Zenn
The day Vi tapped on my window changed everything. Well, if we’re gonna be all technical, and I guess we are, the window-tapping happened at night.
Which was why she got busted.
She was only twelve years old. The infraction didn’t go on her Official Record, but it tattooed itself on my memory.
Vi shouldn’t have meant anything to me. I knew her because she lived six minutes away in the City of Water and we were in the same year at school. But our relationship shouldn’t have progressed past us being two kids who were the same age.
I’d just turned thirteen, and I’d just returned from meeting Jag Barque in the Abandoned Area. I’d snuck in through the back door, returned to my bedroom, and checked my false transmission feed when the tap, tap, tap landed on the glass.
My heart pounded in my scrawny chest.
Maybe They’d been monitoring me. Maybe They knew I wasn’t listening to the transmissions. I’d screwed up after only a few days of helping the anti-Thinker movement. The Resistance, my dad had called it.
Insider Tip #2: Don’t hesitate. It shows weakness and indecision. Those who hesitate often have something to hide.
I took a deep breath and accepted whatever was gonna happen. I strode to the window and yanked it up, expecting to see a Special Forces agent with glinting black eyes and a fully-charged taser.
Instead, I found Violet Schoenfeld. I could tell she’d been crying, even if the tears were already dried up. The full moon cast glimmers of white light in her brown hair.
“Violet?” I scanned the yard behind her. Empty. A hovercopter floated along the edge of the Centrals, a couple miles away.
“Zenn, I—” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder.
“You’re gonna be seen,” I whispered. “Climb up.” I reached out to help her but drew back before we touched. That was against the rules, and the window was wide open so anyone could see.
Violet used to answer questions in class, used to show up to school with her panels done. She used to hang with the other girls during breaks. Then her dad disappeared. She’d withdrawn, and now that we’d moved into secondary subjects, she sat alone against the fence during breaks and hadn’t turned in homework for months. She didn’t speak to anyone except her sister Tyson.
I didn’t even know she knew my name, let alone where I lived. Maybe she was searching for any window that looked like there might be someone awake within.
She struggled over the windowsill while I stood there and watched. I could’ve pulled up all ninety pounds of her with one hand. She straightened, and I towered at least six inches over her.
Her face was the color of uncooked rice. Her eyes were a mixture of blue and green, like the serene color of the lake. Her brown hair flowed freely over her shoulders, which should’ve been secured in its customary ponytail or bun.
She was crazy-beautiful, even with tear-stained cheeks. And then it hit me: A girl was standing in my room. In the middle of the night.
I’d been away from my transmissions for hours. My older brother had developed tech that could simulate sleep patterns, but I wondered how Violet had managed to trick hers long enough to leave her house.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t be here.” She paced next to my bed.
I glanced at my brother, a decent sleeper, asleep fifteen feet from us. “It’s fine.” I wanted to touch her shoulder, make her stop walking. Her squeaky shoes were going to wake my brother. “What’s going on?”
