by Ramona Finn
Usually, when I found myself leaving the hospital, tears were already streaking my face. Not today, though. The drive to get John and Marisha back filled me with a surge of anger over what the security forces had done, which overpowered the feelings I had about Mom and Dad and their potentially permanent memory loss. Outside, I spotted Syeth leaning against the wall next to the front door. His attention was on his phone, but his head snapped up as I opened the door.
“Did you get my note?” I asked, wondering if he’d worried about me.
The sun provided a sliver of light across the sky, but there wasn’t enough light to turn off the streetlamps quite yet.
“Yeah, I figured it would save time if we went to the drop point sooner. How are your parents?”
I started walking. We were meeting the folks who’d get us into the city just outside of the bus station. We had no intention of taking the bus into the heart of Chicago since security inspected every single rider and the bus itself, but I was glad we weren’t meeting anywhere near the bunker or Isra.
“With the lower dosage of treatment, not so well.”
Syeth mashed his lips together. I sighed, allowing the thick cloud of air my breathing produced to fill the space in front of me. I almost wished I could disappear into a cloud like that, and float far away now and then to escape this hard and terrible world. But that wouldn’t get John or Marisha back, let alone help my parents.
“After today, we’ll have a better idea of how to move forward,” he said. “This is a good thing.”
We would need John to move forward with any breakthrough with New Zero. The remaining lab techs were doing their best to continue producing the treatment with what was left of the usable equipment, but even that would take time, and I wasn’t sure how long the patients had before they’d end up losing their memories for good. Would they all turn out like Mom? I hadn’t seen Dad, but I imagined the worst.
But John was going to make the treatment obsolete with the cure. That was the goal I would hold onto.
“Lora, it’s going to be okay,” Syeth said.
I snorted. “Since when are you the optimistic one?”
He smirked, and I couldn’t help smiling with him. I rested in that moment for a little while, not remembering the last time Syeth and I had been able to relax and be ourselves together without him going off to fight with the Unpaired or me being stuck in the lab for most of the day with John.
When Decker and Eve arrived at the station ten minutes later, we exchanged pleasantries and hopped inside of an unmarked black van. Decker drove while Eve went over the plan with us.
“We’re going to do a lot of walking today,” she said, her pale blue eyes boring into mine. She had soft features, which few of the Unpaired did. She was a tall, lithe woman a few years older than Syeth and me. “Our way into the city is through a decommissioned sewer tunnel. It’s not the most ideal way in, but it works.”
“It’s not the cleanest, either,” Decker said in his gruff voice. It rattled as if he had rocks lodged in his throat.
“Once inside,” she continued, “we’re meeting our contact at a café. It’s right outside the wall of Point Black. It’s the safest place for him to meet us.”
“We’re still unable to get inside?” If we were going to be so close to Point Black, surely there was a possibility that we could contact John and Marisha even outside of this agent.
“Unfortunately, no,” Eve said. “Today is only about collecting information. We would need most if not all of our troops to invade Point Black.”
I sat back in my seat defeated. It had been worth a try to ask, despite the odds.
Syeth slipped his hand into mine and our fingers twined. He knew that I wanted to get our people back even more than any information the Unpaired were bent on collecting. It was selfish, of course, but I had to focus on today’s mission. If this agent could tell us that John was alive still—and hopefully Marisha, too—then maybe I could bring the information to Isra and show her proof that John was alive… and that he was worth the effort of saving.
Chapter Eight
The drive was about forty-five minutes long. The sun already burned across the sky, but I knew better than to think it would be warm outside, even without spotting a cloud anywhere above us.
Decker pulled us into a parking lot, weaving through dozens of cargo crates scattered around the length of the lot. They were storage for any of the rebels retrieving supplies from the city, but I didn’t bother to ask about any of the supplies as the van slowed in front of a water treatment plant. Along with the sewer, the plant had been decommissioned. Which seemed like the perfect cover for our route into the city.
We exited the vehicle and I donned a hat and gloves, tucking my hair under the fabric. We already knew there were fewer drones in Chicago than any other city we’d invaded. BioPure had the most control over its citizens here in comparison to any other city, and from what I’d heard from Syeth regarding his missions, rebels in this area had to be more careful of getting spotted by pedestrians than doves.
We walked to the edge of the lot, heading toward the wall. We were about a half-mile from the city, but it still gave off an air of danger which made my chest tighten. We were going inside of another city. The last time I’d been inside a BioPure-run city, I had witnessed so much death, and we’d been separated from Jarid on top of that. I wondered if Syeth thought that way, too, or if he had been on enough missions to understand that they could go wrong sometimes and not feel nerves at a point like this.
I couldn’t ignore the niggling feeling that something bad could happen today. Whether it was losing Syeth or finding out that John and Marisha were already gone.
Heat moved behind my eyes, and I inhaled a steadying breath to keep my tears at bay.
Since we didn’t want to out ourselves as rebels, Decker and Eve gave us smaller pistols to hide on our persons. For once, the cold weather helped our cause by necessitating bulky jackets to hide our weaponry.
The sewer line was down a small hill carved into the ground. It was at the end of the lot, furthest from the building. The line was almost twice my height, but there was a barrier in front of it.
Syeth and I exchanged looks before he walked ahead of me to Decker’s side. At the mouth, I spotted a crack in the facade, which was barely tall enough to fit a person. At the bottom was a handle, and Syeth and Decker lifted it. The barrier was made from concrete, and from the redness in Decker’s cheeks as he lifted it, I figured handling it was more than a two-person job.
Eve was the first through, and she waved me inside. Decker and Syeth followed after us while Eve and I remained at the front of the group. There were no lights inside, and when the entryway closed, we were bathed in darkness.
Eve and Decker switched their flashlights on and we moved forward.
There wasn’t any standing water in the pipe, but the stale air clung to my nose. We crunched over dirt and debris from other missions and past years of waste. As we walked, I wondered how many others had come through in the past.
While Decker and Eve discussed what they were going to get from the agent, I tried to focus on what I wanted to know about John and Marisha. From what I understood, to keep the agent from getting caught, the time we had with him would be limited. Most of our mission would be spent traveling within the downtown limits and then back to the rebel base.
I narrowed my questions down to two important ones. I wanted to know if John and Marisha were alive, and how we could get inside Point Black to rescue them. If there was a person who could come in and out of that place even for short bursts, there had to be a way for them to get out.
I tried not to get my hopes up, but it was complicated, given how close we were going to be to where they seemed to be holding him and Marisha, assuming Isra’s intel had been correct and they hadn’t moved them.
I checked my phone for the time every so often. We walked for nearly an hour before I noticed the tightening of Eve’s shoulders and a straigh
ter posture in her back. She and Decker had stopped their conversation abruptly. The weight of the situation seemed to fall over all of us. We were four rebels heading into one of the most guarded cities in the world. As enemies of the BioPure corporation, we were facing plenty of danger if we were discovered, whether that could mean being captured or killed on sight. On top of that, we were meeting with an agent who was inside one of the top security locations of Chicago. We were treading on fragile ground.
Ahead of us, there was a metal rung ladder leading to the ground above. Eve stopped in front of it and turned off her flashlight before adding it to her pack. She climbed up and I went next, followed by Syeth and Decker. Above me, Eve removed a circular metal barrier and slid it to the side.
We ended up in the center of a road running between two skyscrapers. The road had no foot or vehicle traffic, but I didn’t linger for long, especially once Eve darted across the street and through the back door of the nearest brick building. The door wasn’t locked, and we slipped inside the dark space easily.
Eve turned on the lights and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. We were in a short hallway. Eve pushed through the first doorway and I stayed on her heels. Inside the room were small cages lining the walls.
“It used to be a veterinarian’s clinic before the regulations for pets were established,” Eve explained as she opened a closet. With the cages in the room, there was just enough space for the four of us to stand around, but it became a little more cramped as she pulled out a set of clothes on a hanger and handed them to me. As if noticing that I wasn’t about to strip in front of people I barely knew, she said, “You can change in the bathroom through there. There’s no water connected, but it will give you privacy.”
I walked through the door she’d indicated while she picked out civilian clothes for Syeth, Decker, and herself.
Inside the bathroom, I found a flashlight on the edge of the porcelain sink. After flipping it on, I closed the door. There was a bathtub and shower behind me, and a toilet next to the sink. I removed my coat and quickly changed out of my rebel clothes—a donated pair of jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt—into the softest pair of off-white pants I’d ever worn and a thick white sweater with thin pink lines slashing across it. As a rebel, I hadn’t thought about clothing much other than as a necessity. These clothes brought me back to when I’d been paired with Jarid and his mother had purchased new clothes for me to display my Level One status.
I looked in the mirror and noticed how my face had thinned out. I looked older.
I gathered my things and headed out to the room with the cages to store my rebel clothes.
Decker and Syeth were gone, and Eve had already swapped her clothes out. She wore a fuzzy white coat with white pants sporting a navy stripe down the side. Out of her uniform, she looked taller than she ever had. I supposed the black boots peeking out from under the pants helped with that. Her hair was down, the brunette locks having transformed into soft-looking waves against her shoulders.
“The easiest way to fit in while in any corporate city is to look like a Level One. No one pays us any mind,” she said.
I helped store our clothes in the closet, and we’d just finished when the guys came back in.
If I felt like I’d time-jumped before, I felt it even more as Syeth came into view. His white button-down shirt had the first two buttons undone, and he’d rumpled his hair a bit so that it was messy at the top. I recalled this exact dour expression from when I’d first met him in the kitchen of his parents’ penthouse.
“Let’s go.” Decker’s eyes lingered on Eve for a few seconds too long. She didn’t seem to notice as she pulled out three more coats for the rest of us.
Mine was a thick pea coat with a fur-lined collar. I dug my hands into the pockets and came out with a pair of gloves.
Syeth looked at me in a similar way, and my cheeks burned as a smile crossed my face.
We exited the clinic the same way we had come in and walked up the block to around the corner. While the sun had given us no extra heat, the reflection off the glistening buildings made me shield my eyes. People of all different levels walked the streets. Their clothing was an indicator of their status.
Eve looped her arm through Decker’s and they both raised their noses a little higher. Syeth took my hand and I moved closer to him as we followed behind them.
I couldn’t help glancing at every single person around us. I hadn’t been under the spell of the corporations since I left New Manhattan, but the atmosphere of this city crashed into me like a waterfall. The people around us seemed normal, and happy to be living under the rule of BioPure.
Nearby, a group of three teen girls huddled together as we passed, whispering to each other. Then they all burst out laughing as they carried on their way. We passed shops with customers coming in and out of clothing stores that displayed mannequins in the windows, highlighting the latest fashions. Restaurant windows gave a view of people having lunch during their breaks.
The rush of the cars in the clean streets and people talking on their phones buzzed around me.
I had forgotten how beautiful life inside BioPure’s golden cage could seem, but I wasn’t fooled. I tried not to think about the life I could have led if I hadn’t bought into Syeth’s exploration of what had happened to Jarid after his memory wipe. I could have visited Chicago with the Rothkinds and experienced the blissfully naive life that all these people around me lived. I spotted kiosks at every corner, and I wondered about the rush of kids entering them each day after school.
I studied Syeth out of the corner of my eye, wondering if he had the same thoughts in his mind about our previous life. Did he miss having everything at his fingertips and allowing others to do the hard work? He rarely complained, but he wasn’t always the type to be open about his feelings. Life as a rebel was hard, but I had a feeling he didn’t mind our living conditions as much as he had when we’d been in a corporate-controlled city.
Decker and Eve crossed three streets before slowing in front of a café. The window was tinted so that I couldn’t see inside. Decker opened the door for Eve and me, and I followed her through to find our contact.
My palms broke out in a sweat as the heat from inside swirled around me and settled into my chilled bones. The scent of coffee and other baked goods enveloped me as I navigated around the tables and chairs. Half of the seats were taken already, but we moved toward the back of the room. There were small square tables and a few longer ones. Most of the people were sitting alone with headphones connected to their phones or laptops. I scanned the twenty or so people for any sign of recognition from an agent. Though, he had no idea what I looked like.
A man dressed in a white suit and black tie stood at the corner booth. There were only three such booths at the back of the space, closer to the registers and glass cases filled with pastries and sandwiches, but they were all empty except for his.
He grinned at us as if he was meeting old friends. I slipped a look over my shoulder to make sure this wasn’t a trap, doubting everything when he grabbed onto Eve and tucked her against his body.
Chapter Nine
“It’s so good to see you, Felicia,” the man told Eve.
I narrowed my eyes at him. Upon closer inspection, the dark-haired man seemed younger than I’d initially thought. Maybe in his early twenties. For someone who was supposedly an agent for the rebels at Point Black, I wondered about his qualifications. Though, hadn’t Jarid wanted to infiltrate BioPure? He was younger than this guy.
The man turned to Decker, holding out his hand. “Randall, I’ve been looking forward to hearing about your daughter’s pairing.”
The agent winked at Syeth and nodded his head at me. “Sit, sit, we have a lot to catch up on.”
While Decker and Eve settled into the booth with pleasantries being directed toward the agent, I couldn’t help glancing around the room. No one had noticed us talking, as it appeared we were all old friends with this man.
“
These are our friends from work,” Decker said. “The ones we told you about. Sam here is quite good at computers while Lisa here has quite the mind.”
“That’s good to hear,” the agent said. “I’m Arnold, and I look forward to learning more about you two.”
Syeth and I stayed quiet as the three of them “caught up” and a waitress brought us coffees. They talked about pairings and how work was going. It was all made-up stories for whatever covers they had come up with for the meeting. Every now and then, they looped Syeth and me into the conversation, but even when I got stuck on answering a question from Arnold about my new pairing with “Sam,” they carried on as if I had given an adequate answer. Eve talked about her kids with Decker and even pulled out her phone to show off a set of two girls. I had no idea if they were really hers or not, but that didn’t matter, I knew.
“I have those movies you wanted,” Arnold said to Eve. “I know the kiddos have been dying to watch them.”
I wondered if “kiddos” was a codeword for Unpaired.
The drive was on the table for less than ten seconds before Eve dropped her hand over it. My heart raced, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the exchange. She and Decker carried on about the so-called movies. Eventually, she brought the hand with the drive up against her hair and tucked a chunk behind her ear. Then she placed her hands in her lap. It was a movement that no one would have seen as odd, but she’d used it to hide the drive somewhere on her body. A swell of pride moved through me as I realized how experienced Eve was with this spy stuff. I settled into my seat, trying to stay as engaged as they were. Anyone passing by wouldn’t have paid us any mind so far. I wanted to keep it that way.
My mind drifted to the drive. Was there information about Point Black? Was anything about John on there? We wouldn’t know until we returned to the base, but I doubted it. Eve and Decker had already planned for this meeting before Syeth and I had invaded the mission. So, when were we going to talk about John?