the ground.”

  Everyone complies to form a long line behind us, keeping their hands over their heads. When they see Hex’s four arms and Vera’s green face, some of the officers shift their weight with discomfort. Wilbert isn’t with them.

  The police notice too. “There’s another one inside. Go.” Two officers obey their commander, and go around the line to enter the hoverpod. I count the remaining officers. Only ten now. Why haven’t the three returned with Endall’s body?

  “I said facedown on the ground,” the main officer yells, holding his neural gun higher.

  The air is ripe with tension as none of the kids move. Slowly, they drop their arms.

  And then, it’s chaos.

  Five kids drop to the ground, as if they’d been hit by guns. Another six scatter, screaming. The officers start shooting their neural guns and the air crackles with bullets. I shriek when Hex tackles an officer and they land with a crunching thud only inches from my face. The officer’s neural gun skitters over the grass.

  “Caliga!” Hex yells, and they continue to wrestle. Hex won’t punch him, just takes blow after blow to his abdomen as he wrestles with the officer’s head. A well-placed boot kicks Hex hard and he rolls away, huffing in pain, but the officer’s helmet is tucked away in Hex’s arms. The sandy-haired policeman stands up, preparing to fire another weapon, when Caliga bear-hugs him.

  “Hey! Sleepy time!” she says, breathing hard after running over. The officer falls to his knees. Caliga keeps her hands on his face for another ten seconds.

  “Cal, don’t kill him. If we kill anyone, we’ll really be criminals,” Cy urges her. Caliga lets go and nods, before searching his pocket. She pulls out a small lipstick-sized instrument.

  “Aha! I saw this on a holo show once,” she says. She twists the tube and presses it into the solid plasticizer around my hands and wrists. The material liquefies with the pulse from the device and falls to the ground in a wet glob. My hands are free. She helps Cy and Marka, before running after Hex, who’s wrestling with another officer.

  It’s crazy. Some of the kids have been shot and are immobile on the ground. Others are trying to fight. Some, who faked being shot, are popping up and fighting. Vera lands a powerful roundhouse kick to an officer’s head, and Tegg is disarming another one nearby. Three other officers surround the fighting pair. They keep shooting at Tegg, but the neural bullets ping uselessly off his hardened skin. Realizing their mistake, they take out knife-tipped batons and close in.

  “Tegg!” I screech, but it’s too late. He turns only to get a knife straight into his shoulder, where his armor is weakest. Tegg cries out and another officer dives forward to stab him in the neck. The brightest crimson sprays into the air as I shriek again.

  “This is crazy!” Cy yells, checking the pulse of Caliga’s downed officer.

  “Tell everyone not to fight to kill! We’ve got to bring the police down without seriously injuring them.” I look over my shoulder to where Hex and Vera have immobilized another officer, but Hex’s face is a bloody mess now. “We’re not going to win this one by one.”

  Cy kneels down and concentrates hard, shutting his eyes.

  Listen, everyone. Do not kill any officers. It will only hurt us. Just disarm, or knock them out. And someone figure out how to open up their helmet visors.

  Marka nods at us from across the field, where she’s tending to the fallen. One of the kids is shocking one of the guards, who convulses and falls backward. He must have Micah’s trait. Ana and Dyl aren’t anywhere to be seen, but bodies of the fallen lie everywhere. We’re losing.

  A voice booms across us from the police hoverpod.

  “Reinforce
ments are arriving shortly. We will be shooting to kill. You will not be hurt if you lie down with your hands on your head.”

  Everyone stops fighting. Marka looks around to the few left standing, and shouts, “Stop fighting! Everyone! Please, stop. It’s over.”

  Hex wipes his bloody face and his shoulders fall, exhausted. Caliga takes her hands off an officer and drops to her knees, ready to surrender.

  “It’s really over, isn’t it?” I whisper to Cy.

  Cy closes his eyes, then covers his face. We both fall to our knees. Someone runs out of the doorway of the police hoverpod, face smeared in dirt and blood. He’s wearing body armor, but doesn’t look like an officer. He’s holding a helmet in his arms, with wires sticking out the edges of the visor. Only his dandelion-yellow hair tells me who it is.

  “Endall!” I gasp. I thought he was shot in the woods. What was he doing inside the police craft? He smiles over at me and Cy, before hollering, “I owe you for the watch, Zelia. Here you go.” His hand digs into the helmet, and suddenly the face visor of every officer slides open with simultaneous clicks. Their expressions show surprise and shock at losing their face protection.

  “Fire on them!” the lead officer yells, because he’s lost communication inside his helmet.

  Most of the Wingfield kids cower, covering their heads and diving to the ground. The only people standing are me, Marka, and Cy, who squeezes his hands into fists and concentrates so hard that the veins in his temples and neck bulge. Nothing happens.

  Each officer takes careful aim at one of us. One of them walks straight up to Cy. “We won, freak. It’s over,” he says with a grim face. The neural gun presses hard into Cy’s chest as he smiles.

  Cy says nothing, still trembling all over. He won’t look anyone in the eye.

  None of them aim at our faces, only our hearts. We’ve surrendered now, and they’re still going to kill us. I see Marka’s gaze travel over her children, helpless. Tears wash a thin path down her dirty cheeks.

  The officer’s face goes starkly ashen. His trigger finger releases, and his arms jerk once, twice, before his eyes roll into his head. The neural gun drops from his flaccid hand.

  And then, as if an unseen person is cutting their invisible marionette strings, every officer collapses to the ground in a synchronized fall.

  The silence that remains is so sharp, no one dares to speak or breathe at first.

  Cy keeps his concentration for a few more seconds before relaxing. His arms and legs are shaking so hard that he stumbles to the ground. I run to throw my arms around him.

  “Oh my god! Cy, you did it!” I shriek. The others yell and scream in triumph, and the entire collective breathes again.

  “I didn’t think I could,” he says wonderingly.

  “I did,” I whisper.

  Hex runs over and offers a bloodied hand to help Cy up. “We’d better go. They’ll all wake up in a minute.”

  “Everyone, back to the hoverpod! Now!” I yell as loudly as possible. Most of the kids are okay, but so many of them had been hit with the neural guns, they’re hardly able to walk. We all carry the fallen with us as fast as we can. Wilbert’s still unconscious where he was hit with no fewer than four bullets, so Kria takes the controls, even though she can barely walk.

  “Wait! Endall! I need another minute. Please.”

  “Zelia, that other police hoverpod’s going to be here any minute,” Kria warns.

  “I’ll be quick.” I run out onto the field, but I don’t have to yell for Endall at all. He’s standing right there among the fallen, peeling away his dirty flannel shirt. Underneath, he’s wearing full body armor, the kind that’s illegal in almost every State because it repels neural gun strikes.

  “Clever, right?” he says, grinning. “I wear it all the time. It’s easy to fake a neural gun hit. Law enforcement relaxes too much in the presence of an unconscious body.” He laughs, a sound that’s bright and unrestrained. I haven’t felt that way in too long.

  “Endall. Thank you for what you did. We’d never have escaped without you.”

  “What? For opening a few helmets?”

  “It was more than that.” I step closer and try to touch his arm, but he shrinks away from me. “Endall. Come with us.”

  “No. But thank you.”

  “But your watch! It won’t last forever. How are you going to survive here?”

  Endall only smiles, and it makes me distinctly uncomfortable. It’s the closed grin of someone who holds all the answers you ever wanted to know, but won’t share.

  “Here, Zelia.” He takes one of my hands, and with his other, digs into his breast pocket. He withdraws the pocket watch and lays it in my outstretched palm. It’s blood-warm from being carried close to his chest.

  I shake my head. “I can’t take this!”

  “That’s your choice. This is mine.” His face lights with a brilliant, mirth-filled happiness, before he turns and runs into the forest.

  “Endall!” I yell. “Endall!”

  He doesn’t return. I’m left clutching the piece of antiquated timekeeping that was the only thing keeping him alive.

  I don’t run after him.

  Because I know I’ve just lost an argument that I was never meant to win.

  I turn and run back to the hoverpod, which is humming loudly, waiting for me. I gallop inside and Cy shuts the hatch, just as the police lying on the field begin to stir fully awake again. We head to the cockpit and strap into chairs behind Kria and Marka.

  “So,” Kria says to us. “I’m heading to Canada, unless anyone else can give me a damn good reason not to. Because after this battle, no one is going to let people like us live in their State.”

  People like us. That’s the problem. So long as we’re considered people who aren’t allowed to exist, we’ve got no future. We’ll be extinct, before we even have a chance to really live.

  Extinct.

  The single word swirls inside my head, needling me.

  Wait a second.

  “Does anyone here have a holo I can use?” I ask.

  “Sure,” Marka says, unscrewing her holo stud. “But what for?”

  I take the stud and screw it into my earlobe, turning it on and searching for a State law database.

  “I think I may have found a new home. For everyone.”

  CHAPTER 35

  WE FLY WEST, NOT NORTH.

  The second we left Wingfield, we were quickly followed and now have six hoverpods trailing us at an uncomfortably close distance. As long as we stay in unregulated airspace and don’t do anything offensive, they won’t touch us. But the second we land, they’ll arrest us.

  At least, they’ll try. We have other plans.

  Vera’s cleaned up Hex’s bloodied face as well as possible. They steal a kiss when no one is looking and Vera sheds a few tears of relief into Hex’s black hair. I told everyone to be camera ready and put on their best doe-eyed looks. Hands will need to be held. The smallest and weakest will be carried, even if they can walk.

  Julian’s political lesson plays back in my head on an endless loop. Greed, fear, sympathy; greed, fear, sympathy. It’s time to play the sympathy card, and play it well. I’ve been writing a speech incessantly since we figured out where to land. I’ve run it by everyone, tweaking it here and there. When I’m done, I present it to Marka, but she shakes her head.

  “You read it, Zelia.”

  “I don’t know if I’m the right person to speak for everyone.”

  “I think you are.”

  I turn the speech off on my holo and sit down, staring out the cockpit where the hoverpod is now slicing through clouds that cover Sacramento. Marka stands behind me and starts to braid my hair, then thinks twice.

  “Actually, I like it when it’s frizzy.”

  Kria raises her hand. “My fault!”

  I la
ugh. It is her fault. But I can’t seem to hold the same stubborn anger against her anymore. She was as much a victim of my dad’s manipulation as anyone. She’ll never take Marka’s place, but I suspect that a heart can expand in infinite ways that can’t be measured by a cardioscope. I’m gradually feeling the stretch, and I’m okay with it.

  The hoverpods have surrounded us in a perfect hexagonal formation ever since we entered the legal airspace of California. Kria steers toward the city hoverport.

  “Get ready, everyone,” Kria announces.

  “Did you already contact the press?” I ask.

  “Yes. I spoke to my personal contact in California, and Marka spoke to Senator Milford’s prior press secretary. It’s going to be a media circus, as requested.”

  “Good,” I say, but my heart thrums hard against my chest and I’m hyperventilating without thinking. Hyperventilating! What a weird sensation. I touch the implant in my neck, and Kria sees me fiddling with my scar.

  “I’m sorry. I thought I was helping.”

  “It’s okay. I mean, I understand.”

  “So you still want it out?”

  I almost blurt out a yes, but don’t. The last day or so, it’s been one huge thing I haven’t had to think about as much. Granted, it’s still weird to feel the slightly jerky push and pull of my chest wall expanding and contracting every minute of the day. I miss being in control. The funny thing is, most people don’t wish for that level of control. Dad had always had his finger on the pulse of every part of my life. Getting a permanent implant was the only thing I’d resisted, even when I was the docile girl from over a year ago. It’s hard to let go of that bit of rebellion. And yet . . .

  “I think I’ll keep it. For now,” I decide. Kria nods and Marka winks at me. That one wink tells me that she’d rather I kept the implant too but was too wise to pressure me about it.

  Smart mom.

  Our hoverpod approaches the hoverport. Several emergency magpods are scattered in the area around us, and law enforcement are everywhere. There’s a podium set up with a huge holo screen behind it, and a field of press corps waiting. We land.