Undiscovered (Unremembered #1.5)(3)

Rio shook his head, looking saddened. “Believe it or not, your mother cares about you.”

I twisted my mouth to the side, pretending to contemplate. “Hmm. I’ll take not.”

“Try to stay out of trouble, Lyzender. You’re treading on dangerous ground. You don’t want to upset the wrong people around here.”

I offered him a one-finger salute. “Will do, sir.”

As he turned to leave, he didn’t notice when I slipped the microcapsule into the pocket of his lab coat.





3: Next


“And then the hovercopter blasted into the sky, like a meteor! I thought it was going to suck me up in one of its MagnoBeams! Four agents—huge guys with razor-sharp teeth—came barreling out of the back, lasers at the ready. One tried to spazz me off my feet, but I ducked and rolled just in time. And then a booming voice echoed across the desert—”

A loud throat clear interrupted my narrative and I looked up to see Mrs. Gleist looming above me, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her foot tapping.

“Yes?” I prompted her, causing the twelve children gathered at my feet in the commissary to giggle into their hands.

“Are you poisoning my students’ minds with your lies again, Mr. Luman?”

“No,” I replied with a straight face, turning to wink at the kids. “I’m poisoning their minds with the truth.”

Another round of snickers. Mrs. Gleist clearly did not appreciate my comeback (few authority figures do around this place). She shot me a venomous look and turned to the children. “Students! Lunchtime is over. Back to the classroom.”

There was a cacophony of groans and gripes as the dozen primary school kids rose to their feet and followed begrudgingly behind their teacher. I turned and started walking over to the table where my friends had gathered, but stopped when I felt a small tug on my pant leg.

I peered down into the face of a five-year-old girl, her blue eyes wide and curious. I crouched to bring my ear close to her mouth. “What did the loud booming voice say?” she asked me, glancing nervously at her disappearing class.

I smiled. “That’s for you to figure out. Tomorrow I want you to come back here and tell me what you think happened next.”

She bit her lip pensively and then, without another word, scurried after her classmates.

“New Freedom Fighters mission,” Klo said as soon as I slid into the seat across from him. I eyed the pile of food on his plate, enough to feed ten of Raze’s agents. I didn’t know where he put it all. The guy barely weighed a hundred pounds.

“My dad said they’re working on developing insect bots in the Aggie Sector. They serve the same purpose as natural insects but without the annoying bug bites and stuff.”

I yawned, pretending to be bored. “Sure. And maybe I could ask one of those primary schoolers back there to help me break in.”

He frowned, looking disappointed.

“I don’t give a flux about insect bots. I’m tired of going after C3s. They’re not even a challenge anymore.”

“My mom has C9 clearance in the memory labs,” Xaria put in, scooting way too close to me on the bench. I wanted to ask her to move over so I could wield my fork and knife without knocking into her. But I also didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

Rustin claimed she was into me. And maybe he was right. But I had bigger things to deal with right now.

“What are we going to set free?” I asked rhetorically. “A bunch of memories?”

I pulled my DigiSlate from my bag, unrolled it, and laid it on the table.

“Here’s where we’re going next,” I asserted, swiping across the screen until I reached the map of the compound. A small green dot blinked rapidly toward the bottom left side of the diagram.

“What’s that?” Rustin asked.

Xaria scooted in and tilted her head toward me. She was so close now, I could feel her dark black curls tickling the sides of my face. I leaned back to steer clear of them.

“That’s Dr. Havin Rio,” I explained, pointing at the blinking indicator. It was in the middle of a massive black sea of open space, far away from the rest of the compound buildings. “I slipped a tracking capsule into his lab coat this morning.”

“Where is he?” Klo asked, taking a giant bite out of his burger. I could never get used to the taste of the synthetic meat on the compound. Which was why I usually stuck to vegetables and rice.

“It looks like he’s outside the compound gates,” Xaria put in. I could feel her bare leg brush against mine and I recoiled. The injury on her face made me instantly feel guilty. Maybe I should just kiss her and get it over with. If I did it really badly—like sloppy with a lot of tongue—she might lose interest.

“He’s not outside the compound,” I told them with authority.

They looked at me, and I indicated the map. I zoomed in and scrolled down. “See?” I pointed at a thin marker on the bottom of the screen. “That’s the southeast gate. He’s still inside the walls.”

“That gate is out of commission,” Xaria said.

I smiled. “Exactly.”

Klo went back to his burger, looking disinterested. “So it’s probably where they test the bioweaps. So what?”

“So, I didn’t know people could just walk around where they’re testing biological weapons.”