Phoenix secured the cord to our waists. “On my countdown,” he said. “THREE, TWO, ONE!”
We leapt from the copter. Clouds raced by my face as we fell. We were in a line now— held together only by the cord Phoenix insisted we use.
Newla’s edge loomed beneath us. We were lucky it’d been built so close to the ocean years ago. The chancellor at the time must have wanted a view.
As we fell, Mila’s eyes finally flew open. A look of fear flashed in them before she promptly passed out again. Bertha rolled her eyes so loudly I could practically hear her muttering, Sissy.
We plummeted through the cloud cover and past the remaining Federal copters. We fell so quickly, we probably didn’t even hit their radar. I hoped.
But we weren’t so lucky. One of the Federal copters plunged downward, and two dots launched themselves from the metal body of it as it fell—pilots abandoning ship, coming after us. The chase was far from over, I realized. I tried to tell the others, but the words caught in my throat as the air rushed by—we were falling far too fast.
Phoenix and the others angled their bodies to steer us over open water. At last, Phoenix nodded and put a hand to his mouth—the signal he was about to cut the cord. We prepared ourselves to open our chutes. He sliced the cord several times with his laser pen, and we pushed ourselves apart in the sky.
The plan was for Phoenix to pull his chute first, as Mila’s weight would cause them both to drop faster, so they’d need the extra time. His aim was also best—he was the only one with a reasonable chance of landing where he wanted, and thus if he came down last, he could join up with those who had already landed.
He yanked his cord, flying back into the sky above us as his chute—created using a special cloth invented by Bertha to be invisible to the untrained eye—caught air. Dove went next, and then it was Bertha’s turn.
She yanked her cord.
And yanked her cord.
Her chute was dead.
She was still plummeting toward the water. I swam toward her in the sky, a drunken frog in the air. She wrapped her arms around my chest.
“Just pull the damn chute,” she muttered.
There’d be a time for gloating, I was sure.
I pulled my cord, and my neck jerked back. My shoulder screamed where it had been stabbed by Churchill’s hook, and whiplash knocked me forward.
We floated in a pocket of air caught by my parachute. Not falling, just floating. Held by the breeze’s warm floating hands.
Gunshots sounded overhead. A round whizzed down past my ear, and my parachute hissed—shot. My heart pounded with fear and my limbs tightened from shock. Bertha slipped out of my arms, and dropped toward the ocean like a rock.
Air pressed through the bullet holes in the parachute, driving its ruthless tendrils through and stretching the holes wide. In seconds, the chute’s fabric was completely torn to shreds.
I was free-falling now. Fast and hard.
Like our copter, like Bertha, like Club 49, I plunged from the sky.
Chapter 17
Miranda could still remember the night Hackner was elected to the council and appointed chancellor. She always remembered the appointment nights.
He’d been forty-five—the traditional age of one’s election to the Council. He would serve his five-year term, like the other council members, then receive his euthanization at its completion. There were no re-elections. The dead couldn’t run.
His had been a particularly boring election season, Miranda remembered. He’d won his island’s seat in a landslide victory by charming the hearts of the people of Newla, the city that carried most of HQ’s vote due to its massive population.
It’d come easily to him, too—he was a natural manipulator. The press sat like puppies in the palm of his hand, their pens scribbling, tails wagging, eager—always eager—to please. He was handsome, charming, persuasive, and—most importantly to Miranda—stupid.
It took the other council members two whole minutes of deliberation to select him, among themselves, as the next chancellor. It would’ve happened even faster, but Councilman Birch was struck by a coughing fit that lasted nearly a minute.
Of course, the deliberation was merely a formality. In the history of the Federation, there’d never been a single chancellor appointed from any island other than HQ. Sure, several fools had tried over the years, but the zealous bastards always disappeared or died mysteriously during the deliberation—and in the end, HQ’s councilman reigned supreme once again.
Miranda remembered watching Hackner enter the chancellor’s chambers for the first time, the night he’d been appointed. He’d dropped his boxes in the room’s center and plopped himself proudly on the chaise lounge like a fat boy who’d discovered a lolly.
This is it, he likely thought. This is my moment. I have arrived. I am the most powerful man in the world.
The fool.
Like every man before him, he’d had no idea that the chancellor was merely a puppet—a doll to be used for Miranda’s own entertainment. Though, in his defense, the rest of the council never learned of this.
It had taken Hackner longer than the others to notice the glass of champagne resting on the corner of his new desk. He lifted it in the air, sniffed, and swirled it before returning it to the mahogany without a sip.
Then he reached for the ConSynth’s cool, glowing glass and rubbed its side, the oils from his fingertips leaving a thick, filmy residue. Disgusting. It was, however, an improvement over the previous chancellor—that one had shaken the ConSynth like a snow globe.
She appeared to Hackner then, in the doorway, with a glass of champagne in her hand. Cheers, she said.
She wore a fitted red dress that wrapped her body like cellophane and had a wicked neckline that plunged far past her breasts. She had a feeling Hackner was a man of insatiable desires. The way he plopped himself on the lounge. The smug smile. The touch of his fingers on the ConSynth’s glass.
A man starved for power and control. He was about to lose both. All it took was a glass of champagne.
He grabbed his glass. How did you get in here?
She smiled coyly. The better question would be how you’re going to get me out. This dress is too tight—stifling. You look like a strong man. She winked. A man with power.
Power. The word danced on her tongue. One of the few lovers she’d ever known. She smiled and raised her glass again. To your continued success.
He nodded eagerly and slid the champagne down his throat.
Poison. A slow-acting variety, of course. Harmless at first, but the compounds contained within it multiplied over time in vicious fashion. Without an antidote, he’d be dead in a month. And only Miranda, with the help of her blind assistant, knew how to create the antidote. It had never been written down. There was no recipe in any book. Just the one she kept in her head. Even the blind girls didn’t know what they were mixing.
And so she maintained her power with each new chancellor.
They fell for it every time.
The mysterious woman in red. The plunging neckline. The not-so-subtle ego stroke she gave through her toast.
And thus, the men who craved power were, without exception, ruined by it. This was the way of things in the Federation, as had it been in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, even the ancient Greeks and the Romans. Power corrupted all.
But not Miranda. Perhaps—she often mused—because she’d been corrupt in the first place.