Elite (Citizen Saga, Book 1)

by Claire, Nicola

  "There were two. One hidden behind the other," his father explained, walking back into the room, the door closing behind him.

  The drones still buzzed, an electrical sound as though their power units were about to fry themselves out. I'd never heard of one doing that before. But regardless, the noise was... creepy.

  "We need more men!" the Cardinal over the radio exclaimed. "They're scattering."

  "Sending assistance," Shiloh announced from the drone standing beside Chew-wen. Even the General jumped slightly at the unexpected command.

  "How many?" he asked the drone.

  It was Shiloh who answered, making uneasy fear trickle down my spine.

  Shiloh should not have answered. The question was outside a Shiloh unit's parameters. What exactly had Chew-wen done?

  "One hundred drones from the Palace," she declared. A number that surely meant only those in the room were left.

  "For such a small rebel group?" Chew-wen queried.

  "The base must be destroyed," Shiloh advised. "All hope lost."

  "Good thinking," Chew-wen agreed, making me blink in shock at his easy acquiescence.

  Who was in charge of Wánměi? The Chief Overseer or Shiloh, a computer programme?

  "So you see, my dear," The General said, lifting amused and victorious eyes to my face. "We no longer need your intel."

  His hand waved out in a casual move I failed to interpret.

  The flash of a laser gun being fired sent a scream from the depths of my chest. My legs buckled, as I spun towards Aiko and Tan, expecting to see one of them already dead.

  Instead Zikri emerged from the shadows and eliminated a second drone with the flash of his laser gun.

  Bullets and light beams flowed after that. Wang Chao throwing me to the ground while he pulled his own service weapon. The acrid stench of gunpowder mixed with the electrical burn of lasers on the air. Glass shattered, wood splintered, shouts and groans and curses drowned out my cry for Aiko and Tan.

  I didn't dare stop to see who else was here with the rebel, my need to get to my defenceless friends was overriding. But as I scampered past overturned armchairs, crawled through broken shards of glass, and hid behind flying feathers from a burst cushion on a nearby couch, I spotted him.

  Hand to hand with Wang Chao.

  For a second I paused, unable to take my eyes off the sight of Trent throwing a fist at a Cardinal. At Wang Chao returning the gesture with equal, brutal force. Both men well trained at hand to hand combat. Both men not holding back in the slightest.

  Blood splattered, bones surely broke, and the only sound they made was the odd grunt as air was forced from their lungs. A drone tried to intervene, assisting Wang Chao when Trent managed to land a particularly good shot to the side of his head. Wang Chao stumbled and the drone stepped in. Only to be brought to its knees by Zikri.

  For a moment, I saw them winning. The drone numbers in the room halved, no more drones arriving at Shiloh's command, all of them currently on their way to the hub. What was happening there was anyone's guess, but right now we were winning, and hope had returned.

  I moved forward towards where Aiko and Tan lay untouched, somehow avoiding all the mayhem and destruction in the room. Believing I'd reach them. Sure the rebels had everyone contained. But right before I made their sides, a drone came out of nowhere and leaned down, simply scooping Aiko up, then started walking away into the melee following the shouted commands of General Chew-wen.

  "That's it. She'll follow," he yelled, as Shiloh replied from the drone's speakers calmly, in her high Anglisc accented voice, "I can bring the other as well."

  "No need. One will suffice," Chew-wen explained and then ducked through the door at the rear of the room.

  I sat stunned, half crouched, half crawling, just a few feet away. Loud noises surrounded me, chunks of plaster rained down on top of me, chips of tiles shot up like lethal projectiles at me, and all I felt was utter despair. The last image I'd have of Aiko was in a machine's arms.

  I forced myself to move, harder than it sounds, but managed to reach Tan's side, panic making my limbs shake and my breath saw in and out of my lungs. My fingers fluttered over his ashen features for a moment, his eyes wide and unseeing.

  "No," I groaned, finally finding the courage to touch him, only to have his eyelids blink. "Fucking hell," I swore in a very non-model-like fashion. "You're alive."

  "Aiko," he slurred and then promptly fell unconscious again.

  My gaze lifted across the room, drones battling Alan and Damia, Zikri firing from God knows where, and Trent defending against a rapid onslaught of punches from Wang Chao. Utter chaos. Death and destruction on all of their minds. So foreign to what I'd been brought up amongst. So alien despite my night time illegal pursuits. I wasn't cut out for this. I was Elite born and bred. I didn't have the skills to fight for my life like this.

  And then I heard her scream. A pain-filled hideous sound.

  I was up and on my feet, skirt hem gripped in my hands, as I ran and dodged and skipped out of the way of stumbling drones. Something splattered against my cheek. I lifted a hand to rub it, my fingers coming away covered in red. Drones don't bleed, so I had to assume it was human. But a rebel or Wang Chao?

  I reached the door at the back of the room, my heart in my throat, adrenaline flushing my veins, fear a constant companion now, just as the main entrance was thrown open by a blast. I hadn't realised it had been locked, and I'd forgotten the Cardinals themselves. Shiloh may have sent drones to Tehteh, but she hadn't bothered with Cardinal humans. Her oversight would be our downfall, and I instinctively knew it hadn't been her plan.

  There was something about the Shiloh I met tonight that chilled me. But I didn't have time to discover exactly what. The room was swarmed by armed Cardinals, voices raised in clipped commands, their red cloaks flying out behind them; streaks of blood-like crimson on the air. Light glinted off the polished metal of their guns, the chaos swiftly becoming a war zone as I impotently watched one fire off a shot at Damia's head.

  So quick. So unavoidable.

  The girl went down without making a sound, but Zikri screamed a challenge. Laser lights lit up the room, Trent and Alan throwing themselves immediately to the floor. Wang Chao followed, as soon as the laser's beam clipped his shoulder and he realised just what Zikri was doing.

  For a second I stood stunned, outlined in the doorway by the light show before my eyes. Trent was yelling at me, waving his hands frantically to get me to duck, but my eyes were on Damia's brother. As he spun and spun his finger continuously pressed on the trigger of his stolen sPol laser gun.

  Laser guns require time to recharge. One of two things can happen if you don't allow them a rest between firing.

  They fry themselves and splutter out.

  Or they fry themselves and explode.

  I watched as Zikri sought revenge for his sister's death, taking down the Cardinals who had stormed the room, as well as any more who tempted fate and entered at their backs. And along with those of the drones that hadn't moved for shelter yet.

  I couldn't look away, even though the laser beam kept returning to my side of the room. I managed to duck once, bringing myself below the line of fire, but still I couldn't retreat further. The anger and heartache that shone on his face, so naked and raw and pleading. He knew he couldn't bring his sister back, just like I'd known my father wasn't returning home the night of the Uprising.

  I saw in him my pain and anguish. I saw in him every single Wánměi Citizen's agony and fear at a friend being wiped. I saw the face of a nation rebelling and I willed him on, even as the first signs of his weapon misfiring caught my eye.

  I held my breath, I prayed for their souls, and watched right until the end.

  The explosion reverberated in my ears, sending me sideways, making my shoulder hit the door frame and my head whack against the door itself as it swung with the pressure of the detonation. Dust and debris showered down on us, making it hard to breathe and impossible to
see. I gingerly sat up, too soon, the world swam.

  And when I went to reach out to get my balance I came in contact with cool steel.

  I knew instantly what it was, but before my hand had withdrawn a mechanical clamp surrounded my wrist and I was hauled painfully through the opening into the relatively clean air of the back room.

  Stars burst before my eyes, ringing so loud I cringed resounded inside my head, and all I could manage as I was thrown to the ground at General Chew-wen's feet was a huff of non-existent air. I struggled to breathe, ignoring the booted foot that landed painfully on my back forcing me to face plant into the marble tiles.

  It was several long seconds before I could see Aiko lying on her side next to me, a drone hand fastened around her slender neck. Her eyelids were closed, bruises marred her once beautiful face, a cut bled freely on her swollen lip, and her luscious hair had been hacked off ready for wiping.

  "Watch while she dies, Selena," Chew-wen growled in my ear, and I wondered how long he'd been repeating himself. I jerked beneath his foot, letting him know my hearing had returned, and then watched as the drone started to tighten his grip and Aiko opened her eyes.

  Big pools of melted chocolate blinked back at me, complacency replaced with utter terror. Her body spasmed, the first sign of hypoxia; he'd been denying her oxygen for a while.

  "I'm sorry," I whimpered, stretching out a hand for my friend. Chew-wen applied more pressure on my back with his boot, making it impossible to reach her. A gaping hole took up residence in my chest, matching the vast divide between our bodies. "I'm so sorry," I added, an ineffectual apology drowning in guilt and tears.

  Fear made it impossible for her to smile, but I saw a shadow of the woman I had come to love. Her eyes held mine, as her face turned evermore blue. The look in them all forgiveness.

  "No!" I sobbed, my voice a pathetic sound coming from a broken vessel. "No," I whispered, as beautiful, vibrant life finally retreated from her eyes.

  Chew-wen left me there, staring into the vacant windows to Aiko's soul. Staring into the shell that had once been my closest friend. His foot had been removed. The drone who had killed Aiko now standing guard at the door. No one close enough to see the shard of glass I gripped in my hand.

  I felt broken and battered. Part of me beaten and defeated. It took long minutes for me to consciously think. Just a seething mass of raw emotion inside. Pain and agony and aching loss.

  Until the glass shard bit into the skin of my palm and life flooded into me once again.

  I knew attacking the drone would be useless. Besides he'd been following a command. An order that came from Chew-wen, despite Shiloh acting on her own more than once tonight.

  But glass against a human was lethal. So I covered it in my palm, feeling the cut in my skin deepen and blood begin to trickle. Then I sucked in a shattering breath, prayed my father was watching over me, and crawled on my stomach towards the man who was meant to be my guardian.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered, but the silence in the room as he watched my approach allowed him to hear. "Please don't kill me too," I whimpered. "I'll do whatever you say. I promise. I know I was wrong now. I know they were wrong. Please help me."

  I reached up a pleading hand, the one not holding the glass shard, and stared into dispassionate, hard eyes.

  Oh, how I hated him.

  "Daughter," he said, a term he only used when I had truly misbehaved. He knew I loathed it. He knew I despised the idea that he took the place of my father. He wielded the word with precision.

  I watched as he got up from his chair, unharmed in the previous battle, and walked toward me, crouching down close enough to deliver his final blow.

  "You have learned your lesson?" he asked, gripping my hair and pulling my head up off the floor with roughness.

  "Yes, Father," I replied, and slammed the shard of glass into the side of his throat.

  He staggered backwards, as the drones buzzed and then stormed forward.

  And the door to the room blew off its hinges as two figures rushed in.

  One shot the closest drone. It fell, cracking the tiles as it hit, my body shuddering with the force of impact. The other took out the remainder, making the buzzing I'd heard, for what felt like hours, suddenly disappear. I blinked, shook my head, and then looked up at an incapacitated General Chew-wen. His hand covering the gash in his throat, red staining his dinner jacket, dripping onto the white floor beside him.

  "Good shot, Lena," Alan said, walking over to face Chew-wen, his gun raised, aimed at the Chief Overseer's eyes making his intention quite clear.

  Trent knelt down beside me, his eyes flicking over to the still form of Aiko.

  "I'm sorry," he said, rather formally.

  "Tan?" I asked, my throat aching with just that one word.

  "Alive," Trent replied. He didn't mention Zikri and Damia, but I saw the pain of their loss on his face.

  We all wore it.

  "Wang Chao?" I whispered, and wished I could have taken the words back as soon as they were out.

  Trent stood abruptly, his face shutting down and effectively distancing himself from me. A wall coming back up between us. More solid than if it had been made of stone. He turned to Chew-wen.

  "Your son is dead," he announced, ice encasing him, making the words sound more chilling than they should have. Despite their message.

  I sucked in a shocked breath of air, but found I had no tears for my former childhood playmate. For the man who had tried to force my hand in marriage. What had my world come to that I would feel nothing at the death of someone I'd once thought a friend?

  "No," Chew-wen gasped, but it was just air, his voice unable to make the necessary sounds required to talk anymore. I studied him, dispassionately. Thinking an inch to the right and he'd be dead. Wondering if it was regret at having missed his jugular that I was feeling. Or just the onset of unconsciousness.

  "And now it's your turn," Alan advised, softly. The world halting in such a bizarre way I swear I could see the bullet spinning as he fired a single shot right into my guardian's forehead.

  I stared, mesmerized by the slowly oozing hole, and then slumped to the floor.

  It was over. Wánměi was free.

  And I'd never felt so lost before.

  Chapter 41

  Lena Carr, A Citizen Who Didn't Actually Exist

  Trent

  She passed out just as Shiloh units could be heard sounding an alarm throughout the Palace. I rushed to haul Lena into my arms as Alan returned with Lee Tan slung over his shoulder. I glanced down at the fragile form cradled against my chest, noted the paleness to her make-up smeared face and the swelling on the side of her head; the cause of her loss of consciousness, at a guess. And I knew I could no further leave her here to her fate than I could deny who I was.

  She knew now. She knew every secret I had. My father had killed her father. I was Mason Waters' son. Leader of a band of revolutionaries who at last contact had been destroyed. Si was not answering the earpiece, abandoning the hub under attack from Shiloh drones. Last communique indicating we'd taken a solid hit.

  Carla was dead.

  Kevin hadn't made it.

  Six others down before contact was lost.

  I had to pray that Si had slipped through, he was wiry and clever, if anyone could outsmart Shiloh, he could. But where we'd go now, I just didn't know.

  Alan and I made our way through the mass of Elite trying to evacuate the Palace in a moment that should have surely made the Wánměi history books. Defying a direct command from those sPol drones that had returned to establish order. Operated, I was beginning to fear, not by Cardinals, but Shiloh. Just what the hell Chew-wen had done to her, I did not know.

  No one questioned us holding unconscious bodies in our arms, several of the Elite had fainting women in theirs. But one or two glances were thrown Alan's way. His was not a uniform worn at Ohrikee. Despite their wary observation, though, no one raised an alarm.

  Something had happened
tonight. Something more than the overthrowing of a dictator and the freedom of a nation. Something tentative and precious, something I didn't want to trust yet.

  The Elite here had open eyes, but would they stay open in the coming days?

  In a perfect world, which was ironic because Wánměi was meant to be that world, Alan and I would have taken over control of the Palace and started to help the nation toward a healthier future. But as more and more Shiloh controlled drones stormed the building, it became apparent that our struggle wasn't over. The battle won, but the war still stretching ahead.

  We needed to regroup and reassess. We'd been small before, now I feared we were non-existent. Was it worth it? So much death and destruction for what? One man and his son? I feared there would be more to follow them, but as I met the alert gazes of those Elite around me, I could only hold my breath and pray that the tide had turned.

  No longer complacent. No longer dulled and ration dosed, they'd woken up to their surroundings and found them wanting.

  It was a victory of sorts, but clouded in the uncertain.

  We made it to Alan's car, parked three blocks away. So many Elite on the streets, and not enough limousines to cater for them, had in the end provided cover enough to slip through the net. Shiloh was on a rampage though and I couldn't help thinking she might be a more formidable foe than Chew-wen. At least the man had loved Wánměi. What would a computer programme do?

  "Where to?" Alan asked and the weight of silence filled the car.

  The hub was out, and if they'd discovered the hub, then they would have discovered the router apartment in Hillsborough.

  "Harjeet?" I suggested.

  "I don't trust him," Alan snarled.

  "Neither do I, but where else? We can't hide on the streets. Those drones were regrouping."

  Alan shuddered, no doubt thinking disturbing thoughts about Shiloh as well.

  "Wáikěiton," Lena murmured from my lap. My eyes darted down and found blindingly beautiful pale blue staring back up at me.

  "Is it safe?" I asked, falling deeper into those pools of blue with every breath.