I woke up coughing, the jerky movement sending pain rippling through my sliced-up back. My mind reeled with a different kind of disturbance, though. A whole Vi-was-just-in-my-head-witnessing-how-I-got-caught-in- the-Goodgrounds kind of disturbance.
The faintest of lights splintered the darkness covering my room. I blinked, trying to make my eyes see more.
“Vi?” I knew she was there, even if I couldn’t see her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help it.” Her voice pitched higher, and she started crying. I followed the sound to the chair near the doorway and pulled her back to the bed with me.
She snuggled against my chest. Like we fit, the pieces floating in my head suddenly clicked together.
She’d woken up and gotten out of bed—in real life.
The same disturbance woke me in my dream. And then I saw her—in my dream.
“Shh,” I said, smoothing her hair. “So. Did you see it all?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded like a child’s. Tiny/afraid/far away. “I can’t help it,” she repeated.
“I’m not mad.” I held her until she fell asleep again, her breathing deep and even against my collarbone. I felt weary, but I didn’t allow myself to sleep.
If I didn’t, then Vi wouldn’t have to witness my nightmares.
Zenn
18.
The buildings of Lakehead shimmered against the horizon, blocking the sun like a partial eclipse. My back hurt. My head too. My heart also sang with pain. Strangely, because I’d spent most of the last seven hours thinking about Saffediene instead of Vi.
Which hurt in a new, weird way.
Gunner made a great companion in that he didn’t ask questions. He didn’t feel the need for useless chatter either. But his silence had made the last several hours almost unbearable in comparison to the flight with Saffediene, her cool hands holding mine, and her perky voice telling stories about her life.
Half of me preferred Gunn’s steady, sure approach to our missions. The other half longed to watch Saffediene rebraid her hair as she went over the finer points of our assignment.
“Hey,” Gunn said. “Are you alive?”
“Huh? Yeah.” I took in his disbelieving expression.
“Look, you’ve got to stop pining over Vi.”
I glared. “I am not pining over Vi.” But the way he just came out with it reminded me of Saffediene. Could I be pining over her?
He rolled his eyes. “I can feel stuff, Zenn.” He wasn’t like Saffediene in his specificity. Right now, I appreciated his “stuff” more.
“What do you know about the Evolutionary Rise?” I asked. He regarded me for a moment in surprise. “I can figure
“Ask Jag,” Gunn said. I didn’t want to ask Jag—and it annoyed me that Gunn knew something I didn’t. I looked away.
Lakehead was a blip on the radar, a tiny city surrounded by lakes. Mostly a water filtration city, the people lived packed on top of one another in a narrow neck of land between two large bodies of water.
“The Director sent an e-comm several weeks ago, claiming to have stopped all transmissions.” Gunn flipped through his dad’s journal, any apprehension about my question gone. “But I don’t see how that’s possible. For one, Indy said she never sent the software. For another, the Association would need to be fed a fake feed, and there’s no record of that, either.”
I slowed to a stop as we approached the border. “What does the journal say we need to do here? What’s the mission?”
“Install the software, send the live feed,” Gunner said. “Then we’ve got to find the . . .” He checked the book. “The West End Lakehead Treatment Facility and locate a man named Phillip Hernandez.”
“At least we have a direction. There’s got to be a million treatment facilities here.” One loomed just below me, white curls of smoke painted into the ebony metallic surfaces of the one-story building.
“You’re right. Super,” Gunn muttered. “Well, let’s get this done already.”
No wasted words, no wasted time. Gotta love Gunn.
Half an hour later, we hadn’t succeeded in even one of our objectives. The city was closed.
That’s right. Closed.
The fences had been activated, creating a dome of techenergy over the main group of buildings. Guards stood at every ground entrance. Gunn and I had retreated to a small stand of trees near one of the smaller lakes, about ten miles away.
Gunn pulled a cube from his pack. “What do you want to eat?”
I smiled, but didn’t answer. The best part of being on the traveling team was the food-generating cube. We only had two in our possession as a Resistance, and we used them while traveling.
But it meant I didn’t have to eat out of a can.
A moment later Gunn handed me a stack of toast as high as my head.
The wind rippled through my hair, whispering a word of greeting. The sun beat down on my bare arms, charging our boards with its rays. I took a bite of buttery toast.
Ah, this was the life.
“Can you do something about the dome?” I whispered to the breeze. It scampered away, leaving me too warm and wanting.
Ten minutes later the dome went down.
Gunn and I managed to float over the city at four hundred feet, well out of range of any guards, even if they had vision enhancements. When we hovered dead center, I gave the signal to descend.
We landed on the roof of a medium-size building, where I fondled a cool westerly and said, “Thanks.”
The air current zipped away, buzzing with pride.
Before we could even begin, the dome regenerated, trapping us inside.
“At least we can get two things done,” Gunn said, folding his board and shoving it in his pocket. He looked to his right, then his left. “So, which way do you think we should go?”
Shouts filled the sky, and that same crazy-unsettling unease I’d felt in Harvest filled my gut.
“Toward that sound,” I said, though every particle of my being wanted to get back on my board and fly far away.
Gunn looked at me, shock darkening his features. “What’s going on?”
“I’d say a rebellion,” I answered calmly. I felt it deep, deep down. And I wondered—again—if canceling the transmissions and providing the general population their free will was a good thing.
