The light chirp of her mental laughter doesn’t help.
Man, I’ve missed that, I link to her.
Her smile tempers. I was worried about you. Like… really worried.
My heart expands. Tell me you’re not getting too many crazies with the Jacker Voice.
Her face falls blank. Nothing too serious. Then she mentally skitters away from that… and I feel like an arrow pierces my over-inflated heart. Is she lying? She must be. The question is: how bad is it really?
She slides right into another train of thought, just like a pro. Your sister, though, is a regular superhero. She’s been bringing people in every other hour.
I shake my head. I bet she loves that.
She’s saving lives, Zeph.
I try not to let my worry show.
And Kira’s Jacker Voice is having an impact, she thinks. People are flooding into Jackertown. The Fronters haven’t been back—not since the protest went wrong—and they’re still spewing all their hate, but they’re not the only ones speaking up now. People are finding their voices with this… and not just the jackers.
I should have known the two of them—Tessa and Kira—would reach people. And mobilize a pushback against all the hate. Tell Kira I’m doing what I can on the inside. I’ll be back just as soon as I’ve got something for her. Something she can take public.
Tessa nods but drops her gaze. She thinks she should get back to her cleaning duties before she’s missed, but she doesn’t want to go. As if she’s got something else to tell me, but she’s keeping it out of her thoughts. I definitely don’t want her to leave.
Hey, wait, I link in, just realizing something. You’re leaving the estate at the end of your shift, right?
She nods. Kira said to get all the info from you that I could before I leave.
I can do better than that. I step away from the wall, trusting myself a little more now. I’ve got an orb—one of the jacker drones. Tessa’s working on it in the lab, but I know Sammi would want a crack at it too.
Her artificially green eyes light up. Kira and I could take it on the show.
I grimace. Not until we don’t need it anymore. Tiller’s got plans—I don’t know what exactly, but something is brewing. Lots of military brass have been through here. I tip my head toward the door. Do you know where Juliette’s lab is?
She nods.
I don’t think we should be seen together but get there as soon as you can. I’ll check with Juliette and see if she can part with it. The trick will be getting it past security on your way out.
She frowns. I’ll think of something.
I have no doubt she will. You know, I might like it if you keep the red hair. And the green eyes. Just for a while.
She squints at me. Maybe I should slap you. Just for the cameras.
I grin, and I’m oh so tempted to needle her into it. Get out before I kiss you.
She pouts, and I’m back to thinking I need to grip the wall to hold myself back. But she turns on her flat, sensible shoes and strolls to the door of the gym. It is not my imagination that there’s extra saunter in her walk.
She’s killing me.
I wait a good two minutes, peeling the resistance suit pads off my arms and legs and giving her time to clear out, then I leave the gym and head straight to the lab. Juliette’s bent over the dissected orb, poking at it with two needle-like devices. The screens that cover the wall behind her are a mix of security feeds, scrolling data, and tru-cast reports, but she’s focused on the mini-screen on the countertop next to her. She’s hunched over, but I can see the shadows under her eyes. She licks her chapped lips, ignoring my entrance.
With the door shut, I’m free to speak out loud. “How’s it going?”
She shrugs and doesn’t look up.
I link into her head. Got word that Sammi’s worried about you.
Juliette jolts like the probe has zapped her. She jerks her head up. “What did you say?”
I give her a tight smile. “She’s fine. She got the message and got out. But she’s worried about you being trapped. Tessa had to hold her off from busting in to get you.”
Her face is slack with surprise. “How do you know all this?” she demands, setting down the needle-like probes and giving me her full attention.
“Tessa’s here.” I can’t help the smile that goes with that.
“In the estate?” She gives me a look like she’s not sure if I’ve lost it.
I grin harder. “She snuck in. And she’ll be here—at the lab—any second.” I lift my chin toward the dissected orb. “Can we give it to her? She can smuggle it out to Sammi and Kira.”
Juliette leans back and shakes her head. “I’m not done with it. I can’t seem to…” She scowls at the device on the benchtop.
“Maybe Sammi will have better luck.”
“I don’t know—”
A light tapping at the door cuts her off. Juliette gives me a wary look then goes to the screen on the wall and flips through to bring up a feed from the hall. Tessa is standing there with a pushcart of cleaning supplies. I hurry over to let her in. She ducks her head on the way, and I quickly close the door.
Then her eyes go wide, taking in the feeds on the giant screen.
I link into her mind—her thoughts and Juliette’s are tumbling over each other.
Is Sammi really okay? She’s fine. Are you? Yeah. Sammi’s just worried. And stubborn. You don’t even know how stubborn! What is it with jackers? I know right? You wouldn’t believe—But why wouldn’t she just message? It’s so risky, you being here. It’s fine. I wanted to come, and besides…
I break in. It’s safe to talk here, you know—
They both look at me. Then Tessa says, “Kira’s worried about you, too.” But that’s not what’s in her head. That’s not why she came. It flushes warmth through me, same as before.
“Okay, look.” Juliette runs her hands over her face, rubbing away the fatigue. “I can give you the orb. I’ve gotten all the data I can from it anyway.” She scowls at Tessa. “Just don’t let Sammi test it out on her own head.”
Tessa raises her eyebrows. I’m skeptical, too.
“Fine!” Juliette throws up her hands and stalks back to the disassembled orb. But she just clutches the edge of the counter and glares at it.
“How are you going to smuggle it out?” I ask Tessa quietly.
She squints at Juliette. “I didn’t bring a bag or anything—it would be suspicious to take one out. I’ll have to hide it in my clothes somehow.”
Her slim pants don’t hide much, but her blouse is a little more roomy. “That’s going to be a tight fit.”
“I’ll make it work.” She presses her lips together, watching the angry precision with which Juliette is reassembling some parts. “Kira sent me to find out… do you need extraction? Because she’ll make it happen.”
I frown and glance at Juliette.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says without looking at us. “I can continue working here on a blocker for the drone’s AI jack capability. And I only got a few shipping schedules and random files from the break-in. Not enough to know what he’s planning. We still have work to do.”
Tessa’s frown grows darker. In answer to her questioning look, I just shake my head. If we leave now, there will be no coming back. “Tiller’s got something in motion. We need to figure out what it is.” And I’m still hoping if I go back into Tiller’s office we’ll stumble on some data about my own father.
Tessa sighs, but it’s tight. Meanwhile, Juliette has gathered up the pieces and scavenged a slim roll of gauzy white fabric from a drawer.
She brings it over, and her expression locks down. “This adhesive tape will hold the parts securely under your shirt, then puff up to conceal the bumps. We’ll wrap it smooth, so it doesn’t show.”
Tessa nods, then she’s distracted by something on the screen behind us. “That’s Torquin,” she says. “The Jacker Voice has come out denying that the JFA is spiking the water with in
hibitors. Torquin said he would make a statement about that today.”
Juliette scowls, and I step over to swipe up the vid she’s talking about. A larger-than-life image of the president shows him delivering a speech in front of a throng of reporters with thought-wave boom mics plus a crowd of ordinary people behind them. He’s standing outside the Chicago Tribune tower downtown, and his words scroll at the bottom of the screen.
It’s never my intention to alarm the good people of this country, he’s saying.
Which is entirely untrue. He and his anti-jacker pal Simpson—our new Senator from Illinois—do nothing but stoke the fears of the mindreading population.
But in the interests of complete honesty, Torquin continues, which is the type of thing we should all be striving for, and which exemplifies the best of what it means to be a mindreader… I’ve decided to declassify a vid to share with you. He gives a nod, and the flag backdrop behind him must be a screen because it starts to play. There’s a closeup of someone manually programming a screen. There are two tanks of liquid on the display, and with a series of taps, one tank is directed to empty into the other. This is a tank of jacker inhibitors, Torquin intones, his voice grave. They’re being dumped into the water supply in the Chicago New Metro area by the JFA.
“This can’t be real,” Tessa says, but her voice is tight.
My heart is lurching around inside my chest. Because there’s a timestamp on it from just a few weeks ago.
We all know these inhibitors are responsible for the radical rise of jackers today. Our demens. Our family members. No one is safe. And this evidence… Torquin stabs a finger at the screen behind him. Proves the JFA is a threat to every reader mind. The vid pulls back. There’s a large, muscular man with short hair watching the display. He turns to face the camera.
My heart lurches.
“That’s Major John Scott!” Tessa’s horrified.
“Holy crap,” Juliette breathes.
“It’s not what you think,” I rush out. But it is—it’s exactly what they’re thinking—except Scott wasn’t working for the JFA when he dropped the inhibitors. “DARPA ordered this. He was working for them.”
The horror on Tessa’s face doesn’t diminish much.
“Are you sure?” Juliette asks, squinting at the vid, which is on replay.
“He didn’t have to tell me,” I say, a little defensive. But they need to know who’s really on their side. “He walked away from DARPA—you know he risked everything to break out my mom and sister, right?”
Tessa and Juliette both give reluctant nods to that.
The vid stops playing—it looks like Scott shut it down.
I’m officially designating the JFA as a terrorist organization. Torquin stares straight into the camera. I promise I will not rest until every jacker responsible for harm to the good mindreading people of our country is brought to justice. In coordination with the Mayor of Chicago New Metro and our newly-elected Senator from Illinois, a thorough investigation has been launched, and the search for the jackers responsible for poisoning our water has already resulted in the capture of known accomplices in the Chicago New Metro area. Another vid starts up, and I have to do a double take—the Chicago Jack Police are jack-shocking a man, and I swear I know him. Once he’s down, his face is less contorted. The close up only lasts a half second, but then I’m sure—Rutkowski. The jacker Clan leader who captured Jiaying. Who let his sons and their friend abuse her so horribly that she’s still recovering.
I can’t feel remorse that he’s being dragged away by the CJPD, but I know where he’s headed—the Jacker Detention Center. Tiller’s source of jacker “volunteers” for his experiments. And as much as I hate Rutkowski and his kind, that’s not a fate I’d wish on anyone.
“Man, I hate that guy.” Juliette switches off the vid. She means Torquin.
Tessa is wide-eyed. “A terrorist organization?” Then the anger comes a beat later. “As if readers aren’t terrorizing jackers right now, killing them in the streets!”
Juliette shakes her head. “Not to mention spiking the water with inhibitors then blaming the JFA. No wonder more and more people keep turning.”
“They’re trying to make things worse between readers and jackers,” I say, looking mostly to Tessa. “That’s the whole point.”
“These guys are feeding off the fear,” she agrees.
Juliette bites her lip. “Sammi’s back with the JFA, isn’t she?”
Tessa gives her a sharp nod. And my girlfriend wants to go right back into the heat of it, too.
Juliette steps closer, drone pieces and tape in hand. “Well, we better get moving then. We need to build some defenses for the JFA.”
Tessa takes the stuff from Juliette’s hands.
Juliette frowns. “I’ll help you—”
“That’s okay.” Tessa dashes a look to me. “Zeph will help me tape it on.”
Juliette’s eyebrows shoot up, then she puts her hands up. “Okay, then. I’ll just… give you guys some privacy.” She starts backing toward the door.
Not that I don’t want time alone with Tessa—especially with her shirt off—but she’s being very strange about this.
Juliette smirks a little as she slips out the lab door.
“Okay,” I say to Tessa. “Are we making out before or after I tape a weapon of mass mental destruction to your body?”
“Zeph.” She sets the stuff down on the countertop and grabs my hands, pulling me close. “I want you to… I need you to change me.”
I lean back. “What are you talking about?”
Her hands are trembling slightly in mine. “I know it will hurt. It’s okay.”
“What?” She can’t be saying what I think—
“Make me a jacker.”
I let go of her hands and step back. My hands are up, palms out to her, saying no and more no and what the hell are you thinking? but none of those words are coming out of my mouth because I’m flat-out stunned.
“I know you can do it,” she insists, edging forward as I back up. “Kira told me.”
“No,” I sputter. I can’t even put into words the horror this is.
“Don’t you see?” Her fake-green eyes are imploring me. “I’m known as a reader. There’s no question. If you change me into a jacker, everyone will know it’s possible. That we’re essentially the same. They won’t be able to deny it anymore.”
“Yes, they will.” My mouth can barely function and expel words. “They’ll blame it on the inhibitors.”
Her eyes light up, and a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Not if you change me back. That’s never been done before!”
It has—specifically, I’ve done it before—but not to anyone I loved. And not without a hell of a lot of pain and/or brain chemical dosing. “Tessa, no.”
“It’s how I can serve the cause, Zeph.” She’s angry now. “Why won’t you do it?”
“I just… I can’t.” And even if I could force myself, I wouldn’t, but I don’t know how to say it without sounding like a selfish jackhole. That I want her just as she is. That I’m doing all this so we can be together just as we are. Jackers and readers together for real.
No pretending. No lies. No changing my girlfriend so she’s just like me.
My silence goes too long.
That fire in her eyes cools suddenly, the way molten lava turns to stone. She blinks, rapidly, then starts to unbutton her shirt. I watch, horrified at the stone-cold expression she has for me now. She holds my gaze the whole time—an eternity that probably only lasts ten seconds—then she pulls her shirt off.
Standing before me in just her bra and pants, she says, “Tape me up.”
I swallow and do as she says, strapping pieces of tech stolen from a powerful billionaire to my girlfriend's body. She’s willing to give everything to this cause—her cause, our cause—and yet what she asks of me, I shirk from like it’s a live electrical wire. I want to say something as I wind the long roll of tape around her slender waist, t
rapping the bits of metal and wire between layers, but words fail me.
When I finish, most of her midsection is covered with the sticky gauze. It’s already puffing out smooth, and when she turns her back on me, I can’t see the contraband under her shirt. While she buttons up, I’m still struggling with what to say.
Only when she turns to her pushcart of cleaning supplies, heading for the door, does my tongue finally loosen. “Tessa, wait.”
She turns sharply. “It’s okay. I understand.” But her voice is so cold it could cut steel. “You want me to stay safe.”
“Yes.” Maybe she does understand.
“But all I’ve ever wanted, Zeph, was to make a difference. Do something real.” She faces the door. “I’ll just have to do it without you.”
My heart spasms, choking off my words again as she pushes through the door.
She’s gone.
Juliette appears in the open doorway, looking rapidly between Tessa and me down the hall. Then she hustles in and shuts the door, worry etching her face. “What happened?”
I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. Or in thoughts. My face probably spells it out anyway.
Tessa just broke up with me.
Juliette’s snores are like breathy kitten sighs.
She’s passed out next to me on the vast pink plushness that is her large round bed. I don’t know when she got in—I crashed around ten, but she had to have worked in the lab past midnight. I was up staring at the simulated starfield on her bedroom walls until at least then. Somewhere along the way, I must have slept because I didn’t hear her come in. Then half an hour ago, the wall-screens lit up with a sim of sunrise—sweeping white sand beaches on every side with glowing pink clouds in a purple sky.
I jacked it back to darkness.
But sleep was banished, and I didn’t want to disturb her, so I’m lying here watching the latest tru-casts on my phone. The purity killings have almost stopped—or rather, they’re being prevented. Another kid—this one was just a changeling, about thirteen—was found dead outside Jackertown last night, but that’s the only one since I’ve been at the estate, nearly a week now. Amazingly, my sister Olivia and the JFA are actually keeping the targeted kids safe, at least until they can ferry them into Jackertown. The Reader’s First Front is still spouting their hatred, no doubt hunting jackers behind the scenes when they appear on the Purity list. And with the president declassifying the supposed vid of the JFA spiking the water, there’s more tension than ever. The CJPD are cracking down on the jacker gangs, or at least making a show of it—a ton of arrests were made overnight. Lots of vids of police in helmets breaking down doors and taking out jackers with shock weapons. Which only makes my gut cinch tighter. If the police knew all along where the jacker gangs lived, why not take them out sooner? Why let them terrorize jackers and readers alike?
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