by Anna Jarzab
Suddenly, from behind us, there came a loud crash, but before the men or I could react, a bullet whizzed through the air and found its target in the bald guy’s shoulder. He released me with a guttural moan and I stumbled forward, landing hard on my hands and knees. Ignoring the pain that tore through my palms, I glanced over my shoulder to get a peek at my unexpected savior.
Thomas was crouched on a nearby Dumpster, pointing a pistol at the other two men, who had their guns trained on him. My eyes flew to the top of the building, the only place he could’ve come from. It had to have been a three-story drop, and yet he looked unfazed.
“Let her go,” he said. His voice was tight and his face was set in an expression of such incredible focus and determination that I felt myself rescued before any rescuing had taken place.
The bald guy staggered to his feet, but Thomas didn’t hesitate; he shot the man in the leg, and he was down again. One of the others—this one had long, stringy hair and was the tallest man I’d ever seen, quite literally looming over my five feet seven inches—wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me backward toward the alley’s dead end. His grip was so tight it was cutting off my breath; I choked and sputtered, swinging my elbows in the hopes of jamming one into his ribs, but all I found was empty, indifferent air. The third man, who had a black ski cap pulled tight over his ears despite the warm weather, advanced on Thomas as he dismounted the Dumpster and they faced off, guns aimed and fingers on the triggers.
“No,” Ski Cap said simply. “She’s coming with us. Get out of the way.”
“Not without her.”
My gaze zoomed back and forth between them. My heart was pounding as fast as a hummingbird’s, and it was almost impossible to focus on anything but sucking in air as Stringy Hair’s arm continued to crush my throat. Then he jerked me sideways, which allowed him to lift his gun and point it at Thomas. It was two against one now. Thomas was outnumbered. And yet, from the look in his eyes, I knew they had more to fear than he did.
“We don’t take orders from KES scum,” Ski Cap said.
Thomas laughed mirthlessly in disbelief. “Oh, I’m scum? I’m not the one blowing up hospitals and train stations, making traitors out of innocent people!”
Ski Cap sneered. “It’s for the greater good.”
“Please, spare me,” Thomas scoffed. “Hand her over.”
“Not a chance,” Ski Cap replied. “She’s ours. We’ll kill you if we have to.”
“Fine,” Thomas challenged. “Shoot me.”
Ski Cap raised his gun, but he wasn’t fast enough; before he’d gotten off a single round, Thomas drew out a second pistol and pressed the trigger. The gun fired, but what came out the other end was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The barrel emitted a conical stream of blinding white light, the edge of which hit Ski Cap and sent him flying across the alley, where he came to rest, finally, completely still, his head streaming with slick rivulets of blood.
The blast shook the alley and we all stumbled backward in its wake. Stringy Hair released his grip and his gun, which clattered to the ground near my feet. I gasped, pulling in air as fast as I could. I stared at the gun, unmoving, my brain screaming at me to pick it up, to defend myself, but I was too disoriented. I’d never handled a gun before, never even touched one, and I knew I’d never be able to shoot somebody. I wouldn’t even be able to hold a gun convincingly enough to make anyone think I was capable of shooting somebody.
Thomas charged forward, unaffected by the chaos he had wrought, but Stringy Hair managed to get to his feet and attack. He was unarmed, but he was fast and brutal. He punched Thomas squarely in the jaw; Thomas barely flinched, recovering from the recoil fast enough to knee his assailant hard in the groin. Thomas pushed him backward and kicked him in the solar plexus before spinning and knocking the man in the face with his elbow. I heard the stringy-haired man’s nose crack; blood spurted out of his nostrils and he fell to the ground, where he writhed in pain, clutching his stomach.
Thomas put away his gun and retrieved another, smaller weapon from his belt. He held it steady as he shot each of the men in the shoulder, one by one. The bullets made a soft whistle as they traveled through the air, and the men were still.
I watched this unfold as if at a distance, light-headed and quivering. It was as though I was in some sort of trance. I stared at the bodies of the three Libertas commandos. Were they dead? I didn’t think so. I could just barely make out the rise and fall of their chests. I must’ve looked horrified, because Thomas held up the small gun and said, “Relax, they’re tranquilizer pellets.”
I nodded dully.
“What the hell were you thinking? I told you people would recognize you—I told you to hide your face!” Thomas was shouting, but I could barely hear him over the roar of blood in my ears. I flexed my fingers and pressed them against my throat. The air tasted exquisite now that I could fill my lungs to bursting, like a never-ending drink of cool spring water. I’m alive, I thought, giddy with relief.
“Sasha!” Thomas shook me by the shoulder. His eyes were dark slits, his brow furrowed in something like concern.
“I—” I didn’t have an excuse. He had warned me. But how could he have expected me to listen? Did he really think I’d be that easily managed? How could he have thought I’d give up without a fight? Is that what he would’ve done? Surely not. “I’m sorry,” I said dryly, not at all meaning it.
“Don’t you understand that you could’ve been killed? I was trying to keep you away from them and instead you ran right for them!”
“What was I supposed to do?” I snapped. “Stay put and wait for you to do God knows what with me?”
He glowered at me. “There’s more where they came from. We’ve got to get out of the city as soon as possible.”
“I’m not coming with you.” I folded my arms across my chest in defiance. I was putting on a pretty good show of being stubborn, but actually I was of two minds. On the one hand, I didn’t want to submit to him, to follow his orders and obey him as if he had some sort of claim on me. The urge to resist was personal; I wanted to punish him for what he’d done to me in whatever small way I could. But on the other hand, reason was telling me to go with him, that whatever his plans were for me, they were preferable to falling into the hands of Libertas.
The emotional part of me was winning out.
“Yes, you are,” Thomas said. “Those men were going to take you to an underground bunker somewhere, torture you for information you don’t have, and then kill you. Is that what you want? Because if I’d known you had a death wish I would’ve just left you to them.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” I said. “You need me. Otherwise I wouldn’t even be here.”
“I don’t have time to stand around and chat about this with you. You have two choices: them, or me. And if I were you, I really wouldn’t choose them.”
I said nothing. He made a frustrated noise.
“Look, you want the truth? That anchor brought you here, and it’s the only thing that can bring you home. I have the device that controls it. The anchor is made out of a reinforced titanium alloy—you can’t cut it off, and even if you could, removing it won’t send you back. So we can both sit here and wait for more Libertas to come calling, or we can leave. I strongly suggest that we leave.”
Still I didn’t speak, didn’t move a muscle. I knew he was right, at least about Libertas, but I was having a hard time motivating myself to go along with him. I just didn’t want him to think that I was going down without a fight. Or maybe, I didn’t want to think that about myself.
“I have to admit,” he said, his tone lightening, as if he was trying, in a small, weak way, to make nice. “I’m impressed. You got farther than I expected. It was smart of you to use the rally as cover. Even I don’t have X-ray vision.”
“What was that whole thing, anyway?”
“Antiroyalist rally,” Thomas said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Bunch of rabble-rousers. Nothing to worry about.” Bu
t his expression said it was much more serious than that. I had a million questions; the rally had piqued my interest in this strange new world, but even though I was usually quite the determined interrogator when there was information that I wanted, now wasn’t the time.
“Nothing to worry about? They recognized me,” I told him. “And they didn’t like what they saw. Overall, I do not feel welcome here in Aurora.”
Thomas sighed. “I did try to warn you.”
But it was something else Thomas had said that really struck a chord. I have the device that controls it. Removing the anchor might not be possible, but if I could gain possession of the remote, I could transport myself home without anybody’s help. I just had to figure out how to get my hands on it.
“How did you find me?” I asked, glancing at the motionless bodies on the ground. A gun belonging to one of the men lay only three feet from where I stood, and the sight of it gave me an idea.
“The anchor has a GPS tracker in it.”
“You have GPS here?” So running away again wasn’t going to work.
“We had it before you did.” He walked to the end of the alley and glanced up and down the perpendicular street, giving me the opportunity I needed. I crouched down and reached for the nearby gun, slowly, trying not to attract Thomas’s attention while his back was turned. “I was waiting for you on the other side of the street, figuring I’d intercept you there, but then I saw them pull you into the alley—”
When he turned back around, I had the gun aimed at his chest. He lifted his hands up in a gesture of surrender, working his jaw anxiously but saying nothing.
“Give me the device that controls the anchor and I’ll never bother you again,” I said. My voice sounded like it was forged from steel; if I hadn’t spoken the words myself, I wouldn’t even have recognized it. I was trying to make myself sound like Thomas—emotionless, untouchable. The sort of person I knew I wasn’t. But he hadn’t given me any choice.
“I can’t do that.”
“Then I’m going to have to shoot you,” I said, hoping he couldn’t tell how badly I was shaking.
“You won’t,” Thomas said calmly. He stepped forward and lowered his hands.
“Yes I will.” He didn’t seem afraid, which infuriated me. If he kept looking at me in that patronizing, self-satisfied way, maybe I would shoot him.
“No you won’t.” Thomas took another step, and then another, making his way toward me carefully, the way one might approach a frightened animal. He seemed so sure of himself, so confident in his ability to talk me down. With every step he took, I knew I was losing ground. “You don’t even have your finger on the trigger.”
That was because I didn’t want to fire it by accident. But if he insisted … I settled the pad of my pointer finger against the slim metal curve of the trigger. “Problem solved.”
“You won’t pull it.” He was getting closer and closer. I had to shoot him.
“You take one more step and I’ll do it.” It was the last gasp of my bravado. I would never be able to follow through on my threat. “Don’t move.”
His face went white as something on the rooftop behind my head caught his attention. “I may not have to,” he said gravely.
I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have looked. But I was still rattled from my encounter with Libertas, so I turned to get a sense of what was coming. Of course, the rooftop was empty. We were alone.
I was completely unprepared for Thomas’s speed. His hand shot out as soon as I took my eyes off him and he wrenched the gun from my grip. I watched in rage and frustration as he removed the clip and stripped the rest of the Libertas rifles of their ammunition, swearing under his breath the whole time. When he was finished, he turned his glare on me.
“Never do that again,” he commanded. “You shouldn’t pick up a gun unless you’re prepared to use it.”
“You’d rather I shot you?” I snapped.
“You were never going to,” he said. “Now let’s go.”
“No,” I said, drawing a sharp breath as my vision grew hazy. My lungs burned, and I remembered how far I’d run, and how fast, without stopping. Something’s wrong. The thought floated through my mind like dandelion fluff, small and light.
My knees gave way and I crumpled to the ground. A dull ache throbbed in my temples, radiating through my arms and legs. My eyelids drooped. Everything around me started to go dark, as if someone had smeared my eyeballs with black paint. Thomas rushed forward to prop me up, seizing my chin.
“Sasha?” he called. I reached for something to steady myself and found his left hand. I bore down hard on his fingers, making him wince; nevertheless, he squeezed back.
“What’s happening to me?” I whispered.
“It’s the tandem sickness. You shouldn’t have run.” His voice faded in and out as I fell further into semiconsciousness. “You were supposed to rest. … Shouldn’t have run. …”
The last thing I saw before the darkness overtook me completely was the bright green of his eyes and the slow, fluid motion of his lips as he spoke my name.
THOMAS IN THE TOWER / 1
“Good work, Agent.”
Thomas glanced to his right, startled—though he didn’t show it—by the unexpected new presence in the room. “Thank you, sir. You know I do my best to make you proud.”
Even he knew how shallow and obsequious it sounded coming out of his mouth. If Lucas were around, he would’ve scoffed at the first word; Thomas’s brother had a low tolerance for brownnosing. But it was what the General wanted to hear, and Thomas always did what the General wanted, insofar as he could stand to.
“I do know that,” the General said. They stood side by side, watching Sasha’s inert form on the cot in the mission room through large monitors. How many times had Thomas slept on that same cot after hours and hours of meetings and briefings and research and planning sessions? Too many to count. The walls were covered with his notes, maps and photographs, charts and stratagems so calculated they were like equations. It was strange to see her there now, the centerpiece of Operation Starling, just an average girl from Earth.
Well, perhaps average was the wrong word. In fact, he knew it was. Extraordinary was more like it. Amazing. An analog. She had no idea how significant she was, what her presence here meant. She’d gone sixteen years—almost seventeen—thinking she was just a regular girl. It was remarkable how important people could be without even knowing.
“When will she come around?” the General asked.
Thomas shrugged. “That’s up to you. Mo—Dr. Moss said we could wake her any time now.”
He had to stop himself from using Mossie’s nickname. The General disapproved of Thomas’s friendship with the eccentric scientist, though the man’s contribution to Operation Starling couldn’t be denied. Mossie was the only reason they were able to retrieve Sasha. He’d invented the technology that allowed them to pass through the tandem, created the anchors for exclusive use by the KES. Whether he liked it or not, the General couldn’t get rid of him—and he didn’t like it at all. He didn’t trust Mossie, and Thomas didn’t blame him. Mossie was the only person in the Tower who spoke out against him, though even then it was only when he thought the General would not overhear. But the General had spies everywhere, and word had gotten out. Mossie was a liability, but he was also an asset—an asset that couldn’t be wasted.
Thomas expected the General to command him to wake Sasha up immediately, but he didn’t. After all the insanity surrounding Operation Starling, all the rush and the talk of running out of time, the General seemed to be relishing these last few moments of relative normalcy before everything changed forever.
“Did she give you any trouble?” he asked. Thomas always had a difficult time telling what the General was thinking, and now was no different. Only a man like the General could stand before an analog with no expression on his face. He was above it all, even this.
“Not much,” Thomas said. It would be worse for Sasha if the G
eneral knew how much of a fight she’d put up, so it was best not to mention it.
The General looked over at him, but Thomas didn’t turn to meet his eyes. It had taken him a long time to learn how not to squirm under the weight of the General’s gaze, but he was older now, tall and broad and covered in lean muscle, not the small, fidgety boy he’d once been. He didn’t scare so easily anymore. He could handle the General.
“How much?” The General’s voice was dark and low.
“None,” Thomas lied. “She was perfectly behaved.” He didn’t know what he would do if Sasha decided to become a problem in front of the General. He made a silent wish that she would sense her place and submit to him. Otherwise, they would both be in a lot of trouble.
“And if I called Agent Fillmore, he’d tell me the same thing?” The General was testing him, seeing if he’d break like metal rusted through.
“Of course.” Thomas nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly, the widest smile he’d ever given the man. “Sir—” Then he stopped himself.
“Ask your question, Agent,” the General commanded.
“Where is he?”
“Who?” The General turned to look at him, his gaze piercing behind the rimless glasses he wore on his nose. “Your analog, you mean?”
“Yes, sir. Did the squad pick him up?”
“There was an issue with the retrieval of your analog on this side of the tandem.”
“An issue? What kind of an issue?” Thomas knew he should be disinterested in Grant Davis’s fate; indifference to aspects outside the parameters of his mission had been a fundamental part of his training, had practically been grafted into his DNA during his time at the Academy. And yet, he couldn’t help wondering. It was a strange relationship, the one between analogs. There was a natural sympathy that rose unbidden; he’d felt it when he’d met Grant Davis face to face, in the empty park back on Earth. It was a cold-hearted bastard who didn’t find it in him to care about another human being who wore his face.