Under Pressure by Cory McCarthy

Author:Cory McCarthy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

Jayla

10

CRUD:

Create, Read, Update, Delete

[connectivity: Atlantis network. accessibility: extra limited.]

Jayla was grounded. Which was ridiculous considering she had been parenting herself since she’d joined B.E.S.T. More if you counted all those times her parents were too busy with work, which was important to count.

She got up and dressed just like every day since she’d moved a hundred leagues under the sea. Her mom had bought her new clothes as all the rest of her stuff had probably been confiscated by confused Bixonics employees. Then again, they must be used to tweens disappearing, leaving their possessions behind. There were hundreds of former cadets milling about this place, maybe thousands. Not that Jayla got to hang out with them. She was still on permanent watch from her suspicious parental units.

She laced up her mauve knee-high boots. Her mom had picked them out for her, and Jayla had loved them at first sight—had actually jumped up to hug her mom in gratitude as if it were three years ago, and there wasn’t so much hot water between them. That had been a good minute. There kept being these good minutes, swallowed by bad hours where her parents said no to everything she wanted to do or ask.

No, she couldn’t help her dad in the lab or attend the Resistance meetings.

No, she couldn’t explore Atlantis.

No, she couldn’t know more about Grayson’s situation.

The view out the small window in her bedroom almost felt normal now. By the calendar count, she’d been here a few weeks. Leo and Ace would be back at ToP by now after the holiday break.

How were they? Was it back to normal? Could it be?

Jayla wished she could go topside, beyond the reach of the satellite blocker, and send them a message/check for messages. But as her mom had explained, that could expose the Resistance to Bixonics. That would be bad news. For as long as Jayla could remember, the secret of her mom’s movement was as important as the movement itself. If Bixonics didn’t have an enemy to fight, the Resistance could keep making changes secretly. Helping people.

This had made sense when Jayla was a kid. Like a ghost attacking a giant.

But now that Jayla had seen the Bixonics side of things at ToP, it felt more like the Resistance was a dog peeing on a building. A statement of discontent, sure. But was the Resistance stopping anything? Changing anything? Helping anyone?

Yeah, that had been last night’s dinner fight.

Jayla had basically called the Resistance as corrupt as Bixonics, which she wasn’t even sure she’d meant, but the damage was done. Her mom left the table without eating. Jayla sort of wished she were more like Leo and didn’t say things so fast, although she knew that Leo fought their own silent battles.

The apartment was quiet, and Jayla found her dad in the kitchen, sitting at the far end of the table, scrolling through his tablet. He looked up with a grin, welcoming even after last night’s debacle. “Good morning! I can’t seem to get used to how good it feels to have you back.

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