Falling & Uprising

by Natalie Cammaratta

  “I don’t think you realize how emotional that was for me,” I murmur.

  “Did I go too far asking that of you?”

  “No.” I let out a slow breath, surprised that it’s true. “I’m glad I did it. But I need to calm down. My nerves are on edge.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I don’t know. Lighten the mood.”

  “All right.” He takes off at a near run.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as I hurry behind him.

  “Something ridiculous,” he shouts as he approaches the fountain and hops in.

  My hand springs to my mouth in surprise. “You can’t be in there.”

  “Can’t I?”

  I laugh as I stride to the fountain’s edge. “All right, well done. The mood is lightened. Get out.” Countless stares land on us, but I keep my eyes focused on him. What started as a rumor and became a coverup is now providing the most real glimpse of me this city has ever seen. Alone in the piano bar, Jase broke down my private walls. In the plaza fountain, he’s breaking down my public façade. He’s freeing me.

  “You still look tense.” He sends a wave of water over the edge to splash me.

  My jaw drops as I look at him with mock anger. “Oh, you’ll regret that.”

  I leap over the side. The knee-high water drags on me as I run through the fountain, water raining down on me. I grasp the leg of one of the fountain’s sculpted horses to swing around it and into Jase’s arms. He spins me around, and I arch back, letting him support my weight as I admire his face—alight with joy and dripping wet. It reminds me of running through the storm after the symphony. He pulls me in, and his kiss is electrifying. My heart’s pounding shakes me like a crash of thunder. In place of the weather from our first night together, we’ve created our own storm.

  Those clouds keep me afloat for days.

  ***

  Dixon, Krisalyn, and Frey have opted to ignore the plan of distancing themselves from Jase and me, citing our need to make it look like we’re continuing on with life as usual. Not that I’m unhappy about it. This feels like a family. Our isolation from the rest of society pieces us together perfectly.

  For the most part.

  “I got my job done. You two are up.” Frey reclines back and takes a drink.

  Vogue leans forward onto our coffee table, sneering at him. “Yours was the easiest job! I had already gotten into the train system before. We know how it works.”

  Frey purses his lips as he shakes his head. “But they added extra security after you didn’t sufficiently hide your tracks, which made it even harder to get back in.”

  No one wants to get in the middle of their bickering. We’ve come to expect it now. Intelligence and confidence are among Vogue's best characteristics, but oh my, when met with an equal, these attributes explode. She and Frey are an incendiary combination, and everything is a competition.

  “I don’t think controlling the broadcasting system is actually vital,” Dixon murmurs.

  “Sure, no one will notice you giving up on your job,” Krisalyn says, laughing.

  “I’m not a hacker!”

  “That doesn’t mean you can pretend it isn’t important.” She pats his hand. “The islands all need to rise up at the same time. How will they know what that time is without the broadcasting system?”

  “Give it to Frey. Apparently, he is the best among us. It’ll be done in no time.” Vogue’s challenge is ill-disguised as a suggestion, and Frey accepts.

  “I can have it tomorrow morning.”

  I drop my head onto Jase’s shoulder as they argue. “I can’t help but feel useless,” I whisper.

  “You already did too much, so now you’re stuck with the most awful job of all… Pretending to be my girlfriend.”

  I nod. “I am quite the martyr. Someday, they’ll erect a statue of me.”

  “What about you?” Frey asks Vogue. “Where have you gotten with the power sources?”

  She leans back hard against the back of her chair. “I have an idea. It’s just an awful one.”

  “What is?” I ask.

  “You don’t want to know,” she says. “I need to find other options.”

  “What is your current option?”

  She looks at me exasperatedly. “I think if I hack Leavenworth’s systems, I could bomb the power sources.” She looks around as if she’s waiting to be called crazy.

  Of course, Frey is the first to oblige. “We don’t even know what the power sources are.”

  She dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “Irrelevant. They’re two-hundred miles away from the nearest island. It can’t hurt anything.”

  “Do you know if Leavenworth has missiles like that?” Krisalyn asks.

  “No, but I can’t break in and peruse around. It won’t take long to get caught. I would need to get in and do it immediately if it’s going to happen.”

  “Can you get into that?” I ask.

  Frey flashes a haughty smile at Vogue, and she groans. “Thanks to Frey’s disgusting skills of seduction, we were able to make a Watt Kemp retina lens.”

  “What?”

  Krisalyn sighs and explains. “Kemp’s daughter has one. Frey… got access to her apartment so we could copy it.”

  “Why would she have that?” I ask.

  “She’s a tad mischievous, apparently,” Vogue says.

  “Very mischievous,” Frey mutters.

  Krisalyn slaps his arm, and Jase shifts next to me.

  “Anyway,” Vogue says, dragging out the word, “it’s doable, but it’s crazy.”

  “I don’t know,”—I shrug—“I’ll offer it to Sophos as an option.”

  “It’s not as easy as Vogue implies. But don’t worry,” Frey says, “Sophos won’t agree to it, and no one will ever know you couldn’t do it.”

  His tone is playful enough, but there’s a bitter undercurrent. I don’t know who burst his bubble about Vogue, but he is not happy about her failure to turn him down cleanly. I smile and sip my wine. Vogue doesn’t need defending—she’s impervious to his attacks. Though Krisalyn’s eyes narrow as she shoots Frey an angry look.

  “I guess we’ll see,” she says, standing up and flipping her fiery hair over her shoulder. “I’m done for tonight. Let’s go out tomorrow. We look like we’re holding secret meetings here.”

  “You only think it looks that way because you know,” Dixon says. “To anyone else, we wouldn’t be anything to be suspicious of.”

  “I want to go out anyway.” Vogue agrees.

  Krisalyn bids us farewell, and Frey and Dixon aren’t far behind her. Finally, only the familiar trio of Vogue, Jase, and me remains in the living room.

  “As much as I enjoy being a third shoe…” Vogue says, rising from her seat. “Goodnight, you two.”

  We wish her goodnight, and I lean into Jase a little more snugly now that we have some privacy. Even though his arm has been around me the whole night, there is something about being alone that makes me feel like an electric current passes between us everywhere our bodies touch.

  “Are you sure you’re content to have me invading your weekly family dinner?” he asks. “I don’t have to go next week.”

  “Of course you have to go. They’re thrilled to see how happy I am with you. I didn’t exactly exude joy at the beginning of the year.” My mother is completely infatuated with Jase, and I saw her gears turning tonight like she’s planning something. I don’t mind getting our parents invested in our relationship now that it’s real.

  “You looked happy enough at spring’s events. So much so, that to claim we’ve been together since June might make you look a little flippant.” He winks. “I don’t want to mar your reputation.”

  A smile spreads across my face. “When treason is added to my resumé, no one will care that I moved on quickly. I doubt anyone cares now. And in reality, that relationship had been over since Christmas. I just hadn’t been made aware.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Christ
mas was when Adwin started sleeping with Parisa Otto.”

  His eyes widen. “Are you serious? When did you find that out?”

  “Um, Dixon’s birthday. In fact, that night outside of the train station was the first time I saw Adwin after finding out.”

  Jase’s mouth turns down in a frown. “Now I feel terrible for teasing you about kissing me for revenge.”

  “You should. That demonstrated what a heartless, mean-spirited person you are.”

  He puffs out a silent laugh and pulls me onto his lap. “If you had told me, we really could have made a show of that kiss.”

  The kiss he gives me to illustrate the point would make any bystander uncomfortable, ex-boyfriend or not.

  “I should go,” he says against my lips.

  His resolve is much stronger than mine. I kiss him again. “Why?”

  He sighs as he pulls back, sliding me off his lap to stand. “You’re trouble, you know that?”

  I drop my chin and give him my best flirty gaze. “Should I be sorry?”

  “No.” He draws me to my feet and hugs me to his chest. This is the happiest and most peaceful place in the world. I wonder what it would feel like to fall asleep on his chest—to wake up like this. But the amnesia shot in his pocket weighs him down. Forgetting all of this would be hard enough as it is, much more, and we may refuse our safety net.

  “Goodnight then,” I surrender.

  “Goodnight.” He kisses my forehead and departs.

  I miss him as soon as he’s gone. This is insane. I shouldn’t be this attached so quickly. But here I am, feeling too excited about every touch and too sad that I won’t see him for twenty or so hours. My head says this is a distraction from what I should be focused on—from the uprising. But my heart says this is precisely what I need to survive it. How is it that, as I’m helping the world rise up, I’m falling in love?

  Chapter Forty-Six

  BRAM

  Did I enjoy Sophos’ Friday meetings with Serenity because I wanted to be around her? That’s not the question. More like, why did I want to be around her? At first, it was for the entertainment value of provoking her. Then her presence created some variation as the days crawled by. We even became friends. When did it evolve past that?

  Now, I’m dreading her arrival. I’m afraid seeing her is going to make it real. If I see her again, I won’t be able to deny I’m drawn to her. Or maybe, seeing her will prove that Tori is crazy, and I’m only thinking this because she got the idea in my head. Yeah, that’s it.

  At the sound of two rapid knocks, I open the door, anticipating that everything will be the same.

  “Hi! Where’s Sophos?” Rather than walking in, she almost dances in—her steps are so light and graceful. The past month should have made her nervous, but she’s been overjoyed. Her smile lights up her eyes. She’s beautiful.

  So much for the theory on Tori's misjudgment.

  “He got called away. He should be back soon.” Does my voice sound cold? I’m actively trying not to seem interested in her, but I think I’m overcompensating.

  “Oh, okay.” Her voice still sounds upbeat, so I guess she didn’t notice, or I’m overanalyzing it. Probably the latter.

  She glides over to an armchair and takes a seat. “Come on.” She gestures to the chair next to hers. As I sit down, she asks, “Anything new?”

  “Tori and I placed the explosives to block off the tunnels.” Why do I feel awkward telling Serenity about the time I spent with Tori? I could kill Tori for putting this in my head! Why am I blaming Tori? Shit. It’s like my brain was put in a blender. Can I get back to the simple times when all I had to worry about was an authoritarian government and a revolution?

  “That sounds like fun,” she says. “Did you find something to help you out in that service station?”

  “Yeah, there was a truck there that got us down the tracks.”

  “That’s great. How are you doing? Excited to get back to Lawson soon?”

  “We won’t all be in immediate danger of being caught. That will be nice.”

  She shakes her head. “Really? Not that you’re going to be reunited with your family?”

  That should be a priority, but I’m still hung up on her predicament. This is bad. “Maybe I’ll be able to enjoy that once we deal with our current situation.”

  She leans back into the chair. “Okay.”

  I didn’t mean to sound like I don’t want to speak to her. I’m just trying to sound like I’m not eager to talk to her. I’m not handling this well. “What about you? Are you doing okay?” Stupid question, since she’s glowing. Obviously, she’s great.

  “I am. I’m worried about everything that’s about to happen, but in the meantime, I guess I’ve accepted that I just need to live, and I’m enjoying this time while I have it. There isn’t much else I can do at this point.”

  This may be the first time I’ve seen her look as peaceful as her name suggests her to be. I’ve seen her uptight and determined to impress, distraught and falling apart, angry, of course, fascinated, and eager, but I think this is what she looks like happy. Her smile is serene and natural now. This isn’t the surface beauty she’s always had, that typical Kaycian beauty, but something more.

  “That’s good,” I say.

  “When we leave for Lawson, how much notice do you think we’ll have?”

  Sophos enters right on time. “Hello, Serenity. I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “That’s fine. I was just asking, how much notice will we have before we leave for Lawson? I would like to bring my parents with us. If I disappear, it will become obvious I’m on the other side, so I worry about what would happen to them if they go to Leavenworth.”

  Sophos taps his lips. “There is no telling how much time we’ll have, but if you can get them quickly, by all means, go ahead.”

  “Thank you.”

  She informs him that Frey got into the broadcasting system this morning, and they have the message that Sophos prepared. The only item left from Vogue’s checklist is taking out the power supply. When Sophos asks if there is any headway on that, Serenity looks nervous.

  “Maybe.” She drags the word out. “Vogue thinks she can hack into Leavenworth’s system and bomb the power sources.”

  “That’s a little extreme,” I say.

  Sophos considers for a moment. “I suppose it would be worth trying. It won’t be the end of it all if we can’t cut the power, but we could use the advantage. We need to disable as much of Leavenworth Base as we can.”

  “All right, well, she said she’d need to do it as everything is happening, so the attack can be engaged before she gets caught in their system. Any warning at all would be a helpful head start.”

  I don’t know if I’m rattled by the idea of hacking the military systems or impressed. The ability to use their weapons against them is a significant edge. If it weren’t for the fact that most of the people at Leavenworth are marshals, I’d say we should just eliminate the base if we can access their artillery. I can’t bring myself to suggest that, though. It doesn’t matter how far gone they are, they’re still our people. I wonder if Kemp ever considered that his army would be a human shield, deflecting potential attacks?

  Sophos raps his fingers on the desk. “Everything is in order then. I suppose we are ready to pull the trigger.” He does not sound excited about it. Planning was one thing; action is daunting.

  “Your plans are ready, but are you?” I ask.

  He looks at me and bites the inside of his cheek. “I have to be. This means we can select a day and let everyone plan for it. This might be more organized and orderly than we thought.”

  “Honestly, I had expected it to start in the middle of chaos,” I say.

  Serenity smiles at me and takes a deep breath. “When shall it be?”

  “We don’t want to wait. Time is an opportunity for the Establishment to learn about it and prevent it.” Sophos rubs his forehead. “We should leave tomorrow night.”

  I take a d
eep breath to let that sink in. This is my last night in Kaycie. The long wait made it feel like it was never going to come, but here it is.

  Serenity spins her bracelet around her wrist. “What time should we be at the train station?”

  Sophos presses his lips together as he thinks about it. “Four o’clock Sunday morning. It’s close enough to morning to seal the tunnels and take the islands at daybreak.”

  “Okay, it’s a plan,” I say.

  Serenity takes a deep breath and stands up. “I’ll see you both then. I’ll tell the health and technology teams.”

  “Be careful,” I say.

  She nods, and I watch her walk out of the office for the last time. The feeling is undefinable. The oversized office, where I’ve spent so much of the past three years, is lifeless and dark. The sunlight pouring in doesn’t brighten the space the way she does, and the twilight she leaves behind is solemn now that it’s permanent.

  I turn back to Sophos, who has calmed down a bit. “Making the decision is the hard part,” he says. “Now, we just have to execute it.”

  “Yeah, the next part will be a piece of cake.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  SERENITY

  The fluttering feeling is back—both nerve-racking and exhilarating. Perhaps I should feel guilty that Jase’s touch isn’t the only thing that makes me feel this way, but this is pretty momentous. The elevator takes me up two floors to Jase’s office. Distracted, I take a wrong turn or two but get there eventually. He stares intently at a holoScreen when I walk in.

  “Hey, let’s get out of here.” I’m going for casual—more like, Let’s grab a drink than Let’s run away and start an uprising.

  He looks up and offers a stilted smile. “Sure, just a minute.” As he manipulates the holoScreen, he rubs his forehead. This must have been quite a day for him. The contrast from last night’s merriment is disconcerting. He flings the holoScreen away, looking less like he’s finished with it and more like he’s giving up.