Rebels (29 page)

“Have you the faintest idea where we are?” Livia asks.

“Through here,” I say.

She shakes her head. “You are far too comfortable with this level of destruction. We should take more care. Be more careful once we go inside.”

I look at her. Her and her feelings.

This long hallway has dead people watching from holo-images mounted on the wall. I can hear her footsteps right behind me. So, she got over it.

Too comfortable? What does that even mean? I know military operations and strategy. I don't do
feelings
.

She's already slowing me down. Already jeopardizing the mission.

She sighs.

“What's your problem?” I say, swinging around.

She's got her humming sword pointed right at me.
Not again
.

“Really? I hurt your feelings that—”

I don't even get to finish before she's leaping toward me, her sword flashing in a silver arc, its melody acidic. There is a PCF soldier behind me. The zinger cleaves his blaster in two. On the upswing it cuts through his chest. His face is on the young side. It is full of shock and disappointment and bears death in no more a dignified way than the rest of us.

“I killed him because you didn't listen,” I say. Lex doesn't respond. “Next time, heed my warning.”

This man is no longer living
, I think.
And for that, I'm responsible. He wasn't an Archive opponent who will refresh with the next chip insertion. This is a real man made of flesh and blood.

The blood pools on the floor beneath me. A strange dull ache in the pit of my stomach swells, one word repeating in my head over and over:
killed
.

A strange look passes across Lex's face. She's staring at one of the enormous holo-images now, distracted. I reach for her, gripping her wrist and squeezing hard.

“That could've been me,” she says.

“But it wasn't.”

“I'm sorry.”

She is. She really is, but it's too late for that. We must be merciless if we're going to survive. We can sort out our feelings later.

“Kane,” I say firmly. “Kane's still waiting for us.”

Her eyes reignite. She catches up and we hurry down the hallway.

The dead man's face lingers in my mind. Both dead men, to be exact. The guard sprawled across the ground, his body rapidly cooling
as his life spilled out. And the other dead man, his handsome image on the portrait at which Lex was paused.

“Dr. Armand Cosmo” read the plate beneath it. “Modern Genetic Innovator.”

My father.

I knew that guy. I'd seen him before.

Livia knew him, too. Cosmo—they share a last name. Her . . . father?

Her breath hitched for second, just like mine did. She saved me. She really did.

The glass transporter tube begins to glide down the side of the building after I enter the Detainment code. The tube buzzes. You can see the whole of Indra from here. It's a monument of impossible wonder, and it only reminds me that they have so much more up here. It's hard to be so proud of this city, or act in its favor.

We stop suddenly. The entry panels slide open and we step into a narrow hallway.

I open the tube control panel and punch in numbers. My mind clicks off combinations.

“Do you care to tell me what you're doing?” Livia asks.

“I'm breaking the code. So they can't get in,” I say. The alarms have followed us, even all the way down here. The place is on high alert. I punch in another set. “They'll locate us. If they haven't already. I just need to buy us a few minutes.”

I pull my hand away for a moment and her sword eviscerates the panel. It sparks and goes black.

“Let us see if they can reprogram that,” she says.

I grit my teeth, frustrated. She's getting too quick with that thing. “But then
we
can't either.”

Then the room goes black, too.

“Delightful,” I say.

“That . . . was not what I intended.”

I find her hand in the darkness and place it on my shoulder. “Just follow me.”

“And how will that help us any more than it already has?”

“I see in the dark,” I say, already moving, “so stop making that pissy face at me and get on the same page.”

The door's thirty-six feet ahead, straight shot.

“How's that possible?” she asks.

“It just is, okay? Always been able to do it. Call it a genetic flaw if it makes you feel better.”

“No, I wish
I
could do it. Sounds useful.”

“You're just saying that. Besides, you got your own tricks. You can't have
everything
. Like, how'd you know that PCF was waiting for us? You read minds or something?”

Nothing.

“What, you didn't see that question coming?”

Livia sighs. “Same as you,” she says. “I could always feel people. Not reading minds, exactly. I just get a sense. Intuition, really. Hardly mind reading at all. But people bleed emotions all the time, it can get really gross, and I can pick up the trail.”

Fourteen more feet to go. No sound except the alarms, faint, but still there.

“Can you feel me now?” I ask her.

“Yes. That's why I chose to answer your question. Because, for a very brief moment, you felt remorseful for your rudeness.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But if I did, it was
very
brief.”

She stumbles, and I catch her before she falls on her face.

“Careful.”

“I can feel him, too,” she says. “I think he's . . . dying.”

I press down the synth-print on the security panel.
Beep
. The doors whoosh open.

Then the cold hits me. I've never felt real cold. The Orphanage was temperature controlled. So was the Academy. Every day the same. Temperature control is pretty necessary for human life to continue to exist in the Lower Levels. Next to me, I can hear Livia's teeth chatter

We take a few steps forward. When we turn the corner, I see a light. Livia shudders.

The focused beam cuts from the ceiling down through the pitch black. At its center is a heap. I can't tell of what. I have to turn away, the force of the beam stings my eyes so bad. That's one major drawback of them being so sensitive.

I rush for the control panel, press the synth-print quickly. The light disappears. Spots dance on my eyes. My entire body feels relieved.

What I see next hurts more than any light ever could.

The pile is a person. Their beaten, crumpled-up body. Face pushed to the floor, arms covering head, defenseless, as if that would be enough to block out the light and stave off blindness.

I didn't know skin could be so many shades of purple and black. I can't see the face. Still, I know. I'd know him anywhere.

Kane
.

The words just tumble out of my mouth.

“Don't be dead.”

“Dead?” Kane lifts his head steadily and smiles at Lex through his swollen lips, his voice hoarse. He goes to laugh, but it sounds like he's choking. “Don't you know me better than that?” He hasn't seen me yet, I don't think, as I stand in the shadows, watching as Lex kneels before him, finding my sudden shyness overwhelming.

I remember his smile, even through the bloom of bruises. He imparted that same grin, looking up from my arms as I held him.
Livia
, he said, before Waslo arrived and the PCF pulled me off him. I watched as they beat him, screaming my throat raw in Waslo's clutches. I've wondered what happened to him every moment since. I feel responsible.

Now the stark reality hits me.

Blistered and shivering, alone in the blinding light: this is his punishment for desiring to kill me.

“Kane,” says Lex, with a tenderness I didn't know her to possess.

“Took you long enough,” he says.

She cradles his cheek with one hand, and he recoils at her touch, no matter how tender she tries to be.

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“You've gone soft,” he says, his laugh causing him to wince. I feel the pain of his raw wounds and know he's hurt much worse in places we can't see. He's very strong to have endured this much without dying already.

“Your chest,” I say. Now he sees me.

“Livia . . .”

I feel my insides leap; I can't control myself.
He doesn't care for you
, I remind myself.
It was all part of his strategy
.

“What the PCF did to me,” he says, before another burst of pain turns his smile into a grimace, “is still better than if you got your hands on me first.” He jokes, but it's not funny.

“Can you move?” asks Lex.

“I don't know. I'm not . . . sure.”

“We can carry you, okay?”

He shakes his head, trying to act strong, but pain is all he feels. It will take ages for him to heal.

“He's damaged inside,” I say. “Moving him will only make it worse.”

This time, Lex doesn't question my feelings.

“Then what do we do?” she asks, her voice wavering despite her carefully guarded control.

I go to Kane, kneeling beside her. Lex forces herself to stand. “I'll keep watch,” she says, disappearing with equal swiftness. She wasn't fast enough, though, for me to miss the tears forming.

“Hey,” Kane says. In the same instant, the room changes, and the cold gives way to a thick, humid heat. My trembling is replaced by intense perspiration; it forms in places not proper for even a former Proper Young Woman.

“Don't mind that,” says Kane, as if it were possible. He sucks in his breath, summoning the energy not to be overwhelmed by his condition. “Climate . . . interrogation,” he says, squeezing his eyes tight. “They figure if they just keep changing the temperature, they'll break me. I think . . . I might even be getting used to it.”

I keep silent until I feel the agony subside.
We have a few moments
, I think,
until the next wave
.

“Kane,” I say. He looks up at me. “I need to touch you.”

“Oh yeah?” he says, the grin returning, only this time a little wicked. “Go right ahead.”

I gently lift his shirt, trying not to cringe at the sight of his injuries. He watches me, still smiling. “If you wanted to see me with my clothes off, all you had to do was ask.”

I gently rest my hands on his rib cage. He's not smiling anymore; it must be draining for him to keep up the good face. His imprisonment is barbaric.

I don't know if they'll be enough, but I have Hep's homemade boosters rattling in my palm. I open the bottle and dump a few in my hand. Too many could kill him. Not enough, and he'll die anyway. I'm no nurse. I have no training.

“Take these,” I say, four of them in hand. He eyes the boosters and I put one on the back of his tongue. I coax him into dry swallowing it, and I'm not sure how many more he'll get down. The second one takes even longer, his throat working overtime, his stomach tightening.

Suddenly, his body goes rigid, his eyes rolling back in his head. I keep hold of him so that he doesn't hurt himself further.

“What are you doing?” screams Lex. Kane's body has now come back to life, his limbs and torso shaking.

“Helping him,” I say. “I gave him some boosters, but . . .”

The room turns icy again, and Kane's tremor begins to subside, and as much as it pains me to see him like this, knowing even further I am the root of it, I hold steady. His pain is all I can feel; it overwhelms my mind and I imagine that I can take it on, I can take on all of his pain until it stops altogether. It is so raw and vicious I bite my lip until it bleeds.

“If you made him worse, I'll kill you,” says Lex. “I swear, Livia, I'll take you by the—”

“Calm down, killer,” says Kane. Her eyes widen as he begins to move, carefully pulling himself to lean against me. “I'm okay,” he says. “Just a case of the shakes.”

He looks at me, our faces close enough to be touching. “You
punch me in the face,” he says, “then . . .” He's breathing heavily. Whatever I have done terrifies and intrigues him. “But I must be forgetting something in between . . .”

I don't need to sense him to know that he remembers the kiss as clearly as I do.

“You, Livia Cosmo, are the strangest girl I have ever met.” He gives me that curling smile, his eyes glittering with life once again.

No
, I tell myself.
You won't allow him to charm you. Not this time.

“Almost done?” asks Lex.

“Almost,” I say. I feel her not quite believing me, but not wanting to argue. She's worried and distracted. “Hurry,” she says. “I can hear them coming.”

“Perhaps I'm strange,” I tell Kane, “but I'm also trustworthy. And if I punched you, it was only because I had good reason.”

His grin fades.

“You were sent to kill me,” I say.

He nods faintly.

I feel Lex's eyes burning into me. “Give me your injured hand,” I tell him. He holds it out to me. I rest my own unblemished hand on his rough, callused palm. The hand of someone who makes things.

“My hand isn't injured.”

“I know,” I say sharply. “But Lex is watching closely, and I need answers.
Quickly
.” I half close my eyes. “First you spied on me, from the rig. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” he says.

“You did this for quite a while?”

“Much longer than was required. I couldn't help it. I could have watched you for—”

“No,” I say. I won't let him distract me. “You tried to kill me, Kane.”

“No. I didn't. I was sent to kill you, but I couldn't go through with it. I had the tablet ready. All I had to do was kiss you—”