Coda (34 page)

Not without my help._ It makes me smile, too. They’ve taken her hearing, but they haven’t taken
her
. Together, we’ll finish what we started.

She wants to see the twins but understands why she can’t, not yet, and asks about my father. I swallow the lump in my throat once to speak, again when I remember I don’t have to.

“It’ll be okay,” Mage says a minute later, grasping my arm and pulling me down the stairs, away from her. “She knows where to meet us, and her new tab number’s in that one.”

“Vortex,” I tell the guard, jerking my thumb at Mage. “Have to get this one some new clothes.” I take my seat, and Mage’s tablet buzzes in my hand.

They took her straight from that leather chair in that comfortable office to the same medical facility in which I was treated after I finally caved. We must have missed each other by minutes. Maybe we were even there at the same time. I swallow stinging acid. It took four guards to hold her down, her drug-induced complacent happiness replaced by screams and terror.

My tabs asking about the pain and her weeks of withdrawal go ignored, answered instead by questions of her own. More fuel for the fire inside.

Phoenix, Pixel, and Scope beat us to the Vortex, their pod idling outside a row of stores.

“Fashion consultant,” Phoenix says at our guard’s raised eyebrows. “You think these guys know anything? Mage, you look like hell.”

“Good to see you too, girl,” he says, hugging her in the middle of the neon-bathed sidewalk. The others exchange high fives with him, and we turn to face the two scowling uniforms.

“Uh, yeah, this is gonna take a while,” Phoenix says. “Obviously. I mean, look at him.”

I wait, breath held. My fingers twitch, still warm from Haven’s skin but cooling too quickly.

“I’m not here to watch a bunch of fucking kids play dress-up,” my guard mutters under his breath. “We’ll be in there.” He points to a water bar on the corner.

“We’ll find you when we’re done,” I say. “C’mon, guys.”

Inside a store filled with racks of leather and vinyl, I toss one of everything in Mage’s size onto the counter and pay, not meeting the bewildered eyes of the employee. Pixel turns from the window, thumb up.

“Good to go.”

Mage leads us out, around the corner into an alley that smells of rot and rain. Tendrils of light from the signs on the street stretch into its mouth and we run beyond their reach, down to the iron disc set into the ground that Pixel promised was here. I land in the tunnel below and take off, following the directions Mage calls from somewhere behind me.

“Wait!” Mage says and I stop, lungs burning. A glow of green light beckons ahead. Once, twice he flicks a flashlight on and off; its beam bounces off a far wall. “Be bad to sneak up and scare her.”

“Thanks,” I say, my throat dry.

“Mage, what—?” Pixel starts. I don’t hear the rest because I’m moving again, into the alcove where Mage has set up the gear we bought. Monitors glow, and a rainbow tangle of fiber-optic cables streaks across the floor. Everything hums, not as strong as the mainframe, but enough that it raises the skin on my arms. A nest of blankets is piled along one wall with a pillow on top of them.

“Haven!” Scope yells, voice echoing up slimed brick. He rushes past me, picks her up, and swings her around. Holding her so close, he can’t see the pain on her face. Phoenix is busy hugging Mage. But Pixel notices. His eyes follow me as I pull Scope away and put my arm around her shoulders.

“Haven? How are you?” Pixel asks, nearing her. She does a good job of pretending, watching his lips and forcing a smile, but not good enough. The concentration is evident as she tries to figure out what he said. He looks at me. “No way.”

I nod.

“What?” Phoenix and Scope ask together. Pixel is more gentle with her than Scope was; I release her into his arms and he kisses her cheek.

“She can’t hear you,” I say. “She’s an . . . She can’t hear you.” Their mouths drop open into shocked silence.

It makes Haven’s scratchy voice louder. “The first person to treat me like some kind of delicate princess is going to regret it,” she says. “I may be deaf, but my eyes and my brain are working just fine. I’ve had weeks to cry and break shit. I’m done now. That goes for you, too, Anthem.” She squeezes my hand for a second, and my stomach unknots. I was right. They haven’t taken her.

“Always knew I liked you.” Phoenix grins. Haven seems to get the sentiment and smiles back, a real one this time.

“Pixel?” I offer Mage’s tablet to him, my glance cutting briefly to Haven. He shakes his head and pulls out his own, ready to tell her what I say.

“I need to get Tango. We’ll need power. And we’re going to need Crave, too. Mage, you have to get the Board’s codes and talk to the sound tech.”

“No sweat.”

“Haven’s going to help with the memory chip stuff.” Pixel’s fingers blur across the tablet screen; Haven looks at it and nods at Mage.

“The Board,” says Scope. “Who else?”

“President Z.” Haven nods again. “The rest of us are going back in the studio, and I’m going on TV.”

“Anthem, wait,” Haven says. We all look at her, and the ghostly light of the monitors plays across the crease between her chrome eyebrows. “Mage told me what you’re planning, and I think there’s a problem. I think it’s not going to work.”

I curse my small, involuntary spasm of irritation and look at her. “Why not?”

Pixel’s fingers tap on the tablet; Haven reads the message and takes a deep breath. “You guys want to use their new tracks to control their minds long enough to lock them up, get them out of headquarters, whatever. And that might work, except”—she closes her eyes — “the Board, the President, they’re not like normal people, like us. They’re
part
of the mainframe. Do you remember when I told you that the system has intense security on it?” she asks, opening her eyes again to meet mine.

I nod, confused.

“
They’re
the security. Their chips. The system communicates directly with their minds. Nothing gets changed without their
authorization, or not much, anyway. Small stuff, sure, but everything that keeps the Web running—food, water, power—depends on their authorization. Anyone who takes over won’t have even one of the right chips, let alone all ten of them. The only way you could make it work is if you controlled their minds
forever
, kept them agreeing to whatever it is the new leader wants. And isn’t that exactly what we’re fighting against?”

Yes. Exactly that.

I face the wall, knotting my hair in my fingers. Shit.

“Ask her if there’s a way around it,” Mage tells Pixel. More tapping, then heavy silence. I recognize the pattern of Scope’s breathing and hear Phoenix toeing the dirt with her pointed boots.

“I think there is,” Haven says. I turn back to face her and see nothing but calm resignation from her. “I need to check a few things. But if I’m right, we’re going to have to kill them.”

The elevator sinks. Down. Down.

Haven spent all weekend at a computer. She’s sure now, and I’m done not trusting her. The plan doesn’t have to change, not that much. We still make a song and encode it. I still go on TV and call for rebellion, counting on the ensuing chaos to cover our movements. Mage has been tracing and spreading messages in the system; the concerts are still being talked about. The anger at the Corp is still there, simmering, waiting for a tiny bit more heat. We still trap the President and the Board like rats and make them track, but they need to die so we can get the chips out of their heads. I close my eyes, picture Johnny’s face, and think of the gruesome symmetry of what we’re going to do. I’m the one who has to change. My friends do.
There’s no chance of doing this peacefully anymore, and I guess there never really was. The fact that our original rebellion was always doomed to fail, even without Yellow Guy, isn’t much of a comfort.

Alone, I step out into the wide expanse of the Energy Farm. I never thought this place would play a part in
saving
my life.

It’s not nostalgia I feel when I pass my old cubicle, but it’s something. Nothing was simple then, but it was complex in a different way. I thought I knew what was coming. I prepared for it as much as I could.

I hope I’m not as wrong now as I was then.

I hope . . . I hope . . . It’s one thing the Corp didn’t take from me, at least not recently, because I haven’t had any for a long time. Grim satisfaction fills me. Credits, guitars, and supposed safety. With those things they’ve been generous, but I’m sure hope was the last thing they wanted to give.

Tough shit.

“Anthem!” Tango hisses, her purple hair not exactly preceding her from a cubicle, but it’s the most dominant thing I see. “What are you doing down here?”

“Looking for you.”

She searches my face for a minute, then drags me to a cubicle in an empty sector. I see the chair and the looped cable with the plug at one end. My spine tingles.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Her shoulders soften a little. “What’s wrong?”

Everything. But maybe nothing soon. I take out my tablet, write a message, and show it to her. Her eyes widen.

“Is it possible?” I ask.

Energy is banked all the time. It’s one of
the ways they make themselves live longer than the rest of us. Energy drained by tracking is replaced by . . . you guys._

“How are your brother and sister?” she asks aloud.

I stare at her. They have neck jacks?_ My own was implanted when I was hired as a conduit. Three weeks of healing later, I came to work here. It’s a sign of shame. “Good. They love their new school.”

Not on their necks._

I grit my teeth. Figures. I wasn’t just powering all the blinding neon, all the mind-bending music. I was powering
them
.

What happens when they use it?_

“We should meet up at a Sky-Club sometime.” Nothing. Their account level just drops. It’s not allotted to the main Grid, so it doesn’t show up on usage meters. You think they want everyone knowing about it? We only know because we get instructions on when to siphon more off and which account to send it to._

Okay. “Sounds good,” I tell her. “I should go, before . . .” I know how closely techs and conduits are watched and listened to around here.

“What are you planning?” she whispers. I shake my head.

Not now. But I might need your help._ I wouldn’t if we had our generators back, but I’m sure those are long gone, destroyed in the raid on the club. Imp didn’t have any for us.

Her lips twist, and her eyes dart around.

Think about it?_ I ask. “Tab me, we’ll meet up.” Sighing, she nods. She sees what the Corp does to us more clearly than a lot of
other citizens do, but I don’t blame her for remembering what happened the last time, just like Mage.

One down. One to go. Getting to Crave will be harder, and I can’t go to the guard station under the pretext of visiting an old friend. We never learned his code, and I don’t know anything about him other than that he’s stationed—or was—in Three. Finding him won’t be simple, but at least there will be traces somewhere for Mage and Haven to find.

Anyway, there’s someplace important I have to be.

Haven answers the door of the address she tabbed me, every light I can see giving a last, unified flash before returning to their normal states of on or off. I don’t know if all Exaurs have the systems installed, or if Haven’s family, though they hadn’t saved her from this, had at least made sure she was as comfortable as possible. She’s in my arms before I can say anything. Words don’t matter now, and not because she can’t hear them.