by Harper North
“Rebels have always existed, but they haven’t always succeeded.”
“We succeeded. We made the broadcast,” Emma says, facing the commander.
Reinhart spins around and leans closer to her. “Do you truly believe that you are the first rebel group who has tried to do something like this?”
Emma maintains her firm stance. “Things will never be the same, though.”
My chest swells with pride. Even if these are our last few moments on Earth, at least we did something to stand up to the corruption and cruelty of a broken government.
The commander holds his gaze on Emma for a moment then turns and walks around our group, examining each of us. The hairs on the back of my neck stiffen when he nears me.
“Your attempt to overthrow the EHC created a media and public crisis,” he says to no one in particular. “You are correct in that assumption.”
He lingers in front of me for a moment, then turns back toward Elias, eyeing him.
“You were a Noble class citizen…” he narrows his eyes, “…a privileged class citizen who defected and aided Dwellers in an uprising. Disappointing.”
Elias pulls his shoulders back and lifts his chin even higher.
Next, Reinhart turns toward Emma. “And you are the granddaughter of EHC co-founder Edward Nejem, yet you threw it all away when you ran away and illegally housed people with natural immunity. A pity to be born with such great potential.”
Emma’s green eyes spark. “I’m not afraid of you.”
A sly grin spreads across the commander’s face. “You will be.”
I straighten as nerves consume me.
“Someone had to help those people,” she says dryly.
“Meddling in government affairs will cost you—more than you can afford.” Reinhart shifts his attention toward Talen. “Defective property of the EHC that aided known terrorists.”
Talen’s glare hardens, a scowl tightening his chiseled jawline.
The commander makes his way back to the front of our group. To me. “Finley A298. Illegally modified Noble class who... sparked a revolution.”
“So, you know who we are,” I mutter.
“I’ve known who you are for some time now,” he says, placing his hands behind his back. “And I know of the others who helped your rebellion. In fact, the EHC knows of every rebel who attempts to overthrow the government. Sky Breslin, for example. A friend of yours, right?”
My chest aches at the mention of Sky’s name.
“A scavenger from an underground Slack network.”
“Where is he?” I demand.
Reinhart’s brow lifts. “You care?”
“Is he alive?”
“Mr. Breslin is being processed in Ethos.”
“Processed?” Does that mean he’s dead or alive?
The commander removes a cloth from his pocket and dabs the sweat from his face. “He is being processed for his upcoming trial.”
“Trial?” I shake my head. “The EHC has no legitimate legal system, only tyranny.”
“Nevertheless, there will be a trial,” the commander says.
“And what about us?” Emma interjects. “Will we stand trial, too?”
Reinhart neatly folds the cloth. “There are two choices for you,” he says, tucking the cloth back into his pocket. “You can try and escape,” he turns to look at me, “but you will be caught, one way or another. The operatives will shoot you, or Lacy could do much worse.”
Lacy grins as she sets her eyes on me.
“Or, you can stand trial.”
“For what?” I challenge, fully knowing that our actions are in direct opposition to the EHC. “We did nothing but help the people who worked so hard to—”
“War crimes,” Reinhart says.
My voice catches in my throat.
“So, if you’re done with this little rebellion of yours and are ready to surrender, the operatives will take you to the hovercraft. You will be brought to Ethos to stand trial, just like your friend Sky, for crimes against the EHC.”
I shake my head as I try to imagine a desperate escape, but there’s no hope of that. Surrender is our only choice—for now.
CHAPTER 2
“LET GO OF ME!”
I twist back and forth, trying to get away from a burly op that’s twice my size. He must be Century class. His steely gaze burns with hatred.
I could claw his eyes out or punch him in the gut and make a run for it. My mind runs through the calculations one more time—it’s no use. The twenty operatives will take me down, or worse, and Lacy will have me wrangled and back on the hovercraft within seconds.
The op nails my ribcage with his gun and pain zigzags up my side.
“Okay… o—” I start to say when he flips me over. My face smacks the ground and the air rips from my lungs.
Elias shouts something that might be, “Get off of her!” but it’s all muffled beneath the dull ringing in my ears. The operative’s knee wrenches against my back. He’s fumbling with something. I gasp for air. My lungs burn like fire. Black spots float in front of my eyes. I try to shift away from him, but the guard digs his knee in harder as he secures something around my wrists.
“Stop fighting,” the operative hisses in my ear, “or I’m gonna make this worse for you.”
I relent, the taste of earth and iron filling my mouth. He slowly releases his knee. The air rushes back into my lungs. A second later, I’m on my feet.
“Get them into the hovercraft!” Commander Reinhart orders.
Elias yanks away violently as another operative drags him toward the hovercraft. There’s a look of concern on Elias’ face as he strains his neck to check on me.
I’m fine.
I lift my chin and grit my teeth as the operative shoves me toward the hovercraft. I turn to face him. “Get your hands off me,” I growl and spit the blood and dirt in my mouth to the ground. The op smirks.
I scan the area for Drape. He’s gone, and my throat tightens as my thoughts tease me with horrible outcomes. To my left are Emma and Talen. Emma’s face is tight with anger as Lacy clamps cuffs around her wrists.
“You don’t have to do this,” Emma says to Lacy.
Lacy narrows her eyes and grins. There’s something in the expression that turns my stomach. She’s relishing in the opportunity to take us in, but a part of me knows she wants more. The power coursing through her body is corrupting her.
Lacy ignores Emma. She nods to an operative that leads her away, and then turns toward a broken Talen, cuffing him in a flash. He doesn’t even try to fight her.
Little good that’ll do. I chuckle to myself. A set of cuffs is nothing. Talen can drop these fools to the ground in…
Before I can finish the thought, the ops carry out a metallic device and secure it around his neck. They seal it with a quick flick of a button, and Talen groans as the device squeezes around his throat. I’m sure this device is a bit more sophisticated than the one Emma fashioned from spare parts.
The commander sneers. “We don’t want you using the abilities we so graciously gave you, now, do we?”
We’re ushered inside the hovercraft and into some kind of cargo hold. I thought I’d never have to see another one of these. A stifling, metallic smell in the air mixes with the heat from outside and makes me want to gag. Dozens of containers and tech gear that I can’t identify surround us.
Within minutes, the operatives have us secured into chairs. Elias and Talen sit across from Emma and me. At least they’re keeping us together—all of us except Drape. I shift around, pulling at my restraint to see if he’s behind us. The operatives hover nearby just in case we plan on rebelling again. Already my mind is calculating the possibilities of escape in this scenario. They’re still low. Actually, they’re zero. Armed guards, cuffed wrists, a body running on little food or water—there’s no chance, and they know it, too.
“Where’s Drape?” I demand, looking at the nearest op. None of them even look at me.
A lo
w murmur below my feet grabs my attention, then a sudden shift of the hovercraft makes my chest tighten. Seconds later, we’re airborne.
I narrow my gaze at the op standing at my side, the same one who put me on the ground. “Can’t you tell me if he’s even alive?”
He slowly turns his head toward me. “Med-bay,” he says, returning his fixed gaze to an empty mark on the opposite wall. “Now shut your mouth.”
“He’d better be okay,” I warn, ignoring him.
“Drape is Century class,” Emma says, pulling my attention back to her. “He’s strong. He’ll make it.”
I try to relax my stiff body, but it’s impossible due to the ache in my back from the operative’s knee. Elias’ eyes shift back and forth, probably trying to figure out a plan to get us out of here. Talen’s eyes, on the other hand, are distant.
“What’s going to happen to us?” I ask him.
With what little movement the restraint offers, Talen shakes his head, as if there’s no hope for us once we arrive at Ethos.
I crane my neck to look at Emma. She presses her lips together. Her eyes flash to Elias and then the guards. I follow their non-verbal signals, trying to make sense of what’s going on between them. After a moment, Emma says in a hushed voice, “The trial will be all for show.”
Of course it will be, duh. The EHC is one big dog and pony show, and we’re going to be the main act.
Elias takes a deep breath. “We have to hope that the others who heard our message will help us.”
“The EHC will make it look like the message was meaningless,” Emma whispers. “They’ll want to regain order and show their might.”
“Stop talking!” one of the ops snaps.
I chew on my lip. What’s going on right now in Ethos, not to mention the rest of the world? The commander said our message caused problems, but how many people saw it? Maybe there’s open rebellion in the city right now. I lean back hard in my chair and squeeze my eyes shut, imagining some EHC leader reading a list of our crimes before a fake jury. He’ll spin everything to make it sound like we’re terrorists and they’re the good guys who have been unfairly attacked.
“You’re going to have to be even stronger than before,” Emma says.
I slowly open my eyes.
Another operative glares at her. The ops don’t want us talking, but who are they to tell us what to do?
Across from me, Talen’s eyes are heavy. He tries to take a breath, but the metal around his neck is tight against him. He leans his chin closer to his chest. “No matter how strong you are,” he whispers, “the EHC will find a way to destroy you.”
“They won’t!” I shout, drawing a few of the operatives’ attention. “You won’t destroy us.”
Two of them ignore me. One operative smirks like he’s looking forward to getting the chance to prove me wrong. The gruff op who cuffed me steps closer and pulls back his fist like he’s going to punch me in the gut.
Elias tries to stand, but an operative shoves him back down. “Don’t even—”
Pain sears into my cheek as the operative lands a firm punch. My teeth rattle and my head throbs. I taste coppery blood inside my mouth again.
“Stop it!” Emma orders.
I shake my head and try to refocus while twisting at my cuffs. Three movements to reach for his gun. Two movements to subdue the operative. One movement to put a bullet in his head.
“You can’t kill us,” Talen says. “Reinhart needs his trial, remember?”
The op grimaces and slides back to the wall, but it’s clear from the look on his face that this is far from over. I make sure to give him the same glare before I turn to Emma. “So how do we defend ourselves at the trial?”
Emma shakes her head. Her eyes flick to the operatives, then back to us. She lowers her voice to barely a whisper and says, “We’ll be limited in what we can say, how we can defend ourselves, and then—”
“We’ll be sentenced to death,” I finish for her.
Elias glares hard at me. “Keep it together. There might be a way to work around it.”
“How?”
“A friend of Mason’s had a trial in Ethos. It was a joke. Set Mason’s efforts back for years. But it caused enough of a stir that they didn’t kill him. Just discredited and locked him up.”
I sit up in my chair. “That doesn’t sound very promising.”
“Keep it down,” Emma hisses as her eyes flick to the guards.
My shoulders drop, and I lean back again. My arms ache and the cuffs dig into my wrists. A dull, aching pain works its way into my neck. I try to rotate my jaw. I have to distract myself from this.
“You okay?” I ask Talen. Of course he’s not okay.
He raises his chin. “I won’t become an Aura op again. I’d rather die.” He glares at the men surrounding us. “Following orders like good dogs?” he taunts them. “Woof, woof!”
“Stop it.” Emma leans closer. “We can’t jeopardize everything now.”
“They’re good dogs,” Talen says. “Stay! Don’t move! Good boys!”
A slow smile works its way across my face. With each one of his taunts, I feel somewhat compensated for what just happened.
Elias starts to smile, too. He opens his mouth to join in when Emma shoots him a serious scowl.
“Don’t do it,” she warns.
“Why not?” Elias asks. “Talen’s right. They have to give us our fake trial. They’re not going to kill us on this hovercraft.”
She swallows and takes a deep breath, turning back to Talen. “You have to bide your time.”
Talen shakes his head. “There’s not much of that left.”
“Your ability is only limited by the restraint,” she says. “At some point they’ll have to remove it.”
“I had my chance,” Talen sighs. “And it didn’t work. I don’t care if I die anymore.”
My eyes widen. “Wait,” I say to him. “Emma’s right. You can still fight. There might be another chance if you don’t lose hope.”
Talen’s face tightens as he shakes his head back and forth.
“You still have a family out there,” I insist in a hushed breath.
Bang. The sound from behind us makes me jump and twist around. Two operatives drag Drape across the floor through an open hatch. My heart skips a beat. Drape’s eyes flutter open and then close. He groans as they toss him into a chair beside us.
I wait a full three seconds after the ops leave before I start bombarding Drape with questions. “Drape, can you hear me?”
“Keep it down!” one of the ops growls.
“Or what?” I snap back.
He marches toward me again, the same guy who cuffed me earlier. This guy sure likes to pick on me. It’s okay, I can take whatever he doles out.
“Let her check on her friend,” Emma pleads in a soothing tone.
Elias glances up at the man. “You don’t want to be responsible for killing another one of us, do you? Think how bad that’ll look at the trial.”
I wait for the guard to say no, but instead he comes over to me and takes the cuffs off my wrists.
“You have one minute,” he says.
There’s still time to kill him. Three moves. But if I take him, the rest of them will be on top of me and I won’t be able to check on Drape. Right now, Drape is more important. I rub my wrists and then scoot to Drape’s side.
“Can you hear me?” I ask again.
Drape groans and shifts in his chair. Finally, his eyelids drift open. His gaze shifts around the room and then lands on me. He brings a hand to his forehead. “Fin?”
“We thought we lost you,” I say, smoothing back his hair. There’s a nasty cut peeking out of his hairline and a few bruises on his face to match.
“Lacy,” Drape whispers.
“Forget her,” Elias says.
Drape places his hands in his lap. He stares at them for a second, then says, “I know what she is. I saw her kill them. I saw—”
“Stop,” Emma interrupts. �
��You don’t have to tell us. We know—”
“She killed Knuckles and Jase.”
“We know,” I say, squatting down beside him.
Drape’s soft eyes turn to me. “I tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen.”
I glance over to Elias. Deep wrinkles line his brow. “They were our friends,” he says. “They didn’t deserve to die, but the Lacy you knew is gone.”
“He’s right,” Talen agrees. “The true Lacy is buried, trapped in her own body. All that’s left is amplified aggression and loyalty for the EHC.”
I rock back on my heels, remembering when Lacy hated the EHC and everything they stood for. She must be buried really deep.
“It’s true for most Aura ops,” Talen adds. “When we’re first programmed, all we want to do is fight and feel the power. Lacy is blinded by it.”
“There’s no way for her to come back like this,” Elias says.
I quickly jump up. “She can. If anyone can, it’s Lacy. She’ll use the same strength she’s always had to fight her way back.”
“No way,” Elias shoots back. “After killing Jase and Knuckles? There’s no way Lacy could come back and live with herself for that.”
The hovercraft rumbles again, the vibrations slowing.
The operative latches onto my arm—almost tighter this time if that’s possible—and puts the cuffs on me again. “Back to your seat.”
I make sure to shoot him a death stare as he tosses me into my seat. Emma leans close to me. “When we arrive, follow my lead. We’re not done yet.” She turns to Talen, quirking a brow. “It’s in you to make things right.”
I glance toward Emma and then back to Talen. What does she mean by that? My mind flashes to when we took Talen captive. Emma reprogrammed him, broke through the EHC code, and brought Talen back to humanity.
She did something to Talen.
Talen’s eyes shift back and forth. He sits up a little taller in his chair. A slow smile spreads across his face as he pulls his shoulders back.
Emma again leans closer to me, just as the hovercraft’s vibrations stop and the whirling noise goes silent. “I always have a failsafe for my projects.”
CHAPTER 3