Rebel (23 page)

The hunger was so intense, suddenly I could barely breathe. I felt sick, and hot, and cold, and confused. I blinked again and the bars of the cell came into focus. How long had I been in here?

I squeezed my eyes shut and collapsed on the ground again, not caring that it was freezing.

The door opened and I mustered the energy to glare at the guard who entered.

He tried to make me shuffle down the hallway in my chains, but I was weak and kept swerving into him. He made disgusted noises every time I touched him, so I fell entirely against him. He yelled and I ended up on the floor. It was not my most well-thought-out plan.

He shoved me along in front of him the rest of the way,
and when we emerged from the elevator, Suzanna and Officer Mayer were waiting in front of the lab. Officer Mayer snorted as soon as he spotted me.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the long lab window. My hair was dirty and messy. I couldn’t make out my features very well, but my eyes looked dark and sunken in. I seemed smaller somehow, like I’d shrunk even more. That didn’t seem fair. I didn’t have any spare inches.

“Feeling better, I see,” Suzanna said as the guard hauled me onto the table. “I wasn’t sure that antidote would work.”

Was this better? When had she seen me last? Ever’s face flashed in front of me, that crazed, hungry look she’d had in the days before her death, and I winced as the humans began to shuffle around the room. I now understood her panic, her sobs when I told her what was happening to her. I don’t think I fully appreciated the terror she felt until this moment.

Suzanna stuck a needle in my arm and I glanced down to see my blood running into a bag. She poked a hole in my other arm and hooked a bag to that one, too.

“What happens if you drain a Reboot dry?” Officer Mayer asked.

“They pass out. They come back, though.” Her lip curled as she looked at me. “They always come back.”

“You don’t always come back, you know. Sometimes Reboots die for real.”

My head fell to the side as the memory edged into my brain,
Riley’s voice as clear as the day he’d first said that to me, early in my Reboot training.

“Is this how you want to be in the field? Do you want everyone to see you as a pathetic little mess?”
Riley had asked after I’d been shot on an assignment and was curled into a ball in the dirt, gasping for air.

“Up.” He pulled me to my feet by my collar. He was tall for a fourteen-year-old. I’d been surprised when he told me his age. The assignment was on the ground behind him, hands and feet bound.

Riley dumped the bullets out of the human’s gun and held them toward me. “You always take the bullets out of the gun before you go back to the shuttle. And you hold the gun by the barrel. If a guard sees you approaching holding a gun by the handle, they will shoot you.”

I whimpered, crossing my arms more firmly over my bloodstained shirt.

Riley sighed, lowering the gun and bullets. “Do you want to die? Again? For real this time?”

I just stared at him. Maybe I did. Maybe death was better than this.

“Because if you let them kill you, what does that say about you? Is that who you want to be?”

I’d swallowed, his words pulsing through my whole body. That wasn’t who I wanted to be.

“You can be the best,” he said. “You’re One-seventy-eight. Do you want to be the biggest disappointment, or the greatest success?”

I didn’t want to be a disappointment. I’d felt like one most of my life.

“I know it’s a lot of responsibility,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “And I know you’re really young. But life isn’t fair. Or Rebooting isn’t fair. Either way, it was the hand you were dealt. Your choice what to do with it.”

I took in a long slow breath. I’d decided I wanted that responsibility, the pressure of being the best. I’d let it consume me and I’d come out the other side as someone I was vaguely proud of. But now, I think I was only someone HARC could be proud of.

“Your choice what to do with it.”

Suzanna and Officer Mayer put their heads together, and I felt a sudden panic zip through my body. I didn’t want to die here. I didn’t want them to win. I didn’t want Callum to think that my choice had been only myself, and that I didn’t care what happened to the other Reboots or the humans who had helped us.

I didn’t want to be a mindless slave who did what they wanted without question. Who had run away the first chance she got and hadn’t wanted to try and help others still stuck in the same situation.

That wasn’t the choice I wanted to make. That wasn’t someone I could be proud of.

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THE METAL OF THE SHUTTLE CLANGED UNDER MY BOOTS AS
I stepped inside. The seats were already all taken, and Reboots piled in after me. We had about sixty, which was less than I had originally thought, but I couldn’t expect everyone to jump on board with saving Wren, even if we were freeing the New Dallas Reboots in the process.

As I leaned against the shuttle wall, I caught Tony’s eye. He stood outside next to Desmond, watching as the Reboots boarded. I’d thought Wren was wrong about how self-serving humans are, and now I felt incredibly dumb. I looked forward to telling her how right she was.

“Wait! Wait!” a voice called as the shuttle door began to close. Gabe darted inside, dressed in black clothes and armed.
He nodded at me and I blinked.

“Gabe—” Tony stepped forward.

“You said when I joined you guys I made all my own decisions and accepted the consequences. Going with them is the right thing to do. I accept the consequences.”

Tony closed his mouth as defeat crossed his face. For a moment, I thought Gabe’s outburst would prompt a show of support from other humans. Desmond looked between the two of us, his brow furrowed in thought, the angry expression he’d been wearing since we arrived gone. But he said nothing as the door slid shut.

I gave Gabe a grateful look as we started to lift off the ground. “Thank you.”

He shrugged, bouncing a little from foot to foot. “It could have been me. I almost died of KDH a couple years ago. I don’t see staying human as anything more than luck. I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.”

“I’d say it’s bad luck you are human,” Addie said, a corner of her mouth turning up.

“Hey, maybe I’ll die tonight and I can give you an opinion about it tomorrow.”

Addie laughed. “And have you whine about the pain? Stick with me, all right? I’ll try to take any bullets for you.”

“That might be the nicest offer I’ve ever had from a girl.”

Addie blinked, pink spots appearing on her cheeks as Gabe grinned and started making his way across the shuttle, toward the pilot’s door.

“That was weird, right?” She looked at me expectantly.

“Uh, I don’t know, Addie.”

“I mean, a human flirting with a Reboot is weird.” She looked to me for confirmation but I just shook my head in amusement. She nodded, as if convincing herself. “It’s weird.”

I chuckled, then quickly wiped the smile off my face. I shouldn’t be laughing. I needed to focus on Wren. It could already be too late, and I couldn’t be laughing while she was dead.

Addie’s gaze slid to where Gabe was standing with Riley and Isaac. He was watching her, too. I gestured with my head for her to go and she paused for a second before slowly walking over.

I closed my eyes as I leaned my head back against the shuttle wall.
“Focus,”
Wren would say.

My brain didn’t want to focus. It wanted to panic and run through horrible scenarios. Being on this side of things sucked. I didn’t like being the one who was fine while Wren was captured. I didn’t like being the one the other Reboots looked to for a plan. I could see why she tried to avoid it.

I pushed my hands into my pockets and tried to listen to the hum of the shuttle instead of the shouting in my head. I kept my eyes closed as we flew, ignoring the conversations around me.

“Brace yourselves!” the shuttle pilot called about fifteen minutes later. “We’re approaching New Dallas.”

Focus.

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MY HEAD HURT WHEN I OPENED MY EYES. I GRIMACED, WONDERING
if the headache was a side effect of the drugs, or if they’d done it on purpose. As my vision began to clear, the pain faded slightly, and I realized I was in the lab again. I hated how they could steal my time and I’d wake up with no idea where I was or how long I’d been there. If it weren’t for the growing hunger in my stomach (which wasn’t that bad yet, indicating it had only been two or three days), I would have had no idea how long I’d been a prisoner.

Officer Mayer drifted into the light and out again, and I heard Suzanna Palm talking from somewhere behind me.

I had a needle in my arm, and I squinted down at my blood
running into a bag. There was a full bag next to it, and I was woozy.

“. . . eliminate her?” Officer Mayer’s voice was a whisper.

I swung my head to either side, stretching my arms slightly. The metal cuffs around my wrist banged against my skin.

I wondered what Callum was doing. Was he still looking—

I took in a sharp breath. The cuffs. They’d moved around on my wrist.

I glanced across the room to where Officer Mayer and Suzanna were still deep in conversation. I barely moved one arm.

Someone had forgotten to tighten the cuffs.

I began squirming against the cuff farthest away from them. My hand slipped out in seconds.

I swallowed down a wave of excitement. I slowly twisted my other wrist around, the one in their line of sight. Officer Mayer glanced at me and I stopped, blinking blankly at him. He turned back to Suzanna.

My skin burned as I yanked my hand harder against the cuff. Suzanna’s eyes widened.

“Get her! She’s—”

My hand popped free and I shot up to a sitting position, yanking the needle from my arm. The world tilted violently and my attempts to hop off the table resulted in me facedown on the floor.

A hand grabbed my foot and I kicked, gasping as I
desperately clawed at the floor. The world tilted and shook and for a moment I thought it was just the drugs making me dizzy, but Suzanna’s face twisted in confusion. Another loud
boom
sounded from somewhere below me.

Officer Mayer grabbed me by the shoulders, hauling me into a sitting position. “I told you we should kill her,” he panted.

Yells came from outside. I turned toward the door, hope racing through my body.

“Go,” Suzanna said, blowing a curly strand of hair from her eyes. Officer Mayer raced out, and she settled her gaze on me as she pointed a gun to my forehead. “I got this.”

My eyes locked on hers. She didn’t have the best grip on the gun, and I didn’t know why she’d just told Officer Mayer to go. She obviously didn’t use a weapon often.

She hesitated, and I forced my vision to focus as I stared at her. She wasn’t wavering because she was conflicted about whether it was right to kill me, that was for sure. I knew it was because she was weighing her investment, her loss if she wasn’t able to research me further and put me back in the field. Her disappointment in me was just as obvious as Officer Mayer’s.

A smile started to form on my face, and Suzanna gave me a confused look. I was proud that I disappointed them. I wasn’t emotionless or hardened or the perfect monster they thought I was. I was trained.

I lunged forward so suddenly Suzanna gasped, almost dropping the gun in an attempt to fire it. I snatched it out of her
hand and slammed my palm into her chest. Her back hit the ground.

She dove for the gun in my hand again, growling as her fingernails dug into my arm. I fired one shot into her head.

I let out a sigh of relief as my legs gave out and I hit the ground. I didn’t usually look at humans after I killed them, but I stared at her blank eyes. I’d killed her in self-defense, and I couldn’t say I minded that she was dead, but I wished I hadn’t had to do it at all. Maybe that was what Callum meant when he tried to explain the difference between me and Micah. I’d never killed someone if I didn’t have to.

I turned away from Suzanna, a strange mix of relief and sadness mingling in my chest as I crawled for the door.

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THE NEW DALLAS HARC FACILITY LOOKED VERY MUCH LIKE ROSA
from the roof. It was empty, but the door was propped open, just as Tony had said. The small ground team had already jumped off the other shuttle, and smoke lapped up the side of the building from their bombs.

The shuttle took off as the last Reboot stepped onto the roof, headed for the front entrance to pick up Reboots as they escaped.

“We’re in the basement.”
I put a hand to my ear as Isaac spoke through my com.
“She’s not down here. Guard is saying they took her upstairs.”

“Which floor?” I asked, running for the stairwell as I pulled
my gun from my pocket.

“Hold on.”
There was a brief silence before he spoke again.
“He’s saying two or three. Not sure. Medical floors somewhere.”

“Okay.” I threw open the stairwell door and rushed down the steps, sixty Reboots flying after me.

“All Reboots to your rooms immediately.”
The voice on the intercom was loud and firm.

I cursed and ran faster, rounding the tenth-floor landing. We’d hoped to get to the Reboots having dinner in the cafeteria before HARC ordered them to their rooms and locked the doors, but given that announcement, it didn’t look good. Hopefully Addie would be able to get to the control room and unlock the doors again, like she did in Austin. I twisted around to see her and Gabe and a few other Reboots opening the door to the eighth floor, where the control room was.