Enders (25 page)

The thought that my father was involved in this chip tech made me dizzy. And Dawson seemed so sure. But Hyden and Michael stared at me like I had kept some huge secret from them all this time.

“And now the two of you are together.” Dawson gestured to Hyden. “Coincidence?” He shook his head. “What exactly are you working on?”

“We’re not working on anything!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t even know about my father.”

Hyden kept quiet. I realized that was probably what I should have been doing. Too late now.

“I just wanted to get the chips out of all of us,” I said.

“Well, after what just happened to Emma, you don’t anymore, do you?” Dawson said. “Kaboom.”

I swallowed hard. I was exhausted. Everything in my body hurt. I hated this. I had no idea who to believe. Who was Dawson really? Maybe he was making all this up to cause some rift between the three of us. Wouldn’t I have known that was what my father did?

I crossed my arms. “My father never said anything to me about this. I was just a kid.”

Dawson stared at me. “You expect me to buy that? You’re no ordinary kid.”

I let out a small laugh. “How do I know you’re not just making this up?”

“You don’t.” Hyden got in Dawson’s face. “We know what your agenda is. You just want the secrets. You’ll say anything to get it.”

“Now you know,” I said, “you can’t take the chips out of us. We’ve told you everything, you’ve tested us backward and forward, so let us go.”

Dawson stared at us with his deep-set eyes. His hair gleamed under the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling in the hallway.

“No.” His eyes shifted between us. “He knows too much,” he said, nodding at Hyden. He turned to the guard. “Lock them up.”

They put us all in the same padded cell this time. We figured the room was bugged and they hoped to learn something from our conversations. Any smart person would have kept their mouth shut, but we were exhausted to the core and didn’t care anymore. It seemed like they knew more than we did, anyway.

Michael, Hyden, and I sat on the floor. We kept our voices down. If they were listening, we weren’t going to make it easy for them.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I said. “We didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“This is going to sound pretty insensitive, but … did anyone really like her?” Hyden asked.

“There wasn’t much time to get to know her,” Michael said.

“And what’re you supposed to say, anyway?” I asked, fighting a rising tide of hysteria inside me. “ ‘I’ll say my goodbyes now, in case something horrible happens to you’?”

Michael sighed. I put my head in my hands.

“So you really didn’t know your father was working on transposition?” Michael asked.

“No, of course not. I would have told you.”

Hyden leaned his head against the wall. “They’ll want to learn whatever they can from what’s left of Emma’s chip.”

“Are they going to be able to duplicate the chip now?” Michael stretched out so he was lying on his back.

Hyden shook his head. “There won’t be enough left to go that far.”

“And you can’t make more neurochips?” Michael asked Hyden.

“Not without my father. His strength was the hardware.”

“And he can’t make them without you?” Michael asked.

“No. That’s why he’s collecting all the Metals.” Hyden looked around at the padded walls. “I don’t think they’ll be content to keep us locked up in here.”

“What do you think they’ll do?” I asked.

“Whatever they can.”

We fell into a hushed silence. I lay back on the floor, hoping to get some sleep, but thoughts kept rushing through my mind. What happened to Emma could have happened to any one of us. Being Metals, we were vulnerable.

My father, working in neurochip technology? I remembered that argument between my parents about the vaccine. My mother had been angry that some adults were getting the vaccine either through the black market or because the government decided some key players in government and research should have it. Plenty of Enders and Starters didn’t get the vaccine. Some parents were terrified of it, paranoid of claims that it could cause paralysis or worse. Many just refused to get it. But she thought my father could get it. She must have known what he was working on and how important he was.

My mother wasn’t a bad person. She’d just fought to keep her family together. Alive.

I dreamt that I heard my father talking to me. He called my name, over and over and over.

My eyes opened. I could still hear him.

Callie?

My heart leapt. “Dad?” I whispered.

Michael lay on one side of me, sound asleep with his back toward me. On the other side, Hyden slept on his back, one leg bent at a right angle underneath the other. The vacuuming sound of the toilet helped cover the sound of my voice. Maybe I had imagined hearing my father. Or just dreamt it?

“Daddy?”

Can you hear me?

It was him! His voice.

“I hear you, Daddy, I hear you.”

Cal Girl
.

“Tell me it’s you,” I said, my voice cracking.

I’ve been trying so hard to get through
.

The warmth in his voice. I wanted to run into his arms, have him sweep me into a bear hug and protect me.

“They said you worked with the neurochip. How did you know I had one?”

Please listen, Cal. There’s little time. I left a z-drive at a place called Club Rune
.

“I know. I have it, but it was encrypted.”

It’s valuable
.

“Tell me where you are.”

I don’t want you to try to come. It isn’t safe
.

“What city? Daddy, tell me how to find you.”

No, it’s too far, all the way in the desert. And this man is dangerous
.

Garbled sounds followed.

“Daddy? Daddy.” My voice woke the guys, and they began to stir.

“Who are you talking to?” Michael asked, his voice groggy.

I put my fingers in my ears, willing my father to return. To talk to me again, help me get to him. Help me get out of this place. But it was as if someone just disrupted his transmission. My chest tightened.

Michael scooted closer. We kept our voices low. “What’s up?”

“I just heard my father.”

“What are you talking about?”

Hyden sat up. “What’s going on?” he asked quietly.

“My father just talked to me in my head,” I said.

“How do you know it’s not my father messing with you again?” Hyden said.

“He knew about the z-drive.”

Hyden straightened. “What else did he say?”

“That he’s being held prisoner.”

“Did he say where?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. Just that it was the desert.”

When he heard that word, Hyden sat back. I could see from his expression that he finally believed me.

“Then he’s with my father.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“My father loves the desert. Because only the tough survive there,” Hyden went on.

We leaned in close so we could keep our voices down. If Hyden’s father had kidnapped my father, he would have faked those death records. He might have held my father captive for an entire year.

For a split second, I allowed myself to dream about a reunion. “I hope we both live long enough to see each other. Wait till Tyler finds out.”

“If it helps,” Hyden said, “my father would want desperately to keep your father alive. He’d want to know everything he knows.”

“After a year, don’t you think he’d know?” I asked. My stomach tightened. “We have to find him. Don’t you have a single clue where his lab is? An educated guess? Anything?”

We heard a noise at the door. We all stopped and stared at it. It opened a crack. And then stayed like that.

Hyden went to the door and looked out. Then he motioned to us to follow.

The hallway was empty—no guard in sight. We followed Hyden alongside a projection of the rain forest, and I braced myself for someone to leap out at us at any moment.

He peered in the window cut into the door of a room. It was dark, but the dim light of an airscreen chip scanner in save mode glowed like a candle flame. Hyden nodded to us, and we went inside.

Hyden waved his hand in the air, and the screen intensified to full brightness. We left the lights off in the room—this glow was all we needed. A projection of a glacier played against one wall. Otherwise, the room was bare-bones: a table holding the airscreen, another table with a few office supplies, some folding chairs.

Hyden’s chip ID number popped up on the airscreen. Then two other chips showed up.

Hyden pointed to each of three numbers. “That’s mine, that one’s yours”—he pointed to me—“and that one’s yours.” He pointed to Michael.

Hyden pointed to his chip number and tapped the screen twice. It connected with his chip.

“I’m in,” he whispered.

“It sees your chip,” I whispered.

We watched in awe as his eyes turned to slits, and he used his mind, not his fingers, to move through files. He searched for “Brockman” but came up empty.

“They don’t know where he is,” Hyden said.

Then Hyden moved to a different area and located a new file area: “Security.” With his mind—and the chip—he
fanned through files at top speed. He found the alarm system and found a way to shut it off.

“Wow,” Michael whispered.

We smiled. But then someone opened the door.

An Ender woman stood in the doorway wearing a black jumpsuit. She was slender, with beautiful bone structure and white hair she left long and flowing, just past her shoulders.

She came in and closed the door behind her.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Don’t be afraid.”

I recognized her voice. “You’re the one in the office at the shooting range.”

She was the Ender who had observed and relayed instructions to the team inside.

She kept her voice low. “I’ve seen what they’ve put you through, and it’s shameful.”

“Why would you help us?” Hyden asked.

“I’m a grandmother. I was. I lost not only my children but also my grandchild in the war. She refused to get the vaccine because she didn’t trust the government.”

I noticed that Hyden had changed the screen so it was just a pattern.

“If you stay, what they will do to you is horrendous. That’s why I’m risking my job to get you out of here.”

The three of us exchanged worried glances.

“You must get away now,” she said.

“You’re the one who unlocked our cell door,” I said.

“Yes. I was going to lead you out, but a guard came by. I had to distract him.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out our car keys. “Here. I saw you disable the alarm,” she said to Hyden. “Go now.” She tossed the keys to Hyden.

We turned and ran in the direction she pointed, through a series of doors that opened into a short hallway with a projection of a field. The last door was the door to the outside. It opened with no sounds, no alarms.