Numbers Game (23 page)

37

O
ur
trip to the roof was a blur. We jogged—or stumbled, in my case—up the empty stairs and swung the door open slowly. Vance peeked out first, then signaled that the roof was clear. My mind was foggy, and I was shaking so badly I could barely walk. Was it the effects of the techband, or was it something else entirely? I let myself consider what we were about to do, and the anxiety nearly overcame me. Jump. Off a building. On purpose.

My mind went back to that fateful first day as an EPIC team member. This building had seemed so stately and grand, and I’d felt so small. My biggest worry then was failing a mission that had never truly existed in the first place.

But now I knew the truth. I was the successor. The empress knew that, and she wanted me dead. If I gave up now, she would succeed.

The question was, how would I tell Vance? It wasn’t like I could say, “Thanks for your help. Oh, and by the way, I’m supposed to take the empress’s place.” I couldn’t bear the disappointment I knew I would see in his eyes. Would he be disgusted? Would he refuse to help?

Of course not. Vance wasn’t like that. Ratings didn’t matter to him, so this new revelation wouldn’t change a thing.

I’ll tell him later
,
I promised myself. A surge of determination overcame my nervousness, and I straightened and followed the others.

It was dark and cool outside. Two shiny choppers sat in their places, probably the same ones we’d used before. Daymond touched the first one gently, as if caressing a loved one he’d never see again. I touched his arm. “Are you okay?”

He pulled away. “I’m fine.”

I tried again. “Thanks, Daymond, for coming back for me. It means a lot.”

“The empress has to learn that she can’t just kill people off.” He pounded his chest with a fist. “Especially
this
person.”

Jasper pulled on the door. It slid open, unlocked. “The fates are with us. I’ll grab the packs. You guys watch that exit.” He disappeared into the chopper.

Vance looked annoyed. He opened his mouth, then shut it, cocking his head.

I heard it too—a banging noise coming from the door we’d just come through. Vance had propped it closed, but it didn’t lock from the outside.

“Fates!” Daymond cursed. “Jasper, hurry with those packs!”

“We don’t have time,” Vance said, and gave me a shove toward the door. “Get in, quick. Day, you too.”

We leaped inside, startling my father, who had made a pile of supplies on the floor. Vance jumped in behind us and slammed the door shut just in time. A shot hit the side of the chopper, making the entire thing vibrate, and then more shots. I stood as close to the center as I could without stepping on the pile of suits, trying to keep away from the sides. The deadly sound waves from a dozen stunners rocked the chopper in one continuous round. The vehicle shuddered and moaned, and I resisted the urge to cover my ears.

“Day, you remember how to fly?” Vance shouted over the noise.

Daymond glared at Vance. “Don’t even think about it. I never finished my training. I could kill us all!”

“We’re dead anyway. We have no choice.” Vance gestured to the steady flow of monitors and soldiers emerging from the building. They surrounded us.

Daymond’s eyes were wide and panicked. “I can’t—I don’t—it’s probably locked. It won’t even let us turn the engine on, much less lift off.”

“Don’t know till we try,” Vance insisted and shoved him toward the pilot seat. Daymond sat and stared at the instruments like they were poisonous.

I glanced out the window again. The black-clad figures were still coming, and the buzzing only increased. How long could the chopper withstand the attack? Could the technology even work when being blasted like this? We had bought ourselves a few more seconds, but by the barrage of fire around us, we had to assume their stunners were on fatal mode.

“Yes!” Daymond shouted in triumph, and suddenly the chopper roared to life. The engine sounded more strained than usual, but hopefully it would be enough. The chopper gave a lurch as we left the ground.

The buzzing’s intensity increased as the guards below made a last desperate attempt to ground us. The engine gave a strained whine. Daymond’s reluctance had been replaced with a focused intensity. He guided the instruments and raised us higher and higher until we were nearly out of range and the engine’s noise returned to its normal noise level. Then we started forward. With a sigh of relief, I glanced out the window. My father sat beside me and handed over a headset.

In the copilot’s seat, Vance put his on also. “We’re not out of this yet. We’ll try to land somewhere safe, but I’m assuming they’ll send jets after us, so we need to be prepared. Have you ever jumped before, Jasper?”

My father nodded. “Once, but that was from a private plane.”

“Parachute?”

“Yep.”

Vance looked troubled. “I don’t think that’s a good idea this time. Even if we drop you low, it’ll take too long to reach the ground. You’ll be an easy target.”

The chopper made a sharp turn, throwing us all to the right, and I snapped my seat belt into place. The radio on the dashboard came to life. “Chopper 502, you are ordered to land immediately. Violation of these orders will bring you under fire. Over.”

Daymond started to reply, but Vance gripped his shoulder and gave a slight shake of his head. Better not to respond at all.

“If we can’t use parachutes, what are you suggesting, Vance?” I asked. My voice sounded too high.

“We could wait until the last possible second to deploy the chute,” Jasper said. “That, combined with the darkness, might be enough.”

Vance shook his head. “It’ll be too dark to see the ground. You’d end up a pancake.”

“A pancake?” Jasper repeated.

Vance’s lips turned upward for a second, and then he was all business again. “Never mind. We’ll use wing suits.”

Jasper leaned forward. “From this height? That would be suicide.”

“How do they work?” I asked, a new wave of nervousness washing over me. The adrenaline pulsed like a drug through my veins.

“Have you ever seen a flying squirrel?” Vance asked. At my blank look, he sighed. “A wing suit has fabric between your legs and attached to your arms so you have a little control over direction and speed. It’s tricky to control, but you’ll still have a small chute to help you land.”

“Wing suits are for small jumps,” Jasper snapped. “We’d never survive a leap from this high. It’s way too dangerous.”

“I’ve done it before. Not from this high, of course, and it was hard to adjust the airflow even then. But I think it’s possible.”

“Let me get this straight,” Jasper said. “It’s too dark to see the ground, but it’s not too dark to go flying at breakneck speeds through the air in a wing suit. Above a city. With absolutely no experience and no margin for error.”

“We’ll drop you as far from city limits as we can,” Vance said. “Less chance of running into buildings. Trust me. I wouldn’t suggest this if there was any other way.”

“In that case,” Jasper said, eyeing me with a careful look that said,
I hope you know what you’re doing with this guy
,
“you’d better give us some basics—and quick.”

Vance stood, grabbing a handle to steady himself as the chopper lurched, and then began his demonstration. I watched through a shaky haze of growing terror. He showed us how to leap out the door, arms tucked and feet together. Then he showed us how to spread our arms and legs and lean forward or backward to control airflow. Last, he demonstrated how to deploy the small landing chute on our backpacks.

Jasper rummaged through the supplies and retrieved the suits. He pulled out the smallest one, although—no surprise—it was still far too big. When I stood to put it on, my legs buckled and I nearly toppled over. My adrenaline was wearing off, leaving behind the annoying prickles that reminded me what my body had been through today. It would be awhile before it worked right again. Assuming I survived this at all.

“You okay?” Vance asked.

“Fine. Just the angle.” I sat and shoved my legs into the suit. From the look on Vance’s face, he didn’t believe me.

Once outfitted, I instinctively tried to check the time on my wrist before remembering it was gone. It had probably been ten minutes or so since boarding, but it felt like decades. I left my seat belt unbuckled and leaned back to look through the window but saw mostly blackness. The roads were barely lit since the only people who used them at night were monitors. With so many buildings outlined far beneath us, I could almost pretend it was Olympus and not the suburbs of Aiguille.

My stomach lurched at the thought, and suddenly I was five again, feeling my palms sweating, silently pleading with my father not to let go. I could almost feel his grip loosen, about to send me plummeting to the ground. Almost. The metal floor of the chopper was solid, and it brought me back to reality. I wasn’t at the top of the tower but in a helicopter. I was safe.

Except that my father—a different father—really was about to send me flying toward the ground, and my life depended on it.

“Are you okay, Ametrine?” Jasper asked. My breath came fast now, and sweat dripped down my neck. He took my hand and clasped it tightly, but I pulled away. His hands were sweaty too.

“No sign of pursuers so far,” Vance’s voice said over the feed. He sat in the copilot’s seat again. I took a deep breath and forced myself to think. If we weren’t being followed, there wouldn’t be cause to jump. Maybe they didn’t know where we were, or perhaps NORA thought we weren’t worth destroying a perfectly good chopper.

Just as I settled back in my seat, a light started flashing on the instrument panel.

Vance turned to look at us, dread filling his expression. A new wave of terror swept through my exhausted body. I couldn’t move. This was for real.

Jasper stood and unlatched the side door. As he yanked it open, the sound suddenly became deafening, and the cold wind began whipping my short hair painfully into my eyes. My father stood there for a moment, staring out, then came back to check my pack’s straps again. I wondered if he really knew how tight it should be, or if he was just reassuring himself. After a quick check of his own gear, he stood like stone, holding on to the rail as the wind whipped violently through the chopper.

I stood next to him and looked out at the deep blackness. Suddenly a hand gripped my arm. I turned. Vance had climbed back over the seat. His eyes were unreadable in the darkness, but his face held such a look of tenderness that I wanted to melt. He pulled me in for a quick hug. My body shook so badly that I could barely return his embrace. A feeling of foreboding settled on me, and I looked at him again, pushing my hair back so I could see him better. After a second, I realized what was wrong.

Vance wasn’t wearing any gear.

He wrapped his fingers in my hair and pulled my face to his. Our first kiss had been gentle and slow. This time Vance pressed his lips to mine in fierce desperation. His other hand pressed against my back, pulling my body against his, and an intense heat burned through my body.

There was only one reason he wouldn’t be wearing a pack.

I pulled away, feeling his hand untangle itself from my hair, and glanced at Daymond. He wore a pack as well.

“It’s time,” my father yelled into my ear, motioning for me to put on my helmet.

“I’m not going until you put on gear!” I shouted to Vance.

He shook his head. “Later,” he said simply and pulled the eye guard down onto my face.

“You’d better jump,” I shouted to Vance, hoping he could hear. He didn’t respond.

“Ready?” Jasper exclaimed.

“Don’t be an idiot, Vance!” I screamed above the noise. He just looked at me, a hint of sorrow in his eyes.

“Ready?” Jasper yelled again, a hint of hysteria in his voice.

I wasn’t. I tried to give Vance one last look, but my father grabbed my arm.

“Let’s go!”

38

J
asper
had a firm grip on my arm, and before I knew it, a rush of air left me breathless. My lungs burned, longing for air. A blanket of darkness opened up below me. Time seemed to freeze. This was really happening. I was falling, plummeting toward the unforgiving ground, feeling it grow closer with each second. It felt like my nightmares.

Except this time it wasn’t a dream. And I couldn’t see anything.

The feeling of being utterly helpless in gravity’s clutches made me freeze in fear. I couldn’t see Jasper anymore, but there was a faint light on the ground below. I made it my anchor. With a mighty heave, I threw my arms out, fingers splayed in the wind, and kept my legs apart in what I hoped was a flying-squirrel position, but I was shooting forward as fast as downward, and the light soon disappeared behind me. So much for that.

The ground came into view not because I was close to it but because the land was darker than the sky. My father’s falling form, a faint spot of light against the drab landscape beneath us, was several yards in front of me. I leaned forward, reaching toward him, and my body sped faster until we were nearly even with each other. His helmet hid his expression, but he tried to motion something with his fingers. I spread my arms and legs out, feeling the fabric grow more taut, and tried to understand what he was trying to say. He held up three fingers, then two, then one.

Were we that close to the ground already? One hand clawed desperately at the pack above my shoulder, making me lurch sideways, but it came free when I yanked it. A whoosh of cloth behind me told me it had worked. A second later a huge force sucked me momentarily upward into the sky. It was so strong that I felt breathless for several seconds, and then I was quickly drifting downward again. It took a while for me to realize I was laughing—a hysterical, uncontrollable laugh.

As I looked over, I saw Jasper touch down first. Then I saw the ground approach—much quicker than I’d anticipated—and put my legs down just in time. I was so numb from the cold descent that my legs collapsed when they hit the ground. I lay there, shaking and laughing, feeling the fire in my veins and the dry coolness in my lungs. Jasper was lying on the ground too, his breathing heavy. It took a moment for me to free myself of the parachute, then I stumbled over to my father. He stared at the sky.

“That was incredible!” I yelled, although my voice sounded hoarse.

He nodded, still distracted.

“You all right?” I asked.

He let out a deep, shaky breath. “I think I’ll leave the death-defying drops to you and your crazy friend from now on.”

I threw my head upward, searching the night sky. The chopper’s lights were nowhere to be seen. I didn’t see any jets, but then again, they were probably designed for invisibility. I hoped Vance and Daymond wouldn’t be far behind us. There was something about Vance’s good-bye that bothered me, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sky. Was it the desperation in his embrace or the hopelessness in his eyes?

Vance, you’d better jump.

“Ametrine,” Jasper said urgently. “I think we’d better head for—”

Suddenly an explosion rocked the night sky. The blast lit the clouds above like fireworks. The inferno fell like a fiery hand, tendrils of hot flame and smoke flashing brilliantly in the darkness, and then it was swallowed up in black.

I gasped, unable to rip my gaze away. My legs gave way as I sank onto the packed earth. Whatever strength had held me up seemed to seep into the ground beneath me.

“Ametrine, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say that,” I snapped, still scanning for movement. If he’d jumped in time, he would be landing about now.

“There’s nothing left but chopper parts. We’ve got to go before the jet sees us, Ametrine. They probably have night vision.”

I barely heard the words. Vance had known he wouldn’t make it out. He’d probably waited until the very last second, getting Daymond out before himself. It sounded like the kind of stupid, idiotic kind of thing he would do.

Jasper grabbed my arm to pull me up. A surge of red-hot anger spread through my chest, and I leaped to my feet, giving him a hard look. “Don’t touch me!”

He recoiled. “Look, I’m sorry, but they obviously didn’t make it. It’s time to go.”

“Then go. That’s what you’re good at, right?”

He took a step backward. “I know you’re upset, but I’m just trying to help.”

“No matter what you do, it doesn’t make up for a lifetime.”

My father stared at me, his expression pained and frustrated. “I can never make up for that. But I can protect you here, now.”

The anger was already dissipating, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion I’d never experienced before. I let his reply slide and tore my gaze away to stare at the sky. There was no evidence of the explosion now. The distant stars shone more brightly than I’d ever seen before, and the air held a defiant chill. There were no dark figures in wing suits swooping in to join us. A distant hum made me pause. Definitely an aircraft. My father was probably right about the night vision—it was time to go.

“He made it out,” I said. “I’m sure he did.”

My father’s voice was strained. “It’s always possible. He seemed—seems—like a survivor.”

He started to wrap an arm around my waist, but I shook myself free. I could walk. I couldn’t think, but I could make my feet move. It gave me something to focus on.
Forward. Right, then left. Avoid the tumbleweeds and rocks. Focus on survival. Get back to the city and don’t get caught.

Above all, don’t think about Vance.

><><><><><><><

Jasper decided to call in a favor from an old friend who lived just outside the city. I’d never realized how cool it could get at night, even in the desert. I found myself shivering after the first hour. I gripped my necklace for comfort. It was warm from the heat of my body. I remembered how gently Vance had cradled it in his rough hands, listening patiently to my theories about its colors and what they meant—things that probably sounded ridiculously silly to a guy who was just trying to keep himself and his family alive.

Alive
. The thought made me choke, and Jasper gave me a questioning look. I just shook my head.

For an older man, Jasper was extremely alert. Twice a spotlight appeared overhead, the chopper slow and deafening, and we hid behind scraggly trees and an old, half-standing structure. I

We both knew that once it was light, they’d find our trail and follow on foot. Frankly, I didn’t care very much right then—whether they put me in prison or shot me, at least it meant a little rest.

We reached our destination shortly after sunrise. “Wait here,” my father said. The house had a small patch of green lawn—not shiny like the plastic ones I was used to but
real
. The homeowners had probably wasted their entire water allowance on it. Either that, or houses on the outskirts had more lenience about their water supply. “What is this place?”

“My good friend lives here. Or, at least, he used to. If I’m not back in ten minutes, run and find shelter.”

Sitting and waiting sounded heavenly, but I knew once I sat, I’d never get back up. I still saw the desert floor beneath my eyelids when I blinked. “Not a chance. I’m going with you.”

“Are you always this stubborn?”

“Yep.”

He sighed. “All right, but stay behind me.”

After a long trek up the front walk, Jasper knocked on the door. There was no answer.

“Are you sure this is the right house? It’s been twelve years,” I said.

“Actually, it’s been thirteen. I came to visit before I was thrown into prison. Vallorah had started acting strangely, and I came to Mills for advice.” He shook his head grimly. “Mills wasn’t married himself. I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea.”

“You and the empress stayed together for a long time, considering her position,” I said, trying not to be weirded out by the turn in conversation.

“She was different then. She changed a lot in those last years—got more self-centered and power hungry. More obsessed with the Romans. She said that building an empire, making NORA the New Rome, was the key to her immortality.”

The door opened suddenly, making me jump. It was a woman, a yellow—695. She had light brown hair, which was strange enough, but her eyes were startlingly falcon-like. “Yes?”

“Are you the wife of Mills?” Jasper asked.

“He doesn’t live here,” she said and started to close the door.

My father threw his hand out and caught it. “Please, I really need to find him.”

“It’s extremely important,” I added.

“Hold on,” she said, staring at my face. “You’re that girl, aren’t you?”

“What girl?” I asked.

The woman flipped up the screen on her techband and typed something. Then she held it up so we could see. There, in full color, was my photo. It said, “Ametrine Dowell, age sixteen. Rating: 440. Extremely dangerous. Report immediately if seen.”

“Was this alert local or national?” I asked.

“Definitely national,” the woman said. “We woke up to it this morning. They’ve repeated the message every thirty minutes.”

My father cleared his throat. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he said. “Sounds like we’d better get going. Any chance you’d consider forgetting about this visit?”

She stared at him, squinting hard. “You look familiar too, but not from the news alert. Who are you?”

“I’d rather not say—”

“Oh!” She clapped her hands together. “I remember. You were the Ratings councilman way back, before the empress threw you behind bars. Never thought we’d see you again.”

Panic spread across Jasper’s face. “Come on, Treena. We’re going.”

The lady’s hard expression softened just a bit. A tiny bit. “Don’t worry. We’ve made it our business to know these things. Come inside. I suppose it’s worth finding out if you’re friend or foe.”