FREE SAMPLE (Ch.1)

“Jump, tuck, and roll,” they’d said.

It was only after I took a running leap off the moving train that I realized I had no idea how to execute that.

In the split second of panic as I hurled from the train to the building, my muscles did the only thing they could think of. I curled into a ball and threw my hands over my head as the roof rushed up to catch me. My landing was more of a “splay” than a “roll” as I crashed hip-first onto the concrete.

I moaned as the inertia shuddered through my bones. The skin on my right leg screamed, reminding me that the chemical burn I’d sustained this morning was fresh and festering. At least I was wearing thick jeans and long sleeves.

I looked up and was privately gratified to find that my traveling companion hadn’t nailed the landing either. Nic stared at his bloody palms and then brushed them off with a wince.

“Can you walk?” he said as he struggled to do the same.

“Yeah.” I knew nothing was broken; my hip and thigh would probably just wear a bruise for the next decade. It would go nicely with the leg scars I was no doubt developing under the layers of bandages.

I grasped the ledge and hauled myself up. I glanced over the edge of the roof and nearly vomited. Not because of the height—it was only two stories—but because of the headache that was ramming into my skull like a bull beating down a gate. This was the third time this week that I’d taken a hard impact; it was a wonder I could still remember my name.

I pinched my temples and reminded myself why I had jumped off a moving train. Nic and I had just been deported from the prison island of Rott to be questioned by the United for our various and sundry acts of rebellion—except our train had been “hijacked” by friendly strangers, who, assuming everything was still going to plan, were going to take us to a safe place.

I looked up. Three men were waiting on the roof. They were dressed like maintenance crew, in jackets with a forgettable company logo on the back. If anyone had seen them on the roof prior to our dramatic arrival, I don’t think they would have thought anything of it.

I could only hope the passing train had blocked our botched “jump, tuck, and roll” from any nosey passerby.

“Come on,” one of the strangers approached me, “we need to get you two out of sight.”

He grasped my arm. I was grateful for the guidance; my headache was blurring my sense of direction. He pulled me through the door and down the stairwell to a rear exit, where a windowless white service van was parked in the alley.

Nic followed. “They told me we’d be taking the subway.”

“Change of plans.” One of them rapped on the rear door of the van. “The subway’s been compromised. Our connection didn’t make contact. So we’re going to have to slog it through rush hour.”

The doors opened, and a hand reached out of the shadows in the back of the van. I accepted the offer of help and let the faceless stranger pull me up and guide me into the corner, where I sank down against the wall.

The van rocked as Nic joined us. The doors were slammed and latched without ceremony, plunging us into complete blackness.

“Hang on,” an unfamiliar voice said. There was a clatter, and then a weak light flickered on. Our chaperone held a flashlight that cast his features into sharp relief.

I heard the cabin doors shut, and the engine revved to life. The diesel rumble made the whole van shake, and the shudder shot straight up my bones and into my head. I moaned as my headache roared. The whole world swayed, completely out of time with the rocking of the van as it jerked forward. Black spotted my vision.

You’re going to pass out. The warning flared across my subconscious. I scooted away from the wall, buried my face in my knees, and closed my eyes. Breathe. Breathe! I sucked in a shuddery breath and let it out, then pulled in another. And another.

“Hey. You good?”

Against my better judgment, I lifted my head and looked up. Our escort leaned over me. He’d balanced the flashlight on a nearby crate, projecting its diffused light onto the roof of the van.

“No,” I managed, my slurred tone confirming my statement.

“Here, this will help with the nausea.” He held out a water bottle—the cap mercifully removed—and a small white pill.

I squinted. “How did you know I was—”

He raised an eyebrow. “You look like death.”

I didn’t doubt it. I accepted the offerings and gingerly sipped the water. When my stomach didn’t refuse it, a took a mouthful and swallowed the pill. Vaguely I wondered where he had gotten it—did they know I had suffered a head injury this morning and came prepared?

Did all that really happen this morning? The day’s events flashed through my mind like a movie starring someone else. Nic and I had blown up a factory of dangerous chemicals and released a vicious computer virus onto the internet. We did that. We destroyed the government’s superweapon. We crippled the United.

I repeated that fact over and over in my mind, hoping it would ground me in reality. On one hand, our escapades on Rott seemed like a lifetime ago. On the other hand, my body still felt trapped in that self-destructing factory. I heard the endless sirens wailing, smelled the blood-like stench of Red Rain as it burned through the metal machinery and scalded my leg, and felt myself falling, falling…

“Philadelphia.” It was Nic this time. He caught me as I swooned. He took the water bottle from my hand and propped me up against a crate. “Deep breaths.”

I ignored the admonition; my lungs were fluttering in tune with my heart. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Why?”

“Just do it! I need someone—anyone—to keep talking.” I tipped my head back and sucked small breaths in through my nose.

He shifted uncomfortably. “Umm, okay. Where do you want me to start?”

I used my last remaining ounce of motor control to glare at him. I knew our alliance was loose, but he owed me this one. It was his fault I nearly died in that factory today.

“Okay, okay.” He sat down cross-legged next to me. “The United captured us—all of us. You, me—”

“Dad. Ephesus.” I wrapped my arms around my knees.

“—and Cea. Yes, that’s right.” He used the same tone you would with a five-year-old; it seemed to help him as much as it was helping me. “They separated us. I don’t know where the others are. They sent us to Rott.”

“Ambrose,” I growled. My anger gave me a moment of mental clarity. “Ambrose is dead.”

“Very much so.”

I shuddered, remembering his body splattered on the floor of the burning factory. I tried to muster an emotion—any emotion. Commander Ambrose had overseen the unassimilated concentration camp my family had been detained in, until he’d gotten a better offer to help produce Red Rain. He had breathed down my neck for so long—surely his death should rouse some response from me, Christlike or not. Maybe it was the fog in my head, but I felt nothing, and that terrified me.

“Keep talking.”

Nic chewed his lip. “They were making Red Rain on Rott.”

“Because my dad finished the formula.” That was why they’d chased us down and thrown us in prison: to force my father to finish what Nic had started. Presumably they’d threatened to kill me if he didn’t, but I’ll never know. My father hadn’t explained the last time we talked, before they sentenced me to Rott. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

Chaotic emotions came at me in a wave, but they were drowned out by a swell of nausea. Whatever that guy had given me, it was not helping. I heaved through my nose.

Nic watched me. “Yes, he did. But we destroyed the factory. We set the systems to overload.”

“And you uploaded the virus.”

“Nasty bugger,” our escort inserted himself into the conversation for the first time. He handed Nic another water bottle. “Where in the world did you get a weapon like that?”

I let my muddled mind churn over the question for a minute. “My brother…” Ephesus had made it, along with a bunch of other programs and prototypes—and it was all on a flash drive that was currently wedged in my shoe. I reached for it.

Nic grasped my wrist. “Less talking, more listening.” He pushed me back against the crate, then kept talking before I could muster up the cognitive ability to argue. “The United sent us back to the mainland for questioning, but our friends here intercepted us.” He nodded at our escort, who gave a sarcastic salute. “We’re going to a safe place, where we’ll get our files wiped.”

“I have to pick a new name,” I whispered, remembering.

“That’s right.” Nic took a swig of his water and grimaced.

I leaned my head against the crate, questions swirling faster than the stars that were dancing in my vision. I knew it was necessary to avoid prosecution—but how? How could I pick a new name? Not only did I have absolutely no idea what I’d call myself, but I couldn’t imagine being anyone but Philadelphia Smyrna.

Changing my name seemed like the final betrayal, the last shred of my self-autonomy being ripped from my grasp. Despite all the trauma that had happened to me over the past six years—being labeled a criminal and contained in a camp, having my family torn apart multiple times—my name had stayed with me. I was Philadelphia, and that was something not even the government could take from me.

If I’m not Philadelphia, who am I?

I wanted to cry, but the need to vomit was greater. Before I could register what was happening, I wretched.

“Phil!” Nic dropped his water bottle.

“Everything hurts,” I moaned, and I meant it. The feeling of pain in every joint of my body was overwhelming—and so heavy. I suddenly felt like I’d left Earth’s gravity and was slogging through wet concrete.

“What did you do?” Nic yelled, but the question wasn’t directed at me. He grabbed his now-empty water bottle and sniffed it. His voice jumped an octave. “What did you do?”

Black again splattered my vision, and this time it wouldn’t blink away. I couldn’t even see the ground as I plunged.

Someone caught me, but I wasn’t sure who. They must have laid me down on the ground, because my body stopped moving, but I couldn’t feel anything. Not the van floor shuddering beneath me, not the pain in my joints—nothing. For a brief moment, it was almost peaceful.

The last thing I registered before succumbing to the darkness was Nic screeching.