wanted to know what she thought.
“A government that allows for freedom is better.”
“But you don’t know that,” I argued. “You’ve never lived with that kind of government before. You’ve seen the vids.” We all had. War. Protests. Killing in the streets. Hunger. Mismanaged finances and resources, and an energy crisis had brought us to the brink of extinction.
That’s when the Thinkers had stepped in. The images from the vids marched through my mind’s eye the same way the Thinkers’ armies had torn through communities. Brainwashed against brainwashed, brainwashed against free-thinking, it didn’t matter. The free-thinking didn’t go down without a fight. The Resistance started the fires that spread across the earth—at least according to the Thinkers. The memory of crackling flames mingled with the moaning wind as I flew; I was an active member in that Resistance.
On the vids the smoke had cleared much faster than it did in real life. And there’d been very little real life left. The Thinkers blamed the Resistance for the Association’s polluted state, and They took freedom away. The people thrived—fine, they lived—without their will to choose. But the water was clean, the air was pure, and people felt safe inside the city walls.
We’d watched vid after vid of the benefits of controlled life. I’d watched, but the sound of those raging fires always drowned out all other sound. To die like that . . . No wonder people had traded freedom for survival. And the Association had done a crazy-good job of making themselves out to be heroes.
“Yeah, I’ve seen the vids,” Saffediene was saying. “They don’t say the
I appreciated that we could discuss this without emotion. Everything with Jag was so black-and-white. Right and wrong. Good and bad. With Saffediene, gray existed.
“Have you ever considered that They only show us what They want us to see?” she asked. “That not all of it was real?”
“The fires were real,” I said quietly. I’d trekked back and forth between the Goodgrounds and the Badlands plenty of times. Those buildings didn’t cripple themselves, and I’d taken enough science courses to know it took a crazy-hot fire to melt steel.
Saffediene touched my arm, drawing me out of the memory of the crackling flames. “Don’t you think everyone would want the ability to choose for themselves, the way you have for the last few years?” She peered at me, as if trying to see something under the surface. “I would. I do.”
“Yes, but at what cost?” I desperately wanted her to reassure me.
“We’ve already traded freedom for safety. We’ve given up everything. I think it’s time to take some of it back.” She hugged her knees to her chest and watched the horizon.
I let her words play in my head. It felt like I’d given up everything. I just didn’t know how far I was willing to go to get it back.
Dawn streaked the sky before we reached the outskirts of Harvest. Saffediene smiled at me as she stood on her board and stretched. Her hair was scattered over her shoulders where it had come loose from her braid.
We touched down a few miles outside the city, and I positioned the hoverboards to soak up as much sunlight as possible. She rebraided her hair as she gave me the lowdown of what we needed to accomplish.
“Director Benes is sympathetic to the Insiders, having been one himself for years. He’s a lot like you, Zenn,” she said without looking at me. “He played both sides until he was promoted to Director.”
“Hmm.” I thought back over my years of service. I
“You know, Zenn, if you’re worried about which path is right, you could always go back undercover. You could make the necessary changes we need—from within.”
My heart stuttered. “I can’t.” When she asked why, I didn’t answer. I was done playing both sides. It sucked more out of me than anyone knew, except maybe Starr Messenger.
Back in Freedom, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d fly to Rise Twelve. Starr was almost always there. We’d talked countless times about the energy and dedication it took to play both sides. People couldn’t understand it unless they lived it. Jag didn’t appreciate the sacrifices people like me and Starr made: friendships, relationships, grades, sleep.
“I haven’t been able to tell Gunner anything legit for years,” Starr had said one night. Gunn and I had just started sharing a flat. “I probably could’ve loved him.”
What she didn’t say was that she’d fallen in love with someone else—someone on the Inside, someone who knew her secrets, who knew where she went at night, someone who’d helped her out of sticky situations.
She didn’t say who it was, but she didn’t need to. Trek made sure everyone knew he and Starr were together. He devoted hours to the defensive tech at Rise Six, where she lived; he configured feeds for Starr first; he looked at her the same way Pace used to look at Ty. The way I look at Vi. The way she looks at Jag.
Thane had made the most sacrifices out of anyone on the Inside. He’d left his family years ago. His daughters. He’d given up his whole life to enact change from within.
I wasn’t willing to do that. “I can’t,” I told Saffediene again as I settled myself on the ground to catch a few minutes of rest. “I can’t go back undercover.”
She studied me before continuing. “Benes hasn’t sent out a transmission since his appointment almost six months ago. What we need from him is”—she rifled through her knapsack and pulled out a leather booklet that would fit in my back pocket—“to reprogram the tech generators with this code.” She sat next to me and tilted the book so I could see it. I saw a jumble of letters and numbers comprising some sort of password.
“We’ll shut them down on our way in, and then he’ll reprogram them—he’s the only one with clearance.”
“Sounds great,” I said, the usual thrill of doing something dangerous—something that would make life harder for the Thinkers—starting to seep into my system. “How long do we have?”
“Nine minutes from the time we deactivate the generator to when Benes needs to input the new code.”
“So we’ll need to comm him to explain everything first,” I said, gazing at the city like it was an old friend. I half-wondered if I could stay here instead of returning to the cave where Vi kissed Jag.
“He’s meeting us, actually.” She blinked rapidly, a sure sign that she was checking her cache. “Fifty-six minutes from now.”
“Even though we’re a day late?”
“He’s been expecting us,” she said. “He goes to the generators each day.”
“Wow.” I lay down and looked up into the brightening sky. “How long has he been doing that?”
“Every morning since he took over as Director, I think. That’s what Jag said.”
“What else did Jag say?” My voice came out an octave higher than normal. If he was telling anyone important information, it should be me, his second-in-command. Or Indy. Now that she had returned, we shared the job. Plenty needed to be done, and Indy had an iron will as well as a way of sugar-talking people into doing what she wanted.
Except for Jag. He always did what
Saffediene didn’t answer. The silence between us weighed heavily now. I listened to the breeze cut a path through the prairie grass so I wouldn’t have to think about anything Jag related.
After a while Saffediene’s fingers traced a line up my forearm, gently moving my arm away from my body so she could lay her head on my chest. “You’re wound too tight, Zenn.”
All my muscles tensed at the sound of my name. It was so . . . different from when Vi said it.
Saffediene’s body curled next to mine felt different too.
Different, but not bad.
I allowed myself to cup Saffediene’s shoulder in my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Being wound so tight.”
She hummed in her throat. “It’s fine. You’ve got a lot going on right now.”
I wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. “I always have a lot going on.”
“More now than before,” she said. “What with Jag back and all.” She must’ve noticed the way my body
