Numbers Ignite (3 page)

“And it’s a big ’un,” Holladay said. One sleeve of his uniform was torn completely off, and the other was nearly there. “You arrested my wife. Still haven’t seen her. Could be dead ’cause of you, and I’d never know it.”

I didn’t answer. Our little group had traveled ten days before arriving at the settlement site last night only to find a chopper sitting in the clearing instead of construction. Three dozen refugees camped nearby, waiting for their turn to be transported. The pilot had recognized my face and bumped me ahead of everyone else in line. Apparently the governor had wanted me here as soon as possible. I hadn’t seen Holladay’s wife among the refugees, though. Not that I was about to tell him that.

Anton led me away as more settlers came out of their huts and the jeering began. “Thought you could get away, did you?” “Justice always wins, my friend!” “Enjoy your last days because I’m putting a knife in you myself!” “Just wait until Mills is done with you.”

I tried to turn, to see who had mentioned Mills, but the guards shoved me forward. Mills had absolutely nothing to do with this. Next time I saw him I’d wring his lying neck. Slowly, painfully. The man had gathered support for an uprising, planned a protest, put Treena at the head of it, and then waited until they were all at the palace before trying to blow them all up. He deserved to die a thousand times over.

Holladay simply watched us go. Anton’s thugs broke off from us one by one as they found their loved ones. Soon it was just me, Anton, and Ju-Long left. We turned toward the water and plodded through a foot of black-brown mud toward a square box of a building made from stacked concrete stones and no windows. It sat nearly at the water’s edge. What had looked like a freshwater lake from above was actually a murky pond. Cattle grazed nearby—a fact I could have discerned just from the smell. Ju-Long looked unaffected, but Anton plugged his nose with two skinny fingers.

So this was Rutner’s promised land.

Ju-Long’s version of “comfortable” was a far cry from my own. The prison was small and dark. Four tiny cells covered each corner, each barely large enough for a man to lie diagonally in, and a drain filled the remaining floor space in the center. The cells were empty. In fact, this building looked like it hadn’t been used in a very long time—except by the clouds of mosquitos. A thin film of black grime covered every surface.

“Our governor will be here shortly,” Ju-Long said. He gestured to the cell in the far corner. “Enter.”

A tiny part of me wanted to fight my way free. Anton’s men were gone. I could easily take Anton and Ju-Long on. But the thought of traipsing up that trail again made me bone weary. Besides, I had come so far to find my family. If they were in this hellhole somewhere, we’d bust out together or not at all.

I walked in and kicked the bedroll in the corner. Dust exploded from its surface. It smelled as if it hadn’t been washed since Old America fell.

Ju-Long pulled the door closed. With all these old-fashioned metal bars around, I expected him to pull out a huge iron key to fit the rusty bars. Instead, he activated something with a device from his pocket. A beep signaled and the door clicked twice. The lock looked brand-new.

Ju-Long gave a slight bow and left me and Anton alone.

“Take my cuffs off now,” I told him, holding my hands toward the bars. He’d only removed the chains a couple of times, usually for a few minutes so I could treat the skin where it had been rubbed raw inside my wrists—and even then they’d pointed their guns at me the whole time.

“Nah,” Anton said. “Apparently the big guy’s on his way. Better not take any chances. I’ll let you get settled in.” With a smirk, he left.

I was almost asleep when Ju-Long returned. He brought a bright solar lantern that seemed like overkill for such a small room, the only indication that it was night. He eyed me with the usual suspicion and said, “Behave yourself.”

Finally. I could meet this so-called governor and demand to see my family again. If they were living in the mud like the rest of my clan, I’d have some words for him.

Ju-Long stepped back, allowing the visitor to pass. His lantern cast a long shadow on the governor’s face as he approached my cell. “You have no idea how happy I am that you’ve arrived.”

Horror spread throughout my limbs and cemented me to the ground. I knew that voice. I’d sworn to kill this man as soon as I found him, and here he was—standing with his hands clasped behind his back, smiling.

Mills.

Governor of Blackfell.

I sprang to my feet. “How dare you show up here.”

“Show up?” He blinked in mock surprise. “Dear boy, I live here. I’ve kept the peace for over a decade now. Do you know how hard it is to keep a city like this a secret?”

“Call me ‘dear boy’ again, and I’ll kick you through the mountain and out the other side.”

Mills just gave a grim smile. His hair was thinner than it had appeared on the screen, and gray stubble lined his chin. “I know your solution to everything is violence, Vance. We are a peaceful people. If you hope to survive longer than a day or two, you will curb that reaction immediately.”

My
solution? Rage pulsed through my body. “You blew up hundreds of innocent people!”

He gave a deep, exhausted-sounding sigh. “I thought you were smarter than this. Ju-Long, will you give us a moment?”

His assistant stood firmly rooted in place. “You’ll be safe, sir?”

“Safe enough from this boy, yes.”

Ju-Long opened his mouth to protest, then walked out, still shaking his head.

The patient smile on Mills’s face disappeared. “You throw accusations at me like that again, especially with others present, and you won’t even reach your trial.”

“Accusations?” I couldn’t believe this. “My entire clan knows what you did. You can’t lie yourself out of this one.”

“The missile was an unfortunate incident,” Mills said. “We’re looking for the instigator now. In the meantime I suggest you start thinking about your own hide. Your trial is next week. Between now and then your first priority should be convincing the people that you are their friend. Your life depends on it.”

I squeezed the bars, wishing Anton had released my hands so I could strangle Mills. Maybe Anton knew me better than I thought. “Don’t
pretend you care what happens to me. I just happened to be out of range, or you would’ve killed me, too.”

“I’d stop bringing that subject up if I were you.”

“Why, because your people will find out the truth?”

“They already know the truth. Everyone knows you are the one who blew up the palace, Hawking.”

I rocked backward. “
What
?”

A glint of satisfaction appeared in his eyes and he started to pace, his hands still clasped behind his back. Too relaxed. “Our investigators have discovered that it was someone inside NORA’s borders who arranged the attack. Someone without a techband who had the skills to maneuver freely at night without being detected. Someone who held a huge grudge against the empress and her council and wanted to be seen as a savior of sorts, perhaps to change his fate.” He stopped and faced me again. “Witnesses say you appeared just after the missile hit and began organizing rescue efforts. Where were you before that, Vance?”

I stared, unable to form the words I desperately wanted to say. Maybe it was for the best—my mother wouldn’t have approved of them anyway.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “They were already prepared to execute you for turning against them. Now that the depth of your betrayal is known, it’s your family’s fate you are writing with your accusations and denials. Accept your guilt, and you can save them—and perhaps die with the slightest shred of dignity.”

I was running through a city, terrified of something behind me. Not a person, but something nobody could stop, like liquid fire coming from the sky. It made a high-pitched whine as it approached, and I threw my arms up to stop it, knowing well that it wouldn’t help. The blast hit, its power blowing through buildings like they were made of paper. The debris went right through me as if I was invisible.

The people around me, however, were not. A collective scream of terror went up but was silenced as roads, buildings, and people were blown to pieces. Liquid fire. I kept running; toward what, I couldn’t say, but I knew I couldn’t stop.

When I got to what was left of a huge building, I dug through the debris until I found two bodies. One was a girl my age, beautiful and broken. The orange numbers on her forehead flickered as if her life force itself was fading. As I knelt, her distant eyes focused on me accusingly. “You killed me.”

The other body was a woman too, though older, and her blonde hair was streaked with dark red. She sneered, exposing blood-stained teeth. “You think you’ve won, but I’m the victor here.”

When I turned away, hundreds of bodies lay around, broken, some burning. The eyes watched me with a strange detachment.

“You’ve killed us all,” they chanted as one.

I woke up shaking. My eyes opened to a dirt ceiling bathed in a golden glow. Had the ghosts buried me alive? No, the dirt was several meters above my head and scraped smooth. My fingers grabbed at the surface beneath my back. A blanket?

When I tried to sit up, pain slammed through my ankle. I gasped with the force of it, like a knife had been rammed into the bone. I lay back down, breathing hard.

“I wondered if you’d ever wake up,” a boy muttered.

I turned toward the voice. It
was
a boy. He looked brown from head to toe—brown hair, light brown skin, dirt-colored clothing. He sat in a chair that looked as if it had been carved and woven from desert brush. He looked about fourteen or fifteen, just slightly younger than me. Panic began to set in, adding to the pain. Did he know who I was? NORA could be on their way right now. I didn’t dare even move my leg, much less walk on it.

The boy smiled. “Hey, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Who are you?” My tongue was still swollen and dry, and I sounded like a stranger. I took in the bed, the curve of the ceiling, the pieces of dirt floating softly down.

“Coltrane. I saved your life.”

I stared at him, trying to decipher his words. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“That’s because you passed out after the snake bit your leg. Carried you on my back all the way here.”

Snake. The memory rushed back. I tried pushing myself up on my elbows, slower this time, and looked down at the ankle that peeked out of the blanket. It was swollen beyond recognition. It looked like a huge fat man’s leg, all blue and purple. No wonder it hurt so bad.