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Chapter 22

THE NEXT MORNING Adrien wasn’t at training. Rand mentioned he’d gone to spend the morning at the security hub. That was just fine with me. I didn’t know if I could face him. I felt embarrassed and confused, but, more than anything, I felt angry. I was getting tired of being shut out. A relationship was supposed to work both ways.

When I walked into the Gifted training class, he was already there, sitting on a mat with his eyes closed. My anger roared to life. I sat down on the mat farthest away from him and glared, hoping he could feel the fury pulsing off me in invisible waves.

He looked miserable. There were dark circles under his closed eyes. His strong broad chest rose and fell softly with each breath, and his hands rested open on his knees. The aching hurt rose up all over again. In spite of myself, I felt my heart stretch in my chest for him. But he’d rejected me without even a word of explanation. I couldn’t let go of the hurt yet.

I settled into a spot on the floor and tried to still the squirming thoughts in my head. I could only manage a few moments of focus at a time.

The door opened suddenly. General Taylor stormed in with the ex-Regs and a half-squadron of Rez fighters behind her. I stared at her in confusion.

“What’s going on?” City asked. We all stood up.

“Get her!” Taylor yelled, her face a mask of focused intent. She was looking right in my direction.

“What—” I started to ask, but then she strode right past me.

I swung around and my heart dropped when I saw where they were headed.

Saminsa.

Wytt reached out his metal-infused hand toward Saminsa’s shoulder.

“No!” she shouted, a blue orb immediately bursting to life around her. Wytt pulled his hand away. He stumbled backwards, looking back and forth between his hand and the orb in confusion. I followed his gaze and my stomach lurched when I saw four of his fingers lying inside the orb. They’d been sliced right off. Blood dripped from Wytt’s hanging hand.

“Stay back!” Saminsa yelled. Between the shock of everything that was happening, I realized in a moment of absurdity that this was the first time I’d ever heard the girl’s voice.

General Taylor advanced forward. “You’re surrounded! There’s nowhere to go. Did you really think we wouldn’t catch you sneaking into the security hub and trying to send a transmission to the Chancellor about our location? Adrien and the other techer boy detected it and stopped it before it could be sent.” The General glanced at me, then back at Saminsa. “Very clever, though, piggybacking off the signal created when Zoel Links herself at night.”

I felt a wave of guilt and anger. Not being able to control my powers at night was an embarrassing weakness, but I’d never expected anyone to be able to exploit it.

“I knew this day would come,” Saminsa said, her voice calm now, eyes glowing from the blue light of the orb surrounding her. “I knew for all your talk of helping every glitcher that it was never really true. You were never trying to help me.”

“That’s not true!” I said.

Rand nodded at City and widened his stance beside her, preparing to fight.

I glared at both of them. Saminsa was right. We never really tried to make her part of the team or helped her see the good we were doing. But maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference if she’d been set on working for the Chancellor the entire time. If she actually managed to get a message out, all the people closest to me would be in danger. I was torn between sympathy and anger.

Saminsa didn’t look at me, but only held her hand out in warning. The orb’s circumference inched farther outward. She kept her eyes trained on Taylor.

“You will let me pass from this place in peace.”

“So you can go report straight back to the Chancellor?” Taylor said coolly. “I don’t think so.”

“If you don’t let me pass, I’ll take down everyone in the building as I go. Starting with your pet mutant,” she nodded in my direction without taking her eyes off Taylor.

Saminsa held up her other hand and the orb doubled in size. Everyone scooted back, and City barely made it out of the way in time. The pillow she’d been sitting on was disintegrated as the outward curve of the orb passed it.

City let out a growl of anger and unleashed lightning from her fingertips toward the orb. It hit with a crackle of static, but it made no impact.

“Stop it, City, that didn’t work before and it’s not going to now!” I yelled at her, then turned back to Taylor. “Can’t we just let her go? That boy’s power makes it so she won’t be able to tell them where we are, right?”

“Don’t be a fool. If she leaves, she can send a message from the nearest city and the Chancellor would know the vicinity of the Foundation.”

A thunderclap seemed to go off in the room with us. The shock wave of the orb’s release rocked me backward. I hit the ground hard on my back and the air was knocked out of my lungs. I gasped to get another breath and tried dizzily to sit up. Most of the others were on the ground too. Some were bleeding from where they’d been tossed into the walls by the wave.

And Saminsa was gone.

General Taylor got up a moment later. I blinked in confusion as she raised her com and spoke into it. “Jilia, activate!”

“Activate what?” I tried to ask, but it came out as a whisper since I was still gasping for breath. Another shock wave rocked the floor, but it was far enough away from us now that, other than shaking some ceiling tiles loose, we barely felt it. Taylor held on to the wall and dragged herself to her feet.

“Jilia, report!” she said into the com.

There was no response. I managed to pull myself to my feet.

“Jilia, REPORT!”

Another moment of silence. Then finally, Jilia’s voice sounded over Taylor’s com. “I activated the system and it’s done. She’s down. Access corridor north.”

I got to my feet and turned to head out the door to the north corridor, but Taylor grabbed my arm to hold me back.

“No glitchers. Just Xona and Cole. Come with me.”

“But Wytt,” Cole protested, pointing to the injured ex-Reg cradling his bleeding hand. “I have to help him.”

“Rand and City can get him to the Med Center.” She looked at me, then pointed up at the cracked ceiling tiles above us. “Zoel, you need to go get into your biosuit in case of leaks in the air-filtration system. Come with me, Cole; that’s an order.”

Cole nodded and snapped to attention, following Taylor and Xona out the door. I stared after them for a quick second, disquieted by Taylor’s tone and the way Cole immediately obeyed. And what had they done to Saminsa? Jilia had said Saminsa was “down.” Did that mean dead? I shuddered at the thought, then went to my room to put on my biosuit.

Xona and Ginni came in not long after I had finished putting on the helmet and sealing the suit shut. “That was fast,” I looked up at Xona. “What happened to Saminsa? Is she…” I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask.

Xona sat backward on one of the chairs at the desk. “When we got to the north corridor, Saminsa was already on the ground unconscious. There was some kind of gas that had been released from the vents.”

“Did Taylor get you masks?” I asked in confusion.

“Nah, most of it had been suctioned up by the time we got there. And Taylor said whatever was left in the air was harmless to non-glitchers. That it just might make us feel tired for a couple hours.”

I felt my mouth go dry. Taylor had developed something that could take down a glitcher but was harmless to others? I’d known General Taylor didn’t trust glitchers … but this? She’d set up security measures against us in our own home.

“So Saminsa’s still alive?” I finally managed to ask.

Xona nodded. “Cole picked her up and carried her to the Med Center. Doc said she’d keep her sedated for the time being.”

“And then what? They can’t just keep her knocked out forever.”

Xona shrugged.

All the next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility that Taylor had developed some kind of chemical weapon against glitchers. As disturbing as it was that she’d set it up here in the Foundation to use against us whenever she saw fit, I couldn’t ignore the fact that it meant we might finally have a chance against the Chancellor. I didn’t understand why we hadn’t already set up a mission. I could get close enough to administer it, then the rest of my team could follow me in as backup without fear of her compulsion.

Instead of going to lunch with everybody else, I headed toward Taylor’s office to talk to her about it. I was still in the suit while they repaired a cracked pipe in the air-filtration system and didn’t feel like eating through a straw anyway.

When I knocked on Taylor’s door, though, there was no answer. I stood outside her office for a minute feeling frustrated, then went to the Med Center. Jilia was the one who had activated the gas that had taken Saminsa down—surely she knew something about it.

But I slowed to a stop outside the open Med Center door when I heard voices inside.

“Henk, you know what she’s doing is wrong, but you’re building it for her anyway.” It was Jilia talking. I leaned in closer, though I was careful to stay clear of the entryway.

“I don’t know anythin’ of the sort.” Henk’s voice responded. “Revolution’s the only way to bring it all down, so we all can start over. We finally got the tech to make it happen. The Kill Switch Op is our chance.” His tone was hopeful, urgent. “Maybe even give you and me a chance to get a fresh start.”

I heard Jilia’s feet tapping the floor, like she was walking away. “But at what cost?”

“Do you wanna sit here and see another generation enslaved? You think all those drones ain’t mostly dead already? Gettin’ that adult V-chip is the same as a death sentence. They just make the corpses walk around a few more years so they can work till they drop.”

There was a pause and some shuffling, then Henk lowered his voice. I could just barely make out his words.

“It’s our best chance to end the war and save countless lives. Taylor’s finally tracked down the missing component. She’s out gettin’ it right now. I’ll finish the device up for her, then you and me can get out of here. You could keep doin’ your research, you don’t have to see one bit o’ blood. We’ll hide out somewhere till it’s all settled.”

“I’m a doctor, Henk. If Taylor goes through with this, they’ll need me more than ever.”

“Tell me you’ll at least think about it.” Henk’s voice was low and insistent.

I didn’t hear Jilia’s response. I backed away as Henk’s footsteps came toward the doorway, wincing at the squeak my shoe made on the tile. When he reached the door, I reversed my direction, hoping it looked like I’d just arrived.

“Hi Henk,” I said, trying to smile and do my best to pretend everything was fine.

“Hey,” he said back as he brushed past me.

I stepped into the Med Center, but suddenly didn’t know what to say after the conversation I’d overheard. Taylor was obviously planning something big, but if it was about taking down the Chancellor, why hadn’t she briefed my team on it?

“Is there something you need, Zoe?” Jilia’s hair was falling out of her bun and she looked disheveled.

“Is she okay?” I walked over to where Saminsa lay on one of the beds. Her face was unusually pale, her lips almost white.

“She’s sedated.”

“What did Taylor use on her? Xona said there was a gas of some kind?”

Jilia’s messy hair flopped into her face, and she tucked some behind her ear. “We closed off the hallway leading to the elevator and gassed it. It’s a mix of heavy antipsychotics and sedative.”

“Antipsychotics?”

She stopped and rubbed her forehead, clearly uncomfortable. “We’ve been trying to develop a serum to neutralize glitcher abilities. It was one of Taylor’s requirements in setting up the Foundation.”

I’d known it must be something like this, but hearing it stated out loud made the air whoosh out of my lungs. “Neutralize abilities? You mean take away our Gifts?”

“No, no,” Jilia said. “Not you guys! Only the enemy. Just for tactical…” Her voice trailed off.

“But you had it installed here. To use against us.” I turned back to look at Saminsa. “Is her power totally gone?”

Jilia’s shoulders sagged and she sat down on her lab chair. “It’s not permanent. The antipsychotic numbs the norepinephrine transmitters and seems to disrupt whatever it is that makes Gifts possible. We don’t even know how it works, just that the serum did work in sample patients.”

“Sample patients? You experimented on glitchers?” I didn’t even try to hide the accusation in my voice.

“You don’t understand. We needed another way to try and combat the Chancellor’s compulsion. Or at least to defend against her glitcher army without shedding blood. Just think, Zoe, without it, we might have had to kill Saminsa. Sometimes you have to go along with things you aren’t comfortable with.” She glanced at the door Henk had left through. “But if the end goal is important enough, the good outweighs the bad.”

I stared at her, frowning reluctantly. It was what I wanted, wasn’t it? A way to neutralize the Chancellor’s compulsion powers? It was why I’d come looking for the General in the first place.

“If you’ve had this serum or gas or whatever, then why haven’t we put together a mission against the Chancellor already?”

Jilia looked away. “Taylor’s been busy pursuing another mission first.”

“What mission?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

Surely it had to be the one Henk was just discussing with her, but she obviously wasn’t going to share. “Well, why didn’t someone at least tell us about the serum you guys were developing? Even if you didn’t want to tell everyone, you could have told our task force. We’re all fighting on the same side here.”

Jilia didn’t say anything, she just looked at the ground.

My chest tightened. Jilia didn’t have to say it. Taylor didn’t think of us as on the same side. That was the crux of the whole issue. As much as she was willing to use glitchers to further her goals, she still considered us an enemy.

“She wants to find a way to make it permanent, doesn’t she?” I looked up at Jilia. I didn’t wait for her answer. “How can you help her with this? You’re one of us!”

“I didn’t want to at first,” Jilia said earnestly. “I didn’t want any part of it. But it was the only nonviolent solution on the table. And we would never use it on you, only the enemy.” She shook her head. “You don’t know how bad it’s gotten out there. Everyone’s scared and desperate. We’re all afraid of what’s coming.”

Her words suddenly triggered a memory of watching Adrien, dripping wet at the sink. Staring with shadowed eyes into the mirror talking about how he’d told Taylor something he shouldn’t have. Some vision that had changed her. Made her desperate.

Jilia’s wrist com vibrated and she looked down at it. She turned back to me with a falsely cheerful smile. “They’ve finished repairs and all air systems checked out fine. It’s safe for you to take off the suit. If you hurry, you can make it in time for lunch.”

I didn’t say anything but my mind was racing. It wasn’t only about the General and her serum. Henk had spoken of blood and revolution. If Taylor was desperate, just how far was she willing to go?

I didn’t know, but I was going to find out.