Gravity (The Taking) Read online

  Buzzing.

  “Yes, it’s fine. I’m sure.”

  Why is he protecting me? Hosts are assigned. He has known me most of my life. The revelation sends my mind into turbo mode. He knew me all along yet has never given me a moment’s notice in school. Do the Engineers know? Does Dad know?

  My mind continues to contemplate everything I’ve always known and everything I’ve never guessed, until the sweet smell of his skin evaporates. The window slides open and clicks closed.

  He’s gone.

  Everything that just happened is swarming my thoughts at once, but one thought rises above all the others…

  I’m not sure I can wait until tomorrow night to find out what’s going on.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Ari!”

  I jerk up in bed, my eyes darting around for Jackson before I remember that he already left. I yank off the covers. What time is it? Time, time, come on, where are you? I stumble through the darkness until I find my alarm clock, which is facedown on the floor. 5:10. I spin around, cursing myself for not setting out training clothes last night.

  I’m almost to my closet when my bedroom door slides open and my dad storms in. He’s so tall his head barely clears the doorframe. As usual, he looks as though he wakes already dressed for the day—gelled dark brown hair, smooth shave—except that instead of his usual black collared shirt and slacks, he has on his training clothes. Uh oh. Since Dad is too rigid to be normal, he fully dresses for the day when he works in his home office during the hour before our training. The fact that he’s already changed means I’m even later than I thought.

  “Do you see the time?” he asks. “I expected you downstairs ten minutes ago. You know my schedule. I—”

  “I know, I know, I’m sorry. My alarm didn’t go off. I’m almost ready. Give me five minutes.” I fumble with my closet keypad, entering the code wrong three times before I get it right.

  Dad crosses his arms, oozing disappointment and annoyance. Heat rises on my neck and my palms grow clammy, like my body can’t decide whether to be angry or embarrassed. “Fine, you have five minutes,” he says. “But I expect you to take this seriously.” He reaches for my nightstand. “I’ll log your patch—”

  “No!” I race to the nightstand and slam the drawer before he can pull out my patch case. The case that, once placed in our reader, will show my patch missing. I don’t think the Ancients require executions anymore, but memory serum sucks. Every kid has been given it for accidentally forgetting the patch or not putting it on correctly…and none of us ever wants to get it again. No memories for twenty-four hours. A whole day gone, and that’s precautionary. The whole thing leaves you feeling violated.

  Dad cocks his head. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” I say as I plant myself between him and the evidence.

  “Your patch case. Now.”

  “I’ll do it, Dad, really. You go set up.” I fight the urge to cringe. I can’t let him know I have an ulterior motive.

  He hesitates but marches from the room. As soon as he leaves, I slump against my bed and draw a long breath. I feel like I’ve lied to him, even though I didn’t say a single untrue word. With him gone, the events of last night flash through my mind like lightning, one after the other, each more confusing than the last.

  Jackson Locke.

  I think back to yesterday when Coach revealed he and I were the top two seeds. Jackson had nodded toward me and I to him, respectful. I tried not to watch him fight after that, but I couldn’t help it. It’s hard to avoid watching your biggest competition. I watched as he quickly beat his opponent and felt a tinge of jealousy. He made it look so easy. Now I know why.

  I get dressed in a daze, throwing on the stretchy gray pants and tank Dad had designed for our training, and head downstairs. The case reader is visible from the bottom step, implanted in the wall, sort of like a safe except with a glass front. Mom and Dad already placed their cases inside. Each has a green light beside it, letting us know all is well…and no investigation will be commencing. I have no idea how the Ancients are assigned to us or, more likely, how we are assigned to them, considering they are the ones who require the patch and monitor the case readers. But it seems odd that of all the people in our city of Sydia, Jackson Locke is assigned to me.

  The reader activates as I near. I press my thumb into the fingerprint scanner, causing the glass to slide open. A cold mist releases from the box and I wonder, not for the first time, what they do to the patches when analyzing them. I fiddle with the case in my hand, hoping the device won’t detect the missing patch. Maybe I can tell Mom I lost it. No, she’ll tell Dad, and even he won’t be able to save me from this. I lift the case up and then lower my hand, up again, then drop it. Blast!

  Finally after several seconds of staring, I drop my case in its slot and back away, my eyes clenched tight. I hear the glass close. Then something magical happens—it clicks off. I open one eye and see a green light beside my case. I can’t help it. I have to check.

  I press my thumb into the scanner, and once the glass lifts, grab the case and pop the lid, preparing to slam it back into its slot, but stop cold. My patch is there, silver and shiny and staring at me as innocent as ever. My mouth drops. How did it…? I shove the case back and rush from the scene before whatever just happened reverses and my patch goes missing again.

  I think to last night. It wasn’t there. I had dumped my case upside down. I checked everywhere in my bedroom. Yet…maybe it was a dream. And if I imagined that, then maybe I imagined Jackson, too. My mind replays his face, his eyes, the way his jaw looked so strong, confident. I didn’t imagine it.

  I need to tell Dad, but if I do I’ll get interrogated and dosed with memory serum for sure. I release a long breath. I have to tell him but not yet. I need to question Jackson first.

  I step over to our transfer door. The glass lifts, and once I’m inside, the elevator shoots down to one of the most advanced training rooms in the city. The four gray walls appear ordinary, but these walls are temp-treated, soundproof, and able to absorb a bullet without causing it to ricochet back. Dad structures the rest of the room according to our training schedule. Last year, there were four shooting stations. Now, the room is empty except for the combat mat positioned in the center. Dad is already on it, bouncing around as though he’s still a trainee. Sometimes I think he wishes he still were one, which is why he pushes me so hard. Reliving it and all.

  “I’m here,” I say without looking at him.

  “Put on your gear.”

  The air-conditioning blows through the air ducts in the ceiling. I shiver as I pass underneath one. He knows I hate being cold. I yank a pair of gloves from the weapons shelves against the left wall and walk back to the mat. I bounce for a second, finding my balance, and then slide on the gloves.

  I tilt my head to the side until my neck cracks, an anxious response, Dad tells me, but I do it to remind myself that I’m tough. Dad waves me forward with his hands. He likes me to take the first jab, so he can tell me what I did wrong and then test my blocking ability by demonstrating on me. Any other day, I’d go along with it, but I don’t have time for this today.

  The sooner I finish training, the sooner I can get to Jackson.

  I flip forward and switch kick, aiming for his face, but he grabs my foot, spinning me around so I land hard on the mat. I bounce up and jab, not letting him stop to demonstrate, and end up clipping his jaw. I cringe, unsure of what he’ll say or do.

  Dad nods in approval. “Nice work. Never give the opponent a chance to have the upper hand. Go again.”

  I punch once, twice, three times as Dad blocks each hit, while my mind drifts again to last night. Jackson is an Ancient. A boy from school is an Ancient. Even now, I can’t wrap my mind around it.

  The only Ancient I’ve ever seen is Zeus, their leader, during one of the televised addresses. And yeah, he looks human enough. I guess I assumed they looked human, but were actually something else, like they were projectin
g the human form. Some sort of illusion, like everyone says. But Jackson is very real. And if Ancients actually look and act just like humans, then maybe there are others at school. Maybe they are around us all the time, watching, analyzing—preparing to attack. And maybe that’s the real reason we train so hard. I’ve often wondered why Engineers need so many Operatives. Of course we’re told they maintain civil arrest throughout the country, though there are rarely uprisings, especially now that food shortage isn’t an issue. We all know that we’re training as a precautionary measure. It isn’t something they hide. But still, I always assumed we trained in case they attacked, not because they were already here.

  A shudder creeps down my back. I have to corner Jackson today. This isn’t something I can keep from my dad for long.

  “Are you listening to me? Where is your head today?”

  “Sorry.” I shake all thought from my mind, wishing I’d grabbed some coffee or at least an energy shot. Tomorrow I’ll get up on time, but I know better than to ask for a break. I have ten more minutes to go, fifteen if I can’t get my act together.

  “Start the sequence,” Dad says.

  I bounce on the mat and tumble backward in a series of flips to give me the distance I need to do the sequence. Dad widens his stance, rotating his arms forward to get into position. He won’t hit me—well, he never has—but this look, serious and deadly, always makes me think he will. It’s no wonder he was top seed, top Operative, top everything. Part of it was because he wasn’t a legacy like me, but I think it’s also just who he is—driven, always a step ahead. Even though I’m the legacy, the one legally born to be commander, I’m not sure I’ll ever have the determination he has.

  I sigh, wishing I could fight someone—anyone—other than Dad, and run across the mat, dive into the air, and then flip again and again until I’m in front of him, in motion before my mind can slow me down. I spin and kick. Throw punch after punch. My teeth grit together.

  I push harder and harder, Dad blocking each move, but I refuse to give up. I shake the last of sleep from my body and continue to fight without thought or worry, until Dad throws up his right hand, his signal to stop.

  He steps up, towering over me. “Good, but not good enough. You need to close the fight in under five. To pass Op training, you’ll have to do it in under two. To live if you’re in a real fight, you’ll need to know how to kill the enemy in less than a minute. You have to respond faster, Ari. The Ancients will guess your moves before you can think them. The key? Stop thinking so much.”

  I glance at him, bewildered. “Under five? I clipped you. Aren’t you—” A zillion different words come to mind. What I really want to say is proud, but I know better than to speak of self-praise.

  Dad watches me for a fleeting second, then exits the room without another word.

  I grab a towel from the weapons shelves, wipe my face, and return my gloves, my mind reeling. Even if I weren’t rattled beyond measure, there’s no way I could knock someone out in under a minute, forget the enemy. I sigh. Well, I guess I’ll figure it out or get bruised up trying.

  I walk back to the transfer door and step inside. It shoots up, opening to the main level of our three-story house. I wave to Mom, who’s watching some computerized cooking program on the T-screen in our sitting area. Thanks to World War IV, 95 percent of Sydia can’t afford food. Our land was destroyed, toxic, so that nothing would grow. As part of the treaty, the Ancients cultivate our land, but they can’t—or won’t—sustain the entire planet. So our genius Chemists created food supplements. A single pill provides all the nutrition of an entire meal. The problem is that manufacturing them is expensive. Their solution? Charge ridiculous amounts for real food and use that money to cover the costs. So while no one starves now, the majority can’t afford to even buy an apple, while the rest can have anything we wish. Mom’s wishes are simple—cooking and the necessary tools to make it fun for her. But she still feels guilty, which is why she transferred from Composites to Nutritional Development. I think if I weren’t so programmed to become an Engineer, I might have liked to try Chemist training. They do lots of good things.

  My bedroom door slides open as I near. I take my time across the composite carpet. The softness surrounds my toes, and I wiggle them deeper into the carpet before reaching my closet. I weed through my clothes, choose my outfit for today, and then head to the shower. I need a plan, a way to question Jackson without anyone noticing. The last thing I need is for him to go all Ancient on me at school, exposing both of us. I need this to stay a secret—for now—until I can find out why he’s here…and why he protected me. Twenty minutes later, I come down to a silent house. “Mom?” I call out.

  “Here!” she shouts from the kitchen. I round the corner to see her already in her white Chemist coat and scrutinizing a tiny pill on the counter. She pulls a dropper from her pocket and dispenses a brown drop onto the pill. The liquid coats the encasing, changing it from white to a deep brown. She passes it over to me. “Do me a favor and taste this.”

  I recoil. It’s not that I mind food pills. I take them every day even though my family can afford natural foods. But still, brown? I don’t think so. “Thanks, but I’m not…hungry.” I step as far from her outreached hand as possible.

  “Oh, come on. I’m trying a new formula that infuses flavors into the pill. This one”—she smiles at the tiny dot in her hand—“is chocolate.”

  I eye the pill with suspicion. “Chocolate?” Her grin widens, so I relent and pluck the pill from her fingertips. “Are you—?”

  “Just taste it already,” she says, excitement in her voice.

  I drop the pill into my mouth and instantly the taste of melting chocolate pours over my tongue. “Mmmm. How did you do that?”

  “Chef’s secret,” she says before pulling a notes tablet from her other pocket and becoming absorbed with her findings. I watch her for a few moments, studying the intensity on her face, the smile that never leaves her when she’s working. I wonder if I’ll feel that way, love my work and all, or if I’ll always look severe…like my other parent.

  I grab a few breakfast supplements from the pantry and edge toward the front door without another glance from my mom. I reach the door and drape my keycard over my neck, which ensures my access to the tron, school, my locker, and anything or anywhere else I may need to go during the day. The door scanner flicks from red—no card—to green—good to go.

  I set off down the street, trying not to run, refusing to think about what may—or may not—happen when I get there and see him.

  I arrive at the tron just as the doors are about to close and rush onboard. Silver walls, silver seats, silver flooring. The entire thing is composite steel, with no hint of guilt at how cold it makes our ride, hence why I never sit on the top level. If the main level is cold, the top level is arctic.

  The tron encircles and connects the four regions that comprise Sydia, our reborn American capital since a bomb decimated the previous one in the war. There are only three other well-established cities across America, one responsible for each section of the country—north, south, east, west. They’re like mini governments, each reporting to Sydia, which handles both the entire country and the southern region. The rest of the nation is wasteland, livable yet unable to grow food or maintain natural water supplies. Everything the people in those areas need is filtered through their dominating city. It’s like a business the way our government operates, but World War IV and its aftermath didn’t leave the leaders of the time much of a choice. We needed strict survival methods and controlled authority. That’s the only way we’ll survive if the Ancients attack again.

  I slide into the third seat and focus out the window at the reds and yellows and oranges of fall, trying to focus on my plan for cornering Jackson. Within moments, the tron kicks into motion, and I settle in for the short ride to school. We pass through more of the residential areas of Process Park, the upper-class region where I live. Here, the houses are three, sometimes four stories,
with large front porches and immaculately manicured lawns. Wealth. That’s what exists in Process Park. Wealth and expectation, which is why the school that Parliament insisted be shared by the two residential regions is positioned on Process land.

  The tron reaches the school stop, and half a dozen of us exit onto the auto-walk, which leads into the main entrance. I glance to the left, to Landings Park, and swallow hard. It’s desolate looking, but I guess that’s expected of government-provided apartments. Building upon building, all stretching high into the sky, all slammed together so tightly a resident of one could jump through the window of another. A few kids walk down the main street toward school. They’re dressed in government-provided clothes. Brown pants, white T-shirt, and optional brown jacket. I look down at my own outfit and feel a pang of guilt. Sometimes I wish—

  “Ari Alexander!” I hear, then fast footsteps followed by, “Where in the ’verse did you get those boots?”

  I spin around just as Gretchen, my best friend, bends down to take in my new composite leather ankle boots. I smile. If Mom’s thing is cooking, Gretchen’s is fashion. We scan our keycards at the door, and I half listen as she tells me about some new technology that allows you to change the height of your heel as needed. We are almost to our lockers, and I’m contemplating telling her about last night when my breath catches. Rounding the corner, completely at ease, is the Ancient himself.

  Jackson.

  CHAPTER 3

  Jackson shakes the excess water from his damp head, flattens out his T-shirt, and throws on a government-provided brown jacket. The jacket wraps his body, tying at the side, exposing a small triangle of his white T-shirt. He waves to some giggling girl—probably a stupid freshman—and knocks knuckles with another Landings boy as he makes his way to Central Hall, the annex of our school. He never looks my way or even hints that he knows me. My teeth grind together as I watch him, each step like he’s mocking me.