by Beth Revis
I’m not human.
I stare down at my own hands. What is under my skin—wires and circuitry or flesh and bone?
I’m not human. I can’t be human. But then…
What am I?
I choke back a sob. All I want is to strip down and take a scalding shower, then wrap myself up in my fluffy bathrobe and curl up in Mom’s bed with her. But that reminds me of the woman who wore Mom’s face, and my stomach churns. I don’t even know what’s real any more.
“Ella?” A man stands up, moving around a lean-to toward me.
Jack.
There’s nothing about the way he looks that implies he should belong in the Foqra District, but despite this, he walks as if he’s inherently at home here.
“Jack,” I say, relieved, rushing toward him. The mad dash through the boats left me breathless, but my lungs reject this thick, polluted air, and I would hold my breath if holding my breath didn’t remind me that I was other. He holds his arms out as if to embrace me, but I stop short, suddenly conscious and self-aware.
“They almost got me,” I say, pointing back to the now-silent boats in the bay.
Jack nods grimly. “I know.”
“And Mom? What happened to my mom?” The words spill out of me. “What was that… that thing? What happened?” My voice cracks, and for a moment, I’m afraid I’ll cry. I shut my eyes, willing the burning inside them to not spill out.
Jack touches my arm, and when I open my eyes, I see his sad look. “She might still be okay,” he says. “This—thing—it’s not your mother. But you have to believe that she’s still out there, that she’s going to be okay.”
I can do that. I can pretend. I’ve spent the past few years of my life pretending that nothing was wrong with my mother.
That there’s nothing wrong with me.
I swipe my hands over my eyes, swearing silently to myself that I will discover what has happened to Mom. I will save her.
“How?” I ask softly, and even though Jack hasn’t been privy to my own silent ruminations, he understands my question.
“I don’t know how we can save her,” he says. “But we will. That is what the Zunzana does, Ella. We’re not terrorists. But we don’t accept what the government tells us to be true. When we see something wrong, we try to fix it.”
Like my mother. Like me.
I still don’t know if I trust Jack and his Zunzana. But I know I don’t trust the government, not after they chased me down like a criminal, not after seeing the thing with my mother’s face, something that only the government labs could have made.
I will trust myself, whatever I may be now. And I will save my mother. My real mother.
I square my shoulders, then look around. “Where are we?” I finally say.
Jack barks in a bitter laugh. “It’s called Paradise Bay.” He sees my look and adds, “No, really. It was named before New Venice was built. It used to be a really beautiful beach.”
Those days are long gone, that’s for sure. In the water, the boats are so close together that it was easy to leap from one to the other. That had felt crowded, each wooden side bumping against another, but it was nothing to the claustrophobia here. People are everywhere. We have to squeeze past roughly hobbled-together walls of the makeshift housing. In some cases, Jack lifts a part of a shack out of our way and then replaces it behind us. Screaming children dart impossibly through the debris, but the one baby I see—a thin little girl nursing with her mother—seems to have already acquired an apathetic acceptance of her lot in life. Her eyes are listless, her body
already huddled and defeated.
There are—I don’t know, at least a thousand or more people destitute on this beach.
I look back at the boats crowded around the pillars in the water behind us. The boats further out are nicer. I can see their brightly colored finishes even from here. But the boats closer to shore are dingier, faded, damaged, broken. Like the people.
It’s even harder for the people not on the boats, the ones crowded on the shore and up against the cliffs that encircle it. There’s little space here, and little warmth, and no joy at all. I glance down at one of the pots over the fire. Food—scraps, really, carrot peelings and something I’m fairly sure is grass along with meat that I assume (I hope) was once a rabbit—simmer in an earthenware pot over a small stone kenur hearth. A girl about my age pokes the food around with a stick, fanning the steam with her hand.
She looks up and sees me staring at her. Her eyes grow narrow and mean, and she snatches the pot away from the flames and hides it behind her. She spins her stick-spoon around in her hand and jabs it toward me.
I put up both my hands and step back. She watches me suspiciously, then returns her pot to the fire.
I move closer to Jack. His face is grim, his jaw clenched as he leads me toward the towering cliffs at the end of the beach.
“How are there so many people here?” I ask. I wrap my arms around my chest and hurry to keep close to Jack.
“Some were born here,” Jack says. “Some families have hidden here since the Secessionary War.” Jack pauses, looking around. “Most, though, are just poor, and they’re not willing to do what the government wants them to do so they can stop being poor. Money doesn’t mean anything if you have to give up what you believe in to get it.”
The cliffs are spotty and even darker than the rest of the Foqra District, hollow caverns cut into the outer edges. Jack leads me past most of these, then stops in front of a narrow opening on the western side, so close to the edge of the water that I can see shafts of sunlight peering down.
It’s not until we are nearly at the cavernous opening at the cliff that I notice some of the people gathered at the entrance. Most of them are men, but there are a few women, too. All of them have sharp eyes, and those eyes are trained on us. Lumps with hard edges—weapons—move under the cloths in their laps.
Jack raises a hand, flashing a burner cuff on his wrist. “She’s with me,” he adds. The suddenly tense air around the cave relaxes. I remember what Jack said about the Zunzana—although the core group is reduced to just the three of them, the network created by it was vast, with friends throughout the Unified Countries and beyond. People may not be willing to stand up and fight the government, but they are willing to help those who are.
Jack steps aside, letting me enter the cave first. I step into the darkness.
forty-five
A metal door just inside the cave slides open, and we step inside a room so bright that I have to blink rapidly until my eyes adjust.
Rough-hewn limestone walls curve around us, extending far beyond what I can see. This isn’t a cave—it’s a tunnel. I stumble as I step forward, and it’s only then that I notice the long magna-track embedded into the floor. On top of the track is a worn-out carriage—little more than a giant metal tub set into the track—and in the center of the carriage, where the power supply is supposed to be, is a glowing glass brick.
“Solar glass,” I gasp, peering closer. Solar glass comes from one of the interstellar colonies—the perfect fuel source. Set it out in the sun for just a little while, and it stores enough energy to pull a train across the world. The glittering tops of Triumph Towers supply all the energy for the upper city of New Venice, and the solar glass bricks embedded to the bottom of the bridge spanning the short stretch of sea between Malta and Gozo—the roof of the lower city—provides an alternate for sunlight and power for the entirety of the lower city.
But on its own, as single bricks used by people and not giant powerhouses, solar glass is rare and super expensive.
Jack’s friends, Xavier and Julie, step forward, casting long shadows that dance down the tunnel.
“What… what is this place?” I ask.
“Originally, Paradise Bay was going to be a bit of a tourist attraction,” Jack says. “This was going to be a train stop. But then the plans fell through, and the homeless moved in, and ultimately, the tunnel was abandoned. It goes all the way to the Sile
nt City.”
“It has been convenient,” Xavier says in his rough voice. “The resistance movements have been using the tunnels since before the Secessionary War. The government has been kind enough to forget it existed.”
“Since before—?” I ask.
“Ever since the Financial Resource Exchange started in the middle of the 21st century, people have seen what was coming and worked to prevent it.” Jack starts to lead me to the metal carriage on the magna-track.
“What was coming?” I struggle to keep up; Jack’s long legs make his strides twice as long as mine.
“A unified government. Which, yeah, doesn’t sound bad. But the thing is, if a government gets too big… well, it forgets about the people.”
The Foqra District is proof enough of that, I guess. There aren’t supposed to be poor people in New Venice—not poor like that. Akilah’s family was never well off, but they always had a home and enough food to live on. Or, at least, I thought they did. She never told me… I never knew… No wonder she wanted to escape to the military.
“Sacrificing the few for the good of the many is fine, until you remember that we’re talking about people,” Jack adds, a bitter note in his voice.
“Sacrificing the few for the good of the many.” I parrot his words right back at him, stopping in my tracks.
“The android explosion wasn’t the Zunzana’s fault,” Jack says immediately.
“Oh, I believe you on that,” I say, stopping him from speaking again. “But….” I think about Akilah, about Mom. About Dad. About Estella Belles and the one hundred and three other people who died in the android explosion. And then I think about the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the Secessionary War. Of the pockmarks caused by bombs that dot the island, of the cities wiped out. “I don’t want my friends to die. My family. I don’t want to die,” I say. “But I don’t want another war, either.”
“Ella, we can’t let the government take away our humanity,” Jack starts.
“They started it!” Julie says, her clear voice ringing. “If it takes a war to stop those—ugh! C’est vraiment des conneries! Pute!” She rambles in more French that I don’t quite pick up, and Xavier draws her aside, calming her down.
Jack turns to me, an argument on his lips.
I throw my hands up. “Look, I’m not trying to get into another argument here. I was just calling you on your bullshit. Whatever—don’t try to be noble when you have blood on your hands. You’re rebelling against the government, and even though you haven’t resorted to their methods yet, where do you think this is heading? If you want to overthrow the government, you’re going to end up in the exact same place as them.” I look away; I can’t bear to look at his face like that. “There are no winners here. There is no good or bad. By the time this is over, we’ll all have blood on our hands.”
Jack tilts my face until I meet his eyes again. “Ella,” he says, his voice dark and grave. “I realize that you don’t remember me. But if you did, you’d know that I would never become the kind of person you seem to think I already am. But I will not let myself be turned into… whatever those things are. If I have to kill, I’ll kill—I’ll do what it takes to protect myself, and humanity. But if it does resort to violence, you can rest assured I will not just explode half the city and kill innocent people. If I’m going to kill someone, then I’m going to look that person in the eye when I do it, and they are going to know why I am doing it.”
He pauses, and his hot, angry gaze sweeps up and down the full length of my body. “Besides,” he says, “every hero I know is soaked in blood.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat, because, judging from the way he talked about him earlier, Jack counts my father as one of his heroes.
“We should go,” Xavier says in his low, gravelly voice. He opens the carriage door for us, and Julie scrambles in, giving me a foul look as I follow her. She is spitfire and rage, and the fact that I don’t want the world to burn like she does is enough to make her question my worth.
Jack sits beside me, and Xavier moves to the helm, starting the carriage up and whisking us into the dark tunnel. The solar glass brick not only powers the carriage, but also casts a radiant glow of light around us, illuminating the tunnel minutes before the magna-track rushes us through the shadows.
“I don’t want a war,” I whisper.
“What?” Jack asks. I turn away—I hadn’t realized I’d spoken loud enough for anyone to hear.
Jack reaches for me. “I didn’t ask for this,” I confess. “I just…” I don’t know why, but I’m shaking my hands, as if they’re wet and I’m trying to dry them. The motion becomes more violent, and I’m thrashing my arms against my body. I can’t control it. Across from me, Julie stares, eyes wide. I am overwhelmed with this knowledge that nothing—nothing—is the way I thought it was, that even I am not who I thought I was—that I’m not human, I’m not even a person, I’m some thing, a thing that doesn’t need air to breathe, that can turn off pain, that may as well be an android, a monster, a soulless shell, like the thing my mother has become that maybe Akilah has become and I’m alone, I’m a soulless monster and I’m alone alone alone.
Jack wraps his arms around me and holds me until I still.
He doesn’t say anything. He just holds me.
“I didn’t breathe,” I say after I calm my heart, voicing my confession.
“What?” Jack pulls back, confused.
“I hid under the water. And I didn’t breathe.”
“Good,” Jack says, slowly, still confused. “I’m glad you weren’t caught.”
“I didn’t breathe for half an hour.”
Jack’s eyes widen.
I rip away from him and huddle against the carriage wall. The limestone zips past us, leaving the scent of petrichor in its wake. “That thing that wasn’t my mom… Akilah, who’s no longer Akilah… I’m afraid I’m something like that. I’m… I’m afraid.” I turn and look into his eyes. “You say I’m missing memories. Maybe… maybe I’m just breaking down.”
The sound of a hundred million bees descending on me from a cyclone fills my ears.
But then Jack’s voice rises above the sound. “I don’t know what you are, Ella Shepherd, but I’m sure that you’re still Ella Shepherd. Those things that the government’s been creating, the ones that look like people we know but aren’t—they didn’t have emotion. They didn’t have fear. They were empty inside. And you are not.”
“But—”
Jack silences me. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”
I snort. “Just like we’ll win a war against the world’s largest, most powerful global government?” I say incredulously.
“I never said we could win.” Jack bites the words off one-by-one. “I just said I wouldn’t quit fighting.”
And for the first time, I really appreciate how dangerous Jack Tyler is. He may have only a handful of people on his side and the ghosts of his parents to back him up, but he will never stand down.
He will never give up. Not on the war.
Not on me.
forty-six
Xavier stops the carriage so suddenly that I nearly lurch out of my seat. I think for a moment we’ve arrived wherever it is that we were heading—we must have travelled at least ten kilometers. But rather than open the carriage door, Xavier curses and shutters the solar glass brick with a metal cap, sending us all into pitch black darkness.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. From the glow on their cuffs, I see that Xavier, Jack, and Julie all have silver eyes—they’re seeing something with their eye bots, a program that they share and I do not.
“We’ve been followed,” Jack answers me.
“Five kilometers away… four and a half… merde, they’re going fast,” Julie whispers.
“No other carriages on the tracks—they’re running,” Xavier says. He pauses. “Two people, definitely two people. But—”
“No human can run that fast,” Julie says.
“Shit,”
Jack curses. “We have to hide. Now.” He throws open the carriage door, pulling me out behind him. Julie and Xavier rush to follow.
“We should stay in the carriage, yeah?” I ask, but even as I say it, Xavier starts the carriage up again, and it speeds away into the darkness, without us. I guess they think whoever is chasing us will chase after it without realizing that we’re missing.
“The Templar tunnel’s around here,” Jack mutters.
“Three kilometers away,” Julie says, a panicked edge to her voice.
The only light we have now is from the glow of our cuffs. I look around at the oppressively small tunnel and swallow down the hysterical laugh rising in my throat. “Where can we go?” I say quietly.
Jack grabs my wrist and pulls me into the wall—or, not the wall, exactly, but a crack in the tunnel, a slim passageway that we barely squeeze through. Xavier follows us, and Julie brings up the rear. The crack in the tunnel reveals a niche perfect for hiding in. It’s clearly manmade—narrow, but uniform, and just the right height for a small person and extending further back than I can see. Xavier has to hunch, and the footing’s uneven.
“One kilometer,” Julie whispers.
Whoever is chasing us is speeding insanely fast.
“Cuffs out,” Jack orders in a low voice. Julie and Xavier immediately turn their cuffs off, but I hesitate. The light from the cuff is so dim, but it’s better than nothing. Julie reaches over and force closes my cuff.
The stone in the crevice is wet and dank, and when I touch it, slime leaks from the stone and onto my skin.
A slant of light leaks through the tiny cave Jack pulled us into. Whoever’s been chasing us has caught up.
Voices.
The sounds are muffled, but it’s two women.
Jack grabs my forearm, his fingers digging into my flesh. I can feel the fear emanating from him.