by Tania Hutley
“Loyalty to her?” I draw in my breath when he nods. “I need to find William before he can use a Skin for too long. I have to get him out.”
Sentin blinks slowly, pushing his glasses up his nose. Then he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Milla. This is far bigger than saving one person. I need your help to get to the director’s real body and prevent this war from reaching its conclusion.”
“He’s my brother. I can’t just let her do what she wants to his brain.”
The doctor activates the light, and the room is suddenly bright again. “If I can get my hands on one of those Skins, I might find a way to reverse the effect,” she says.
“We need one of those Skins,” agrees Sentin. “But not to study. We can use it to get access to Director Morelle’s private apartment.”
I drag in a deep breath. I failed William when I let him be sent to the director’s school. At the time, it seemed too good to be true. I should have known there’d be a price to pay, but no matter what, I won’t let William be the one to pay it.
“When I find my brother, you can have his Skin.” My voice is firm, and I stare them both in the eyes, daring them to object. “Study it or use it, I don’t care which. But first, I’m going to break William out of the director’s army.”
Chapter Eight
There’s a knock on the door the next morning, and this time our visitor is Cale. He obviously didn’t sleep much either, because he looks almost as grim and exhausted as I am. Sentin’s revelations left me with a tight feeling constricting my chest, and I’ve been pacing ever since, trying to figure out how I’m going to find William.
“You’d better sit down,” I say to Cale. “Sentin dropped by a few hours ago, and you’re not going to like what he had to say.”
The doctor exchanges a greeting with Cale, but she’s busy at her workbench, concentrating on something she’s doing with her equipment.
“Devising tests,” she explains when I ask. “When sensory inputs are enhanced, new neural pathways are formed. To understand the changes, we need to be able to map those pathways.”
I nod as though I understand, and sit with Cale on the couches in the corner. We speak quietly so as not to disturb the doctor, though I’m not sure she’d notice if the house was rocked with another bomb blast.
Cale asks the same thing I did. How does Sentin know so much?
The answer Sentin gave me doesn’t satisfy him. He shakes his head, frowning. “He’s been helping Director Morelle so he gets access to what she’s planning? Did he say how he’s helping her?”
I shrug. “He won the contest. He has to stick around, doesn’t he? Wasn’t that part of the deal with him keeping his Skin?”
“There’s got to be more to it than that.” Cale leans back, frowning. “I don’t trust him.”
I think of Sentin’s inscrutable face, and the way I can never tell what he’s thinking when he studies me from behind his x-ray specs. “I’m not sure whether I trust him either, but he has access to the director. He can give us information.”
“Did he say anything about the president’s vendetta against the Fist?”
I shake my head. “Have you heard anything? Have any more Fist members been arrested?”
“There have been some raids, but not many members caught. Most safe houses are still operating.”
“You have to promise me you’ll be careful, okay?”
“Of course.”
I narrow my eyes at him, because we both know he won’t be. If Cale sees somebody in trouble, he’ll rush to help them without a thought for his own safety. That’s just the way he is.
“My friend Tori joined the Fist a few years ago,” I say. “I’m worried about her, but I can’t call her with this.” I hold up my wrist, showing him Rayne’s band.
“She’s your friend from the shelter?”
I nod. “I need to know whether she’s okay. Can you look her up on b-Net and see if her profile’s listed? Her online handle is Torinado.” It’s a long shot, because she was active on Sub Zero rather than the official feed, but I lost her number when I gave my band away and I can’t think of any other way to get hold of her.
While he’s searching b-Net, Doctor Gregory makes a sound of frustration. “I’m stuck on a problem that I should be able to solve. Having my sleep interrupted has made me sluggish.” She stands up. “I need to rest for an hour or two. That should help me concentrate.”
“We’ll keep our voices down,” I tell her.
When she’s gone, Cale looks up from his band and shakes his head. “Tori’s not listed.” He frowns at my expression. “Hey, I’m sure she’s okay. You said she was smart, right? I bet she’s keeping away from the knights.”
I swallow hard. He’s right. I should try not to worry.
“I’m sorry.” His tone is gentle, and his eyes have lost the coldness that’s been breaking my heart for the last couple of days. Their soft warmth makes me want to reach out and touch him. Could he have forgiven me?
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I say. “I should have told you I wasn’t Rayne.”
His eyes shutter and he glances away.
My heart sinks. Not forgiven, then.
Cale lets out a slow, regretful sigh. “I want to trust you again, but how can I? I still don’t get how you could keep lying about who you were after everything we went through together.”
“I know. I messed up.”
“Was everything a lie?”
“Of course not.” Jumping to my feet, I keep my face turned from him so he doesn’t see how much his question hurt me. I’m going to break down if we keep talking like this, and that’s the last thing I want to do. “Anyway, we have more important things to worry about right now. I need to find where the director’s recruits are, and figure out how get my brother William out of there.” My tone brisk, I pace to the edge of the closest workbench. “Any idea where the kids she’s turned into soldiers are transferring into the Skins? On the holo it looked like a big warehouse with hundreds of pods.”
He hesitates, and I can tell he’s still thinking about how I lied to him. I’m afraid he’s going to say something that’ll make me feel worse.
“You know the place I mean?” I demand. “It must be somewhere in Old Triton. One of her factories she’s repurposed, maybe?”
Thankfully, he lets go of whatever he was going to say, and nods. “She’s had more than one interview in that place, and she’s answered questions about it.” He uses his band to switch on the doctor’s holo and search for the clip he wants.
Projected in 3-D is the same giant, windowless warehouse I saw before, with rows and rows of pods. Some pods are empty. Many aren’t. Boys and girls lie inside them, and a monitor is above each one, displaying health data for the people in the occupied pods.
Director Morelle stands next to a pod where a teenaged boy is lying. A Knight Skin stands next to her, dwarfing her. Next to the knight is a woman in a suit, holding a microphone.
“How many Skins have you manufactured?” the woman asks Director Morelle.
“Hundreds. And there are many more on the production line.”
“This warehouse will house the soldiers? All the young men and women who’ll transfer into the Skins will do it here, is that correct?”
“Until we run out of room. An overflow facility is being prepared.”
The camera pans around the enormous space. It’s hard not to be awed by the number of pods inside it. The 3-D holo image is so sharp, it looks like I could reach into it and pick up a pod and it would fit into the palm of my hand.
“Here’s one of the soldiers.” The interviewer motions to the pod where the boy is lying motionless with his eyes closed. “I’m told his mind is inside this Knight Skin.” She looks up at the tall knight standing next to her.
The knight inclines its head.
“Can you speak?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’am.” The boy in the pod doesn’t move, but it’s presumably his voice that comes from the knigh
t’s mouth.
“What’s it like being in there? You’re very tall.” The interviewer gives a little laugh, like she’s made a joke.
“It’s our job to defend Triton, ma’am.” The knight sounds like he’s reading a line, like what he’s saying has been scripted. “We’ll fight Deiterra, and we’ll win.”
“How strong are you?”
The knight hesitates. Surprised by the question, perhaps? Maybe the interviewer has gone off script.
“Stronger than you can imagine,” it says. Though it’s a young man speaking, the Skin looks so alien I can’t think of it as anything other than an ‘it’. “We are far more powerful than any human.”
Is that contempt in its voice?
The interviewer must hear it too, because her eyes widen. She turns to Director Morelle. “What happens if one of the knights gets out of control? Couldn’t they be dangerous?”
“Each Skin has a failsafe built into it. In the base of its skull is the chip that controls it, and wiping that chip cuts the connection between the Skin and its operator.”
“Have you just given away a secret vulnerability?” The interviewer smiles, clearly still trying to keep the interview light hearted.
“Not at all.” The director’s expression stays serious. “For an enemy to wipe a knight’s chip would be all but impossible.” She raps her knuckles against the knight’s arm, presumably to demonstrate the toughness of its armor.
“And if a Knight Skin tries to hurt a Triton citizen you can trigger the failsafe?”
“That’s right.” The director steps forward and the camera zooms in on her, enlarging her image and making fewer of the pods visible. “If that ever happened, the consequences would be immediate. I’ll show you.” She reaches above the pod to push a button on the side of its monitor.
The button makes no sound, but the giant Knight Skin next to the interviewer immediately slumps.
In the pod, the boy flicks his eyes open. The color drains from his face and his mouth open and closes as though he can’t believe what just happened. “My Skin,” he gasps.
The director puts a hand on his arm, presumably to comfort him. Or to stop him from saying anything else in front of the camera.
“The knights belong to Triton,” says Morelle in a firm tone, her 3-D image staring so intently out of the holo, it’s as though she’s looking right at us. “They’re here to save us.”
Cale switches off the clip. “That’s not what I’ve heard.” His mouth twists. “Word is, the knights have already killed dozens of Old Tritoners. They’re out of control, doing whatever they want. The curfew is just an excuse they’re using to get rid of rough sleepers and sinkers without jobs.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, fear for Ma flooding through me. One way or another, everyone I love is in danger. Ma asked me to save William, and if I can find him, he can help me protect her.
“How do we find the place with all the pods?” I ask.
He shoots a frown at me. “Why do you want to know? All the director’s soldiers are there. It’s the last place you’d be able to get into, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That’s where William will be.”
“There’s no way you’ll be able to get to him. Anyway, I have no idea where that building is.”
“Can you ask your friends in the Fist? They’re all over Old Triton. A big place like that, one of them has to know where it is.”
He presses his lips together. “I’ll ask them on one condition. I need you to promise you won’t do anything reckless like trying to break in.”
“If we find it, maybe I can figure something out.” When he hesitates, I add, “This is important. If you won’t help me, I’ll find another way.”
He studies me a moment longer. Finally he shakes his head with a huff of breath and taps his band. No hologram appears, but Cale starts moving his mouth, talking silently. His implant is transmitting his unspoken words to the Fist member he’s talking to.
Watching his silent conversation is just as weird as when I saw Aza doing the same thing. Nobody in Old Triton has implants for silent conversations, though if they did, it would make the shelters much quieter.
When he eventually disconnects, I blink at him. “What did your friend say?”
“He’ll only talk face-to-face. I need to meet him at a safe house.”
“Then let’s go.”
He shakes his head. “I’m going alone. The safe house is close to the breach in the Deiterran wall, and that area’s the most dangerous place in the city right now.”
“I’m still coming.”
“No way.” He gets up from the couch. “Those streets will be crawling with police and knights. You’re wanted for murder, remember?”
“And you’re a Fist member, which means they’ll be targeting you too.”
He gestures to his face. “I’m a New Tritoner. You know how many Fist members are from New Triton?”
His tweaked features and bronzed skin might make him a little safer, because nobody expects floaters to belong to an Old Triton resistance movement. But in Old Triton, he’ll stand out.
“Where you come from won’t matter if they find you in a Fist safe house,” I tell him.
“I’ll be careful.”
“I can’t stay behind.” I get to my feet. “It’d kill me to have to sit around and do nothing while you put yourself in danger. I’ll tie something around my face to hide it.”
“Yeah, because a strip of cloth is sure to keep hundreds of super-advanced, deadly soldiers from shooting you on sight.” He looks up at the ceiling, lifting both hands and giving an exaggerated shrug. “But there’s no point asking you to stay where it’s safe, is there? You’ll come anyway, no matter what I say.”
“William’s my baby brother. I promised Ma I’d find him.”
“You’re risking your life for nothing. Even if my friend knows where the pods are, there’s no way to get your brother out.”
“One problem at a time. I’ll leave a note for Doctor Gregory, then let’s go.”
Chapter Nine
The wall that separates Triton from Deiterra is at Triton’s northern edge. It’s solid concrete, meters thick, and it towers above Old Triton and most of New Triton.
It’s been there all my life, along with plenty of speculation about what Deiterra might be like, so seeing an entire section of the wall has been turned to rubble feels like the weirdest kind of dream. When we peek around the corner of a building, I freeze, staring at the damage.
The breach is even more enormous in real life than it looked on the holo. Concrete boulders have torn through the closest Old Triton buildings, and the New Triton walkway overhead has a jagged, dangling edge. So much of New Triton has been torn away, I can see a wide swathe of the sky. Although I’m standing in Old Triton, the sun’s filtering all the way down to my face and it’s bright enough to make me squint.
But the most surreal part? Through the mountain of rubble and all the dust that still drifts around the crumbling wall, I catch a glimpse of green. My first ever view of Deiterra is of a dizzyingly tall tree covered with leaves. There are trees in New Triton, but none even close to that size, and nothing grows in Old Triton.
It’s like looking through a portal to another world.
“Soldiers,” hisses Cale, tugging me back behind the building.
As if I needed telling. The director’s knights are stationed all around the rubble, alert for signs of Deiterrans forcing their way through the breach. The knights are wielding weapons so close to the wall, I wonder why its automated weapons system hasn’t targeted them. I guess it must have been destroyed with this part of the wall.
“This way,” Cale whispers in my ear, jerking his head toward an alley.
I follow him back into darkness, down a long, narrow Old Triton back street to an anonymous wooden door set into a graffiti-covered brick wall. Judging from the paint peeling away from the wood, the door used to be painted slime green. Or maybe the wood’s mol
dy—in the darkness of the alley, under a New Triton overpass that’s blocking any sunlight, it’s hard to tell.
Cale knocks softly on the door. “What’s buried will rise,” he murmurs with his mouth close to the door. “It’s Cale. Open up.”
There’s a small window next to the door, but it’s covered with a thick curtain so I can’t see into it. The door creaks open no more than a crack. Suspicious eyes peer out of the gloom, first examining Cale, then jerking to me.
“Who are you?” the man inside demands.
“We’re friends of Gareth,” Cale says. “Let us in.”
The man’s eyes flick back to me. “Show me your face.”
Cale shakes his head. “Not out here. They’re looking for her.”
The man grudgingly steps back and we follow him into a gloomy room that stinks like a toilet. It’s so dark, it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust.
Five small metal-and-canvas beds take up one side of the room. In the corner, three people are sitting around a table on broken-down old chairs. An old-fashioned paper map of the city is pinned to the wall. It’s tattered and torn, but pins have been stuck into it, though I’m not sure what they mark.
A small table against the wall serves as a kitchen, and a water faucet has been jury-rigged onto a pipe that runs haphazardly along the wall. Through an open door, the bathroom is where the stench is coming from.
As the door shuts behind us, Cale coughs as though he’s trying not to gag, then lifts his sleeve to cover his nose. I’ve lived in Old Triton so long, the stench shouldn’t bother me, but my stomach still turns over. Probably because my sense of smell is a lot more sensitive than it used to be.
“Where’s Gareth?” asks Cale, his voice muffled by the jacket.
“Show me your face,” repeats the man, gesturing at me. He’s a sallow-skinned sinker, probably in his thirties, wearing a lumpy, stained woollen hat that looks like it was knitted by hand by someone who didn’t really know how. Judging from his wiry frame, he’s as used to hard work and basic rations as I am. Several of his teeth are missing, and when he talks, my gaze lingers on the dark gaps.