Chapter 5
The poker chip dances in between my fingers as the sun sets. From my perch on the roof, I watch the Post Angeles skyline streak
with orange and brown.
Flip flip flip flip.
The chip feels heavier, but maybe I’m just imagining it.
I’ve been alive for eighteen years, and I can count all the really interesting things that have happened to me on one hand.
Very rarely has life surprised me, and most of those surprises have not been good.
And then, within one twenty-four-hour period, I read my first book, joined a revolution, realized my writing has actually
impacted people, kissed the most annoying boy I’ve ever met, and watched my proctor get arrested because of something I did.
My thoughts stop on that memory: Ms. Astor getting pulled out into the hallway, hands cuffed behind her back.
Where is she now? At some refinery, maybe. One of the bad ones, the ones that are built on old oil rigs out off the coast of Canada. And that’s the best-case scenario, really. If they truly want to make an example of her, there are plenty of other ways they can kill her.
Either way, I know it’s unlikely I’ll ever see her again. And that is my fault. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes
so hard that colors appear, bright spots of white and purple.
A sound scratches at the edge of the roof, and I jump, lowering my hands.
Someone is coming up.
I shove myself to a crouch, ready to run. I didn’t consider that Ms. Astor could have given me up. She didn’t seem like the
kind of person who would do that, but then again, I really don’t know her all that well, do I?
This could be it. Hammers could be climbing up here, ready to—
I stop as a familiar face peers over the edge of the roof, eyes wide.
“Nef?” I ask, letting out a huff that’s somewhere between a relieved sigh and a laugh.
She looks around before hoisting herself onto the roof, scrabbling a bit against the rough surface. I jump up to help her.
Once she gets her knee on the flat tile, I return, dangling my feet over the edge.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, motioning for her to join me. Technically we have another hour before curfew. But Nef has never visited me before. Why waste your time, when DopaMine unlocks at five?
Nef runs a hand over her curls and squints toward where the last of the sunset paints a rainbow low in the sky. “Wow. It’s
prettier up here than down in the valley,” she says with a sort of forced nonchalance that makes me laugh.
“Your first time visiting me and you’re commenting on the view? Want to talk about the weather next?” I tease.
“Do you think Ms. Astor is dead?” she asks bluntly, and I blink several times at the question. I want to tell her no, that’s
ridiculous, she’s fine, but . . . I don’t know.
My hesitation says enough, and she nods as she turns back out to look at the darkening skyline. The fiery reds give way to
muted purples, somber blues.
“I know that risk isn’t really my thing. It never has been,” she says, cocking her jaw as she thinks. “I thought the day Uriah
was picked up and sent off would be the second-worst day of my life.”
“Second?” I ask.
“I was saving the worst . . . for me. My eighteenth birthday. It’s in four months.” She picks at a piece of the roof and then
looks at me. “But I think I was wrong. I think watching people I love leave is worse. Even if I get to stay. And watching
Ms. Astor . . .”
She can’t finish her sentence, and I reach out and grab her hand, squeezing it.
My heart thunders in my chest. We’ve never talked like this before, Nef and me.
It’s always been about the latest episode of our shows or the lunch menu.
She’s never really let me in. I’m almost scared to move, like I might accidentally spook her and she’ll come to her senses to realize she’s on my roof, that I can hear everything she’s saying.
“So, anyway. I had those thoughts and was pacing around my room, trying to make them stop, but they wouldn’t. So then I realized
I needed to talk to a friend. And you’re that friend.”
“I’m glad you’re here, but you know, you could have just FaceChatted. I’ll always answer.”
Nef smiles as she nods, and then the nod turns into a shake of her head. “It’s more than that. I’ve spent my whole life so
afraid of everything, Ripley. So convinced that if I just played by the rules, I’d win. But something about seeing Ms. Astor—the
one who taught me those rules—walked out like a criminal today, I don’t know. It made me think.”
Her eyes are alight as she looks at me, and it’s thrilling, like I’m seeing my best friend for the first time in years.
I know what she’s thinking, so I finish the sentence: “It made you think that maybe playing by the rules doesn’t matter if
the game is rigged?”
She huffs out a long sigh. “That’s it. We can’t win, can we.” It’s not a question. “So, I don’t know.” She dusts her knees off as she thinks. “Maybe it’s silly, but I needed to know that I still had the ability to do something outside of a screen. Something brave.”
A warm wind blows over the rooftop, ripping my hair in wild directions. I pull a strand from my mouth as I follow her gaze
out to the city beyond. Because this is brave. Doing something the algorithm hasn’t suggested. Doing anything.
My heart thuds against my ribs as an idea pops into my head. Really, it was already there. It’s been there since I set foot
in Lyceum’s tunnels and thought Nef would love this. But I didn’t want to force her or put her in danger. I think, deep down,
I figured that Ms. Astor would know when she was ready, probably more than I would.
But Ms. Astor is gone now. And if anyone is going to tell Nef about Lyceum, it has to be me.
I bite my cheek as I weigh my options. Once I tell her about it, I can’t take it back. Even if she decides not to join, she
will be in danger just by knowing.
But not telling her is still making a decision for her, isn’t it?
She wanted to know she could be brave. I have the perfect test, I guess.
“I have something to tell you,” I whisper.
Nef and I keep our hoods low as we make our way inland, catching the backs of trains just like I did before.
Above us, hovercopters swoop low, crisscrossing as they dart to different destinations across the valley, and we’re sure to stay still and keep out of sight.
There are a few patrol drones, too, tiny specks in the distance.
I can only hope they don’t come any closer.
Ms. Astor had said Lyceum would be meeting at an old college tonight. There are dozens of colleges around here, but there’s
only one that is connected to the incomplete underground railway system, so Nef and I head there. After all, Lyceum operates
in those tunnels.
When the train slows around a bend, Nef and I jump off. The momentum knocks me forward and it’s a heady moment, my body rushing,
but I catch myself on the ledge of a walkway just in time. Nef rolls perfectly, and I almost want to laugh. She was so worried
about breaking rules, but she’s undeniably good at it.
“What the hell was that?” I whisper as we race down an empty flood channel that will lead to the college.
“What?” she asks, and I can tell she’s smiling even just from her voice.
“That superhero ninja roll. I may be recruiting you to the revolution, but somehow I’m the one over here stubbing my toe jumping
off the slowest train in existence.”
“I am not joining a revolution. I’m looking at books,” Nef says, and I can’t tell if she’s trying to convince herself or me
as the old building looms before us.
“Hate to break it to you,” I say, reaching through an empty pane in the window and knocking open the door, “but looking at books is revolutionary now.”
Nef hesitates for a moment, and then we both shuffle inside. The door slams behind us; I whirl to shoot a glare at Nef, who
seems to shrink into her shoulders. The sound echoes down the dark, empty hallway. I hold a hand up and Nef doesn’t move a
muscle. The last time I did this, Ms. Astor stepped out of the shadows. But it’s entirely possible that no one knows we’re
coming, now that she’s gone.
“Lyceum operates out of the subway tunnels, so we just have to find stairs that lead down,” I whisper, and we inch along the
hallway until we find that same black symbol: the Ionic column. I understand now what it stands for—Lyceum. When I throw the door open, Nef makes a noise low in her throat.
This time, the stairs don’t glow—it must take someone charging the glow-in-the-dark strips, probably with flashlights—so we
make slow work of it. Our vision is useless in the pitch black, and we both know that there is a chance that any given stair
could give out or just . . . not be there. In the darkness, my mind helpfully conjures images of us tumbling down an endless
concrete stairwell. How would we call for help? Could we? It would expose all of Lyceum.
Nef makes a small noise, and I reach out awkwardly for her hand, bonking her in the face instead. “Ow, Ripley,” she whines,
but there’s a smile in her voice.
I grasp at her shoulder—elbow?—instead. “C’mon. Being brave, right?”
And so we inch along, testing our weight on every stair like the very earth might crumble away.
Eventually, we reach the bottom. We feel around for another door, grasping in the dark. I bite back a scream when my hand
goes through more than one spiderweb.
Eventually, my fingers find an old crash bar. “Here,” I say, and with a squeak, light washes across us.
The sight is familiar: a wide tunnel covered in bookshelves and half-strung lights. But this time, it’s just us and the books.
“Where is everyone?” Nef whispers.
I don’t hear the footsteps coming up behind me, and neither does Nef.
There’s no time to breathe before cold metal is at my throat.
“Move and die,” a deep voice says.
I cast a quick glance to my side, where Nef is frozen in the same position—knife at her throat. With the shadows at our backs,
we can’t even see who’s caught us.
“You said the Machs didn’t know about this location,” the figure behind me snaps at the one holding Nef.
Machs?