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  “Iia Danner, I need your help.”

  “I can’t help you,” I said, giving a slight shake of my head. I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Everything I’d worked for would vanish, and for what. Delusions?

  “You can’t, or won’t?”

  “Both.”

  “Then you leave me no choice but to prove I haven’t lied.”

  “We can’t go out. It’s after curfew. They’ll…”

  “Shoot us?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody does.” But I did, and yes, I’d just about said it. We both knew it. His gaze didn’t lie.

  “Sure you do—in your gut—but you’re not listening to it, or more likely ignoring it. You all wear the fear on your face. You think about what happens, but you don’t voice the fears. You wonder what they do with those they catch breaking curfew or to any who oppose them, but you won’t speak up and ask. It’s exactly how they want you to behave. A citizen’s duty is to question things, yet nobody on the islands wants to.”

  “No.” Yes. I had a friend who the authorities dragged away, never to be seen again. I wanted to know, and would give almost anything for information on my lost friend. Almost anything. Bargaining with a rebel wasn’t on the table.

  “Right.” He raised a brow and shrugged his pack off his shoulders. Reaching into it, he pulled out a blue, rubber ensemble identical to his and tossed it in my lap. “Change.” He rose to his feet and nodded at the garment. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Oh, hell no.” I threw it back at him and stood.

  “Suit yourself, but we’re traveling through the sewers. You might find you’ll come out cleaner wearing this.” He swiped it from me and stuffed it back in the bag.

  I narrowed my eyes. Sewers? I’d been a fool to believe he wouldn’t consider it. Yes, the waste went to a decomposer and returned to the planet as a sterilized soil, free of diseases, but the path it took to get there wasn’t exactly clean. No way would I crawl through it. “No. I’m not going anywhere with you, and I’m especially not crawling through crap.”

  He grabbed my arm. “This is non-negotiable.”

  I yanked away. “I’m not negotiating. I said no.”

  His com buzzed, and a voice crackled from it. “You have soldiers on the way up. You need to get out of there now.”

  “There are more of you? I thought you were bluffing,” I said and furrowed my brow.

  He put a finger up to silence me. “How many?”

  “Fifteen. Armed. You have about five minutes before they’re at the door. We disabled the lift, but it won’t take them long to bring it back online. Your team will be there in one. You might want to set the charge because they’ve got all the conventional exits blocked.”

  “Charge?” Explosives? “Wait a second. I’m not going with you. I’m not helping you blow anyone up.”

  “The only casualty will be your window.” Eli strode over to the glass and dropped his pack, rifling through it. “It would be a good idea to get back. This stuff is home-cooked and not exactly stable.”

  “You can’t blow my window.”

  “Sorry, this is the only way out.”

  “I don’t think you understand. It’s not a way out.” I shook my head and retreated several steps. I wanted to say there was no rope or cable long enough, but the words clogged my throat. No one would even consider jumping out a window on this floor as an option. Well, unless they were crazy.

  “It is now.” He stuck a clump of something similar to red clay on my window, and then another and another, until he had a ring of about six. Pulling out a hand held laser pen from his bag, he drew a wide circle with the beam, connecting the dots on the glass before pushing a silver marble into the middle of each. With a quick scan of his work, he rose, snagged his pack, and backed up. “Get into cover.”

  I didn’t move, doubting he could blow a hole in glass six inches thick designed to withstand a lava bomb. When I didn’t do as ordered, he clamped onto my arm and hauled me behind the wall connecting my kitchen to my living space. Before I could object, he pushed a button on the remote.

  Boom! The walls shook and glass shards embedded in the entryway wall opposite my grand view. My ears rang, and the room whirled. I held my fingers up in front of my eyes and couldn’t focus on my hand, which blurred in and out of clarity.

  Eli turned me to face him, mouthing something. I shook my head and blinked.

  He held up a harness and pressed it into my hands.

  I shook my head more vigorously. “No. Absolutely not.” I shoved the ensemble back at him.

  He lifted the tranq gun and shot me in the neck. As I slumped to the floor, two more people joined us, a man and a woman. I didn’t get a good look at them before everything went dark.

  I awoke to the sound of dripping water and a smell which could only be described as septic. Sniffing, I raised my hand to cup it over my nose and mouth. The stench was hard to describe, but if I were inclined to take a stab at it, I would say it mimicked a room full of geriatrics after a baked bean supper. The darkness made it impossible to see anything. If something were sitting on the tip of my nose, I couldn’t identify it. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t take a super-brain to know we were in the sewers under the city as my captor earlier suggested as a means of escape. I shifted my weight and sat up.

  Eli spoke. “How are you feeling?”

  I scraped my tongue against my front teeth, desperate to remove the antiseptic flavor coating every surface within my mouth. “What was in your tranq gun?”

  “A natural sedative. I promise it won’t cause any permanent damage, even if it feels like it has.”

  “You had no right.”

  “I didn’t have time to talk you into putting the harness on.”

  “You dropped me out a window one hundred and fifty stories up on a rope?”

  “Not exactly. We jumped out the window and used gliders to drift to the ground. My friends brought them with them, as a plan B.”

  “That’s not a plan. It’s a death wish.”

  “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

  Couldn’t argue with him. Still… The dizziness which had hit me when the bomb went off, returned. “You’re insane.” I rubbed my temples and closed my eyes, unable to see in the darkness anyway.

  “I had to do it. They were coming for you.”

  “They? You mean the police. They were doing their job. One of my neighbors must have spotted you and called them.”

  “No, my people heard the call on the com long before we entered the complex. They couldn’t warn me, since they wanted to make sure I had you secure first. But you’re right, someone tipped them off, didn’t give us the chance to search for the codes, though I doubt they’re there. You said you didn’t have any heirlooms.”

  “Kidnapping is illegal.”

  “Add it to my file.”

  “How many kidnappers do I have?”

  “We’re not kidnappers. We extracted you to save your life.”

  “And to collect information I don’t have.” I snorted and looked around, unable to see anything. But the stench was enough to knock anyone out. “Nice place.”

  “It’s temporary, until we can get rid of your chip.”

  I jumped to my feet and fell sideways, catching my balance against a wall. The effects of whatever drug he’d shot in my system was still present and annoying. “You are not touching my chip!”

  “If we don’t, they will find you and you will be dead.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re too valuable to let die.”

  “As long as you don’t have the codes I so clearly told you I don’t possess.”

  “You have them, even if you don’t think so.” A hand dropped onto my shoulder. I jumped and spun around. The acoustics had me thinking he’d stood on the other side of the room. More than likely, I’d been yelling at a wall. This aggravated me further. I’d wasted good breath arguing with concrete, or whatever.

  “Easy, I’m just
getting my bearings. I didn’t want to use too much power and draw attention, so I kept it dark while you slept,” Eli said. “We’re in the sewers.”

  “I gathered.”

  A band on his wrist began to glow, illuminating his face in a blue light.

  I sighed and took in the details of the chamber for the first time. “Why don’t we get out of here?”

  “Not going to happen until we burn your chip. My people will be back with a removal device soon. Until then, we wait.”

  “Oh, no, no, no. I told you, you’re not removing my chip. That’s my life, and I’ll be damned if you take it from me.”

  “As we discussed before, you don’t have a choice.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Fine. Hate me, but I’m not going to allow anything to put you in danger, and that means losing the government tracking device in your hand. Down here, they can’t get a reading.” He pointed up. “Above, they’ll be on you in under a minute. I guarantee the rebels are the least of your problems. You don’t want the soldiers to find you. My team had to split up to lose them so I could get you down here. They risked a lot. I won’t let them do it again.”

  “How do I know you’re not making all of this up?”

  “When we go topside, you’ll see for yourself. Your face is on every digital billboard in the city. You’re a wanted criminal.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “They don’t care.” He tapped his com, and it grew brighter. “Sorry about the lack of light, but the authorities would zero in on any unusual draw on the power. A pull coming from the sewers would qualify as one. Even though this com doesn’t pull enough to show as a blip on their radar, I didn’t want to chance it while we slept. You have to believe me. You can’t trust them.”

  “I trust them more than I do you.” I put my back to him, tired of talking.

  “I told you, I don’t want to hurt you. We need your help.” His com crackled. “Either we can’t get a signal down here or they are jamming all communication channels. My friends should be here soon, but I can’t verify.” He fiddled a little longer with his com before giving up. “I guess we wait. We have no other choice.”

  “I doubt they’re looking for me. It’s you they want. And for the record, none of this was my idea. Life was great before you came along.”

  “You really believe that? You chose to keep your eyes closed, thinking you could live in your fantasy. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but the government wants the same thing I do, but for a whole different purpose. You could be the most dangerous person on the islands right now. And they are more than aware of it now they know who you are.”

  “I’m what now, a fugitive—wanted? Yeah, running from the law is so much better than trying to ignore a bunch of radicals stirring up trouble. I want to go back to living in my fantasy.”

  “Look, I didn’t have a choice. I’m sorry I had to pull you out of your pipedream. People are going to die, and we couldn’t let you continue to skip around in ignorance, pretending our government isn’t up to something. Not when you’re the only person who can change it. You can’t deny something is up. They raided your flat last night. So, are you ready to listen?”

  “No. I still don’t buy into your conspiracy theory. And how do I really know they raided my flat? I didn’t see anything.”

  “No, but what does your gut tell you?”

  The air heated to the point I couldn’t breathe. I clutched at the bottom of my shirt as my chest tightened. I knew something had been up with the bees, and also knew the government would take out any who opposed them. I’d witnessed it more times than I could count and had also lost a dear friend in one of their sweeps. Plus, my pedigree didn’t help. If what Eli said was true, I really could be public enemy number one. I’d destroyed the evidence because I’d felt threatened. Why couldn’t I let go of the possibility Eli could be wrong?

  “You really have no idea how much danger you are in, do you?” he asked.

  I turned to look at him. “I have a pretty good idea you and your people are a bigger threat. I’m done talking now. I’m going to rest.”

  “You can’t ignore this, Iia.”

  “I can ignore you.”

  “Look, I haven’t lied to you about any of this. There are some bad people making money on our ignorance and love of technology. You are the only way we can shut down the power-net and keep it down, and those people don’t want that to happen. Without the Net, they can’t run their weapons and they cannot control us with things we need to survive. Until we turn off the grid, they have us where they want us. Right now, we’re codependent and unable to do anything about it if we value our lives. We can’t even leave these islands.”

  “You really believe the bees are a weapon, we’re all a bunch of addicts to the power net, and I’m the answer to all your problems?”

  “Yes, yes, and yes. I’m one hundred percent certain the people at the top won’t stop until you’re dead. If they find you, everyone on these islands will die. They won’t stop until they destroy the codes, the last possible way to shut down the grid.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You can bet they’ve been monitoring you for as long as you have lived in your apartment.”

  I rubbed my arms. “Who else has been monitoring me? You perhaps?”

  “Yes. But I told you, they were already headed to your home before I grabbed you in the parking garage—for the same reason I sought you out.”

  “My neighbors?”

  “Hard to say. We have enemies everywhere.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  5

  Hours later, the hinges creaked and the door opened. I got a glimpse of several people crowding the doorway before a light beamed into my eyes. I’d anticipated making a run for it the moment the door opened. However, escape could no longer be considered an option. If I wanted to squeeze by, even greased, I’d have a rough time. I gave up on the idea. One or two, I might be able to slip away from, but not a whole squad.

  “They’re back,” Eli said, as though it weren’t apparent. He turned to them and began to talk, ignoring my presence. “Did you bring it?”

  “Yes, but we can’t stay here long. We had to circle for several hours before we had a chance to slip down here. Once we burn her chip, they’ll lock onto the power surge. They’re not too far away.”

  “Burn my chip? I told you that isn’t happening.”

  “I’ll take the device.”

  “Did you not hear me?” I jumped to my feet.

  “Calm down, Iia. It has to be done.”

  “It’s my life. My degrees, medical records, financial…all my credit is on my chip. I can’t program without it.”

  “You won’t live long with your chip. It has to go.”

  “No. You don’t get to make the choice for me.”

  “Hold her.”

  I backed toward the corner as two men approached. With a swift kick, I caught one in the nuts. He dropped to his knees and did a face plant. The other grabbed me and wrenched my arm behind my back.

  “Owww! Let me go.”

  The other man groaned from the floor, and I gave him another kick, this time to the ribs. His buddy lifted up, bringing me to my toes and forcing tears to my eyes.

  “Ouch! You’re going to break my arm.”

  “Don’t be so rough,” Eli said. “We are going to need her help.”

  The man eased up.

  I spat at Eli’s feet. “Fuck off! I’m not helping any of you.”

  “I still have the tranq gun. Either you calm down and stop yelling, or I’m going to give you another dose.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I shouted, feet from him, sure the echo in the tiny chamber made everyone’s ears ring.

  “Then be quiet and try to relax. It makes the process easier.”

  “I told you…” The man behind me clamped a hand over my mouth. I bit into his palm, but he didn’t remove it.

  Eli p
ulled the tranq out. “Don’t test me, Iia. You can draw the soldiers to our location if you don’t stop shouting. I won’t risk it. Too many people’s futures are at stake, including mine.” He turned to my human gag. “Let her go. She either does this awake, or I put her to sleep for it.”

  I rubbed my arm and looked away. “Please, please don’t destroy my chip.”

  “It’s got to go if we are going to get you out of here. I’m sorry I have to do it. We don’t have a choice.”

  “You always have a choice.”

  “Not if you want to get out of here alive.”

  “How do I know you’re not making all of this up to manipulate me into going along with your plan?”

  “I think the biggest clue is that I’m not giving you a choice to go along. So…awake or asleep? What’s it going to be?”

  As for the codes, Eli seemed certain I had them. My mind went straight to my chip. “What about my chip?”

  “What about it?”

  “What if these codes you’re so convinced exist are in my chip?”

  “They wouldn’t be.” He stared me down. “You and I both know a technical genius like your great-great-grandfather would never store anything so dangerous in something so easy to hack.”

  I looked away. What he said made sense.

  “And we already hacked your chip while you worked on the hives and had your guard down. Why do you think I’ve been hanging around the field for the last week?”

  I whirled on him, ready to pound the crap out of him. “How dare you.” I raised my fists and slammed them into his chest, forcing him to take a step back. I’d never felt so violated. Everything about me, including my medical history, sat on my chip.

  I raised my hands again, and Eli grabbed my wrists. “We had to be certain. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s virtual rape. I have private data in my chip.”

  “Not as private as you think,” someone said from beside me. The voice sounded familiar.