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Grace wondered how many other cities were linked to the network and if any city centers still remained intact, but Marion had grown bored with the history lesson.

“How about we check out some upscale fashions?” Marion suggested.

Grace laughed. “Upscale fashions?”

“I saw some ads on my tablet.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we nominate Marion Jones for sucker of the year.”

Marion punched Grace in the arm.

Lindsay led them to a boutique in the fashion district. The shop was unlike anything Grace had ever seen. Marion disappeared into the profusion of clothes while Grace watched the virtual models gliding around the shop, displaying the fashions. The dresses were 1950s vintage style—each one had layers of fabric and stiff under-slips made of crinoline. One of the shop ladies approached Grace and whisked her away for a makeover. She handed Grace a rose-colored dress with a wing bust, saying the low neckline would flatter her bosom. Then she handed her a pair of matching shoes. Grace stared at her reflection, stunned by the transformation.

Marion strutted over in a leopard-print dress. “You look like a cupcake,” she said.

The shop lady was disappointed when the girls didn’t purchase anything. Marion promised her they’d return at the end of month to get something for the gala event. Grace reminded her that was contingent upon surviving the first month.

*

After a long afternoon of touring the city, it was time to head back to the academy. Results would be coming, and Grace wanted to mentally prepare herself. She knew her scores would be low, taking her out of the running for team leader. That stung. But she’d be okay, so long as she didn’t end up with Blythe as her team leader.

The fresh cadets gathered in the assembly room, clinging to their tablets, anxiously awaiting the results. All at once, the room filled with chiming sounds. The verdict was in. Grace turned on her tablet and scanned the list. The teams were divided into four people, one from each discipline, with one person assigned to team leader.

Marion shot up and did a little victory dance. “I did it! Team Leader!” She wasn’t rubbing it in—Marion was just loyal to her optimism.

Grace knew she had used up her credits in the jealousy department, so she forced a smiled and gave Marion a high five. She nervously scrolled down the list, looking for her name, praying for some good news. And then she found her team.

Delta Team

Lucas West (Team Leader/Strategic Development)

Missakian Lakeside (Combat & Weapons)

Blythe Ballesteros (Digital Communications)

Grace Strader (Search & Rescue)

She laughed, because she didn’t know how else to react. Someone had to be playing an ongoing joke. First, getting placed in the toughest category—Search & Rescue—then her mom and Sam coming to the academy, and now being assigned to the same team as Blythe
and
Lucas. She wanted to push the reset button and start over.

“Looks like I’ll be spending the next six months saving Blythe,” Grace said.

“Who knows; she could end up saving you.” Marion winked cheerfully.

Instead of spoiling Marion’s mood, Grace decided to head up to her room.

“I’m turning in.”

Marion patted her back. “Don’t you want to meet your team?”

“There’s plenty of time for that tomorrow.”

And the next six months,
she thought. Grace knew they were going to be brutal ones. Dealing with Blythe on a daily basis would be as challenging as her Search & Rescue studies. There was also the Lucas factor. How could she keep him at a less-distracting distance if they were on the same team? She couldn’t deny it anymore—she liked him. This could be a problem.

9

AVA AND SAM spent the first day at the academy getting acclimated to the lab. The opportunity to work with the new equipment reinvigorated her hope for finding Morray. She wanted to get started right away.

“You ready to test it out?” she asked Sam.

“Didn’t Director Faraday instruct you to hold off until the end of the week, after we’ve been fully trained?”

“He might have.” She winked at her assistant, wishing he would lighten up a little.

“So, don’t you think we should respect his wishes?”

Ava didn’t want to set a bad example for Sam, but she also didn’t want to risk losing Morray’s trail while it was still fresh.

“We’re not breaking any rules if nobody knows about it,” she said, smiling.

“Remember what happened last time you used their equipment? The feedback loop. It’s not ready.”

“What’s not ready?”

Sam awkwardly readjusted his lab coat. “I mean, we’re not ready.”

Ava sat down in the lounger. There wasn’t time to wait around for training. She had a bad guy to catch. “They brought me here to test out the equipment, so let’s test it. I can’t sit back complacently while Morray is possibly resurfacing. Grace discovered that footprint for a reason. Finding Morray supersedes the red tape of academia bureaucracy.”

Sam sat down behind the monitor. Ava wondered what had gotten into him—back at the village, he was always on board with her decisions. Perhaps it was the pressure of being at the academy? Something was bothering him. He seemed out of his element.

Sam typed some instructions into the system panel. “You ready to go in?”

“Pull me out if you see something unusual, like a feedback loop,” Ava said. She closed her eyes . . .

Inside the mainframe, Ava woke up in a hallway. It looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She looked for the red door Grace had found in the original search, but there was just an infinite row of silver doors as far as she could see. Too many choices. As she walked down the hall, her sneakers squeaked on the clean floors. She focused on Morray’s past, picturing images she had witnessed in previous searches.

“Show me William Stowe Morray.”

Her voice carried down the corridor like a wave, but nothing changed inside the hallway. The doors remained sealed shut. She started remembering something she had read in Lillian’s journal, or maybe it was from a previous archive search—it sat on the tip of her mind. It was something about the phoenix rising up from the ashes . . . Why was that on her mind? Had Sam mentioned it in passing? The memories were jumbled, but her instincts told her to concentrate on Morray’s son, Phoenix. Her instincts were the one thing she could always count on.

“Show me Phoenix,” she said.

Up ahead, a door slid open—she must have activated a portal—but it was already starting to close so she sprinted toward it, getting through just before it sealed behind her. She was no longer in a hallway—she was running in the woods. She tripped over a rock and tumbled to the ground. The trees looked familiar, mostly oaks and sycamores. These had to be her woods. Why would she be back in Ojai? Through the branches, she could see the sky. Instead of its typical vibrant blue, it was burnt orange and there was a hint of ash dusting over everything. She had seen this before when viewing Morray’s archive files. Had she gone back to the Repatterning? She wondered what this had to do with Phoenix. The scent of a campfire drifted by. She got up and followed it until she came upon a grouping of tents and a few cabins. She climbed a tree to get a better vantage point. Down below, she spotted a bunker tucked up against the side of a hill and a group of people sitting around a large campfire. One of the women was holding a baby. Ava tried to get a closer look, but the branch under her foot snapped. She dangled from the branches. The sound of multiple shotguns cocking echoed. A few men surrounded the base of the tree and aimed their shotguns upwards. Ava lowered down to another branch and lifted her hands in surrender.

“I’m an Outsider,” she yelled down to them, not sure they’d be familiar with that term yet, but it was the first thing that came out.

“You know her, Aaron?” one of the men asked.

The young man looked up toward Ava and shook his head. It was Aaron. Lillian’s Aaron. He was so young. The mainframe search had sent her back to the early days just after the Repatterning to when Lillian and Aaron were living in the woods and just starting to build their community, which would later become Ojai Village. Ava had seen Aaron before in Morray’s archive files plenty of times, but how was he able to see her? She had never been able to interact with the coding; she’d only watched as a quiet observer. The academy’s equipment was far more advanced than anything she had worked on.

“Did you escape from a nearby plantation? Or the emergency camp?” Aaron asked.

Ava didn’t know how to answer that question. If she told them she was from Ojai Village, they’d think she was lying, or nuts. The village didn’t exist yet.

“I know Lillian,” Ava yelled down.

In a way, she did know Lillian. After all, she had read her journals over and over for the last sixteen years. She knew every private detail about Lillian’s life, including how she ran away with her mother to survive the Repatterning—only to be sent to a plantation to become a slave for the elites. She knew about Lillian and Aaron escaping the plantation with Morray’s help—before he had become corrupt—to burn down the fields and free the prisoners. Ava had read every word in every journal that had come from Lillian’s pen. She had read all the ensuing material written by Lillian’s descendants spanning the last three hundred plus years. Lillian’s entire life and beyond was etched on Ava’s heart.

Aaron paused for a second, then yelled over to the campsite. “Lillian, come here. Need you to see something.”

Ava panicked. What was she supposed to say? She couldn’t mention the journals. Or explain how her words would one day inspire Ava to risk her life and help change the world.

A thin girl with dark hair walked over and stood next Aaron. She looked up at Ava.

“You ever seen her?” he asked.

Lillian shook her head. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

A loud blast came from somewhere in the forest. The trees shook, knocking Ava off balance. She slipped from her spot and found herself again hanging from the branches. The men scattered and ran off toward the blast. Another boom echoed; the reverberation caused Ava to lose her grip. As she plummeted to the ground, the sound of a baby crying grew louder and louder, and then there was darkness . . .

Ava woke up in the lounger with Sam standing over her. She detached herself from the connector panel and walked around for a few moments to get her thoughts back on track.

“Anything?” Sam asked.

“That was weird,” she said.

“It looked like you hit an archive file. But the coding was a little different.”

“I went back. Way back.”

“How far?”

“I met Lillian and her people.”

“What do you mean by
met?
”

“I talked to them. I actually had a conversation with them.” Ava walked over to the windows and stared off.

“So, it works,” Sam said pensively.

“Oh, it works. Only this time, I was there. Living it.”

“Who did you interact with?” he asked.

“Aaron. Lillian.”

“How old were they?” Sam sounded as if he were doing an interrogation.

“I have no idea. Young. Maybe right around the time they had burned down the plantation?” She remembered the baby crying. “No. It had to be a little after that. I heard a baby crying. It had to be Morray’s son, Phoenix. That was the name I searched when I entered the mainframe.”

“He was a baby?” Sam paced around the lab, pushing his hair away from his face. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead.

“What’s gotten into you? You’re acting manic.”

Sam patted his face with a handkerchief and took a few deep breaths. “Sorry. I’m just nervous about getting caught conducting illegal searches.”

“You worry too much. We’re fine. In fact, I just had the most amazing discovery yet—I’m now able to interact with the archive files. This is a good sign. Something I can use to navigate through the mainframe more efficiently. Either way, it’s a win.”

Sam just stood with his hands in his lab coat pockets.

Ava headed toward the door. “That’s enough for one night. We can get back on it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? I think we should hold off on further searches until we have the go-ahead from Director Faraday.”

“My lab, my rules. You’re working in my lab, right?” She smiled.

Sam shrugged and tried to smile, but it came out more like a wince. Ava grabbed her lab coat and took the transporter back to her room to record her findings. It was clear that someone had manipulated the coding. Most likely Dickson. This was no glitch. Now she had evidence that something was going on inside the mainframe. And she believed it had to do with Morray’s son, Phoenix.

10

THE NEXT MORNING, Grace spent the first half of her day in class with others in the Search & Rescue program. She had to sit through hours studying some of the most grueling emergency rescue scenarios out there. The other cadets seemed to get a thrill out of the bloody gore that made her stomach do backflips. After class she was supposed to get lunch, but she had no appetite. She headed over to the east wing for her first Delta Team drill. For the first month, the team would only work inside the virtual—something Grace wasn’t happy about. She wanted to get into physical action. But the instructors wanted to test mental capacities in the virtual realm before putting the team into the field. A lot of cadets didn’t make it through the first month, which told Grace she needed to be fully prepared for anything. Things like Blythe’s stabbing hatred and Lucas being her team leader. She’d have to do well in every scenario the programmers put them in. Taking a few deep breaths, she steadied herself and said a quick prayer before entering the Delta training room.

Lucas was already there, standing next to a stocky muscular guy with shaggy dark hair that was pulled back with a red headband. The rough and tumble dude was definitely from one of the villages. He studied Grace with his intense brown eyes and stepped forward, reaching out for her hand.