Abandon (3 page)

“They’ll quit,” Gunner said, leaning against the stone wall. “Won’t they? They’ll just quit if they think we can’t win. If they know how close They are to successful cloning.”

“Yes,” I said. “No one breathes a word of this to anyone. Am I clear?”

“You got it, bro,” Pace said. He snapped the chip out of the port and brought a rock down on it. The shards flipped through the air.

“I want Raine out of that city,” Gunn said.

“It’s one of my top priorities,” I said. “But let’s wait for Indy to come in before we go storming Freedom.”

*   *   *

My jaw hurt. Indy packed a mean punch. I totally deserved it, but
ow
. I wanted to throw a wicked jab at her like I used to when we were younger. Then we’d end up wrestling and laughing like we used to, and she’d forget why she wanted to murder me.

Like she used to.

None of that happened. Number one, we were too old for that now. Number two, I left her behind without instructions for the Resistance, and then I got myself thrown into prison in the Goodgrounds. Number three, I’d taken her brother—not her—with me, and neither of us had seen him since. Number four, when I’d returned to the Badlands seven weeks later, I had a new girlfriend. Number five, the cavern was now filled with people, and Indy and I needed privacy to say all that needed to be said.

And then there was the whole her-being-in-love-with-me thing. I certainly couldn’t encourage that.

Especially because of the whole Vi-glowering-in-the-doorway-with-her-arms-crossed thing.

So I’d taken my punch like a man.

That had happened a half hour ago. While I was bleeding, I had called an emergency meeting with my most trusted. Indy and her team were now resting in the infirmary—which was really just a tiny cave with two cots shoved against the wall. Our techs worked miracles in there, using whatever supplies they could find to make sure we all didn’t die.

And, damn, Indy looked terrible. Her dark skin appeared bleached and her hair did not. The truth? The pink was totally faded. And she obviously hadn’t been sleeping much.

Not that I could blame her for that. There isn’t time for sleeping.

“So,” Vi said, snapping me out of my Indy-focused thoughts. She was scowling. I kept forgetting that she can see just about all my thoughts, including the ones about Indy.

But if Indy’s gorgeous—and she is—she still had nothin’ on Vi. I tried to arrange my mouth into a smile when Vi dialed her glowering down to a glare, but it hurt my throbbing jaw.

“So, Indy says Thane wasn’t in the farmhouse.” I punctuated the news with a deep sigh. “Which isn’t good.”

“Where is he?” Zenn rubbed his eyes and blinked real fast.

I’d woken everyone up in the middle of the night, but Zenn had come off his watch. He looked pretty bad too. Some things couldn’t be helped. Gunn yawned, and his eyes were bleary with exhaustion.

I’d never actually gone to bed last night, so yeah. I didn’t feel sorry about waking them up.

My brother folded himself into a chair next to me at the rickety table. “Is he dead?”

Vi stiffened at the mention of her possibly deceased dad, and I threw Pace a shut-the-hell-up look. “Way to be sensitive, bro,” I said. “We don’t think Thane is dead. Indy says there was plenty of blood in the farmhouse, footprints and such, like someone carried him out. Just no body.”

“Director Hightower got him,” Gunn said, real quiet-like, the same way he says everything.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “No doubt he ordered Thane to be collected, but the better bet is the Director in the Goodgrounds sent a crew.”

“Who’s there now?” Zenn asked, sliding me a paper across the table. I didn’t even look at it. I couldn’t stomach the sight of his neat handwriting, detailing the fifteen billion things I
had to do in the next hour. Sure, he’d immediately taken his place as my second-in-command, but come on. A list every time I saw him? So unnecessary.

“Director Shumway,” Pace said. “A real piece of work.”

“No wonder Indy and her team were all busted up,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. I’d heard of Shumway, which meant he wasn’t exactly on my side. Or even close to crossing over.

“We’ll need the whole group for this,” Gunn said, pushing himself away from the table.

“Probably. But we can spare a few hours, I think.” My jaw popped with every word. I rubbed it but still heard the clicking when I said, “Let ’em sleep till five.”

“You got me up to say let’s wait until five?” Pace grumbled as he stood to leave. I should’ve felt annoyed, but all I could muster was a yawn.

I should’ve been more concerned, probably. The fact that Thane was MIA was about as bad as bad can get. Without him, all we had was Starr, and she spent most of her time in the Education Rise trying to gather intel without proper codes and clearances.

I thought briefly that losing Thane might actually be a good thing. I wasn’t even sure he was who Gunn said he was, and twelve years of hating someone doesn’t just evaporate.
I’d ordered his location and pickup. That had to count for something. Too bad the bleeder wasn’t even there.

I cradled my head in my hands as Zenn left, huddled close with Gunn. My to-do list stared back at me from the table. The top item?
Assign interrogators for Indy’s team.

Which seriously needed to be done, but for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to be the one to do it.

Under that, Zenn had written,
Get implants already.

Hell to the no. I’d refused—over and over—to have my wrist ported up so I could see someone’s memories, or a vision-screen enhancement layered over my perfectly functioning sight. And getting an implant?

Never.

I didn’t want that tech up in my brain. No way did I want someone to be able to contact me at any time about anything. Or people to track my location just because I activated my cache to tell Vi she’s the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

“I’d love to discuss the subject of implants, just so I can convince you that Zenn’s right about them,” Vi said, gently putting her hand on my elbow and helping me stand. “But first you need to sleep.”

“I’m fine.” I almost added “babe” like I used to. But Vi and I weren’t quite back to that level yet, even though we’d spent nearly every waking moment together for the past three
weeks. She was still stuck in her whole Zenn-loves-me-and-has-saved-me-so-many-times loop. And our argument about Indy hadn’t been fully resolved yet.

“I’m fine.” Besides, I have the Resistance to run.

“You’re such a liar,” she said. “Let’s go.”

*   *   *

“Jag, let’s fly.”

I jerked awake, my heart beating a rapid rhythm in my chest. Gunn stood in my doorway, his fingers twitching in anticipation. “Cache convo with Starr.”

I moaned. Raked my fingers through my hair, which felt like wet straw. My eyelids scratched over my eyes. I needed more sleep—and a shower. “Time?” I asked as I pulled on my shoes.

“Five forty-one,” Gunn said. “Starr said six fifteen. I let you sleep as long as I could. Zenn’s filling everyone in about Thane and Indy.”

“Perfect,” I said, though it was anything but. I liked Zenn; I did. I just didn’t like him anywhere near Vi.

“Come on,” Gunn said. “She only has eleven minutes.” He left, and I scrambled after him, hoping we’d make it to the sector in time.

We didn’t. When we touched down near the southwest wall of Freedom, Starr only had seven minutes left. She stood
beyond the towering wall, in the gap between it and the techtric barrier—the second and last defense keeping Freedom’s Citizens in and everyone else out.

When anything touched the barrier, an alarm shrieked. Enforcement Officers would then converge. The person who’d breached the wall usually didn’t make it past the barrier. The hundred-yard gap between the wall and the barrier made sure of that.

But Trek used his wicked tech skills to bring down sections of the wall, so Starr could get out for these little chats without detection.

Gunn and Starr each had a cache, a device implanted in their minds they could use to communicate mentally, even with the barrier between them. Everyone had a cache in Freedom—which was why I would never get one.

Starr had a limited number of minutes away from her duties inside the city, and she didn’t like it when we were late. She was also one of the smartest people I knew. She could get inside your head without even being in the same room.

Starr Messenger was true Thinker material. She’d been my contact in Freedom for almost three years. I’d only met her a handful of times, but I’d seen her face next to her reports—sent like clockwork every week. She liked organization and detailed lists and punctuality. So I didn’t have to use
my empathic ability to figure out she was raging mad that we were late.

Not that I could hear her. Gunner didn’t speak out loud either. He just stood there, inches from the techtric barrier, gazing at Starr on the other side. At one point he raised his hand, and she lifted hers.

I felt the longing inside her. Guilt radiated from Gunn.

Until terror flowed from them both.

“What?” I asked Gunner. He didn’t answer, just took a step closer to the barrier. If he touched it, that alarm would go off.

“What?” I asked again, trying not to control him with my voice but frustrated I wasn’t included in the conversation.

I looked at Starr. Something fierce glistened in her eyes, making them shine like steel; power radiated from her shoulders. Yet fear kept the words silent. Well, that and the fact that I didn’t have implants to hear her with.

“What?” This time I gripped Gunn’s arm to get his attention.

“Director Hightower has Thane,” Gunn said in his unnervingly soft voice. “He’s using Raine to drain him. Tomorrow morning, eleven a.m.”

4
.
The day Vi tapped on my window changed everything. Well, if we’re gonna be all technical, and I guess we are, the window tapping happened at night.

Which was why she got busted.

She was only twelve years old. The infraction didn’t go on her Official Record, but it tattooed itself on my memory.

Vi shouldn’t have meant anything to me. I knew her because she lived six minutes away in the City of Water, and we were in the same year at school. But our relationship shouldn’t have progressed past us being two kids who were the same age.

I’d just turned thirteen, and I’d just returned from meeting Jag Barque in the Abandoned Area. I’d snuck in through the back door, returned to my bedroom, and checked my false transmission feed when the
tap, tap, tap
landed on the glass.

My heart pounded in my scrawny chest.

Maybe They’d been monitoring me. Maybe They knew I wasn’t listening to the transmissions. I’d screwed up after only a few days of helping the anti-Thinker movement. The Resistance, my dad had called it.

Insider Tip #2: Don’t hesitate. It shows weakness and indecision. Those who hesitate often have something to hide.

I took a deep breath and accepted whatever was gonna happen. I strode to the window and yanked it up, expecting to see a Special Forces agent with glinting black eyes and a fully charged taser.

Instead, I found Violet Schoenfeld. I could tell she’d been crying, even if the tears were already dried up. The full moon cast glimmers of white light in her brown hair.

“Violet?” I scanned the yard behind her. Empty. A hovercopter floated along the edge of the Centrals, a couple miles away.

“Zenn, I—” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder.

“You’re gonna be seen,” I whispered. “Climb up.” I reached out to help her but drew back before we touched. That was
against the rules, and the window was wide open so anyone could see.

Violet used to answer questions in class, used to show up to school with her panels done. She used to hang with the other girls during breaks. Then her dad disappeared. She’d withdrawn, and now that we’d moved into secondary subjects, she sat alone against the fence during breaks and hadn’t turned in homework for months. She didn’t speak to anyone except her sister Tyson.

I didn’t even know she knew my name, let alone where I lived. Maybe she was searching for any window that looked like there might be someone awake within.

She struggled over the windowsill while I stood there and watched. I could’ve pulled up all ninety pounds of her with one hand. She straightened, and I towered at least six inches over her.

Her face was the color of uncooked rice. Her eyes were a mixture of blue and green, like the serene color of the lake. Her brown hair flowed freely over her shoulders, but it should’ve been secured in its customary ponytail or bun.

She was crazy-beautiful, even with tearstained cheeks. And then it hit me: A girl was standing in my room. In the middle of the night.

I’d been away from my transmissions for hours. My older
brother had developed tech that could simulate sleep patterns, but I wondered how Violet had managed to trick hers long enough to leave her house.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t be here.” She paced next to my bed.

I glanced at my brother, a decent sleeper, fifteen feet from us. “It’s fine.” I wanted to touch her shoulder, make her stop walking. Her squeaky shoes were going to wake my brother. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Nothing?” I repeated.

“Ty told me . . . It’s nothing.”

I folded my arms. “If it’s nothing, can you stop pacing? You’re gonna wake Fret.”

She stopped and took a deep breath. “It’s my mom,” she whispered. “She hates me for not being Ty.” Violet’s voice began to rush. “And I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out. Oh, it’s so late.” She threw a glance at my bedside clock, her eyes wild. “I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

“You’re safe here,” I lied, wishing it were true. But my smart house would rat her out if she didn’t leave soon. Extra body temperature and oxygen usage and all that.

Violet moved toward the window. “You’ll get in trouble,” she said, climbing out.

“Wait!”

The hovercopter had already spotlighted her. The mechanical voice shouted for her to freeze. I shrank back into the shadows, terror thumping through my veins.