Abandon (25 page)

“Come with me,” he said. He curved his board expertly away from the burning Security Department.

I glanced at Saffediene and saw techtricity arc out of the flames and hit her board. She seized as the energy lightninged through her body, and then she plummeted toward the ground, her mouth open in a silent scream, before being caught by an electro-net. She hovered in empty space, her blond hair splayed, her eyes filled with pain, her left leg bent at a weird angle.

“Saffediene!” I shouted as my father yelled, “Zenn!”

I shot toward the electro-net, toward that girl I’d recently started falling for. I’d abandoned my father for another girl, years ago. But I couldn’t leave Saffediene.

My board sliced the ashy air, but before I could reach Saffediene, it lost power. I began to move backward. I spun around. My dad had tethered my board to his and was flying us away from the Security Department.

“Stop!” I cried. “Dad, please.”

He ignored me as he zoomed downward, undisturbed by the spark of a taser over there, or the shout of someone behind us. I couldn’t take everything in fast enough.

Beyond the Security Department, my dad had little difficulty navigating the city, which added more questions to the queue. He flew us into a portal, and we disappeared inside a building.

The tunnel grew lighter and lighter until I entered a tech-lit room filled with hover technology. Boards, balls, cars, the works. Jag would kill to get in this room. Maybe he already had.

We were alone, but I didn’t trust myself to speak first. My dad stepped off his board, but—

It wasn’t my father at all.

It was General Director Darke.

My vision blurred, but the image of the General didn’t waver. I should’ve immediately backed up and retreated through the tunnel. I should’ve said something in my most powerful voice. Something like
Leave me the hell alone
or
How dare you impersonate my father?
I should’ve done something more than stand there and stare.

“Zenn Bower,” the General said, his eyes deep pools of intrigue. “We finally meet under appropriate circumstances.”

If he thought morphing himself into my father—or getting inside my mind to make me think I was seeing my father—and then forcing me to follow him constituted “appropriate circumstances,” the man was delusional. He slicked one hand over his graying hair and smiled.

“What do you want?” I asked. I didn’t know what I expected from the General. He hadn’t made it to the crown of the Association by playing nice. I imagined my friends out in the sky, fighting to find the very man that stood before me. Dying, maybe. I saw Saffediene in that net. My hands clenched and unclenched as I worked to control my escalating anger.

“I believe you’ve already spoken with Van.” General Darke’s eerily calm smile never wavered as he spoke.

My throat turned dry. “I don’t like his offer.”

“I didn’t say you had to like it, but you do have to accept it.” The General casually sat down and plucked something from his jacket pocket.

“I don’t think—”

“Ah, now there’s the problem,” the General said. “You think too much.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t.” I plan. I calculate. It’s one of my best qualities.

“Oh, but it’s not, Zenn,” the General said, revealing his ability to read my thoughts. “Why don’t you try being a little spontaneous for once?”

“I’m spontaneous,” I argued, remembering how Gunner had said I didn’t argue when I was right.

General Darke stood up. “Prove it.” He took several steps toward me. “Come with me. Escape this oppression. Live how you want, wherever you want. I’ll give you any city in the Association.”

I swallowed as he stopped directly in front of me. “I’ve been working against people like you for years.”

“I know.” The General smiled. “And it’s not doing you any good. Why not give the other side a try? You might just find that we’re right.”

Time stretched itself into seconds that became minutes. I wanted to argue with the General. Sure, his government functioned. And I had seen the effects of free choice. Riots. Death. Inequality. But that society was
free
. Which was better?

I felt like I was arguing a losing debate. That deep, buried part of me that had responded when Director Hightower had said,
You know I’m right
, surged upward.

“Any city?” I asked, hating the weakness in my voice.

“Any city.”

“My friends go free.” I forced some measure of control into my voice.

General Darke put his hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Zenn. They’re not your friends.”

I opened my mouth to protest, to tell him I’d go with him if Vi could go free, if he’d let Saffediene out of that net. He cut me off. “And they will die. Sadly, war has casualties.”

“But—”

He squeezed my shoulder a little too hard. “But nothing, Zenn. Either you’re all in—or all out.” He stepped back. “Your choice.”

I replayed my convo with Saffediene about enacting change from within. I thought about the riot in Harvest, the fires in Baybridge, the relative ease with which General Darke had emptied a city of millions in only a day.

I felt a tear ripping down the middle of my body.

I saw myself helping Jag. I saw him win. I saw myself helping General Director Darke. I saw him win.

I remembered the things I’d said to Vi to keep her out of trouble with the Association. I remembered doing nothing to get Vi out of her brainwashed state in Freedom.

I’d recruited Saffediene. I’d escaped Freedom. I’d flown
to city after city, implementing the changes from Gunn’s journal.

And for what? For the opportunity to wear rags and eat expired cans of stew? To watch an Insider-friendly city burn?

How much had I contributed to that? I gave intel to both sides; my reports inspired action on both sides.

I’d played the Informant-Insider for far too long. It was time to choose.

I took a deep breath as Saffediene’s words sounded in my mind.
You could always go back undercover. You could make the necessary changes we need—from within.

“I want Freedom.”

39
.
No one stood guard outside the Security Department, but that didn’t make me feel any less nervous. My reports said General Darke had a dozen bodyguards, and who knew what equipment or which talents.

We met no resistance. Vi’s tension infiltrated my senses. I turned toward her, only to find determination etched on her face.

“We’re here,” Vi said, and it sounded so loud in the sleeping city. We touched down in the street and entered the Security Department through a glass door.

I wondered if the monitoring systems in Castledale were
still functioning, and if my picture had just been taken, or if our entrance had been logged.

It didn’t matter. Darke was in this building, and I didn’t wait to see who followed me or where they went afterward. I strode forward, my boots making heavy thuds against the metal floor.

I ascended to the top floor with Vi, and we placed our charges down the hall and around the only door. After descending to the lobby, I pressed the button on my belt and my world exploded.

*   *   *

When I woke up, I smelled wet cement and smoke. I wasn’t in the building anymore, and someone crouched nearby, backlit by a flickering orange glow.

I moaned, and the figure turned, scrambling back to me. “Stay down, Jag,” he said. “You took a piece of metal right to the head.”

Jag?
I thought.
Is that really my name?

The man turned, looking back down the alley. “Vi! He’s awake.”

I didn’t know who Vi was, so I asked, “Who are you?”

40
.
When General Darke and I left the tunnel, the Security Department still burned brightly against the midnight sky. He didn’t spare it a glance, but I flew backward and watched until I couldn’t see it anymore.

I never saw anyone else flying nearby. I never heard anyone call my name. I’d never felt so alone, not even when I’d left Vi to begin training with the Special Forces or when my father stopped responding to my messages.

We flew all night, using two spare packs to keep the
boards going. We arrived in Freedom just as the sun crested the ocean waves.

The city lay in silence, broken and smoldering, the techtric barrier ruined.

41
.
The girl kneeling in front of me stared, her eyes flashing with blue and turquoise and purple. The color purple really freaked me out for some reason, like I’d seen it recently and it meant something bad was about to happen.

She’d come running when the man had called her name. When she spoke, her mouth didn’t move, but her voice echoed in my head.

I’m Violet Schoenfeld
, she said.
And you’re Jag Barque. Don’t you dare forget.

Easy enough for her to say. Before I could respond,
Look
,
I
have
forgotten
, she whipped around.

“No,” she said, dashing to the corner of the building again. The still-nameless man joined her. “No, no, no.” She watched the sky. Somewhere around that corner, a fire burned. The flames reflected off the tears flowing down Violet Schoenfeld’s face.

When she turned, the look in her eye scared me, scared me, scared me. I flinched away and bumped into a soft body lying next to me.

The girl slept peacefully. Her chest rose and fell in an even rhythm, and her bright yellow hair fell in jagged lines to the dark ground. I felt something for her. Friendship?

I recognized this girl. I’d seen her sleep before. I’d seen another guy keep his hand possessively on her back, showing everyone that they were together.

I took a deep breath, trying to reason through these weird feelings, and trying to place this beautiful Violet girl who seemed to want to punch me and kiss me at the same time.

“Vi?” I said, testing the name the man had called her just after I’d woken up.

She left the corner and strode toward me. “Don’t ‘Vi’ me.” With her words, another vision barged into my mind. One in which this girl shoved me backward. Told me I shouldn’t have left her to cross the border alone. After she forgave me for leaving her in the Goodgrounds, we watched the sunset together, content in the silence that followed.

I loved this girl. “I think I love you,” I said out loud, trying those words in my mouth. They seemed to fit.

Vi sighed, awakening more memories within me. She reached out and pulled me to a standing position. “Come look at this.”

She led me to the corner. I hobbled from the shooting pain in my ankle and the dull pain in my head. Sure enough, a building burned beyond the alley. “The Security Department,” I said, more and more pieces of my life coming to my remembrance. I looked at Vi. My Vi. “We did it.”

“Zenn left with Darke,” Vi said. “I saw them.”

Something inside me roared, blocking out the worried look on Vi’s face, the choking smell of singed metal and melting plastic, and the memory of her father—who was watching me.

A flood of memories crashed down upon me. I remembered everything, especially how Zenn had betrayed me once before.

*   *   *

“We’re depleted,” Thane said back in the war room. He handed me a hemal-recycler, and I held it to my head wound to absorb the blood. Meds flowed into my bloodstream, and I felt the pain recede instantly. “We lost half our members. We need time to regroup.” He lifted his mug of steaming coffee and drank.

We had to evacuate this city—fast. Who knew how long it would be before Darke sent a cleanup crew? I’d tasked the surviving Resistance members to pack up our remaining tech and food. Vi sat next to me, holding my hand, while Thane mused through possible locations for our retreat.

Retreat.
The word sang through my body the same way the meds did, forcing me to admit defeat. We hadn’t killed Darke. We hadn’t destroyed Freedom. Had I been dreaming an impossible dream for the past four years? Imagining a future that would never be?

I pushed away from the table. I limped away from Vi, away from Thane, away from their questions and feelings. I didn’t really want to be alone, but I didn’t want to be with them either.

I left the building and stood in the shadows of a doorway across the street to wait for the impending sunrise. I’d first kissed Vi in a doorway almost exactly like this. I’d never felt anything so magical as her lips against mine.

Tears burned behind my eyes, and I let them fall. I was glad I could remember kissing Vi. For a few minutes after I’d woken up, I couldn’t even recall my own name. Then everything had come back, and I’d been told a few things I wished I didn’t know.

Namely that Thane had saved me. We hadn’t heard from
Laurel or anyone on her team since before the launch. We didn’t know if they’d made it into the Security Department or not. Those twenty people had just disappeared. Gone. Zenn’s crew was unaccounted for as well—even Saffediene, who I never suspected would abandon the Resistance, despite her feelings for Zenn. It made sense that if he’d flown away with Darke, she had too.

I considered my remaining personnel. I couldn’t afford to lose Trek. With Pace gone—my throat squeezed—Trek was the only one qualified to run our advanced tech operations. Starr could probably manage in a pinch, but she lay unconscious in the infirmary.

My charges had compromised the Security Department, but Darke’s people had thrown a few last-ditch tech grenades. Starr had been hit by one soon after she and Thane entered the building. That’s where they’d found Vi and me passed out under a solid metal beam.

Thane had dragged out Vi first. After he’d passed her off to his team, he’d re-entered the burning, collapsing building to get me. And then Starr.

I’d never trusted Thane, not completely. But now? Now I did.

He wasn’t the one who’d abandoned his team and flown east with Darke. I felt the rage building inside. The first time
Zenn had abandoned me and the Resistance, I was hurt. It was as if his girlfriend meant more to him than freedom—more than me, his best friend.