inDIVISIBLE (34 page)

Time to be strong.

I touched his hand. “Thank you.”

Dane stood to fetch supper
as Oliver returned with a man in his mid-thirties, blond, blue-eyed with glasses. He looked fit, his shirt clean and tucked into faded slacks.

“I’m Jenks,” he said, extending a hand.

I shook his, and he squished my fingers, making them ache before I could yank them away.

Oliver sat across from me and said, “Jenks is our computer guy up here. I want him to look at that hard drive,
to see if he can pull the info.”

I unzipped my
pack. “It got rained on—crushed—”

I pulled
it out and felt a reluctance in handing it over. All of my father’s work waited to be discovered on this drive … what if I’d ruined it? What if Jenks did?

Oliver leaned forward, arms on his knees. “Jenks is good. If it can be salvaged by anyone, he can do it.”

Jenks nodded, impatient for the hardware.

I handed it over. He turned it in his hands, his forehead creasing. He stood and walked away, never taking his eyes from the drive.

“He was a school teacher before he came here,” Oliver said. “Worked in front of a camera, never even coming into contact with any of his students … so they could edit out anything they didn’t want him to say in front of the kids.”

I understood this as all I’d ever had were teachers on a screen. Our advisors in the classroom just reinforced what the teachers dictated. I’d heard lessons all across One United were like that.

“He got into teaching when there was still a chance of one on one instruction … he had to go by a script, approved dialogue, approved topics … but he learned computers like no other, then he stole one and met us up here to help us in our fight.”
              “He brought a computer to help your fight?”

Oliver cocked his head. “How much did your father tell you about our battle?”

“My father never had a chance to tell me anything. The Alliance had me bugged.” My hand still rested on the backpack, and I remembered T’s words about what my father had written about me. I turned the pack over and unzipped the zipper near the strap. I pulled out his notebooks and turned them over on my lap. “He left me some things though … that’s how we found you.”

Oliver’s eyes sparkled. “Can I look at them?”

I opened the first, skimmed through a few pages and handed it over. The second one I kept, it being the one with the bullet list under my name. The third seemed more relevant to Oliver than me and contained the route description in the back. I passed it to him and he flipped open the cover of the first.

His fingers moved down the page as he easily read my father’
s script, his face alternating between wonder and worry. After a dozen pages he glanced up. “Your father didn’t discuss any of this with you?”

I shrugged, “We talked a lot, but it was done mostly in riddles, codes.”

“Huh,” he grunted, returning to the pages. My head pounded, and my eyes burned. I rubbed my palms over  my face and Dane touched my elbow again, the mug back and filled with stew.

I’d forgotten about Dane
, and I started.

“Can you eat?”

I shook my head but couldn’t take my eyes from the mug.

“Would you like to lay down
first?”

Lay down? In a real bed where nobody threatened to sneak up and kill me? I started to nod but hesitated. “The Alliance will find you soon. They were so close when they blew up that drone. I don’t know how long it’ll be safe—”

Oliver silenced me. “Brynn, there are two things you should know: the Alliance didn’t detonate the drone—we did; and the bodies they find down there will convince them they got both of you. That’ll satisfy them for a while.”

“Bodies?” I asked.

Oliver nodded as if I’d missed something vital. “There are just enough parts scattered down there from the explosion that they’ll know they got a second person, but they won’t have enough to piece back together.”

They’d planted a body to save me? “Who is it?” I asked.

“Nobody,” Oliver said, still giving me his whole attention.

“The
n how—” The man who’d tied up T and me had called himself nobody. My mouth dropped open.

“He was going to kill a woman here and steal her child. He won’t hurt anybody now and the pieces of him that the Alliance will find will save your life.”

How many people would have to die to save my life? I stood and paced until Dane took my arm and led me to the opposite end of the settlement where blankets lay on pine needles, each a separate bed, side by side, row after row. He pointed to one with a tattered, pieced quilt. “Rest here until I can get you a bed ready.”

The quilt engulfed me, the pine needles cradling my body
, and I let myself sink into it. I closed my eyes and with them blocked out the world.

CHAPTER 43

“They talk about you like you’re our savior or something,” a woman with red hair said when I woke. I startled up, feeling weak but lucid. She handed over a bowl of soup, and I ignored the spoon, bringing the bowl to my lips before I remembered T telling me to take it easy when we ate again. I sipped on the broth, and forced the bowl from my mouth as the warm liquid hit my stomach. It roiled, and I set the bowl on the ground beside me, feeling it would be safer that way if I had to bolt.

“Now I know why,” she continued.

I saw my notebook in her lap and asked, “Why are you reading my book?”

She never flinched
. “To understand who you are.”

I raised one eyebrow. “And who am I?”

She turned a page and scanned, the hair on the back of my neck itching for me to take the book from her and read it myself. “You’re a genius.”

“I’m not a genius,” I said.

She handed me the book and said, “Read it for yourself.”

I closed the book, wanting to wait until I had privacy to read my f
ather’s writings. “Fathers brag,” I said.

She shrugged and leaned back, hands propping her up behind her, legs stretched in front of her. “What’s your earliest memory?” she asked.

I just stared at her.

Sh
e flicked her hair over her shoulder and said, “I’m Jemina. The man they killed to save you was my husband.”

My heart fell.

“He was trying to kill me.”

“He was here? How did he—”

“He took your map, left you for the Alliance—”

So it really had been ‘nobody’ they’d blown up and left behind. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’d want to hear that.”

“I don’t want to hear anything you don’t mean,” she said, the sadness she’d hidden showing through her thick façade. 

A child’s giggle cut through the air, and I rolled my shoulders before taking a bite of soup. “My earliest memory? I think I was two—my father brought this woman home, introduced me to my mother.” I remembered the day but had never pieced it together as Sofi not having been around before. I’d always thought she’d just gone on vacation or had been away sick … “She was beautiful with this black, shoulder length hair, fair skin and this turquoise dress on that fell just below her knees.”

“That’s a lot of detail,” she said.

“I remember everything,” I said before I could think.

“That’s why you’ll remember everything your father taught you about computers, how to hack into the Alliance servers, how to send out information to Citizens without getting caught—”

“He didn’t teach me—”

“Yes, he did,” she cut me off. “You just have to decipher what he taught you with what he meant for you to understand.”

He’d spent hours teaching me about PCAs, in an innocent way. He taught me how they transmitted information to the Alliance, how they communicated with each other … If I knew all that, why couldn’t I work in reverse and stop the communication? Why couldn’t I disable the tracking information in them and access information without them seeing?

Why couldn’t I send out mass information bulletins that encouraged Citizens to question the Alliance, to think f
or themselves as they used to?

I fell back on the bed and placed my palms over my eyes.

“You’re figuring it out already, aren’t you?” Jemina asked.

I nodded.

“He knew you’d find these books. He knew you’d need the hard drive. He gave you all the tools you’d need to make an impact. Are you ready?”

I stared up at the black crossed sky and thought about how nice it had been to learn to speak openly, freely … I thought about the freedom I’d gained since fleeing but also knowing that that freedom would never be complete as long a
s someone hunted me—all of us. Were there enough Citizens who could learn to think the same? Could enough of them be convinced that we could make a difference?

“So this
really is an electronic war?”

She shrugged. “To start.”

“What do we do first?” I asked.

She smiled
, and I found my first real friend among the Freemen. “We take back freedom of speech.”

Also by Ryan Hunter

Premeditated

Plotting murder began as a game until the first killing took place, bringing seventeen-year-old Jenna Adamson to the realization that playing God isn’t a game at all.
Convicted of murder, Jenna escapes to stop the other murders, murders she claims were planned in a game of revenge. Unable to stop the killings alone, Jenna enlists the help of her ex-boyfriend, entrenching him in a conspiracy that could cost him his future.
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Premeditated has been described as "Powerful, creepy and slightly disturbing."

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About the Author

Ryan Hunter has been writing most of her life as a novelist, journalist and freelancer—enjoying every bit of the writing scene except for the brief stint as ‘product description’ writer … Her earliest novel appeared on construction paper, bound with staples and followed two kittens on a journey of self realization. She was eight.

Ryan enjoys hiking, swimming, traveling, baking and spending time with her family. She’s the mother of five children and currently lives in southern Utah.