“We both know you have clientele outside the Community you could talk to. You moved product between global Sectors all the time.”
“You’re trying to get me killed, is that it? Need your project all hush, hush, so let’s get Henk to cut deals with the ganger bosses and get his throat slit?”
“I would die for the cause tomorrow,” Taylor shot back. “A sacrifice that all of us should be willing to make, no questions asked.”
“Dyin’ for something that actually makes a difference is one thing. Takin’ a suicide run is somethin’ else entirely.”
“I’m not saying you have to steal it—”
“Well it’s gotta come from somewhere, don’t it? And last I checked, the Rez ain’t got near enough resources to buy—”
“Stop,” Taylor said, and I heard feet approach the doorway. “You can’t even close a door correctly, no wonder you got cracked trying to leave the factory with the prototype.”
The door shut fast before I could hear his response.
I pulled back, my heart beating fast. What were they talking about? I was stunned, but I couldn’t turn back to my dorm room. I’d come here with a purpose, and I was going to see it through.
I waited a few minutes, so they wouldn’t know I’d heard them, then knocked on the chrome door until it slid open. I looked at Henk. He was staring at the General, his face mottled with anger. She looked down at her console screen as if purposefully ignoring him.
“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.”
“I was just leaving.” Henk grabbed his jacket and strode out the door.
I looked around. Every ounce of wall space was covered with paper maps and a wall-wide monitor that had digital notes scribbled all over it. The clutter gave the room the look of a lair. And all the actual paper surprised me. I leaned in without thinking to try to read her small scratch. I was used to everything being digital. Other than me and my drawing stock, I didn’t know anyone who used paper anymore.
“What?” the General asked, still not looking up.
Nervousness struck, but I held my ground. “I want to talk to you about something.”
She finally looked up, but her eyes were narrowed. “What?”
“I saw over the Link News feed that glitchers are showing up younger and younger.”
The General nodded, her face impassive. Of course she already knew.
“That means the Chancellor is getting access to even more glitchers every day,” I went on, “building up her ranks when we haven’t been able to rescue any new ones other than the few from the raid.”
She didn’t respond. I hesitated.
She stared at me, her face still expressionless. “And? Is there something else?”
“They say glitching runs in families sometimes,” I rushed on. “So I want to put together a mission to rescue my brother and other people’s siblings. We’ve got to get to them before the Chancellor does.”
She stared at me blankly for a long moment, then took a deep breath. “Oh my, you’re serious. Listen carefully, Zoel. Chancellor Bright has your family’s housing unit under constant surveillance because she thinks you would be stupid enough to try to attempt such a thing. It’s probably the same for the family of every other glitcher we’ve rescued. There might be a lot of rumors and talk about you becoming a leader, but this army doesn’t belong to you. These aren’t your lives to risk. And if you think it’s worthwhile to get good soldiers killed just so you can play happy family, you’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about being a leader.”
“But his life could be in danger,” I sputtered. “I have to try. And he might be a glitcher.”
“
“Which is why I’m not just talking about my brother, but the others’ families too. There can’t be that many of us with siblings, and if we organized coordinated strikes all at the same time—”
“No,” Taylor said simply, looking back at her console screen.
“You don’t understand.” I sat down at the chair across from her. “I betrayed my older brother a long time ago, and I couldn’t save my friend Max. I can’t do the same to Markan. I have to try to get him out. I could disable any Regs who are assigned to follow him, then we could—”
The General looked back up at me, her face suddenly hard as marble. “I’ve already wasted too many of our resources in the hope that you might turn out to be useful. We built this entire facility with you in mind, to protect you. We saved you.”
“But—” I started to protest, but she cut me off.
“No, Zoel, you have yet to pay back any of the great debts you owe. And that’s fine. I have one task that I need you for, and then I’m happy never to work with any of you glitchers again. You’re all unnatural anyway. A by-product of the enemy we are trying to destroy. I’ll take care of mine, you can take care of yours.”
I gasped, taken aback. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll take care of freeing the drones. Your job is to get rid of Chancellor Bright.”
“You can free them?” I leaned forward. My worries about my brother were momentarily sidelined. Getting rid of the V-chip was everything I’d always hoped for. “How? I’ll do anything to help.”
“Would you?” Taylor raised an eyebrow. “Would you really? You speak of sacrifice as if it were simple. As if choosing who can be saved and who can’t is a burden easily carried. Yet you come in here begging me to risk losing countless good fighters, people who have their own families and lives worth protecting.”
“But it’s our families—”
“We all have families.” Her voice caught for a moment before her eyes hardened again. “The question is not whether you are willing to give your own life, it’s whether you’re willing to give up the people you love most. Even if it was for the greater good, could you do it? Could you?” She waited a moment with her hawk eyes on me. “I thought not. But you can kill the Chancellor. You’re powerful, you’re immune to her compulsion, and she will kill you unless you take her down first. That is all you are here to do. You are dismissed.”
I left Taylor’s office both fuming and terrified. We couldn’t get Markan back. They were watching him, all because of me. If he was a glitcher, the Chancellor would know first, and if he wasn’t, she’d still make sure I never got to him before he turned eighteen and the final adult V-chip was implanted. He’d turn into a drone forever, just like our parents.
No. I wouldn’t let the Chancellor take the only family I had left. Anger surged up inside me like a billowing red sheet. The idea of Markan glitching and being able to feel emotion—only to be made a slave to the Chancellor’s compulsion—chilled me to the bone. If it was in my power to end the Chancellor’s life, I could save my brother and so many others. This was my destiny, and, sooner or later, I had to face it.
Chapter 19
TRY AS I MIGHT, I could never seem to catch Adrien alone. I wanted to talk to him about everything the General had said, or just spend a couple of hours holding each other. But I never could. He’d show up late to meals and would disappear right after classes. He always seemed tired and drawn. He’d brushed me off when I asked if he was okay and said he was working on a special techer security program for the General. He looked like he never slept. What happened on the raid seemed to have ruined the peace he’d spoken of when we watched the sunset.
Meanwhile Tyryn was pushing us harder than ever in training. We ran a long loop up and down the stairwells between the two floors, over and over again.
“Faster,” Tyryn yelled as Ginni and I ran by on our tenth lap.
“I take back ever thinking he was cute,” Ginni said through huffing breaths.
Xona flew by, lapping us. Again. It seemed like she was in a race to keep up with the ex-Regs, whose pounding feet had run past us three times already.
I looked behind me, trying to see where Adrien was in the pack. He was so far back he must still be on the stairwell. I frowned. Adrien had been running slower than normal the past few days. His late nights must be taking their toll. Saminsa jogged down the hall behind us, carefully keeping her distance from Ginni and me.
