Quanta Rewind

by Lola Dodge

  Motion blurs so fast I can’t follow, and flashes of light and smoke explode with screams. Weapons raised and gas masks down, they march inside. Smoke blocks my view of the room, but I get the impression of flashing tech gear as Todd and his guys sprint through the corridors. They shoot at any movement with what I hope are tranq darts, but I can’t be sure.

  “Target identified,” A voice crackles Todd’s com and relays the location. He switches direction, beelining for the rest of his team.

  They’re in a sim room. Cassiopeia Orpheus lies slumped on a reclined VR chair. Her goggles dangle around her neck, and her head lolls to the side.

  Todd lifts his com and a beam projects to scan her features. It beeps. He nods. “Let’s bring her in.”

  My pulse sped as I skipped ahead. I needed to know where they took her.

  Leaving the bunker behind, Todd and his unit hop an armored pod back to Alpha Citadel. The details blur, and I can’t tell where they are in space until they’re dragging still-unconscious Cass through a heavy security door and down a dark tunnel.

  A man steps out of the darkness, holding a scanning wand. He waves the device over Cass. It pings over her com and her earrings. He removes everything that might have tech in it and keeps scanning. Another ping sounds over her anklet—a piece of quartz wrapped in silver. The man curses, rips off the chain, and smashes the crystal under his heel. “Idiots! She was transmitting!”

  Coming back to reality, I grinned at Todd and finally let go of his arm. “Idiot. She was transmitting.”

  His jaw clenched, and I knew he understood me. He remembered.

  I skipped over to Tair and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Cassie had a beacon on her. Roboloco really does have her last known location.” It wasn’t a total home run, but it was one more piece we needed clicked into place. Between the location and the DNA, we snuck closer and closer to solving the puzzle.

  “Thank you.” Tair lifted me off the floor and spun me.

  I laughed for real, feeling light for the first time in what felt like ages. We had a real chance to get our people out of Alpha alive.

  Maybe not a guarantee, but a chance meant everything.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ALTAIR

  Dex sedated Todd with the last round from one of the tranq guns. I took it from there, adding enough patches to make sure he stayed out. While Knight set to re-routing the Helixes’ tracking signals, Cipher readied a line to Roboloco.

  I wasn’t the only one moving in a haze of coiled tension. The clock was still ticking, and if Roboloco couldn’t deliver on their promises, our small victories might equal out to nothing.

  Quanta poked the bridge of my glasses. “You’re thinking something dark again.”

  I let out a heavy breath and twined her fingers with mine. “I was.” And I couldn’t stop being realistic about what we were up against.

  She squeezed my hand in solidarity.

  “Okay,” Knight said. “Re-routing their trackers. Anyone following these guys on satellite will think they’re leaving Ibiza when we do.”

  It was a start. But again, it didn’t matter if Roboloco didn’t come through. Faking their locations wouldn’t be helpful if we couldn’t fake their tattoos. Anxious to get moving, I checked Cipher’s screen. “Anything yet?”

  “Just making sure we have a secure channel.” Cipher hit a few more keys, then leaned back from her comp. “We’re good. What should I say?”

  Knight nudged her aside to type and then read his message aloud. “Samples secure. We need confirmation of your identity before we proceed.”

  We waited long seconds for a response. Quanta drummed her fingers against my arm while the rest of us shifted uneasily. We all would’ve been pacing if there were space in the room.

  Finally, a request to video chat popped on-screen. Cipher sucked in a breath. “Yeah. That looks like a trap.” She squinted as another message appeared, then she turned to me. “It says to put the cam in front of Altair.”

  I hesitated, but Quanta gave me a push. “I think this works out.”

  “You think?” Cipher asked.

  “It’s a video.” Quanta shrugged. “Not the apocalypse.”

  “We’ll position the cam so I’m the only one visible.” Whatever Roboloco’s intentions were, there was only so much information they could get from a video feed. “If they’re trying to protect my sister, it makes sense that they want to talk to me.” I definitely wanted to talk with them. I’d feel much safer knowing who was on the other side of these messages.

  Cipher chewed her lip ring for a second, then slid her comp to me. “Just give me the word, and I’ll cut the feed.”

  I moved to the corner of the room and positioned the cam so it would capture my head, shoulders, and the blank wall behind, but nothing else. I drew in a breath and hit connect. Static crackled.

  Then a pixelated face blurred onto the screen. As the interference cleared away, I leaned forward in disbelief. “Layla?”

  She grinned. “Altair. You never called me back.”

  “Oh, shit.” Dex rubbed his hands together. “This is gonna be good.”

  I held up a hand to silence him and concentrated on the familiar face in front of me. It seemed like a lifetime ago I’d met Layla Astor at a senatorial cocktail party. Our parents had tried to set us up, but Layla already had a girlfriend, and I’d never had any intention of marrying for status. I knew little about her except that she’d met Cass at academy and didn’t get along with her family any more than I got along with mine.

  She wore less makeup than the last time I saw her. Now her blonde hair fell straight down her back, and her emerald eyes were bright with mischief. In a dark T-shirt with a VR mask looped around her neck, Layla looked much more like a gamer than a senator’s daughter, and I never would’ve expected to her appear in front of me. It took a moment to swallow my surprise.

  “How’s your band?” I asked, just in case she had any lingering suspicions I was a hologram.

  “We broke up. Things have been a little dicey over here.”

  All my humor cut in an instant. “Do you know where they’re holding Cass?”

  “I don’t, but the one in charge now has all the info you need.” Layla glanced offscreen, then nodded. “They just borrowed me to verify your identity, which I have. Did the coordinates go through yet?”

  A list of numbers appeared on my screen. I needed to cross-check them with the map, but my guess put the location dangerously close to Alpha Citadel. “I see them.”

  “That’s our new base. I’m supposed to warn you not to be followed. You won’t be let in if our sensors pick up a whiff that you’re being tailed. We ditched the place we were when Cass got taken, but we’re not taking any more chances.”

  “If we’re identified on the way, we won’t be knocking at your door.” At the point we were tailed, we’d already be dead. “Is your new security better than before?”

  Layla winced. “Touché. It’s secure. Already booted the asshole who ratted Cassie out.”

  The words too little, too late came to mind, but I kept my mouth shut. Blaming wouldn’t get Cass back. “How many in your group?”

  “About—” Layla jumped. “Damnit. Someone’s trying to intercept. See you all soon, we hope.”

  The line went dead and Cipher grabbed for her comp. She typed in a few commands before shutting down the machine. “I sent the coordinates to everyone’s coms. We need to head out. Like right now.”

  I agreed. The sooner, the better. And we were all ready to hit the road with one exception.

  Dex gently tapped Devan’s shoulder. “You okay, glowworm?”

  She’d fallen asleep on the floor with her head tilted against the wall and the position looked more than uncomfortable. Dex tapped her again, but Devan was deeply asleep. It was late, and at the rate she’d been using her powers, it was no wonder she was exhausted.

  Dex scooped her into his arms. “Can someone grab my pack?”

  “I’
ll get it.” I grabbed his bag from the pile near the door, hoisting it up with mine.

  Knight handed me a cap with a wide brim. “We better let her rest a while.”

  “We’ll be okay with regular disguises for a while.” Quanta took the hat that Knight offered her and jammed it over her ears. “We’re definitely going to need her more tomorrow.”

  While Knight passed out the other hats, Quanta slipped to my side. She frowned. “I’m worried about Devan.”

  “So am I.” For now, we could only let her rest.

  Blue light flickered around Quanta’s fingers, but she shook her head after a few seconds. “I don’t think we’re walking into an ambush.”

  “I trust Layla.” I hardly knew her, but I’d read her as an ally from our first meeting, and I hadn’t seen anything to make me doubt that instinct.

  “Good.” Quanta rubbed her arms. “We need every ally we can scrounge right now.”

  I gave her a quick squeeze. It was a treacherous road between Ibiza and Roboloco’s new base and Doctor Nagi’s forces knew we were heading their way.

  If we couldn’t slip past them, all the allies in the world wouldn’t save us.

  Chapter Nineteen

  QUANTA

  I took a second to set a new reset point just before we left the hotel, but I was crossing my fingers and toes we wouldn’t need it. The futures didn’t show many helpful hints.

  What I knew was scary enough. Anyone with a pulse could recognize us. Luckily, it was late enough to avoid crowds as we snuck to the harbor.

  It was also too late to catch a ferry. We did the next best thing and hotwired a speedboat. When we were back under cover, I relaxed a little, but sleep wasn’t happening as we bumped over the waves. My head ached after all the rewinding and no matter how I dug through the tangle of the future I couldn’t tell if we were sailing toward a disaster.

  After an exhausting night ducking security, hopping transpo station to transpo station, and leaning on Devan’s powers to the point that we had to stick her with adrenaline patches just to keep her awake, we finally hit Le Havre.

  We still had to make one more water crossing to get to our mystery location. That meant stealing our second boat of the trip.

  This time we did a little shopping at the harbor, and Dex picked out a slick mini-yacht that definitely belonged to a Helix. We’d need its codes to sneak into the Citadel.

  Knight picked the lock in a jiffy. While Tair hotwired the engine, I helped Devan into the cabin below deck. She dropped our disguises as soon as we were indoors, and her knees buckled. Dex caught her before she took me down with her and eased the poor girl onto one of the leather sofas.

  “This isn’t fucking right.” Dex peeled the latest adrenaline patch off Devan’s arm and dug through the sitting room’s few cupboards until he found a blanket for her. Cipher didn’t look much better, clutching her stomach and moaning when the boat kicked into motion.

  “It’s not right.” But I couldn’t see another way.

  I hated that this was how we had to live. Nagi was always thinking moves ahead of us, and we could only defend while he attacked our every weakness. He took our loved ones and went after our bases until we knew there was nowhere to hide and never would be.

  I didn’t mind so much for myself as long as we saved some people on the way, because even defending was better than being a captive like before, but I was beyond tired of just reacting to Nagi’s schemes. When did we get to attack?

  I promised myself it would be soon. Although, I couldn’t be too confident as Alpha Citadel loomed in the distance. It wasn’t like Theta Citadel, where “walls” meant mostly sensors that ashed anything trying to cross an invisible border.

  Alpha Citadel had walls. Thick, massive reinforced steel and polymer walls with sensors mounted all along them for good measure. And you couldn’t go around when they wrapped the entire island. You had to go through a security checkpoint.

  We weren’t heading in just yet, but Roboloco’s place was just barely south, hidden somewhere on the Isle of Wight. My nerves jangled like crazy the closer we got. I’d escaped Alpha Citadel once and I’d never planned on going back in. I still couldn’t believe that was what we had to do.

  Knight anchored us on a beach as close to the coordinates as possible. I guiltily stuck a new adrenaline patch on Devan’s arm, and she stirred enough to re-up our disguises, subtly distorting our features so we looked like random Helixes on a picnic. Our packs looked like baskets and everything. I just hoped it didn’t take long to find this place. Dex had to hold Devan upright, and it wasn’t fair asking her to keep going on like this, even if she could.

  Climbing down the ladder, I splashed up to the shore. Most of the island was supposed to be heavily populated, but we’d landed in a vacant cove on the southern coast. The teensy beach was only a strip of sand in front of a bunch of cliffs. I didn’t see where the hideout was supposed to be.

  I’d flip if this turned out to be a goose chase. But the bluish figures at the edge of my vision clustered way too thick for a random beach. Before I could follow a timeghostly trail to the entrance, Knight took the lead. With a map on his com, he led us across the rocky shore.

  After a short hike, I was already panting, but when I was ready to ask for a water break, Knight stopped in front of the sheer cliff face. He frowned down at his screen. “This is it.”

  I dropped my pack and eased down my mental walls. Figures from the past materialized first. Their bluish shapes flowed in and out of the cliff. There was no door, though.

  Blinking back to reality, I stuck out a hand. It passed through the ultra-realistic hologram and I wiggled my fingers on the other side. “Who wants to go in first?”

  “Let me.” Tair felt around the gap before stepping through. I hoisted my pack again and followed close behind.

  Inside, it took a moment before my eyes adjusted to the dimness. Tair took a few more steps down the narrow tunnel, making room for everyone else to pile in after us. A bunker-type doorway poked out of the rock at the end of the road, but it definitely wasn’t the same door I’d seen in Todd’s past. Layla had said this was the new base.

  I didn’t see any cams, but they had to be here somewhere, so I waved to whoever was watching. “Are you going to let us in?”

  At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Black Helixes popped out of the rocks to tackle us. I was pleasantly surprised when only a single future offered itself up. The door swings open and we step inside.

  A few seconds passed before a loud cranking noise echoed and the door popped ajar.

  Bingo.

  Tair heaved the heavy door open and I stepped over the threshold. The rock tunnel continued on the other side. Hauling my pack, I followed the flow of timeghosts. After a few more steps, we stepped out into a beehive. The big skylight overhead lit a small cavern that was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. Dozens of metal catwalks crisscrossed the space, linking “doors” that looked like random holes in the walls.

  “What kind of base is this?” Cipher stepped to the railing and tilted her head to check out the ceiling.

  I wasn’t sure who she was asking because we were the only ones in sight and I had no idea. Although the general creakiness of the metal and the musty rock smell said the place was old. Maybe it was some ancient billionaire’s bug-out bunker?

  There was only one route we could take, so we followed the catwalk. It sloped downward, heading for one of the rock-hole doors. Anxious to see what was coming next, I reached for hints in the past.

  A stubbly twenty-something guy rolls a cart full of tech gear down the ramp. “Someone help me with these routers. Beau!” He calls for the guy crossing one of the catwalks below. “Give me a hand here.”

  “Dude. The water’s not hooked up yet. You think routers are more important than dry toilets?”

  “Then send someone else!” Frazzled, he pounds the cart’s handle. A router slips off his pile and bounces through the railing. After fallin
g two levels, it explodes on the stone below. “Damn it!”

  In the present, I peeked over the rail. Plastic guts still scattered the cavern’s floor. “They haven’t been her long.” Though I wasn’t positive who “they” were yet. Most of the pasts showed more of the same—gamer-looking kids hauling gear down this one path.

  The end of the catwalk splintered off so we could go up or down a level, but most of the timeghosts flowed straight ahead into the next cavern. I followed their lead, anxious to see who was in charge and what the heck they were doing down here. For the first time in hours, there were no futures where we all got shot down, so I walked ahead with confidence, more curious than afraid of what we’d find.

  We passed down the narrow tunnel in the rock. The blast door at the end hung open.

  Stepping into the tiny cavern felt like boarding a spaceship. Lights blinked and flashed, with screens and interfaces dropping down or projected everywhere, and it smelled half like rock and half like ozone from all the gear jammed inside. With waterfalls of cables and server towers choking the space, it took a few breaths before I noticed the woman standing in the middle of it all.

  She wore a sleeveless white dress that flowed over her curves. Gold bangles glittered against her dark skin and her tight, dark curls puffed out in an ethereal halo. In this setting, I could’ve rolled with a space suit, but between the outfit and her flawless, symmetrical features, she looked…

  Not real. A holo? That realistic?

  She smiled before I could dig anything out of her past. “Welcome. My name is Ai.”

  “Ai?” It sounded like “eye” but the more I processed… “Ai. A-I. You’re an AI?” Tair tensed at my side, but I wasn’t worried—just shocked. Doctor Nagi had real specific ideas about what Seligo scientists should be researching. He’d quashed anything but the most basic artificial intelligence programs a long, long time ago because an advanced AI could knock him right out of power. One this complicated straight up shouldn’t exist.

  Ai inclined her head. “That would be accurate, although it isn’t terribly important at the moment.” She flickered away and reappeared a few feet in front of us. I wanted to see how everyone else was reacting, but I also didn’t dare look away. Ai had this glittery, captivating quality that kept me hooked into her and the present. Her gaze shifted to Tair. “I’m sorry about Cassiopeia. The Seligo shut down our systems during the attack and I wasn’t able to protect her.”