50“Merc!”
Shouldering my launcher, I race back to the control panel, landing hard on my knees as I drop to the ground next to his fallen form. Drawn by my cry, Kieran and Xylla follow, weapons oscillating back and forth in a covering pattern as they sidle toward us as fast as they can.
“Stars alive!”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, he just collapsed! Merc? Merc!” Grabbing his shoulder, I give him a couple of hard shakes.
No response.
My heart plummets. Mercury is so silent, so still. I search him for signs of life, but his awkward position—half on his side, half on his stomach—makes it impossible to reach his carotid artery, let alone find a pulse. Stars! Is he even still breathing?
I beseech Kieran, “Help me turn him over!”
In a second, he’s on the ground beside us. I grab Mercury’s shoulders and Kieran his legs, and together we haul him over onto his back. His limbs flop limply against the ground. Only his eyelids flicker, ghosting rapidly over the whites of his eyes like one in a dream state.
A chill washes over me. What the hell?
“Teal, look!”
I glance up. Merc’s chit hand is going crazy. Streams of data flash and dance across his palm in rapid sequence. Grabbing his wrist, I lean closer, eyes narrowing as I try to make out the feeds, but whatever has taken control of his hand is flashing by too fast for me to read. My gaze goes to the control panel just above us. The same feeds skim across the screen.
Realization hits me like a bolt from the black. “His chit! It’s still uplinked to the access panel.”
Dropping his wrist, I start to rise, pause midway, and then sink back to the ground. Whatever program has Merc in its thrall, I certainly don’t have the ability to shut it off—not on the access panel, and not on his chit. No one here does. Only Hegit might have a shot, and she’s klicks away.
Clueless and terrified, I turn back to Merc. Though it’s only been a minute, the attack is already taking its toll. His chest heaves with exertion, his once-silent breath now labored and ragged, and I can see his pulse throbbing through the pale skin of his neck. A sheen of sweat covers him from head to toe. I dare to reach out and touch his cheek. He’s burning up.
My heart skips a beat. Stars above, this thing could kill him!
“We have to sever the connection.” I take a deep breath, hardly daring to believe what I’m about to do, and draw my combat knife. “And I know of only one way.”
Grabbing his hand, I slide the edge of the blade across his palm until it’s resting on the base of his thumb, poised just at the divide between flesh and chit. There I pause, heart pulsating wildly as I prepare myself for what’s to come—
“Teal, no!”
—then tightening my grip on the knife, I slice it straight through the biometal filaments.
Blood spurts from his hand as the chit pops off, a sizeable chunk of flesh still attached to the back. Mercury screams, a sound so chilling it makes all the hairs on my arms stand up. His eyes fly open, but any hope of consciousness is immediately lost. All I can see are the whites of his eyes glowing under the full moonlight. They glitter at me for an endless moment, gaping and empty, and then his eyes close and don’t reopen.
The connection is severed.
A sigh of relief whooshes from my throat. I fumble for something to stop the bleeding, but Kieran is already there, handing me what looks like a piece of his shirt. I bind it tightly around Mercury’s palm, but even with the makeshift bandage, his hand is still bleeding like crazy. Slag! We have to get him out of here now! I turn to Kieran.
“Help me get him up!”
With Xylla still covering us, we manage to lift his body over our shoulders, where he hangs like so much dead weight. My back strains under the unaccustomed burden, and I pull his arm farther around my neck, trying to get a better grip. Turning toward the river, we’re about to go when I suddenly remember:
“Jovan! Ri!” My head darts wildly back and forth, looking for the other two members of our team, but they’re nowhere to be seen. Slag! How far did they go? I’m debating whether I can let go of Merc’s wrist long enough to link them without completely dropping him when suddenly the two boys burst from the settlement.
“It’s about time!” I call. “Where have yo—”
“No time!” Jovan yells, sprinting hard down the tarmac just as the first faint waves of sour-and-sweet come rolling into my nose.
Ghouls!
A curse bursts from my mouth. Kieran and I exchange a single terrified look; then, as one, we tighten our grip and take off for the river.
Dirt flies under our feet as we plunge, half running, half walking, into the jungle, Merc dangling from our shoulders between us. What’s challenging enough for one turns out to be a nightmare for three. Clumps of close-growing trees block our way at every turn, forcing us to detour around them in search of wider pathways. Branches tear at our clothes and vines drop from above, while below Merc’s dragging feet seem to catch on every root, rock, and piece of debris to be found. A narrow branch juts out right in front of us, and I backpedal, looking for another way—
Slash!
The branch drops, sliced away in one stroke! It’s Xylla, machete flying as she moves ahead to clear a path for us. The phtthooom! of launchers fills the air as the guys ward off the enemy from behind us, and a sense of renewed determination fills me. We’re not out of this yet!
With no time to lose, we run like hell for the river. It’s close now—I can hear its song rushing through the banks just ahead—but so is the enemy, their syrupy-sweet acridity gaining on us with every second that passes. Frantic to escape, I struggle to keep pace with Kieran, but with every step I take, Mercury only seems to grow heavier and heavier. He’s slipping now, sliding from my shoulders as his arm slithers through my sweaty palm and weakening grip. I heft his arm higher, terrified that I might drop him at any moment, then—
The riverbank!
We spill out of the trees just as the ghouls come swooping toward us in a burst of sour-and-sweet. I fling myself toward the boat, struggling to get Merc’s feet up and over the side, while behind us the guys let off burst after burst of launcher fire. Clouds of gas fill the air around us, warding off the ghouls as Kieran and I wrestle Merc’s limp body into the boat and throw ourselves in after him. The boat pitches and rolls, steadies itself, and then lurches twice more as Xylla and Ri follow us in. I look around wildly for our last member.
Phthoooom! Phthoooom! Phthooom!
“Jovan!” I yell at the figure on the bank still frantically firing. “Come on!”
“Go! Get out of here!” he screams as he lets off another round.
My heart lurches at the thought of leaving yet another person behind. In an instant, I’m on my feet and scrambling for the launcher on my back. “Come on! I’ll cover you!”
He pauses for just an instant, eyes meeting mine as he glances back over his shoulder. “It’s too late for that.”
Comprehension hits me like a punch to the stomach. I stagger back in the boat, launcher sagging slightly as I take his meaning. “Jov, I—”
“Go!”
The command in his voice can’t be gainsaid. Dropping my launcher, I grab the machete and whack through the mooring line with a single stroke. Instantly the boat starts moving, sluggishly at first, then picking up speed as the small craft is taken by the current. Within seconds we’re rushing downstream as the smell of the enemy fades away into nothingness. Grabbing the paddles, I toss one to Ri and use the other myself, fending off oncoming debris from the front while Ri steers from the back, tears streaming down his face.
For a long while, there’s no sound but the call of the jungle and the steady swish of our paddles. Eventually, Xylla’s voice, quavery and high, drifts over my shoulder. “What about Jovan?”
At her faint query, it takes everything I have not to turn around, to look back toward the shore where we left him, fighting for our lives with all he had. Briefly, I close my eyes and then reopen them, unable to shake the image of his face as I contemplate yet another person lost to the enemy. Lips pressed together in a grim line, I keep my eyes fixed on the river ahead and answer her the only way I can.
“He’s the enemy’s now. If you ever see him again, shoot him.”
It’s a somber group that disembarks from the water three hours later. We silently wrestle Merc from the boat, hiding our transport in the foliage at the water’s edge before hefting him up and starting the slow trek to the rendezvous point. By the time we arrive, dog-tired and starving, Mercury still hasn’t woken up. The hours that follow are some of the longest of my life as I sit by his side and wait to see if he’ll ever open his eyes again. According to Hegit, he got hit with a neutralizer—a bio-comp virus made to catch hackers in the act. Some are temporary, halting the hack and incapacitating the hacker just long enough for security to arrive. Others require a specialized antivirus to nullify the effects. Now all we can do is wait and see if his coma is temporary . . .
Or permanent.
All through the rest of the day and into the night, we keep vigil next to our fallen companion. Though we’ve sustained injuries before, lost friends to capture, infection, and even death, there’s something about this ceaseless coma that has everyone vacced, including me. The loss of Jovan doesn’t help. Unable to sit still, I let the others take turns sitting by Merc’s side, holding his hand and talking to him, while I pace around the camp, stomach tied into knots as I watch from afar. I find myself wishing more than anything that Mario were here. She would know what to do. She would know the words to say to ease us all through the long dark night.
Too bad I killed her.
Divya tries her best to fill in, telling anyone who will listen, “He’ll be okay. You’ll see. He’ll wake up, and he’ll be fine.”
But her words are as much a question as they are a reassurance.
After a tense day and a half, Merc finally wakes up, but he’s not the same. Perhaps it was the virus itself, or maybe it was my crude butchering of his chit, but something in his mind has broken. The intelligence that once burned so brightly in his eyes has disappeared, snuffed like a bulb that has unceremoniously burned out, and in its place is a perpetually dazed look, as though he can’t quite figure out what’s going on. Even the smallest things seem to be a struggle, and though he can obey simple orders to eat or wash or walk, he can’t seem to initiate any action on his own. Left to his own devices, he does nothing. The others are worried but hopeful.
It’s my worst nightmare.
While the others crowd around him, I turn around and walk off into the woods. Minutes pass, and finally I stop. Look around, head swiveling in one direction and then the other as I slowly pivot around in a slow circle. Only when I’m sure I’m completely alone do I give vent to my anguish.
“Slag! Slag, Slag, SLAG!”
This is all my fault! I knew trying to hack the security shield was dangerous, and I made him do it anyway! Now Mercury’s fragged, I’ve lost my best tech head, and we’re still no closer to taking down the enemy!
A moan of despair rolls out of me. What am I going to do?
Head in my hands, I sink down into a crouch and try to think, not that any ideas are forthcoming. For once my mind is silent, at a loss to come up with any solutions for the horrible situation I now find myself in.
Minutes pass. After a while, my legs begin to ache and my feet to cramp. I wonder if anyone has noticed I’m gone. If they have, they don’t come. Not that that surprises me. No one ever comes. But then, what would I say even if they did? I’m their leader; I’m the one who’s supposed to tell them it will be all right. Nobody’s there to tell me that. Besides Michael, no one has ever been there to make sure I’m okay. Nobody except . . .
Zane.
I don’t stop to think about whether it’s a good idea, just queue up my access to the underground and go down.
He’s eating a ration pak when I arrive, ghosting invisibly through the walls like an electronic specter before finally materializing before him. At my appearance, he briefly pauses, face momentarily creasing into an expression I can’t quite read, and then goes back to his meal.
For several minutes, we watch each other, neither of us speaking as he slurps down the remainder of his dinner. Only when he’s done do I finally speak.
“We lost Jovan.” I pause. “And Mercury is . . . gravely ill.”
A grim look falls over Zane’s face. “How?”
I only mean to give him a brief summary—Merc was attacked by a computer virus, and we were beset by ghouls—but somehow I find myself telling him everything, from the neutralizer’s attack to the slicing of Merc’s chit and his subsequent breakdown. Through it all, Zane says nothing. He simply listens, eyes creased with sadness as the whole awful account pours out.
“Jovan was my roommate way back at the academy, and here in the forest, when we still had a camp,” he says when I finally stop. “He had his good days and his bad ones, but he was always a good friend to me. I’m sorry he was taken.”
He pauses for a minute, then adds, “At least you still have Mercury.”
I incline my head but say nothing.
Zane stares at me, a quizzical expression furrowing his brows. “You just said Merc woke up, right? A little dazed, sure, but just the fact that he came out of the coma is amazing. I would think you’d be happier . . .”
Stunned realization suddenly dawns on his face. An ugly laugh—half scorn, half sneer—chuffs from his mouth. “Except you’re not, are you? You’re not happy at all. In fact, you wish he’d never woken at all, don’t you?”
“That’s not true,” I deny hotly. “Of course I’m glad he’s awake—”
“No, you’re not,” Zane interrupts. “You’d be glad he was awake if he were his normal self, but now? Better he were dead than this, this . . . deficient version of himself.”
My mouth goes dry. I shake my head in denial, but Zane just presses on.
“In fact, you’re not just unhappy, you’re terrified,” he accuses. “Merc was your best—probably your only—way into that spaceport, and now that his tech abilities are shot, you have no idea what to do. Admit it! That spaceport was always a long shot; that’s why you never tried to hit it before. With Merc’s abilities, you had at least a chance of getting in, but now—”
“All right, enough!” I interrupt, goaded to anger despite myself. “You’re right, okay? With Mercury completely out of it, I have nothing! No strategy, no plan, not even the beginnings of an idea! I’ve failed. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Teal—” he begins, a stricken look crossing his face, but now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop.
“Six months! Six months of dodging ghouls and fighting squatters and going on raids, and for what? Nothing! In three weeks, the net will fail, and the enemy will have a free pass out of here. Don’t you see? The enemy has won! They’ve won, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.”
My voice cracks on the last word, and a fierce heat burns my cheeks as I realize how crazed I must sound. Zane must think I’ve gone completely lunar! Unable to face him, I close my eyes. Burying my face in my hands, I take several breaths, trying to regain control.
“You’re right.”
Unable to believe what I just heard, I slowly open my eyes. “What did you say?”
Zane shrugs coldly. “You’re right. You’re done. You gave it a good try, but this is beyond anything you could ever hope to accomplish. I tried to tell you that before, back in the forest. I told you to take a break, I told you to focus on escape, but did you listen? No.” He shakes his head regretfully, a hint of scorn touching his eyes. “It took long enough, but I’m just glad you can finally see it. Maybe now the others won’t have to suffer for your mistaken delusions.”
My mouth falls open. “Mistaken delusions?”
I shake my head, then shake it again, barely able to believe the words coming out of his mouth. Already my despair is fading and falling away, erased by a rising sense of anger-fueled indignation at the scornful judgment he has so quickly and arrogantly tossed out. I knew he didn’t agree with all my choices, but that he could think so little of me after all I’ve done . . . !
Iron wraps around my heart. Setting my jaw, I lean forward, fix him with a hard stare. “I don’t have delusions, mistaken or otherwise. I said I’m going to take down the spaceport, and I will, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Zane arches an eyebrow, disbelief shining clearly in his gray eyes. “Oh yeah? That spaceport is one the most secure places on the planet, and you’ve just lost your best tech head, probably for good. What do you think you’re going to do?”
“Do?” A low laugh, liquid and musical, comes bubbling from my throat. Ideas start trickling through my head as my previously empty brain comes jolting back to life, and suddenly I know without a doubt that this isn’t the end. On the contrary—it’s only the beginning. Zane will see! They’ll all see before the end!
Leaning forward, I fix Zane with a hard stare, the taste of triumph already on my tongue as I tell him—
“I’m going to do whatever it takes.”