Robin Wasserman - Shattered

Jude was up there. Jude, who might have set all this in motion. And when I got to the house, he was waiting for me.

“Took you long enough,” he said, leaning against the doorframe of the main entrance. Even Jude looked small beside the columns of marble and steel.

“I’m fine, Jude,” I said with a sneer, trying to gauge something from his expression. But there was no guilt, no shame, only judgment. I couldn’t have been killed, so why was I making such a fuss? “Thanks so much for your concern.”

“They’re waiting for you inside,” he said.

“Who?”

“Your many friends and admirers,” he said, with a go-figure shrug.

“Riley?” I asked.

Jude nodded.

“Is he… okay?”

“What do you care?”

“I don’t.”

Jude grimaced. “He’s here, he’s fine. He’s inside with the rest. Seems everyone wants to know about your adventures.”

“But not you.”

“I know enough,” he said. “I’ve been watching the vids. It’s not pretty.”

“No,” I said. “But I guess mass murder usually isn’t.”

Jude shook his head, a look of impatience flashing across his face. “I don’t mean that. I mean that vid of you—”

“Not me !”

“Right. Whatever. That vid of someone who looks like you pumping poison into the system. The whole world thinks we just declared war on the orgs. It didn’t occur to you to voice me when any of this happened?”

“So that’s what you’re mad about. Can’t stand that we actually handled something without you.”

“Handled it.” Jude snorted. “Right. I’ve already talked to Riley. He wanted to come to me. You stopped him. You let him go back to that place alone . It didn’t occur to you I could have helped ?”

“Could you have?” There was something strange about talking to Jude. The conversation felt familiar and profoundly alien all at once. It was the same disconnect that came from looking around at the place I’d been living in for the last six months. Like nothing was the same anymore. I wondered if this was how my father felt when he looked at me. Like he was staring at a two-dimensional copy of something he’d once cared about.

Jude smashed a fist into the doorframe. His face stayed calm. “Go ahead. Ask me.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

I was too tired for the game. I gave him what he wanted. “Did you set me up?” I asked flatly. “Did you kill all those people?”

He didn’t flinch. “You going to believe me if I say no?”

“Say it,” I suggested, “and we’ll find out.”

“If you think I could do something like that, I’m not going to waste my time convincing you otherwise,” he said.

“Not much of an answer.”

“Why even stay here if that’s what you think of me?” he asked. “Why don’t you just go?”

Go where? I thought. “Fine.” Calling his bluff. “I guess we’re done here. I’ll pack up and be out by morning.”

“Wait,” he said quietly. “Ask Riley.”

“Ask him what?”

Jude picked at a loose stone in the doorframe, scraping out the sediment between the stone and wood. He turned half away from me, his shoulders hunched, his head angled toward the door. “Ask him, and he’ll tell you I wouldn’t do this,” he said, careful to keep his eyes on the wall. “If you really think…”

I didn’t know what I thought anymore. “What am I supposed to think?”

He started to speak but choked off the words. Then he shook his head. “Think whatever the hell you want.”

“Jude—”

Suddenly, he whirled from the wall, facing me head-on. “I wasn’t the only one who knew you’d be at Synapsis.”

“What?”

It was like he was fighting a war with himself, the part that didn’t care what I thought battling the part that needed me to believe him.

“You think it had to be me, because I sent you there,” he said. “That I was the only one who knew. But I wasn’t .” He sounded like a child, denying that he’d thrown the ball, broken the window. I waited for him to blame it on his imaginary friend.

“Let me guess, I’m forgetting about your mysterious contact,” I said. “The reason for the whole stupid rendezvous.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Jude hesitated. He slipped down along the wall and perched on one of the stairs climbing up to the entrance. I stayed on my feet. “If I tell you something, will you swear to keep it to yourself?”

“I don’t make blind promises.” Not to you.

“BioMax is tracking us,” he said. “GPS. They know wherever we go.”

“You knew ?”

“ You knew?” He gaped at me. “How?”

“You’re the genius, right? Figure it out.” I was too angry to look at him. To think that he’d known all along and hadn’t told us? Hadn’t done anything ?

“You can’t tell anyone,” he said.

“No, apparently you can’t tell anyone!” I yelled. “Because you’re on such a freaking power trip about being the all-knowing Jude! How dare you keep this a secret?”

“What the hell was I supposed to do?” he asked. “If people knew… well, look how you’re reacting. I didn’t want to start an unnecessary panic.”

“I’m having a little trouble with the ‘unnecessary’ part—they’re spying on us, Jude.” I started pacing back and forth, trying to force out some of the anger through motion, but it didn’t work like that, not in the mech body. My brain just kept whirring, furious at all of them.

Jude was still sitting down, sprawled almost casually against the stone stairs. “BioMax isn’t our enemy. Not yet at least.”

“You so sure about that? Or you think it was just a coinci-dence that the attack happened while we were at the corp-town? That your so-called source never showed up? Wake up, Jude. Either BioMax has something to do with this or…”

“Or I did,” he said sourly. “Back to that.”

“What the hell am I supposed to think? Especially when you’re telling me you trust them. Even after this ?”

“I don’t trust anyone,” Jude said coldly. “You think you’re the only one who can do the math here? Are you really surprised? Did you believe all the BioMax crap, that they have our best interests at heart?”

“That’s exactly my point!”

“No! That’s exactly my point. If certain elements of BioMax were involved in this, all the more reason not to let them know we’re onto their tracking tech. Let them think we’re totally clueless. Let them expose themselves for what they really are.”

“And until then, what? We just sit around and wait ?” I asked in disbelief. “How can you even stand it? Knowing—” I shuddered. “Knowing they’re watching you.”

He didn’t say anything. His gaze flicked away, just for a second, but it was long enough to reveal that there was something else. And I’d just hit on it.

Just like when I was in the car with call-me-Ben and he’d accidentally let slip that the trackers weren’t foolproof.

“But they’re not watching you, are they?” I said slowly, forcing myself not to yell.

He shrugged but couldn’t refrain from cracking a small, sharklike smile. He was actually proud.

“They think they are,” he said. Boasted. “Streaming live GPS, mapping my every move. And it’s all bullshit. I’ve been feeding them false data for months.”

“While you let the rest of us…” I stopped, searching for the words. I wanted to get this out right. No incoherent anger or misplaced betrayal, irrational reactions that he could brush off as weak and orglike. “You didn’t bother to tell any of us,” I said finally. “You let us hang and saved yourself.”