Modified: Book One in the Manipulated Series

by Harper North

  “No, I wasn’t. But the sad part is, I didn’t realize it until I met you.” I slouch down similarly to how he is, propping my shins against the seat ahead of me.

  A slight smile appears on his lips. “It took me awhile, but I get you. I really do. I’m glad you’re here… here with me.”

  I feel his hand gently brush up alongside mine. He blushes and yanks his hand away quickly as he clears his throat.

  I smile back at him, trying to hide the flush creeping up my neck. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “We’re nearly there,” Elias says.

  Beep. Beep.

  The sound comes from the pilot display panel. My heart jolts. Sky and I lean forward onto the next seat.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  Lacy sits up, draping her arms over the front seat.

  “We’re getting an alert,” Elias says.

  As if on cue, two wide flying machines zip up toward us, one on either side.

  “What are those?” Drape asks.

  “Um… haven’t you seen EHC security drones?” Elias says, hitting the controls on the panel.

  The beeping on the display stops and a female voice sounds. “Attention. Please come to an immediate halt.”

  Elias breathes deeply and slows down the hover car. The two drones track us and hover on either side of the vehicle.

  “Is there a problem?” Elias speaks into the control panel.

  “Why are you flying so near the operative base?” the voice questions. “Please state your business immediately.”

  “Um…” Elias mumbles, but then speaks clearly and firmly. “Our hover car is damaged, and this outpost was the closest safe landing zone. We could use assistance.”

  There’s a long pause on the other line. Hopefully, the person is speaking with someone in charge about Elias’s request.

  The voice returns. “Please follow the drones. They will escort you to a holding bay where your vehicle can be properly assessed.”

  “Will do, and thank you,” Elias says politely and obeys.

  “Cut the comm link,” I whisper.

  Elias presses a button on the display to prevent the people manning the drones from hearing us. Glaring into the rearview, Elias’s eyes lock on Lacy with intensity. “I’ve never been stopped this far out from the base,” he snarls. “A handful of troublesome defectors would never ramp up the EHC this much. Between this and the second surprise inspection this month, what did you four do?”

  Lacy throws me a warning, her nostrils flared. We need his help, but we’re also risking his life. Elias has no idea what he’s gotten himself into, but we’re in too deep.

  “We don’t have time for this now,” I say. “You and I know we can’t keep tailing these drones. As soon as we land, they’ll find us out.”

  “Fine,” Elias growls. “It barely matters anymore. I may not be a defector, but when they realize I’m Mason’s nephew, they’ll question why I’d be snooping around here right after his arrest. I’m probably dead anyway.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Drape asks.

  “Something stupid.” Elias grips the steering mechanism tight. “Brace yourselves.”

  Elias flips the communication beacon back on. “Mayday, Mayday!” he shouts into the display and cuts the power.

  My jaw drops, but not as quickly as the craft. Screams fill the cab. Sky grabs my hand, and I squeeze back. The car spins into a nosedive to the earth.

  “We should have never trusted this guy!” Lacy screams.

  A whirlwind of paper and scattered belongings whip past my head and out the busted back window. The makeshift cover Mason’s people fastened over the hole isn’t the best.

  The events of the last twelve hours careen through my head. We braved a backbreaking climb, jumped a train, stole a vehicle, and killed a woman all to save a kid we don’t know, and this is how it ends.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Crap!” Drape screams in the same high-pitched tone he had before his voice changed.

  The vehicle jolts as Elias cuts the power back on. He yanks on the steering system and we pop up, barely avoiding a collision with the earth below. One of the pursuing drones smashes into a tree and metal flies through the air, nearly slamming into the hover, but then we flip. My screams drown out my friends’ as the world spins.

  Amazingly, Elias gets us upright.

  “I…I,” he says, breathless. “I think we shook that drone. Is everyone safe?”

  I grip the bloodied seat with one hand and squeeze Sky’s hand so tight with the other his knuckles pop. The poor guy has one leg propped up against the door perpendicular to himself, his free hand gripping the seatbelt. Lacy, who apparently fastened her seatbelt before Elias nearly killed us all, is flopped over in the second row, whining and swearing at Elias. And then there’s poor Drape, gagging. I pray he doesn’t lose the contents of his stomach.

  Sky and I make eye contact for a moment, and we both yank our hands from one another and sit upright.

  Lacy stiffens. “What's wrong with you!” she screams at Elias.

  Elias exhales. “We made it.”

  I bury my head in my lap, hoping the action will make the nightmare go away. When I lift it up again, the nightmare is still a reality. “Good job,” I whisper, but I doubt he even hears me.

  Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the vehicle finally kisses the dirt. I’m about ready to kiss it, too, if I can ever get out.

  “Why’d we land?” Lacy asks as we pile out. “We’re not at the base.”

  Elias swings toward her. “Because searchers will be out scouting for the crashed drone and for us. We can’t just waltz in there and hope no one’s going to notice.”

  Lacy backs off as Sky races past her to Elias.

  “That was amazing!” Sky says, as if he’s totally forgotten that we were all practically splattered on the ground.

  “I mean, did you see how close we were to being munched?” Drape exclaims, checking his body for new injuries.

  Sky, a very slight smile on his face, adds, “I swear, Elias, I thought for a minute there we were all dead! That we had just handed the reins to a suicidal nutjob!”

  Apparently, he does remember he almost died, but the action has consumed his brain. Boys.

  We pass a water canteen from person to person. Only a gulp or two each and it’s empty. The heat is unbearable here, but the lukewarm water helps a little. We gather a few supplies as well as the weapons and decide to move out. Lacy and I walk to the back of the group as the three guys walk shortly ahead of us.

  “Seriously, it just came to me.” Elias puffs up his chest. “A part of me has always wanted to try something like that, but wow!”

  “Idiots,” Lacy growls under her breath, and I laugh. Frankly, I’m enjoying the light-hearted moment. Fun is mostly a foreign concept to dwellers. Fun is stealing and getting away with it. It’s certainly not something I expected to have on our rescue mission.

  “It’s nice to see Sky— I mean… everyone happier,” I say, looking at Sky. Where did that come from? I scratch my temple as I glance at him again, strutting ahead of me. Hopefully Lacy didn’t notice.

  “Whatever.” Lacy picks up the pace, catching up to the guys just as Elias and Sky are starting in on Drape for nearly losing his lunch.

  “Alright fellas, you’ve had your fun. Time to get serious,” Lacy says. “Elias, we’re getting close to the operative base. If they’re as guarded as you say they are, there’s a chance we’ll have to use those weapons of yours. Best to take them out of the bag and show us how to use them.”

  Elias stops in his tracks and spins, glaring at Lacy. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” He bends down and puts the bag down, unzipping it and producing a strange-looking weapon with a very long barrel. “You want this one, Lacy?”

  “Heck yeah.” She reaches for it, but he pulls back and holds his palm up.

  “Okay,” he says. “It’s all yours if you can tell me what it’s called.”

  My stomac
h twist in a knot. It doesn’t require a modified genius to figure out what Elias is doing.

  “Um, a gun,” Lacy says, putting her hands on her hips. She tries to play it off like she’s too cool to take his question seriously. “Quit joking around and hand it to me.”

  “What kind of gun?” he asks with a smirk.

  “Does it matter?” she questions. “So what if I don’t know my guns that well?”

  “This is literally one of the most common guns that the operatives use. Everyone knows what this is called,” he says, shaking it. “Tell me what it’s called, and I’ll give it to you.”

  “I don’t know,” she growls. “Quit being stupid!”

  “Okay, okay, you’re right.” He hands it to her, a glint in his eye.

  Sky, Drape, and I watch as Lacy fumbles with the piece of machinery, obviously having no idea how to even hold it or which end is the front and which is the back. Elias shakes his head and bends down to dig in the bag, pulling out an identical weapon.

  A flush travels up my neck, my mind racing at his questions. The only logical reason is that Elias wants to make sure we tell him who we really are. The clarity in my thoughts rationalizes everything for me as if my mind was on autopilot.

  “It’s called a blaster. It’s what we got you guys with last night,” he says and presses his hands around the chamber. The sides light up blue, and he twists the barrel and slides his hand forward in a quick motion to fire. A blue, electrical bolt jolts out of it and hits a nearby rock.

  Lacy attempts to mimic what he did and fumbles. Come on blue bolt. The blaster clicks, but no blue bolt.

  Elias snatches it out of her hand and stuffs it into the duffle bag. Lacy pinches her lips together. He slings his bag back over his shoulder and glares at us. “Start talking. You steal clothes from the back of a car; you say you’re defectors, but you’ve never even heard of the class system; you’ve never been in a hover car; you had no idea what the security drones were; and you don’t even know what a blaster is! I’m not an idiot! No way are the EHC operatives freaking out this much about a handful of defectors. You’re dwellers.”

  I almost feel like palming my forehead as Lacy, Sky, and Drape immediately turn to me. They could not possibly be more obvious. I resist the urge and keep my eyes trained on Elias.

  “Yes,” I mumble.

  “How?” he asks. “How are you up here and not frying under the radiation?”

  “Because of our mod kit,” Lacy spits out.

  I shake my head. She doesn’t know when to shut up. I remove the device from my pocket.

  “Whoa,” Elias says, stepping my way. “Where… where did you get one of those?”

  “What, you’ve never seen one?” Lacy asks, surprised.

  “What? Of course not. Not in real life.”

  “Then how did you get modified?”

  “They modify us in utero,” Elias says. “Once the mother knows she’s pregnant. The earlier, the greater the likelihood she won’t miscarry. But how did you four get your hands on one? I mean, dwellers shouldn’t have access to tech like that.”

  “Screw you!” Lacy shouts. “We have a right to this just as much as you people do! To be able to live on the surface! To see the sun! You have no right to—”

  “I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t be allowed,” Elias says sharply, cutting her off. “But the elite don’t believe you should, and they’re careful to hide modification away from dwellers. How’d you get it?”

  “Well—” Lacy starts, but Drape elbows her and shakes his head to let her know she needs to stop talking. She does.

  So I tell Elias everything. I suppose he’s gotten us this far, and it’s not right to keep him out of the loop. I say how we came across the mod kit, how Sky’s sister was actually kidnapped, and how we managed to climb out of our world and into his. When I’m finished, I wait silently for his response.

  He glares at us. “I can’t trust any of you. You put my family in danger.” Elias releases a lengthy sigh. “But you’re right, Lacy. You deserve to see the sun.”

  He bends down and starts digging through the duffle bag. He tosses each of us a weapon.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t trust us,” Drape says, gripping his blaster.

  “I can’t,” Elias mutters. “But what choice do I have? I need you four just as much as you need me, if I want to see my uncle alive again.” He stands and offers the weapon for us to see. “Hands here. Press this switch to ready the weapon. Hold here to charge and release to blast.”

  We copy his movements, sending four bluish blasts into the sides of a small hill.

  “Good. It will stun the operatives if we have to use it. But as we get closer to the base, they’ll be using guns with bullets like the ones the guards had. They’ll shoot to kill.”

  After our mini lesson, we follow Elias, each armed with a blaster at our side. I’m not sure it makes me feel that much better since we’re all silent, brooding in our newfound distrust of one another.

  In the distance, the outpost materializes. It’s one giant facility with multiple structures connected together, jutting from a large hillside. Like a clump of quartz—jagged, but formed together for a single purpose. Dull in color, this structure lacks any ounce of personal flare. Each building that juts out is just a slightly different shade of beige.

  We tread softly and quietly toward it. The terrain near us is sparse and we’re incredibly exposed, but what else can we do? My mind works to come up with a better plan. Anything.

  A shuffling sounds from the horizon, and before I can narrow in on it, a bullet screams past us. Adrenaline thrusts me to run.

  “Shoot them!” a familiar voice rages, and my eyes lock onto Nero, leading nearly two dozen operatives down a hill fifty or so yards out.

  I one eighty and twist the mechanism on my blaster. The pulse slams into one of the ops and he goes down. “Get back!” I order my friends.

  Elias shoots and another op hits the dirt.

  “Move!” I bark. “Move, now!”

  We don’t stand a chance out here in the open. I scan the terrain and spot an enormous rock outcropping. The large rocks are toppled onto one another and there is an opening on the right side. I calculate how quickly we could get there versus how quickly the operatives are pushing in on us. It’s worth the risk.

  “There!” I yell. “Go.”

  It’s a considerable sprint, but it isn’t as though we have much choice. We bolt, a slew of bullets continuing to zip by. I race faster than I have in my life, lungs burning, and I pray that we’re not so out of breath by the time we get there that we can’t fight back.

  As we run, Elias and Lacy provide us with limited cover fire, but now that the operatives know we’re mainly sporting blasters, they become more confident and pound at us more quickly. Elias has pistols in his bag, and I wish we’d armed ourselves with those instead. He bolts into the opening in the outcrop first and ducks for cover. I sprint in after him and spin around, sliding on my knees into a position facing our threat. Dust kicks up in the small, dim lit open space.

  My stomach drops. Lacy and Sky scurry in after us, dragging Drape. His arms are thrown over each of their shoulders.

  “What happened?” I scream as bullets glance off the rocks, chipping away at their surfaces, thudding into the dirt around our makeshift holdup.

  “He took a bullet for you, that’s what!” Lacy yells.

  My heart aches. Blood drips from Drape’s shoulder. He doesn’t speak as Lacy and Sky sit him down against a boulder, his head bobbing back and forth. Drape’s blood pours down the rock and pools in the dirt at the base.

  I drop my blaster down on the ground in front of me. “He’s going to bleed out,” I say. “We can’t keep this up.”

  Fear washes through everyone’s faces.

  “Don’t,” Drape mutters. “Not for me.”

  “If we don’t, he’ll die,” I say, swinging my attention to the group.

  “We’ll all die if we sur
render,” Elias argues, throwing down his black satchel and tossing his weapon away from us. The others toss their guns aside, too.

  “Maybe not.” I dive for the bag and stash the mod kit inside. In a flash, I claw back a large wedged rock and shove the bag with the extra pistols and the mod kit into a crevasse. I cover it with some smaller stones and nod at my friends. All but Drape throw up their hands in surrender.

  Nero’s men rush the opening and swarm, guns trained on us. “Secure them,” Nero orders. “Time for a little chat at the base.”

  Well, no one’s dead yet, and we are headed to our destination. That in itself is a miracle.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Where is she?” Sky hisses, sweat dripping from his brow.

  Nero doesn’t say a word. The guards continue marching us forward. Sky grits his teeth and fire blazes in his eyes. He obviously doesn’t care for going quietly.

  “Where’s Cia?” he shouts.

  Nero abruptly stops, and with him, the rest of his entourage.

  “What did you do to her? I want my sister—tell me!”

  Nero turns slowly on his heels. He cocks his head and smirks as he makes his way over to Sky, taking his sweet time. Finally, he stands face to face with him. My body feels like it might explode. If I thought I could take this guy out, I would. Sky opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Evidently there’s something about being on the receiving end of Nero’s glare that can stun anyone.

  “What?” Nero hisses.

  “My… my sister,” Sky stutters. “What did you do to her?”

  Without warning, Nero delivers a fierce punch to Sky’s jaw. I suck in a sharp breath. Immediately, two operatives are on Sky, each grabbing one of his arms to hold him in place. Nero delivers several more punches to Sky’s face and gut.

  “That’s enough!” Elias roars. “Leave him alone!”

  Surprisingly, Nero listens and drops his arms to his side. A droplet of Sky’s blood trickles down one of his wrists. Elias’s eyes grow wide as he watches Nero pulls out a handkerchief from the back pocket and soaks up the blood.