Outbreak

by Tarah Benner

  I freeze.

  Something is wrong. Jayden should have summoned me for a deployment briefing, but not Harper. I let out a burst of air and drag a hand over my tired face. What the hell is Jayden up to now?

  Harper looks at me as though she’s suppressing a laugh.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, you’re laughing at me,” I say, feigning offense and throwing an arm over my eyes.

  “You’re cute in the morning.”

  I peek out from under my arm, and she sprawls across my chest to plant a kiss on my mouth. My neurons seem to be firing slowly this morning, but I kiss her back, savoring the feeling of her skin on mine.

  It doesn’t last long. As soon as she pulls away, anxiety starts to set in. If the briefing isn’t about the mission, who knows what sort of curveball Jayden’s about to throw at us.

  Harper slides out of bed and proceeds to prance around my compartment, looking for something to wear besides the slinky black outfit she came here in.

  She grabs a pair of my uniform pants from the closet and shimmies into them in a very feminine way. They’re way too long for her, but it won’t be noticeable once she tucks the legs into her boots.

  The uniform shirt is more problematic. All of my overshirts have my name embroidered on the chest, and they’re way too baggy.

  “I have some old beaters on the top shelf,” I say. “One might be small enough to fit you.”

  Harper stretches up on her tiptoes and grabs a black tank I haven’t worn in years. She slides it over her head — no bra — and I suddenly wonder what I did in my life to deserve this.

  When she pulls her long hair into a ponytail, she catches me watching her and goes a little red.

  “What?”

  I shake my head, trying to hide the fact that I was just checking her out. “Nothing.”

  Her questioning look lingers for a moment, and I get out of bed to find a fresh uniform for myself. Harper watches me nervously for a second and then clears her throat and turns to peer out of the peephole.

  “How are we gonna do this?”

  I come up behind her and plant my palms on her stomach. I act like I’m moving her out of the way, but I really just want to touch her some more before we have to pretend that this never happened.

  Harper makes room for me, and I squint through the peephole. The officers’ tunnel is teeming with people — mostly stragglers trying to get to their early meetings on time.

  “I’ll go out first,” I say. “I’ll knock on the door when the tunnel is clear.”

  I want to say something else — something to solidify our time together — but everything that comes to mind just feels too weird. Instead, I place a gentle kiss on her forehead and slip out into the tunnel.

  Nobody pays me any attention as I kneel down next to my door and pretend to lace up my boot.

  The other officers look stressed and preoccupied. I never knew the rest of them to care much about what happened to their cadets, but I’m sure Jayden has been leaning hard on everyone.

  Even though a higher rank buys a few extra days between deployments, the more cadets and privates who die or go missing, the faster deployments come for officers.

  Finally the tunnel clears, and I straighten up to rap on my door. It flies open, and Harper slips out into the tunnel and walks right past me.

  I follow a few paces behind her, and we arrive at Jayden’s office with barely a minute to spare. Harper and I exchange a look of dread, and I pound on the heavy door.

  “Come in!” she barks.

  I take a deep breath to keep my temper in check and throw the door open. Jayden is chatting on her interface, pacing her office like a caged animal.

  Right away, I notice she doesn’t look like her usual self. Pieces of hair have fallen out of her tight bun, and she’s left the officer’s overshirt draped over the back of her chair. The white blouse she wears underneath is slightly rumpled and open at the collar as though she’s been here all night.

  “Mm-hmm. All right,” she says to the person on the other end. I can see the reverse image of the man in her interface’s projection, but he’s no one I recognize. “All right. Thank you very much.”

  She taps her interface to end the chat, and the holographic bubble disappears.

  “Thank you for coming,” she says.

  Harper and I exchange a sideways glance. The only reason Jayden would be this courteous is if she’s about to make our lives a living hell.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “We’ve had a sighting of one of the leaders,” she says breathlessly. “We only got a partial face, but the scar matches. Our image specialists are working on a full facial mock-up as we speak, but we’re confident we’ve located Jackson’s right-hand man.”

  Fear flashes through me. I didn’t know they could do a facial mock-up or whatever, but I hope the technology isn’t good enough to piece together exactly what Owen looks like.

  “You sure it’s him?” I ask, trying to sound annoyed despite my pounding heart.

  “Yes,” she snaps. “Now. He’s on the move, but I think we can still catch him. The cameras picked him up heading west. There’s another town about twenty miles from here. It’s possible he’s meeting Martinez there.”

  “Twenty miles?”

  She nods. “I want you two headed out now.”

  I stare at her, positive I must have misheard. If Jayden is ordering a deployment, that means she had to put it through the system to ensure we were medically cleared for duty. She must have seen my new partner assignment, yet she’s still talking as though Harper and I are going out together.

  “How the hell are we supposed to catch him if the town is twenty miles away?” asks Harper.

  “You’ll take one of the rovers.”

  That’s new. The compound keeps a small fleet of self-driving vehicles in its hangar, but Recon has never been permitted to use them. They’re earmarked for transporting the board in the event of an extreme emergency — not shipping out Recon operatives for assassinations.

  “How is that even —”

  “I spoke to the board,” snaps Jayden. “They agreed that the threat the drifters pose to the compound warrants a special-use permit. Now get your things together and meet in the hangar at oh-nine hundred.”

  “Both of us?” I ask.

  “Yes, Parker! Are you deaf?” Jayden is too distracted to put any real effort into her insults, so I just walk out of her office in stunned silence, wondering what could have possibly gone wrong.

  Harper and I are being deployed together indefinitely, and Harper still has no idea.

  It doesn’t add up. Celdon told me I had a new partner. The only thing I can think is that he must have hacked in and denied my request so I’d still be paired with Harper.

  “What now?” she asks, calling me back to reality.

  “I’ll meet you in the hangar,” I say. “Go pack. Bring some extra uniforms.”

  “But you always tell me to travel light.”

  “I know. I’ll explain later.”

  I hear her start to say something, but I’m already halfway down the tunnel, headed for the supply room. I need to get our provisions together for the mission, and we don’t have much time.

  I know I should tell her to say goodbye to Celdon and Sawyer, but that will just make her panic.

  As I round the corner to the training center, I see Miles standing just outside the doors. He’s hovering over a petite girl with mousy brown hair whose face is streaked with tears.

  “It’s gonna be fine,” he says as I pass. “It’s just one extra deploy—”

  He pauses when he catches sight of my face and then murmurs something else to the sobbing first-year private.

  “Psst!” he hisses behind me. “Where’s the fire?”

  “Can’t talk,” I say, hoping I’ll be able to lose him before he can launch into another lecture. “What’s with your private?”

  “Jayden’s amp
ed up deployments for privates and sergeants. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

  “What else is new? We’re losing cadets every week,” I say, swiping my key card into the supply room. “It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”

  “Well, you’re just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”

  I don’t say anything, but Miles follows me inside. “You’re leaving again, aren’t you?”

  I glance around to make sure we’re alone. “They spotted Owen on the feeds,” I murmur. “He’s on the move.”

  “Shit. And they didn’t see the resemblance?”

  “So far so good.”

  Miles watches in thoughtful silence as I fill four rucksacks halfway with ration packets. I’m all out of clean uniforms in my compartment, but the laundry service drops off all the fresh Recon fatigues here.

  I rifle through the labeled bins until I find three uniforms with my name embroidered on the chest. Then I grab a tub of water bags and dump those in the rucksacks as well. They won’t last us more than a week, but we need to bring as much as we can.

  “Hold up,” he says. “Why are you packing four bags? And why are you making them so heavy?”

  “Jayden’s sending us in a rover.”

  “No shit?” The look that comes over Miles’s face is one of pure boyish delight. “That’s awesome!”

  I shake my head. I’m sure I’d think the chance to ride in a rover was awesome, too — if I weren’t being sent out on a never-ending mission. But right now, all I can think about is finding Owen and keeping Harper from killing me when she learns the truth.

  “You know how to work one of those things?” Miles asks, completely oblivious to my anxiety.

  “They’re self-driving. You just plug in the coordinates.”

  “That’s so cool. Hell, if you’ve gotta be deployed, go in style.”

  I wish I could join in his enthusiasm, but a bitter feeling is tugging at my insides.

  This deployment feels vastly different from all the others. I’ve always gone out onto the Fringe prepared for the possibility that I wouldn’t come back, but now it’s more than a possibility — I can’t come back until we complete the mission.

  “What’s up with you?” he asks.

  “My request for a new partner didn’t go through.”

  “So Riley is going?”

  “Yeah,” I breathe. “And she still has no idea what’s happening.”

  “Shit. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I finally manage to yank the last rucksack closed, and a heavy dread settles over me. This is it.

  I hoist two bags over each shoulder and turn to Miles.

  “Take care, man.”

  Miles is giving me a look that says he doesn’t think he’s ever going to see me again, and I’m sure my expression is exactly the same.

  “You, too.”

  We don’t hug or shake hands. We don’t need to. Miles knows that shit just makes it harder to leave.

  I only have half an hour before I’m due in the hangar, so I hop on the megalift and head for Systems. I have to find Celdon before I leave and hope that Harper isn’t with him.

  When I left headquarters Saturday night, he was busy mapping out all the cameras’ blind spots. I have no idea if Constance has cameras in the next town over, but I need to find out. Without knowing where Constance has surveillance, I don’t have a hope of maintaining the illusion that Owen is dead.

  As I approach the upper levels, I get a message on my interface: Meet me on the observation deck.

  It’s from Celdon.

  Relief pours through me, and I wait impatiently for the lift to stop. When it reaches Systems, I get out and head for the stairwell leading up to the deck. It’s one of the few places in the compound where Constance doesn’t have any cameras, so there’s little chance of anyone spying on us.

  As soon as I emerge from the stairwell, I’m blinded by daylight. The giant glass box seems to magnify the sun’s rays, and it’s uncomfortably hot.

  A path of fine gravel winds its way through the fluffy grass, which is punctuated here and there by little clusters of plants. There’s also a koi pond, a Zen garden, and a few scantily clad higher-ed kids sunning themselves in the grass. I really stick out in my full uniform.

  Across the deck, I spot Celdon. He’s tough to miss with his all-white outfit and glow-in-the-dark skin. Even though he’s far away, I can still read the panic in his eyes.

  “Finally,” he breathes as soon as I’m within earshot.

  “Finally? You just messaged me.”

  Celdon shrugs, his eyes darting around. “Yeah, well, I shouldn’t even be here right now. Harper’s been pinging me nonstop for the past thirty minutes.”

  “Yeah. We’re being deployed.”

  “I know.”

  “What the hell happened?” I ask, suddenly angry. “You said I had a new partner in the system.”

  “You did. I don’t know what happened. It was all good Saturday night, but when I checked a few minutes ago, Harper was set as your default partner again.”

  “Fuck.”

  Celdon doesn’t meet my eyes. “She still has no idea, does she? About the mission . . .”

  “No. I was going to wait to tell her.”

  “Good plan.” His voice is dripping with sarcasm, but that’s not what captures my attention. Celdon is watching the sunbathers on deck and cracking his knuckles over and over again.

  Something doesn’t feel right.

  “Did you manage to map the blind spots?”

  “Yeah.” He reaches into his breast pocket and withdraws a folded piece of paper. “I figured it would be better not to leave a digital footprint.”

  “Good thinking.”

  I take the paper from him and unfold it carefully. It’s a black-and-white printout of the town closest to the compound with patches of red drawn over random street corners in a radar pattern.

  “The red marks the camera’s line of sight,” he mutters, still watching the sunbathers with suspicion.

  I groan. “Owen’s on the move. He’s headed for the next town over. Were there any cameras over there?”

  “It’s hard to tell. The feeds are just labeled by streets. They could be pulling footage from anywhere.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. He doesn’t seem to be paying attention, and this is some crucial shit. I can still give Owen the map to use in case he needs to return to his house, but if Constance does have eyes elsewhere, I need to know.

  I touch my interface to check the time. I only have fifteen minutes before I need to report to the hangar.

  Celdon has already checked out from the conversation, and I can tell I’m not going to get any more information out of him.

  “Thanks,” I murmur, nodding once before turning back toward the exit.

  Celdon doesn’t respond, and his odd behavior gives me a bad feeling. I’m not sure why he would ignore Harper’s messages — especially since he knows she might not be coming back. But I can’t think about that right now.

  I’m so distracted that I barely notice the trip down to the hangar. Harper and Jayden are nowhere in sight, but several ExCon guys are milling around with heavy tools and carts of solar panels.

  A man I don’t recognize is standing next to one of the rovers, and my heart speeds up.

  I’ve never seen a rover up close before. Compared to pre–Death Storm SUVs, it’s a hideous, boxy thing that looks sort of like a toy robot. The tires are huge, and the aerodynamic nose is pulled forward so the rover seems to be tucking its chin and gritting its teeth.

  “Hey!” says the man, coming around the vehicle toward me. He’s got on gray pants and a white-and-blue striped shirt that puckers around his midsection. He must be an independent mechanic from EnComm.

  “You Lieutenant Parker?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I’d like to go over a few things with you before you head out, if that’s all right — just to make s
ure you have a good feel for her.” He gestures reverently toward the rover.

  “Okay.”

  I feel as though I shouldn’t be allowed near the thing, but I reach around him anyway and pop the cargo hatch. I slide the rucksacks inside, belatedly realizing that I left Owen’s picture and my mom’s necklace in my compartment. The thought gives me a pang of sadness, but there’s no time to get them now.

  “Hop on in.”

  The mechanic’s voice draws me back to reality, and I move around to the driver’s side and slide into the captain’s chair.

  Whoever designed the rovers clearly spent more time on the interior. The driver’s seat is insanely comfortable and hugs my body like a glove. There’s half a steering wheel directly in front of me and a bunch of toggles I wouldn’t even begin to know what to do with.

  The dashboard is sleek and modern — a gentle sloping line that gives the driver an unobstructed view of the Fringe. An enormous screen cuts down to the center console, displaying a map with a highlighted route. The image flickers, and the rover’s computer hums loudly as it processes all the data about the nearby roads and landscape.

  A second later, I hear a soft ding, and a robotic feminine voice comes through the speaker.

  Good morning, Lieutenant. Please enter the coordinates of your desired destination.

  “How does it know who I am?” I ask.

  “It’s pulling data from your interface.”

  Suddenly, my chair starts to move. The backrest squeezes me more tightly, and the whole unit settles farther into the floor.

  “What’s it doing?”

  “Just adjusting to your specifications — height, weight, eye level.”

  I glance behind me at the back seat and see that it’s just as luxurious as the front. It could comfortably seat six or eight more people, but the steering wheel is making me nervous.

  “I thought this was supposed to be self-driving,” I say. I never had one driving lesson growing up, but most people in this compound have never even sat in a car.

  “It is. This is just your backup wheel in case the rover veers off course.”

  The mechanic points to the floorboard, where two small pedals are tucked just out of reach. “Brake left, accelerator right. You shouldn’t need to use the manual driving feature at all, but if the GPS goes out, just use the steering wheel to keep from hitting anything.”