The Empties (The Glitches Series Book 2)

by Ramona Finn

She doesn’t trust it. She thinks it’s unnatural, too.

  And I’m the biogear’s creator. Does that make me unnatural, too? The thought is like a punch to the stomach and I stand abruptly. I’ve had enough of this conversation.

  She winces and reaches for my hand. “Oh, Lib, don’t leave mad! I didn’t mean anything by it; I just think—”

  But I jerk my hand away from hers. She flinches away from the reaction, retracting her hand. I open my mouth to tell her she’s wrong and that Bird’s just scared and judgmental, but nothing will come out. I snap it shut again, then turn and stalk off. I head to the Tech Room because it’s the only place where I know no one will look at me like I’m not quite human.

  …

  I stay in the Tech Room for a while, trying to work away any thoughts of my conversation with Skye. It sort of helps, but even as I tinker with the gear, trying to help Alis improve upon her personal design, I can’t help but hear Skye’s voice lingering in my mind.

  It’s like we’re not even human anymore.

  I shake my head and finally put down the small screwdriver I’ve been using. Alis looks up at me questioningly.

  “I think I’m done for a while,” I say in answer. “I need to find Wolf anyway.”

  She frowns. “I thought you were done with that drama.”

  “It’s not about that. I need to see if he’ll let me go on the mission tomorrow. If I wait any longer, he’ll tell me no just because all of the spots are filled.”

  I can tell by the face she makes that I’ve said something she doesn’t really like. But she doesn’t say anything, simply turning back to her gear and working on it again. I head to the tunnel and, just as I’m about to leave the room, she calls over her shoulder, “You shouldn’t have to ask his permission for anything.”

  I say nothing in answer, and leave to find Wolf.

  He’s in what’s known as the Ready Room. It’s part planning area and part storage place. We have a room specifically for storing supplies, but the things we usually take for our ventures into the Outside we keep here, for quick and easy use. Things like knapsacks, keys to the ATVs, and even some coats and blankets, just in case we get caught outside past dark.

  Wolf’s leaning over a roughly hewn stone table. I. It’s heavy enough that no one cares to move it. Since it’s in the center of the room, this means we all move around it and do our best to avoid it. He’s talking with Mole and an older man with a scar running down his face from hairline to chin. It pulls down one side of his mouth, making him look as though he’s constantly frowning. I recognize him, having seen him frequently in the Tech Room, though I don’t know his name. He’s mostly quiet and keeps to himself.There are too many Rogues here in the clan for me to know each one personally, but I’m good with faces.

  He’s the one who spots me first. For a second, he seems to just stare at me, looking me over and considering me. Then he gets Wolf’s attention and motions towards me. When Wolf turns to see me, his expression goes instantly blank.

  Screwing up my courage, I go over to the small group. Mole stares at me curiously, twirling a messy curl from one of her pigtails around her index finger. She says nothing either.

  “I need to talk to you,” I say to Wolf.

  He looks away and back down to the table. I see now that they’ve carved a rough map into the table top. I can make out our location, the Empties, and what looks like the Norm. There are other spots, too. Locations of old connection points and what were probably some of the original domes, the ones that were abandoned once the Norm was finished. Canyons, cliffs, anything noticeable out there.

  “We’l l focus on this area tomorrow,” Wolf tells the man and Mole. “We haven’t been to any of these panels recently, so hopefully the AI won’t be focusing on them too seriously. If we find tech, that’s fine, but it’s not our focus for this mission.” I think his eyes flicker angrily towards me and I have to work not to flinch at the look.

  “Do we have a team yet?” the man asks. He, too, looks quickly over to me, though at least there’s no menace in his gaze.

  Wolf lets out a sigh. “A lot of people are still nervous about going out.”

  “I’ll go,” I jump in quickly. Wolf jerks his head towards me, but I don’t back down. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”

  His jaw clenches and he looks really mad now. I don’t know why; he must have guessed this is why I came. He looks ready to turn me down, maybe just out of spite, but before he can, the guy with the scar speaks up again.

  “I’ll go. I haven’t done a mission in a while.” He draws a finger almost subconsciously along the scar that runs down his face.

  Wolf hesitates. “Are you sure you want another trip out there, Crow?”

  The man, Crow, offers Wolf a lopsided grin. “Yeah, why not?”

  “Alright.”

  I scowl at Wolf. “What about me?” I demand, not even caring that I sound like a petulant child.

  He rubs the bridge of his nose. “You don’t have to go on every mission, Lib.”

  “I don’t,” I counter. Which is true. I go on more statistically than anyone else, but I don’t go on every mission. Given how often we go for supply runs, it would be impractical for me to go on every one of them.

  Wolf frowns at me. He still doesn’t look happy about it, but he must realize that I’m not going away, because he lets out another sigh. “Fine. Find other volunteers to go with you. I’m not ordering anyone onto this mission.”

  “Fine,” I tell him sternly.

  Then I turn and start to walk out. I need to figure out who’s still willing to go with me, because I’ve just started to realize that there may be even fewer people who trust me than I realized.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I end up with a small team. It’s because I can only find two more Rogues to go with us, and only one Glitch. Skye would probably have agreed to go if I had asked her, but I’m not willing to right now. It still hurts that she thinks I’m doing the wrong thing, and it makes me not want to bring her along. Instead, I’ve recruited Alis for the mission.

  “It’ll give me a chance to test out the modifications on my biogear,” she tells me excitedly. She’s so engrossed with the gear and its potential. It makes me feel a little better about what I’m doing here.

  As we get ready to go, grabbing knapsacks and a few meager supplies to last us through to tomorrow if absolutely necessary, Crow comes up to me. He gathers his stuff together, but glances at me sideways. He’s standing beside me so that he’s in profile and I notice that the scar is on the opposite side of his face. It means that I see only the perfectly smooth skin instead, and I can’t help but notice that he’s attractive. There’s dark stubble growing along his jaw, faint but still there, and his tanned complexion works well with the sharp angles of his jaw. His eyes are larger than I realized, and lighter, too. They’re more hazel than anything else, reflecting traces of gold and green that make him look exotic next to most of the Rogues.

  “You must be disappointed.”

  I blink, realizing that I’ve been staring. “What?” I ask, feeling my cheeks redden slightly. I hope he doesn’t think I’m disappointed with the way he looks.

  He smiles, and it looks perfect without the scar pulling down one side of his face. “You must be disappointed since this mission is only for supplies. I know you’ve really been pushing the drone missions.”

  I bite my lower lip, worrying at it with my teeth. I’ve never worked with Crow before. “I’m really just relieved that we’re going back out there.”

  It’s mostly true, but he’s right. I am disappointed that we won’t go after drones this time. I still think it’s really important, despite what Bird and Skye think.

  He nods. “Yeah, we should have been out there days ago, but you know how the council is. Takes them forever to decide to even think about having cacti for dinner.” He winks at me.

  I can’t help a smile, and don’t bother trying. I’ve decided quickly that
I like him, and I’m grateful that he’s on my team. I’m about to comment on the team we’ve got today—I’m grateful for Alis and for Pike, a seventeen year old girl with a shaved head and a new design hennaed on her forearms every other month—but before I get the chance, a new addition enters the room. I jerk my eyes towards her, surprised to see that it’s Bird.

  She looks furious.

  Her eyes hone in on me immediately and she steps towards me, her little hands clenched into tight fists. “I can’t believe he let you go,” she fumes at me. I know instantly that she’s talking about Wolf and this mission. “You’re a danger to everyone you touch.”

  “Whoa, easy there,” says Crow, putting a heavy, scarred hand on her small shoulder. “That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

  She shakes him off. “You haven’t been out there with her. You haven’t seen—” She breaks off and I know instantly that she’s talking about her visions.

  Are they anything like mine? I wonder briefly, before being drawn back to the present.

  “No one’s going to get hurt,” I tell her, forcing myself to be calm. “This is only a supply run.”

  Bird purses her lips together, though I can see some of the tension leave her at my response. “No drones?”

  I shake my head. “Not this time.”

  She hesitates, but ends up shaking her head quickly. “It doesn’t matter. Every time you go out there, someone doesn’t come home. This is stupid. This is dangerous.”

  I flinch at the accusation, but don’t directly counter it. Instead, I keep in mind what Skye told me earlier and try to use it to make peace with her. It won’t do either of us any good to keep fighting like this. “I know a lot of things are changing and that some of the tech stuff doesn’t sit well with you, but—”

  “Tech stuff?” Bird repeats incredulously, as though I’ve just said the most ridiculous thing in the world. “Are you crazy? You’re not doing tech stuff, you’re doing bioengineering. Manipulation. Enhancement. You’re making people not human. Of course that doesn’t sit well with me.”

  I purse my lips together and reply through gritted teeth, “We’re all human here. You can’t just qualify us as not just because we’re not your kind of human.”

  She looks furious. “You’re going to destroy everything. I’ve already seen it. And Wolf’s a fool for letting it happen.”

  With that, she turns away and leaves the room, looking so small and so full of anger at the same time. When she disappears down the tunnel, Crow looks at me. “Jeez, she’s a bit high strung these days, isn’t she?”

  I frown, but agree. “Yeah. Must be stress.”

  Crow turns to face me fully, showing me again that long scar down his face. He smiles, lopsided as it is and tugging at the puckered skin. It’s almost gruesome. “Don’t worry about her. She’s upset, but there are a lot of us who know what you’re doing and appreciate it. We’ll follow you.”

  I stare at him in surprise for a moment, but then Alis tells us that we should probably head out before it starts to get too late. I agree and leave, feeling a pleasant buzz lingering in my system at Crow’s words.

  …

  We take the ATVs since the area we’re headed toward is so far away from the tunnels. I think this is a precaution, just in case things go wrong again. It’s one thing for us to get killed out here. It’s another for us to bring death home with us.

  The drive is just under two hours away and I’m grateful that the ATVs are in such good shape. There’s no way we’d be able to walk back before dark. Doing so would probably leave us dehydrated and suffering from heat stroke. I ride with Alis, the only other Glitch on our team. I drive and she sits behind me, clutching my middle tightly.

  Riding always reminds me of Raj, and of how we used to go out together when I was still so new to all of this. It’s a strange memory, because it’s both painful and fond. I wouldn’t trade it, but it leaves a dull ache in my chest just the same.

  Remember, you promised you’d go back for him, I silently tell myself as we finally slow and come to a stop outside of the half-ruined terminal. It’s partially buried by dirt and there’s lingering glass surrounding it, cracked and broken in most places. As we all come to a stop and dismount, I pull off my goggles and address the group.

  “This should be fast and pretty simple,” I say, mostly to reassure them. I know a lot of people are still anxious after the deaths that happened, still so recently, and anxiety can make people make mistakes. I don’t want that. This mission needs to go smoothly. “Pike, Ray, you two set the traps. Catch what you can—rodents, snakes, anything. Crow, you keep an eye out for drones. If things start to look bad, try to get us out of the system. If you can’t, get the others and go. Make sure you hide any ATVs you don’t take.”

  He nods his head in one jerking movement. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Pike and Ray have already started to unpack their traps. Pike gives me a wave over her shoulder to indicate that she’s still listening as she walks away to set a few traps that are slightly away from the site, to make sure that we don’t scare everything off.

  I look over to Alis. She’s already standing at the panel, dusting it off and checking to make sure that we can still link up to it.

  “I’ll follow your orders,” Crow tells me, coming up to stand beside me. I turn swiftly and find that I have to tilt my head up to look at him; he’s taller than I thought. “I’ll follow them, but I want you to know that, if or when I have to get Pike and Ray out, I’m coming back for you. I won’t leave you behind.”

  “That’s…” I trail off. I’m not really sure what to say. ‘Sweet’ doesn’t seem right, though I think maybe that’s the closest to what I should say. I want to tell him that it’s not necessary, but I don’t because I find that I just appreciate his support. I could use a little more of it these days. So I smile. “Thanks.”

  He nods once, then turns away and begins to check the perimeter. By now we would have noticed if there were any drones, but there are other things that are dangerous out here, and it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

  I jog over to Alis. “How’s it look?”

  She nods. “It should be fine. Looks like nothing’s too damaged. Probably, it looks just like it did the last time we were here.”

  “Good. Let’s get going. The sooner we get water, the sooner we can head home. No point in tempting fate.”

  “Right,” she agrees.

  Together, we each put a hand on the paneling. I feel the now familiar prickle that tells me I’m linking up. I blink, and suddenly I’m inside.

  Connection: Secure.

  I glance to my left. Alis is standing there, blinking her eyes several times until she feels fully cemented in the virtual world. Then she looks over to me. “Ready?”

  I nod. Reaching out, I bring up the central computer network. A screen appears before me—showing a long, never-ending list of information in a language that I shouldn’t be able to read, but can. The list is moving so quickly that I can’t make out anything specific, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just going to do a quick search anyway.

  As I begin the search, I can feel Alis’s eyes on me. She’s watching like a hawk, intrigued. I never thought I was anything special until Raj told me as much. Most of the time, I don’t think much about what I do—at least, not in terms of it being special. Hacking has just always felt natural to me... that thing that I’m good at without having had the training or anything else that might generally need to have come along with it. I try to tell myself that this is only a natural gift, and not some program in place because of the AI, but if only I could believe that.

  Ignoring Alis’s watchful gaze, I look through the listed information on the virtual screen. It takes only seconds before I find the location of the water. I’ve gotten even better at finding things in the mainframe and I take pride in that fact. If nothing else, here I am useful.

  “Section B,” I tell Alis, and rattle off a location that’s buried amidst the virtual file
folders.

  Alis nods. “On it.”

  I close the screen and start to head after Alis, who has already turned down one of the aisles towards section B. But before I can follow her, a screen pops up again. Except, this time, I didn’t summon it. On the outside, the water will pour from a physical spout which we can then collect from. But we have to unlock it fron inside the virtual world.

  I blink at it in surprise, my eyebrows raising high on my forehead. “What is this…?”

  Instead of showing me a list of overwhelming information, I find that this screen is playing a video. The image is slightly distorted, static filled even, but I can make it out. It shows a group of people, rain coming down on them. There are so many of them that their faces begin to form one shifting image, a sea of undulating colors. It takes me a moment to realize what they’re doing. Panicking. They are pressing in one after another from behind the crowd, the ones in the back trying desperately to shove the ones in the front closer to something.

  A wall.

  Water is filling in at their feet. It rises steadily, rain pounding down. The water is at their knees now, sloshing around as people try to move closer to the wall. I realize that within the section of wall I’m viewing is a small, single door. One that I recognize.

  “The Norm…” I whisper to no one.

  The storm overhead seems to get worse, the dark clouds continuing to dump water on top of the people. But the door never opens. I can tell now that the mob of people is really starting to get scared. They begin to trample one another. People go down, splashing into the water and never coming up again for air. I see others crying and screaming. The ones closest to the door pound on it, but still it doesn’t open.

  With a hollow feeling in my stomach I realize that these people are going to die. No, I think sadly. They’re already dead. Because this was a long time ago. There are no more flooding rains. There are no rioting people begging to get into the Norm. No, this video is from a long time ago, and I know that all of those people never got through that door.

  “Lib, I got it!”