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  “What the hell is your problem?” I say, stepping out of range. From the look of pure loathing on Claudia’s face, she’s ready to clock me.

  She steps in, keeping the distance between us close. “My problem is my sister is a traitor, and the IA isn’t doing anything about it. No justice, just excuses. You’re a plight to this program, and you don’t deserve a second chance.”

  “If I’m such a plight, then why did you agree to teach me?” I demand, angry too now. “Why put me up against all those kids? You knew as soon as I got the hang of your dumb new style, I’d put them all out. What was the point of that?”

  “So I could do this.”

  When she swings, I’m too tired to stop the oncoming blow. I lean away from her fist, so the hit doesn’t land as hard as she wants, but it still tweaks my jaw. I roll under her next attack and aim an uppercut at her torso. She blocks it easily and jabs my nose with the same hand. Eyes stinging and watering, I can’t see what comes next, so I punch blindly. She catches one of my hands and yanks me over her hip. I go flying and hit the floor on my back. Claudia leans over me.

  “This is my place now,” she says. “You don’t belong here anymore.”

  She punches me right between the eyes, and everything goes black.

  5

  I wake up in a familiar place: the Academy’s hospital wing. I remember the minty-green walls, the identical twin-sized cots, and the abstract artwork that lines the walls from my childhood. I landed here a lot when I was a student. I’d either blown something up in chemistry class or gotten into a fight with another Defense initiate. That or I’d done something reckless and stupid, like the one time someone dared me to jump off the watchtower and I actually did it. The landing broke my left leg in three places, but injuries at the Academy are never very serious. Harmonia has the most advanced medical resources in Pavo, so my leg only took three weeks to heal. Then I was back in training.

  My head’s a little fuzzy, but not from Claudia’s fists. It’s the familiar fuzz of painkillers circulating through my system. I roll over and pull up the Monitor built into the bedside table. All of my private information is displayed on the screen, including the nature of my injury and what was used to treat it. From what I can see, the medics gave me hydration fluids and a common drug to treat concussions. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Footsteps echo through the wing, and a door slams down the hall. I hurriedly shut off the Monitor. Back in my day, the medics weren’t happy when you were smart enough to check on your own symptoms. Voices emanate from a back room. I recognize the first one. It’s my mother.

  “What happened?” she says. “I couldn’t get anything out of my other daughter.”

  “She took a punch to the face,” the doctor replies. “Right between the eyes. She fractured her nose, but we took care of it. Nothing to worry about.”

  “She’s experienced worse,” Gertrude says. “Anyway, I’m not here for her. How’s the vaccine coming along?”

  “We’re making progress,” the doctor answers. “Finally discovered a chemical formula that can be used successfully in humans. We’ll develop a testing procedure. If everything goes well, we can deliver it to all of Pavo in a matter of weeks.”

  “This is time-sensitive, Doctor Park,” my mother says. “We need this vaccine ready to distribute sooner rather than later.”

  “I’m doing my best, Commander,” Doctor Park says. “I can’t promise any sooner than the end of the month.”

  My mother sighs. “It’ll have to do.”

  I lose track of the conversation when Vega comes through the door of the wing and marches up to my bed. Her eyes are red, like she’s been crying. She taps the Monitor to bring it to life and hits the large button that says “discharge.” The font goes green with a satisfying ding.

  “Let’s go,” Vega says, collecting my sweaty clothes from beneath the cot and tossing a fresh outfit onto the bed for me to wear. “The nurse says you’re fine, and we’ve got more to do today. I guess I should’ve warned you not to piss off Claudia.”

  I pull on the clean clothes and study Vega’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

  She sniffles. “Nothing.”

  “Liar.”

  “Can you just get the fuck up?” She throws my boots at me. “We’re only on day two of this partnership, and I’m already getting sick of you. Just move, alright?”

  “Okay. Fine. Relax.” I yank on my pants, throw the clinical gown in the nearby hamper, and pull on my boots. “I’m ready. Let’s go. Where to next?”

  “Home,” Vega says. She doesn’t wait for me to follow before she starts heading out of the hospital wing. “Claudia told me she doesn’t want to see you for the rest of the day. Can you do me a favor and try not to mess up tomorrow? I’m due for a promotion and I’d like to make a good impression.”

  “A promotion, huh? To what? Head Bitch?”

  Vega glares at me as we leave the hospital wing and head to the pickup loop outside the Academy’s main building. I’m a bit wobbly, but I try not to slow Vega down. Even I can tell she’s not in the mood to be messed with. She ushers me into the automated car, and we whiz away from the Academy’s lawns. Vega avoids my scrutinizing gaze. She stares through the window instead, occasionally wiping a wayward tear from her eye before it has the opportunity to drop.

  “Seriously, Vega,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.” I stretch out, placing my feet on the empty seat between us until the toes of my boots rest against her thighs. “Think of it this way. You’re stuck with me indefinitely, so we can either try to make the most of it and lean on each other or keep acting like we were never friends. Honestly, the second option sounds tiring, and I could use someone to bounce everyday complaints off of. I’m guessing you could too.”

  Vega dabs at another tear. “My mother’s getting worse.”

  “Her illness? How do you know?”

  “They told me today,” she says, jerking her head toward the rear window of the car to indicate the Academy behind us. “While you were knocked out in the hospital wing.”

  “What’d they say?” I ask. “Did they give you any details?”

  Vega shakes her head. “They wouldn’t tell me much else. All I heard is that her health is declining and she probably won’t make it.”

  “Well, what the hell are you still doing here?” I demand. “Go to Palioxis! Vega, if she doesn’t have much longer, you should see her.”

  “I can’t,” Vega says. “IA won’t let me.”

  “Why? Because of me?”

  She nods.

  “That’s bullshit!” I put my feet down and slide across to sit closer to her. “You have to go see your mother. I’ll have Laertes watch me. I’m not going to be the reason you miss out on this.”

  “It’s not up for discussion,” Vega says. “I practically begged them to let me go.”

  “Who did you ask?”

  She wipes a final tear as the car pulls up to the house. “Your mother.”

  I get out of the car and round to her side before she can open her door all the way. “My mother is a bully. This is ridiculous. You are going to see your mother. I’m going to make it happen.”

  She lets me give her a hand out of the car. “How?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “About as far as I can throw you.”

  “That’ll do.”

  Shortly after midnight, Vega and I sneak out of the house. Both of us are well-trained in the art of keeping quiet, and the brand-new construction is all concrete and metal. No creaky wooden steps like in our old house on Proioxis that thwarted me almost every time I tried to sneak out during summer vacation. Sometimes, during those breaks, I went out to meet Vega. As we tiptoe through the kitchen and out the front door, I can’t help but feel fifteen again.

  We forego the automatic car. Though its engine is quiet, we can’t guarantee it won’t wake up the rest of the house. Instead, V
ega leads me to the garage hidden amongst the shrubbery. Inside are a few more cars. Sandwiched between Claudia’s monster and a sleek sports car that looks like it hasn’t seen the light of day in several years is a matte-black motorbike.

  “Who’s is that?” I ask when Vega hands me a helmet.

  “It used to belong to Laertes,” she replies, strapping on her own helmet. “He gave it to me when he realized how much I liked it. His condition makes it hard for him to ride.”

  “How gracious,” I say. “The two of you seem pretty close.”

  She rolls the motorbike out of the garage. “My first assignment as an Intelligence cadet was to help track you down. Laertes headed the investigation. We worked well together.”

  “You’d think they’d assign that case to people who weren’t personally connected to it,” I remark, following Vega beyond the shrubs and down the street. I check to see how far we are from the house. “We should be good here. What are you doing?”

  She swings a leg over the bike and pats the seat behind her. “Hop on.”

  “No way. I’m driving.”

  “You’re a criminal, remember?”

  “This whole thing was my idea!” I protest.

  Vega checks her watch. “We’re running out of time. Do you want to help me or not?”

  With a grumble, I get on behind her and wrap my arms around her. Her torso clenches as she kicks the bike to life. It’s an antique. It still runs on gas. Even though I don’t get to drive, it’s as fun as I remember. We race to the Academy, and when we pull up to the bay that houses the training speeders, I’m almost sorry the ride is over. Vega parks the bike in a dark corner of the bay.

  “I’ve got access to most of the trainee speeders,” she says, approaching one of the Wasps parked in the bay. “Upper-level agents are permitted to use them at our leisure, so we technically aren’t breaking any rules.”

  When she uses her print to pop open the cockpit, I hop in and adjust the seat. “I don’t suppose any of those rules mentioned flying with a reformed criminal.”

  “Can’t say I recall.”

  Vega gets into the seat and straps herself in without any issue. I watch her out of the side of my eye as I flick the switches to get the Wasp in the air.

  “You were faking your ineptitude on The Impossible,” I say. “Letting me strap you in and pretending you’ve never flown. I bet you’re a class A pilot.”

  “I’ve flown plenty,” Vega says. “But I’d rather not steer.”

  The Wasp lifts off, and I throw Vega a mischievous smile. “Don’t worry. I got you covered.”

  What a difference it makes to fly with a member of IA at your side. We lift out of the Academy without raising any alarms, and before I know it, we’re beyond Harmonia’s atmosphere. My racing pulse slows as we ascend into the dark abyss of space. Though it’s only been a few days since I landed on the ground, it feels like the sky is welcoming me home. I take the Wasp through a few gratifying loops, making Vega laugh as we shoot away from the supposed utopia of a planet behind us.

  We make the jump to hyperspeed. We don’t have time to get to Palioxis at a normal pace. This is a quick trip to see Vega’s mother and return to Harmonia before anyone realizes we’re gone. I watch the Wasp’s Monitor with extra caution. In hyperspeed, it’s easy to overshoot your destination, and I don’t want to waste time going farther than we need. When Palioxis appears on the map, I yank back on the thruster, and the ship drops out of warp conditions. It’s perfect timing. Palioxis sits right in front of us, all blue and green as we cross through the atmosphere.

  Vega gets us permission to land at the port nearest her mother’s house. IA’s night watch on Palioxis is run by a complex computer system. One sleepy guard dozes in the watch tower as we land on the dock and power off the Wasp. The guard snores on, oblivious as we disembark and sneak past him. At the port exit, we break into a jog.

  “Where does your mother live?” I ask Vega.

  “Close by.” She points up the road to the modest neighborhood where a lot of the port workers live. “We’re heading that way.”

  “You got the meds?”

  She lifts her backpack. The contents clink together. Before we left, we swiped a few vials of medication to help Vega’s mother’s condition. Hopefully it’s enough.

  Vega’s mother’s home is in the middle of a connected line of row houses. From what I remember from Vega’s stories, it’s a huge step up from where they used to live when Vega was a child. Vega pauses on the doorstep, her finger hovering over the print reader to get inside.

  “What’s wrong?” I whisper.

  “What if it’s too late?”

  “Don’t think like that.”

  She shakes her head like she’s trying to clear it. “I have to at least consider the possibility.”

  I take her hand and press her finger to the reader. The door unlocks and swings open. Inside, the house is dark except for the dim lights that line the floor of the entrance hallway. I step in first, pulling Vega along with me.

  “The bedroom’s through there,” Vega whispers, pointing through the kitchen. We inch along, across the tile, and enter the room.

  It smells like opalite, as if there might be a pile of the space rocks sitting in the corner of the room, but it’s coming from Vega’s mother. She’s tucked into bed, either asleep or unconscious. Her skin glows like indigo glitter, a side effect of the opalite poisoning that’s killing her.

  “Mom!” Vega rushes to her mother’s side and pulls the blankets off her. Her head lolls. Vega catches her mother’s cheeks between her palms. “Mom, it’s Vega. Please wake up.”

  Her mother’s eyelids flutter open. She murmurs something unintelligible. Her eyes can’t focus on anything, not even her daughter.

  “No,” she mumbles, almost incoherently. “No… more…”

  “Mom, look at me,” Vega begs. “It’s your daughter.”

  “Here.” I set the backpack on the bed and rifle through it, extracting a vile of Purifier liquid and a syringe. Carefully, I attach a needle and fill the syringe with Purifier. “Give me her arm.”

  Vega uncovers her mother’s arm and stretches it out so I can see the vein. It’s shrunken underneath her skin, as if she’s had one too many injections. When I push the needle in, the vein rolls off to the side. I try again. This time, it sticks. I depress the plunger and shoot the Purifier liquid into her bloodstream.

  The indigo glow steadily fades, starting at the inside of Vega’s mother’s elbow and spreading outward. The glittery effect of her skin is still present, but it’s not as prominent with the medication circling through her body. No amount of Purifier will save Vega’s mother now. Her opalite poisoning is like a virus that won’t let go.

  Vega gasps as her mother takes her face in her hands.

  “Vega?”

  “Mom.” Vega folds herself over her mother, sobbing into the bedsheets. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been doing my best, but I should’ve checked to make sure they were taking better care of you.”

  Her mother’s feeble fingers comb through Vega’s hair. “My beautiful girl… Look at me.”

  Vega peels her face from the sheets, her eyes red and wet with tears. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  “Stop,” her mother says. Her voice cracks and whispers, like the opalite has ruined her airways. She may be awake and aware, but she’s bordering on the edge of lucid. “Listen… important… don’t trust…”

  She fades, her head tipping. Vega gently pats her cheek. “Mom, what? Don’t trust who?”

  “IA,” her mother whispers. “Don’t trust IA.”

  “Well, duh,” I say.

  Vega hushes me, never taking her eyes off her mother. “Why not, Mom? What’s wrong with IA?”

  Her mother pats her chest as a hacking cough takes over her body. Eyes streaming, she struggles to say, “IA corrupt…Veritas… rising.”

  “Veritas?” Vega glances up at me. “That’s the second time we’ve heard about them in the las
t couple days. Your dad mentioned them too.”

  “He didn’t so much mention them as he handed me a scrap of paper,” I say. I kneel next to the bed. “Miss Major? Do you know anything else about IA or Veritas? Anything that can help us?”

  “I’m not a traitor,” Vega hisses at me. “And neither is my mother.”

  “You don’t know that,” I reply. “When was the last time you spent more than fifteen minutes with her?”

  Vega shoves me away from the bed, and I stumble into a nightstand. The lamp topples over and hits the floor. The light bulb explodes.

  “Way to go,” I hiss.

  “Shut up, Ophelia—”

  The windows shatter. I hit the floor and cover my head with my arms to protect myself from flying glass, but Vega launches herself across her mother. Razor-sharp shards nick my ears and neck as two IA Defense agents roll in through the windows. One of them yanks Vega off of her mother.

  “No!” she screams, scrambling for freedom as another officer approaches her mother with a syringe full of neon-green liquid. “Get away from her!”

  I tackle the agent to the ground, and the syringe goes spinning across the floor. The agent pulls his pistol from his belt and takes aim at my head. I duck to the side, and the opalite bullet shoots past me and lodges itself in the wall.

  “Are you an idiot?” I ask the agent. “Do you see how much opalite is in the air here? If you get one too many shots off, you’re going to blow the entire place to the ground.”

  “At least I’ll have had the pleasure of killing Ophelia Holmes before I go,” the agent spits back. “Say goodbye.”

  He rolls in my grip, grabs the syringe, and attempts to plunge it into my arm. The second agent tosses Vega aside and seizes his partner’s wrist before he can plant the needle.

  “De la Cruz!” he hisses. “Don’t forget the mission. She’s not it.”

  De la Cruz growls but obeys. He abandons his attempt at murdering me and shoots to his feet. In a flash, he injects Vega’s mother with the green liquid. It lights up her veins like a glow stick. Her body begins to seize. Vega screams and lunges at De la Cruz, but her fury oppresses her judgement. De la Cruz throws a sharp right hook that catches Vega right on the temple. She slumps to the floor, moaning.