Tracked (2 page)

Clean. The blankets. The bed. Everything feels clean.

But it smells like the Larssens' clinic. Bleached sheets scorched too many times in an industrial dryer. I lift my head a little, but it's a mistake. The movement, the stink, the sting at the nape of my neck—it all makes me want to throw up. I open my eyes.

There are no windows, and everything from the walls to the floor to the plastic pitcher of water on my bedside table is white. There's only one door and it looks locked and the red eye of a surveillance camera blinks from the far corner of the ceiling. Rust this. I'm out of here.

My bruised body aches and my neck is sore. There's a numb spot back there, below my hairline, but a rim of pain, a shifting tidal wave of hurt surrounds it. Even so, the discomfort does nothing to slow me down. I move, ready to jump out of bed and get out of this hospital or detention center or whatever it is. But I can't. I can only pull against the restraints on my ankles and wrists.

“Let me out!” I half scream, half growl at the sight of the IV needle taped against my left arm.

All my noise, all my rattling of the bed rails only accomplishes one thing. I shake the bed hard enough to topple the pitcher off the nightstand, but I don't stop until a bolt snaps and my door is open.

Once I see the horde of pastel-scrubs-wearing medical types, I think this might actually be a regular hospital. They don't look like mad scientists or Domestic Patrol officers. I have to get them to take these straps off.

I start to bug out again. One of the doctors tries to fake me out with an everything-is-going-to-be-all-right smile. Then I see the syringe in his hand.

“Don't you stick me with that rusting needle!” I fight
the restraints so hard, I feel a trickle of blood drip down the
inside of my wrist. I'm not afraid to die, but I don't want to be put down like a rabid dog. Something breaks inside of me, and I hate myself for letting the words pass my lips so easily. “Please. Please don't stick me.”

Two orderlies pounce and hold me still. I'd bite someone if I could, if they'd lean in close enough. But they know what they're doing. They have me all locked down, ready for the good doctor to do his thing. I still struggle, but I turn away.

“Phoebe,” he says. “This is a sedative. I don't want to use this. But I will if I have to.”

They have to believe I'm cool and calm. I cannot slip this snare any other way. “Let me go,” I plead.

“That's not for me to decide, Phoebe,” he says. “I'm Dr. Poole and you're at Capitoline General North. I'm here to patch you up, but if you keep going, you'll tear your stitches.”

Stitches. Explains the scorch and numbness at the back of my neck. And I'm at CG North? I'm so far from my side of the city, it's not even funny. I don't understand why an ambulance would bring me all the way up here, where the rich people hole up. I'm not some Sixer's daughter. I'm not here for a nose job or a fat transfer or a rib removal. I don't belong in this hospital.

“My friend Barrett Larssen, is he here?”

He points to a sore spot on my waist and lifts up the arm of my hospital gown. I flinch at first, but then I realize what he's trying to show me. I twist and see the bruise on my shoulder. The handprint is huge. I don't know how he pulled me out, but I know who left the mark. The cool hand in the water. My savior in the dark deeps. I should've known.

My throat closes up. Bear hesitates. He worries. He talks me out of stupid ideas. He doesn't pull suicidal stunts. The marks on my shoulder and my waist grow warm. Maybe it's the drugs, but I can almost feel him reach for me. Somehow Bear—my would-be bodyguard and best friend—saved my life.

“Where is he?”

Dr. Poole ignores my question. A DP officer steps just inside the doorway. His coal-black uniform makes him an inkblot, a stain in this spotless room. “Phoebe Van Zant, you're under arrest.”

I frog the second orderly, knuckle punching him near the groin. For a second, I think my thrashing will break the cords at my wrists. “I want a lawyer! Cut me loose. I want out of this place!”

I hear Dr. Poole sigh. The needle sinks into my hip. I drown again.

With a chin-snapping nod, I wake up in the back of a moving transport. I'm groggy, but upright, locked into a seat between two DP officers. When I blink and swallow and try to shift my feet, I realize . . . they put me in sync boots. Rigid, heavy, evil red-toe-light blinking sync boots.

“You can't just haul me off like this,” I plead. “I'm a minor, and you haven't even notified my guardians.”

“Oh that's right,” the officer mocks. “How did we forget about that? Just say the word, and we'll be happy to bring in your whole family for questioning.”

He smiles, and I catch the glint of perfect teeth. He knows the threat's enough to gut me. Across town, a world away, Mary's probably out of her mind, bent over a sterilizer panel, cleaning instruments and pretending to keep it together while Hal paces the floor and texts me a thousand times.

No, bringing up my ties to the Larssens would be asking for trouble. Their medical supply business is a
good
front
for
the
clinic—it
lets
them
operate
on
the
edges
of the
system,
without
interference
from
the
Sixers.
Any
of
the
Six would probably love to swallow another black-market clinic like so much krill. Especially one that patches up the protesters who shout down their names on the streets.

Transcorp. Agri-tech. Benroyal Corp. Yamada-Maddox. AltaGen. Locus Informatics. I know they helped build Castra from nothing, but it's like they think they own the whole rusting planet. If I coughed up the Larssens to the DP, they'd be shut down inside of eight hours. I can't let that happen.

We slow down. Through the windows, fire-bright colors catch my eye. So many knots of orange and red and yellow leaves. Castra's a desert world, one made for scrubroot and hackweed, but there's a whole grove's worth of Earth-imported oaks lining the gated courthouse drive. What a waste of water. So much effort to keep withered roots alive.

The
officers
tense
as
we
come
to
an
abrupt,
curb-
skimming stop. We've arrived. The bone-pale courthouse looms and I've never felt smaller.

Inside the courthouse, I'm herded through a gray-walled warren of holding cells and intake stations. I've never been booked or processed before. Two years of racing under the radar and they've never been able to catch me, so I'm not exactly sure what to expect.

My escort pulls out a flex card remote and fumbles with it. Arrows appear on the floor, illuminating the black-and-white tiles. My soles start to slide across the floor and I flail to keep my balance, but as soon as I surrender, moving toward the arrowed path, the pull relents and I'm free to walk normally. Or at least as normally as I can in these rusting things.

I'm pushed through the booking stations without stopping. I don't get scanned or strip-searched or zipped into a baggy lock-up jumpsuit. The DPs don't even interrogate me. I was so sure that as soon as I got here, they'd toss me in a holding cell and start grilling me about Benny Eno's garage/black-market betting operation, but they don't. They only ask who I belong to. I don't answer.

I'm not selling out the Larssens. Not when they're all I've got.

My real mother split when I was little more than a baby. I barely remember her face, a perfect oval so much paler than my own. And even that image is counterfeit. My father used to store a picture of her on his flex, but now I've only got the memory. My case manager says she got into black sap, and I can only guess my dad didn't want me to know that my own mom became a sunken-eyed junkie. So I carry an image less painful, frozen in time, of someone whole and young and pretty.

And my father? The great Tommy Van Zant, the six-time Corporate Cup champion, the circuit rally racer who couldn't lose? When I was five, one day he up and disappeared. Crossed a finish line and drove away, leaving me and his latest trophy behind. Maybe he couldn't deal with the pressure. Maybe he was burned out. Maybe he was just plain bored.

The only thing he left me is his itch for adrenaline and this hell-on-wheels need to race. Come to think of it, I guess he's the reason I'm standing here in the first place. I should text him a message and thank him.

But of course, I won't. I can't.

Maybe I had real parents once. I've forgotten what that means.

I'm hustled around a corner, down the last stretch of tile. We pass more holding cells; I catch my reflection in their safety-glass windows. My hair looks darker in here. Almost black. And unlike the other prisoners, I'm wearing oversized hospital scrubs that have been bleached so many times, it's hard to tell if they were once purple or actually blue. Swallowed up in this threadbare getup, I look like a walking bruise.

The cells are full of rough-faced prisoners, but there are no clean-cut Sixers here. They never seem to get arrested. Plenty of Cyanese rebels and Biseran drug dealers, though, and plenty of South Siders like me. I can guess what's in store for them. The worst of the lot will be shuttled to prison and exile on Earth, while the petty offenders will get deported or sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor on Cyan-Bisera.

I glance at one of the Cyanese detainees, the man closest to the glass. He's gotta be nearly seven feet tall. Bet he thinks he's really cute with the Cyanese Army flag plastered across his T-shirt. Rebel stars, pale silver, on a field of blue. I imagine the DP got one look at that and tossed him and his friends in here just for looking like fuel-stealing terrorists.

Public menace. For the first time today, I smile. At least I'm really guilty.

“Keep it moving,” my guard snarls.

We make it down to the end of the hallway. My ears catch the splashdown roar of water in the lobby fountain as the double doors swing open. A flex screen message scrolls above: Enjoy improved, hassle-free judicial proceedings. These new, expedited services are brought to you by Locus Informatics. We're innovating justice for you!

I'm pretty sure this means my fate has just been outsourced.

“Phoebe Van Zant?” The judge looks up at me.

I'd expected him to look scary. All imposing and serious. Instead, he just looks tired. He's not even perched behind the grand bench at the back of the courtroom. Here we are in this fancy, marble-pillared hall and he just sits there behind an ordinary wooden desk on the periphery of the room. He wears a fine black robe, but it looks too big for him.

My public counsel stands beside me, as silent as the
statues
lining
the
walls.
I
don't
recognize
the
empty,
ivory-eyed figures, but I'm sure they're more dead guys—twenty-third-century colonials from Earth.

“Answer yes or no, and say Your Honor,” the guard orders.

I clear my throat. “Yes . . . Your Honor, I want to—”

“You are charged with six counts,” the old judge interrupts. “Reckless driving. Illegal vehicle. Illegal racing. Resisting arrest. Destruction of public property. Mayhem.”

I stand very still and try not to laugh out loud. Mayhem. What the rust is Mayhem? The judge says something else about the damage I caused, but he's mumbly. I'm insulted he doesn't even try to sound intimidating or even make me feel guilty about what I've done.

This place is a joke. All of us, the judge, his bailiff, even my sad little entourage—we're packed in a small corner of this vast, opulent room. Everything is so . . . unused. I look up. There's a faded mural on the dome above. Before a majestic sun, a white-robed angel holds a scale. I recognize the three planets—a much larger Earth hangs in the balance against arid Castra and lush Cyan-Bisera. If the angel could whisper, I bet she'd tell me she's been watching this room shrink for a long, long time.

“How do you plead?” the judge asks.

“Not guilty.”

I'm silenced by the dull thud of the judge's gavel. “You have been found guilty. The sentence of this court is that you will remain in juvenile custody at the House of Social Rehabilitation, until you reach the age of eighteen . . .”

One year in juvie. This is happening so fast. I don't know what I expected. The judge takes a breath and I realize he's not done.

“Upon turning eighteen, you shall be remanded to the
Labor Corps on Cyan-Bisera until you earn out. Or for
the remainder of your life, whichever comes first.”

I gasp. One year and I'm done for, exiled to an uncivilized planet crawling with sap miners, terrorists, and drug lords. Hard to imagine anything worse. If I were a murderer or political prisoner, the judge would put my name on the next deportation list, sentencing me to some hellhole penal colony on Earth, but still. I'll never earn out of the Labor Corps. No one ever earns out the cost of “rehabilitation,” the steep room and board fees charged to every inmate. My leg starts twitching and I need to run. I need to run away and find a rig and just start driving.

The guard grabs me and spins me around before I can think twice about it.

“You are dismissed.” The judge waves me away.

My counsel never says a single word.

In a daze, I stumble out of the courtroom. It takes all of six seconds for sharp-clawed panic to sink its hooks deep enough to wake me up. I am going to juvie. Then hard labor in the fuel mines on Cyan-Bisera. I can't move. I can't think.

I'm free-falling. Away from midnight races at the dunes. Away from lazy Sundays at the garage. Away from my life with Bear.

I start scanning the room, desperate for an exit. I taste the curse words before they fly off my lips, ringing in this echo chamber of a lobby.

“This is bull-sap, you mother-rusting sons of—”

A hundred heads snap my way. From the corner of my eye, I see the elevator doors open. The prisoner inside. He's so far away. The elevator is packed with guards. His back is turned and the crowd between us is so thick.

There's this foolish hope—I carry this fragile ember inside me—that it's him. I'm so, so stupid to think it could be, that I'll ever see my best friend again. The surge of adrenaline thrums like a distress signal. Please. I need to know it's him and that he's all right and that I'm not alone in this terrible place.

In these boots, I can't stand on my toes, but I will every muscle and tendon to stretch. The effort buys me an inch or so, and I squint to get a better look. He turns, and it's no mistake. Bear is here. The ember stirs and I'm on fire. Before the guard can react, I rabbit-punch him with both fists, then snatch the boot remote from his hand.

Stunned, his partner reaches for me, but I duck. Twice. I flick my thumb over the flex card to turn the boots off. In a blink, I'm running as fast as my boots will let me, launching away from the fountain's edge, zigzagging and cutting through breaks in the crowd.

I've probably got a handful of seconds at best. Already, half a dozen DP are onto me, pushing their way through the long lines of detainees.

“Bear!” I scream.

He looks my way. When he sees me, his slumped shoulders lift. “Phee?!”

Bear's escorts had been leading him slowly toward the courtroom, but the moment he hears me, he wrenches free. The force is strong enough to knock two of his captors on their exhausts. They scramble back up, and the other two try to catch Bear, but it's too late. A beast off the chain, he's halfway across the room, running like I've never seen him.

Someone must have another sync remote. My boots force me to halt. I'm ten yards short, but nothing stops Bear. He practically tackles me, folding me into his arms. I can barely breathe. Not because he's crushing me (he is), but because I can't believe my best friend on the planet is alive and well.

I look up, craning to look into his face. Not quite. I reach up and run my thumb over his right cheekbone. For a moment, he takes my hand and holds it there, over a faded bruise. The protective fury—I can feel it roll off him in waves.

“I pulled you out,” he rasps. “Jumped in the second they dropped me at the docks. But they took you away. I thought you were dead. They told me you . . .” he says. “I wanted to die.”

I think of a million things, but my mouth can't form a single word. I just stand here, wide-eyed, holding on for as long as I can. His grip on me is fierce, but there's a special tenderness in our meeting too. The kind that comes from years of scouting each other's routes before turning any corner. Bear has run alongside me all my life.

Circling, the guards have come to separate us. I hear the thump of their footsteps. I feel the pull of my boots. I'm being dragged away, by unfeeling hands and ruthless physics. I see the pain flash in Bear's eyes, but all I feel is rage.

The DPs take him by the arms.

“Leave him alone!” I say as they drag me away.

No matter how hard they strain, Bear won't turn his back. One of the guards pulls his stun stick, swipes it to half power and jabs him in the ribs. Bear's face twists in pain and fury, but the warning jolt isn't enough. Again, he breaks completely loose.

The unrest is contagious. In the lines, prisoners murmur, a breath away from insurrection. More guards flood the room, pulling their weapons and barking orders. Lock-down sirens blare and blast-proof doors slam into place, blocking the main exits. Our little rebellion has sparked something far more dangerous.

Quickly, four DPs drag me out of the lobby and into a hallway. A glass door slides open and then shuts behind us. I twist toward it. Through the chaos, I can still see him.

I lunge and strain, knocking my forehead against the glass. “Bear!” I scream.

He is coming for me.

I reach for the door, but the guards swarm. One of them bats my hand away. “Back down,” she warns. “Or else.”

I ignore her, fighting hard. There are three DPs on me, and from behind, I hear more running to assist. Bear slams into the door, his palms out, fingers splayed against the shatter-proof surface.

I mimic his stance. All four of his guards pounce on him. When they stun him again, I scream and choke and pound on the doors. Two more jolts, but Bear holds his ground. The tendons in his neck tighten and rise. His jaw is locked and his teeth grind with every puff of strained breath.

“Behave.” The guard tries again. “Stop or we'll do it.”

“Do what?” I snap, breaking eye contact with Bear.

She taps the glass and nods at a DP on the other side of the door. He acknowledges, reaching into his pocket. My joints loosen and melt. I know what's in the guard's fist before he pulls it out.

“Get him to back down,” the woman says. “Or it's the needle. We'll pack him off to juvie unconscious.”

I lean as close to the door as I can. These tears are only for him. “You have to stop, Bear. Please.”

He still won't back off. I have to lie. I have to get angry. “Stop it. Right now. If you don't go with them now, they'll hurt me, Bear!” The pain and surprise shows on his face. When the muscles in his arms go slack, when his head drops and he stares at the black and white, I let my palms slide away from his. Limp, I let them drag me away.