Jason handed her a tray, his hand on the small of her back as he guided her to the line. “Well, don’t get so excited, Grace,” he said sourly. “You might set your balance off.”
She licked her lips, remembering the two years they had shared an apartment, a life. “Jason, I appreciate the offer, but us working together might not be such a good idea. I can get Zach on my own. We understand each other.”
“Yes, I see that,” Jason muttered as he reached in front of her, setting a bowl of onion soup on her tray, following it up with four pieces of bread. “I thought we did good together. Here. You’re going to need this.”
She flushed. “I can’t burn through that many calories in one day,” she said, even as her stomach growled.
“You will today,” he said cryptically, and then, as if unable to contain himself any longer, he blurted, “Grace, Zach is the oldest unregistered throw found since you were collected at seventeen. We know throws who mature naturally like you and Zach are substantially stronger, but their control usually sucks and we have to deadhead them to remove their abilities. Zach is the exception, like you, and if you can successfully bring him in and convince him to work within the Strand’s framework, I think you might get that promotion to the elite you’ve been looking for.”
She turned, her heart pounding. The elite? It was what she wanted. What she had aimed for since entering the Strand, welcoming the peace and order it represented.
Seeing her understanding, he nodded, beaming as he put an extra large orange juice on her tray. “Move down, will you? I can’t reach those meat tarts. It’s high time you joined the elite. Overdue if you ask me. Your skills are top-notch, and control unquestioned. If you wouldn’t do stupid stunts like almost killing yourself to save a dog, you’d probably be my superior by now.”
Grace stopped, her feet becoming one with the floor. Stupid stunts? Saving my dog is a stupid stunt?
“We’ve got a busy day, you and me,” he was saying as he filled his own tray. “I’ve already been over Zach’s paperwork, but I think it would be prudent to do a few team-building exercises to be sure we can modulate easily before we go out. Since you’ve been in contact with him before, I might be the better choice for going in vanguard, but it’s your call.”
Her call? Her eyes narrowed. “Saving my dog was not a stupid stunt,” she said, conscious that the conversations at the nearby tables had gone silent. “Hoc is my partner as much as Boyd was. Is.”
The lights over the food flickered. Jason noted it, frowning. “This is your last chance at getting into the elite, Grace. I’m doing you a favor.”
Ticked, she shoved the tray at him, and he took it, stumbling. “I don’t need your favors. See you around.”
There was a clatter as he put her tray next to his on the counter. “I don’t understand you,” he said loudly. “I’m giving you a chance to prove yourself. You’re not young anymore, Grace. No one over twenty-five has ever been admitted to the elite. Don’t you want to do something important with your life?”
Grace stopped. Hoc stood at her heel, the dog cowering as if she’d yelled him. She wanted a chance to prove herself so bad that she could taste it, but she wanted to earn it on her own merits, not buy it with a lie. Part of her job as a collector was evaluating a throw’s moral makeup, her words counting heavily on the question of whether an older, unregistered throw should be trained or have his or her abilities burned out of him or her for the safety of society. Zach was powerful, yes, and control could be learned, but she feared he had no sense of duty to himself or those he loved, that he would take what they taught him and use it for his own gain.
If she collected Zach and passed him into the Strand at the will of the elite, it would assure her place among them. If she decided he was unrecoverable and advised him to be deadheaded, she would lose her last chance to become what she most wanted.
“I am doing something important,” she said, every eye in the room on her. “Working with Boyd was not a mistake. Saving Hoc was not a mistake. That dog is my partner, more than you’ll ever be.”
The lights flickered overhead. Still standing where she’d left him, he crossed his arms over his chest. People were fidgeting, their own balances being pulled out of whack. “Your emotions are betraying you.”
Not even looking at her monitor, she stomped back over to him. His face lost all expression and he loosened his arms, but all she did was push her sleeve up and shove her wrist under his nose. “My balance is perfect,” she said softly. “Maybe you should try wearing one of these yourself.”
Her tone was bitter, and his face softened, even as he glanced at it. “Don’t walk away from me. If you don’t do this, you’ll be bringing in unregistered throws the rest of your life.”
“It’s what I’m good at,” she said bitterly, seeing the awful choice he had given her. “You can take your elitist job and shove it,” she said, trembling. “I’d rather work alone with dogs than with your pack of overgrown boys who think the rules don’t apply to them.”
He reached for her, and she backed away at the anger in his expression. Spinning on a heel, she walked out, pace fast and Hoc at her side.
“Grace!” he shouted as she pulled the door open, feeling the weight of it all the way to her bones.
She let the door slam, reaching out and snapping the electricity flow like a rubber band. A startled cry rose up from a handful of people, and the lights went out.
She’d done it intentionally, and her balance, she noted bitterly, was perfect—even if her insides were churning like storm waters.
She could lie and be rewarded, or be truthful and remain where she was, and it pissed her off that she was even tempted.
THREE
Grace found herself listening for Boyd’s footsteps as she reluctantly walked up the cobbled walk to the peaceful slice of suburbia hiding its shame and misery behind lush green lawns and environmentally friendly recycle bins. Behind her, Hoc whined through the open window, the obedient dog staying where she told him. He was not coming in until she knew Zach wasn’t there. It felt odd without her partner, and her arms swung stiffly. She wished that Boyd would be coming back from the Island, but once you started to boost, you came to depend on it—making it a hundred times harder to maintain your balance. That Zach wasn’t an addict already was a miracle. But then again, if he had been, they would have found him a lot sooner.
Grace pushed the doorbell, hearing it ring. She was angry at Boyd for being weak, angry at Jason for his choice that wasn’t one, but most of all she was disillusioned by the Strand’s policies. If by some miracle Zach was morally suited for great power, her choice would be easy, but after nearly half a decade of bringing in older unregistered throws, she knew the chances were almost nil. There was a reason the Strand worked hard to find throws in kindergarten. Morality was best taught early.
Brainwashed? she wondered as she listened to the footsteps approach. Perhaps, but the alternative was allowing a small but powerful demographic of people to abuse the rest until the majority rebelled, killing them all, the good along with the bad.
Hearing the steps behind the door falter, Grace rang the bell again, tired.
“I told you he’s not here. Go away!” Mrs. Thomson shouted through the door, and Grace pulled herself straight.
She had to try. Maybe Zach was the exception. “Mrs. Thomson? Please, I just want to talk.”
“I said go away!” the frustrated woman all but screamed, making Grace even more tired.
“Zach put my partner in the hospital. He’s okay. I thought you might want to know.” She hesitated, motioning Hoc to stay where he was, and the dog’s ears drooped. “I know Zach’s a good boy,” she said, hoping it was true. “He reminds me of me when I was found. It was hell.”
Uneasy, she tugged her uniform straight as she turned to face the street. “I want to help Zach,” she said, feeling a twinge of doubt and guilt. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Thomson. It’s going to go harder on him if I can’t bring him in toda
y. The next people coming out here will . . . not be understanding.”
Depressed, she took a step down, Hoc’s tail waving as the door cracked open behind her. Grace didn’t smile. She’d come out here hoping to find that Zach was morally sound, but a part of her wanted the boy to rot in hell for trying to kill her dog.
“Someone was here already this morning,” Mrs. Thomson said, her voice trembling, and Grace turned.
“Here? Already?” she said, and the scared woman opened the door a little more.
“A sandy-haired man. Your age, your height. Thin, like my Zach. He was alone, but I knew it was one of you. His coat had silver in it and his hat had a triton on it.”
“Jason?”
Hoc whined at hearing the man’s name, and the woman came halfway out onto the shady porch. “He said his name was Stanton.”
Grace turned all the way around. Jason. She glanced back at her car, a hundred options going through her mind. “Can I come in?” she asked, and the woman withdrew, her head down. “Mrs. Thomson, you don’t want Jason to bring your son in. He’s a lying bastard.” Not to mention he would pass him into the Strand for the promotion.
“There is nothing wrong with my son!” the woman said, then dropped her eyes again.
Nodding her agreement, Grace crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the post holding up the porch’s roof. “My grandmother realized what I could do when I was three,” Grace said softly, her voice distant in memory. “Ten years after the poles flipped and everything fell apart. She said there was nothing wrong with me, too. She gave me a big girl’s watch for my birthday that year. It was a secret between us. Even my mom and dad didn’t know. I broke it the first fifteen minutes I had it on, and she gave me another just like it to hide what I’d done.”
Grace looked down at her far more complicated timepiece, smiling as she remembered. Her grandmother was one smart woman. “That second watch lasted three days, and she gave me another. By the end of the month, I wasn’t breaking them anymore, just slowing them down. It helped, finding that control. Having a secret. I loved my grandma. Still do.”
Guilt tightened her jaw, and she shoved the memory of casseroles and well-meaning neighbors away. “I watched three kids make a lightbulb glow the following year in prekindergarten,” she said. “The teachers made it into a game. Made the kids who could do it feel special. They couldn’t make the bulb glow the next year after summer vacation.”
She turned back to the house, seeing that the woman was listening. They didn’t use the lightbulb test anymore. Too many kids like her had been coached to feign ignorance. “My mom might have guessed. My dad, probably not. I don’t know. They died when I was sixteen.” Her hands fisted, and she forced them to open. It was the year before she’d been collected.
“Mrs. Thomson,” she pleaded, shoving her guilt aside, “Zach needs professional instruction. If he wants to go through the rigors of training, he can, and there will always be a job for him. If not, they will safely burn the ability from him and he can return to you otherwise unchanged. He can’t be allowed to remain as he is. It’s not safe for him or anyone else.”
Damn the Strand. She was going to do her job. Wasn’t I?
“They’ll chip him,” the woman said sullenly, as if anyone really had any freedom.
Grace lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “Any form of ungrounded GPS wouldn’t last thirty seconds. It’s easier to find us with our cell phones.”
“Brainwash him,” the woman said, still hiding behind the door.
“Why?” Of all the urban legends, this was the hardest one to dispel, the easiest to believe, probably because it was somewhat true with those under the age of five. They didn’t bother trying with anyone older, just deadheaded them if they were unsuitable and let them go home. “If he doesn’t want to develop his abilities and control, he’s free to go without them.”
“They will butcher him!” she almost hissed, as if Grace was betraying her own kind. “Strip him of what he can do if he refuses to work for the Strand. There is nothing wrong with my son!”
Grace nodded. “I agree. But you don’t give a man who shows no restraint a gun full of bullets. It’s a sucky system, but it’s the only one we have.” Coming up a step, Grace blinked as she found the shade. “Without control and regulation, throws like Zach and me would be hunted and killed like witches in the 1800s.” There’d been a class at the Strand promoting the theory that witchcraft scares had been caused by natural dips in the earth’s magnetic field, brief instabilities that triggered an aberration in the human genome that wouldn’t fully express itself until the poles flipped.
“Zach has control,” Mrs. Thomson said, but Grace heard her voice softening. She wanted the best for her son; she was just afraid.
“He attacked my partner, Mrs. Thomson. It wasn’t an accident, but we forgive a lot in the name of fear and ignorance. He’s not beyond acceptance. Let me help him. He’s scared. He doesn’t need to be.” No need to bring up that her son had stopped her dog’s heart. Killing a dog wasn’t a punishable crime, even if it was reprehensible. It would, however, enter into her own private deliberations, and she clenched her jaw. Damn Jason, anyway . . .
The woman before her dropped her gaze, her brow furrowed and her feet shifting in agitation. Her head came up, a dangerous light in her eyes. “Promise me.”
Grace’s expression blanked. “Promise you what?”
The woman came out, still holding the door as if she might dart back inside. “Promise me you won’t let anyone hurt him. You said you understand him. He’s only seventeen. He’s just a boy!”
She had been seventeen when they’d found her, backed into a corner like a wild thing spewing threats. It had taken three of them to bring her down. That she hadn’t hurt anyone had been a miracle—and the only reason they gave her a chance—the only reason they wanted Zach now. “I’ll do my best. It’s up to him.”
Oh God. The best for him, the best for her, the best for the Strand. It was not going to add up to an easy sum. Someone was going to lose, and Grace’s pulse hammered when the woman edged out, her tired, weary gaze on the stacks of the distant industrial field. “He’s with his friends,” she said. “Over at the gravel pit. It’s about five minutes—”
Grace was already moving. “I know where it is. Thank you.” A brief thought flitted through her that she should give the scared woman a hug—or at the very least, a handshake—but she was already down the stairs, her insulated boots hitting the cobbled walk.
“Wait! Ms. Evans?” Grace turned, impatient to be away, and the woman came out onto the porch. “Is your mother proud of you?”
Grace stiffened as she turned. “My mother is dead,” she said, forcing her breathing to remain even. “But she would be. I think.”
Her head down, she walked back to the car, her first flush of excitement of possibly bringing Zach in and gaining entry into the elite tarnished. Hoc was in the front seat, and she halted, tension slamming into her when she noticed Jason sitting behind the wheel.
“What are you doing here?” she said tightly, conscious of Zach’s mom watching from the porch. “This is still my collection.”
“I’m trying to help you,” he said, shoving Hoc to get the dog to jump into the back so he could lean across the seat and peer up at her. The silver on his uniform glinted, and his cap was on the dash. “I knew you could get her to tell you where he is. Get in.”
She frowned, not reaching for the handle. There was a simple pair of mitten-like mufflers on the front seat and a bang-go, a crass name for the complex techno device that interfered with the ability to organize the energy in your body once imbedded into your skin where you couldn’t easily reach it. “Those aren’t legal on unregistered throws,” she said, and he shrugged and started the car.
“They are for me.” He looked up at her, his eyes tired. “He tried to kill your dog, Grace. Going after him alone is a bad idea. I can make a call and shut you down in three seconds, but no. I??
?m sitting in your car trying to help you. Get in before she calls her son and he runs.”
Gut tight, Grace reached for the handle. She slid in, feeling his presence. “Gravel pit,” she said shortly, and Jason snorted.
“Figures.” He put the car in motion, making a slow U-turn. The woman was gone when they turned around, and Hoc settled himself in the backseat, mournfully watching her.
Grace stared at nothing, putting her elbow on the open window to feel the air in her hair and on her hand. It brushed against her, and she relaxed as the balance in her shifted as the wind pulled electrons from her. “When we get there, I want you to stay in the car.”
“Okay.”
Astonished, Grace pulled her elbow in and stared at him. “Okay? You’re not going to argue with me?”
Jason was silent. He squinted at the red light down the road, and a car coming from the right jerked to a noisy halt when the light changed unexpectedly. Grace’s eyes narrowed at the questionable use of power. His chin was higher than usual, and his finger twitched.
“I’m not going to pass him into the Strand if he’s not suitable,” she said, wondering if she could force Jason to leave. If he was there at the collection, his words would be heard at the hearing and what she said might not matter. Besides, there was a reason Jason had moved into the elite and she’d gone into the more delicate task of bringing in older, unregistered throws. He was far more willing to shoot first, shoot second, and forget there was a question at all.
“The Strand wants more powerful throws in its elite, Grace,” he offered cryptically, going through the intersection at a cool sixty miles per hour, the sleek black car looking enough like a cop’s to avoid complications. “They’re going to get them one way or another.” He glanced from the road and tossed her his cover. “Here, try it on.”
He wasn’t talking about just the hat, and she caught it with one hand. The metal in the band felt like tinfoil on her teeth, and she set it on the dash, angry at the decision she faced. “No thanks. I’m good.”
Jason said nothing, his grip on the wheel tightening and letting go. Feeling ugly inside, Grace glanced at the bang-go between them, remembering the feeling of it, the disorientation, the headache. It had been hell—and it hadn’t done a thing in convincing her that the Strand hadn’t been lying bastards. Maybe her seventeen-year-old self had been right all along. But Zach was coming in one way or another. If the Strand wanted him, they would have him. Why not help herself out in the process?