That was eight months ago, and I’d been watching Gunner Jameson ever since.
* * *
The Enforcement Officers acted all jumpy around me, and they’d put on those thick gloves before cuffing me. It’s not like I can physically hurt them. But no one wants their deepest secrets exposed.
Not even me.
Once inside Rise One, I kept jerking to a stop in the sterile halls. Then I’d get a bump in the back along with a nasty word, and I’d take a few more steps. I knew where they were herding me.
Laboratory seven.
My throat seized, and I stalled again. This time, the bump became a push, but still I couldn’t move. I dropped to my knees, shaking my head. “I can’t. Please. Don’t make me.”
“Get up, sugar.” Rough hands gripped me under my arms and hauled me to my feet.
Tears streamed down my face. “No. Please.” My voice came out childlike, full of desperate fear. I dropped to the ground again.
“I’ll carry you if I have to,” an unfriendly officer threatened.
“No!” I screamed. “No! I won’t!” With my hands cuffed, I couldn’t do much but lie flat on the ground and roll away from the officers brave enough to get close. I kicked at anything that came near. My head pounded; my wrists ached from the cuffs.
But I absolutely could not go in that lab without a fight. Perfect Daughter be damned. I just couldn’t.
Finally everyone backed away. I knew someone had e-commed my dad. Sure enough, he teleported right next to me.
He smiled, genuine, fatherly. An act for the officers, all of it. “Raine, honey.” He crouched next to me.
“Shut up!” I shouted in his face. “Just shut up!”
He put his bare hand on my cheek, and the gesture was so parental my heart squeezed. Fat tears formed in my eyes, and I sobbed and sobbed, because he wasn’t wearing gloves. He wasn’t afraid to touch me.
Just as the images began to form in my head, he removed his hand.
“Please, don’t. I can’t. Please, please don’t make me.”
“I need you, Raine. You know how much I need you.” His eyes stared into mine, sharpening, yet pleading at the same time. My mind slipped away as we breathed in and out … in and out.
“Let’s go, daughter.” Dad gently placed his hand under my elbow and helped me stand. I sniffed, unsure why I’d been crying.
“Daddy?” I swiped at my nose, and both my hands rose. Cuffed. Confusion clouded my mind.
“Here, Rainey.” Dad removed the cuffs, letting his fingers linger on mine for just a second longer than necessary. “Right here,” he said, opening a door with a silver 7 frosted on the glass. “Your seat is over there. Which projection would you like to watch?” He gestured to a black ergonomic with a slip of microchips sitting on a table next to it.
Daddy-daughter time, I thought. I smiled, and the dry tears on my cheeks cracked. I quickly scrubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the evidence of my bad behavior. Daddy didn’t like it when I cried.
“You choose,” I said, hoping to make up for whatever I’d done before entering this room.
Dad smiled and selected a projection without examining the chips. I settled into the ergonomic as four EOs took positions against the wall near the door. The p-screen in front of me blared to life with Dad’s choice. Everything seemed great—no, everything was finally right.
I turned to see where Dad had gone, only to find a table had been positioned next to my ergonomic. My breath caught in my throat. Silver tech filaments hung from the table—restraints.
Something roared inside my head. He’d done it again. I couldn’t believe he’d brainwashed me again. I leapt to my feet, or at least I tried to. At some point I’d been chained to the chair. A tech rope encircled my waist and kept me in a seated position.
My hands were lassoed to the armrests and my feet secured to the base of the ergonomic. Something tugged at my temples: live-streaming tech stickers. I couldn’t reach up and yank them off.
Hatred burned in my veins. The EOs sensed a change in my attitude, because they slowly withdrew tasers and activated them.
“Let me go!” I cried.
But they weren’t looking at me. I craned my neck to see the door they were watching.
It opened, and two EOs entered, tasers out and on. My dad followed, murmuring with Thane, who frowned in my general direction. Not enough to even acknowledge my presence, just enough for me to know I was always and forever beneath him.
Behind them came another man. Maybe three or four years older than me, heavily cuffed and wearing two silencers, one on each side of his neck.
He surveyed the room, barely acknowledging the armed officers or the playing projection. He zeroed in on me, and I gaped at his abnormal skin.
His rashed and bumpy skin.
The anger inside fled, replaced by an unknown horror. This guy wasn’t from Freedom; he wasn’t right or wrong. He was something else.
He looked like he’d been through hell, with bruises surrounding his dark eyes and blood oozing from the wounds on his wrists where the cuffs had torn the skin. But he didn’t fight as they strapped him to the table next to me.
I already knew what came next. His left hand was secured, palm up, waiting for me to hold it. To reach out and suck his deepest desire from the recesses of his mind. The projection screen would soon show those scenes, through my touch, through the live-streaming tech stuck to my forehead.
At least his hands didn’t carry the same disease as his face, though further up his arms, red splotches disfigured his skin.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the outsider. No matter his medical disorder, he didn’t deserve to have his mind raided and splashed across a screen for all to witness.
He moved his head from right to left, just once. I got the message. Not my fault. The restraints I wore made that obvious. But it didn’t make me feel any better.
Dad switched his gaze to the outsider’s face. “Just stay still.” He looked at me, the power and hunger clear in his expression. “You too.” He put up with my outburst simply to use my power, and now his eyes clearly said, Do this. Or else.
A physician released the restraints on my right hand and painted it with a thin layer of clear perma-plaster. Before I could yank my hand away, he cemented it to the outsider’s.
And then the show began.
Gunner
9.
Before I even opened my eyes, someone spoke. I couldn’t hear their words through the whine of the tech screaming in my ears. I stumbled when someone bumped me, and by the time I gained my equilibrium, a man stood in front of me.
Not just any man.
Raine’s dad = Director oh my hell Hightower.
I inhaled sharply, the desire to step away completely overwhelming any other impulse. I stumbled over my own feet.
Director Hightower didn’t wear a hat, and his dark hair was clipped short, as per protocol. His dark, fiery eyes seared into mine. His smile stretched across his milky-white face, pleasant yet utterly predatory.
“Hello, Gunner. So glad you could join us this morning.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Another man joined the Director, his lips bent into a smirk. His brown hair followed protocol in cut and style. His flecked eyes studied me with open fascination.
I knew this man, if only through reputation. Everyone knew Assistant Director Myers. He inspired fear with a simple look.
I lowered my gaze when a stream of hostility echoed from AD Myers. I took another step back, bumped into the two Enforcement Officers. Director Hightower looked from me to his AD, and I detected a slight glimmer of smugness.
Which was totally confirmed when the Director’s creepy smile extended into his eyes. I couldn’t think past the paralyzing horror at being in the same space as him. I felt an overwhelming need to get out of there, stat.
“Gunner, this is Thane Myers, my second-in-command.” Director Hightower made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward the-man-
who-needed-no-introduction. “Come, son. You’ll need to get checked in before you can begin with Dr. Myers.”
Right. Like I wanted to begin anything with the freaky Thinker who stared too much. Yet somehow my feet moved down the hall, slapping the silver with enough force to create an echo. I wanted to walk lighter, but I didn’t know how.
And then it didn’t matter. At the end of the hall, a windowed wall stretched from floor to ceiling. Through that glass I saw Raine. I had time to see the restraints and suck in a breath before the glass frosted, effectively blocking her from view.
I glanced at Director Hightower, and the twist in his lips made my blood flow faster. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Things around me felt surreal, foreign. The air smelled medical, sharp, too clean. It stung my skin, giving me goose bumps.
I heard every sound as if I were the only person alive, yet everything blurred together into one streak of whirring fans and voices and footsteps.
A door creaked. A blast of warm air hit me in the face, bringing a hint of flowers mixed with coffee.
Somehow I sat down. The Director stood near the door like a guard, while Thane settled behind a very large glass desk. The supports were made of the same stainless steel as the floor and seemed to merge seamlessly into it.
The chair I sat in forced my back into a curve, making me feel small and childlike. Folded. Subservient.
“Welcome, Gunner,” Thane said, his voice smooth as warm water yet completely unwelcoming. “We’re pleased you’ve accepted your summons for training.” He held his hands unnaturally still in front of him, his gaze never wavering from mine. He wore a thick gold ring on his left hand, a fact I found odd. Jewelry is against protocol.
He caught me staring at his ring, and he slid it off and placed it somewhere on his side of the desk. Maybe in the leg?
“I’m going to send you several files.” Thane focused on me again. “You’ll have time this weekend to review them, and then we’ll meet on Monday afternoon for your first session.”
Before I could respond, my cache alerted me that I’d received a file called “Welcome Packet” from “Assistant Director Thane Myers.”
He didn’t ask me if I’d have time this weekend. He told me.
He didn’t ask me if it was okay to beam over several files. He simply did it.
Thirty seconds later I had nine new files and a major headache to accompany the growing rage in my gut.
“That should suffice for now,” Thane said, standing. “Come, I know how tired you must be. Who gets up for an early flying lesson on a Saturday?” He chuckled, but his face didn’t move. He didn’t believe I’d been flying any more than I believed he could exhibit kindness.
“My daughter sometimes does the same thing.” Director Hightower’s low laugh met my ears. “You kids and your hoverboards.”
I looked down at my lap. My board lay there, and I still had one hand curled around it in a protective grip. “We went super early.”
I shouldn’t have spoken. Neither of them expected me to. I had barely inhaled when the Director stood in front of me, towering impossibly high over my bent body.
“You should not have been with her at all, Mr. Jameson. If you’re going to work for me, we’ll need to get that clear.”
I leaned back to get away from the power, the harshness, in his voice.
“You will do well to remember who your true match is.”
“Y-yes, sir,” I said.
“Van, watch yourself,” Thane warned Director Hightower, but I couldn’t look at him. I felt utterly pinned by the Director’s gaze, just like I had while watching the memory of him.
I simply wanted him to look somewhere else. Anywhere else.
When he did, I sucked air into my lungs. I’d never felt such a strong wave of relief. How in the world had Raine survived growing up with this guy? I trained my eyes on the floor and kept them there.
Through the rest of Thane’s yammering, I never once looked up, never spoke. We walked down the hall, descended to the lobby, stepped into the street.
“Ah, here’s your flatmate,” Thane said, causing me to contemplate raising my chin. I still didn’t.
“Gunner,” the Director said, “meet my junior assistant over Rise Nine. He’ll assist you with whatever you need.”
The words came as a command, not an invitation, and my head snapped up. I stared into the blazing blue eyes of a guy no older than me. His hair spiked in the front, exactly at protocol length, and was very, very white. His face held only amusement, as if he knew a secret and might burst before he shared it.
He’d spent some time in the sun too. But the color in his skin was fading, I could tell. I wondered briefly if he was reformed.
“Hey,” barely escaped my throat.
“Gunner,” the guy said. “My name’s Zenn.” His eyes darted to Thane and back faster than I could blink. “Zenn Bower.”
* * *
Zenn pressed his thumb to the scanner outside a door that looked like every other door on the tenth floor in Rise Nine. After a single beep, an iris recognizer activated on the door panel. Zenn stood stock still while his identity was confirmed.
Then he threw me a small grin and lifted the latch. The flat had four rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, and a common living area with two ergonomic chairs and two p-screened walls, which connected to a kitchen equipped with tech devices: food-dispenser, recyclers, the works.
Zenn let me explore while he ordered something to eat. I wanted nothing more than to e-comm Mom as I prowled in the posh bedroom. She’d love this place: the high ceilings, the natural light simulators lining the walls like shelves.
Zenn’s bed had razor-sharp corners from the protocol-perfect way he’d made it. I sat on his pristine blankets, my feet resting on the plush carpet. Heavy drapes covered the windows. Two e-boards sat on the bureau. I could project anything onto the bare walls, anything at all.
My stomach twisted. What would I put up on the walls? Pictures of me and my mother? Maybe a snapshot of my long-dead father? An image of Starr, someone I was destined to marry but barely knew? I certainly couldn’t display the Director’s daughter. An ache blossomed inside, an unknown hurt I couldn’t stop.
As the air filled with the scent of warming bread, I put the memory chip containing my father’s letter in the safest place I could find: a slot in the light simulator meant for an energy panel.
I’d just sat on the edge of my bed when Zenn flopped onto his. “Heavy digs, yeah?” He folded the fabric of his shirtsleeve up and over, up and over, revealing skin that still held the hint of a tan.
I swallowed back something that felt curiously like loneliness. “Do I have to stay here?”
“I already programmed the spiders. So, yeah.”
“I gotta charge my board.” The air in the bedroom seemed too heavy with expectations. I got up to leave.
“I already clipped it in.” Zenn handed me a stack of toast, and I focused on his hand, not daring to look into his face. “Look, man, I know it’s a lot to take. Trust me, I do. You’ll get used to it; you just need to sleep.”
Answer me, Zenn chatted over my cache when I said nothing. Play along.
I nodded, bit into the toast, said, “Yeah, I have some files to go over from AD Myers first.”
“Yeah, you wanna make sure you get on Thane’s good side.” Zenn chuckled, and it came out so effortlessly, so real.
I tried to copy it, but knew I’d failed when Zenn cut his eyes toward the ceiling in a quick eye roll.
“So, where you from, Gunner?” Zenn sat easily on his bed, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. His unprotocol bare arms settled loosely on his knees. The dude was one cool cat. Or else he’d had a lot of practice pretending to be something he wasn’t.
“Block Three.”
“In the Lower Blocks?”
That’s what Raine had called her Insider group. His question made me wonder what he was really asking. I had to be careful with what I told him. After all, he was a
junior assistant to Hightower.
“Yeah,” I said. “My mom works in the tech department in the Transportation Rise.” My chest felt collapsible at the mention of my mom.
“And your dad?”
I shrugged, suddenly unable to force words past the burning in my throat. I’d never been much of a crier and I didn’t want to start now. Especially over a man I’d never met. I crunched through two pieces of toast while Zenn busied himself on his e-board.
A chime sounded, signaling the hour: eight o’clock. Zenn knelt in front of me, words hissing out the side of his mouth.
“Gunn, we’ll protect your mom—and find out what happened to your dad. We will, I promise you that. Right now, you need to get—and stay—on Thane’s good side. Do everything he says, immediately when he says it. Obedience will buy you power. My job is to free Vi. You know who she is, right?”
The chiming stopped, I blinked, and Zenn stood back at his e-board. He turned, his gaze sharp and focused. “I’ve got training this morning, but Thane has cleared you for a mandatory rest period until lunch.” He tucked his e-board in his back pocket. “I’ll see you during afternoon leisure hours, okay?”
Something more passed through the air between us, something unsaid yet understood. I nodded and said, “Yeah, see you then.”
He left me alone in the flat, alone with my thoughts. I felt hollowed out, as if everything that mattered to me had been scraped away, leaving only a Gunner-shaped skin behind.
“Mandatory rest period,” an electronic voice said, “please lie down.”
Obedience will buy you power. Zenn’s words echoed in my head, and I complied. The room darkened to simulate nighttime. I thought about the girl Zenn had mentioned: Vi. I recognized the name—she bunked with Raine. The non-student. I didn’t know more than that, but if she was Zenn’s whole job, she must be pretty important.
I lay there, regulating my breathing, keeping my eyes closed, but I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t, because I’d never been able to sleep away from home.
Raine
10.
Leave Freedom at dawn, head into the sun for five hours, nudge south, keep flying. My name is Cash, I am Cash; Cash, Cash, Cash.