Well, until his ghost, who claimed not to be a ghost, started talking to me.
No matter what they’d done to him, and I could only guess, he’d never turned me over as the law demanded. The police never came to my door, nor had any official questioned me when I’d petitioned for his release. I had often lay awake at night wondering what they’d done to him. Since Eli arrived in my life, Tyler’s demise constantly sat in the back of my mind.
* * *
“So, what happened to your friend?”
I turn my head and look over at the chair, however Axel is now on the bed, sitting next to me. Very close. Staring. “Shit!” I startle and bolt upright. I scoot away, putting at least three feet between us. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” I did not hear him move, nor do I know how long he’s been there. I rub my arms and glare.
“You were speaking so quietly I could barely hear you. I didn’t want to interrupt. Do you mind if I sit here?”
I shake my head. “No, but say something next time. I’m used to being alone. You took me by surprise.”
“Fair enough. So, you were about to tell me what happened to your friend.”
“Yes, well, he broke the law.” I wrap my arms around my shins, and draw my knees to my chest, resting my chin on them. “I’d warned Tyler, but he didn’t listen. I think the day they took him away is the day I lost the real Tyler. At one point, he’d been a good guy, but the government of Sententia did something to him.” I sigh. “It was my fault.”
“Everyone has a choice, Iia,” Axel says. “You can’t blame yourself for his choices.”
“Yes, only my own. That’s the problem.”
* * *
One year before
“It’s just a small power cell. I want to see if it’s possible to use certain acidic foods on the islands to make batteries. Everyone knows you’re the smartest tech out there, Iia, and I can’t do it without your help.”
Likely story. Smartest tech next to him. I eyed the box in his arms. “And you want to do this at my place, why?”
“Because, after the last incident, I can’t take the chance they’re watching my quarters. If we’re successful, this could be a means to travel outside the Net. Portable energy. Think about it. The possibilities.”
“If we’re caught, we’re dead. We’ve passed finals and are in the employment placement program now. We’re no longer students, Tyler, but adults, and we will be charged and prosecuted as adults if caught.”
“What are they going to do? Destroy our project? Fine us?”
“Send us to trial and execute us. This is considered treason. Why do you think they teach regulations for four years? They won’t play around. It’s not like breaking the rules at the academy. There are no second chances out in the real world.”
“We won’t get caught. Besides, it’s a small battery. I seriously doubt they’ll kill us for designing one. They might even reward us for giving them portable energy which will work outside the Net.”
“Do you think you’re the first person to think of this, Tyler? If they wanted the technology, they would have had it a long time ago. I don’t think they want us leave the islands, and they most certainly don’t want us to draw the attention of any outsiders who might be out there. It could put Sententia at risk. They don’t hand out slaps on the hand for stuff like that. You’ve got to stop this suicidal drive to create new technology.”
“Says the girl who has a history of doing such. I know you want to.” He’d given me his most charming smile, one he knew damn good and well I couldn’t say no to. “I’ll make it up to you, and I promise nobody will know. I only need a place to store my project until I’m done. If they catch me, I’ll deny you even knew. Please.”
“Why can’t I say no to you?” I pressed my palm over my lock and opened the door.
Tyler grinned. “Because you love me too much.” He wiggled his brows. “If I weren’t gay, I’d totally kiss you.”
“Sick. You’re like my brother, so don’t even think about it.”
He hip bumped me and walked into my apartment. Tyler liked to play with fire, so I wasn’t surprised he’d discovered another way to walk across hot coals. He’d spent most of his time jousting with authority, sometimes blatantly so.
Same sex pairing wasn’t allowed in Sententia, but it had never stopped Tyler. He was, for lack of a better word, a whore. I still loved him like a brother though and would do anything for him. Something he took full advantage of. With Tyler, no wasn’t in my vocabulary.
I followed him inside, peering over his shoulder into the box.
“Behold the box of secrets.” He tipped his head to the side and cracked his neck. Pop. Pop. Pop.
I jerked my chin and stared him down. “Ewww. Do you have to do that? It’s creepy.”
“Just releasing air from between my joints.”
“Yeah, well don’t do it.” I leaned in and examined the contents of the box. “Speaking of things you should not do—” Yeah, Tyler had his weakness, men. Me, I was a technology slut and couldn’t help the head rush I’d gotten as I’d cataloged the contents. Tyler had brought the most advanced parts and pieces, not components for any kind of battery I’d ever seen. More like nano-technology, strictly forbidden, highly illegal, crack to my inner-geek.
“You like?”
“You know I do. But you sure as hell aren’t building a battery. What exactly are you doing?”
“Do you care? Let’s wreck some havoc.”
“Okay. Gimmee.” I reached into the box, going for what looked like a bio-cosmetic device. “Shit!” A sharp piece of metal sliced the tip of my finger. I yanked my hand back, grabbing for a towel and wrapping it around the finger now pumping blood all over the place.
“Let me get a look at it.”
I glared at Tyler. “You’re not a doctor.”
“No, and you probably don’t want a doctor to see your boo-boo. They might ask how you cut it, and the bio-mech tech has certain properties they will pick up on a scan, triggering questions you don’t want asked.”
“Bio-mech?” I offered my wound over to him. “As in half-machine half human? Tell me you aren’t screwing around with that Frankenstein shit.”
He opened the towel and looked at my finger, quickly covering my cut again. “Do you have liquid stitches anywhere?”
“No. I go to the doctor and have it fused together.” I took my hand back.
“Keep pressure on your wound while I dig around in your pantry. I can get everything for triage in there. Sit tight. I’ll have you patched up in no time.”
“I can’t wait.” I eyed Tyler as he started pulling out various bottles from the pantry and one from his box of outlawed technology. “What are you making?”
“The same glue they use to seal bio-flesh shut. Relax, I’ve done this a time or two.”
“You’re not helping me to relax talking that way. What the hell are you doing sealing bio-flesh together and over what exactly?”
He glanced and me and back to his mad scientist project. “For your own safety, it’s better you don’t know.”
“In case the police come asking questions?” I’d joked when I’d said it, but from the firm expression which fell onto his face, he didn’t find humor in what I’d said.
“Something like that,” he said, focusing on his concoction, avoiding looking at me.
“Holy hell, Tyler. What kind of shit are you into?”
“Better you don’t know,” he replied back in his sing-songy voice I hated so much. He engaged my stove’s burner and held the bottle over it until the contents came to a boil. Once the contents rolled inside the bottle, he shut the flame off and reached for my hand. “Let me see.”
“Not until it cools.”
“It’s not hot,” Tyler said. “The bubbling came from a chemical reaction.”
“Says you.”
He’d jabbed his finger in it, holding it in place for several seconds. “You good?”
I offered my hand. “I
don’t know what you’ve been doing, but promise me you’ll stop. If you’re screwing around with creating bio-mechs, you will be executed if caught.”
“I could get executed for a lot of things I do. I’m not going to live my life in fear, Iia, and neither should you.” He poured the contents over my finger and tucked the towel in his pocket. “I’ll dispose of this. The bio flesh will meld with your skin, and nobody will be the wiser. But a bloody towel with bio-mech genetics on it will raise questions. It’s best not thrown out with your trash.”
“It’s best you stop playing around with unnatural technologies. The next thing you’ll tell me is you’re cloning.”
“And if I was?”
I looked away. “Tell me you aren’t cloning stuff.”
“Relax. Do you think I’m that stupid?”
“You’re playing around with bio-mechs.”
He shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a big boy and careful.”
* * *
“He got caught, didn’t he?”
I nod and swallow, closing my eyes. “You didn’t want to get caught breaking any law on the islands. Eventually the authorities would catch up to you. The biggest reason I was so nervous about borrowing that government vehicle, even though I’d jammed the signals, was I had this gut feeling we hadn’t gone unobserved as Eli liked to think we were.”
“Were you right?” Axel asks.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to hide. The windows are tinted for travel outside and to help with the glare from headlights inside the tunnel.”
“Right.” I sat up, not sure they couldn’t see in. I had this eerie feeling of being watched, and my unease from before we stole the vehicle had increased tenfold. I couldn’t explain it, but it sat there, a small warning alert flashing away in my brain, telling me to proceed with caution. “Because nobody in their right mind would try to steal one of these from a secret base. Even with our chips gone, and Akoni using his master to block, doesn’t mean they can’t see us or track us. Enough people have defected to join the rebels, so they might have created technologies to intercept future defectors.”
“Never claimed to be in my right mind.” Eli grinned and shut the door.
I opened my mouth and snapped it shut. Eli didn’t need a lesson on consequences. He already knew what happened to those who broke the law, and the cost he’d paid had been huge. It was still foolish to believe they couldn’t find us. My gut told me they had a greater reach than we thought. Secrets were impossible to keep on the islands.
Big brother never missed anything. He’d caught Tyler, even when we’d been discreet. I’d salvaged the parts he didn’t have. Told no one. No trails led back to me or my one friend in the world, and yet they’d figured out he’d built something the moment he took it home. In a matter of a couple of days, they’d raided his place and arrested him. As long as you didn’t break the law, you had nothing to worry about and people you cared about wouldn’t be punished.
“I’m going to make the suggestion you buckle up,” Tyler the ghost friend said from next to me. I launched out of my seat and smacked my head on the roof.
“Don’t do that!”
“Do what?” Eli turned around. “Relax. This isn’t the first vehicle we’ve jacked. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Not funny,” I said to Tyler.
“They can’t see me or hear me, so if you don’t want to come across as a lunatic, you might what to shut your mouth and just listen.”
“I didn’t know you thought this was a joke. Are you okay, Iia?” Eli studied me and frowned.
“Nod and act like you haven’t lost your mind.” Tyler grinned and sat back. His legs went through the seat in front of him and disappeared inside Akoni. I didn’t want to think about how much it creeped me out, so I pretended not to see and avoided staring.
“As good as I can be, considering I’m committing grand theft.” I glanced to the side to see Tyler giving me a double thumbs up.
Eli turned back to the dash, and I slugged the air next to me where Tyler’s arm was, passing through it and into the seat.
“Ouch,” Tyler said and started to laugh.
“You might want to buckle your harness,” Eli said.
I sighed. Why did everyone care if I secured my harness or not? “Why?”
“Regulation 293 of the Sententian Motorized Vehicle Mandate. Plus your chance of surviving an accident increases sixty percent if you are restrained to your seat,” this time Akoni jumped in with his two cents worth. “Not that I care if you splat against the windshield like a bug, but I really don’t want a human missile coming at the back of my head should we stop suddenly and you don’t.”
“Accident? Are you sure you can drive this thing?”
“Operating this transport is not complicated. It’s simple compared to the more complex sports models or the manual wheeled vehicles from one hundred and fifty years ago. I am trained to handle a variety of vessels, including the standard issue V-70 military troop transport. I finished downloading the operations manual seconds ago.”
“Just because you have a book does not make you an expert.” I didn’t care how much training Akoni had, I didn’t want to put my life in a stranger’s hands, especially when I had every reason not to. It seemed since I’d left my apartment, aside from my navigation of the caves, that’s what I’d done. Trusted him to jack the vehicle. Trusted him to navigate through the tunnels. He’d made it clear he would like me dead more than alive. “I can drive.”
“You can, but I have already assumed control and according to your traffic record from recent years, I am a safer alternative.”
“I’m not a bad driver.” I sniffed and crossed my arms over my chest. There he went again, raising another red flag. How could he know my traffic record, unless he’d searched for it?
“You’ve had seven moving violations of which only one was ticketed. I am unsure why you were not fined for all your violations. They were valid according to the traffic footage I’ve reviewed.”
“I have boobs.”
He snorted. “I’ve seen finer billows and knew a woman who could work them better, and she still got arrested for minor traffic violations.”
“Breasts! They’re called breasts. Can we dispense with the crude language and go?”
“As you wish, princess.”
Going from zero to fast in a second, our vehicle shot forward into traffic, between two trains and around a supply hauler carrying what had to be several tons of cargo. “I’m going to die,” I screamed, snapped my seat belt into place, and grabbed the “oh shit bar” bolted to the door.
“True. Everyone does eventually die. But the odds of it being today are close to zero. I’m an excellent pilot, and right now, we need you alive.”
“How reassuring.” I gripped the door tighter.
Akoni zipped in and out of traffic, shooting down a tunnel with eight lanes. I swayed back and forth with the motion, an ill feeling climbing up from the pit of my stomach.
“You’re crazy.”
Tyler broke into a laughing fit. I glared at him, but it didn’t seem to stop him from having a good chuckle at my expense.
“Never claimed not to be.” To drive the point home, Akoni swerved around a long hauler and between two others, cutting across four lanes of traffic to a tiny gap between two vehicles, leaving about three inches space from the vehicle in front and behind us. Horns blared in warning. Akoni yanked the wheel and shot out of the hole into another on our right.
“Eeeeeeeeeee!” I shrieked and smacked him in the head.
Eli burst into laughter this time.
“It’s not funny.”
“Oh, it’s pretty damn funny,” Tyler said from beside me. “But no matter how entertaining I find this, we need to talk, but fast.” He glanced at a chrono on his transparent wrist, like time really mattered. “I haven’t got much more time before I have to go. Do you have the codes?”
“What do you need them for?�
�� None of what Tyler did made sense. Why would a dead guy want the codes for the tower?
“Need what for?” Eli asked.
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“You don’t want the rebels to get the codes. Shutting the towers down is not the solution.” Tyler glanced at this chrono again. “Do you have them?”
I shook my head.
“You do, you just need to figure out where and do it quick. Breathing is only difficult if you’ve forgotten how. Focus, Iia. The answer has got to be in front of you. You’re running out of time.”
“What?” Running out of time? For what? To escape? To shut the towers down? To live?
“They know you’re in the tunnels and you’ve taken this vehicle.”
I glanced out the back window and didn’t see anyone following. “I don’t see anything.”
“Trust me, they’re on to you.”
“Eli, they know we have this transport,” I called out to the front, heeding Tyler’s warning.
Akoni called back. “You better hope you’re not right, and if you are, you’ll have some explaining to do.”
Tyler nodded. “Good. Get the codes, and I’ll help you escape. Just don’t give them to the rebels. I have to go.” Tyler vanished.
It figured. Even a ghost wanted me to cough up codes I didn’t have. None of it made sense. Why did a dead person want the codes to the satellite uplink?
12
December 5th, 2238. Somewhere on the Pacific Ocean
“Breathing is only difficult if you’ve forgotten how,” my best friend used to say as I’d freeze right before a big exam, while in the throes of a panic attack. “You were born a genius as much as you were born to inhale and exhale, so relax and just go with it. It’s not something you can forget.”
Technology was second nature to me, yet when I had to spit out answers to questions which would decide my fate, I’d turned into a zombie, unable to process simple equations or even explain string theory, something I’d mastered at the age of ten. I’d panic, and my mental paralysis would get worse. Sometimes, I couldn’t remember my own name. As I’d reached critical meltdown levels, my buddy, who’d always sat behind me, would throw something at the back of my head, reminding me we’d had a conversation right before I’d come into the room about how I would test out and progress to the next level in the program. I’d had the hours in, the knowledge, yet when it came time to prove it, all my training had flown out of my mind, leaving my brain empty like a vacant house.
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