The Indigo Thief

by Budgett, Jay

  A nail drove through the palm of his right hand. The gun fell from his grasp. He howled in pain, his eyes wild, and blood streamed down his arm.

  “YOU LITTLE SHIT!” he snarled. “YOU’RE DEAD, BRADBURY! THAT I PROMISE YOU! I WON’T REST UNTIL YOU DIE WITH MY HANDS WRAPPED AROUND YOUR SKINNY LITTLE THROAT!”

  A pink flip-flop flew from our copter and slapped him across the cheek. Mila gave me a wink. “Someone had to do it.”

  Chancellor Hackner slammed closed his copter door. Through the tinted glass he mouthed: I will kill you, Bradbury. And then his copter tore off into the clouds.

  Bertha pushed onward through the sky.

  I turned to Phoenix. “We’re gonna let them get away? After all they’ve done?”

  Phoenix shook his head. “Today is not our day.”

  “The hell it’s not. We just brought down the Federation’s capital building.”

  “What would you have us do?” he asked. “Kill them all right now? Maybe get a few of ourselves killed in the process?”

  “Then why did you give me your gun?”

  “It was too far for a kill shot, but he deserved to have someone to shut his mouth. And you deserved to taste vengeance,” he said. “They’re not getting away, Kai. We can always find them. They’re just people.”

  I looked at the clouds the chancellor’s copter had cut through. “Some people are more than just people,” I said. “Those people are more than just people.”

  “And we’re more than people,” said Phoenix. “We’re the sun breaking after years of rain. We’re the revolution. But killing off a few government officials won’t make the Federation’s people realize that. It will make them hate us for telling them everything they know is wrong. Killing the chancellor will just make him a martyr, and the people don’t need a martyr just yet. They need the truth.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t need the truth anymore. I just need Charlie. Mom and Charlie.” Kindred rubbed my back and squeezed my shoulder. “Mom had this dip in her nose,” I continued. “Like a dimple—you could really see it when she smiled.”

  “I bet she smiled a lot,” said Kindred.

  I nodded. “Yeah, she did.” A pit formed in my stomach again. “It’s strange to think I’ll never see her again.”

  Kindred shook her head. “You’ll see her again, dear.”

  I forced a smile. “Thanks, Kindred.” I stared out the window at the sprawling sea. It started raining. “I wish you could’ve seen Charlie’s chopsticks. They always stuck straight out from the back of her bun. Sometimes, when she was in class, a pencil joined them. Occasionally a toothbrush, if she’d had a rough morning. Mom joked she even wore her chopsticks to sleep.”

  Phoenix squeezed my shoulder. “Hang in there, kid.”

  I glanced at the numbers swirling in the red orb. They flashed and changed to 71:00.

  “Seventy-one hours,” said Phoenix. I just sighed and nodded.

  Phoenix rubbed the ConSynth’s edge. “Take us home, Bertha,” he said at last.

  Chapter 46

  Sparky said our names were all over the news. According to the radio stations, there was a nationwide manhunt—the largest in the new world’s history—for the surviving Lost Boys. Boats scoured the seas, searching. Apparently, they even showed our mug shots before the movies. I, of course, was exempt from the coverage. The Feds were sticking with their story that I was dead. Charlie, too. Phoenix said, however, that it was just stuff for the press. The chancellor and Miranda were searching for us, yet they were also developing a plan. He said we should be doing the same.

  They gave me a room in the New Texas fort, right next to Sparky’s. The whole island was pretty damaged, but its bones were still good, and, in time, they said it’d be fully repaired. And now I was officially a member of the team—an orphan, like the others. A real Lost Boy if there ever was one.

  Kindred had put Sage in the bed I was in when I first arrived, and Phoenix had created a plan to get Sage an IV and keep her fed with fluids—he said as long as we fed her, she’d stay alive. We had a raid planned for a Newla hospital later that week, to stock up on the medical supplies she would need. We all agreed we wouldn’t let go of one of the bravest girls we’d ever met: our new friend, Sage.

  I was sitting in the fort’s basement, running my hands along the ConSynth, when its countdown clock flashed 24:00. The red ConSynth felt warm beneath my fingers, like it generated its own heat, and maybe its own heartbeat. I heard feet on the ladder. Bertha and Phoenix join me in the basement. The air smelled vaguely like muffins.

  I smiled. “Kindred’s cooking.”

  Phoenix nodded. “She’s making a cake.”

  “Blueberry, I assume?”

  He grinned. “Wouldn’t doubt it.”

  Bertha put her hand against my back and gave me an odd smile—the kind you give to your dentist when he says he’s glad to see you.

  “All right,” she said, removing her hand. “I’m terrible at this shit—I just feel creepy.” She pointed to the ConSynth and held her face in her hand. “I’m really sorry about all this—about all these dead people you really liked.”

  In a weird way, I was touched. Bertha wasn’t good at dealing with her emotions, but it was nice to see that she cared enough to try.

  I patted her on the back and turned to Phoenix. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

  “Go ahead,” he nodded. “Anything you want, and you’ll get the truth.”

  “Why me?” I said. “I mean, I get that I probably would’ve died and maybe been tortured if Mila had left me to drown—but still, even after that, there were so many times you could’ve let me slip away. The first time I woke up and tried to kill you all—perfect chance to let me die. I dove right into a megalodon’s mouth, after all—it would’ve saved you a lot of trouble. Why would you want to worry about dealing with someone else? Someone who caused more problems?”

  “First off,” he said, “if someone is crazy enough to dive into the mouth of a live megalodon—to let the ocean’s most horrifying monster eat them whole—then that’s a person I want on my team. The kind of person I need in order to make this revolution successful. Crazy people are, perhaps, the only individuals with enough bravery and foolishness to change the world. The meek might inherit the earth, but only after the fools have tamed it, transformed it, and made it their own.”

  “The megalodon… that was nothing. I wasn’t even thinking.”

  “And that’s a good thing,” Phoenix said. “Revolutions aren’t about thinking—they’re about instincts. A caterpillar doesn’t think about becoming a butterfly. It just trusts its instincts, and it does.”

  “You’re the one,” said Bertha in a hushed voice. “The one we’ve been waiting for. The one we’ve been waiting for, for a long, long time. You’re the one who will save us all.” She grabbed my cheeks and bore her brown eyes into mine. “The one who will take back the world. You’re the one from the prophecy, Kai Bradbury. The boy the elders said would come!”

  “There’s a prophecy?” The room was spinning. Everything got blurry. “This is… all part of a prophecy?”

  Bertha broke into laughter. “Christ, Car Battery! You think I’d believe that bullshit?” She punched me in the shoulder. “I’m just screwing with ya. There’s no prophecy.”

  My heart was still pounding. “Good thing we all promised to be honest with each other…”

  She pointed a finger to Phoenix. “He promised you honesty; I didn’t. I’m gonna keep screwing with you until the day you die.”

  I turned to Phoenix. “And when exactly will that be?”

  He hesitated. “I—I thought we established I wasn’t trying to kill you…”

  “I know,” I said, “but what comes next? When do I risk my life next? I mean, we’ve got the report, and we’ve got tons of Indigo. What’s next?”

  Phoenix smiled. “Patience, grasshopper.”

  Kindred poked her head into the basement. “Excuse me, dears!”
She held a cake in her outstretched arms. “Cake here for Mr. Bradbury!”

  “What?” I said. “What for?”

  Kindred passed it to Bertha and climbed down the ladder. “Your birthday, dear. We never celebrated it properly.”

  “Ah.” I smiled and glanced at the cake. “Let me guess… blueberry?”

  “Heavens no!” Kindred looked disgusted. Bertha breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s strawberry.”

  Bertha groaned.

  Kindred passed me the cake. “Have a look, dear.”

  Painted on a layer of white frosting was a crude picture of me and the Lost Boys, in a circle, holding hands. In red icing, someone had written, “HAPPY BIRTDAY, KAI!” and below that, “FAMILIE.”

  Bertha shook her head. “Jesus, Dove…”

  “Wow,” I said, still staring at the cake. “I—I don’t know what to say. Except thank you.” My eyes felt damp, and I wiped them with my hand. “It—it means a lot, guys.”

  Kindred smiled. “We’ve got something else for you too, dear.”

  Mila climbed down the ladder and passed me an envelope. “For you, Kai.”

  Inside the envelope was a picture of my mom. Her black hair was pinned up, and her face was turned to the side. It was a mug shot, obviously, but it was still Mom. It was the only picture I had of her now. Kindred was right: I did get to see her again.

  I sucked in a breath. “Wow.” I wanted to say thanks, but the word caught in my throat.

  “I grabbed it from the desk when we were running from the cells,” said Mila. “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You did,” I said. “Thank you.” I glanced around the room. “Would this be a bad time for a group hug?”

  Bertha started to grumble, but Phoenix shot her a look, and she nodded. “Bring it in, then, I guess.”

  Something was missing.

  “Where’s Dove and Sparky?” I asked.

  “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR KAI-I!” their voices trailed in from above. They climbed down the ladder wearing red party hats decorated with pictures of cheeseburgers.

  “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!” they finished. Tim was hanging from Sparky’s neck, his arm still bandaged where he’d been shot. He, too, wore a party hat.

  “Did we miss it?” said Dove.

  Sparky glanced at Bertha’s red face and shook his head. “Negative.”

  “JUST BRING IT IN ALREADY!”

  We wrapped around our arms around each another, and Dove led another round of “Happy Birthday.” Bertha nursed the cake in the center, and Tim fought to sneak in occasional licks. The whole event was strange and bizarre and wonderful. The Lost Boys weren’t terrorists, anarchists, Indigo thieves, or even revolutionaries. Now, they were simply my friends.

  In that moment, I felt oddly like Sage Penderbrook, standing there, marveling at something as simple as friendship. Somewhere in the midst of all their lies to me, and all my lies to them, we’d unearthed something impossible: the truth.

  The world was changing—maybe it always had, and always would. There were more stars in the sky than photosynthetic bacteria in the ocean. There was more light than dark. There was truth and freedom, and the people of the Federation would soon know both.

  Indigo was poison meant to keep people in invisible cages. But revolution was coming, and Phoenix was leading the way. A new republic would rise.

  And the Federation would fall.

  Chapter 47

  The glass casing of the ConSynth hummed in my hands. Today, its red glowed brighter than ever before. Its countdown clock flashed 00:03. No longer was it signaling hours, but minutes. It would soon be fully calibrated.

  Sage’s body twitched on the bed, and I rubbed my hand against her wrist. She fell still again. I massaged the wrinkles that lined her forehead, and her breathing steadied.

  Soon I’d see Charlie. She’d be right here, in this room, like nothing had ever happened. My hands were already getting sort of sweaty.

  A part of me wondered if the ConSynth would work. If we’d even hooked it up right. If synthetic consciousness was even possible…

  But I’d seen Miranda Morier. I’d seen the way she moved. The way she spoke. The way she was very much alive. The ConSynth could work. It had to.

  Still, had we done it right? Phoenix and Sage had hooked it up while I’d sat in a puddle of tears like Frosty the Melted Snowman. Was Charlie’s body supposed to have seized up like that? Like she was going into cardiac arrest?

  I shook my head, trying to clear away the negative thoughts. I couldn’t think like this. It didn’t do any good. Phoenix and Sage did the best they could, and that was all I could’ve asked of them.

  The clock flashed 00:02.

  I’d told the others I wanted to be alone in the room when the time ran out—that I wanted alone time with her if it worked, or alone time with myself if it didn’t.

  I’d slicked my hair back and worn one of Phoenix’s ties. He’d offered me a jacket too, but I passed. When I tried it on, I looked like a Girl Scout swimming in shoulder pads. I guessed it was yet another testament to his size and my pubescent blooming, or lack thereof.

  Of course, Bertha said that fifteen years old was probably a bit late to be blooming. She said some flowers never bloomed, but just sat there on the vine as buds for a while before wilting.

  I told her some flowers should learn to mind their own damn business.

  Phoenix had been in touch with the Caravites. He explained to me that they’d never really just been stealing Indigo vaccines—they’d been destroying them. That’s why it hadn’t mattered when they’d fallen from the sky. They were just trying to prevent the virus from getting injected into the veins of children. Captain Vern reached out to Phoenix after we escaped from the Light House. He finally admitted running was no longer an option, and—with the capital building being blown to the ground—war was the only path left. The Caravan didn’t need its plates polished anymore. Now, it just needed people.

  Phoenix and Vern were planning a raid on the Ministry of Research & Development in Kauai. They said it’d be the toughest yet, with reinforcements increasing security twofold as Indigo production rushed to clear shortages and meet demand. I’d already agreed to go with them. Turns out, I wasn’t half bad in the field.

  Now, children were dying from the “Carcinogens” more than ever before. Phoenix suggested we start recruiting kids from the street as Lost Boys, and Kindred agreed to head the efforts. We’d learned that she was okay in the field, but after shooting the guard, she admitted she didn’t have it in her to kill more people. Recruitment, however, was different, and she decided it would suit her quite well. And she’d already started developing materials. Mostly blueberry muffins.

  The ConSynth’s clock flashed 00:00. The orb glowed a brilliant red, and the numbers disappeared among swirls, the machine humming louder than ever, then abruptly going silent.

  I pressed my fingers against the glass. “Hello?”

  No response.

  There was no one in the room. I was still alone. I shook the orb a bit. “Anybody in there? Charlie?”

  Nothing.

  The sphere’s swirls settled. I held my eye to the glass and squinted—a part of me wanting to believe I’d see a tiny version of her in there.

  I felt someone staring at me from behind. I turned—and saw her standing on the opposite end of the room.

  Charlie.

  The room’s dim light lit only her face. Her body was still cloaked in shadows.

  Somehow, it was a different Charlie. Not the Charlie I’d seen in the Light House—the one who’d been starved and tortured and lay dying with her bald head pressed against the chancellor’s floor. No, this was a different Charlie.

  This was the old Charlie—the girl I’d grown up with. The girl with the bright blue eyes and chopsticks shoved in her perpetually messy bun. The girl whose blue eyes were a shade all her own. Not gray, like Miranda’s, but Charlie-blue.

  She smiled and waved at me from across the room.<
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  My hands were sweaty. What should I do? What should I say? Again, I was reminded of all the things they didn’t teach you in school—the stuff they should’ve taught instead of calculus.

  I just grinned and waved back. “Hi, Charlie.”

  “Hey there, Kai-Guy.” She smiled. “I’ve got something to show you.”

  She glanced down. My heart was melting. What was she wearing? Lingerie? A purple prom press? A chicken suit? What was happening? What was I supposed to do? Nobody had prepared me for this moment. Megalodons were easy. Girls were hard.

  She stepped from the shadows and pointed to her feet. She wore a pair of red cheeseburger socks.

  The world made sense.

  Charlie was there. Everything would work out. I took a deep breath.

  Things always worked out when you wore your cheeseburger socks.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading The Indigo Thief. I have loved writing about Kai, Charlie, Phoenix, and all the other Lost Boys over the course of the past year. Things are certainly not finished for them and the Hawaiian Federation.

  If you’re so inclined, I’d greatly appreciate a review of The Indigo Thief. Whether you loved it or hated it, I’d just enjoy your feedback.

  Reviews these days can be tough to come by, but you, the reader, have the power to make or break a book with them.

  Thank you again for reading The Indigo Thief and for spending your time with me.

  In gratitude,

  Jay Budgett

  Acknowledgements

  First, I’d like to thank Ruthie Berk. There is no other person who had more influence on this book than you did. Without your support I doubt I would’ve ever finished it. Thank you for teaching me about life, love, and all the things in between. If every author had a Ruthie, there’d be more books in the world. Thanks for being my Charlie.

  Chris Okawa—thanks always for your excitement, encouragement, and kind words. There is no person whose opinion and insights I respect more than yours. You are one of those incredible people who can look at other’s fragile dreams and see the strong realities that they can become.