Beneath the Shine by Sarah Fine

Author:Sarah Fine [Fine, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781477823279
Publisher: Skyscape
Published: 2017-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Percy

I replay my conversation with Marguerite as Yves slides his way through the sky over Anacostia. My heart rate is still over a hundred beats per minute when I think of the way she looked at me . . .

I force myself to halt the replay. They’ve just reopened air traffic in this zone, and I can see the deep hole in the earth where the Department of AIR once stood. It feels blasphemous to be fantasizing about kissing a girl while flying over a mass grave.

Chen coms me via Yves’s secure connection, his words slightly slurred. “I feel compelled to warn you of the risk you’re taking.”

“Ukaiah reminded me that my parents were more than willing to take such risks.”

“Yeah. Okay. She was right. But—”

Now I am fully in this moment, which only sends my heart rate higher. “I thought about this all last night. I think you and Ukaiah are right—the noose is tightening. I can’t sit and watch it happen. I haven’t been able to reach my friend Bianca since yesterday. She and her family were on that Air Suisse flight.” Calling her a friend is a stretch, but she is one of the few people on this planet who I’ve allowed to get even remotely close to me.

“You’re right on that count. After we spoke last night, I looked into what happened.”

His regretful tone makes my stomach turn. “You have information?”

“Sorry, kid, but I think they’re dead.”

“Pardon me,” I say, at my most polite. “But who exactly do you mean?”

“We’ve got a guy at the morgue. You know how they made a rule that a real person has to supervise cannies working with dead bodies?”

I swallow bitter saliva. “Chen . . .”

“There were twenty-three casualties from the raids last night. Twenty-three! Bodies still being identified. But my guy said that there was a middle-aged man and woman, genetic match to the Aebersolds.”

“And?”

“Each of ’em had a hole in the temple.”

“What kind of hole?”

Chen chuckles, raspy and low. “Right where their Cerepins woulda been.”

“Someone pulled them?”

“Bullet hole, I meant. But in their autopsies, the cannies didn’t report any debris in the brains like you’d expect if someone shot them in the head knob.”

“So someone removed the ’Pins first. Then shot them.”

“Looks like. Now, does that sound like the work of credible law enforcement to you?”

“What are the police saying?”

“Publicly? Nothing. Privately, they’re even more tight-lipped.”

“But we know it was the Aebersolds?”

“DNA don’t lie, kid.”

“What about Bianca? Her little sister, Reina? They were with her parents.”

“Unknown. The government took a lot of ’em into custody, though. It was a big sweep. They were ready for them.”

But maybe the kids were spared—except, Anna told me that she, Bianca, and Kyla were all on the list to be questioned, ostensibly because they were vocal members of the Young Technocrats during the campaign. I stare out the window at the smoking black crater. “Who knows about this?”

“My group. And now you, of course.”

“There has to be evidence—vid on the Mainstream? You know some of these people had Cerepins.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.