Mirror's Edge: Impostors 3, page 9
‘She was a dental assistant, not a nurse,’ Chulhee mutters. ‘And that wasn’t consensual, so it wasn’t a kiss.’
Sara laughs. ‘See? You know all that, because she’s historic!’
‘Do a lot of people believe in this stuff?’ Col asks Chulhee.
‘We have huge meetups, but only out of the dust. If the historians know you’re anticipating them, they won’t think you’re real enough to study. That’s called meta-Heisenberging, and only drama-missing people do it.’
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to keep it all straight.
‘That’s why we come up here—to do our outlining,’ Sara says.
Yandre stares at her. ‘You outline your … life?’
‘Of course. Some people improvise.’ Chulhee shakes his head. ‘But that can get logic-missing, fast.’
‘This is all logic-missing!’ Zura cries. ‘You’re worried about people in the future? You have a brutal police force watching you right now!’
Sara shrugs off the outburst. ‘Security hardly watches anything, unless there’s a crime flagged. And Future doesn’t do crimes.’
‘But you do,’ I say. ‘By sitting here talking to us, you’re committing treason.’
No one speaks, and it hits me that maybe I’ve said the wrong thing.
What if these three decide that betraying us to Security will make them famous in the future?
But Sara only shrugs again. ‘This is lost in the air, so it doesn’t matter.’
‘Lost in the air?’ Col asks.
‘Not recorded,’ Chulhee says. ‘What Sir Dust can’t see isn’t real at all.’
That’s almost what Jax said. Except I wasn’t sure whether he meant it or not, and Chulhee is dead serious.
Zura stands up with a sigh. ‘You’ll have to excuse us for a minute, Sara. My friends and I need to talk.’
21. LOST IN THE AIR
We four commandoes huddle at the wild end of the Stone Passage. The breeze is steady here, the risen sun lighting up the trees below.
The three Futures are still up on their perch, outlining how their next love triangle should play out.
‘They don’t live in the real world,’ Zura says quietly. ‘How can we trust them?’
‘They’re just playing the hand they’ve been dealt,’ Yandre says. ‘And a whole clique of people who live to create drama? That’s the diversion we need.’
Col looks at me, but I don’t know what to say.
When I first saw the palimpsest, it seemed like resistance was everywhere in Shreve. But the reality is something much stranger than rebellion. Jax is more a thief than a rebel, and Future are like littlies imagining they’re going to be astronauts when they grow up.
They only need Future because my father has crushed their real futures.
Right now, Chulhee’s proposing a fight with Sara that will drive him into Ran’s arms—but Ran’s arguing that the other way around would be more dramatic.
‘They’re just kids,’ I say to Col.
‘Your father invaded my city when I was seventeen,’ he says. ‘And you were fifteen when …’
When I killed for the first time. My own brother.
‘That doesn’t make it right,’ I say.
Yandre puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘We can give them a real future. One without a dictator, without dust.’
‘We’re here to rescue Boss X,’ Zura says, looking at me. ‘Unless anyone has bigger plans?’
I hold her accusing stare.
Zura thinks I’m only here because I want to be the next leader of Shreve. She’s not completely wrong—I want to know my own city, and there’s a part of me that always wants to hurt my father.
Another part of me wants to understand Shreve better than Rafi ever did.
I can’t say that out loud, but Col answers for me.
‘Zura, do you want our people in Victoria to wind up like this? Living their lives for an imaginary audience?’
Her eyes stay locked with mine. ‘No, sir.’
‘Then we should fight this war with any means at our disposal, right?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Zura says coolly, finally breaking her stare.
Col puts his arm around me, and I feel his certainty again.
Whatever hurts my father’s regime helps everyone.
‘Everything all right over there?’ Sara calls.
‘We’re fine,’ I say, walking back toward them. ‘But we don’t have much time. Are you going to help us?’
‘Tell us more about this mission,’ Chulhee says. ‘How historic is it?’
‘We can’t—’ Zura starts.
I cut her off. ‘It’s totally history-making. We’re going to break into Security headquarters and rescue a famous rebel boss. Then we’ll crash the dust Shreve-wide to make our escape. The free cities are helping us with a military attack. The whole world will be watching!’
Zura stares at me, appalled at this breach of secrecy.
But I don’t care. They have to understand that this won’t be like the Revelation.
The three uglies from Future are spellbound.
‘Tomorrow night’s only the start,’ I keep going. ‘The free cities are going to change things here—soon. You want to be studied in the future? Then help us make the future.’
The three of them are staring at me, eyes wide and bright. Like this is the opportunity they’ve always dreamed of.
‘The clique is going to love this,’ Sara says softly.
‘Come to the meetup, tonight at sunset,’ Chulhee says. ‘There’ll be a hundred of us there, at least.’
‘A hundred?’ I ask. ‘How do you hide a meeting that big?’
‘We’re officially Forestry Club.’ Sara pulls off one of her social badges, a stylized tree, and hands it to me. ‘Our old hideout’s in the new construction zone, and it’s going to be demolished soon. Everyone will be there tonight!’
I try to hand the badge back. ‘We don’t have time. You’ll have to convince them yourselves.’
‘They need to see you in person!’ she protests. ‘Tell them everything, like you just told us!’
Chulhee nods sagely. ‘In Future, everyone chooses their own story.’
Zura sighs. ‘So this was all a waste of—’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll go alone.’
If anyone needs to understand the people of Shreve, it’s me. After all my mistakes, I’m the one who owes them a victory.
‘I’m going too.’ Col turns to Zura. ‘Maybe we can make it there and back before—’
‘Just go,’ Zura says. ‘Both of you.’
Col stares at his old ally, a little surprised.
She waves a hand, not looking at him. ‘You’re safer talking to some clique than in a firefight.’ She looks at me. ‘And we’re all safer without a loose cannon in the crew.’
I want to argue, but I’m getting what I want. Bickering in front of the Futures won’t help our credibility.
Sara is so excited, she doesn’t even see how fractured we are.
‘Fantastic!’ she says. ‘Go ahead without us. Here’s the meetup spot.’
She taps Col’s location-finder with her own and hooks a thumb back at her two friends.
‘Love-triangle drama in the heat of battle! We’ve got some historic outlining to do.’
22. WALKAROUND
Col and I part with Zura and Yandre at the far edge of the Reclamation Area. We’re halfway down the hill of broken rocks, the wild visible in the distance.
The wind up here is almost as strong as in the Stone Passage. Our badges show a single flickering star, so we risk a last few words.
‘Midnight tomorrow,’ Zura says. ‘If you aren’t with us by then, just keep clear.’
Col faces her. ‘Frey and I will be there.’
It’s the first time he’s said my real name since we landed in Shreve, and it settles my nerves a little.
That name still belongs to me, even if my sister’s taken it.
Yandre hands Col a slab of smart glass. ‘This scanner detects nanos, radioactivity, most bioagents. Keep it handy.’
‘What for?’ he asks.
‘The digging machines,’ Zura says. ‘Their crews were wearing hazard suits. Something’s going on in the construction zone.’
Col looks at me.
I shrug. There’s no telling what my father’s up to until we take a look.
‘Anyone have any food?’ Yandre asks.
‘You brought a multiscanner and no food? Typical.’ Zura digs in her pockets, and hands three energy bars each to me and Col.
Not enough for two days.
‘What are we supposed to tell the others?’ Yandre asks. ‘They’ll ask why you’re gone.’
‘Say as little as possible,’ Col says. ‘We don’t want the dust hearing our names, in case …’
We all share a look.
Col and I are marching into an unknown danger, with only each other and our new, logic-missing allies in Future. If something goes wrong, our comrades might never find out what happened to us.
Unless, of course, the dust records our fate, and we go down in history.
‘Signal!’ Yandre hisses, staring at their badge.
And I feel it—the breeze from the wild is dropping.
Col slips the multiscanner out of sight and buttons his pocket. We all look at each other.
It’s too late for a real good-bye.
‘See you both soon,’ I say, light and easy.
Yandre gives me a firm hug.
Zura looks at Col, and in her expression, I see the years of effort she’s invested in training him, guiding him, keeping him safe.
Her sad smile cuts my heart.
‘Have a good hike, you two!’ she manages.
Col and I stay close to the border.
There are more signs about dust gaps, reminders to carry an emergency beacon. And more than once the city interface warns us that unmonitored hiking won’t earn us any merits.
‘That’s okay, sir,’ Col replies. ‘Hiking is healthy, even if you don’t get credit for it.’
The Shreve AI doesn’t know how to answer that. Maybe it’s like the Futures, and thinks anything that goes unrecorded isn’t real.
Growing up, my sister sometimes had the same blind spot. She would worry all day about the few seconds she’d be on the feeds, making a speech or waving from a hovercar. As if the rest of her life—our life—didn’t matter.
I wonder if Rafi ever contemplates how the future will see her.
The dust’s signal fades in and out, but we save our breath for hiking—except when Col tells me the names of the passing birds and trees.
Living in the wild with Rafi’s army, he stays up late memorizing the local species, and he and Yandre are in a competition to recognize birdsongs. But for me, the wild is like a dream remembered on awakening—noisy, amazing, vital, but impossible to capture in words.
The sun climbs higher, the day grows hotter, and my determination starts to waver.
Every step is taking us farther away from Boss X.
Sometimes, I wonder if I’m nervous about seeing X again. He’s had a month to consider the fact that I killed the love of his life. Has all that time in a cell brought him to terms with it? Or the opposite?
‘Maybe they’re not completely brain-missing,’ Col says out of nowhere.
I check my badge—we’re in another dust gap.
‘The Futures?’ I ask.
‘Think about it—the dust is an invisible presence watching us, judging us. That’s a concept as old as humanity! Like a Rusty god, or a conscience. Your father just built it for real.’
I swallow. Why would anyone need an extra conscience?
‘My father built a dictatorship,’ I say. ‘And those kids aren’t trying to be good. They’re just trying to be some weird version of famous.’
Col shrugs. ‘They want to be seen. The system here is designed to erase them, to turn every choice into a stupid game with merits. But those three are using it to turn their lives into art.’
I glance back the way we’ve come. ‘A love triangle? You call that art?’
He smiles. ‘Yandre’s dad says you can’t write a novel without one.’
‘Novels must be weird.’ But Col’s point stands—the Futures have found a way to escape from my father’s rule. Maybe any life seems more meaningful if it’s turned into a story for someone else.
The star on my badge starts flickering, and we fall silent again.
As we get closer to the construction zone, my location-finder beeps at me.
‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘Are we too far north?’
Col shakes his head. ‘I’m sure this is right.’
‘Would you like nav assistance?’ the city asks.
‘No, thank you, sir. We’re practicing …’ I recall the phrase that allows you to wander in Shreve. ‘Pathfinding self-reliance.’
‘Be careful, then,’ the city says.
Col promises to, but he keeps edging us northward, out toward the border. My location-finder shows more hills ahead of us, full of windy channels.
Col clearly wants to tell me something.
It’s probably not more theories about the Futures.
The sound of rushing water comes from ahead, and he guides me toward the noise, until we reach a creek swollen with yesterday’s rain.
Maybe he’s just thirsty?
We head downstream, until we reach a roaring waterfall. Col climbs down its banks, into the damp cool, stirred by the rush of water. The air tastes fresh and clean.
The dust’s signal is down to a single flickering star.
‘Get ready,’ he whispers. ‘We left plenty of footprints.’
Footprints?
Behind the waterfall, there’s a shallow indent in the rocks. We squeeze inside, letting the curtain of falling water hide us from view.
Does he think someone’s following us?
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Col, I’m soaked in a few seconds.
I close my eyes to listen, and remember my first time outside the dust as a littlie—at my father’s hunting lodge. Like all his homes, it was a fortress, with cams, sentry drones, soldiers all around us. But like every kid in Shreve, I’d been raised to think that only surveillance dust could protect me—and my sister.
At night, I would imagine defending Rafi from assassins, bears, and under-the-bed monsters. Back then, I wasn’t allowed to keep my pulse knife between training sessions, so I stole a cleaver from the kitchen and hid it under my pillow.
Something in the air has brought back that skin-prickling sense of danger.
And finally I hear it—a scrabbling in the rocks above.
Col’s right. Someone was following us.
I make a fist, calling my variable blade into being. The thrum of battle starts up in my veins, its heat driving away the cold.
A long minute later, a human form drops into view, landing with a splash in the pool before us. They ease into a crouch, scanning the trees around the clearing.
They’re in a stealth suit, shimmery through the falling water. I can’t even tell which way they’re looking.
For a moment, they crouch there, absolutely still. The stealth suit glitters with daylight, until they’ve disappeared again.
Col taps a countdown on my wrist.
Three … two … one …
We leap through the sheet of water together. Col barrels into the stalker, but they react just in time—spinning aside. Both of them lose their footing in the shallow pool.
The direct sunlight is blinding, so I don’t try anything fancy. I shoulder the stalker hard, my full weight sending them staggering.
With a splash, we go down together, me on top, my blade at their throat.
‘Don’t move!’ I shout.
‘Really?’ She coughs, spitting out water. ‘You want me to just lie here and drown?’
I blink away the water, the bright sunlight.
It’s Riggs, our comrade.
My sister’s second-in-command.
23. BABYSITTER
‘You didn’t really think we were all asleep this morning,’ Riggs says.
‘We didn’t have time to ask.’ Col squeezes water out of his shirt. We’re sitting on the bank of the pool, all of us soaking wet. ‘The Futures were in a hurry.’
Riggs flicks the mud from her boots. ‘In a hurry to split us up. Lodge and Charles stayed behind, in case this was a trick to steal our gear.’
‘Why’d you keep out of sight?’ I ask.
Riggs smiles. ‘Because I’m like an angel, watching over you unseen.’
‘Because my sister told you to spy on me,’ I say. ‘That’s why she sent you in the first place.’
Riggs has a laugh at this.
Of course, she thinks that my sister is Frey, the dangerous twin. Which makes me Rafia, the first daughter, who shouldn’t be left to her own devices in enemy territory.
The sister who might be secretly working with her father, if the darkest rumors are true.
‘You spent all day walking in the wrong direction,’ Riggs says. ‘Can’t blame me for wondering why.’
‘We’re headed to a big Future meetup,’ I explain. ‘Getting them on board is turning out more complicated than we thought.’
Riggs throws a rock into the pool. ‘Just like everything in Shreve.’
I open my mouth, searching for a sharp retort. But she’s only speaking the truth.
Shreve has a multitude of cliques, crims, and smugglers, working almost in plain sight. Not what we expected from a perfect surveillance state.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘None of it makes sense.’
Riggs shakes her head. ‘It makes perfect sense—someone powerful in Shreve has been undermining your father. There were no drones after the rainstorms, not enough cams to catch unsafe drivers. Your dreaded Security isn’t doing its job.’
‘Maybe they’re sick of fighting the whole world,’ I say.
‘Or maybe if your father falls, there’s only one logical choice to replace him. Rafia of Shreve.’
It takes a moment for a laugh to startle out of me.
