Resurgence Read Free Page B

good at predicting his thoughts but I’m not sure what’s going through his mind. Does he think I am trying to string him along for some
other reason?
    ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ he eventually asks.
    Of anything I could have predicted, this perhaps hurts the most. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
    He squirms, fingers snaking down to his sides. ‘Yes . . .’
    ‘Is this about Imrin?’
    Opie is the person I have grown up with but then I met Imrin at Windsor. We didn’t know if we would escape the prison in which we found ourselves, and bonded in a way that is impossible to
describe without being able to explain what it is like to be trapped. I have been dodging the question of my feelings for Imrin and Opie ever since, almost hoping an answer would fall out of the
sky.
    Opie is horrified at the implication that he is wary of helping because he gets me to himself if Imrin is left where he is. As soon as his face falls, I feel sorry for saying it. I don’t
even think I meant it.
    His eyes narrow. ‘Is that what you think of me?’
    ‘No . . . I’m sorry.’
    I reach for him but he stares at me for a few moments longer and then strides past, calling his brother Samuel’s name.
    I stand and stare at him walking away, wondering how I find it so easy to mess things up. As he rounds a corner and disappears out of sight, I start to search for some of the items I will
need.
    Much of the technology comes from old thinkpads that no longer work. I salvage a handful of parts and then pick apart a few old wireless phones. Opie returns a couple of hours later with Samuel
at his side. Our argument seems to have been forgotten and he places everything I requested on the ground close to where I’m working.
    ‘Can I help with anything else?’ he asks.
    I start to hunt through the items he has brought, discarding a few parts because they are too new. Most of what I require would generally be counted as old-fashioned. ‘I need someone to
test it on.’
    ‘Is it going to be dangerous?’
    ‘Not if I’ve got everything right.’
    He stands behind me, brushing a hand along my hip, and laughs. ‘So it
will
be risky then.’
    I tell him to get out of my way but he stays close, watching intently and handing me the few tools we possess when I need them. Because I don’t have anything I can properly solder with, my
work isn’t as tidy as Xyalis’ at his labs or my own at Windsor. Despite that, it is of a better standard as I have the ideal parts from the unlimited scrap in the gully.
    ‘It looks like a box,’ Opie jokes as I show him the finished product.
    ‘It
is
a box. It’s what’s in it that is important.’
    ‘What’s in it?’
    ‘Stuff.’
    Opie laughs and playfully threatens to fight me. It makes me giggle like the old days when we played in the woods – but this time I know I am far too frail to be able to hold my own.
    ‘You can test it on me, or I can try it on you,’ I say. ‘It
should
work but I don’t know who else to try it on.’
    The box is small enough to hold in my hand, the outside created from a dented piece of metal that came from a car door. Inside, the wires are tightly packed, connected to a numbered dial on the
exterior next to a solid metal button. It’s not entirely unlike the device Xyalis gave to me in the first place that got us out of Windsor. I offer it to Opie but he waves it away.
‘What do I need to do?’ he asks.
    I tell him to walk towards me and when he is within a metre, I press the transmit button on the side of the box. Opie shimmers orange and then disappears. For a fraction of a second, my stomach
is in knots. I’ve done something wrong and permanently injured him. Killed him. This was the last time I’d see him.
    Opie, my Opie.
    It only takes a moment, less time than it takes to breathe, before I hear his voice behind me. ‘Wow, it worked.’
    I turn to see him twenty metres away in an open clearing, poking at one palm with the other