Tracker220

by Jamie Krakover

  Great. Just what I needed. More crazy messages clouding my vision.

  The buzzing in my ears grew more and more intense, consuming my every thought. I ached to clutch my head, but none of my muscles responded. My knees and legs wobbled involuntarily. I wanted to collapse into a ball, to shrink into oblivion, but I couldn’t. My eyes dried as they fought to blink, forcing me to watch the agents draw toward me like robots.

  As they closed in, a crotchrocket roared from above. I fought a screaming headache to see skyward. I didn’t recognize the descending bike with a four-leaf clover painted on the front. The rider’s black leather pants, jacket with red insets, and full helmet with opaque visor dared someone to challenge them. Definitely not one of my friends, but maybe it was my good luck charm.

  Revving the engine, the figure spun the bike in a large circle, forcing the agents away from me. With each inch of space between us, my lungs filled with additional air. Each engine rumble removed a layer of haze from my mind. Each circle around me unwound the imaginary rope holding me in place. I pushed against the invisible barrier and forced the buzzing in my ears to a dull hum. My legs and arms tingled, and my toes wiggled. Somehow, I was fighting the tracker control. I clung to the tiny piece of hope, wondering if I still had a chance to escape.

  A scream erupted between my lips like a battle cry. Thoughts raced through my head so quickly, I had trouble keeping up. I shoved them onto the network to clear my head, but different screens rapidly opened in my field of vision. The faster my thoughts came, the quicker the boxes flew. I released every hateful and pained emotion onto the network. Unable to track the expanding boxes overwhelming my vision, I shut my eyes for a moment of peace.

  When I opened them, everything had vanished. I blinked twice, trying to open a mental pad. No response. My tracker was offline again. Only I thought I shut it off on purpose.

  Was that even possible?

  Between the circle of agents and the gathering crowd, I was surrounded with no way out.

  “If you’re looking for a way out, this is it,” the rider called to me, their voice distorted behind the helmet.

  I counted agents, eyeing the kits on their belts. A shiver crawled through me and wrapped around my neck, threatening to suffocate me. My breaths grew short as mortifying thoughts of what they’d put me through flooded my thoughts. They’d drag me to Global Tracking Systems for sure. But I wasn’t going let them hurt me again. For the first time in my life, I wanted to break the rules. I wanted to find a place where the authorities couldn’t torture me, and I hoped that such a place existed.

  I scanned the crowd for Harlow.

  “Kaya, don’t. Let them help you.” Harlow pleaded with me from behind a couple of agents who inched closer to me. “I promise I won’t let them hurt you.”

  An empty promise. He couldn’t protect me. I wasn’t sure he ever really had, not like Jake, and especially not when it came to the authorities.

  They already had hurt me in ways words couldn’t begin to explain.

  I studied Harlow’s facial features, committing his brown eyes to memory as my feet edged away from the crowd. My legs prickled with each tiny step. Almost as if they had minds of their own. Without another thought, I whipped around and bolted toward the mysterious rider.

  As I climbed on the bike and wrapped my arms around the rider’s waist, I noticed a red skull emblem on the back of the helmet, the symbol I’d seen on the news, the symbol of the Ghost movement.

  Seven

  Before I had time to change my mind, the roar of the engine drowned out my racing thoughts. Wind thundered past, and we were airborne. The authorities scattered, running for their unicopters. My stomach lurched as we banked hard. I tightened my grip on the rider to avoid sliding off.

  On the field, the unicopter engines whirred to life and headed skyward in pursuit.

  We twisted through sickening turns and crossed over our path multiple times. The lights marking the sanctioned skyways blurred as we crisscrossed them, darting around traffic flying in the opposite direction. The driver yanked the handlebars, and we shot away from the traffic, off the skyway, and into open airspace.

  Whizzing under metal bridges and whipping around glass buildings, we made our way to midtown. I barely caught my breath as we threaded between the hotels and office buildings. Midtown disappeared in a haze. The even taller buildings of downtown grew in scale as we zoomed onward.

  As the traffic increased, we continued to weave around buildings in a snake-like pattern—the turns tighter and tighter the more densely populated the buildings became. But no matter what the rider tried, the unicopters gained on us. Despite the cluster of large buildings, there was nowhere to hide from the authorities.

  If they caught up, an arrest for flying outside the sanctioned skyways would be the least of the driver’s concerns. As for me, I was an accomplice. The punishment for keeping company with a Ghost was a million times worse than tracker diagnostics. I tried to focus on the horror I’d avoided, but one question kept creeping in. Had I escaped one nightmare and landed in another?

  My stomach wrenched as the mysterious rider swooped in low, then banked, narrowly avoiding a skyrise. The unicopters whooshed above, afraid to brave the tight spaces between the buildings. They kept a high beam on us, tracking our progress. After weaving around another large building, the steel of the Arch burst into sight, lit up in the night sky. I gasped for air in an attempt to keep calm on the roller coaster ride from hell.

  As more of downtown came into focus, the unicopters spread out behind us, and the skyscrapers gave way to shorter buildings. Nothing blocked the path between us and them. The engine revved beneath me. We sped toward the Arch. Flying underneath it was illegal—earning you a life sentence—yet we headed straight for it. The steel structure grew steadily larger, tempting us as we approached.

  “Are you nuts?” I screamed over the engine. The rider gunned the bike again, and the rumble vibrated through me.

  Two unicopters flew in close, flanking us. The agent on our right spoke through the loudspeaker. “Land your vehicle immediately.”

  The rider leaned forward on the handlebars and twisted the motorbike, swiping the rear wheel on the steel of the Arch as we passed under it. The unicopter on our right peeled away. The other veered left, but the rotor blade caught on the Arch leg, tearing a gaping hole in it with a sickening crash of metal grinding against metal. The blades lodged in the opening and ripped from the body of the unicopter. It spiraled toward the ground, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. A fireball erupted on impact. The heat from the blast radiated off my face while we swerved around the smoke plume. We were one wrong turn from becoming a fireball.

  “One down, eleven to go.” The rider laughed, the sound distorted through the helmet, then angled the bike at the river. We dove down, my gut doing somersaults. I tightened my grip on the rider as we leveled above the water. Behind us, two unicopters braved the drop. The first flattened its course in time to glide above the water and continue to trail us. The second skidded off the surface. A geyser of water sprayed me, but I didn’t have time to shiver because the fallen vehicle erupted into smoke and flames, heating me like a hunk of meat over an open flame. With no helmet and no seatbelt, I’d be in the fire if I couldn’t maintain my grip. If the rider didn’t kill me, the authorities would.

  We followed the river south, flying close to the surface, stuck in limbo—between two states, between two fates. If I wanted to, I could have reached out my foot and touched the Mississippi River. The thought made my insides knot. I squeezed my eyes shut to avoid seeing the terrain whip by, but the rushing wind made me want to hurl.

  I focused on the rider, trying to calm my nerves. “There’s no way we can outrun them. They’ll send reinforcemen—”

  The bike veered toward the Missouri side of the river. Bile burned up my chest and invaded the back of my throat, gagging me. The height didn’t bother me, but the erratic driving could end me at any moment. My hands were
numb from clutching so tightly.

  We shot higher at a steep angle and sped toward a huge forested area illuminated by the chasing unicopter’s light.

  “Ground your vehicle immediately,” boomed the speaker on the unicopter. “Failure to comply will result in hostile measures.”

  The rider let out a sadistic laugh. The bike lurched, pushing on faster. I twisted my head to see the unicopters in pursuit. One maneuvered directly behind us at a distance. A wave of dread washed through my body. There was nothing between us and the dart missile hanging off the frame of the unicopter. I was along for the ride on a deathcycle. I refused to let missiles firing in my direction be the last thing that ever happened to me.

  A giant flash erupted from the front of the unicopter and zoomed toward us. The rider twisted to peer behind, then yanked the bike left, narrowly avoiding the dart missile that whizzed past. It crashed into the field below, exploding on impact. I risked another glance at the unicopter. A second fireball burst from the front of the vehicle.

  “Incoming!” I yelled.

  The rider angled slightly toward the ground. The engine quieted to a hum then fell silent. We coasted for a brief moment before careening toward the forest below. My heart flew into my throat. Branches slapped my face and tore my clothes, scratching my skin. I bit the inside of my cheek to avoid crying out in pain.

  A dozen feet from the forest floor, the rider kickstarted the engine and flipped off the headlights. We glided to the ground, continuing to hurtle and whip around giant oak and maple trees. The thick canopy cast dark shadows on us.

  “You’re going to get us killed!” I shouted.

  No reaction.

  The rider shut off the engine a second time, and the bike rolled through the woods toward a rundown barn. The unicopters thundered above, drawing my attention to their searchlights, which couldn’t pierce the forest ceiling. How did we lose them so quickly?

  “They’ll thermal scan these woods. The authorities will find us.”

  The rider snorted through the helmet. “No, they won’t.” Despite the muffled sound, the voice carried a hint of knowing they were right.

  The barn doors swung open. We slid through them, stopping between two other bikes. Old rusted pitchforks and farm machinery from the previous century lined the walls of the barn. A moldy stench invaded my nose.

  I climbed off the bike, my wobbly legs threatening to betray me. The room spun around, making me more nauseous. I stumbled toward the barn doors, seeking a breath of fresh air, but they swung closed in front of me.

  Turning, I choked out, “Open the door.” I glared at the dark visor on the helmet, wishing I could see inside. With a shake of the head, the rider walked to the far corner of the barn and twisted a hanging pitchfork to the side. They motioned me over as a wooden floorboard creaked and slid along a series of ropes opening a hole in the floor. I hesitated, searching for another exit, but when I saw the trap door was the only way out, I inched toward it.

  I peered into the hole and down the wooden steps. If the decaying stairs didn’t kill me, whatever was stinking up that hole might.

  The rider pointed down the stairs. “After you.”

  Eight

  I sucked in a breath before braving the rotting wood. Each stair groaned beneath my feet, expressing a feeling I didn’t dare show on my face. I jumped as the trap door banged closed. The rider latched it behind us, making the cellar appear more prison-like by the second. My throat tightened.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the rider led me through a concrete corridor lit by hanging overhead lights. I trailed behind, each step heavier than the one before it. The impending doom ticked twice as fast as my feet dragged across the concrete.

  We emerged into a wide-open room filled with equipment and monitors I’d only seen in pictures on the network and in old movies. Hundreds of personal computers showed everything from maps to weird charts and graphs. A few dozen people looked up from their monitors at us.

  No, not at us.

  At me.

  I turned to the rider, who stood among the glowing machines. After pulling off the gloves, the rider removed the helmet, allowing long, wavy brown hair to fall out. My jaw dropped.

  “You’re a… you’re a g…g…” I stammered, trying to get the word out.

  The girl, around my age, glared at me with piercing green eyes like I was an appetizer to a very large meal. I shouldn’t have been surprised by her, but before I could apologize, a tall guy, also around my age, with wild, curly brown hair stormed at us.

  “Peyton, you stole my bike again.”

  “If you’d let me fix mine instead of allowing those bozos at it, I wouldn’t have to steal yours.”

  He scowled at her for a moment longer before facing me. “Hi, I’m Bailen.” He extended his hand. “You must be Kaya. I was wondering when we’d be seeing you here.”

  I stared at his hand as if it were poison. “Where is here exactly? And how do you know my name?”

  He dropped his hand, but his face remained calm. “Welcome to the Hive.”

  “The Hive?” I circled around, taking in the room. There weren’t just old computers, but projection screens, tall racks with flashing lights and miles of wiring strung together like Christmas lights. Stuff was crammed everywhere, stacked on the tables, and shoved against every inch of wall space.

  Even with all the equipment, the enormity of the room couldn’t be ignored. But as more people stared in my direction, the room collapsed in on me. I crossed my arms and ran my hand from my elbow to shoulder.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Bailen asked with a smile that I assume was supposed to be welcoming. But it didn’t help.

  “I… I don’t know.” If I were being honest, I would have agreed with him, but I didn’t know these people or what they wanted from me. I’d jumped on the bike to escape the authorities. Maybe it had been a giant mistake, but it was too late now. I’d made a decision, and I’d have to see where it took me. The uncertainty made my insides crawl, but I couldn’t let the Ghosts see any fear. “What is this stuff?”

  His smile faded slightly. “The computer equipment? It’s here to help us. Even you,” he said. “Especially you.”

  “Help me do what?” For all I knew, he was going to lobotomize me for my tracker. The Ghosts weren’t exactly helping humanity. Their goal was to challenge authority and instill terror in the public. Were they really any better than the authorities?

  “Your situation is…unique.”

  “You don’t know a thing about me or my situation.”

  “We’ve been watching you.”

  I stepped away from the creep. “Stalker much?”

  “Bailen, stop it. You’re scaring her,” Peyton said.

  “Am not,” he protested, giving her a half-grin and a raised eyebrow. An expression I assumed was supposed to be charming. Others around the room laughed quietly at their banter.

  “You are.” She shook her head. “I can’t watch you try to woo people any longer. You might have an IQ over a hundred and fifty, but you have the social IQ of negative five. I have a bike to fix.” Peyton stalked off with her helmet tucked under her arm.

  “What?” he called after her before returning his attention to me. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “For me? Why?” I felt like a thousand satellites were monitoring me, which was ironic because for the first time in my life, none actually were. I was free, but I’d never been more trapped with fewer options.

  “Your tracker. What you can do. Simply amazing. I can’t even—”

  “You did this.” I raised my finger and inched toward him. “The Ghosts broke my tracker. Why are you doing this to me? Fix it and take me home. Now!” I hadn’t even realized I was yelling until I’d finished.

  Bailen leaned against a desk littered with wires and large monitors. “You don’t understand.”

  “No, I understand perfectly.” Before I could finish my tirade, two dark, brawny arms grabbed me from behind and carried m
e to the far wall like I was a plastic bag instead of a person.

  “Let go of me!” I flailed, trying to break free, but whoever had me wasn’t budging.

  “Put her down. She isn’t going to hurt me,” Bailen said.

  Easy for him to say. He didn’t understand that my entire life had been ruined. I was in the middle of nowhere, far from my family, held hostage by the terrorist group that had broken my tracker. If the Ghosts were the ones who’d screwed me over, I was out of options. The pile I’d landed in was so far over my head, I couldn’t make out the top.

  The guy holding me loosened his grip and lowered me to the ground. I lunged in an attempt to put some space between me and the big guy, but he caught me, dragging me by the collar. I choked against the constricting neckline.

  “Careful, she’s feisty,” said the deep voice from the muscle behind me.

  Not feisty, just scared and searching for an exit.

  “Fine. We hoped you’d cooperate so we could give you some freedom around here. But considering your actions, I don’t think that’s possible.”

  “Why should I trust you people?”

  “Because we had nothing to do with your tracker malfunction. You did that all on your own. We were just waiting for you to figure it out. It was only a matter of time.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You think we could do that with all this old equipment? Global Tracking Systems is high tech and tightly controlled. There’s no way we could shut off a single tracker on the network. How would we even begin to single out one person?”

  He had a point, but I wasn’t going to give in that easily. If they were my only option, then I needed to make sure it was a good one.

  He turned to his monitor and typed a few things into the computer. A graph with two lines, one red and one blue, popped up. “This is a normal tracker.” He pointed to the red line. “And this blue line is yours. See how it’s higher than the regular line?”

  I nodded, unsure what else to say.