Beat

by Jared Garrett

  Then he screamed. His back arched up and his head slammed into the pavement of the street. It happened again, then a third time.

  Terrified, totally paralyzed, I watched my friend. Should I hold him down? Would my Papa give him more knockout if I got it off me and onto his wrist?

  Stupid. Nobody could get their Papas off.

  Bren screamed again, his chest heaving. Lights went on in houses all along the street.

  Suddenly he went still and totally silent. He was looking at me.

  I leaned forward, hoping the knockout had finally worked. “Bren. It’ll be—”

  I gagged, all the strength leaving my body. The whites of his eyes were gone, replaced by dark gray. Tiny dark streams of blood rolled down his face, pooling on the pavement. His chest didn’t move.

  I sucked in a breath, trying to hold it back, but I couldn’t. I flung myself to the side and threw up.

  Scrubbing my face with what I hoped was a clean part of my zip, I straightened. “Bren.” I slid closer on my knees. “Bren?” He didn’t move. “Please! No, Bren. Don’t! Please!” I grabbed his shoulder, shaking him. Nothing. I don’t know everything I shouted at him, fear and grief making me jittery. I shook his shoulder again.

  Bren didn’t move. “What do I do?” I asked the street, the night. “What do I do?” A memory from Fiz Ed of how to do CPR. “Bren! Please don’t die. I’m sorry.”

  I swallowed and got control of myself. His shirt was covered in puke. I pulled it up so I could try getting to his chest and doing CPR. You were supposed to push the chest, try to get the heart started, right?

  I reeled back, disbelief and guilt and horror mixing into a knot of sickness inside me. I tasted my vomit, needed to throw up again, needed to spit. I yelled instead. Bren’s chest was—was bleeding. It was as if the blood had pushed so hard at the inside of his skin that it had finally pushed its way through his pores. Blue lines marked his veins under his skin, all over his torso.

  I heard doors opening down the street.

  “What do I do?” I looked left, right, all around me. Bren was gone. The knockout had been too late. He would be found. People would be here in a minute.

  I had to get out of here. If I stayed, I’d get in trouble. They’d think that I did it. Or at least that I’d been involved.

  I was involved. I did do it. I couldn’t run away from my best friend.

  I stared at Bren’s face, his wide eyes. Leaning forward, I gently slid his eyes closed. “Bren. I’m sorry. So sorry.” Whatever happened, I was going to stay with him. But what if I had to tell Jan? I couldn’t do that. I imagined what her reaction would be if I spoke those words to her. Tears falling from those blue eyes.

  Wait.

  Why had Bren gotten the Bug and I hadn’t? I couldn’t keep up with my thoughts; my head felt heavy. What had just happened?

  This was the Bug, right? I forced my thoughts into a rough order. Bren had shown every symptom of an infection from the Bug. It had to be, but why wasn’t I dead? Why Bren and not me?

  Somebody would come. Enforsers or Admins—somebody would find Bren and me, would explain this whole thing. They would want to test me, find out if I was immune. They would know how Bren had avoided the knockout. They would know to ask me about it.

  I couldn’t face that. Get away. I had to go. Had to go.

  I pushed myself up, wobbling for a minute. No. Bren was my friend. I hadn’t died but he had and it was my fault. I had to stay and help figure out what had happened. If I was immune, I could help—everyone.

  Everyone except Bren.

  The high-pitched whine of an Admin pod drifted through the night sky. I checked my Papa. Nearly 02:30. Had only an hour passed since I’d proved the Bug was—

  But it wasn’t. Bren had just proved the Bug was still around. I turned slowly, feeling like my thoughts were pushing through layers of wet clothing. Lights were on in most houses down this street; people were coming out. Some of them had to have seen me.

  How had this night gone so bad? “This is insane.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. I forced a deep breath through my burning throat. “This is . . . wrong. Wrong.”

  I was alive. Something was very wrong.

  Somebody shouted. People ran my way, their shadows multiplied by the streetlights. I leapt on my cycle. I couldn’t stay. I had to figure out what was going on, what had happened tonight. And I couldn’t get caught in questions or investigations.

  I couldn’t take the accusations.

  I started to pedal away, sick at my own fear and guilt. No. You did this. You can’t run.

  I left my cycle and walked back to Bren. I was going to stay right there.

  “Hey! What’s going on?” A woman came into view, baggy sleeping clothes waving all over as she jogged toward me.

  “I don’t know! My friend.” I looked at Bren’s unmoving body. “I think he’s dead.” My throat tightened. Tears dripped down my cheeks.

  “What are you doing out here?” The woman stopped a few feet away from Bren, staring at him. “Oh no. The Bug.”

  “We—we were—” I couldn’t breathe.

  “What’s happening out here?”

  “It’s the Bug, Rob.” The woman stepped closer to the man who had just arrived. He put his arm around her.

  “What?” The man took everything in, Bren’s body, me standing there crying. “Hey kid. What happened? Why aren’t you at home sleeping?”

  I shook my head, unable to speak.

  An Enforser pod screeched to a halt a few meters above the street. Lights blazed from all over it, blinding me.

  “Return to your homes. Return to your homes.” The metallic voice rang out as the pod hovered above the street, a wide door opening in the side.

  The couple didn’t wait around, and I saw other people who had started to come over disappear back into their houses.

  “You! Stop right there.” The voice came from the first Enforser who dropped out of the hover pod.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Then he shot me.

  From one moment to the next, I was standing and then slamming onto the road, pain blossoming around my left shoulder. A rubber bullet.

  “Nik Granjer, you are in violation. Stop resisting detainment.” The voice came from the pod again.

  I wasn’t resisting. I rolled to my knees, confusion and pain battling it out in me. “I’m not!”

  “We will use lethal force if you continue to resist.” The amplified voice rang out along the street.

  Frag me! I stood, putting my hands up. “I’m not resisting! Just help my friend. I think I’m imm—”

  I felt myself picked up a little and thrown backwards by the next rubber bullet. Then more explosions sounded, and I heard and felt more of the bullets slam into the road around me, a few hitting my chest. Had they cracked my ribs? Why weren’t they listening? Frantically, I scanned the area. Five Enforsers were approaching. I heard the whir of the drums on their Keepers. “I’m not resisting!” My cycle was maybe two meters away.

  “We have no choice, Nik Granjer.”

  Bug that! I jumped at my cycle, my feet landing on the pedals, and I jetted out of there as fast as I could move my legs.

  “Stop!”

  Keepers fired, but I was moving fast and weaving, trying to get the cycle’s pneumatic feet to go back up. I felt bullets hit the cycle, and one hit my lower back. Another fountain of pain erupted. I pedaled hard, glad I still had my wad of glue in. The last thing I needed right now was the knockout. I glanced over my shoulder. The Enforser pod’s door was closing. I thought I saw at least one Enforser still on the street near Bren.

  Why were they trying to kill me? I had to hide.

  Impossible. I still had my Papa, and I’d thrown both my and Bren’s interference cups away somewhere. Fragging drek.

  Somehow I had to get the Papa off. The haze and confusion burned off my brain a little as a plan began to form. There was only one place I knew that might have the tools to take it o
ff. The Admins could track me to the Enjineering Dome, but they couldn’t predict where I would go. So they would have to catch up to me. Which meant I had to go fast.

  I put as much distance between me and the Enforser pod as I could, flying around corners and taking as fast a route as possible to the Enjineering Dome. I pushed hard up a hill, feeling the kinetic motor kick on near the top. It made no difference since I was already pedaling as hard as I could. My throat felt raw and red as breaths dragged in and out.

  I glanced back. The pod was out of sight. I heard it, though. It sounded like it was maybe a couple hundred meters away.

  Not far enough.

  I pushed hard, rounding the last corner of the residential zone and tearing through one of the plazas downtown at full speed. My breath came fast, my heart rate higher than it had ever been. Questions smacked me behind the eyes. Why had Bren died and not me? And why had the Enforsers immediately acted like they were going to kill me? Why would they want me dead?

  CHAPTER 8

  Another question flared bright as the sun. Was I somehow immune? That had to be a possibility. And if I was immune, there might be others out there. Others nobody had heard of.

  If not, if I was the only immune person on the planet, my immunity could save everyone else. My blood or whatever it was in me could help everyone else become immune. But the odds of me being the only immune person were slim.

  Maybe something else had happened.

  I came to the Enjineering Dome and leapt off my cycle, letting it fall as I ran to the door. It was locked, of course; the two sliding halves were magnetically sealed together where they met. If I had some kind of Admin authority, I could just pass my Papa in front of the sensor and the doors would slide silently into the walls on either side, no problem.

  I scanned the walls of the Enjineering Dome. I had to get in. I had maybe a minute, probably less. My running away so fast must have surprised them. And my not falling over from the knockout had to have surprised them more. I saw the gutter pipe that ran down the side of the building. It was bracketed tightly to the poly-metal walls. There were skylights and vents in the top of the dome. I had seen some in Dev 5 being cleaned, so I knew they opened outward. If I could get to the roof, I could get in that way.

  I ran to the pipe and yanked hard. It didn’t budge. I glanced up. Twenty meters is high, but in the darkness, it seemed like the pipe stretched all the way up to the stars. I wrapped my fingers tightly around the pipe and put my foot on the lowest bracket, pulling hard.

  My foot slipped, and my elbows slammed into the solid walls. Lances of pain shot up into my shoulders. My fingers popped free with a brief jolt of pain.

  Steeling myself, I tried again, gripping tighter and imagining I was a spider. This time my foot stayed. Victory flared. I kept my left hand tight on the pipe and slid my right up a little. I put my left foot on the next bracket, clenching as tight as I could. I pulled.

  Both feet slipped, and my fingers jerked painfully out from between the pipe and wall. My left forefinger stayed stuck longer than the others; it felt like it nearly stayed behind. I hit the ground hard, my elbows leading.

  No good. I shook my hands, willing the pain in my fingers to go away. I broke into a run around the outside wall. The building was essentially a huge rectangle with a tall dome for a ceiling. It looked exactly like the other large buildings in New Frisko except for the orange stripes on its walls, marking it as the Enjineering Dome. The Med Dome had red stripes. Unsurprisingly, the Ag Dome had green stripes. And so it went.

  I tore around the building, seeking inspiration.

  A rock might work. I looked around; it was worth a try, and I had no time left. I searched the ground all around. No rocks. Of course. Maintenance bots had been through this area earlier in the night; they picked up any debris they found, including stray rocks.

  It was a dumb idea, anyway. The glass in the windows was reinforced. I needed a torch or something to cut through the walls or windows.

  I heard the Enforser pod again. It was getting closer.

  I had to get in this building. Now. I stood in front of the east entrance again. I ran to the sliding doors. If I were arriving for a shift, the doors would have opened no problem. I’d have to find some other way to open them.

  Pushing at them didn’t work; the magnetic seal was too strong. The magnetic seal. Maybe I could break it or weaken it enough to push the doors apart. It came to me in a flash. I had the cycle in front of the door in seconds. I took off the back wheel, dropped it, and dragged the cycle right next to the door. Then, sticking the back fork in the ground just enough to keep the cycle steady, I unclipped the cover of the kinetic motor.

  I used one hand to steady the cycle and the other to push the pedal. With the front wheel still on, the cycle was angled upward, as if it were on a hill. I knew the kinetic motor had a way to detect a slope, so I hoped this slope was enough. I pushed the pedal. Within three or four revolutions, the kinetic motor kicked in and the chain began to move on its own. Electricity.

  I had to channel that electricity to the magnetic seal. I heard the Enforcement pod’s siren again. Closer now.

  I needed a wire, or something that would—

  My wheel. I dashed to the back wheel I’d taken off and stomped on it as hard as I could, sharp pain slashing through my right arm at the movement. What had I done to my arm?

  Pushing the thought aside, I stomped again and reached down, pulling two broken spokes free. Back at the door, I checked my distance. One spoke was enough to reach from the kinetic motor to the doors; I just had to find one of the electro-magnets. It took maybe two seconds to find the nearest magnet inside the body of the door on the left; the spoke nearly jumped right out of my hand. I bent the other spoke in half and stuffed it in my zip pocket, not wanting to get rid of it.

  Having tinkered with every cycle I’d ever had and shadowed several people in the Enjineering Dome, I knew where the electric charge in the kinetic motor was stored. I pedaled with one hand and, with the other, positioned one end of the spoke on the motor’s power source, Then I put the other end on the magnetic seal where the electro-magnet hid behind the material of the door.

  A tiny spark popped in the night.

  Electricity! I needed a lot more to break the seal. I pedaled with my right arm, fighting to keep the spoke in my left hand from moving. A few more sparks lit and glimmered out, making me blink the bright light away. I fought the urge to check the door seal. I had to get this right the first time. I pedaled more, the moment of almost-stillness allowing me to think a little.

  I had to figure out what had happened. I had to find out if I was immune. Maybe I wasn’t, but then why would Bren have died and not me? If I wasn’t immune, if there was something else . . . My brain couldn’t even get past that idea. I had to be immune. Which meant I needed to see a doctor and help everyone else become immune.

  The Enforser pod—no, that was two pods now—whined louder, much closer. They were here! I dropped the pedal, gripped the spoke, and stood. I jabbed the spoke into the tiny crack between the doors, wiggling it to get it in.

  It slid in, almost with no effort. I pushed down, and it slid between the doors, easily, running down the slightly wider crack. I ran the spoke to the top of the doors and then wiggled it left and right. I ran it back down, and, leaving the spoke at about waist height between the doors, pushed at the doors, trying to get them to separate. They jerked slightly, resisted, and then slid open an inch. Frantically, I jabbed my fingers into the gap and spread the doors farther apart, shocked that this had worked.

  In less than a minute, I’d wrenched the doors wide enough apart that I could slide through. I wasted no time and forced my way into the Enjineering Dome.

  I fought back the feeling of triumph, feeling guilty about it. I had to remember why I was doing this. I stopped briefly to get my bearings, glancing around the entrance area. The light had come on as I’d entered, but it was still warming up, so it was pale and blue. I brok
e into a run down the short hallway that led to offices off to the right and to a door that opened up to Development 1.

  Lights high overhead flickered to life as I slid through the door. The brighter work lights above the benches stayed dark. Development 1 was basically an open lab with work and design tables, handhelds, computers, a few tool racks, and lots of rolling stools. There was an open aisle that ran straight across the room from the door I’d just come through to the door that led to Dev 2. I seriously doubted that I would find a cutting tool in Dev 1, so I just made a cursory search as I ran through the room. I saw nothing that would help me. I passed Pol’s work station. How would it be to be such a young kid and already have your own design station? From what I’d heard, the kid was a prodigy, even better than me.

  Dev 2 was laid out in a similar way, but where Dev 1 was mostly dedicated to research and design, Dev 2 was the prototype room. My new work station. Tools were everywhere. Molding machines lined most of the walls, and orange-painted poles indicated where you had to be careful not to step into a pit where vehicles were maintained. Heading straight to a rack that held cutting tools, I tossed a glance at Fil’s work station. I had a feeling I’d never shadow him again.

  The nanocutter was right where I’d seen it earlier that day. I grabbed it, hoping I could get it to work on the Papa and not my wrist. It worked on the molecular level, using nanos to sever the bonds between molecules. You used it when you needed a really neat, precise cut. It would also cut through just about anything. The problem was that it took a while to warm up, and I wasn’t sure I could get it to work on just the strap of the Papa and not the flesh of my wrist. I switched it on and looked around while it slowly grew warm in my hand.

  Just as I was thinking that the nanocutter might be ready, I heard the siren of an Enforser pod scream by right outside the wall. I had to keep moving. They were coming. My throat tightened up and I glanced back through Dev 2. If they hurried, the Enforsers could come through the door in the next minute. Or less, even. I looked from my wrist to the nanocutter, momentarily frozen by indecision. Should I cut it now or run—