The Volunteer Read online

  At this, he smiled. “Nobody gets an audience with Chambers. Not unless he wants it to be so. And it is … challenging for him to move around freely, so his directives are mostly done on the inside of the wall. I suspect he will contact you, one way or another. But until then, you’ll be meeting with us each day of your leave from the Service to train. Kiyah will sometimes take your chip information, or it might be someone else on some days, so as not to arouse suspicion. There aren’t many of us that could pass as you on the street. If a camera or a feedback system in a store were to detect that your female chip details were actually showing up on a man, for example, things would become quite difficult.”

  I stared out at the wall, just as he was doing now.

  “What if I don’t want it?” I asked. “What if I want to just go back and finish my turn? The reward for survival is—”

  “The likelihood that you will survive the next two years of your service is slim at best. So you have a choice to make today. Now. Do you want to spend your time fighting in the field for the government, or take the relative safety of your new assignment and work for us?”

  It seemed to me that both options could lead to an early death.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let me show you what I’m talking about, show you what your life would be like as a Volunteer.”

  He turned toward the stairwell, and I watched him go. He was climbing up, not down. I still stood there, unsure of what to do.

  One thing I knew was that I needed more information. And the only way I was going to get it was by following him. I doubted they would contact me again if I were to leave now.

  So I walked after him, eager to hear what this new leader had to say.

  Eighteen. The floor number was painted in large, black numbers against the white bricks of the stairwell wall. It was here that Owen opened the door, and when he did, I felt like I was in another world.

  Little light made its way through the vertical blinds that lined every window in the place, protection from any potential prying eyes.

  A long bank of computers lined one side of the space, and no fewer than twenty men and women were furiously typing away at their keyboards.

  Hackers.

  Terrorists.

  Just like everyone else hiding in the Stilts.

  I wandered into the room, unable to stop myself from walking toward them, though there had been no invitation.

  How were they doing this?

  “But you don’t have internet. Do you?” I turned to face Owen.

  “Yes, though it can be spotty at times. And we have to be careful. If we pull too much data down from the cloud at one time, our location could be given away.”

  I thought about that, but it didn’t make sense.

  “Don’t they all have chips, too?” There were just so many men and women sitting at the desks, their eyes trained on their computer monitors.

  Owen smiled. “No, not one. These people either defected, or else were born on the outside. No chips.”

  “But the computers … the equipment. How did you—?”

  “Oh, come on now. They told me you were smart.”

  I looked around, trying to make sense of it all. And then, taking a closer look, I realized.

  “These are the computers that were here already, aren’t they? The ones that were abandoned when they put up the wall? When the flooding started?”

  “Yes, you got it.”

  “But how can they be powerful enough to even connect to the cloud? That was fifty years ago. These machines can’t possibly keep pace with what’s out there now. And what about electricity?” I imagined all of the information displayed by the chips everyone on the inside wore. The advertisements in front of stores, brought to life by the lens technology.

  “Tinkering. Each machine has been reconfigured again and again to keep up with the technology of the day. As you can imagine, we have access to hundreds of machines in this building, alone, all of them serving as parts and pieces to make these ones hum. And as for electricity …” He pointed up at the ceiling. “Leftover solar, from ages ago. It’s enough to serve our needs. We use very little.”

  “But what are they doing?” I asked, still in awe of what I was seeing.

  “Good question. And one I can’t really answer. I’m no hacker. But the basic idea is to infiltrate the mainframe of the lens system, to make changes to it. Small, undetectable changes. Not unlike the change made to your own status.”

  “But why? What’s the real purpose?” I wandered over to one of the computers, staring over the shoulder of the young man at the helm. He was typing at a mad pace. I turned to Owen, confused. “Why hack it at all?”

  His face was surprised. “To bring it all down, of course.”

  The system. The whole stinking lens system.

  Owen watched me as this information changed the features on my face.

  “Do you really need to ask why?” he said. “Hasn’t your own life been all but destroyed by the way our world has been put back together? Your home. Your family. Your lover?”

  “My lover? What are you talking—”

  “We know about you and Prime Williams.”

  I frowned as I remembered the last time we had kissed. It had been surprising to both of us, a new and unusual expression of our relationship. And while it had been the second time our lips had met, it was the first time we were both present in our bodies to experience it.

  Best friend.

  Love.

  I tried to change the subject, blushing beet red. I looked back toward the bank of computers. “If they’re trying to take the system down like you said, what do you need me for? Can’t you just upload a virus or something?”

  He laughed, but not in a friendly way. “It’s nowhere near as simple as that. Viruses can be fought. And tracked. Systems can be rebuilt. What we need is a complete obliteration of the main facility, the buildings where all of the data is stored. Every backup must be destroyed.”

  He considered me for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked me up and down.

  “Lydia was … a loss for our side. Though we can’t deny that she had become distracted looking for her brother. Not unlike you searching for Prime Williams. She became obsessed with finding him and lost track of what her true mission was.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Well, firstly to find a recruit, a Green one. That was you. Someone we could count on, could work with, could mould into the type of soldier we needed them to be.”

  I bristled at this. It sounded an awful lot like the Prime system, programming young men, growing them like genetically modified plants in some sort of sickening, indoor farm.

  “But she was also tasked to get as much information as she could about the soldiers going through phasing. We needed to know how their system worked, what drugs they were using on those young men to make them stronger than any superhero. Stopping that is one of the main goals of these young men and women.” He gestured toward the workers. “The Primes are an abomination, young, poor men who’ve had their lives, however desperate, stolen from them. If we can determine the compounds used to grow their bodies, we can potentially counteract them once the Primes are finished with their service. You know of the changes to their minds. It is that which we seek to recover.

  “There’s only one problem. As you saw, many of the Oranges were put to death for no reason. You, yourself, were forced to participate in this parade of murder. These acts have become commonplace in recent years. There is a reason that so few make it through their three-year term in the Service.”

  My skin was suddenly crawling, and I shuddered.

  Those who had been shot must have all been designated Orange. Killing them off was a way to ensure that none of them would receive their reward at the end of their service. Not the money. Not the new designation. Nothing.

  They were seen as useless in the end, as useless as a wounded soldier in the field. Not worth saving.

  But there was anoth
er, far more sinister reason behind their deaths. The act of soldier on soldier, of killing those in our own squads, was to scare the rest of us more tightly into line. To show how much power the military leaders had. Enough to simply send word down from above, a list, perhaps, of fellow soldiers to destroy.

  Owen considered me for a moment. “When you were out in the field, working against, and then for, the Fighters, what did you experience? Good food? Kind folks? A nation trying to defend its own natural resources? You saw with your own eyes that the Fighters aren’t bad people. They are just like us here in the Stilts. A group of people trying to survive the sins of our government. Trying to survive the constant need for the United States to be at war.

  “And the lens system is used for much more than funny videos and digital textbooks. It is used, just as the firing squad was used, to scare the people of this country into doing the government’s bidding. A whole swath of citizens are kept out of the workforce because of petty crimes. They are arrested, then forced to give two terms of their lives to the military, free of charge.

  “As for the rest of the recruits, they are poor and desperate, just as you, yourself were. Just as Prime Williams was. Neither of you had anywhere else to go, and both of you needed a way out. Do you see the way the government played you? Do you think a single Manhattanite signed up for the Service last year? How many will there be this year? No, it is always the starving, scrappy lower class who are targeted. Those videos they make to advertise joining the Service are tailored right to you, to your wildest dreams, making them seem possible when they are anything but.”

  I was floored. I had never thought of it this way before.

  “And you think that, what, removing our designations will produce a more peaceful society?”

  “No, not necessarily peaceful. But just. Fair to all of us. Imagine if the whole world was free of that technology. If people, even the Volunteers, were free to roam the streets without being followed, listened to, spied upon. Then everyone would have a chance at success, even those on the bottom rung of the ladder on its way up from poverty to … well, to something more.”

  “What do you need from me? I don’t see how you could possibly take down the whole system.”

  “No, not the whole system. You’re right about that. Your abilities will be used for something far more useful. Obliteration of the eyes in the sky; the drones that track everyone’s movements. You will use your tools in the end to give the people of this country a break, even though they might not realize that they need one at all. But those in power will notice immediately their lack of control. They will seek you out, though they might not know at first whom they are seeking.” He paused, looking me straight in the face. “You, alone, can do this.”

  Instant worry flooded through me. But after a few long, terrifying moments, I realized that I was starting to get angry.

  “But you must have others on the inside. I mean, I want to help you. I never would have come to meet you if I didn’t. But still … Maybe you could just unplug me. Couldn’t I be someone, I don’t know, someone like Jonathan? Someone on the outside?”

  I remembered the feeling of being back in the forest when my chip had been yanked from my head. A sort of fear, a sense of dread that I’d felt the undercurrent of for most of my life, had disappeared.

  I’d been free.

  He could take it now, my chip, accept me as a Volunteer and let me help them in some other way.

  Couldn’t he?

  “We often try to get our Volunteers into the Service,” he said. “But it’s difficult. Some of them have chips that have been deactivated for years. When that happens, there’s no way to prove that they’ve had a history in this city or anywhere else. We’ve stored the details of everyone’s lives, at least those who still want to keep their chips, blank, inside their heads. When we activate them again, they can get away with walking through town, but the Service would notice them as soon as they tried to join. You can’t just walk in there with no history and become a soldier.

  “That is why you are so special to us. A Green with no past convictions, sworn to serve as a Volunteer. You. On the inside. There are few others like you.”

  He started pacing again, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb those at the computers.

  “You’ll learn how to take it all down. How to work with explosives. How to create EMP bombs to wipe out their electrical systems. And you’ll pass that knowledge along when the time is right. That’s information that we need.”

  “I’m sorry, but that sounds crazy. Who will I even pass it along to? How will I know?”

  “We’ll know more as time goes on. There are two operatives who have agreed to take on the risk of joining the Service. We don’t yet know if they will succeed, but if they do, we will ensure that you are able to connect. You’ll need the code phrase to recognize people out in the Manhattan field. That phrase is ‘leave no stone.’”

  I stared at him, frowning.

  He went on. “It means that we need to be cautious everywhere we go. We can’t afford to miss details. And we can’t afford to let go of our hope.”

  “Your hope for what?”

  “The hope that we can one day make a change to this society. The designations. The wasted lives of soldiers out in the field. We can’t afford to lose anything. Including you.

  “So I say to you, leave no stone.”

  Chapter Four

  Jonathan came back to find me a couple hours later, taking me through a different maze of musty, wet tunnels to deposit me back onto the streets inside of the wall. Kiyah was waiting for us, and we made our way through an empty building toward her, leaving behind the Stilts that had been left to rot, just like its people had.

  It was here, at the subway station that used to feed people into Grand Central Station, where they left me. Kiyah used the small, hand-held device to transfer the chip information she had borrowed for the day back into my own head.

  Instantly, all of the settings on my chip were reactivated in my lens. I let go a sigh of relief. It had been hours without access to the information I was used to having at the blink of an eye. Now, I felt behind, almost as if, while I was gone, some great event, good or evil, must have transpired.

  “What did you do?” I whispered to Kiyah as I noticed my lens news was without catastrophe. “Where did you go?”

  “I went to your apartment, though I didn’t go inside. It wouldn’t have looked suspicious for you to visit your mother, so that’s what I pretended to do. So if they ask, you know what to say.”

  My mother. No wonder Kiyah hadn’t tried to go in. Why should she? I supposed she might’ve told her that I was dead or something. Something to free me from her forever.

  But no. Seeing my mother would be my job, alone. I looked down at my arms, still strong from my one experience of phasing, and I flexed my muscles. This time I would be prepared for anything she could dish out.

  I peeked up at the stairwell and immediately noticed a guard blocking my way up. My heart started thudding again, and I moved back into the smelly station.

  “What do I do? There’s a police officer right there! I’ll never be able to get out of here with him standing there.”

  “I’ll create a diversion,” Jonathan said.

  “No!” I backed up a couple steps. “You can’t do that. They’ll arrest you. And then you’ll be no better than a Red. Maybe even a Black when they see that your chip is gone. You’ll have to have some story.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about me. I’m a fast runner, and there are hiding spots all over the city.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And there just so happens to be one just around the corner from here. It’s easy to vanish into thin air in this place. The Volunteers have spent years digging tunnels for us to escape. Are you ready? Tomorrow, you’ll go to Times Square station and wait for Kiyah to find you. Then, you’ll disappear down into the maze of tunnels, just as you did today.”

  “But there are
so many police there. And clearly they guard the entrances to the stations. How am I supposed to get back in? How is she?”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” he said, indicating Kiyah. “I’m not the only one who knows how to run.”

  As Jonathan bounded up the stairs, he teased the officer at the top, grabbing his hands and putting them on his hips in a girly sort of pose. Then, he took off, taunting the officer as he sped across East Forty-Second Street back toward the Stilts.

  My jaw dropped as I realized how much danger he was ready to put himself into just to make sure I wouldn’t be caught.

  “Leave no stone,” Kiyah whispered. “Now go. Don’t worry about him. Remember, he has no designation. He’s invisible. Now, go before someone else comes to take the officer’s place.”

  She gave me a shove, and I started up the stairs, careful at first, then eager to be at the top and away from this mad plan.

  I peeked up just beyond ground level, but there were no officers in sight. Quickly, I hopped up the last of the stairs and started up Park Avenue, trying to look nonchalant, like I belonged there, like I had been casually walking up the avenue the entire time.

  My feet squished inside my boots, and I realized that I was still wet all over. The tunnels, while useful, were wet from condensation and the small streams that had built up on the ground. My clothes looked like I had been recently swimming.

  But as I emerged, nobody seemed to worry, or even notice. I cursed my boots for being so squeaky, and I dashed as fast as I dared back to the Service recruitment building where I was spending my nights.

  Once inside, there were military police everywhere, but they stood out of my way as I passed them by. Everyone could read my new designation.

  Riley Taylor

  Designation: Special Infantry

  That was me now. I might not have been a general, or even a sergeant, but I was still treated with a measure of respect I hadn’t received as a regular infantry soldier. I approached the staircase that led down to the barracks.