Class Zero

by Y A Marks

  After forty minutes of scrubbing everything in my room, including my backpack, bed linen, and shoes, I sat on the mattress and tried not to let my emotions get the best of me. The last few days had been pretty bad. I had broken down four times thinking about the kids. The biggest problem was I didn’t know what was going on. I had all sorts of images in my mind of the police torturing the kids, trying to force them to tell the police where I was, but the kids didn’t know. They didn’t know I was hanging out with the Escerica rebels. They didn’t even know what Escerica was. All they knew was I loved them, and I hadn’t been there for a week.

  My eyes burned with tears. No matter how much I fought it, I couldn’t help pulling my legs into my body and sobbing. They were innocents in this messed-up world, full of backward politics and economic power.

  Four metallic bangs startled me. I glanced toward the door, but couldn’t find the strength to leave the bed.

  “Paeton.” It was Sun Hi.

  “Yeah?” I asked, trying to pull myself together.

  “I uh, I think you need to see this…”

  Worry flowed through her voice. My heart paused, and without warning, blasted one heavy beat through my entire being. Without another thought, I yanked my damp clothes off the shower stall and dressed myself.

  I slid the door back. Sun Hi glanced at me, her face paler than I had ever seen. She wrapped both arms around my dangling arms and held me for a moment. She had never given me a full hug around my whole body—ever. All I could think about was there had to still be hope. The kids couldn’t be… I mean, how would she even know if they were…

  I followed her down to the room in the middle of the main corridor. I passed it every day since I had been with the Escerica members, but this was my first day entering.

  From the top of the room to the bottom were monitors, some displayed television stations, others computer screens, and still more showed images from security cameras. Almost all of them had something that looked important on them. In the middle of the room was a glass desk. The desk was a few feet wide and maybe eighteen inches long. It was barely larger than the chair it was attached to. On top of it was what looked like four keyboards fused together, surrounding a hand-sized clear area in the middle of the desk.

  Josalyn sat up in the desk, moving her fingers quicker than seemed humanly possible. Every once in a while, she slid her right hand over the clear center area. My guess was that was the place to move the computer’s pointer to another section of her digital information quilt.

  She spied me, but didn’t stop working. Her left leg hovered over the floor, and for the first time, I recognized that the desk was sitting on some kind of huge spinning disc that allowed her to turn to see different parts of the room. It was amazing to think she could keep up with all the information at the same time.

  Sun Hi motioned for me to come closer. As soon as I took a step forward, all the screens morphed into one gigantic one, each monitor a part of a gigantic puzzle. I checked Josalyn’s face to make sure this wasn’t some kind of digital trick, but it appeared as though she had changed the screens for me.

  In the middle of the piece-part screen was Captain Davis. I hadn’t seen her since the day in the Stadium when she showed the video of me talking with Rylan.

  She stood at a podium with eight microphones sticking out of it. Her hair was neatly pulled back into a bun. With the camera close, I paid attention to her eyes. They were cut at a down angle away from her nose, which made them appear sad. Her eyes, in addition to her large forehead, made her appear almost like a child on the screen.

  Behind her, anger flowed from Governor Read. His face was beet red, and beads of sweat formed at his temples. His thick hands dabbed them away with a handkerchief.

  “Turn it up,” Sun Hi said.

  “Give me a sec,” Josalyn answered.

  Slowly, Capt. Davis’ words became audible. “It has been seven days since we found any leads from the second drone attack.”

  A voice from off-screen, probably a reporter, asked, “What of the homeless girl in the video? Paeton Washington, have you been able to find her?”

  “No,” Capt. Davis said. Her head angled toward the off-screen reporter. “No one seems to know who she is or what her role is in all of this.”

  “And the guy in the video?” another voice asked.

  “We don’t have a name, but we have information we believe links him to the rebel organization known as Escerica.”

  “So are the two working together?” someone else asked.

  “We don’t have any information that links the two in the video, but that doesn’t mean anything. As far as the police and the government are concerned, both individuals are considered hostile and dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” I couldn’t believe someone would say something like that about me.

  “We received a report a few hours ago that Kathleen Franks…”

  The name sounded familiar. I racked my brain trying to discover who that was. Then it hit me: Ms. Roller-Eyes.

  “Kathleen Franks died this morning from injuries inflicted by Paeton Washington during an attempted arrest at the Stadium. Washington showed at that time she had no regard for human life. According to reports, she rammed into Ms. Franks before tossing Ms. Franks down a flight of stairs. The injuries suffered that morning led to Ms. Franks’ death.”

  My hands slid over my mouth, and my knees buckled. I’d barely touched her. There were no stairs behind her. She had simply fallen down. I knew for a fact a human cop tumbled over her, but that was it. I clearly remembered her standing. I couldn’t even bring myself to fully comprehend what was happening. Did I kill her somehow? Was this some kind of government trick? I had never killed anyone.

  “During her time at the Stadium, Washington was seen caring for two young children, both of whom are now in Juvenile,” Capt. Davis continued.

  “Are they Washington’s co-conspirators?” a reporter asked.

  I gawked at the screen. The kids were six and seven years old.

  “We have been holding them for the last week. On the eighteenth of February, they will be tried. If they are found guilty and can’t aid in the investigation, they will be sent to prison or processed.” Capt. Davis glanced over the audience, looking for the next reporter.

  Processed—she meant chopped up and converted into stable minds for androids. The concept was sick and twisted. I couldn’t understand any of it. They would never even consider jailing an Upper-C child or… processing them, killing them—murdering them.

  Mari and Miko were my life, my loves, my everything. My mind spun. Dizziness overwhelmed me. The layers of my sanity fell away, tumbling onto the floor. I fell back into someone’s arms, and they lowered me down.

  “Turn it off, Joss,” Sun Hi said.

  Josalyn nodded. The screens returned to the flurry of information they were three minutes ago.

  I stared forward into the room which darkened. Every shadow in the room spread. Soon the glowing monitors, the spinning desk, the tangle of wires, and the computers descended into a thick dark fog.

  Why was this happening to me?

  I reached out my hands as if I could touch Mari and Miko again. They were in the room. Their faces shone brightly in the darkness, but something called to me, letting me know they weren’t there.

  “Come back,” the voice said. “Paeton, are you okay?”

  My head rotated toward the voice. I couldn’t see who was talking to me. There was nothing but the dark fog.

  “Paeton, Paeton. Go get her some…” the voice faded away.

  ***

  The fog lifted some time later.

  Bright blue orbs spanned out in front of me, slowly morphing into squares, green, then orange, and then red. Each color occupied part of the space within the blue squares. The colors stretched and arched. Within moments, I recognized the colors for what they were: images on the massive computer monitors within the center room. The damp scent of the bunker flared my nostrils
and a cool draft prickled my skin.

  I glanced away from the monitors and watched Sun Hi, Josalyn, and AJ. They were all talking amongst themselves about going someplace and where they could get equipment. Rylan paced around them, his head lowered, eyes twitching. There was a fifth person who sat with their back to me, so I didn’t know who he or she was.

  A low groan left my lips, and my head felt light. I tried to sit up.

  Rylan’s face appeared over mine. “Take it easy,” he said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You fainted.”

  “Oh God. I’m sorry. How long have I been out?”

  “Ten minutes, maybe.”

  Then it came back to me—the kids.

  I pulled myself up and tried to stand. I stumbled forward and fell back onto whatever it was I was lying on.

  “Calm down, Paeton, give yourself a second,” he said.

  “Rylan, I can’t lie around here all day. I have to go save Mari and Miko.”

  “Well, I hope you have a plan,” a familiar voice said.

  I spied over Rylan’s shoulder into an older woman’s face framed with chestnut hair.

  “Dhyla?” I asked.

  Rylan moved out of the way. Dhyla reached down and hugged me. I don’t know if it was the situation with Mari and Miko, or if I just missed Dhyla, but I don’t think I had ever held her that long or so tightly before. I squeezed myself so far into her warmth that every emotion within me pooled to the surface. Tears streaked my warm cheeks and my fingers tugged around her frame as though I could disappear inside of her. I wanted to be strong and hold my pain back, but I was tired. Dhyla was what I needed, and I didn’t care what anyone thought.

  After I released her, she sat next to me. Her lips were tight, and she brushed my hair with her fingers.

  “We’ll get them out,” she said.

  “Do you have a plan?” I asked.

  Her eyes diverted. Glancing at the others, all of them avoided my stare. A lump of emptiness fell into the pit of my stomach. They didn’t have any ideas. All this time I wasted with them, and they couldn’t help me. The one thing I wanted—needed—these masterminds couldn’t figure out.

  It didn’t matter. I already made up my mind, even before I saw the video, before Rylan saved me, and before the scrappers outside the Stadium. I was going to save Mari and Miko, or die trying.

  There was no reason to upset anyone. Maybe they tried their best. They were just better at blowing up billions of credits of machinery than saving two kids. A plan was forming in the back of my mind, giving me hope. The details were fuzzy, but at least an idea was there.

  I pulled away from Dhyla and gave her my best smile. “I know you’ll figure out something,” I said.

  “We will,” she replied.

  “I, uh, I think I’d better go lie down in my room. I think I’m still a bit dizzy.” I didn’t want to lie to her, to them, but I had to get away to think.

  “Okay,” Dhyla said.

  I stood up, and the room spun for a second before settling. Rylan gave me a weak smile. I wasn’t sure if he was still angry with me or not, but I couldn’t worry about that anymore. Honestly, I didn’t want to get him involved with what I was about to do. No, I didn’t have a plan. I could barely stand. I was a horrible shot, and I was enemy number one. But, I was all Mari and Miko had. Ever since their aunt disappeared a year ago, I was it.

  I wasn’t going to let them be put into prison with psychos who operated with no rules and could kill anyone indiscriminately. The government allowed all Lower-Cs to be put into one gigantic jail of men, women, children, murderers, and rapists. Surviving was a matter of who wanted to kill you first and what organization you belonged to. If a person was considered high value, like an attractive woman or a feisty child, the stronger prison gangs would scoop them up and keep them safe. If you weren’t worth their time, you’d be left to survive among people who had already committed every type of horror, including cannibalism.

  They wouldn’t survive a day. I couldn’t live with myself knowing I let anything happen to them. If the all-mighty Escerica didn’t have an answer or couldn’t come up with anything better than knocking a drone out of the sky, then forget them. I was fine on my own.

  Somehow, I made it back to my room. My mind wasn’t as steady as I wanted it to be and played tricks on me the whole way. I had too many emotions. I needed a way to fight these internal demons, but my brain was a wasteland of nothingness.

  After picking up my backpack, I laced my arms through the straps. The backpack’s heft on my lower back was comforting, while the straps hugged my torso. The safety of the nylon material helped clear my mind.

  Getting the kids out of Juvenile would be difficult, especially if Capt. Davis knew I was coming, which she probably did. Why else tell the whole world where she’s keeping the kids? If I was some superhero this would be easy. I could fly in or use one of those cable-shooter things and glide into the place, move among the shadows, disarm the security, and…

  That was it. It was so simple. Disarm the security.

  Maybe I couldn’t be a superhero, but it occurred to me what I could do. I had an advantage. I had something that the police and the government wanted.

  I zipped to the door to my room and yanked it open. When I got one foot out the door, Dhyla pulled herself up the ladder. Her body moved slowly and seemed to slump.

  “Paeton… I was coming to check on—” she started.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m okay. Dhyla… Dhyla, I know how to get the kids out.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “You guys still want to destroy the third drone, right?”

  Those were the words I hoped would get everyone’s attention. I stood in the middle of the cafeteria right in front of one of the tiny tables, pacing back and forth. Dhyla, Sun Hi, Josalyn, AJ, and Rylan stared at me with blank expressions.

  “Of course we want to take the drone out,” Sun Hi said. “We were hoping to attack the Summit, but there is no way we can even get close with even one drone still up there.”

  “So what would it take to get to the drone?” I asked.

  “We’d have to know its precise location. Not a little bit, but like within two feet.”

  “Have you been able to locate it?”

  “What do you think I’ve been watching all those monitors for, cher?” Josalyn asked, voice full of sarcasm. “The drones aren’t invisible. They are just hard to find, but there are clues. TV signals that get broken up, faint frequencies being transmitted, even places where a mysterious shadow darkens the ground for a moment. It took five months to locate the first one, and before that it took two years just to figure out there was a flight pattern.”

  “But now…” I started.

  Josalyn’s stare cut into me. “But now they’ve gone dormant. After the second one went down, it’s like everything changed. We don’t know the flight patterns, and with only one up there, the signal it gives off is almost impossible to detect.”

  “But you’re still confident it’s up there?” I asked.

  Josalyn rolled her eyes. “Yeah, cher.”

  Sun Hi turned to me. “What’s the point of all of this, Paeton?”

  “I just need to know if it’s up there,” I said as politely as possible.

  “Yes, yes, yes, it’s still up there.” Josalyn rolled her neck.

  “What would happen if a security breach of, say, ‘enemy number one’ appeared on the grid? Would the drone be moved closer to that person?”

  Josalyn paused and leaned back. Her hand balled and rubbed against her cheek.

  “You want the drone to find you?” Rylan asked.

  I stared at him and smiled. “Yes.”

  “That’s crazy talk,” Sun Hi said.

  “Paeton, I know you want to find the kids, but you can’t do that. The police would be all over you. That would never work.” Ripples of anguish showed on Dhyla’s face. She leaned over, her eyes vibrating.

  Josalyn�
�s foot started to bounce. She was beginning to see my plan. “No,” she said. “No, what Paeton is saying could work. We’ve been trying to scout and track the drones because that’s what we’ve been used to doing. We’ve never had a lure before, something the drone would want to find, someone everyone wants.”

  “By using Paeton as bait,” Dhyla said. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Sun Hi leaned forward, her chin on intertwined fingers. “Okay, so let’s say the drone comes out to find you. How are you not just going to be the next statistic?”

  “I’m not going to get caught,” I said.

  Dhyla’s eyes zigzagged in their sockets. “How do you know? Do you have a plan?”

  I could tell she was petrified. My fingers slid over the edges of my shirt, trying to grasp for my backpack straps which weren’t there.

  “What’s your plan?” Sun Hi asked.

  “The same way Rylan saved me the first time, I’ll use again.”

  I turned toward him, and his eyes thinned. I wasn’t sure he fully understood, but there was a hint of a grin at the corner of his lips.

  I put my hands on my hips and my face widened with the hope stirring with me. “All I need for this plan to work is for someone to teach me how to drive a hovercycle.”

  ***

  Rylan and I stood in the middle of the main room, waiting on AJ. Hundreds of people moved around us as though there was nothing of importance going on. As far as they were concerned, it was just another day of life.

  Rylan glared at me out of the corner of his eye. His eyes rolled before his gaze returned.

  “Why again do you need to ride a hovercycle?” he asked.

  He was distant, but at least concerned. I didn’t want him to worry. I wasn’t the best shot in the world, but I could shoot some. I wasn’t the best of anything he was used to, but I had my own talents. I was great at improvising and getting out of the way. I also had an uncanny ability to read people, like when I marked people for my ATM robberies. I observed people and used their own habits against them. I could make this plan work.