Authors: Simone Pond
Grace refocused on the match just as Lucas’s sword came down fast, swiping across the right side of her forehead. Blood poured down over her brow and into her eyes. Blood. This was her weakness. Lightheaded and dizzy, she fell backward. Lucas dropped his sword and ran over. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you. Are you okay?” He crouched over her and examined the wound. “Someone get me a towel!” he yelled.
She sat up, shaky and nauseous, but pretended not to be flustered. She used her sleeve to wipe away the blood. “Got distracted,” she muttered, embarrassed over her loss. She blamed Sam. Why was he there, anyway? Did her mother send him to spy on her again? This enraged her more than losing the match.
Chris ran over and gave the towel to Lucas, who pressed it against Grace’s forehead. “I’m sorry. Here, let’s get you over to the benches.” He helped her stand up, wrapping his arm tightly around her waist. Grace felt a shiver move up her spine, but before she could decipher its meaning, Sam strutted over and moved Lucas out of the way, taking Grace’s arm and escorting her off the mat.
“This will not go over well with your mother,” he said.
“What are you even doing in the city?” Grace asked, irritated.
“I had to pick up some supplies.”
“So that’s what you’re calling spying these days?”
“Why would you do something so risky when you have academy tryouts tomorrow?”
“I was practicing.”
“But, now you’re injured. Don’t you ever think before you jump into things?”
She yanked herself away to walk on her own. “Why do you care?”
“I know how important the academy is to you.”
Of course he knew the importance of her getting into the academy. The entire village knew how important this was to her. She had been training for years. Grace felt ashamed for getting so angry. “I’m gonna get cleaned up. Meet you outside,” she mumbled.
She washed the blood off her face, closing her eyes to keep from gagging. She used a clean towel to press against the bleeding wound. There’d be some explaining to do when she got home. She could already hear her mother nagging.
What were you thinking? I told you not to leave the village without a chaperone . . . This is what happens when you don’t listen to me . . .
Outside the restroom, Lucas was waiting. “I’m really sorry,” he said.
She wanted to lash out at him for being so reckless and potentially screwing up her chances at tryouts, but she knew it was partially her fault. “My loss is your gain,” she said, forcing a smile and extending her free hand.
“You’re an excellent competitor.”
“Excellence doesn’t end up bleeding,” she said, looking up toward her forehead.
“I hope you’ll accept my apology. Let me make it up to you by taking you to dinner.”
She couldn’t believe he was serious. Was she supposed to go to some fancy restaurant in the city and bleed all over the tablecloth? No, she needed to get back to the village. She was already in for a painful lecture.
“Maybe next time,” she said.
“Can you at least tell me your name?”
“Grace,” she said, trying not to smile.
On her way out, she stopped to say good-bye to Chris.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just a minor battle wound.” She smiled and patted his head. “So, what did I do wrong?” she asked.
“You took your eyes off your opponent.”
“That’s right. Don’t let anything break your concentration, no matter what. Never take your eyes off your opponent.”
2
WHEN GRACE ENTERED the cabin, Ava was in her usual spot at her desk, combing through one of the musty old journals from the library vault and scribbling notes into another one. She was once again reading the pages of Lillian’s life, dating back three hundred-plus years. Lillian had kept meticulous records from the days of the Repatterning to the origins of Ojai Village, and her descendants had kept up the tradition throughout the centuries. There were hundreds of journals and Ava scoured them, looking for answers she couldn’t find inside the mainframe. Holding the journal, she thought about the first time she had read Lillian’s words; back then, she was naïve and unaware that she was a prisoner inside the Los Angeles City Center. When Joseph had broken inside the city center and handed her Lillian’s journal, Ava’s eyes had been opened. Lillian chronicled the man-made apocalypse and the New Agenda—the societal system implemented by Chief Morray and a corrupt group of elites—which was actually a controlled plan for human breeding. After Ava’s eyes were opened to the truth, there was no returning to the cave of ignorance; the shadows simply would not do. Lillian’s journal had inspired Ava to escape the city center and to take down Chief Morray. Her ensuing years in the village had more than made up for her years of imprisonment inside the city center, yet there was always a lingering fear that one day her freedom could be snatched away. She knew Morray was still out there, existing inside the mainframe, waiting for his chance to come back for Ava and anything else he could take down.
“You’re late,” Ava said, without looking up.
“Better late than dead,” Grace muttered, walking toward the kitchen.
Ava ignored her daughter’s attitude and did her best not to take it personally. She understood Grace’s need for independence—independent people don’t like being boxed in. All she had to do was think back to her days inside the city center. Ava hoped her daughter would eventually come around to realize she wasn’t the enemy—that she was trying to protect her from the real one. The man she had been relentlessly hunting down since before Grace was born. She knew Morray was lurking in the digital realm, plotting his next move to regain control. Ava dedicated her life to ensuring that would never happen again. Years ago she had made the tough choice to withdraw from public life, relinquishing her authority as one of the architects of the new society so she could dedicate her time to searching for Morray. But mainframe search after mainframe search, she still hadn’t come across anything concrete. No digital footprints, no identity matrix. Nothing. Most people claimed he was gone for good, but Ava knew better.
Grace went to the kitchen to help her father with dinner. Joseph had become the buffer between the two, keeping the peace between mother and daughter. She loved the way Joseph had always stepped up when she was too engrossed in her work; he understood and respected the importance of her research. After all, he had set the wheels into motion by handing her Lillian’s journal so many years ago.
“Ava, dear, you wanna join your family for dinner?” Her husband’s calm voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Yes, I’m coming.” She placed the journal into the bottom drawer, locking it with a key she wore around her neck. Ava protected the old journals with the same tenacity she protected Grace.
She sat down at the dining room table. The smell of rosemary and potato stew filled the cabin. “Smells delicious. Thank you, honey,” she said, taking a spoonful into her mouth. The savory stew warmed her tongue, and she closed her eyes to enjoy its hearty flavors. “Delicious. How’d you get so good at this?”
“Lots of practice,” he said, smiling.
Ava looked up and noticed a bandage on Grace’s forehead. She reached over and brushed aside Grace’s hair. “What in God’s name happened?”
“Little accident at the SportsPlex,” Grace said, biting into a roll.
“SportsPlex? You were in the city?”
“I wanted to get in a little more practice before tryouts tomorrow.”
“You’re lucky it wasn’t worse. What were you thinking?”
“I guess I wasn’t.”
Ava studied her daughter for a moment, trying to come up with the right words that wouldn’t set her off. “You’ve worked so hard for this, I’d hate for you to lose this opportunity.”
“It’s just a graze.” Grace pulled away and continued eating.
“Joseph, did you see this?”
He stayed quiet.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“I wish you’d be more careful.”
“I’m always careful. I don’t have much choice. You’re constantly riding me.”
“You know I just want to protect you.”
“I can protect myself.”
Ava sat back in her chair, no longer in the mood to eat. “I don’t want to argue tonight. I’ve been working all day.”
“You’ve been working my whole life,” Grace said.
“Working to protect you, and our people.”
“From what? A ghost from the past?”
Joseph slammed his fists on the table. The cabin grew still. “I’m wondering if the two of you could take a moment to say a prayer of thanks?” Joseph lowered his head.
Ava and Grace followed suit, and there was a brief moment of calm before Ava started up again. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t go to city without a chaperone?”
“But you had your watchdog, Sam, on me.” Grace took another huge bite of her roll.
“Are you implying I sent him to spy on you?”
“I’m just saying I can handle myself. Right, Dad?”
Joseph raised his head and started eating.
Grace glared at her mother. “I know you don’t think I can take care of myself, but I can. I’m one of the most talented combat fighters in our village.”
“I don’t doubt your abilities, Grace. I know you can handle yourself. It’s just, when you go off to the city . . . You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
“Those days are long gone. When are you gonna start living in reality?”
Ava bit down on her lip to keep from exploding. “Our reality is this—you never know when someone with bad ideas and a lot of power will sneak in and strip away all that is good and right.”
“The most important thing I’ve learned from you is to protect freedom—at any cost. Am I supposed to just sit back and do nothing, wait for some tyrant to take over? That’s not what you did for your people.”
“I’m just saying you have to be smart about things, Grace. You can’t just leap off cliffs and hope for a safety net.”
“I am smart about things!” Grace got up from the table and ran to her room.
Ava stood up, but Joseph reached out and took her hand. “Leave her be, Ava. You’ll only make it worse.”
“I can’t say anything right.”
“Maybe if you had a little trust.”
“Trust must be earned,” she said.
“How can she earn it if you don’t give her a chance?”
“She’s not ready.”
“Ready for what, Ava? You’ve spent all these years preparing for Morray’s return, and what has that done for you? You’ve locked yourself in another prison, and you’ve been holding your daughter hostage.”
“I just want to protect her.” Ava finally broke and started crying.
“You can only do so much, and then you have to let go. Grace is growing up, whether you accept it or not, and one day she’s gonna make a good soldier. She’s smart and fearless, maybe to a fault. She’s gifted with a sword.”
“Morray won’t come back for a sword fight. Trust me.”
“I know you want to protect her, but you keep pushing her away.”
“She’s so damn determined,” Ava laughed.
“You, of all people, know how it feels to believe in something. To want to do the right thing.”
Ava remembered living inside the Los Angeles City Center—a prison containing thousands of innocent people destined to be slaves to their leader, Chief Morray. She had escaped and fought to save her people. Her determination was the reason the Los Angeles City Center was dismantled and the people set free.
“Why would someone who had fought so hard for freedom refuse to give Grace her own?” Joseph asked.
“I’m scared. I don’t want to lose her,” Ava confessed.
“If you keep this up, you will.”
“I don’t want to lose her to Morray,” she said.
“I’m a hundred percent certain neither of you would ever let that happen.” Joseph smiled and pulled Ava in for a hug.
“There’s still one piece of information I haven’t discussed with you or Grace regarding the academy.”
“I hope you’re not planning on banning her from tryouts. There’d be an all-out war.”
“No, it’s not that. You might want to sit down,” she said.
A few weeks earlier, Director Faraday from the Silicon Valley Academy had made an offer for Ava to work in their labs to conduct more extensive mainframe research on their new equipment. Part of the deal included room and board.
“So, I’ll be living at the academy for the next six months. I’ve been waiting for the right time to discuss it with you both, but there was rarely a moment of peace.”
Joseph closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the chair.
“You might wanna wait until after tryouts to drop that bomb,” he said. “I’m happy to hear the academy wants you, but you should’ve mentioned this sooner. Not just for Grace’s sake, but mine.”
Joseph left the cabin, leaving Ava alone to sit with her thoughts. Sometimes independence came with a price.
3
GRACE PACED AROUND in her room, trying to walk off the feeling of being suffocated. There was no way she’d be able to calm down stuck inside the cabin. She needed some air . . . and her friend Marion. She grabbed a sweater, climbed out the window, and headed toward the Cantina. The Cantina had become the hot spot for social gatherings similar to the cafés and pubs in the city. With so many city residents traveling to the coastal villages, the villagers had begun to take advantage of the trade benefits. Insiders were happy to exchange goods for a break from the bustling city; the Outsiders were delighted to accommodate the new trend, as long as the city folk didn’t disrupt their peaceful way of life.
“Over here, Gracie.” Marion waved from a table in the back of the Cantina. As if Grace could miss that nest of red hair.
Grace joined the small gathering of friends playing poker. Everyone remained focused on their cards. This group didn’t mess around when it came to competition. They approached their education and training with the same fervor, which was another reason tryouts weren’t going to be easy. She noticed Sam at the end of the table—his dark eyes scanned her, as if gathering information. She wondered if he was making a mental note to report back to her mother the next day. Though he was only a couple years older than Grace, he was way too serious, and always had a stiff posture underneath his neatly tucked-in shirts. Sam was meticulous about everything. Grace usually looked as if she left the house in a hurry.