by Lu, Marie
We race on quiet feet down the flight of stairs. We make it to the ground floor just as the guard above us starts walking across the second-floor walkway. I look around. The maze of halls now stretches out all around in every direction.
“This way,” I whisper, then choose one of the halls that seems to head toward where the control platform will be. Pressa darts silently behind me.
Behind us, the guard reaches the bottom floor too. She stops there for a moment but then continues, searching for the source of the sound.
My palms are drenched in sweat. All I want in this moment is for Daniel to be here, but I push the thought away immediately. Focus on the task at hand. That’s all I can do. We make our way down the hall. Somewhere behind us, the guard begins to turn into our hall.
We reach the end of the corridor. Pressa yanks me along as she turns us sharply right, down another corridor. There we crouch, sucking in lungfuls of air.
The guard walks halfway down the hall we just came from. I get ready for us to sprint again. But then the guard halts, silently, for a moment. We wait, two tense, frozen figures.
Finally, the guard sighs and begins walking the way she came. Her footsteps grow more distant, until I hear the familiar clang of her walking back up the stairs to join her partner again.
Pressa lets out a shaky breath. I glance to our side, then pull us to our feet. “We’re not far now,” I whisper.
We race down the halls. There’s no time. Hann is probably delirious with fever right now. It’s our only chance.
The hall stretches so long, the computers on either side so endless with their blinking lights, that I start to think I’d taken us the wrong way—when finally, up ahead, I see the corridors abruptly open up.
There, ahead of us, is the circular control platform.
I skid to a halt before it. Then I reach down with trembling fingers and pull the chip from the side of my ankle. Beside me, Pressa gapes at the space.
I power the system on. The virtual circle expands out in an arc around us, followed shortly by the burst of glowing white nodes. I kneel in the circle, trying to remember how Hann had shown me to access the main system. Almost there. Pressa stands guard nearby, looking out at the corridors in anticipation of guards.
Finally, I find it. The system initiates, showing me Hann’s profile. I’m so relieved that I almost let out a shout. The chip holding the signal I created is in the palm of my hand. I touch it once, and the data on it suddenly appears to hover over my hand.
Now all I have to do is download it into the system.
But I don’t get to. Because the instant the system comes on, I hear a familiar voice behind me. It’s Pressa, but her words are tight with fear. “Eden,” she says.
I know he’s here without even turning around. The hairs rise on the back of my neck. I look over my shoulder to see Hann standing there, his eyes fixed on me. He doesn’t look sick at all. There’s a faint smile on his face.
“I was wondering when you’d make your move,” he says. His eyes flicker calmly to Pressa. “And the little doctor. You’re looking very awake, miss.”
Pressa freezes beside me. She doesn’t say anything back to him. Hann’s referring to the fact that she hasn’t reacted as she should have to the concoction she’d fed him. I shift slightly toward her as if to protect her.
At her expression, Hann just smiles coolly and turns his attention to me.
My heart lodges in my throat. I glance long enough at his face to gauge how he must be feeling right now. His face is pale, and there’s a very faint sheen of sweat on his brow. But otherwise, he seems to be alert. He must have figured out Pressa’s serum in time to give himself an antidote of some sort, or he hadn’t drunk enough of it.
Behind him are at least a half-dozen guards, their weapons drawn and pointed in our direction. Hann snaps his fingers once. The virtual system that had hovered around me now shifts to encircle him.
“This was once a part of the grid that Ross City used to store the Level system’s data,” Hann tells me. “Now it’s part of my system.”
I wait for him to mention the drone he must have taken off me. He doesn’t. Everything he’s doing seems natural right now, as if he knows nothing about my and Pressa’s plans at all. It makes me shiver.
“You always wanted something greater than just disabling the Level system,” I say. “You wanted to control it for yourself.”
“Exactly,” he tells me. He waves a hand once before me—and when he does, I suddenly am able to shift the floating nodes around. “And once you start behaving yourself as part of my crew, you’ll have access to all this as you help to rebuild it for its new purpose.”
Once you start behaving yourself. Now when I look at Hann, I can see the dangerous glint in his eyes. Gone is the grieving father I once saw, the man who had lost his wife and son. This is the killer, the criminal.
“I found your clever little drone,” Hann says softly to me. “Or were you going to tell me at some point?”
I step slowly around the circle, my attention still partly fixated on the nodes. Every single one is a marker of how you level up—at least, in Hann’s new world.
“What’s the point of doing this?” I say suddenly. “Corrupting it all, destroying the Level system, and then replacing it with your own? What about everything you said against the city, that you didn’t believe in people being treated like this? Now you’re just going to do the same thing?”
Hann smiles. “Sometimes it isn’t the idea that’s corrupt, but the one operating it,” he replies. “Would you want the entire Level system deleted? You’ve seen what kind of chaos can reign in the streets without it.”
It’s almost as if he knows about the chip I planned to install into the Level system too. I hate him for the gray zone that he keeps challenging me to think in.
“Think about how many people in this city must be terrified right now, without the Level system in place,” he continues. “The Undercity’s civilians have suffered, been suppressed, and been beaten back into line by the city. Now imagine that I replace this city’s government. I return the Level system to its place—only now, it runs how I desire. The Sky Floor citizens lose their power. I hand it to the Undercity’s population. People hate chaos, you know. If you hand them back control over their lives, they will fall to their knees before you and shower you with gratitude.”
I scowl at him. “So you want the people to look up to you instead as their savior, after they’ve suffered through the chaos that you inflicted in the first place.”
Hann nods. For a second, the fatherly side of him returns, and his gaze softens. “My son, Erick, was as sharp as you are,” he says, shaking his head. “I wish you could have met him. He was such an intelligent boy, so full of potential. He was as promising as you.”
Even though I’m standing here as his captive and enemy, I can tell that when he looks at me, there’s someone else he imagines in my place.
Then the moment’s gone, and his eyes harden again. “You think I let you back in here without suspecting anything?” he says. “That you suddenly had a change of heart, that you really chose to turn your back on your brother?” He shakes his head, looking almost sad. “You really think I believed that you wanted to cure my condition?”
Pressa scowls at him. “That medication was real,” she interrupts.
“Oh, I know.” He raises an eyebrow at her. “And I appreciate your administration of it. You’ll have to forgive me for emptying the contents of my stomach afterward, though. I’ve heard those herbs will cause terrible fevers. Or were you already aware of that?”
Pressa’s jaw tightens. She opens her mouth to say something back at him—but before she can, Dominic Hann has a gun in his hand, the shiny barrel pointed in her direction.
I move toward Pressa, but he’s too fast.
He fires straight at her.
DANIEL
“Daniel—wait!”
I can barely hear June calling to me as I hurry out of
the building’s waiting rooms and out into the main control area, yanking my jacket on as I go. The air outside is crisp and cold, and the simulated night is heavy, broken by a smattering of screens playing advertisements.
“Day.”
It’s only the sound of my street name that makes me pause long enough to turn around. June catches up to me, her hair bobbing in the wind, and grabs my arm with one hand.
“You’re not going down there alone,” she says firmly.
“I have to.”
“We have no idea why Eden didn’t send his message. He could just be late for some reason, or trying to fix his device. There are a dozen possibilities. If you just go down there now, you could be blowing his cover.”
“And what if he’s in trouble?”
“Then Hann will let you know soon, without a doubt.” June crosses her arms. “You think he won’t pass up an opportunity to use Eden against you, if he figured out this whole plan?”
I hold up both hands. “That all makes sense—I get it. But if he’s preparing to use Eden against me, then we’re already too late. He’s not going to let Eden go again. And if he knows that we’re aware of what he’s doing, that we’re coming for him, he’ll be ready for us.” I shake my head. “I can’t just sit around here and wait.”
June sighs and looks away for a second. Her eyes flash in frustration. I’m reminded suddenly of the way we used to argue when the Republic was in the thick of its war, and a part of my heart twists in guilt. “You know me, yeah?” I say, taking a step closer and leaning down toward her. “You know I can do this. I’ve been at it my whole life. Let me go alone. It’ll be easier for me to hide if I’m on my own. Stay up here and watch my back. Keep track of my location. And if you see us on our way out, tell the AIS to be ready for us.”
She turns to me now. The frustration on her face has given way to fear, and within that fear, I see the same worry I have every time she risks her life.
“Then hurry up,” she finally says, leaning toward me. Her voice is soft and steady. “We’ll be ready for you. I promise.”
I think of the night we shared, all our moments of awkwardness, the slow dance of getting to know each other again. The potential of a lifetime with June. If there’s any reason to make it back up to the surface, it’s for that—and I’ll be damned if Dominic Hann takes that chance away from me. I have lived through revolutions and war, massacres and illness. I’m going to survive this too, and so will my brother.
I bend toward her. My lips gently touch hers, and for a moment in time, we stay locked together. Then I pull away. “I’ll be back before you know it,” I say.
* * *
The cool night air bites at my cheeks. The tracker June put on me, a patch of metal at the middle of my back, feels cold against my skin. There’s a cap pulled down securely over my eyes, and a black half-mask covering the bottom of my face. As I head deeper into the quiet outskirts of Ross City, the familiar sense of being alone on the streets comes back to me. There’s something oddly comforting about it. I pull my cap lower on my head, then pick up my pace and dart through the shadows.
With the city’s system offline, I can’t bring up a map before me like I usually could. All I’m relying on is the memory of the location that June showed me on a map back at central control, the last location we’d received from Eden when he went down with Hann’s men. I won’t have anyone guiding me to where they happen to be. I’ll have to find my own way there.
Finally, I stop at an intersection nearest to where I remember the location dot was. This street corner looks abandoned, but Hann’s guards could be hiding in some building, watching for anything suspicious.
I pause in the shadows of one of the buildings, pull myself up to the second-f loor ledge, and then take out a small metal sphere from my pocket. The AIS has a number of weapons that remind me of the Republic’s. This one is like a homemade smoke bomb, what I used to make back in Lake—except it’s much stronger, and the smoke spreads over a wider area.
I glance up at the buildings around me, looking for any telltale signs—a glint of light, the flash of a mirror—anything indicating someone lying in wait.
For a while, I don’t see anything.
Then, the slightest movement in one of the windows. Someone’s up there.
I smile a little. Then I edge along the side of the second floor until I reach a balcony. I crouch in the shadows and lift the smoke bomb. Then I fling it as far from the intersection as I can.
It clinks once as it hits the ground. Then it explodes.
Smoke bursts in every direction, filling every crevice and alley in its wake.
I turn to look back at the window where I’d seen movement. Sure enough, there’s another flicker—and an instant later, shadows shudder through the darkness on the street below me. Hann’s minions, off to check what’s happened.
I push my mask higher. When the coast seems clear, I drop back down to the first floor without a sound and dart toward the last building, where the location marker had been.
The space looks like a factory sitting on the edge of the city. It’s enormous. Its exterior is almost completely solid, except for a row of glass windows wrapping around the very top of the building, reflecting the lights of the city.
Behind me, the guards’ shouts are already starting to echo in my direction. They’re heading back. I rush to the building and scan it for any easy entryways. Everything looks locked down, though. My eyes turn skyward to the glass windows again. Then I step onto the hinges of a metal gutter and start pulling myself up the wall.
I’m making my way to the third floor by the time two of the guards return to their stations. They’re clearly agitated, their voices sharp and harsh. No doubt someone has already alerted Hann about the smoke bomb. But there’s no time to dwell on what they might do next. If Eden’s not contacting us, he’s already in trouble.
I freeze on the fourth floor, right below the glass windows, as one of the guards shines a flashlight in my general direction. The sweeping light barely misses me. Sweat drips down my brow. If I can just leap up to grab the window ledge, I can pull myself up out of his angle. As he steps closer below, I edge around the side of the wall until I’ve turned the corner. Then I jump and stretch out my arm, seeking the ledge.
I catch it. With all my strength, I pull myself up and shove the window slightly. It slides open by a sliver.
Inside the building, dim light filters through the glass to illuminate a seemingly endless maze of computers. Their blue sensors blink in unison.
This is the construction site that I’d glimpsed when I was first captured.
An instant later, I notice a circular platform in the center of it all. The disc of metal on the floor glows with a faint light, and virtual holograms—a web of white nodes—hover over it.
I take one last look over my shoulder, toward the guards approaching the outside of the building below. Then I swing inside the building, pull the window shut behind me, and lower myself carefully into the shadows that slant against the wall. There I cling, barely gripping the hand- and footholds I can find.
A noise from the center of the space makes me turn in its direction. Three figures silhouetted by the light have stepped onto the circular platform. When I recognize them, my chest tightens into a knot.
It’s Eden and Pressa, their bodies turned to face a man who is unmistakably Hann. Guards are already approaching them from the shadows of the halls.
They’ve been caught.
EDEN
Pressa jerks back with a gasp of shock. Blood sprays the floor as the bullet hits her hard in her left shoulder. She falls to her knees.
I’m stepping in front of her before I realize what I’m doing. “You know I was the one behind all this,” I snap at Hann. The iron smell of blood penetrates the air. Behind me, Pressa bites back a choked cry.
Hann doesn’t look moved at all. Instead, he aims his gun toward Pressa’s leg. “You can keep talking while I work,” he says. “I’ll le
t you know when it’s your turn.”
He readies to fire again. I lunge between them. “Wait!” I shout out, holding my hands up. “Please! Wait a second. I—”
But he’s no longer interested in talking. He shifts his gun slightly, aiming instead at her left arm.
My mind spins frantically. “Let her go, and I’ll do whatever you want. Use me as ransom, kill me, anything.”
He gives me a cool look. “I already plan on ransoming you out,” he replies with a shrug.
“And what would your son think of all this?” I demand.
“He would think you’re stalling me for time,” Hann says. There’s no sympathy in his eyes now, nothing but a low-burning fire at the audacity I have for bringing up his family. He points his gun at Pressa’s head this time. I stand in front of her, but it’s a helpless gesture.
“Is this what you imagined for yourself, if your son and your wife were alive?” I finally snap. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever suffered? You think this is the solution to everything that’s gone wrong for you?”
This time, a flash of anger darts across his features. He shifts his gun so that it’s now pointing at me instead. “I wouldn’t know, would I? Because they’re gone. And that’s the last time you will mention my family to me again.”
A surge of adrenaline floods my veins. He’s going to shoot me. I think of my own family—of my brother, all I have left, waiting alone for my signal. There’s no way I’m going to let this man kill me here. I’m walking out alive, one way or another.
As if something in the universe has aligned at my thought, I’m compelled to look behind Hann, toward the glass windows lining the top of the building. There, silhouetted against the shadows, is the shape of a young man crouched on top of one of the towering computer shelves.
Daniel is here.
It’s all I need to see.
I suddenly lunge toward Hann.
He doesn’t expect me to do this—all he’s known of me is the awkward brother, the shy one, the one who still has to wear glasses in the dark. I duck low as I reach him. Before he can fire at me, I barrel into his legs and throw him off balance. Remember what Daniel taught you. The words flow through me like a current of electricity. In one move, I seize the gun from his hand and hold it up to his temple.