by Harper North
Nero rounds on Elias, tossing the stained handkerchief down. “You seem familiar.” He reaches for a device hanging from his utility belt, then grips Elias’s shirt collar, yanking him forward. Nero raises the device up to Elias’s eyes and a white beam emits from it. A retinal scan.
“Noble class?” Nero laughs. “What’s a Noble citizen doing hanging out with a bunch of filthy slags?”
“Better than a bunch of corrupt leeches like you,” Elias spits out.
I cringe, my chest tensing, expecting Nero to go for Elias next. Instead, Nero laughs, then clasps Elias’ shoulder. Elias flinches.
“Funny coming from a fellow leech, right?” Nero says. “Personally, I like the title those dirty little dwellers gave us. I wear it proudly. If you want to belittle yourself by hanging around people like this, so be it.”
Nero straightens his shirt and steps past Elias, but Elias isn’t finished yet. “The EHC are the ones who are disgusting. Dwellers are people too. You’re nothing more than a heartless tool for the EHC.”
Nero shakes his head. “Our concern is for law-abiding citizens, not the unenhanced.”
“Law abiding citizens who can afford Noble and Century modifications, right?” Elias presses. “You’re Noble class, right? As arrogant as you are, you’re not just an EHC Century thug.”
Nero turns, a wry grin on his lips. “Smart boy, you figured me out.”
Why Nero is allowing this to continue, I have no idea. But he’s no dummy, and I’m sure it’s not because he loves to chat.
“How did a Noble like you wind up being nothing but an operative?” Elias sneers.
I wince, anticipating the attack that has to be looming.
Nero grits his teeth. “I am a head op of the entire Reso sector! Don’t underestimate that, you dweller sympathizer!”
“Calling me a sympathizer is not an insult,” Elias shoots back.
“Well good.” Nero composes himself and straightens. “Because after this, you’ll be lucky to be living among the defectors in the streets. Dwellers—they’re only a step above moles. Bunch of pathetic thieves. One day, if we’re lucky, the world won’t even need their kind anymore.”
I catch a glimpse of Sky’s bloodied face as it hangs to the side, sending my heart into my stomach.
“Kyoto!” I shout, interrupting his ridiculous back and forth with Elias. “Just tell us if the girl is safe or not.”
Nero glances back at me for a moment, but he doesn’t bother with eye contact. “She’s alive and safe from the radiation, for now.”
“Why’d you take her?” Sky’s voice cracks slightly.
“She’s a means to an end. And you four are the end,” Nero replies.
“Trust me, this is not over,” I insist.
“We’ll see about that. Now that we have all of you, I don’t see much of a point in keeping the child alive.” He pauses. “Unless, of course, you tell me what you did with that mod kit.”
At the outside of the base, a guard enters a passcode at two enormous metal doors. The entry cranks open into a huge room full of bustling operatives. Wordlessly, they lead us down several hallways until Nero pauses in front of a door. An operative close to us nearly trips over himself rushing to open it. Evidently, Nero is too important to open his own doors. We enter a space lined with prison cells on either side, all empty.
“I promise you all,” Nero says, “we have ways of making our prisoners talk. We always get what we want.”
They shove each of us into separate holding cells except for Drape. He collapses on the floor in the middle of the room, unable to walk a step further.
“Get this piece of trash out of here,” Nero orders. The men stand to attention and drag Drape away.
I grip the bars of my cell. “If you hurt him—”
“You’ll do what?” Nero’s gaze bores into mine, and then he taps the bars. “These are built to withstand all classifications of citizens. You’re not getting out of here.”
He turns, and he and his party of goons exit with Drape.
“Drape!” Lacy calls, whirling to me. “You just let them take him?”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“They might be bringing him to the medical bay,” Elias says.
“Yeah. I’m sure that’s what they’re doing. Come on! We should have done something!” Lacy yells.
“We have to stay calm or they’ll kill Cia. Probably kill all of us!” I shout right back.
“Calm down,” Elias says from the cell across from Sky. “She won’t talk. But if anyone tells them what they want to know, they’ll kill all of us. Cia included.”
Sky drops to his knees, gripping the cell bars. “They can’t hurt her. She’s all I have.”
Elias nods. “I know.”
“Sky,” I whisper.
He eyes me as I reach my hand through the bars that separate our cells. I take his hand, but he pulls away. I look back to Lacy and Elias. Elias is calm and staring at us. Lacy’s pacing her cell like a trapped animal.
I jump as the exit doors slam open. Two burly operatives enter and march right up to Elias’ cell. Elias moves back, stiffening as the cell door unlocks, his face tense with rage. Without warning, a long stick is driven into his side. An electrical jolt stiffens Elias’ body, dropping him to the ground. To my horror, the stockier of the two men needlessly gives him a fierce kick in the gut.
“Leave him alone!” I yell as they drag Elias out of his cell.
One of the men grins at me. “Sorry, sweetheart, but Nero has plans for this one,” the larger guard says.
Elias’ head slumps as they drag him out of the room and snap the door shut.
“We have to do something,” Sky says. “I don’t want them to hurt Cia. Please, we have to tell them.”
“Sky, you heard Elias,” I mutter. “You do that, and we all become expendable. Do you understand?”
Sky huffs, shaking his head in frustration. Lacy continues to pace. Occasionally she cusses under her breath.
A grueling twenty or so minutes go by, then the doors finally swing open. I jump to the bars as two new guards enter, dragging Elias by his wrists. He moans as the guards throw him back into his cell. There he lays, sprawled out on the floor as the door slams again.
I strain to see him, then I wish I hadn’t and turn away. The sight of the cuts and bruises across his face and arms is burned into my brain.
Nero enters, glaring. “I should have known better than to try to break that one,” he says. “EHC’s have better breeding. But you three… you may be modified, but you’re just a bunch of pathetic slags.” He points at Sky and the guards fling open his cell.
“Stay back!” Sky shouts. “Don’t touch me, or I’ll kill you!”
They grab him despite the threat, but he puts up a decent fight and grips the bars of his cell as they try to haul him out.
“Let go of him!” I bark, pressed up against the bars.
As soon as the words escape, one of the guards pistol whips me in the face. I fall back, the taste of copper filling my mouth. Though not as strong as Elias, Sky fights back with twice as much fury, but in a flash, the ops shock him into a lifeless lump. They drag him out the door.
Nero sneers. I spit in his direction, but it misses, and the blood ends up on the floor. Nero scoffs and heads out the door, slamming it behind him.
Sky’s muffled groans fade the further they take him from our holding facility. A sharp pain fills my chest and I slump to the ground, wiping my lips.
“Elias, are you all right?” I ask, not able to stop thinking about them taking Sky. I don’t want to hear it from Lacy right now.
Slowly, Elias manages to pull himself up into a seated position. He looks awful. Defeated. One angry cut sweeps across his right cheek, and the area surrounding both of his eyes is swollen and discolored.
“I’m okay,” he says, breathless. “Sky… I know I don’t know him that well… but I suspect they’ll be able to break him if they do to him what they just
did to me.”
“All they have to do is show him his sister,” I whisper, “and we’re done.”
CHAPTER 14
I have no idea how long Sky’s been gone, but it has to have been twice as long as Elias.
“What did they do to you?” I ask Elias. Hopefully what he says isn’t as bad as what my imagination is picturing.
“You don’t want to know. It’s better you don’t.” Elias takes a deep, raspy inhale. “A lot of it was a blur. I blacked out.”
Guilt racks me. “I’m so sorry, Elias. This is all our fault. We should have never let you get involved. Your uncle is gone, and now you’re hurt, all because we brought you into this mess.”
“I made a choice,” he says, taking another breath. “All you did was push up our timelines. The EHC is to blame.” He slowly pushes himself upright and grabs the bars of his cell, pulling himself to his feet. “I’ll go out fighting if I have to.”
Lacy scowls, continuing to pace back and forth. “I swear, if they hurt Drape—why haven’t we heard anything about him yet? Do you really think they might have him in a med bay?”
“He’s no use to them dead,” Elias says.
Lacy’s pacing speeds up and she’s pumping her fists. She pivots and charges the iron bars at the front of her cell with a roar. She yanks and kicks at the bars until her hands go bloody.
“Lacy, that’s enough!” I shout.
“This is all your fault, Fin!” She spins my way. “We wouldn’t let you go it alone, and you knew it. Especially not Drape. He’d go to the ends of the Earth for you.”
Anger burns in my middle at her words. How is this all my fault? I push aside the feeling. This isn’t my Lacy.
“You’re remembering events incorrectly.”
Her stare pierces through me. There’s a storm brewing in her eyes. She huffs and returns to pacing. I slide back down to the floor. All I can focus on is Drape and Sky now.
The door to the holding chamber opens, and two operatives drag Sky in, sniffling and choking. Who’s next? Me or Lacy?
Sky is tossed back into the cell beside me and his door is slammed shut. I don’t bother to wait until the ops leave.
“Sky, are you all right?”
“No,” he chokes out, forcing himself up into a seated position and glancing at the doorway Nero’s entering through. Sky drags himself toward the door of his prison, gripping the steel bars.
“Please,” he pleads with Nero. “Don’t hurt her.”
The door swings open again and a large, narrow capsule is carted in by two new ops. Almost like a large version of the mod kit, it’s oval in shape and sleek lines run up and down its sides. There’s a small window on the front. I gasp as Cia peers out of the glass. It must be protecting her from the radiation.
“Sky!” Her voice is muffled by the capsule’s thick walls.
“No, please,” Sky begs.
The ops direct the capsule into the empty cell to the right of Sky. He races to the bars splitting his cell and Cia’s.
“Please,” he says again.
“This is quite simple,” Nero says, stopping at Cia’s cell. “The mod kit, or the girl.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “We’re just a handful of kids.”
Nero turns to me and walks closer to my cell. “Stealing that tech and upgrading your genetics made you much more than a handful of slag kids. That stolen mod kit is worth more than your miserable lives. We do not take that sort of offense lightly, slag.”
I have to keep him talking or something bad might happen. Time is all we have right now.
“You’re going to punish us for your mistake? Maybe you need to look into your own people and find out how that kit was stolen in the first place.”
He smirks and glances up to the ceiling, collecting himself before returning his attention to me. I can tell that one got to him.
“The EHC didn’t spend decades perfecting our society just to have filthy dwellers freely mod themselves. There’s an order to the world, and you stepped on it.” Nero leans in just out of my reach from inside the cell. “I have ambition. Goals. Once I clean up this mess, I will be done dealing with your pitiful sub-species.”
“Just because you were born to the right family doesn’t make you more human than us,” I say.
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong A298. Your freeloading ancestors stole enough from society to seal your fate. If you weren’t capable of surviving pre-Flip, you lost your life on the surface. You’re lucky robots are more resource intense than just churning out more miner babies or you wouldn’t be worth the rations we send underground.”
All I can do is shake my head in disgust. He’s far less human than anyone down there. He has no soul.
A calm, content expression replaces the anger he’d shown just a moment ago. Nero struts into Cia’s cell and presses his hand against a keypad on the doorway of the capsule. It lights up, and then the door opens. He grabs her neck and yanks her out onto the cell’s floor.
Cia squeals in terror, shaking. “No! Don’t! Put me back!”
It will only be a few minutes until she starts to experience the effects of the radiation.
“Put her back in the capsule!” Sky screams. “Please! Don’t do this!”
The ops move to wheel the capsule from Cia’s cell, and she races toward them. One of the soldiers pushes her, falling back in a heap. Cia pushes up, already scratching at her arms.
“You’re sick!” Lacy screeches as Nero steps out of Cia’s cell, closing the door behind him.
“No,” Nero says, thrusting his thumb in Cia’s direction. “But she is. It won’t take long.”
Confused, Cia rushes to the iron bars separating her from Sky, collapsing on her knees beside him. Sky reaches for her body and grasps her through the bars.
I glare at Nero. “You’re just going to kill all of us if we give up that mod kit!” I shout, rising. “We’re not stupid! There’s no reason that little girl has to die! She’s just a kid!”
“You’re right about one thing. There is absolutely no reason that girl has to die,” Nero snarls. “But that is up to all of you. Go. Get. The. Mod. Kit.”
With a wave of his hand, he commands his soldiers to follow him from the room. The door slams shut.
“I don’t feel right,” Cia moans.
“I know. I know.” Sky buries his face in her hair. “It’ll be okay, Cia. I’m right here.”
“My head hurts, Sky,” she says, trembling. “I’m gonna throw up.”
I bang on my cell door, the sound echoing. “Put an end to this, Nero! I know you’re listening! Make it stop!” I scream.
Suddenly the doors of our cells, except for Cia’s, swing open. Then a door on the far side of the room slides away, exposing us to the outside.
Sunlight pierces the chamber, and as if cued, Cia’s screams pierce the air.
CHAPTER 15
Lacy practically jumps out of her cell like a wild animal set loose. “We can go!”
Cia whimpers and writhes as Sky squeezes her hands through the bars.
“Lacy, we can’t abandon her,” I say.
Lacy rounds my way and huffs. “Yeah, you’re right, sorry.”
“Help me up,” Elias pleads softly to Lacy. Grabbing his forearm, she drags him to his feet.
I scurry out of my cell. Sky’s on the ground, clinging to his sister.
“Sky…”
He releases Cia and snaps up to race to the open door. Cia groans and stretches out her arms to him. He latches onto the bars of Cia’s cell door and yanks with every ounce of strength he has. When it doesn’t budge, he grunts in defeat and falls to his knees. Cia crawls over to the door and stretches between the bars to her brother.
Sky glances back at us. “Help me with the cell! If we work together, we can pull the—”
Elias reaches down, clasping Sky on his shoulder and shaking his head. “These are built to keep all classifications of citizens in. We won’t be able to open it.”
“I feel so sick.”
“What can I do?” Sky pleads.
Ideas swirl in my brain. Every single one of them is terrible and end with one or more of us dead.
“We need to go get that mod kit for Nero,” I say. “Come with us, Sky.” If I can get him out of here, maybe it’ll give us a chance. We can get the weapons and come back.
“You’re out of your mind if you believe I’ll leave Cia here by herself like this,” Sky snarls.
Cia reaches between the cell and touches his hands. “Just come back for me?”
I’m shocked by her bravery. Even she knows this situation is hopeless.
“I’m not leaving you!” he barks. Cia recoils, and Sky slumps with regret.
Pounding sounds from behind us, and I find Lacy attempting to break down the still-closed door leading deeper into the compound. When the pounding doesn’t work, she starts swearing and yanking on the door handle.
“What are you doing?” Elias demands.
“We can’t desert Drape.” Lacy pounds her fist against the metal. “We don’t know what they’re doing to him.”
They don’t realize that if we waste our chance to get that bag, none of us are getting out alive.
“I’m staying here,” Lacy says. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes, filled with fright, focus on me. “I am sorry, Fin, but I’m not going with you.”
“I can’t leave Cia,” Sky says to me. “I just can’t do it.”
“I know.” I turn to Elias. “How much time do we… um, how much time does she have?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure, but based on how quickly she’s deteriorating, I bet not long. But you know as soon as we bring them the mod kit, we’re done. It’s a trap. They’ll probably shoot us on our way back to the compound.”
“Look at that girl, Elias, and then tell me what it is you want to do.”
His attention darts in her direction for a moment, then he looks down.