Two guards emerged from the room at the end of the hall. Their gray uniforms almost blended into the surrounding walls. I twisted to watch them deactivate the malfunctioning robot by reaching under the chest cavity. So that’s how—
My Mech tugged at my collar, forcing me to turn around. It had rolled out of line and stopped in front of a door. Another robot-guard already waited there, and next to it stood a guy who made my every sense pause.
His sun-stained skin gave everything away. He was bad.
He wore the uniform of someone who’d been in prison for a while. A name had even been sewn on the shoulder: Barque. He couldn’t be much older than me and stood almost as tall as the six-foot Mech, completely relaxed. Maybe he knew something I didn’t.
He looked at me and grinned like we were going to a fabulous party together. Alarm spread through me when my mouth curved up in response. Raising his tech-cuffed hands to his spiky black hair, he tapped his head. “Nice hair,” he mouthed to me. One glance from his Mech, and he dropped his suntanned hands and stared forward again.
The shiny metallic doors widened, ready to devour me whole.
“Violet Schoenfeld,” a voice boomed. “Jag Barque. Come forward.”
The name of the bad boy echoed in my head. What kind of name was Jag Barque? I’d heard stories about how sometimes the Baddies got to name themselves. Surely this Jag guy was one of them. Who would torture their kid with a name like his?
The Mech swiveled forward and stopped at a table as tall as its canister-chest. It opened a briefcase, pulled out a black cord, and plugged it into the podium. The briefcase rotated and the top half flopped back, revealing a touch screen. My picture filled the wall in front of me. My name ran along the bottom, followed by a list of my offenses. Crossed a border. Illegal electro-comm. Broken curfew. In the park after dark, with a male. Resisted arrest.
My jaw tightened. I’d climbed that damn ladder to the hovercopter, swaying in the gusting wind. It was a miracle I hadn’t fallen to my death. Now I was being accused of resisting arrest. As if all the other offenses weren’t enough. What a joke.
It took everything I had to keep my mouth shut. This was court. My Mech representative would speak for me, unless someone asked me a direct question.
A man sat high up in the middle of a long row of seats, a glossy black counter in front of him. He rested his arms on it and stared down at me with a look. The don’t-mess-with-me kind. I hated him immediately.
Projection screens filled the wall behind him, and he kept glancing down at something. Probably another list of my broken rules.
Next to me, Jag’s Mech-rep lifted a significantly bigger briefcase and plugged two feeds into the silver podium. Jag’s picture appeared next to mine. His jaw was strong and square, in contrast to my rounder features. His skin was colored by the sun, while mine remained pale as eggshells. Our hair was practically identical, and my stupid lips curled up again. He had wicked hair too.
Several more projection screens lit up with pictures of Jag, each different. In one, his hair had the black all washed out. His white smile and bleached hair clashed with his brown skin. For some reason, he laughed beside me.
The Greenie in front of us frowned. Another of Jag’s pictures showed him with his hair all shaved off. What little remained looked brown, and I wondered if that was his natural color. His shirt was open at the throat, the short sleeves exposing his bare arms. His blueberry eyes sparkled like he’d heard something funny.
My traitor mouth betrayed me again.
“Something amusing, Miss Schoenfeld?” the Greenie asked.
While I tried to straighten my lips out, Jag chuckled again. The quiet sound echoed off the high walls of the courtroom. My Mech-rep looked at me. “Answer him.”
“No, sir,” I choked out. Another picture revealed Jag passing out phones to Goodies, easily recognized by their umbrella hats and long sleeves. And then I knew. Jag was from the Badlands, and he’d been caught here, distributing illegal tech.
But . . . why was he at my hearing?
“Let’s get on with it,” the Greenie said. “Full council convening in thirty seconds. Mech-749? Your recommendation?”
Mech-749 had obviously been assigned to me, because it spoke. “Removal, your Instituteness.”
“Mech-512?” the Greenie asked Jag’s Mech-rep.
“Unrehabilitational, your Most High Institute.”
“Not worth the time?”
“No, sir,” both Mechs said together.
I had no idea I’d have to learn lame Mech-language to understand the conversation, but the man up front didn’t seem confused. I seriously needed to scratch my arm, but my hands were bound in tech cuffs, which sent a shiver of current through my bones.
A door behind the “Most High Institute” opened. Ten green-robed men walked in. They moved behind the MHI and settled into seats on his right. Ten women entered through a different door—decked out in the same green Institute robes—and took the seats on the left.
Yikes, twenty-one Greenies in one room. Whoever this Jag Barque guy was, he was in deep.
In unison, they looked at built-in projection screens on the counter, the glow illuminating their faces.
“Violet Schoenfeld?” they asked in chorus, like they’d rehearsed it a dozen times before.
Then I knew. I was the one who was in deep.
“Miss Schoenfeld,” the middle Greenie said. “Do you have anything to say?”
I looked at Mech-749. Did I have anything to say? What kind of stupid question was that?
“Not really,” I said. “I was just walking in the park with a friend.”
“A boy,” a woman said, leaning forward.
“Yeah.” I looked at her. “Zenn’s my match.” Surely being with Zenn wasn’t against the rules.
“This is the”—the middle Greenie glanced at his p-screen—“seventh time you’ve been apprehended.”
I counted quickly in my mind. Eighth, actually, but I wasn’t going to bring it up. My first crime happened before I’d turned twelve and wouldn’t be on my Official Record. Not sure if I was supposed to speak or not, I opted for not.
“Violet, you are aware that many on this council find you unrehabilitatable.”
“That’s a long word,” I said, which roused a low chuckle from Jag.
The Greenie creased his eyebrows and scowled at the counter. He typed something that couldn’t be good for my case. “It means that you no longer fit in the Goodgrounds.” He spoke each word with care, so softly the sound didn’t echo in the courtroom. It took several seconds for them to sink in.
I glanced down the row of Greenies, trying to decipher their cold glares and tight lips. “What?”
“When did you stop plugging into the transmissions?” A bald man at the end of the row leaned forward and stared at me, unblinking.
“I plug in,” I lied. Another projection screen jumped to life. Not sure what all the red lines meant, I tried to calm my heart and breathe normally.
He smiled like an indulgent parent does when they catch their child eating a chocolate TravelTreat. “Not for a year, I believe.”
“Check the records,” I challenged. “My comm is linked in every night. Mandatory eight hours.”
All twenty-one Greenies touched their p-screens and clicks echoed through the ridiculously huge hall.
“She’s right,” a woman said. Her voice was low and her eyebrows high. “Still, such a Free Thinker . . .” She made a face like she’d tasted something sour and typed into her notes.
“What happened to your hair?” Another woman fixed her tiny black eyes on me. Her long silver hair lay like a frozen waterfall of tech filaments against her dark skin. She had a large nose with high cheekbones. She looked like a hawk.
“My mother made me cut it,” I lied again.
“Why?”
“She didn’t think I was plugging in either, even when I showed her the printouts.” A projection of the evidence in question replaced my pictu
re on the wall behind the Greenies.
As if. Like I listened to the transmissions. I quit maybe a year ago, maybe longer. I’d figured out how to disconnect my communicator. So technically, I did plug my comm into the transmissions every night. I just wasn’t listening.
After that, I wasn’t in Their control—but I was tired. I didn’t sleep well, living in constant fear that somehow They’d find out. Brainwashed before I could speak, I was terrified of Them. Even now.
“Miss Schoenfeld?” the Hawk prompted.
I glanced at my Mech-rep. “Pay attention. She asked why you had to cut your hair.” The robotic voice did nothing to settle my nerves.
“Umm, my mother used perma-plaster to secure the link in place. It got all caught in my hair.”
That brought a belly laugh from Jag, and the middle Greenie threw him a furious look. The sound died instantly, but the echo remained.
“So I had to cut it.”
“Then you had to dye it?” the Hawk asked.
“Yeah.” I stared back at her, daring her to ask another stupid question.
They all started typing like crazy. Whatever. It’s my hair. At least that’s what I told my mother. As much as I didn’t want to, I wished she had come. As much as I wished it wouldn’t, my throat burned with unshed tears.
“Mech-749? Do you maintain your recommendation?” the middle Greenie asked.
“Yes. Badlands.”
Several of the Greenies nodded, and I wondered what that meant. Would I have to go there to serve my sentence? I didn’t even know the Badlands had prisons.
“Jag Barque?”
“Yeah,” he said lazily. I looked over, but our Mechs stood in the way, so I couldn’t see his face.
“Your opinion has not changed, I presume?”
“Nope.” Jag acted like he’d been here countless times before. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his hands hanging loosely in their tech cuffs. I wished for his calmness; my heart kept trying to bust through my chest.
“You are required to appear before the Association of Directors,” the Greenie said. “In Freedom.”
A moment of silence passed, a definite threat hanging in the air. Then Jag said, “I will not,” and I imagined the glare he carried in his voice.
“It is your duty, Mr. Barque. You will leave next week,” the Greenie said. “The council has some matters to discuss before your release. Violet, I have no alternative but to banish you to the Badlands.”
Banished? For walking in the park with Zenn? “What?” I blurted out.
“Permanently.”
Everything moved too fast. The walls shifted inward. “What does that mean?” I shouted. “I have to live there? Forever?” I took several steps forward. Two security guards emerged from the woodwork, and I realized I’d crossed a line. The one too close to the Greenies.
“Sir, I think the girl would be more dangerous in the Badlands.” The bald guy who’d asked about the transmissions leaned forward. “She is a Free Thinker. Imagine the problems.”
“What the hell is a Free Thinker?” I asked.
Mech-749 slapped a patch on my neck. A silencer. Cursing is always silenced.
“Nonsense,” the middle Greenie said. “She is more dangerous here, amidst the tech, and given her family history—”
“My family history? You mean my dad? Where is he?” Only silence echoed off the walls. I took another step forward, very aware of their eyes on me. “I’ll do whatever you want! Don’t send me there!” My words flickered on the projection screens, scrolling across the bottom from one to the next.
The middle Greenie smiled without sympathy. His eyes flashed as he shook his head. I stepped forward anyway.
Don’t do it, a voice warned. Hearing voices isn’t all that abnormal. But the same voice—and this was the same voice as before—meant someone was monitoring me.
The middle Greenie’s eyes narrowed, almost like he could hear the voice too. For just a moment, I thought he must be the one infiltrating my thoughts. But his voice had been distinctly higher than the one still echoing in my head. Don’t do it, don’t do it.
I took another step forward.
The middle Greenie raised his hand, causing security guards to swoop in and pull me back toward the Mech. I thrashed and kicked, and even with my soft-soled sneakers, one of them fell. I clobbered another one in the face with my tech-cuffed hands. I desperately wanted to rip the silencer off, but I couldn’t get my fingers up high enough. It would’ve hurt—a lot—but I didn’t care.
“I won’t go!” I shouted so loud, my throat ripped. “You can’t!”
Someone must have pushed a button or raised the alarm, because the courtroom swarmed with guards. Four of them tackled me before I went down. I finally stopped struggling when a taser sparked in my peripheral vision and someone kneeled on my spine. The guard cuffed me a second time, and I winced as the tech burned my wrists. Two pairs of advanced tech cuffs would cause blisters and a severe rash if I wore them for very long. My flesh was already tingling with techtricity.
“There’s your evidence,” the middle Greenie said. “We’ll give you one week.” He snapped his projection screen closed and stood. The other Greenies mimicked him, and as one, they marched out of the room.
One week for what? I glanced at Jag, my chest heaving in anger. He held my eyes, studying me like I was a difficult projection puzzle he couldn’t figure out. Refusing to look away, I stared at him until the guards yanked me backward.
Just as they pulled me through a door, a man asked, “What are we going to do with you, Mr. Barque?” The voice dripped with disdain, but somehow it sounded . . . familiar.
As I was escorted down the hall, I made the connection: The real-life voice speaking to Jag matched the one that had been talking in my head.
3.
My sister, Tyson, is the talented one, but she’s been gone for years. So my mother never expected me to make it to sixteen, the age when I could really help her with the bills. I’d almost made it. A few more weeks and I could’ve landed a lame job with the loser algae department in the City of Water.
My only consolation for living that life had been Zenn. My mother allowed our friendship because Zenn’s dad—a government official in the teleportation department—had called us a “smart match.”
Which meant she thought he could keep me in line. Too bad she didn’t know that Zenn planned most of our rule-breaking expeditions. Or that he was more than who the Thinkers had matched me with.
“I’d choose you anyway, Vi,” he’d said that day as we lounged next to the lake. “So it’s perfect that we’ll be . . . that They matched us.” He trailed his fingers through my hair. It was still long back then.
“I’d choose you,” he repeated.
I smiled and kept my eyes closed, memorizing his words. Because in that moment, it felt like Zenn and I had the world in our hands.
Then he was chosen for the Special Forces. Everything changed. But not how I felt about him. And not how he felt about me.
After the painful removal of the silencer and the tech-cuffs, I fingered my already-raw wrists.
They’d stripped me of my ID card and taken my purse, so all I had were the clothes I wore—a beige long-sleeved shirt, standard blue jeans, my soft sneakers, and . . . yeah, that’s it.
I kicked the Mech escorting me, but the silver casings made damage impossible. In fact, my right foot felt like I’d cracked a couple of bones.
The stupid robot babbled in its monotone voice about how empty the place was. “Apparently there aren’t too many Baddies in trouble right now,” it said, followed by a weird hacking sound. Mech laughter. Creepy robot-people, I thought.
Mechs have unlimited power. They can talk and talk and talk. They can run and run and run. Which is why no one ever escapes. How do you beat a robot?
They don’t need to eat. They don’t need to sleep. And they can sense body heat and bar codes and who knows what else.
I hate Mechs?
??more than I hate Thinkers. More than the idiotic rules.
I wished this stupid tin can would shut up already. And, miraculously, it did.
The Mech remained silent as we stepped out of the ascender ring and into Ward D. It led me down a row of cells with bars along the front—no privacy up here. It stopped in front of the only occupied cell.
“Oh, hell no. No way!” I yelled, fumbling under the Mech’s silver casing for the power button that was surely there.
My fingers found the switch, clicking it off. An alarm wailed. I clapped my hands over my ears just as Jag Barque rolled off the bed, pulling his pillow over his head.
Four human guards appeared. One of them turned on the Mech while another slid the bars open. Several hands shoved me into the cell. Human and Mech laughter mingled together in a horrific medley. At least I wasn’t cuffed, and the redness on my wrists had started to fade.
Jag settled back on the bed, stretching out and putting his hands behind his head. “Nice try.”
I ignored him as I sized up his cell. A shelf above the bed held a few rare printed books, and his tray from breakfast still lay on the floor where he’d chucked it. This cell had a toilet in the corner. I’d finally made it to the big time. Next to the toilet, a metal sink held a bottle of teeth-cleaning tablets and a tube of green gel.
In an ungentlemanly way, Jag stayed on the bed, leaving the concrete floor as my only option for places to sit. I paced for a minute, but that merely increased my tension as I could only take two steps before turning around.
I stared through the bars, fighting down a stream of profanity and wishing I could fly somewhere far away and never come back. When I turned around, Jag was sitting up.
“What?” I asked.
He grinned. “Nothing.”
Didn’t look like nothing to me. “Why are we in here together?”
“You have wicked hair.”
“Shut up,” I said, folding my arms. “I got arrested for walking in the park with a boy. Now they have me living with one. This makes absolutely no sense.”