“Keeping you from the truth of the world only made it worse for you.” Daniel gives me a sad smile. “This place was your home too. Every single one of these rotting streets, these back alleys. This is where we were all raised, yeah? But I’m so afraid of this place, Eden. I’m afraid, even now. I wanted to hide it from you, like somehow thatwould keep you from being drawn back to it, so that you’d never have to know what it was like.” He shakes his head and stares out at the water. “Like somehow, us leaving this all behind meant that it didn’t exist anymore.”
I look out into the darkness, the voices crowding in my head. As always, I can feel myself pulling away, trying to shield the jumbled mess in my mind from Daniel, to turn it inward and let it churn there until it all fades again into the background. But it doesn’t fade.
Daniel’s looking at me now, and I realize it’s because there are tears streaming down my cheeks. I hadn’t even noticed when I started crying. Embarrassed, I wipe them angrily away and try to force myself back into a state of calm. But the tears keep coming. I can’t stop them.
Daniel reaches out and seizes both of my wrists in his hands. “Look at me,” he says, his eyes locking on to mine. They are fierce in the night, and in them I see the same brother who had once stood up to an entire nation. “It is not weakness to open your heart. It does not make you less of a man to ask for help. To turn to someone when you’re vulnerable. To need a shoulder to cry on. You don’t have to bear the weight of anything by yourself. Do you understand me? I know what it’s like to be forced to go it alone. I never want you to feel that way.”
I find myself nodding through my tears, wishing I could have turned to him sooner, wishing I could be more like him in every way. “I see them every night,” I say to him, my words breaking. “They’re there every time I close my eyes. I jump at every sound. I see a soldier in every person standing at a corner. I thought—I thought if I could just drown it all out in the Undercity, if I could replace it withsomething else so loud and overwhelming, that it might go away—I thought if I could just see the Republic again, return home and understand my past…”
The pain in Daniel’s eyes is raw and real. The fear of this was what had kept me silent for so long. He nods once, his hands firmly on my shoulders. “I see them too,” he says quietly. “I should have talked to you about my nightmares. I can’t expect you to open up to me if I don’t do the same.”
I nod again. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t be.” His eyes soften, and he pulls me into a hug. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
It is his embrace that finally breaks my last barrier. I cry and cry and cry. I cry because I’d never let myself truly understand my own brother, because I’d never understood myself. I cry for all the lives that our pasts have set on different paths—for June’s loss of her family, for Tess’s loss of her childhood, for Daniel becoming a parent when he was himself just a boy. I cry because I’m grateful that we still, in spite of everything, have all found each other.
Because sometimes, broken pieces find a way to make a new whole.
DANIEL
When we finally return to our apartment in the dark hours of the morning, Eden showers and collapses into a deep sleep. He doesn’t stir again until the sun has already risen high in the sky. At least he doesn’t seem to be dreaming.
I spend most of the time awake, leaning against our balcony railing, watching the headlines and videos rotate on the city’s JumboTrons. News about what’s happening in Antarctica comes out in a steady stream. I watch the screens and see tanks roll through the Undercity, making their way down streets full of bonfires and angry people. There are police struggling to contain the chaos.
ROSS CITY IN FLAMES AS TROOPS, BROKEN VIRTUAL SYSTEM STRUGGLE
The President has called for an emergency meeting today in Batalla. But while all the politicians try to hash out a plan, time is ticking by. My lips tighten in frustration. The advantage that Hann has always had is the ability to ignore laws entirely. It wasmy advantage on the streets too. When you aren’t accountable to anything, you can move pretty goddy fast.
I look away, sick, as police surround a protester and swing their batons down at her body. The rest of the crowds raise their fists, cheering for Hann. He had wanted to make his point about the city’s corrupt system. He’s just willing to sacrifice all the people he claims to be fighting for in the process.
By the time my brother gets up, the sun has started to paint the sky gold.
I glance at him with a wry smile. “You look awful,” I say.
Eden lets out a single laugh as he limps over to join me. He’s holding his drone in one hand, its engine glowing with a faint blue light. “I don’t know how you climb all over the city like that without being completely useless the next day. My legs are killing me.”
I offer him a sip of my coffee. He takes it, cupping the hot mug between his hands, and we’re silent for a moment while the light turns steadily stronger. Eden tosses the drone in the air, and we watch as it hovers in place, steady and straight. Eden seems lost in thought, but I don’t push him. There’s a new ease in the quiet between us.
Finally, he straightens and nods out at the horizon, in the direction of Antarctica.
“I saw the news,” he says. “The Antarctican military has imposed martial law on Ross City.”
I shake my head. “No call signals are getting out of the city right now. It’s like no one knows how to function without the Level system in place.”
For us, who came from the humble streets of Lake, functioningon days when the power grid died was something we were used to dealing with. But a place like Ross City suddenly stripped of its technology?
Eden moves his fingers idly in the air, and his drone shifts to match his gesture, swerving right and then left. He frowns thoughtfully. “Hann said that his device would wipe the entire Level system clean,” he says. “But something about what Pressa said yesterday stuck with me. She mentioned that Hann might have taken down the entire system so that he could bring it back up again. Replace it with something to suit him.”
I nod. “But?”
He shakes his head. His fingers move again, and the drone obeys, flipping once in the air. “It’s stupid to dismantle the entire system only to rebuild it all over again. I don’t think he wiped it all clean. I think it’s just suppressed somehow, that he did something to disrupt the implementation of the system, but that it’s all still there somewhere. Intact. It’s much easier for him to work with something like that.” He shrugs. “I wouldn’t dismantle my drone completely if I wanted to change it. I’d just revise it.”
I look on, marveling at the invention of his drone as it turns this way and that, its power source strong and stable. “Are you saying you might know how he did that?”
There’s a long pause, but when Eden finally nods, I note the light in his eyes. “I’m saying I can find a way to reverse it. He’s using the engine that I built to power it. If I can get back into his circle, I can find a way to shut the whole thing down and get the Level system back up.”
To prove his point, he waves his drone back into the balcony andlets it hover between us. Then he reaches for it, sliding his finger underneath the glowing engine. The engine gives a sudden, strange noise, and then it shuts abruptly down, clattering to the balcony floor.
