Exist Once More Read online

  “What are you doing?”

  “The Projector. We need proof. Pictures.”

  “There’s no time.”

  “It will only take a minute.”

  “But you can’t get in there,” I reminded him. “They revoked your access.”

  Even as I argued, I knew that he was right—and not only that, but the set of his jaw promised that if I didn’t, we’d be standing here arguing when the Elders came to and grabbed us for a second time.

  “I can break in, and at this point, it’s only a matter of time before the alarms go off anyway.”

  He led the way then, his hand still wrapped around mine as I struggled to keep up. My shoulder hurt so badly that the slightest movement brought tears to my eyes. Now wasn’t the time to wimp out, though, so I bit down on my lower lip and powered through.

  The room with the Projector was near the access hatch to the portal—back in the unused storage portions of the Academy where Oz had first shown it to me last semester. Outside the door, Oz pulled down a panel in the wall and started punching in numbers while I hoped against hope that they hadn’t decided to move it.

  An alarm bell pealed, and then another. Time was running out.

  Oz and I went in the room, and made sure that we saw every nook and cranny. Since we were wearing our glasses, everything within our field of vision was recorded. I hoped that by the time we got back to the ship, Sarah would have figured out a way to use all of this information to put the Elders who were really behind all of this away for good.

  I hoped that we could make it back to the ship at all, since the Anne Bonny was scheduled to meet us there in less than five minutes. If we were late, would they leave? They would have to, if they were under fire or the place was staked out.

  I set the cuff to the Roma portal, and crossed my fingers as my heart tried to beat out of my chest. Oz’s hand tightened around mine, and my fingers clung tight as I pressed the button. We would make it. We had to.

  I pressed the button as the sound of footsteps clamoring through the halls grew closer and closer. The first black robes appeared around the corner as the light changed to green. I stepped closer to Oz and shut my eyes tight inside the blue haze, and in my mind, I saw him standing up to his father for me.

  Felt him here, alive again, and wanted to sob.

  Without a second thought I stepped forward, slid one hand along his jaw, and pressed my lips to his as we disappeared.

  Oz and I landed on Roma, in the secret portal there, two minutes after we were supposed to meet the Anne Bonny.

  Our lips lingered together, his soft but growing more confident by the heartbeat. Oz’s hands were strong as they gripped my waist, but I knew that. He had grabbed me before, but not like this. Not like he would die of oxygen deprivation if I moved away.

  My fingers moved of their own accord, wrapping around his bicep and curling around the back of his neck. My heart raced. The world dimmed around me, tipping this way and that until maybe I clung to him to keep from falling over. Falling under.

  When the portal beeped and the door opened we sprung apart as though there might be Elders waiting on the other side, waiting to bust us traveling. Or kissing. Or both.

  Without his support I wobbled, trying to catch my breath as I pressed my hand against the smooth glass. Oz said nothing. I cleared my throat, struggling to force thoughts and words past the stuffed cotton, floaty feeling in my brain.

  “We should get to the ship. Hopefully they’re still here.”

  The Anne Bonny was only a few blocks away, in an empty, concrete parking lot at the end of a street. By the time we got there we’d be a full five minutes late.

  “Kaia…” Oz trailed off, uncertainty and some of the same dreaminess in his eyes that I felt in my own. “What just happened?”

  “We can talk about it, Oz, and believe me, I want to. But not now.”

  I grabbed his hand and ran, holding my arm as tight against my body as possible to ease the shooting pain. It helped to get my feet underneath me, literally, before Oz and I talked about…whatever had happened between us. I needed to make my peace with the potential of caring for someone else so soon after losing Caesarion, even though maybe it hadn’t been that fast. Maybe it had been happening ever since I lost him, and then there was the confusing fact that I was never supposed to get to know him the way I did.

  My heart twisted, my insides a jumbled mess of grief and excitement and desire and just plain happiness that regardless of what happened now, Oz was back. We had fixed what the Elders had changed in the past, and the people who had appeared and disappeared because of it should be set to right.

  Oz and I skidded around the last corner, my heart in my throat. The Anne Bonny was there, her engines running and lights blinking in the twilight. Anyone nearby would have seen her—time was not on our side.

  Jonah and Analeigh stood at the bottom of the lift, linked by the hand and twin expressions of grief and worry as they scanned the block. They broke apart, their postures changing to defensive as they yanked out weapons, as we approached at a full run.

  “It’s us!” I shouted. “I’m sorry we’re late!”

  “Kaia.” Jonah stowed his waver, relief making his voice like a puff of wind. “Get your ass on board.”

  Oz and I didn’t break stride as we raced up the ramp, Analeigh and Jonah right behind us. Sparrow closed it as we moved, and we landed inside the ship’s airlock without a single second to spare.

  Inside, Sarah shot to her feet, panic in her blue eyes. She flung herself forward, catching us both around the neck in an awkward hug.

  “Oh my stars, Kaia, don’t ever do that to me again! I spent five minutes deciding whether to try to follow you or not.”

  “Good thing you didn’t,” I said, my words muffled against her shoulder. “Things were pretty crazy.”

  “Yeah, I saw the bulletins come through my tats.”

  My own wrist had been vibrating since we arrived but between kissing Oz, liking it, and making a mad dash for the Anne Bonny, I hadn’t even looked down to check.

  I did now, and all of the air squeezed out of my lungs.

  No more nonsense about the three of us being persons of interest in the latest disappearance. No more memos issued to the Historian Academy only. These were arrest warrants and they had gone out System-wide: Oz Truman, Kaia Vespasian, and Sarah Beckwith were wanted in connection with crimes against Genesis, as well as aiding and abetting the known pirates Jonah Vespasian, Analeigh Frank, and three other male names I assumed were the ones that had been given to Jean, Teach, and Sparrow at birth.

  “I guess it’s a good thing y’all waited,” I said, trying to make light of the warrants even though what I wanted was to burst into tears.

  The ship took off, carrying us to safety. At least for now.

  My best friend wrapped me in a hug, and even gave one to Oz even though we all knew that he preferred to keep physical contact to a minimum.

  My cheeks heated at the thought of that kiss. Maybe we’d assumed we’d known Oz better than we had all this time. I had the feeling that I still had plenty to learn, and stranger still, I was definitely looking forward to it.

  “What happened?” Analeigh asked then, her keen gaze raking my face. She knew something was off, that she’d missed something, but she could have no idea what.

  “Kaia needs her shoulder put back in place first,” Oz answered, his wary gray gaze on my brother. “You have a medic?”

  “Jean passes as a fair one.” Concern wrinkled Jonah’s brow. “You okay, Special K?”

  “It hurts but I’ll live.” I was glad Oz had brought it up. “And a lot happened,” I said in answer to Analeigh.

  “I’ll take you to Jean,” she replied. “Then we’ll meet everyone in the mess to talk.”

  “Should the guys be there?” Jonah was all business, then. The pirate leader, not the teasing, worried big brother.

  “Not necessary,” I answered, following Analeigh up the rusted m
etal stairs.

  Oz came, too, without fanfare or request. I was glad to have him at my side, even if he was silent as we traipsed through the aging bucket of rust. The slightly lost look on his face stirred empathy in my blood.

  Oz had been such a stickler for the rules his entire life. Always doing what he was told—more than he was told—with his eyes on the prize of being one of the best Historians that Genesis had ever known.

  Now, he was on a pirate ship. A warrant was out there with his name on it, accusing him of cavorting with criminals, and it wasn’t exactly wrong. It had to be killing him.

  Without thinking about what the others would say or think, I slid my palm against his, threading our fingers together. He didn’t look at me but he held on tight and sent a barrage of tingles over my skin in the process.

  Analeigh didn’t say anything, though she definitely noticed. He never let go, not while I screamed as Jean shoved my shoulder back into place, or as we headed toward the mess with my arm in a sling, or when everyone else on the ship could see once we got there.

  When we sat around the long table that crowded the center of the mess, Analeigh raised her eyebrows at me, but not in a teasing way. Just a question.

  I gave her a slight shrug, trying to ignore the warmth in my face. We were facing arrest warrants, and almost certain death if and when they caught us. Analeigh might be used to life on the run after all of these months but I wasn’t, and the pasty complexions both Sarah and Oz wore promised they weren’t feeling too great about it, either.

  Part of me wanted to confess to my best friend everything that had happened between Oz and me, to get her take on it and what it meant, and whether it was okay. The normal part of me. The rest knew that first we needed to decide where we went from here and what we were going to do about the Elders.

  It only took a few minutes to bring Jonah, Analeigh, and Sarah up to speed on everything that had happened back on Earth Before, and then Oz and I summarized our narrow escape from the Academy, along with what Elder Price had said before we stunned her. The mood in the room turned more somber, if that was possible.

  “So we’re really stuck here,” Sarah said, her face almost see-through. “We’ll need to lose the tattoos, and fast. The block I put up is expired and I don’t have what I would need on the ship to make it permanent. Deep space hides us from their trackers, but we won’t be able to go anywhere near the System until they’re gone.”

  We couldn’t stay out of range forever. Provisions only lasted so long.

  “Wait,” I objected, one hand going unconsciously to the intricate threads at my throat. “We haven’t even tried to talk to the Council.”

  “They didn’t seem like they really were interested in listening to our side,” Oz said softly. “The Elders have been spinning their own story for awhile.”

  “I know, but…shouldn’t we try? We have recordings. Of the Projector, of what Analeigh and I saw in Potsdam yesterday, what happened today. Oz, you must have files of the missions they sent you on last semester—James Puckle. The Silk Road, all of the modifications made to weapons.” I snapped my fingers. “The disappearing Bible verse on that beach in the Maldives. We could put together a case.”

  No one spoke. Jonah looked doubtful; Oz appeared beaten. My roommates both looked intrigued, and experience said Sarah, at least, was working the problem.

  “It would be a single shot. We don’t know how many of the Genesis Council, if any, are in cahoots with the Elders,” I added after a couple of minutes. “Maybe it’s none of them. Maybe they would believe us. Shouldn’t we at least give them a chance to do the right thing?”

  It didn’t take Oz long to come over to my side. “I don’t want to leave the Academy in their hands without trying to save it. The Elders will just start over after they get the Council off their backs. What if it’s worse the next time?”

  “He’s right,” Jonah confirmed quietly. “They’ll never stop trying.”

  Analeigh nodded. “We have to try. Sarah? Can you get them the information?”

  “It’ll be tricky. I’m not sure how to go about contacting Elder Price without going through our own hierarchy, and I’m not sure they have the equipment to read the holofiles from our glasses.” She frowned.

  “But they’re still at the Academy,” I reasoned. “What if we take it straight to her?”

  Oz’s eyes bugged out. “Go back?”

  “Yeah, Kaia, no offense,” Sarah started. “But are you off your nut? You’ll never get away again. You know that.”

  “I know. But we’re right, you guys. We have the proof, and it’s our duty to stop them. If I take it back and put it in her hands, then we know she got it, and she knows we believe what we’re saying. Right?”

  No one could argue with that, and no matter how long we sat and thought, no one had a more foolproof way to make sure Elder Price got the information, either.

  Jonah and Analeigh spent the next couple of hours, while Sarah compiled our files, trying to talk me out of it. Saying we could find a way to send it in remotely, or that hiding in space wasn’t so bad.

  I listened, but in my heart, I knew this was what I had to do. Like how my Caesarion had been willing to march back to Alexandria, knowing the whole time that Octavian—and death—waited there for him.

  It hadn’t mattered, because that was what his people deserved: a king who would not abandon them to save his own skin. Whose place was with his land and his subjects, regardless of danger or threat. He wouldn’t leave them alone.

  The people of Genesis needed me to be that person for them. We were the only ones with the knowledge and ability to fix all of this. To make sure we were all safe.

  When we’d signed on to be Historians, we’d taken an oath. Observe. Record. Reflect. The outcome of those Reflections was the Hope Chest, and without the truths locked inside of it, our society would crumble.

  The Elders were making a mockery of what we stood for, and of all good people like my grandfather had done.

  “I have to go, guys. We have to put an end to this whole thing and this is the best way. It doesn’t matter what happens to me if the Elders are stopped and the System is safe.”

  No one argued anymore, and after a while, it became clear that the time drew near. Sarah returned to the mess, clearing her throat and wiping tears from her eyes. “The files are loaded onto the chip in your frames. Just show her how to use it. It’s all there.”

  I nodded, then swallowed. Set my cuff to take me to the no-longer-secret portal in the basement of the Historian Academy.

  At the last minute, Oz moved to my side. He picked up my hand with as much ease as I’d grabbed his on the staircase, and his steady gaze met mine. “I’m going with you.”

  And the lights changed from red, to yellow, to green, and the cuff whisked us back home.

  They were waiting for us when we arrived.

  Well, maybe waiting for us was a strong way of putting it, since both Council members standing outside the portal looked more surprised to see us than we were to see them, but even though they were taking precautions, they surely didn’t expect us to waltz back in of our own accord. Not after the warrants.

  It was a stroke of luck, that it was Genesis Council members that met us instead of our own Elders. I figured it had been Zeke and his ilk who encouraged the warrants—they had to be nervous because of what we’d seen, of what proof we could possibly have. They’d wanted to frighten us into staying away.

  If nothing else, they had failed in that, a fact that straightened my spine as the Council members marched us straight to Elder Price.

  Truman was in the room when we arrived, but Oz and I both refused to speak until we were alone with her. He had no choice but to leave. If he thought his murderous look, full of heavy threats as it landed on Oz and me, would change our minds, he had another think coming.

  I held onto Oz’s hand, no longer caring what any of them thought. I pulled the chip from my glasses and put it into the table comp f
or her, then showed her how to open Sarah’s meticulous files. We went through everything—Oz started with when they’d shown him the Projector and brought him into the fold, simply saying they wanted to be able to verify its usefulness by changing small events and checking the outcomes back at the Academy. We showed her the Projector. What I’d seen in the Maldives, and all of the changes we’d witnessed since learning about Hiroshima. President Truman being killed and his descendants disappearing.

  Potsdam.

  She listened intently the entire time, interrupting occasionally to ask questions but not arguing with us. Not telling us we were liars.

  Or that we weren’t.

  Now, we sat in Zeke’s office all alone while the Genesis Council convened around the files we’d shown her first. Making decisions about our lives. Our futures.

  There was nothing left to do. Or say.

  “Do you remember being gone?” I asked Oz, curiosity overcoming my anxiety. Or maybe it was just a convenient distraction. Either way, I needed answers.

  A thoughtful expression wandered over Oz’s face. “No. I mean…sort of, but it feels like a dream. I remember seeing you in…I thought it was a dream?”

  The tips of his ears turned red. My heart stuttered.

  “I thought it was a dream, too.”

  He stared at me, a bit of wonder in his eyes that shot straight through me, like a sunbeam. “You saw me. Even though I was gone.”

  I nodded. Guilt edged my hope. “I didn’t remember you. But I knew somehow that I should.”

  “Why? Why you, Kaia? Do you think?” His expression turned guarded.

  It was easy to guess why; I hadn’t been especially kind to Oz since my name showed up on his card. I’d called it a mistake, but what if he’d felt it the entire time?

  He deserved more. Then, but especially now. “Because we’re connected. You pulled…I don’t think your card was a mistake.”

  The admission startled him too badly for me to be able to read his reaction. “But everyone agreed it was. I was Sarah’s True. Caesarion Caesar was yours. Trues don’t change.”