“I can’t swim,” she said, sullen.
“Yes, you can.” I bumped her shoulder with mine as I sat beside her. Her anger deflated until it was wisped away in the breeze coming off the water.
“You leave me a lot,” she said. “At the border, in Seaside.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t like being left behind.”
“Noted,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”
We sat in silence. After a minute I reached for her hand, and she let me hold it.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“Me too,” I admitted. “Rancho Port doesn’t exactly hold fond memories for me.”
“Sorry I bit you.”
I released her hand so I could put my arm around her. “You bit me?” I asked, playing the game we’d started in the Badlands, where I had indeed left her to cross the border by herself. I’d explained the reasoning behind that act, but it was clear that all Vi saw was me leaving her.
She laughed, but it quieted quickly. “You can conquer anything in Rancho Port,” she said.
I heard her words, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.
Zenn
48.
Freedom felt foreign, almost like I hadn’t spent the better part of the last year inside the city. The silence permeated the Blocks, pressed on the budding orange trees with stillness.
The faint sound of my hoverboard roared like a jet engine. I sped through the streets toward the skeleton of Rise One, gripping the sleeve of transmission microchips in my jacket pocket.
I stood in the once-magnificent foyer of Rise One, looking up through dozens of empty floors to the blue sky above. A strange sadness filled me, but not because the Rise had been gutted.
I was sad because I hadn’t been here to see it. And most of all, that I wasn’t strong enough to get back on my hoverboard and find the Resistance. Beg every one of them for forgiveness. Spend the rest of my life proving that I was on their side, that I believed in their cause.
I thought of what Vi would say to me should I ever see her again. I wondered what I could say to Saffediene to make things right between us. I touched my fingers to my lips, remembering what it felt like to kiss Vi. Then Saffediene. The feel of their mouths on mine was different, yet each wonderful. I pressed my eyes shut.
Sure, Jag’s way of doing things was different from mine. Different shouted in my mind. I’d never truly taken the time to see things from his point of view. To be fair, he’d never offered me the same courtesy. We’d spent years as rivals, long before Vi entered the picture.
“I can’t help loving her,” I said aloud, my voice reverberating through the cavernous space.
Maybe he can’t either, a voice responded, sounding very much like my own, as if it came from the bones of the building.
I fingered the transmission microchips in my pocket as I thought of Tyson, Vi’s sister. I’d met her at the border of the City of Water, deep in the night. She’d breathlessly given me the Resistance password before she recognized me.
Then she cried, the same way Vi had that night she’d climbed through my window, claiming her mother loved Ty more than her. I’d taken Ty to Jag, both of us silent during the trip across the desert to the Badlands.
Jag spoke eleven words—Thank you, Zenn. I don’t know where we’d be without you—before I turned around and made the lonely trek home. I’d gone straight to Vi’s, though she was at school—where I should’ve been. My father had provided an excuse, citing he’d needed me for an on-site Transportation Department meeting.
I’d entered Vi’s house using the passcode she’d given me and basked in the silence I found within. It was nothing like the quiet stillness I now endured in Freedom. No, Vi’s house felt like home to me.
Her presence was there, calming me. I sat on her front steps that day until she arrived home from school.
“Run away with me,” I’d said.
She’d half laughed, half snorted as she joined me on the porch. “Right.” She peered toward the lake. “Where would we go? The Southern Rim? The forest?” She laid her hand on mine for half a second, but it was long enough to say I’d go with you. Anywhere. I’d go.
And she had. She’d broken rule after rule for me. She’d sent me multiple illegal e-comms. Crossed borders to see me. She’d believed the best of me, always.
She still did.
And I’d repaid her with hidden trackers and half truths and stolen kisses with another girl because I was hurt. And lonely. And so, so jealous.
I bent my head and let the shame pour over me. I fell to my knees, my bones cracking against the hard concrete. I welcomed the physical pain, though it only added to my torment.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to myself. “I will—” I didn’t know what I could do. Abandon Freedom?
If only I could. General Darke would hunt me to the ends of the earth if I did. He had more than one way to find me, and none of them were pleasant.
I fisted the microchips, feeling them give just a little. Could I break them? What would that accomplish, exactly? The General—Ian, I corrected myself—would know what I’d done. He was expecting my transmissions.
I wouldn’t be able to lie to him.
“Not until evening,” I said. “He doesn’t expect me to have the transmissions until this evening.”
I still had time. I could return to Arrow Falls, record new messages. General Darke—Ian—wouldn’t listen to them. Thinkers never did. I could perpetuate the unbrainwashing in Freedom.
Hope flared inside me. I could do this, right under Ian’s nose. Then I remembered the sneer on the Harvest man’s face as he’d asked me who I’d voted for. I heard the cries of those whose Transportation Director didn’t get elected. I heard that little boy’s voice say, They woke up.
Again I felt myself break in two. Complete compliance and brainwashing on one side, with freedom and chaos on the other.
Could some semblance of order stem from that chaos? Could people govern themselves?
Instantly I heard my father’s voice: Give them correct principles, and they’ll govern themselves. He’d said this over and over during my childhood. I’d forgotten his words during these many months away from him.
How I missed him. How I needed his wisdom. I didn’t know what to do, or who to follow.
Once again my father’s voice resonated in my head. Don’t follow, Zenn. Lead.
I got to my feet, the edges of the microchips biting into the flesh of my palm. I opened my hand and looked at them, and then threw them to the ground. With the thick heel of my boot, I ground the chips into the cement, feeling nothing but satisfaction.
I left the Rise and headed west on my hoverboard. I was going to make new transmissions, transmissions that would teach the people in Freedom to govern themselves.
I’d just entered the outer Blocks in Freedom when I heard the buzz of approaching hover tech behind me.
I almost didn’t turn to look. I didn’t care. Let them have Freedom.
I glanced over my shoulder. A trio was coming in off the ocean. I recognized Trek Whiting immediately.
He shifted to the side, and there was Starr Messenger. My stomach twisted, but one thought kept me from heaving: At least it isn’t Jag.
Jag
49.
That night, after everyone fell asleep, I slipped away from the group. Even with Vi curled in my arms, I couldn’t settle my nerves. I kept hearing falling dirt, burying me farther and farther underground.
I returned to the rock where Vi and I had sat earlier that evening. The gentle lapping of water against sand sang to me, and I watched the waves in an attempt to purge my mind of more troubling thoughts.