Numbers Game (21 page)

“Huh?”

“The harder you hit it, the worse the punishment.”

“Oh.” Another death. The harder I tried, the more people I hurt. Perhaps the prison truly was the best place for me. I reached over and closed the man’s sightless eyes, hoping he didn’t have children waiting for him to come home.

“The others will be here any second,” Jasper said. “This way.”

33

J
asper
didn’t speak again until he had navigated us through the maze of white marble hallways. I wanted to ask him how he knew where to go after being locked up for twelve years. But the expression on his face was so determined that I clamped my mouth shut and followed.

As we came around a corner we heard footsteps. He flattened himself against a wall, motioning for me to do the same behind him. We had a working stunner now, but it wouldn’t do us much good against a group. Luckily the soldiers turned the other direction, and we continued on. After two more corners, I finally whispered, “Where are we going?”

“To get my things,” he said under his breath. “We have to hurry. They’ll discover those guards any second, and then they’ll start tracking our techbands.”

I stared at him in surprise, wondering what was so important, but I had no alternative other than to follow him down a dark flight of stairs into what looked like a storage room.

“How do you know what’s in here?” I asked, covering my mouth and nose. The dust was nearly overpowering. He flipped the light on. It was definitely a storage room—an old, disgusting one that had long been forgotten.

“This is where they put my belongings. I’m sure of it.” He started sorting through a few objects, tossing them onto the floor to get to the items near the back of the room. I just stood there. We had just escaped prison, the empress wanted me dead, and he was sorting through the storage room for his stuff? Maybe he really had gone a little loopy in his cell.

Without turning, he said, “Ametrine, help me out, would you? It’s a tin canister about ten centimeters high. It’ll be near the back.”

“You can’t be serious.”

He stopped shuffling and pulled his head out. “Unless I find that can, we won’t make it to the doors.”

“Why not? We were almost there before you pulled us in here.”

His mouth was set in a firm line. “There’s a set of band clippers with my stuff. I have to get your techband off before they trigger it.”

The blood drained from my face. “Oh.”

“I locked everything in that canister and hid it before they arrested me. Never thought I’d be using my trusty band clippers on my own daughter, though.” The last part was muffled as he shoved his head back into the shelving.

I started clawing at the boxes stacked neatly against the wall. There was a thin layer of dust everywhere, making my nose itch and forcing me to sneeze. I looked around with a critical eye, trying to forget his warning about my techband. How did he even know the tool was here? Maybe they had discarded the can after all. Or maybe they’d opened it somehow and found his tools.

I considered stunning him and dragging him down the hall myself. But then I gave a start. In the far corner there was a pile of old-fashioned wooden shelves. Real wood was too precious a resource these days to use for storage. That was a good sign—they had to be old. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

The surface was dry and brittle when I touched it, a piece tearing away in my hands. Perfect—rotting wood. I began at the top layer and looked through every box. It was all junk.

“Why aren’t you worried about your own techband?” I asked, trying to keep my mind off the danger we were in.

“Mine is different than yours,” his muffled voice floated back. “Vallorah never updated mine or hers to the newer version with punishment mode.”

So the empress doesn’t have punishment mode either.
I filed that information away, heaving the last dusty box to the floor. The top two shelves of the massive unit had collapsed, dumping their contents onto the bottom shelves. I couldn’t get to the junk without lifting the shelves out of the way. I pushed upward. It was surprisingly heavy and refused to budge.

“Look at this,” I said.

He trotted over and felt the wood. “We stopped using wood shelving during my tenure,” he murmured. “Good thinking, Ametrine. On three.” He took hold of one side, and I grabbed the other. “One—

Suddenly my techband vibrated. I glanced at it in surprise, the words making me freeze.

WARNING: PUNISHMENT

MODE ACTIVATED.

34

J
asper—”
I began, my voice shaking, but I didn’t get the chance to finish. One second I was standing there, my hand on the soft wood, the next I was writhing on the floor. Pain. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. The world was aflame with a white-hot, smoldering heat. It seared through every vein, every organ, every inch of my insides. I could almost smell the charred flesh. Someone was screaming.

I felt hands on me, felt tugging at my techband. The pain was a part of me, overcoming my mind. I felt my sanity slipping into the darkness. Somewhere in my consciousness there was a yell and a crash, then a feeling of pressure on my wrist.

And then everything went black.

><><><><><><><

Vance was crying. His tears dripped onto my face, and sobs racked his body as he held my shoulders. I ached to comfort him, to tell him everything was all right. I wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone anymore. But my body felt wrong. I was hearing things as if I were removed from everything, like hearing a conversation through a wall.

And then the pain hit. It slammed into me like a hammer, and I wanted to curl into a ball. But my body wouldn’t move. All I could get out was a whimper.

The sniffling stopped. “Ametrine?”

It wasn’t Vance. It was Jasper. The memory came flooding back and I gasped. The storage room. Punishment mode.

Was I dead?

My eyes fluttered open, but the room was dim. My biological father let out a breath, holding me tightly to his chest. “Thank the fates.”

“Jasper?” I croaked. Even that small movement of my jaw hurt.

“I’m right here. It’s all right.”

I strained to remember, but the memory of the pain made me sink deeper into his arms. “What . . .”

“What happened? A miracle,” he said, his voice strained. “They triggered punishment mode. I tried to disable your techband without the tool, but it didn’t work. Then I caught sight of my tool container under the shelf we were about to lift.”

I tried to sit up to see, but I still couldn’t move. I caught a glimpse of the corner of a heavy wooden object on the floor next to me. The shelf. It lay on its side, its contents scattered across the floor.

He gave a grim smile, his mouth tight, understanding my glance. His eyes were red and swollen. “Adrenaline is an amazing thing.”

Jasper had saved me. He’d left us for another woman and a career, but he’d saved my life. Twice now, actually. I couldn’t sit up—even the thought made me wince—so I just studied him. Dark hair—the same color as mine. Deep brown eyes. A softness in his expression that made me warm inside. My stepfather had never looked at me this way, as if I were a treasure worth risking everything for.

I’d only seen that look in the eyes of one other person. And it wasn’t Dresden.

“Help . . . me up,” I said, my voice raspy.

He looked like he was about to argue but then sighed and stood, lifting me in his arms as if I were a child. “You’re too weak,” he grunted. “And so small. Are you sure you’re sixteen years old?”

“Where . . .” I asked, letting myself slump in his arms.

“If we can manage to get out of here, we’ll go underground. Hopefully we can find a medic.”

“Your techband,” I protested.

“I cut it off, don’t worry. They can’t track us now.” He motioned to his bare wrist. “That’ll only buy us a few more minutes, though. Once they figure it out, they’ll send patrols and check security feeds.”

“Wait. One more thing.”

“What’s that?”

Jasper wasn’t going to like this, but I had to know. And something deep inside told me there would never be another chance. “Take me . . . to the monitoring room.”

He belted out a laugh. “Right. I’m going to carry you, practically unarmed and helpless, into the highest security room in the nation, where all our enemies are frantically trying to find you so they can take your life. Not a chance.”

“Need to know . . . the truth,” I said. His gaze flickered to my forehead, and understanding dawned. He seemed to know what I wanted.

“The monitoring room is too dangerous,” he finally said. “But I know somewhere else that has back-door access to the system. We’ll have to be quick.”

><><><><><><><

My wrist felt strangely naked. I started to rub it but recoiled in pain. The flesh was a fiery red, burned to the point of blistering. I tried to push the pain aside, forcing myself to think of other things. It was hard.

Jasper had ditched his prison uniform for a spare he’d found among his belongings. The cut looked too bulky, and the color was a little faded, but it would work. He stashed our techbands under the broken pallet. Hopefully the empress was expecting us to escape, not make our way deeper into the maze of white hallways. It was strangely silent. I tried not to imagine the troops of monitors waiting for us at the exits.

Finally we came to a door. It was just like every other door we’d passed. The plaque next to the doorway read, “Maintenance.” It was locked. A sophisticated identification lock covered the top of the knob.

“That wasn’t there before,” he said.

“Just knock, then stun whoever opens the door,” I suggested. My voice was getting stronger by the minute, but my body was still extremely weak and shaky.

He cocked his head as if listening. A sound drifted through the door. Singing?

A knowing smile spread across his face. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

“You can put me down now. I’ll be fine.”

He set me down gently just around the corner. As soon as my feet touched the ground, needles of pain shot up my legs. I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

“Be right back,” he said.

I watched around the corner as he straightened and tapped lightly. We waited for a moment, ears strained for any sign of intruders. After a minute, he knocked more loudly. Still nothing.

“On lockdown, probably,” I heard him mutter. But then the door opened.

“Jasper?” a voice boomed.

His shoulders relaxed. “Kert? Is that really you?”

“You gotta be kidding me. Shoulda known you were the escaped prisoner. Who else would do it with such flair?”

“Kert, I need to get inside and look something up. I won’t leave a trace, I promise.”

The man hesitated. “I have a wife and kids now. I really don’t want to end up where you’ve been.”

“No one will even know I was here. I’ve got a kid too.” Jasper jogged over to me and started to pick me up, but I waved him away, struggling to take a step. He put a gentle hand around my waist and helped me make my way to the doorway.

“Who’s this?” the thick man in the doorway asked. “A red?”

“My daughter. They triggered punishment mode on her.”

Doubt crossed the chubby man’s expression as he realized the depth of trouble we were in. But he stepped back to let us pass. The room was large, several floors high, with a huge glass screen in the center. The screen glowed white, with blue lines outlining the floor plan of the entire building. Different sections were coded with different colors—I assumed, machinery. The room that surrounded the screen was cluttered in contrast. Between this room and the storage room, the sanitized, marble-white image I’d always had of government buildings was now completely shattered.

“I’m the only one on duty right now,” Kert said as we scanned the room. “But they’re searching for you, probably floor by floor. You don’t have much time.”

“Then we’d better hurry.” My father guided me to a chair and stood in front of the screen.

“What are you doing there, ol’ buddy?” asked Kert, concern apparent in his voice.

“Don’t worry. I’m not changing anything. I just need to check something.” His fingers flew across the screen. “Thank the fates they haven’t changed much.”

“We still use your system,” Kert said proudly.

I leaned far to the right to view the screen better. It went dark for a moment until he completed his sequence with a decisive tap. Suddenly it lit up and said, “Welcome, Jasper.”

Kert nodded in approval. “A back door. Very clever.”

“I knew it’d come in handy someday.” Jasper’s hands flew across the keys again. The screen paused for a second, then loaded several paragraphs of text. I strained to see.

Name: Ametrine Dowell

Rating: 440

Implant Level: Red

Age: 16

Mother: Lanah Dowell

Father: Konnor Dowell

“Konnor Dowell,” Jasper said with a bitter tone. “It’s like I never existed.”

After that, it listed my entire record. I half realized that my mouth was open, but I kept reading, completely fascinated. I’d always known they knew everything, but . . . they knew
everything.
My free-time activities, my missed questions in school, my hairstyle preferences, my khel goals at each game. It was interesting and horrifying at the same time. There was nothing to explain my Rating score, though.

Jasper gave me an approving look. “Squeaky clean. You’re right to question all this. There’s something wrong here.” He typed in something else, and the screen scrolled down. His eyes narrowed.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A handicap,” he said. “See that icon?”

“But I’m fine,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, I mean they applied a handicap to your record. That explains the low score. Even though you’re a nearly perfect citizen, it emphasizes your misdeeds and gives them more weight. We used to use handicaps for—” He stopped, suddenly self-conscious. “Well, it wasn’t right, I’ll admit it. But we would apply one or two to the individuals we knew shouldn’t advance in their Ratings.”

My eyes widened. “Shouldn’t advance?”

“Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t my idea, and none of them were contenders for the throne anyway. Just citizens who stirred up trouble and needed to stay out of the way, is all.”

Kert snorted. “Somewhat like you, I’d imagine.”

“Except that we never used more than two handicaps,” Jasper said, a puzzled expression on his face, his eyes still darting across the screen. “Any more than two and it would seem suspicious.”

“How many do I have?” I asked, still confused.

“Six,” he said.

Kert gave a strangled gasp. “Six?” we both exclaimed.

“Six.” My father’s voice was solemn. “We don’t have much time. But I have a theory.” He turned to me, his eyes serious. “Let’s see what your Rating would be without the handicaps.”

He typed in something else. The screen paused again, longer this time, and for a moment I was afraid that an alarm would go off or something. Kert leaned over my shoulder, his hot breath on my cheek.

The screen flashed. I saw it before Jasper could say anything.

Ametrine Dowell. Temporary Rating Score: 979

“Holy fates,” Kert breathed. “That’s higher than the empress.”

I didn’t realize I’d sat down again, but my legs shook uncontrollably even in the chair. 979. That was the highest score I’d ever heard of. If the calculations were correct, that put me above the highest Rated person in the entire republic.

It made me . . . the successor.