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IMARA TAPPED HER GOLD RING AS she ran down a street in Cairo. She scrolled through her hologram screen, rushing to call Abe. “Sorry,” she said when his face appeared on the screen. “There was a delay at the airport.”
“How close are you?” he asked. The business fair had started over an hour ago and it was almost time for her speech.
Checking her surroundings, she said, “I don’t know. A couple of blocks. Am I going to be late?”
“You’ll be fine,” he said with a smile. He glanced over his shoulder just as Husani gave a flirtatious grin to a passerby from behind him. Abe shook his head as he turned back to face Imara. “You’ll be great. Your speech will get tons of gangsters to join us, I know it.”
“It’s not that good,” she said, though her frown was stifled by her need to jump over a broken delivery drone. The circular, industrial drone came up to her knees. The long arms coming out from the bottom were meant to carry large packages, but now they were sprawled over the pavement in a crumpled mess.
She took a quick glance back at the drone as she jumped over it. The Egyptian Council owned delivery drones and usually kept them in perfect repair. As far as she knew, Sef and his gangsters had never used them or attempted to destroy them. But that drone didn’t land broken on the street by accident.
“Your speech is perfect,” Abe said pulling her out of her thoughts. “I know that for a fact since you practiced it on me last night.”
“We’ll find out soon, I guess,” she said, trying to ignore the drone. Cairo had so many problems, it didn’t need another one.
She said goodbye and tapped off her ring. Just as she prepared to round a corner into an alley, a small drone flew right into her face. Without thinking, she slammed a hand against it and swatted it to the ground. With her mind already on a drone, this seemed like more than a coincidence.
When the drone hit the ground, one of its propellers bent into a crooked angle, rendering it useless. She grimaced and searched for the owner of the drone who, luckily, wasn’t far.
A tall woman with thin eyes and silky, black hair stared back at her.
She looked familiar.
Imara shook the thought away. There was no time to worry about that now. “I’m sorry about your drone,” she said.
The woman bent over and cradled the drone in her hands before turning to Imara with a sneer. “Look what you’ve done! My drone is ruined.”
Imara curled her fist into a ball while heat flooded her veins. This wasn’t her fault. The drone flew right in her face. What was she supposed to do? Before she could say anything she would regret, she sucked in a deep breath and tried to relax her jaw.
She had to stop seeing the worst in people. There had to be something good. The woman seemed selfish for blaming Imara for the broken drone, but there had to be more to her than that.
While the silky-haired woman bent down to retrieve the drone, Imara forced herself to look for the best instead of the worst.
“I demand you pay for the damages,” the woman said as flecks of spit flew from her mouth. Her lips curled up to show her teeth as she glared. She took a step forward, brushing the toes of her shoes against Imara’s. “Open your hologram and sync with me. Then, you can transfer the money to me immediately.”
Imara took a step back attempting to regain her personal space. Aggressive, selfish, and accusatory. How could one person be all three? She jiggled her head to erase those thoughts. No, there had to be something good as well. If Abe had found something good in her, then she could find something good in this stranger. She tried to smile and tapped her hologram ring. “I’m happy to pay damages. You just need a new propeller, right? How much should I transfer to your account?”
The woman tapped her own ring and selected Imara’s photo from her syncing app. While they synced, the woman tapped her hologram screen so fast Imara couldn’t see what she was doing. As the woman worked, a smile seemed to hide under her lips. “Four hundred points,” she said.
Imara bit her tongue, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from widening. Greedy too? How was she supposed to see something good when there was so much bad? She forced herself to smile as she stared. There had to be something good. There had to be.
Once the syncing finished, the woman’s name appeared on her hologram. Takara. As she read the name, a hidden thought in the back of her mind sprang to life. But the thought died as soon as it had appeared. Why did her name seem familiar?
Before Imara could forage through her memories, her hologram flashed, blacked out, and then flickered with a sputter. She let out a gasp and pulled her hand up until the hologram screen shined right in front of her nose. She shook her hand, hoping it would jolt the ring back to life. Instead, the hologram blacked out again before a golden stream of numbers covered the screen. Her mouth dropped, but a moment later the screen went back to normal as if nothing had ever changed. She narrowed her eyes at the hologram, searching for a trace of the golden numbers.
“What happened to your ring?” Takara asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen that happen before.” She shook her hand again, but the hologram continued to shine just the same as it always did.
Takara folded her arms over her chest. “Then send me the money.”
Rude, but also tenacious. Tenacious could be considered a good thing in the right circumstances. It wasn’t great at this particular moment, but it was as close to a good quality as she’d get. She’d take it.
Selecting the banking app, Imara transferred four hundred points to Takara’s account. While the money transferred, Imara admired the black hair Takara was brushing over her shoulder. Long, thick, and silky smooth. That was another good thing. Takara was beautiful. Of course outward beauty wasn’t as important as the things inside, but she was finding it more difficult than usual to find something good about this woman. Tenacious and beautiful would have to cut it. She still needed practice seeing the best in people, but at least she was trying.
Takara smirked when the money arrived in her account. She wrapped her fingers around the drone so tight, her nails clicked against the metal. Then she walked off without a word.
* * *
IMARA FOUND THE BOOTH just as Edrice was shaking hands with a man in a business suit. Once the man walked off, Imara asked, “Am I late?”
“No,” Husani said. “They’ll announce our group in two minutes and eight seconds. Or they would if anyone working here was a time feeler. It will probably be more like four minutes and thirty nine seconds, which is a little ridiculous if you ask me.”
Abe hid his smirk so only she could see it before he gestured to the stage. “That’s where you’ll stand.”
She gulped as needles seemed to prick into her toes. “Why is it so big?” she asked.
The announcer came onto the stage three minutes and fifty seven seconds later, which Husani felt necessary to point out. Imara might have thanked him for the information if her insides weren’t busy doing flips. She wanted to grab Abe’s hand to help with her nerves. But this was a work thing, which meant they had to be professional. Stupid rule.
A clear, plastic podium sat in the middle of the stage. Bright yellow and red lights shone from light bulbs embedded inside the plastic. It gave off an eerie orange glow that made her stomach flip even harder.
Just as the announcer found his microphone app, his ring chimed with a notification.
At the exact same moment, every person in the area got a similar notification. For a moment, Imara’s anxiety was staved off by curiosity. What were the odds that every person would get a notification at the exact same moment?
About a billion to one.
The announcer stared at his ring, but shook his head and looked out at the crowd. “Our next business presentation will—”
Another notification rippled through the crowd as everyone’s rings chimed once again. And then it happened a third time. Unable to stave off her curiosity, Imara tapped her ring. The announcer, and almost everyone else in the room, did the same thing.
“It’s a news alert,” the announcer said. He narrowed his eyes at his hologram screen as an audible gulp rang through his microphone. “I’ll bring it up on the wall hologram,” he said.
He marched to the back wall and pressed a button, causing a large hologram to cover the entire back wall. After syncing his ring with the wall hologram, a news feed suddenly appeared. It matched the news feed that was now playing on Imara’s own hologram screen.
Four separate news stations displayed simultaneously on the screen. In each of the videos, government-issued delivery drones zoomed through the air.
A news reporter’s voice sounded muffled over the sound of the drones, but her words were written in subtitles on her news station’s feed. “Delivery drones are being hacked. The Egyptian Council has been notified, but they don’t know how it happened.”
In the news feed in the top right corner, a building appeared that Imara recognized from just the other night.
The prison with Aida inside.
She narrowed her eyes at the screen and tried to relax her jaw. In each of the other three feeds, a prison loomed in the background.
“Abe,” she said.
But he was already nodding, apparently having noticed the same thing. “All the drones are flying inside.”
Her eyes latched onto the news feed that focused on Aida’s prison. The news reporter jogged inside while the camera followed after her. She burst through the doors of the prison and gasped as she pointed to two bodies lying still on the ground.
“The drones,” the news reporter said. But then she stopped and swallowed because her explanation was unnecessary. At that moment, everyone saw one of the delivery drones reach its arms out until they were wrapped around one of the prisoners. As the prisoner struggled to free himself, the drone sent out an electric shock with bright blue sparks.
The prisoner’s body jolted for several seconds and then he fell to the ground. Imara clapped a hand over her mouth and whispered, “How?” She shook her head. “Who designed those drones?”
“They shouldn’t be able to do that,” Edrice said, surprisingly well composed. “There are safeguards in place to keep electricity from running through drone arms. Someone must have modified them.”
Imara’s breath shuddered as she watched the screen. The news reporter opened and closed her mouth, trying to find her words.
“They’re killing the prisoners,” the news reporter said. “There are already,” she gulped, “four dead in this room. I don’t know if they’re targeting specific prisoners or if the attacks are random.” She closed her eyes and muttered, “Let’s get the camera out of here.”
“Help!” another woman screamed from somewhere beyond the camera’s reach.
The news reporter grabbed a handful of her skirt and rushed around a corner until she stood outside a prison cell. The drone had wrapped its arms around another prisoner. The moment the prisoner appeared on the screen, Abe pulled Imara’s hand into a death grip.
“Aida,” he said as his face hardened.
Imara’s throat contracted as she tried to hold back her gasps. Abe looked ready to kill, but there was nothing he could do. Nothing any of them could do. Aida pushed against the drone arms, trying to free herself. Blue shocks flew through the arms, and soon the woman was dead on the ground.
“No!” Edrice said as she let out a strangled cry.
Husani wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she covered first her mouth and then her eyes.
Abe pulled his hand away from Imara to wipe a trail his tears had left. His breaths came out in short and heavy puffs as he stared at screen. As if staring at it would change what had happened.
Imara clutched her elbows as she forced herself to watch the news feed. Prison guards appeared, trying to shoot the delivery drone out of the air. The bullets seemed to have no effect on the drones, and soon the drone reached its arms toward the prison guard.
The news reporter started running from the building the moment the drone headed for the guard. She clutched her hot pink hijab in a death grip as she ran.
In the middle of the screen, a new feed popped up showing a tiny and very old woman from the Egyptian Council. “Someone hacked the delivery drones,” she said. “Not all the drones, just a few. We tracked down the location of the hacking and should be able to stop this attack soon.” She paused to whisper with another Egyptian Council member and then said, “We just bypassed the hacking on one drone. We should have the others down in a few minutes. Rest assured, we’ll put security protocols in place to prevent this from ever happening again.”
A third Egyptian Council member rushed to the woman’s side. “We got him,” the man said. “The drones are down.”
The Egyptian Council members spoke quietly with each other for a few moments and then the old woman said, “There were five drones total.” A quiet silence filled the air as the Egyptian Council members hung their heads. “Twenty eight deaths in all.”
A shiver ran up Imara’s spine. So much death in such a short amount of time. Who could possibly do something like this? And who had the hacking skills necessary to infiltrate government-issued drones? With hacking involved, her mind automatically went to one person. Someone who wouldn’t mind targeting prisoners either.
Professor Santini.
She shook the thought out before she could run away with it. Professor Santini was dead. She had run deep into the catacombs knowing the oncoming boiling water would kill her. The rest of them barely escaped the same boiling water. They all agreed there was no possible way for her to survive. Besides, Professor Santini had excellent hacking skills, but not that excellent.
Before she could consider it any longer, the screen cut out both on the wall hologram on the stage and on her personal hologram ring. The red and yellow lights in the plastic podium shined brighter, making the stage look like it was engulfed in flames. A tall woman with silky, black hair stepped up to the podium.
Takara.
Abe seized Imara’s forearm as he took in a sharp breath. She turned to him with a start. Through his teeth he said, “That woman was in the catacombs.”
“What?” she asked, looking back up at the stage.
“She led that group of taggers who attacked us. The ones who left, but never came back.”
Her mouth dropped as she finally remembered why the name Takara seemed so familiar. Professor Santini had said it. Now that the connection was made, she could hear the words in her head as clearly as when Professor Santini had spoken them. A former student helped me make the helmet. Takara said everyone would assume I was a telepath, but I didn’t believe it.
Imara reached up and tugged the hair on the back of her neck so hard, a few strands came out. Not only was Takara a tagger, she was the next in line after Professor Santini. Maybe the only one capable of continuing Professor Santini’s work.
The taggers were back, but this time Imara wouldn’t sit back and do nothing.
She jumped forward, ready to storm the stage. Abe caught her hand and said, “Not here. We need more information. Let’s listen to her first.”
She folded her arms in front of her chest, knowing he was right. She gritted her teeth with a frown. Maybe she would listen, but she didn’t have to do it happily.
Takara stood at the podium with a sickly sweet smile. “Hello,” she said. “You may have heard of the taggers in Alexandria. Well, now we’re here, and we’re taking over.”
A murmur went through the crowd, but Takara ignored it and tapped her ring. She scrolled through her screen and then began reading words off the hologram. “Cairo is a beautiful city, but also flawed. What once was great, is now crumbling under the oppression of those too powerful to overcome. Like each of us, Cairo is beautiful, but flawed. And like each of us, Cairo is in need of help.”
Imara gasped at the words. Her mind went back to those golden numbers on her hologram screen that appeared after her encounter with Takara. Now she understood why.
“Can Cairo be saved?” Takara asked. “Does Cairo deserve a chance? The answer is yes. Let me tell you how.”
“She stole my speech,” Imara whispered as her teeth gritted together. “She synced with me, and my ring went crazy. She must have heard us talking about it. She must have...”
Too busy gaping at Takara, Abe didn’t react to her words until she grabbed his arm.
“The other night,” she said. “A security camera watched us. She must have hacked it and heard our conversation. She knew I wrote a speech, and then she found me and stole it. She’s going to get new followers, and it will be my fault.”
Takara stood at the podium, promising change and hope. Even after murdering so many people, the words instilled courage and action.
“Let’s go,” Abe said, turning toward the exit. They all followed him without a second glance at the stage. They didn’t need another reminder of all they had lost.
