The Legend Trilogy Collection (3 page)

I didn’t know our parents long enough to miss them in the same way Metias does. Whenever I cry over losing them, I cry because I
don’t
have any memories of them. Just hazy recollections of long, adult legs shuffling around our apartment and hands lifting me from my high chair. That’s it. Every other memory from my childhood—looking out into the auditorium as I receive an award, or having soup made for me when I’m sick, or being scolded, or tucked into bed—those are with Metias.

We drive past half of Batalla sector and through a few poor blocks. (Can’t these street beggars stay a little farther from our jeep?) Finally we reach the gleaming, terraced high-rises of Ruby, and we’re home. Metias gets out first. As I follow, Thomas gives me a small smile.

“See you later, Ms. Iparis,” he says, tipping his hat.

I stopped trying to convince him to call me June—he’ll never change. Still, it’s not so bad being called something proper. Maybe when I’m older and Metias doesn’t faint at the idea of me dating . . .

“Bye, Thomas. Thanks for the ride.” I smile back at him before stepping out of the jeep.

Metias waits until the door has slammed shut before turning to me and lowering his voice. “I’ll be home late tonight,” he says. There’s that tension in his eyes again. “Don’t go out alone. News from the warfront is they’re cutting power to residences tonight to save energy for the airfield bases. So stay put, okay? The streets’ll be darker than usual.”

My heart sinks. I wish the Republic would hurry up and win this war already so that for once we might actually get a whole month of nonstop electricity. “Where are you going? Can I come with you?”

“I’m overseeing the lab at Los Angeles Central. They’re delivering vials of some mutated virus there—it shouldn’t take all night. And I already told you
no
.
No missions
.” Metias hesitates. “I’ll be home as early as I can. We have a lot to talk about.” He puts his hands on my shoulders, ignores my puzzled look, and gives me a quick kiss on my forehead. “Love you, Junebug,” he says, his trademark good-bye. He turns to climb back into the jeep.

“I’m not going to wait up for you,” I call after him, but by now he’s already inside and the jeep’s pulling away with him inside of it. “Be careful,” I murmur.

But it’s pointless to say now. Metias is too far away to hear me.

WHEN I WAS SEVEN YEARS OLD, MY FATHER CAME
home from the warfront for a week’s leave. His job was to clean up after the Republic’s soldiers, so he was usually gone, and Mom was left to raise us boys on her own. When he came home that time, the city patrols did a routine inspection of our house, then dragged Dad off to the local police headquarters for questioning. They’d found something suspicious, I guess.

The police brought him back with two broken arms, his face bloody and bruised.

Several nights later, I dipped a ball of crushed ice into a can of gasoline, let the oil coat the ice in a thick layer, and lit it. Then I launched it with a slingshot through the window of our local police headquarters. I remember the fire trucks that came whizzing around the corner shortly thereafter, and the charred remains of the police building’s west wing. They never found out who did it, and I never came forward. There was, after all, no evidence. I had committed my first perfect crime.

My mother used to hope that I would rise up from my humble roots. Become someone successful, or even famous.

I’m famous all right, but I don’t think it’s what she had in mind.

It’s nightfall again, a good forty-eight hours since the soldiers marked my mother’s door.

I wait in the shadows of a back alley one block from the Los Angeles Central Hospital and watch its staff spill in and out of the main entrance. It’s a cloudy night with no moon, and I can’t even make out the crumbling Bank Tower sign at the top of the building. Electric lights shine from each floor—a luxury only government buildings and the elite’s homes can afford. Military jeeps stack up along the street as they wait for approval to enter the underground parking lots. Someone checks them for proper IDs. I keep still, my eyes fixed on the entrance.

I look pretty awesome tonight. I’m wearing my good pair of shoes—boots made of dark leather worn soft over time, with strong laces and steel toes. Bought them with 150 Notes from our stash. I’ve hidden a knife flat against the sole of each boot. When I shift my feet, I can feel the cool metal against my skin. My black trousers are tucked into my boots and I carry a pair of gloves and a black handkerchief in my pockets. A dark, long-sleeved shirt is tied around my waist. My hair hangs loose down my shoulders. This time I’ve sprayed my white-blond strands a deep black, as if I’d dipped them in crude oil. Earlier in the day, Tess had traded five Notes for a bucket of pygmy pig’s blood from the back alley of a kitchen. My arms, stomach, and face are smeared with it. I’ve also streaked mud on my cheeks, for good measure.

The hospital spans the first twelve floors of the building, but I’m only interested in the one without windows. That’s the third floor, a laboratory, where the blood samples and medicines will be. From the outside, the third floor is completely hidden behind elaborate stone carvings and worn Republic flags. Behind the facade lies a vast floor with no halls and no doors—just a gigantic room, doctors and nurses behind white masks, test tubes and pipettes, incubators and gurneys. I know this because I’ve been there before. I was there the day I failed my Trial, the day I was supposed to die.

My eyes scan the side of the tower. Sometimes I can break into a building by running it from the outside, if there are balconies to leap from and window ledges to balance on. I once scaled a four-story building in less than five seconds. But this tower is too smooth, with no footholds. I’ll have to reach the lab from inside. I shiver a little even in the warmth and wish I’d asked Tess to come with me. But two trespassers are easier to catch than one. Besides, it’s not
her
family who needs medicine. I check to make sure I’ve tucked my pendant beneath my shirt.

A lone medic truck pulls up behind the military jeeps. Several soldiers climb out and greet the nurses while others unpack the truck’s boxes. The leader of the group is a young, dark-haired man dressed all in black, except for two rows of silver buttons that line his officer jacket. I strain to hear what he’s saying to one of the nurses.

“—from around the lake’s edge.” The man tightens his gloves. I catch a glimpse of the gun at his belt. “My men will be at the entrances tonight.”

“Yes, Captain,” the nurse says.

The man tips his cap to her. “My name’s Metias. If you have any questions, come see me.”

I wait until the soldiers have spread out around the hospital’s perimeter and the man named Metias has immersed himself in conversation with two of his men. Several more medic trucks come and go, dropping off soldiers, some with broken limbs, some with gashes on their heads or lacerations on their legs. I take a deep breath, then step out of the shadows and stumble toward the hospital’s entrance.

A nurse spots me first, just outside the main doors. Her eyes dart to the blood on my arms and face. “Can I be admitted, cousin?” I call to her. I wince in imaginary pain. “Is there still room tonight? I can pay.”

She looks at me without pity before she returns to scribbling on a notepad. Guess she doesn’t appreciate the “cousin” affection. An ID tag dangles from her neck. “What happened?” she asks.

I double over when I reach her and lean on my knees. “Was in a fight,” I say, panting. “I think I got stabbed.”

The nurse doesn’t look at me again. She finishes writing and then nods at one of the guards. “Pat him down.”

I stay where I am as two soldiers check me for weapons. I yelp on cue when they touch my arms or stomach. They don’t find the knives tucked in my boots. They
do
take the little pouch of Notes tied to my belt, my payment for entering the hospital. Of course.

If I was a goddy rich sector boy, I’d be admitted without charge. Or they’d send a doctor for free straight up to where I live.

When the soldiers give the nurse a thumbs-up, she points me toward the entrance. “Waiting room’s on the left. Have a seat.”

I thank her and stumble toward the sliding doors. The man named Metias watches me as I pass. He’s listening patiently to one of his soldiers, but I see him study my face as if out of habit. I make a mental note of his face too.

The hospital is ghostly white on the inside. To my left I see the waiting room, just like the nurse said, a huge space packed with people sporting injuries of all shapes and sizes. Many of them moan in pain—one person lies unmoving on the floor. I don’t want to guess how long some of them have been here, or how much they had to pay to get in. I note where all the soldiers are standing—two by the secretary’s window, two by the doctor’s door far in the distance, several near the elevators, each wearing ID tags—and then I drop my eyes to the floor. I shuffle to the closest chair and sit. For once, my bad knee helps my disguise. I keep my hands pressed against my side for good measure.

I count ten minutes off in my head, long enough so that new patients have arrived in the waiting room and the soldiers are less interested in me. Then I stand up, pretend to stumble, and lurch toward the closest soldier. His hand reflexively moves to his gun.

“Sit back down,” he says.

I trip and fall against him. “I need the bathroom,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. My hands tremble as I grab his black robes for balance. The soldier looks at me in disgust while some of the others snicker. I see his fingers creep closer to his gun’s trigger, but one of the other soldiers shakes his head. No shooting in the hospital. The soldier pushes me away and points toward the end of the hall with his gun.

“Over there,” he snaps. “Wipe some of that filth off your face. And if you touch me again, I’ll fill you with bullets.”

I release him and nearly fall to my knees. Then I turn and stagger toward the restroom. My leather boots squeak against the floor tiles. I can feel the soldiers’ eyes on me as I enter the bathroom and lock the door.

No matter. They’ll forget about me in a couple of minutes. And it’ll take several more minutes before the soldier I’d grabbed realizes that his ID tag is missing.

Once in the bathroom, I abandon my sick routine. I splash water on my face and scrub until most of the pig’s blood and mud have come off. I unzip my boots and tear open the inner soles to reveal my knives, then tuck them into my belt. My boots go back on my feet. Then I untie the black collared shirt from around my waist and put it on, buttoning it up all the way to my neck and clipping my suspenders over it. I pull my hair back into a tight ponytail and tuck the tail into the shirt so it’s pressed flat against my back.

Finally, I pull my gloves on and tie a black handkerchief around my mouth and nose. If someone catches me now, I’ll be forced to run anyway. Might as well hide my face.

When I finish, I use the tip of one of my knives to unscrew the cover to the bathroom’s ventilation shaft. Then I take out the soldier’s ID tag, clip it to my pendant necklace, and stuff myself headfirst into the shaft’s tunnel.

The air in the shaft smells strange, and I’m grateful for the handkerchief around my face. I inch along as fast as I can. The shaft can’t be more than two feet wide in any direction. Each time I pull myself forward, I have to close my eyes and remind myself to breathe, that the metal walls around me are not closing in. I don’t have to go far—none of these shafts will lead to the third floor. I only need to get far enough to pop out into one of the hospital’s stairwells, away from the soldiers on the first floor. I press forward. I think of Eden’s face, of the medicine he and John and my mother will need, and of the strange red
X
with the line through it.

After several minutes, the shaft dead-ends. I look through the vent, and in the slivers of light I can see pieces of a curved stairwell. The floor is an immaculate white, almost beautiful, and—most important—empty. I count to three in my head, then bring my arms as far back as I can and give the shaft cover a mighty shove. The cover flies off. I get one good glimpse of the stairwell, a large, cylindrical chamber with tall plaster walls and tiny windows. One enormous, spiraling set of stairs.

Now I’m moving with all speed and no stealth.
Run it.
I squeeze out of the shaft and dart up the steps. Halfway up, I grab the railing and fling myself to the next highest curve. The security cameras must be focused on me. An alarm will sound any minute now. Second floor, third floor. I’m running out of time. As I approach the third-floor door, I tear the ID tag off my necklace and pause long enough to swipe it against the door’s reader. The security cameras haven’t triggered an alarm in time to lock down the stairwell. The handle clicks—I’m in. I throw open the door.

I’m in a huge room filled with rows of gurneys and chemicals boiling under metal hoods. Doctors and soldiers look up at me with startled faces.

I grab the first person I see—a young doctor standing close to the door. Before any of the soldiers can point a gun in our direction, I whip out one of my knives and hold it close to the man’s throat. The other doctors and nurses freeze. Several of them scream.

“Shoot, and you’ll hit him instead,” I call out to the soldiers from beneath my handkerchief. Their guns are focused on me now. The doctor trembles in my grasp.

I press my knife harder against his neck, careful not to cut him. “I won’t hurt you,” I whisper in his ear. “Tell me where to get the plague cures.”

He lets out a strangled whimper, and I can feel him sweating under my grip. He gestures toward the refrigerators. The soldiers are still hesitating—but one of them calls out to me.

“Release the doctor!” he shouts. “Put your hands up.”

I want to laugh. The soldier must be a new recruit. I cross the room with the doctor, then stop at the refrigerators. “Show me.” The doctor lifts a trembling hand and pulls the fridge door open. A gust of freezing air hits us. I wonder if the doctor can feel how fast my heart is beating.

“There,” he whispers. I turn away from the soldiers long enough to see the doctor pointing at the top shelf in the fridge. Half of the vials on the shelf are labeled with the three-lined
X:
T. Filoviridae Virus Mutations.
The other half of the vials are labeled
11.30 Cures
. But all the vials are empty. They’ve run out. I curse under my breath. My eyes skim other shelves—they only have plague suppressants and various painkillers. I curse again. Too late to turn back now.