Joshua McCune - Talker 25

Tickthumpthumpthumptickthumpthumpthump.

I use a pair of sharpened pliers to cut the tie wraps around his feet. “Fine, you’re gonna contact McMurdo for me. Hurry.”

He squirms to the wall, edges himself up. “What’s going on? Who are you?”

I wave the wrench toward the radio. “Hurry.”

“What do you want me to tell them?” he asks as I follow him past the gunships.

I consider. “Tell them that they’ve imprisoned dozens of boys and girls to help them kill dragons. That they torture us if we don’t help.”

He grimaces. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

I pull back the jacket to show him the TALKER 25 label on my scrubs. I lower my hood to reveal the CENSIR.

“What is that thing?”

“The torture device.” We reach the radio equipment. He extends his bound hands. I want to trust him. Need to. This is already taking too long. I cut him free.

His gives me a rueful smile before sitting down at the radio. He picks up the phone, plugs in a cable, adjusts a couple of dials. “Come in, Mac Ops, this is Golf Tango One. Urgent. Over.”

I lean closer to hear. A reply comes in through the receiver seconds later. “Reading your five, Golf Tango. What’s the emergency? Over.”

“Prisoners treated outside the boundaries of the Geneva Convention. Over.”

“Say again.”

I snatch the phone from him. “The military’s enslaved a bunch of kids and is torturing them. Over.”

“Copy. You are OTG. Not sure how we can help. Over.”

“Off the grid,” the pilot explains at my questioning look.

I hand the phone back. “Give them our coordinates.”

He swallows, looks toward the ceiling, whispers something I can’t hear beneath his breath that sounds like a prayer. Finally he puts the phone to his ear. “Come in, Mac Ops. Relay as you see fit. Coordinates to follow. Wait.”

He accesses the computer beside the radio, navigates to a map. He types in a command and hundreds of multisized squares appear, most located in the United States. Greens, reds, blues. A handful of black ones are scattered in remote locations across the globe. Georgetown, the largest black and the only installation in Antarctica, sits in the southern middle of the continent.

He clicks on the Georgetown square. A password entry box appears. BLACK LEVEL. From his pants, he pulls a metal rectangle. A digital bar across the middle displays a super-long array of numbers and letters. A few seconds later, the readout shifts to something new. He hands the rectangle to me. “We have a minute before the passcode updates again.”

I read aloud. “A—7—5—T—R—H—1—2—K—”

My CENSIR shocks me.

“Captain, you’ve been decommissioned.” The words echo through the end of the phone. The voice belongs to Major Alderson.

The front of the pilot’s head erupts in a spray of blood. The computer screen shatters. I hear the whistle of a bullet an instant later.

I whirl around. Alderson, a sniper, and some guy with a metal backpack stand near the hangar entrance. Alderson hands the phone to Backpack Guy. The sniper redirects his rifle at me.

“She’s far too valuable for that,” the major says to the sniper as he strides toward me.

He lifts the pilot’s head by the scruff and turns him so I can see the carnage. “Well done, Twenty-Five. You have helped us deal with a dangerous security threat.”

Bile rises in my throat. I swallow it back, breathe through my nose, force a smile. “Glad to be of service.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulder. “I think you deserve a reward.”

I expect him to take me to some reconditioning dungeon, but we return to the barracks. He activates overhead lights with his tablet. Several of the girls wake up too quickly to have been asleep. Twenty-One rushes over and grabs my hand. “You’re back. Can we go to the island now?”

“Not yet,” I whisper.

“Keep getting those dragons, and you’ll be on that island in no time, child,” Alderson says. “Sorry to disturb you so late, ladies, but I’ve got some good news. Thanks to Twenty-Five’s diligence, we discovered a weak link in our chain. She has earned you a day off from your duties. Good night, ladies. Sleep in.”

A cheer goes up. He leaves. In the second before the lights go off, I see Evelyn grinning at me.

I want to cry and roar, but most of all, I want to hit something. Somebody. My CENSIR shocks me. I repress the urge, focus on the mental image of the captain’s head exploding. I wait a few minutes before slinking from my bed. I can’t see anything, but I know this room inside and out. I know where Evelyn sleeps. I tiptoe forward so her guard dogs won’t notice me.

On a good day, I might give the queen bitch a chance to defend herself.

I don’t remember the last time I had a good day.

I’m almost there when my CENSIR shocks me again. But it’s not just me. Other girls are stirring. A beep sounds, the screen turns on. I freeze.

The video on the screen, shot via drone and labeled 25 , is focused on the sidewalk adjacent to Confections of a Chocaholic. I last visited my aunt and uncle in Ann Arbor five years ago, but I remember that candy store vividly. I loved the chocolate-covered raspberries; Sam preferred the double-stuffed turtles.

Apparently, he still does.

The drone tracks him from the store to a house a couple blocks away. It zooms in on a window, shows Sam sitting on his bed. He’s waving.

“He knows it’s watching him?” Lorena says. Her arm’s around my waist. I don’t remember her putting it there.

I shake my head as I try to calm my breathing. I force myself to swallow. “Mom used to do that as a joke. ‘Say hi to the camera, everyone!’ He and Mom made a game of it. Punch buggy with drones.”

The screen switches to different drone footage, dated six months ago, labeled 21 . Lots of open farmland. A glowing green dot appears on the horizon. Moving fast toward a dilapidated house. An old man steps onto the porch, a rifle in hand.

The viewpoint shifts to the dragon.

The man gets off three useless shots before the Green sets everything aflame, including him.

“Is that real?” I say. “Did they really do that to her family?”

It’s not Lorena who answers, but Twenty-One. “Yes, yes, yes. Burn, burn, burn!” She’s clutching the dragon brooch so hard that the tail’s pierced her skin. “Kill the dragons, yes, yes. Kill the dragons, or the dragons kill them.”

MyCENSIR shocks me awake.

“Wakey, wakey, everyone.”

Almost a month.

I’m out of my bed faster than everybody except Evelyn, but I still get a second shock.

Almost a week of that.

“Faster, Twenty-Five,” Lester says.

On my way through the cafeteria serving line, I peek toward the boys’ table. I tell myself I’m looking to see if Nine has recovered yet—he hasn’t—but my gaze lingers on the empty seat next to Eleven.

“Scoping out your next target!” Four shouts.

I cast my eyes floorward, see a pair of boots coming my direction. I glance up. The A-B pretends not to notice me. I dodge, but he adjusts, just enough to clip my shoulder. I catch myself from tripping, but my tray tips and breakfast tumbles to the floor.

“Watch it, talker girl.”

My CENSIR shocks me.

“Stop antagonizing the soldiers, Twenty-Five,” Lester says.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say. “It won’t happen again.”

But of course it will. Sidelong glares, muttered curses, lewd catcalls, sometimes physical retribution. I ignore it the best I can, and when I can’t, I apologize because I know it rankles them even more. They want me to lash out, to prove that I’m some heartless monster, maybe. I will do everything they ask of me, but I refuse to let them break me.