The Killing Jar (33 page)

CPI-AO-301, NEW YORK

AUGUST 28, 2232

After Kaufman left, Maggie remained. She wanted something.

“I have a favor to ask.” She folded her hands in front of her.

He would give her anything in the world, but he replied, “You already pulled strings to get Kaufman back, though I still don’t understand why. You’re hardly in a position to ask for favors.”

“I need to go back to the Root. Just for a while, to make sure everything’s okay.”

Silas laughed. “Absolutely not.”

“Well, for one, I’m hardly going to be useful if I’m distracted worrying about her, and second, you can’t really stop me.” Silas knew she wanted to see Hadley, but he couldn’t risk her going into the underground and never coming back. Not now.

But she was right. He couldn’t stop her. He could try, but she’d slip away like always.

He didn’t really have a choice. So he tried to sway her. “Maggie, you just underwent an extraction. You’ve had a major head injury. You’re not up to make a trip like that.”

“I’m fine. Stop making excuses. What happened to letting me make my own decisions?” She shot him a pointed look.

“Why so eager to return all the sudden?” he retorted. Then he realized. “You never meant to stay, did you?”

Maggie shook her head, her eyes soft and sad. “No, I was going to leave the first chance I got. Once I was sure you wouldn’t be able to find us.”

Silas felt the air lock in his chest. He should have known, should have expected it from her. She never wanted to be at CPI, and why should she? Still, it felt like a betrayal.

“But I’ve decided to stay,” she reminded him. “So I need to get everything squared away at home. Make sure she’s taken care of. Then I’ll be back and we’ll figure this thing out.”

“The streets are dangerous.” It was all he could come up with, though it sounded lame even to him.

Maggie smiled then. “Not for me. I’ll only be gone a few days, promise.”

“How do I know you’ll come back?”

“Because I’m here, letting you know that I will.” She was serious.

Silas huffed. He’d already lost this one. They both knew it. But he wouldn’t concede so easily. “We have rules against this you know. Very strict ones. No recruits can leave CPI or contact anyone from their personal lives.”

“I know.”

“After this, you follow all rules, regulations, and protocols without question or argument, understood?”

She smiled again. “Understood.”

Silas stroked his chin as his mind raced. He had to find a way to salvage this. “I have a few conditions.”

“Whatever you want.” He realized then that she meant to go to the Root, but that she wanted to leave with his trust intact. She would make consolations to maintain their new understanding.

“You take the shuttle. You get in and out as fast as possible. Two days max.”

Maggie nodded.

“You keep in constant contact. I send you a comm, you reply. I don’t want to sit here worried about you the whole time.”

She nodded again.

Silas grasped for something, anything to make the situation better. He only had one thing left, though he didn’t really like it. Still, it was better than letting her go alone.

“And Kaufman goes with you.”

CPI-RQ2-06, NEW YORK

AUGUST 29, 2232

The empty equipment bag sat on her bed as she pulled the clothes from her dresser drawers, clothes she’d only worn a few times and some she’d never had a chance to wear at all. Everything went in the bag. She hoped it would be enough.

Her hands shook with nerves and excitement. She couldn’t wait to see Hadley, even Rowen, though they hadn’t exactly left on great terms.

But the last time she left CPI, a strange bug had crawled inside her brain and nearly killed her. The shaved side of her head was a stark reminder she wasn’t always as capable as she thought.

Mable refused to think of that now. She was going back to the Root, the only other place that felt like home to her. Dasia lay curled in her bed in nothing but the sheets, chestnut hair haloed around her face.

Mable considered waking her, letting her know she was leaving, but thought better of it. With her black messenger bag already over her shoulder, Mable slung on the over-stuffed duffel bag and headed out.

Two doors down, she knocked on Theo’s door. When he answered, his bag was already on his shoulder.

“We’re really doing this?” he asked. With his eyes slightly wide, he almost looked scared. His hair was long enough to offer him some bit of coverage on his head. He actually looked kind of nice.

“You don’t have to come.” It wasn’t the first time she’d told him.

“Dr. Arrenstein said I had to go with you.”

Mable sighed. Oh well.

“Let’s get going then.” Arrenstein had made her wait until morning, hoping she’d change her mind or get distracted. She played along, because she knew it was important to him, but she wouldn’t be dissuaded. She was going.

Mable turned to head up to Arrenstein’s office, but Theo stopped in the corridor. “Where are you going?”

“To get the travel badges.”

“I’ve got them.” Theo pulled the pair of metal bracelets from his pocket as proof.

“When?” She fell into step beside him as they walked to the pod garage.

“About an hour ago. He gave me this big speech about keeping you safe and that he’ll kill me if I don’t. Then he gave me these.”

Mable laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth. Apparently everyone liked to threaten Theo with death. They should make a club or something.

Theo pressed his lips together and readjusted the strap of his bag. “I don’t think it’s funny.”

It only made her laugh harder. She clutched her chest and had to stop walking so she could laugh without falling.

Theo crossed his arms and waited for her to finish.

Mable coughed a few times and cleared her throat, but the smile never left her face.

“You’re that excited to go back?”

“Yeah, I am.” There was no point in denying it. She was so excited she thought it might burst out of her.

They walked to the pod and Theo scanned the badges to enter the coordinates for the shuttle terminal. “Are you mad he made you go?” she asked when he remained silent.

“No, not really.”

“Then what?”

“I wish I could go home, too. I mean, I can’t. I know that. But there’s a part of me that’s jealous I guess.”

The pod whirred down the road on autopilot. The wheels produced the only sound in the small transparent sphere.

“You would go back if you could?” she asked him.

“I would go see some friends. I don’t really need to stay or anything, just make sure they’re okay.” Theo gazed ahead, as if he had merely been talking to himself and she’d happened to overhear him.

Mable cringed as she stared out the pod window, watching the pod garage turn into wide streets between towering skyscrapers. She hadn’t wanted to make the others jealous, but she couldn’t help it. She had to go back.

It was strange to think that Theo had once had a life on the outside. Of course he had, they all did, but so infrequently did he mention anything, it was easy to forget. She wondered what kind of person he’d been before.

“We could do that. If you want. It’s only fair.” Mable didn’t see the harm in it.

“No, we’re supposed to the Root and back right away. Where is it anyway? The badges say we’re going to Chicago.”

She noticed his change of subject but didn’t argue. “It’s the city beneath Chicago. You know, the
underground
.”

“Oh. That makes sense I guess.”

“What?” She knew he was lying.

“I didn’t realize it was literally underground. I mean, I’ve seen
Un
—I’ve seen people around town. I thought—”

There was a moment there where she thought of laughing at him, at his ignorance and naivety. But it wasn’t his fault, not really. He just didn’t know better. In that way, Mable felt sad for him, for the bubble boy so isolated, he didn’t even know there was a whole world he was missing.

“There’s no such thing as an Untouchable. Not really,” she explained, unafraid to utter the word that scared so many. “Those that fall out of society eventually find their way to the underground. Class doesn’t matter there. As long as you have something to offer, a skill, some kind of information or knowledge about something important, then it doesn’t really matter where you came from.”

Theo’s brow wrinkled as if he didn’t quite believe her. She understood. She hadn’t believed it either, not until she lived it.

“It’s a whole other world. You’ll see.” For the first time since hearing of Arrenstein’s non-negotiable condition of bringing Theo, Mable was excited. She would like showing him the other side of things.

He shook his head and laughed a little.

“What?”

“You’re going to be nice to me now?” He finally looked at her.

Mable shrugged. “Yeah, why?”

“I thought you hated me. I nearly killed you. And now you’re being nice?” His features were serious. His smoke-grey eyes bored through her.

The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. “Yeah, is that okay?”

“It’s more than okay.” Theo smiled, a warm sunny smile that could melt the coolest of hearts, one she had no doubt he practiced on a few defenseless damsels. It was a smile that made her heart beat in her chest.

CPI-GALLEY, NEW YORK

AUGUST 29, 2232

CPI felt empty without Mable. It was a massive complex and she was only one person of many, but still it felt as if a big piece of Dasia had gone, too.

Not in the mood to work, she walked to the galley and found Georgie alone at a table of over-flowing platters. She sat across from him and asked, “No Knox today?”

Georgie shook his head. His long brown hair waved with the motion. “Said he had a meeting with Arrenstein. You know what any of this is?”

Dasia leaned in and gazed at the bowl. “This one is corn. Those are strawberries and the blue ones are blueberries. I don’t know what this white stuff is.” She scooped at the cream with a cracker and tasted it, but came up short. It was lightly sweet and sour. “I have no idea,” she admitted.

“This one’s a strawberry?” Georgie held the bright red fruit between his fingers as if it might bite him.

“Never seen berries before?” she asked with food still in her cheek.

Georgie shook his head.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” His thin lips pulled into a smile but his eyes remained distant, staring at the bounty between them. He looked like he could gain twenty pounds and still be skinny.

“You’re from the city?” she asked, unsure of what to say.

“Yeah, San Diego. Never left before I came here.”

“Do you miss it?”

Georgie nodded several times. “Yeah, but not really. I miss my sisters, but I don’t miss being hungry.”

“How old are they?” Sisters seemed a safer topic than hunger.

“Elizabeth is thirteen. Victoria’s nine and Mary’s just five.”

“I’m guessing your mom had a thing for British royalty?”

Georgie smiled. He’d probably heard it a thousand times.

“And all those sisters? I bet you had your hands full.”

His smile faded in an instant. He looked at his hands. “I had a brother, James, too. He was almost three.”

Dasia’s heart broke a little. She had to know. “What happened?”

“He got sick. We all did, but he was too little. Just couldn’t get past it.” Georgie’s eyes focused on his fingers, twitching and fidgeting in front of him.

She reached a hand out and covered both of his. “I’m really sorry.”

For the first time, he looked up at her, his eyes so clear and strong, she knew he actually saw her. The intensity of his gaze made her heart pound in her chest.

Georgie smiled again, this time brighter. “It’s not your fault.”

Though she knew he meant his brother, Dasia couldn’t help but feel a part of that was about Cole. It wasn’t her fault, not entirely. Maybe there was something in that.

But she was determined to be punished for his death. It had to be her fault.

“After James, Ma took us to the shuttle dock. I think she didn’t know what to do. She found the manager and asked him to give me a job. Over and over until he called Collectors to come get us. Nick showed up and asked if I’d join up. Now I’m here and they have a nice little house in town. Nothing fancy, but it’s better than the streets. She got set up with papers and got a job at a little shop. My sisters started classes at the center. I think James would have liked that.”

Dasia could only nod, her voice trapped behind a wall of tears. She couldn’t let one out without the other.

“What about your folks?” His tone was easy and open.

Dasia pulled back her hand and cleared her throat. “Nothing like that. They were farmers.”

“What happened to them?”

She realized she’d spoken about them in past tense. “Nothing. They’re still farmers. Maybe not now, but they were.”

“Because you left?”

She nodded, her eyes down.

“Do you like it here?”

Dasia shrugged. She liked being away from Cole’s parents. Her relationship with Mable was exciting in way she wouldn’t have thought possible. As for CPI, she didn’t know how she felt. She didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t a home yet either. Maybe it never would be.

Georgie accepted her silence graciously. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

She offered him a half-hearted smile. “Thanks.”

“You should talk about it though. With someone. I think it helps.”

“Who’d you tell?”

Georgie laughed for a moment. “I told you.”