* * *
The streets coming into Castledale were just as Saffediene and I had seen them on the feed: lifeless. Part of me wondered why, and the other part already knew.
Even though Thane had said sequestered, I knew the city had been abandoned. I’d learned about ghost towns in my ancient civilizations classes; they usually died because the water dried up or legend claimed a spirit haunted the area.
In this case, General Director Darke drove away the people with threats and mind control. Already the buildings seemed older, the sidewalks cracked. I imagined what this city might look like in fifty years. In one hundred years.
Would it look like Seaside? Or the Badlands? The Citizens there had survived wars and fires and brainwashing. People had survived. Built new buildings. Cultivated trees. Castledale could be repopulated, no matter what General Darke had done.
With my resolve to defy Director Hightower firm, I squared my shoulders and entered the only building in use in Castledale: the safe house where the Resistance would make its final stand.
* * *
I steered clear of Jag. He was stormy and dangerous, what with Vi unconscious and over half his crew dead or missing. Saffediene filled him in on our convo with Ivory. I’d asked her to keep any mention of what had happened with Blaze out of the report.
She’d do it, even if she didn’t like it. During the eight-hour flight here, I’d told her about the mission to Freedom when he’d died. She’d listened—something Jag had never done.
Blaze’s death wasn’t my fault. He was the Assistant Director of Seaside; he should not have been assigned a mission that could have compromised his position in the Association.
His death was Jag’s fault.
Of course we’d both spent the last two years blaming ourselves inwardly and each other outwardly. But I’d learned that blaming someone doesn’t help. It only colors your view of them, and I’d been watching Jag through a red haze for a long time.
Everything he did angered me. Everything he said, I questioned. And when he took Vi from me, my blame and fury and guilt were easily dumped on Jag. I didn’t know how to overcome it, so I waited on the fringes for Saffediene to report, and then I took her hand and led her down a posh hallway. “Did we get room assignments?”
“We need to see Laurel for that.”
So we did. Laurel had organized the building into wings, with our tech facilities and infirmary in one, the dining hall and common areas in another, bedrooms in a third, and the war room in the last.
Everyone seemed to be in the war room with Jag, so that’s exactly where I didn’t want to be.
The lodging wing was dimly lit and crazy-quiet. Four hallways branched off the main corridor, with girls down two of them, and boys down the other two. Half of me wanted nothing more than to rush to Vi’s bedside and urge her to wake up. The other half wanted to slip into the privacy of Saffediene’s room and forget I’d ever loved another girl.
Neither half won. Saffediene kissed me quickly on the mouth before disappearing down one of the girls’ halls. I listened to her retreating footsteps mingle with the dull chatter from the war room.
Then I escaped to my room, which consisted of a narrow cot shoved against a wall and a single shelf above it. Sitting on the bed, I seriously considered leaving. What would happen if I did? Would anyone care? How long would it take for them to notice?
“There you are, Zenn,” Vi’s mom said from the doorway. The light haloed her, and she looked younger than I remembered. “I need you in the tech department. Have you got a minute?”
“Sure.” I followed her down the hall, through the war room, and into the opposite wing. Immediately the stench of burnt metal and hot smoke filled my nose. My dad used to smell like that when he came home from work. My stomach twisted, and I felt a profound sadness. I hadn’t seen my father in so long.
I forced away those thoughts when Laurel turned into a brightly lit room and gestured me inside. Counters ran the length of the room, some covered with bits of tech and others overflowing with bare filaments.
“It’s all raw,” I said with a sinking feeling.
“See why I need you?” Laurel introduced me to a couple of guys whose names I forgot as soon as she said them. I nodded at Trek, who instructed the two guys in words that sounded like English but held no meaning for me.
Laurel and I moved down the counter to a station stacked with bins of what looked like scrap metal with wires sticking out of one end. “I need you to weave these filaments into receivers.”
I took a step back. “I know next to nothing about tech,” I protested. “I don’t even know what a receiver looks like.”
Laurel pointed to a spherical silver ball the size of my pinkie nail. “That’s a receiver. We need about fifty more to complete the teleporter rings.”
“We have fifty rings?” I asked, incredulous.
Laurel glanced at the two guys in the front of the room. “We will when you get those receivers made,” she said. She left, and I knew those of us working in the tech department had been tasked with the impossible.
Jag
37. Vi woke up twelve hours before Ian Darke was scheduled to arrive in Castledale. I’d just finished my disgusting breakfast of a fruit-and-nut TravelTreat. I’d been going crazy, waiting for her to wake up, half believing she never would. When her eyes fluttered open, I drew a sharp intake of breath. Vi blinked a couple of times, her pupils too large. “Mom?” she said, her voice little more than breath.
“Vi, babe,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
Her head turned toward me, almost robotically. Fear flashed through me. What if she couldn’t remember me?
A slow smile spread across her face. “Jag.”
I hugged her and cried into her neck. Just as quickly as the relief filled me, anger took over. I pulled away. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again,” I said.
“Okay,” she agreed, probably a little too fast. I didn’t care if I’d influenced her with my voice.
“Where’s my mom? I swear I heard her singing earlier.”
“Raine was singing,” I said. “Some of us have been sitting with you in shifts.”
“Zenn?”
I stiffened, though I tried not to show it. “He’s been really busy in the lab.” Translation: He’s alive, but he didn’t want to see you.
“He completed the receivers we needed for the teleporter rings. He’s never worked with tech, but your mom said he’s brilliant at it.”
Vi’s eyes grew wistful. “He’s brilliant at a lot of things. Most everything he does, actually.”
“I know.”
“We hurt him,” she said simply.
“I know,” I said again, wishing it could be different, but accepting that it wasn’t. That was something Vi hadn’t quite done yet: accept us.
Choose me over him.
“I have,” she said, her voice whisper quiet. “And he knows it, which is why he hasn’t been to see me.”
Did this surprise me? I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. Vi wasn’t super great at making choices, and I didn’t know she’d gone so far as to decide between Zenn and me, and communicate such a thing to Zenn.
“I punched him after he tried to kiss me. Well, I mean, he kissed me, and I punched him.”
I laughed, the sound echoing through the infirmary. “No wonder his nose was all swollen a few days ago. He wouldn’t say why.”
Vi pushed herself into a sitting position. “Tell me what’s going on.”
* * *
Against my many protests, Vi suited up for flight after a late dinner. T-minus fifty-eight minutes until we would launch the second wave against the Association. We’d received word that Darke had indeed arrived in Castledale. He’d flown into the Security Department with a contingent of guards, and my report said he would depart at five the next morning.
Seven hours.
I paced, the anxiety a living, breathing thing inside my chest, pumping right along with my heart. Everyt
hing was set; everyone had been prepped. Now we just waited for the moment to strike.
I gripped the teleporter ring in my pocket. Zenn stood nearby, talking quietly with Saffediene. Besides checking with him about the receivers, I’d only seen him for five minutes during the past two days. We’d spoken maybe ten words.
I suspected he was hiding something from me, but I couldn’t feel any deceit from him. Just sadness and loneliness and indecision. Maybe he’d really moved on and didn’t need to spend his energy being angry with me anymore. I remembered when we used to play cards and laugh, and as he leaned closer to Saffediene with a small smile on his lips, I missed my friendship with him.
Zenn would be flying with Saffediene and a handful of others, leaving the city from the south and circling around to the Security Department on the fourth leg of the attack. Laurel had her team clustered together, their faces identical images of determination. They were flying out east and coming in hot on the second shift.
Thane stood with his back to me, Starr Messenger at his side. Since our earlier conversation, we hadn’t spoken. He’d taken a few shifts with Vi, but when I relieved him, he simply left and I sat down in his place.
He’d been assigned the third leg, which would attack from the west. Raine and Trek and a handful of others were staying behind, monitoring our tech and checking the feeds. I couldn’t afford to lose another technician, especially one as capable as Trek. And Raine, though she was improving greatly, still forgot her real name on occasion.
I was leading the first wave, and we were due to fly directly into the Security Department. I’d assigned Vi to my team because she refused to stay behind, and I hated to admit that her newfound ability might be useful in this fight.
As the hour drew near, the mood in the room shifted from eager anticipation to a dull fear. The talking gradually quieted, and finally I raised my hand. “Let’s move out.”
I led my team to the roof, where we stepped onto our hoverboards, and flew.
The night tasted bitter, like leftover smoke. Darke had forced everyone out, either with fire or mind control. Rumor had it that Harvest had taken in thousands of refugees. So had Arrow Falls, and I’d heard reports from cities as far north as Lakehead.
It didn’t matter. We had Darke’s agenda, and he was due to visit Harvest the day after tomorrow. After he changed their transmissions, the people would be forced to flee again.
I set my jaw. No, they wouldn’t. We’d stop him tonight.
We have to, I thought. If we don’t . . . I didn’t finish, because I was afraid of what might follow.
Zenn
38. Jag marched out with his team of twenty, his chin tilted up and his hand clutched in Vi’s. Seeing them together didn’t hurt as much as it used to. Certainly not as much as her fist connecting with my nose.
Ten minutes later Laurel’s team exited the building, leaving me with Thane and Starr. I hadn’t talked much with them. I hadn’t talked much with anyone since arriving in Grande, besides Saffediene. She was the only one who didn’t kindle old arguments and strained memories. I’d enjoyed being with her without a mission objective.
She’d come to the tech lab and sat next to me while I assembled the receivers. Turned out I wasn’t half bad at it. One of the rings Trek had fashioned, with the receiver I’d constructed inside to make it work, now sat in my pocket. Almost everyone had one; fifty hadn’t been quite enough for all of us, but close. The Insiders in Grande had done a great job of collecting tech materials.
Worry seethed just beneath my skin. I tugged on the sleeve of my jacket to release some of the anxiety. Didn’t work.
A flicker of light crossed the p-screen near Thane, but flatlined into nothingness. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to see Jag on that screen, though he’d only been gone a half hour and couldn’t have achieved victory so quickly. I needed to hear him say he’d completed the objective. Craved the sight of his triumphant smile.
Because I didn’t want to leave the safety of this building. In here I knew what to expect. Out there anything could happen. Anything at all.
When Thane departed with his squad, I started pacing. Besides Saffediene, my team consisted of three guys from Baybridge, and two guys from Harvest who’d learned to fly hoverboards yesterday.
They weren’t my top picks. Jag had assigned those people to his contingency. It didn’t matter. If the other teams weren’t successful, my pathetic team of seven wasn’t going to tip the balance.
I glared at the p-screen as if it were to blame for not broadcasting the images I wanted to see. All too soon the buzzer on my belt went off. “Time to go.” I strode toward the door with what I hoped looked like confidence.
The chilly air outside felt dense, thick as water, inside my lungs. When I cleared the roof and turned south, I caught a glimpse of fire to the north. The Security Department.
The top half of the building danced with flames. I hovered there, staring. Jag had done it. I didn’t know why, but I honestly thought we might never succeed. He’d been trying for so long. Trying—and failing.
“Zenn?” Saffediene asked.
I pulled my attention from the orange glow. She hovered with the others, waiting for my directions. “South,” I said. “Stick to the plan. We haven’t been alerted of any changes.”
I ignored the smoke curling into the sky. I ignored the emptiness in the streets and the buzz of techtricity hanging in the air.
All of it unsettled me. Something about this felt too easy.
As we circled in from the north, the unease grew. My breath came fast. I crouched low, scanning scanning scanning the horizon. I expected a flood of lights to illuminate the downtown area and an army of clones to make their appearance.
When they didn’t, I wondered why.
And then I saw someone that erased all my thoughts.
A low moan escaped my mouth.
My hands clenched into fists.
I braced myself—
just—
before—
ramming into—
My father.
After that, everything happened so, so fast. Next to me, Saffediene cried out. I spun wildly out of control from the collision with my dad. When I regained equilibrium, I found Saffediene a few feet away, shaking tech-sparks from her coat.
My father hovered with his back to me, regaining his balance on his board. When he spoke, his voice sounded off, but I hadn’t seen or heard from him in over a year.
“Come with me, Zenn.”
“Dad?” I asked, so many questions buried in that single word. I swung my attention back to Saffediene. “Saffediene?” I whispered.
She closed the gap between us and slipped her hand into mine. “You should go with him.”
“Come with me,” I said, squeezing her hand.
She shook her head. “Go work things out with him. I’ll carry out our directive and meet you back at the safe house.”
I kissed her quickly, just as my dad called my name again. I’d longed to hear his voice for so long. My father held out his hand to me.
The ache that had grown inside withered and died. “Dad.” I flew over to him. “What’s going on?” I had so much more to ask him (Where have you been? Why didn’t you message? Did you know Fret used to live here?), but in the middle of a mission didn’t seem like a good time.
“Come with me,” he said. He curved his board expertly away from the burning Security Department.
I glanced at Saffediene and saw techtricity arc out of the flames and hit her board. She seized as the energy lightninged through her body, and then she plummeted toward the ground, her mouth open in a silent scream, before being caught by an electro-net. She hovered in empty space, her blond hair splayed, her eyes filled with pain, her left leg bent at a weird angle.
“Saffediene!” I shouted as my father yelled, “Zenn!”
I shot toward the electro-net, toward that girl I’d recently started falling for. I’d abandoned my father for another girl, years ago. Bu
t I couldn’t leave Saffediene.
My board sliced the ashy air, but before I could reach Saffediene, it lost power. I began to move backward. I spun around. My dad had tethered my board to his and was flying us away from the Security Department.
“Stop!” I cried. “Dad, please.”
He ignored me as he zoomed downward, undisturbed by the spark of a taser over there, or the shout of someone behind us. I couldn’t take everything in fast enough.
Beyond the Security Department, my dad had little difficulty navigating the city, which added more questions to the queue. He flew us into a portal, and we disappeared inside a building.
The tunnel grew lighter and lighter until I entered a tech-lit room filled with hover technology. Boards, balls, cars, the works. Jag would kill to get in this room. Maybe he already had.
We were alone, but I didn’t trust myself to speak first. My dad stepped off his board, but—
It wasn’t my father at all.
It was General Director Darke.
My vision blurred, but the image of the General didn’t waver. I should’ve immediately backed up and retreated through the tunnel. I should’ve said something in my most powerful voice. Something like Leave me the hell alone or How dare you impersonate my father? I should’ve done something more than stand there and stare.
“Zenn Bower,” the General said, his eyes deep pools of intrigue. “We finally meet under appropriate circumstances.”
If he thought morphing himself into my father—or getting inside my mind to make me think I was seeing my father—and then forcing me to follow him constituted “appropriate circumstances,” the man was delusional. He slicked one hand over his graying hair and smiled.
“What do you want?” I asked. I didn’t know what I expected from the General. He hadn’t made it to the crown of the Association by playing nice. I imagined my friends out in the sky, fighting to find the very man that stood before me. Dying, maybe. I saw Saffediene in that net. My hands clenched and unclenched as I worked to control my escalating anger.