Everyone’s looking at me. “I’m a jacker.” My voice is insanely loud. It echoes. “I’m an experiment created by the government. And so are all of you.” I pause because I feel sick. I swallow that down and stand straighter. Everyone—readers and jackers alike—wear confusion on their faces. It’s time to set them straight. “Readers and jackers both—you were all created by the government. You’re right there’s a difference between us. I should know—I can change any of you jackers into a reader, and any reader into a jacker. I was designed to do that.” Everyone’s listening now. “You’re right that the great thing about readers is having no secrets. No lies. Everything’s open and honest. Except your leaders have been lying to you from the very start.” I pause and glance at the president. He’s ashen-faced and more than willing to let me be the one to spill the rest. “The truth is that those pharmaceuticals in the water, the ones that changed the first readers? They were put there by the government.” Blank surprise ripples through the crowd—jaws hanging open, eyes wide. A few are angry. But most are used to being told the truth, and even now, even with a confessed jacker on stage, they believe me. Or at least wonder. “Instead of confessing to their mistakes, the people in power put you in camps. Because, you see, at the time, the world feared mindreaders. Just like jackers now. We’re no different than you. We literally are you—just with a few more inhibitors in our bloodstreams triggering a genetic secret that’s been there for a hundred years. Readers and jackers are just people—not good people or bad people, just people… doing good and bad things. A reader with a gun is just as dangerous as a jacker. Just because you have a weapon—just because you are a weapon—doesn’t mean you have to pull the trigger.”
And then I’m out of breath and out of words. I stop leaning on the president as he steps forward and takes the mic from my hand.
“Everything Zeph is saying is true.” He stands tall, his voice booming with that authority that comes from being the guy in charge forever. “We’ve been lying to you…” He glances at me, then looks back to the crowd—and the cameras buzzing in front of us, beaming all of this to the nation. “And that stops today. We have to strive to make peace. To believe that…” He hesitates. “That peace is possible. There isn’t any other option.”
The crowd is uneasy now, but I feel about ten feet tall—like my head has detached from my body and is floating around somewhere above the stage. It’s surreal—I’m not entirely sure this is happening—but then I see people moving, turning to one another, helping the injured up from the ground, consoling the crying children. People nodding to one another, hands extended, arms clasped to help up the fallen.
Only there are many who aren’t getting up.
“I have work to do,” I say quietly to the president. It still gets picked up by the mic. Then I turn to Wright who is frozen in place, looking terrified, and nod to the camera drone. “Tell them everything.” By which I mean almost everything, but I’m sure she knows that.
I leave them to it, hurrying off stage, heading for the concrete plaza littered with bodies—but my mind is already reaching ahead. The jacker bodies sprawled around the Thinkers sculpture have vacant minds—just static buzz left behind by the orbs’ attack. Some must have been converted to readers, and there are a couple who are simply dead, their minds gone dark, mindfields absent. But a good twenty-five or more jackers are merely wiped clean.
I don’t know these people.
I can’t resurrect their lives.
But I can make sure they don’t die.
One by one, I dose them with endorphins to minimize the pain, then spin up their mindfields, find a jacker configuration, and drop them into it. I have to stop walking halfway to the center of the plaza—between leftover nausea and spinning mindfields, I can’t move and craft minds at the same time. I close my eyes to focus and keep ticking through them. I hear Torquin talking then Wright’s strained voice, but I block that out and work on saving these people before their minds dissipate.
A hand lands on my shoulder, and my eyes pop open.
“You all right?” It’s Scott. His face is messed up—bloody and bruised.
“Yeah, I’m just…” I gesture to the fallen, but most are getting up.
“I know. Keep doing it.” He glances up at the stage. More people are gathering up there—some of the CJPD are forming a protective guard around the president, but they seem almost lost. “I’ve got something I need to do,” Scott says.
I frown, but he’s already walking away, heading for the stage.
I shake my head and go back to focusing on the mind-blasted jackers. There’s only a few left, and I quickly resurrect them. They’re dazed. They have no memory of anything, not even who they are. I watch, amazed, as readers take them by the arm and help them up. There’s a strange communing going on, groups of readers and jackers standing together, silent. When I brush their mindfields, I see the readers putting on a replay of what’s just happened—sounds and words and emotion, filling in the blank slate that is the minds of the newly resurrected jackers.
Telling them about the world—our world. The new one that’s just been started.
But there are others who are still on the ground.
One reader family—a mother and father—are crying over a young girl, maybe thirteen, sprawled out on the concrete. There’s a helmet near her head, but when I brush her mindfield, there’s only static.
I lurch over to them and kneel down. “Is she a jacker?” I guess.
The mom can’t answer, just clutches the girl’s hand. The father says, “We were waiting for her to change. She was late, but…” He can’t finish.
I piece it together—she was jacker hiding from her family, pretending to be a zero until she could master her skills. The helmet would have allowed her to not stand out at the rally—a place of intolerance. She would have ended up on a Purity list if she was outed.
She must have lost her helmet in the scuffle, then the orbs found her.
I reach into her mind, dose her with painkilling brain chemicals, then spin up her mindfield. Her body twitches, and her mother cries out. I can’t restore this girl’s memories, but I borrow a few from her mother and father. Her favorite chat-cast. The fact that she loves dancing. Her favorite synth band. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Then I have to decide—jacker or reader?
I decide not to take away the one thing I knew she was.
I let her mindfield fall into a jacker configuration. She gasps awake. Her mother cries out and scoops her into her arms. The father has wordless gratitude in his eyes as he looks to me and struggles for words. I’m sure I could find them in his head, but I don’t pry.
“Send her to me,” I say, “if she wants to learn how to control her abilities.”
He just nods, eyes glassing.
I stand up, surprised to find Anna looming next to me. “Are you done?” she asks. It’s softer than her normal voice.
I frown and glance around—and quickly see Juliette sobbing over Sammi. “Oh no,” I whisper. Then I lurch into a run, dodging the wandering new jackers and dazed readers. When I get there, I quickly kneel next to Sammi, but there’s so much blood… the white concrete is dark with it.
Juliette’s hands are soaked, the red painting her skin as she’s still trying to staunch the flow from the wound in Sammi’s chest. I reach into Sammi’s mind… and there’s nothing but static.
Not darkness. Static.
She’s still alive, but… “Did an orb attack her?” I ask Juliette.
She peers up at me, completely wrecked. Her lips tremble. “I couldn’t…” She gasps in air. “I couldn’t stop…”
“Of course not.” Breath is frozen in my chest. Can I resurrect her? She was already shot when the orb hit—maybe the two together was just too much. I place my hand over Juliette’s putting more pressure on the wound, just in case that might help. Then I peer up at Anna, who followed me over. “She needs an ambulance,” I say roughly.
Ann
a’s eyes go wide, but then she dashes off.
I close my eyes and focus, reaching into Sammi’s mind. The static is growing weaker. I don’t know if her body can take the spin—I might just kill her with trying. But if I don’t…
I can’t find anything functioning well enough in her mind to dose her with brain chemicals, so I just spin. Her body lurches under mine and Juliette’s hold on her shoulder. I brace the other one and keep spinning. Sammi moans, a horrific sound that makes me cringe all over, but I hold her down as I work and shape her mindfield until it matches the map burned into my memory.
Then I let it drop.
Sammi cries out and lurches against our hold.
Then she falls limp on the concrete… but she’s breathing again.
I let loose my own breath.
Juliette’s frantic, calling to her. Sammi doesn’t respond. I jack in to do whatever I can—boost her heart rate, dose her with calming brain chemicals, but there’s no way I can fix a hole in her body. Or replace all the blood she’s lost.
A paramedic arrives. He and his partner lift Sammi onto a stretcher and carry her away. Juliette goes with them.
I stand there, hands coated in Sammi’s blood, watching them go.
“You did good,” Anna says. She’s by my side again.
“I hope it was good enough.” It’s all I can say. I’m spent in every way.
Up on the stage, the crowd has grown. The president is holding court with the intrepid reporters who have appeared from somewhere. Wright has her own coterie. And Scott… Scott’s talking to the press, and the only thing I can figure is that he’s doing the same as Wright—telling everything he knows so the truth will finally be set free.
Everyone else is just picking themselves up, holding each other, and finding a way to put the pieces back together. Like people do, given half a chance. Given a little bit of peace.
For once, I think things might actually be okay.
The sign is polished brass and brand new, but it’s just not right.
Prof. Zephyr MacCay.
“I mean, come on,” I say. “It’s ridiculous.”
Tessa tugs on my arm, pulling me away from the sign outside my new office. “It’s just temporary. They’ll have a much nicer office for you once the new building is up.”
“That is not what I mean.” I give her a fake scowl.
“Are you going to link into my head and tell me what you really mean?” She grins and slips her arms around my waist, peering up at me and making me forget almost entirely about the sign.
I brush her hair behind her ear and contemplate kissing her. We have a little time before my class starts. “I just thought Northwestern had higher standards.”
She scowls, but I think it’s for real. “Not that again.”
“What? I’m just saying, it’s ridiculous to call me Professor Anything when I haven’t even graduated from high school.” I’ve waited too long to kiss her because now she looks perturbed. At me, or at least in my general direction.
“There is literally no one on the planet who is better qualified to be a professor in the Julian Navarro Memorial School for Jacker Studies.” She pouts. “And you need a better attitude before you start your class.”
I think she’s going to grumble at me some more, but instead, she reaches up on her tiptoes and pulls me in for a kiss. Which I am seriously down for, especially since it banishes the mild heart palpitations I’m having about this first class session. I hold her tight, turn her, and press her up against the wall where the sign is hanging. She giggles, but I’m serious about this kiss, so she stops.
Making out in the hallway of Northwestern University.
Kissing the girl of my dreams like I don’t care who’s watching.
No worries about Clan leaders or DARPA goons or maniacal MINDWARE tycoons.
Yeah, my life is pretty damn perfect right now.
It’s amazing what a couple months and a whole lot of truth can do for the world.
That, and a federal investigation, a few felony convictions, and the shutting down of the Jacker Detention Center in favor of specialized jacker cells inside the normal reader-prisons. They’re just called “Correctional Centers” now, with separate incarceration depending on the type of bad guy you are. Tiller’s sitting in one designed for rich bad-guy readers caught using their money and power to kill innocent jackers—they keep him away from the general jacker population for his own safety. Wright’s temporarily in one where you can host chat-casts from your cell and plot your celebrity tour post-release—she traded a whole bunch of testimony and documents for a criminally-light sentence. The people she flipped on—including the Secretary of Defense who took the hardest fall of all—will probably never see daylight again. Torquin is still in office, but that won’t last forever. He’s decided not to run for re-election, based on my promise to talk to the tru-casts if he does.
They’re all getting (mostly) what they deserve—justice served—and part of me still wonders if someday I’ll pay for everything I’ve done. Or if being the jacker who uncovered the greatest reader lie of our time grants me permanent immunity.
It seems to. The main evidence for which is that I’m kissing Tessa McIntyre as a free man.
Eventually, I have to come up for air.
Tessa’s breathless and a little flushed, and sweet mercy, she’s beautiful. It’s still hard for me to believe this is real.
I link into her head, I could do this all day. Like literally. We could just cancel the class—
Stop it. You’re a professor now. You can’t skip classes.
I knew there was something rotten about this deal. But I’m smiling. And so is she. And my heart is singing some kind of love song that’s hopelessly stupid.
I reluctantly release her from where I have her pinned against my Professor Plaque.
She pulls out her phone and gasps. “Come on! We’re going to be late!” Then she grabs my hand and tows me down the hall. I’m still getting used to the layout of the campus. We pass a hallway with a view of the lake, then an open-air study lounge between glass-enclosed classrooms, then finally arrive at the room where I’m supposed to deliver my first lecture on Mindfield Theory: Practical Applications. Which is still hilarious every time I think about it—and gives me a small panic attack as we approach the door.
I pull Tessa back with our clasped hands, just before she opens it. “What if no one shows up?”
“You’re kidding, right?” She gives me this wide-open look like she’s really not sure if I’m serious.
“They probably all went to Kira’s class.” I’ve faced down brutal Clan leaders, evil DARPA Directors, and the President of the United States, but this teaching thing is entirely outside my comfort zone. “She’s got actual experience teaching people about jacker stuff. I mean, that’s where I’d go.” Kira’s been training jacker healers for a while at the health clinic—she knows what she’s doing. I have no idea why anyone thought I could step into this. Julian’s new Memorial School is comprised mostly of her and me at the moment—the building won’t even break ground until next year—but the University was adamant about starting up classes right away, using existing space.
I’m still half convinced Tessa orchestrated it all.
She just shakes her head like I’m an idiot. A stubborn idiot. “Kira’s class is Biomedical Interventions Using Jacking—it’s more advanced. Besides, you’re famous.” She grins.
“Yeah, maybe too famous.” I’m not worried about some random jacker from my past coming after me… or even a holdover Fronter. Their group’s been officially disbanded, and not because President Torquin’s new Peace Initiative recommended it—they just lost most of their members when their hero Senator Simpson got hauled out of Congress in cuffs for his part in Julian’s assassination. I figure those guys—the Fronters—were half-demens to start with, just looking for an excuse to beat people up—without a leader, they’re left with bar brawls and too much obscura to be a threat.
&n
bsp; Tessa frowns and steps back from the door. “Are you really worried someone will try something here in class?”
“No,” I admit. “Unless you count people laughing because I’m obviously not qualified for any of this. Pretty sure that’s going to happen.”
Then she gets this look like she thinks I’m a puppy who’s just adorable but also hopelessly stupid. “You never have understood, Zeph.”
“Understood what?” I don’t think I will like the answer.
She takes my hand, folds it closed, and lightly kisses the back. “How your strength isn’t in spinning mindfields or taking down bad guys.”
“So, it’s the muscles then.” My smile is uneven. “I’ve always known you were just after me for the body.”
She grins wide. “Nope. I’ve only ever been after one thing.” She’s easing closer, and I sincerely hope it’s for another kiss.
“What’s that?” I’m all ears.
“That soft heart of yours.” She kisses me, but it’s just a peck on the cheek. Very disappointing.
I let out a long sigh and glance at the door. “So, I have to do this, then?”
“Yup.” She backs away and opens the door. A light drift of conversation floats through—a couple people stand right inside.
I suck in a breath and force myself to act like I know what I’m doing.
But when I stride in, I freeze at the top of the stairs. This isn’t a classroom—it’s an auditorium. I don’t know how many people it seats, but it’s a lot, and the place is packed. I throw Tessa a you have to be kidding glance, but she’s already stealing off to find a spot. Juliette and Sammi are in the top row, and they’ve saved her a seat. They whisper their hellos, then Juliette and Sammi go back to holding hands. The two have been inseparable since Jackertown. Sammi was in the hospital for a week, but she made a fast recovery. And now that Tiller’s in prison, Juliette stands to inherit whatever’s left of her father’s fortune, after the Feds bust up the dark companies and shutter the orb production. She’s already pledged a cool 100M unos to Northwestern to build Julian’s memorial school—which is perfect, except for the part where I’m stalling at the top of the stairs of the class I’m supposed to teach.
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