by Natalie Reid
Getting out of bed, she saw that most everyone was still asleep except for Tom, Ritter and Griffin. Ritter was probably outside somewhere, sulking, but the other two might be inside preparing breakfast. She decided that the best thing to do would be to seek them out and try to apologize for her actions last night. She heard voices in the kitchen, so she started in that direction. She was about to round the hallway corner when she heard her name being spoken. Stopping, she held her breath and listened.
“What did you think of her?” Griffin asked.
“If you want the truth, I was terrified,” Tom admitted. “I mean shaking in my boots terrified of her.”
“Really?”
“You have no idea.”
Jessie quickly backed away from the wall, her heart stammering in her chest. Was that really what he thought of her? Had her fight with Ritter changed his opinion so drastically? Her head felt hot and her whole body felt weak. She felt broken inside, too defeated to try and search for another meaning to his words. Tom was afraid of her. Her worst suspicions had finally been proven. He would never look at her the way she looked at him.
Changing into some warm clothes, she snuck out of the cabin’s front door, wanting to be far away at the moment. A set of tracks dotted the snow and led into the trees. Ritter. She found her feet following the same line. She didn’t know why she felt compelled to seek him out. It wasn’t like she wanted a rematch of last night’s fight. Yet, for some reason, when she had seen his footprints, it felt natural to follow them.
The tracks led a mile into the snow, towards the base of one of the rocky mountains that she had once dubbed the Guardians of Aero City. She spotted Ritter in a clearing near an outcrop of rocks. He was still and staring at something in front of him, though Jessie couldn’t see what. Slowly his hand reached behind him to his back, as though he might be going for a gun, but there was no weapon concealed beneath his jacket, and his hand came away empty.
Instinct took over emotion. She could smell the danger in the wind. She needed to get to that clearing in the wood. Silently going around the crop of rocks, she peeked out to see what had gotten Ritter’s attention.
At the rim of the tree line, just a few yards away, a brown bear stood on its haunches. Its back legs were huge, and there was a wild look in its eyes. Something must have woken it from its sleep, and there was no question that it felt threatened by Ritter. Thundering down on all four paws, it began to lumber towards him.
Jessie didn’t so much think as react. Running from her hiding spot behind the rocks, she stood in front of Ritter so he was blocked from the bear’s view. Seeing her, the bear stopped. Its eyes were fixed on her as it raised its nose in the air and began to sniff. Jessie stared it down, somehow knowing what the bear would smell on her. She was dripping with Bandit like some predators were dripping with blood. One whiff of the scent told the bear to stay back.
Giving out a low growl, the bear turned and headed back the way it came.
With the bear gone, the forest was left in silence. She could hear Ritter breathing calmly behind her. She didn’t want to turn around and face him. She didn’t even want to admit to herself that she had acted to save him. In the end, she decided that the only thing she could do was to make light of the situation.
“Apparently I smell more rotten than you,” she remarked, turning away to lean against the granite outcropping of rocks.
Ritter stuck his hands in his pockets and chose a spot on the rocks not far from her. He studied her for a moment before asking, “You lose your mind or something?”
She scratched an itch on her head. “Nah, I’m just sharing it with a Bandit, remember?”
Ritter’s shoulders shook in silent laughter. “Your sense of humor is as morbid as mine is.”
“Yeah, it’s great fun to joke about Bandits,” she muttered sarcastically. Jerking her chin in his direction, she asked, “Hey, what was the score when you left? Think I had allegedly killed five east-enders by that time.” She shook her head. “Hilarious, right? Watching all those people scramble to protect themselves.”
“Well, actually, there was this one west-end guy that…”
She shot him a glare, and Ritter stopped with his story, muttering under his breath, “Just trying to lighten things up.”
She kicked her foot in the snow and watched the clumps of upturned ice scatter across the static surface.
“You do realize that this is never going to work,” he stated suddenly. “Some sort of alliance between you and me…”
“Yeah,” she agreed dryly. “We’d kill each other before that happened.”
“Well actually,” he corrected, waving his hand in a sweep in front of him. “I’d kill you first, and then the rest of them would probably find a way to do away with me later.”
She leaned her back further against the rock and breathed out a thin stream of crystalized air. “Then I’ll be sure to leave instructions in my will.”
“Of course,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “Carver might stop the whole thing before it ever started.”
“You want to start another fight, keep on that same direction.”
Ritter laughed, keeping the sound in the back of his throat so that it echoed off the walls in his mouth. “That’s right, I forgot. You’ve got daddy issues.”
“Yeah, I’m not the only one,” she muttered, digging her hands in her pockets and looking through the trees in the direction of the training camp.
Ritter sniffed in sharply. “We’re not talking about her.”
“No, you’re not talking about her, and that’s the problem. You’re not even trying to explain things to her.”
“Well, she made me a promise to do whatever it was I asked, and she’s not holding her end of it.” He reached over to a nearby tree and ripped up a piece of its bark in his hands. “She used me to save you, and now she’s too afraid to look at me.”
“You go around punching and shooting people all the time, I don’t blame her.” Jessie looked over at the tired man before saying, “You can’t expect a child to keep a promise. I couldn’t keep the one I swore to my mom.”
“Spare me the touching story, Chance,” he spat out.
“The point is,” she continued, “that I didn’t know then what I was getting myself into. I didn’t think there was anything that could keep me from fulfilling it… Then I met you.” She took in a tired breath and ran a rough hand through her hair, tussling it and banging her head at the same time to come to grips with what she was about to share with him.
“She had made me promise to treat everyone I met as special. Call it sentimental, but that was a pretty hard-core thing to ask of a kid. I didn’t know it at the time, not until some guy came into my life, killed my friends, put a price on my head, and then used me to get what he wanted.”
Ritter nodded his head and glanced up to the sky, as if to say that he knew the conversation would turn in this direction.
She kept talking.
“If you want the truth, every time I see you I want to punch you in the face till I can’t feel my hands.” She let out a long sigh. “But then where would that get us?”
“Literally? I’d be unconscious and you’d have a pretty racked up pair of hands.”
“Look.” She stared straight ahead through the trees so she wouldn’t have to see him. “I’m trying to help you here, so let me just get this out before I think better of it.” She took in a breath. “Nel needs to see the man that gave her the flowers and promised to explore the world with her. That man was her father. Until you can find him, you’ll just be a man with a gun to her.”
She stared down at her hands when she had finished. In the course of five minutes, she had just saved Ritter’s life, told him a personal secret, and offered him advice on how to win his daughter back. Maybe she was losing her mind. She stepped away from the rock, figuring that it was best if she just leave.
“I’ll need a ship.” Ritter called out.
She stopped and turned back to look at him.
“I find the field, I find the man,” he said, sticking his hands into his pockets and staring up at the frigid, blue sky. “I had made plans to leave on a ship once I had her back, but it’s kind of hard to make good on old arrangements when you’re a fugitive.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
He cocked his head and managed a grin. “Cause believe it or not, like it or not, you and I are gonna have to be partners again.” His eyes flicked up towards the sky and he explained, “Your mother, along with what’s left of The Thirty, are up on a ship called The Fulcrum. As providence would have it, it’s the only place where I can get a spare ship with the things I need to leave this place. If we help each other up there, we’ll both get what we want.”
Jessie took a few steps in the snow back towards him. “What are they doing with them up there?”
He shrugged. “With your mother, no idea. But I know The Thirty were Ward’s guinea pigs for the smoker weapon. Killed five of them before he perfected it.”
She was quiet for a moment. She had the urge to reach down into the snow and shove a handful in her mouth, but she was too filled with anticipation to move. “And the way up?” she asked, breathless.
“That’s where it gets complicated,” he answered.
They crouched in the snow near the rocks as he explained that the Fulcrum changed its position once every two months. He had been to it in that time, but as a passenger he had no way of knowing the exact coordinates, so finding it would be a lot like fishing in the dark. He did say that the Fulcrum broadcasted its position to the five government buildings in the business sector, but that Harper would only be able to hack into those feeds unless she was physically present.
“Or maybe not,” Jessie cut in. She rose to her feet and swiftly snapped a branch off of a pine tree. Bending back down, she began to write a series of numbers in the snow. “I saw these numbers off a device the Resistance stole from the top of Division Bank. When I first saw them, I suspected they might be flight coordinates.”
Ritter narrowed his eyes at the numbers and rubbed his chin. “Okay, let’s say these are the right numbers. That only gets us halfway there.”
“So explain the rest of it,” she urged.
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “We’ll need the others for this. Hopefully your dad and Denneck haven’t left yet.”
They got to their feet and started to jog back through the snow, when Ritter caught Jessie’s arm and held her back.
“You tell them about the bear, and you can forget about my help.”
She managed a smirk. “Trust me. I wouldn’t admit to it either.”
Back at the cabin, Jessie gathered everyone in the kitchen. Tom and Griffin were still at the table, and she tried her best to avoid looking Tom in the eye as she waited for the others to take a seat. Having new information about her mom needed to be priority number one in her mind. Her feelings for Tom would only hinder her progress.
Once everyone in the cabin was seated, Jessie took a deep breath and announced, “I know where my mom is. Ritter’s been there before.”
All at once, people started responding, saying that it was great news, pledging their support, saying that they were ready to help her with anything.
“Don’t worry sir,” Harper exclaimed, addressing Carver. “We’ll get you up to your bonnie lass in no time!”
“What does that even mean?” Ritter said, shaking his head.
“It means I’m smarter than you,” she smiled.
“I don’t think it means that,” Griffin whispered to his friend.
“It means my cousin’s an idiot who doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Denneck butted in.
“It means you’re all idiots,” Ritter mumbled.
“Well it certainly doesn’t mean that!” Harper scoffed. “Wait, what part of the sentence didn’t you understand?”
Ritter shook his head and knocked his fist against the table. “Look. It isn’t just that easy. You can’t just say you’ll do it and then hope that’ll be enough.”
“Always a catch with you guys,” Carver muttered from where he sat at the head of the table.
“What I mean is, we’ll need a ride up there,” Ritter said, trying to keep his temper. “But if we just take one of your military ships, they’ll see us coming miles away.”
“So just disguise it to look like one of yours,” Griffin stated. “There’s loads of discarded government scrap metal at the junk yard. It’s how I got my bike.”
“Brilliant, bird man, but you didn’t let me finish,” he reprimanded.
Griffin sank back in his seat, mumbling, “Why does everyone call me that?”
“In order to get inside, we have to be let in by the guys down at the Bank of Social Numbers. They’re the ones running the show up there. All government ships have direct contact with them, which means the only way we’re getting up there is to be taken prisoner, or to somehow break into the Bank of Social Numbers, find your way up to their communications room, and hack into their system without getting caught.”
This time Harper sat up, saying cheerfully, “Then we’ll just do that then! I bet I could figure their system out.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Ritter said firmly, making Nel jump. Seeing this, he lowered his voice before continuing. “You can’t just waltz into the Bank of Social Numbers and waltz out. They have key-codes on all the doors, a different sequence for each one. The people that work there drill those numbers into their heads each morning and won’t give them up under pain of death. They’re even given a mental scan each week to prove that they haven’t given away government information. There’s no way of getting around those doors. Not if you don’t know the codes. It just… it can’t be done.”
“So, you’re saying we go as prisoners then?” Harper asked.
“No,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
“So, you’re actually not saying anything at all,” she said proudly.
“Harper!” Griffin warned in a whisper, but Ritter was too deep in thought to bother retaliating.
Suddenly Ritter’s back stiffened and he turned to look at Jessie. Seeing his expression, she realized what was going through his mind. “No.” She shook her head at him in refusal.
“You’re the only one I know that ever did it,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Harper asked.
“On her Evolution Day, she got past fifteen key-encoded elevators and doors and escaped from the Bank of Social Numbers in a time span of two minutes,” he explained.
“No, but this is different,” Jessie insisted. “I was only able to do that because I saw the codes when I was being led around.”
“It’s not as different as you might think.”
“What? Are you saying they haven’t changed the codes in ten years?”
“Every time I had to go there, I tried memorizing the codes for the first few doors at least. I thought it might come in handy one day. Over the years, I realized what those lazy ra…” He stopped himself from cursing, instead saying, “What they were doing. It was too much work to constantly change the codes. People would keep forgetting them. So all they do each year is flip the last number in the sequence to the front. Since no one ever leaves the government and no one ever gives up the codes, they thought it was perfectly safe. But, it means that if you knew the codes ten years ago, it only takes a simple calculation to figure out what they would be today.”
“Yes, but I don’t!” Jessie exclaimed. “I don’t know the codes anymore!”
She looked across the table and saw everyone staring at her. She could feel the disappointment in the room. She had lived with that same disappointment for many years.
“Jessie,” Carver said gently. “Please try. I know you can do this.”
She shook her head and bunched her hand into a fist, saying, “Yeah, well I’m not Sarah, okay? I can’t remember every little thing as well as she could! I tried to remember
the codes. I kept repeating them over and over again in my head, thinking that somehow they would bring her back. But there were just too many numbers. They jumbled up in my head and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember how to set them right again.”
She sighed and let her head fall to her chest as she stared down at the wood of the table.
“It’s alright,” Carver said. “Well just find some other way to get them.”
His words were uncharacteristically gentle, but they made her feel worse. For the second time in his life, she was the reason why he couldn’t get back to his wife.
The flames blazed in Jessie’s eyes. She sat close to the fire-place, hugging her legs to her chest. If her eyes were filled with fire, then the shadows had a harder time coming in. Outside it was dark. Most of the others were already getting ready for bed, but Jessie didn’t want to leave the small sanctuary of the bright flames. The nights were always the worst. They were brimming with black, and the onset of slumber pressed hard on her eyes and called the shadows into clear focus.
“Aren’t you coming to bed?”
Her back stiffened as she recognized Tom’s voice. She hadn’t spoken with him since she overheard his conversation with Griffin that morning. In fact, she hadn’t had a real conversation with him in a long while…since before she was even infected with the Bandit.
“I’ll be there soon,” she replied, her voice devoid of emotion.
She didn’t look over as Tom lowered himself to the floor and took a spot next to her.
“You should get some sleep,” she whispered, the reflection of the flames dancing on her face and mixing in with the red mark over her eye.
“I’m not going,” Tom replied simply.
For a while neither of them spoke. The fire crackled, the warm light danced in their eyes, and the cold darkness pressed at their backs.
“I worried about you every night,” Tom finally spoke.
He shifted his gaze from the fire to her eyes, and Jessie felt that his stare could heat her face even more intensely than the flames could. Her mind unwillingly took her back to that night at the north-end apartment when he had kissed her. She didn’t know whether she wanted him to acknowledge that kiss or not. After what she had heard this morning, she was more confused than anything.
