“Hey,” I said casually, pretending I hadn’t drained his fake-rash-wearing brother over the weekend and then missed an entire day of school.
“Morning.” Trek sounded normal. But the lines around his eyes told a different story. And when he broke school protocol by sending me a file over my cache, I knew he’d been radically changed. As Insiders, we keep protocol during the day. Outstanding Citizens, we are. Except when we aren’t.
I stared at him a moment too long before flicking my eyes to the other students walking in the hall. They whispered, as per protocol. They didn’t touch, as per protocol. They were the picture of calm, quiet, and controlled. As per protocol.
“Good weekend?” Trek asked as I flipped open his document.
“I guess,” I murmured. At the top of the list sat the word Aliases.
My eyes slid over the columns of names, searching. I found Cash’s name halfway down on the third page. Insubordinate sat next to it. And beyond that, Deceased.
The world spun too fast. He’d been alive after the drain. I hadn’t killed him. Thane had been there. Not my fault, I told myself, as the word Insubordinate burned its way through my body.
“Time for class,” Trek said, but his voice echoed as if from very far away. I’d seen everything I needed to, and I should’ve closed and deleted the doc. Yet I didn’t. I kept skimming name after name, thinking I’d see someone important. Someone useful.
Someone life changing.
That’s when I saw Kyla Hightower—Unmodifiable—Deceased.
My blood raged in my ears, drowning out Trek’s urgings to get to class. I blinked, but the hall stayed dark even after I opened my eyes. The floor shivered under my feet.
I was going down; I felt it. My knees hit the ground before strong fingers gripped my bicep.
Another protocol-breaker.
It was Gunner. His voice, his strength, pulled me back to my feet. I couldn’t make sense of anything he said. Everything looked soft around the edges; everyone seemed to be watching us.
Somehow I made it to my seat, my arm aching where Gunner had practically squeezed it off. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, getting only a lungful of Gunner. He smelled like buttered toast.
* * *
Cannon met me at the door after environmental studies and accompanied me to genetics. His hand hovered near mine under the table, and he shot furtive glances my way. I was about to open my cache when the Educator said, “No caching, Starr.”
She glowered, but the Educator rubbed his ear, as if he could hear the whine of her cache in his head. Which, of course, he could. As a technopath, his sensitivity to tech made it impossible to skate under the strict no-caching radar.
After class, Cannon grabbed hold of my gloved hand. I clung to him, scared I couldn’t move without his help. Our friendship provided me with the anchor I desperately needed. He pulled me around the corner.
“Raine, we must speak.” His eyes searched mine as if he could convey his concerns telepathically. “What did I say in the lab over the weekend?”
“What? I don’t know.” I could barely remember what day it was.
“I think I said something I shouldn’t have. I got a citation from your father.” He swallowed hard. He raked his hands through his hair. “I have to meet with him later today.”
Fear flowed through my body with my blood; each breath felt heavy with it. Cannon didn’t know a fraction of what my father was capable of, and a meeting didn’t sound good.
“Did you get a citation?” Cannon asked.
“Only for missing school yesterday, but my father waived it. What was yours for?”
“Behavior unbecoming a Citizen.”
Which could mean anything, even simply that my dad didn’t like him.
The ring around Cannon’s iris sharpened. His pupil grew wider. I knew that look: Here came a Seer statement. He blinked at me. “You will have to decide how much to share with your father. And when. Every person has a season for knowledge.”
I stepped backward to escape the penetrating tone of his voice. Like a single step would help me riddle out his words, or build a shelter from those who don’t have to be present to see, feel, smell, know everything.
Cannon squeezed my hands quickly, something he’d always done to reassure himself as much as me. “See you later, Raine.” And then he blended into the stream of students on their way to lunch. I remained with my back pressed into the seamless wall, watching him walk away. Everything I’d heard and seen in the past two hours swirled together until I had no idea what to focus on first.
This marked the third time in two weeks that Cannon had skipped lunch. But I wouldn’t tell anyone. Just like I wouldn’t tell anyone what I’d seen when I’d touched Violet. I kept my talent a highly confidential secret. Anything with the Insiders was carefully concealed, buried deep, and never thought of in the wrong places.
Gunner rounded the corner. He saw me and hurried forward. “There you are. You all right?” He scanned my face, and I tried to compose it into my usual I don’t give a damn expression. I don’t think it worked, because he leaned closer.
“Why weren’t you at school yesterday?” He edged in a little farther. My breathable air disintegrated.
“I was ill,” I lied in a whisper.
Gunn cocked his head, his eyes never leaving mine. We don’t get sick echoed in my head, over my nonactivated cache.
“How—?”
He shook his head. I’m a technopath. I can use your cache even when it’s not on.
Embarrassment crept up from my stomach. He could hear me all the time, no matter what? I didn’t know that was part of technopathic ability.
Don’t worry, he chatted. I can’t hear you with the cache off. I can simply connect to your cache if I want.
Instead of worrying about what he had or hadn’t heard, I activated my cache. I have something important to tell you, I chatted.
So tell me, Hightower.
It’s about Trek—
A sharp cough cut me off. I looked over Gunn’s shoulder to see his match—yes, the same Starr Messenger—glaring her pretty little eyes out.
Catch you later. I inched along the wall as Gunn turned toward Starr. I was halfway down the hall before he responded: Tonight, Rise Five, two a.m.
Gunner
13.
My stomach settled in my shoes at the sight of Starr. She’d enhanced her hair into this funky purplish-brown color, and her eyes cut as sharp as ever. More than one guy glanced at her as she pressed in closer to me.
“Gunn.” Starr linked her arm through mine and steered me toward the dining hall in the corner of the building. Other students turned to stare at us, mostly because of the way she was touching me in public, even if we were matched. I felt like I had a blazing I stamped on my forehead and a spider screaming “Informant!” from my shoulder.
I’d figured out that the only person I knew worth spying on was Starr. Even I knew she should be on a higher track than she was. What I didn’t know was why she wasn’t. I felt sick. Not that I was in love with Starr, but still. She didn’t deserve to be ratted out for everything she told me.
So much in my life had changed in only three days, and I felt light-years away from the classmates I used to laugh with.
My flying buddies grinned openly at Starr’s possessive grip, probably interpreting it as some sort of romantic thing. They couldn’t feel her dagger-nails piercing my flesh. I winced when we rounded the corner. “Ease up, Starr.”
She cocked her head, placed her hands on her hips. “I don’t like the way Raine was looking at you.”
“She wasn’t—”
“Oh, please. She was too. Don’t lie.”
Starr was the only one who could really get me riled up with a simple look. Her harsh tone didn’t help. “I wasn’t going to lie. I was going to say it isn’t what you think.”
“Really? And what do I think, Gunner?” My name sounded so sharp on her tongue. Her eyes blazed violet with anger.
I sighed. “You think … well, you know what you think,” I finished lamely. My shoulders knotted with her tension. I simply wanted this conversation to end. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“You think I don’t know about your obsessive crush on Raine Hightower?”
“I do not have an obsessive crush on Raine.”
“Then what just happened?”
“She was trying to tell me something about Trek, that’s all. We’re both friends with Trek. You’re freaking out over nothing.” I almost choked from describing Trek Whiting as a friend.
Starr appraised me like she might rip my heart out and eat it for lunch. “You know I can confirm this with Trek, right?”
I held her gaze, internally begging her to drop this. “You have nothing to worry about,” I continued, carefully lacing my fingers through hers. They felt cold as ice, bony, and fragile. “You’re my match, Starr. I don’t think about anyone but you.”
I closed my eyes against the glass forming in hers. So I’d used my voice, tase me. When Starr’s lips met mine, they felt just as frigid and frail as her hands. I’d never felt so low. Who brainwashes their match into a kiss, just so they’ll forget what they were mad about?
She pulled away first. With her cool breath skating across my neck and Raine watching from the doorway of the dining hall, I whispered, “Sorry.”
“Be careful how much you tell Raine Hightower. That girl is keeping secrets.” Starr stepped away and looked down the hall toward Raine, the ice returning to her eyes.
I straightened with difficulty. The weight of pretending to be the right match, the right Insider, the right guy, pressed on me so hard I thought my legs would give out.
How could I keep up the act for Thane every afternoon?
How much could I trust Raine?
How could I keep Director Hightower satisfied?
I felt like each of them expected a different Gunner, and I didn’t know how to be any of them.
“Oh, and Gunn?” Starr leaned in close, close enough for me to kiss again. “Don’t use your voice on me again. Ever again.” She wiped her mouth before walking away.
* * *
Midnight came before I’d fallen asleep. I dressed in the traditional garb of sneaking out: black from head to toe. Even the silver rivets on my boots had been coated with black colorall.
Zenn came out of the bathroom, his newly dyed hair as dark as his clothes. He tossed me a tube, mimed rubbing it on his face.
I examined the label. Toner. When I glanced up, Zenn’s white-toothed grin gaped back at me from a heavily tanned face.
He gestured for me to get toned up. I wanted to ask him where he got it, but we’d agreed to keep our conversation to a minimum, even over the cache. Our feeds were plugged into our e-boards to simulate the mandatory eight hours of transmissions.
The white cream squeezed out in smooth curls. It warmed as I massaged it into my face. The chemicals stung the corners of my eyes, tasted like filament powder against my lips. In the time it took me to walk into the bathroom, my skin turned from white as milk to dark as dirt.
Zenn mimed washing his hands and nodded vigorously, so I washed my hands before the toner could stain my palms.
Zenn led me through the bedroom. We might have to bleach before school.
Super, I chatted as we went out onto the balcony, merged into the night on silenced hoverboards.
Flying fast at night was amazing. The air felt lighter, unweighted by thoughts and emotions. Sure, it practically froze my lungs together, but I decided I’d take that over suffocation any day.
Instead of landing and entering Rise One through the unsittable foyer, Zenn zipped up to the roof. I touched down silently beside him; we stowed our boards in a tech generator closet.
I paused with my hand on the latch, remembering the line in my father’s letter that read, shut down tech generators—123—Harvest.
I cataloged the location of this generator, hoping it would help me find the one in the city of Harvest—wherever that was. Suddenly, the task of finding the journal seemed insurmountable. The list of cities in the letter went on and on. The journal could be in any of them. Even if I managed to get my hands on the journal, to carry out every line of instruction in the letter would take me months.
You’re not alone, Zenn chatted over the cache.
I jerked my head up. Had he heard my thoughts? Had he seen the letter? I flexed my fists, unsure if I could trust this guy I’d only known for four days.
He shook his head in a we’ll talk later gesture and strode to the edge of the roof. He launched himself face-first into the air.
I followed him. He hovered a few feet below the lip of the roof, his hand extended to me. Throwing all caution to the wind—literally—I took Zenn’s helping hand and stepped onto the cushion of invisible air under his control. This shady “plan” had formed during seven-second conversations at breakfast and then dinner as we’d ordered toast and more toast. He’d told me he could control the wind. “Speak to it,” I think were his exact words. “Trust me. It won’t be a problem,” he’d said.
But it was. Holy hell, it was. Because flying with a very solid hoverboard under me is exhilarating. But flying with nothing under me? Terrifying.
Zenn held his arms straight out to the sides of his body, and we slowly descended until we reached Thane’s ruined window.
I pushed aside the useless tech filaments and leapt from Zenn’s air cloud into Thane’s office. The solid silver floor was the most comforting thing in the world. Zenn whispered something that sounded strangely like, “Thank you. Wait here,” and joined me at the cabinet.
The locked cabinet.
He glanced at me, and I got to work. Three minutes and one major tech-buzz headache later, and the cabinet swung open. Zenn handed me the first e-board.
I held my hand over the top of the e-board, closed my eyes. My fingers vibrated. The tech surrounding me grew into a living, breathable thing. I felt it enter my bloodstream, smelled the ashy-ness of it.
A moment later the number-letter combination of the passcode flowed to my cache. I entered it into the first e-board and handed it back to Zenn. He nodded toward the cabinet, where three more boards waited. I had them all up and operating in five minutes.
Okay, so my genetic ability to control tech was as freaky as Zenn talking to thin air. Whatever.
We pored over the boards for a few minutes. I didn’t see anything worth mentioning. Daily task lists, supply forms, dozens of reports. None of them had a name I recognized.
Zenn waved his hand, and I joined him at his board, where he had the docs up on the screen. He’d hit the jackpot: a file full of reports with two names we both knew well—Raine Hightower and Violet Schoenfeld.
He forwarded them all to his cache, grinning. I returned to my board, discarding it a minute later. The second board brought up some files that looked promising. At least, they all had Vi’s name on them.
And another name I didn’t recognize—Jag Barque. I raised my hand to motion Zenn over when the alarm sounded.
“Get it all,” Zenn said out loud, which rocketed my rising panic into full-fledged are you kidding me? mode.
I inhaled and held my breath as I sent myself every file on the e-board. I shut it down and chucked it back into the cabinet with the others as shrill sirens joined the chorus of wails.
Zenn seemed to be faster than me at everything. He already stood on the pillow of air, gesturing wildly for me to join him.
I ran, jumped, caught his hand. He was already moving up before I could release the stale breath from my lungs.
* * *
* * *
After we arrived back at the flat, Zenn showered while I pulled up the Jag Barque reports. During the regulated five-minute bathing time, I’d seen more than enough to know that this Jag guy was a huge problem for the Association.
As Zenn dressed and gestured wildly toward the bathroom as if to say, Your turn, I discovered that Jag wa
s a major inconvenience for him too.
Because this Jag Barque guy and Violet Schoenfeld were Chokers—not that she could remember. I glanced at Zenn, sure he wouldn’t want me to know this.
I wanted to delete all the files, forget I’d seen them, and, for Zenn’s sake, hope like hell that Jag would stay lost forever. I seriously considered it for one, two, three seconds.
Then I forwarded everything to Zenn, went to shower so Raine wouldn’t freak when I showed up for our two a.m. “appointment” with a toned face.
Raine
14.
After school I watched Cannon’s brown-haired head flop back against the ergonomic in my living area. He exhaled loudly, as if today had been the longest of his life. I knew exactly how he felt.
I ordered my snack (one half cup of strawberry yogurt) from the dispenser. By the time I turned around, Cannon already had his e-board out, reading something on the screen for one of his classes. That’s all he did lately. Work.
After depositing my e-board in my bedroom, I sat cross-legged on the floor across from him. Neither of us spoke. He turned off his e-board, leaned forward, and gathered my gloved hands in his, instantly erasing my exhaustion. His touch provided me with what I needed most: safety.
His skin felt warm through the thin filament gloves. Cannon massaged my fingers and down over my wrist while I puzzled over his prophetic words from earlier that day.
“Cannon?” I said, trying to keep my voice casual. “Do you remember what you said at lunch?”
His eyebrows bunched into a crease. His blue eyes held nothing but confusion. “No, I can’t. What did I say?”
We used to share everything, but I still hadn’t mentioned Gunn. Or the Alias list and Cash’s death. And Cannon hadn’t told me why he’d been skipping meals. I hadn’t decided what to say when he continued.
“Everything I say is important.” He pinched harder against my gloves, as if he could somehow impress upon me the severity of his warnings.
Surrender Page 10
