“Yes,” she said, a tightness in her throat. “You’re going to be fine.” How could he be trying to comfort her?
He closed his eyes, his breathing slow and steady, and she held his hand as he drifted into sleep. She thought, unexpectedly, of the self-portrait she had sketched for him, and how he had kept it, folded carefully away, all this time.
“Go,” said Sarah. “He’s going to sleep for a while. Get some rest yourself. Go for a walk. Get some food. No need to stay here.”
“I’ll stay,” she said. What if he woke, and he found himself alone? She had to be there when he needed her. When he could look at her and somehow smile.
Cass curled up on the floor next to Farryn and closed her eyes. She thought about how different her life could be right now. She could be with her birth sister, Penny. What was she doing right now? Was she on top of a tower in Hightown, looking out past the rooftops of the bot City, out at the patch of green forest where Cass was? Was she thinking about Cass?
She tried to reach out with her mind, like she used to do as a little girl, back in her Freepost shelter. As she fell asleep, she would reach out with her thoughts to the forest, trying to find the minds of the rabbits and the squirrels and the deer. Of course it didn’t work then, and it didn’t work now. Cass drifted into a fitful nap.
She woke, disoriented, to Farryn’s moaning. She jumped to her feet. How long had she been out? How could she have fallen asleep? Sarah was in the tent, bending over two injectors. She pressed one against each side of Farryn’s neck. Cass was expecting to see Farryn relax, but the medicine didn’t seem to have any effect—he continued to groan and shift back and forth in the cot, his eyes shut, hair matted with sweat, cheeks flushed.
“Why didn’t it help?” Cass said.
Sarah didn’t look up from watching Farryn. “It was just antipyretic for the fever, and saline. Can’t do a proper drip out here in the damned forest. I warned you I can’t do much for the pain now. I just have to hope I can keep him hydrated and keep the fever down enough until it breaks on its own.”
“What if the fever doesn’t break?” said Cass.
Sarah shrugged casually, but her voice was sad, and angry. “Then it means he’s dealing with a systemic infection, and losing the fight.” She held her hands out, palms up. “I’ve got no antibiotics to give him. It’s like the damned nineteenth century out here. He’s lucky I’m not bleeding him with leeches.”
“But he won’t die,” said Cass, a statement more than a question.
“He’s young.” Sarah shrugged. “He has that in his favor.”
Cass pushed back the panic. He will pull through. She walked up to the cot and stared down at Farryn. She could feel the heat rising off him. She asked herself, yet again, why she cared so much about this boy. Her memories of her time in the City with Farryn were still not entirely back—there were a few blank spots—but she knew that he had risked his life for her, and her brothers, more than once. And that he had a way of grinning at her that was somehow simultaneously teasing and earnest. And that he had kept her artwork. That he had done the most to push her back to being herself.
A shaft of light flashed inside the tent, illuminating Farryn’s pale face. Cass turned and saw the big man—Grennel, the general’s bodyguard, or assistant, or whatever he was. He stood in the entrance to the tent, holding the flap open, leaning forward awkwardly to fit his huge bulk into the small enclosure. He nodded at Cass. “Come with me,” he said. “General Clay wants to see you.”
“He might die,” Cass said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Farryn could die, and I won’t be here.”
“He’s in good hands,” said Grennel gently. “We have no choice here. You must come.”
CHAPTER 7
KEVIN WORKED THROUGH THE NIGHT, BREAKING FOR ONLY A FEW HOURS to sleep and eat before returning to work. But it was one step forward and two steps back with the camouflage project.
He thought he had found a way to tamp down the power with an improvised ground, a fairly simple soak that ran about two-thirds of the Wall unit’s power to a broken circuit and diffused the extra energy. It worked—at least the body armor was rendered invisible, and hopefully the field would be strong enough to cloak the wearer’s entire body from head to toe.
But there were a few flaws. First, the leeching power emitted a buzz that was loud enough to hurt Kevin’s ears from twenty feet away, and it wouldn’t do much good to be invisible if you were buzzing like a giant hive of bees. Second, the broken circuit, a conduction wire trailing down the back of the suit, sparked and sizzled and even set a patch of grass on fire. Again, not ideal to start a fire and burn your calves when trying to sneak into a City.
Still, on the bright side, the temperature inside the suit rose only marginally in the fifteen seconds that Kevin had let the system run before having to shut it down to save his hearing and prevent a forest fire. Which meant that the suit could—theoretically—cloak a person and not kill him.
Kevin couldn’t help thinking about Stebbins as he worked. The man should still be alive. Kevin could have opened his mouth; he had known the wiring was dangerous. But he had said nothing, and Stebbins had died a horrible death. Nobody blamed Kevin; in fact nobody in camp seemed to care much about the death of Stebbins at all. But Kevin knew.
In the short time that Kevin had known Stebbins, he hadn’t seemed like a bad man—he had just been stuck working for Clay. He probably was unaware of the Island, and the blood on Clay’s hands.
Kevin, on the other hand, knew all about Clay, about what she had done to get the control unit. And yet, here he was, tinkering away at his murdered grandfather’s tech, working for the murderer. He had thought about refusing, and letting Clay or Grennel do whatever they would do, but it wasn’t that simple. It was so complicated, in fact, that it almost made Kevin dizzy thinking about it.
Clay was smart; he knew that she had already figured out that he had a connection to Nick and Cass. If Kevin refused to work, he didn’t doubt that Clay would be willing to hurt his brother and sister. And, as much as he hated Clay, he had to admit that the idea of attacking the Cities with the cloaking tech, of bringing the fight to the bots instead of just running and hiding, was appealing. How else would they have any chance of rescuing his parents?
Kevin struggled for another hour. He tried coiling the loop, which he thought might disperse the heat, but actually did nothing. Then in a burst of misguided inspiration, he built a makeshift flared tail out of cabling, hoping that spreading the grounding wires might do the trick. It fanned out like a claw. Anyone wearing the unit would look like a peacock—not the best way to be stealthy, but Kevin just wanted to see if would help. He tested it, and within a few seconds there was a painful glare, then a pop, and the claw-tail began to smoke and crackle. He quickly turned off the power and threw down his tools. He closed his eyes, resting his head on his palms. He was so tired and stressed—all he wanted to do was sleep and then wake up and find himself back in his Freepost, with his parents and his brother and sister and Tech Tom, working on a grid repair, tending the flock, even taking a forestry hike. . . .
“I’m guessing that’s not what you were intending,” said Nick. “The smoke and fire, I mean.”
Kevin started, jumping to his feet. He hadn’t heard Nick coming. “Actually it is,” he said. “Firestarter. For campfires. Just working out a few details.”
Nick nodded, smiling, but his smile dropped away quickly. “Seriously, Kevin, what’s going on?”
Kevin didn’t say anything. He looked around, to see if anyone was nearby. They were alone.
“Kevin, come on,” Nick said quietly, leaning in. “You’ve got to talk to me. You found Miles Winston? General Clay killed him? What the hell happened to you? And Stebbins—word is he died in an accident. What happened?”
Kevin shook his head, blinking back tears. “Not safe,” he said, not trusting himself to say anything more without losing control and crying.
If Nick had g
otten mad at him then, which is what Kevin was expecting, then Kevin would have stayed resolute and kept quiet. Instead, Nick nodded and sighed. “All right, Kevin,” he said. “Whatever you’ve gotta do.” He turned and began to walk out of the workshop.
“Wait,” said Kevin. And slowly at first, then his words picking up speed and almost tumbling over one another, Kevin told Nick everything that had happened to him. Being captured in the woods by Winston’s bots. Having his nose broken. Being taken to the Island. Working on the Wall. His friends Otter and Cort and Pil. The bot 23. Miles Winston, and how Kevin had discovered that he was their grandfather. And then the treachery of Clay—how in order to steal the Wall technology she had brought about the uprising by having that girl that Otter liked, Wex, killed. How Grennel had shot their grandfather in the back and Clay had left him for dead. That the only reason she hadn’t killed him, too, was because she thought it was interesting and possibly useful that he was Winston’s grandson.
Last, he told Nick about Stebbins, how he had forgotten to ground the circuit and ended up killing himself. Kevin left out the part about knowing it might happen—he couldn’t get himself to admit that out loud.
“And that’s why I don’t want her knowing about you or Cass,” Kevin finished. “You’re safer if you just stay away from her. Don’t make her interested in you.”
Nick sat down heavily, staring over Kevin’s shoulder. “It’s probably too late for that,” Nick said. “She knows we’re brothers. I’m not sure what she knows about Cass, but she’ll probably figure that out, too.”
Kevin nodded. He wasn’t surprised—it was silly to think that he could keep Clay away from his brother and sister.
“How do you even know that Miles Winston is our grandfather?” Nick said.
“He had pictures of Dad when he was young,” said Kevin. “He knew I had an older brother. He even looked like us. And . . . he even kinda sounded like Dad, the way he said some words.”
Nick shook his head in disbelief. “Dad never would talk about his family. Now we know why, I guess. It’s because his father basically built the bots.”
“Dr. Winston didn’t mean for all this to happen,” Kevin said, surprising himself with how forcefully he said it. “He felt terrible about it. It was all he could think about.”
“But he wasn’t doing anything about it,” said Nick.
“No,” said Kevin. “No, he just wanted to hide in his Island. But I think maybe he was ready to change his mind and fight the bots. Then he was shot.”
Nick said quietly, “I should just get us out of here. We’re not safe with Clay.”
“She’ll get us into the City,” said Kevin. He couldn’t just leave his grandfather’s work in Clay’s hands. Something good had to come out of all of this. “And with the tech I’m working on, we’ll be able to get Mom and Dad out.”
Nick shook his head and frowned. “I don’t like any of this. I don’t want you ending up like Stebbins. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Kevin didn’t want to think anymore about Stebbins, so he forced himself to smile. “You mean stupid like giving myself up to sneak into re-education?”
“Yeah,” said Nick, cracking a small smile. “Or attacking a sphere bot with a homemade overload box and your jacket.”
“I’ll try to avoid that,” said Kevin.
“Good,” said Nick.
“So,” said Kevin. “Farryn . . . what exactly happened to him?”
“A fight with the bots,” Nick said. “Farryn protected Cass from an explosion, and the medic had to amputate his leg. You should visit him when you can. He’ll want to see you.”
Kevin tried to absorb that information, subconsciously touching his own calf. He couldn’t picture Farryn with only one leg. How in the world was he going to survive in the woods? Was he going to hobble through the forest on crutches? There was no way Clay was going to wait for him, if he couldn’t keep up. If only Farryn could spend a day in a rejuve tank—or just nanosolder on a new one, like a bot. He stared at Nick, suddenly conscious of his bot eye, and then the idea hit him, in that lightning-flash way that solutions often did. He could help Farryn, and figure out the problems with the cloaking tech. . . .
He needed to get back to the Island.
CHAPTER 8
GENERAL CLAY SAT ON THE EDGE OF HER COT, SIPPING FROM A STEAMING tin mug and watching Cass. Neither had spoken. If Clay wanted to sit here for two hours, then Cass would stand just as long, and as quietly, and stare just as hard.
Clay set her mug down on the floor next to her cot. “You don’t seem concerned by the situation you are in,” she said.
“What situation is that, exactly?” said Cass.
Clay smiled humorlessly, and looking at that thin smile, Cass started to feel afraid. “You’re in my camp. Surrounded by my guard, in my tent. And I do not like True Believers. I find them”—she paused, looking for the right word—“abhorrent.”
Cass felt herself flushing with anger. “I am not a True Believer!” she said.
“But you have been through re-education in a City. You have lived among the bots, correct? As a . . . what do they call you traitors? As a ‘loyal citizen’?”
Cass bit back another angry reply. Clay was baiting her. She took a deep breath. “The bots had me . . . they had me confused for a little while. But I’m over it.” Cass paused, and then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “You would have been confused, too. Anybody would have.”
General Clay surged to her feet, and Cass took a step back, surprised by the sudden movement. Clay stepped closer to her. “I would never have been confused,” she said with quiet anger, leaning in toward Cass’s face. “The bots are the enemy.” Clay stood up straight and flashed that chilling smile again. “It’s very simple,” she said, calm again. “The bots have enslaved humanity. They are the enemy, and anyone, any human, who sides with them, is also the enemy.”
“No, it’s not that simple,” said Cass, thinking of her birth parents, and her sister. Her sister had been born and raised in the City. . . . She didn’t know anything different. Was she a traitor? Was she the enemy?
“Yes, it is,” said Clay. “It most certainly is.”
Clay sat back down. “Would it interest you to know that I, too, have been in a bot-controlled City?”
Cass said nothing.
“After the Revolution,” continued Clay. “Were you even alive during the Revolution?”
“I was a baby,” said Cass.
“Well, I was a captain in the North American Air Defenses. And we were useless, all of us . . . so dependent on the bots to fight for us that we could barely even fight for ourselves. We were herded up just like all you civilians. I spent two weeks in what used to be Montreal, in a holding pen, while the bots decided what to do with us. They didn’t have re-education back then—most of us military, they decided to kill. Some became traitors and helped the bots, providing logistics and intel, and they were spared. And some of us, like myself and Grennel, escaped.”
Clay leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “Tell me, Cass, how did you leave the City? Why were you allowed to leave?”
Cass didn’t like where this was going. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t really remember . . . I didn’t understand. . . .”
“Right,” said Clay. “So what I have here is a girl who was re-educated by the bots, then released for some unknown reason and brought to my camp. Are you a spy, Cass?” She waved off Cass’s reply. “No, I do believe that you think you have recovered. I don’t think you are, consciously at least, a spy. But the bots have not been, in my experience, stupid. Why would they let you go? Perhaps you are a sleeper agent of some sort? Maybe they’ve created some sort of mental trigger, some sort of timer in your brain?” Clay again flashed that thin, creepy smile. “Maybe I’m being a little too creative.”
She stood, opened a trunk next to her cot, and took out her pistol and belt holster. She strapped it on with fluid, unconscious ease, then rested
her right hand on the butt of the gun. “Tell me, Cass, just to be safe, wouldn’t it be prudent for me to just kill you so I won’t have to worry about you?”
Cass felt frozen. Her fingers tingled. “Like the bots did to the military?” she said quietly, almost a whisper.
Clay laughed, a short, bitter, humorless burst. “No, Cass, not like that.” She stood quietly over Cass, her hand gripping the butt of her gun. Cass shifted her weight to the balls of her feet and tried not to stare directly at the pistol in its holster. She glanced over her shoulder. Should she try to run? She held her breath, and waited.
Clay stared at her, her hand still on her gun, her forefinger tapping the metal trigger guard. She frowned, and sighed, and moved her hand away from her gun, and Cass let her breath out. “No,” Clay said. “I don’t think so. You interest me, Cass. I’ll let you live. For now. And you’re going to work for me.”
CHAPTER 9
NICK WOKE, GOT DRESSED, AND WENT TO THE LATRINE TO RELIEVE himself, then headed to the creek to splash cold water on his face and neck. He returned to camp and found Lexi, who was stretching and yawning outside her tent.
“Breakfast?” he said.
Lexi nodded. She seemed to be in a peace-making mood. He was grateful that she had let their fight pass. They made their way to the central fire, where that morning’s cook—the rebels rotated the duty every few days—had roasted a spit of squirrels, put two pots of coffee on solar-heating units, and harvested a pile of apples.
Nick had learned that Lexi didn’t like to talk for a while in the morning, so he didn’t try to make conversation. They ate quietly. At least this way he couldn’t say anything stupid, he figured. It was a blessing.
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