How could he say no?
* * *
Now, in the cemetery, the decision Jared had made that day weighed him down more than ever. Seeing everyone at the funeral—all the people he was helping Ryku deceive—only made it worse. Jared meant to go straight home, but before long, he found himself walking past the marker bearing Zira’s name and stopped. It had been almost a year ago that they’d held her funeral service here when she’d disappeared in the North Pacific Region, and again six months ago after Ryku had ordered him to kill her. He’d felt guilty that day, too, though for different—if no less complicated—reasons.
Letting her go had been the right decision; the events of the past two days had assured him of that. The guilt of letting someone live who should have died was easier to bear than the remorse that came from his small part in the deaths of those who should have lived. He put his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket and let his mind wander to the same questions it always went to whenever he thought of Zira. What was she doing now? Where was she? Wherever it was, he hoped she was safe and happy—or at least as safe and happy as she could be after everything she’d been through.
She probably hated him. And he deserved that.
In his peripherals, he caught sight of someone approaching and turned his head. Aubreigh. He sighed. It was too late to try and get away now; she’d already seen him. For the most part, he’d managed to avoid her since the day he’d told her Zira was dead. He should have checked up on her more often, made sure she was okay, but it was almost impossible to even look her in the eye anymore.
She came to stand beside him. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Neither of them said anything else for a few minutes. Jared wasn’t sure why she’d come to him or what she wanted. He had nothing to give her and nothing to say that wouldn’t just make things worse somehow. He was about to leave when she spoke again. “I miss her.”
“Yeah,” said Jared. “Me too.”
“I wonder what she’d think of all this.”
“You knew her best.”
“Maybe. Maybe I didn’t really know her at all.”
“That’s not true.”
Aubreigh shrugged. “She had a lot of secrets. Towards the end—I don’t know, but something wasn’t right. Maybe I could have helped her, if I’d known how.”
Jared had thought the same thing many times, running himself in circles trying to find the right answer. The fact that Aubreigh had similar unresolved questions surprised him. She’d done all she could for Zira in being an unwavering friend. Even if she had known more, there was nothing she could have done to change things. She shouldn’t have any regrets.
But that was the cruel reality of someone dying before their time, wasn’t it? They always left regrets, uncertainty, and unfulfilled promises with the people who loved them most. “You’ll drive yourself crazy thinking like that,” he said.
“I know. Sometimes I just wish things could have been different.” Her voice trembled like she might start to cry, but she let out a long breath and regained her composure. “This is all so strange, though, isn’t it? Brynn was the chairman of my unit since the Project was founded. I can’t believe she’s gone.”
Jared nodded. “She’ll be hard to replace.”
“They all will. When is Ryku going to choose new chairmen?”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “Their bodies aren’t even in the ground yet. The public still doesn’t know.”
“They’ll know soon enough.” She tilted her head to one side. “Won’t they? I assumed he was just waiting until he could announce their replacements, too. Maybe that would take some of the sting out of the bad news.”
“He’s scheduled a press conference for tomorrow, but I don’t think he’ll be announcing new chairmen just yet.”
“It’s a big job for one person to handle on their own.”
“He’s more than capable of running things for however long he needs to.”
“Of course.” She dug the toe of her boot into the grass, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft and cautious. “But is he going to find replacements? Ever?”
She asked too many questions for her own good. It was bound to get her in trouble one day. “You can’t go around saying things like that. Especially not to me.”
“I know,” she said. “But it’s not just me. There are rumors. You must have heard them.”
He had. They’d started almost as soon as the bodies were found and Ryku’s wasn’t among them. As Ryku had assumed, no one was stupid enough to make an outright accusation, but there had been vague hints of foul play whispered throughout the Project’s ranks. “It’s just gossip,” said Jared.
“Maybe there’s some truth to it.”
He glanced around for eavesdroppers. There was no one close enough to hear them, but he lowered his voice anyway. “Even if there is, there’s nothing you can do about it. The things you’re saying right now are about two steps away from being considered treason.” He nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the caskets. “You need to keep your mouth shut or you’ll end up just like them.”
“So we just sit here and pretend this is okay?”
“Aubreigh—”
She let out a sharp, exasperated sigh. “Fine. I get it. You’re Ryku’s loyal dog, and I’m just some lowly unit C caseworker sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong. But this is wrong. We buried four good people today, and we shouldn’t have had to.” Jared opened his mouth to stop her from saying anything else, but she didn’t give him the chance to speak. “Don’t worry—that’s all I’m going to say. I thought I was confiding in a friend, but I guess things have changed more than I realized.”
Jared didn’t bother arguing with her, and she shot him a parting glare as she walked away. He looked back down at Zira’s grave. Things had indeed changed, and despite all Ryku’s claims that he was going to make the country better, Aubreigh wasn’t wrong to be concerned about the power he now held. Maybe Jared was the chairman’s dog, but even he couldn’t deny the unshakable disquiet in the back of his mind that had been growing ever since that morning in Ryku’s office.
CHAPTER TWO
Zira scuffed the heel of her prosthetic leg against the floor and skimmed over the open file on the computer display, searching for empty spaces. She stopped once in a while to meticulously enter the information Tripp had given her. The clunky, physical keyboard of the machine she was working with was so different from the speech input and holographic interfaces she’d grown up using, and even though it wasn’t the first time she’d done this in the past six months, she was slow.
Tripp, on the other hand, could type so fast it sounded like music, but he’d given her the computer—and the simpler task of filling out forms—so he could focus on what he was best at. Zira glanced over her shoulder at him. He sat in the same hunched position he’d held all morning, eyes fixed straight ahead on the projection over his wrist. The CyberLink he was using was nonfunctional except for its capability to test the program he was rewriting. He’d tried to explain it to her once, but Zira hadn’t understood much beyond the basic idea of what it did. She was perfectly content to finish the paperwork instead.
She stretched her arms and looked over her work again.
To MR. TONY PATTERSON, MANAGER
This notice is to inform you that your designated employee, GRANT STEELE, has been transferred to another work unit effective OCTOBER 28, 2123. Your regional unit C employment office will send a replacement for this employee at their earliest convenience and as availability allows.
No further action on your part is required. However, if you believe this decision was made in error, you may contact your regional unit C employment office to discuss it further. We appreciate your cooperation in making this transition.
The notice ended with the official seal of the PEACE Project and contact information for the South Pacific regional employment office. Zira had already completed a similar form for Grant’s wife, Natalie
. All she needed to do now was send it, but she would wait for Tripp’s approval first. He was still busy, and she didn’t want to interrupt him. The program he was working on was the most important part of all this. Once the Steeles left their home tonight with Tripp and Zira, it would be the main thing preventing the Project from finding out they’d abandoned their responsibilities and subsequently attempting to track them down.
The plan was simple enough—no different from the five other such transports they’d done together. Tripp would install separate, uniquely-tailored programs on Grant and Natalie’s CyberLinks before they left the devices behind at their home. The programs would then continuously generate false information about their whereabouts in case anyone from the Project decided to pull up their records. The forms Zira had filled out would prevent their supervisors from asking questions when they didn’t show up to work, and if Grant and Natalie had done their part to inform friends and family that they were transferring to another region, no one would suspect anything unusual about their disappearance.
The one sticking point in the plan was the slight possibility that some overzealous unit C distribution worker would notice the Steeles weren’t showing up for their weekly rations. With any luck, they’d be long gone and safe at the rebel base before any real alarms were raised. It had worked before, and until it stopped working, there was no reason to change the plan. Tripp had been doing this for five years, and in all that time, no one he’d transported had ever been caught.
Tripp’s fingers stopped moving and he watched the projection for a few minutes, presumably running another test. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, then switched the CL off and turned to Zira with a grin. “I think it’s finally finished. Are you done with those forms?”
She nodded. “Come take a look.”
He walked to the kitchen counter where she was working, and Zira moved over so he could see. He glanced over the files quickly. “Good. Go ahead and send them.”
She did. A few seconds after, the computer emitted a sharp beep. Zira recognized the sound. Tripp was almost obsessive about staying updated on the Project’s activities and had created an alert system to notify him of anything that might be useful. Most of the information he got on a daily basis wasn’t of any particular concern, but the beep meant the system had flagged something as urgent. She passed the computer to Tripp and he tapped the display. A video feed from a news broadcast popped up.
“My dearest citizens,” the speaker began. His voice made Zira’s skin prickle. She moved to stand behind Tripp and watch Chairman Ryku speak. “I regret that it is my duty to inform you of a great tragedy that has recently befallen our nation. My fellow chairmen, Collin, Ava, Brynn, and Leon, were all found dead here at the compound just two days ago. We paid them our final respects this morning and laid them to rest.”
He paused a moment to allow the news to sink in. Zira glanced down at Tripp. His hands were clasped together so tight his knuckles had turned white. Her nails dug into her palms, and it took more effort than it should have to unclench her fists.
Ryku resumed his speech. “We have already caught the criminal responsible for their deaths, a lone radical intent on seeing our country fall. But we will not fall. We will rise above this, as we have risen above every other challenge we have faced since this great nation was founded. The men and women I had the privilege to work with would have it no other way.
“In light of these tumultuous events and the security threat we now face, those of us in the PEACE Project feel it is in the people’s best interest that we not rush into any hasty decisions. I shall assume the burden of temporary leadership over all five units of the Project until suitable replacements can be found. We will make every effort to find such replacements as soon as possible, but in the meantime, you can expect the day-to-day operations of government to continue as normal. We promise to serve the people of this nation as diligently and efficiently as before.
“These are troubled times, but ours is a great nation, a proud nation, and we shall prevail. May you all find comfort in the peace and security provided to you by the Project. And now, I invite you all to join me in a moment of silence for our fallen leaders.”
Zira didn’t speak, partly out of respect for the four dead chairmen, but mostly because there were too many thoughts running through her head to allow her to come up with a single coherent sentence. Ryku had ultimate power now. Temporary power, according to him, but now that he had it, she doubted he’d ever give it up.
This had been his plan all along.
She scowled. Of course it was. He’d orchestrated the entire thing, arranged the deaths of the other chairmen so he could take control. The PEACE Project had always been restrictive, but Ryku had extreme ideas about what constituted a threat and how those threats should be handled. Zira knew that better than anyone, and she hated to think about what might happen under his sole leadership.
Tripp hadn’t said anything yet. He powered off the computer and began pacing the floor of the small trailer that had been their home for the past week. His hands clenched and unclenched as he muttered something indistinguishable to himself and ran his fingers through his short, messy hair. Whatever he was feeling, he was trying very hard to contain it.
Zira wasn’t sure what to do. She could ask if he was okay, but that seemed stupid, because clearly, he wasn’t. The news had upset him more than it upset her, but she could only guess at why. Maybe it had something to do with his history with Ryku and the reasons he’d left the Project, but she knew better than to ask about that. He changed the subject if there was so much as the mere potential for a discussion about his past, and Zira didn’t know any more about it than what he’d told her at Mei’s house in Grayridge. In fact, in all this time they’d been living and working together, neither of them had discussed their own personal reasons for leaving the Project in any kind of depth, and this didn’t seem like the best time to start. If he wanted to talk, he’d talk. There was nothing she could do for him but be ready to listen.
They ate together in silence. Even after all their careful rationing, the meal marked the last of the supplies they’d received from a rebel outpost after their last transport. Of course, they hadn’t been given much to begin with since Tripp was still technically working alone. He hadn’t told anyone but Seth that Zira was with him. He said it was because the rebels and their leader wouldn’t like him working with a former Project assassin, but based on what precious little he’d revealed about the rebels, Zira suspected it was also because a part of him still didn’t trust her. Not completely, not yet. He was careful, and trust was something hard-given after spending almost sixteen years hiding from the Project.
Despite the lack of information from Tripp, Zira had picked up on a few things about the rebels over the past several months. For starters, they were much better organized than she ever could have anticipated. They had secret outposts and safe houses scattered throughout the entire country, mostly in rural areas where the Project’s grip was a little looser. They communicated through high-security Net channels using pre-war computers and other devices they managed to salvage. Tripp liked to brag sometimes about how much communication had improved since he’d joined the rebellion. Most of his work in unit A had been with technology and programming, so he was familiar with the Project’s system for monitoring the Net and knew how to circumvent it without getting caught.
The level of organization the rebels displayed took more than just skill and secrecy—it took manpower. There had to be a lot of them. Zira wasn’t sure what their exact numbers were, but she and Tripp had escorted a dozen people to new safe houses on their way to the rebel base. The Steeles would make fourteen. Zira doubted they were the only ones making these transports, and this had to have been going on since shortly after the Project was founded. There could easily be hundreds of rebels out there somewhere by now. Maybe even thousands.
Where exactly they were hiding was another mystery, but it had to be somewhere on the
eastern side of the country. No matter where Tripp and Zira found the people they were assigned to transport, they always took them east. Maybe the rebels operated from somewhere in the South Atlantic Region. Maybe their base was somewhere in the free lands north of the Great Lakes that marked the edge of the Project’s territory in the North Atlantic Region. She asked Tripp sometimes, but he only said she would see it for herself one day.
When they finished eating, they packed everything they owned into the back of the car Tripp had taken from another safe house after one of their first transports. It was an ugly machine so old that the Project wouldn’t even have it registered in their system, which made it perfect for their needs. As long as they didn’t run right into any PEACE personnel, they could move freely and get where they needed to go as quickly and safely as possible. One of the biggest advantages the rebels had was the fact that America was such a geographically large country. The Project didn’t have the capabilities to monitor every square mile of it at all times, so they focused their attention on places where the population was higher. That left plenty of open country for the rebels to move around in, though they kept their activities to a minimum to avoid drawing suspicion.
Zira and Tripp walked to the Steeles’ apartment in the city just a few miles away. Tripp carried his computer in a backpack slung over one shoulder along with the semi-functional CyberLink. The night was uncomfortably cold, but they didn’t dare drive into the city where the police were more numerous and might take an unwelcome interest in their peculiar vehicle. Public transportation was also out of the question without valid identification on the disabled CLs around their wrists, which they wore for the sole purpose of blending in with the rest of the population. They would get the Steeles from their home, walk back to the car, then drive to the safe house where the next team of rebels would take over the transport.
Renegades of PEACE (Secrets of PEACE Book 2) Page 2
