The tunnel grew lighter and lighter until I entered a tech-lit room filled with hover technology. Boards, balls, cars, the works. Jag would kill to get in this room. Maybe he already had.
We were alone, but I didn’t trust myself to speak first. My dad stepped off his board, but—
It wasn’t my father at all.
It was General Director Darke.
My vision blurred, but the image of the General didn’t waver. I should’ve immediately backed up and retreated through the tunnel. I should’ve said something in my most powerful voice. Something like Leave me the hell alone or How dare you impersonate my father? I should’ve done something more than stand there and stare.
“Zenn Bower,” the General said, his eyes deep pools of intrigue. “We finally meet under appropriate circumstances.”
If he thought morphing himself into my father—or getting inside my mind to make me think I was seeing my father—and then forcing me to follow him constituted “appropriate circumstances,” the man was delusional. He slicked one hand over his graying hair and smiled.
“What do you want?” I asked. I didn’t know what I expected from the General. He hadn’t made it to the crown of the Association by playing nice. I imagined my friends out in the sky, fighting to find the very man that stood before me. Dying, maybe. I saw Saffediene in that net. My hands clenched and unclenched as I worked to control my escalating anger.
“I believe you’ve already spoken with Van.” General Darke’s eerily calm smile never wavered as he spoke.
My throat turned dry. “I don’t like his offer.”
“I didn’t say you had to like it, but you do have to accept it.” The General casually sat down and plucked something from his jacket pocket.
“I don’t think—”
“Ah, now there’s the problem,” the General said. “You think too much.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.” I plan. I calculate. It’s one of my best qualities.
“Oh, but it’s not, Zenn,” the General said, revealing his ability to read my thoughts. “Why don’t you try being a little spontaneous for once?”
“I’m spontaneous,” I argued, remembering how Gunner had said I didn’t argue when I was right.
General Darke stood up. “Prove it.” He took several steps toward me. “Come with me. Escape this oppression. Live how you want, wherever you want. I’ll give you any city in the Association.”
I swallowed as he stopped directly in front of me. “I’ve been working against people like you for years.”
“I know.” The General smiled. “And it’s not doing you any good. Why not give the other side a try? You might just find that we’re right.”
Time stretched itself into seconds that became minutes. I wanted to argue with the General. Sure, his government functioned. And I had seen the effects of free choice. Riots. Death. Inequality. But that society was free. Which was better?
I felt like I was arguing a losing debate. That deep, buried part of me that had responded when Director Hightower had said, You know I’m right, surged upward.
“Any city?” I asked, hating the weakness in my voice.
“Any city.”
“My friends go free.” I forced some measure of control into my voice.
General Darke put his hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Zenn. They’re not your friends.”
I opened my mouth to protest, to tell him I’d go with him if Vi could go free, if he’d let Saffediene out of that net. He cut me off. “And they will die. Sadly, war has casualties.”
“But—”
He squeezed my shoulder a little too hard. “But nothing, Zenn. Either you’re all in—or all out.” He stepped back. “Your choice.”
I replayed my convo with Saffediene about enacting change from within. I thought about the riot in Harvest, the fires in Baybridge, the relative ease with which General Darke had emptied a city of millions in only a day.
I felt a tear ripping down the middle of my body.
I saw myself helping Jag. I saw him win. I saw myself helping General Director Darke. I saw him win.
I remembered the things I’d said to Vi to keep her out of trouble with the Association. I remembered doing nothing to get Vi out of her brainwashed state in Freedom.
I’d recruited Saffediene. I’d escaped Freedom. I’d flown to city after city, implementing the changes from Gunn’s journal.
And for what? For the opportunity to wear rags and eat expired cans of stew? To watch an Insider-friendly city burn?
How much had I contributed to that? I gave intel to both sides; my reports inspired action on both sides.
I’d played the Informant-Insider for far too long. It was time to choose.
I took a deep breath as Saffediene’s words sounded in my mind. You could always go back undercover. You could make the necessary changes we need—from within.
“I want Freedom.”
Jag
39.
No one stood guard outside the Security Department, but that didn’t make me feel any less nervous. My reports said General Darke had a dozen bodyguards, and who knew what equipment or which talents.
We met no resistance. Vi’s tension infiltrated my senses. I turned toward her, only to find determination etched on her face.
“We’re here,” Vi said, and it sounded so loud in the sleeping city. We touched down in the street and entered the Security Department through a glass door.
I wondered if the monitoring systems in Castledale were still functioning, and if my picture had just been taken, or if our entrance had been logged.
It didn’t matter. Darke was in this building, and I didn’t wait to see who followed me or where they went afterward. I strode forward, my boots making heavy thuds against the metal floor.
I ascended to the top floor with Vi, and we placed our charges down the hall and around the only door. After descending to the lobby, I pressed the button on my belt and my world exploded.
* * *
When I woke up, I smelled wet cement and smoke. I wasn’t in the building anymore, and someone crouched nearby, backlit by a flickering orange glow.
I moaned, and the figure turned, scrambling back to me. “Stay down, Jag,” he said. “You took a piece of metal right to the head.”
Jag? I thought. Is that really my name?
The man turned, looking back down the alley. “Vi! He’s awake.”
I didn’t know who Vi was, so I asked, “Who are you?”
Zenn
40.
When General Darke and I left the tunnel, the Security Department still burned brightly against the midnight sky. He didn’t spare it a glance, but I flew backward and watched until I couldn’t see it anymore.
I never saw anyone else flying nearby. I never heard anyone call my name. I’d never felt so alone, not even when I’d left Vi to begin training with the Special Forces or when my father stopped responding to my messages.
We flew all night, using two spare packs to keep the boards going. We arrived in Freedom just as the sun crested the ocean waves.
The city lay in silence, broken and smoldering, the techtric barrier ruined.
Jag
41.
The girl kneeling in front of me stared, her eyes flashing with blue and turquoise and purple. The color purple really freaked me out for some reason, like I’d seen it recently and it meant something bad was about to happen.
She’d come running when the man had called her name. When she spoke, her mouth didn’t move, but her voice echoed in my head.
I’m Violet Schoenfeld, she said. And you’re Jag Barque. Don’t you dare forget.
Easy enough for her to say. Before I could respond, Look, I have forgotten, she whipped around.
“No,” she said, dashing to the corner of the building again. The still-nameless man joined her. “No, no, no.” She watched the sky. Somewhere around that corner, a fire burned. The flames reflected off the tears flowing down Violet Schoenfeld’s face.
&n
bsp; When she turned, the look in her eye scared me, scared me, scared me. I flinched away and bumped into a soft body lying next to me.
The girl slept peacefully. Her chest rose and fell in an even rhythm, and her bright yellow hair fell in jagged lines to the dark ground. I felt something for her. Friendship?
I recognized this girl. I’d seen her sleep before. I’d seen another guy keep his hand possessively on her back, showing everyone that they were together.
I took a deep breath, trying to reason through these weird feelings, and trying to place this beautiful Violet girl who seemed to want to punch me and kiss me at the same time.
“Vi?” I said, testing the name the man had called her just after I’d woken up.
She left the corner and strode toward me. “Don’t ‘Vi’ me.” With her words, another vision barged into my mind. One in which this girl shoved me backward. Told me I shouldn’t have left her to cross the border alone. After she forgave me for leaving her in the Goodgrounds, we watched the sunset together, content in the silence that followed.
I loved this girl. “I think I love you,” I said out loud, trying those words in my mouth. They seemed to fit.
Vi sighed, awakening more memories within me. She reached out and pulled me to a standing position. “Come look at this.”
She led me to the corner. I hobbled from the shooting pain in my ankle and the dull pain in my head. Sure enough, a building burned beyond the alley. “The Security Department,” I said, more and more pieces of my life coming to my remembrance. I looked at Vi. My Vi. “We did it.”
“Zenn left with Darke,” Vi said. “I saw them.”
Something inside me roared, blocking out the worried look on Vi’s face, the choking smell of singed metal and melting plastic, and the memory of her father—who was watching me.
A flood of memories crashed down upon me. I remembered everything, especially how Zenn had betrayed me once before.
* * *
“We’re depleted,” Thane said back in the war room. He handed me a hemal-recycler, and I held it to my head wound to absorb the blood. Meds flowed into my bloodstream, and I felt the pain recede instantly. “We lost half our members. We need time to regroup.” He lifted his mug of steaming coffee and drank.
We had to evacuate this city—fast. Who knew how long it would be before Darke sent a cleanup crew? I’d tasked the surviving Resistance members to pack up our remaining tech and food. Vi sat next to me, holding my hand, while Thane mused through possible locations for our retreat.
Retreat. The word sang through my body the same way the meds did, forcing me to admit defeat. We hadn’t killed Darke. We hadn’t destroyed Freedom. Had I been dreaming an impossible dream for the past four years? Imagining a future that would never be?
I pushed away from the table. I limped away from Vi, away from Thane, away from their questions and feelings. I didn’t really want to be alone, but I didn’t want to be with them either.
I left the building and stood in the shadows of a doorway across the street to wait for the impending sunrise. I’d first kissed Vi in a doorway almost exactly like this. I’d never felt anything so magical as her lips against mine.
Tears burned behind my eyes, and I let them fall. I was glad I could remember kissing Vi. For a few minutes after I’d woken up, I couldn’t even recall my own name. Then everything had come back, and I’d been told a few things I wished I didn’t know.
Namely that Thane had saved me. We hadn’t heard from Laurel or anyone on her team since before the launch. We didn’t know if they’d made it into the Security Department or not. Those twenty people had just disappeared. Gone. Zenn’s crew was unaccounted for as well—even Saffediene, who I never suspected would abandon the Resistance, despite her feelings for Zenn. It made sense that if he’d flown away with Darke, she had too.
I considered my remaining personnel. I couldn’t afford to lose Trek. With Pace gone—my throat squeezed—Trek was the only one qualified to run our advanced tech operations. Starr could probably manage in a pinch, but she lay unconscious in the infirmary.
My charges had compromised the Security Department, but Darke’s people had thrown a few last-ditch tech grenades. Starr had been hit by one soon after she and Thane entered the building. That’s where they’d found Vi and me passed out under a solid metal beam.
Thane had dragged out Vi first. After he’d passed her off to his team, he’d re-entered the burning, collapsing building to get me. And then Starr.
I’d never trusted Thane, not completely. But now? Now I did.
He wasn’t the one who’d abandoned his team and flown east with Darke. I felt the rage building inside. The first time Zenn had abandoned me and the Resistance, I was hurt. It was as if his girlfriend meant more to him than freedom—more than me, his best friend.
I thought he’d changed. I thought he understood our situation. I’d forgiven him for abandoning me once, but twice? Now I felt nothing but fury. At Zenn. At his weakness. But also at myself, for allowing him to be so intricately involved in the Resistance. For trusting him, even a little bit. I wished he didn’t know so much about our plans to take down Hightower. I wished he didn’t have the journal, which listed all of the Resistance codes and Insider safe houses.
Vi stepped in front of me, settling next to me to watch the sun rise. “But he does. So Zenn knows our plans. So what? Hightower knows everything anyway, right?”
Glad she had come to find me, I gathered her into my arms and held her close, relishing the fact that Zenn never would. Violet Schoenfeld was mine.
“And you’re mine,” she whispered, tilting her head up to kiss me.
“I wish you’d stop reading my mind,” I said, sliding my hands under the hem of her shirt.
“I can stop—if you want.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” I said, repeating what she’d said to me last summer as we crossed the desert. That felt like so long ago, when we were just getting to know one another.
She slugged me. “Come on. My dad wants to discuss looking for my mom’s team.”
For thirty seconds it was just me and Vi, and the weight of the world had lifted. As soon as Vi pulled away, that pressure returned. At least the darkness was giving way to a new day.
But I’d only taken two steps back toward the hideout when an unmistakable sound carved fear down my spine.
Hoverboards.
Zenn
42.
Bodies littered the orchards. The camps. The green area surrounding Rise One. All clones. The men near Rise One were dead, and had been for a while if their smell was any indication. “Vi killed these men a few days ago,” I said, lifting the collar of my jacket to shield my nose from the offensive odor.
General Darke was silent. He flew away from the carnage and toward the Evolutionary Rise. Smoke billowed from the building, adding to the stench in the city.
The Medical Rise tilted dangerously to one side, and the Technology Rise still had coals glowing at its base. Rise One seemed untouched, but I knew better. The metal and glass simply hid the damage we’d find on the inside.
I followed the General, unsure of how I was supposed to feel. Happy the Resistance had debilitated Freedom? Furious? Neutral, the way General Darke seemed to be? Better to let the General lead—he’d been doing it for decades. He slowly circled the Evolutionary Rise.
“We’ll rebuild,” he finally announced. “Citizens cannot leave their houses without authorization.” His voice sounded detached, as if it didn’t matter that people had died. A lot of people.
“I’ll get to work on the barrier and do a damage assessment,” he said. “You get rid of all these bodies.”
And that’s how I went from Director to grave digger.
Jag
43.
“Vi-i,” I drawled. “Who are they?”
She cocked her head to the side before she spun and gripped my shoulders. “Refugees from Freedom.”
Hope leapt inside me. Could Pace be with them?
<
br /> “How many?”
Vi shook her head, meaning she couldn’t tell. Four seconds later, the whine of hoverboards became a deafening growl. River Isaacs, her father, and a few others landed in front of us. Their hair and clothing were matted with ash.
River wiped her hair out of her eyes. I’d never seen someone look so tired.
“Hey,” she said easily, as if she’d shown up for a party.
“Hey.” I scanned the group of seven. No Pace. A figure lay prostrate on a hoverboard. Hope surged again. “Who’s that?”
A girl switched her gaze between me and the figure. “Gunner Jameson. We evacuated him from the Evolutionary Rise.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Anyone else?”
Vi put her hand on my arm, and I knew. No one said anything, and the people from Freedom shifted nervously. I turned away, angry that Pace wasn’t among them. Neither was Indy. I leaned against the doorway for support.
I felt like dying. Maybe then this pain wouldn’t hurt so much. Like somehow death would release me from this anguish. I couldn’t even cry. I just felt like someone was ripping my stomach out through my throat.
“Lighten up, Ivory. I know how he feels,” River said, and it sounded far away. “You guys got anything to eat?”
Such a normal question. Before I could stop myself, I started laughing. Vi glanced at me like I’d lost it. Maybe I had. But hey, it was either laugh or cry.
* * *
After I’d led the new arrivals from Freedom across the street and into the hideout, I found Raine sitting at the table. “Starr’s awake.” She searched my face, looking for an answer about Gunn. I nodded toward the infirmary before I announced, “Breakfast.”
The twenty people remaining in the Resistance introduced themselves as we used the food-generating cube to produce breakfast. We ate waffles and sausage, and drank milk (always Vi’s first request) and soda, and finished the meal with cake and ice cream.
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