The Legend Trilogy Collection (4 page)

“I’m letting go,” I whisper to the doctor. “Duck.” I release my grip and shove him hard enough to make him fall to his knees.

The soldiers open fire. But I’m ready for them—I hide behind the open fridge door as bullets ricochet off it. I grab several bottles of suppressants and shove them into my shirt. I bolt. One of the stray bullets scrapes me and searing pain shoots up my arm. I’m almost at the exit.

An alarm goes off as I burst through the stairwell door. There’s a chorus of clicks as all the doors in the stairwell lock from the inside. I’m trapped. The soldiers can still come through any door, but I won’t be able to get out. Shouts and footsteps echo from inside the laboratory. A voice yells out, “He’s hit!”

My eyes jump to the tiny windows in the stairwell’s plaster walls. They’re too far away for me to reach from the stairs themselves. I grit my teeth and pull out my second knife so that I now have one in each hand. I pray the plaster is soft enough, then leap off the stairs and throw myself toward the wall.

I stab one knife straight into the plaster. My wounded arm gushes blood, and I scream from the effort. I’m dangling halfway between my launching place and the window. I rock back and forth as hard as I can.

The plaster is giving way.

Behind me I hear the laboratory door burst open and soldiers spill out. Bullets spark all around me. I swing toward the window and let go of the knife buried in the wall.

The window shatters, and I’m suddenly out in the night again and falling, falling, falling like a star to the first floor. I rip open my long-sleeved shirt and let it billow out behind me as thoughts zip through my head. Knees bent. Feetfirst. Relax muscles. Hit with balls of feet. Roll. The ground rushes up at me. I brace myself.

The impact knocks the wind out of me. I roll four times and crash into the wall on the other side of the street. For a moment I lie there blinded, completely helpless. Above me I can hear furious voices coming from the third-floor window as the soldiers realize they’re going to have to double back into the laboratory to disable the alarm. My senses gradually sharpen—now I’m very aware of the pain in my side and arm. I use my good arm to prop myself up and wince. My chest throbs. I think I’ve cracked a rib. When I try to stand, I realize that I’ve sprained one of my ankles, too. I can’t tell if adrenaline is keeping me from feeling other effects of my fall.

Shouts come from around the building’s corner. I force myself to think. I’m now near the rear of the building, and several alleys branch off behind me into the darkness. I limp into the shadows.

When I look over my shoulder, I see a small group of soldiers rush to where I’d fallen, pointing out the broken glass and blood. One of the soldiers is the young captain I saw earlier, the man named Metias. He orders his men to spread out. I quicken my pace and try to ignore the pain. I hunch my shoulders so that the black of my outfit and hair help me melt into the darkness. My eyes stay down. I need to find a sewer cover.

The edges of my vision are blurring now. I push one hand against my ear and feel for blood. Nothing yet, a good sign. Moments later, I catch sight of a sewer cap on the street. I heave a sigh, readjust the black handkerchief covering my face, and bend down to lift the cover.

“Freeze. Stay where you are.”

I whirl around to see Metias, the young captain from the hospital’s entrance, facing me. He has a gun pointed straight at my chest, but to my surprise, he doesn’t fire it. I tighten my grip on my remaining knife. Something changes in his eyes, and I know he recognizes me, the boy who had pretended to stagger into the hospital. I smile—I have plenty of wounds for the hospital to treat now.

Metias narrows his eyes. “Hands up. You’re under arrest for theft, vandalism, and trespassing.”

“You’re not going to take me in alive.”

“I’d be happy to take you in dead, if you prefer.”

What happens next is a blur. I see Metias tense up to fire his gun. I throw my knife at him with all my strength. Before he can fire, my knife hits him hard in the shoulder and he falls backward with a thud. I don’t wait to see him get up. I bend down and heave the manhole cover up, then lower myself down the ladder and into the blackness. I pull the sewer cover back in place.

My injuries are catching up to me now. I stumble along in the sewers, my vision going in and out of focus, one of my hands pressed hard against my side. I’m careful not to touch the walls. Every breath hurts. I
must’ve
cracked a rib. I’m alert enough to think about which direction I’m moving in and concentrate on heading toward the Lake sector. Tess will be there. She’ll find me and help me to safety. I think I can hear the rumble of footsteps overhead, the shouts of soldiers. No doubt someone has discovered Metias by now, and they might even have headed down into the sewers, too. They could be hot on my trail with a pack of dogs. I make a point to take several turns and walk in the filthy sewer water. Behind me, I hear splashes and the sounds of echoing voices. I take more turns. The voices get a little closer, then farther. I keep my original direction planted firmly in my mind.

It would be something—wouldn’t it?—to escape the hospital only to die down here, lost in a goddy maze of sewers.

I count off the minutes to keep myself from passing out. Five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes, an hour. The footsteps behind me sound far away now, as if they are on a different path than I am. Sometimes I hear strange sounds, something like a bubbling test tube and a sigh of steam pipes, a breath of air. It comes and goes. Two hours. Two and a half hours. When I see the next ladder leading up to the surface, I take my chances and pull myself up. I’m in real danger of fainting now. It takes all my remaining strength to drag myself onto the street. I’m in a dark alley. When I’ve caught my breath, I blink away my fuzzy vision and study my surroundings.

I can see Union Station several blocks away. I’m not far now. Tess will be there, waiting for me.

Three more blocks. Two more blocks.

I have one more block. I can’t hold on any longer. I find a dark spot in the alley and collapse. The last thing I see is the silhouette of a girl off in the distance. Maybe she’s walking toward me. I curl up and begin to fade away.

Before I black out, I realize that my pendant is no longer looped around my neck.

I
STILL REMEMBER THE DAY THAT MY BROTHER MISSED HIS
induction ceremony into the Republic military.

A Sunday afternoon. Hot and mucky. Brown clouds covered the sky. I was seven years old, and Metias was nineteen. My white shepherd puppy, Ollie, was asleep on our apartment’s cool marble floor. I lay feverishly in bed while Metias sat by my side, his brow furrowed with worry. We could hear the loudspeakers outside playing the Republic’s national pledge. When they got to the part mentioning our president, Metias stood and saluted in the direction of the capital. Our illustrious Elector Primo had just accepted another four-year presidential term. That would make this his eleventh term.

“You don’t have to sit here with me, you know,” I said to him after the pledge finished. “Go to your induction. I’ll be sick either way.”

Metias ignored me and placed another cool towel on my head. “I’ll be
inducted
either way,” he said. He fed me a purple slice of orange. I remember watching him peel that orange for me; he cut one long, efficient line in the fruit’s peel, then removed it all in one piece.

“But it’s Commander Jameson.” I blinked through swollen eyes. “She did you a favor by not assigning you to the warfront. . . . She’ll be upset you’re skipping. Won’t she mark it on your record? You don’t want to be kicked out like some street con.”

Metias tapped my nose disapprovingly. “Don’t call people that, Junebug. It’s rude. And she can’t kick me off her patrol for missing the ceremony. Besides,” he added with a wink, “I can always hack into their database and wipe my record clean.”

I grinned. Someday I wanted to be inducted into the military too, draped in the Republic’s dark robes. Maybe I’d even be lucky enough to get assigned to a renowned commander like Metias did. I opened my mouth so he could feed me another piece of orange. “You should skip going to Batalla more often. Maybe you’d have time to get a girlfriend.”

Metias laughed. “I don’t need girlfriends. I’ve got a baby sister to take care of.”

“Come on. You’re going to get a girlfriend
someday.
”

“We’ll see. Guess I’m picky like that.”

I stopped to look my brother directly in the eyes. “Metias, did our mother take care of me when I was sick? Did she do things like this?”

Metias reached over to push sweaty strands of my hair away from my face. “Don’t be stupid, Junebug. Of course Mom took care of you. And she was much better at it than I am.”

“No.
You
take care of me the best,” I murmured. My eyelids were growing heavy.

My brother smiled. “Nice of you to say so.”

“You’re not going to leave me too, are you? You’ll stay with me longer than Mom and Dad did?”

Metias kissed me on my forehead. “Forever and ever, kid, until you’re sick and tired of seeing me.”

0001 H
OURS
.

R
UBY
S
ECTOR
.

72°F I
NDOORS
.

I know something has gone wrong the instant Thomas shows up at our door. The lights in all residential buildings have gone off, just as Metias had said they would, and nothing but oil lamps light the apartment. Ollie is barking up a storm. I’m dressed in my training uniform and a black and red vest with my boots laced and my hair tied back in a tight ponytail. For a brief moment, I’m actually glad that Metias isn’t the one waiting at the door. He’d see my getup and know that I’m headed out to the track. Defying him again.

When I open the door, Thomas coughs nervously at the surprised look on my face and pretends to smile. (There is a streak of black grease on his forehead, probably from his own index finger. Which means he just finished polishing his rifle earlier in the evening, and his patrol’s inspection is tomorrow.) I cross my arms. He touches the edge of his cap politely.

“Hello, Ms. Iparis,” he says.

I take a deep breath. “I’m heading out to the track. Where’s Metias?”

“Commander Jameson has requested that you come with me to the hospital as soon as possible.” Thomas hesitates for a second. “It’s more of an order than a request.”

There’s a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Why didn’t she just call me?” I ask.

“She prefers for me to escort you.”

“Why?” My voice starts to rise. “Where’s my brother?”

Now Thomas takes a deep breath. I already know what he’s going to say. “I’m sorry. Metias has been killed.”

That’s when the world around me goes silent.

As if from a great distance, I can see that Thomas is still speaking, gesturing with his hands, pulling me to him for a hug. I hug him back without realizing what I’m doing. I feel nothing. I nod when he steadies me and asks me to do something. To follow him. He keeps an arm around my shoulders. A dog’s wet nose nudges my hand. Ollie follows me out of the apartment, and I tell him to stay close. I lock the door and stuff the key into my pocket and let Thomas guide us through the darkness to the stairs. He’s talking the whole time, but I can’t hear him. I stare straight ahead at the reflective metal decorations lining the stairwell, at the distorted reflections of Ollie and me.

I can’t make out my expression. I’m not sure I even have one.

Metias should have taken me with him. This is my first coherent thought as we reach the bottom floor of our high-rise and climb into a waiting jeep. Ollie jumps into the backseat and sticks his head out the window. The car smells damp (like rubber and metal and fresh sweat—a group of people must’ve ridden in here recently). Thomas sits in the driver’s seat and makes sure my seat belt is buckled. Such a small, stupid thing.

Metias should have taken me with him.

I run this thought over and over again in my head. Thomas doesn’t say anything else. He lets me stare out at the darkened city as we go, occasionally shooting me a hesitant glance. Some small part of me makes a mental note to apologize to him later.

My eyes glaze over at the familiar buildings we pass. People (mostly workers hired from the slums) pack the first-floor stands even with the lights out, hunched over bowls of cheap food in the ground level cafés. Clouds of steam float high in the distance. JumboTrons, always on, regardless of power shortages, display the latest warnings about floods and quarantines. A few are about the Patriots—this time for another bombing up in Sacramento that killed half a dozen soldiers. A few cadets, eleven-year-olds with yellow stripes on their sleeves, linger on the steps outside an academy, the old and worn
Walt Disney Concert Hall
letters almost completely faded. Several other military jeeps cross our intersection, and I see the blank faces of their soldiers. Some of them have black goggles on so I can’t see their eyes at all.

The sky looks more overcast than usual—signs of a rainstorm. I pull my hood over my head in case I forget when we finally get out of the car.

When I turn my attention back to the window, I see the part of downtown that sits inside Batalla. All the lights in this military sector are on. The hospital’s tower looms just a few blocks away.

Thomas notices me craning my neck for a better view. “Almost there,” he says.

As we draw near, I can see the crisscrossed lines of yellow tape surrounding the bottom of the tower, the clusters of city patrol soldiers (red stripes on their sleeves, like Metias), as well as some photographers and street police, the black vans and medic trucks. Ollie lets out a whine.

“I’m guessing they didn’t catch the person,” I say to Thomas.

“How do you know?”

I nod toward the building. “That’s really something,” I continue. “Whoever it was survived a two-and-a-half-story jump and still had enough strength to escape.”

Thomas looks toward the tower and tries to see what I see—the broken third-floor stairwell window, the taped-off section right below it, the soldiers searching alleyways, the lack of ambulances. “We haven’t caught the guy,” he admits after a moment. The rifle grease on his forehead gives him a bewildered look. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t find his body later.”

“You won’t find it if you haven’t found it yet.”

Thomas opens his mouth to say something, then decides against it and goes back to concentrating on the road. When the jeep finally rolls to a stop, Commander Jameson breaks away from the group of guards she’s standing with and marches over to my car door.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas says abruptly to me. I feel a brief pang of guilt for my coldness and decide to nod back at him. His father had been a janitor for our apartment high-rise before he died, his late mother a cook at my grade school. Metias had been the one to recommend Thomas (who had a high Trial score) to be assigned to the prestigious city patrols, despite his humble background. So he must feel just as numb as I do.

Commander Jameson walks up to my car door and raps twice on the window to get my attention. Her thin lips are painted an angry stroke of red, and in the night her auburn hair looks dark brown—almost black.

“Move it, Iparis. Time is of the essence.” Her eyes flicker to Ollie in the backseat. “That’s not a police dog, kid.” Even now, her demeanor is unflinching.

I step out of the jeep and give her a quick salute. Ollie jumps down next to me. “You called for me, Commander,” I say.

Commander Jameson doesn’t bother to return my gesture. She starts walking away, and I’m forced to hurry along beside her, struggling to fall into step. “Your brother, Metias, is dead,” she says. Her tone doesn’t change. “I’m of the understanding that you are almost done with your training as an agent, correct? That you’ve already finished your courses on tracking?”

I fight hard to breathe. A second confirmation of Metias’s death. “Yes, Commander,” I manage to say.

We head into the hospital. (Waiting room is empty; they’ve cleared out all patients; guards are clustered near the stairwell entrance; that’s probably where the crime scene starts.) Commander Jameson keeps her eyes forward and her hands behind her back. “What was your Trial score?”

“Fifteen hundred, Commander.” Everyone in the military knows my score. But Commander Jameson likes to pretend not to know or care.

She doesn’t stop walking. “Ah, that’s right,” she says, as if it is the first time she’s heard it. “Maybe you’ll be of use after all. I’ve called ahead to Drake and told them that you are dismissed from further training. You were almost done with your coursework anyway.”

I frown. “Commander?”

“I received a full history of your grades there. Perfect scores—you’ve already finished most of your courses in half the number of years, yes? They also say you’re quite a troublemaker. Is this true?”

I can’t understand what she wants from me. “Sometimes, Commander. Am I in trouble? Did they expel me?”

Commander Jameson smiles. “Hardly. They’ve graduated you early. Follow me—there’s something I want you to see.”

I want to ask about Metias, about what happened here. But her icy demeanor stops me.

We walk down a first-floor hall until we reach an emergency exit door at the very end of it. There, Commander Jameson waves away the soldiers guarding it and ushers me through. A low growl rumbles in Ollie’s throat. We step out into open air, this time at the back of the building. I realize that we are now inside the yellow tape. Dozens of soldiers stand in clusters around us.

“Hurry up,” Commander Jameson snaps at me. I quicken my pace.

A moment later, I realize what she wants to show me and where we are walking. Not far ahead is an object covered in a white sheet. (Six feet long, human; feet and limbs look intact under the cloth; definitely didn’t fall naturally like that, so someone had to lay him out.) I start to tremble. When I look down at Ollie, I see that the fur on his back is standing up. I call to him several times, but he refuses to walk any closer, so I’m forced to follow Commander Jameson and leave him behind.

Metias kissed me on my forehead. “Forever and ever, kid, until you’re sick and tired of seeing me.”

Commander Jameson halts in front of the white sheet, then bends down and throws it aside. I stare down at the dead body of a soldier clad in military black, a knife still protruding from his chest. Dark blood stains his shirt, his shoulder, his hands, the grooves of the knife hilt. His eyes are closed now. I kneel before him and smooth strands of his dark hair away from his face. It’s odd. I don’t take in any details of the scene. I still feel nothing but that deep numbness.