Reboot (11 page)

She lifted her arms toward us. The sick rarely fought.

“I got her,” Twenty-two said, scooping her up.

“You need to cuff her,” I said.

“Why? What’s she going to do? Run?” He looked down at the human. “KDH?”

She nodded, her head wobbling around like a newborn. He carefully placed it on his chest.

“Don’t talk to her, Twenty-two.”

He only frowned in response and turned away as he headed for the shuttle.

“Twenty-two!” I let out an exasperated sigh and spoke into my com. “Wren One-seventy-eight with Twenty-two. We have the assignment.”

“Proceed to shuttle. Control your newbie, One-seventy-eight.”

I jogged to catch up with Twenty-two, who had his head down, speaking to the human.

“You eventually won’t feel anything at all,” he said.

“Twenty-two!”

“Everything goes numb. You won’t even realize it when you die—I promise.”

“You don’t speak to the humans,” I said, grabbing his arm. He stopped and glared at me. He yanked his arm away but was silent as we continued. He set the human down gently in the shuttle with the other sickies, pretending not to notice my annoyed expression as we trudged to our own shuttle.

The other Reboots stood in line and we joined the end. I felt my stomach clench as the officers frowned at us. Something was off. I glanced at Ever but she stared blankly at the ground.

“We’ve got Reboots bringing in items from the field and threatening officers,” Paul said. “We gotta search before boarding now.”

I took off my top shirt and spread my arms, like usual.

“Everything,” Paul said with a wave of his hand. “Undershirts, too. Pull your pockets out and drop your pants. Leave the underwear. We don’t need to be seeing that.”

The other Reboots followed the order immediately, shirts coming off and pants hitting the ground with a soft swish.

I fingered the button on my pants, my eyes flicking to the bare chests down the line. None of them even seemed fazed by the order. They’d probably all seen one another in their underwear anyway. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that even Twenty-two had followed the order.

No one had ever seen me without my clothes on.

“Hey.”

I looked up to see Yellow Teeth lift his gun at me. He jerked his head, indicating for me to follow the order.

My fingers trembled so badly I couldn’t undo the button on my pants. It wouldn’t go through the hole. This wasn’t even the bad part. The pants, fine.

But the shirt. I couldn’t take off the shirt.

“Who is that?” Yellow Teeth asked.

“One-seventy-eight,” Paul said.

I shouldn’t have to take them off anyway. I saved Leb. It wasn’t me who pulled a knife on an officer.

“What’s wrong with you?” Paul demanded, shoving his gun into my back.

Every Reboot head down the line turned to me. Marie One-thirty-five frowned deeply, almost concerned, as she nodded for me to follow their orders.

I saved him
. I wanted to scream it at them.

“Hey,” Twenty-two snapped, his hand shooting out and grabbing the barrel of the gun. I gasped. “Would you stop it? She shouldn’t have to if she doesn’t want.”

Paul wrenched the gun back and slammed the barrel into Twenty-two’s head. I winced as he stumbled, and I tugged at the button on my pants again. Paul stepped away from me, gun trained on Twenty-two instead.

Yellow Teeth let out an annoyed sigh and holstered his gun, striding over to me. He yanked me to him by the waist of my pants, tugging the button through the hole and pushing them down.

“Anyone else would have gotten a bullet in the brain,” he muttered, grabbing the bottom of my shirt and jerking it over my head.

I pressed my arms against my thin white bra and tried to breathe, but my lungs wouldn’t cooperate. My chest rose and fell too fast, my throat tightening up painfully.

“For the love of Texas,” Yellow Teeth said in utter exasperation, pulling my arms out to the side. “You’d think you were a newbie.”

Yellow Teeth grimaced at the sight of the ugly scars stretched across my chest and quickly averted his eyes. But the Reboots didn’t. They all stared.

I turned my head away, trying not to let my arms shake. I failed.

Twenty-two didn’t look at me. His face was turned firmly to the side so I couldn’t see anything but the back of his head. He hadn’t looked.

“All right, put ’em back on. Get in your seats,” Paul ordered.

I grabbed both my shirts and pulled them over my head as fast as possible, my eyes on Twenty-two—on Callum—the whole time. He still hadn’t looked at me.

I buttoned my pants and sat down in a chair next to him, quickly strapping myself in. My hands shook as I folded them in my lap, and I glanced over to see Callum staring at them. I pressed them together tightly to make the shaking stop, but it didn’t work.

Ever caught my eye when I raised my head, and gave me a sympathetic look that made the pressure in my chest worse, not better. I focused my gaze on my lap.

When the shuttle landed I trailed out last. My trembling legs didn’t work right anymore. I fell behind as the other Reboots marched across the roof and down the stairs.

Callum stood at the top of the stairs and waited, holding the door open for me. I gripped the rail as I wobbled down the stairs on my stupid little legs.

I felt something warm against my free hand and looked down to see Callum intertwining his fingers with mine. His skin felt pleasantly hot against my cold, dead flesh and I gripped the hand appreciatively and tried to smile at him. His big eyes flashed with worry and sympathy but he smiled back.

We slowly made our way down the stairs and through the eighth-floor door. I didn’t want to let go of him but the boys’ quarters were to the left, the girls’ to the right. He squeezed my hand and I slipped it out of his, shoving it in my pocket to try and keep the warmth.

When I got to my quarters, I avoided Ever’s eyes as I stripped off my field clothes and changed into sweats.

“Wren, it’s really not—” she began.

I frowned at her as I climbed into bed, and she stopped talking. I pulled the covers all the way over my head and curled myself into a tight ball until the darkness engulfed me.

“YOU MISSED OUR RUN THIS MORNING. IT’S TOO BAD, BECAUSE I was pretty awesome.”

Callum grinned at me as I walked across the gym and stopped in front of him. That big, sparkling smile had returned.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes darting around the gym. A couple Reboots stared at me. “I overslept.” I focused on Callum again, my cheeks warming at the sight of that smile. “Thank you for going anyway. That’s really good.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

I caught Hugo staring at me from across the gym and I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the shiny wooden floor. I wanted to crawl into the corner and hide my face and never look at any of these people again.

“You gonna hit me, or what?” Callum asked.

A surprised laugh escaped my mouth and I quickly cleared my throat to hide it. But it was too late; he’d heard it, and utter delight danced across his face. “Um, yes,” I said, blushing when I looked into his eyes again.

Callum put his fists up in front of his face and I threw a light punch that he easily blocked. I threw a harder one, pulling back just before I made contact with his jaw.

“Faster,” I said. “I almost hit you.”

“You may have to accept that I’ll never be good at this,” he said, ducking as my fist flew toward him.

“No.”

“No?” He jumped as I tried to kick his legs out from under him.

“Good.”

“Thank you. No? You don’t accept it?”

“No. All my newbies are good. I’ve never lost one during training. Only two after.”

“Out of how many?” he asked, throwing a weak punch I easily dodged.

“Were you even trying there?” I asked, unable to keep a corner of my mouth from turning up.

“A little.” He bounced on his feet.

“Try a lot.”

He threw a harder punch but I still easily sidestepped it. At least it was better.

“How many?” he asked again.

“Twenty? Twenty-five? Something like that.” We swung at each other harder now, my fist clipping his chin. I caught his arm as it came for me, yanking it so hard he fell on his butt. He immediately tried to take my legs out from under me, like I had taught him, and a smile spread across my face.

“Is this funny?” Callum asked, giving up after I jumped out of the way.

“No, it was good,” I said, dipping my head so he couldn’t see the bigger grin spreading across my face.

His fingers grasped my wrist suddenly and I stumbled, my knees smashing into his stomach as I landed on top of him. He let out a moan mixed with laughter.

“I win,” he wheezed.

“You call that winning?”

He grabbed my hand as I started to climb off him, rising up on his elbows so his face was closer to mine. “Yes.”

I looked at our intertwined hands instead of his dark, happy eyes, trying to fight the warmth spreading across my body. A full-body blush. Wonderful.

“I’m sorry about what I said,” he said quietly, and I looked up at him. “I didn’t mean it.”

I slipped my hand out of his and slid off him onto the cold floor. He might be sorry, but he’d certainly meant it. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” he said, sitting up and leaning in close to me to talk privately. “I shouldn’t have said you enjoy hunting people just because you’re good at it—”

“I do enjoy it,” I interrupted. “In a way. The chase, especially. But . . .” I didn’t see how he could possibly understand—not at this point.

“But what?”

“But it’s not like I have a choice,” I said softly. “I barely remember my human life, and what I do remember is really bad. This is all I know. This is all I’m good at. So, yes, sometimes I enjoy it.”

“That makes sense.” He even sounded like he meant it.

“And I don’t feel things. Not the same way. I’m a One-seventy-eight. It’s true I don’t really have any emotions.”

“That’s a lie,” he said, amusement in his voice.

“No, it’s not.”

Callum leaned in closer, until I could smell the fresh scent of his skin. He smelled clean and alive and like a Twenty-two, and I wanted to wrap myself in something to hide my death stench. “Yes, it is. You beat the guts out of me the other day. That was anger. And that look in your eyes, when you talked about your human life, that’s sadness.” I could sense the heat of his breath against my face as he tilted his head closer to mine. A smile crossed his lips as I sucked in a tiny gasp of air in surprise. “You feel plenty.”

“One-seventy-eight! Twenty-two! Back to work!” I snapped my head up to see a guard glaring at us. I quickly stood, holding my hand out to Callum. He took it and hopped to his feet.

“Forgive me?” he asked as he put his fists in position. His eyes were big and round, like a puppy begging for a treat.

“Yes,” I said with a laugh.

“Do it again,” he said, bouncing up and down in happiness.

“Do what?”

“Laugh.”

“Make you a deal. If you’re able to punch me, I’ll laugh.”

“You’re so weird.”

I released Callum for dinner after the gym started to empty that evening. I was just starting to follow him to the gym doors when I saw Ever walk in and march across to the knife-practice area. She picked up one of the dull blades and took several steps back, her body stilling as she prepared to throw.

She tossed the knife. It bounced off the wall and hit the floor.

Callum looked at me expectantly as he held the gym door open, and I waved him away.

“Go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.” I strode over and stopped next to Ever.

She glanced up at me as she reached for the knife with shaky fingers. “Hey. You doing all right?”

“I came to ask you the same thing.”

She stepped back and threw the knife. It hit the wall a good six inches from the target. “Just fabulous.”

I watched as she took several more tries, missing every shot. Most of them didn’t even stick. She was pale and unsteady and whatever they had given her last night didn’t seem like it had lasted long.

“Gee, I wonder why I’m no good today.” Ever’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she bent down to pick up the knife after another unsuccessful throw. “Isn’t that strange?”

I crossed my arms over my chest as I tried my best to give her a sympathetic look. I wasn’t sure how it came out. I wanted to say something, anything, but I couldn’t think of words that wouldn’t sound suspicious to a HARC officer listening in.

“I would think”—she grunted as she threw the knife again—“that this is the exact opposite of what they want.” The knife lodged in the paper man’s belly. She cocked her head. “Huh. Well I guess that’ll slow him down.”

“Ever—”

“One-seventy-eight!” I turned at the sound of the officer’s voice. “Officer Mayer would like to see you in his office.”

I nodded, keeping a straight face as my stomach twisted into knots. That didn’t sound good.

I shot an apologetic look at Ever before walking out of the gym and up the stairwell. The cold, white hallway on the ninth floor was freezing, and I pulled my sleeves down my arm as I stopped in front of Officer Mayer’s door.

The door slid open and the commanding officer peered up at me from his massive glass desk. His fat fingers flicked across the screen, and he jerked his head toward a chair. “Sit.”

I did, my back rigid. Did he know about my conversation with Ever? Or worse, did he know I’d lied about Leb and Milo?

“Interesting choice of newbie,” he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his thighs.

I tried not to visibly sigh with relief.

“Care to explain?” he asked.

“I wanted to see if I could make a lower number better.”

He nodded, swinging back and forth in his chair. “Not going well?”

“We’ve just started.”

“He doesn’t take orders well. He talked back to the officers in the shuttle yesterday.”

“He’s new.”

“He ignores you.” Officer Mayer squished up his red face. “Or jokes around like you’re entertainment. I’ve seen you two in the gym.”