Coda (39 page)

I need to get up there. My legs jerk and Haven holds me down.
I
should be paying attention to
her
. Listening for a change in her breathing, seeing if I can feel her muscles tense when a certain Board member is tracking or about to. I open my mouth to say something and close it again.

One. Eight. Nine. Our tablets buzz, a hive of electronic bees.

Two. Three. Pixel and Phoenix are going after the last two. Scope’ll be back here soon with the chips he’s collected.

It’s time for me to leave. Mage hands me a knife. This time, Haven lets me stand. I pull her toward me and kiss her. Not goodbye. No. I’m coming back.

My tablet buzzes twice in quick succession; one of them is a map from Mage. Haven kisses me again, hard and bruising and terrified,
and pushes me away.

Dirt from the tunnel floor sprays up from my feet. I follow the map, deep into the maze below the Vortex. The exit is above an old, broken ladder I’m not sure will hold me, but it got the others out. I stop long enough to type out a message, but don’t press
SEND
. The ladder creaks and drops an inch when I step on the bottom rung. My stomach goes with it. I keep climbing until I can reach the ceiling, use all my strength to shove the metal circle out of my way. On the first try it rocks back; I hear every one of the fingers on my right hand snap. My screams echo down the endless tunnels.

Sharp steel digs into my thighs as I cling to the ladder with my legs and try again.

Smoke chokes me and clouds my eyes with stinging fog. I pull myself up onto the street, into raging fire. Tears stream down my face, adding to the blindness. I have no idea where the fuck I am.

“Let’s get those evil bastards!” Dozens of voices echo the first. “Fuck the Corp!” I flatten myself against an abandoned pod and fall into step at the back of the mob. We run through clogged streets and dodge down hidden alleys when bullets whistle overhead. I trip over a falling body with no time for thanks or regret. Suddenly the smoke is hard and sharp; my scalp opens and a single rivulet of blood drips down my neck. I run my unbroken hand through my hair and examine what I find.

Dark glass.

I break away from the crowd and bite through my lip as I wrap my fingers around the gun. Inside headquarters it’s less smoky, but loud enough to blunt every one of my senses.

“That’s him! Anthem!” The sound of my name hammers into my brain. No idea if it’s friend or enemy. I don’t stop. A foot away, marble cracks.

The stairs are empty. Everyone is trapped in the lobby or is out in the street. Fighting a war I started and now have to end, twenty-four floors into the sky. I pause at the bottom, but staring up isn’t going to make them easier to climb. I fill my lungs and run.

I think I can feel my leg muscles shredding. Air comes in ragged gasps and leaves before I can absorb much of it. Halfway, I stop and check that the pain in my side isn’t a bullet wound, almost wishing it were. It might be a good excuse to stop. I hear the cacophony of destruction on every floor I pass, imprisoned Corp suits trying to break free. I keep going before one of them succeeds.

On my knees, leaning against my one good hand, I pull myself up the final flight. A single guard is waiting for me—a last shred of loyalty to the woman behind the door. It’s my scream, I think, that throws him off. The heat haze from a bullet brushes my ear as I finish pulling the trigger with my mangled fingers. Blood sprays from the front of his uniform and he looks down, almost curious, before his eyes roll back in his head and he thuds to the floor.

It was him or me
. I force back the urge to puke and look at my tablet, focusing until the screen stops swimming.

The message I typed while in the tunnel is still waiting, blinking. My hand shakes over the
SEND
button. Now._

A second passes. Another. Another. I watch the doors for any sign of movement and the scanner for a glimmer of life that comes just in time to pour ice on the boiling fear that there’s none of my energy left.

The scanner blinks—a red eye—and beeps once. I open the door and stop, my feet trapped in heavy carpet.

What strikes me most isn’t the woman in the chair; I was expecting that. I was prepared for the plush office, which is filled with electronics coming to life with the power Mage just restored, and the tall
windows with their view over the Web. The video camera in one corner next to a black screen on a wheeled frame isn’t a surprise, either, or the thing that looks almost like a smaller, sleeker conduit machine. Thanks to Tango, I can guess what that’s for.

The woman was waiting for me. Smiling. Expecting me, too.

Behind the wide expanse of desk, above the console on the wall, is a portrait. A stern-faced man and the woman in front of me stand within the frame on either side of what can only be their daughter, who looks happy unless you know every nuance of her face, every expression she’s capable of.

And I do.

President Z is Haven’s mother.

“Well, well,” she says. “You must be Anthem.”

I don’t try to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. My eyes are still flicking between the olive skin so like Haven’s and the green eyes that are a few shades darker—though that might just be the concentrated evil of the brain behind them—and the painting. Old sound implants are quiet and dark on the backs of her hands. Her hair is Haven’s shade of black, long and smooth, without the brightness of added neon or the wild sculpture of braids and artful tangles threaded with fiber-optic tubes. All those would have been there once. Green, I think, judging from her suit and her makeup.

“My daughter is irritatingly fond of you,” President Z continues. “She always was completely useless. No ambition. No sense of what she could be if only she appreciated the opportunities available to her.”

I raise the gun, my peripheral vision staining red. “You turned your own daughter into an Exaur,” I grit out. “To punish
me
?”

She laughs. “Oh, no. Not you. Her. She could have had everything. Succeeded me. Used her—not inconsiderable—computer talents to further the Corp, and what does she do instead? Befriends conduit scum from the lower Web. And she helped you with your ridiculous rebellion. Frankly, I am surprised she kept this secret, but I think”—she tilts her head, examining me—“that you truly didn’t know.”

“If you were my mother, I wouldn’t admit it either,” I toss back. I don’t think it was only the secrecy laws that made Haven hide this from me. President Z laughs again.

“Perhaps you are made for each other. Defiant and idealistic. A
dangerous combination. Tell me, Anthem, do you really believe things will change? I am sure by now you have killed my Board, my husband, and my most trusted advisors. My dearest L5329, who was there for me in all the ways my daughter was not. But I wasn’t the first to hold this position, to do the things I do. If you think I will be the last, you are a dreamer befitting your musician’s soul.”

“I don’t care about the Web,” I spit. It’s more of a lie than it used to be. Her lips twitch in a way that makes my chest tight. So she and Haven are not completely different. “I just want my family to be safe.”

“Work with me,” she says. “I will guarantee that no harm will ever come to those you care about.”

“No
more
harm, right? Sorry, I made that mistake once already.”

She shrugs. “I tried. Someone will take my place and repair the damage you’ve caused. You will have no friends in a position to help you when that day comes.”

I walk forward. Slow. Deliberate. “You wanted to control our minds.”

Long-fingered hands spread in the air. “The happiness of the Web has always been my primary concern. If citizens need assistance with that, it is my job to provide it, is it not?”

I wonder how this woman could have given birth to someone as sane and kind as Haven. “Has it ever occurred to you that they’re miserable
because
of the things you’ve done?”

“I did not start this.”

No, but you’ve tried to make sure it will never end
. “You’re right. It’s in my soul. Just like it’s in thousands of others who never get the chance to see it for what it is. Thousands more who know, but have to hide.” My mother, in a cramped, drafty room, playing a violin. “No more.” The gun is aimed at her face, an offer of a kind death I have no intention of giving. My gaze goes to the headphones hanging from
the console. “Put them on.”

“Cooperate with me.” No begging. Just calm self-assurance. “I was never musical. I have relied on others for that. You can lead us into a new age. My right-hand man.”

“You’re crazy. Just like your protégée. Put them on.” Another step forward. Haven gets her fearlessness from this woman. I close my eyes, just for a second, and picture Haven’s face. I get my fearlessness from
her
.

“I ask again, do you truly think killing me will make a difference? I know who you are, Anthem. Even if you never track again, you have perhaps another ten years, and then you too will die. Possibly you will maintain order in that time, but I do not think you have any designs on the kind of power I have enjoyed. Someone must step in to fill the void. Maybe they will respect what you have done here, or at least your ability to do it. They will not want to give you a reason to repeat your success, but after you’re gone, things will change. The
Anthem
will fade from memory and go the way of all forgotten lyrics. The cycle will begin anew.”

“Maybe,” I agree. I round the desk, the gun’s aim not leaving the spot between her eyes. “But it’ll be without you. If you had never made more tracks, never tried to do what you have with them, never drained a conduit for the Grid or to make yourself live longer . . .” My breath comes in sharp pants as I pull the headphones down and tap the console screen with my broken fingers. Pain brings bile to my throat. “If you had never done those things, and if I didn’t need to kill you, I would still do
this
for what you did to
her
.”

Only when her ears are covered does she start to struggle; she tries to knock the gun away and push her chair back. I keep hold, a fistful of hair clenched in my hand above her ear.

Like with Ell, it doesn’t take long. I can’t hear the song, but I
know every second of it. Even just the memory takes me back to the basement, to that first moment of singing and playing after a week without it. I saved this one for her.

A last apology to Johnny. His final vindication. Her struggle changes from me to death and her mouth opens in a silent scream, her body jerking as if electrified.

And then . . . nothing. I feel the moment her mind becomes the black screen she used to hide behind.

It’s time to go, move, get the fuck out of here. Survive. I can’t think about what this means right now. Later I can wonder if knowing would’ve changed anything.

I hold her ear with my broken fingers and fumble for the knife in my pocket. Skin and cartilage fall away. Warm blood oozes onto my hand, making my fingers slip in their search for the implant that contains so much evil. I dig, get leverage, and dislodge the chip with only a little resistance.

It looks just like any of the others I’ve seen. I’m not sure why I expected it to be different.

Muscle memory takes me down the stairs. Even if the elevators worked right now, I’ve had enough of them for whatever short lifetime remains for me. Maybe the ten years President Z guessed. Maybe less. I’ve drained a lot of my own life for this.

Glass, marble, and plaster rain everywhere in a storm of terrible, entrancing, destructive beauty. I want to sink down and just watch while the wall cracks under my back, sleep as the Corp crumbles to dust and takes me with it.

I keep running. Down. Out. Bodies cover the street as if a mythical heaven has cast them there. One guard falls at the hands of another and I can’t stop to find out if the winner’s on our side. I race around the curve of the fractured building to the front. It’s still there,
gouged and scarred, but standing. Clawing, scrabbling, trying not to scream, I pull myself onto the statue, raise my hands, and look down at the gathering mass of people.

“Stop!” I shout. No one hears me above the clamor. “Stop!” I try again. I slam the handle of my gun down on solid iron. A ringing echo spreads out and faces look up, the sound’s unexpectedness more effective than its volume. “President Z is dead. It’s over.” Shock paints every face I can see. I want to sleep forever. A flash of speeding pink breaks through the crowd, then green, flaming orange, and dark dreadlocks. Someone—not one of my friends—calls something and it grows to a chant I can’t hear, just noise. I jump down, fall against Haven, and feel three other pairs of arms wrap around us. I let myself stay there for as long as I can before I have to break away. “Help me,” I say to my friends.