Kiely walked over to the bookshelf, shifting my attention to her collection. Many were old and related to the Law. A few were about something called “chess.” There was also a series that had handwritten labels I couldn’t read. She took these and stuffed them in her bag, then scanned the rest.
Her mouth pulled flat. “I don’t want to play favorites,” she muttered, pulling out The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, followed by Democracy in America and then Las Luces de la Libertad. She dropped them into her bag, looking dissatisfied.
“So, what did you do?” I prompted her. “With the Silents?”
“In Victoria’s case, I tapped into her feed. That felt like a little justice, because the protection scheme for the corneal feed hasn’t been updated in ages. It’s been held up in Patent Litigation by the Rogs. I sent messages through her feed suggesting that all the best Silents were being coordinated. Part of a secret group. She wants to do the right thing, which is admirable, but at the same time, she’s still an Affluent and still a Rog. She wants to feel important. Now she can.”
That didn’t seem fair. “What’s going to happen to her now?”
Kiely blew out a big breath. “I can’t let that be my problem. Sorry.”
My admiration curdled. How could she be so cold about this when she’d just defended Victoria in the same sentence? Without her, I would have been doomed.
“Don’t worry too much, kid. Her mommy kept you alive in the hope she could hear her daughter’s mellifluous voice again. She won’t hurt her. Victoria was easy to manipulate, and it had to be done. I had to get you outside Lucretia’s perimeter.”
“That doesn’t seem right,” I said with a slightly sick feeling as I remembered how I’d used Henri.
“It was better than leaving you there.”
“Why didn’t you just send a message to me, to let me know you were out there?”
“They had you jammed. The best I could do was one word, and I wasn’t even sure that would get through.”
“Wait, if they could jam me, why wouldn’t they jam Victoria?”
Kiely laughed. “And cut her off from the outside? Those people can’t function without their connection. I used the same weakness in the protection scheme to send false images to Lucretia and those Modifieds.”
“Those what?”
“Those brutes she uses—the brutes all the Rogs employ.” She gestured around her face. “They’ve been genetically enhanced. You must have noticed them.”
“The ones with the watery eyes?”
“One of the side effects of training and controlling them—low-grade voltage to the eyes the whole time they’re connected. I don’t know if it’s to remind them to obey, or just a side effect of a bad design.”
“That’s horrible,” I said, rubbing at my own eyes.
“Listen, we can’t pause too long,” she went on. “They’ll track you here.” She tapped at her neck under her ear to indicate my auditory implants.
“They can track these?” I asked. “But this is a Squelch. They shouldn’t be able to follow.”
“Your trail ends five feet from here,” she said, pointing out to the passage. “They’ll get to the building, make their way up here and start smashing in the walls if they have to. If you thought Lucretia was bad before...”
She grabbed another book and pocketed a silver grapple.
“What will she do?”
“Whatever she needs to,” Kiely said. “She’s already got the Commander-in-Chief Justice involved in taking back Portland now. Your best option is to leave the country.”
I shook my head. “I have to find my sister. My friends. My parents.” My fear rose with each word.
“Look at me,” Kiely said, squinting at me. “You can’t do everything.” I realized that she wasn’t just staring at me—she was examining my eyes. “Kel has your sister and some of your friends at a spot not far outside the dome. That’s where I’m taking you.”
My heart wanted to soar, but stumbled on the word some.
“Who?” I asked, praying everyone was safe.
“I don’t know.” Kiely pulled a device out of her bag, this one shaped like a spoon. She held it up near my face. “This is going to hurt.”
I grabbed her by the wrist and stopped her. “What’s going to hurt?”
“I’m going to short out your corneal implants. I wish I could do mine, but they were made before the Oxicure™ Patent challenge.”
My fingers kept gripping her. I’d had enough pain, and I still wasn’t thinking clearly.
“I can’t do this if you fight me,” she said. “But if you let me, they won’t ever be able to shock you again.” When I continued to hesitate, Kiely sighed impatiently. “Your sister is waiting.”
I released my grip, and she raised the spoon-shaped device up to my left eye. The device emitted a faint high-pitched whine, stopped, and suddenly there was a flash and a blinding pain. My head dropped into my hands.
“Do you know if Saretha is okay?” I gasped in a broken voice, trying to blink away the pain.
“I believe so,” she said. “Let’s finish this.” I raised my head. I felt like she expected me to be tougher, more like her. The pain hit my right eye, but I was more prepared for it this time.
“They broke the DRM,” Kiely said proudly, putting the device away. “Thanks to you. So they could heal her. That’s a big deal. They used the book you took from Rog’s collection.”
She put a hand on my shoulder for a moment and smiled, then turned away. I blinked several times, trying to see straight, and was surprised to find everything looked clearer.
Kiely ran a hand over a stack of her own books. “It wasn’t the book, but it was as useful as anything I’ve ever found.”
“Is that what you’ve been looking for?” I asked, scanning her titles. I couldn’t believe how much more easily I could read the spines now. “The book?”
“The book is a myth,” she said.
“Then what are all these?” I asked.
“These are how I figured out it’s a myth,” Kiely replied, looking at them sadly. “Rog played both of us on that one.” When I didn’t respond, she added, “We should move. Are you ready? Can you see okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, surprised. “Is it...weird that I can see better now?”
Kiely nodded wryly. “Your guardian probably adjusted the focus to be just slightly off so she could sell you a prescription upgrade later on.”
“Damn Mrs. Harris,” I muttered. That sounded about right.
Kiely turned to open the exit and paused. “I don’t know what we’re facing out there. If something goes wrong, you get to the roof and head east. Don’t worry about me.”
I looked down at myself. I was still wearing Lucretia’s service-gray outfit with its white sleeves. One of my shoes was in her office where I’d thrown it. I took off the other, figuring it was more important to be balanced than to have one foot covered. I didn’t know if I was ready for this. I still felt shaky, and I had so many questions. “How will I know where to go?”
She put a hand on the lever that sealed and unsealed the room.
“Your friends are to the east, but I can’t explain more than that. If you lose me, you’ll be on your own.”
Then I’m not going to lose you, I thought.
Kiely pulled up on the lever and the square shifted. She put a finger to her lips, moved the square aside and pulled herself out.
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Four dropters were perched outside, hovering just beyond the grate we had entered. They whirred to attention as we neared and spread themselves out. The street below fell silent as the Ad screens clicked off. All four began to beep in alarm.
Kiely fretted at this only for a minute. She tapped at her Pad, and the dropters wobbled before plummeting to the ground. She held up three fingers,
then two, then one and kicked the grate open. She shot out a line and zipped away to a building across the street, her body streamlined as an arrow. I scrambled after her, only to find her gone when I reached the roof. I scanned the skyline and only barely caught sight of her as she vanished over a higher building farther up the street. I struggled to keep up. She had to know I wasn’t at full strength—my imprisonment had taken its toll. But maybe this was as slowly as she could go without risking being caught. Maybe I was about to lose everything.
The word “Halt!” echoed through the air. I chanced a look back. Police cars and Lawyers’ sedans peppered the street. Faces scanned for us and locked on me.
Suddenly a car mounted the curb and smashed into the side of a building, and another went out of control and grazed it. People all over the street froze. I wondered if this was some trick Kiely had up her sleeve, but then I saw her falter up ahead, her grace suddenly gone as she hit the next roof hard and rolled, squeezing her palms into her eyes.
“Dammit, she’s blinded me,” she called out. “Go on! Get out!” she ordered, trying to wave me off without knowing where I was.
From the chaos below us, it seemed Kiely wasn’t the only one blinded. I landed next to her. People staggered in the streets below—even Affluents. There were accidents all down the street.
“She’s done it to the whole city.”
Kiely shook her head in disgust. “She’ll stop at nothing now. You need to leave me here and escape.”
If I left her, Kiely would be done for and I’d have no way to find my friends, or my family. The police were still on the move. For some reason, they hadn’t been blinded.
Kiely suddenly reeled forward. I heard moans rise up from all around the city. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I knew what Lucretia was doing to their eyes with those malicious patterns. I wondered if Victoria was being spared this torture, or if freeing me was the last straw for her mother.
I grabbed Kiely’s hands and put them together, aiming the grapple for her.
“I’m getting you out of here,” I said. I held her tightly and squeezed the trigger. The two of us shot upward. She had no way to know when to slow the line as we were reeled toward an angled hatch on the roof of the dome. We hit hard and were almost knocked loose. I had to scramble to reach a handhold as Kiely writhed in anguish.
“We’re almost there,” I told her.
Heart racing, I undid the hatch’s magnetic lock and it swung open into the sun. I made sure Kiely had a grip on the handhold before I hauled myself up through the opening, then turned to help Kiely up. I grasped her hands with mine and pulled with all my might to get her through, then kicked the hatch shut.
Kiely fell back onto the angled surface of the dome, breathing hard, her clothes drenched with sweat. She held her palms to her eyes, clearly still in agony. Apparently the WiFi extended up here. I looked around wildly, trying to find a way to help her. The DC dome was so vast, its surface seemed almost flat. Unlike our honeycomb, this was one smoothly printed shape, peppered with occasional hatches and antennae.
Antennae. I raced for the nearest one and gave it a yank, snapping it in half. I darted to another, and then to a third. When I turned back, I saw Kiely roll over onto her knees. Had it worked?
“FiDo,” she confirmed with a half cheer, looking at me with sore, red eyes. Before they were taken from me, my parents had lived for the moments when the WiFi would go down. Everyone called them FiDos, apparently even in DC, though this one would only be in the small area where I’d knocked out the antennae.
Kiely got to her feet and shook off the pain, drawing herself up to her full height. She pulled something from her bag that looked for all the world like an expandable skateboard. Young Affluents would sometimes breeze through the Onzième on these, weaving through the poor kids for fun.
Kiely caught hers under one foot to hold it in place, then beckoned me to stand on the back of it. She meant to ride the board down the angle of the dome. This might have been thrilling, except from where I stood, it looked like we’d be riding off the edge into oblivion.
Something hit the hatch near us, and Kiely kicked off. I didn’t have time to do anything but hold on for dear life, hoping she had a plan for the way the dome sloped away.
“There’s a WiFi patch ahead,” she shouted as we began to move faster, “but it’s meant for the city, not out here—I should be able to see again before we hit the edge.”
My stomach dropped. What if she didn’t? She kicked again and again, needlessly adding to the speed the angle already provided. I peeked back, my short hair fluttering in the wind. The hatch had rolled out of sight, obscuring anyone who might be following us.
Far ahead, past the edge of the dome, I saw greenery and a scattering of buildings. The trees here were alive, and one of the buildings was an actual stone ruin from some part of American® history too exclusive for someone from the Onzième to know about. Vines climbed it, and some stones had fallen away. Beyond were more gutted, split and derelict buildings like the ones I’d seen before Lucretia captured me.
My heart fluttered—at the speed, the drop and with worry about my friends. Kel had my sister, but I knew nothing about the others or who was even there.
The steep drop-off was coming up fast.
“Can you see?” I cried.
“One sec,” she grunted.
I kept expecting her to slow, but she let the momentum build.
“Now?” I asked, panic whirling inside me.
“I got it. Hang on tight!” she said, which wasn’t a yes, but I did what she asked.
We went flying over the edge, airborne. Kiely quickly clamped her shins around the board, leaving my feet dangling. She shot out a line. It hit and stuck to the high wall of the ruin. Suddenly we were swinging, from one line to a second, and then we came to a stop. It all happened in just a few seconds, but felt like so much longer. I’d done some dangerous things as a Placer, but that was all nothing compared to this.
Kiely alighted on a wall and carefully separated us, rubbing her eyes. She motioned for me to be careful—the fall on either side was twenty feet. I stood as still as possible while balancing and counterbalancing myself, the way bodies do at terrifying heights. I got my own grapple ready, just in case I slipped. She saw this, nodded approval and then pointed to a van that was partially concealed behind a listing building overgrown with greenery. That was where we were headed.
She shot another line out, straight into the weeds creeping up the side, and I followed her. The van bore a picture of a thin woman’s torso, squeezed to absurd proportions. The OiO™ logo was emblazoned across the middle. My stomach seized. Had it come from up north, from the town where we’d been caught? I looked at the windows, but they were the same sort of black glass that Rog’s Meiboch™ had.
“Are they inside?” I asked, dropping down to the side of the van. Kiely didn’t answer. Behind me, she had made her way up a braced wall where a WiFi node had been installed on a pole. She carefully extracted the silvery NanoLion™ battery pack, then used some tool to cut it free without causing an explosion.
I opened the van door. The cab was empty. My shoulders sagged as Kiely dropped down next to me. My brain took a second to focus and shake off my disappointment that no one had come to greet me. But that was foolish—they would have been in danger this close to the dome.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we climbed in.
“Twenty minutes west,” Kiely said, closing her door. “To a temporary camp we’re building in a WiFi blind.”
“We?”
“Kel and I,” she said.
“And Saretha?”
“Yes. Saretha and your friends.”
I took a moment to breathe. Maybe she meant all of them. I hoped she did—I was afraid to ask.
I gathered my courage. “Who’s there, other than Saretha and Kel?”
>
She took too long to answer for me to feel reassured. “I don’t know exactly. We’ve only communicated in short bursts because they’re staying on the move and out of the WiFi.”
“But everyone is okay?”
“Everyone I saw.”
We pulled away through the living trees. I wanted to press her more—maybe make her describe them.
“So, why’d you do it?” she asked before I had a chance. “Why’d you go silent?”
I hated to disillusion her, but I felt like I owed her the truth. She’d saved me, after all. So I explained it all as best I could while we rode, and hoped she wouldn’t be too disappointed.
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“Impressive,” Kiely said when she’d heard it all. It was not the reaction I’d expected.
“None of it was intentional,” I explained. Surely she realized I hadn’t done much?
“You say that, but it was still brave, and you survived things that would break most people. And you didn’t have to go after Rog, or the WiFi or any of it. You chose to do those things.”
“It didn’t feel that way.”
“Courage never does. You’ve forced them to fight for Portland. I’ve given them something to deal with in DC. The last Central Data node is in Delphi™,” she said, her eyes flashing. “If we take that out, we might really shut them down.”
“Won’t that cause chaos?” I asked.
“There’ll be chaos, all right. But once the network comes down, we’ll be able to get the food printers working without the WiFi, thanks to you.”
For a second, that idea seemed lovely to me. With the WiFi out, and the book of PrintLocks™ codes, people could freely tell each other how to print food. But my excitement was brief. Portland had been a mess with the WiFi down. Being able to talk didn’t mean people would communicate.
“Everyone is so spread out, through the different domes,” I said. “It will take forever to get the information out to them all.” A sick, hot feeling went over me. This would be terrible, no matter how successful we were.
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