The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) (2 page)

“Go!” he yelled at me.

In the distance, I could hear more officers approaching. We were outnumbered. With nothing else to do, I ran.

I stumbled up to my apartment door, still looking over my shoulder for any sign that I was followed. Nothing.
 

Running over to the window, I peered through the blinds and down to the street. There was no sign of the PMC yet, but the rovers at the store had identified me, and it would take mere minutes for them to retrieve my home address. They would probably raid our building within the hour.

The Private Military Company had access to all citizens’ data collected from rovers across the country. The officers who took Greyson were highly trained soldiers handpicked by unorthodox reports on their service records and dishonorable discharges from the U.S. military.
 

Ruthless and methodical, the PMC officers were charged with two tasks: round up any illegals, dead or alive, and kill any carriers on sight. Both of these directives were treated as matters of national security. If they found someone infected with the virus who hadn’t yet turned into a fully fledged carrier, they imprisoned him until the virus could run its course. Even those who survived the violence and filth of Saint Drogo’s Infirmary eventually died from deteriorated brain function.

They wouldn’t be able to ascertain Greyson’s true identity; he no longer carried a driver’s license — a useless pre-Collapse relic. He didn’t have a police record either, so he wasn’t in the system. It was unlikely they could get his real name unless they tortured him. I shuddered, and a heavy feeling of dread seeped into my stomach like scalding liquid.
 

They caught him. He was gone. He was gone, and I may never see him again. I’d known Greyson my whole life, and now, my only real friend in the whole world had been taken from me. He would be locked up in a prison somewhere, possibly killed.

I made it to the living room, where my roommate Nora was sitting on the couch. She had her knees pinned against her body, nearly touching her chin. Her wide eyes were barely visible through her curtain of unruly honey-colored curls, but they were fixated on the television screen, where a grave reporter read the news of PMC arrests in the city. It seemed strange to me that I was on the run while Nora could do something as normal as watch TV.

“
A string of PMC raids early this morning led to the discovery of two more gangs of undocumented illegals living downtown in an abandoned building. Seventeen total illegals were apprehended at the scene. Thirteen are suspected carriers . . .”

“That’s the fourth raid this week,” said Nora. She turned to face me, eyes flashing. “How much longer do you think before they come here?”

She didn’t try to conceal her animosity lately, and the shiny square mark on the inside of her forearm caught my eye.
 

“They got him,” I said. My voice was empty, deep, and far away.

“Who?”

“Greyson. The PMC got him. Hauled him off.”

Nora put four chubby fingers to her mouth, nails whittled down to stubs. “Just like that?”

I couldn’t bear to explain why he’d been caught. I just nodded.

Sinking down onto the couch, I watched as Nora got to her socked feet and wheeled around. Lately, she was always either too terrified to unglue herself from the television or too paranoid to sit still.

“Did they follow you here?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, it was just a matter of time, I suppose.”

I looked up at her, not bothering to hide my anger and disgust.

“They could come here. Haven, they could come after us!”

“Greyson won’t give us away.”

“You can’t know that! They can
make
people talk.”

“He won’t!” I snapped.
 

It was all I could do to keep the desperation out of my voice — all I could do to avoid imagining all the terrible things the PMC officers were known for. They would beat suspects to the verge of death to gain information, give them hallucinogenic drugs to make them feel as though they were drowning or being burned alive . . .
 

“Where do you think they took him?” I asked, trying to remain calm. If I yelled at Nora, she would shut down completely.
 

“Out east,” she whispered. “To one of the prisons in Sector X.”

“I have to get him out.”

She looked at me with pity in her eyes. “You can’t get him out,” she said, as if it were an obvious fact. “He’s gone now.”

“Which prison would they take him to?”

She considered for a moment, and I knew she relished having a piece of information I did not. Nora’s father had been a traveling security consultant out east, and he had to make periodic runs into Sector X to service the prison systems.
 

“Probably Chaddock Detention Center, unless they identify him as a rebel instead of a nonviolent undocumented illegal.” Nora began pacing again, nibbling her pinky nail.
 

I sighed. Chaddock was the lowest security prison in Sector X. Conditions were bad, but they couldn’t deny prisoners their basic human rights.
 

“They’ll hold him there until they can be sure he isn’t infected. And then —”

“And then he’ll just disappear like the others!”

The PMC told the media that undocumented illegals were only held for a short period of time until they could be vaccinated and identified as a matter of public safety, but most people who were brought into the prison system were never heard from again. It had been like that for almost a year — ever since the Collapse and the PMC takeover.
 

The government didn’t offer any explanation; people were simply unaccounted for. If their families went to the press, they faced threats of violence and imprisonment. My dad knew a widow whose young son had gone missing from the prison system. When she vocalized news of his disappearance, our paper ran a feature on other locals who had been wiped off the map after failing to comply with documentation. A week later, the widow’s house burned to the ground.

Some undocumented illegals were fugitives or people who had come into the country illegally before the Collapse, but most were just regular people, like Greyson, who resisted the mandated documentation. Illegals suspected of treason or conspiracy against the government were often tortured and detained indefinitely at Waul Penitentiary, the supermax prison in Sector X designed to hold the most dangerous criminals and rebels. This included defectors — documented citizens who broke the law and resisted the PMC. The thought gave me pause. If they identified me as Greyson’s documented accomplice, I was considered a defector. My punishment would be worse than his if I were caught.

Nora was pacing the living room.
 

“Sit down,” I said. It was making me feel sick.

But she seemed to have lost her tenuous grasp on reality. “They’ll come here, you know. They’ll come arrest us for helping him. This is all your fault.”
 

That stung.
You have no idea,
I wanted to yell, but I just sighed. “You’ve been vaccinated and identified. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I’ve been helping you hide him for months!”

I was beyond caring what my sour roommate thought of Greyson’s imposition. All our friends migrated north months ago — including Greyson’s former roommates — but he needed a Citizen ID to hold a lease. Nora’s grandfather was a wealthy alumnus, and he owned the apartment building where we lived. She worked in the leasing office part time and fixed the paperwork so it would appear as though Greyson had vacated the apartment. As far as our landlord knew, Greyson’s unit was empty.

“They’ll get me as a conspirator,” Nora murmured. “Aiding and abetting — that’s what it’s called, isn’t it?”

“Just say you didn’t know he was living there and that you had no idea I was a defector nutcase.”

“That won’t work!” Her lip was trembling, making her look more than ever like an overgrown cherub. I wasn’t taller than average, but Nora was absurdly doll-sized. “They’ll get you and take me down, too!”

A red banner running along the bottom of the TV screen caught my eye, and the news anchor cut to a reporter standing in front of the grocery store. My stomach lurched.

“I’m standing outside Greenbrier Grocer, where an alleged undocumented illegal has been taken into custody. The PMC is still searching for his documented accomplice. She has been identified as twenty-year-old Haven Allis. Officers suspect she has defected and will face —”

Nora’s jaw dropped, and her already big doll eyes widened.

“Are you serious?”

“Nora, I’m sorry!”

“Are you insane? You didn’t tell me there was a full-blown manhunt going on! They’ll be here looking for you any minute!”

She strode out of the room, and I heard the rattling of her accordion closet doors. A moment later, she emerged dragging a hot-pink polka-dotted rolling suitcase. Always the excitable type, Nora had packed an emergency getaway bag weeks ago.
 

“I’m leaving,” she said. “Going north to meet my parents. If you’re arrested, please tell them I was gone when you got here.”

I knew I should protest — or offer to give myself up — but I couldn’t bring myself to ask her to stay. I watched her fill a backpack with all the food that was hers from the pantry — cookies, pita chips, and granola bars mostly — and I nearly laughed when I realized she had no idea what was in store for the journey north.

Though the government tried to make the public believe that everyone who set out for the New Northern Territory made it safe and sound, plenty of people went hungry along the way stuck in traffic jams or had to rely on their own devices when they ran out of fuel along the highway.
 

In its heyday, the interstate was a lush, rolling oasis of fast food and cheap fuel. Now it was a wasteland since workers abandoned their jobs in the states and the fast-food suppliers could no longer deliver what they needed to sell.

Nora packed up her cereal bars, chips, and peanut butter. It was obvious she didn’t think she’d actually have to feed herself along the way. Guiltily, I remembered the sack of rice and nuts I had stowed in the hedge outside our building — the remaining bounty from our run-in with the law.

If I needed to, I felt sure I could feed myself with the supplies I’d hoarded over the last several weeks. Greyson and I had been planning our escape for over a month — as soon as it became clear that I would be arrested if I didn’t comply with mandatory migration and the raids searching out undocumented illegals began.

“I’m going.” Nora was standing by the door, dressed as though she were hopping a flight to Chicago: banana-yellow peacoat, polka-dotted suitcase, and carry-on.
 

It wasn’t as if she had to worry if she were stopped, but even citizens operating within the law had to be able to feed themselves. It occurred to me that she had no idea what awaited her outside.

“Nora —”

“I’m sorry. I want to stay here to help you. Really. But I can’t risk my life for you and Greyson anymore. You should leave, too. It’s dangerous for you to be here.”

I swallowed a derisive smile that threatened to bloom on my lips. She thought she was taking care of me.
 

“I know. I’m sorry,” I said. It sounded lame, even to me.

Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice. Nora’s smile was steeped in pity. “You’ll be all right, won’t you?”

“Sure. I’ll be fine.”

She turned and took a few steps toward me, squeezing my arm with a cold, clammy hand. “I’m sorry about Greyson. I always knew he’d get you into trouble.”

I watched her go, still feeling the slap of her words. Her Mazda roared to life on the street. Somehow, I knew I would never see her again, and I didn’t care.

Chaddock. If I had a name of a place Greyson might be, I had to try to get him out. I didn’t have any idea how I would get to Sector X and break him out of prison, but if anyone knew, it was my dad.
 

Now that I had been identified as a defector, I wouldn’t be able to procure more food in the city. There was no point in waiting around until I had fewer provisions for the journey. Besides, the sooner I reached Greyson, the better chance he might still be alive.

I didn’t know how long I would have before the PMC showed up looking for me. I quickly took stock of my supplies: an ultra-compact thermal sleeping bag, a tarp, a small tin kettle for cooking, a flint fire starter, iodine tablets, a canteen, a length of rope, a small hatchet, and a serrated knife for sawing.
 

Greyson and I managed to stockpile plenty of food for our journey, but I knew I would not be able to carry it all with me. I took only the essentials: rice, beans, jerky, dried fruit, and nuts. With the meat shortage, jerky was quite the luxury item, but Greyson had managed to find it months ago by chance.

 
Once I loaded the essentials into my backpack, I looked around my room, realizing how little I was leaving behind. I had returned to school in August with a heavy sense of foreboding. I kept only the bare minimum of belongings in this apartment, as if I knew I would have to run away: lots of clothes, mismatched running shoes, a few pictures of my parents, books, and an old-school landline phone.
 

Not having a smartlens was an inconvenience at first. I couldn’t optisearch or video message anyone, and I had to do all my schoolwork on the old computers at the library. But since your CID pulled the data from your smartlens and analyzed it in the cloud for illegal behavior, it was too risky to carry one when Greyson was around. Even in sleep mode, your smartlens was still recording, and the PMC spied on everything.
 

The Citizen Identification Device didn’t just upload your conversations and Internet history. Each tiny microchip had its own unique signal that was linked to your social security number, location, immunizations, passwords, bank accounts, and transaction history. When the CID was first introduced, the president called it the most intelligent piece of technology ever to be implanted in a human being.