Chapter 30

I TURNED TO THE FRONT DOOR AS ANOTHER HUMAN ENTERED. They'd been coming in a

steady stream for the last hour, and the kitchen was starting to get full. They were all gathered around

Tony, and I could hear snatches of conversation as they debated whether or not to help me. They seemed

torn between calling the plan "idiotic" or "genius."

Tony and Desmond had stepped away as soon as I broached the idea of freeing all the Reboots in

Austin. They'd had a heated argument in a back room, which ended with Desmond storming out, only to

return with the first of the rebels.

The rebels were mostly men, but they varied in age. Some looked about sixteen or seventeen, like

Gabe, while others were going gray. I'd thought Gabe was Tony's son, but he didn't call him Dad, and I'd

heard Gabe tell Addie he grew up in the orphanage. I wasn't sure what these people had in common,

besides an obvious hatred of HARC and an odd urge to help Reboots.

They were a strange bunch.

Desmond caught me staring at them and his eyebrows lowered. He leaned against the kitchen wall,

crossing one black boot over the other, and didn't shy away when I met his gaze. He'd been the most

vocal in his opposition to the rebels helping me—"I'm not dying for them" were his exact words—and I

could see his point. Still, he was one of the humans in the room who didn't seem the least bit scared of us,

and I didn't know what to make of that.

A short man stopped in front of me and Addie, planting his hands on his hips as he looked down at us.

"They took you while you were on assignment last night?" he asked Addie with half a smile.

"Yeah," she said, shooting me a wary glance.

"Were you on First Street? Or was one of your cohorts?"

"Yeah," she said in surprise. "I was sent there, but the assignment wasn't home."

The man chuckled. "Yep, that was me." He lifted his arms in victory. "Slipped by 'em again!"

"You're Henry?" Addie asked with a laugh.

"Sure am." He grinned before heading into the kitchen to join the other rebels.

Addie watched him go. "These humans are weird." She put her elbow on her knee and propped her

head up on her hand. "But we can't do it without them, you know."

"We?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at her. We were still sitting on the floor behind the couch,

Callum silent and motionless beside me.

"Please don't tell me you think you can break into HARC all by yourself," she said.

"I just didn't realize you wanted to help."

"My friends are all in there. Of course I want to help." She squinted at the rebels in the kitchen. "I

wish my dad had been able to come today. I would have liked to talk to him."

"I doubt he could get out of Rosa."

"Yeah." She frowned slightly. "I can't believe he works for HARC. I mean, I know he's with the

rebels, but still. It's odd."

"He didn't last time you saw him?" I asked.

She snorted. "Definitely not. I haven't seen him since I died six years ago, so I guess stuff changes, but

he hated HARC. I died at home of KDH and after I Rebooted he kept me. Said he wasn't letting HARC

have me."

"You're kidding. For how long?" The parents who wanted to keep their Rebooted children were few

and far between, although I wasn't entirely surprised Leb was one of them.

"Just a couple weeks. I eventually got all this clarity and realized he couldn't keep me hidden forever.

They would have caught him. So one day when he went to work I just left. I went to the medical center

and told them I was an orphan."

That explained how Leb was able to work at HARC when he had a Reboot kid. They didn't know.

A grunt from Callum made me turn. He was leaning against the back of the couch, staring vacantly at

the wall. I wrapped my fingers around his arm and it took several seconds for him to blink and turn to

look at me. His eyes didn't focus quite right.

"You okay?" I asked. "Do you want some food?"

He didn't respond. His eyes drifted from me to the humans and he snapped his teeth, letting out a low

growl. I quickly pulled back my hand and scooted away when he began struggling against the ropes. The

humans turned at the commotion and Tony stepped out of the crowd, hands on his hips.

"Why don't you take him back to the bedroom?" he suggested. "He shouldn't be in here with all of

us."

Addie grabbed for Callum's bound feet and I hooked my arms under his shoulders. He twisted in our

grasp and Addie took hurried steps toward the hallway at the back of the house, opening the second door

on the right.

The room held nothing but a bed and a dresser. There was a small pile of clothes in the corner, and a

few books on the dresser, but I didn't see much Callum could damage if he thrashed around the room in an

effort to escape the ropes.

We put him on the bed and Callum stopped struggling as I ran my hand up his forehead and into his

hair. He gave me a faint smile before closing his eyes, and I wished I could crawl into the bed with him.

Addie slipped out of the room and Tony appeared in the doorway, gesturing for me to follow him. I

stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind us.

"Here's the thing," he said quietly, taking a quick glance behind him at the humans in the kitchen.

"You've got a lot of people in there who want to help you."

I wouldn't have guessed that from the conversations I'd heard, not to mention the way everyone was

looking at me.

"But this sort of thing would be most effective if we had a couple weeks to plan," he continued. "We

could find the best way in and out, maybe try to get some of our people in key positions the night we do it.

But . . ." He glanced at the bedroom door. "They don't want me to tell you, but I don't feel right about it."

"Tell me what?" I asked, my stomach twisting into knots.

"The antidote has a window. If you wait too long, and he's too far gone, it's going to be useless."

I swallowed down the lump in my throat, and when I spoke my voice sounded funny. "What's the

window? How long do I have?"

"You definitely don't have a couple weeks," he said. "Which is why they didn't want me to tell you.

I'd say you're probably within the acceptable range, but you don't have a lot of time. How long has he

been like this?"

"He started feeling weird and shaking three days ago, I think. But he just started blacking out and

losing it yesterday."

Tony winced, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah. You don't have a lot of time."

"How much?"

"I don't know. This is a new program; the medical team is still figuring it out themselves. They're

letting some of them run the course to see what happens, and it's not good news. But I'd say . . . maybe not

more than a day. You might have more, but it's risky."

I pressed a hand to the wall because the world had started to sway a little and I was worried I'd fall

over. "So we'd need to go tonight."

"Yes."

I closed my eyes briefly. "What is the point of this? Is HARC trying to get rid of us?"

"Oh no. They need you guys. But they need you as aggressive, mindless soldiers. They're not getting

that, particularly from the Under-sixties. This is the solution. Or it will be, if they ever get it to work

right."

They needed more of me, basically. Me, with a lot less free will. I took a deep breath and nodded at

Tony. "Okay. I'm going tonight, whether you help me or not. You can tell them that."

A smile twitched the edge of his mouth. "Yeah, I figured."

He turned to go and I grabbed a corner of his shirt, making him stop. I crossed my arms over my chest

and tried my best not to look at him suspiciously, but I was pretty sure I failed.

"Why are you freeing Reboots?" I asked. "What's wrong with you?"

He laughed, rubbing a hand over his mouth. "What's wrong with me?"

"Yes. You've been getting Reboots out and just letting them go, right?"

"We have been, yes. It was really the only solution."

"Solution to what?"

"To getting rid of HARC. To actually have a shot at equal shares of food and medicine and everything

HARC gives to the folks on the other side of the wall because they think we're a lost cause. We have no

chance against HARC with all of you on their side."

"But HARC is keeping you safe," I said, the mantra I'd heard a hundred times during my five years as

a Reboot. "From us, from the viruses, from criminals . . ."

"Debatable," Tony said, lifting an eyebrow. "They might have started out like that, but they're

certainly not doing that anymore. Most of those criminals"—he rolled his eyes when he said the word

—"you went after were one of us. Or were just people who wanted to do something crazy like, I don't

know, keep their eight-year-old kid who died and came back to life. Everyone bought into this line HARC

fed us about you all being these soulless creatures. Most humans have never even talked to a Reboot."

He did have a point. The majority of humans only saw us when we were on assignment, when we

were hunting them down. We were rarely allowed to say one word to them.

"Come on," Tony said, jerking his head toward the kitchen. "If we're going to do this tonight we need

to start planning."

I pushed open the bedroom door a sliver, but Callum was still, his eyes closed. I wanted to stay with

him, but Tony was right. I couldn't just bust into HARC and hope for the best. We needed a plan.

I followed Tony into the kitchen, gesturing for Addie to come as well. The humans were at the table,

sitting on the counter, standing in clumps, and they all stopped talking when we walked in.

"Tonight or not at all," Tony said. He put a hand on my shoulder and I jumped, bumping into Addie.

"That's Wren's deal."

"Good," Desmond said. "No deal. Dumb idea anyway; let's all go home."

Tony shot him a look and Desmond sighed, leaning back against the wall and muttering to himself.

Then they were all talking at once again, and Tony held up his hands.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Just calm down for a second. What are the absolute essentials? What has to happen

for us to pull this off?"

"You have to take out the power so they can get in unseen," a short, balding man piped up.

"But you said there were backup generators," Addie said.

"There are," the human replied. "But they take a minute, and you have a much better chance of getting

in while the power is out."

"Right," Tony said. "You could probably get into the building before the power kicked on again."

"We'd need to unlock the Reboots' rooms first, right?" Addie asked. "They'll all be locked in that

time of night."

"Yes," Desmond said. "Control room on the fourth floor, and there will be armed guards in there. I'd

suggest you go together to unlock them. Then Addie can run up to eight to get the Reboots out and Wren

can go to the medical labs on seven."

"And where are we all going to go once we escape?" I asked. "Are we just running and hoping for the

best?"

Desmond let out a long, exaggerated sigh to let us know how he felt about that idea.

"Suggestion, Des?" Tony asked with a half smile.

"They can't just run," he said, throwing up his arms in annoyance. "Even if some of them make it,

HARC will jump in their shuttles and kill half of them from the sky."

"Good point," Addie said, chewing on her lip. "Can we disable the shuttles?"

"If we have a few volunteers willing to do that, yes," Tony said. "We could sneak in the garage and

mess with the engines enough to at least delay them. We'd have to move fast, but I think we'd get most of

them."

The shuttles. HARC had big shuttles, transport shuttles they usually used to move large groups of

human criminals around. It was hundreds of miles to the Reboot reservation, but if we got our hands on a

few of those, we'd be there in a matter of hours.

"What if we just took the shuttles?" I asked.

"Sorry?" Tony asked.

"How hard are they to drive? What if we took a couple big ones, like the transport ones, and just flew

out of there?"

"Uh . . . well, you could, I suppose," Tony said. "They're not hard to pilot. I could probably draw you

guys a diagram and we could have a quick lesson. I imagine you'd crash on landing, but that's not really a

concern for Reboots."

"Do they have a GPS tracking system?" Addie asked.

"Yeah. Not hard to remove, though. I could do it by the time y'all were ready to go." His eyes darted

around the room. "I'll need help, though."

The silence ticked by and Desmond crossed his arms over his chest with a frown. The rest of the

humans seemed intent on avoiding my gaze, except for Gabe, who was lounging against the wall next to a

blond guy who looked about our age.

"I'll help," Gabe said.

Tony scrunched his face up like he was going to object, but the blond boy interjected before he could.

"Come on. You said we couldn't go in the building. You never said anything about the garage."

Desmond snorted. "You did say that."

Tony rolled his eyes and gave the guys an amused look. "Fine. Gabe and Zeke, you'll be with me." He

turned to Desmond. "Are you up for cutting the power? You could do it from several blocks away."

"Yeah. I'll do it." He wasn't thrilled about it, though.

"Okay." Tony clapped his hands together. "Good. I've got a guy bringing us the schematic of the

building, so we'll go over that when he gets here. Do you two want to rest or anything? Food, maybe?"

My stomach jumped at the mere mention of food. "Food would be great if you have any."

"Sure thing," he said, pointing to the table. "Have a seat."

Addie and I sat down at the kitchen table and most of the humans cleared out, going to sit in the living

room or disappearing out the back door on errands. I kept a watch on Callum's door, but no one went near

it.

Tony put sandwiches in front of Addie and me. The bread was soft and fresh, the bean spread and

vegetables inside delicious. He seemed pleased as I took giant bites, and I managed a thank-you in

between chewing.

"You are very welcome. That one on the counter is for Callum if you want to bring it to him later." He

put a couple glasses of water on the table and headed for the humans in the living room. "Let me know if

you need anything."

"Weird," Addie muttered, shooting me a confused look.

"Right?" Let him know if we needed anything? Bizarre. "You don't think they're up to something, do

you?"

She shook her head. "No. My dad wouldn't have led us into a trap." She twisted around and frowned

at the humans. "I think they actually want to help us."

I turned and followed her gaze to where Tony and Desmond were standing, heads close together as

they talked.

"I think they mostly want to help themselves," I said quietly. "But I'll take it."