by Nick James
I nod. “Right in Alkine’s face.”
Eva chokes down a spoonful of the paste. “Probably not the best way to endear yourself.” She winces. “My god this is revolting.”
“It was satisfying.” I shrug. “Kind of.”
She sets down her spoon and rests her elbows on the table, leaning closer. “Listen, Jesse. You know I have your back, whatever you do. But we really need to sit down and brainstorm some better ideas. There’s got to be an effective way to look out for the other Drifters that doesn’t cause this kind of chaos.”
“Lights flickering off for a couple of hours is hardly chaos.” Skandar rolls his eyes. “I was asleep. I didn’t even notice.”
I nod. “If Alkine would stop using Pearl Power, everything would-”
“You know that’s not an option,” Eva interrupts. “He’s doing what he can.”
“You didn’t meet with him after Seattle. You didn’t hear the way he was talking, like we were gonna bust past the Skyline and take on the Unified Party until all the Pearls were broken. Project Pearlbreaker. That’s what he called it. What a joke.”
She grabs her spoon and attempts another go at the mush. “Military operations are always dependent on-”
Something flashes red. My vision blurs and I feel heat in my chest, like I’m back in the reactor chamber with the spinning Pearl. I close my eyes and the image of a coastline spreads across my consciousness. It’s as clear as if I’m standing there, right in front of the water. I hear the waves crash against the rocks, smell the gritty saltiness in the air. But I’ve never seen this place before. It’s barren-no people or grass for miles — and flat.
Another flash of red and my eyes fly open again.
Eva gapes at me. “Are you okay, Jesse?”
I nod. “Fine.” But even as I respond, the coastline lingers in my mind.
Skandar frowns. “You look like you just fell asleep for a second.”
I give a slight nod, mostly ignoring him. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Eva’s eyes narrow. “It’s not like last spring, is it? In Dembo’s room on Visitation Day?”
“I’m fine.”
I wish I could believe it. Every time I blink I see it again. And visions like this-weird, random flashes-are never good in my case. The last one led me to Seattle, but that was months ago. I thought it was a one-time thing, a symptom of my Pearlbreaker powers being triggered. Why would some empty coastline pop into my head now?
“Anyways,” Eva starts up again. “I think if we run through this logically… get it all down in a… a chart or diagram, we can organize your thoughts into a coherent argument and present it to-”
“Cassius.” I stop myself. I didn’t mean to say his name out loud.
Her face drops. “What?”
“Sorry.” I flash a fake smile while I think it through.
Cassius is on the coast. Back in Canada, a continent away. Was this some kind of warning? He’s the type to get himself in trouble, even more than me, and I still don’t fully understand our bond after Seattle. Maybe I was seeing something through his eyes. A connection.
Eva groans. “Are you even listening to me?”
Skandar pokes her shoulder with the end of his fork. “Jesse’s not about to give Alkine some lame chart. That’s like something you’d do.”
“I’m just trying to help,” she mutters.
I pull myself up from my seat, abandoning the rest of lunch.
Skandar leans back, fork pointing at me now. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry. I just have to check on something.”
Eva frowns. “What could be so important? You just got here!”
“Cover for me in Tech, okay?”
“I can only cover for you so many times.”
“Thanks.” I walk away before she can respond.
I don’t look at anybody as I dart through the canteen on my way to the stairwell. I’ve gotten good at this lately, blocking out the curious glances and pretending that I’m the only one in the room.
I make it down four flights of stairs to my room in record time and slip inside. Door locked and doublechecked, I head directly to my desk, pull my identification card from underneath piles of junk, and open the safe in the bottom drawer. Grabbing Cassius’s secret communicator, I lay stomach down on my bed and set the device against the deflated pillow. It’s probably too late to hope that he’ll pick up, but it’s worth a shot. Our time difference is killer, but as far as I can tell Cassius doesn’t sleep. Guy’s a total insomniac.
I make sure that the dial hasn’t been turned off our channel before speaking. Then, scooting forward so that I can keep my voice low, I whisper. “Cassius?”
I’m answered with static as the signal strengthens. This is old technology, even by the Academy’s standards.
Cassius’s voice spills from the speaker after a few moments, tinny and small. It’s the only version of my brother I’ve gotten to know these past few months. “This isn’t a good time.” There’s a hardness to his tone. Imposing, even now that we’re allies.
I bring myself closer to the speaker, scared that Morse or someone could be out in the hallway listening. “Is something wrong?” I wait for a response that doesn’t come. “You’re still on the coast?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Why?”
“I just had the weirdest flash. Like, suddenly my eyes shut and I saw this place, right on the water. I haven’t had a vision that strong since last spring, when I saw Seattle clogged up with all that green mist.”
He’s silent. I’m not sure if he’s thinking it through or if he’s decided not to respond again, so I continue.
“I thought maybe, since it was a coastline, it might have something to do with you.”
“What kind of coastline?”
I close my eyes and recall the image. “Dirt, mostly. Bare.”
“That’s not the Polar Cities,” he responds. “There are buildings everywhere. Docks and… small forests.”
“Oh.” I move to a sitting position, resting on my knees. Suddenly the mad rush back to my room seems a little overdramatic, something a crazy person would do. Or someone with a massive anxiety problem.
I stare into the speaker, wishing that we were sitting face to face. These short bursts of communicator conversation are never enough. And it makes it impossible to tell if he’s being honest with me. “Where are you now?”
“Home.”
“Where’s home?” I know he won’t tell me. He never does.
He sighs. “Just home. Okay?”
“Okay.”
His voice calms. “The Academy… how are they treating you?”
“The same,” I start. “I broke a Pearl last night but they-”
“You’ve got to do something,” he interrupts. “I don’t have your power. I can’t do what you can. They’re still hiding the other Drifters?”
“They’re in Siberia somewhere. That’s all I know. We’ve had conference calls, but-”
“You’ve got to find them,” he says. We’ve been through this before, countless times. And the conversation always follows the same path. I can nearly predict it word for word. “Talk to them. We’re being kept in the dark. We can’t do anything if we don’t know what’s going on.”
“It would be a lot easier if you were here.”
He scoffs. “Yeah? I’m sure Alkine’d be happy to have me after all I’ve done.”
“But you’ve changed.”
No reply.
I wince. “I don’t know how.”
“Next time they hook you up to the video feed, look for clues.”
I think back to the last conference Alkine let me sit in on. He schedules them every few weeks, heavily scripted sitdowns with Ryel, one of the first, and most English-fluent, of the Drifters I’ve freed. Their prison can’t be far away. Otherwise Alkine wouldn’t have been able to install a video link.
“It’s only a room.” I close my eyes and visualize Ryel’s worried face filling the video sc
reen. I picture the feed breaking in and out like it always does. I think the faculty manipulates the frames. I’m not even sure that the conference is live. The grammar Ryel uses, the words and phrases he chooses to put together… it never seems right. “There’s nothing behind him. No markings or maps or anything. Just a gray wall and a pair of Academy guards flanking him.”
“Maybe it’s on the coast,” Cassius says. “Maybe that’s what you were seeing. The Academy has to have the coordinates stored somewhere. You have to look around.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. I know that finding Ryel is more important than freeing random Drifters from captured Pearls. He was the one who was able to relay the message from our mother on the rooftop last spring. He knows things that we need to know. But finding him-hell, getting to him-seems impossible.
There’s a long pause. For a second I think Cassius has switched off his communicator. “Cassius?”
“I’ve gotta go, alright?”
“Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“From Siberia?” He laughs. “Doubt it. You focus on your end. Call me when you’ve got answers.”
I nod, not that he can see it.
He grunts. Or maybe it’s a cough. It’s hard to tell over the communicator. “I’ll talk to you when I know things are safe.”
“Alright.” That’s about all I can expect from my brother right now. But things are never safe. Not with him.
The static fades and the line goes dead. I turn off the communicator and flip over on my back, staring at the ceiling. I close my eyes and try to visualize that coastline again. It appears in front of me, one little piece at a time until I recall the entire horizon. Problem is, there’s not much to see. It could be any stretch of land. The whole of this country’s crammed with coastline. If I’m gonna risk my butt hijacking a shuttle to go exploring, I’ve got to be absolutely sure that I know where I’m going. There can’t be mistakes. I can’t give Alkine time to find me and bring me back.
I try to wind around inside my little vision, see if the image will let me zoom out and reveal a path to our Skyship. No luck.
Water. Rocks. That’s it.
I open my eyes and notice a ball of red light blotched on the ceiling-a flash like the ghost image left behind after looking at a lightbulb for too long. Another second and it’s gone. I continue to stare, squinting to see if I can make the red appear again. It doesn’t.
Water. Rocks. Red. My mind’s playing tricks on me. Maybe it’s an aftereffect of the meds Alkine pumped into my system last night. Or maybe I’m just going crazy.
I sigh, trying to forget the entire thing. That’s when my bracelet starts to hum.
6
Cassius deactivated the communicator and clicked it to his belt, letting his tattered jacket conceal as much as possible. It was his only important possession, and now that he had it, he could leave.
He crouched behind a row of overflowing trash cans, perched diagonally across from the half-collapsed building he’d called a home for the last several weeks. He needed to take a moment to catch his breath and prepare for the long journey out of the city, but more than that, he’d had an idea.
Being the victim of subterfuge had taught him a trick or two, and once he’d recovered from the panic on the coast, he remembered his training. Fleeing without gaining information on his pursuers would be a wasted opportunity. The more he learned, the better he’d be able to defend himself. And if someone from the Unified Party knew that he was in Providence, they’d likely know which building he lived in as well.
So far the morning had proven fruitless. People littered the street before him, crawling out of their dank, miserable little hobbles for another day in hell. The entire place stunk of garbage and feces, both animal and human. Cassius had just about gotten used to it, much as he hated to admit it. It was a far cry from the sterile grounds of the Lodge-the private chefs and hot showers and endless credit. But it was how it should be now, after Seattle. He didn’t deserve those things, not after everything he’d done.
He brushed thoughts of Fisher from his mind. He could never tell if his brother was being serious or not, especially about coming aboard Skyship Academy and playing happy family. It rang suspiciously of a trap, but maybe that was Cassius’s default mode. Everything was a trap. He watched a crowd of children kick a brown, dirt-covered soccer ball through the streets, blissfully unaware of a Serenity deal going down in the far alley. Then, a dark figure entered the street.
Its combat suit was black from head to toe, its face obscured by a mask seamlessly connecting with the rest of the outfit. With all of the protective padding, Cassius couldn’t discern gender, though he assumed it was a man.
Cassius watched the reactions of the residents who stared at the figure with a mix of curiosity and fear as they moved about. He’d never seen a Unified Party soldier dressed like this, not even covert ops. Maybe the Slum Lords sent him. Either way, something was definitely wrong.
The figure moved confidently to the entrance of Cassius’s building, pushed on the wobbly door with his foot, and peered inside. The guy was thin, and lacked the bulk of a foot soldier. Cassius could probably take him in a fight.
Something shifted behind him. A footstep. A splash of puddle water. Cassius spun around to see a second figure, dressed as the first but dangerously closer.
“Cassius Stevenson,” the figure said, voice low. This one was definitely a man.
Cassius didn’t give him time to respond. He darted out from behind the trash cans with instinctive speed. The first figure noticed this immediately, releasing his grip on the door and joining the pursuit.
So much for gaining intel.
Cassius pushed through crowds of startled onlookers as more and more of the black-clad figures shot from alleyways and side streets like a flurry of blow darts. Sneak attack. They’d all been waiting for him to move.
He cursed himself for staying back. He should have left the city when he’d had the chance.
The thickness of the crowd kept the soldiers at bay, giving Cassius the few seconds he needed to change direction.
He barreled down a twisting corridor. Shacks and hobbles were arranged like a mixed-up jigsaw puzzle around him. At times the path required stepping through someone’s house, but in this area it was hard to distinguish shelter from trash heap. His pursuers didn’t know the slums like he did. It was the only advantage he had.
Arriving on another crowded street, he paused for a moment and surveyed the surroundings, searching for hiding places. The breath caught in his throat.
A tattered flag hung high above him on a crooked pole, a sign that he had entered the southeastern corner. Locust Territory. That was all he needed.
He paused to decide on a course of action. Mistake.
The crowd scattered in front of him. He turned to see the entire fleet of dark soldiers move into the street, spilling from the city block with impossible speed and coordination. Ten of them, he thought. They were moving too fast to get an accurate count.
Slum dwellers retreated into buildings and alleys until Cassius stood alone in the center of the street, surrounded by a half-circle of silent Government Agents. They approached as one unit. He didn’t have time. Running wasn’t going to cut it. He needed to act.
He sunk to the ground and lay his right hand on the dirt, closing his eyes. He’d have one good chance, one opportunity to blow them away in a single motion.
He felt his insides boil. This had to be big. Even bigger than back in the park.
The heat spread to his shoulders, then down his arms until it reached his fingers. Focus, he told himself. Focus on the pathway, the arc. It’s got to be just right.
Fire exploded where his hand met the ground and arced around him in a half-circle before spreading outward like a deadly scythe, tearing through the figures on its way to the wall of shacks beyond. He prayed it would cut off before catching on any of the buildings, but once it had left his body, there was no controlling it. The old wood
went up instantly. The fire spread through the city block with dangerous speed.
Worse yet, the figures remained standing, completely immune to the flames. Cassius stumbled to his feet and stepped back, realizing with horror the true nature of their black bodysuits. Fireproof. Of course. If they had been sent to capture him, why wouldn’t they take the necessary precautions?
Now he’d started a blaze in the most dangerous part of the city for nothing. People would lose their homes. There would be fatalities. It was the Washington Chute all over again. He’d killed. He’d been stupid and he’d killed.
The figures approached with ferocity now, surging at him like one multi-limbed monster. Two grabbed his arms and pulled him to the ground. Others restrained his legs. He struggled, but they were too strong. There were too many. Fire didn’t hurt them. Fire was all he had.
One remained standing. Cassius watched as the soldier removed a tube from somewhere at his hip. As the object neared closer, he recognized it as a syringe filled with a paleblue liquid. Cassius’s eyes widened as the figure crouched low, straddled his legs, and brought the point of the needle to his neck.
Then, with his free hand, the figure ripped off his mask.
Cassius’s mouth dropped. For a moment the horror and futility of the situation melted as he stared at the face of Avery Wicksen. Fisher’s girl. The same one who had disappeared in Seattle, who had been captured and brought to Unified Party quarters. She’d helped Fisher run away from Madame. She was one of Alkine’s good guys. Or at least, she was supposed to be.
“What are you doing-” He managed to speak, then coughed as a knee rammed his diaphragm.
She didn’t smile or frown or show that she recognized him at all. Instead, she pushed down on the end of the syringe, sending sharp metal through his skin.
Immediately, he felt a surge of cool liquid into his blood stream. His legs and arms went limp, then numb. Avery stared down at him, her soft brown hair glowing in the sunlight, a hint of fading freckles on either side of her nose. Cassius could tell why Fisher had been so infatuated with her. She was beautiful, even now.
