People are now able to enter the stations and stairwells, no matter their Level. Local police patrolling the streets struggle in vain to control the flood of people. Small, isolated scuffles have already started to break out between the authorities and the citizens.
Behind us come several other AIS agents. The director hurries over. “Coordinate the police in this district!” she shouts at me, pointing down the street. “Tell them we’re calling for reinforcements. Emergency martial law, immediately. Understand, Wing? We have no time to lose.”
I nod at her. “Yes, ma’am,” I reply. Then she’s off like a bullet, running with her other agents toward the nearest police headquarters to try to get the emergency lines up and running.
Shattered glass already litters the concrete, and not far from us, people are pushing into a store and eagerly starting to haul things out. Carts full of food they would never have been able to buy with their Levels, armfuls of clothing, appliances, and furniture. Around them, others are starting to get the hint too. I can hear the shouts rising up and down the street.
“Quick!” someone yells. “Before they get the system back up!”
I keep running in the direction that my brother might be in. How the hell am I ever going to find him in this mess? I reach a busy intersection and halt in the middle of it, looking in despair down both streets to see masses of people crowding out into the road. Besideme, June takes my hand and squeezes it once. I look at her, hating the feeling of helplessness that washes over me.
Suddenly, I feel like I’m back in the heat of the war with the Colonies, searching frantically for my brother in enemy territory.
And then, I see something familiar.
There. In the middle of the street. A flash of familiar, wavy blond hair and the glint of his metal glasses. A miracle in the midst of absolute chaos.
At first, I think I’m hallucinating. There’s no way Eden is here.
But I blink, and he doesn’t disappear. There’s his hair again. June also tightens her grip on my hand and points in his direction. “Is that him?” she calls out.
I don’t know how he got away from Hann. I don’t know how he found his way back here to the surface of the Undercity. I don’t know anything except that maybe he was heading back in the direction of our home too, so that our paths crossed.
But I raise my voice, and in it, I can hear my own terror. “Eden!” I shout. “Eden!”
His head snaps over to us. His gaze falls on me. From his distance, I see the recognition click on his face. “Daniel!” he calls back, and it’s as if I were seeing him as a child again.
Everything in me floods with adrenaline. I suddenly start pushing my way over to him. Beside me, June follows. I have to get to my brother before something happens to him. The fear in my heart reaches a bursting point.
Eden shoves his way toward us. It seems to take an eternity for him to fight his way through the throngs. For an instant, I think we’ll never reach each other.This is it, I think. I’m lost in one of mynightmares. I’m running and running toward my brother and I will never reach him.
But then he’s suddenly standing before me. And I’m not dreaming. And I’m sweeping him into a fierce hug. He embraces me tightly back.
It’s Eden, and he’s out of Hann’s clutches.
EDEN
I’ve never seen Ross City without its layers of augmented-reality before. I don’t think it was ever meant to be seen this way.
There are no signs or street names, no hovering messages, no grid lines. Most of all, there are no Levels over anyone’s head. It is as if everything that holds a city together—streetlights, traffic laws, police enforcement—has vanished in the blink of an eye.
Riots are triggered so quickly that—from the AIS headquarters in the Sky Floors—we can see the chaos happening in real time on their screens. At first, people stand around out on sidewalks, puzzled, muttering to one another as they ask others if their Levels had suddenly vanished. Auto-cars and trucks stop in the middle of the roads. The traffic starts to pile up.
Slowly, I see the realization start to hit the Undercity. It ripples through the streets in a wave. Murmurs turn into exclamations, and then into shouts.
The system is down.
The Levels are gone!
And just like that, the ripple becomes a tidal wave.The system is down, the Levels are gone, the system is down, the Levels are gone.
After the scene in the Undercity, the Sky Floors seem eerily quiet. It’s midnight now, and even though we’re at least a hundred floors high, I can see the orange glow of fire coming from the Undercity far below. Smoke rises in plumes as the city brings in the military to try to contain the chaos.
Even the AIS headquarters itself is struggling to stay operational, running on limited backup power. Here in the main lobby, a large screen plays live footage from the Undercity as a newscaster talks rapidly over the scene. It’s weird to see video like this without our Level systems in place.
“Why would Hann just let you go?” Daniel asks me as I pace restlessly by the windows. “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I reply, distracted. I’m trying to place a call manually on a phone to Pressa, but nothing’s getting through. On my dozenth try, I swear under my breath and turn to my brother. “He didn’t do anything to me,” I reply. “He told me that he would release you if I helped him install my drone’s engine into his machine.”
