Regret

by Elana Johnson

  “Jag Barque?”

  “Yeah,” he said lazily. I looked over, but our Mechs stood in the way, so I couldn’t see his face.

  “Your opinion has not changed, I presume?”

  “Nope.” Jag acted like he’d been here countless times before. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his hands hanging loosely in their tech cuffs. I wished for his calmness; my heart kept trying to bust through my chest.

  “You are required to appear before the Association of Directors,” the Greenie said. “In Freedom.”

  A moment of silence passed, a definite threat hanging in the air. Then Jag said, “I will not,” and I imagined the glare he carried in his voice.

  “It is your duty, Mr. Barque. You will leave next week,” the Greenie said. “The council has some matters to discuss before your release. Violet, I have no alternative but to banish you to the Badlands.”

  Banished? For walking in the park with Zenn? “What?” I blurted out.

  “Permanently.”

  Everything moved too fast. The walls shifted inward. “What does that mean?” I shouted. “I have to live there? Forever?” I took several steps forward. Two security guards emerged from the woodwork, and I realized I’d crossed a line. The one too close to the Greenies.

  “Sir, I think the girl would be more dangerous in the Badlands.” The bald guy who’d asked about the transmissions leaned forward. “She is a Free Thinker. Imagine the problems.”

  “What the hell is a Free Thinker?” I asked.

  Mech-749 slapped a patch on my neck. A silencer. Cursing is always silenced.

  “Nonsense,” the middle Greenie said. “She is more dangerous here, amidst the tech, and given her family history—”

  “My family history? You mean my dad? Where is he?” Only silence echoed off the walls. I took another step forward, very aware of their eyes on me. “I’ll do whatever you want! Don’t send me there!” My words flickered on the projection screens, scrolling across the bottom from one to the next.

  The middle Greenie smiled without sympathy. His eyes flashed as he shook his head. I stepped forward anyway.

  Don’t do it, a voice warned. Hearing voices isn’t all that abnormal. But the same voice—and this was the same voice as before—meant someone was monitoring me.

  The middle Greenie’s eyes narrowed, almost like he could hear the voice too. For just a moment, I thought he must be the one infiltrating my thoughts. But his voice had been distinctly higher than the one still echoing in my head. Don’t do it, don’t do it.

  I took another step forward.

  The middle Greenie raised his hand, causing security guards to swoop in and pull me back toward the Mech. I thrashed and kicked, and even with my soft-soled sneakers, one of them fell. I clobbered another one in the face with my tech-cuffed hands. I desperately wanted to rip the silencer off, but I couldn’t get my fingers up high enough. It would’ve hurt—a lot—but I didn’t care.

  “I won’t go!” I shouted so loud, my throat ripped. “You can’t!”

  Someone must have pushed a button or raised the alarm, because the courtroom swarmed with guards. Four of them tackled me before I went down. I finally stopped struggling when a taser sparked in my peripheral vision and someone kneeled on my spine. The guard cuffed me a second time, and I winced as the tech burned my wrists. Two pairs of advanced tech cuffs would cause blisters and a severe rash if I wore them for very long. My flesh was already tingling with techtricity.

  “There’s your evidence,” the middle Greenie said. “We’ll give you one week.” He snapped his projection screen closed and stood. The other Greenies mimicked him, and as one, they marched out of the room.

  One week for what? I glanced at Jag, my chest heaving in anger. He held my eyes, studying me like I was a difficult projection puzzle he couldn’t figure out. Refusing to look away, I stared at him until the guards yanked me backward.

  Just as they pulled me through a door, a man asked, “What are we going to do with you, Mr. Barque?” The voice dripped with disdain, but somehow it sounded . . . familiar.

  As I was escorted down the hall, I made the connection: The real-life voice speaking to Jag matched the one that had been talking in my head.

  Gunner

  1.

  Someone is always watching. Always listening. Freedom doesn’t exist in the city of Freedom, what with the glinting silver surfaces recording thoughts everywhere and the surrounding walls keeping everyone and everything in—or out.

  On the east, the ocean hugs Freedom, but no one knows how to swim. That’s against protocol, and all Citizens follow protocol.

  Identity also doesn’t flourish in Freedom. Which was why, on this crap Monday, I escaped the confines of the Education Rise amidst a stream of other students, hopefully unnoticed by Raine she’d be easier to ignore if she wasn’t so gorgeous Hightower.

  Up next: snacking and flying.

  Or so I thought.

  Raine materialized out of nowhere, her stark-as-snow hair falling over one shoulder. She adjusted her hat as I cast my eyes around to see if anyone was watching us. We seemed to be as alone as two people could be in a city where Thinkers monitored everything, from what job I’d do for the rest of my life to who I’d marry.

  I wished They’d chosen Raine for me.

  “Hey, flyboy,” she said. Her voice made my insides flip. She stepped off her hoverboard and fell into stride beside me.

  I fought the urge to look behind me, see if any of my buddies saw me talking with this amazing girl. I managed to stall the smile before it gave my feelings away.

  “Hey.” I pocketed my hands against the February afternoon chill. I could’ve mouthed Raine’s next words.

  “We really need you, Gunner.”

  I didn’t respond. Not a sigh, not a shrug, nothing. Now, if she’d say “I really need you,” I’d probably reconsider everything. But she never did.

  I’d heard her recruitment speech before. Raine belonged to a group called the Insiders, and apparently they were working to enact some “governmental change.”

  I was pretty sure that meant she snuck out after hours to drink contraband coffee with either her match/best friend Cannon Lichen or her tech guru Trek Whiting.

  She wouldn’t tell me anything about the Insiders until I joined, and I wasn’t joining until she told me something.

  The conversation felt stale, but this was the first time she’d approached me in person. The other petitions had happened over my cache. I’ll admit, I liked this way better.

  I snuck a glance at Raine and admired her sea-foam-green eyes. Immediately afterward I heard her voice over my cache. Are you even listening to me?

  Every Citizen in Freedom is implanted with a cache when they’re born. In childhood, they were more of a nuisance, as they took special concentration to use. I couldn’t hear every thought someone had—I’m not a Thinker or a mind ranger. Those people can hear thoughts and read minds—and so much more.

  No, a cache was a mental communication implant. After I learned to focus my thoughts, thanks to the introductory course we all took as first-year primary students, caching was dead useful.

  I could talk to my buddies on the hoverboard track without yelling. I could send a friend a message without my mom knowing. Over time—and a few more caching lessons—sending and receiving messages became as easy as thinking.

  My friends and I exchanged conversations mentally while together. After we went home, messages were easily transcribed just by thinking and could then be sent as electro-communications. E-comms could be kept in the cache’s memory and accessed later.

  The Thinkers could monitor a cache stream, but They maintained a very exclusive Watched list. And trust me, you knew if you were on it. Saved e-comms, however, could cause problems if they fell into the wrong hands.

  I’d deleted all of Raine’s, some of the most recent ones without even reading them.

  Of course I’m listening, I chatted back to Raine, trying not t
o let her proximity derail my annoyance at her for asking—again. This issue was nonnegotiable. It’s just that I can’t join.

  Raine fidgeted with the fingers on her gloves, her agitation thinly disguised under a layer of frustration. I could feel it coming from her, though she didn’t know that, and I didn’t want her to find out.

  Not everyone appreciated an empath.

  “Your mom,” she said out loud.

  “My mom,” I repeated. I couldn’t leave her. She and I, we’d always been there for each other. I didn’t want to get her in trouble. She had a good job in the Transportation Rise. Sure, she worked until five, but no one needed to be home to monitor my afternoon snacking and flying sessions.

  Besides, Director Hightower—that’s right, Raine’s father—did all the monitoring in Freedom.

  Raine paused, one foot on the grass of the green area across from Rise One and one foot still on the sidewalk next to me. I looked at her properly, almost flinching with the beauty I found in her face.

  “So,” I said, working hard to keep my voice from breaking.

  “So, I’m worried about you, Gunn,” she said. A secret flashed in her eyes; her words held more than concern. I realized how little I really knew about this girl, despite my crush on her.

  I frowned. “Worried?”

  “My dad . . .”

  Now, her dad I knew all about. Technically he was a Regional Director, presiding over many cities in the nearby area. Not that I’d been to any of them. I didn’t know how close they were or what they were called. I just knew that Van Hightower owned a lot more than Freedom.

  Rise One loomed before me, making late-afternoon shadows drip across the green area. “I didn’t know you lived in Rise One,” I said. “I thought you had a student flat.”

  Raine’s mouth tightened at my blatant change in topic. “There’s a student section on the second and third floors.”

  “You have a flatmate?” I asked.

  “Yes. You want her picture?” Raine adopted her power stance: left hip out, arms crossed, eyes challenging me to say something.

  I held up my hands in surrender. “No, no picture.”

  Pictures could also be sent over the cache, attached to an e-comm. Everyone in Freedom was fitted with corneal implants, which allowed us to view things on an individual basis on our vision-screens. It wasn’t really a screen, more of a movie or picture displayed before our own eyes. Of course, you could forward images through the cache, or you could load them onto microchips and pass them around physically.

  See, every Citizen of Freedom also had a wrist-port. This was a simple, inch-wide band of black around the left wrist. On the top, just below the back of your hand, was a slot for microchips, and then you could watch memories on your vision-screen.

  We’d eliminated almost all handheld devices in Freedom. It’s something Assistant Director Myers was forever bragging about. “We’re down to just the electro-board!” he boasted from the roof of the Technology Rise—his beloved home just beyond the taller central Rises.

  The e-board was cool; I’d give AD Myers that. It was this tiny little thing, about four inches long and two inches wide. A screen could be brought up to hover above the device if you wanted to show your buddies a particularly entertaining memory. Other than that, we used the e-boards in school to store class notes. Simply compose a message in your cache and send it to your e-board. Notes: taken.

  Educators could send items to their class lists, providing students with an endless supply of study materials. Free-time hours: gone.

  “Anyway, she’s not a student,” Raine was saying. She took a few steps backward, committing fully to crossing the green area to Rise One. “Well, I should go.” She didn’t seem too enthused about leaving, but that could’ve been wishful thinking on my part.

  “Wait,” I called. “What’s your flatmate’s name?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Just some chick named Vi.”

  I watched Raine walk away, wondering why Vi, a non-student, was living on a student floor, with a student. I needed to learn more about the real Raine Hightower, stat.

  I glided through the remaining Rises, covering mile after mile easily on my hoverboard. Each Rise—and there were twelve situated in the center of Freedom—took up an entire square mile and created silver canyons, even with all the green areas. On the outskirts of those Rises, more buildings reached for the sky.

  My mom worked in the Transportation Rise, and there were others: technology, energy, water purification, protocol enforcement, medicine, and evolutionary development, just to name a few. Each Rise had a Thinker who ran the affairs in that particular area, but only one of them was Assistant to Director Hightower: Thane Myers.

  As I drifted through the Rise-canyons toward the Blocks, I forced the Directors from my mind, focusing instead on something more important: my snack selection. On Mondays, my two options included crackers and cheese or raisins. I chose the crackers every Monday.

  By the time I made it to Block Three, I’d moved on from snacks and spent a more than healthy amount of time fantasizing about Raine. I swept my palm across the panel on my front door and pushed into the living room, where my mom knelt in front of our safe, a slip of microchips in her hand.

  Everything froze, as if the Director had pressed the pause button on my life. Mom stalled with her hand halfway inside the safe. Her face held shock and fear and guilt, all of which I actually felt as my own emotions.

  I stared, my mouth still watering over the promise of crackers and cheese.

  Just as fast as we’d paused, life rushed forward again. The safe slammed shut, and Mom stood in front of it. Like that would erase the secret she’d just put inside. Like I wouldn’t be able to see the hulking black box behind her. It’s always been there, and I’d always been involved in the decisions about what we hid inside. Until now.

  “Gunner, you’re home early.”

  “Not really.” I dropped my backpack and hoverboard and headed into the kitchen for that snack. The safe screamed at me to look at it! but I kept my eyes on the floor. “Why are you home?” I called to Mom.

  I pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge and ordered up the crackers from the food-dispenser. Mom didn’t answer and she stayed in the living room, her frustration about my slobbish behavior a thin veil of normalcy over my heavy curtain of anxiety.

  “No reason,” she said when she came into the kitchen. “You’re going flying?”

  “Yeah, be back for dinner.” I ate on the way to the hoverboard track, but the crackers held no taste. The icy air I sliced through at the track felt just as restrictive as the rest of the city. As the rest of my life.

  All I could think about was that blasted sleeve of microchips, what they were, why my mom had hidden them without telling me.

  I flew my regulated hours, returned home at the appointed time. Just like always.

  Bedtime couldn’t come fast enough. At exactly ten o’clock, I plugged my cache into the mandatory transmissions, closed my eyes.

  Like I slept.

  After an hour that felt like forever, I unclipped my transmissions and crept downstairs to the safe. I had four minutes to plug back in, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Like I said, my mom and I didn’t used to keep secrets, so I knew the combination to the safe.

  Three minutes later the sleeve of microchips lay under my pillow and the transmissions reblared in my head.

  I needed time to think. So I lay awake, trying to imagine what I might see.

  I couldn’t.

  I popped the first chip into my wrist-port. My vision-screen filled with my mom’s remembrances. My past birthdays and, as I got older, my performances at the hoverboard flight trials. The second to last one held my victory last year. Mom was hiding her fondest memories of me, almost like she couldn’t hold them in her head anymore. Why would she secure these without telling me?

  I slid the last chip into the port and nearly choked. Director Hightower sat at his desk; the surface gl
ittered with clouded glass.

  He leaned forward to speak, and while he looked kind and fatherly, his voice came out full of steel and sternness.

  “Hello, Ms. Jameson. Our records indicate that the child we entrusted you with, Gunner, has considerable talent. The Association needs to begin his training as soon as possible. He will be summoned next Saturday, at six thirty a.m., for a personal appointment with me. His afternoon classes will be moved to Rise One to aid in this new academic direction.”

  Director Hightower paused as he sipped clear liquid from a tall glass. I couldn’t work up enough saliva to swallow. He’d called me “the child we entrusted you with.” What the hell did that mean?

  When he looked into the camera again, I felt like his eyes burned through the lens, the microchip, my vision-screen, and right into my soul. Like he could see and hear and feel everything and I was utterly exposed.

  “You will not be able to see him again, Ms. Jameson. But know that he will be of great service to the Association of Directors, not only here in Freedom, but throughout the entire union.”

  I dug my fingers into the pillow in an attempt to escape from his penetrating eyes. Numbness spread from my fingers into my arms, but the Director wasn’t finished yet.

  “You’ve done a superior job with his upbringing.” He bowed his head for a moment, then raised his chin again. “You will be notified of his new address no later than Sunday evening. Until Saturday at six thirty. Good day.”

  The image went black, but I still felt the Director’s eyes lingering on me.

  My hands shook, and my head buzzed. The Director’s words raced through my mind. You will not be able to see him again.

  The last person who’d left her was my father. I didn’t want to put her through that again. I knew what had happened, even though we’d only spoken about my dad once.

  She’d forgotten him.

  Once I moved out, would she forget about me too?

  “Tell me everything,” I whispered to Raine Hightower the next day before genetics class began. Briefly, I thought about my mom. We’d always protected each other, and I was more determined than ever to keep her safe, even after my forced relocation on Saturday.