Cole shook his head in disgust. “It would be mass murder.”
“So all the teenagers and kids are freed from the Link, and the adults are made catatonic or killed,” Xona said. “But that doesn’t make them free from the Community. What are they supposed to do?”
I remembered the rest of what I’d overheard. “Start a revolution against the Uppers who’ve been controlling them this whole time. Drones outnumber Uppers fifty to one. If there were some way to organize everyone quickly, they could fight back and defeat the Uppers. They could help us finally win the war.”
Tyryn ran a hand over his head. “It’s not a bad plan.”
“It’s not worth the cost,” Cole spoke up angrily. I looked over at him. I’d never seen so much emotion displayed on his features.
Tyryn’s lips tightened. “The Rez is getting stamped out. Children and whole families are being murdered. So many have already died.” His eyes flicked over to Xona and then back down. “In a way, the adult drones are lost already to the V-chip. There’s no way for them to ever be normal again.”
Henk had said the same thing when he was talking to Jilia. If the adult V-chip was like a death sentence, was it still murder to shorten the adult drones’ lives by a few years? I shuddered. I couldn’t even consider the question.
“So that means their lives aren’t worth anything?” Cole asked, his voice spiking half an octave.
Tyryn’s eyes flashed. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying if this plan works, we would save the next generation and all of the generations after. Every war has casualties, but this could end the war forever.”
Xona hesitated, then reached out and put her hand on her brother’s arm. “We can’t do this. Remember what Mom always said? No matter how hard things get, there are lines we can’t ever cross without becoming just like them.”
There was a long beat of silence.
Finally Tyryn met her gaze and nodded. “But what else can we do?”
“What if we came up with another viable plan?” I asked. “Taylor’s been taking a hardware approach. But what if we came at it from another angle? Maybe there’s a way to hack the Link programming itself somehow.”
“I’m sure they’ve already tried it,” Tyryn said.
“Maybe,” I said. “But with our powers, we can get to places the Rez couldn’t before. Taylor hasn’t even been taking us into account. She doesn’t like us. Doesn’t trust us.”
I looked at Ginni. “How much time do we have before she gets back?”
Ginni closed her eyes a moment. “She’s half an hour away, but she’s moving fast.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go get Adrien. We could use his techer expertise on how the Link code works.” As much as I was still uncomfortable around him, it was time to bring him in. Ending the V-chip was everything both of us had hoped for. I knew he’d help.
“But what are we gonna do when Taylor gets here?” Ginni asked, her voice high.
“Try to convince her that we’re on her side but that we can’t let her use the EMP. Not when we know it will kill millions of innocent people,” Cole said. I nodded.
“I’m not sure she’ll be receptive,” Tyryn said.
I had a feeling that was an understatement.
“Then we’ll improvise,” Xona said, her hand resting on the weapon holstered around her hip. Cole grinned at her.
I walked away, my heart racing. I didn’t know what the General would do, or if there was any way we could get her to listen to us. But we had to try.
I softened the sound of my footsteps as I approached Adrien’s dorm. I winced at the slight grating noise the door made as it opened. But no one seemed to have woken from it. The room was totally dark. I touched my arm panel and it lit up in response, giving enough light for me to creep toward the beds without stumbling on anything.
I held my breath and climbed up the short ladder to reach Adrien’s box, alert to any sign of the other boys waking up. No one stirred as I pulled back the curtain on his bed.
I couldn’t see much in the dim light. Adrien’s blanket was pulled up to his chin and his arm was slung over his face. I reached for his shoulder and he shifted in his sleep, dropping his arm.
I gasped in shock.
Because it wasn’t Adrien sleeping in the bed.
It was Max.
Chapter 25
I FELL BACKWARD in my surprise, tumbling off the lip of the box and falling hard on my tailbone. I barely looked up in time to see a dark shadow jumping deftly down from the bed.
“How are you here?” The breath was knocked out of me from my fall and the question came out as a whisper. Max was alive!
But then my eyes widened with the ramifications of what Max being here in Adrien’s bed meant. How long had he been impersonating Adrien?
Max’s bulky frame towered in front of me, his shock of blond hair catching the light from my forearm panel before it turned off again.
“What have you done?” I shrieked, my voice finally back. “Where’s Adrien?”
I heard Rand swing his curtain open. “What’s going on?” He sounded still half asleep and couldn’t see us in the dark.
Max swept to the side and twirled behind me. One of his thick arms slipped around my neck, choking me so I couldn’t call for help. Any question of Max’s intentions were answered. After all the excuses I’d made for him, here he was attacking me after impersonating Adrien for who knew how long. The buzzing exploded in my head. I used my telek to send a shoe across the room, hitting the alarm button. A siren began wailing and the lights turned on bright overhead. Just in time for me to see Max reaching for a knife at his ankle and swinging it toward me.
I ripped the blade out of his hand with my telek and flung it to the ground.
Rand and Juan jumped down from their beds, ready to attack. I lifted a hand, trying to warn them to stay back. I knew everyone in the compound would be here any second, and we needed Max alive and conscious to find out what he’d done with Adrien. My buzzing power swarmed around him, but I was sure I would kill him in my panicked rage if I used it. He squeezed tighter, cutting off my air supply, and pulled me backward toward the exit. The pressure squeezed tears out of my eyes.
I turned my head sideways in his grip like Tyryn had taught us in training and then with my free arm reared back and elbowed Max hard in the stomach.
With a surprised gasp of pain, he lessened his grip, and I used the moment to drop to the ground and wriggle out of his grasp. Rand was on Max the next second, catching him and pinning both of his arms behind his back.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Rand growled as the door opened. Sophia ran into the room, with Tyryn and Professor Henry right behind. Tyryn started typing on his arm com and firing off commands.
“Where’s Adrien?” Sophia asked, swirling one way and then the other as she searched the faces in the room.
All I could do was stare at Max. He blinked hard, like he was just waking up. Everyone was talking at once. Max looked down at the knife on the ground, then back at me.
“I didn’t mean to attack you, Zo, I swear! Chancellor Bright must have implanted some kind of sleeper compulsion to kill you if my cover was blown. I would never hurt you, you have to believe me!”
It felt like I was watching the scene through a marbled pane of glass, separate from it. None of this made any sense.
Sophia screamed, knocking Max out of Rand’s grasp and kicking him hard in the gut when he hit the ground. “Where is my son?”
