“Not as private as you think,” someone said from beside me. The voice sounded familiar.
With a twist of my wrists and a downward yank, I managed to free myself. I turned to look to see who had walked into the chamber, and my heart skipped a beat. “Tyler?” My knees gave, and Eli caught me to keep me standing.
“Who’s Tyler?” Eli glanced around.
“Listen to him for now, Iia. The government uploaded your chip when you walked out of the hall of records after you opened your sealed adoption file,” Tyler said.
My jaw fell open.
“They’ve been using your chip to spy on you since you went there. I think they suspected you were the missing heir too. Good thing you stole the record and didn’t download the data or they would’ve had you first and you’d be dead.”
“Like you?” I said to my friend, guessing he was a ghost, because I could see the wall on the other side of him, and he didn’t have enough density to block it. Tyler had died. He couldn’t be there, telling me the things he’d just said. He had to be a ghost, no other explanation made sense.
“Like who?” Eli furrowed his brow.
“Tyler.”
“Tyler who?”
I pointed. “He’s standing right there.”
Eli twisted to look and returned to face me. “Nobody’s there, Iia.”
“Right there. Wearing tan pants and a blue shirt.”
Tyler bowed, rotating his hand as he moved it away from his body, like a court noble in the 1700s would’ve done. So very Tyler. “He can’t see me, Iia.”
“I see you.” I pointed at Tyler. “Let him see you.”
“Can’t do that, honey,” Tyler said. “I’m tuned into your frequency.”
“My what?”
“Iia, playing crazy isn’t going to get you out of this,” Eli said, His face was scrunched up, and he looked concerned. He drew closer, blocking my view of my friend. Eli getting in my face didn’t help. I shoved him. “Move. I’m trying to have a conversation with Tyler.”
Eli stepped to the side. “There’s nobody—”
I threw my hand up, shutting him down. “You didn’t answer my question. Why can I see you?” I asked Tyler.
“You see me because I want you to.”
“I think she’s having a bad reaction to the sedative.” Eli spoke to a tall man by the door. “What the hell was in that vial you gave me?”
“The same stuff I always use. She shouldn’t be having this reaction,” the man I groined said.
“Well, she is—”
I glared at the two men. “Do you two mind? I’m trying to talk to Tyler.”
“Relax. We’ll get Doc to look at you as soon as we can get out of here and to somewhere safe.”
I waved Eli off and returned my attention to Tyler. “I don’t understand. Are you dead? Or is Eli right, I’m hallucinating this?”
“What I am is here. I’m not a ghost. I want you to stick with the rebels for now, but as soon as I can figure something out, I’m going to spring you. Right now, they have to keep you alive to get what they want.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Don’t trust the rebels, especially Eli. They have an agenda, and it won’t end well for you.” Tyler tipped his neck to the side and cracked his neck, something as annoying as a ghost as when he’d been around me alive.
“Don’t do that. It’s revolting.”
“What’s revolting?” Eli asked.
I twisted and glared at my captor. “Do you mind? This is a private conversation.”
“I will catch up with you later. I’ve used as much energy as is safe. Let them burn your chip. If they don’t, Eli is right, you’re as good as dead.”
“Energy? I don’t understand,” I said as Tyler began to fade. “Wait!”
“I’m alive, and I don’t have time to explain right now. You are going to need to trust me, Iia.” Tyler vanished.
“I don’t even know who you are anymore, and you want me to trust you?” I whispered. If he wasn’t dead, he had a lot to explain. He’d left me thinking he’d died for years.
“Calm down. There’s no one there. Come back to me, Iia,” Eli said and gave me a shake, breaking me out of the staredown I was having with the wall.
“Let go of me. I can stand on my own.” I knocked Eli’s hands off and stepped away, bracing with one hand against the concrete. The other I used to pinch the bridge of my nose. What had I just seen? I closed my eyes, doing my best to absorb what my best friend had said. He hadn’t died, but his spirit had somehow come back to…warn me? No, I’d been drugged, and the culprit stood behind me, feigning he gave a damn I’d just seen and talked to a dead friend.
“You all right, Iia?”
I opened my eyes and spun around to face him. “No! I’m not all right. I’ve been kidnapped and poisoned.”
“We didn’t poison you. I’m sure the effect will only be temporary.”
“Right.” If I wasn’t poisoned, what could explain what I’d just seen and heard? Tyler had been right—too right to be a figment of my imagination. Yet I refused to believe I’d not spoken to a ghost. So what just happened? Everything my old friend said was accurate. The file could only be opened by someone with the appropriate retinal scan and corresponding chip. The only thing that had kept anyone from going in and getting the information the file had held. If they wanted it, they had to wait until I went and read it. And I thought a part of me knew someone would, because I’d stolen the file and destroyed it, instead of downloading the data.
A feeling of unease lingered in the back of my mind, afraid to come forward. None of this could be as simple as it appeared. The truth sat in the bottom of my guts like a heavy stone. If my ancestor had left some kind of kill switch to the Net, nobody could protect me. The sooner I figured out where he’d hidden the codes, the better.
If I were my great-great-grandfather, where would I hide the codes?
I scoured my memories, trying to recall anything pointing toward the answer to the question my inner voice had raised. Nothing.
“We need to get this over with. I don’t want to use this sedative on you again, so please, give me your arm.”
“No.” I backed up against the wall. Tyler had told me to let them do it, but I could’ve been delusional. Maybe the chip held the answer?
“Iia.”
“No.” The stuff Eli and Tyler had been spouting began to make some kind of morbid sense, raising the hair on my arms and chilling me to my bones in a room under any other circumstances would feel like a sweatbox. I wondered if I’d started to lose my grip on reality. I couldn’t deny I was the lost Danner heir, in line to a huge fortune and sole owner of the largest corporation in Sententia, one whose control sat in the very hands of the people who may or may not be pursuing me. If I’d decided to step forward and claim that birthright, it could result in a death sentence. It had been the reason I’d destroyed the file. When you had nothing, nobody cared. When you had everything, you became a target. Yes, the birth name listed on my certificate read Danner, and way too much pointed at my lineage being such.
And what about the bees’ behavior?
Regardless of the in-my-face proof, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the possibility any of this was happening, no matter how hard I tried. None of it seemed real, and I really didn’t want to burn my damn chip.
“Your hand, please.”
I swallowed, eyeing Eli.
This would be the end of my world as I knew it. I didn’t want to walk the tightrope without a safety net.
“Either you offer your arm so we can burn this chip, or I knock you out and do it anyway.”
I’d studied digital processing since the age of five, and the idea hit me like a pede-transport train. I had enough knowledge to hack into and rebuild my accounts and records to reattach, or at least I thought I could. Shooting Eli a nasty look, I offered my wrist, not bothering to mention what I planned first chance I got.
“This might
hurt a pinch.” His gaze traveled from my face, down my arm and across the back of my hand right above my middle knuckles, to the credit implant sitting just below the skin and its wires feeding to the pads of my fingers and embedded microprocessors.
I looked away, refusing to acknowledge him. I can fix this. I can fix this. I kept my arm there, waiting. Didn’t mean I’d forgive him for it. He, after all, had offered me no choice.
Eli grabbed my arm as someone handed him a metal mitten-shaped device he slipped onto my hand and snapped shut over my wrist. “I know what you’re thinking. You can’t fix this. It doesn’t work that way. They use this to burn the criminals’ chips. It destroys all the data links and wipes the master bank at the same time. There will be nothing left on the other end to link back to.”
Well, he wasn’t me. I could fix anything attached to a hard drive. I kept my mouth shut. Sure, your average programmer couldn’t fix the disaster he’d just described, but he had no idea what my capabilities were—or did he?
The cuff hummed and turned a cherry red. Not hot on my skin, but the chip. Damn! I tried to yank free, and he tightened his grip. “There’s no going back.”
Heck, I couldn’t even perform my job without it. Well I could, but I’d have to resort to primitive rewiring and programming. If he thought I wouldn’t replace it first chance, he had another think coming.
“Your implant houses a registration number which can be tracked by satellite and transmitted to the ento-robites. I can block most of the signal in the sewers, but not topside. The bands are too concentrated for our com-techs to jam. You cannot be connected to the satellite in any manner. Sententia monitors the population through it. They can tell when you have sex, what you ate for breakfast, all of your activities, including where you go and what you do.”
“They know when we have sex?”
“Yes.” A laser pulsed across my flesh, and the metal disc which housed all of my material wealth burned under my skin. “But not anymore.” The wires seared the flesh, burning to my fingertips. My nerves exploded with pain, shooting up my arm with a white-hot burst of energy.
I yelped and tried to tug out of his grip. “Let go. Take this thing off me.”
“When the deactivation is complete, I’ll release you. Hold still. You’ll thank me later.”
“You’re destroying… Ouch! Stop.” Tears ran down my cheeks as my identity, education, medical records, licenses, and bank accounts dissolved before my eyes. The smell of burnt flesh wafted up. My guts churned. “Please.”
“Almost there.”
A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, and a lump lodged in my throat. The world began to spin. Eli slipped an arm behind me and leaned my torso back into his chest, keeping me on my feet.
“Easy. Take a deep breath. You’re doing great.”
“I can’t do this. Please.” I swallowed and focused on two men standing off to the side, no longer able to look at the destruction of my life. Somehow, it brought me back from the brink of blackout. Anger washed over me. “Stop!”
“Deactivation complete,” the device chimed in with what I could swear sounded like a happy voice. Bile rose in my throat. The cuff unlocked, and the burner dropped to the floor with a clunk. Every eye in the room turned toward me.
“Not deactivation. It’s not like I can reactivate it, can I?” I blew on my flesh where a welt shaped like a starburst, with long rays extending down to my fingertips, now stood out. A symbol of exile—of those who were cast out, or set adrift on the ocean for committing crimes, certain to leave a scar nobody would miss. I might be able to rebuild my chip. The mark, I could never erase. “You just destroyed everything I own, labeled me as a criminal. Thanks a lot. Do you have any idea how many years, how hard I had to—”
“Would you rather the bees get you?” Eli let go of my arms, stepping back.
I spun around and glared at him. “Nobody bothered to ask what I wanted. The bees are not going to attack. Stop with the conspiracy theories.” I flexed and opened my hand, shaking the tingle off.
“Almost all of us have disposed of our chips. You are not alone, Iia. I got rid of it a long time ago.” He raised his hand, showing me an identical symbol, but the scar sat where a soldier’s chip would’ve been implanted, above his thumb, near where he’d grip a weapon, allowing him to activate and fire said weapon. Only police officers and military had the ability to fire weapons. I stared at it, unable to voice a million thoughts going through my head. Our careers were picked from the cradle, and Eli had served as a warrior once.
“This doesn’t define me or make me a criminal. It keeps me out of their grasp, gives me freedoms you’ve never tasted. Trust me, you’re about to be grateful you got rid of your shackle. You are free to do whatever you want without fear of someone monitoring your every move.”
Shackle? The chip had held my life, and the way he talked, I could live without it. But I couldn’t, and had no choice now, thanks to him.
But it wasn’t half of what raised my fury. Oh no. Not by a long shot. Anger crept up the back of my neck. For a second, I swore my scalp lifted from my skull. “I doubt it. I can’t even buy food without it. Or get in and out of the city checkpoints. Didn’t think of that, did you?”
“You won’t need to. We’ll steal what we require or harvest from the wild. And there are lava tubes all over the islands we can utilize to get where we want.”
“Excuse me?”
“The tunnels…”
“I’m well aware they are there. However, they are off limits and against the law to go into, since the volcano—”
“Hasn’t erupted for eighty years. The scientists say it’s finally gone to sleep.” One of Eli’s men handed him a canvas bag, which he shoved into my arms. Back to the rubber suit? “Change.”
“No.” I’d grown tired of his orders and ultimatums. I pushed the bag back. Done. So done.
“You either change or we do it for you. They would’ve had time by now to review your building’s security cameras and know what you’re wearing. The channels are going non-stop repeating your description, including what you’re wearing. Now change.” His expression remained serious, telling me he’d do it.
“Fine.” I grabbed the bag. “I want everyone out of here while I do it.”
“Ten minutes.” Eli nodded, unfastened his watch and set it on top of the bag of clothes. “You’ll want this to see. Make it quick. This location isn’t safe anymore.” With that, he motioned everyone out of the room, shutting the door and locking it behind him.
I leaned back against the wall and shoved my hands in my hair, scrunching my eyes shut to prevent the tears. What did I do to deserve this? I reached up and wiped the moisture away with the back of my hand. I could do this for now. First chance I had, I’d run to the authorities and tell them what happened. I glanced around the chamber. “Tyler, are you there?”
I focused on the spot my old friend had been standing minutes before. “Come on.” I could picture his tan pants and blue shirt, the shit-eating grin he always had on his face. But no matter how hard I tried to will him into being, he wouldn’t reappear. I sighed. Right—so like Tyler, running on his own schedule.
I really would’ve liked to ask him if turning myself in would be a good idea, but like Tyler reappearing, it just wouldn’t happen. The authorities would have to believe me. Then again, Tyler had also insisted I burn my chip to stay away from them. Could I believe a ghost who said he wasn’t one?
I glanced at the time and realized I only had three minutes left to dress. I’d ponder the mysterious spirit of my old friend later. Maybe I could conjure him up again, if I hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing.
I eyed the room in the dim glow cast off by Eli’s watch, reached into the bag, and came out with something not made of rubber. At least I had normal clothes.
Exactly three minutes later, the door opened. I stood up, wearing black pants and a black tee shirt. I’d slipped on a pair of boots designed for walking in rough terrain, most lik
ely forest worker’s footgear. They fit a little too perfectly, making me wonder what Eli didn’t know about me.
Bad thing when your enemy has more intelligence on you than you do on them. I knew little to nothing about the rebel leader, but that would change. The more information I had on him, the closer I could get to him, the better chance he would slip up and let his guard down. When he did, I’d escape.
“You look just like one of us,” Eli said and grinned, pleased with the chaos he’d inflicted on my life. “Let’s go.” He walked off, expecting me to follow. And I would. I had no other options.
I sighed and started walking. Several of the rebels came up behind me. When we reached the ladder, Eli grabbed my arm, stopping me. “Under any other circumstances, I’d let you go ahead. But with the patrols out there, it would be better if I went before you, since I’m combat trained.”
“The patrol won’t pass by this location for another seven minutes and two seconds,” said a rebel wearing headgear which I was fairly certain helped him to monitor the communication channels.
“Then by all means, take the lead,” Eli said.
I looked up at our door to freedom, a round manhole cover which sat at the top of a fifteen foot ladder.
I moved to climb, and he grabbed my arm, stopping me again.
“One second.” He gestured forward the one female rebel in the group. “Tag her.”
“No. You’re not tagging me.”
“I am, just in case you get it in your head to run. I want to trust you, but I don’t.”
Before I could object, the rebel pressed a cylinder against my arm, and a loud pop sounded out. A sting followed, radiating down my arm. I could swear the tracker had embedded in my bone. I rubbed the area, glaring. She didn’t say a word. That’s when I realized the only people who had spoken to me were Eli and Tyler. When I lifted my chin and looked her in the eyes, she blasted me with animosity, enough I took a step in retreat. I glanced around at the others and saw the same expression on their faces. They were no more happy about my kidnapping than I.
“Now you may go. Remember, lefty loosey, righty tighty.”
“I think I’m capable of opening it without instruction, thank you.” I shoved Eli out of the way. I could protect myself, not that I cared to share I had practiced a variety of martial arts through the years. Besides, I’d grown sick of taking orders and being pushed around.
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