Temper

by Beck Nicholas

  “To stretch my legs.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  No, she’s not, but if she was, it would be so much easier. “Where do you think I’m going?”

  “Initially, I thought it might be heading out after Asher, but not even you’re that crazy. My next guess was a secret rendezvous with that green robe girl that you’re always with, but then I figured you could have easily stayed with her tonight and you asked me instead.” Her voice in the darkness reminds me of someone and I can’t quite pick it. “So I figured it’s something she can’t know,” Kaih continues. “Therefore it’s something to do with the green robes.” There’s a rustle, and then she’s standing right in front of me, her outline almost visible from the faint light trickling in through the plastic tent window. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’ll take it from your lack of denial that I’m right.”

  “I didn’t say that, and anyway, you’re not coming with me.”

  “Okay.”

  I relax. That wasn’t so hard. “Look, I’ll be back in a while. Don’t tell anyone where I’m—what are you doing?”

  Her face is illuminated by the glow from the screen of a small instrument I’ve never seen before. Boxy and rough, it has a couple of buttons and what looks like a small speaker. The whole thing is as big as her hand. “This?” Her face is all innocence. “While you were in the hospital Keane distributed them. They’re set up to contact a few key people across the factions in camp in case of trouble.”

  It’s a good idea but … “They gave out tech? Where? How? Why didn’t I get one?”

  Her head tilts. “You’ve been sick. Apparently the ship was stripped for parts weeks ago. They’ve been able to convert the intercom system to something handheld. You didn’t know?”

  “Who did this?”

  “Your friends in green.”

  I think my jaw drops, and I’m glad it’s too dark for her to see how shocked I am. “What about consultation?”

  “It was agreed we’d contribute to the new settlement with the resources we could.”

  I know, but my brain is reeling. I didn’t think of the ship’s systems being cannibalized by the others.

  The Upheaval destroyed so much technology, taking out many of the power sources and then the Company recruited anyone with any knowledge to work with them. People obeyed because everyone was so terrified by the threat of the aliens. Over time, when nothing happened, people began to realize the alien thing was an excuse for the Company to take whatever they could. It’s what made moments like the gaming night I went to as Blank so dangerous.

  And makes a resource like the ship so valuable.

  “Davyd’s been working with the best tech people from the green robes,” she explains.

  Davyd would. And be happy not to mention it to anyone else. What I wouldn’t give for a training bout with my brother. For a second I’m lost in the fantasy of my fist meeting his jaw, but then Kaih’s finger moves to one of the buttons and hovers there.

  “What are you doing?”

  There’s enough pale blue light to see her smile is sweet. “I think Keane would like to know about your late night activities.”

  “Don’t.”

  Her finger waves in the air above the button. “I could feel duty-bound to press this. Or,” her smile widens. “You could let me come with you.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “I like to think of it as negotiation.”

  “You remind me of my brother.”

  She flicks the instrument so the screen goes black. “In this case I’ll choose to take that as a compliment. Now, where are we going, and you might as well tell me why?”

  I almost don’t. She’s manipulated me, and it would serve her right if I went back to bed and didn’t even try to explore the secret files tonight. Except tonight is my best shot of getting in there while they think I’m suffering from the cuts and infection.

  “The hospital,” I mutter. “There’s a secret room.”

  She laughs. “The very place you tried so hard to get out of earlier today?”

  “I’m not an idiot.” I fire her words back at her. “The room I was in was checked every few minutes, and I was attached to a monitor that set off an alarm when I tried to remove it.”

  She strides past me, looking back from the tent entrance. “What are you waiting for?”

  “What am I …” but I’m talking to her back. I clench my teeth and march out into the steady rain after her. This girl is almost as infuriating as my brother.

  ***

  We get into the hospital without incident. The rain has kept everyone inside and apart from a nurse working the room we use for emergencies it’s all quiet. I hope after the stress of the last few days, Charley’s tucked up somewhere getting some sleep.

  I mentally cheer when the operating theater is dark and silent. I duck inside, and the door clicks closed. Now I can breathe. The rack of shelves in its place against the wall hiding the secret door suggests there’s no one waiting in the hidden rooms to catch me in the act.

  I rest my hand on the door and hesitate.

  If I go in here, there’s no going back. Sure, if caught, I could try playing dumb and pretending the fever has made me into some kind of sleepwalker, but I doubt they’ll believe it. What I’m doing could shatter the fragile alliance between those of us from the ship and the green robes, but I can’t ignore what I saw.

  I don’t know how I fit into this new society. A Fishie, who once dreamed of equality for Lifers, who lived for a time with the green robes? No wonder I’m a mess. Freedom sounds great, until people who’ve always lived a certain way are dragged kicking and screaming into a new way of life.

  Whatever they’ve done to modify us gives everything a dangerous edge but the tensions would exist regardless.

  Everyone acts like I belong with them, but the truth is, the only time I feel like I belong is when I’m with Asher. And she could be dead or in the hands of the Company by now. She’s the only one who understands I’m not the Samuai of old, nor am I Blank. It’s funny that I can start afresh with someone I’ve known as long as I can remember.

  I need answers. If I don’t try to find them I might as well have died in that pond alongside Zed.

  “What are you waiting for?” A shove in my ribs underlines Kaih’s whispered question from behind me.

  “Making sure the coast is clear.”

  “And?”

  In reply I move forward. This would have worked so much better alone.

  We move through to the room with all the shelving, and when I flick on the small torch I was carrying, Kaih gasps.

  “What is all this?”

  “That’s what I want to find out.”

  Without discussion we spread out to opposite sides of the room. I pull out a box of the files and begin to skim. A moment later she’s beside me, sharing the limited light to see what she found.

  They might as well be written in a different language. What appear to be photocopies of specifications of a vehicle make no sense. There’s something about electromagnetic properties, wavelength variations, and vibrational frequencies. I try to read it anyway, knowing if I stare at it long enough, I should be able to retain it. But there are so many boxes in here, I can’t do the same for all of them.

  Next to me, Kaih is mumbling as she reads what looks like a medical report. I check the top, but the only reference is a number. It talks about different physical attributes and the very last line has one word, and unlike the type of the rest of the document, it’s hand scrawled.

  Larceny.

  My brain’s working overtime. A felony attached to a medical record. Something teases; it’s the beginnings of a connection, and a picture like a plate smashed into a thousand pieces that happens to fall so it’s almost a circle.

  “It’s us,” Kaih whispers.

  “Us?”

  She looks up at
me, her blue eyes wide in the soft light. “Not you. Lifers. Medical details and crimes to match.”

  I scan the page again. “It makes sense.”

  “But?”

  I didn’t realize my skepticism was so obvious. “But why would they have it? Their interest in us is due to our present resistance to Company weapons, not who we were before.”

  “I’m no geneticist, but maybe they’re looking for a common starting point.” She rubs hard at her eyes with her palms. “Or maybe this has nothing to do with us.”

  I return the file and reach to another shelf. Kaih’s a little farther along, and she has to bring a blue folder back to the light.

  “More medical records,” she says

  “Same here.” I thumb through. This one has more pages. A scan of the heading suggests it’s the results of a test or maybe some kind of interview. “This one has more detail.”

  She returns the file she was reading and bites on her fingernails. She’s thinking, and I don’t interrupt, it was her who came up with the theory. It could be her ancestors in these files.

  “I haven’t recognized a single name,” she says.

  I fight disappointment. Is that all? “You couldn’t know the name of every Lifer there’s been.”

  “Sure, I couldn’t recite them, but there’d be something. A spark of familiarity.” She shakes her head. “It’s not us.”

  “Then who?”

  There’s a thud in the distance.

  “What was that?” Kaih whispers.

  “I don’t know.”

  I hurry to shove the file back to where I found it, as Kaih does the same with hers. I shine the torch across the shelves to make sure there’s no sign of us having been here and turn off the light. We wait together in silence. Listening.

  I breathe slow and deep to better hear over the pounding of my heart. Not moving makes it harder to ignore the pain in my arms and the constant ache in my head. I wish for the bottle of painkillers I left back in my tent. I didn’t take any fearing they’d make me drowsy.

  “Shush.”

  My eyes have adjusted to the darkness enough I can make out Kaih glaring from over by the door.

  “I didn’t—”

  “The moaning,” she interrupts. “Makes working out where that noise is coming from harder.”

  Moaning? I force myself to focus. I must be sicker than I thought. We stand shoulder to shoulder at the door, but there’s no other sound.

  “What do you think?” Kaih asks.

  Leaving without answers was never part of my plan. This room doesn’t have them. “There are more rooms farther down the hallway.”

  “But the noise?”

  “Could have been someone in the hospital. They checked on me every five minutes it seemed.”

  Kaih doesn’t hesitate. “Come on.”

  We move into the hallway and close the door to the storage room. There’s no sign of anyone. I sniff. The air is stagnant and a little musty. I don’t speak, and instead, step in front to lead the way. I head toward where I overheard Keane and Charley talking.

  I edge the door open with my toe. It’s dark inside. The faint fear that Charley might be working late disappears. We’re alone. This is the chance I’ve been waiting for.

  There are no windows at all in here. I wait until we’re both inside and the door is closed behind us before switching the torch on. It shows an office with a large desk in the center. A screen remarkably like the one in the control room on the Pelican, perched in the middle, and a single filing cabinet.

  “It’s from the ship,” Kaih whispers.

  “But modified.” I show her the cables leading to a huge softly whirring box on the floor. “This must be some kind of power supply.”

  “Or data storage.”

  I nod. I hate that I don’t know. On the ship, all the high-level tech stuff was controlled by the Nauts. We might have been naive believing the green robes are working with us. Davyd’s comments about using us for our Q-resistance might not be as fantastical as I thought.

  But now isn’t the time to come up with conspiracy theories.

  “The filing cabinet first,” I say.

  Kaih crosses with me. It’s unlocked. Inside there are dozens of files with labels written by Charley’s hand. While I can read the letters, the words don’t make sense.

  “It must be some kind of code,” Kaih says. A conclusion I was coming to.

  I pull one out and thumb through. More code. And another. “They’re all the same.”

  My hope for answers is draining faster than my ability to stay upright, which, considering the room has taken on a gentle rocking, leads me to say, “Maybe we should go.”

  But even as I talk about giving up, I open the next drawer and pull out what looks to be a map. Electricity zings through my veins. I’ve seen this before.

  It was back when we were looking for the Pelican, when I first regained my memories. We were around a table in the underground station, discussing possible locations of the ship I’d left behind. Although Keane and Toby remained skeptical about my story, they’d collated their information on the Company movements and narrowed it down to two possibilities.

  I ignored the other as soon as I saw the island. I remembered the view of the water from when I was released.

  I’m grinning like a crazy person as I wave it in front of Kaih’s face. “There were two possibilities. At least.”

  “I’m lost,” she replies.

  I point to the two circles on the map. “This is where we found the ship, but it wasn’t the only place the green robes found suspicious patterns of Company movement.”

  Her whole face lights up. “All those names we didn’t recognize.”

  I hesitate. What I’m thinking is impossible and makes perfect sense. But Kaih’s waiting and it needs to be said.

  “There’s another ship.”

  Chapter Nine

  [Asher]

  It’s dark in the back of the van, and its rumbling over the bumpy road makes hearing difficult. I turn toward Davyd, trying to make out his familiar face in the darkness. “What did you say?”

  “Relax. This is all part of our plan.”

  If I could see his smug face properly, I’d slap it. “I don’t understand.”

  I think he pats my knee. “This is our way into the deepest places within the Company stronghold. Did you think we’d walk in? Or make it there undetected?”

  “I …” I did. The longer I’ve been away from the ship and whatever they gave us to keep us stable, the harder it’s been to use reason. Every time I try, I’m battling more primal urges. “I figured I’d work it out when I got there.”

  “Some of us like to be more prepared.”

  He makes it sound like I’m an idiot. “I meant we’d have to see what we were confronted with before we could act on anything concrete.”

  He laughs.

  I turn away. “I don’t know why I’m telling you anything. You’re a liar and a traitor.”

  “I may be all of those, but this is real. It’s happening. Thanks to me and my plan you’ll soon be inside the Company and able to obtain the cure for your little temper problem.”

  He sounds so sure. “Prove it.”

  “I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands. You’ll have to trust me.”

  “If this was your plan all along, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It wouldn’t have worked so well. That anger …” There’s amusement in his voice. “You terrified them.”

  “Couldn’t tell.”

  He leans so close his breath brushes my cheek. “I think our redheaded friend might have actually pissed himself.”

  I edge away from the intimacy in his voice, hoping he can’t sense the prickles of awareness his nearness raised on my flesh. “I’m not going to do this.”

  “What?”

  “Trust you.” I rub at my aching head, the remnants of the drug is a r
eminder that he didn’t simply sneak away. “How did this even happen?”

  “Days before the rebellion, Maston warned me there was danger coming. I guess the blood relation mattered to him after all. Not enough to take me with him when he ran like a coward in the night.” There’s scorn in his voice as he confirms what I suspected about the relationship between Lady and the head Naut. “Anyway, he told me there would be a place for me if I was looking for him.” He shrugs. “Turns out they put on quite a welcome for Maston’s son.”

  “But why would you work against them if they were so welcoming? It’s not like you to turn down an opportunity for power.”

  “Trapped in a metal can for sixteen years. Trust me, I want to see them fall as much as you do.”

  “You can’t trust him.” The small voice comes from the other side of the van.

  I flinch like I’ve been sprung doing something I shouldn’t. I’d almost forgotten Rael was here, too. “She’s right, you cut her.”

  He shrugs, his shoulder bumping into mine. “Collateral damage.”

  “Tell that to the child you hurt.”

  “Listen, kid. Your arm will be fine. I had the Handle set to the shortest setting to slice skin, to look messy but ultimately cause little damage.” He shifts so he’s angled toward her. “Tell Asher, it doesn’t hurt does it?”

  There hesitation and then, “Not … really.”

  Davyd sits back. “See? A calculated risk to keep the confidence of my men. And maybe teach the runt it’s not nice to spit.”

  “With a blade?”

  “Here.” He presses something into my palm, the rough warmth of his hands gentle with mine. “You have the knife. Now I’m unarmed.”

  I don’t believe that for a moment. He might have handed over the knife but he’s never going to leave himself vulnerable. “How does it work?”

  “The tech guy that fitted me out tried to explain it. It has an extendable tip made from a created diamond isotope. It can be used as thin as one molecule thickness, but it’s incredibly strong. No simple molecular bond here. I think they use some process that fuses the electrons in a fast-moving cloud once it’s extended so the bonds of the blade can’t be broken. He said it was tech from the aliens. After that I kind of stopped listening.”