Youngbloods, page 5
Five minutes later, Croy picks me up at the river’s edge.
I’m wet and cold, out of healing nanos, and my hoverboard is toast. But my father’s child prison has been destroyed, the inmates safe.
Croy hoists me on board with an outstretched hand. ‘Good job with those missiles.’
‘Not bad for a war criminal,’ I say.
He sighs. ‘When you’re Special, it’s easy to forget how fragile everyone else is. You have to pretend regular people are made of paper.’
Regular people—like I’m a different species now.
Maybe we are, especially us Youngbloods.
‘Okay, I’ll try,’ I say.
‘It’s not easy. But one rule of thumb: Don’t use chemical weapons.’
I grab hold of Croy’s waist as we lift into the air. ‘That’s strong language for a jar of jalapeño brine.’
‘When you turn it into superheated steam? Some of those littlies still can’t see.’
‘Oh.’ I don’t know what else to say.
When I protected my sister, I was trained that no one else mattered.
But now everyone matters.
Croy’s board lifts higher, revealing the crowd of littlies on the far side of the landslide rubble. There must be two hundred of them, milling around in a state of confusion. Some of them are crying.
For the second time in their lives, their home is suddenly gone.
The other Youngbloods are gathered around the Titan’s head. The hum of X’s pulse lance trembles the air.
‘You’re trying to get it open?’ I ask. ‘Are you brain-missing?’
‘Yeah, we know,’ Croy says. ‘Your father likes to booby-trap his drones. But it’s not a drone.’
‘You mean it’s a battle suit?’
‘Yep,’ he says. ‘X thinks there’s someone inside.’
11. SINGLE ELIMINATION
As Croy and I land, Shay holds up her index finger to her lips.
We step from the board, careful not to rattle the rocks under our feet.
X is kneeling on the Titan’s half-buried head, one lupine ear pressed against the charred metal. Everyone else is dead silent.
Astrix stares at her scanner, but it can’t be showing much through the Titan’s heavy armor.
X raises his head. ‘The breathing’s louder. I think we’re close.’
He lifts his pulse lance and gives it a squeeze. It sparks to life, and he slides it carefully into a fissure at the Titan’s neck. He guides the blade in a gentle arc, the smell of burned metal filling the air.
The six of us crowd around the ragged-edged panel, slide our fingers into the still-hot fissure, and pull. The muscles in my hands burn hard, the tendons like ropes in my arms. For a long moment, the panel doesn’t budge.
We all break at once, rubbing our sore fingers.
‘Again,’ Tally says.
We take hold and heave.
Finally, with a rasp of scraping metal, the jagged piece pulls away. X and Croy have to stumble quickly back as it slides off their side.
There’s a girl curled up inside the Titan’s head.
She’s emaciated, no muscle definition in her arms and legs. Her skin is sallow, like she hasn’t seen the sun in a long time.
She’s about fifteen, only a little older than the kids in Hideaway.
I want to look away, but force my eyes to keep cataloging everything in the small capsule. The girl’s skin is dotted with electrodes, hardwired to the machine. Her eyes are covered with direct input screens, her ears plugged with buds. An intravenous tube runs into each of her spindly arms.
Around her mouth is an array of tiny microphones. Of course—the kids in Hideaway are trained to control machines with sound.
‘This is what they graduate to,’ I say.
The others looks at me.
‘Littlies don’t stay young forever,’ I explain. ‘My father found a use for them.’
Tally’s eyes flash with anger. ‘How is this useful?’
‘He’s scared of AI,’ I say. ‘But he’s an expert at manipulating people.’
‘Used to be,’ Boss X says gently. ‘He’s still dead, Frey.’
For a moment, everyone is silent, each of us fixed in place by our own horror.
Then a finger of dawn reaches the twisted metal of the Titan’s head. Reflected sunlight plays across the girl’s pale skin.
She stirs among all those wires, a dry and uncertain noise coming from her throat.
‘Let’s get her out of there,’ Tally says.
‘It started as a game,’ the girl explains.
She pauses to take a drink of water. Her voice is a rasp, rustling like leaves at the start of winter. Her hands shake as she guides Tally’s canteen to her mouth.
She stares into the fire like she’s never seen one before. We had to get her out of the sun and into the darkness of a cave, but even in here her eyes are squinting.
‘Us older kids didn’t have to do chores. Instead we’d sit around all day, wearing eyescreens, trying to control virtual robots. Sometimes they had two legs, sometimes four or six. After a while, we got special chambers that would shake, to give us feedback.’
She looks out the cave’s mouth, blinking at the sunlight.
‘I don’t know when they made the robot real.’ The girl sips more water. ‘I thought I was still playing a simulation, a game.’
X stands up and turns away, anger rippling through his body. I remember something he said to me once.
You were created as a tool, a means to an end. You owe the world nothing but chaos.
This girl owes the world something worse.
‘What’s your name?’ Shay asks.
‘Little Hawk,’ the girl says.
‘Do you remember a kid called Spider?’ I ask. ‘A little younger than you?’
‘Maybe? He wasn’t a player.’
‘He said you were … sleeping.’
‘Between games, it’s like being in a dream.’ Little Hawk puts down the canteen and rubs at the marks left by the electrodes. She sits uncomfortably on the dirt floor of the cave. ‘It’s hard being out here again. The game always feels good, as long as you win.’
‘We’ll take you someplace more comfortable,’ Tally says gently.
Fear flickers in Little Hawk’s eyes. ‘But I failed my game—I have to try again!’
There’s a moment of silence. She still doesn’t realize that her last objective was to kill two hundred children.
‘Don’t worry about winning,’ X says, a growl tingeing his voice. ‘Everyone who can hurt you is dead—or will be soon.’
She looks up at him, not reassured at all.
I take her hand. ‘You said there were other players?’
Little Hawk nods. ‘Of course. All us older kids were hooked up.’
‘Where are they now?’ I ask.
‘I haven’t seen them since the tournament,’ she says.
Tally frowns. ‘What kind of tournament?’
‘Single elimination. Everyone who lost stopped playing. But I’m still here, because I was the best.’
PART II
EPITAPH
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
—Emily Dickinson
Dear Little Shadow,
You may not be answering my pings, but I know you’re listening to this.
Without me, you feel as incomplete as I do.
You should be here, to see how the citizens of Shreve have changed. You should come home and help me understand them. They no longer understand themselves.
They wanted to be free. They wanted Dad gone. But every time something bad happens, they want the dust back to fix it.
Someone steals your umbrella. Someone’s making too much noise next door. Someone bumps you on the street. The dust would’ve stopped them, told them to be quiet, made them apologize.
Your boyfriend cheats on you. Your boss takes credit for your work. A friend bails on your party, then pretends you never invited them. The dust would’ve seen it happen—the omniscient city would have said something.
These days, it’s left to us mucky humans to sort things out.
Is it my fault that people are so messy?
Every time something bad happens, my face rank goes down a little.
The citizens keep blaming me for all those stolen umbrellas, those wet socks, those squelching shoes. With Dad dead and buried, there’s no one else for them to hate.
Only me. All alone.
You’d know what to say. You’d tell them to roll up their sleeves. To deal with the muck and the mess of other people. At least no one ever erased their childhood … or stole their name.
Maybe you’d understand their faults better—you always did have lower expectations than me.
Unavoidable, I suppose.
Did you see that the free cities made Shreve a continuous democracy? All it takes is for fifty-one percent of the citizens to tell the city interface they want me gone, and the council takes over. Anytime, day or night.
Every missing umbrella matters.
You should come home. Your city needs you. Your big sister needs you.
Maybe you need us too?
—Rafia of Shreve
12. FREEDOM
Before I open my eyes the next morning, I know that X is making coffee.
He always buries the pot deep in last night’s coals, impatient for the first black drops to ooze. The result tastes like smoke and stone, a pulse blade cutting through metal.
X does many things well—coffee is not one of them.
In the Youngbloods, we all pitch in with the cooking, hunting, and repair. Shay builds efficient fires, Tally makes excellent spaghetti Bolognese, but no one really specializes. Our only real expertise is mayhem.
X always knows when I’m awake—as my eyes open, he hands me a metal cup. The scalding handle prickles, but my healing nanos are back to their usual strength.
The coffee spreads a sooty flavor across my tongue, mixing with the spent bonfires we built to keep the littlies warm last night. Powdered milk forms a border of lace around the lip of the cup.
Rafi would throw this coffee in the fire.
She’d hate sleeping on the ground, making new camp every night, wearing the same self-cleaning clothes for days on end. But X’s burned coffee fills me with uncluttered contentment. It’s a universe away from the perilous luxury that Rafi and I were born into.
‘Good coffee,’ I say to X.
He shrugs, under no illusions. ‘Only because you’re alive, after everything that tried to kill you yesterday.’
‘Missiles, drones, landslides,’ I say. ‘That last one’s new, at least.’
He smiles. ‘Don’t let Tally hear you bragging.’
It stings a little, this reminder that I’m the puppy in this pack. But X is right—there’s no glory in winning a fight against a child sealed in a machine.
Last night, I finally listened to Rafi’s pings, trying to hear if she’s hiding any terrible secrets. There was no hint of guilt in her voice, not about Hideaway.
Or about Col.
She sounds more like someone in over her head, willing to tell me anything to keep her grasp on the power she was born to.
I take another sip.
X looks as tired as I feel.
‘You kept watch all night, didn’t you?’
‘In case of another unpleasant surprise. But even the littlies were quiet.’ He smiles again, his teeth a string of sharpened pearls. ‘They’re on their best behavior with me.’
I have to laugh at this. Under my father’s rule, Shreve didn’t allow surgery as transformative as X’s, not even in feed dramas. These kids have never seen anything like a wolf-man.
‘Sleep isn’t the same,’ he says. ‘The stars seem different since Shreve.’
I reach out and run my fingers through the fur on his arms. For the month my father held him captive, X was in a windowless cell, cut off from the sky.
‘Tally told me you were born in the wild,’ I say.
He nods. ‘My parents were runaways. They worried that once I was old enough, I’d be curious about cities, and maybe run away myself. So they told me that you lose a piece of your soul every night you sleep under a roof.’
‘Interesting parenting choice. And I say that as someone who was raised as a killing machine.’
‘A vivid image, and difficult to shake. Especially in that cell.’
I squeeze his arm. ‘If anyone’s soul is big enough to take the hit, yours is, X-la.’
He arches an eyebrow at the pretty nickname.
I decide to double down. ‘Also—you as a littlie. Awww.’
X gives me a look of infinite patience. ‘Speaking of children, let’s hope today is calmer.’
I turn to look at the encampment below us. It’s quiet this early.
The city of Paz air-dropped us supplies yesterday—food and water, soccer balls and feed screens, two dozen refugee habitats. The littlies threw another party, excited, astonished, terrified by their own freedom.
Some remained convinced they were in trouble for being discovered, but most seemed to thrive on the chaos, as if the destruction of Hideaway was a fire alarm in the middle of a school day.
The only thing that saved us from absolute chaos was their fear of X—and their awe of Tally Youngblood.
‘Is Boss up yet?’ I ask.
‘Yes, and she wants to talk to you.’
X glances up at the ridgeline. In the jagged bite from the horizon torn out by yesterday’s landslide, a board hovers, smooth and aerodynamic against the rubble and ruin.
‘I’m in trouble,’ I say. ‘Did you hear about my improvised chemical weapon?’
‘Tactical slapdashery.’ X shrugs. ‘Boss Tally doesn’t concern herself with details.’
Details? I thought it was a war crime.
The Youngbloods are complicated like that—careful but dangerous, distrustful of the world while trying to save it, fractious even though Tally is decidedly the boss.
Too complicated for mornings.
‘Maybe another coffee before you go up,’ X says, like he’s reading my mind.
The crater left by Hideaway’s self-destruction is blackened, strewn with shattered rocks. Astrix scanned this area yesterday and found the Titan’s resting chamber just below, partially collapsed. We can’t get down there without heavy equipment, but her sensor nanos slipped through the cracks and fissures—no heartbeats found.
Little Hawk was the last player left.
‘Boss?’ I call into the gloom of the crater.
‘Over here.’
I find Tally staring at a row of deep gouges in the rock. Each was left by a shaped charge of high explosives bored into the valley wall, splitting the cliff like lasers cutting a diamond.
‘That’s expert work,’ I say. ‘If Tigerboy hadn’t warned us, all those littlies would’ve disappeared forever.’
‘Yeah. Some engineer thought long and hard about killing two hundred kids.’
I shrug. ‘The night he died, my father almost killed a million people.’
‘I’ve heard the official version, Frey-la.’
A small, surprised sound comes out of me. ‘That’s not a version, Boss—it’s what happened. His tower’s still full of nuclear waste. It’s so poisonous, they’re burying the whole thing in permacrete!’
Tally contemplates the gouges in the mountainside. ‘Your father wanted to threaten the world one last time.’
‘Not just threaten. He would’ve pushed that button. You think I’m exaggerating?’
‘Not you—the whole world.’ She sits down on a shelf of stone, gestures to the spot next to her.
After a moment’s hesitation, I sit down too.
‘It’s an old habit,’ Tally says. ‘When the global feeds start telling me someone’s a villain—that they’re to blame for all the trouble, even the earthquakes—part of me starts to wonder. Maybe it’s a distraction from something deeper, something wrong with the system.’
‘Tally, my father was exactly what everyone said he was. He told me to my face about that earthquake weapon. It was from a Rusty site under Victoria.’
She nods. ‘An earthquake machine does sound pretty Rusty.’
‘And you knew Seanan—he died trying to stop our father! Do you think he was exaggerating?’
‘I thought that was a pointless sacrifice,’ Tally says. ‘Killing one person doesn’t fix the world.’
I stare at her, too shocked to say more.
This is Tally Youngblood, the first rebel, equivocating about my father. She sounds like Diego and the other free cities, excusing themselves from acting to stop him until it was almost too late.
If she can’t believe in such an obvious monster, how do I convince her that my charming sister is a threat?
Tally raises her hands, surrendering to my stare.
‘Look, Frey-la, I get it now. The moment we saw that girl curled up in the Titan’s head, I realized—of all the things I’ve created, your father was probably the worst.’
‘That you created?’
‘Me and my crew. Twenty years ago, your father was some random middle pretty working in his garden.’ She lets out an exhausted sigh. ‘Our revolution turned him into a mass murderer.’
‘Boss, all you did was make the world free.’
‘Exactly.’ Tally gives me a sad smile. ‘And freedom has a way of destroying things.’
13. FIGHT
It’s too much for me.
Everyone’s heard this argument, of course—that the world was better off under the pretty regime. The operation that made people beautiful also turned them into harmless bubbleheads. For centuries, there was no war, no greed, no laying waste to nature.
Of course, nobody talks seriously about going back. We want to keep our unruly, reckless brains. We want the freedom to create a new world, even if it means conflict and occasional ruin.
But somehow the argument sounds less settled now that I’m having it with Tally Youngblood.
‘That’s why the Youngbloods are cautious these days,’ she says. ‘Everything we do has unintended consequences.’
