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  Luella’s eyes narrowed. “And you are …?”

  “Omar Strong. I’m the new rover. I came by just after Kendall called Enforcer 10. Chord and I had plans for tonight. We were supposed to meet here and then go to Dreamland. Have you ever been?”

  Luella pressed her hand over her chest, displaying her purple-and-silver-striped fingernails. “I adore Dreamland Disco. Most turbulent music in the Midlands.” Then she smiled and set her hand on her hip. “And you’re a clever raven to change the subject. How’d you get your X, Mr. Strong? Don’t bother lying, either. I can look it up.”

  “Look it up then,” Omar said. “Pleasure meeting you, Miss Flynn. Sorry we couldn’t be more helpful. Kendall? Are you ready to go?”

  His question took Kendall off guard, as did the way he held out his hand like they were a pair. Pairing up was all Safe Lands men ever wanted. “Um …” She did want to get away from the microphone and the woman holding it, but she didn’t want to give Omar the wrong idea. She stepped beside him and glanced at Luella, who watched them with raised brows.

  Omar took hold of her hand anyway. His palm was rough, like he tasked outdoors. She wanted to let go, embarrassed to touch a stranger in such a familiar way, but she didn’t want Luella to ask any more questions.

  “Good night,” Omar said, pulling Kendall away from the camera.

  “Maybe I’ll see the two of you at Dreamland,” Luella called after them.

  “Maybe,” Omar said, without looking back.

  But Kendall looked back at Luella three times as they walked away, worried that the woman would follow them, see they weren’t really together, ask more questions. Then she changed fears and hoped Luella would come so Kendall wouldn’t be alone with Omar. But finally Luella waved her microphone at one of the enforcers and stepped into the crowd, Alb on her heels. Gone.

  Kendall pulled her hand from Omar’s grip, and they continued walking side by side, though Kendall’s senses were on alert. It was only another few yards to the corner where she could wave a cab and get away from Omar. “You’re asking for trouble, playing games with Luella Flynn.”

  Omar shrugged one shoulder. “You looked like you wanted to escape. I was trying to help.”

  She had wanted to get away from Luella. “But the way you cut her off and didn’t answer her question about your X … You don’t want her as an enemy.”

  He shoved his hands into his front shorts pockets. “Aw, she doesn’t scare me.”

  Fool of a man. “She should. Luella Flynn is the most powerful woman in the Safe Lands.”

  Those bright eyes of his met hers again. “Why’d you say you weren’t Kendall Collin?”

  She didn’t owe him any explanations. “How did you get your X?” Murdering someone, perhaps?

  His smile lit up his face and eyes, making him look even younger. She wanted to ask how old he was but doubted she’d get the truth.

  Omar stopped walking and turned to face her, hands still stuffed into his pockets. “Can I walk you home, Kendall?”

  It could have been a line from one of the Old movies Kendall had seen as a child. Men didn’t say such things in the Safe Lands. “No, thank you.”

  Omar pulled his hands from his pockets and stepped toward the curb. “Let me wave you a cab, then. I don’t like the idea of you walking alone with a murderer on the loose.”

  Again with the chivalry. How could she know whether or not it was an act? He had a macho way about him, though he wasn’t much taller than she was. He had some muscle on his arms as well, but if she wasn’t recovering from childbirth, she’d bet she could run faster than he could. “I like walking. It’s why I task for the messenger office.”

  “Okay.” He pocketed his hands again. “Well, good night, Kendall. Be careful.” He flashed one last wide smile and walked off down the sidewalk.

  What a weird man. Boy. Guy. She forced herself to stop watching him and waved a cab. Sure, she preferred to walk, but Omar had made a good point. No need to tempt a murderer.

  Not until she was safe in her apartment with the door locked did she remove the messages from the waistband of her shorts. She carried them to her kitchen table and spread them on the glass surface.

  There were four white envelopes addressed to Dane Skott, Ruston Neil, Domini Bentz, and Charlz Sims. None had a grid code or return address. Three were private residences, and the fourth was an MO Box from her own branch.

  She didn’t recognize any of the names. But Kendall had lived in the Safe Lands only a few months before she’d gotten pregnant and been sent to the harem, so she’d never met many people outside the messenger office. Chord had always been kind, had never tried to pair up with her. He’d been a real friend. Kind and authentic. And if delivering these messages was his dying wish, Kendall would make it happen, murderer or not.

  CHAPTER

  1

  Defying any government was a dangerous game. And while Safe Lands enforcers considered rebellion an X-able offense, the acts that inspired rebellion were far greater crimes, in Mason’s opinion. Crimes against humanity and liberty. Crimes of manipulation and terror.

  Ciddah would likely disagree.

  Mason pushed the beautiful woman from his thoughts and entered the train station. Zane had told him to find locker 127. The lockers were located outside the gate, and he found number 127 easily and tapped onto the pad the code Zane had given him.

  The locker clicked open. Inside, Mason found a small metal box. He opened the lid and removed a pair of black gloves that supposedly held a generic SimTag in the right hand. The metal box had somehow concealed the SimTag’s location, which would now appear on the grid.

  Ever since rebels had cut the official SimTag from Mason’s hand, he had to choose whether or not to carry it with him. Today he’d left it in his apartment, hoping those monitoring him might think he was watching the ColorCast or sleeping. But he couldn’t pass through the gate from the Highlands to the Midlands without a SimTag of some kind, hence these gloves.

  He pulled them on and shut the locker, then walked to the Midlands turnstile and tapped his right fist — his right glove — on the SimPad. The turnstile light turned green, and Mason walked through.

  Of all the remnant of Glenrock, only he, Mia, and Mia’s mother, Jennifer, still resided in the Highlands. The others were now in hiding in the Midlands under the protection of the Black Army rebels. Except Omar, who had a Midlands apartment.

  Mason took the train to the Belleview station and got off. He found locker 127 in that train station and deposited the gloves into the metal box inside. Now, without a SimTag on his person, he should be invisible to enforcers monitoring the grid. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t being followed.

  He thought back to his trial before the Safe Lands Guild, and their accusations. Though they hadn’t been able to prove he’d been involved in the harem escape, Lawten Renzor, the task director general of the Safe Lands, had warned him they were watching him.

  So as Mason made his way down Belleview Drive, he scanned the street and sidewalks for suspicious persons. This was his first time in the Midlands, and its dullness surprised him. The structures and fake vegetation were the same strange colors — he passed a building of turquoise bricks with pale pink shrubs out front — but the place lacked the cleanliness and polished luxuriousness of the Highlands.

  There were plenty of Wyndo screens flashing the latest mimic styles and product expositions to the public, but they were caked with dust and grime and the occasional cobweb. The streets were cracked and dirty. The buildings were flaking and had patches of paint that covered graffiti. Some had graffiti still, doubtlessly put there by rebels. Mason passed by some that said, “The Black Army wants you” and “Enforcers are evil.”

  And it wasn’t only the scenery that was more rundown than the Highlands: Even the Midlands people didn’t seem as extravagant. Sure, silver was everywhere as people mimicked Finley Gray and Luella Flynn, but there was less Roller Paint here. And he couldn’t be certain, bu
t it seemed like less cosmetic surgery as well.

  A plane flew overhead and Mason stopped to watch it. All his life he’d seen them and wondered. Now he knew the Safe Lands sent planes to Wyoming to trade and to other places to scavenge. Since there were people here in Colorado and in Wyoming as well, there were likely other civilizations in the world too. Perhaps the Safe Lands Guild knew of more.

  Mason took a deep breath and continued on, recalling Levi’s directions to the rebel meeting place. His older brother had never been great with details, but so far Mason had encountered no obstacles or confusion. He walked past the Get It Now store, past the charge station, and stopped in front of the Sim Slingers SimArt shop where Omar officially tasked, though his little brother also did various jobs for Bender that the Safe Lands Registration Department didn’t know about. Besides Mason, Mia, and Jennifer, Omar was the only other outsider who was still officially registered as a Safe Lands national.

  A steady beat throbbed from within the shop. The windows were Wyndo viewing glass, and Mason found himself watching the image of a technician altering SimArt on a computer while a SimArt flower on her client’s shoulder changed colors. Such technology seemed similar to painting. No wonder Omar liked it.

  Sim Slingers stood beside the Cinetopia Theater on Whetstone Road, separated by an alley. That was where Mason needed to go. He slipped down the alley, then poured on the speed, hoping to reach the corridor before anyone passed by on the street behind. He scanned the alley for the break in the wall that supposedly led to the back of theater nine, which was where Bender’s rebels met.

  Mason looked over his shoulder more often than he should, which caused him to almost miss the narrow opening in the cement wall of the theater. He darted into the corridor. Ahead, two men stood beside a door, looking like pillars.

  Mason walked up to them and stopped, unsure what to say.

  “Name?” Pillar One asked.

  “Eagle,” Mason said, which was short for his radio call sign, Eagle Eyes, and the code name Levi had told him to use for meetings.

  Pillar Two pulled out a SimScanner and ran it over Mason’s body, the dull buzz seeming to prolong the awkwardness of the moment. “He’s clean.”

  Pillar One stepped aside. “Go on in.”

  “Thanks.” Mason entered the building and passed down a dark hallway that let out in the left front corner of a small movie theater. The low rumble of Bender’s voice signaled that the meeting had already begun.

  The theater held maybe a hundred seats, all covered in thick red fabric. According to Levi, Jakk, the man who operated the theater, was one of Bender’s rebels. Years ago, he’d built a wall over the interior entrance to theater nine to offer a secure meeting location for Safe Lands rebels. The only entrances now were through the back alley or a chute in the floor that led to an underground storm drain. The rest of the theater was open for business and showed the latest Safe Lands feature films to the public.

  There were maybe two dozen people scattered in the seats in the front three rows of the theater, all eyes on the rebel called Bender, who stood in front of the darkened movie screen.

  Bender looked to be in his fifties — too old to exist legally in the Safe Lands. His forehead was a mass of soft wrinkles, and a short gray beard covered his cheeks and chin. A scar had melted the skin over his left eye so that he always appeared to be squinting. He wore all black. Fitting for a man of the shadows.

  Mason spotted Levi in the second row and made his way toward him as Bender continued his speech. Levi still had a small scab on the bridge of his nose, which was now slightly crooked since he’d never gotten it fixed after Omar had broken it.

  “… learned a valuable lesson in all this. Liberations are a sham. They’re not filmed live. We should’ve known, really. It’s always been obvious that they edited things out. Just never suspected … I take full responsibility for failing Lonn.”

  Mason slid past the knees of those sitting in the second row: Shaylinn, Jordan, Levi. Jemma, Levi’s wife, scooted down, leaving the seat between her and Levi open for Mason.

  He sat down, thankful to have finally arrived. “Thanks, Jemma.”

  “You’re late,” Levi whispered.

  “Sorry. My rebel skills are not as proficient as yours, brother.” He truly didn’t want to be here. The news he was carrying would only depress everyone further.

  Zane sat in the row ahead of Mason. The rebel teen had been shot in the leg trying to help them free the women from the harem and still walked with a limp. He had short, spiky brown hair, was missing one ear, and had three spirals of gold metal looped through one nostril. He raised his hand and leaned back in his seat, which cracked under his weight. “You think Lonn is dead, then?” he asked Bender. “You think that’s what liberation truly is?”

  “Don’t know what to think,” Bender said. “I don’t feel like he’s dead. Either way, his liberation has people scared, and rightly so. We’ve lost eleven that I know of in the past year. We need to assure our followers that the Black Army is strong. That we have purpose and safety. And we need more members.”

  “Maybe you should stop using the messenger offices.” Omar’s soft voice came from the back of the room.

  Mason looked over his shoulder and saw that his little brother was sitting alone in the very top row of the theater. The light on the end of the personal vaporizer he was holding to his lips glowed blue, which meant he was inhaling.

  “Someone knew Chord was up to something,” Omar said, his voice hoarse from the vapor.

  “You were on watch, Omar,” Bender said. “Why didn’t you see anything?”

  Omar didn’t answer. He simply blew out a plume of black vapor.

  Mason winced at his little brother’s attitude. He understood it, but Omar was in a dangerous place right now, and picking fights with the head of the rebels was ignorant.

  “We can’t stop using the messenger office,” Bender said. “It’s vital to communication between rebels and potential recruits. Levi, since Chord was killed when one of yours was on watch, you provide a replacement.”

  “I don’t think so,” Levi said, and his tone made Mason flinch. “It’s one thing to ask us to man your lookout posts, but it’s another to ask us to make your deliveries. We don’t want to get involved in your little war.”

  “I’m not asking,” Bender said. “Find me a replacement for Chord, and I want your people helping us scout for new members.”

  Levi made to stand, but his best friend, Jordan, held him back. “Why should we help the Black Army?” Jordan asked. “We just want to get to our kids and get out of this dung pile.”

  “Levi and I made a deal.” Bender scowled, which made his scarred eye close as if he were winking angrily. “I let you and your people stay in my bunker and keep you fed. In exchange, you do what I say. Once you’re gone, you’re gone. Until then, you work for me.”

  “You want my pregnant wife to walk up to people and say, ‘Hey, you want to help take over the government?’ “ Jordan asked. “Are you nuts?”

  “None of you will recruit,” Bender said. “Just be on the lookout. I want the names of people who’ve been Xed, complainers, people who’ve lost a lifer. Ask questions. Listen. You get the feeling someone might join, tell me and we’ll make contact. But be careful. Some of these people might be spies. Otley’s not a shell. He didn’t like that you outsiders got your women out of the harem and made him look incompetent.”

  “I’d like to volunteer,” Shaylinn said. “To work in Chord’s position.”

  “Um, no she wouldn’t,” Jordan said, glaring at his baby sister.

  “Yes, I would,” Shaylinn said. “I’m tired of staying indoors.”

  Jemma leaned past Mason’s knees to look down to where Shaylinn sat at the end of the row. “It’s not safe, Shay. Your face is plastered all over the Safe Lands.”

  “Then we can dye my hair or something.” Shaylinn was tall for fourteen, but it would be foolish for her to go outdoors with Safe La
nds enforcers looking for her, since they’d made her pregnant in the Surrogacy Center just before the women had escaped the harem.

  “We could certainly create a convincing disguise,” Bender said. “Did you make a connection to Kendall Collin when you were in the harem, Miss Shaylinn?”

  “Yes.” Shaylinn leaned forward on her chair and bounced, as if Bender’s attention were a special gift. “She was my mentor.”

  “Stop talking, Shay,” Jordan said.

  “She’ll be perfect, then,” Bender said. “I’ll have Red come by this evening to work on a dis — ”

  “No.” Jordan stood up and strangled the back of the chair in front of his. “She’s not doing this.”

  Levi stood as well. “Omar will take Chord’s place.”

  “But Levi.” Shaylinn leaned past Jordan and fixed her gaze on Levi, big brown eyes blinking, lips turned in a frown. “I want to help. Please?”

  “Omar already knows the messenger office, Shay, so he’s the logical choice.”

  How very diplomatic of Levi to make it sound like Omar was merely the best candidate for the job when Mason knew his brother would never send a fourteen-year-old girl to be a spy. Omar was only sixteen, but Levi didn’t have a lot of options.

  “I’m just a part-time rover,” Omar whined from the back. “I can’t guarantee I’ll get the right shifts.”

  “The shifts don’t matter,” Bender said. “New messages will show up in your sorter.”

  “Then that’s settled,” Levi said, sitting back down.

  “Good.” Jordan fell back to his seat as well.

  Shaylinn slouched, scowling at her lap. She might not look pregnant, but that didn’t change the fact that there was a child growing inside her. Perhaps once she began to show she would stop volunteering for risky positions.

  “That’s all I have for today,” Bender said. “Levi, feel free to use the theater as long as you need to.” Bender turned and walked toward the exit.