by Greg Dragon
“You and the empress stayed together for a long time, considering her position,” I said, trying not to be weirded out by the turn in conversation.
“She was different then. She changed a lot in those last years—got more self-centered and power hungry. More obsessed with the Romans. She said that building an empire, making NORA the New Rome, was the key to her immortality.”
The door opened suddenly, making me jump. It was a woman, a yellow—695. She had light brown hair, which was strange enough, but her eyes were startlingly falcon-like. “Yes?”
“Are you the wife of Mills?” Jasper asked.
“He doesn’t live here,” she said and started to close the door.
My father threw his hand out and caught it. “Please, I really need to find him.”
“It’s extremely important,” I added.
“Hold on,” she said, staring at my face. “You’re that girl, aren’t you?”
“What girl?” I asked.
The woman flipped up the screen on her techband and typed something. Then she held it up so we could see. There, in full color, was my photo. It said, “Ametrine Dowell, age sixteen. Rating: 440. Extremely dangerous. Report immediately if seen.”
“Was this alert local or national?” I asked.
“Definitely national,” the woman said. “We woke up to it this morning. They’ve repeated the message every thirty minutes.”
My father cleared his throat. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he said. “Sounds like we’d better get going. Any chance you’d consider forgetting about this visit?”
She stared at him, squinting hard. “You look familiar too, but not from the news alert. Who are you?”
“I’d rather not say—”
“Oh!” She clapped her hands together. “I remember. You were the Ratings councilman way back, before the empress threw you behind bars. Never thought we’d see you again.”
Panic spread across Jasper’s face. “Come on, Treena. We’re going.”
The lady’s hard expression softened just a bit. A tiny bit. “Don’t worry. We’ve made it our business to know these things. Come inside. I suppose it’s worth finding out if you’re friend or foe.”
39
Forgive me, Mills, but we’ve had a new development. Two refugees have come asking for you.” She held the small rectangular device closer to her face, even though he could probably see her fine, and lowered her voice. “One appears to be the wanted girl.”
“Are you sure?” a gnarled voice asked. I peeked over her shoulder and examined the graying man’s face on the little screen. The skin beneath his eyes sagged, but his eyes were clear and sharp. Surprisingly, he had no Rating. His forehead was as clean as a child’s. Had he managed to remove his implant, or had he evaded implantation altogether?
“She looks like her and has the 440 Rating. And her hair is dark.”
“That means nothing. Anyone can dye their hair.”
This was taking forever. I swiped the device out of her hand and glared at him. “The empress tried to kill me.”
Surprise swept over his expression, and then amusement. “Well then, you have my attention. What’s your name again?”
“Ametrine Dowell. This is my father.” I tilted the screen sideways.
If Mills was surprised before, he was dumbfounded now. “Jasper! We thought you were dead.”
“So you’re leading the rebellion now?” My father chuckled. “Do your followers know about your interesting past?”
A pause. “That’s irrelevant.”
“Whatever you say. Where are you, exactly?”
“That I can’t tell you, sorry. Protocol and all that.” Mills smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “But I’m where I can do the most good, and they won’t find me anytime soon. The question is, what are you doing in my house?”
My father quickly told his story, his eyes flitting to me when he talked about Lanah and then his years in prison. Then he switched to my Rating, and Mills sat a little straighter. “Are you telling me that this girl—this child—is the successor?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jasper said.
There was an unnatural brightness to the old man’s eyes, but his words were carefully controlled. “And she just happens to be your daughter. That sounds a little convenient, don’t you think?”
“She earned it all by herself, before I even found her.”
“No one is going to believe it. I hardly believe it myself.”
“Wait,” I said. “What do you mean by ‘no one’?”
“The rebellion,” Mills said matter-of-factly. “If this is true—which I doubt, to be honest—it could change everything. We’ve been waiting for something like this.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You won’t tell a soul without my permission. I’m tired of being chased by people who want me dead.”
“She already sounds like a leader,” Mills said, watching me with a tight smile. “That’s a good sign.”
My father sighed. “You have a point, Ametrine. I shouldn’t have assumed you’d want to join the rebellion. What is it you want?”
I shook my head. “Do you really want to know? Because it sounds like you have my whole life planned out for me already. Just like NORA, just like Konnor, just like everyone else I’ve ever known.”
“What are your options?” Jasper whispered. “You don’t want to be used. That’s understandable. But look at it this way—you’re getting the throne, and they’re getting a leader who can change things. Everybody wins.”
I ground my teeth in frustration. They weren’t getting it. My Rating had been the most important thing to me for so long. It had taken Vance and EPIC to pull me out and help me see life for what it was. Now that I was free, the rebellion was trying to pull me back in again—into the center, no less. “I don’t know what I want. But I know that I have no desire to become empress.”
Silence. Jasper sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh.
“Ametrine,” Mills said carefully. “The empress tried to have you killed. Do you really think you’re the only one? She’s abused her power for years, destroyed families, and taken away what people have rightfully earned. The system may have worked initially, but now it’s so corrupt it’s beyond repair. We’re not asking you to fix everything by yourself. In fact, you don’t need to do much at all. What we need is a face to unite behind, a symbol of hope to inspire those who want change.”
“You want me to become a giant target,” I said. “Everyone in the country will recognize me as a rebel.”
“Or a hero,” Mills said.
“I’m sorry if I was too pushy, Ametrine,” Jasper said. “This really is your decision, and I’ll support you no matter what. But I want you to understand what Mills is proposing here. This will be very dangerous. In addition to the entire country being on alert, you’ll be exposed to patriots wanting to sell you out. We’ll do our best to protect you, but the bigger this gets, the harder Vallorah will try to take you down.”
Haven’t you ever had a cause worth dying for? Tali’s voice echoed in my mind.
I hadn’t, but she had. And she’d paid the ultimate price for it. If I disappeared now and left the rebellion to itself, Tali’s death would mean nothing. I fingered the hair I’d cut and dyed in her honor, twisting it around my forefinger.
The empress had meddled in my life long enough. She’d taken Vance’s father and his clan, his family, and finally his life. She’d taken Tali. And she’d taken my future and wanted desperately to extinguish me as well. I was sick of running.
If you’re attacked, they think they can beat you, Vance had said. They won’t expect you to fight back.
“Okay,” I said. “But three conditions. First, we do it my way. I have an idea, but it means we’ll have to hit her hard, and soon, before she knows I’m alive. Second, I’m the one who decides my future if we win. And third,” I leaned forward, “do not talk about me when I’m sitting right here. Keep me involved and informed of
every conversation or count me out. Got it?”
Jasper covered a pleased smile, but Mills frowned. “I suppose we can agree to your conditions, assuming that you really are who you say you are. We’ll have to verify that. But I’d like to know more about this plan of yours. I’ve been gathering loyal followers since you were crawling, girl, and I’m not just turning them over to you.”
“I think you mean, Your Highness,” Jasper said with a chuckle. “Ametrine, welcome to the rebellion.”
><><><><><><><
Securing a transport with the tracking device removed was a little tricky, but the next morning, I stood outside the academy doors once again. Keri, the woman who had helped us contact Mills, c, wholosed the door and climbed back into the vehicle, keeping a wary eye on me. She hadn’t approved of Mills’s decision to include me in their plans, but apparently she wasn’t high enough in the decision-making scale to express her opinion. I wasn’t sure if she was here as my bodyguard or simply my guard.
I’d acted confident in my plan before, but now I felt sick. Dresden and I knew each other so well. Even in the beginning, when it was just studying and playing khel, we couldn’t bear to be apart. And yet I stood here, staring at the building that housed his future, and wondered how well I really knew him. Was he the same tender, laughing Dresden I’d always known? Could I trust him with my secret, or would he turn me in?
That was ridiculous. Dresden was happy here, but he would never turn me in. I just had to pretend like nothing had changed—even though everything had.
It didn’t take long to find him. All I did was wait by the doors and watch for a crowd trailing a tall, confident figure. I fell in line with them, hoping the wig Keri had provided would help me blend in. It fell thick in the front, hiding my Rating without being too obvious. Luckily, no one seemed to notice me at all. Even the security girl was distracted. Very distracted. She stared at Dresden in awe as we passed.
“Professor Geldon? Yeah, he wouldn’t notice me if I slapped him in the face,” a guy beside him was saying, striding quickly to stay in step with the taller Dresden.
Dresden laughed, a familiar sound. “He only told me congratulations. I’m sure he says that to everyone. Besides, Jacque, if you slapped him, I’m sure he’d have something to say.”
The girl next to him broke into a fit of obnoxious laughter. If anyone was going to be slapped, I wanted it to be her. Forcing my hands to my sides, I used the moment to whisper. “Dresden.” He didn’t hear me at first. I tried again, touching his arm. “Dresden.”
His eyes flitted to mine, then widened. His expression was mixed. Surprise. Confusion. Then something else. Was it . . . horror?
“I wondered if you could help me with my homework,” I said, adjusting my stolen uniform self-consciously. “Do you have a second?”
“Ah, yeah. Of course.” He turned to his friends, who watched him with varying degrees of disappointment. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”
“Treena,” he began when his friends left. “You have got to stop showing up here, especially now that the entire country is looking for you! Do you realize—”
“They tried to kill me.”
He took a step back. “W—what?”
“Shh,” I said, lowering my voice. There were people everywhere, but no one was close enough to be listening. Hopefully. Dresden just stared at me as if I were a stranger. “I need your help.”
He sighed, then eased me forward until we turned the corner. “I saw the broadcast. What in the fates did you do? Fail your assignment?”
“You could say that. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“I know just the place. Follow me but keep your head down. Your Rating is a dead giveaway.”
No problem there. I kept my eyes on the shiny metal floor as he led me down the hall. A couple of turns later, we arrived at a gray door. Dresden tried the knob, then yanked hard. It clicked open to reveal a small, dark room. “A custodial closet?” I asked.
“The only place in the building that isn’t monitored,” he said, closing the door behind us. “We won’t have much time, though. Tell me everything.”
The story spilled out. I told him about Tali, my father, and my real Rating, leaving out any mention of Vance. It was hard not to think about him; it was like trying to distract myself from a gaping wound in my body. I’d been waiting so long for a moment like this with Dresden. And here I was, thinking about someone else.
It was too dark to see his reaction, but I could sense his doubt. “You, the successor? Come on. You’re a fugitive.”
“And now I know why. She’s been killing off her competition. The empress has tried three times to take me out, and if they catch me again, she’ll succeed.”
He was silent for a moment. “That’s a pretty serious claim. How do you know she’s behind the deaths?”
“When we hacked into the system and checked my score, Jasper noticed it. It’s too convenient to be a coincidence. It’s no mistake, Dresden.”
“You really are . . .”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me in the darkness.
“That’s why your Rating was so weird. The empress was just protecting her position. Of course.”
“You make it sound like a game,” I said. “She tried to have me killed.”
He sat back against the wall. “Although if she’d been smarter, the empress would’ve set your Rating lower, like in the 800s. Nobody would have noticed. I don’t understand why she’d make you a red.” He chuckled. “I just can’t believe it. I never thought you could—I mean, wow.”
That made me pause. He never thought I could what? “That’s where you come in, Dres. I need you to steal a camera for me.”
“You want me to do what?”
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it.”
“Crazy? I have a better chance of making it rain. No, not rain. Snow. In the sweltering heat of summer.”
“Dres, I know you can do it. You can figure out a way.”
He took a deep breath. “Do you realize what you’re asking?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
He was quiet for a long time. I could almost feel him wrestling with it, feel his mind weighing the risks and the benefits. Calculating. I shifted uncomfortably on the floor.
“You’re joining the rebellion, then,” he finally said. “Smugglers and the Integrants and all that. They’ll help you get the throne.”
“I don’t know about the throne part, but there are other citizens too. The empress has made a lot of people angry.”
“You can’t honestly think this is possible.”
I felt a twinge of irritation. If I said no, would he still help? Then I thought of his friends and the doting females, and I felt even worse. I was asking him for something that I couldn’t even give him in return.
I was asking for his loyalty.
“I don’t know if it’s possible,” I said honestly.
“Treena, the last couple of weeks have been hard. I feel like a different person here. Everyone knows who I am, and they watch me, you know? I feel like I can’t be myself, or they’ll discover who I really am—just a dumb kid from Olympus.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but stopped. He was right to question this. If I’d been in his position, there was no way I would have agreed to it. “Go on,” I finally said.
“But you’re the one who got me here. You helped me with my coursework, my language, even my posture.” I smiled at that. His posture had been atrocious in Level Two. “And now you’re asking for a big favor. I should be jumping at the chance to pay you back.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I’m not done,” he said quickly. “It’s just that this feels like such an impossible task, and if we fail—well, I’d be in prison at the very least. And I feel guilty for even thinking that.”
“I know.”
“But none of that should matter. Everything here seems so fake when you’re out risking your life every day so we can be together.�
� I felt his grip tighten on my hand as his other arm pulled me in close. I leaned against him, trying to relax, breathing in his natural scent. It was the same but different. Stiffer somehow, like he’d been using overscented soap.
“It’s fine,” I said, unsure how to respond.
“The girls here are so annoying,” he said with a chuckle. “They just want to climb the ladder. You know, use me as a rung to get somewhere else.” He stopped. “But you’re different. You cared about me even before I got my Rating.”
I nodded, feeling the guilt rise to my throat like bile. Was he testing me? Trying to figure out where I stood? Could he sense that something was different between us?
Dresden pulled his arm back and I sat up, then I felt him ease closer. He stroked my face in the darkness, his fingers leaving a hot trail of betrayal. I was trembling. He pulled me closer, entwining his fingers in my hair. “What have they done to you?” he murmured.
And then he leaned in, slowly, as he’d done a thousand times before. I nearly pulled away, but his lips brushed mine. The gentleness of his lips made my eyes burn, and a tear trickled down one cheek before I could stop it. He tightened his hold until I could barely breathe.
I’m such a traitor.
“I’m so sorry,” he said between kisses, his breath warm on my lips. “You deserve so much more.”
I betrayed you, Dresden. I fell for someone else—I don’t deserve you at all.
He pulled away, probably mistaking my reluctance as concern about our situation. The light on his techband flickered on as he checked the time. “I’ve gotta go. If this is going to work, they can’t suspect anything.”
I blinked. “Really? You’ll do it?”
“I want you, Treena. You’re more important than any of this. If it means we can be together, I’ll do it. Assuming I haven’t already lost you.”
I paused. He couldn’t know about me and Vance, could he? Pain shot through my body at the thought of Vance. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. But he was gone, and it made no sense to reject Dresden’s help now. I pushed away my emotions and hardened my heart a little more. “Of course not. Thanks, Dres. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
