by Julia Keller
She and Kendall scrambled up the side of the hill, moving very fast at first but then slowing down as the grade became steeper and the footing less secure. Violet could feel her heart jumping madly in her chest. What would she say to Sara when they found her? How would she persuade her to give up? What leverage did she have?
The crest of the hill was only a few grueling steps away. Violet grunted and hauled herself up. Kendall was right behind her. They reached the summit and took a deep breath. They both looked down.
And there she was.
33
Sara’s Revenge
Sara stood in the middle of the rain-wrecked valley.
A spasm of lightning lit up the valley floor, and for an instant Violet could see her face clearly. Too clearly. It was warped and twisted with hate. Sara punched her right arm high into the air, brandishing her wrist console the way an enemy in a conventional battle would display a slab gun. The console was how she controlled the Intercept signal.
We’d be better off if it were just a slab gun, Violet thought. Her stomach gave a sickening lurch. What she’s got is far more lethal than a slab gun.
Each of them had a chip embedded in the crook of the left arm. That chip was like an unlocked door to a house filled with treasure. The treasure was their brains, their thoughts, and if Sara completed her mastery of the technology, she could enter at will. Millions at a time. They would no longer control their own minds. She could fill those minds with images of doom and despondency. They would all be helpless.
Empty of will. Hollow of soul.
Now Sara looked up the hill at Violet. The tables had turned. The hunters were about to become the hunted.
Kendall grabbed his head with two hands. His body began to shake.
“Kendall!” Violet cried. She tried to touch him, but he shook her off. “Kendall, what’s hap—”
“She’s doing it,” he said, his voice a choked, desperate whisper. “She’s putting thoughts in my head—dark thoughts. Terrible thoughts.” He uttered a low, long howl that seemed to come from the core of his being, tearing through layer after layer to get to the surface. It was filled with more pain than Violet had ever known could exist in a single human body. “I killed my brother!” Kendall cried. He was on his knees now, rocking back and forth. “I killed him because I didn’t protect him. Oh my God—it was me. I caused him to die. I let him—”
He stopped. He jumped to his feet again. He looked down into the valley. “Look,” he said to Violet, pointing at the woman below, the one who stood there with a smile on her face and a console raised up like a sword. “Now she’s switched it off again. She wanted to show us how powerful she is.”
“We’re too close,” Violet said. She grabbed his arm. “We have to run. Back the way we came. We have to get out of the range of her signal. We don’t have any weapons; we can’t fight her on our own.”
“We’ll have to figure out how to get close enough to get that console without getting zapped by the signal,” Kendall said.
They spun around and fled, slipping and tumbling down the other side of the muddy hill they had ascended just seconds ago, through torrents of rain and giant tridents of lightning.
Could they find reinforcements on Old Earth? A few hundred people had stayed behind here, Violet knew, even after her father opened New Earth’s borders two years earlier. The holdouts didn’t want to come to the new land. Some said it was because they were too old to start somewhere new. Others were recluses. Here, their only company—along with inmates in the mountain prison, whom they never saw—were parolees like Rez.
But she didn’t know how to find those last, lingering residents of Old Earth. They hid in caves or in trees or in the bombed-out buildings of the ghost cities. And they might not want to help, anyway.
The only people I can really depend on, Violet told herself, are my friends.
Those friends were huddled at the top of the next hill over.
“We have to go!” Kendall yelled. He and Violet had just come up alongside their companions. “Sara’s increased her powers. She’s right behind us. Come on—run!”
Nobody asked any questions. Questions were for later. Kendall had told them to run, and they had never heard such panic in his voice before, and so they ran. Or at least they achieved a close approximation of running, given their weary and depleted state. Violet led. Jonetta and Shura were behind her, and then Kendall. Tin Man was close behind him. Rachel wasn’t keeping up, and so Tin Man, without breaking his stride, finally just scooped her up under his right arm.
“Put me down!” Rachel yelled, squirming and kicking.
Tin Man ignored her. After a few minutes she climbed on his back, like a kid watching a parade with her dad, so that they could make better time.
Up and down the muddy hills and across the jagged landscape went Violet and her friends, the same hills they had traversed in the opposite direction. They ran single file, and then they bunched up, Shura next to Kendall and Jonetta, with Tin Man and Violet a few steps behind, and then they stretched out single file again.
When they looked back, their hearts sank.
Sara was still coming, still following them with a tireless, machinelike intensity.
“My God,” Jonetta sputtered. Her face was covered in mud. She had to wipe away great black smears of it before she could continue speaking. “How is she doing that?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Shura said. They’d gotten a decent lead, and she wanted some answers. “The question is—why don’t we stand and fight?”
“Because she’s got the Intercept,” Violet said. “And until we can figure out how to distract her and grab her console, she can control us with our own emotions.”
“Oh, come on,” Shura said. “I bet we can just use willpower. Shut out any thoughts she tries to put in our minds. How hard can it be?”
All at once Violet realized that she and Tin Man were the only ones in the group who knew what an Intercept intervention felt like. The horror was profound. If you didn’t know, you didn’t know. If you knew, you never forgot it.
“You’re just going to have to trust me on this, Shura,” Violet said. “You don’t want to mess with the Intercept. Even with the baby version she’s got. Right now, she can’t sustain the signal over a long distance. She needs to be close to us to make it work. So we have to keep moving.”
They stumbled and lurched down another long, steep, muddy hill.
“Which way?” Rachel asked. They had paused at the bottom. She was shivering so badly that she had trouble getting the words out.
“Over there,” Kendall said, pointing. A long, flat expanse of land was visible in the distance. At least they would not be wearing themselves out on the hills. They made a sharp right turn.
And still Sara came.
Violet constantly checked back over her shoulder, marking the progress of their pursuer. At times Sara seemed lose her grip for a few seconds. She was trying to access each of their minds, Violet surmised, and so she was forced to alternate, going from one person to another, like a symphony conductor signaling each section of the orchestra when its big moment came. That diluted her power. It was all that was keeping their minds out of her clutches. It was all that was saving them.
“We’ve got to get that console of hers,” Tin Man said. He was half running, half walking alongside Violet.
“Yeah!” she yelled back. She had to yell; the wind had picked up again and was shrieking in her ears, making conversation difficult.
A figure suddenly appeared in the distance, approaching quickly and purposefully from another direction. Shura saw it first. She grabbed Violet’s arm and pointed. Then Kendall and Tin Man saw it, too, and finally Jonetta and Rachel.
“It’s Rez,” Violet said.
How did she know? She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.
Somehow she had recognized him, as far away as he was, on this night when the only light came from fragile, shifting shards of moonlight—visible when the cl
ouds momentarily cleared—and from the erratic bursts of lightning. It was as if she’d sensed his presence through her skin—skin that was soaked and chilled.
And she was right. It was Steve Reznik.
When he reached them, shaking the rain off the shoulders of his overcoat and stomping the mud from his boots, the first thing he did was pull out a small device from the pocket of that coat. He didn’t bother with greetings or hugs. The situation was dire. No time for frills.
“I’ve got this area rigged with DIY drones,” Rez said. “I’ve been monitoring you since you arrived.”
“And it didn’t occur to you,” Kendall declared hotly, “that maybe it would’ve been a good idea to, oh, I don’t know … maybe help us?”
Rez shrugged. “Took me a while to get over here. Hell of a night. And besides, I am helping you.” He held up the device. By the feeble light of her flashlight, Violet could see that it was a small metal box studded with rows of small lights. A stubby antenna jutted from the top.
Rez said, “This is what I was working on. I didn’t even have time to answer Violet’s console call. I had to focus. It’s ready now.”
“Unless it c-c-c-can make some hot c-c-cocoa,” Rachel interjected, her frozen lips causing her to stutter, “I don’t c-c-care.”
For the first time, Rez realized that his little sister was present. He’d been too absorbed in showing them his invention to notice. Now his eyes widened. He reached out to her, moving a soaking-wet strand of hair off her forehead. He lifted the shoulders of her way-too-big raincoat, trying to pull the garment tighter around her small body to keep her warmer.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Rachel said.
They exchanged a brief, knowing smile.
Violet waited for Rez to whirl in her direction and explode, demanding to know why she’d endangered his sister’s life by bringing her along. She waited, that is, for the standard What-the-hell-were-you-thinking? lecture that she’d heard so many times before in her life.
But it didn’t happen. Rez said nothing about Rachel.
Why not? Why wasn’t Rez angry that his little sister was smack in the middle of a jury-rigged mission on a calamitously cold, dark-as-doom, storm-smashed night on Old Earth? Violet only had a second to speculate, and what she came up with was this: They understood each other, Rez and Rachel, the moody genius and his brilliant sister. They let each other be who they were. They’d been doing it their whole lives. If Rachel wanted to be here, fighting the good fight, fine.
Now Violet had to focus. Rez was addressing the group.
“We’ve got to stop Sara as quickly as possible,” he declared. “The more times she uses the Intercept, the better she gets with it. The only thing that’s saved us so far is the fact that it’s a pretty steep learning curve. I figure we have about an hour before she’s got the thing licked.”
“And then?” Tin Man said.
“And then she’ll be able to handle multitudes at a time,” Rez said. “Not just us—everybody. New Earth and the few people left on Old Earth, too. There’ll be mass suicides. Right away. No question about it.”
He said it so calmly, so casually, that at first the meaning didn’t sink in. But then it did. Violet felt a cold shiver of intense fear, a fear greater than the fear she’d been feeling so far. A fear beyond and above fear. Because there was no real defense against an enemy who had the key to your brain.
“Violet.”
Rez was addressing her. She shook off her newfound terror—or at least she found a decent hiding place for it—and faced him.
“Yeah.”
“I need you and Tin Man to help me pinpoint the coordinates of Sara’s Intercept signal. Kendall, you and Jonetta and Rachel stay here and keep an eye on Sara. Okay?”
“Okay,” Kendall said reluctantly.
Rachel wasn’t any happier about his orders, but she didn’t complain. She wrapped her small arms around her torso, hunching up against the cold. Jonetta grunted.
Rez, Tin Man, and Violet headed across the top of the ridge. Rez kept the box tight against his side.
“What does that thing do?” Tin Man asked as they marched.
“Theoretically, it should block the Intercept signal between Sara and anybody she’s trying to control,” Rez said.
“Theoretically?” Tin Man roared back at him. “You mean it might not work?”
“I had a few hours to do what ought to require years in the lab. This is strictly a beta version.” He shrugged. “So sue me.”
“And if you do sue him,” Violet put in, trying to tamp down the tension, “just know that he’ll have the best lawyer on New Earth on his side.”
They found the spot Rez had been looking for. He adjusted the antenna. While Violet and Tin Man fed him the coordinates, he calibrated the sensors on the side of the device. It began to glow with a soft bluish-white radiance. Then it emitted a soft whine. The whine cut through the brazen bluster of the storm, drilling through the noisy chaos like a lighthouse beam through heavy fog.
“What’s it doing?” Violet asked.
Rez answered her without taking his eyes off the gauge on the device. “You remember, right, how the Rebels of Light were able to thwart the Intercept three years ago? How they blocked its effects?”
“Yeah. They used deckle. Everybody thought it was addictive, but it was actually a harmless drug. No worse than an aspirin. But it made the user immune to the Intercept.”
“Right. So think of this as virtual deckle. It mimics the molecular structure of deckle with a unique electromagnetic wavelength frequency variation signature. It should block the Intercept signal she’s broadcasting.”
“Should,” Tin Man muttered. “Should. Our lives are at stake here, buddy.”
“I’m well aware of the contingent nature of this enterprise,” Rez replied, “but I believe there’s a cliché that summarizes your options at this point.”
“What’s that?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
* * *
Once Rez had activated and synched his device with the coordinates of Sara’s location, it took only minutes to work.
Violet stood on the ridge next to Rez and Tin Man. She swept her flashlight back and forth across the valley below. Sara had stopped. She looked confused and upset. She smacked her console repeatedly.
“How long will your little magic box keep working?” Tin Man said. There was grudging admiration in his voice.
“No idea,” Rez replied. “It’s beta, remember?” He adjusted the dial. “But it might cut out at any second, so we’d better get out of here. If our signal starts to weaken and hers comes back, Sara can tap the Intercept again. She could be inside our heads in seconds.”
Violet started to ask him another question when she heard a commotion off to their left. A cascade of rocks had been loosened by a figure scrambling along the ridge. She swung the flashlight in that direction.
“Hey, guys!” Violet said. “Look—it’s Sara!”
In the short time Violet had not been watching her, Sara had made a run for it, and she was getting away. She had reached the far end of the shelf of rock and, after only a second’s hesitation, she jumped off into the darkness below.
No.
The word surged up inside Violet in a great, sweeping crescendo of feeling.
No.
No.
Sara would not escape. That could not happen.
The chip-jack signal was already weakening. If Sara fled into the wilds of Old Earth, they’d probably never find her again. She still had her console. She could still enact her plan. New Earth would never be safe.
“I’m going after her,” Violet said.
Tin Man gave her a startled look. “Is that a good idea?”
“Absolutely not,” Violet said.
She leaped off the ledge.
34
Ride at Your Own Risk
She was in the fight of her life.
And she was losing.
/> Violet had chased Sara across two high hills and across a frozen plain. Violet was a very fast runner, and under normal circumstances, she would easily have caught up to her. But these were not normal circumstances.
Sara had a hat, a scarf, a waterproof coat, and—crucial to her success—boots. Violet had no hat, no scarf, a thin coat, and—crucial to her failure—sneakers. Each time Violet began to make progress, her shoes slipped and buckled and she lost traction on the swampy ground. She fell to her knees. By the time she struggled upright again, Sara had widened her lead.
But Violet didn’t give up. She couldn’t give up. It wasn’t a conscious choice anymore. Not giving up was simply who she was, as much a part of her essential being as her DNA. She blundered forward. Somewhere along the way she had lost her flashlight, but it didn’t matter anymore. The beam was useless on this darkest of all dark nights.
She ignored the drumming ache in her legs and the fact that her fingers were totally numb. She couldn’t feel her ears anymore, either. Or her nose. Or her toes. Her thoughts weren’t really thoughts anymore but just primitive directives that flashed rhythmically in her mind:
Lift foot.
Put foot down.
Lift other foot.
Now put that foot down.
Move forward.
She only lost track of Sara once, and that was just for a few minutes. Soon, she was aware of Sara’s presence just ahead of her again. Violet put her head down and willed herself to go faster, faster.
And then, before Violet realized quite how far they had come, they were at the foot of Rez’s coaster. What did he call it, what silly name had he affixed to his latest wild idea? Violet, sick with exhaustion, racked her frozen brain.
Oh, yeah. The Riptide Ride.
A bright zigzag of lightning. The structure suddenly was gorgeously illuminated as if singled out by a circus spotlight. In that half second of brilliant light, Violet’s eyes traveled up and up and up, straight to the top of the iron scaffolding.
Sara.
For there Sara was, climbing toward the outermost edge of the unfinished track, the part that hung out over the wind-whipped, churning ocean.