It made too much sense. It was everything Birgitte had loathed about the TechCorps, everything she’d been fighting to tear down. There were soldiers like Knox and Gray, people who lived twenty-plus years with their Protectorate implants, but even they couldn’t pull the average life expectancy up over eight years.
Most soldiers were dead by year five.
Of course they’d lied on Gray’s medical charts. The odds of Gray being killed in action before rejection ever became an issue had been in the surgeon’s favor.
Fuck that guy.
At least the rage helped burn away her panic. “I know specialists,” she told Gray. “Defectors. I can find someone to help you.”
His smile vanished, and a look of remorse flitted across his features. “I’m sorry. If it was that easy, Maya, I’d do it.”
There was nothing easy about tapping into her network of failed revolutionaries. They spanned the city and beyond, living quiet, careful lives. Scientists and analysts and administrators, people who’d once held access to the deepest, darkest corners of the TechCorps. People who knew about doctored files and acceptable losses and all the exploitative corruption that had driven Birgitte to rebellion.
Of course, Gray couldn’t know about her network. The rebellion had been put down swiftly and silently. As far as most of their less seditious coworkers knew, Birgitte had been promoted to lead a satellite facility, and Maya had escaped during the transition, only to turn up dead in a ditch within the year. The TechCorps liked to keep things tidy. Dani and Nina were the only people who knew the full, ugly truth. Everyone else only knew bits and pieces of it, fractions of the whole.
But her contacts knew she was alive. And every time Maya reached out to one of them, she risked betraying her continued existence to Tobias Richter, the head of TechCorps security—and a man who featured prominently in her darkest nightmares.
For this, she would chance it.
She gathered her courage and parted her lips, ready to explain—
Conall burst into the room, trailing curses. “God fucking damn it, Emerge is on the move.”
He tossed a tablet to Nina. She flipped through the screens, but every camera showed the same thing—empty rooms and deserted hallways.
She breathed a curse. “Damn John, anyway. If we’d known, we could have at least planted trackers on their vehicles.”
Knox agreed. “Now we’ll have to do this the hard way.”
“We need to roll out now,” Conall said. “Scour the place top to bottom. I’ll check the satellite feeds.”
“Tia Ivonne can look after the child.” Nina turned to Maya. “Will you stay here with Gray?”
A deceptively simple question—and a terrifying one. Staying here to run their community library on her own should have been a breeze compared to strapping on armor and going out to chase mad scientists across the decaying wilds outside Atlanta. But retrieval jobs never felt that dangerous with Dani and Nina around.
Maya had never really been on her own before. She’d be the front line for any crisis that came up in the community, the person expected to show up if there was trouble and put a stop to it. She’d be the boss.
Her. In charge.
Nina was clearly confident that she could handle it. And Maya wasn’t the sheltered, traumatized girl from the Hill anymore. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
“Good.” Nina’s next instructions were for Conall. “Round up Rafe and Dani. Tell them to be ready for anything.”
“Got it.”
Conall rocketed out of the room, leaving Knox to stare at Gray. “No protest from you about staying here?”
“I’m stubborn, not delusional. Besides…” He grimaced. “That stuff you squirted up my nose makes me woozy.”
Knox squeezed Gray’s shoulder. “Get some rest. I mean it.”
He flexed his legs and sighed. “I don’t think I have a choice, Cap.”
“No, you don’t.” After a final back pat, Knox smiled at Maya. “Don’t let him give you any shit.”
“I don’t let anyone give me shit,” Maya retorted. “I got this, Knox. Go. Be a superhero.”
Knox headed out of the room, his fingers trailing over Nina’s as he passed. For all the time Maya had spent teasing Nina about those yearning stares—not to mention the couple’s tendency to make out in literally every room in the building—her heart still lurched when she caught those quiet moments of affection between Knox and Nina.
Garrett Knox adored Nina with every atom of his being, and Maya adored him for it. Nina deserved to be loved.
“Come on.” Nina bent and slid under one of Gray’s arms, wrapping it around her shoulders. “Up you go.”
She helped him to his feet easily, as if he weren’t several inches taller and much bigger than her. To his credit, he didn’t protest her help, though the very tops of his ears did turn a little pink.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“You’re welcome.” Nina raised an eyebrow, a gesture meant solely for Maya. “If he gives you that trouble Knox mentioned? You have my permission to recite something esoteric and terribly boring at him. For hours.”
Nina left Gray standing under his own power, looking mostly steady. Maya braced her hands on her hips and ignored the urge to bundle him into bed and stroke his hair until the lines of pain etched into his face eased.
Those were ill-advised urges that would end badly. For everyone.
Instead, she gave him her best try me stare, the one she flashed at belligerent teen boys who returned tablets with cracked screens or precious books with creased or stained pages. “Are you gonna give me grief?”
“Depends.” He squinted at her. “Are you gonna keep looking at me like that?”
“Not if you behave.” She unbent and tilted her head. “Go hop in bed. I’ll bring you something to eat later.”
His squint turned into a scowl. “No, you won’t.”
She managed not to snap at him in reply, but those lines on his face were killing her. So was his unnatural pallor and the way he held himself, like everything hurt.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “How long, Gray? How long has this been happening?”
At first, she thought he might not answer. Then he slowly turned to her, his scowl melting away, replaced by an equally grave expression. “About a month. I thought my levels were just out of whack, and Luna would tune me up during maintenance. But when she said everything looked fine … That’s when I knew.”
A month. Maya shut down the flood of research data that threatened to cascade through her brain like an avalanche, knowing she’d pay later with a worse headache than the one already starting to throb behind her eyes. She didn’t need to dive into her memories to know his situation was bad.
Implant rejection was a slow death. Gray had a year if he was lucky. A couple of months if he wasn’t.
Maya exhaled softly. “You should have told us.”
“Why? So you could look at me like…” His voice trailed off, and he gestured impatiently in her direction. “Like that? No, thanks.”
Ouch.
But he was right. Maya didn’t even need a mirror to imagine the exact look in her eyes, the precise degree of concern and pity. It was the look on Nina’s face every time Maya descended the stairs after a sleepless night, the shadows deep under her eyes. The weight of all the words Nina held back, the pulsing need to help even though they both knew there was nothing to be done.