The Empties (The Glitches Series Book 2) Read online

  “Bird is just upset—” he begins, but I cut him off swiftly.

  “This isn’t about Bird!”

  Okay, that’s a lie. It is about Bird, but not only about her. It hurts how much she blames me, and how little she trusts me, but in the end, it’s worse because she’s not the only one. There are others who look at me with suspicion in their eyes, and it reminds me that, though I’m a part of the clan, I’m not one of them. I’ll never be a Rogue, and that makes me an outsider. Maybe with time that could change, but I don’t really think so. Rogues are Rogues and Glitches are Glitches. Meaning, all I will ever be to most of these people is a useful tool for getting vital supplies. They’ll always be grateful for that, I assume, but that’s all. Just grateful.

  “Then what is it about!?” Wolf counters, his voice rising. He makes a frustrated noise in his throat and then pulls me to a stop. He rubs his large hands over his face, scrubbing away the tiredness and the anger. When he looks at me again, he just looks young. “Home is where your family is.” I open my mouth to tell him that I don’t know anything about my family, but he seems to sense this and continues quickly before I can say anything. “And we are your family. We’re the ones who took you in. We’re the ones who taught you to survive. We protect each other, and that makes us family—not whoever contributed to your DNA.”

  For a long time, I say nothing. I just stare up at him, letting my eyes slide along the lines of his face which is still so young. There are tiny scars there, three of them together running down the far side of his cheek, and there are wrinkles forming already from worry and from frowning. He’s handsome—I’ve always thought that—but I forget sometimes that he’s ruling a clan while still only a boy, himself. There’s a weight on his shoulders that he wasn’t ready for, but he bears it anyway.

  It makes me like him more, but it also reminds me that he doesn’t know everything. He isn’t a wise man. In fact, he’s not a man at all... just a boy muddling through uncertainly, trying to do his best.

  Which means I don’t have to listen to him. “Maybe for you,” I finally say, and then take a deliberate step back. “But for me, Rogues aren’t my family. And they never will be.”

  He jerks back in surprise, almost like I’ve hit him. He looks honestly shocked by my words, and I have to admit to myself that they taste bitter. I’ve never thought that we were so different. It used to hurt that Rogues thought of Glitches as only half human, but now I’m beginning to understand that prejudices don’t go away. We may work together and live together, but we’ll never be family.

  “I have to go,” I mutter, looking away. I think he won’t say anything more as I make my way down the tunnel towards the exit, but he calls after me, his voice echoing.

  “Where are you going?”

  I look back. His expression is blank, wiped clean of whatever he’s actually thinking and feeling. I pause, and then say, “The Empties.”

  “Why?”

  I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “To find my real family.” Then I turn away and head to the exit. He doesn’t say anything more and he doesn’t follow me. It isn’t until I’ve climbed out of the hole and begun walking towards the horizon that I think about my answer. To find my real family. I know that there isn’t anything that lives in the Empties anymore, much less the possibility of my parents being there, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. I remember that article I found and the picture in it. If I can learn about that doctor and the AI, maybe I can learn about my own family, too. Maybe I can find something that will lead me home.

  It’s such a long shot that it sounds ridiculous even in my own head, but the hope that it brings up in me is undeniable. I want to find something, anything, that might lead me to wherever I belong.

  …

  I walk for a long time. I don’t take one of the ATVs—even though I could, and get there in a quarter of the time. But part of my going to the Empties is the walk and the chance to think.

  The desert is hot, as it always is. There are seasons, though, which I understand intrinsically through my lingering memories. I recall sessions of education within the Norm, even if I went through them alone and have to assume that they were overseen by the AI. Deserts don’t really exist within the Norm, after all—the dome protecting the area keeping a perfect, climate controlled environment in order to foster the best chance for survival. Meaning that there also aren’t trees with leaves that change color and there isn’t snow falling like rain from the sky. There’s nothing but greenery and a perfect, warm but not hot temperature. I understand why so many refer to it as paradise, but I’ve also been inside that world recently... and I don’t think I agree.

  Even if it looks beautiful, superficially, I know that it’s just a place where the AI controls the minds of those within it. How can someone without the control over their own mind really be happy?

  The heat washes over me, slowly baking my skin which has gotten steadily darker since the day I woke up here, parched and alone. My hair has gotten lighter, too, as a result of the exposure to elements outside of the dome. There are golden streaks in it that I can only barely see when I tug at the tips of the shorter strands. Skye has told me that she likes them, that she thinks they give me a sunny look. I don’t think too much about them.

  As I march towards the horizon, Wolf’s words lingering with me, I see the silhouetted Empties cropping up in the distance. They look farther away than they actually are, thanks to the heat waves lifting from the ground and the general distortions of sun and shadow. But it’s still a long walk.

  That doesn’t detour me, of course.

  I put one foot in front of the other and, as I do so, the heat waves begin to shift the area immediately in front of me. The ground shimmers and shifts beneath my feet. The colors seem to fracture in the sunlight until the golden browns of the desert seem almost like an ocean wave, blue and cool.

  I frown as I realize that the coloring looks familiar. And as soon as I notice it, the world shifts completely and I find myself walking down the corridor, blue tiles echoing beneath my boots.

  When I look up again, the Empties have disappeared, as has the desert. Instead, I see a hallway that’s long, tinted in the same blue that marks the world of the AI. Fibers of light line the edges of the floor and the walls, giving off just enough illumination that the entire place has a soft glow. When I look down at my hands, I see that it affects me, too. The soft lighting makes my skin look pale, soft and smoother than it should be.

  There’s a part of me that thinks I should stop. Go back. Wake up. Do something. But all I do in the end is keep putting one foot in front of the other as I move towards the end of the hall. I need to know what’s behind the door that’s appeared at the end. My heart thumps loudly in my chest, pumping nervous energy through my body.

  I reach for the door, my hand steady despite the nervous energy I feel inside. As my palm slides over the smooth, polished surface of the doorknob, I finally pause. I know that, once I open this door, things will change. Everything will change. Curiosity and the need to know pulse through me and I know I will open the door. I know I will—

  I blink and the vision is gone. Time has passed swiftly as I’ve been walking forward, and I now stand at the edge of the Empties, staring up at the ruined towers and the skeleton-like structures that once housed a civilization. One that has long since been dead.

  A shiver runs through me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me and I don’t know what’s behind that door, or why it’s so important to me. But I know that that hallway belongs to the AI, and I worry that somehow she’s still controlling me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Since Wolf has no control over what I do and cannot demand I not venture out on my own, I don’t feel the need to report to him when I return from the Empties in the very early morning of the following day. That doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. He keeps sending me unhappy frowns and annoyed glances throughout the day, but I do my best to ignore them. Maybe I’m be
ing unreasonable, but I can’t help how I feel. And maybe I should just be happy that he’s looking at me at all after I walked out on him, claiming that he wasn’t my family.

  There’s a chance that my own dampened spirits are making things worse. I haven’t found anything in the Empties that has confirmed or denied my theory that I am a descendant of Dr. Sig.

  But I haven’t given up hope. I think about going back to the Empties, but it’s a long trip and I’ve made it several times in only a few days. It takes most of the day and night to get there and back by walking and it doesn’t feel right for me to take an ATV without letting Wolf know.

  And I’m not going to do that.

  For the time being, I lay low and avoid people as much as I can. Namely, Bird and Wolf. I spend a lot of time in the Tech Room and even try out a new game with Dat that involves a checkered board and pieces shaped from clay. He wins every time.

  After three days where I don’t go into the Empties and don’t speak to Wolf, the ban on missions is lifted. I hear it from Alis. “They’re going to start sending out parties again,” she tells me one morning in the middle of breakfast.

  My head shoots up and I stare at her with wide, eager eyes. “Did they say when they’re going to send a party? Who they’ll be sending?”

  She shrugs and shakes her head at the same time. “I don’t know. I only heard it because some of the Rogues were talking about it early this morning. I guess they had a council meeting about it.” She snorts derisively. “Guess we weren’t invited.”

  No, we definitely weren’t. Not that I’m surprised. Most of the Rogues don’t even attend and Glitches almost never do.

  Unless we’re in trouble, I think to myself.

  After my very brief talk with Alis, I spend the whole day listening for any information on missions. Will they do one tonight? Tomorrow? Do they already have people in mind for it? I could find out right now—if I asked Wolf.

  But I don’t want to talk to him yet and I find myself wound up tightly in anticipation for any news.

  It comes when I’m sitting in the empty training room. I worked out for just shy of an hour in an attempt to force out some of my tension, but even that doesn’t seem to be helping. So now I sit on the stone benches that surround the arena, just staring at the dirt floor.

  I’m surprised with a lithe body plops down beside me. It’s Skye. She offers me a smile which I hesitantly return. We haven’t been spending a lot of time together lately and I feel badly for it. But I know the distance isn’t solely to be blamed on me.

  “Hey,” she greets me, her voice small and tentative.

  “Hey.”

  There’s a long pause that quickly becomes awkward. She clears her throat. “Um, I think they’re talking about missions right now.”

  My eyes go wide and I can practically taste excitement on my tongue, sweet and tangy. “Really?”

  She nods. “In the war room.”

  Consisting of only a stone table and some roughly hewn benches, the war room is more of a planning room than anything else. Before every mission, this is where we go and discuss what our objectives are.

  I stand quickly. “Is it public?”

  She lifts her shoulders, “I think so.”

  Before she says anything more, I hurry out of the training room and towards the war room. I feel a little bad for leaving her so quickly, but I remind myself that she is half the reason for the distance. It’s a petty little thing, but it makes me feel better about leaving her still sitting on that stone bench.

  I hurry through the tunnels, half-apologizing to people that I bump along the way. But even with all my hurrying and rudeness, by the time I get there, the war room is empty.

  My jaw clenches tightly as I feel the desperate hope that I will get to go on a mission soon clash with the harsh realization that I probably won’t get to. Wolf doesn’t seem like he’s any more interested in throwing me a bone than I am.

  …

  I spend the afternoon searching for Wolf to argue with him as to why I should be allowed to go. There are only so many places in the tunnel to go and I know he wouldn’t be outside by himself for no reason, so when I narrow it down to only the baths, I check there. I’m so determined to argue with him that I don’t think about the fact that he’s in the bath, so when I see him sitting there in the water, I freeze.

  A fierce blush sets my cheeks on fire and I spin on my heel to march directly back the way I came, incredibly grateful that his back—bare and glistening—was to me.

  After that, I stopped looking for him. I promised that I’d seek him out another time.

  “You’ve been quiet lately,” Skye comments in a perky voice that sounds forced. We’re eating dinner together, in part because we’re both Glitches and that’s pretty standard, and in part because I feel badly for just walking out on her earlier. “Is it because of the mission ban? Because, now that it’s lifted, you can go out again. And you won’t have to go alone anymore.”

  I look at her sideways, considering. She hasn’t really commented on my early morning departures for the Empties and I haven’t really talked about what I’ve been looking for there. Most of my time has been with Alis, I realize a little guiltily. But that’s not my fault. Skye is never in the Tech Room. In fact, she doesn’t seem very interested in biogear at all. Definitely not like Alis is.

  “Yeah, it’s good.” I smile at her, but it’s forced. “But I don’t think I’ll get to go on this next one,” I admit to her, trying not to look at Wolf as he talks with several Rogues, one of them Bird. But I’m aware of him, my cheeks beginning to warm of their own accord.

  And then I cave and I do look. Worse, Skye notices. Her gaze follows mine and she says, “Oh. Because of Bird?”

  “Yeah.” I don’t tell her it’s also probably because of Wolf now. That he thinks that I don’t think he’s family—and he’s right that I don’t. Because family protects you and loves you and treats you with consideration. Wolf doesn’t do that; he treats me like a tool, a resource. How can he call that family? My anger keeps my blushing down this time and I’m able to forget that I saw him bathing earlier.

  At least for now.

  For a moment we fall silent, and then she speaks up again. “Bird doesn’t hate you.”

  I raise a single eyebrow at her and purse my lips together in a straight line.

  “What? It’s true,” Skye argues. “She’s just scared. You’re changing a lot of things and, well, some people think that not all of them are the right kind of changes.”

  She looks away as she says this, using a broken-off stick to draw little symbols in the sand. They look like stars and hearts and other benign things that have no real point. I frown.

  “And what do you think?” I finally ask, though my throat tightens up as though I don’t want to know the answer.

  She hesitates and my stomach drops. She agrees with Bird, I think suddenly. That I’m changing things, and not for the better.

  She offers me a guilty, lopsided smile. “Sorry. I think a lot of what you’ve done is great; it’s just…” She trails off, looking back to the dirt and her drawings.

  “Just what? What have I done that’s so horrible?” I demand, suddenly feeling more anger than anything else. “We’ve destroyed more drones in the last few months than we ever have before. We’re not starving, not dying of thirst. Sure, things aren’t easy, but they’re easier. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  She winces, clearly not enjoying my tone. “You’ve done amazing things, Lib. Really. No one’s arguing that.”

  “They’re just not good amazing, right?”

  With a sigh, she shakes her head. “A lot of them are good. Most of them are. But there’s a whole culture here—two of them, actually—that you’re just throwing away, like things haven’t come to be the way they are for a good reason.”

  “What are you talking about? So you’re saying I should have just let the Rogues struggle, because that’s their culture, rather than try to h
elp them by using tech? And if you’re talking about the Norm, let me remind you that Raj never came back. If that’s what makes the Norm paradise, maybe I don’t want any part of it.”

  She falls silent at the mention of Raj and I can see in her eyes that it’s painful to think of him. Most of the time, I’m so wrapped up in how I feel about it, that I forget she knew him a lot longer than me. It has to be hard on her. Really hard.

  After a while, she says, “The Norm isn’t all bad. All this talk about getting rid of the AI…” She shakes her head. “But never mind that. What about the biogear?”

  I frown. “What about it?”

  Her shoulders lift in a small shrug and she looks away again as she answers in a small, hesitant voice. “A lot of people don’t like it.”

  “You mean Bird doesn’t like it,” I counter pointedly.

  “Not just her. A lot of people think that it isn’t natural.”

  “A lot of people don’t think we’re natural.”

  She makes a frustrated noise in her throat. “This is different. This is too much like the AI, too much like the drones. It’s like we’re not even human anymore!”

  When I finally hear it in her voice, I’m shocked. Even she doesn’t think the biogear is a good idea. I know that a lot of people don’t want to try the gear. It frightens them, because they don’t understand or because they think it’ll hurt. I figured that was where Skye fell in. She’s such a gentle person, sweet and sort of innocent despite what she’s seen, that I’ve just figured she just didn’t want to learn some new weapon. But now I realize it’s more than that.