by Pintip Dunn
“What? No.” My voice rises. “If it is Olivia, she needs our help. We can’t just abandon her.”
“Why not? I thought you said she was a brat.”
“She was six. Think who her mother was. You’d be a pain, too.” I reach into the past. Most of my pre-wilderness memories are a blur, and most of them center on my mom and Callie. But I remember Olivia. “She was my friend.”
“You didn’t even like her!”
“That’s not true. She talked to me, Ryder. She sought me out when all the other girls shunned me. Because of her, I know how it feels to ride on the seesaw pods.” I blink, my eyes suddenly wet, which doesn’t make sense. “Maybe that sounds stupid, but it meant something to me.”
“It doesn’t,” he says, softening. “But that was ten years ago. People change in ten years.”
He’s right. But I can’t shake the image of the little girl I used to know—the big brown eyes and the straight-cut bangs. I keep hearing Dresden’s cold, cruel voice: No daughter of mine is Mediocre.
I know all too well how it feels to be forsaken by your own mother.
“You and I, we know how it feels to lose a parent or two,” I say. “But we had each other, and we formed a new family. If Olivia’s been imprisoned—or worse—then she doesn’t have anybody. How can we ignore her cry for help?”
He sighs, and I know I’ve got him. This is the guy who collected acorns for a squirrel’s afterlife, for Fate’s sake.
We walk through the security arches, and the guard runs a scanner over the chip embedded under my wrist. My identification pops onto the screen, along with a list of locations I’m cleared to visit.
“Bots along the wall. Find one to escort you,” he says in a monotone.
We select the first bot, a squat one with a copper spiral at its belly, and are keying in Mikey’s office when the guard calls us back. “Forget the bot. It says here you have a human escort.”
I exchange a nervous look with Ryder. A human escort? But how? Nobody even knows we’re here.
Wrong.
A few minutes later, a man approaches the guard. He’s broad and good-looking, with eyes that notice everything and a mouth that can either be stern or smiling. His hair is tied back with a piece of rawhide—a leftover habit from our days in the wilderness. Mikey.
We are so busted. Fike, fike, fike.
He gives us a quick, cutting glance and slaps the guard on the back. “I’ll take it from here, Rinaldo.”
Mikey turns and wraps an arm around each of us. The loving father, the trusted friend. How many times can I say screwed?
“I programmed the system to send me an alert when one of your IDs was scanned.” His voice is even and pleasant, as mild as a clear blue sky—that’s about to split wide open. “According to the logs, it seems you’ve visited me dozens of times in the last two months. Too bad I’ve been away at a meeting each of those times.”
I know better than to respond—not out here in the main corridor. In fact, none of us says another word until we walk into Mikey’s office.
Every surface area is covered with artificial limbs. A hand here, a foot there. So realistic it looks like a dozen bodies got blown apart. Mikey is the foremost expert on the connection of neural pathways to prosthetic limbs. One of his fake arms responds nearly as well as a real arm to orders from the brain.
“Well? What do you have to say for yourselves?” He moves a hand from his chair and sits down. “It’s bad enough you’ve been breaking into labs behind my back. But then Jessa gets herself bitten, and you’re back here for more?”
“You were the one who showed us how to access the air vents,” I burst out. “You gave us the holographic spiders. What did you think we were going to do with them?”
“I wanted you more involved with the Underground. To see that there was more to life than your crazy stunts.” His eyes flit first to Ryder, then to me. Not being officially adopted has never saved me from his lectures or his expectations. “You’re sixteen now. Old enough to understand why we accepted the treaty with ComA. Sure, the comforts of modern living are convenient, but that’s not why we came back to civilization. There’s work to be done. A future of genocide to prevent. It’s about time you two joined the fight.”
It’s not the first time Mikey’s lectured us about our civic duty. And not the first time I tune him out. Truth is, I couldn’t care less about his political agenda. I have no interest in joining his fight. Callie took it upon herself to save the world—and look what happened to her. I’ll stick with helping my mice, and maybe a childhood friend or two, thank you very much.
Even if it means I inadvertently delay someone’s entrance into uni for a year. I flush guiltily. Tanner glossed over his ruined experiment with a few careless words, but how does he really feel? Is he sad that he won’t go to uni next year? Is he…devastated?
My stomach clenches. I don’t want him devastated. He might be my enemy, but the thought of his lips trembling rips and tears at my heart.
“You have to think.” Mikey’s voice gets louder. “In order for a resistance movement to be successful, it has to be carefully orchestrated, precisely planned. You can’t just go on your own unsanctioned raids because you feel like it. You were almost caught; Jessa was infected. This kind of action shines an unnecessary spotlight on us, attention that could jeopardize the entire mission. From now on, neither of you acts unless I say so. Got it?”
We both nod. We have no choice, really.
Mikey sweeps his arm through the air, indicating the jumbled-up piles of body parts. “As punishment, you two will clean my office. I can’t find a damn thing in here, and you might as well make yourselves useful.”
Ryder groans, poking a leg as if it might grow teeth and bite him. “That’ll take weeks! You can’t walk in here without a limb clobbering you.”
“Then you’d better get started.” Mikey’s com unit beeps. “I have a meeting. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“You mean you’re going to leave us here alone?” Ryder asks incredulously.
His dad lifts his eyebrows. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”
“Not at all.” I step forward and give him my best you-can-trust-us smile. “We’ll have your office all cleaned up by the time you get back.”
With one last scuff against Ryder’s shoulder, Mikey leaves.
The door bangs shut behind him, and I jab Ryder in the chest. “That was really smooth. You might as well have told him we were going straight into the air vents as soon as he left.”
“Are we?” my best friend asks, looking troubled. “He let us off easy this time. But he won’t be nearly as forgiving if he catches us again.”
“Of course we’re still going! Olivia needs us.”
He huffs out a breath. “Right.”
We look at the smooth expanse of the south wall—that’s not really a wall. Rather, it’s the holographic projection of a solid surface created by a “spider,” and it leads to air vents that wind all over the TechRA building.
I reach inside the wall and flip a switch. The hologram disappears.
I gasp. As expected, the plaster ends abruptly. But instead of a gaping hole, metal slats seal off the opening into the air vents.
“That’s why he left us,” I moan. “He wanted us to snoop and find out that he closed our access to the vents. He’s telling us he’ll always be one step ahead of us.”
Ryder slips on his goggles and peers at the black box sitting next to the spider. “They’re not closed permanently. The slats are retractable—and they’re keyed to a set of biometrics. Probably Mikey’s. So if we want to get into the vents, all we have to do is ask.”
“What are the chances he’ll approve this mission?” I ask faintly.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He picks up a prosthetic hand and scratches his back. “Probably about as likely as you joining forces with Dresden.”
10
My lungs feel like a vacuum has sucked out all the air. “Now what?”
Ryder slides the goggles off his face. “Plan B.”
“We don’t have a Plan B.”
“Of course we have a Plan B. What kind of delinquents would we be if we didn’t have a Plan B?” He grins with enough confidence for both of us, and I know that in spite of Mikey’s warning, we won’t abandon our mission that easily. “We’ve got to convince an unsuspecting TechRA employee to let us into the lower floors of the building. And to do that, we need to use the full extent of our abilities.”
I freeze. Because he’s not referencing my quick thinking or poise under pressure. This has nothing to do with my hoverboard skills or my fling-myself-into-open-space courage. He’s talking about one thing alone: my precognition.
“I know you believe your psychic abilities somehow killed your sister,” Ryder says gently. “It’s not true. Even so, if you use your powers to help Olivia, maybe you’ll feel like they led to something good.”
He’s right, of course. There’s no good reason I’m blocking my abilities. I saw it as atonement for Callie’s death, but in my practical moments, I know that it won’t bring her back. Nothing will.
I pick up an artificial limb. It’s nice to have something to hold. “Okay. What did you have in mind?”
I grip the handle of the picnic basket. People swarm around me, traveling between the industrial-sized Meal Assemblers and the long metal tables, carrying trays of food with mouthwatering smells. Silverware clinks together, and meal packets are tossed through the air. Bots roll around, picking up trash, and a thousand conversations blend into a dull roar. If anyone notices me in the chaos of TechRA’s cafeteria, it would be a miracle.
That’s exactly what I’m counting on.
“Check it out.” Ryder scans the labels on top of each Meal Assembler, his eyes wide. “Seafood risotto with head-on prawns. Blue cheese and fig ravioli. Pappardelle with braised short ribs. Have you ever heard of this stuff?”
“Sure,” I say. “But I’ve never actually tasted them.”
Our Meal Assembler at home doesn’t get this fancy. We have the basic model, the one that produces standard fare—rotisserie chicken and beef stew, pot roast and spaghetti squash. Upgrades for each additional cuisine cost an entire year’s credits, and my mom and I never had the kind of money—or appetite—to warrant the purchase.
“You never tasted them? Then how…” Ryder trails off. “Gotcha. Your sister’s digital journals, right?”
I duck my head, squeezing the basket handle until I feel the straw digging into my palm. Everything I know about Callie comes from three sources: my own scant memories, Logan’s stories, and the school’s mandatory journals. Problem was, Callie wasn’t much of a writer, and so her journals were filled more with recipes than her personal thoughts.
“She wrote about pappardelle,” I say. “About making the pasta and cutting it by hand. When you did it just right, she said, the taste was to die for.”
“I’ll ask Mikey to bring some home next time he goes to the cafeteria.”
“You don’t have to do that. I could eat the same meal from the Meal Assembler every day, and I wouldn’t notice.”
“Don’t discount it,” he says. “Food is a way for you to be close to your sister, so it matters. Just don’t go pigging out and refusing to share.”
My heart compresses, and I squeeze his hand. Ryder’s my best friend for a reason. A million reasons, in fact, and this is just one of them. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
He grins. “Don’t I know it? Come on. Let’s find our mark.”
Nodding, I scan the crowd, looking for a person who fits our profile. A romantic who isn’t too strict about following the rules. Someone young enough to remember the zero-gravity flight of first love.
“What about her?” Ryder inclines his head toward a brunette retrieving a lychee fruit slushie at a Drinks Assembler. Her eyes are as shiny as a new circuit board, and her shoulder-length hair curves at the ends in a familiar question mark.
I let out an explosive breath. “Fates, no. That’s MK Rivers, the chairwoman’s assistant.”
“Yikes. Okay, moving on.” He zeroes in on a guy with leopard spots dyed into his tawny skin. A potential rule breaker. “Him?”
I flash forward into his future and see him walk right past a girl sprawled on the floor, her belongings scattered everywhere. “Nah. Too cool to help others.”
We consider and reject three more candidates, and then I see her. A woman with perfectly outlined lips and hair as bright as a cardinal’s tail. She wears a ring on her finger and beams as though she’s single-handedly responsible for feeding the entire cafeteria.
I flash forward and hear her gushing to a friend about her boyfriend waking her up with a daybreak proposal.
“Perfect. She just got engaged this morning with a data-chip ring. If anyone’s going to support geeky young love, it’s her.”
“Okay,” Ryder says, trusting me implicitly. “To our places.”
I take a deep breath. Please, Fates, let me have picked the right one. Olivia’s future depends on the kindness of this cardinal-haired woman.
Five minutes later, I’m in the loading deck of elevator capsule nineteen. The handle of the picnic basket is slippery under my palms, and my heart marks nanoseconds of time. Two-dozen capsules line the cafeteria lobby, but the cardinal-haired woman will choose this one. I can just see it—literally.
Ryder is in the lobby, hiding behind a plant statue with gold and silver leaves and a twisted copper stalk. He was able to hack into the electronic screen and display an X on top of capsule nineteen, indicating that it is out of order. When the red-haired woman approaches, he’ll turn off the X, only to switch it back on after she enters the loading deck, thus ensuring our privacy.
The plan is foolproof…in theory. But because it involves too many independent decisions, even my precognition can’t tell us how it will play out.
“I hate that I’m not in there with you,” Ryder says into my earpiece.
“We have no choice.” My voice echoes in the tight chamber of the loading deck. “You need to make sure no one else enters this capsule.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I like it—” He cuts off abruptly. “She’s coming, Jessa. Get ready.”
I take a deep breath, reach into the picnic basket, and remove a hand. One of Mikey’s prosthetics, with long, elegant fingers, cut off below the wrist.
“Five steps, Jessa… Three, two…”
I run the prosthetic hand over the sensor, again and again, as if I’m trying to scan an ID embedded in the wrist.
The door clicks open.
“I don’t get it,” I mutter, loudly enough to be overheard. “It worked before. Why isn’t it working now?”
I hear a gasp and spin around, hiding the prosthetic hand behind my back. My face is hot, my movements jerky. Good. At least I don’t have to fake my anxiety.
The red-haired woman gapes at me. “What is that? Don’t tell me… Oh Fates, are you trying to swipe the sensor with a severed hand?”
Up close, I can see why her lipstick is so perfect. The color’s been tattooed on.
“Oh, no, this isn’t a real hand.” I hold the prosthetic out to her. She touches it gingerly, and her shoulders visibly drop.
“My boyfriend’s a scientist here,” I say, my voice warm and confiding. “One of the interns, in the prosthetics department. My birthday was last week, and he gave me this as a present. Can you imagine?” I laugh girlishly, even though I’m not girlish. I rarely laugh. And I never confide in strangers. Fates, I don’t even talk to strangers. “He put a duplicate of his data chip in the wrist, thinking it would be romantic, and he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t more excited to get a fake hand.”
She smiles, as I knew—hoped, prayed—she would. “My boyfriend—I mean, my fiancé—is the exact same way. He just proposed this morning.” She holds up her hand with the ring. The square black-colored chip, with metal prongs lining four sides, gleams in the light. “Most girls get dia
monds or rubies. I get a data chip.”
“This is so much better,” I say. “Anybody can give a silly old stone. He’s asking you to share in his data stream. In the true blood that courses through his life.” I pluck the lines straight out of the future conversation she has with her friend, detailing the proposal.
Her smile widens. “That’s exactly what he said. The rest of my friends don’t get it. They think he’s too cheap to spring for a real gem, but I think it’s sweet. Besides, we’re saving our credits to buy a house, and I like that he’s thinking about our future.”
“I think that’s beautiful,” I gush. “And your ring is so unique. No one will have one like it.”
“Thank you so much.” She looks at the severed limb. “So, um, why are you trying to scan a prosthetic hand?”
I exhale. This is it. The moment where she falls for my ruse—or calls security on me. “Our meetiversary is today, and I wanted to surprise him.” I move my shoulders. “I was able to scan the wrist to get up to the cafeteria. I don’t know why it doesn’t work now. I never should’ve stopped for the chocolate-covered strawberries.” I look at her pleadingly. “You won’t tell, will you? I know it was wrong to use the data chip, but I wanted this date to be perfect.”
She twists the ring on her finger. Is she buying my story? Oh Fates, what if she works for Chairwoman Dresden? Any moment now, I could find myself in electro-cuffs…
“I won’t tell,” she finally says, and the air whooshes out of my body. “But you have to promise you won’t try this again. It’s sweet of you to surprise your boyfriend—but our security protocols are here for a reason.”
I nod and flip open the cover of my picnic basket. Plump strawberries covered with silky dark chocolate gleam up at us, along with wrapped sandwiches and a glass bottle of milk. “We met at lunch a year ago, and I’ve recreated the entire meal—peanut butter and guava jelly, chocolate milk, and strawberries. Standard school fare. Not gourmet by any means, but I thought it would be cute. I guess it will just have to be cute at dinner.”
She twists the ring again. The air feels full, saturated with my anticipation.