by Rebecca Rode
That’s it, I realized. While grief was a massive transport train that refused to leave me alone, guilt was the engine that drove it. First my conversation with Mom that convinced her to . . . make her choice, and then my allowing Kole to accompany me to Neuromen the night everything fell apart. The night Travers lost his wife and I nearly lost Dad and Kole. So much loss. Too much pain. But it wasn’t grieving I needed now. The reminders came like tiny blades when I least expected them, tearing my heart into pieces from the inside. If I relented even the tiniest bit, allowing myself to crack, the pain would overcome me and I would shatter completely. I couldn’t break apart when NORA needed me so badly.
The time would come, but it was not today.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and placed a hand on Travers’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry about your wife. Losing a loved one, it . . . it changes everything.”
My words were terribly inadequate, but my driver—no, my friend—seemed to understand. “Thank you. But we aren’t here for me. Your father lies at the brink of death, your mother beyond it, and you’ve lost your brother in every sense of the word.”
And maybe Kole soon too, I wanted to say, but that invisible rope had tightened itself around my throat. I nodded again.
“I have no advice for you,” he continued, his own voice strained. “Once, I may have, but today . . . well, I think this is what your father would have done. When the living can’t give you answers, perhaps the dead can.” He handed me a stunner. “Just in case.”
I looked past him to the statue of my dead mother. The hunk of metal held no answers for me today, but Travers looked at me with such pity, such pain, that I simply nodded and opened my door. Maybe he needed this as much as I did.
Stalking across the dying lawn meant watching the decline of my city in real-time. The park’s clean sidewalks and carefully tended lawn had become overgrown in only a few short weeks. Across the field near the playground, a community of sleeping bags and haphazard tents extended along the entire far end of the sidewalk. I’d passed this a few weeks ago and seen people huddled around makeshift fire pits. But the tents and sleeping bags lay quiet now. I stepped softly so I wouldn’t wake them.
Dad rarely mentioned the homeless except to say they made their own choices and he wouldn’t interfere. But I’d always wondered about that. When given two choices, why would someone choose to live on the streets unless the cost of living in a warm home had become too high?
I reached the statue and halted, looking around once more. A deep sigh rose unbidden, and I felt a wide smile cross my face. For the first time in weeks, I was utterly alone. I liked the feeling more than I should. If I was meant to be NORA’s leader, I would have to get used to guards following me around, cameras in my face, reporters asking what I ate for dinner, and politicians demanding favors. The past weeks of constant stress were only the beginning.
Gram rose to power at sixteen. I would be eighteen in a few weeks. Yet, somehow, I still felt like that little girl who tore the crust off her bread and wanted to wear the same dress every day. Even if I managed to defeat Alex, could I put my own brother in jail for the rest of his life? If I took the throne, could I banish Kole’s friends for following their leader’s orders? Would I spend the rest of my life pretending to be my grandmother?
Did I even want this?
Gram hadn’t. I remembered her admission the day before my Declaration, the day I’d torn free of my family’s expectations only to have them fall into my lap later.
Country over family. Country over self. Dad’s creed, and certainly one he lived by. The distant, dismissive motto of a nonfunctional family I belonged to only by chance. Yet the biological family I’d sprung from didn’t want me either.
I have a message from Legacy’s mother. Chadd’s words from last night. If only Kole hadn’t driven him off. I would have been able to tell right away whether the guy lied or not. Wouldn’t I? Or did my childlike hunger for belonging make me as vulnerable to manipulation as Kole claimed?
I sighed, turning to the statue once more. Mom would’ve hated it. It wasn’t even a statue exactly—more like a piece of abstract art in the shape of a woman some artist had given Dad after her death, probably to launch his own fame. The artist’s name was larger than Mom’s on the plaque, after all. I wished her name weren’t on it at all. Nothing about the stone so prominently placed in a public park reminded me of Mom other than the unveiling event I’d refused to attend but watched live from the privacy of my room. Stone made things permanent. Cold. Unfeeling. Mom wasn’t any of those things.
It was pretty in its own way, I had to admit. I placed a hand on the lump extending skyward from her arched form, likely an arm. The artist had explained that Mom reached upward as if imploring the heavens for more knowledge, exhibiting the hunger that described her entire life. Until the end, I’d added in my mind, as had much of the country. Not that it mattered what they thought. It didn’t matter what anyone thought, really. Solving the mystery of her death hadn’t changed a thing. Mom would never come back.
“My biological mother may want to meet me,” I told the statue.
The silver plating gleamed in the sunlight now, and I saw a distorted version of my face in its polished metal.
“I can ignore her. She abandoned me, after all. Might be nice to return the favor.”
What would Mom have said had this happened in another lifetime? Would she have encouraged me to meet the woman or refuse to respond? Something told me my birth mother was a mystery Mom would have loved to solve, if only to settle the matter in her mind. She attacked every question with the scientific method. A meeting would mean new evidence that ultimately led to the conclusion that I was better off now. Happily ever after, close the book. The end.
But what if it meant the opposite? What if I wasn’t really meant to lead NORA and my birth mother offered a different life?
Distant, muffled voices sounded across the field. Figures walked around now, whispering amongst themselves. Time to go. As hesitant as I felt earlier about being here, I didn’t want to leave. I faced the statue once more, somehow feeling like this would be my last opportunity for answers.
“What would you do right now, Mom?” I whispered softly. “Dad is in a coma, Gram is sick, and the country is torn in half. Would you put your family first if it meant failing your duty to the country? Or would you hurt your family if it meant keeping NORA safe?”
My words rang hollow in my ears. I felt foolish. She’d already made that decision. She’d sacrificed everything, including her family. I’d find no answers here.
“Do you like it? ’Cause I don’t.”
I whirled to find a little boy standing behind the statue, staring at my mother’s monument with a pinched frown. He couldn’t be older than six. A smattering of freckles covered his nose and cheeks.
I pretended to examine the statue again, relieved he hadn’t recognized me. “No, I don’t like it at all.”
“It doesn’t even look like a person. A monster, maybe. One of those big gray ones.”
I nodded solemnly. “The gray ones are the worst.”
“Definitely.” He gave me a sideways look. “Do they chase you too?”
I thought of my dreams over the past week. I had monsters to deal with, too, and they didn’t leave when I awoke. “Yes.”
The boy leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I have a good hiding place. You can use it sometime, but you can’t tell anyone.” He pointed toward a fir tree whose lower branches extended so wide it looked like a ballerina with a flared skirt. “We could both fit under there.”
I smiled at him. “Is that where you sleep?”
“No. That’s where I hide when the monsters come.” He gave the homeless community a sweeping glance. “You’d better hide because they’ll be here soon. They always come when it gets light.”
A quick look around revealed no alarmed parents or older siblings. Wasn’t anyone concerned for the little boy who’d wandered from
the safety of the group? “Is your mom or dad nearby?”
“My mom’s dead. The monsters hurt my dad and made him sick. He’s in the tent with the other sick ones, but don’t worry. He won’t be mad I showed you my hiding place.”
I glanced across the field again, trying to make sense of his words. Monsters? I supposed Virgil’s update could seem like a monstrous event. Kids processed things differently than adults. “How many are sick?”
“Three. Two more died yesterday, but they took them away.”
I knelt to look the boy directly in the eyes. “Will you show me? I want to see if I can help your dad.” Our hospital was already full, but surely we could fit three more patients. In the meantime, I’d have an assistant find a foster family to take the boy. I couldn’t leave him here alone, hiding in trees from imaginary bad guys.
“Okay,” he said after a moment and took off toward the tents at a run. I jogged to follow.
As he opened the tent flap, the heavy scent of unwashed bodies slammed into me. Two still forms filled the small tent. A smaller form lay between them, the girl’s hair splayed across a rolled-up sweater serving as her pillow.
I frowned. Children didn’t receive implants until age twelve. Could this be a different illness?
“That’s my dad,” the boy said, pointing to the man on the right. He had red hair identical to the boy’s and a long, prominent nose that made his face look rectangular. His chest moved almost imperceptibly with each breath. I could tell by the shadows on his face and the sickly white pallor of his skin he wouldn’t be with us much longer. A bright-red vertical scar crossed one side of his forehead as if someone had slashed him with a very precise and tiny blade.
I examined the other two with a sinking heart. They both had the same scar in the same place. They looked as sickly as the father.
I turned slowly back to the boy, trying to put the pieces together. No matter how I tried, they didn’t fit. Who would do such a thing and why? The only reason I could think of involved inserting an object under the skin, something flat and small . . .
Oh, fates.
Something about the size of a Rating screen.
“What are you waiting for?” the boy asked, still holding the tent open. “You said you would help them.”
I took in a shaky breath, trying to keep my composure as the dread sunk in. “I need to go back to my transport and make a call. My friends will be here soon to help your dad. Would you like a better place to sleep tonight?”
The boy nodded, then stopped as if listening. His eyes went wide with panic. “They’re here.”
Six
Legacy
The boy bolted for the fir tree.
In confusion, I watched him go, then looked around the park to see an Enforcer patrol vehicle pulling into the parking lot. Odd. Alex had disbanded the Enforcers and replaced them with . . . Oh, no.
Six Firebrands dressed in dark-gray uniforms stepped out of the vehicle and strode across the lawn toward us.
Gray monsters.
I cursed and looked around for a place to hide. A man peeked out of his tent and motioned for me to enter. “Hurry!”
There wasn’t time to consider. I ducked inside and stood as the man zipped the tent back up, surprised to find an entire family inside. They sat amongst a pile of blankets, looking terrified. Then the man unrolled part of the window flap to peek outside. When none of his family members moved, I stepped up to join him. Screams sounded from across the camp.
Whatever these soldiers wanted, it wasn’t to check on the homeless people’s welfare.
The Firebrands, four men and two women, stalked straight to the tent I’d stood outside just a minute before. They muttered amongst themselves as one ducked inside. A minute later, he emerged and said, “Two more to replace the ones from yesterday.”
The Firebrands looked around, their stunners lifted. One shoved her way into a neighboring tent. Someone screamed, and then the flap opened and the woman came out, dragging a girl about my age. The girl’s wailing cut off when the group of Firebrands lifted her to her feet, at least four stunners against her head. An assortment of curse words burst into my mind.
“A man this time, about forty-five,” the Firebrand woman said.
Three of her colleagues headed for our tent.
The family behind me gasped, and the mother shushed the youngest with a finger to her lips. I reached for my stunner, feeling sick, then lowered my hand again. This weapon could help me take out one of them, maybe two. There would be no time for the third. Besides, the commotion would bring the others upon us in seconds. The Firebrands’ surprise discovery of Legacy Hawking inside a homeless family’s tent wouldn’t stop anything, and my capture would mean certain victory for Alex and his Firebrands. I had to be smart about this.
The time for fighting will come.
The door flap opened. I turned my head away, hiding my face. It didn’t muffle the sounds of soft weeping from the corner and the scuffle of a man trying to defend himself. A heavy sound meant they’d hit him with something and he’d fallen limply to the ground. The mother gasped. Then the sound of a body being dragged filled the tent.
A new anger sent my heart racing. How dare the Firebrands treat people this way? How dare Alex sit in the Copper Office, refusing to see the violence that kept him there, doing nothing about any of this?
As the group retreated, I hurried to secure the door flap and faced the man’s family, my voice shaking with rage as I whispered, “What are they going to do with him?”
She shook her head quickly, as if not daring to speak. I looked out the window again, following the group back to the center of the tents and out of sight. I angled myself at the edge of the window but still couldn’t see them. I didn’t dare open the tent door with those armed Firebrands so close, not when it could put this family in even more danger.
“Lay them down,” a sharp voice ordered. “And hold them properly this time, will you? The incision has to be precise.”
Fates. Was this how Alex intended to switch NORA over to the Rating system, one by one in a dirty public park and starting with those who couldn’t defend themselves? Or was this some kind of test?
I fingered the stunner in my pocket once again, trying to think. The world somehow seemed red and spotty, and all I wanted to do was burst out of this tent and start shooting. Something felt very wrong about all this. Those three unconscious forms in the tent had to be the missing link. Why would implantation make someone sick? Their incisions didn’t look infected, yet all three lay near death. Gram hadn’t mentioned anyone from her generation dying when the thin screen was placed. A new material, maybe? It had been nearly fifty years since we dropped the technology for good. Or so we thought.
The Firebrands talked quietly amongst themselves. I caught a word here and there. Something about a glue seal and testing procedures. The rest of the tent community hid in terrified silence. When the man grunted and there was a shuffling sound, it seemed much louder than it should have in the too-still morning air.
Please be done, I pled with the fates. Once the Firebrands left, I could tend to the victims. Maybe if we slid the screens back out, they wouldn’t be affected like the others. I would take these people back to the safe house with me and protected them from this awful situation. I raised my eyebrows hopefully to the mother, but she just looked down and held her children even tighter, her expression pained.
She knew exactly what was happening, and it wasn’t over yet.
“Uploading,” the female Firebrand who’d dragged the teenage girl said. “It should take effect in three, two, one.”
Uploading? That didn’t sound like implantation. It sounded more like a brain-implant update. But why . . . ?
Then the screaming began.
The teenage girl’s terrified wailing pierced the cool morning air, but it was the father’s strained groaning that chilled my blood. It was the sound of incomprehensible pain, an agony that made this man’s family tremble and weep
.
I stood, the sudden rush of blood in my ears compounding my anger as I whipped out my stunner. Alone or not, I couldn’t sit here and listen any longer.
I unzipped a portion of the tent, the sound muffled by the increasing screams. Then I aimed my stunner at the nearest Firebrand’s back and pulled the trigger.
He arched his back and hit the ground.
I got in two more shots—another hit that took down one of the women and a wide miss—before the Firebrands realized what was happening. They scattered, weapons lifted, searching for the source of the shots and leaving their victims thrashing on the ground.
The sight stole my resolve and my breath all at once. In that moment, all I could see was Kole on all fours, his back arched in silent agony, his face contorted with a pain I would never be able to comprehend.
Footsteps pounded toward me, shaking me back to the present. I took down one more Firebrand but missed his chest, getting his thigh instead. He hit the ground hard and howled as the other three took cover again.
I had to draw them away from these people. Throwing the tent door open so hard the zipper broke, I dove through it and stumbled to keep my footing. Then I sprinted across the lawn toward my transport, hoping Travers was still there. I ducked just as a massive wave of wind swept past me. I then leaped behind Mom’s statue just as a second struck. The metal reverberated, absorbing the impact with a strained, low protest. I peeked around the side and got off a few more shots, all of which went wide. Then I bolted again. Almost there.
The transport faced the street now, my door open and waiting. Bless you, Travers. For the second time in as many days, I dove into the open door and we were off.
I tossed the closing harness aside and gasped for air, turning around in my seat. The Firebrands had rerouted and were headed for their vehicle.
“Perhaps when this is over, you can explain what you were thinking,” Travers growled.
“It wasn’t my fault. They—”
“When this is over,” he repeated quickly, snapping open a dashboard compartment. He retrieved what looked like a wheel, then slammed it into the dashboard amongst all the instruments. It clicked into place. He gripped it with one hand and flipped a switch with the other.
