I hear Kina catch herself as she finishes her sentence—she’s clearly said more than she intended to.
“What did you hear?” I ask, moving the conversation on.
“Well, she was always meeting friends when she was on Ebb, other users, you know? In virtual cocktail bars inside the seedier parts of one of the VR worlds, and I’d hear her talking to them about an uprising—always the word uprising, never war. I didn’t think anything of it, I just assumed it was the usual Ebb-user nonsense, but the topic seemed to keep coming up. But an uprising? That’s not possible.”
I barely hear the end of her sentence—my mind is racing back to the conversation between Emery and Alistair nearly two weeks ago. Somehow they had gotten wind of the war rumors too.
“It’s probably nothing,” I say. “We’re just jumping to conclusions—late rain and an early Delay doesn’t mean there’s a war coming. Before I was put away, the biggest news was all the people disappearing from the city, but no one suggested that was the beginning of a war.”
There’s a pause before Kina answers. “That’s still happening,” she tells me. “The news calls them the Missing. Around forty people a year, mostly Regulars, they just vanish. Some people say they go into the Red Zones, find a way to survive the radiation.”
“I heard they’re planning a revolution,” I say, almost laughing at the idea of a bunch of Regulars overthrowing a government run by Alts. “Anyway, we don’t jump to conclusions about the Missing, so why should we jump to conclusions about this?”
“You’re right,” she says. “I’m sure when Wren arrives she’ll explain that this is just a malfunction or something.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“Yeah,” Kina agrees, and we let the silence between us stay there for a while.
“Got any more books I can borrow?” Kina asks. “I’ve read all of the ones you gave me twice.”
I laugh even though the sense of unease hasn’t left me. “Of course,” I say. “Any requests?”
“Anything at all.”
I look through the selection of books I’ve brought outside with me, trying to decide which ones she’ll like best.
* * *
The commotion of the yard still hasn’t died down when the end of exercise alarm sounds.
Kina and I say goodbye, and it’s not until I’m lying on my bed reading the penultimate chapter of the second Lord of the Rings book that I realize that I didn’t run today. I suppose I was too distracted by the Delay and the late rain.
I finish my book and pick one that I haven’t read in a long time. One thirty comes and goes, and Wren doesn’t appear.
She’s been late before, I tell myself, trying to focus on the words, but I can’t seem to find my way into the book. I keep glancing at the time: two o’clock, two thirty, three o’clock, three thirty, four. Still no Wren.
I get up and pace my room. It only takes a few steps to walk from the door to the back wall, but I need to do something to distract myself.
Finally, at a few minutes to five, the hatch slides open and I see Wren’s tired eyes staring back at me.
“Wren,” I say, moving close to the door, “what’s going on?” I don’t mean to sound so panicked, but I can’t help myself.
“Hi, Luka,” she says, and something in her too-wide eyes sets me on edge. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“So here’s the deal,” she says, and something in her listless voice tells me this isn’t the first time she’s had to give this speech today. “The Delay is not a mistake; it’s been confirmed by the Region. There’s an enormous clinical trial coming up, and the Delay will be cumulative, meaning it will be added on to whatever existing time you have on your last Delay contract.”
“Right,” I say, surprised by the leniency shown by a government that could just as easily take away our banked time and sweep it under the carpet. After all, it’s not like any of us will ever get out of here alive to tell anyone. “And if I don’t accept it?”
“Unfortunately, not accepting it doesn’t mean your Delay reverts back to your previous postponement of your sentence,” Wren says, and her eyes rise up as though she’s remembering the rules of the new Delay. “Refusal to accept will still result in the commencement of your sentencing.”
“So I’ll be Deleted if I refuse?” I confirm.
“Essentially, yes.”
“I suppose I’ll accept, then.”
“I suppose that’s best,” Wren replies, and again I sense apprehension.
“What about the groups? What’s the difference between groups A and B?” I ask.
“That I don’t know,” Wren admits. “All I’ve been told is that the groups were assigned at random.”
“Right. Hey, but nine months until my next Delay,” I say, shrugging. “That’s pretty good.”
I walk to the screen and raise my finger to press the accept button.
“Luka, wait,” Wren calls.
I stop and lower my finger from the screen. “What is it?” I ask.
She bites her lower lip and shakes her head. “No, just go ahead. You have to take it.”
“Wren, what is it? If something’s going on, I should know—”
“It’s not that. I don’t know … I have a bad feeling. I’ve heard some things.”
“Wren, if this Delay is going to kill me, then I’d rather just decline it.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know what it’ll be but …” Wren trails off and then looks up and to the left—activating a menu in her Lens. Her eyes move right and then she mutters the voice command, “Surveillance off.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” I ask.
“Luka, listen, I shouldn’t tell you this, but a file was sent to my government email. I think it was a mistake—it was lines of code, really complex stuff. They were deleted from my Lens files almost immediately, but it was a program, an executable file. There was also a document attached. I only had a few seconds to read it before it was erased, but it said something about Phase One and the Great Selection, and something about the Sane Zone and the Battery Project. I don’t know what it all meant, but it didn’t seem right, Luka. It scared me.”
I look to Wren’s Panoptic camera, knowing that she’s taking a huge risk. The government isn’t supposed to watch the footage back without good reason or consent, but the way things have been going recently, nothing would surprise me.
I think about what she has told me, try to make sense of the words. “It’s probably nothing,” I say, but I can hear the doubt loud and clear in my own voice. “The government uses code names for plans all the time.”
“The file was accidentally sent to all government employees, but it was addressed to ‘Tier Three applicants.’ This was on Saturday night, four days ago. Fifteen government employees haven’t been heard from since.”
“Wren, I don’t have a choice; if I don’t take the Delay, I’ll be killed anyway.”