Surrender

  “Gunn took a dip last night,” Zenn said easily.

  “What?” I shook my head, disbelieving. “No way. He would never, I mean, he can’t swim. He wouldn’t break protocol like that anyway.”

  Zenn leaned against the doorframe. I wanted to smack—no, punch—the grin off his lips.

  “He did.”

  “Why?” I struggled to understand. I felt like the Gunn who would do something like that wasn’t the person I knew.

  “Because he can, that’s why,” Zenn said. “Sometimes, Raine, it’s not about right and wrong or keeping protocol. It’s about doing something simply because you can.”

  His last words settled into my very bones, resonating with life. It’s about doing something simply because you can.

  I almost smiled. Until I remembered that this was Gunner doing things just because he could. Illegal things. “Did he get cited?”

  Zenn chuckled; the sound of it grated on my nerves. “I’m sure he got cited. He’s not exactly opening them anymore.”

  Again, this bit of information about Gunn surprised me. “So he’s just ignoring his citations? Won’t Thane notice that?”

  “He’s not ignoring them. He’s deleting them.” I gasped, but Zenn continued. “And Thane has a lot of other things landing in his queue right now.” His blue eyes twinkled with mischief.

  Sudden relief made me smile too. “So Gunn won’t get caught.”

  “Oh, he’s gonna get caught.” Zenn pushed his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, completing the perfect picture of carefree and casual. “I’ve heard the alarm for a barrier breach is quite shrill.”

  I smiled, and it wasn’t even forced. “It is,” I agreed, and we went into the living area together.

  Vi worked at the food-dispenser, and when she turned around, tears coated her face. Zenn ran to her side, cooing to her in a low voice. He helped her sit down at the table, and by the time I managed to force my feet across the room, he’d handed her a hydro-dryer to wipe her face.

  I sat across from her, afraid dying to speak. She looked back to Zenn, her lovely eyes filling with more tears.

  “It’s okay, beautiful.” Zenn’s quiet voice held only understanding. He wiped her tears and kissed her.

  I should’ve been embarrassed to watch them, but I wasn’t. Their love was real, tender, deep. I suddenly wondered if Gunn and I had anything that genuine. I wondered if I’d ever feel like that about him, about anyone.

  “I can’t remember,” Vi whispered, wiping angrily at her face. “Raine and I were talking last night, and I remembered things. Important things. Names. I think I had … a sister?” It came as a question, but before Zenn and I could even exchange a look, Vi had gone on.

  “And when I woke up this morning, I could still remember all of it. Until just now, when I ordered a glass of milk, and then … I can’t even remember what I was thinking about.” She pinned Zenn with a desperate look. “I don’t remember you coming over. The last thing I remember is Raine setting up her e-board puzzles for me.”

  That had happened an hour ago. I knew what it felt like to lose large chunks of time (a lot longer than an hour too). To not be able to remember what happened, or where, or when.

  I reached across the table and placed my hands on top of Vi’s. I didn’t know what to say to make everything okay, because everything was not okay. And I wasn’t sure that what I was doing—what any of us were doing—could ever make our world okay.

  As I kept my hand on Vi’s, gray shadows began to dance on my vision-screen. Indistinct and void of color, but images nonetheless. I yanked my hands away from hers, feeling sick that somehow that medicine had worked.

  Before anyone could say anything, the door buzzed. I got up to answer it so Zenn could have a moment with Vi.

  Gunn stood in the hall, his face haunted with exhaustion and grief. I wanted to gather him into my arms, feel his heart beat against mine, and whisper the exact words he needed to erase the sadness in his eyes. But I didn’t want to see anything in his head. Based on what I’d just seen when touching Vi, I needed my gloves back.

  I stepped back to allow him room to enter the flat. The door hadn’t even closed behind him before Zenn said, “How could you?” and was swinging.

  His fist connected with Gunn’s jaw, whose head snapped back. Vi cried out and pushed her chair back, scraping it on the floor. But I just stood there, leaning against the wall as my pulse pounded in my temples.

  “What the hell?” Gunn held his nose; blood dripped onto the silver floor. The room spun, creating little rivers of crimson among the gray.

  “You programmed their dispenser to alter memories.” Zenn swung again. This time Gunn ducked.

  “Zenn!” Vi yelled, but it sounded so … very … far away.

  The smell of blood hit me hard, and I almost fell. With the floor tilting, I stepped forward. “Stop,” I said forcefully, placing one hand on Zenn’s chest while I held the other toward Gunn. “Stop it now.”

  He raised his fist, but I grabbed it with my free hand. Skin to skin, the images came fast and hot. They swam between light and dark.

  I saw Gunn, triumphant and glowing, watching Freedom burn from his position high above the city. His desire to be the one to take down the Association flowed through my veins like blood. Underneath it ran a river of love that made no sense with the images in my head.

  Most surprising though, was the shifting I felt inside. I’d been working to undo the ties that bound the Association for over a year. I couldn’t do it myself; Gunn couldn’t do it himself. But together, yes, together we could accomplish what neither one of us could do alone. If we worked together, maybe all the pieces would fit together into a cohesive whole.

  “Raine, I have something to tell you,” Gunner said. Each word stretched into long syllables.

  I swung my head toward him, and it seemed to take years. “I have something to tell you too,” I said, my voice quiet and thick. Because for the first time, the picture playing across my vision-screen didn’t change. What Gunn wanted, and what would happen when he got it, were one and the same. And if he knew what I’d seen in Vi’s drain, we might be able to succeed.

  I flung aside the pictures to get to the only emotion in the drain: love. But it didn’t belong to Gunn. I swung my head toward Zenn, and found the tips of my fingers pressed into the bare skin of his exposed throat.

  I moaned at the spike of unadulterated love. His images were muddy, hard to distinguish, but I didn’t have to have perfect vision to recognize Vi.

  The floor tilted up; the ceiling slanted down. My knees cracked against the solid silver as my vision darkened.

  Then someone cradled my head in their lap. Cool fingers worked through my hair. A voice said, “Her pulse is thready.” Lips pressed against my forehead. “Raine, stay with me. I—I want to do favors for you.”

  Gunner, I thought. I love you too.

  Then I passed out.

  * * *

  I tumbled down, down, down. Cliffs blanketed me on both sides; voices cried from the crevices as I passed.

  I saw faces, pale and tired. I saw flashes of red light, pulses of blue, and a strong beam of white.

  Above me, another girl was falling too.

  She had my face, my long, white-blond hair. Her mouth stretched into a scream, but all the sound tore through my throat.

  She blinked; my eyes closed.

  I reached toward her with my bare hand, desperate for someone to anchor me. She responded by stretching her hand toward mine. Our fingertips touched, and she winked into oblivion.

  She was me. I am her.

  I’m torn, wandering, falling, being pushed and twisted and called to from all sides.

  Who deserves to get what they want? Gunner? So he can hover in the starless sky and watch his homeland burn? So he can watch my father fall?

  Or Zenn? So he can keep Vi under the influence of his voice and sail away with her into the far north and love her and make her love him?

  I could help
them both get what they desired most. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept falling and falling and falling. Vi sang, that same lullaby that she always did. The words bundled around me, wrapping me in a protective layer.

  I allowed myself to get lost in the melody, trying to find a path through the maze of music the same way I needed to find a way through the confusion in my life.

  I couldn’t.

  And after a while I realized why Vi couldn’t choose between Zenn and Jag. Some choices are impossible.

  Gunner

  29.

  The sounds coming from Vi’s mouth confused me. She linked all her words together, holding some out, clipping others short. The melody was familiar somehow, and it infused my soul with peace. It definitely calmed Raine. Her muscles stopped seizing, and she relaxed onto my lap. The right side of my face throbbed where Zenn had hit me, and the shock of witnessing Raine’s collapse brought a frustration/hurt/ache so deep, I thought I might drown in it.

  So many questions rumbled in my mind. What was Zenn’s deal with the dispenser? What had Raine seen when she’d touched me? Because that had been a drain—I knew it. It had sucked the life right out of Raine’s face.

  “What is that?” I voiced, directing my question to Vi.

  She broke the tune off. “It’s Raine’s favorite song.”

  “Music is against protocol.”

  Zenn threw his head back and laughed. Really laughed, like what I’d said was the funniest thing in the world. My jaw hurt too much to join him—and I didn’t find anything funny.

  “Why’d you hit me?” I asked him.

  He leveled his gaze at me, all serious. “Someone programmed the food-dispenser to alter memories.”

  “You think I did that?” If anyone could’ve done it, Zenn could have. He played both sides all the time.

  “No one else has been in this flat.” His voice could’ve sliced me to bits.

  “You have,” I fired back. “I didn’t reset that dispenser. I’m the one who fixed it.”

  Zenn clenched his jaw, then his fists. I braced myself for another blow. But Vi placed one hand on Zenn’s forearm. “He’s telling the truth. Drop it, Zenn.”

  Zenn deflated. The angry sparks in his eyes died as he studied Vi.

  “Of course I’m sure,” she said, answering some silent conversation I wasn’t privy to—not that I wanted to be in the middle of that.

  “You’ve done nothing,” I said. “Nothing with Vi. Nothing for Raine. Nothing.” I gathered Raine into my arms and picked her up. I walked toward her bedroom, her head lolling against my shoulder.

  “I’ve done nothing?” Zenn said, his voice too high and too tense.

  “You’re Informant. Maybe you needed some information on your little girlfriend. I don’t know. But I do know you play both sides,” I said over my shoulder, “while accomplishing absolutely nothing.”

  His anger hit me in the back, propelling me forward. I couldn’t tell if he was mad because what I’d said was way out of line, or if because it was true.

  Vi said, “Give him space, Zenn,” and he didn’t follow me into the bedroom.

  I laid Raine in bed and tucked the blanket tight around her. She mumbled something, and a strange electric thread pulsed through me. I leaned closer to her. “Say it again,” I whispered.

  “I have to tell you about Vi’s drain,” she murmured, her eyes still glued shut.

  I glanced at the door. It was open, but Zenn and Vi couldn’t be seen. “I’m listening,” I said.

  “We’re there, Gunn. Me and you, at the end, when Freedom falls.”

  I only kept breathing because it was an involuntary action and required no special skill. I tried to make sense of her words.

  Seconds melded into minutes. She didn’t speak again.

  I smoothed my thumb over her delicate cheekbone. “Are you okay?”

  She jerked away from my touch, something wild in her expression.

  “The drains, they’re hurting you, aren’t they?” I asked.

  A single tear leaked out of her right eye. She nodded, a sob choking in her throat.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I knew how it felt to have an unwanted power. More than that, a power that could harm other people.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I have a terrible talent.”

  “You’re terribly beautiful,” I countered.

  She tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace. “We work together, Gunn, to overthrow the Association. You’ll get what you want.”

  “Will I?” The words escaped before I could censor them.

  “And I can say good-bye,” Raine continued, “because I know I’m going to see you again.”

  She sounded so sure that the ball of worry deep in my gut dissolved. I hadn’t even known it was there, or what it signified, until now.

  “I’m going to kiss you now,” I whispered, since she already had her eyes closed. I wondered what she’d see when my lips met hers. But right now, I didn’t care. Would she?

  “Okay.”

  She let me kiss her and kiss her and kiss her, until we finally figured out how to say good-bye without using words.

  * * *

  I recalibrated Vi’s food-dispenser before I left, this time encoding it with a portlet to keep it from becoming compromised again. Then Zenn and I cut through the frozen sky toward our flat.

  When we landed on the balcony, Zenn paused. “Sorry, Gunner. I was way out of line.”

  I touched my tender nose. “You suck, man.”

  He clapped his hand on my shoulder as we went inside. “I know. Sorry. Vi said they had spiders doing a routine inspection. They probably reset it.” He settled into his ergonomic, his e-board open, but I went straight to bed.

  Like I slept.

  Because I wanted my last night in Freedom to last forever, the hours flew by. Before I knew it, Zenn was stepping out of the shower and I was double-checking to make sure I had the microchip from Starr in my pocket and the scan of my father’s notes loaded on my cache.

  Zenn joined me in the kitchen for our last toast-only breakfast. If he had been two inches shorter, we could’ve been twins. “Let’s fly,” he said, exactly as he did every other Monday morning at 7:50 a.m.

  Except this time, instead of flying toward the Education Rise, we set our sights on the Confinement Rise.

  I thought about all the people doing things this morning to aid the breakout. We had exactly an hour to get in the Rise, get Jag out, and get through the fifteenth sector of the wall.

  Twenty minutes later we cleared the orchard. “Voices?” Zenn asked. Below us, two rows of guards flanked the front entrance to the Confinement Rise. Double the personnel—super.

  “Voices,” I confirmed. We flew in fast, crouching low and dipping our faces behind our hats so we couldn’t be identified before we could speak. Without landing, Zenn faced one row of guards, and I squared off with the other.

  “Sleep,” we said together, short and forceful. The four guards on my side swayed on their feet. Before I could add, “Now,” they fell to the ground, already snoring. Zenn spoke a few more times and accomplished similar results.

  “Should we hide the bodies?” he asked.

  “No time,” I said, dismounting from my hoverboard. “Let’s go. Half power, hover—fifteen feet.” Both mine and Zenn’s boards obeyed my command.

  Sending a clean-up crew, the assistant said in my mind. Target’s been moved to room B-12.

  Where’s that? I asked, trying to focus on entering the locked and coded Rise.

  Basement. Raine and Vi are in place.

  Super, I chatted, finally getting the door open.

  Zenn and I moved with speed and precision, unrushed but urgent. Inside the Rise, something felt wrong.

  I hesitated, glancing around. It’s too dark, I chatted to the assistant, to Zenn.

  Powered down from the weekend, the assistant said. We’ve detained all workers who should be in this building. They’re at home
until nine o’clock. Take the stairs. I’m sending Zenn upstairs to get the hoverboard.

  I met Zenn’s eyes and nodded. He wrenched open the door to the stairwell and went up, leaving me to go down alone.

  My footsteps sounded muted, timid, even though I took no care to make them so. In the basement, darkness permeated my senses.

  Until the spiders awoke. Then all kinds of red screamed against my retinas.

  I held out my hand, palm forward. The tech burned under my skin before shorting out the dozen spiders close enough to receive the blast. The others backed up, crowded around a door in the corner. The unearthly blue glow of guard spiders combined with the red seekers, resulting in a violet glare.

  Can you do something about these spiders? I asked the assistant.

  That’s all you, came the response. If possible, I thought the robotic voice carried some sarcasm. Maybe Trek was behind the voice.

  A solid stream of purple lit up the twelve on the door. One touch from a guard spider could electrocute me, or paralyze me, or erase my short-term memory. They were like a mystery poison, their abilities unknown until it was too late.

  I had no weapons except for my voice and any tech I could suck from the walls. And that’s all I needed. With a primal yell, I spread my arms wide. The scratching of spider legs on the metal floor became the only sound, the smell of my determination the only scent.

  My muscles quivered with tech. I clapped, sending a pulse toward the insects. They flew back in a tangle of shattered bodies and severed legs. A pair of blue eyes leapt, but I shouted, “Deactivate,” before it landed on me.

  A few more voice commands to power down, and I had the violet mob under control in less than ten seconds.

  I stood in the corridor, breathing hard, as the last glow from the spider eyes faded. I felt along the doorframe, searching for a way into the room. The door had been equipped with a series of codes that had to be entered within a certain time frame or an alarm would sound.

  Like that mattered—if the door was opened before 8:45 a.m., the same siren would wail.

  AD Myers is on the move, the assistant came over my cache.

  “Super,” I mumbled. I’d been hoping to make it all the way to the barrier before activating any alarms.