Ash (26 page)

Soon enough, the train arrived. I stepped into the Ash car on the train and, despite the absence of any other passengers, was immediately hit by the smell of wet feet. It was a short trip, and soon enough we pulled into the Ash zone. While I knew I should have been scared (what I was doing was certainly punishable by death), I felt energized, like I was on the right path.

I kept an eye out for other people as I walked out of the station’s main entrance, and around the corner. The streets were deserted, and I quickly found the storage doorway that Raze had described. My heartbeat quickened as I reached out and rapped my knuckles again the metal door. When there was no answer, I turned the handle and pulled. My excitement turned to confusion. The room was little more than a closet. A few hazard cones were stacked in the corner next to a box of metal pipes. Beside this was a splintered mop stuffed into a bucket, a pile of discarded rags, and various other cleaning supplies. Several grease-streaked Ash jumpsuits hung from pegs on the wall. This couldn’t be right. Even alone, I was cramped inside of this space. Forget about a rabble of covert destiny defectors. Had I somehow misunderstood Raze’s directions?

I shined the light of my tracker around the room, trying to see if I had missed anything. There were several wet footprints. Someone
had
been here recently.

I knelt down next to the clearest print, looking at the tracks more closely. One disappeared behind the uniforms. It looked as though the wall had cut it right in half. I hesitantly reached out and moved the uniforms to one side. My fingers pressed right through the holographic surface and inside I cheered—I’d found the entrance.

I stood up, cautiously stepping into a dark, narrow hallway. At the end was another door. I knocked, then pushed the door open.

On the other side, six people sat around a circular table. Most jumped from their seats as I entered. Their clothing and trackers announced they came from various rings. Each of them pointed a weapon at me. Guns, lasers, knives, all ready to take me down.

I stood rigid, half in, half out of the doorway, numb with fear. Was I supposed to run, jump for cover, try to explain who I was?

“Hold,” Oena yelled before I could say anything.

No one lowered their weapon.

She leapt around the table toward me, graceful, yet still agile despite her ankle length green dress. “Dax, what in crilas are you doing here?” she asked.

Thom stood at the far side of the table. His green blazer looked surprisingly polished. He shook his head in exasperation, slowly lowering his gun. “You have got to be kidding,” he muttered before sitting back down. “She’s safe,” he said. “It’s Aldan Harris’s kid sister.”

Around me the other weapons began to lower.

“Hey,” I said weakly. “I’m Dax.”

One girl—a Yellow who couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me—still held her gun on me. She squinted her large almond eyes at me in surprise. “Then that means your other brother is Link? The one who renounced the system?”

“That’s him,” I agreed.

“Huh,” she said, looking me over. She too lowered her weapon, giving me a look that I rarely saw. One of interest. And respect.

Oena took me by the arm and pulled me further into the room. “How did you find us?” she asked, ushering me toward a seat.

I sat down at the table and cleared my throat nervously, eyeing the group surrounding me. There was the Yellow who had asked about Link, two Browns with unusually large noses who looked like brothers, Thom in Green, and a Slate girl in a baggy factory dress. I wondered if these were disguises, or if these people came from the rings they represented. I never imagined Thom as a Green before he turned Revenant, but I guess it was possible.

“Dax?” Oena prodded.

“Right,” I said, trying to sound confident as I began telling them my story. I sounded awkward at first, stopping and starting as Oena prodded for details, but soon I reached my stride, and the words poured out. The Revenants interrupted several times to ask questions—about how I had found Raze, where the PAE had been positioned, and how many there had been. Otherwise, everyone was silent. I ended the story, explaining how I had jumped, and how Raze hadn’t followed. “I’m not sure what happened,” I said. “The PAE was there. I’m not sure if Raze is…” my voice caught, and I struggled to sound calm. “I’m not sure if she’s alive or dead,” I finished. I glanced at the weapons laid out over the table, and then back to the grim expressions of their owners. I hoped I had done the right thing by coming here.

The quiet was broken by Oena. “Raze is a fighter,” she said. “Let’s hope she managed to get away.” She looked around, pausing to hold every Revenant’s gaze for a moment. She then knocked twice on the tabletop. “All lost souls find their way home,” she said. The others knocked twice in unison, repeating the phrase. I thought about the words, trying to keep my expression blank. Was this some kind of Revenant ceremony?

When no one spoke, I said the only other thing that was still on my mind. I tried to sound brave, but the truth was that my insides were churning. “I’m sorry, Oena. Really. Maybe if I stayed away like you said, Raze would be here right now.” I squirmed in my seat, unsure of what else to say.

Oena shrugged. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “But this isn’t your fault. Raze’s mission was to scout that part of the tunnels. Scouting missions are always dangerous. PAE patrols have been out with a vengeance since Zane was captured. Raze knows that. She took you right through an area we’d identified as potentially compromised. She shouldn’t have done that. Had she been alone and not come back, we’d have sent in a backup team, and they might have been caught too. The fact that you made it here means we can warn others on similar missions.”

Thom nodded beside her. “If we move quickly, we may even be able to set up traps in that section of the tunnel. We could capture some of their patrols for a change.”

Around the table the other Revenants were nodding and talking. One of the Browns pulled up a map from his tracker and pointed out the location of the tunnel I’d been in with Raze.

“Would you say this is about where you were when you first heard them?” he asked.

“It’s actually a little more this way,” I said, I pointing out where I had been and explaining the terrain to him.

He turned to the other Brown with a sly smile. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Let’s go say hello to the PAE, shall we, brother?”

“Thanks, Dax,” the first said.

“No problem,” I replied. So they
were
brothers. And they had accepted me just as readily as mine had always done, despite my Ash status. I felt my nervous energy begin to dissipate. At school, we might attend ring-blended classes and be forced to use the same cafeteria and common space, but our place in the system still governed all interactions. I would always be an Ash. But at this table, no one had so much as glanced at my clothing. I hadn’t been scrutinized in any way. They were treating me as an equal.

“Actually,” the second Brown asked, “Do you want to come with us?”

I felt my heart soar. “Really?” I asked.

But Oena answered before he could. “No,” she said. She shot the Browns a look. “Absolutely not.”

The conversation immediately stopped, which made my response that much louder. “But that’s why I’m here,” I said. “I want to be a Revenant.” If these people were going to try and fix the system, I wanted to be a part of it.

Oena sighed. “Let’s take a walk, Dax,” she said, standing.

“See you,” the first Brown said as I stood to follow. The others nodded and Thom raised his hand as I followed Oena out the door.

We walked back down the hallway, stopping near the exit. “Dax, I understand why you’re here. I’ll do everything I can to avenge Aldan’s death. But it’s going to take time.”

“Then let me help you,” I said.

She ignored me, continuing as if I hadn’t spoken. “Look at what happened to Raze today. We go on scouting missions, and we don’t come back. Do you understand? The PAE kill on sight. Aldan died because he got too close to me, to this group. My brother was captured a few days ago. It’s possible he’s dead by now as well. If he’s not dead, he may wish he was by the time the PAE finish with him.”

Oena’s voice was detached. Completely matter-of-fact. A crop of goosebumps raised over my arms as she continued.

“The only thing I can still do for Aldan is honor what I know he would have wanted. Or not wanted. He wouldn’t have wanted you in harm’s way. You have to understand that it may be me the PAE takes tomorrow. Or Thom. Or any of the rest of the crew back there. That’s our choice. Aldan would have never agreed to it for you.”

“But Aldan’s not here anymore,” I argued. “He made his choice, and now I’m making mine. I’ve thought a lot about this, Oena. People have been telling me what I can’t do for as long as I can remember. I can’t live like that anymore. I need to make my own choices. I need to do what I think is right. Please. Let me be a part of this, let me choose my own path.”

Oena’s voice grew a little softer around the edges. “You sound just like him,” she said. Her face sagged, making her look like someone much older, then she sighed, seeming to come to some sort of agreement with herself. “I’m not agreeing to anything, Dax. But I’ll make you a deal. If you want to talk again, you can reach me through your tracker. I can modify the program. You’ll be able to override your location signal if you need to. And you’ll be able to reach me directly. For emergencies only, though, is that clear?”

A thrill jolted through me. “Of course,” I agreed immediately. I had changed her mind. Or at least nudged her in a new direction. It was a start. “How does it work?” I asked.

“Let me see your tracker.”

I held my arm up and Oena bumped her wrist against my own. She tapped a few times onto her own tracker, showing me how to reprogram my position on my geolocator. Then she showed me how to contact her.

“Don’t make me regret this,” she said, her earlier tone coming back.

“I won’t,” I promised.

“Good,” she replied. “Now get home before anyone wonders where you are.”

I’d taken a few steps away before she called after me.

“Hey,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Good work today. Aldan would have been proud of you.”

“Thanks,” I said, happiness and sadness flooding my emotions at the same time. I turned before she could notice the tears pricking my eyes. “You won’t regret this,” I said, and walked back out into the rain.

I
t had to be a mistake. It needed to be a mistake. But I knew it wasn’t. Mistakes like that didn’t happen accidentally. Someone went to a lot of trouble to cover up the switch. But why? Why would they swap my destiny? Nothing about this made sense. Blanks were impetuous, reckless, violent even. I was none of those things. I was the future leader of my country. Or at least I used to be.

I stared at the records. Dax had been born at 7:44am. It fit with the extraction time on my mother’s file—7:46am.

“Crilas,” I never swore, but this certainly called for it. “What, what if…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“What?” Sol asked gently.

“What if it wasn’t our destinies that got switched? What if it was us? What if Dax is really a Sumner, and
I’m
really a Harris.” The thought made me feel faint. That would mean Link and I… I grasped onto the desk to steady myself.

Sol shook his head violently. “No, the DNA tests are here. They put them in place decades ago to ensure no one tries to steal a Purple baby. Yours haven’t been tampered with. You’re definitely a Sumner. Besides, look at you. You look like your parents. So does Dax.” He pulled photos of my parents and photos of Dax’s to the bottom of the screen. Dax had her mother’s hair, eyes, even nose.

I let out a sigh of relief, but it didn’t last long. It didn’t change the fact that my destiny was wrong. I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t keep it a secret, could I? Not following destiny could cause the whole world to fall apart, but mine already was collapsing. I needed time to think.

“Shh,” Sol warned me, putting a finger up to his lips then pointing at the door.