by Leia Stone
My heart beat faster, as if that was possible.
“Why?”
His answer was immediate. “So they can blow it up.”
Two
We all sat cross-legged on the roof of the old soap factory. After Kevin assured me that, to the best of his knowledge, our new phones weren’t bugged and our new hideout was well hidden, he had to go. He said to call from burner phones only, just in case, but that he really couldn’t help us any more than that.
My mind was absolutely reeling. “So the elites are going to wait until the population’s been culled and then what? The ghouls leave to terraform another planet, and the people left back on Earth create a new society?”
Nox was glaring at the ground. “Sounds about right. The new society will be full of white dominant males, and they’ll name it ‘New America’ or some shit. Take over the entire Earth and make sure all their plastic girlfriends make it there with them.”
Nox was half Native American, half Japanese. He had every right to say that. I hoped it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t deny it at this point.
Damien had been silent the entire time, hands crossed in his lap. “A clean burning fuel that takes years to burn up is rarer than diamonds or gold.”
I side-eyed him. “You sound like you want some.”
He met my gaze. “I do. But not at the expense of human lives. This all makes so much sense now. Why the FBI raided us and took my intel. Why in their emails, they said they were going to give out the cuff only to the elites. They just want to protect a small number of people, until their deal with the sentries is done.”
“So what can we do to make sure it doesn’t happen?” I asked our small group. The rage was slowly building in me, and once it exploded, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
“I think first and foremost we need to think of our safety.” Ronnie spoke up. “If they’re looking to blow up the mine….”
Ahh yes. Always the doctor thinking rationally. Probably isn’t smart to stay in Bisbee long-term anymore. My heart broke a little at that thought.
“I agree,” Damien said. “At this rate, we’re fulfilling about a hundred thousand cuff orders a day. That’s with factories all around the country pumping them out. But the mine has to dig up the rare mineral, shape it into discs, and mail it to the factories. It’s going to start falling behind in production. I’ve been planning this for a while, had the mine pre-making the discs to fit into the cuffs for weeks now. But if they blow up the mine… no more cuffs.”
Anger whipped through me. “How can they do that! We’ll expose them, go to the news,” I shouted.
Damien chuckled. “Kit, they’ll make it look like an accident. No one will believe us. President Buckley just did a one-hour special on how much she collaborated with Striker Industries on the cuffs. She looks like a hero.”
There was a tiny pebble next to my knee. I picked it up and chucked across the length of the rooftop in anger. “So what the hell do we do, then?”
It was going to take months for us to be able to get cuffs out to every citizen. And even though other countries were following Damien’s schematics online to make their own, they still needed the rare mineral to actually produce a plasma shield. If the government discovered and took out this mine, humanity was screwed.
Damien looked out on the sweet and sleepy town of Bisbee. “I think it’s time to say goodbye to Bisbee. The best way to keep the mine hidden is to leave. I’m going to call my real estate agent and have him buy another mine in my name in Texas to throw them off. Then I’ll have him grab us a new house, somewhere out of the country.”
My heart knocked in my chest. Leave the country? That was a bit scary, but it also felt necessary.
“I have family in Japan, and I speak the language,” Ronnie offered.
Damien nodded. “Which is why it’s a bad place to go. If shit really heats up, if this whole elite thing is real, we’re going to need to lie really low.”
“Mexico?” Nox offered, pointing in the direction of the border. We were only ten miles from it.
Damien looked out toward the mountain ranges that nestled Bisbee in. “I was thinking Canada. Vancouver, actually. It’s close enough to the US that I can keep an eye on things, and with the borders open right now, we could easily slip in without leaving a paper trail.”
Ronnie nodded. “Their medical supplies are up to my standards, so I’m okay with that.”
I nodded. “I’m okay with that too.” They spoke English there, so that was a plus. I wasn’t multilingual like everyone else on this rooftop. I knew cerveza and el baño. That was about the extent of my Spanish.
Nox confirmed his agreement as well.
It looked like we were moving—again.
Damien sighed. “Okay then, Canada it is. Now to tell Jeremy and hope he handles the news okay.”
Ronnie was sitting on the other side of Damien, and she reached out and grasped his arm. “We’ll all pitch in to make the transition as smooth as possible for him.”
Damien looked taken aback by her kind gesture. “Thank you.”
My heart felt like it was ten pounds lighter in that moment. My best friend and my— whatever Damien was—coming together and helping each other. It felt damn good.
“I wonder if we could get proof that they made a deal with the sentries and were somehow bringing the green stuff back to Earth,” I pondered out loud.
Damien grinned. “Sounds like a job for a hacker.”
I’d forgotten about his computer abilities until now. He’d hacked into Santiago’s apartment building and set off the fire alarm in under a minute.
“Think you can do it?” I asked, hopeful.
He shrugged. “With some direction from your friend Kevin… maybe.”
That didn’t sound too hopeful, but I would have to take maybe. Maybe was all we had.
Damien placed a hand on my thigh. “As much as it pains me to say this, I think we need to cancel our date tonight. I’ll need to spend the night finding us a new house in Vancouver.”
He was right. It was practical, and spending hours on a date while the government was looking to blow up your town was stupid, but his words still stung. “Totally. I understand.”
My eyes flicked to Ronnie, whose face looked sad and downcast for me.
“But I’ll need help picking a place out, so we can have a computer date with my real estate agent,” he followed up with a peppier tone.
I chuckled. “My dream date,” I joked.
Ronnie crossed her arms. “Maxine’s the only one who ever has any fun around here.”
The moment she said it, her eyes widened as if she wanted to take it back.
Nox made a groaning noise in his throat and stood, walking quickly toward the stairs that led down into the house.
“Ronnie!” I scolded her once he was out of earshot. Nox had recently developed a thing for Maxine, but he hadn’t told her yet, and other than Damien mentioning it to her once, she was clueless.
Ronnie smacked her forehead. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“You know you could be dating too, if you took that stick out of your ass and gave in to Brisk. The man is going to get tired of waiting around for you,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes. “Good. Let him get tired and move on. I’m not interested,” she spat.
Damien was on his phone, not paying us any mind as far as I could tell.
“Veronica Sato, you are lying through your teeth. You’ve wanted to jump his bones for a while now,” I called her out.
She stood, and put a hand on her hip. “But you did it for me, so now I don’t have to. I’m gonna start dinner.” She walked off with a smirk.
Damn, Ronnie’s filter is definitely broken.
Damien looked at me with one raised eyebrow and put down his phone.
Whoops. Probably shouldn’t be airing out my dirty laundry like that.
“It’s a long story,” I said to him.
He smirked. “I’m sure. What do y
ou think of this loft?” He handed me the phone and I took it gratefully.
Note to Ronnie: don’t talk about me sleeping with other guys in front of my new man.
“This is amazing.” I swiped through the pictures. It had an extended master with four king-size beds for large party co-sleeping, an open second floor workspace for Jeremy, and Damien to tinker with their stuff, and a home gym.
“Perfect. I’ll have my agent fly out there tonight and video call us to make sure it’s going to work out.”
I nodded. “Can I ask you something?” My brain was gnawing on something, and I needed to get it out.
He put down his phone and met my gaze. Damien was great about giving undivided attention. Something else I liked about him.
“Okay. I’m not super smart, so bear with me,” I prefaced.
He smiled. “You’re plenty smart, Kit. What do you want to know?”
I tried not to blush at his compliment. “The cuffs. They do the plasma shield thingy to create a physical barrier but… the data dump. Tell me more about that.”
I didn’t fully understand how it hurt them, or if we could make it hurt them more.
Understanding shone in his gaze. “Yes, okay. This is more of Jeremy’s field of expertise, but studies have shown that the ghouls communicate by sending mental files. Files with coding in them, similar to our computer files. So when we hit them with a random data dump file, it basically overwhelms their senses, like a sound weapon would cause you to plug your ears and feel disoriented. It all comes too fast and too loud for you to focus, and it’s the same with them.”
Holy shit. I didn’t know that. I mean, I knew it hurt them, but hearing how it worked was kind of fascinating. “Could we hurt them more, I don’t know, like send a file that made their brain explode?”
Damien chuckled. “Maybe. That’s a one-in-a-million chance we would find the right code that spoke to that organ and caused it to shut down or whatever.”
I shrugged. “Might be worth trying.”
There’s nothing in life that would bring me more satisfaction than watching the ghouls’ brains explode before me.
He nodded. “I can ask Jeremy what he thinks after he’s done with the remotes.”
Jeremy had been hard at work designing some universal remote controllers that could switch the plasma bricks on and off from far away. We were slowly setting up plasma protection domes throughout the Dream Wars, meaning we entered with the plasma copies the ghouls made when they scanned and replicated us, then left them back in the Dream Wars, as they didn’t seem to disappear when we woke up like our bodies did. Almost as if our physical earth bodies called our souls home and the nonorganic things like weapons got left behind.
It was both good and bad. Good that we now had hundreds of plasma bricks in the Dream Wars to hide in, but bad because we left behind so many weapons for the ghouls to steal.
The bricks could run for weeks without repowering the batteries, but we couldn’t get through the shields to get back inside. They were continuous, keeping all things out: human, ghoul, and even Galadria. With Jeremy’s new remotes, we could turn them off to let humans inside and then turn them back on quickly.
Damien ran a hand through his hair. He looked stressed out, staring off into the mountains that surrounded Bisbee.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
He sighed. “I’ve done my best to give Jeremy as much structure and dependability as possible in this crazy life, and now…. We need to find out how we can stop them from separating us. I fear one day he won’t call and I’ll never find him again. He’ll run off, someone will hurt him, or take advantage—”
“Shhh.” I slipped onto his lap and he wrapped his arms around me. I never felt close enough to Damien, even when our bodies were pressed together. I had no idea what we were, but as long as I was always welcome on his lap, I didn’t need labels.
My heart ripped open then. Jeremy was Damien’s blood brother, but he was like a son and a brother to all of us. To not be able to protect him was soul-crushing.
“The dream bands tie our consciousnesses together when we go in, right? We just need to find a way to tie our bodies together when we come out. I’m sure—”
Damien leapt up, bringing both of us to our feet, and with two hands on each of my shoulders, he shook me. “Woman, you’re brilliant!”
Then he slammed a hard kiss on my mouth and took off running.
Dating a brilliant scientist is interesting.
Curious what the hell he was talking about, I walked slowly after him, careful not to put too much weight on my fragile ankle. Looking down at the molten scar on my wrist, I thought of the way the sentry saliva had burned into my flesh and I shivered. I was lucky to have minimal nerve damage. It could’ve been much worse.
I heard Damien shouting excitedly in the workroom, and then Jeremy’s voice rose up in agreement. “Yes! They are somehow scanning our DNA. I should’ve suspected this all along!” Jeremy shouted.
When I walked in, he was pacing behind the desk, holding an open bag of marshmallows and looking at the ceiling. He had a sweet tooth that Damien was always trying to curb.
When I entered, Damien put a finger over his lips, indicating that I keep quiet, and then motioned for me to come to his side. I shuffled over, giving Mr. Hansen a polite nod as I passed. We all stood there in silence and watched Jeremy. He was mumbling to himself and moving his fingers in a weird way, as if calculating something.
After a long time, Jeremy bared his teeth. “I know what to do.”
Beside me, Damien released the breath he’d been holding. I was completely clueless, as usual.
Jeremy started pacing again, and I could see tracks in the carpet of the office indicating he must’ve done this often. “There’s a trail. A trail we follow from the Dream Wars back to our bodies on Earth. They follow the trail and move the body. They scan our DNA within the Dream Wars in order to find our body back on Earth.”
I shivered. The fact that he even thought it possible for the ghouls to “scan” our sleeping bodies here on Earth made me want to vomit and then run screaming.
Damien nodded next to me. “That’s a good theory, buddy.”
Jeremy’s head snapped up, and for the first time since I’d known the Strikers, he made eye contact with his brother. “It’s not a theory. I’m sure of it.”
“Okay…,” Damien hedged. “How do you think we can fix it?”
Jeremy wiggled his fingers again, calculating. “Blood,” he declared.
Damien nodded. “Yes.”
My eyebrows rose. “Could you be more specific?” I asked our boy genius. Shit was getting confusing, and I needed to know exactly what he was talking about.
Jeremy stared at my shoes. “Hi, Kit.”
He’d just noticed I was there. Bless his heart. “Hey, Jer.” I stood and stepped closer. “Can you explain this so I can understand it?”
He nodded. “We’ll start in pairs of two. Once we’re all in the Dream Wars, we take a vial of our blood and put it into a tubing that will wind around our partner’s suit. They’ll do the same to us. The ghouls won’t be able to tell which DNA is which and will send the pairs back together. That way we won’t wake up alone. I don’t like being alone. I miss Josephine. Damien doesn’t make my hot chocolate right. She does.”
Damien chuckled. “I miss her too. And that’s a great plan, buddy. I’ll get started on the suit design. Thank you.”
Jeremy nodded.
I raised my hand. “Hang on. How will it help to do the blood tubing thing after we’re in, if the ghouls are moving our bodies here on earth?” I think they both forgot that not everyone in this room was a genius.
“Because we suspect they scan our copied dream wars body as it’s waking up, and then match it to the body on earth, moving that one right before we wake up.” Damien answered.
“Oh okay.” From now on I was just going to smile and nod and allow them to handle this.
Damien stood t
here a moment, hands jammed in his pockets looking at Jeremy. “Hey, bud, there’s one more thing I needed to tell you.”
Jeremy’s eyes flicked up to his brother’s face. “It’s bad. You’re wearing your bad face.” He started rocking on his heels, and Damien held out his hands in a placating gesture.
“No, it’s not bad at all. It’s just different,” he stated.
Jeremy was shaking his head. “I don’t like different. Different is bad.”
Damien sighed. “I know, bud, but… we need to move again. I’ve got—”
“No!” Jeremy shouted, fists balled at his sides. “No way. I just got my desk how I like it.”
“I know, but we’re not safe here anymore and—”
“You’re a liar! You told me after we left California that this would be our new home. I won’t remember how I like my desk, and everything will be messed up!” He pounded his fists onto the tops of his thighs.
Oh God. My heart broke for him. A thought struck me and I leapt forward, pulling out my phone. “We’ll take a picture! We’ll take a picture of your desk and everything that’s on it. Then when we move, we can recreate it to match the picture.”
Jeremy stopped his pounding and reached out for my phone. “I’ll take the picture. And we should have multiple copies in case the photo gets deleted.”
“Of course.” Damien stepped forward, looking relieved. “You can text it to all of us, and then we’ll have eight copies.”
Jeremy snapped a picture and nodded. “Eight copies should be okay.”
Damien’s hand slipped in mine and squeezed. I squeezed back.
Sometimes life was just hard, and there was nothing you could do but try your best to survive it.
Three
After getting Jeremy on board with the move, we’d skyped Damien’s realtor. The five-bedroom loft in downtown Vancouver was perfect for us. It was a furnished one-year lease and Damien paid in full, putting the apartment in my name.
While he worked on placing thin tubing into all of our suits, I called the movers, and scheduled them to drive our packed cars to Vancouver for us. Wherever we wound up the next day, we weren’t coming back to Bisbee.