It hits me.
I finally hear what they’re trying to tell me. “Hold on. Are you saying that—?” My chair squeals back behind me and I walk away to the other side of the room then right back again. I lean on the table and shake my head. “No! No way! He’s dead. Miesha’s husband is dead. She told me so. I saw the scars on her arms where she—”
“There are rumors about Karden,” Livvy says. “We have to know. If they’re true, he’s been holed up for sixteen years and no one’s tried to help him. We owe him that much.”
I backtrack, trying to remember every word Miesha told me about that night. She never saw them. All she saw was a burning house. I was walking back from the market.… The front door was open and bursting with flames.… I ran, screaming, breaking a window with my bare arms.… I thrashed, desperate to get to them, and then I felt a tazegun at my neck.… When I woke, I was in prison, and they told me they were dead.
She said it herself. She never saw them dead. She only knew what the prison officials had told her. They wouldn’t even let me make any kind of arrangements for their funerals.… As far as I know, their remains were shoveled up along with the burned rubble of the house.
Unless Karden’s body wasn’t there to shovel up. And with eighty billion duros at stake, the Security Forces would have covered all their tracks. But why now, after all these years, are there finally rumors? And if he’s been missing all this time, why the sudden urgency to find him? They all act like time is running out. I look at the four of them seated across from me waiting for me to respond. The table is turned—do I trust them enough to meet them halfway? Eighty billion duros gives them a lot of reasons to lie to me.
“Is it Karden or the money that you’re really after?”
“Karden,” Livvy and Xavier both say firmly and simultaneously. Jake nods his agreement.
Carver is slower to respond. He leans back in his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s tired and then gets up and begins pacing in the shadows of the room again. A nervous habit? But he doesn’t strike me as the nervous sort—more of the slow methodical type. “We all want to help Karden if he’s alive, but I’m not going to deny that the money is a big consideration too. There’s a small but growing movement in higher political circles that’s mumbling about reunification. They want to have one united country again, but there’s strong opposition from both of the fractured sides. That kind of money could give the Resistance a lot of mileage, and now there’s a small contingent in power who would actually listen. It could mean an instant end to the subclass of people the division created. No more Non-pacts, and as you know, Non-pacts has become a catch-all phrase for anyone who doesn’t meet certain standards.”
Like me. I know he’s playing to my sympathies, my lab-created body falling way short of meeting so-called legal standards. Miesha’s bitter words cut through me. The human race has always found a group to marginalize—every culture, every time, every race.
But that inequity still doesn’t mean I’m going to risk what I do have without more answers. “The money has always been out there somewhere. Why the sudden urgency now?”
“Bank accounts with no activity for fifteen years are absorbed by the country where they’re deposited. There’s a one-year grace period to reclaim them,” Livvy says. “We’re in that grace period now. But more importantly, if Karden is alive, once the money is gone for good, there will be no reason for the Security Forces to keep him alive. He’s living on borrowed time.”
“If he’s alive,” I say. “It might be just that, you know? Only rumors.”
“We’re well aware of that,” Carver answers.
They all stare at me, silent and waiting. The cards are laid out and it’s my turn to play.
This is no ordinary Favor. With this one I could lose everything I’ve managed to gain in the last few months. My freedom. After all those years of being a prisoner, first in a hellish cube and then on Gatsbro’s estate, I could end up in prison again. Big-time prison. Or worse, dead. In my old neighborhood, people could end up dead over a Benji in their wallet. With eighty billion duros at stake, plugging someone wouldn’t even be an afterthought.
But we’re talking about Miesha’s husband. Leader of the Resistance. I’m still trying to get my head around that possibility. I remember the knife in my pack. His knife. It was the only thing of his that Miesha had left and she gave it to me. I remember using it to cut away the CabBot’s fingers that clutched my wrist. And before that it slashed and disabled the iScroll on my palm that Gatsbro was using to track me. His knife has saved my skin twice already. It’s a long shot, but if it is him …
“I’m not here to join any Resistance,” I tell them. “Just to return a Favor.”
Carver and Livvy both nod.
I throw my pack onto the table and sit down. “Okay. How do I fit in?”
The Set
I walk around the apartment. Small but extravagant. Beautiful, even. Impressive. And that’s the point. To impress. Louisburg Square means as much now as it did when I lived in Boston, but I never set foot in one of these houses back then.
“How can they afford this?”
Xavier opens the bedroom door and waves me in. “I told you. They’ve sunk everything they have into you and finding him. The funds are drained. I probably don’t need to tell you the money didn’t come easy either. A lot of skipped meals for a lot of Non-pacts who wanted to contribute.”
I’m already feeling the weight of their hope on me.
“We only have the apartment until the end of next month. That’s when the real owners move in.”
End of next month? I don’t plan on playing this role for a week. I need to get on with my life, my plans, all the things that have been put on hold for too long. I need to figure out who or what I am. I need to live the life that Jenna wants me to live. I need to hurry and live it. Catch up. Is that possible? Can I ever catch up to Jenna?
“It shouldn’t take that long,” I say.
“Says you who’s never met the Secretary.”
I ignore Xavier and open a closet. It’s full of shirts and pants and shoes that are all equal to any of the expensive clothing that Gatsbro provided me. And it all looks like my size. They knew I would do this. I turn to Carver who has followed us into the bedroom. “Is all this really necessary? This expense?”