The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (35 page)

She was
smiling.  “I knew it wouldn’t be long before you came crawling back,
Thirty-seven.”

He forced himself
to look straight into her eyes.  “That number has no meaning for me now.”

Her smile
vanished slowly.  “If that’s what you choose, you’re nothing to us.”

“Then call me
nothing.  Just don’t call me Thirty-seven.”

Her eyes gleamed
viciously within the twin smears of black paint.  “The inquiry will begin
now,” she announced.

With a racket
that echoed ominously around the dark gymnasium, the twelve assembled on the
bleachers now stood.

22

“YOU
chose to renounce your vows and leave the society—which, of course, the code
allows in certain circumstances.  Had you simply stayed away from this
place, your motives would never have been questioned.”  Like a vulture,
Fifty-two circled his chair slowly as she spoke.  “But by returning here,
you have subjected yourself to this inquiry.  You are required to give an
account of your decision, and accept the consequences determined by the
inquirers.  Tell us, Thirty-seven:  Why did you choose to leave the
society?”

He’d known this
moment—this question—was coming, and he had an answer ready.  “I didn’t
find what I was looking for,” he said calmly.

“Oh?  And
what was it you were looking for?  Why did you first take vows of commitment
to this society?”

“Because this
society claimed to be committed to justice.”

Fifty-two was
obviously not pleased with this response.  “And we are, as we demonstrated
to you.  Your parents’ killer was avenged.”

“She was murdered
in cold blood.”

Fifty-two
shrugged.  “She was caught and brought to trial.  She sat in the same
chair you’re sitting in now.  The inquirers examined the case and came to
their decision.  Death was the only right payment for her actions.”

“I disagree with
the inquirers’ conclusion.”

“Thirty-seven,”
the overseer went on, “you found the so-called government of our city to be
incompetent.  The one responsible for your parents’ deaths was allowed to
go free with essentially no consequences for her actions.  And why?”

Corey grit his
teeth.  “I suspected the judge was paid off.”

“Suspected, or
knew?
”

“I had no proof.”

“But is there any
doubt in your mind that the judge was bribed?”

Corey
hesitated.  “No.”

“And is there any
doubt in your mind that this sort of corruption is common among the authorities
of our city?”

“No,” he answered
honestly.  “I suspect it happens all the time.”

“But when you
came to us, we saw to it that there was due punishment for the woman who had
murdered your parents.”

“I don’t call it
murder.”

“What other word
could there be for it?”

“It was a car
accident.”

“A car accident
caused by negligent driving.”

“The punishment
was too severe.”

“But isn’t it the
punishment you wanted?”

Corey’s voice
quivered.  “Yes.”

“Of course you
did.  You wanted justice.”

Corey sat up straighter
in the chair.  “No.  I wanted her dead.  It was my anger that
wanted it, not my sense of justice.”

Fifty-two stared
down at him.  “Then you believe Anterra’s criminal justice system handled
the matter properly?”

“I’m not talking
about how Anterra’s criminal justice system handled it.  I’m talking about
how this society handled it.”

“Do you think we
here at the society are less capable than the government, or less worthy than
they are, of determining a just course of action and carrying it out?”

Corey avoided her
gaze.  “I don’t know what people or what system would be most
capable.  All I know is that I couldn’t go on being here—couldn’t continue
in the things we were doing.  My conscience wouldn’t allow it.”

Fifty-two stepped
closer to him.  “And what about now, Thirty-seven?  Have you finally
found what you were looking for?  Are you a part of a foolproof solution
to the problems of our city?”

“I don’t believe
there
is
a foolproof answer.”

“Where did you go
when you left us, Thirty-seven?”

He shook his
head.  “The code doesn’t require me to answer that question.”

“No,” she
admitted, “it doesn’t.  The choice is yours.  But keep in mind your
cooperation—or lack of cooperation—will certainly influence the inquirers’
decision.”

Corey remained
silent.

“Very well,”
Fifty-two hissed in frustration.  She turned to the twelve standing on the
bleachers.  “Inquirers, you’ve heard Thirty-seven’s account.  Now
it’s time for you to determine what the consequences will be.”

JILL
watched
silently from the darkness of the upper bleachers across the gym.  Her
heart was pounding, her insides clenched intensely.  It wasn’t just the
thought of what might happen to Corey; it was this
place
.  The
moment she’d arrived here she felt its oppressive atmosphere, a nameless weight
pressing down and around her from all sides.

For what seemed
like an eternity the twelve inquirers huddled and spoke in muted voices. 
She was wondering if they’d ever finish when one stepped forward and said
loudly,  “Overseer, we’ve reached a conclusion.”

“Proceed,”
Fifty-two said with a gesture.

“The code allows
for members of the society to renounce their vows under certain
circumstances.  Thirty-seven has stated his belief that our society’s
pursuit of justice went against his own conscience.  We have determined
that this motivation is essentially valid.  Thirty-seven shall live.”

Jill stifled a
gasp.  The possibility of execution hadn’t crossed her mind.

“However,” the
inquirer went on, his face ghostly in the light of his strange candle, “we
can’t forget that Thirty-seven at one time agreed with our society’s view of
justice, and avowed himself to it.  His renouncement of his vows comes
with a price.”

“Name your
price,” said Fifty-two.

“If Thirty-seven
desires to return to the outside world and continue in a life apart from this
society, it will come at the cost of his left hand.  Does the overseer
find this price agreeable?”

“I do,” Fifty-two
nodded.  “Who proposed the price?”

“I did.”

“Then according
to the code it’s your duty to carry it out.  Are you willing?”

“I am
willing.”  The inquirer set down his candle and stepped down into the
circle of light.  Jill’s heart raced faster as she saw him reach beneath
his worn black coat and draw a gleaming knife.

Corey,
no!  You can’t let them do this to you!

Corey slowly
reached out his left hand.

No!

The inquirer took
hold of Corey’s arm with one hand and with the other hand raised the knife.

Jill reached for
her gun.

She
hesitated.  If she stopped this from happening, she told herself, Corey
wouldn’t even get the chance to make the appeal he’d come here to make in the
first place.

But they were
going to
cut off his hand!

She
had
to
stop them.

No, she couldn’t;
it was too long a shot.  Besides, if she started shooting, there were so
many of them...

Corey, do
something!

The blade glinted
in the spotlight.

A shot sounded.

Jill
blinked. 
She
hadn’t pulled the trigger.

The inquirer
slumped as his knife clattered to the floor.

More shots were
fired.  More inquirers dropped to the ground.

Corey leaped to
his feet.

The room was
suddenly in hubbub.

“Get him!”
Fifty-two was shouting as she seized Corey’s arm.

Jill snapped out
of her trance and drew her own gun.  She stunned a few society members
herself, firing away as she worked her way down the bleachers.

The overseer
threw herself on the floor, pulling Corey down beside her. “I see you brought
company!” she hissed at him.

“No,” Corey
insisted amidst the chaos, “I came alone!”

“Really?  So
who is that shooting at us?”

More shots sounded. 
More society members dropped.

Jill’s gun was
empty.

The shots
ceased.  From the darkness came the sound of a scuffle—repeated blows and
grunts of pain.

Fifty-two, still
flat on the floor beneath the spotlight, retrieved the inquirer’s fallen dagger
as she clung to Corey.

For an instant a
leaping figure was visible at the edge of the darkness.  An inquirer fell
unconscious into the circle of light.

Jill was at floor
level now.  She ran toward the spotlight.

Corey kicked and
flailed at the overseer.  Just as he’d pulled free of her he found himself
facing the big guy with the shaved head.  His fist was coming at him.

Corey’s head
snapped back.  The room swam.  He went limp.

The bald one and
Fifty-two quickly dragged the staggering Corey out of the light.

Jill kept running
blindly toward them across the dark gym floor.

She wasn’t the
only one after them.  Jill caught sight of the figure as it dashed across
the edge of the pool of light.  That momentary glance was enough for Jill
to observe the figure’s full-body armored uniform and helmet.  The
helmet’s visor was decorated with the flaming figure of a phoenix.

AMBER’S
night-vision showed the sprawled forms of the fallen all around her on the gym
floor.  The only ones who remained upright were the two running ahead of
her with Corey’s limp form clutched between them.  Her eyes remained fixed
on them.

She was closing
in on them.

She didn’t have
time to wonder who had fired those other shots, didn’t have time to see whose
running footsteps she was hearing off to one side.

Fifty-two and the
bald one reached a door at the far end of the gym and dragged a dazed Corey
through it.

Amber reached the
door seconds later.

She just dodged
the big one’s fist.  He’d stayed back to hold her off while the overseer
pulled Corey onto an elevator down the hall.

Amber went into
attack mode.

He tried a
haymaker.

She dodged
easily, spinning away from him and turning full circle with a kick to the side
of his painted bald head.  The motion finished with her fist colliding
into his gut.

He crumpled.

Amber ran to the
elevator.  It was already on its way up to the roof.

She found the
closest stairway.

Her night-vision
switched off as she burst onto the rooftop.  Rain poured down on her.

The red-haired
overseer was standing several paces away near the edge of the gym roof. 
She was facing Amber.

She held the
knife to Corey’s throat.

Amber froze.

“Not another
step,” cried Fifty-two, inching her blade closer under Corey’s chin, “or he
dies!”

Corey looked at
Amber pleadingly.  “Don’t listen to her,” he sputtered, still dazed from
the blow.  “She won’t kill me.”

“I will!” she
insisted.

“I’m not moving,”
Amber’s distorted voice assured the overseer.

“Then he’ll
live,” the overseer promised.  “But he still has a cost to pay.”  She
seized Corey’s left arm and raised the dagger...

JILL
would have preferred to tackle Fifty-two.  But the old disused air
conditioning unit she’d found to hide behind happened to be closer to
Corey.  She tackled him instead.

They sprawled to
the wet concrete rooftop just as the dagger was on its way down.

The overseer gave
a wordless cry of rage.  She loomed over the two fallen figures and raised
the blade once more.

She hadn’t even
known Amber was running toward her until the collision happened.  Her
knife jerked out of her fingers on impact.  Even before it had clattered
to the rooftop, Fifty-two and Amber disappeared over the edge.

AMBER
was
vaguely aware of the cold, pelting rain on her face.  Her visor had
apparently been removed.  She forced her eyes open.

Two figures
crouched above her—Corey and Jill, she realized.  Her senses were still
too muddled to make out what they were saying, but they seemed to be reassuring
her.

Now they were
helping her hurriedly into the back of a car.  Out the car door she saw
the brick wall of the school.  At the foot of the wall, where she’d been
lying a moment ago, another figure lay sprawled on the rain-soaked
ground.  Red hair splayed out from the strangely painted face.  The
figure didn’t move.

The car door
closed.  So did her eyes.  She felt the car taking her away.

23

AMBER
was lying back watching TV when Jill and Dizzie entered her room at the
department medical facility.  She smiled in greeting.

“So?” Dizzy asked
anxiously, perching on the end of the bed.

Amber
grimaced.  “It’s harder than I would have thought trying to use the remote
with my left hand.”

Dizzie huffed
impatiently.  “But
what did the doctor say?
”

“It could have
been worse.  Mild concussion, two cracked ribs, sprained right
wrist.  My helmet and uniform kept me pretty much intact.”  She
grimaced.  “Plus I landed on the other girl.  That cushioned the
blow.”

“Your work at the
shooting range has paid off, I see,” said Jill.

“Thanks. 
But if you hadn’t jumped in with your own sharpshooter skills, there’s no way I
would have gotten out of that.”

“Let’s just say
it’s a good thing we were both there.  By the way, how did you...?”

“I wanted to ask
you the same thing.”

“Well, there’s
not much to my story,” said Jill.  “I overheard Corey telling Director
Holiday something.  I got worried, so I followed him.  That’s about
it.”

“What about you?”
Dizzie asked Amber.

Amber cautiously
sat up a little straighter in the bed.  “A while back, Corey told me about
the car accident that took his parents’ lives.  When the courts did
nothing about it, he joined a movement called the Society of Troubled
Souls.  He didn’t tell me much about his experience there—except that he
ultimately found himself disagreeing with their philosophy.”

“I’ve heard of
the Society of Troubled Souls,” said Dizzie.  “They’re basically
anarchists—make their own rules, have their own commune.”

“Corey never
spoke badly about them, really,” said Amber.  “He didn’t say any more
about it at all, actually—until the night we went to Section 46.  Corey
recognized the society members in Bradley’s video.  He said it would be
too risky for us to enter the tunnels if the society had people there.  He
threatened to confront them and try to reason with them, but I talked him out
of it.”

“Until last
night,” concluded Jill.

Amber
nodded.  “When we saw the crawler video in the tunnels last night, Corey’s
suspicion was confirmed.  The Society of Troubled Souls is patrolling the
Dark Beneath for Sketch.  Corey was determined to talk with their leader
about it.  I couldn’t stop him this time.”

“But you could
follow him and protect him,” Dizzie finished.

Amber smiled
weakly.  “I had one of the other guys sneak into his dorm room and put a
tracker in his riding jacket.”

“A complete misuse
of department equipment, by the way,” said Corey, appearing in the doorway just
then.

“Yeah, you should
file a complaint,” said Dizzie, glaring at him with her hands on her hips.

Corey smiled
sheepishly.  “Um, could you give us a minute?”

Dizzie opened her
mouth to retort.

“Of course,” Jill
said quickly.  She stood and began tugging Dizzie toward the door.

Corey ignored the
dirty look Dizzie gave him as she and Jill exited the room.  He took a
seat next to Amber.  “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m fine. 
They should clear me to leave soon.”

He kept looking
at his hand—the hand that wouldn’t be there anymore if Fifty-two had had her
way.  “I just came to say thanks.”

“Don’t mention
it.”

“I should be
reprimanding you, you know.  They might have listened to my request if it
hadn’t been for you.”

“I have no
regrets.”  Her voice was firm.

Corey looked
uncertain.

“Put yourself in
my shoes,” said Amber.  “Would you have let them do to me what they were
trying to do to you?”

“When you put it
that way...”

“I had no choice.”

Corey
sighed.  “I’m not saying I’m not glad I’m still in one piece.  But it
was important to be able to explore the tunnels.”

“We’re still
going to explore the tunnels, Corey.”

“No.  It’s
too dangerous.”

“We always knew
it would be dangerous.  That doesn’t change anything.”

“You don’t know
them like I do, Amber.”

“You think
they’re more deadly than anyone else who works for Sketch?  We’ve come too
far to stop now.”

He shook his
head.  “The risk is too great.”

“We didn’t join
this department to be safe,” she said resolutely.  “We joined it because
we believe in it, because we think there’s something worth fighting for, and we
wanted to join the fight.  We’re in the risk-taking business.”  She
had a gleam in her eye—something relentless that Corey hadn’t noticed in her
before.  “That’s why you went back to the society in the first place,
that’s why I followed you, and that’s why we’re going into the Dark Beneath.”

He wasn’t sure
how to react.

“Anyway,” she
said, a little calmer, “whatever you decide, there’s no way you can stop the
rest of us.  Do you really think you can talk Jill out of going down
there?  Or Bradley?  Or the director?  I mean, if you’re
convinced you can keep us from going ahead with this, give it your best shot. 
Or
, you could just concentrate on helping us.”

“All right, all
right,” Corey surrendered, flinging his hands in the air.  “I can see
you’re determined to change the world, even if you get yourself killed doing
it.”

“It’s worth
getting killed for,” she said simply.  Her eyes drifted and her gaze
became distant.  “Someone has to; there’s a lot that needs changing.”

Corey couldn’t
argue.  “There is, isn’t there?”

And he realized
she knew far more about that than he’d ever suspected.

DIRECTOR
Holiday found Jill leaning on the HQ balcony rail outside the medical
facility.  She was unmoving, staring absently at the sea of activity on
the floor below.

He stood next to
her.  “I don’t know whether I’m prouder of Corey for venturing back to the
society alone, or of you and Amber for making sure he wasn’t alone after all.”

She didn’t answer
or even look his direction.  She thought about...a lot of things. 
About the society’s haunting inquiry; about Corey being one of them not so long
ago; about Amber disappearing over the edge of the roof; about a boat exploding
before her eyes.

About a grainy
photo of a red-haired kid with bad acne.

“You’ve already
seen her?” Holiday asked.  “How is she?”

“Why did it
fail?” Jill asked quietly.

“I would hardly
call it a failure.  All three of you came back alive.  Of course,
Corey never got a chance to make his request.”

“Anterra,” Jill
said.  “The whole city.  Why did it fail?  The United Space
Programs did everything they could to make it an ideal society.”

Holiday leaned on
the rail next to her and stared down at the busy HQ floor.  “I don’t know
how many long hours I’ve spent pondering that question myself.”

“You must have
come up with something.”

He sighed. 
“When we first settled on MS9, we acted like corruption was something inherent
to the Home Planet—as if it were a disease that had developed on its own and
infected us from the outside.  We forgot that corruption is something that
lives inside of us, lurking there, ready to devour us when we least expect
it.  We thought we left it behind; instead we brought it here with us.”

Jill hung her
head.  “It seems so wrong, but I can’t help wondering if the Society of
Troubled Souls doesn’t have a point.  Where does a government get the
right to determine who’s right and wrong, and enforce their laws?”

“The Society of
Troubled Souls has taken things into their own hands only to do a far worse job
of it themselves.”

“Then why are we
any better?” Jill asked, facing him now with earnestness in her dark
eyes.  “Why won’t this department just be another failed experiment? 
You said it yourself—we have the same potential for corruption inside us.”

His traditional
smirk became a smile.  “We won’t fail,” he said quietly, “because we will
remember that fact.  The moment we forget our own failures and
struggles—the moment we stop being willing to admit who we truly are—we will
fall.”

“It’s not easy,”
Jill thought aloud.

“Most important
things aren’t,” the director said as he went into the medical facility, leaving
her alone with her contemplations.

DIZZIE
paused in mid-strum as Jill entered her dorm room without knocking.  “Um,
is everything okay?  You look like the vet just told you your puppy isn’t
gonna
make it.”

Jill slumped onto
Dizzie’s desk chair.  “I don’t have a puppy.”

“Well, you know
what I mean!”

“Diz, do you ever
hate yourself?”

Dizzie unstrapped
her guitar and placed it on its stand.  “What do you mean?”

“Have you ever
looked at yourself—at your life—and just...just
hated
what you saw?”

Dizzie sat on the
floor next to the desk chair.  “Who
hasn’t
felt that?”

“Some days I
can’t even look at myself in the mirror,” Jill whispered.

Dizzie put a hand
on Jill’s shoulder.  “Today’s one of those days, huh?”

Jill
nodded.  “I should have acted more quickly, Diz.  I was going to let
them chop of Corey’s hand.”

“You couldn’t
have stopped them!”

“Yeah, I could
have.  Amber did.”

“Not without your
help!  Hey, you did everything you could.  You followed Corey and
tried to protect him.”

“So did
Amber.  She did more than I did.  I froze.  I just sat there and
watched something terrible happening to someone, and I did nothing.  Just
like always...”   Her words trailed off.

“Jill,” Dizzie
said softly, “you couldn’t have stopped what happened to your mom.”

“I could have
done something.  Even if it failed.  Just
something!”

“No!” Dizzie
insisted.  “That wasn’t your fault.”

“I always knew
what we were doing was wrong.  A thousand times I felt like I should’ve
said something to Mom, told her we had to stop going the way we were
going.  But I never found the words.  We just kept taking job after
job, getting deeper and deeper into that life.  Until...”  Her eyes
started getting misty.  “It’s no wonder Dad...”

“What about your
dad?” Dizzie prompted.

“I never knew
him, Dizzie.  He left when I was a baby.”

“Then he was an
idiot,” said Dizzie.  “He had no idea what he was missing.”

Jill
scoffed.  “What exactly did he miss?  Being stuck in a family of
screw-ups?”

“Jill, he may
have despised you, but that doesn’t give you the right to despise yourself.”

“But the things
I’ve done—”

“Are in the
past.  You’ve moved on, Jill.”

“Then why do I
feel like the past is right here with me?”  Her lips started quivering.

“What is it?”
Dizzie asked.

And for the very
first time Jill told someone else about a certain fifteen-year-old kid with pockmarks
and a mop of unkempt red hair.

After that there
were no more words, just her face buried in Dizzie’s shoulder and Dizzie’s arms
wrapped around her.  She stayed there for a long, long time.  When
you’ve held back the tears for more than three years, it takes a while to make
up for it.

THE
shuttle waited in the very last bay of the port, away from the bustle of other
incoming and outgoing passengers.  It was a small craft built for
emergency personnel transport.  The hold was just large enough for the
team’s gear.

Director Holiday
led the team into the bay.  Amber was with them, despite the director’s
initial orders for her to remain back.  She had some lingering pain in her
wrist and ribs, but she’d insisted fervently that she was able to participate. 
Holiday had eventually given in, but only after making her promise she would
stay at the temporary base with Dizzie and refrain from anything more active
than walking briskly.

The director
gathered them together before they departed.  “You won’t be in
communication with HQ,” he told them.  “If anyone finds you down there, we
can’t risk them being able to link you to this department.  At the end of
each day, Dizzie will open up a special channel to report back to me. 
Other than that, you’ll be on your own.”  He shook each one’s hand in
turn.  “Good luck to you all.”

Moments later
they had boarded.  Amber guided the craft out the bay door and into the
nothingness of space.  They looked out across the vast emptiness that hung
between their shuttle and the Home Planet.

The journey was
over almost before it had started.  The old builders’ quarters beneath the
city had been thoroughly set up for them.  Everything was clean and
brightly lit.  The kitchens and locker rooms were fully functioning. 
Five bedrooms had been prepared.  Dizzie set up her temporary
communications station in the lobby.

Once they’d
settled in, they reassembled in the lobby to go over the plan one more time.

“Let’s do this,”
said Corey.