The Body Electric - Special Edition (18 page)

I jerk away from him when he reaches for me, putting a couple of meters between us.

“I never imagined that they could have gotten to you too,” Jack says softly.

I sneer at him. “No one’s ‘gotten’ to me,” I snap. I am not some brainwashed victim like Jack seems to think I am.

Jack shakes his head sadly. “I wish that were true.”

“It
is
true!” I shout. I take a deep breath, forcing myself to focus not on my rage, but on the answers I need.

“Someone’s made you forget me, Ella,” Jack says sadly. “Forget
us
.”

thirty-one

“Us?” I ask incredulously, waving my hands at him. “No. I do not have time for your mind games. You are going to answer my questions, and then I’m leaving, and we never have to see each other again.”

Jack eyes me warily, as if I am a deadly predator. “But—” he starts.

I cut him off. “Was your little terrorist organization responsible for the androids blowing up?” I ask. I angle my wrist subtly toward Jack. All I need is one confession, and I can go.

“We’re not terrorists,” Jack says, his voice heavy.

I dismiss this. “Were you?” I ask again.

“
No
,” he says emphatically.

I barely restrain from rolling my eyes. If he’d just confess already, we could be done. “Fine, you’re not confessing to the android attack. Then who do
you
think did it?”

“The government, obviously.”

“Oh,
obviously
,” I snap. “Why wouldn’t it be the
government
? It’s not like we have a perfectly operational
terrorist group
right here to do it.”

“The Zunzana isn’t a terrorist group!” Jack shouts. His face his red, his breathing heavy. I’ve touched a nerve.

“What is it then?” I sneer.

Jack runs his fingers through his hair. “We’re… we’re just…. Look, before—”

“Before what?”

“Before everything. My parents were against the UC since the Secessionary War, and they were trying to change things.
Not
through violence,” he adds when he sees my face. “Politically. Then…”

“Then?” I demand.

“Then they started to die. And so did anyone who agreed with them. We’re all that’s left. Me, Julie, Xavier.” He says the last name the French way,
zah-vee-aye
. “Our parents… all our friends… the Prime Administrator had them all killed. Maybe not directly, but it’s not that hard to piece together. An accident, a sudden transfer to a Secessionary State, a car accident…” His voice trails off, and I flash back to the obituary of Jack’s parents, two aides in the representative administration’s office. A car accident. I wonder what happened to Julie’s parents, and Xavier’s. Jack looks up, his eyes piercing mine. “A lab accident.”

I swallow, hard. Dad’s death was done by terrorists,
not
the government. He had nothing to do with politics.

But… Estella Belles had nothing to do with politics either.

“Is that what all this is about?” I ask. “Revenge?”

Jack shakes his head, frustrated. “No, no, of course not,” he says, but I’m not sure if I believe it. If I found out the government killed my parents, I’d want a revenge so bloody the sea would turn red.

Jack starts pacing again. “It’s not until recently that we started to figure out what happened. I joined the military last year.” He eyes me, as if this was a significant thing for him to say, but he continues when I don’t respond. “Then I saw what the government was doing. To people—soldiers—people who were from poor homes, who had no one to miss them. People like Akilah.”

“She’s not dead,” I whisper, hearing the doubt in my voice. I say it again, louder. “She’s not dead. And she has nothing to do with this.”

My mind’s reeling. I expected an entire underground movement, a system of spies and rebels—not three teenagers against the entire Unified Countries. I almost scoff at them, but then I remember the gaping, burning hole in my apartment, and I realize just how much damage a handful of people can do.

“Just three of you. Trying to take down the government.”

Jack gapes at me. “That’s not what we’re doing.”

“Isn’t that what the ‘Zunzana’ is all about?” I ask, not bothering to hide my contempt.

“We didn’t do the android attack!” Jack says, his voice rising. “All we want to do is let people know what’s happening—that something’s
wrong
—that people are disappearing!”

“Akilah hasn’t disappeared,” I say. “But you know who has? The one hundred and four people who died in yesterday’s explosions.”

Jack paces like an animal in a cage, shooting me frustrated looks. There’s desperation in his movements, anger.

“Ella,” Jack says abruptly. “Why are you here? How much… how much of me do you remember?”

“Nothing,” I say immediately. “Because there’s nothing to remember.”

His face falls into an emotionless mask. I’ve noticed that he does that whenever he brings up this supposed past we share. It’s his poker face, his way of making sure I can’t see the way he’s trying to manipulate me.

Well, two can play that game. “Let’s make a deal,” I say. “I ask you something; you ask me something.” He won’t learn anything important about me—there
is
nothing important about me—but I might find more information with which to crucify him.

Jack collapses down under the tree again, his body sagging. He pats the stone beside him, but I don’t take his offer. I want to be standing. I want to be able to run.

“Is there
anything
about me you remember?” Jack asks.

“I met you a few days ago,” I shoot back. “You accosted me in Central Gardens.”

“I was
trying
to warn you,” he growls. Then his face softens. “You don’t remember before?”

“There was no before,” I snap. “And it’s my turn. Are you the leader of this terrorist organization?”

“We’re not terrorists.”

I don’t bother answering; he can argue semantics all he wants. I half believe him, but I can’t risk being wrong based on a gut feeling. Finally Jack sighs and says, “Yes. I suppose that now, after… after everything, I am the closest thing we have to a leader. How much do you know about your father’s research?”

The question catches me completely off guard. I was not at all expecting Dad to be brought into this conversation. “His last experiments were focused on making an artificial brain,” I answer. Judging from Representative Belles’s documents, this isn’t a secret or anything Jack doesn’t already know. “Which is impossible,” I add. Scientists can make something that’s exactly the same as a human brain, right down to every wrinkle and crease, but they can’t make it
think
. “Androids are nothing but complicated computers dressed up to look human. They can’t think for themselves.”

Jack nods. “But did you know that he started having problems with the methods the UC wanted him to use? He disagreed with them on some things—I was never really sure what—and anyway, he started having trouble with the high-ups.”

I stare at him blankly. “No,” I say. I never heard Dad complain about his work. But in my last memories of Dad, I remember him being worried. He lost a lot of weight. For a while, I’d been worried that he was sick, too, like Mom. “What makes you think that?”

Jack looks startled. “Because I was working with your Dad on that research,” he says. I remember the photo now, the one of him and Dad in the lab, my father’s hand resting gently on Jack’s shoulder.

“I was recruited right out of secondary school, for my service year,” Jack continues. “I was only supposed to be a lab assistant, but Dr. Philip took me under his wing.”

“Dad always liked lost causes,” I say.

This earns me a wry grin.

“The month before Dr. Philip died, he fired me. Not for anything I did,” Jack hurries to say. “But he didn’t want me to get embroiled with the politics, and he worried that he was going to get in trouble for some of his research and didn’t want to hurt my name. None of his problems ever came to light though.”

Because he died. Because he was
killed
. I can’t let myself forget or lose focus on that.

“So after you were fired,” I say, “you decided to start up a little terrorist group—”

“A
protest
group,” Jack says, his voice rising. “There’s a difference.”

“Not from where I stand.”

“Maybe you’re standing on the wrong side.”

I roll my eyes.

“There have always been protesters against the UC, since before the Secessionary War. Do you think Malta wanted its capital city named after a city in Italy? Do you think people wanted to be displaced and moved into the Foqra District? The protests started here, in Malta, and as much as she’s tried, PA Young can’t eliminate everyone.” He glances at the door, where Julie and Xavier, the only two remaining members of the group, left.

“We used to be bigger,” he continues. “We used to be a network of people throughout not just Malta, but the entire UC. We were organized, and we were strong, and we were going to change the world.”

“The Zunzana,” I say, tasting the word on my tongue. Could it really be what Jack says it is? Not a terrorist group, but this force of good?

“‘Zunzana,’” Jack says in a contemplative voice, “is the old Maltese word for ‘bumblebee,’ like you said. Bees used to be symbolic of cleverness, and life. And the name of our country, ‘Malta’—it means ‘honey.’ Like bees protect their honey, we protect our country.”

“Protect it from what?” I ask.

“From the UC.”

“The UC is as good as any government,” I say. “And we don’t need another war.” The Secessionary War was well before my time, but there’s a giant, sea-filled crater where the original capital of Malta once stood that never lets us forget about the price of war.

Jack makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “How can I make you see?” he says. “The UC is willing to control us by any means possible. Just look at your cuff—look at the way the government monitors
everything
. You think they do that for your safety? They’re lying. This is what the Zunzana are fighting—it’s what your dad fought for, before he died. He didn’t want us to turn into toy soldiers and puppets.”

“Leave my dad out of this,” I snap.

“How can I?” Jack roars, leaping up. He rushes at me, stopping just before my face. “You father
died
fighting the government—just like my parents—and you’re dismissing his sacrifice like it was nothing. It may have been easy for you to forget the past, but I never could.”

“I’ve not forgotten anything!” I shout back. “I’m just not believing your lies!”

Jack’s face grows still. “Really?” he asks, his voice low and dangerous. “Is this a lie?” Before I can do anything more than gasp in shock, Jack jerks me against the solid wall of his body, wraps his arms around me, tilts my head up, and kisses the surprise from my lips.

thirty-two

My hands are crushed flat against his chest, the hard outline of his muscles just beneath my fingertips. For a long moment, all I can think about is his body against mine, his lips against mine.

And then my hands curl into fists and I push him away. I wipe my mouth off and glare at him. “How
dare
you!” I scream.

“Ella, I just thought—” He looks wounded. The son of a bitch looks
offended
that I would push him off me.

I cross the small space between us, raise my hands, and shove him so hard that he falls back against the wall. “Don’t touch me again, you creep!”

I turn on my heel and race to the door. I don’t think about the way my body feels as if it’s on fire, the way I cannot get the taste of him out of my mouth. He had no right.

He catches up to me and grabs my wrist, pulling me toward him. I use the momentum of my body moving in his direction to aim my fist at his face, but he catches my arm mid-throw. “Ella. Ella! I’m sorry, all right? I just thought maybe I could make you remember me.”

“Remember you?
Remember
you? If that’s the sort of thing you want me to remember, I’m glad I forgot!” I jerk free of his grip, but he lets my wrist slide through his fingers easily. He looks gutted.

“We dated for a year,” he says hollowly.