Robin Wasserman - Torn

“Whatever it is, it’s happening on that server ship on Sunday,” I said.

“You think ,” Jude said.

Zo and Auden agreed that it was the only thing that made sense with what little else we knew. The once-a-month window had given it away. “If we can get on board with Ben’s team, we can figure out what they’re doing,” I said. “We can stop them.”

“Great,” Jude said sourly. “So all we need to do—assuming your blind hunch is right—is sneak on board a high-security facility floating in a secret location in the middle of the Atlantic and stop a team of determined and presumably armed genocidal maniacs from completing their nebulous mission. Brilliant plan.”

“Glad you agree.”

Jude was, of course, right. The plan—or, rather, ambiguous idea completely lacking in practical execution—wasn’t brilliant so much as insane. Especially the part that involved us getting ourselves onto a server ship without anyone noticing and, more to the point, without getting tossed overboard. The network servers were overseen by a private consortium of tech and security corps, its operations designed for maximal transparency (for those whose job it was to watch) and maximal secrecy (for the rest of us unwashed masses). They floated on massive ocean freighters, each the length of several football fields, shadowing the coastline, their endless rows of whirring machines processing the data of millions while armed guards—or armed machines, or, for all any of us knew, armed armadillos, or some deadly combination of all three—patrolled the corridors, sworn to protect the network with their lives. Ships set out once a month with reinforcements, repairs, representatives from any corp who needed to address problems with their dedicated servers—ships that plotted a top-secret course radioed to the captain on a special frequency only once the boat had X-rayed and analyzed every single thing, animate or in-, to come aboard.

The server farms were governed by no law but the law of expediency. Its servants followed a prime directive, to the exclusion of all else: Protect the servers. Protect the mindless hordes who trusted every piece of their lives to the security of the floating machines. Trusted not just their zones, their relationships and memories, but their jobs, their life savings, their lives—whenever they trusted their automated cars or their high-speed elevators or the biofilters that kept their air breathable and the wireless energy that kept everything humming, including me. The guardians of those ships protected all of us who acted as if the data cloud floated in an impermeable bubble through some alternate, inaccessible realm, as if we weren’t living in a virtual world built almost entirely on the switches and circuits and routers floating through poisonous waters and roughing stormy seas.

That, at least, was what we’d heard.

That was the only thing anyone knew about the server farms: rumors. Everyone knew a guy, who knew a guy, who used to work for someone who staffed one of the ships. Everyone had heard something, but no one knew anything. I’d once overheard my father arguing with one of his board members about whether or not the servers operated as independent international entities or were wholly owned American enterprises, and much as he’d tried to disguise it, the truth had been clear: Even he had no idea. Everyone knew—or at least “knew”—that once a month an elite group got access to the servers to upgrade them on behalf of their own corps, but either they were shielded from penetrating any of the ships’ secrets, or the ghostly overseers had a way to make them keep their mouths shut. Access to the servers meant access to everything. We were a world of connectivity; a linked-in globe. It was our pride as a human race. And apparently, it worked only if none of us knew how.

“We’re thinking too far ahead,” I said suddenly.

Auden laughed quietly. “I wouldn’t say that’s exactly your problem, Lia.”

“No, I mean it. You’re right, Jude—”

He held up a hand to stop me. “Moment of silence, please, while I enjoy this history-making moment.”

I smacked his arm. Lightly, but not too lightly. “You’re right that we have no way of getting on that ship or figuring out what’s going on—not by ourselves. And maybe you’re right that I’m just guessing. We need more answers. We need help, from someone who knows exactly what BioMax is up to—or at least knows how to find out.”

That woke him up. “Ben?”

“He’s leading the team, right? Whether he knows about phase three or he doesn’t, he’s going to be there when it happens. So either he gives us the information we need, or he makes sure that we’re there when it happens, too.”

“And why would he do that?” Jude asked.

There was a time when I would have hesitated to ask the next question. This time I didn’t. “Do you have a gun stashed here somewhere?”

Surprised, Jude shook his head. That was problematic. I’d counted on him having easy access to a weapon, as he always seemed to. We could get in touch with another of his city contacts, but that meant complications, and time…

Auden cleared his throat. “I do.”

“But it’s my gun,” Auden said, as we were packing up to leave.

“It’s safer to leave someone behind,” I said. “If anything happens and we need reinforcements—”

“Bullshit.”

“Auden…”

“You don’t want me along; just say it.”

I didn’t want to.

“You don’t trust me,” he said.

“No, I don’t.”

“But that’s not it,” he said.

“No. It’s not.”

He scowled. “It’s not your job to worry about me.”

There wasn’t time to protect his feelings—and after everything that had happened, maybe that was no longer a huge priority. “You’re weak,” I said. “The limp, the lung issues, what happens when your body gets too stressed… You could be a liability.”

He didn’t flinch. “See? It wasn’t so hard to just say it.”

“Fine. I said it. So now you’ll stay here?”

“Not a chance.”

“You’re not—”

“I can do this,” he said. “I’m not as weak as you think.”

“Or you’re weaker than you think. And we find out at the worst possible time.”

“Let him come,” Jude said.

“What?”

“If he says he can do it, he can do it.”

“You’re kidding me,” I said. “What, are you hoping he’ll do something stupid and get himself killed?”

“He looks weak,” Jude said. “It doesn’t mean he is. And you don’t get to decide what he’s strong enough to do.”

“Thanks,” Auden said, sounding surprised.

“I’m just saying what’s true,” Jude said. “I still hate you.”

“Back at you.”

“It’s wonderful that you two are bonding, but this isn’t some kind of self-actualization field trip,” I snapped. “We can’t afford—”

“We can’t afford not to use everything we’ve got,” Jude said over me. “Besides, he owes us.”

“I can do this, Lia,” Auden said.

I shrugged, and waved him out the door. At least he hadn’t asked me to trust him.

Jude followed, but Zo hung behind, watching me carefully.

“What?” I said finally.

She paused, looking unsure whether or not to risk it. “So you’re not going to try to talk me out of coming along?”

“Would there be any point?”

She shook her head.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

For a second I was afraid she was going to hug me. But instead she just smiled and ran past me out the door, practically skipping, as if she were seven again and I’d given her the secret password to the big-kids’ clubhouse. I told myself that she knew exactly how serious this was and how big a risk she was taking, and that—as she’d proved to me over and over again—she was old enough and tough enough to decide she wanted to take it.