Beat (2 page)

It took me a minute to get what he was talking about. “Wait. What? Miss me?”

He looked like he had to fight hard to meet my eyes. “We’re done. You get most of this stuff better than I do. Protocol says you move on now since the project’s done and I don’t have anything left to teach you.”

My heart sank. Drek. Bugging drek. “I don’t want to. This is the best project I’ve worked on. I wanted—” I bit that part back.

He nodded. “You wanted to test it.”

“You don’t—I mean, maybe we don’t say anything. Don’t tell anyone we’re done or that I’m done here.” I knew his answer before he said a word.

“You know how much trouble I’d get into. You too. We have to follow protocol.” He came closer. “I know. It’s spam. Worst kind of spam.” He spoke quietly enough that nobody else would hear. “You do all this work and can’t test it. I’m sorry.”

That last bit was an apology. A real one. He felt guilty. “You reported already.”

Rojer nodded.

I couldn’t look at him. Not even Rojer would bend the rules. He was the smartest, most interesting person I’d interned with, but he toed the line just like everyone else. “Great.” My throat tightened.
Come on, you’re fifteen. Too old to cry.

A tall, gangly guy with a huge lump sticking out of his throat stepped into view from behind the powered cycle. His eyes darted all over Dev 4 and rested on me. “Nik Granjer?”

I glanced from Rojer to the tall man. “Uh. Yeah?”

“Fil Kline. You’re working with me now.” He looked down his pointy nose at me and spun around. His too-long fingers waved for me to follow him.

Spamming drek. This guy was famous for being awful to work with. I didn’t look at Rojer as I started after Fil. I’d thought he was my friend. But you didn’t get to have friends in the New Chapter.

Not unless you found someone else willing to break the rules. I wished I could contact Bren right now and vent at him about this newest stupidity. How unfair was this? Why couldn’t I choose where I wanted to work?

“Nik.”

I stopped. Rojer had a totally defeated expression on his face. “The bild-all. You have to leave it here.”

I lifted the tool I’d forgotten was in my hand. I wanted to slam it to the ground and stomp it into pieces.

“Granjer. Let’s go.” Fil Kline’s voice cut through the noise of Dev 4. I ignored it.

What choice did Rojer have? I couldn’t blame him. I held the tool out. “Thanks. It was fun.”

Rojer took the tool and nodded.

I followed Fil to Dev 2.

“You have to check in.” Fil leaned on his work station.

I flashed my wrist at the sensor embedded in the side of the table. “Nik Granjer. Transition to Dev 2. Mentor Fil Kline.”

And it was official. But no, the lady’s voice wasn’t done. “Four minutes late to shift. Released at 18:24.”

“You could try getting here on time,” Fil said. “You know how the whole arrive late more than once, stay even later thing works, right?” He smirked.

People said Fil tried to find reasons to irritate people. True story.

I made a face at the tall man, irritated that I had to practically break my neck to look him in the eyes. So instead I quickly took in the work station. Two AktualizR printing machines with scanning portals and several reader attachments. Configuration consoles—I assumed that was how you fine-tuned the prototypes and components that Dev 2 built.

Fil lectured at me for a few minutes, and then we got to work. At first, using the AktualizR machines was a blast. Once you loaded the design the people in Dev 1 sent, you had to set parameters and then you could watch the machines build the components, molecular layer by molecular layer.

But that wasn’t designing or building, and it got old fast. And so did Fil’s general bugginess.

“I hear you’re late a lot. How come?” Fil turned back to the larger of the two AktualizRs at our station. “cycle break down? Or maybe it was a girl?”

He could stuff it. “Spam.” I felt my heart rate slowing. “Let’s just do the work.”

“You’re the boss.” Fil snorted. “No, wait, that’s me.”

I glared at his profile. Even if I wasn’t faster than the Enforsers, I knew I’d beat Fil in a race. He was obviously like way too many of the people in New Frisko who took the “Better calm than dead” and scary Bug statistics as total truth, keeping their heart rates under 100 all the time. They let their Papas lead them by the wrist everywhere, making all their choices about where to be at what time, and whether they should walk or ride their cycles, and how much time they should spend playing Bounce-a-Walk. Add to that the fact that all the kids my age, had to sit in boring classes, take the track we were told to, and walk around the School Dome at the exact same pace as everyone else . Even when I was done with school I’d still have to eat exactly what the central computer told me to eat, wear the exact same gray clothes and—

I pushed the thoughts away. Nothing ever changed. And all because of the total drek that the Admins spewed: “The Bug is still in the air.” “If your heart rate goes over 140, you’re in the danger zone.” “Better safe than sorry, better calm than dead.”

But after everything I’d found, I knew it couldn’t be possible anymore. A killer biotoxin couldn’t still be in the air after a hundred years. No matter what the Admins said. The question was why the Admins and the Prime Administrator kept saying the Bug was still around. And why people believed them.

Unless it somehow
was
possible . . . My stomach flipped again.
No. I’m right. I’m positive.

Frag it. I needed to concentrate or I’d end up having to stay in my station even longer. I didn’t have time for that.

At 18:40, I emerged from the Enjineering Dome, imagining my hands around Fil’s scrawny, irritating neck. The guy obviously had it in for me. Every time I got part way through a job, he poked his pointy chin in front of me and told me my parameters were off.

Meaning I’d had to spend extra time finishing the last prototype—even after Foolish Fil was gone.

I glanced around. A few people made their way down the sidewalk toward the center of town while two other guys pedaled their cycles the other direction, toward the residential districts. It all made sense, the way New Frisko was laid out, but it sometimes felt—empty. Everybody knew that pre-Infektion cities were laid out with businesses and jobs in the middle and living areas jumbled together. That’s why those people back in the old days had had to drive so much. Driving. I wondered what that would be like. The handles of those old cars were circles, not like my cycle’s handlebars.

Unless something changed drastically, I’d never know what life had been like back then.

A future of flat, powerless boredom stretched in front of me like the plain beige sidewalk material that surrounded me. This was living? I scanned the domes that made up so much of this district of New Frisko. Their unique colors glowed softly in the setting sun. Glancing around me, I walked to the right, toward my cycle and into the blind spot of the cameras on the Enjineering Dome and other buildings. I reached into my pants pocket and pulled the extending wire out of the ancient file reader, quickly threading it under the flap of my zip and yanking it up through my collar. An Enforser turned the corner on patrol, walking right toward me.

I nearly swallowed my tongue; my right hand was still at the top of my collar, gripping the wire. I walked toward my cycle, scratching my neck with my right hand. Should I yawn? Whistle? I was an idiot. My heart thudded loud enough for people in the buildings nearby to hear it.

I bent and flashed my Papa at the rack; my cycle unlocked. The Enforser walked by, not paying me any attention. The tension in my chest eased up, and I quickly fitted the tiny plug at the end of the wire into the slot I’d customized into my EarCom. I tapped my pocket and got on my cycle. The exposed wire between my collar and ear was skinny enough that nobody should notice it if I kept moving.

After a moment of pedaling, the illegal sound of a woman singing filled my ear. Along with the voice was some kind of music produced by electrical instruments. The woman’s voice filled me with some kind of longing I only felt when I listened to this file. It seemed like she was singing about frustration, a wished-for happiness, and everything that should have been better about the world. I had no idea what the words meant; they were in a language I’d never heard.

I made my way up the first hill on my way home, which ran along the northwest edge of Purple Rez. I pedaled quickly, needing to get home and get my homework done before dinner so I could keep my evening free.

“Nik, you’re a fragging bug-eater.”

I laughed and tapped the file reader lightly, stopping the music. “Well, Bren, you’re a tek-challenged spam bot who cries when the knockout hits.” I imagined the mic in my earbud sucking the words out of my throat. I didn’t even have to speak very loud for it to pick up my voice; the thing was so sensitive it captured the sound directly from my vocal cords.

“At least I know how to win a cycle race.” Bren’s voice came through my earbud, automatically softened so it wasn’t loud enough to do damage.

“Because you cheat.”

“I don’t cheat. I’ll show you ton—”

“Whatever, spam-boy.” I cut him off. He couldn’t mention tonight. Everyone knew the frequencies were monitored.

A moment of silence passed. Bren got it. “Like I was saying, I’ll show you tomorrow. I’ll even give you a head start.”

“I don’t need it.” I pedaled my cycle down the road toward my house.

“Yeah, we’ll see. I’ll come by later?”

“Yup.” I let the silence draw out for a moment before tapping my music back on.

I let the music wash over me. I’d never understood why this kind of thing was illegal; there was nothing destructive about the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard. All that spam about the decadence of the pre-Infektion world, how all the media was depraved and how music and art were simply outlets for “man’s baser nature”—how could that be true of this music?

I still couldn’t believe it had already been two years since I’d found the reader. I had left Hope Park on a dare from Bren. I stepped out into the grassy hills beyond New Frisko, knowing that the cameras and my Papa would send an Enforser after me. But I only had to stay out for 85 seconds and I would break the record held by Bren.

Even though I knew other kids did it, at first, I thought I would be terrified and that some animal would attack me within seconds, but all that had happened was that I smelled real grass, not the oxi-grass that covered yards all over New Frisko.

I wandered for just over a minute, loving the feel of the shrubs and trees and grass, loving the smell of the dirt I kicked up. I was kicking at the dirt under a tall tree root when I caught sight of a small, blue case. I grabbed the case, knowing right away that I’d be in huge trouble if I didn’t turn it in. But something in it rattled, so I pried it open. An old plastic pen and the wafer-thin reader were all it held.

Of course, I didn’t known it was a reader at the time. I stowed the case in my zip pocket and ran back to Bren and our families. That had been the first of many times that I’d left Hope Park and explored the world outside New Frisko. Those explorations usually lasted only two or so minutes since I didn’t want to get in trouble, but I had found I could cover a lot of ground if I moved fast. I’d only found one other interesting thing in my brief explorations. I was jogging slowly, pushing my heart rate to around 130. I wanted to go past a tall, tree-covered hill that was maybe two hundred meters away from the park’s edge. On the other side of the hill, in a deep, rocky impression in the earth surrounded by tall, powerful-looking trees, I found a big dark splotch. On closer investigation, I discovered it was the remnants of a huge, ancient fire that had been built in a deep pit. I dug through it with a stick I found nearby and surprised myself by finding a tight bundle of papers. When I poked at it, the bundle fell apart and a flash of white caught my eye.

It took some doing, but I finally got the white paper and realized I had found a few pages from a pre-Infektion magazine of some kind. Images caked the pages, computer illustrations so realistic they somehow looked like photographs of actual, alien-looking humans. I stuffed the few somewhat shiny pages under my zip and ran back to the park, certain I’d meet a group of Enforsers, but when I got back, my Papa told me I’d been gone for only three minutes.

Months passed of carefully cleaning the reader and poring through the ancient magazine pages, during which I felt like I was immersed in the old world. I considered asking my friends if they’d ever gone out and found something, but too many of them seemed too eager to follow the rules. They’d probably turn me in.

But I was sure there were others, maybe even some adults, who had been able to slip out of the city for a couple of minutes and found things. Not that it mattered. I’d never find out who those others might be. Enforsers took their name seriously when it came to enforsing the rules of the New Chapter.

After hitting a dead end at home, I snuck the ancient reader to the Enjineering Dome to dissect it a little when nobody was watching. It was there that I discovered the processor in the reader, analyzed the contents of the hard drive, and found some media files.