Rebels (34 page)

I sit through Kane's scan and he's proven correct that there wasn't sufficient time to reimplant his chip. He holds my hand and I let him do it, but only briefly.

Judging by how everyone is treating me? These could be my
final thoughts. I will be silenced, here where plenty of dead have rested before me. The City of Indra was built on graves.

Livia wants to stay, but she respects my wishes. Samantha doesn't. I won't argue with her. Secretly, I'm pleased. To not be alone.

I know it's almost time. She kneels at my side while I lie back in a cot. She's trying to distract me, I know. Keeping me from watching Zavier prep.

“I always thought I was going to reach twelve,” she says. “To be free of the Orphanage, instead of it freeing itself from me. At least I was pretty sure. And the caretakers even hinted good things were just ahead.”

“Everyone liked you,” I say.

“I know. I worked hard to make that happen.”

A hissing noise. I look at Zavier, adjusting a dial on a machine that looks like it lacks an ounce of design or sterility.

“That way,” says Samantha, turning my chin toward her, “they never suspected what I was really up to. Remember how I would disappear?”

I nod. “You told me it was a secret.”

“It was. I hated that place. The whole thing. The disappearing, the not knowing who was—or if
you
were—next. I wanted to know why it happened. Make sense of this senseless act. We were already in the Orphanage. Our flaws were right there on the surface. We were never wanted in the first place. But complaining? That wouldn't do much except get me bottomed out myself.”

“You had no flaws.”

She laughs. “Your memories treat me better than I deserve.”

I could tell her my memory is practically flawless and that she exists there only exactly as she was, but I want to hear her story so desperately.

“I made everyone like me. The perfect orphan. That way, they never suspected. I started taking the tags when I was just in the Intermediate Dorm. The ones on the new arrivals. I'd go in there, right after the babies had been labeled, with their Gs for ‘Genetic Flaw' and Ps
for ‘Pass.' And I'd snip them right off and drop them in the incinerator. Indra has evaluators throughout the levels who work hard to select out those who will contribute to its continued success. But our lives aren't predetermined. Look at us! Look who
we've
become! And I must admit, I enjoyed the chaos. They'd lock down the unit, trying to decipher which baby was a dud, which did they already agree to approve?”

“I remember!” I say. “It happened all the time! The caretakers would be running around, totally pissed. And it was you!”

“For almost a year. Not that it did much good. Only bought the kids a few extra days. But maybe, maybe one got through. I had to be on the right track if it pissed them off so much.”

I can hardly speak. Samantha is just as strato as I remember.

“Of course, they caught me, right before I turned twelve. They tried to guilt me. ‘We had big plans for you, Samantha. Placement in Hubber Organization. And now look what you've done!' Hubber Organization. Putting supplies in the right pile. Like I'd given my whole life away.”

“And then?”

“They said I was going to Rock Bottom, same place I came from. I mean, it isn't as bad as everyone said. I could remember from where I came. Some memories of my parents before they died. For many, Rock Bottom is horrible, but there're good things there too. Some of us even have families. For so long I believed what they wanted, but now I don't have to.”

She glances at Zavier, who is watching us now. Even gives him a smile. He looks away.

“But the stories of the orphans being brought out to the Lower Levels and given over to the mutations—that didn't happen?”

“Not to me. That's a story that instructors tell. I was put on a transporter with some others. We'd pick up more at the other orphanages along the way.”

“There are more?”

She nods.

“Once you were gone,” I say, “I saw that there were so many orphans who needed someone like you. I tried, but I . . . I tried to help some of them, but it didn't work. I couldn't even help one of them the way that you helped me. And the whole time I thought that it was me that got you bottomed out.”

“No,” she says, caressing my face, rubbing my tears dry. “I'm truly sorry you had to carry that with you over the years. It was you, little 242, that let me know that my efforts weren't wasted. That change is possible, even if it's one orphan at a time. Even if you did follow me around like a shadow.”

I can't help but smile.

“It's time,” says Zavier.

◊  ◊  ◊

He can't look at me. He's not being a jerk, I realize. Even though it's his natural state.

Zavier's nervousness is not a good sign.

“Have you done this before?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says.

“A lot?”

“Once.”

“How'd it go?”

He doesn't answer.

“Did they die?”

“Distracting me while I'm calibrating only increases your risk.”

I have more questions. Mostly about where he got his training. I imagine they don't have high standards for medical care down below.

The machine makes a grinding noise. “I'm sure that's normal,” Samantha says, still by my side.

“This procedure should take less than five minutes,” he says. “I'll talk you through, even when you're in a state of noncoherence.”

He pulls a rubber-gripped tool from the contraption, and contact
with the air makes it spark. Its end is a delicate yet nightmare-inducing spike.

“This will go in your ear,” he says, waving it gently. The gleaming metal bends slightly, and its malleability doesn't make it more attractive.

I'm suddenly nauseous.
Maybe I'll pass out
, I think hopefully.

Samantha squeezes my hand. I squeeze back and hold it tight. Hold it like I'm holding on for my life.

Another spark. My ears home in on that sharp burst. It overwhelms my eardrums.

“Ready?” he says.

I nod yes, then immediately shake my head no. He's already moving toward me.

“Close your eyes,” he says. “Try to relax and take deep breaths.”

“I'm sorry about your friend,” I tell him. “But I didn't kill him, okay? Whether you believe that or not. So don't kill me.”

A look crosses over his face.
Sympathy?

He feels sorry for me, and that is the worst part of all.

“Do this already,” I demand, and close my eyes.

“The only way to remove the chip is by disabling the signal with sound,” Zavier says. “A series of high-pitched sonic waves at an accelerated frequency. And to do that, we must get as close to the chip as possible.”

That's when I feel the spike easing into my ear. Slow and steady. Cold metal going straight for my brain.

“I will go fast, Lex. Fast as I possibly can. In a second you will feel pain. But that only lasts a few moments.”

Instantly, my brain is on fire, like it's going to explode out of my skull. I'm fighting to endure it, fighting not to freak out, and I open my mouth to shriek, when it cuts short and all that comes out, I think, is a whimper.

“There. That's the worst of it.”

Now there is just a faint ache, the foreign metal uncomfortably icy against my eardrum.

“Can you hear me, Lex?”

“That sucked,” I say in a hollow voice.

“You're doing fine. In a second I'll release the first frequency. That will affect the part of the temporal lobe that controls language skills. We'll use hand gestures to communicate since you won't be able to speak for the rest of the procedure.”

Does that include screaming?

“Can you hear me?” Zavier says. “Wiggle your fingers.”

It sounds easy, but my hands are dead weights. What has he
really
done to me?

Wiggle
, I think.
C'mon. Wiggle.

“I felt it,” Samantha says, then softly whispers in my unspiked ear, “You're doing good. Real good.”

“I'm sending the second frequency now,” Zavier says. “Then there is only one more to go.”

This time, like the last, I can hear the frequency all too well. It's like a speeder racing directly overhead, or an uncomfortably close blaster bolt. Suddenly, I can't feel my body, and I worry that this is permanent. I can no longer hear out of either ear. My body's going into shock. I'm spasming uncontrollably and Samantha holds me down, but I'm only getting worse. I can't fight it. My vision goes hazy. I feel like dying, but Samantha—my lifeline—won't let me.

My eyes are rolling up and someone's pressing something hard in my mouth, and every time my body shakes, I bite down on this thing and I buck hard enough that Zavier has to come hold me down. That's when I lose touch with my body.

It's just a shell now. That I'm trapped in. It has served me well, but I can't hold on anymore. I'm not strong enough.

I'm not strong enough.

I'm not strong.

“How are you feeling?” I ask. Lex's eyes flicker open and appear a little glazed over, as though she has no idea who I am.

In many ways, she doesn't, but I cannot help but worry. Especially when she tries to stand up and her legs give out. Kane and I catch her and sit her down. Zavier explained she would be light-headed and disoriented, her equilibrium clearly affected, but it will pass as her body adjusts.

“Just lay there for now,” I say.

She nods.

Zavier has already called it a success. After disabling the chip, he was able to extract it without risking further damage.

We will stay here until Lex recovers. Roscoe has sent the rest of the rebels ahead. There are many factions down here, and not all are friendly to their cause. Territory changes possession every day, and we must be sure that we'll be granted safe passage as we avoid the Hub and all the heavily trafficked zones.

For now it feels good to rest and sit. To fill the time, Kane and I share stories about the Islands. Afterward, I do not find that I miss them much at all. I tell him he was lucky to have been able to join the Academy. I surprise him with tales of my swordsmanship, and I tell him something I've never told anyone else: how I discovered my mother's sword locked away in a case under their sleeper. I'd been woken by a nightmare and hid under there in the
early morning. At first touch the sounds it made startled me, but I refused to let it go and clutched it against my chest, and in my memory it hummed me to sleep. Kane looks shocked. Through his eyes, my adventurous streak makes me blush. It makes me feel . . . silly. Once we start talking, we can't stop. Yet we dance around our first meeting. I err on the side of proper while he . . . perhaps I've scared him.

The day has grown long into night and we lean against each other for support. His touch awakens my body, warming me in the cool eaves of this hollowed earth, though I know perhaps that his intentions are confusing. I would like to close my eyes and dream awhile. It would be nice.

His eyes close and his bruised body relaxes, and I gather him against me. He's a strange boy. They could all be this way, I think. For all we've talked, I still know little about him. He could still be a danger to me. That, I must never forget.

◊  ◊  ◊

When Lex is strong enough to sit upright by herself, Samantha breaks bits off a ration bar and feeds them to her. We're all given one bar each to eat.

“I saw things,” Lex says. “I only wish I could remember what they were.”

“Most certainly your memories returning to you,” Roscoe says. “It will take time, but they are there now.”

The rebels return and the news isn't great. A clan of mutations has taken over the unfinished transit path that would give us the most direct route back to their base.

“So what's the plan?” Lex says. “If you have another one, that is.”

Her voice is combative and angry. In other words, she's herself again. This floods me with relief.

“We'll head for the Old Town Safe Zone,” Zavier says. “This clan
can't have taken that from us. Just make sure your blasters're charged and stick close to one another, all right?”

There's a snort.

“You got something to say, Marley?” Zavier walks over to a short, scruffy rebel, his head bursting with knotted clumps of hair. He snorts again.

“No one abides by no Safe Zone. Zone's an illusion that ends when the crossfire begins. Can't just dance on through there expecting to get a hero's welcome.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Cut through Unifier territory. They'll be too busy counting their supplies to notice.”

“With a group this large? They'll think it's a raid.”

“Then we split up, half with you, half with me.”

“The girls are our only priority,” says Zavier.

“Even that one?” Marley asks, pointing at Kane.

The jab doesn't wound Kane. “Even this one,” he replies.

Marley chuckles, and some of the other rebels laugh along. “You'll all be dead in under two minutes and then we'll be free to go whichever way we want.”

“I give them two seconds,” says another.

Lex clenches her jaw, her anger rising; I know the signs. Within a few moments she will combust.

“Silence,” Roscoe says. “Zavier is right. The Safe Zone is the most logical choice. We can blend in there long enough to pass through.”

Roscoe's word is law. There is no further dissent.

“Let us now, my brothers, have a moment of reflection,” says Roscoe, joining hands with those nearest him, “to contemplate a time before our movement found you.”