Frozen (22 page)

I think the Order would have shown up already if this were the case, but I don’t have a chance to answer Clipper, because Titus has started shouting.

“This was s’posed to be it!” he screams. “This was our way out. If it ain’t, what’s the point of the room?” He throws his knife in fury. It clatters off the wall and lands on the keyboard of one of the computers. Its screen comes to life, dim beneath layers of dust.

“Examine it,” Titus orders Clipper.

“For what?” the boy asks.

“Anything. Find its secret. Find the way out of Burg.”

“You have to climb the Wall. It’s the only way out.”

Titus punches Clipper so hard, the boy ends up on the floor.

“I ain’t askin’ for yer insight! I’m askin’ ya to examine that thing and I ain’t gonna ask again.”

“Our deal was only to open the door,” I say. “We’ve done our part.”

But Titus doesn’t acknowledge me. He grabs Clipper by the shirt, yanks him to his feet. The boy looks right at me, and though his eyes are wide, I don’t find them filled with fear. They are stubborn, brave, willing to take a stand. I think back to what feels like years ago, an afternoon when I tracked Clipper in the woods.
I might get scared, but I’m not a coward
.

Even still, I can’t stand the thought of him getting hurt because of my decisions. Bree said once that the Rebels trust people of skill no matter what their age, but no one should be asked to lay their life on the line at just twelve. I won’t ask it of Clipper.

“Do what he says,” I tell him.

He glares at me, but sits down at the computer.

A good while later, Clipper has confirmed that the generators do indeed power the cameras, whose video is backed up on the computers, which run off the same power source. He also discovers that the computers are networked with Taem. Workers there can send commands to the computers here, refocusing and repositioning cameras without an Order member ever having to set foot in Burg.

“Turn ’em off,” Titus demands, twirling his knife.

“The cameras?” Clipper sounds downright terrified by the idea.

“Yes. I’ll be rid of yer team of Reapers soon, but not yer eyes. I want ’em off.”

“But I might not be able to do it without being detected.”

“I don’t care. Do it now.”

“No, this is enough,” I say, jumping in. “We’ve held up our part of the deal, and then some.”

Titus is on Clipper in a heartbeat, striking him for the second time. He pulls out his knife and holds it before the boy’s face. “Would cuttin’ him be more persuasive than my fists?”

Clipper’s lip is bleeding from the recent blow.

“If we turn them off, we’re doing it our way, a safe way. And then you’ll give us a few minutes in here—alone.” This is a major change to our agreement, and I’m not letting Titus order us around for nothing. Especially not when we’ve walked into a room filled with so many assets.

Titus narrows his eyes. “What’s the safe way?”

“If you want to work
with
us, we can manipulate the camera feed. Clipper would need some time, but we could fix things so the Order only sees what we want them to see—footage from a few days, on a steady loop. It was always our plan. We want to
help
you escape the Order, not bring them right to your door.”

“I ain’t working with anyone but my own people. I don’t trust yer lot. Ya know too much to not be one of ’em: a Reaper. Turn it off right now, take yer alone time in the room, and then get gone from our home.”

“I need hours,” Clipper says. “To gather footage—different weather, night versus day. I can’t do this immediately.”

“Ya better kill the eyes now or yer gonna be dead within the next minute,” Titus says, knife at the ready.

Clipper turns back to the computer and starts tapping away at the keyboard. The screen before him is filled with line after line of words and numbers. Half the words don’t even seem real. This must be
code
, as I’ve heard Harvey describe it, commands that tell the machine what to do and how to run. Something similar exists in Jackson, probably urging him to break the alliance we struck last night.

Clipper keeps typing and the lines of code fly by, on and on until the screen halts on a single question.

Terminate video link? Y / N

Titus squints at the prompt and I get the feeling that if he knows how to read, he doesn’t know very well. He forms the words with his lips, no sound escaping him. Finally, as if it’s all clicked, he straightens up and says, “Do it.”

But Clipper’s shaking his head, blood pooled in the corner of his mouth. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Now!”

Clipper glances at me for help. It’s obvious Titus will never be our ally. We have to do this and pray it doesn’t get us caught. Maybe we can salvage the act later. I don’t want to give this place up—its underground passages, its computers and their connection to Order information. This is exactly the edge that the Rebels need, and Titus is forcing us to throw it aside. But Burg is worth nothing—can
be
nothing—if we’re dead, unable to man it or tell Ryder of its assets. And so I sort of nod and shrug at Clipper all at once because this is our only option.

Clipper punches in the command. The screen flashes some sort of success message.

We all hold our breath. We wait.

A minute, and nothing.

Several minutes. Still nothing.

“It’s done,” the boy says.

“Then it’s yer turn,” Titus answers, and he steps outside with Bruno.

I rush to Clipper, eye the damage from Titus’s punches. I pull the handkerchief my father gave me so long ago from my pocket and wipe Clipper’s mouth free of blood.

“You’re ruining it,” he says, watching the cloth grow pink.

“It was already ruined. It’s been ruined for a long time.” I tuck it back in my pants and put my hands on Clipper’s shoulders. “I doubt he’ll give us long, so don’t bother with the cameras. Let’s get in touch with Ryder. We need to tell him what we’re up against here: how Titus won’t budge but the place would make a great base, discuss if it’s worth fighting for it or if we’re better off continuing west to seek out the Expats.”

Clipper shakes his head. “Ryder’s unreachable. I can’t connect to anything but Taem and the test groups.”

I glance at the door. Titus is still nowhere to be seen, and I feel like I’m wasting a critical opportunity.

“So what
can
we do?”

“This connection is like being in Taem’s biggest vault of secrets—a database of information—only we’re invisible. We can look at almost anything we want and they’ll never know we were here. It’s when we take action, like pulling power to camera feeds, that they could catch on to us.”

“So you could check if Frank has any records on Forgeries, then?” I say, an idea engulfing me.

“Sure. What for?”

“Blaine tricked us so easily in Stonewall, but if we
know
who exists as a Forgery, that will never happen again. Not to us. Or anyone in Crevice Valley.”

Clipper nods and goes to work. I don’t understand how it is possible for him to string words together so quickly; the letters beneath his fingers are painfully out of order—
q
,
w
,
e
,
r
. Code flies by on the screen, slipping out of view before I’ve even had time to read it. A moment later, Clipper lets out a small cheer. A list of names has appeared on the screen, a headline above them reading Forged Assets
.

“Check Xavier, Bo, anyone who came from the Laicos Project,” I say. “Start with Blaine, actually.”

“His Forgery is dead.”

“But Frank’s goal has always been to create a Forgery that could be replicated again and again. Last time I spoke with him, it sounded like he’d accomplished it. There could be dozens of Blaines for all we know.”

Clipper shudders at the idea and jumps through the list, which, unlike the keys, is in alphabetical order. We find Blaine easily, in the
W
s.

Weathersby, Blaine

Model Type: F-Gen4

Models Forged: 1

Models in Operation: 0

These words are so welcomed, I let out a huge sigh. I’ve killed the only version of him. I won’t have to do it again. I feel lighter. I feel so much lighter.

“Um . . . Gray. Did you see this? Here?”

I follow Clipper’s hand farther down the screen. I was so focused on Blaine, I didn’t even bother to read the following entry.

Weathersby, Gray

Model Type: F-Gen5

Models Forged: 1

Models in Operation: 1

My heart stops. It truly feels like it stops.

I’m out there somewhere. Me, just as I look right now, only it’s not me—not really. It shouldn’t be so surprising—if a Forged version of Blaine exists, why not me, too?—but I feel like there’s not enough air in the room.

“And your model’s newer,” Clipper says, pointing at the 5 on the screen. “I wonder what that means in terms of its capabilities.”

That
my
Forged counterpart is the version that can be Forged again and again? But no, there’s only one in operation. It can’t be. Unless there’s simply one at the moment and hundreds are still being produced.

“Check Bree!” I say, now panicked. “Hurry. Bree and all the captains and Xavier and Bo and—”

“Time’s up!” Titus announces, strolling into the room before Clipper can even bring a finger back to the keyboard.

“Wait. This is important.” Bruno grabs my arm and starts hauling me away from the computer. “Dammit! You don’t understand how important this is!”

But I’m shoved into the hallway despite my begging. Kaz is waiting with Sammy and Jackson. Sammy must read the panic on my face because he’s searching the room, neck craned as we are jostled off.

We burst into Titus’s quarters, and Bree is there. She’s sitting on one of the crates, a single guard behind her. Her face is painted with bruises and scabs, but her eyes light up when we enter, and the injuries seem suddenly minuscule.

She flashes me a smile, and I don’t return it.

I should. I want to.

But I get this feeling.

This horrible, viscous, vile feeling.

When I met Bree, she had long since run from Frank. She had already been Heisted. What if the girl I know . . . what if she’s never really been
her
?

No. That can’t be. I would know. I’d be able to tell.

Except you couldn’t tell with your own brother,
the doubt says.

But Bree was living with the Rebels for nearly a year when I met her. She would have compromised Crevice Valley’s location already, figured out a way to reach Frank. Or she would have done it in person when we went back to Taem for the vaccine. She would have betrayed the Rebels a long time ago if she were truly a Forgery.

Unless she has her own motives,
the doubt whispers.
Unless she’s so strong she’s loyal to herself before Frank. Like Jackson. He brokered a deal in Stonewall that went against his mission just to keep himself alive.

I can’t start thinking like this. Bree is Bree. That’s all she’s ever been. The way she’s fought for the Rebels without hesitation since I met her. The way she feels about me—all that passion and anger and hurt when we argued on the beach. The way she cried just the other day in her cell. She’s real. She has to be, because I’m not willing to leave her behind. I can’t. Couldn’t. It would kill me.

She’ll kill you herself, if she’s a Forgery
.

But she’s not.

She’s not. She’s not. She’s not.

I’ve decided.

“Well, go ahead,” Titus says, folding his arms over his chest. “Ya’ve got ’til the count of fifty.”

“For what?” I glance at the team, but they look equally confused.

Titus jerks his head toward Bree. “To say yer good-byes.”

TWENTY-NINE

BREE’S SMILE IS GONE, REPLACED
immediately with a snarl. She jumps to her feet and the guard behind her grabs her at the elbows.

“Is this a joke?” I say, struggling to keep my voice calm.

Titus looks insulted. “I ne’er joke. Ya did yer job, and yer leavin’ now, just as we agreed.”

“We shook on it! In blood. The door for my team.”

“Ah, see, that’s the thing,” he says, shaking his head. “We ne’er made a deal fer yer team. I said that if the boy opened the door, yer
men
would walk free. We shook on
those
words.”

“I . . . you . . .” But I can’t get out anything else because my lungs feel like they’re about to collapse. I didn’t catch his word choice originally, and even if I
had
, I might not have taken it so literally. It makes no sense, agreeing to a deal that ensures only part of your team’s safety.

“Why?” I finally manage.

“Why
not
? A healthy female of breedin’ age? We ain’t stupid ’nuff to let that sort of resource wander off. It’d be wasteful, really.”

No wonder they kept her separate from us, had nurses come to examine her. I can’t walk out now, leave Bree to this sort of fate. I take a deep breath, tell myself that if I can only reason with him, everything will be fine.

“You know I wouldn’t have agreed to this.”

“Ain’t my fault ya didn’t analyze my words.”

“You can’t do this,” I try again.

“Oh, but I can.” He smiles and his eyes never leave mine as he waves a hand toward Bree’s guard. “Take her to the Breeder hall and have someone introduce her to her new job.”

Bree screams as she’s tugged toward the doorway, a single word—
No!
—and it’s her voice, uncharacteristically high and cracking, that causes me to abandon all reason.

I lunge at Titus. He pulls out his knife, but I don’t care about the blade. I care only about Bree, because I realize a million truths in the blink of an eye: I need her and I trust her and I think I might love her and I saved her from a sinking ship and she reads me almost as well as my brother and can make loon calls with her hands and is stubborn and crazy and reckless and real and even if it puts my damn life on the line, I’m not leaving Burg without her.