by Emily Suvada
“Anna,” I say, raising my hands. “You don’t know me, but I really need your help.”
CHAPTER 11 JUN BEI
COLE STANDS BEHIND ME AS the Comox rises, lifting us through Entropia’s blast doors and into the fast-approaching night. The sky is a dusky gray, the horizon streaked with golden clouds. I’m at the Comox’s dust-coated window, one hand clutching the cargo netting, the other pressed to the glass as the city shrinks into a web of lights below us. The buildings on the mountain’s slopes are empty and dark, but the streetlights glow with bioluminescent bulbs, lighting up the swaths of ash choking the streets. The rest of the team of genehackers in the Comox’s cargo hold are silent, the air thick with nervousness about the mission ahead of us.
All I feel is a buzzing, churning excitement. With every minute that passes, we’re closer to finishing the Panacea.
The Comox tilts south, roaring low over the city’s farmlands. From above, the razorgrass border looks like a million glimmering shards of glass. Spotlights glow near the checkpoints, where teams are setting up barricades, hauling out what little weaponry Regina kept stashed in the bunker’s basement levels. If Cole is right, this mountain will be under siege from a horde of snarling Lurkers by the time the sun rises. Cole said Cartaxus thinks the Lurkers will be cured if we remove my code from their panels. But even with a team working on it, we’d have to rebuild the vaccine from scratch. Lachlan designed it to rely on the Panacea, and stripping my code from it could take us weeks, maybe even months.
But I’m so close to finishing the Panacea. With Lachlan’s help, it could be fixed within days. That’s why, while Ruse has been gathering people and giving orders, I’ve been coming up with my own plan.
“How are you feeling?” Cole asks from behind me.
“I’m fine,” I reply, staring out the window, watching the city fade behind us. I drop my hand from the glass and slide it into the pocket of my jeans, tracing the edge of a needle-tipped vial of silver nanites. I turn to Cole, letting my gaze linger on his face, searching the feelings that rise as I stand beside him.
I almost kissed him in Entropia, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still feel a spark whenever we’re near, but something in me has changed since we were at the Zarathustra lab together. It wasn’t just the weeks I spent trapped inside Catarina, watching as she and Cole fell in love. It was the time I lost—the six months I spent in the desert with Mato. I don’t remember what happened during that period to change the way I feel, but I know that I can face Cole now with a strength I didn’t have before.
I’m going to need it for what I’m planning to do to him.
“Does Cartaxus know we’re coming?” Ruse asks Cole, walking from the cockpit. Rhine stands to join us.
Cole nods. “I just updated them.”
“They still haven’t sent us coordinates for the lab we’re meeting at,” Ruse says. “All I have is a heading.”
“It’s a security measure,” Cole says. “Cartaxus has their top scientists on-site. They wanted to wait until we were in the air to give you the location so you couldn’t organize an attack.”
“We’re going to need to stop to recharge if the flight is more than an hour or two,” I say. “This copter’s batteries are damaged. It can’t take us far in one shot.”
Ruse shoots me a questioning glance, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows the Comox’s batteries are fine. That’s not what the onboard computer will be showing, though.
Cole’s eyes glaze. “They say that’s fine, but to keep them updated. The coordinates should be coming through now.”
“Affirmative,” a woman calls from the pilot’s seat. “Coordinates received. Copying them to you. It’s not one of the bunkers in our database.”
Ruse blinks, his eyes skittering back and forth. I send a pulse out from my cuff, connecting with the Comox’s systems, and pull the new coordinates into my vision. A map of Nevada’s desert mountains appears, zoomed in on the edge of a lake near the southern border of the state.
I squint, eyeing the sprawling city near it. “Is that… is that Hoover Dam?”
“It is,” Ruse says. “Cartaxus is sending us to a helipad in the middle of the dam. I thought we were meeting at one of their facilities.”
“We are,” Cole says. “I’ve heard about the laboratory at the dam. It’s not huge, but it should house a few hundred people easily. The dam’s generators mean there’s no chance of running out of power, and it’s defensible. It makes sense they’d send us there.”
“A few hundred people?” I ask. “So this isn’t a bunker?”
Cole shakes his head. “Just a lab. Cartaxus keeps most of its scientists in separate locations from the civilians. There are a lot of small labs like this around the world.”
Ruse snorts. “Is that to protect the scientists from the civilians, or the other way around?”
Cole doesn’t laugh, and my shoulders tighten at the news that we’re not flying to a bunker. I’ve seen plans of bunkers; I know how they’re laid out. I know how to escape from them. The only Cartaxus lab I know is the one I grew up in, and it wasn’t built into a concrete dam in the middle of the desert.
Everything I’ve been planning relies on being able to get out of this laboratory. There’s no point in staging a heist if I don’t know how to escape.
“I don’t know about this,” I say, dropping my hand from the Comox’s cargo netting. I wrap my arms around my chest. “I thought we were going to a bunker. This isn’t what I expected. How do we know it isn’t a prison?”
“It’ll be fine,” Cole says, his eyes softening. He thinks I’m frightened about going back into a lab. He thinks I’m still scarred from our childhood, and that it’s left me weak. “I should have mentioned that this is the kind of lab we’d be going to.”
“You don’t understand,” I snap, letting my voice take on a sharp, high-pitched edge. “Cartaxus tried to kill us just weeks ago. This could be a trap for me—don’t pretend it isn’t possible. I have no footage, no floor plans, nothing.”
Cole straightens. “I might be able to get you floor plans.”
Bingo.
I pace to the other side of the cargo hold, locking eyes with Ruse for the briefest moment. There’s a trace of suspicion in his gaze, but if he’s figured out what I’m up to, he isn’t trying to stop it. He knows that Entropia isn’t going to survive without taking risks. “Do you really have that kind of access, Cole?”
“My black-out clearance should get me in.” He pauses. “Wait. Are you planning something, Jun Bei?”
I pivot, turning on my heel, and stride back across the cargo hold to Cole’s side. My stomach twists at the look in his eyes as I draw nearer—the openness, the vulnerability. He might be a black-out soldier swimming with lethal tech, but I can still see the child who believed me in the Zarathustra lab when I said I’d free us all.
“I just need to know what I’m facing,” I say. “Surely you understand.”
His eyes bore into me, searching my face as though he can tell I’m holding something back, but he nods, sending me an access invitation. I let my eyes glaze as a database connection appears in my vision.
“This is where I get maps and floor plans for missions,” Cole says. “There are details on bunkers, labs, cities.”
I nod, watching as he navigates through the data, searching for the lab we’re heading to.
“This looks like it,” he says, drawing up a file of blueprints along with maps of the terrain, details on the dam’s generators, and a full security schedule. “See? It’s not a prison.”
I open the floor plans, flicking a copy to Rhine and Ruse. Cole’s right—it’s not a prison. It’s a small lab with housing for a hundred or so people. There are dorms, a few corridors of private quarters, and several secure apartments at the rear of the facility that look like they were designed to be guarded. A cross-check against the security schedule confirms guards are posted outside them, and a scan of the inhabitants makes the hair on the b
ack of my neck rise. Cartaxus has Lachlan there along with the best of Entropia’s genehackers, who were kidnapped in the attack and whose release was one of Ruse’s conditions.
But they also have Mato. My stomach prickles at the thought of seeing him again, but I force myself to blink the list away. “What do you think, Ruse?”
His eyes are glazed, but he nods slowly. “Two decent exits, a bit more security than I’d like, but… we could get out of here.”
Cole looks between us, frowning. “Of course you can get out. These are just talks. That lab is staffed with scientists, not military. You won’t be prisoners.”
“Those are our scientists they’re holding,” I say. “They aren’t there by choice. Neither are Lachlan or Mato. Practically everyone there is a prisoner.”
Ruse’s eyes focus. “We’re not prepared, though, Jun Bei.”
“I am,” I say. “I have a plan, Ruse. We need to be bolder if we’re going to survive. This could be our chance. I’m asking you to trust me.”
“What the hell are you planning?” Cole asks. “Don’t you understand what’s at stake?”
I raise an eyebrow. “I know perfectly well what’s at stake. We’re living in the ruins of a city that Cartaxus destroyed, whose people are locked in their cells. We have hundreds of Lurkers charging toward the people we’ve left behind, and you’re asking us to work for Cartaxus without any guarantee they’ll share the vaccine with us when we’re finished.”
Cole’s shoulders tighten. He looks around the cargo hold. Rhine and others are watching silently. None of them want to ally with Cartaxus. All of them have friends and loved ones who were killed or taken in flood protocol. Now we can take them back. We can take Lachlan, too, and finish the code ourselves.
Ruse holds my gaze, then looks around, gauging how the others feel. A smile curves across his face. “Well then, Jun Bei. I hope you know what you’re doing, because it looks like we have a new objective.”
Cole’s eyes widen. “You’re going to take Lachlan, aren’t you? You can’t do this—listen to me. You’re outnumbered and outgunned. This isn’t going to work.”
“It will if you help us,” I say. “Cartaxus’s leaders aren’t your friends, and they’re not your masters. You can join us. We can take what we need from them and fix the code on our own.”
He just shakes his head. “There’s more at stake here than your city. We’re on the brink of war. Even if you take Lachlan, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to fix the vaccine on your own.”
“You have no idea what we’re capable of,” I say. “Join us, Cole. Don’t let yourself be their plaything anymore.”
His ice-blue eyes search mine, fierce and desperate. I don’t really expect him to join us, but part of me hopes he will. He’s given so much of himself to Cartaxus, and I don’t think it’s good for him. He isn’t supposed to be walking around in a body that’s been filled with secret tech to make him a brutal, efficient killer. He’s a boy who wanted to be an artist when he grew up.
He closes his eyes. “You can’t beat them, Jun Bei, and I can’t either. They’ll kill you if you try. I can’t let you do this.”
I slide the needle-tipped vial in my pocket into the palm of my hand, a heaviness growing in my chest. “I’m sorry, Cole,” I say. “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”
I step closer to him, my eyes locked on his. He doesn’t see the needle until it’s deep inside his neck.
His eyes fly wide, his hand shooting up to grab my wrist, but the vial is already emptied. “Wh-what did you just do?”
“It’s a washout syringe. It’s breaking down your tech right now. I couldn’t risk letting you warn Cartaxus.”
“Jun Bei, please…” He stumbles, shaking violently. Silver patches bloom on his neck, bleeding up into his cheeks. The toxin should spread within minutes, burning through his body, chewing up every strand of synthetic DNA inside him. He told Catarina he wanted to get rid of his tech. He wanted to be free—and now he will be. I had to scramble to recode the washout nanites to handle his black-out gear, and it’ll probably take months until the process is completely finished.
It’s going to hurt him, and I know it’s cruel, but this is the only way.
The script completes, results flooding back into my panel. Cole shakes, gasping, clutching the collar of my jacket to yank me closer. My hand slides past him to the controls for the Comox’s door. A single yank, and it screeches open, letting in a blast of wind.
“Y-you can’t do this,” he chokes out. “You’re going to start a war.”
“We’re already at war.” I rip a parachute down from the wall and shove it into his hands.
His eyes widen in horror as I send him flying through the door and into the darkness below.
CHAPTER 12 CATARINA
“KEEP BACK,” ANNA SNARLS, GLARING down the rifle’s scope. Her skin is streaked with dirt, her hair back in a braid, her clothes wrinkled as though she’s been living in them for days. The apartment she’s holed up in is empty except for an inflatable mattress on the dusty wooden floor, a black duffel bag packed with weapons, and crumpled ration wrappers piled in the corner.
For a heartbeat, I’m dragged back to my days in the cabin by the lake. My filthy clothes, my unwashed hair, my rucksack packed in case I needed to run. I spent years living like this, and for the first time I can see how miserable I must have been. Anna looks just as desperate and exhausted as I remember feeling. Only she has a lot more weapons.
“I’m serious,” she says, jabbing the rifle toward me. “No sudden movements.” Her blue eyes are bloodshot, deep shadows hanging beneath them. She looks nothing like the proud, perfectly groomed soldier I remember.
“I’m here to talk,” I say, looking around, trying to figure out where we are. Dax said Anna was AWOL from Cartaxus but didn’t say where she’d gone. Through the window, the outlines of strange, twisting buildings stand dark against a deep blue sky. The horizon is jagged, faint points of light circling in the distance.…
I step toward the window. We’re in Entropia.
Night is falling, the city quiet and still. The circling points of light are the glowing feathers of pigeons. We’re in one of the buildings on the mountain’s slopes, though I have no idea why Anna would be here. She hates the genehackers—she always called them freaks. I take another step, squinting at what looks like ash covering Entropia’s streets, and something whizzes past my ear.
“Whoa!” I yell, ducking as the concrete beside my head shatters. A crack echoes through the room, dust flying through the air. I spin around, staring at Anna. She lifts her rifle to fire again. “Wait, wait!” I yell, stepping back, clutching my face.
There’s a scratch on my cheek from a chip of concrete. I’m not really here, but there’s still blood welling beneath my fingers, and the wound hurts like hell. Whoever built Veritas clearly shared Jun Bei’s enthusiasm for making VR simulations feel as real as they look. My stomach clenches as Anna’s grip tightens on her gun.
Every time I’ve been hurt, it’s dragged me closer to the jagged edge inside my mind, straining the implant and the wall between Jun Bei and me. I can’t let Anna shoot me. An injury like that might be enough to push the implant into complete collapse.
I lift my hands. “Please. Just chill with the shooting, okay? I told you—I’m only here to talk.”
“And I told you no sudden movements,” she snaps. “So start talking, asshole.”
“My name is Catarin—”
She tosses a lock of blond hair from her eyes. “I know who you are. I saw the footage from the vaccine’s broadcast. You’re Lachlan’s daughter. Why do you think I have a gun aimed at you?”
I stiffen. I’d forgotten about that broadcast. Jun Bei might have wiped months from people’s memories, but she didn’t wipe Cartaxus’s servers. There’s still a recording of me standing beside Dax and Novak, introducing myself as Lachlan’s daughter and announcing the release of the vaccine. Anna thinks I’m the loyal, grievin
g daughter she saw in that broadcast. It’s no wonder she doesn’t trust me.
“I might share Lachlan’s DNA,” I say, “but please don’t judge me based on him. He’s a monster who’s ruined my life.”
“That’s a hobby of his,” she says, but some of the hostility in her expression fades. “So what the hell are you doing here? Did Cartaxus send you to find me?”
“I—” I start, but pause. I don’t even know what to tell her. Thinking about lying to Anna was easier when I was back in a lab at Cartaxus. I thought she was my sister before I learned the truth, and those feelings haven’t just disappeared. It doesn’t help that I’ve spent weeks with an adorable, simulated five-year-old version of her.
But telling her the truth won’t help me save her. Whatever feelings I have for her are mine alone. She doesn’t remember me and what we went through together. She clearly doesn’t want to go back to Cartaxus, but taking her to Lachlan is the only way to protect her.
Still, something wrenches inside me at the thought.
“Time’s up, Agatta,” she says, shouldering the rifle.
“Wait,” I say, my hands still raised. “I’m a prisoner of Cartaxus. I’m… I’m not really here.”
“I know what Veritas is,” she says. “Half my training was simulated there. That’s how I know you need permission from central command to access it, and how I know that if I shoot you with this rifle, you’re sure as hell gonna feel it. You can go back and tell your buddies at Cartaxus that they’ll need to send more than an avatar if they want to bring me in.”
She squeezes the trigger, and I throw myself to the side just as the window explodes in a burst of broken glass. Anna reloads, and I fall against the wall, stunned, my ears ringing from the shot. She lifts the gun again, a line of frustration creased between her brows, and I scramble across the room as she fires.