I automatically slowed, craning my head to see where they were all going, but the high-rises prevented me from finding their destination.
“Zenn?” Saffediene asked from next to me.
“All those people,” I said, “where are they going?” I swung my board to follow them. Saffediene mirrored my movement.
We sank lower and lower into the streets as we drew closer to the crowd. I touched down in a side alley and leaned my board against the wall. At the end of the alley, the street opened up into a square.
Men and women stood on a raised platform to my right. They spoke into an amplifier so everyone could hear.
“Citizens! It is time to read the results of the vote!” cried one woman.
A vote? The word didn’t hold much meaning for me, but unease squirmed inside.
The woman passed the amplifier to a man, and he read from an e-board. “The majority of the polled population in Harvest has voted in favor of . . .” He paused for dramatic effect.
I could practically taste the tension in the air. A couple of people sparked tasers into the air, because of excitement or nerves, I didn’t know.
“Major Duarte as the next Director of Transportation!” the man concluded.
Half the crowd erupted into cheers.
The other half didn’t. In fact they gravitated toward each other, pushing and winding their way through the celebrators until they’d formed a crowd directly in front of me.
Simultaneously they all pulled tasers from their pockets, activated them, and raised them above their heads, sending a battle cry into the air.
Jag
13. Vi knew about the capsule. Somehow she knew. Words failed me. Vi searched my face for answers. I felt deflated and completely out of my element.
I always knew what to do. What to say.
The only other time I’d felt like this, I’d ended up getting buried alive.
So I started small. “Vi?”
Something foreign flashed across her face. Deception. I’ve seen it a thousand times on a thousand different faces. But never hers.
“I think you better tell me,” I said as calmly as I could. My uncertainty was giving way to frustration, which would bloom into anger.
She fidgeted, her fingers on my biceps flitting around like they didn’t know where to settle. I felt a strange mix of longing, desperation and fear coming from her.
“I won’t be mad,” I coaxed.
“Yeah, you will.” She closed her eyes. “I’m afraid you’ll be furious.”
Like that had stopped her in the past. I took her flighty hands in mine to calm them. “Guess I’m not the only one with a secret. Wait. That’s not entirely true. You seem to already know mine.”
“It’s not my fault,” she said, with a defiant plea. “I can’t help what I can do.”
“And what is that, exactly?”
She stood straighter as she took a deep breath. “I can sort of . . . well, sometimes I can . . . I don’t know how to explain it. I mean, I can . . .”
I waited out her silence. I didn’t know what she needed, so I couldn’t give it to her.
She pulled back. It seemed to help, so I released her and sat on her bed. “Please,” I said.
She shuffled backward until she crowded the doorway. I kept my eyes down. I knew her words would hit me hard.
“I can see inside your head,” she said.
“That’s not new knowledge,” I said. Nice try, I wanted to add.
“While you’re asleep,” she clarified. “I can experience your dreams . . . as if I were you.”
“What?” I whispered.
Her words rushed out, unordered, but each statement made it more difficult to breathe.
Things like “I saw Blaze die in Freedom” and “I know you watched your parents’ deaths” and “Because you dreamt it, I saw Zenn leave the Resistance before I even knew he was in it” and the real kicker, “I know you were buried alive. I’ve experienced that capsule too.”
I cradled my head in my hands, and cried.
* * *
Vi’s seen me do the whole bawl-my-eyes-out thing before, and somehow it doesn’t freak her out. I rolled onto my stomach, remembering all the nightmares Vi had voiced—even though I’d give anything not to remember.
Vi smoothed my too-long hair off my forehead, got me something to drink, and whispered her apologies.
I wanted them. I wanted her.
After a few minutes she said, “You know, Jag, you don’t have to shoulder the whole Resistance alone. I’m not as fragile as you think I am.”
“I know.” And I did. Who else would have the guts to force her boyfriend to wear a vanisher, certain she’d never see him again? Who else would sacrifice herself for brainwashing so the one person she loved could go free?
Only Vi.
Her sacrifices weren’t lost on me. I knew them, felt them, every time I thought of her. That’s why it was so hard to put her in compromising situations. I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
Shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t.
“I was stupid,” I said. “That’s how I got caught. Stupidity. Surely you can understand why I wouldn’t want to tell you all about it.”
Vi’s hand, refreshingly cool, wiped my tears. “You’re selfish,” she said. “I want to know everything about you, especially the stupid things you do. Then maybe I won’t feel so inadequate all the time.”
I opened my eyes and looked at her. “You are anything but inadequate.”
She seemed close to scoffing. “I’ve seen the way people look at you. The way they rush to obey everything you say. Between the two of us, you’re clearly more important.”
She rushed on when I opened my mouth to protest. “I’m okay with it; I am. I don’t need to be important. Except to you . . . I want to be . . . I mean, never mind.”
“Vi, you are the most important person to me. The very most.”
She looked down. “It doesn’t feel like it sometimes.”
“When?” I challenged.
“When you don’t talk to me, tell me what’s important to you, let me in.” She met my gaze, and I couldn’t argue. “When you shuttle me to the middle of the pack.”
“I don’t want to burden you with the horrors of my life,” I said. I was protecting her. No one should have to live through what I did. Most people wouldn’t still be alive.
“I want those burdens,” she argued, “if it means you don’t have to carry them alone. And we both know you already have a lot of other crap to deal with.”
I felt her sincere desire to help me. The authentic way she’d do anything to make my life easier. I loved her more, if that was even possible, because of it.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “This is very hard for me.”
She smiled, and my stomach flipped in a good way. “Start small. How did you get caught?”
Dread returned to my body. “I’d gone to Harvest. It was the end of January.” I flashed back to that day: cold, with the promise of icy rain.
“I’d been working in Northepointe, shoveling snow on the maintenance crew. But Javier Benes had been appointed Director in Harvest—and that was a huge win for the Resistance. He started out like Zenn, working both sides until he received his own city. He’s what we’d been grooming Zenn to become.”
Vi raised her eyebrows at this. “Interesting.”
“What does that mean?” I echoed what Zenn had asked Vi a few times when she’d said that to him.
“It means I’m not sure who Zenn plays for. Are you?”
I rubbed the last of the salty tears out of my eyes and off my face. I had to admit it. “No, I’m not sure about Zenn either. I wish I was, but yeah. He’s just like Thane. I trust him about as far as I can throw him.”
“That’s what Gunner said.”
I nodded, lost in a tangle of trust and truth. “Insiders are the hardest,” I conceded. “People like Zenn and Starr and River. People who seem to be on the side of whomever they’re talking to.�
�
“Right,” Vi said. “But people like you, you’re so easy to figure out.” She laughed. It tugged on my heart, making me smile too. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d smiled.
“At least when someone talks to me, they know where I am,” I said. “I’ve always been Resistance, through and through.”
“It’s black-and-white for you,” she said. “It’s not like that for everyone.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, Benes Somebody was Director of Harvest?” she prompted.
I smiled again and took both her hands in mine. “Yeah. Director Benes was assigned Harvest, which was huge, because he was the first Insider to get that high in the Association. I mean, he was given command of his own city. He took the reins in October, but his inauguration wasn’t until late January. He was the first Director in an Association stronghold who was completely Resistance bred. I had to go.”
I remembered asking for leave from my job, which wasn’t all that stupid, but implied I’d come back. I knew I wouldn’t. I can’t stand that kind of restriction. I should’ve quit, but that might have led to the investigation anyway.
“So I went to Harvest for the ceremony. Everything went smoothly. It was one of my finest moments, seeing Benes don those robes and accept an entire city. Thousands upon thousands of people we could free.”
“Sounds like everything went well,” Vi prodded.
“Yeah. Afterward we met, and he confirmed that transmissions hadn’t been sent since he took over in October. I already knew, of course. Free people think and feel differently than the brainwashed. His city is filled with emotions people like me can feel.”
“So where’s the part where you were stupid?”
“I didn’t go back to my job in Northepointe.” I squeezed her hands. “You should know I’m just not that kind of guy. I can work, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t think my place is on the maintenance crew.”
“Now you tell me,” she said, a wry smile gracing her beautiful face. Impulsively I leaned over and kissed her.
It still took me by surprise every time she let me do that. I’d have to try to do it more often.
“Continue,” she said, pulling away. Was that a blush? I ducked my head to hide my smile.
“I didn’t realize the crew chief in Northepointe would care when I didn’t report back. I should’ve known he’d care. I should’ve known he’d file a report with the Director there. Kingston is ruthless, and the Insider contingency couldn’t intercept the report before it was too late.”
I sighed. “Kingston figured out who I was. See, I’m sort of wanted everywhere. Not sure if you knew that.”
She nudged me with her shoulder. “You and me both, buddy.”
I lifted my arm to put it around her, ignoring the aching fire in my shoulder and down my left side. I seriously needed whatever Pace had in that needle.
“I’d left Harvest by then, but had just arrived in Rancho Port when all hell broke loose. Flight Cops were waiting for me at the border, as if they knew I was coming. It’s impossible . . . but maybe not.
“It’s so hot in the south, even in early February.” I stopped, lost in memory of the absolute heat of the Texan Region and how I clung to the frostiness of shoveling snow for the first part of my entombment.
Underground, I remembered the way my breath would freeze my lungs together, little barbs of ice catching each other until I thought the air couldn’t force the tissue apart. The sting of my fingers as they froze and then thawed. The way I used to think I’d rather endure a trial by fire instead of freezing to death.
In the capsule, it always came back to me thinking, Well, you got what you wanted. Heat.
So much cracking heat.
“Jag?” Vi snuggled in closer to my side. “How’d you get caught?”
I forced myself to focus on the here and now; the pressure of Vi’s body against mine; the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the silky quality of her skin, the taste of her mouth.
“Jag?” She tilted her head to look at me.
I kissed her, desperate to ground myself. I knew my mouth was too hungry. I needed her the way I had needed air in the capsule. I knew what it was like to go without both.
The touch of her lips softened my insides. She calmed me in her usual Vi-fashion. When we broke apart, I was happy to see she was as breathless as me.
“Like I said,” I whispered, our faces inches apart. “They were waiting for me. Before I could do anything, I’d been silenced, tased, and cuffed. Blindfolded. Someone shoved a needle into my neck, and everything went quiet. Numb. Beneath me, the ground moved, but I couldn’t even so much as twitch my fingers.”
I drew a breath, as if I could summon strength into myself with such a simple action. “When the drugs wore off, they removed my blindfold and made me dig. I dug and dug and dug.”
“No,” Vi murmured.
“Yes,” I said. “I dug my own grave. Someone stuck a needle into my arm. Their mouths moved, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying. Everything was blurry, shapeless, mute. They uncuffed me before shoving me into the capsule.”
“Stop,” Vi whispered, but I couldn’t.
“Then I was falling. I fell and fell and fell and it was so, so dark. The last thing I remember is the sound the dirt made as it rained down on the metal capsule.” A shudder ripped through my body.
Vi wept openly now. I should’ve been able to.
Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.
But I didn’t. Telling her about what had happened actually released the burden from me. Who knew I’d feel like that?
“Thank you,” I said, touching my mouth to hers again, this time softly. I waited for her permission to continue. She gave it, slowly exploring my lips with hers, as if she hadn’t kissed me before.
“How’d you get out?” she asked when she pulled back. “How’d you get to Freedom?”
I was ready to give her all my secrets. I would’ve too, if Gunner hadn’t burst into her room.
“It’s Thane,” he said. “He’s awake.”
Zenn
14. I grew up in the City of Water, where my father said I’d been able to manipulate the air since birth. There isn’t a time I can remember that I couldn’t control the wind.
My older brother had no such talents, beyond thinking for himself. My mother favored him, but my father doted on me. He counseled me on how to use my talent without detection; he introduced me to the physics educator at school; he took me to work with him and let me experiment in the wind machines.
My father also covered up the infraction with Vi. The house had alerted him, and the report would’ve gone on my official record since I was already thirteen.
He knew about the Resistance—because he was involved. He’d recruited me; he’d taught me the subtle art of playing both sides; he’d introduced me to Jag.
I adored my father.
He didn’t understand my sudden withdrawal from the Resistance, but I blamed the failed mission during which Blaze Barque had died. I’d never confessed the deal I’d made with Thane Myers—he’d matched me with Vi in exchange for information about Jag. My first true test of living the Insider life.
I’d “left” the Resistance, but I’d never revealed anything of importance to Thane.
Insider Tip #4: Give information that is either already known, or that won’t damage the other side.
Jag hated me because I’d quit, but I’d had no choice. Thane held more power than Jag knew—power to make my life difficult. He’d threatened my father; he’d threatened Vi.
I’d do anything to keep the two of them safe. The decision was easy: I defected. Jag could deal.
* * *
As I pressed into the alley wall in Harvest, I remembered that mission to Freedom when Blaze had disappeared. The fear felt the same, but the stakes were much higher now. I flattened myself against the wall as the battle cry became a roar. The taser-happy crowd surged forward, joined by more people from the alley behin
d me.
Saffediene cried out, and I turned to find her on her hands and knees. Anger boiled through me as I grabbed her hand and pulled her to a standing position next to me. I stepped partially in front of her to shield her from further danger.
“Our boards,” she moaned, looking down the alley roiling with a steady stream of people. “No way they survived that horde.”
I had to agree, but we had to focus on our most pressing problem: getting out of here alive.
“Who’d you vote for?” a man asked a mere half foot away, his taser sparking with blue techtricity.
I swatted it out of my face. “Get that away from me,” I growled.
For a moment he looked like he might leave. Then he saw Saffediene. “Oh, I get it. She voted for Duarte.”
“She’s not even from here,” I said. “Leave us alone.”
His eyes glazed at my voice control, and he joined the fray of anti-Duarte supporters.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” I said quietly. “Come on.” Saffediene’s hand trembled as we ran down the alley together, away from the square.
I didn’t look back, despite the screams that pierced the air. Saffediene stumbled, but I kept her upright. As we hurried away, I realized that the scene in that square could’ve been one of the vids the Association showed students. See what happens when Citizens are allowed freedoms? I heard the slogans in my mind with little effort.
I didn’t look back, even when the hovercopters arrived, blaring with instructions and popping with taser fire.
Free vs. functioning? looped through my mind.
Next to me, Saffediene wept openly, but I didn’t feel the slightest bit like crying.
I didn’t look back, because I couldn’t stand to see the proof that humanity couldn’t manage themselves. That they’d always need a Thinker.
That I’d been fighting for chaos these past four years.
* * *
At the end of the alley, our hoverboards were indeed gone. I mourned their loss for only a moment before I snapped my fingers, and a current of air stalled in front of me. Its edges shimmered in my vision, gray and then purple and then blue.
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