Visions

by Teyla Branton

  “I missed you last night.”

  “I missed you more.” Lyssa kissed her nose.

  Tamsin giggled. “If I hurry to get ready, can we go to the river and see the ducks first?”

  “Sure, we have time.”

  “Good.”

  Tamsin buried her face in Lyssa’s chest and for that moment there were no aches. But later as she put in two readymeals for their breakfasts, Tamsin said, “I had a weird dream last night. You were sleeping in a bed, and there was a man with you.” Her face crunched as she stared at Lyssa. “It wasn’t Daddy.”

  “That is a weird dream.” Lyssa opened the readymeal and placed it in front of her daughter. Steam wafted out, and an aroma that might resemble cooked eggs. The box said some kind of egg casserole, but it was debatable how much egg it actually contained. Readymeals were mostly synthesized food substitutes. “Did he look like someone you know? Maybe a teacher? Dreams do that sometimes. Mix up things in your real life.”

  “I never saw him before. He had short hair. It was black, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.” She giggled. “He was smaller than Daddy, and his skin was lighter.” She frowned as she took a bite of eggs. “At least I think so. The light was just coming through the curtains. It seemed so real, like I could reach out and touch you.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Lyssa said automatically.

  Tamsin swallowed. “I liked the painting, though.”

  “What painting?”

  “On the wall where you were sleeping in my dream.”

  Lyssa’s heartbeat went from normal to high speed in the space of two seconds. “What painting?”

  “Freedom Fountain and the plaza. It looked just like it did when my class went to see it.”

  Lyssa sat down abruptly, her own readymeal left unopened. Tamsin had seen Ty’s apartment, and what that meant for her, Lyssa couldn’t begin to understand. That was how it had started for her and Lyra. First realistic dreams, and then it began happening while they were awake. The first time they’d understood it wasn’t in their imaginations had been on the day Tamsin was born.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” Tamsin was staring at her.

  “I have weird dreams sometimes too,” Lyssa said. She still traveled without meaning to when she was asleep, and so did Lyra, though they could control it in their waking hours. “Want to know what I do?” When Tamsin nodded, Lyssa continued. “I just think about my bed, tell myself to get back there, and then it goes away. Can you try that next time?”

  Tamsin laughed. “That’s silly. It’s just a dream. It can’t hurt me, and it was kind of fun.”

  Be calm, Lyssa told herself. If Tamsin had traveled, it had only been to find her. She shouldn’t be able to visit anyone else except Lyra.

  She sighed. As if she needed one more thing to worry about. Regardless, no one must know about Tamsin, except maybe Lyra. Not even the rest of the crew. Not yet. Certainly she couldn’t report this to Tamsin’s doctor. She’d be in danger of being taken by Special Forces—or worse.

  “Hurry and finish,” she said. “We need to leave soon if you want to walk by the river.”

  Minutes later, they left the shuttle near the river, where Tamsin found little sticks to throw into the water. Lyssa kept her eyes rolling over the area, glad for the small bulge of her pistol. There was no telling how safe they really were, even with Brogan’s tinkering of their personnel files.

  As they approached the school, where the shuttle now waited for them, Lyssa’s iTeev vibrated gently, flashing a message onto the screen from the TAD-Alert.

  Non-compliance negative at HED, it read. Two locations not scanned.

  Not scanned? Lyssa hoped this was the break they needed.

  Chapter 8

  AFTER JAXON’S CALL, Nova retreated from the novelty store where she’d picked up a few knickknacks for the kids back in the underground. Some of the items she’d even bought with a cash card she had for emergencies. Most of them, however, she’d simply taken. The shop owner was stupid and inattentive, like so many CORE residents, and it was almost a sin not to take advantage of it. Nova figured the residents had to be that way or they wouldn’t allow the CORE Elite to tell them what to eat, where to work, and how many children to have like obedient little drones.

  Not me, Nova thought. She thrived in the underground, taking what they needed and fighting the CORE from within.

  She was curious about Newcali, though. From what little she’d gotten from the fringer Dani Balak, it was a beautiful place. Dani didn’t seem as if she’d ever let anyone push her around, so maybe it really was nice. Maybe people there didn’t whisper in the dark and tense up whenever an enforcer walked by, or clippers as she called them. She’d felt that way too. Before knowing Jaxon and Reese.

  Now Dani had been captured. Nova had seen her friends die, but this was different. Dani was one of the strange ones with abilities from Colony 6. She was both frightening and special.

  Nova scanned the area carefully as she walked down the bright street. No one had asked her why she wasn’t in school, which surprised her. Because even at the eighteen her current CivID broadcasted, she didn’t look that old, and eighteen-year-olds outside the colonies were required to be working on a certificate of education, usually in an area of their choice, unless they hadn’t passed the aptitude tests. Failing meant being sent instead to job training in another area of work that required less skill.

  At first, she’d worried about the lack of interest in her seeming disobedience, but maybe Santoni wasn’t as blinded by the CORE as she assumed. In Armarillo City, she had to keep to the shadows and make sure she was masking her CivID always, or people threatened to turn her in.

  The sudden wail of a siren compelled her into a nearby building. Some kind of business where people dressed up in suits. The air inside was cool and fresh, contrasting with the heat descending on the city as the sun gained altitude in the sky. It was warmer here than in Armarillo City. She remembered that now, and she was pretty sure she could smell the ocean, even if she couldn’t see it.

  On the phone, Jaxon had told her to stay safe, which he probably said to everyone he worked with, but had she imagined the softness in his voice? Not that she was crushing on him anymore, of course. He was old, old, old. Thirty, at least.

  She’d need to hire a shuttle to get close to the safehouse, but what if the others were caught? They’d probably be tracked to the C-lodge, so it was good she was accustomed to bringing all her belongings with her and didn’t have to go back there. She frowned at the thought. The others had left bags of equipment at the C-lodge, though. Would they need them? Nova stopped, kicking the cement sidewalk with the front of her shoe. One thing for sure, if Special Forces saw the enforcer blues there, they’d realize the group wasn’t what they seemed.

  Saca, I’ll have to go back, she thought.

  Better now than later. She started walking as fast as she could, using her iTeev to call a shuttle to meet her. The closer she came to the C-lodge, the harder her heart pounded. She’d have to switch her CivID to the one she’d used earlier to enter the room, and then switch back. With whatever Dani had done to the cameras, that should be enough to get her away without being traced. But she might change to another ID after leaving just to make sure. Good thing her uncle made her carry at least three at all times.

  She could see the C-lodge now, and nothing unusual appeared to be happening there. She went inside, activating a new CivID as she rounded the corner leading to the elevator. She bypassed that and used the stairs. One of the first rules of the underground was to never get caught in a small space.

  Nova held her breath as the door opened for her on the second floor. This was the most dangerous part. If Special Forces had already traced the others’ fake identities here, there might be a trap waiting to be sprung.

  The suite was empty. She grabbed everything, checking all the rooms, and shoved the items into two bags. Heavy, but mostly because of Eagle’s junk and Reese’s assault rifle.
They were both going to owe her big time. In the hallway, no one yelled at her to stop, and she switched IDs again as she entered the stairwell. So far so good.

  She was drenched in sweat with effort as she finally exited the C-lodge. The shuttle was waiting outside, a shiny blue tetrahedron under the morning sun. With relief, she heaved the bags inside and threw herself in after.

  “Please state your destination,” said the onboard Teev.

  “Just drive. I’ll tell you in a minute.” At least it didn’t somehow detect that she had weapons like the sky train did. Or had it already sent an alarm to the local enforcers. No, she couldn’t think that way.

  “Driving.” The shuttle started into motion.

  It had gone only a half block when three enforcer shuttles pulled up at the C-lodge behind them, the black and red stripes prominent along the silver sides. Nova stared out the window of her shuttle, glad for the one-way glass.

  You shouldn’t have gone back. The voice in her head was her uncle’s. Imaginary, but it shamed her none-the-less. This was one of those impulsive decisions she shouldn’t have made, another example of why he didn’t allow her to participate in any but the most basic operations. Her life wasn’t worth the risk, her uncle would say. Instead of being smart, she’d put herself in danger once again. It wasn’t only her uncle she continued to disappoint but also herself. Would she ever be able to tell the difference between a calculated gamble and an unacceptable risk?

  She’d be lying if she didn’t confess, at least to herself, that part of her actions had come from a desire to put off the necessary call to her uncle to check on the status of the safehouse.

  “Enable privacy mode,” she told the shuttle.

  “Privacy mode enabled,” it answered. “Audio recording is off.”

  Nova scavenged through the duffels until she came up with one of Eagle’s detection devices. When she turned it on, it glowed red, which meant the shuttle was lying. Possibly it was a city-wide override because of what had happened. She’d have to text her uncle instead.

  She pulled her iTeev from her eyes, folding it into a square that now showed the map of the city. “Take the next right turn and then a left,” she said. “Then keep going until I say.”

  She cleared the map and began texting. Dani’s been captured. The crew needs a safehouse. Is it the same? Please don’t yell at me.

  The message had to route through the layers of protection Brogan had enabled, but the return message came back more quickly than she’d dared hope. Yes. But proceed with extreme caution.

  Well, that didn’t go too badly, she thought. There would be consequences, though. When she got back. If she got back.

  She was about to fold the iTeev when another message appeared on the screen: Are you okay?

  Nova bit her lip as tears came to her eyes, tears she was glad no one was around to see. Her uncle was the meanest, strongest, most awful person she’d ever known, but he was also the smartest and the most caring, and she loved him more than she’d even loved her father, the father she still mourned. While her father had sacrificed his life to get her out of Colony 4, doing so meant he’d left her alone in the world. Brogan hadn’t. His sentencing might be harsh and swift, but at the bottom of it all, he lived. For her. To keep her safe. Above or below in the underground.

  I’m okay, she wrote. And I’m sorry.

  Keep your knife ready.

  There was nothing more, which was somehow worse than if he’d threatened her with some sort of discipline, but the warmth in her chest was still there.

  I gotta be stronger, she thought. I’ll make him proud—and make them pay for my father’s death.

  Her uncle had warned her about focusing on revenge, but sometimes it was all that kept her down in the underground. Otherwise, she might be tempted to accept his invitation to live in the world above, to go to a CORE school and be a drone. His position would allow it, and she’d no longer have to fear being picked up and sent back to a colony.

  But then she’d betray her father. She’d betray herself.

  The apartment buildings around her turned into houses. Single-family dwellings weren’t permitted in new construction these days, which made sense with so few birth orders being handed out, so these had to be pre-Breakdown. It meant she was closer to her destination.

  She gave more directions to the shuttle, waiting with impatience until she’d passed the safehouse. “Stop at the next corner,” she said. “I’m pretty sure my tutor lives there.” Not that you’re recording, she added silently.

  The shuttle glided to a stop. Nova hauled the bags out, staggering under their weight. What was she going to do with this stuff? If she let on that she’d gone back for the equipment, she’d never be let out of the underground again, especially after her narrow escape. She’d have to figure out what to tell them later. Right now she had to make sure the safehouse was just that—safe.

  She headed around the back of the house on the corner, moving slowly until the shuttle was out of sight. Then she cut across the yard, hoping no one was home and that they hadn’t joined the surveillance craze and put up their own cameras that hooked into the Teev feed. Unlike the enforcers, she didn’t have one of Dani’s skin tags to mask her face in the recordings.

  Once in the back yard of the safehouse, she eyed the rear entrance with interest. The door appeared boarded up and the porch sagged as if it were seconds from falling into pieces. Looked like the right place.

  Keeping only her own pack, she stashed the bags behind a shed, cutting a few branches from an overgrown bush to cover them. Then she slipped her knife up her sleeve, wishing she was wearing her ratty old sweater, which was much better for concealment than this stupid yellow blouse she was wearing as part of her “good-little-citizen” disguise. Pulling out her iTeev, she tapped in a code and pulled it over her eyes. At once, the back of the house shimmered and the dilapidated porch disappeared, replaced by a sturdy one. There were no boards on the door now.

  Definitely the right place.

  She headed up the stairs. Dropping her pack, she’d lifted a hand to knock when a pistol shoved into her ribs. “Who are you?” growled a masculine voice.

  “I’m Nova.” She raised her hands carefully so the knife wouldn’t be obvious. What had her uncle said? Proceed with extreme caution. She should have remembered that part. “El Cerebro sent me.”

  The man behind her snorted. “Prove it. Anyone could say that.”

  She dared turn her head slightly, catching sight of dark hair and eyes. He was more boy than man, maybe only a few years older than herself. He held the gun in his right hand. Did he even have real bullets? Unless you were an enforcer, owning a gun in the CORE meant immediate medical enhancement, so he was either willing to risk becoming a vegetable or he was connected with the local fringers. Or both.

  “Not someone who can do this.” She stepped backward into him, spinning to her left and capturing his gun hand with her arm. Her knife slipped into her hand, and she held it against his throat. She hadn’t knocked the gun from his hand, but if he tried to yank it from her arm, she could slice his esophagus without too much effort. Tiny drops of blood were already appearing under her blade.

  “Come now, is that any way to treat our guest, Thaniel?” A thin, bearded man stepped into her view. He relieved the younger man from his gun, casually training it on Nova. “I believe that El Cerebro sent you, child. Please, be at ease. We won’t hurt you.”

  Nova really didn’t have a choice with that gun now pointing at her. She stepped back quickly, lowering the knife. Her knees were shaking, so she thought it best to sit on one of the chairs that happened to be on the back porch.

  To her surprise, Thaniel was grinning. “That was cool. Where’d you learn to do that?” He came to sit beside her, swiping a hand across his forehead to push his black hair from his eyes.

  She shrugged. Was he for real? “From my . . .” She’d been going to say, “my uncle’s second in command,” but it was probably best to keep
her relationship with El Cerebro quiet. “Just from some friends,” she said. “They’ll be here shortly.”

  The bearded man regarded her with bottomless dark eyes. “We heard the sirens. What happened?”

  “I’ll let them tell you. I don’t know the details.” Nova felt suddenly weary. She wasn’t too sure these people could be trusted—especially given her uncle’s warning—but she’d let Jaxon and Reese deal with it.

  The young man was staring at her. “I’m Thane,” he said, offering his hand.

  “Nova.” Not really her name, but the only one she answered to. It had been her father’s nickname for her. Thane’s hand felt warm on hers. Nice. She pulled away.

  “You look familiar,” he said. “Are you from around here?”

  “I used to live nearby.” She hadn’t remembered the city at all as she’d expected. Maybe because most of her memories were a nightmarish blur, like the years she’d spent in Colony 4. But now that Thane wasn’t holding a gun to her back, he did look like someone she might have known—if she could only remember past the haze. “It was a long time ago. I didn’t go to school.”

  He was still grinning. He had a pleasant face, one that made her want to keep looking. “Neither did I.” He leaned over to whisper, pointing at his chest, “Illegal child.”

  That made him even more interesting. He was close now, and she could smell him. A bit of sweat mixed with something nutty. It wasn’t unpleasant. Her heart beat a bit faster.

  “Get brew for our guest, Thaniel. She looks tired.”

  Thane pulled away. “Yes, Father.”

  Father and son. Envy slid over Nova’s heart. Did he have a mother too?

  The bearded man took his son’s place on the chair next to hers. “Maybe you should call your friends,” he said.

  Nova noticed the gun still in his hand. “Extreme caution,” her uncle had told her. She hoped she wasn’t bringing Jaxon and Reese into a trap.

  “I don’t have to,” she said. “They’ll be here as soon as they can.”

  Or at least she hoped.