Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(47)

“Not the communicator itself—it’s one our network uses. I designed your identifier.” Reykin shows me his communicator, a spinning, star-shaped moniker, but it’s his star, the seven-pointed star with his initials. He notices me staring. “Everyone gets their own individual identifier. You can change yours to suit you.”

“No, I like it. It’s pretty.” I touch the bracelet and admire the detail of the rose. My brow wrinkles in confusion. “When did you do this—create the identifier?”

“A while ago.”

He must have made it after I was implanted—when I was Crow’s assassin. “You must’ve known I was—that I’m . . .”

“I knew.”

“Then why would you make one for me?”

A raw, shattered look chisels his features. “Survival. I had to do something.” The pulse in his neck throbs harder, hammering like mine.

“I will have a dragon identifier,” Cherno states. “When will it be ready?”

“I’ll get right on that,” Reykin replies sarcastically, without looking at him.

“Do,” Cherno’s deep voice rumbles.

“Would you like to rest?” Reykin asks me.

“Yes, please.”

Reykin leads us out of the locker room and down a twist of corridors. He stops at a door near the end of one corridor. Instead of using the control panel, he touches a screen on his wrist communicator, triggering the door to slide open. “This is your room, Cherno.” He gestures with a wave of his hand. “I’ll send someone to assist you with ordering clothing.” He eyes the blanket covering Cherno.

Cherno’s eyes narrow at the small bunks in the walls. He probably won’t be able to sleep in either one, but he says nothing about the accommodations. Instead he asks, “Roselle, would you like to stay with me?”

“I’m putting her in the room next to yours,” Reykin explains, pointing to the wall. “She’ll be right here.”

Cherno’s attention turns to me. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” I say. “We could both use a little privacy and some sleep.”

“Beat on this wall if you need me,” Cherno says, and indicates the adjoining one.

“Okay. You do the same.”

His textured lips twitch in a faint smile. “You’re not like yourself at all, death-harbinger.” He enters his room. Reykin closes the door.

We walk to the next door, and Reykin opens it. He stands aside for me to enter. It’s not a very large room. On one wall nestle two small sleeping bunks. The other contains a small washing and dressing area. The largest wall, opposite the door, has a round window that fills almost the entire area. I go to it. The water outside the vessel lacks illumination at this depth, but with my vision I can see marine life teeming around us. Reykin joins me at the window.

This ship’s shape leads me to believe that it would be just as comfortable flying in the air as in the sea. It doesn’t resemble a whale, like I’d thought. It’s much bigger than that. The hull takes on the colors of the water, camouflaging it. We appear to be operating within a pod of whales. The large aquatic mammals swim in formation around the entire structure.

“How do you get the whales to do that?” I ask, trying hard to act normal despite the growing awkwardness between us.

Reykin blinks. “You can see the whales?”

“Yes.”

He leans his hip against the window frame, pretending to look at the water, but he’s really watching my face in the reflection of the glass. I know because I’m watching his.

“Well, those aren’t really blue whales,” he says. “They’re robotic simulations. We use them to explain the mass of our ship if we’re somehow spotted from a satellite or sonar. Outside the Sozo One, you can hear the replicated whale sounds.”

“That’s clever, unless a whaler finds you. Do you own this ship?”

“No, but I know the captain fairly well. He owes me a favor.” He smiles, but then he looks puzzled, squinting at the window before us. He turns his attention back to me. “How are you? Do you need to see a physician?”

“I don’t think a regular physician can help me. I need to speak to your brother.”

“My brother? Why?”

“He’s a technician. He knows things about me no one else does.”

“What things?” A note of suspicion, or maybe jealousy, is in his tone. He sounds angry. “How did you even find Ransom?”

“He found me . . . Well, that’s not really true. He . . . he put—I should let him answer that question.”

Frustration draws Reykin’s eyebrows together. “Where was he when he found you?”

“We were in the Fate of Seas, in what was once a military Base long fallen out of use by Swords. I’m betting my mother, knowing what Census was doing, gave it to them. It was all a cover. It contains labs where they design and test implants, do genetic experiments, create generations of new beings from incubators. I don’t know if they do other genetic enhancements there or somewhere else, but their cyborg soldiers are well equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry in place of some body parts.”

“I’ll find the Base. We have access to old military terrain maps and training Bases. We know about cyborgs. We’ve been fighting them since I left you. They’re mostly a separate division of Black-Os. They’re harder to fight than the zeroborns. There’s another new threat, too. We were calling everyone zeroborn, but the zeroborns are really the ones who Census created in their human farms. ‘Numbers’ are the new acquisitions acquired after the initial attack on CTD—Census Transition Day. Numbers are firstborns or secondborns who grew up in the Fates Republic and received their implants and numbered monikers after CTD. Numbers get new monikers now that have unique digits assigned to each. Normal citizens who report for their new monikers are getting VPMD-implanted at the same time, against their will. They don’t know it. They leave a few weeks later with devices in their heads. The technology isn’t activated right away—not until whole areas are implanted. Then they assimilate them all at once, like flipping a switch. The only symptoms they have are extreme headaches. Those who resisted the moniker appointments find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy once the Numbers are triggered and the implants are activated in Census’s network. Implanted family members hunt down and murder resisters in the streets.”