Twenty-Four

The only thing that seems right is to straight up ask him. As all of us race down the stairs, Seph and I fill Vaughn in on what’s going on. She doesn’t act surprised at all, but doesn’t really say anything, either. By the time we’re done, I’m once again standing at the opening in the wall to Vaughn’s space. I kneel next to Clara and gently shake her, and she wakes Ruthie.

Seph rouses Trip, which takes a lot more coaxing than it did to wake Clara. “What the hell, dude?” Trip barks.

“We need to show you something,” Seph says. Something is right.

And once again I climb. Up. Up. Up. All the way to the very top floor. There’s only a little complaining along the way, and even though my legs are screaming at me for doing this again, I keep moving. Soon I’m back on the fifty-ninth floor, staring at all the people hooked up.

When Seph points to Trip’s dad’s company name plastered on the side of each and every machine in the room, Trip goes pale. “I had no idea. You guys have to believe me. I knew my dad made robots, but I didn’t know anything about this.”

“WALTERs,” I correct him. Just because they are WALking compuTERs doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings. “They aren’t created the same way we are, but we’re all created just the same.”

No one argues with me. Not here. Not now.

Ruthie walks over to a man hooked up to one of the machines. His clothes are loose on his body. His cheeks are sunken in. “They’re dying,” she says. “Maybe Trip’s dad doesn’t know, either. If Trip doesn’t know. I mean. Maybe his dad doesn’t, either. It’s possible. Right?”

Seph huffs. “How could the owner of a company not know what all his equipment is being used for? These types of machines have only one purpose.”

“He just builds them,” Ruthie says. “After that it’s up to the government, right? Isn’t that how it works?”

All technology is technically owned by the government, yes. But I don’t think he could not know what his stuff is being used for. Especially not these types of machines, in this quantity. I head toward one of the people; she looks like the guy Ruthie’s staring at. Red hair draped over her sunken face. The expensive suit she’s wearing hangs from what’s left of her body.

“He knows,” Trip says, so sure of himself. “If there’s one thing I know about my dad, it’s that nothing happens with his machines that he doesn’t know about.”

Ruthie’s on the edge of tears. “We should go. We shouldn’t be here.”

Clara takes her hand, and the two leave the room. It’s a lot to take in. All the people in here. All the dead-looking bodies.

“I swear I didn’t know about this.” Trip walks around one of the beds. “But I do have to come clean about something.” He takes a long breath and squares his shoulders. “My dad did send me there. He said I was just supposed to see how things were being run. That I’d be there for a few weeks, tops. But that didn’t happen. You know”—he says to Seph—“I was there for months. You saw me before we were roommates. My dad sent me there and never came back. He abandoned me. If you guys hadn’t crashed through the ceiling, I don’t think I’d have ever gotten out of there. But if I’d told you that I didn’t think you’d believe me. So yes, I lied. But when I said I didn’t know about that stuff going on there and here, that’s the truth. We can use this and all the other information we have and force him to get all our charges dropped. And if not, we expose him.”

Seph tosses him the broken SOUL. “Except we don’t have any evidence.”

I clench my jaw. I knew something was up with Trip. But there’s no way he could’ve planned all this to happen. There were a million different ways to turn, and if I’d done just one of those different, I’m sure I wouldn’t be standing here right now with him. The scab on my neck tingles, and my fingers go to it. Dad. Maybe he helped me find Trip. Maybe he knew I would need him, like how I needed Mason. Could Dad have brought us together? I give Trip a hard stare. No matter how it all happened, bringing his dad down might be the only way to earn our freedom. “You mean you have access to all his servers? All his files? Everything?”

Trip nods. “Yep. We can go and get all of our evidence to replace this.” He tosses the SOUL on the floor. “And if he won’t help us, then we’ll help ourselves.”

Seph shakes his head. “I don’t know. It seems pretty risky.”

“What other choice do we have?” I ask.

There are no other options. We might be out of that prison, but that doesn’t mean any of us are free. As much as I don’t want to leave my fate up to Trip, he might be our only hope. I glance back to the woman I’m next to. There’s no hope left for her. Even if she did get unhooked from this thing, her mind wouldn’t know how to process it. The shock alone could kill her, or maybe she’d be like the person Vaughn mentioned and kill whoever tried to unplug her. She might not have been here as long as some of these people—her cheeks are only slightly sunken—but even I can tell it’s long enough for her to not have any kind of life. But we still have a chance.

I brush her hair away from her face and suck in a quick breath. No. It can’t be. “Guys—”

The sound of AirRiders in the sky outside echoes off the walls and shakes the building. And although the windows aren’t clear glass, there are lights flashing outside them.

Shit. They found us.

“Let’s go!” Vaughn yells.

I race alongside Vaughn with everyone on our heels. The lights from the aircrafts outside can’t penetrate this deep inside the building, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Getting out of here can’t happen fast enough. But how the hell are we going to do that?

Vaughn stops at our raft. “You can’t use this.” She pulls a knife from her pocket and slashes through the plastic.

“What the hell?” Trip complains. But it’s too late. Not that floating out of here on that was the best idea anyway. We barely escaped those drones; no way can we paddle faster than an AirRider.

“What are we supposed to do now?” I ask.

“Follow me.” Vaughn takes off.

I zigzag through the floor with everyone else all the way to the opposite side, where Vaughn opens a door to another set of stairs. “It’s down here. Not much farther.”

A loud explosion from behind forces us all through, and as soon as it’s shut, Vaughn secures it with a huge metal bar. “Come on.”

Down another flight of stairs and I’m ankle deep in water. My feet kick it up as I book it across the room. Vaughn comes to a quick stop and turns around. “Whoa.” She throws her hands up then pulls something out of her pocket. Another SOUL maybe, except this one is much smaller.

“What are we standing around here for?” Trip asks.

“Because I’m saving your sorry ass,” Vaughn says as an Underwater Navigation Vehicle surfaces.

“No way,” Seph says.

“Is it safe?” Clara asks.

“You’re more than welcome to stay here if you’d like,” Vaughn says, climbing in.

The machine in front of me isn’t shiny or new. It looks like it’s been created from a mess of different things all welded together. I’m not sure what’s worse, waiting to see what happens to us here or drowning inside an unstable tin can. But whoever put this together did an excellent job. The seams where metal meets metal are clean, like they could withstand some serious depth. That decides it for me.

I step one foot into the UNV. “Let’s go.”