by K A Riley
Cardyn playfully sings out to her, calling her “Manthy the misanthrope.” Manthy replies from under her covers by calling him “Cardyn the mucous-y maggot-sandwich.”
“Leave her be,” Rain chuckles.
“She started it,” Cardyn complains. Then he pauses, his finger on his chin. “Oh, wait. No, she didn’t. That was me, wasn’t it?”
“As usual,” Brohn grumbles, leaning across the space between their beds to give Cardyn a half-hearted punch to the shoulder.
At one point, I excuse myself to slip out into the hallway. With my head down so I don’t attract any unnecessary attention from the three Insubordinates milling around and whispering down at the end of the hall, I swipe my fingers across my forearm tattoos to engage my connection with Render. Leaning back against the wall, I feel my eyes go black as I enter Render’s world. He pushes back against me. He’s trying to sleep.
I just wanted to see how your day was. To make sure you’re okay.
Render responds with a rush of feelings instead of words: Fed. Flew. Satisfied. Happy. Free.
I’m smiling and starting to disconnect when I get one more feeling from him: Fear.
Before I have a chance to figure out what it means or even if I only imagined it, Render gives himself over to sleep, and the connection is broken.
Shaking off the nagging sense of dread and convincing myself out loud that it’s nothing, I head back into our dorm room to chat some more with Brohn, Cardyn, and Rain. They’re talking about the Patriot Army and how Krug managed to dupe and assemble so many people into his cause so quickly, but I’m not really paying much attention. I keep thinking about Render.
When it’s just me and Brohn left awake, I switch my focus away from Render, and Brohn and I talk in whispers, back and forth across the space between our beds, about what life is going to be like this time next week.
“Who knows?” he says, “Maybe we can go on a real date.”
“You mean like with holding hands and giggling over private jokes and window-shopping and everything?” I pretend-gush.
“Well, I’m not sure if either of us is ready to take the next big steps of giggling or hand-holding.”
“And the window-shopping?”
“I’ve never window-shopped with anyone before,” Brohn confesses with mock regret. “I just hope we don’t become so overcome with emotion that we wind up rebelling against convention and indulging in some madcap browsing.”
“I don’t know…rebelling is kind of our thing, isn’t it? After all, we’re here to lead a revolt.”
“Well,” Brohn whispers with a flick of his head in Cardyn’s direction. “He can be pretty revolting sometimes.”
I press my covers to my mouth to stifle a laugh.
We joke around like that for a little while more, although the parts about us being together, I mean really together—just the two of us—don’t sound like jokes. The whole time, we don’t say a word about the upcoming battle, the training, or the odds against us.
“When we’re out there,” Brohn says, “not holding hands, not kissing, not falling in love, and definitely not window-shopping, let’s at least make each other a promise.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“Let’s promise, no matter what happens, that we won’t try too hard to be normal, okay?”
“Brohn, I don’t think we could be normal no matter how hard we tried.”
He smiles, and we reach across the space between our beds to touch hands before I drift off into a quiet, restful sleep.
5
Sunday
Sunday, our second day in the Style, starts off much like our first: We wake up, wash up, pull on our clothes for the day, and then, sadly, split up with Rain, Manthy, and me going downstairs and Brohn and Cardyn going upstairs with Granden.
When we arrive at the Intel Room, Wisp welcomes us in with a broad sweep of her hand and informs us that we’re ready to engage in the next level of surveillance. Like yesterday, Wisp goes over the city and the plan in increasingly minute detail. Pacing back and forth, calling up image after image on the holo-display, and bantering back and forth with Rain about defining an optimal set of strategies, she’s clearly leaving nothing to chance. All morning, she talks, teaches, and quizzes us on everything we’ve learned so far until my brain feels like a ready-to-burst water balloon.
As I walk over to the table, Wisp ticks off facts on her fingers. “Thanks to Olivia, you now know the basics of the neighborhoods and buildings that are about to be our battlefields. You know the overall plan. You know some of the specifics. You know what’s at stake, and you know about Krug’s arrival and about the Patriot Army. Now it’s time for us to know what they know.”
Olivia threads her tendrils into one of the glossy spheres floating above her monitors. “From what Granden tells us, you and Render are better than any combat drone,” she hums.
“I’d say that’s probably true,” I agree through a yawn. “Minus the ability to destroy a town.”
“Yet,” Olivia says without looking up from her monitors.
I can’t tell if she’s joking or if she really thinks I have the potential or even the desire to weaponize my relationship with Render. Before I have a chance to figure it out one way or the other, Olivia calls our attention to the holo-screen on the panel she refers to as the Central Terminal. She summons me over, and I have to duck under one of her floating spheres to stand next to her. Manthy follows close behind me, and we drop down into mag-chairs next to Olivia while Rain and Wisp sit on the opposite side of the black glass table.
“Up until now, we’ve had field agents go on sorties to gather intel,” Wisp explains.
“Sounds like a good strategy,” Rain says.
“It would be. Except, as I mentioned yesterday, everyone we’ve sent out has either come back with nothing or else…”
“Or else what?”
“Or else they haven’t come back at all.”
All I can say is, “Oh,” as the realization of the gravity of this situation continues to sink in.
“We’re at a turning point here,” Wisp says. “Honestly, the Patriot Army is close to shutting us down. They’ve barricaded us in the city along with everyone else, and they have posts set up all over to keep us in check. It won’t be long before they make their final move and either root us out or else give up and nuke the whole city just to be on the safe side.”
“They wouldn’t do that, would they?” Manthy asks, her voice barely audible even though she’s right next to me.
Wisp gives her a somber look. “You’ve been out there. You’ve seen the cratered towns and cities they’ve left behind. There is nothing they won’t do. We know what they’re capable of. But we still need to know what resources they have, when and how they might be deployed…everything.”
“In short, we need to get better intel,” Olivia says. “We’ve tried drones, but they keep getting spotted and shot down.”
“When they work at all,” Wisp adds.
“Let me guess,” I say. “That’s where I come in.”
“Well, you and Render. How much control do you have?”
“Over Render?” I ask, and Wisp nods. “None.”
“But I thought—”
“She doesn’t control him,” Manthy interrupts from her seat between me and Olivia.
“It’s a partnership,” Rain adds, and I smile at how well these two girls have come to understand me, defend me, and even explain me.
Wisp offers her apologies. “I get it. I guess I’m just used to giving commands these days.”
“Speaking of which,” I say with a sweep of my hand, “You never really did tell us how you managed to do all this. I mean, no offense, but you’re a…”
“One-hundred-pound teenage girl?”
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it. But yes.”
Wisp shrugs. “I guess growing up like we did gave us all certain survival instincts.”
I expect her to elaborate, but she doesn
’t. Instead, she folds her hands in front of her like she’s praying. “So?” she asks into the silence. “Can I see?”
“See what?”
“What you and Render can do.”
“There’s nothing to see,” I point out. “I just tap into him, and I see what he sees.”
“Do you see like a person sees?”
“No. It’s hard to explain. It’s different. I see more. I see…different.”
“And can you hear?”
“Through Render?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes. At first, early on, it just sounded like gibberish. But we’ve gotten better at it.”
“And can you talk? With us I mean. When you’re…connected.”
“I didn’t used to be able to. It was all or nothing. I could be in his head, or else I could be in my own. Over time, I’ve been able to be with Render but still be me at the same time. It’s not always easy, and it doesn’t always work how I want. But I think we’re…evolving.”
“I like that,” Wisp says. “Evolving.”
Rain urges me to engage my connection, and Wisp watches wide-eyed as I swipe my fingers along the pattern of black lines and dots on my forearm.
“Brace yourself,” Rain warns her. “Kress’s eyes get kind of weird when she does this.”
This time, I slip easily into Render’s mind. There’s no pressure in my head or dizziness like I sometimes get, especially if one of us is tired or stressed. I blink, and Olivia and Manthy next to me and Wisp and Rain across the table are replaced by a hazy, late-morning sky speckled with crimson-fringed clouds over the expansive grid of the city. I know we’ve been talking strategy and intel for a while, but it’s even later than I thought with the blood-red sun continuing its leisurely ascent over city and lighting up the endless body of choppy white and blue water to the west.
With our connection in full synchronization, I’m able to see and feel what Render sees and feels. He’s in mid-flight, and it’s exactly the sensation I need, this exhilarating sense of freedom after being cooped up in this room all day yesterday and today.
“Are you connected?” Wisp’s voice sounds hollow and far away.
I nod, not wanting to talk for fear of losing my concentration and accidentally severing the connection.
“Do you remember the schematics Olivia showed us?”
I nod again. “I remember everything.”
“Perfect. I’m going to ask you and Render to help us scout out certain specific locations. Are you able to do that?”
“We’ll try,” I murmur.
For the next several hours and as the city continues its descent into nighttime, Wisp calls out the names of streets, office buildings, subway stations, police stations, communication towers. She rattles off lists of restaurants, churches, private residences, grocery ports, cafés, piers and docks, roads, alleys, mag-ways, and mag-tram depots. I ask Render to fly to each place in turn. He soars through the city, looping over buildings and skimming through the streets. He perches unnoticed on window ledges. He even alights on the roofs and hoods of military vehicles parked at various checkpoints around the city. One location at a time, Render sends images to me. From her seat next to me, Manthy intercepts the images by tapping into my implants. Her hand feels comforting and soft on my arm, and I can feel her presence in my head as she gathers up every image Render collects. She then passes that information along to Olivia via her psychic tech-connection.
As the third stage in what Wisp refers to as our “telempathic tech exchange,” Olivia inputs the information into a series of holo-pads, and, from what Wisp and Rain tell me, the sketchy images in and around the city are slowly taking shape. I can’t see any of this, of course. I’m out there in the sky, weaving between towering structures and landing on tree branches as I conduct what must be the strangest remote recon mission ever.
When I get dizzy at one point and nearly fall out of my chair, I feel Wisp’s hands on my shoulders and her voice in my ear. She tells me to focus not on Render’s world outside or on our world here in this room. “Instead,” she says, “see if you can focus on the space between. It will be a small space. Nearly invisible. A breath. A blur. Think of it as connective tissue instead of as a barrier between one thing and another. If you can find it…if you can land on it, you’ll be able to exist more completely in both worlds at once. Without the disorientation or the pain.”
I nod, not knowing where Wisp’s advice, insight, and understanding are coming from but thankful for then all the same. It’s a hard concept to get my head around. Not just the idea. This is the first time I’ve tried to stay in contact with Render for so long and still engage with someone else at the same time. It’s a mental juggling act that consumes every bit of my focus and concentration.
Manthy is doing her best to work as a conduit between me and Olivia but, like me, she’s starting to complain about the onset of some pretty terrible headaches. Olivia can’t gather the intel without her, though. I do my best to help Manthy while also communicating with Render. It’s taking a toll on the three of us and on Render. I can feel him straining to stay connected. He’s exhausted and hurting, but he senses my need along with all my hopes and fears, so he continues to soldier on.
Finally, with my head feeling like a jug of mud, Wisp directs me to the Armory, our primary target.
“It’s too dark now,” I inform her. “Birds don’t like to fly at night.”
When Wisp asks if I’ll at least try, I tell her, “Okay.”
It takes Render a few minutes to get from where he’s perched on top of the ruins of an old windmill in the west end of Golden Gate Park all the way over to the Armory. After that, in my mind, external images of the Armory come into focus: the huge white dome, the turrets on the blocky part of the building, the exhaust and venting pipes on the roof, black and green wires running in long stretches and coiled up on metal posts, the rough brick of the building’s façade, and even a cylindrical yellow waste disposal chute suspended from the rooftop down to a cluster of construction vehicles below.
After a series of loops above the imposing building with the four turrets and the attached dome-like structure, Render dips down, flutters to a near-hover, and slips inside an open ventilation duct on the roof. He pins his wings against his sides and half-walks, half-hops about fifty yards through a pitch-dark corridor of dusty ductwork until he arrives at a small vent. He’s able to squeeze through the vertical slats in the vent and hop out onto a lattice of support struts and cables in the ceiling high above the open floor of the Armory below. There are trucks parked down there and clumps of soldiers moving around between various command stations set up with floating viz-screens and holo-displays like glass-walled cubicles in a virtual office building.
The images Render relays to me are hard to sort out. This is one of those times when his sense of sight is too good for my human mind to handle. I’m getting mixed up between what he’s seeing, what I think I’m seeing through his eyes, and the swirl of shimmering blurriness all around the edges of my shifting fields of vision. On top of that, I keep getting flashes of the Intel Room where I’m sitting intruding on Render’s overhead view of the interior of the Armory. I know Manthy and Olivia are sitting next to me with Rain and Wisp sitting across from us on the other side of the table. I know Wisp is in her lime-green hoodie and that Rain has the sleeves of her compression shirt pulled down over her hands. I see Wisp brushing her light brown hair from her face. I see Rain taking her glistening black hair down from its ponytail and pushing it back behind her shoulders as she looks at me, concern etched on her face. It’s what my mind expects to see, so it’s trying to see what it expects. Together, it creates a kaleidoscopic effect behind my eyes that is both pretty and painful. I tell Wisp all of this, and I hear her walk back around the table.
“Don’t fight him,” she says from behind me. “The instinct will be to override his sense of the world with your own. Ask him to take the lead. See if you can envision yourself as him in
stead of only linked with him.”
With my throat tight, I tell Wisp I’ll try, and I get back to concentrating on the task at hand. My lower back is a pool of sweat. I’m a black-eyed, exhausted, and disheveled mess, and I imagine I must look pretty freakish to Manthy, Rain, Wisp, and Olivia.
Focus, Kress. Imagine yourself as Render. As Render. Ask Render. Surrender.
I give myself over to Render. No. I give myself over to the idea of Render. To the idea that, together and only together, we are more than the sum of our parts.
Zeroing in on the name patch on the jacket of one of the soldiers far below, the man who is clearly in charge here, Render’s perceptions become clearer in my mind.
Render identifies the name on the jacket as “Ekker.” I relay this information to Wisp who tells us Ekker is the current leader of the Patriot Army. Her voice comes to me in fluctuating waves. “He’s a general of some kind. We’ve heard about him, but we haven’t been able to get much. Only that he was hand-picked by Krug for this San Francisco assignment and that he has a reputation for considering civilian populations as expendable assets in the war against the Eastern Order.”
“Which we know is just a fake war anyway,” I hear Rain say.
Then, I get back to focusing on this man Ekker through Render’s eyes.
Ekker is a large man, not heavy like Tread in Oakland or beefy like Crusher in the Processor. No. Ekker is broad-shouldered like Brohn, only bigger. Taller. He has the looks of a male model and the body of a prize-fighter. His blondish hair is thick and slicked back with each comb mark visible, giving him a slightly fascist appearance. His face is surprisingly handsome, clean, and scar-free. He’s relatively unblemished for someone who’s risen to his rank and who has the reputation Wisp claims. Surely, he must have been in combat. But his looks don’t reflect that. His attitude, however, does. He strides around in the big open space below, barking out orders and directing groups of uniformed soldiers.