Ash (14 page)

“How are you, Dax?” my father asked.

“Okay,” I lied. What else could I say? Aldan was dead. Link was in jail. And I was a Blank, with no power to fix anything. “Dad?” I asked, “Do you know why he did it?”

“I don’t know, honey,” he answered.

“And Link…”

“Hey,” he said, cutting me off. “We’re going to get Link back. Don’t worry, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

From behind us I heard Link’s voice, and I turned excitedly before realizing it was just a broadcast. The camera was zoomed in on his face. It was red and tense with anger as he spoke. “You know the real joke?” my brother asked. “Us. Every single one of us, sitting in the Box because someone decided our destinies were better than the people down below. This system is broken.”

I sucked in my breath. I couldn’t believe Link would say such a thing. Out loud. In front of the ministers.

The broadcast cut back to the newsroom, to a Purple anchorman. “It was a stunt no one saw coming. One that left one brother dead—and the other in jail. Tonight we examine Aldan Harris’s misguided suicide, and Link Harris’s subsequent spiral into madness.”

Aldan’s cuff was still concealed under my sleeve, and I gripped it furiously. “How can they say that?”

My dad just shook his head. “The media is going to spin this for their own agenda.” He leaned in toward me, lowering his voice. “Nobody stands against the ministry, honey, but your brothers just did in front of the entire world.” He glanced at the officer behind the desk pointedly. “Everyone is going to be watching the rest of the family now, so we’ll talk for real when we get home. For now, just try and hang in there, okay?”

I couldn’t help but turn back to the screen as the anchorman continued. “What I think we all want to know is just how deep this thing goes. Did Link know about his brother’s anti-destiny conspiracy? And were others involved as well?” He paused. “Breaking news to tell you about. I’m getting word there’s a full-blown riot in the New City Blank Ward. Three Keepers were killed trying to subdue the violence. In a time when Blank legislation is heating up, this can’t be a good sign. Our crews are on the way, and we’ll have a live report after we speak to some of Aldan Harris’s former fans.”

I turned away as the scene cut back to the track, even more shaken. I’d never actually met another Blank. Most were institutionalized at birth. We were too expensive to keep. Most families couldn’t afford the annual forty-percent income tax that was attached to us. It was the ministry’s way to ensure the majority of my kind were handed over to the state. The government feared we posed a serious danger to the public, especially if we were allowed to roam freely and band together. Blanks were considered highly volatile. The thought was, a lack of destiny meant we were capable of anything. Only it wasn’t meant in a good way. I’d been monitored my entire life, but living without a destiny had never made me feel violent. Angry, sure. Sad, sometimes. But never violent.
If the ministers upped the Blank tax again we’d be in serious trouble
. Even with my brothers’ Purple credits, we could barely afford the Yellow ring. I stopped, remembering all over again that Aldan was gone. Without his credit, there was no way we’d be able to stay in Yellow. Not with me living free anyway.

I slumped down in my seat, glancing at my wrist tracker. There were dozens of pings from Laira, but I let them go unanswered. Instead, I let my thoughts drift, trying to build up walls around my emotions. My family would still be living in the Crimson ring right now if I’d never been born. And while my brothers didn’t seem to care, nor my dad for that matter, my mom did. She hated the Yellow ring. She’d hate the Brown even more. I closed my eyes, focusing on building a wall all over again. I don’t know how much time passed before my mother’s shriek pierced my thoughts.

“Madden!” she cried.

I sat up, whirling around just as Madden Sumner exited the holding cells. She was the last person I expected to see. She plastered on a smile when she realized she had an audience, but I could tell something was wrong.

“Mr. and Mrs. Harris,” she said, nodding to my parents. “Hello,” she continued, nodding to my brothers. She paused, then turned to me. “Dax,” she acknowledged. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re the reason we couldn’t get in to see Link?”

“I was trying to help,” she answered.

“You realize while you’ve been inside, we’ve all had to sit here,” I replied in disbelief. “None of us could get in to see him.”

My mother interrupted. “What Dax means to say is that was very kind of you.” Her words were punctuated by a weird mix of energy. It was the pills. She didn’t take them that often, but when she did, they made her jittery. Still, it was better than the alternative. I remembered the wild panic attacks she’d had throughout my childhood. None of us would be able to handle it if she had an episode tonight. My mom’s voice grew even more uneven as she continued. “You’re always so thoughtful, Madden. Thank you.”

I rolled my eyes. Our future minister wasn’t trying to help Link. She was managing her PR. It couldn’t be good for her image having an ex-boyfriend in the cells.

“If there’s anything I can do,” Madden continued, “please let me know. Link needs time to process everything. I’m happy to come back.”

“Thank you, dear,” my father said. “We appreciate that.”

My brothers echoed his thanks, but I stayed quiet. As far as I was concerned, Madden Sumner represented everything that was wrong with the system. By next year, her smiling portrait would be on the wall next to me, proving it.

Madden said goodbye and sashayed out the door, her purple gown swinging as she walked. I pressed my lips together, not trusting myself to talk. Saying anything about Madden was likely to get me thrown into my own cell. Instead I returned to my seat, getting comfortable. I knew my parents and brothers would want to spend some time with Link, and if I couldn’t get in to see him myself, at least I could wait for the rest of my brothers to arrive.

Except even this wasn’t to be.

“Visiting hours are ending soon,” the officer said. “One of you may go in now.” She made a point of excluding me as she glanced at the rest of my family. “If you are brief another can go in after. That’s it for today.”

“That would have been helpful information to have earlier, officer,” my father said.

“The hours are listed on the door,” the officer replied, sounding offended.

My father turned to us, defeated. “Why don’t you all head home. Your mom and I will check on Link today, and we can all come back tomorrow and see him.”

Thanks to the rules, I knew “all” didn’t include me.

L
ink was mistaken. About everything. My heels echoed through the empty hallway as I made my way from the holding cells, from Link, from his family. He was obviously out of his mind with grief, whether he realized it or not. He took an oath to protect and serve our system, and he believed in what it stood for. Before the system, we’d been on the brink of world war. People were hungry. Clean water was difficult to come by. And everywhere there was a sense of apathy. We’d had no meaning back then. Link knew all of that. He was one of the most rational, logical, intelligent people I’d ever met. It wasn’t like him to romanticize the past. The spontaneity it had offered came with a huge price. Collective destiny gave everyone a common goal, a reason to work together. It went past religion and culture and background. It was a different kind of faith that was grounded in science—one that everyone could ascribe to.

Yes, what happened to Aldan was devastating. But Brine had a point, Aldan brought it on himself. He wasn’t a fool. He knew there were consequences to disobeying destiny. Consequences that were now extending to Link.

I knew all too well how fiercely loyal Link was to his family, but that didn’t mean he had to throw away his life for his brother’s ridiculous cause—a cause Link didn’t even believe in.

The more I thought about it, the more upset it made me. Why did Link have to be so stubborn? Did he realize what he was doing? He wasn’t just ruining himself, but was trying to put a hole in our system. A system that protected us all. And then bringing my mother up in all of this? Suggesting that she’d been a non-believer? How dare he?

I made it back to my wing of the building and collapsed into one of the large chairs located in the reception area outside of the ministers’ offices. No one was around—everyone had gone to the race—and the silence was deafening. Why had Link said those things about my mom? It wasn’t like him to lie. But it wasn’t like him to make mistakes either.

No, he must have just been trying to get me worked up—to see his point. But the whole idea was ridiculous. Everyone knew Mila Lantner Sumner was a great woman. A writer, an advocate, the mother of a future Minister of the Seven. She worked hard, sought the truth, fought for our system, and was devoted to her family. Everything written about her said the same thing. There was nothing about her being a conspiracy theorist or having anti-destiny leanings. If there was, I would have seen it. I’d read some of her articles. An interview with Dr. Og about how he discovered destiny harvesting and the advancements made in the process. A detailed look at the life of John Crilas. There was even a transcript of the interview she conducted with his family a few months before her death. Everything supported our way of life. Was there something I missed? Was there any chance Link was right?

I pulled out my plexi and plugged Mila Lantner and
New World Times
into the search. Thousands of hits came up. I swiped across the plexi’s surface, clearing away the ones of no interest to focus on actual articles written for the
Times
. I grouped titles that focused on the destiny system, and ran a search for similar articles. Some I was familiar with. Others I had never seen. I tapped on a
Times
article entitled “Destiny’s Future Looks Bright.” It was about the light installed in the clock tower, so the time could be seen at all hours. I read another one about a woman whose destiny was to take the light rail to the East Crimson stop on April fourteenth at 5:15pm. She did, and ended up saving a child who was choking on a hard candy. A sense of relief washed over me. These articles were fine. I clicked on the next. It was called “Destined” but it redirected me to a “Restricted Access” page. I flipped back and tried the next article, but it also dead-ended me to the same government-flagged “Restricted Access” message. I clicked on a dozen more. Two of them were flagged. I felt my stomach tighten.

I placed my plexi on the chair beside me, willing myself to calm down. There was no way my mother had written the words Link quoted, I reminded myself. The government had restricted access to plenty of things over the years, not just anti-destiny propaganda. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation—I just needed the access to find it.

I picked my plexi back up, logged into the ministry records, and called up my mother’s file—everyone in New City had one. At the top of the list was her obituary. I quickly swiped past that and skimmed through my birth announcement, my mother’s destiny certification and marriage license. I stopped when I came to her
Times
articles. I put them in order by title and punched up “Destined,” but it wouldn’t load.
Instead I got the “Restricted Access” message again. It didn’t make any sense. I had just about the highest clearance there was. I should have been able to read these articles.

I stared at the screen, racking my brain for a solution. Then it came to me. I probably had to use a mainframe computer to open protected documents. They had stronger security than the plexis. Three of the ministers had the computers in their offices which, of course, were locked. And then there was the one in the Records Room. I checked my wrist tracker. At this hour that would be locked too, but I couldn’t wait. I had to get in. Only I didn’t know how. Everyone with access was gone, even the janitors. Minister Corbin had given everyone the night off to attend the loop race.