***
I open my eyes, and this time I’m wide awake. My vision is clear. My head pounds from the after-effects of the tranq. Taro is still spread-eagle on the wall across from me.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I draw in a long breath. “Yeah, I’m okay. You?”
“I’m fine.”
I scan his face, to make sure he’s telling the truth. There’s a good amount of bruising on his face, but nothing’s broken or bleeding.
I look around. The ten-by-ten metal room isn’t so different from the locker room I share with Gun, except that I’m with Taro and we’re both prisoners. And we don’t have a giant cache of weapons at our fingertips. Based on the rhythmic swaying of the room and the smell of salt in the air, I’d say we’re on a boat in the ocean.
I crane my neck, trying to find the clasp on the cuffs. The Marstons have small release clasps.
“What are you doing?” Taro asks.
“Trying to figure out how to get these things off.”
“The League went to a lot of trouble to get their hands on you. The release mechanism is most likely remote-controlled.”
His tone is not unkind, but the sensible words make me feel stupid.
“Do you have a plan to get us out of there?”
Taro sighs. “Not yet.”
“What do you think they want from me?”
“Maybe they think you have access to your father’s work.”
“But they went after two of my friends. They wouldn’t know anything about Dad’s work.”
Taro shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe they want you guys to engineer something.”
I grunt, giving up on my study of the cuffs. Taro’s right; I don’t see a clasp anywhere. Which shouldn’t surprise me. They may look like the Marstons, but they’re not. The thought makes Gun feel so very, very far away. I shove away the sudden despair that threatens to suffocate me. Feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to help. I’ve got to stay calm and figure out a way to get free.
“I hope my mom is okay,” I say. For a brief moment, I entertain the thought of her coming to rescue me and Taro. I banish it almost immediately. It’s unlikely she even knows where we are. Taro and I are on our own.
“Your mom is probably fine,” Taro says. “The last I saw, she was fighting side by side with my dad.”
This makes me feel a little better. She and Aston were lethal together. With any luck, Mom is safe.
Something Taro said wriggles to the forefront of my mind.
“Did you just say your dad was fighting next to my mom?”
All expression goes out of Taro’s face. “Did I say that?” he replies vaguely.
I look at Taro, really study him—and see so clearly what I missed before: those handsome features bear striking resemblance to Aston’s. Taro’s skin is a lighter brown, his eyes more exotic, but he has the same broad shoulders and the same perfect nose.
“Your dad is Black Ice.”
Taro tries to shrug, but it’s a difficult gesture to pull off in his current state.
I try to imagine what it would be like to have a warrior for a father, instead of a dad who likes to wear T-shirts with geeky math puns printed on them. Clearly, Taro doesn’t have to spend his days doing calculus.
“It’s not as great as you might think,” Taro says. For the first time since I met him, there’s an edge to his voice.
“What isn’t great?”
“Being the son of Black Ice. I didn’t exactly have a normal childhood. He made sure I could assemble a C-4 bomb blindfolded by the time I was seven.”
“When I was seven, my dad had me doing quadratic equations. At least you know how to protect yourself. Math isn’t any good in a fight.”
“You’ve had some training,” Taro says.
“Not in real life. I train in Vex with Touch pills.”
“You train with Touch?” He gapes at me as though I’ve just sprouted antennas. “Why?”
“Because I refuse to be helpless.”
“I don’t get you,” Taro says. “You’re smart enough to get into Global’s Virtual High School, which means you’re pretty damn smart. But you waste your time screwing around with Touch and watching Merc reruns.”
“You are the son of one of the greatest mercs of all time, and you don’t even appreciate it.”
“I’m sixteen,” Taro snaps. “What sort of normal sixteen-year-old knows thirteen different ways to kill a man with his boot?”
“You’re sixteen?” My voice rises this time. “You get to run around with real Global mercs and you’re only sixteen?”
“You think it’s glamorous?” His voice is icy with disdain. “You think it’s fun? You have a chance to change the world, to create technology that can help people. You—”
He cuts off as the door rattles. We glare at each other. I’m not sure if I’m angry at Taro or just wrung out from all that’s happened. But glaring feels better than crying, so I keep it up.
The door swings open. Half a dozen Leaguers spill into the room. Each wears a SmartPlastic mask emblazoned with the Anti-American League symbol on the forehead. The masks mold to the contours of each Leaguer’s face, forming a shiny white plastic shell. I smell the plastic’s sharp odor, which means the masks were applied only recently. Some might still be soft enough to knock loose. Too bad I’m not in any position to do that.
All four of my cuffs beep. I crash to the floor. My wrists and ankles burn. As I push myself onto my hands and knees, a shock of electrical current strikes out from the cuffs. I scream and drop back to the floor, writhing. The current snaps off, but it takes a long moment for the agony to subside.
When the pain clears, I hear Taro shouting my name. I flop onto my back, trying to catch my breath. It occurs to me that I should leap at one of these guys, try to fight my way free, but my entire body feels like rubber.
One Leaguer separates himself from group. He’s the only one with a different design on his SmartPlastic mask: a blue sea serpent that twines up his right cheek and across his forehead.
The sight of that mask sends a cold shock through me. My hands begin to shake.
The man behind that mask smiled after he executed the Stanford girl. He smiled after he dropped bombs on refugee camps and blew up college dorms full of kids.
The shaking spreads to my legs. My heart pounds. I am living my worst nightmare, breathing my greatest fear.
“You may call me Imugi,” the man says, speaking with his familiar Asian accent. The only part of his face that moves is his mouth. The SmartPlastic mask conceals all expression. “Mine is the only voice on this ship that matters. You are both wearing electromagnetic handcuffs, a lovely new product from your rivals at Anderson Arms.”
There’s a beep and a thud. Taro lands next to me on the floor. He doesn’t even have time to lift his head before electrical currents shoot through him. He arches up against the floor, mouth open in a silent scream. I watch helplessly, fighting tears. When the current shuts off, he collapses, gasping. I reach out and grasp his hand.
“I expect good behavior from both of you,” Imugi says.
I nod weakly. Taro grunts.
“Get them up.”
We’re hauled to our feet, our hands ripped apart. I stumble a few steps, still weak from the shock treatment. Two soldiers flank me and force my feet forward.
We’re led into the warren of the ship, through twisting steel hallways with doors and walls covered in flaking beige paint. The lightbulbs stutter in their sockets, casting a shuddering luminescence. I try to take note of our path, but after ten minutes or so I’m completely turned around. Everything looks the same. The only thing I can be sure of is that we’re going down, deep into the bowels of the ship with Imugi.