Remember Yesterday

29

Later, someone shakes my shoulders, and I jerk awake.

“We fell asleep,” Tanner says, dark circles rimming his eyes. “We have to get to Callie. She needs you to send a memory every thirty-six hours to maintain the bond. It’s been…” He taps on his wrist com. “Twenty-nine hours.”

I sit straight up, my grogginess evaporating. Maintain the bond. That’s just a pretty way of saying: keep her tethered to this world—and alive. But there’s no need to panic. Not yet. “Seven hours. That’s plenty of time. The TechRA building can’t be more than a few miles away.”

“Yes, we should be fine.” But he gnaws on his cheek, as though there’s something else he wants to say.

“What is it, Tanner?”

“I have a bad feeling,” he says, and the words hit me like a slap. Tanner doesn’t operate on feelings. He relies on data and analysis and logical conclusions.

“Dresden’s finally gotten what she’s wanted for so long,” he continues slowly. “Things are going to change. I’m just not sure how.”

“Let’s go to Callie, then.” The anxiety saturates my veins and begins to seep into my muscles, my nerves. “We have to make sure she’s safe.”

We move through the streets, as quickly as we can on our own feet. The bullet trains are shut down; the moving sidewalks are still. Instead of showing the latest news, the holo-screens plastered against the skyscrapers play on a loop the footage of Chairwoman Dresden’s announcement. What’s more, every other holo-screen is dented, as though metal sculptures or wooden benches have been hurled at them.

“ComA’s issued a lockdown on Eden City.” Tanner scrolls through his wrist com as we move from the shadows of one building to another. “The rioters have spilled into the city, ripping up park patches, destroying government property. So there’s an enforced curfew until they can figure things out.”

I see movement in my peripheral vision and pull Tanner behind the corner of a building.

“Did you see that?” I pant. Either my heart’s racing—or it’s his. I can’t tell with our chests pressed together like this.

“ComA patrols.” His lips barely move, and the words are the slightest breath against my mouth. “With electro-whips. Searching for curfew violators. We can’t let them see us.”

I nod, not daring to speak. We huddle in the shadows until they pass.

In halts and sprints, adrenaline-pumping runs and heart-pounding waits, we make our way to the TechRA building. Finally, we arrive and proceed to the subterranean corridor without incident.

Without incident—but with a whole lot of emotion. Perspiration dots my upper lip and gathers at the nape of my neck, only to cool once it hits the chilly air. I peek over my shoulder for the thirty-seventh time. The hallway is sterile, empty. Even the stretchers that once lined the hallway are no longer present. The purple and green lights blink at me in the dimness.

I wish I could’ve changed out of my grubby, dried-out clothes, but stopping by my house was out of the question. As was swinging by Tanner’s apartment in the nearby scientific residences. Every extra second we spend outside means an extra second we might get caught. We can’t let that happen, not when we need to get to Callie.

Five hours and counting. Plenty of time, and yet, I feel each minute sliding into the next like sand dripping down an hourglass.

“Hurry.” I grit my teeth to stop them from chattering. “The sooner I can send that memory to Callie, the better I’ll feel.”

“On it.” He positions himself in front of the retina scan, lining up his eyes with the aperture. And stays there. Four seconds, six seconds. What’s taking so long?

“That’s weird,” he murmurs. “It usually beeps to indicate the scans match.”

Panic sprints up my throat. “Is something wrong?”

“Probably not. The maintenance bots were in here earlier this week. Maybe they upgraded the security system, and there’s some sort of glitch.” He moves to the next station and sticks his finger into the slot, so that the machine can take a sample of his blood. “That’s why we have these back-up security systems.”

His finger is pricked, and his face is scanned. He speaks into a microphone. But none of these results in that elusive beep.

He looks at me. I look at him. I realize all of a sudden we aren’t alone.

Small cameras nestle in the ceiling, each one covered by a round, reflective eye. At this moment, every single “eye” is trained on us.

“Tanner?” I whisper, my mouth as dry as the air. “Why are all those cameras pointed at us?”

Before he can answer, sirens blare and the purple and green lights flash, filling the entire hallway with chaos.

Fike, fike, fike. They’ve caught us.