Abandon (12 page)

“Zenn, Raine wants to see you. Oh, and we’re leaving in the morning for Lakehead.”

“Already? I just got back.” I’d signed up for the traveling team, but I still wanted more than eight hours on the ground. A large part of me wanted to fly with Saffediene again. I
wondered how obvious it would be if I asked to go with her instead of Gunn.

He clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Well, welcome back. Come on.” He left me standing there, still staring at Jag.

*   *   *

I found Gunn in Raine’s room. They sat in comfortable silence, clearly caching it up. I almost felt like I was intruding, until Raine’s face lit up. She jumped up and hugged me.

Zenn
, she chatted.
You look awful.

Thanks a lot.
Using my cache felt strange, yet perfectly familiar, especially with Raine. I still had a blip of fear about who would be listening before I remembered that I wasn’t linked in to Freedom’s network anymore.

No one was listening.

No one cared.

She grinned.
You know I mean that in a good way.

Sure, sure
, I cached, but I was smiling too.

Tell us about Harvest
, Gunn’s voice joined the convo, and my smile faltered at his choice of topics.

I didn’t know what info to give about what had gone down in Harvest. Saffediene and I hadn’t talked about the riot or if we were going to tell anyone. Our mission with Director Benes had gone off without a hitch.

Did the Resistance need to know about everything that
happened there? I didn’t know anything about transportation disputes, and surely our people would be ready to fight the Thinkers when we needed them.

Everything went as planned
, I chatted. Technically it wasn’t a lie, so I didn’t feel guilty, which is usually how people get caught lying.
Director Benes is solid.

Raine looked more alive today. She at least knew my name. “How are you doing?” I asked her.

“Good,” she said, reaching for Gunn’s hand with her gloved one. “I can remember my name now. And Gunn’s, and yours, and Jag’s. Gunner’s been quizzing me for hours.” She smiled at him, but the edges quivered, like she might be embarrassed she couldn’t recall the details of her life.

“That’s great,” I said. I wouldn’t want to be shown pictures and be able to recognize the faces but unable to recall names. I wouldn’t want my memory erased, no matter how painful some of it was. “What happened after you helped us escape?”

“Is this my official report?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m second-in-command. I can take your report.”

She smirked. “Second-in-command. Zenn, please. You’re not second.”

“Third?” I joked.

“First,” she said.

“Oh, no,” I said, my voice full of mock seriousness. “Jag is forever first.” The exchange almost called for laughter. Both Raine and Gunn knew how much I’d lost when we’d busted Jag out of prison. And neither of them pretend very well.

“I’m sorry,” Raine said.

Somehow her apology boosted my mood. I wouldn’t say losing Vi to Jag was okay, because it wasn’t. Technically it sucked big-time. I shrugged. “Voices are never nobody, right?”

“Right,” Gunner said.

“So, let’s hear what you can remember,” I said to Raine. “Gunn, you want to record it?”

“Sure,” he said, and blinked to turn on his cache.

Raine suddenly looked like a shell of herself. “I remember the blood the most.”

From there, she detailed how she’d held on to her father’s face for as long as she could. How the sirens sounded like screams, how the rain came and erased so much more than the filth from her hands.

“The next thing I knew, I was attending class on the Fourth Level, and everyone was calling me Arena. The name never quite fit, but I couldn’t remember anything else.”

“What about Cannon?” Gunn asked. Cannon had been Raine’s match and best friend in Freedom.

“Who’s Cannon?” she asked. Gunn and I exchanged a glance.

“I can tell you later,” Gunn said. “Let’s continue with the report for now.”

“I went to genetics and biology in the morning. In the afternoons I worked in the Evolutionary Rise in an analysis lab, or in Rise One with my guardian—” She cleared her throat. “I mean, my father—Van Hightower.”

“What did you do in the Evolutionary Rise, specifically?” I asked. Gunner shifted nervously, a signal I’d grown to recognize when he was being secretive. He knew something about the Evolutionary Rise. I knew what the scientists were trying to do there: produce clones.

“The analysis lab where I worked was testing blood for abnormalities. Diseases I could barely remember the name of at the time. I didn’t do very well there. And I was failing biology. I couldn’t remember taking any bio courses before.” She hung her head as if she should be ashamed. In her semi-Modified state, she probably was.

“You’d never taken bio,” Gunn said. “You told me you were taking it next term.” He squeezed her hand, and when she looked at him, hope shone in her eyes.

“I remember now. You showed me the stars.” A smile played at her lips.

“Yes,” Gunn said. “You asked me to—”

“Name an animal, and I’d tell you which kingdom it belonged in,” Raine said. “I remember.” The grin bloomed across her face, making her appear healthier. More alive.

“That’s great,” I said. “What did you do in Rise One?”

“Drains,” she said, her joy over her recovered memories fading into seriousness. Gunner shot me a look filled with caution.

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes every day.”

“One or two or three a day?”

“I couldn’t handle more than one. If I had to drain someone, I got the rest of the day off. I almost—” She swallowed hard. “I almost liked doing them.” Her voice ghosted into silence.

“It’s okay, Raine,” Gunn murmured.

“I wasn’t tied down,” she said. Suddenly her eyes grew wide. She moaned like a frightened animal. “I used to be strapped down during the drains.” Her eyes rapidly shifted between me and Gunner. “Didn’t I?”

“Yes,” I said. Gunn nodded, and a single tear trickled down Raine’s cheek. She swiped at it and took a deep breath.

“I wasn’t tethered during the drains as Arena. They didn’t hurt as much. I—I liked doing them because then I could go home, get away from everyone watching me.” Raine shivered. “Their eyes felt like razors.”

“I love you,” Gunner said, and he pressed his lips to her temple.

She leaned into him, gratitude in her eyes.

“Anything else you might want on the report?” I asked, a surge of loneliness and jealousy roaring through me. Gunner watched me with sympathetic eyes, but that only made me feel irritated on top of isolated.

She shook her head. “Gunner is going to tell me about the flight trials,” she said. “He says I’m a good flier.”

“You are,” I assured her. Gunn’s fingers moved up her arm, and I took that as my cue to leave. I’d have to corner Gunn later for what he knew about the Evolutionary Rise.

I’d never ventured into Saffediene’s room before, but my feet took me there now. She had a curtain hanging on the wall. I stared at it, marveling at its normalcy, wondering if a window really lurked behind it.

“It’s just for decoration,” she said through the darkness. She pressed a button and a dim lamp flared to life. Shadows chased each other across her bed and concealed half her face.

“Hey,” I said. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

She shifted on her cot and gestured to the small space at the end.

I sat, suddenly nervous to be there. I didn’t know why, but I thought the way Saffediene and I had been holding
hands and lying in each other’s arms may have had something to do with it.

“About what we saw in Harvest . . .”

“That riot,” she said. Saffediene didn’t like to sugarcoat things. She called it how she saw it. I remembered when she did that during engineering class. I’d taken it as another sign that she was thinking for herself.

“Yeah, the riot,” I said. “I don’t think we should detail that in our report.”

Silence stretched so long that I squinted at her to determine what she was thinking. She twirled the ties on her quilt, her eyebrows furrowed.

“What’s the purpose of keeping it a secret?” she asked.

“Maybe it’s an isolated incident,” I said. “Also, it has nothing to do with our mission. Director Benes is still solidly on board. I don’t think Jag needs the complication of some stupid transportation dispute in a city hundreds of miles away.” I shrugged in an attempt to look nonchalant. “I just don’t think it’s necessary. What do you think?”

Insider Tip #5: Always ask for another’s opinion. That way, you’ll never come off as the one making all the decisions.

She kept her eyes on the blanket for another few moments, then raised her gaze to mine. Her fingers went still. “I think Jag needs to know everything.”

I wasn’t sure, but I thought that statement held a double meaning. “Yes, eventually,” I said. “But right now?”

“If Benes can’t even solve his labor disputes, how is he going to send people when we need them?” she asked.

“Who directs the transportation department is a far cry from sending Insiders to help take down Freedom,” I said.

She nodded, her attention back on the blanket. She seemed so forlorn.

“What else is bothering you?” Saffediene had been so in tune with my troubles with Vi, but I was surprised that I’d noticed she wasn’t her normal self.

She exhaled, and seemed to further deflate. “You’re going to Lakehead,” she said, her voice hesitant.

“Yeah, so?” I asked. “It’s a day trip. Though I’m sure I’ll have some crazy-late watch assignment after that.”

She smiled, but it came and went before it could truly settle on her mouth. I caught myself staring and glanced away.

“Yeah, so, I’ll miss you.” She met my gaze with a challenge. For the first time since I recruited her, I did a little bit of investigating inside her mind.

And oh, man. She—

“I like you, Zenn,” she said. She shifted on the bed, and I shot to my feet.

“I should go.”

Saffediene’s eyes pinched as hurt crossed her face.

“Maybe when I get back we can . . . talk some more.”

“Yeah, talk,” she said, dipping her chin so I couldn’t see her eyes.

“Uh, what about Harvest?” I asked.

“I won’t say anything in the report,” she said. “I’ll file it tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said, releasing a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

I stood in the doorway, wanting to make this right before I flew away. No matter who stood in front of me, I’d always spoken the right words and known just the right thing to do to maintain their trust.

But this was outside my scope of Insider training. They didn’t offer a course on how to deal with free-thinking girls who liked you.

Finally I said, “Saffediene?”

She looked up.

“I’ll miss you too.”

And that was the truth.

17
.
I cross the border at a run, like I usually do. Entering the Goodgrounds has become easier over the years. A surge of satisfaction blankets me as I leap a small ditch and set my sights on the forest. I’d rather enter the city from the south, where there are bigger crowds to get lost in, but my reports say an armed contingency of authorities have been hovering in the Southern Rim.

Coming this way means I have to sneak through the Centrals—which have very little cover in mid-April. But whatever. I’ve snuck through the Centrals many times, and hey, this way I can distribute my tech along the way.

I steer clear of the Fire Region, because the heat there compromises my tech. Instead I loop around the lake and head to the market square, where people gather to receive their daily supplies.

When I arrive in the hundred acres of cleared fields, my head spins. Farmers display their goods—mostly the last of the winter potatoes and squash. Craftsmen exhibit their leftover cloth, leather, shoes, and hats.

A flash of green cloth causes me to dart behind an empty stall. The Greenies are here, checking cards and display permits. I don’t understand why. It’s not like someone could sneak into the Goodgrounds, start growing corn, and then show up to sell it here.

There’s no buying and selling in the Goodgrounds. The people work the jobs they’re told, and in return the Thinkers provide them with necessities. This market is trade only, and the Citizens are allowed to bring only whatever’s left over after the government has taken what they need to sustain their population.

No, the Greenies are here to make an example of someone. I’m determined that it not be me.

I slip down the rows of wares, pausing briefly at a teched-out stand displaying silver spheres and cubes and all manner of things I can’t even begin to imagine.

Pace could though, and he’d kill to get his hands on this
technology. My hands twitch, desperate to pilfer some of this and bring it back to him in the Badlands. Of course I’d have to hold on to it for a while, since I don’t exactly know where he is at the moment. But he shows up from time to time, always looking well fed and happy to see me.

“Over here,” someone says, and I tear myself away from the tech booth. The familiar voice came from between two stalls, and I don’t even think before stepping into the space.

“Brother-man,” Irvine Blightingdale says, shaking my hand. His engulfs mine, and looks twice as dark as my heavily tanned one. I quickly pull my long sleeves down to hide my incriminating skin after he releases me.

“Irv,” I say, “how long have you been here?”

“Couple of minutes. I knew you’d get all trapped up in that tech.” His shoulders shake with laughter, but no sound comes out.

“Yeah, well.” I scan the area behind us, which is just the back of two more huts. “I was thinking that I could leave my wares in that stand,” I say. “No distribution required. But there are Greenies here.”

“Yeah, I seen ’em,” he says.