by Resa Nelson
Everyone else had vanished.
Zuri climbed out of the fountain and ran as fast as she could to the harbor. Not knowing what else to do, she rushed toward the bullseye where she first had landed. As she stepped onto the bullseye, Zuri looked up at the sound of a drone taxi and saw its rollercoaster harness reaching down toward her.
Uncertainty seized her. She shivered, her drenched clothes clinging tightly to her skin.
What if it’s a trap? What if that mob sent it?
Unlike the singleton drone that had brought her to VainGlory, this taxi was a two-seater, and a dark figure sat in the other seat.
Zuri gathered her wits, ready to run away. She could run to the Welcome Center and hide inside. She could run back to the water garden and hide in a different fountain.
The taxi lowered and tilted so she could see who sat in the other seat.
“Come on, Zuri. Get in!” The man extended one hand to her, even though she wouldn’t be able to reach it unless she allowed the unfurling rollercoaster harness to embrace her.
Startled by the sight of his pale green eyes, Zuri muttered, “Ben?”
Maybe he read her lips, because the noise of the drone must have drowned out her whisper. “It’s me. Rameen. Your brother.” His brow creased in apprehension. “If you don’t come with me right now, they’re going to kill you!”
Memories rushed back. The way her parents ignored her or misunderstood her. The way her parents paid more attention to their devices and their screens than they did to their children. And the one person who genuinely cared about her.
Rameen.
Zuri opened her arms to the drone taxi’s grip and let it pull her up inside the cab, where Rameen hugged her close as the vehicle sped high into the air and away from the shores of VainGlory.
CHAPTER 29
Once the drone taxi landed at the airport on the nearby independent island of Reclaim and they walked far enough away to hear each other speak over the chopping blades, Zuri said, “What are you doing here? How did you find me? Are you taking me back to Aspire?”
“No.” Rameen led Zuri away from the drone taxi and toward a small plane. “It isn’t safe to talk yet. We have to get out of here. I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
Other than Mae Lin, the only other person Zuri had ever truly trusted was her brother. “Of course,” she said.
A few hours later, their plane landed in the last place Zuri ever wanted to see again. Ten years ago, she’d made her way to Aspire and never looked back. She became tight-lipped as Rameen took her to a car and drove her home. Zuri stared straight ahead in anger, although she couldn’t help but notice how a lush greenness seemed to press against the roads. Other than the pavement, trees and bushes and grasses appeared to be taking over the world.
“I guess you have a lot of questions,” Rameen said.
Zuri could tell that he glanced at her, but she kept her eyes focused ahead and her mouth shut.
“We’ve been trying to find you since you left,” Rameen said. He took one hand off the steering wheel and snapped his fingers. “Vanished without a trace. Even I couldn’t find you, and I was a pretty good hacker, even back then. Of course, I was looking for your real name, not one you made up.” He grunted in disgust. “Blacksheep. Really, Zuri? You changed your name to Blacksheep.”
“It seemed appropriate,” Zuri grumbled.
“I would have found you faster if you’d gone by ‘Zuri Blacksheep’ instead of just ‘Blacksheep.’ That’s the one thing I have to give credit to VainGlory for—they wouldn’t take you in until you gave them your first name. Once that got into their database, I found you.”
Zuri couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise. “You hacked into VainGlory? I thought the city was supposed to be un-hackable.”
“Yeah, well, I made sure I got a lot of practice before you arrived in VainGlory.”
They sat in silence for several minutes.
“Were you Ben?” Zuri said. “Did you hack into my Personal Digital Assistant?”
Rameen raised his voice in protest. “And changed his eyes from yellow to green. Honestly, Zuri how could you not know it was me? Why do think I changed the color of his eyes?”
“You haven’t been around for ten years. Why would I expect you to show up now?”
“Because you were in danger!” Rameen blurted. Gathering his emotions, he lowered his voice. “I haven’t been around because you left and no one could find you. Until now.”
Zuri mulled over his words, growing more confused by the moment. “But you hacked into Ben the same day I arrived in VainGlory. Those people didn’t turn against me until today. How did you know they were going to do it?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you knew I was in danger.”
Rameen pulled the car into the driveway of an old saltbox house with fading cornflower blue paint. The house where they’d grown up. “You might have heard that things are different now. Welcome to Middlesex Province. Welcome to the Northeast Kingdom.”
CHAPTER 30
Inside her family home, Zuri sank deeper into reluctance. Knowing she couldn’t have remained in VainGlory without being lynched, she considered being here the next worse thing.
The way her parents had aged surprised Zuri. Although they’d been detached and distant, Zuri remembered them as seeming young and vibrant. Now, their faces looked weathered, and gray streaked their hair.
While Zuri squirmed in an armchair, Rameen sat on the floor nearby, and her parents perched on the edge of a sofa.
“We know we screwed up,” her father said. “We never meant to do it, but it happened. We didn’t realize how we hurt you and your brother. Not until you left.”
“I knew you were alive,” her mother said in a choked voice. “I never gave up.”
Zuri squirmed. “I’m surprised you noticed I wasn’t there.”
Her father’s face sagged in sorrow. “I didn’t realize how I’d lost touch with the actual world until it was too late. Not until you were gone.”
“We learned,” her mother said in a voice gaining strength. “When you left, the shock of it shook us out of that dream-like state we’d fallen into. Discovering you had vanished, not knowing where you were, and trying to find you—it changed everything.” She gripped her husband’s hand.
Zuri rolled her eyes. “So, you live in the Kingdom now.”
“Don’t laugh,” Rameen said. “Mom’s a chieftain.”
Zuri groaned in disbelief.
“Actually,” her mother said. “Your brother’s telling the truth. Your father and I were like lotus eaters, oblivious to the world. You’re the one who shook us out of that malaise. When I say we’ve changed, I’m serious.”
“Fine,” Zuri said. “But I don’t want to be here. Anywhere but here.”
“You know that’s not going to happen,” Rameen said.
Zuri bristled.
“Not yet,” her father amended. “You were born in Middlesex Province, and that makes you a native of the Kingdom. You can live anywhere you want.” He paused. “After you complete rehab.”
Zuri thought she must have misunderstood. “Did you say rehab? As in rehabilitation?”
“As in junkie,” Rameen said.
Zuri laughed. “You know better. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I stay away from drugs, even when they’re over the counter.”
“We know,” her mother said.
Zuri scrunched up her face in revulsion. “Then why is my brother calling me a junkie?”
“You wore Slim Goggles for years,” Rameen said. “Then you went to VainGlory and entered a Personal Bubble.”
“So?” Zuri said. “That’s what everyone does.” She shot a pointed look at her parents. “You should know that better than anyone else.”
“We do,” her father said in compassion. “It’s why we recognize the signs.”
“It’s going to be hard during the next few days,” her mother said. “The next few weeks. The nex
t few months. But no matter how bad it gets you’ll be surrounded by people who care about you. People who love you. People who want you to get better.”
Deciding she’d had enough, Zuri left the room in a huff and opened the front door, determined to leave. She’d struck out on her own before. She could do it again.
A large man stood outside, blocking the doorway.
“You have got to be kidding,” Zuri said.
The moment Zuri set foot outside, the man grabbed her wrist, snapped a blinking device around it, and locked it in place next to the bracelet she still wore. The diamonds in that bracelet sparkled with every blink.
Although the device weighed no more than a pound, its presence around her wrist made Zuri feel like a trapped animal. “Get this off!” she yelled at the man.
Instead of paying attention to her, the man waved at her family inside the house and then walked away.
Looking up, Zuri saw her parents standing on the threshold.
“It’s a tracking device,” her father said. “Wherever you go, we’ll know where you are. If you step within 20 miles of any border of the Kingdom, all border stations will be alerted automatically. For your own good, you won’t be allowed to leave.”
Zuri scrunched her fingers together and tried to push the device over her hand, but it wouldn’t budge. “What’s wrong with you people? I’m not a criminal! Let me go!”
Zuri wished she had never left Aspire. Despite the struggle, she’d been happy working with Mae Lin. The work they did together made Zuri proud and happy. She’d had a good life in Aspire.
Why did everything have to fall apart because she went to VainGlory?
Zuri had felt endangered when she left the city. For the first time, she considered the possibility that it might have been a misunderstanding. Something that could be explained. Maybe even fixed. Everything else in VainGlory had been perfect. What if it could be perfect again?
Zuri sank to the ground, sobbing in grief for all she had lost.
Her mother knelt next to Zuri and spoke in a soft voice. “When you lived in Aspire and VainGlory, you thought you were connected to the world. You weren’t. You were connected to an illusion. You thought you were a businesswoman selling a product. You weren’t. You are the product. All those places care about is collecting information about you. All they want is to use you.”
“No!” Zuri cried, squeezing her hands over her ears. “Leave me alone!”
When Rameen spoke, his voice sounded muffled, but Zuri understood his words. “It’s too soon. She’s not ready to hear the truth yet.”
Still weeping, Zuri wrapped her arms around her head in a desperate attempt to keep all of them out, forgetting the mob that had chased her through VainGlory and desperate to go back.
CHAPTER 31
Days later, Zuri woke up to the sound of her bedroom door banging open.
“Get up,” a man’s voice said.
Startled, Zuri clutched the covers against her as she sat up. Squinting against the startling light of day that streamed through the flowery curtains covering the windows, she stared at an unfamiliar dark shape in the doorway. “Who are you? Where’s Janice?”
“Gone,” the man said. “Transferred to Degeneration Hall.” He paused. “You don’t want to go there. It’s like a prison. Be smart, get up, get dressed, eat your breakfast before it gets cold.” Without another word, he stepped into the hallway and shut her bedroom door behind him.
“I’m already in a prison,” Zuri muttered. She rolled over and pulled the covers over her head. She didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to get dressed or eat breakfast. All she had the energy to do was curl up in a fetal position and feel sorry for herself.
When she thought about VainGlory, she hyperventilated.
I had everything in VainGlory. And now I’m left out. What if they’ve forgotten about me? What if Milan is wondering where I am? What is Donna thinking about me?
The sensation of being left out—of feeling invisible—made Zuri frantic with anxiety. And yet she couldn’t force her body to move.
A loud pounding on her door shook Zuri out of her thoughts.
“Now!” the man’s voice shouted.
What if I’m sent to that place where Janice went? What if they lock people inside?
Unable to bear the idea of things becoming worse, Zuri forced herself out of bed and into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She dragged her body out of the bedroom and into the community kitchen of the Recovery House, an old farmhouse with simple furnishings.
A man with a hawkish nose and his black hair in a buzz cut stood at the stove and scrambled eggs in a cast iron skillet. He looked young, maybe Zuri’s age. Focused on the skillet, he said, “Coffee’s on the table.”
Zuri sat at a roughly-hewn wooden table, picked up a blue-speckled mug filled with steaming black coffee, and took small sips. Still unused to the harsh appearance and sensation of the world she’d left ten years ago, Zuri tried to stay calm by staring at the coffee.
The man dropped a plate full of eggs in front of her. “Eat.” He took a fork out of a glass vase holding cutlery and shoved it across the table at Zuri until it clinked against her plate.
Zuri jumped and let go of her mug in surprise.
The man snatched the mug before it could tip over, swearing when the steaming coffee splashed against his skin. Without another word, he wiped up the spilled liquid and put the mug next to Zuri’s plate. “Eat.”
Too afraid to do anything else, Zuri obeyed but stared at her plate. She shuddered when she heard him sit opposite her. Glancing up, she saw him eat from his own plate of eggs. Before she could think better of it, she said, “Who are you?”
The young man looked up at her with black eyes. “John Running Horse.”
Zuri shifted her concentration back to her own breakfast. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
They ate in silence.
Finally, John finished, took his plate, fork, and empty mug to the sink where he washed, dried, and put them away. As he walked out the front door, John said, “Clean up after yourself before you come outside.”
Unused to eating with anything she didn’t throw away afterwards, it took some time for Zuri to learn how to clean everything, grateful she’d managed to sneak a glance at John when he’d been at the sink.
Zuri wanted to crawl back into bed. She felt drained and used up after the simple task of eating breakfast and its aftermath.
She’d heard of Natives before, but she’d never seen one in VainGlory or even Aspire. She’d never even met one before leaving home. Zuri wondered if her ignorance could hurt his feelings, and she didn’t want to face him.
But she dreaded being sent to a house with stricter rules more than she feared facing John.
Zuri eased her way outside and walked around the house to the wide expanse of yard that had been churned up. The briny smell from several open bags of raw fish threatened to knock her unconscious.
John shoveled fish out of one bag and onto the ground next to it.
Zuri approached him, keeping her gaze on the ground while avoiding the fish.
John continued shoveling. “How long were you connected?”
When the fish he shoveled landed close to Zuri’s feet, she took a hurried step back. “Ten years in Aspire. Then several weeks in VainGlory.”
“I hear it’s worse in VainGlory.”
Zuri didn’t understand what he meant. “It’s better,” she mumbled. “Slim Goggles make you feel immersed in the connection. But in VainGlory you get a Personal Bubble. It’s like you are the connection.”
“Like I said,” John said in a dispassionate voice. “It’s worse in VainGlory.”
He continued shoveling, and Zuri stood by him, waiting. After several minutes, she said, “This is supposed to be my first day of work.”
“So, work.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
With a thud, John drove his shovel into upturned earth. “You
never done this before?”
Zuri shook her head, still concentrating on the ground. She didn’t understand why the fish had died or why John wanted to bury them here. It seemed to Zuri that even dead fish belonged in the sea.
“Then pay attention to everything I say and watch what I do.”
When John said nothing more, Zuri dared to glance up, startled by the intense way he stared at her.
“Do you understand what we’re doing?” he said.
Looking down again, Zuri shook her head.
“Do you know what this is? Where we’re standing?”
Zuri mumbled, “In the back yard?”
“First, we use fish to fertilize the earth and provide nutrients. Then we plant. Kale. Chard. Lettuce. Beans. Broccoli. And more. Understand?”
Zuri gave a weak shrug.
“This,” John said, “is where food comes from.”
Zuri looked up, failing to hide the surprise on her face.
John’s voice softened. “Maybe your food came to you in boxes before. Maybe it appeared out of nowhere, like magic. But this is the real magic. We plant seeds, tend to the plants that grow from them, nourish them. The plants provide food, nourish us.”
Zuri realized that she’d never thought about where food came from until this moment. John was right: food had always appeared in boxes, seemingly out of nowhere. She’d never considered how food got into boxes.
“You’ll need this.” John pushed the wooden handle of his shovel into her hands, his fingers lingering against hers.
Zuri couldn’t help but look down at them. Unlike Shepard Green’s perfect skin, John’s looked dirty and rough. Unlike Shepard Green’s manicured nails, John’s looked unkempt. Unlike Shepard Green’s scent of pine, John reeked of sweat.
Zuri didn’t want to show her repugnance. With all her might, she willed herself to stand firm instead of stepping away in horror at his lack of proper grooming.
For the rest of the day, Zuri learned how to prepare and plant the garden. She followed John’s lead and copied everything he did.
