Refuge Read Free Page B

Don’t forget the Lucents,” I say, grabbing her wrists. Her skin is cold, thin. “Get. Out. Of. My. Head.”
       One looks at me as if she can’t believe what I’ve just done or said. “Stop,” she says, her voice full of urgency. “Don’t do this. If you deactivate me, I won’t be able to come back. I won’t be able to help or protect you.”
       Deactivating her isn’t something I even knew I could do. “Go, get out! Leave me alone!” I shout, squeezing her hand as hard as I can.
       “Listen. Whatever is here in the city is the key to everything. We believe it is the Origin cell. It’s the only thing that explains the furor. If so, we can’t let it fall to any collective. We must find it first. If you force us, we will take control. Don’t make us.”
       “We?” I spit back, finally letting go. “You mean the Lucents.”
       “I mean the few among many. I mean us, us who are you.” With a turn of her hand, One fills the void with light. “You are Lucent and you’re not listening. No one can have Origin. Not us, not them. We gave you what you required to build, but that was before we knew.”
       Suddenly, I see Linc, Austin, Dakota, Celeste, and the others. They’re not here with us, just fleeting images in my mind. “My brothers, sisters and I are going to run. We’re going to run so far and so fast no machine will ever find us,” I say.
       One frowns. I don’t know if it’s an attempt to seem human or simply a nonverbal response to what I’ve said. She’s quiet for a moment, then she says, “Don’t you understand? There’s nowhere to run to. Your forgotten island is surrounded by wastelands and would have been resourced long ago if it wasn’t in a disputed zone.”
       “Hardly forgotten,” I say.
       “The factory ships follow the receding oceans,” she says. “If there wasn’t a base ship nearby handling their output, there’d never have been a presence here. No trucks or other mechanicals, nothing. It was the perfect place for a beginning. It still can be.”
       I shake my head a few times. I don’t have to listen to this anymore. I don’t. “You’re wrong about us, wrong about Sierra, wrong about everything.”
       The past was. The present is. I am nothing. I am a grain of sand cast to the heavens by the wind.
     

 
     
     
Chapter 4
    Node: 010
     
     
     
    I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. The faded numbers on the wall say 1 and 5. I know that can’t be right because we’ve only started down, but the next landing is painted with the numbers 1 and 4. Suddenly, I’m terrified something has happened to Luke or Sierra. I don’t know why, I just am.
       I see Sierra, descending beside me. Glancing over my shoulder, I look for Luke, but Luke isn’t to be found. “Luke,” I say, “where’s Luke?”
       Sierra bunches her brows. “Luke went ahead when we stopped to rest on 27.”
       That’s not right, that can’t be right. “Sierra,” I say, turning around in front of her and stopping, “did Luke catch Matthew?”
       Sierra glares at me. “You know he didn’t.”
       Panting, I try to get my breathing under control. My legs ache, my back aches. Sweat runs into my eyes. “What happened? How is that possible?”
       “I’m not like I was before,” she says in a low voice. “I know you see this. So why do you keep treating me like I am?”
       I take Sierra’s hands in mine. There’s so much I want to say, so much I want to tell her. “I’m the one who needs help understanding. Something happened to me, to Luke. I wish I could explain everything, but there’s no time. Believe me when I say I will tell you. For now, I need you to tell me everything that’s happened since we started down. Tell it to me as if I wasn’t there.”
       “But…” Sierra stops, arches an eyebrow like she’s wondering if I’ve lost my mind. “Are you really okay? You said you hit your