Locked tight, p.14
Locked Tight, page 14
Okay, listen up, Juliette Tiller. I wait until she drops her hands and looks at me. Jackers aren’t like readers, okay? They’re not used to sharing every little thing that passes through their minds. It’s rare for anyone to know what’s truly going on in their heads. One of the truer things I’ve ever said. So you don’t know what Sammi thinks, and there’s only one way to find out.
She’s sobering up a little. What’s that?
Ask. I pull out my phone and jack in to scrit a message to Sammi. To Juliette, I broadcast, Your dad practically ordered me to take you out after school. The trick will be keeping Richards out of the loop. You leave that to me. Just go to school, do your thing, and by the end of the day, I’ll have it all worked out for you two to meet up.
Juliette watches until I finish up the scrit. You’re a good person, Zeph MacCay.
I smirk. I really want to keep my job.
No, I mean it. Suddenly, she’s putting her arms around me and giving me a fierce hug. She’s careful not to touch my bare skin—which is decent of her, given she’s still convinced I’m a reader—but she’s got quite a grip on my long-sleeved t-shirt.
Hey, it’s okay. I’m kind of stunned, so I just lamely pat her on the back. This will all work out. Which is something I have no way of guaranteeing, but even as I broadcast that thought, the idea worms its way into my head. Why shouldn’t it work out? The world is messed up in a lot of ways, and jackers are dangerous, and there are hateful people everywhere, but why? Why shouldn’t two people who want to be together do exactly that? Despite manipulative fathers and general prejudice and even hateful bombings? There’s a tight, rumbling thing deep inside me that wants to rail against all of it.
After a moment, Juliette releases me. Thanks. She ducks her head, waves of embarrassment emanating from her. For everything.
No problem.
I set the autopath for the limo, and we arrive at North Shore in no time. Juliette gives me a smile and trots off with her pink shoes and equally sparkly backpack through the wrought-iron gates. I check in with Richards, who’s been tailing us at a distance, and tell him I’m off to help Aaliyah with some work around the Home. He tells me to take the autolimo, which I was planning to do anyway so the autopath records back up my story. But I don’t even go inside, just hail an autocab with my phone and set a path for Jackertown.
I still haven’t heard back from my scrit to Sammi, but the mystery of that evaporates as soon as the autocab drops me down the street from the Stomp. Sammi’s bright red hair is easy to spot among the couple dozen people standing outside the club. I’m a little surprised to see so many people here, and even more surprised to see Sammi, but that’s nothing next to the shock of seeing five police cars and a forensics truck parked out front.
The lights are still going, and they splash against the dull brick of the Stomp’s façade. A lone officer from the CJPD—Chicago Jacker Police Department—stands with the fleet of cars. He’s got a military-grade helmet with face cage, full body armor, and some serious firepower slung over his shoulder and aimed at the ground. Since when did the CJPD start carrying assault weapons? He’s eyeing the crowd, but they’re holding back.
I stay where the autocab dropped me.
Last night, Kira lobbied hard for me to help in the clinic instead of the Stomp. She wants me to train as a jacker brain surgeon—which is so ridiculous, I laugh every time I think about it. And yet I watched her dive into the minds of patient after patient and do… something. I don’t think she’s playing with mindmaps, not from the way she described it. She offered to let me ride along, which I flatly refused—no way I can afford to have her “syncing up” with my true thoughts, whatever that is. What I need is to get in with Navarro and find some worthwhile intel to bring to Wright. Navarro said he’d be at the Stomp this morning, but there was no mention of jack police.
A tense minute passes, and I’m about to give up and take my chances with the clinic, when Navarro strolls out of the club with a woman in a regular Chicago police uniform—blue short-sleeved shirt, black body armor, and a helmet, but a conspicuous lack of assault weapons, just a regular sidearm. She’s carrying a toolkit and two, large evidence bags. Several jack police follow her, arms full of more bags. The lead forensics woman says something to Navarro, then she troops out to the truck with the others. The rest of the CJPD filter out of the club in pairs, hands on weapons, like they expect trouble despite being helmeted against unarmed jackers. Apparently, they’re just an escort because they hustle to their cars, never turning their backs to the waiting crowd. I don’t know if the gathered people, including Sammi, are onlookers or cleanup crew like me, but there’s no love lost between them and the CJPD.
Navarro disappears back into the club with a phone to his ear, and the police are departing, so I make a beeline for Sammi and try to catch her eye. The crowd is loosening like they haven’t decided what to do next. I catch several curious looks as I wave to Sammi, but no one tries to jack me, so I count that as a win.
When Sammi finally sees me, she looks surprised. She’s wearing battered jeans and a faded black t-shirt, which makes her more appropriately dressed for cleanup duty than I am in my standard private-school-blending attire of upscale jeans and layered t-shirts. If I’d been more awake, I would have changed when I dropped the autolimo off at Aaliyah’s.
As I jog up, I realize belatedly I’m about to out myself as a jacker to her. “Hey,” I say quietly. “Thanks for seeing Juliette home safe.”
She frowns hard and brushes my mindbarrier—the real one because I haven’t gone into broadcast mode.
“Hang on, you’re a—” she starts.
“Yeah, about that,” I cut her off. No sense digging into my ability to pass for a reader among jackers—it’s not even close to a normal ability, and I’m not sure how that would go over in Jackertown. “Juliette doesn’t know.”
Her expression twists up almost comically. “Are you kidding? I didn’t know. How did you—”
“Okay, look,” I say, cutting her off again.
A dark-haired man with deep brown skin and slightly Indian features appears at the club door. He waves to the crowd, and apparently, that’s the signal because they all head inside.
I hold Sammi back and keep my voice low. “Look, I’m passing for a reader with Juliette’s dad, and it needs to stay that way, okay? Otherwise, I lose my job. And the ability to set up hot dates for you.”
Sammi’s nodding now, eyes still wide, but not so incredulous. “Okay. I’ll keep your secret, Zeph the Bodyguard. But seriously… what’s your angle on this?”
“Does it matter?” I ask. Crap. I’m not even in the door yet—
“Yeah, it matters.” She folds her arms across her tight t-shirt.
I scowl. “It’s complicated.”
“It always is.” She’s not bending.
“I could ask you what your story is,” I push back. “I mean, what’s a jacker doing messing around with the reader daughter of one of the most powerful tech guys in Chicago? Someone who also happens to be a jacker-bigot and builds anti-jacker technology? What’s your angle on that?”
She presses her lips into a thin line that’s more menacing than any snarl ever could be. The girl is drop-dead gorgeous, but she’s got a killer badass look. If I thought she was actually a threat, I’d be bracing for an all-out jack-fight.
“It’s complicated,” she finally says.
Now I really want to know her story. Instead, I say, “Right? So can we have a truce here? Besides, I promised Juliette I’d set up you two again after school today.”
The ready to brawl look on her face softens. “Even after last night?”
I huff a small laugh. “Yeah. You two need to talk.” At the uncertain look on her face, I hurry to add, “It’s all good. She’s just worried you won’t meet her again.” I can’t help my smile at this point—being a matchmaker is not a skill I expected to acquire. I spread my hands wide in a gesture of peace. “Are we good? Because I need to get inside and…” I start to edge away, but the tormented look on her face stops me. “You okay?”
She hesitates then says, “I don’t know why you’re…” She seems tormented some more. “Why you’re doing this, but thanks.”
I smile. “No problem.” She bites her lip, so I hold back on my urgent need to get in the club and find Navarro. “What is it?”
She sets her expression in fight mode again. “Gray is my father’s name. He’s been dead since I was three. My mother’s name is Lewis. Trinity Lewis. She’s the CEO of a company called MINDPRINT. They do key/lock systems for secure mindware interfaces for the military.”
I give her a pinched look. “Okay.” Why is she telling me this?
Sammi goes on like this is information I’m torturing out of her. “My mom and I have scraped by ever since Dad died. She put everything into MINDPRINT. It’s her life. And when it got bought out last year, she couldn’t let it go. She’s still CEO even though the parent company owns everything. She made a killing on it, and that’s when she sent me to New Trier.”
The light goes on in my head, but it’s still not very bright. “That’s when you met Juliette.”
“I didn’t…” Sammi bites her lip again. This tormented look is so strange on her. The fierceness fits her better. “I didn’t know who Juliette was. Not at first. I was passing for a reader at that point. Then the inhibitors dropped, and I finally came out, and things started to get serious with us, and…”
“I don’t get it.” And I really don’t. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because Juliette can’t know,” Sammi grinds out. “And if you tell her, Zeph the Bodyguard, I’ll spill your secret in a heartbeat directly to Tiller himself.”
I put up my hands in surrender. “Whoa. Okay. But still not understanding here.” I glance at the door to the club. It is taking me way too long to get in there.
“The company that bought out my mom’s startup? MINDWARE Enterprises.”
My mouth drops open. “Wait, so…”
“Yeah.” Sammi looks disgusted. “My mom works for her dad. And if Tiller knew Juliette and I were still together… and if he knew who I was… my mom would have security walking her out the door within the hour.”
I let out a low breath. “Man, that’s messed up.” And kind of a problem. As if things weren’t complicated enough.
“I keep telling Juliette she’s better off forgetting about me.” Sammi drops her gaze to the dusty sidewalk we’re still standing on.
“But you don’t really mean it.”
She looks up sharply. “I don’t know what you’re in this for, Zeph the Bodyguard, but I can’t take the chance of you digging around and spilling all this to Tiller. So do we have a deal? I keep your secret, you keep mine?”
“Deal.” I don’t even hesitate.
She relaxes.
I’m thinking someday Juliette will have to know. But then again, maybe things won’t work out between them anyway. They have a lot stacked against them.
I tip my head to the club. “You here for the cleanup?”
“Yeah.” She nods sharply and turns to stride toward the door.
I’m right on her heels.
The muscle work, clearing debris, feels great for a change.
I missed Navarro, but I can’t help that. And once I throw myself into the work, I don’t really mind. With two dozen people helping, and a guy named Sasha organizing, it takes no time at all to clear the loose stuff. The damaged games are moved to the back, and Sammi takes a team to assess what can be fixed on site and what has to be sent out. Now that I know her mom’s the CEO of a mindware company, I’m not surprised she’s got more skills than just being a gamer. I’m on the four-man crew that’s tearing up the blasted game board—the whole thing will have to be replaced. And I’ll have to change clothes before I head back to get Juliette because I’m covered in dust and splinters and char.
But I’m doing something—something with my hands, not my mind.
I’m ripping the hell out of the broken floorboarding, and it feels so good I miss when Tessa McIntyre slips in the door. It’s only when Sasha calls a break, and a scurry of people in white armbands brings us bottles of water, that I realize the Free Thinkers are here.
“I don’t need any of you getting dehydrated,” Sasha complains. He’s the Indian-looking guy I saw at the door earlier, and his dark-brown skin is as drenched with sweat as the rest of us. He must have a background in construction or something—I recognize the well-worked build and the easy manner with tools and materials. Plus he’s one heck of site boss. I obediently guzzle my water, which was given by a girl who is definitely not Tessa, but I’m also scanning the room for her. I glimpse Tessa’s long brown hair in the back with Sammi’s group. I wipe the trickle of sweat from my brow—I’m a stinking hot mess—but I seriously debate what it would take to get on game-repair crew.
Only I know nothing about electronics.
I hand the empty bottle to an eager Free Thinker, but before I can scheme my way to the back of the Stomp, Tessa breaks from that group and heads toward the front. I drop my gaze so I’m not staring and contemplate what excuse I can use. I mean, I have zero actual reasons to talk to her. She gave me her number, but I had no need to scrit her from Jackertown last night—the other jackers didn’t need the legal or medical help she was pointedly offering just for them.
She definitely wasn’t offering anything to me.
Still… I can’t get last night’s hug out of my head. Or that she felt somehow responsible for the attack—as if the Free Thinkers brought this on by daring to think differently.
“Hey,” says a soft female voice.
My head jerks up. Tessa’s standing at the edge of the half-demolished game board. “Hey,” I say, stepping over a pile of plywood and up onto the ruined carpet with her. “How are you holding up?” I’m pumped she came to me first, but she looks exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes. Lips slightly chapped.
She smiles, and it tightens something in my gut.
I have to drag my gaze away from her lips.
“Tired,” she says, but it’s light. “Up all night at the hospital. Barely made it to my classes this morning.”
“Classes?” I ask, stupidly. Wait… she can’t still be at Fremd High School, can she?
“Northwestern?” she says with that smile again. She points to her sweatshirt with the school’s name emblazoned across the front.
“Wow.” My lack of articulateness is getting epic. “That’s a great school.” Of course, Tessa would have gone to college. And one of the most prestigious schools in Chicago New Metro, no less. She was always crazy smart. I, on the other hand, never even graduated from High School, something that feels painfully relevant as I’m covered in wreckage and soot while Tessa’s running a political organization and helping rescue injured jackers between taking college classes at a premier university and being a superior human being. The kind who might have pity for someone like me but won’t be dating anyone like me anytime soon. Or ever.
“…the funding page is really going well,” she says and looks at me expectantly.
Holy crap, I missed what she was saying while I was feeling sorry for myself. “That’s good… right?”
She scowls like she’s not sure I’m all there. “Yes, it’s good. The victims of the bombing are going to need help. And it’s good to see people care.”
I put together what she’s saying—she was afraid people wouldn’t help out. “Most people are decent, I guess. I mean, this is pretty horrible, and it affected both readers and jackers. No one wants stuff like this to happen. They all just want normal lives.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Is that what you want, Zeph? A normal life?” She’s studying me now in that piercing way she did at the chat-cast. Like she sees right through me. And it feels like she really could.
“Yeah.” I don’t even try to lie. I have this crazy urge to tell her everything—Wright, my sister, Tiller, all of it. I press my lips together and remind myself I don’t have that luxury. I’m not here to fix the Stomp. I’m not here to help injured jackers. I’m here to spy on Senator Navarro and save my sister before Wright hurts her in ways I can’t undo.
Tessa nods like my simple yeah contains an entire data file of information on Zephyr MacCay that she will unpack later with that crazy smart brain of hers.
It pulls at me, and I see the danger. If I was smart, I’d stay away from her. Even as I think that, I’m coming up with excuses to meet later, somehow, somewhere else. Away from all this chaos and destruction and the reminder of how jackers and readers really shouldn’t mix.
“I want to hear about it someday.” Her brown eyes are wide and unblinking, and they’re staring straight into mine.
“Hear about what?” It’s suddenly difficult to breathe.
“About why you left.” Her words are soft, breathing out of those slightly chapped lips.
Why I left home. I know immediately what she means. My heart’s pounding. That push-pull—the desire to tell/not-tell—is a tide that’s a hundred-fold stronger than the moon’s pull. It’s directly warping my brain and any good sense I have left.
Before I can stumble into answering her, someone calls my name.
It’s Navarro, stepping over the debris with his shiny senator shoes and heading my way. “Hey,” he says as he closes in on us. “I see Kira didn’t manage to recruit you into working at the clinic.”
Tessa’s face lights up with curiosity, but she says nothing.
