The Outerlands (Coalition 2)

  She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling exposed under Oren’s dark gaze.

  “Only three days?” Her hands grew slick. Her heart thundered. A scan would reveal her mark for sure.

  Oren shot her a look of annoyance before waving her away. “Next.”

  Miya moved down the line.

  “What was that all about? Are you getting a full scan?” a voice behind her teased. She turned around to see Nathan’s big grin that crinkled all the way up to his eyes. From the way he was smiling, she wondered if he’d been signed up for one like he’d wanted.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know.” She managed a semi-teasing smile even though her mouth watered like she might vomit. This isn’t happening.

  “Yeah, I do wanna know. C’mon, I could go with you for…support.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “You’re weird. It’s a good thing I’m fine because you’d be hopeless as anyone’s support.” She ran her hands up and down her arms as her skin prickled, and moved away from him.

  Nathan winked at her. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He walked away with a small wave. She stared at his back as he retreated into the crowd.

  Miya stopped at the end of the table where the medtech sat, and scooped her auburn hair up with one hand. She held her breath and flinched at the pinch of the antibiotic injection in her neck.

  “Sorry.” The young female medtech’s voice dripped with a syrupy sweetness that sounded as fake as her pasted-on smile looked.

  “Keep the implant clean. No scratching it or touching it. Take one antibiotic injection every four hours for the next twenty-four hours.” The brown-haired medtech handed six small clear plastic vials with orange caps to Miya with a look of pity.

  Miya leaned forward and whispered, “Is there anything I can do to speed up the healing process?” She shoved the injection tubes into her back pocket without tearing her eyes from the medtech’s.

  “Visit the Sun Room.” The medtech’s tone suggested the tech had heard similar panicked pleas from dozens of other people, and Miya was sure that this tech’s answer had been the same each time. If only the Sun Room could cure imperfections. But it couldn’t. She knew. The Sun Room was her favorite place to spend time, but the mark on her chest hadn’t gotten any smaller. She doubted the artificial sun could heal an infection either.

  “Okay. Thanks.” Miya smiled weakly and walked to the furthest, quietest end of the room. She rubbed her neck and looked down at her implant. It appeared the same, like a perfect square rimmed in puffy red skin. The implant was clearly visible beneath her pale skin. She frowned as she turned her wrist under the bright artificial lights and noticed a strange, dull film covering the face of the implant.

  She walked forward, still looking at her implant, and bumped into someone.

  “Oh! Sorry.” She glanced up in time to see a young man with intense dark green eyes looking straight at her. He appeared to be eighteen, maybe nineteen, and a little on the scrawny side. Fluctuations in body weight were unusual in the community. Everyone ate biochemically grown food loaded with vitamins and other supplements that kept them healthy and fit even though they lacked any real exercise.

  At first glance, he looked like everyone else in the Camp, but the longer she looked, the more she realized his features weren’t perfectly symmetrical. His nose had a tiny dent in the bridge. His full lips twisted into a frown as his eyes darted around the room. He was easily the most beautiful guy she had ever seen. His skin lacked the normally pale translucence of the Camp people, but shone a golden bronze. He was obviously a rebel. Someone who preferred not to visit the Grafting Machine to fix their flaws. And he liked to visit the Sun Room.

  Miya made mental notes as she looked at his arms rippling with lean muscle. She stared openly at him before his eyes caught hers. He held her gaze, eyes wide, and a funny look flashed across his face for a second before he looked away. He seemed unsure, a hesitancy that made him look vulnerable.

  Her pulse quickened. “Um, the end of the line is way out in the corridor if you still need to be tested.” She rubbed her neck at the injection site. “I’m Miya Thorne. From the fourth quad, first level.” She bit her lip, wishing her heart would stop racing.

  The words were out before she could stop them.

  “Oh, uh…thanks,” he said in a hypnotically deep voice.

  She bit her lip as her face flushed with heat.

  He seemed oblivious to her reaction as he looked out into the crowd like he was searching for someone. Then he ducked back into the crush of people with a final flick of his eyes in her direction.

  Her gut warned her to stay away from him, but she found herself elbowing her way through the crowd and out into the corridor after him. She scanned the faces of the people still waiting in line, for the green-eyed boy with the troubling electric vibe, but he had already disappeared.

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and tried to put him out of her mind. It didn’t matter anyway; in a massive steel building with seven floors, it was unlikely she’d encounter him again for some time.

  Unless she accidentally bumped into him in the Sun Room.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jake

  The corridors were quiet when he left the Observatory. He wandered around thinking about what that kid had said. Grafter. What was a Grafter? It sounded like the kid was talking about his messed-up face.

  Walking around like this would probably scare people. He had to get some medical supplies to make sure his wounds didn’t get infected. It didn’t take him long to find a medical lab identical to the one he’d woken up in. Using only the dim light that emanated from the edge of the floor (he’d learned they came on brighter during the day and dimmed at night), he gathered towels, bandages, and swabs. He cleared a spot at a workstation the furthest from the door in case someone came in. He folded a thick white towel into thirds and laid it on top of the workstation. Each of the implements he laid down on the towel carefully, respectfully.

  He leaned heavily against the workstation, sucking air and blinking rapidly to quell a sudden onslaught of guilt and remorse. He’d killed a man. Without even thinking about it, he’d snapped the man’s neck.

  He looked down at his wrist where his implant was glinting in the dim light. The wounds in his skin looked fresh. Was he in the medical lab because something had happened to his implant?

  He leaned against the counter and breathed. His emotions were a swirling mess of confusion.

  Just then he heard a soft click. It was the sound the scanner made when confirming someone’s ID. A young girl entered.

  He jumped, his heart in his throat. She startled, but she didn’t scream, and for that he gave her credit. He knew how he must look. He’d woken up to the distorted reflection of himself in the shiny steel walls for the last several days.

  The girl’s hand flew to her throat as she stared at him. After a moment, she dropped her hand and walked slowly towards him. “Are you okay? What happened here?”

  Her face was pale, eyes wide, but she came to him unafraid. She walked with her shoulders straight, her blond ponytail bouncing. Her posture confident. Her movements…pure.

  “You look like you need to visit the Grafter.”

  He laughed, trying to make the sound light. “You think?” Pain shot through his stomach. Without thinking, he clutched his gut and immediately regretted it when his wounded wrist burned with the contact.

  “Let me help you,” she said.

  He held up his hand when she came closer. “No, I’m fine. Thanks. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”

  She shook her head. “I can always go to the last call inspection in three days. Missing the one they’re doing right now isn’t the end of the world.”

  He liked the symmetry of her face, the perfect blush of her apple cheeks, and the barely there arch of her brows. But being around such perfection made him feel ugly.

  “You didn’t…uh, get upset when you saw me.
I thought you’d scream or something.”

  She smiled and revealed a very even row of extremely white teeth. “I’m a biotech. I’ve seen much worse, trust me.”

  “A biotech, huh? Then help me fix…this.” He gestured to his face and ribs.

  She looked at him then. Her eyes were the color of…the sky reflected off still water.

  “Sir, you’re Leadership and I’m a biotech, not a medtech. Surely, you’re not suggesting I break the no-touching rule?” Her eyes held his, skeptical. Daring him to explain himself. He looked away.

  “No, of course not,” he mumbled.

  She nodded and stepped back, studying him with her head tilted to the side.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, how did this happen?” She found a thick white robe on one of the shelves, which she tossed to him, then turned her back while he undressed. The robe rubbed his wounded flesh once he put it on, and every movement stole his breath as the pain ebbed and flowed.

  “I uh, it was an accident.”

  She turned back around just as he was cinching the belt around his waist.

  “An accident, huh?” She led him to a room at the back that he hadn’t noticed before.

  “The Grafter in this quad isn’t very big. We mostly do data entry here, but I’ve assisted in body adjustments before, in case you’re wondering.” She raised her wrist for the scanner and the door slid open.

  “I know,” he said. She’d said he was Leadership. That probably meant he should know. He hoped he said the right thing.

  She looked sideways at him. “Right.”

  The Grafter turned out to be a large machine. Black metal—not steel—which surprised him. The young biotech told him how she loved the Grafter. How she enjoyed seeing it instantly repair injuries according to people’s DNA records stored in the system.

  The machine looked like a big black dome with a bed that rolled in and out of it. According to the diagram on the side of it, you were supposed to lay on the bed on your back while the machine sucked you in, scanned your body, rearranged things with some kind of laser, and then spit you back out again perfectly whole.

  Only, it didn’t indicate how much it would hurt. His stomach burned like it was being pulled out through his mouth, and his brain had turned to liquid fire before it was over. The machine pushed the small bed back out, and he sat up. The small dim room spun for a minute, so he leaned against the machine until his head cleared.

  “I got you some clothes. To your left, on the chair.” Her voice came from the opposite side of the Grafter, where she must’ve been waiting.

  “Thanks, uh…what’s your name?” His voice sounded the same, but his throat hurt. He needed a drink. He stood up and pulled on the new pair of white pants and a short-sleeved, white shirt she’d found him. She’d even found him a pair of white shoes and socks.

  “Raine.” She came into view after he’d dressed, holding something in her hand. “You should know my name if your Central Control System is working. Maybe something happened to it when—” Her eyes went wide when she saw him.

  “What? Did the machine mess something up?” He ran his hands over his face, but everything felt like it was supposed to.

  She looked up at him with glistening eyes.

  “No,” she whispered. “You look…fine.”

  “But…?” There was something she wasn’t saying. His heart pounded in his brand-new chest.

  “Nothing. I just…for a second I thought I knew you from somewhere.”

  “Really?” He ran his hands through his hair; sweat beaded up along his hairline.

  “Yeah, but that’s not possible. I’ve only met one other Leadership and only because he’s assigned to my level. Which level did you say you’re assigned to?”

  He sat back down on the bed. “I didn’t.”

  “Right. Sorry. I shouldn’t be questioning you like this.”

  Silence stretched on for what felt like an eternity. He sat on the bed, staring at his shoes, while she stood a few feet away.

  “Your implant is new,” she finally said in a soft voice. “That means you’ll likely experience a few glitches while it’s getting acclimated to your nervous system and your brain.”

  He nodded and looked down at his implant. The Grafter hadn’t completely repaired it for some reason. It was still puffy and red.

  He stood up and brushed past her. “Thanks for your help, but I gotta go now.”

  “Sir!”

  He stopped, one second before raising his wrist to the door scanner. He heard her walk over to him and felt her standing behind him, breathing in and out. Slow. Even. She was trying to remain calm, which rattled him even more.

  He turned around. She was holding something out to him. A tube of something yellow. “You don’t have to tell me anything. It’s probably better that I don’t know why someone in Leadership would require a full implant repair. But you have to take this. I mean it, it’ll make you feel better.”

  He took the vial from her and turned it over in his palm. Whatever it was felt cool in his hand.

  “What is it?”

  She raised her eyebrows at him, and he knew asking her that was a mistake. It was likely another thing he was supposed to know.

  “Tribond. It’s used for people who’ve had…an implant repair. I think it’ll help connect…I mean reconnect your Central Control System.”

  He nodded, even though he had no idea what she was talking about. Raine took the tube from him again and clicked the end of it. A thin needle sprang out, and before he could react, she stood on her toes and jabbed the needle into the side of his neck. The liquid spread like a toxic mixture of fire and ice through his veins.

  “Dammit!” He shoved her away from him and she dropped the tube on the floor. It shattered at their feet into thousands of pieces.

  She jumped back, her fingers pressed to her lips like she was holding back a scream. “If you keep acting like that, you’ll give yourself away.”

  “Sorry, I, uh…I wasn’t expecting you to do that.”

  “Look, I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know who you are, but because I feel like I know you from somewhere, I’ll help you. Your biofeed from the Grafter says your name is Jacob Hamilton. You’re Leadership.” She pointed to the side of his neck. “That tattoo there is your Central Control System—it means you’re connected to the others. You’ll hear them and they’ll hear you without having to meet face to face.”

  Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows.

  “Just touch it like this.” She placed two fingers on the side of her own neck to demonstrate.

  He copied her and jumped back as several conversations crammed into his head all at once. That explained the voices he’d been hearing. He must’ve touched the tattoo without realizing it.

  “And you’ll need more Tribond until you’ve fully recovered. If you promise not to act like an ass, I’ll come back here at the same time for the next few days and help you.”

  He rubbed his neck where she’d jabbed him, but he nodded.

  “Until you start remembering things, try not to say too much. People will suspect something’s wrong with you.”

  She walked out of the Grafting room with him and back to the lab, where she gathered up his dirty clothing, then shoved them into a wall receptacle.

  “Be careful, Jacob Hamilton. If you’re not really Leadership, they’ll find out eventually.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Miya

  The greasy odor of fried in vitro meat wafted down the wide, silvery corridors as Miya left the Food Bar and headed back to her room. She wrinkled her nose at the smell. Even at her hungriest she could never bring herself to eat the lab-grown protein.

  I hate shmeat. It didn’t matter anyway. The implant scanner in the Food Bar hadn’t allowed her to make a food selection. Just like Oren said, her infected implant was unreadable. It was a good thing she had no appetite.

  Her eyes wandered over the smooth steel walls as she w
alked. Every few feet a small screen embedded in the wall flashed the Leadership’s symbol: a single flame inside a small circle. Staying inside means staying alive.

  A chill crawled up Miya’s spine. The motto had begun to feel more like a threat than a promise of protection.

  She leaned heavily against the door to her room as she tried to sort through the events of the day: her infected implant with the threat of a full-body scan, the risk of invalidation, and the strange boy from the inspection.

  From the corner of her eye, she detected movement. She turned her head to see the corridor was still empty. She must’ve imagined it. She needed to get the infection under control. If that didn’t happen in three days, she’d have to have a serious talk with Nathan about escaping.

  Back in her room, Miya sat on the edge of her bed and rolled one of the antibiotic injection tubes between her palms. She tried hard to ignore the incessant itching of her implant.

  Why did her body betray her? Why couldn’t she be like everyone else?

  She hated injections, but she’d learned from watching her mother, who used to be a medtech, that warming them first made them less painful. She stared at the tube as it grew warm in her hands. Maybe this would fix her. Then she could be normal. She could go back to the simple, prescribed dreams she was supposed to have. And she could stop longing to be someplace other than here.

  She held the injector between her teeth while she twisted the orange cap between her thumb and finger of the other hand. She bit her lip as the tip of a thin needle sprang out. She stuck it into the side of her neck, bracing herself against the shiver that rippled down her back as the chill of the liquid antibiotic spread throughout her body.

  She tossed the empty injector into a receptacle bin in the wall before snapping the light off and lying down on her bed. She stared up at the pinpricks of pale yellow light that dimpled the ceiling. They were supposed to simulate stars, and she often pretended they were. But tonight, as she lay on her back with her hands behind her head, she wasn’t seeing the stars. The tick, tick, tick of the heating system as it turned on, then off again every hour, counted the hours until the daytime lights came back on.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the water dripping from the faucet in the tiny cubicle bathroom she shared with Raine. The soft sound followed by the familiar gurgle of the water being sucked into the recirculator would have normally lulled her to sleep. She rolled over onto her side and scratched the swollen lump surrounding her wrist implant. Invalidate. A chill pricked her skin. Growing up, she’d heard all the words used to describe someone who no longer had a valid implant. Those hateful words buzzed through her brain. Waste of flesh. User. Oxygen-jacker.