Unchipped: The Resort: (Book Five in the Unchipped Dystopian Sci-Fi Series)

by Taya DeVere

  Kaarina sits down on the floor next to Luna. She nods at the memory stick inserted into the laptop. “Do you think Margaret’s code has something to do with the black market?”

  “Anyone operating inside the black market is a free agent and wouldn’t get involved with the Happiness-Program or those who are against it. No, Margaret operates alone.” Rubbing her eyes, Luna taps at the memory stick, momentarily lost in thought. “I think it has something to do with the capsules. What was it again, what was it she said?”

  “Who, Margaret?”

  “Yeah. When she gave you the stick.”

  “She said to use it once those I trust the most turn against me.”

  “And where should you install the code?” Kaarina shrugs, telling Luna what she already suspects: she has no idea. “That’s what I thought.”

  “What makes you think the code has to do with the capsules?”

  Luna stares at the CS-key, blinking its painful light as it runs the code. “I was able to use some of Margaret’s code to access the CS-key’s hidden files. I can only spend twenty minutes or so at a time investigating them. The light…” Luna interrupts her explanation when Kaarina nods, rubbing her temples. She knows. She’s Unchipped too. “It has something to do with nanotechnology.”

  Kaarina cocks her head. “Like, nanobots?”

  Luna turns to face the laptop. “Nanobots, picobots… something to do with mind mapping. I’m trying to figure it out, but I’m not really educated in this stuff. And I’ve been too busy collecting CC’s so Bill can send in the order to spend time researching.”

  “I know you’ve been busy,” Kaarina says. “I didn’t mean to sound like I didn’t appreciate all you’re doing for us. Especially after… when Sloboda…”

  Luna’s fingers freeze on the keyboard. She digs out an inhaler and takes a puff. Ignoring Kaarina’s apology, she then says, “I could use some help if I’m honest. Is there anyone among us that would know about stuff like nanobot machine code?”

  Kaarina thinks of the people she now lives with. She knows those who have followed her from City of Finland, but only their names and personalities. Same thing with the Unchipped. And the chipless kids they saved from a children’s home in City of England. She doesn’t remember everyone’s skills by heart, but knows what most of them used to do for a living before The Great Affliction. After the mass-deaths, the Chipped had worked for the city as servers, while the Unchipped spent their days hiding in the suburbs where their only job was to survive another day.

  “I’ll ask around. You’re right, you need some help around here.”

  A small smile twitches on Luna’s lips. “Maybe ask Yeti?”

  Kaarina turns to grab a bottle of water from the shelf, but mostly to hide her flushed face. “Why him? I’d ask Jaana or Kimmo from City of Finland. The Chipped tend to be more tech-savvy and Kimmo used to work as a game builder or something like that. He’s a way better option than a rebel leader who’s roamed in the woods killing and stealing for years.” The harsh tone of her words surprises them both. Luna recovers first.

  “So what did Yeti do for living? Back before the chipping? He screams military to me. That’s what made me think of him. They’ve used nanotechnology to create military goods for decades.”

  “I don’t remember exactly,” Kaarina says, playing with the bottle cap. “We don’t really talk that much—” Her cheeks flush bright pink. “Okay, stop laughing at me. It’s something to do with management.”

  Luna shakes her head, grinning. “Well, ask him, the next time you… um… see him.”

  Kaarina sits down and takes a gulp of water, handing Luna a bottle of her own. While Luna opens the cap to drink, Kaarina investigates her friend’s face. It was only a matter of time before she brought it up, after seeing the two kiss at the graveyard. Luna twists the cap back on the bottle and grins. “It was always pretty obvious, my friend.”

  Kaarina opens her mouth to deny it, but her words fail her. The pink on her face turns deep red.

  “It’s okay,” Luna says and smiles. “I was kind of pleased when the kids told me. Markus seemed surprised too. But hey, that’s one hell of a way to let off some steam—”

  “Markus knows?”

  “Well, he wonders, at least. Nobody knows for sure. Except for Bill and me.”

  Markus. Shit. She doesn’t know what he is to her, but the connection between them has been strong ever since the beginning. Whenever Markus is around, Kaarina feels more at ease. Like she’s not the anti-Christ after all. Like she’s a tiny bit better person.

  “Please don’t tell anybody. We…” Kaarina bites her lip, shaking her head. “It’s just a fling. I’ve wanted to keep it a secret for a reason.”

  “Which is?”

  “I just need to… put a label on it, I guess. So I can understand it a bit better myself before I have to share it with other people.”

  Luna regards her for a while, then makes a gesture of sealing her lips. Seeing her smile again is almost worth the embarrassment Kaarina now feels. The smile lingers on Luna’s face long after she dives back into the malware and starts doing things Kaarina doesn’t understand.

  They sit silently, Luna tapping the keyboard, Kaarina letting her work in peace. The basement is quiet, except for the distant humming of the four stasis capsules at the end of the room. It had been Luna’s dog Tiny, along with Ässä, who had found the four unconscious tenants inside them, the very first day they had arrived in Iceland. Barking loudly, the terrier and pitbull had circled the pods, until Kaarina followed them to see what the fuss was about.

  Seeing the four people—two women and two men—inside the capsules had given her anxiety beyond anything she had gone through over the last several months. The resort had clearly been created by the Chipped, and had once been occupied by them as well. But it was clear the place has been empty and unused for years. There must be a reason why Margaret sent them here. And as one of the founders of the Happiness-Program, she must have known it was safe.

  But then Margaret herself had disappeared.

  “Hey, did Ava ever turn over her phone?” Kaarina asks Luna, snapping her out of her flow.

  “Huh?”

  “Ava. What happened to her smartphone?”

  Luna shrugs. “She gave it up for storage, with the charger and other stuff from the boat. It’s all locked up in one of the hotel rooms.”

  “Was she upset?”

  “She was. But more so because of her mother. Niina forgot to meet her that day.”

  Kaarina nods. “It must be tough on her. First, finding her mom, but then she doesn’t seem to care about anything but Owena and Sanna.”

  “I know, I tried to talk to Niina about it…”

  “And?”

  Luna frowns. “It’s like she’s not completely there, you know. Like something in her brain is turned off.”

  “PTSD?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Do you think Ava’s going to get over it?”

  “I feel like she’s too obsessed about finding Margaret to care. It’s almost like she considers Margaret to be her mother now, not Niina.”

  “And that’s why she wanted to keep her phone,” Kaarina says, nodding. “In case Margaret is now Chipped and needs a phone to contact us.”

  “Right.” Luna stretches her long legs and arms. After a long yawn, she adds, “Sure would be nice to have Margaret here so I could pick her brain.”

  “Ava’s sure she got away. That she’s safe.”

  Luna crosses her legs again. With her palms behind her back, she supports her weight against the floor. She must be exhausted, Kaarina thinks.

  “Ava’s a smart kid,” Luna says. “I trust her judgment. And it was her who Margaret first gave the access code to.”

  Kaarina nods. A rapid blinking startles them. Luna turns to look at the screen, where dozens of new windows pop up, revealing text files. She scans the screen, eyes moving rapidly across text, and it takes all Kaarina’s willpower not t
o interrupt her reading to ask what she’s found out.

  Luna looks up from the screen. But instead of meeting Kaarina’s eyes, her gaze scans the dark basement behind her. Then she gets up, grabs the memory stick, and starts running toward the stasis capsules on the other end of the room. Kaarina scrambles up to follow. “Hey, wait!”

  Luna lights up yellow tiles as she makes her way down the row of empty capsules. Their doors rest open, revealing how the equipment has been shut down. Stepping on the tiles is like stomping on a minefield. Staggering pain enters Kaarina’s head, then radiates down her spine. Now more than ever she wishes she’d feel as comfortable taking the pain meds as Luna does. Once she gets to the end of the room, where another yellow-tile staircase rises, she finds Luna kneeling down beside one of the stasis capsules.

  “Luna, what the hell? What did you find?”

  “The stick. It fits.”

  “Fits where? The capsules?”

  “Yeah.

  “But why?”

  “Not sure exactly.” Luna stands up and faces Kaarina again. “But it seems that our four amigos here are special. I think they’re stored away for safekeeping.”

  “What? Why? And by who?”

  “Solomon.”

  “So they’re some sort of… I don’t know. Assets?”

  “More like prisoners.”

  Luna gets up, the memory stick pressed into her fist. “These people are not here to be used as servers.”

  “Then why the hell are they here? Are they rebel leaders? Black market bosses?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Luna says. She pulls out the inhaler and takes a puff. Then she turns to face Kaarina. The yellow light illuminates her face, making her look paler than she is. “I think all these people used to work with Solomon.”

  “She stuffed her coworkers into pods and left them here to rot? That’s the shocking information you found out just now? Solomon’s a dick. Her doing something like this shouldn’t be that surprising to you.”

  Luna doesn’t reply. She stares at the closest capsule and the person sleeping inside; an older woman, maybe seventy years old with white hair. Her calm, even facial features seem strangely familiar to Kaarina.

  “While I looked for instructions on how to open the capsules safely, I accessed the Happiness-Program founders’ files, because one of them invented the whole thing.” Luna steps up on the capsule’s concrete base and places her hand against the tinted glass. The humming seems to become louder. Luna turns to look at Kaarina. “Some of the founders went missing. Years ago.”

  “And?”

  “And I think they were stored down here. In a basement that is supposed to be out of use. A place where none of the Chipped would come looking,” Luna says, staring at the old woman inside the capsule. “And I know this one is the founder who invented the capsule. I just opened her file and you’ll never believe…” She taps the glass. “This woman is more special to our doctor than all the rest of them together. We can use this against her, I’m sure.”

  “Why? What’s so special about her?”

  Luna presses her face against the tinted glass. “This here, my friend, is Doctor Solomon’s mother.”

  CHAPTER 2 — WILLIAM

  The dry, cracked ground feels hard against Bill’s bare feet. Endless mountains and lava fields open up around him as he passes another lagoon. He stops to admire its clear blue water, playing with the thought of stripping off his dress shirt and khaki shorts to jump in. If Micky were here, he’d probably demand that Bill dive in. The thought makes him smile.

  Bill lowers his two storage tubes and his duffel bag to the ground. As he sits down, the earth shakes slightly against his palms. Bill looks up and sees a herd of horses galloping by in the distance. He tries to spot the one he’s seen in the courtyard with Kaarina, but can’t; they all look the same to him from this distance. Majestic, wild, free.

  Bill takes the CS-key out of the duffel bag. He looks around to make sure no one has followed him from the hotel or the village.

  “Call Hawk. City of California.”

  CALL INITIATED

  While the three white dots on the Chipped computer appear on the screen, Bill opens the storage tubes and pulls out his plans and a small folded drawing board. He sets four lava rocks on the corners of the paper to keep it from rolling back into its tube-shape. Then he picks up his notebook and pencil case. He should work on the hotel redesign today, figure out the last of the construction supplies they’ll need in order to finish their forever-home.

  “Bill? You okay?”

  The woman’s worried tone makes Bill smile. He wants to lie and say no. No, I’m not okay. No, I need to come home—immediately.

  “I’m alright, Hawk,” he hears himself say instead. “How’s the chip-free life treating you?”

  The woman stays quiet for a while. Bill can almost hear her gray cloud of hair moving around her tanned and wrinkled face. “Oh, it’s treating me well. The same as when you last asked me. Two days ago.”

  “Ahh, you know. I simply can’t resist your charm. It’s hard to stay away.”

  Hawk’s laughter fills the air. “Careful now. Who’s to say I won’t tell Micky about your flirtatious ways. Anyone would think you’ve swapped teams since you left California.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. Grannies have never been my style.”

  “I’m pleased. Because I’m not looking for a smart-ass gay lover, either.”

  Both of them fall silent. Smiling, Bill runs the pen across the paper, letting the creative flow take him over.

  “Is that paper rustling that I hear?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “And the CC account I created for you?”

  “Full as can be.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Where exactly did you find this hacker of yours?”

  “City of Serbia. Her name is Luna. And the best part? She’s not stealing from the citizens.”

  “No?”

  “No. She’s stealing from the Chip-Charity.”

  Hawk hums with approval. “Eat your heart out, Robin Hood.”

  Bill huffs happily, his eyes locked on the paper in front of him. Hawk’s soft footsteps rustle against the dead grass as she walks somewhere around the winery, tucked away but near City of California, the Chipped, and the ongoing war.

  “How is everybody?” Bill mumbles, more focused on the task at hand than the old woman’s answer. “Jada? Abby? Arturo?”

  “They’re okay,” Hawk answers, her tone changing from carefree to reserved.

  “Good, good.”

  She stays quiet, like she’s waiting for the next question. Because Bill never calls without asking it.

  “And Maria?”

  Her sigh is more apologetic than frustrated. “Bill, we’ve talked about this. She’s gone.”

  “I know she’s gone,” he says. His hand moves on the paper, changing pencils on the fly. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s dead. It was all such chaos; I never checked her pulse. Because she was…she was… There’s no way of telling whether it was the tranquilizer or—”

  “Or the real gun going off. Yes, Bill. I know. We’ve gone through this a thousand times. I know it's eating you up, thinking about it, but it’s not like you had that many options in the moment. You and Micky barely made it out yourselves. Look, I’m doing the best I can to look into it, but because of the turmoil you guys are causing, we need to lie low for now. And that means no investigating trips to the green city.”

  They fall silent again. The paper in front of him is filling almost on its own, the plans for his new home coming alive in front of his eyes. But his thoughts are not on what he draws. His thoughts are with Hawk as she walks between the rows of dead grape vines. His thoughts are stuck with Maria—the woman who saved his life in the mansion they both used to call home.

  “Well, my friend,” Hawk says, grunting as she sits down and taps a wooden table in front of her. Bill can almost smell the scent of fish tacos floating up f
rom the pink taco stand by the parking lot. “It’s breakfast time. And you know how I hate people who speak with their mouths full.”

  Bill scoffs, smiling. “Better not be one of those assholes, then.”

  “Better not.” Hawk pauses, as if to consider what she’s about to say. “Bill… about the CC’s. I need to ask you…”

  “Ask me what?”

  The line is quiet for a long time. “Never mind,” she says. “Just take care of yourself. You’re in a good place, Bill.”

  “If you say so.”

  “And maybe stop calling me every other day. Who knows what kind of tracking systems the East-Land Chipped have got these days. I don’t care if it was Texas who gave you that CS-key. Nobody’s stuff is untraceable.”

  “Fine. Be that way,” Bill says, his tone amused.

  “You taking your meds?”

  Bill stops drawing. His gaze snaps up from the paper to look at the rising mountains around him. Oh, how he hates the question. How he wishes Maria had never told Hawk about his being bipolar. “I am,” he says. “Not that it’s any of your concern. Unlike back home, I actually need them here. Shit’s pretty fucking tense.”

  “Shit’s tense all over the world, Bill. The war leaves everyone vulnerable. It wouldn’t be any different if you had stayed. Besides, I think it’s good for you to be with the Finns.”

  “They barely talk. If you ask them a question, they either say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ One of them told me yesterday that ‘silence is fun.’ And here I thought I was the crazy one.”

  “More airtime for you, then.”

  “I just think if I was home… maybe the city would…”

  “William. Let go.” Her tone is firm. “Let go of Maria. Let go of the past. All that matters is the present—where you are here and now.”

  He wants to argue, tell Hawk she’s wrong. But the words get stuck in his throat. The anger of losing Maria burns the back of his eyes, threatening him with tears that he hasn’t let himself shed. If there’s a chance that Maria’s still alive, crying would mean admitting defeat.