Secondborn (Secondborn #1)(47)

When the hallway is clear, Flannigan scans her cloned moniker at the gateway. Circumventing the guarded hallways, we reach the heavily guarded outer gate of the detention center, and Flannigan pulls me into a room filled with cleaning equipment. She opens a grated vent at the back wall. “Follow me,” she whispers and disappears into the vent. I climb in next to her, and she pulls the grate back into place. We crawl through a metal shaft that leads to another grate. This one empties out into a dim concrete tunnel.

This tunnel is empty and dank, lined with sapwood pipes that transport water, fuel, and waste along the trunk of the Tree. It also has clear tubes filled with data lines. Flannigan looks directly at one of these and follows it down the tunnel until she comes to a small access panel with a holographic scanner. “There it is,” she says, rubbing her hands together.

“What is it?” I ask. My heart is pounding. I’m afraid we’ll be caught at any moment. Flannigan doesn’t seem to share my concern and places Holcomb’s moniker under another scanner. “What are you doing?”

“I’m accessing the detention center’s inmate roster, making it look as if you were in our cell all night. I’m scheduling you for release at five a.m. I, on the other hand, was never even there. No connection will exist between us. You won’t have to go back to the cell. I’ll make the action log close out seamlessly.”

“You can do that? You can take yourself right out of the detention center logs?”

“I can do anything,” she says. Her grin is full of bravado. “Watch—I just erased myself from this Base.”

“What happens if we get caught?”

“We won’t.” She winks at me. “This is like a golden halo stroll down the streets of Purity,” she whispers.

“How do you know how to do this?” I ask.

She quirks her eyebrow. “I’m a Star, remember? I was born to create this kind of technology for the ease and comfort of the aristocracy. I got bored and decided to see the world instead.” She plucks at holographic screens with her index finger.

“Of all the places to go, I’m surprised that you ended up here.” Something isn’t quite right about Flannigan. She may try to appear as if she’s just a free spirit, but there are an underlying intensity and drive that don’t quite fit what she’s telling me.

“I took a wrong turn.” She shrugs. “Believe me, I want out of here as fast as I can manage it.” That I can believe. She closes down the holographic screen. “There,” she says triumphantly. “We are officially free women.” She links arms with me. “C’mon, let me show you my world. But first!” She holds my hand and lifts her boot up. Sliding the heel to the side, she reveals a small compartment. From it, she extracts two pieces of thin metal, two inches by four inches. She slides the heel closed and extracts a couple of fingerless gloves from the heel of her other boot. Both are left-handed.

“This,” she says, holding up one of the pieces of metal, “is lead.” She opens a small slot between the finger and the thumb of one of the gloves and slides the metal into it. She hands me the glove. “Put this on.”

I slide the black glove on my hand. The lead covers my moniker.

“Your moniker can be tracked. Right now, your signal is coming from the detention center. When you move away from it, you leave a trail, unless your moniker becomes invisible by blocking that signal. With that glove, you can walk right by a stinger and it will never know you’re there. It won’t challenge you. It won’t report you to the MPs. It will be blind. Stinger drones send out high-frequency pings that interact with your moniker. With the source covered, they get no feedback.” She puts her own glove on. “Now, let’s see what mischief we can find.”

We set off. She locates internal heartwoods used solely by the Stars, Atoms, and a few Swords who maintain the Tree Base’s infrastructure. I head toward the one that leads up, but she grabs my arm. “We can’t go up,” she says. “Most of the Census agents are up, replacing monikers. We go down.”

One level down, we come to a laundry. Even at this hour of the night, Stone workers are busy washing bedding and uniforms. We bypass them by sneaking behind the large industrial machines. The tumble and hum drown out our sound. Coming to a separate aisle, we’re hidden behind large racks of black leather coats.

“Here.” Flannigan takes a long black coat from the rack and holds it up to me. She hands it to me, along with the white uniform shirt and black trousers of a Census agent.

“What is this for?” I ask, as she chooses a tailored coat for her small frame.

“Don’t you want to get your fusionblade back?” she asks, slipping on the white Census shirt. She stares at me, a challenge.

“How do you know about my fusionblade?”

“I make it a priority to know all there is to know about the soldiers I serve.”

“No,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Something’s wrong. You know entirely too much about me. Did you know I was going to be put into detention?”

“It was over three hours from the time you brandished to the time they picked you up. In that time, Census made a move on you. You can connect the dots.”

“You had me picked up?”

“Of course I did. No one reported you—it’s the Sword secondborn code never to rat on each other or you’re labeled a turner, and turners die badly. I had to do something or Agent Crow was going to kill you.” She slips into the black trousers.