Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) (33 page)

“Where are we going to get the CIDs?” Greyson asked.

“I don’t know.”

Jared sighed. “I have some extras. They actually trick the rovers. The rover you pass under reads the CID, but it bounces the location data from another rover at random, so they never know where you are.”

“That’s perfect.”

“How far do you think we are from the border?” asked Greyson.

Jared shrugged. “Only a few miles.”

I nodded. Tomorrow was the day. Judging by the look of Logan, I knew we were running out of time. Somehow I doubted that the PMC’s miracle cure would work on someone once they had fully turned.

We passed around water bottles and cooked some more of the food Amory had been able to find in the dark. Once everyone had eaten their fill, they piled back in the van to get out of the wind.

I still felt nervous about sleeping only feet away from Jared and Mariah, so I stayed out by the fire. I didn’t feel tired. I was wide-awake, thinking about what might happen the next day.

Amory got up to join the others in the van but stopped. Hearing his slow shuffles behind me, I turned to look at him.
 

He was staring at me with such intensity that I didn’t know whether I would yell at him or kiss him. I settled for hostility.

“You have to trust me,” I growled. “I don’t need you fighting against me, too. I don’t always make the right decisions, but I’m trying to. And I can’t believe you wouldn’t have done the same thing.” I lowered my voice so it was barely more than a whisper. “You can’t tell me that if it was one of us or Mariah, you would let her live. Don’t
blame
me for making a choice. Someone had to do something.”

Amory didn’t say anything. He just collapsed next to me and sighed, our shoulders touching. It was hard to discern his expression in the dancing firelight.

“You’re right. It’s exactly what I would have done if it were you. And god knows you watched me do pretty horrible things. But I . . .” He trailed off for a moment, staring into the fire. “I never wanted all this to change you. I didn’t want it to change me, either.”

“But it
has
.”

“I know. But one day, this is all going to be over. Maybe not soon, but someday. And if we’re still alive, we’re going to have to live with all the things we’ve done.”
 

He looked at me, and I could see the love and concern reflected in his eyes. “I never want you to hate yourself the way I hate myself when I think of what the PMC made me do. I was their pawn, and they turned me into a monster.”

“You’re not a monster.”

“Not anymore,” he corrected. “I’m trying really hard not to be.”

I sighed and leaned into him, savoring his warmth and allowing the peace from the day’s victory to overtake my guilt. Just that connection — the feel of Amory’s strong shoulder pressing into mine — made me feel more in control.

Amory seemed surprised at my closeness, as though he expected me to be angry at him for the way he looked after I had threatened Mariah or for the way his temper had been boiling since escaping Isador. I wasn’t. I was tired of being angry. He softened against me.

“I’m still on your side,” he whispered. “I’m always on your side.”

I wanted to reach up and kiss him, but it wasn’t the right time. I knew he was still struggling with his anger — a residual effect from the conditioning — and we were still struggling to restore what we’d had on the farm. That easy trust that had existed between us was gone. It was possible Amory would always have to fight against his violent impulses, and I was different, too. But I was determined to stick with him because he was the bravest person I knew, and he’d fought for me when no one else had.
 

After a while, Amory helped me to my feet, and we climbed back into the van to curl up in the uncomfortable cloth seats. It was cold, and the armrest dug into my back, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep almost instantly.

The next morning, I woke with a start. I half expected Mariah to be hovered over me with a knife at my throat, but I could hear the others milling around the campfire outside, stoking the disintegrated logs and making breakfast.
 

I could see my breath inside the freezing van, and the windows were mostly frosted over. Cracking the door, a rush of frigid air slipped up the sleeve of my coat.

Greyson had a pot of oatmeal going on the fire while Amory struggled with a packet of instant coffee. Even though it was expensive after the Collapse, coffee had been one of his vices on the farm.

“How much gas do we have?” asked Jared. He did not look up from the boxes of ammunition spread out on the tarp in front of him. He was taking inventory of what we had left and divvying up the rounds.

“Not enough,” said Amory. “We might make it into the city, but we need a full tank if we want a shot at getting away.”

“There’s more ammunition in my bag,” I said to Jared.
 

Logan shot me a look from where she was huddled by the fire, but I ignored her. Since he had told us about the CIDs, I felt I should make some gesture of goodwill. I still didn’t trust him, but we would have to cooperate since we were posing as his prisoners. The thought made my gut twist uncomfortably, but after all his time undercover as a PMC officer, he was our best shot at getting across the border.

Jared nodded at me once. “Good news is we have plenty of rounds and food, but we should try to scrounge some gas before we go any farther. I’ll take a look around and see if there are any cars left out here we can siphon from.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Mariah.

An alarm bell went off somewhere in my brain, but I tuned it out.
 

“Are we just going to let them go off together?” Amory asked once they were out of earshot.
 

“What are they going to do?”
 

“Make a plan to kill us? Trade us to the PMC at the border?”

“We have to try to trust them,” I said.

“No, we don’t!”

I didn’t say anything. Whatever Jared and Mariah were up to didn’t interest me. I was too worried about Logan. She was slumped over the picnic table, scooping up her oatmeal and letting it slide back into her bowl. She had dark circles under her eyes as though she hadn’t slept, and her skin had a pale, yellowish-gray tinge.

“So how do we plan on finding the cure at World Corp International?” asked Greyson. “Are we just going to storm in and demand they cure Logan?”

“No,” said Amory. “We need to know what we’re going into.”

Instantly, I felt myself fall into planning mode. I’d spent so much time reacting and making impulsive decisions that going back to my nature of meticulous planning felt like greeting an old friend.

“We need to get Mariah to tell us how we’re getting inside: How many guards are there? What’s the building’s security like?”
 

“How do we know these CIDs won’t give us away by pinging the wrong rover?” asked Greyson.

Amory’s eyebrows knitted together. “We don’t.”

“They will,” croaked Logan.

We all turned to stare at her.
 

“The CIDs Jared has . . . they’ll only trick the long-range rovers . . . the ones designed for overpasses and major intersections. The close-range rovers — like the ones at Isador — those are designed for one data entry at a time. They don’t ‘miss’ a CID like the ones on the highway.”

“So what do we do?”

Logan grinned. “We have to trick a human into letting us in.”

But Amory was already shaking his head. “No. No way. It’s too dangerous.”

“Not if we go in the main entrance,” said Mariah from behind me.

I jumped. “What do you mean?”

“The Infinity Building isn’t some high-security military facility. It’s open to the public for tours and school field trips.”

“So is the White House,” said Amory through gritted teeth.

“We go in the front entrance and con our way up to the restricted access floors. The visitors’ entrance isn’t guarded by officers. There’s a receptionist.”

Amory and I exchanged a look. Something was off. It didn’t seem as though World Corp International would be so careless with its most carefully guarded secret.

“Is this the place where they cured you?” I asked.

“There’s a private lab on one of the restricted floors. Any studies there are strictly off the books — nothing like a PMC test facility. They can’t risk something like this getting out, can they?”

With no choice other than to trust Mariah’s word, we packed up the van and followed Jared’s directions to an old pickup truck they had found parked behind the ranger’s station.
 

As he and Amory started siphoning out the gas, I felt the nerves beginning to thrum in my chest. My anxiety over what we were about to attempt was mixed with the sweet possibility of relief. After today, it would be over — one way or another.

Once we had enough gas, we piled back into the van and drove toward the border. We followed signs for the nearest precinct in the hope of procuring a PMC vehicle. Hiding the van off the road about a mile away, Jared changed into his officer’s uniform and set off for the station on foot.

This first part of the plan was key. If he could convince the station he had experienced car trouble in pursuit of a suspected illegal, they might give him a cruiser. If they didn’t believe him, or if they demanded to scan Jared’s CID, we didn’t know what we would do.

With the rebels causing so much trouble with their bootlegged CIDs, some checkpoint officers had begun demanding to see the site of the incision. Anyone with a scar from home removal or no CID scar to begin with was immediately taken into custody.
 

At first, I wasn’t sure why Jared willingly volunteered for such a dangerous task, but then I realized it either had to be him or Mariah. After our stunt at Isador, it was likely that Amory, Greyson, and I all had our pictures in the PMC database of most wanted illegals. We were too easily recognized.

As we waited, I ran through the plan Amory and I had discussed. Jared, Greyson, Mariah, and I would be the ones infiltrating the building. Jared and Mariah would pose as PMC officers; Greyson and I would be two apprehended illegals. We would pretend to use the wrong entrance — the visitors’ door, which wasn’t guarded. If Mariah and Jared could convince them that we were wanted for questioning, it was possible we would be allowed up to the restricted floors. According to Mariah, the lab where the cure was stored was on the top floor of the building. Once we had the cure, we would pull the fire alarm and escape in the confusion. Amory would be driving the getaway car.
 

I didn’t like bringing Greyson into danger, but Amory insisted that two of us would be better. If we ran into trouble with the PMC, it would be four against one. If Mariah and Jared betrayed us, it would at least be a fair fight. Amory had wanted to accompany me himself, but after his time in Isador, I didn’t think it was a good idea. He probably had a “kill on sight” status in the system.

Suddenly I heard the screech of a siren up ahead. We all froze, unsure if we should run. It couldn’t be Jared. That was just too easy.
 

A huge white SUV rolled into view. Sure enough, I saw the glint of his blond hair reflect through the windshield. He was smirking so deviously I was sure he would give us away.

Greyson laughed. “He got the paddy wagon.”

Just as we planned, we all jumped out of the van and grabbed as much as we could carry, sticking to the essentials. I heaved a case of bottled water into the trunk of the cruiser and jumped in the middle row of seats. Logan, moving more slowly than usual, focused on loading all our rifles and ammunition carefully into the trunk.

There was a cage partition separating the front row from the back, and I couldn’t help shiver as I crawled in behind bars. Jared and Mariah got in the front, Mariah already looking smug in her white uniform. It was a little dirty and wrinkled from several days without washing, but she was still in her element.

Logan curled up in the very back row to hide the fact that she was clearly in the first stage of the virus. The siren screeched, and we rolled back onto the highway. Jared had one hand draped lazily over the steering wheel, and Mariah didn’t even bother to conceal her smirk.

“Try anything funny, and I’ll blow your brains out,” muttered Logan, although her threat didn’t carry much weight when she was curled up in the fetal position on the seat.

“Don’t worry,” said Amory. “They won’t.” There was a hard edge to his reassuring tone, and when he moved his arm, I caught a glimpse of the handgun he had pointed at Jared from under his coat.

I wasn’t the only one who had noticed it. Jared was sitting stiffly upright in his seat, now gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles at ten and two.

“So, did you have any trouble getting the cruiser?” I asked, trying to break the tension.
 

“Uh . . . no. There was only one guy manning the whole station. Older guy, second string by the looks of it. Told him I was in pursuit of a group of illegals and my partner was waiting with my cruiser. That way our story will match up if he radios ahead to the border.”

The longer we drove, the more otherworldly it seemed that we were about to attempt what was supposed to be impossible: crossing the border as illegals.

At first, the signs along the road seemed innocuous enough — basic messages urging drivers to be ready for identification and informing them that their data was checked for their safety but kept confidential. The closer we came to the border crossing, the more threatening the signage became.

Transporting undocumented illegals is a CRIME. Violators will be punished.

No CID, No Entry. No Exceptions.

C1
XX
— Not in my city!

“C1
XX
?” I asked.

“That’s what they’re calling the virus now,” said Mariah.

“Do you really think illegals get this far and think they can get across?” asked Amory.

“I mean . . . that’s what we’re doing.”