Broken Wide

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  The chant echoes in Tessa’s head before they start saying it out loud. No silence! No fear! Jackers and readers, together HERE! “No silence! No fear! Jackers and readers, together HERE!” Tessa’s voice is strong and clear, and the sheer numbers are on our side. There are maybe two dozen Fronters, but we’ve got more Free Thinkers and almost as many JFA. The jackers aren’t chiming in, and I keep quiet as well, scanning and watching for the Fronters’ response. A few are still hurling insults across the open space between the groups, but the rest are using a hand signal system to coordinate something. A couple break away and go to the fire, pulling out flaming two-by-fours. What the… I tense and flash a look to Scott. He catches my eye and shakes his head no. I’ve got my hand on my holstered gun, but he’s right—we don’t want to shoot first, given the Fronters’ guns aren’t the kind with tranquilizers.

  Tessa’s so synched with the other Free Thinkers, I don’t think she sees the two Fronters with flaming logs on the front line. They hurl insults along with the others, and it quickly coalesces into another chant.

  “Purity now! Lies Never! Lock up jackers now and forever!”

  The Free Thinkers elide into another chant. “None are free until ALL are free!”

  “Jackers never! Readers forever!”

  “Jacker rights NOW.”

  “Blood traitors!”

  They’re quickly devolving into insults again. The guys with torches—or flaming clubs depending on how you see it—are edging closer, the whole line of Fronters moving with them. One guy with a flag—all black with a single “pure” blood drop—edges forward like he wants to skewer someone with the pole. Hinckley signals to the front line of the JFA. They ease forward, putting distance between the front line and the readers.

  A buffer zone. For when the fists start to fly.

  The camera drones buzz and swoop. They’re getting a hell of a show.

  The CJPD officers are watching with no obvious intent to break up the party. I’m not even sure why they’re here. To arrest jackers if things get out of hand? Probably.

  And there’s only one place arrested jackers go. The Jacker Detention Center. The place where Tiller has been developing his secret jacker conversion program by experimenting on inmates. These days, the Chicago Jack Police makes that a one-way trip. I make a mental note to ensure the CJPD gets tranq darts to the chest if everything goes south.

  The JFA front line tenses. The gap with the Fronters is slowly closing. A couple thugs split off from the main group, retreating from the confrontation. Cowards? I don’t think so. More like they’re up to something. They dash back to the fire. More flaming clubs? Just as I think this, the Fronters on the front line jab and swipe at the JFA, using their torches to either taunt them or keep them back. Hard to tell.

  “Move back!” I hear Anna’s commanding voice rise above the din of insults.

  The Fronter closest to her—one with a torch—snarls and lunges at her. She dances to the side then spins a kick that knocks the torch straight out of his hand. He reels back, and now the torch is lying in the narrowing gap between the fronts. Anna leaves it there, but only because Hinckley’s yanking her back. I get why. I reflexively grasp Tessa’s arm and draw her slightly behind me. What was I thinking, bringing her here? She’s chanting at the top of her lungs, thrusting her fist in the air. One of the camera drones flits around her like an adoring fan. They’re buzzing over all of us like flies.

  Suddenly, the sound of the protest shifts from muffled anger to a wholly different cry—something’s happening at the front. It’s complete chaos, and for a split second, my brain can’t make sense of it. Then I see… two Fronters have broken through the front line, using flexiglass riot shields to shove their way through. Fists are flying, and hands are reaching to stop them, but they’re just mowing down readers. More thugs with torches follow, streaming into the breach and jabbing the people on the ground, trying to set them on fire. The screaming…

  I shove my way in front of Tessa and yank out my tranq gun… but I can’t get a bead on them. Too many people in the way. Then the torch-bearers go down, but the other Fronters have entered the breach, and it’s an all-out melee now. Anna’s taking out one after another with her fists and feet… Hinckley’s spinning and shooting… Scott’s shoving his way past readers toward the middle… It’s a scrum of jackers, readers, and Fronters all piled on the ground and probably crushing someone to death.

  Jack it all. I lunge forward to help Scott, linking to Tessa, Move back! She needs to move the Free Thinkers who are frozen in horror, just now starting to scream. I push past them, trying not to knock anyone down, and reach the vortex of the fight just as Scott does. He doesn’t mess around—just grabs the top person on the pile and throws them back. It’s a reader, so they stumble away, bloodied and wild-eyed, but when I pull a body-armored Fronter off the top, he slams back into me, and we go down together. He’s one of the frothing-at-the-mouth ones, young like me, and he’s landing punches hard—to the gut, and one to the face that nearly knocks me out. I grit through it while I focus on getting my dart gun free of its holster. I jab it in his side, point blank, and pull the trigger. He yelps and jerks away—taking a dart straight from the muzzle has to hurt—but as he’s scrambling to get his feet under him, the sedative kicks in, and he stays down.

  The crowd behind and in front has thinned out. There’s just the scrum… and the police. They’re moving in, a straight line, and they’ve miraculously come up with a weapon that looks like a militarized bow and arrow. The JFA have their hands up, not resisting. One of the CJPD whips his crossbow toward Anna, and it launches something huge—the size of my fist. It smacks into her chest, and even through her body armor, it shocks her with an electric pulse that drops her to the ground, convulsing. Hinckley’s howl of rage is cut off by the crackling of another taser. He goes down with a thud that punches me even more than the screams and grunts and panicked shouts.

  I reflexively drop behind the cover of the writhing pile of bodies. The buzz of another taser launch jolts me. Then another. The acrid scent of electric discharge wafts over the melee. Everything is panic. Where is Tessa? I scan the fleeing crowd, the fight still raging all around me, but I can’t see her. Anywhere.

  Then, down in the scrum to my left, a girl with long, brown hair… I lurch forward, pump a dart in the neck of the bulky Fronter on top of her, but I can already see it’s not Tessa. I drag the girl free of the fight. She takes off, running toward the center of Jackertown. Only then do I finally see Tessa—she’s organizing the Free Thinkers, gathering them under the shelter of an abandoned ice cream parlor.

  She’s safe. My limbs go loose, and I waver for a second… then I whirl when I hear another taser launch. Something electric screams past my face, and I drop down again behind the scrum. Scott is still trying to break up the fight—he doesn’t see the CJPD coming. I take careful aim… and in rapid fire, I shoot every last one of them. I have to go back because I missed one—or maybe it just takes two darts because the guy is massive—but he goes down, too. A camera drone buzzes past my ear then whips around to face me, training its beady red recording eye on my masked face. I lurch up to standing and smack the thing out of the air—it hits the broken pavement with a satisfying crunch that spews plastic and metal pieces. It’s a useless gesture, as there are dozens more covering every possible angle of this nightmare.

  Then I dive in to help Scott break up the rest, not bothering to pull aside the Fronters, just shoving my gun barrel in their backs and pulling the trigger.

  In the next breath, it’s all over.

  The street is littered with bodies. Fronters and JFA mostly. I don’t know which are dead and which are tranq’d, but it’s bad. Scott, me, and three other jackers are the only ones standing. The Free Thinkers—the ones not lying in the street—are huddled with Tessa against the abandoned storefront. But most readers are upright and seem okay. Tessa’s long brown hair glints in the summer sun, a touch of beauty amongst the unbelievable
ugliness that’s just happened. She’s looking to me, waiting.

  I reach back to link into her head, Hold tight for a second. Then I turn to Scott. “Casualties?” My voice is rough.

  “Unknown.” He’s still surveying the scene, his mouth dropping open when he sees the cops have been tranq’d. He glances at the camera drone hovering above us—out of reach or I’d punch that one, too—then he turns a hard look to me. “We need to clear everyone out. Now.”

  I nod my quick agreement, and we set to work, turning over bodies to see who’s tranq’d or just injured. Some of those on the ground are just dazed, staying down after taking a hit. Some bloody noses, busted lips, and twisted ankles, but no gunshot wounds. No deaths, at least not on our side. And I didn’t hear any shots, now that I think about it, so the Fronters must have decided a fist fight made for better tru-cast footage. A few have their helmets off, so someone must have gotten those loose and then jacked them out. Several jackers are knocked out cold, including Anna, Hinckley, and a couple other front-liners the CJPD took out with their shock device. I reach out to check their mindfields, but they’re just passed out—the metal butterflies adhered to their chests delivered a conventional jacker-tuned shock, not Tiller’s mind-erasing kind. But there are a lot of wounded and unconscious people to evac before the rest of the CJPD shows up to haul them off.

  I help a dazed JFA member to her feet while I link back to Tessa, We could use some help. The police will be here soon.

  I glance back, but the Free Thinkers are already here, Tessa among them, their white armbands glinting in the sun as they help people to their feet, or in some cases, carry them. Of course. I should have known. The Free Thinkers were there at the bombing of the Stomp. They helped in the aftermath of the assassination of Julian Navarro. These “naïve” college kids have always been in the thick of the battle… or afterward, picking up the pieces. We’re a hobbled, shambling mess, but we get everyone up and moving.

  A distant siren wails.

  I only hope they’re coming for the wounded Fronters… and not for all of Jackertown.

  The health clinic is hushed.

  Scott and I shuffle in, carrying the last of the wounded—a girl with a twisted ankle—between us. The small waiting area is crammed, but one of the JFA gives up his seat for her. He’s bleeding from the head but doesn’t seem to care. The place is dead quiet and smells faintly of antiseptic. The injured hold ice packs to swollen lips and bruised cheeks, not speaking. I feel the weight of their judgment as they look anywhere but where I’m standing in the middle of the room.

  The door to the back swings open, and I’m stunned to see my mom and sister stride out. My mom stops and gives me a pinched look, but Olivia blurts out, “Zeph!” and lurches over to slam a hug into me. I wince—the Fronter’s jabs to my gut are still tender—but I squeeze her tight anyway. She’s still barely fourteen, but she’s not a little kid anymore—she almost comes up to my chin, and her grip has anger built into it.

  She shoves back from me. “Why didn’t you call me?” she demands, and I know she’s not complaining that I didn’t report in safe—she wanted to be there.

  Words tangle up in my throat.

  “Because he knows better than that,” my mom says. Which is both obvious—no way would I bring my kid sister to a situation like we had at the perimeter—and also an accusation. Like my mom expected better from me than to lead a bunch of Free Thinkers into a confrontation with the Fronters. She turns away and helps a girl up from her chair whose hands are bright red—her shirt has been burned off one arm, leaving charred flesh, black and stark pink, straight up to her white armband. My mom swiftly applies a med patch on a spot of unburned skin, and the relief is immediate on the girl’s face. My mom guides her toward the back.

  “Mom’s right,” I whisper to Olivia, the words thick in my mouth. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “Shouldn’t have what?” My sister’s voice is too loud. “Stood up to those Backsiders?”

  A smile tries to force its way out. “Backsiders?”

  “Yeah, you know…” She twists around. “Because they talk out of their—”

  “Olivia!” my mom cuts her off.

  A snort escapes from me. I shut it down, but I’m not the only one holding back a laugh.

  “Well, it’s true,” Olivia grumbles.

  “Come get the door.” My mom scowls as she waits, holding the arm of the injured Free Thinker. I sober quickly.

  Olivia hustles to the door and holds it open. She throws back, “Next time, call me.” Then they disappear into the back hallway to the examination rooms. It wasn’t so long ago that I was back there myself, healing the people my sister had struck down with her overpowered jack-surge ability.

  Next to me, Scott says, “Yeah, don’t be calling your sister.” He still has a smear of blood across his cheek. I’m not even sure if it’s his.

  “I know.” I give him a nod to back that up. Scott helped me stop Olivia from getting herself killed when she rampaged through Jackertown, then he took a bullet in the arm helping her escape from DARPA. He doesn’t want my sister in this any more than I do.

  “This thing is just starting to heat up,” he says, dropping his voice. The whole waiting room can still hear us. “I’m going to make some calls. See what I can find out.” He lifts his chin toward the door. “Get in there and make sure no one’s planning anything stupid.”

  I frown. “Like who?”

  “Like jackers who think we’re already at war.” He means Anna—who, last I saw, was still out from CJPD’s flying taser.

  And when she wakes up… “I’m on it.” I head toward the back while Scott slips out the front to make his calls—out of earshot and out of range of anyone who might try to jack in to eavesdrop, not that they’d get anywhere with that. Scott’s mindbarrier is as hard as mine.

  The swing door is noiseless as I push through, and the first person I see in the hallway is the last one I want to—Kira. She’s having an animated mind-discussion with Sasha and Ava. He was Julian’s right-hand man, and she was the Senator’s exec admin, and all three seem super agitated. I want to escape into one of the examination rooms before Kira sees me, but the squeak of my boots on the weathered tile gives me away—she holds up a finger for me to wait.

  The conversation down the hall is private—Kira and Sasha must be linked in to Ava’s mind since both their mindbarriers are impenetrable. I personally locked Sasha’s, back when I was proving to Julian I had something of value for the JFA, and Sasha never let me unlock it. He and Ava both were jackers before Kira put the inhibitors in the water, but then they lost their abilities, just like my mom. Their discussion is heated, whatever it is. Kira’s body language is all over the map—pleading, insistent, upset—whereas Sasha’s dark eyes barely blink. Ava is staring steadily at the floor, her long blond hair covering her face. Finally, after an awkward minute, Sasha and Ava break away, heading out the back, and Kira turns crisply to stride down the hall toward me.

  She looks me over. “You all right?”

  Am I bleeding or something? “Yeah, I’m fine.” There are a lot hurt worse than the couple bruises I’m probably sporting under my shirt. “What about them?” I nod down the hall where Sasha and Ava have disappeared.

  Kira gives me an inscrutable look. “They’re leaving. Going to melt into the woodwork. Pretend to be readers, which they are, mostly—neither has any jack ability left. And they see what’s coming. They don’t want to be here when the Fronters come for them.”

  I swallow. Core JFA, leaving? Getting out while they can? I have no idea what to say.

  Kira says nothing, just looks me over in a way that makes me squirm.

  “Okay,” I blurt out. “I was wrong.”

  Her gaze snaps back to meet mine. “Yes, you were.” She squeezes her eyes shut and rubs her forehead like it aches. “We’re lucky no one got killed.”

  “I know.” My chest feels tight. Tessa. Anna. Hinckley. Losing anyone… I’d have to a
nswer to a lot more than Kira’s stern looks. “I’m sorry.” It’s completely inadequate, but I’m not sure what else to say.

  “You should be.” Her steely gaze isn’t letting me even slightly off the hook. “But it doesn’t matter.”

  I blink. “What do you mean, it doesn’t—”

  “I mean… it doesn’t matter that you went to the protest. It doesn’t matter that you brought armed JFA to a volatile situation. There’s nothing you’ve done that justifies what the Fronters did out there. Or what they’re saying should be done to jackers.”

  I nod slowly. Because she’s right.

  She pulls in a breath, slow and seething. “We deserve to live, Zeph. Even if we make mistakes. We don’t have to be perfect to deserve basic human rights or freedom or the peaceful security that every reader earns by birthright. There’s nothing any of us have done to deserve the fate the Fronters want for us.”

  A cool feeling trickles through me—a relief at the truth being stated so bluntly. But a hot itch follows in its wake. The world isn’t fair, and it doesn’t give you what you deserve. Not if you’re a jacker.

  I shove my hands in my pockets. “What are we going to do?” If there’s a leader among us, it’s Kira, not me—no one should be following me. Obviously.

  She nods but doesn’t answer, just drifts her gaze to the closed doors of the examination rooms. “I was going to teach you how to heal people, Zeph.” Her voice is a whisper, but it grabs me and twists—I know she’s driven to blunt the damage from the inhibitors she put in the water. “I was going to heal them all.”

  But she can’t—and for once, it isn’t my fault. “Only the government is still spiking the water with inhibitors. And they’re not just damaging regular jackers, but creating super jackers, as well. On purpose.”

  She looks back to me. “And if they’re doing that behind the scenes while Torquin is talking about outfitting everyone with helmets…”