Coda (31 page)

“What was Johnny? Collateral damage? You got him out of the way because you knew I’d start the concerts if it was up to me. Get as many people as possible to like my music
before
they unveiled their new experiment. I watched him
die
.” Spots dance in front of my eyes, my pulse roars in my ears. I’m done. They’re not going to get away with this. My shattered pieces reform, glued together by anger.

He smiles again, teeth stained red. Blood-flowers bloom on his tie, the edges round and uneven. “You’re smarter than you look. They seemed as good a way as any to test how
specific
we could be. Oh, we could have just quietly gotten rid of Johnny, made it less obvious like we did with the others, but I wanted you to figure it out. I wanted you mad.”

My boot crashes into his chest, and he curls up, crying out. “You got your wish,” I spit.

Hands clamp around my arms. I can’t reach Yellow Guy with my feet anymore. “Do we have a problem, Citizen?”

From the floor, Yellow Guy shakes his head. “He’s . . . just angry
. . . that I dumped his friend. Nothing to worry . . . about. Just escort him . . . somewhere else. Don’t mention this to anyone. And send for a med-tech.” He waves a yellow-nailed hand.

Doubt relaxes the guard’s hold on me, but he doesn’t let go completely. “Are you sure?”

“Do as I say,” Yellow Guy orders. The guard pulls me away with a vicious jerk, dragging me down the hall and into the elevator before he lets me go to sag against the wall. My knuckles hurt. Everything hurts, and I was so wrong about Haven. I should have trusted her. And myself.

They used one of the mind-control tracks on her before making that video, making her believe anything, do anything, say anything for long enough to convince me. Maybe they still are, or they’ve wiped her memory, and that’s why she’s stayed away from me. Or Yellow Guy is right.

I open my mouth to demand to be taken to Ell and change my mind. She was wrong. I can trust people, just not her. I press my lips together. I need time to think, and I need to see the twins.

It might be the last time I ever do, after I’m finished with Ell. The thought yanks my lungs into my mouth.

We’re always under guard. I can’t remember the last time I was awake and alone for more than twenty feet. Lurking on the other side of doors, of glass, casting shadows that seep into the room. I’m pretty sure I have to be careful about what I say and do in my apartment. Phoenix’s new place is probably the same. Where there aren’t guards, there’s Ell, with her snapping fingers and heels. I have no good excuse for visiting Scope and Pixel down in Two when I see them almost every day up here.

I spend the pod ride trying to calm myself. I should’ve killed that fucker with my bare hands.

No. I need to be smart. Maybe for the first time since this whole mess began . . . or longer than that.

Haven was killing herself for me. The itch that began the first night Ell took me to Sky-Club Six has finally been scratched by something that asshole said, and my mind is finally clear enough to understand what bothered me so much. She could have stayed in the upper-Web, Sky-Clubbing to mild tracks that wouldn’t invade her brain so much. Instead, she used the stronger tracks she’d have gotten from her console at home,
and
came down to Two to see me almost every night.

I want to blame my willingness to believe that it was her on the nine days I spent in the cell while they broke me with silence and lights and slick promises.

I want a lot of things.

Choruses of “Ant!” chime through the apartment as soon as I open the door, still lowering my wrist from the scanner. The guard takes his place in the hall, feet spread, hands behind his back. I shut the door on him.

“Hey, you two,” I croak. “I missed you.” Anger steps back, just a little, to lurk in the shadows.

“That lady with too many teeth said you were sick. Are you better now?”

“Much. Have you been good for Bee?”

They don’t quite meet my eyes when they say they have been. Strangely, it’s comforting. Getting into trouble was so much simpler when I was a kid.

“We wanted to see you,” Omega says, tugging on the hand I punched Yellow Guy with, not noticing my wince. Good. “But Teeth-Lady said we couldn’t.”

I try to smile. “I was asleep the whole time. It would’ve been
pretty boring for you.” I can’t confront Ell. Not yet. I can’t leave them. Can’t give this up. And there’s more than that, too. “Are there any cookies, or have you eaten them all?”

They drag me to the kitchen, and Bee turns from the counter as soon as we enter. I still don’t know how she does that. A smile deepens the creases in her face, and she beckons me over to pat me on the shoulder, examining my eyes for a long moment before she nods.

“
Thank you
,” I mouth. Her smile widens.

Through the evening, my mind is a puzzle with mismatched pieces I need to fit together, all in shades of violent red. Protect the twins. Find Haven. Cause Yellow Guy pain that will make a broken nose seem like nothing. Stop the Corp.

I’ve never been so glad to OD. Now, I can think again. My skin tingles and my head hurts, but I leave the headphones hanging lonely on their hook. Not tonight.

The twins are doing well with their homework since Bee is better at math than I am. Whatever I do, I’m saving her as well.

Bedtime stories roll automatically off my tongue, the same ones I’ve always told them, ones my mother told me and I don’t need to think about to repeat.

I feel like I’m back in the basement again, after Johnny’s death. They’re going to pay. For all of it.

The console screen glares seductively at me. I ignore it and keep pacing around the room, bare feet whispering on the thick carpet. My temples throb and I press my palms to them to hold my thoughts in so I can sift through memories fuzzed by rage and fear and too many tracks.

We were set up, and we played—literally—into the Corp’s hands. I wonder if Yellow Guy got a promotion for a job well done.

“
All of you can walk into the building, and no one will suspect you
.
Then
use the army you guys have already built up here
.”

Haven was right the whole time, and we’re deeper inside the Corp now than ever. Spoiled musicians, their hold on us enough to make them believe we won’t fight back. Maybe not the last people they’d expect, or there wouldn’t be guards outside my door, but close.

Dusky shades of early sunrise paint the sky over the park, coating the cherry trees in false pink. I have a plan now.

It’s time to live up to my name.

A handful of guards look up, the window between the studio and the control room rattling in its frame. “I want to take my brother and sister to visit our parents in Quadrant Two’s CRC this afternoon,” I say, lowering my hand and turning to the others. “You guys want to go?” We all have family in there.

Scope’s eyes narrow. I don’t blink.
Please, get this. It’s the only idea I have. Trust me
. “Yeah,” he says, loud enough for his voice to breach the barrier.

“Sure.”

“Sounds good,” Pixel adds.

The chief guard nods. “I’ll arrange it,” he says, pulling out his tablet.

“Thanks.” I pick up my guitar again. “You guys ready?”

They’re all watching me. I strum the opening notes of the song we’re rehearsing and avoid Scope’s eyes. I’m dreading the moment when I have to tell him the truth, but there’s no way out of it. The strings dig into my fingers, and I grit my teeth.

Normal. Just act normal.

Ell’s visit this morning nearly undid me. The room got smaller,
my breathing got harder, and my fingernails left deep dents in my palms. She’ll be the first to regret everything she’s done. I gripped my guitar, tempted by its solid weight and her fragile skull until she left again.

Pixel starts in with the drums. Music. This is normal. Right now, right here, I know who I am. My body moves without conscious orders from my brain, a link to melody and rhythm that runs in my blood.

Low, rumbling, sensuous and deadly, like that snake from the club is coiled in my veins.

If I get my way and we can make it work, soon everyone who wants to will be able to feel this. Phoenix’s keyboards chime in; she’s done something different with them, created a ghostly sound like a gale blowing through power lines. Nice. Scope loops a sample of rain against glass around the rest of us.

I sing my voice to shreds. When the others need a break, I follow them to the console and find the mildest tracks I can.

Scope, Pixel, and Phoenix stay in the pod while I go up to my apartment to get the twins. Their excitement for going
home
stings. They insist on taking Bee’s cookies down for the others. Phoenix’s awkwardness with them almost makes me smile for real.

The front of the Citizen Remembrance Center glows welcoming green. For a moment, I hold a fragment of hope in my hand that Haven will be in the lobby, gazing at the artwork, waiting for me.

“A little respect?” I say to the two guards who’ve accompanied us here. “It’s not your parents in there.”

They stop and exchange glances. “You have one hour.”

My watch catches the sun. I pull back my sleeve to expose my chip. Scope keeps hold of Alpha and Omega for me, and we file inside, up the stairs to the third floor. I scan the ceiling, looking for halos of light. One, along a stack in the middle. Okay. I lead everyone down to my mother’s locker, set up the chip in a viewer for the twins, and find a long memory that will keep them busy for a little while.

I wish they could see everything, like I have.

“Come on,” I say to Pixel, Scope, and Phoenix. We crowd into a corner.

“What’s going on?” Scope asks. “Why did you need to get us alone?”

“We won’t be overheard here, but keep your voice down. We don’t have a lot of time. Scope, I . . . I learned something yesterday.”

Phoenix and Pixel lean in closer. Scope eyes me warily. “What?”

He needs to know
. “It wasn’t Haven who told the Corp about us. It was . . .
him
.” Scope stares at me, comprehension sinking in the second before he punches the wall, an inch from my head, as the other two gasp. I hear his knuckles crack. Alpha’s head peers around the stack, and I smile reassuringly at her. “Go back to Omega, okay?”

“Slimy little fucker,” Pixel hisses when Alpha’s gone. “How do you know?”

“I ran into him,” I say, grabbing Scope’s hand to stop him from doing it again. “All dressed up in a suit, coming out of one of the offices. He didn’t even try to weasel out of it.”

“I’m gonna kill him.”

“He’s not our biggest problem right now. There’s something I haven’t told you guys.”

“What?” Phoenix asks, tight-lipped. I don’t blame her.

I take a deep breath. “The stuff we’ve been recording . . . it’s not for normal tracks. Not like we know. And it’s not for killing tracks, either.” I lower my voice further, to a whisper, and explain everything I learned in the sound lab and from Yellow Guy. The special, person-specific encoding. The mind and body control. I tell them Johnny’s death was on Yellow Guy’s orders, to get him out of the way. And probably on Haven, to make her act the way they wanted so they could shatter me into malleable pieces. Why they wanted me in the first place. What Yellow Guy did to Scope.

“Holy shit.”

I look at Pixel. “Yeah.” The rage is getting hotter again. I clench my free hand and try to hold myself together.