Page 28 of The Last Love Story

My breath catches as we lurch upward, the air getting colder the higher we go. Our cars soar into the sky, threading on invisible roads half a mile above the city. I’ve never been in a hovercar—in the Before times, my parents preferred an earthbound self-driving car, and in the After we can’t even afford the electricity it would take. But now? Now I’m literallyonone. My teeth chatter as my fingers go numb, but I forget all of that as I turn to look down.

The lights from the city spill across the valley like diamonds tipped out of a bag and spilled across a dark carpet. Fog from the ocean has rolled over the farthest western edge of the city, purple smoke snaking across the sky and blurring the individual pinpricks of light into one warm glow as day begins to creep in.

It’s beautiful. I smile for two seconds before the frigid air slams painfully into my teeth and I clamp my mouth shut. The hovercraft pitches left, and I look ahead at the skyscrapers jutting against the night sky.

Why is Hux going there? Barely anyone lives in downtown Post Angeles. These buildings are nothing but husksfor Alba, power banks and server rooms. Who could he be visiting?

Suddenly, a feeling of fear hollows out my stomach, and my thoughts finally catch up to me.

I don’t know what I thought Hux was doing—maybe moving flavored OxyVapes for extra cash, or meeting with a girl. And I suddenly feel really stupid as I watch the rapidly approaching buildings. Whatever he’s into, it’s bigger than that. Hux is smart—the smartest in our class. Whatever he’s lending that brilliance to, it’s big. And big, in this world, is never good.

Ahead, his hovercar slows as it weaves between two skyscrapers, and I watch him drop off like a spider onto a balcony as mine pulls me down to the rooftop across the way for its first delivery stop. With wobbly legs, I topple from the black face of the car as a sheet-glass door winches open on an elderly woman.

“Hello?” she croaks out. “Are they sending girls with the groceries these days?”

“Yes,” I say as cheerfully as I can manage. “I’m here to help you unpack. How do you organize your fridge? Eggs on the door, I assume?”

My fingers are still numb as I head down from the apartment and hurry to the neighboring one, hoping it’s the one that Hux went to. Blowing on my hands does little; I stick one in my pocket, trying to restore any feeling I can. The numb tipof my thumb bumps against something hard, and I almost roll my eyes as I realize that it’s the poker chip.

I think he takes it, this time, I think sarcastically.

And then I stop. There are two types of buildings in the city: apartments and servers. This one isn’t an apartment. Hux isn’t visiting anyone, after all. With a wary glance at the elevators—they’ll have cameras hooked up to Alba, for security purposes—I duck into the stairwell, consider the snaking concrete, and start climbing.

It feels like a hundred floors before a sound wafts into the echoey space. With legs that don’t feel like they have any bones left, I turn and follow the noise, stepping into warmth and light.

The voices are low, but I could recognize Hux’s anywhere. I peek through the open door into a massive room, with pillars of dark metal stacked in rows stretching the entire length. Heat rolls out the door like, my grandma used to say, opening an oven—the sheer amount of energy used by these mainframes heats the room like a furnace.

On the very edge of the room, Hux is a silhouette against a series of monitors—not unlike the ones in the server room. On the screen, there’s a giant map of what looks like the coast of New Florida. Two other men flank him. An older one stands tall, his arms crossed in front of him. The other is blond, and he’s leaning on the desk, entranced by whatever Hux is doing.

Their focus on Hux makes it easy to slip inside the room;I quickly duck behind a massive hard drive and then creep closer, using the loud hum of the machines to cover the noise of my footsteps. The warmth unfreezes my fingers, and I grip the poker chip so tightly I know I’ll have the pattern etched into my skin. I don’t know what will happen if they catch me here, but I have to get closer to hear what they’re saying.

“You were the one who got the intel about his position,” the blond man says, his voice tinny and sharp. He’s looking at the older man, who seems both unimpressed and unbothered by the accusatory tone.

“I gave the coordinates, Baker. If your people weren’t ready with the charges at the right time, that is a personnel problem, not an intel one.”

The younger man is incensed, but Hux cuts the argument off. “This is not the time to point fingers. It’s the time to make sure to figure out where Henderson is going to be this next week, so we don’t make this mistake again.”

The name rings a bell in the back of my mind, but I can’t figure out why—

“I didn’t recruit you so that I could be lectured by a teenager,” the blond man snaps.

Hux turns slowly to the blond, his eyes last to leave the screen. “You recruited this teenager,” he drawls, “because you need me.”

“Just find the target,” the blond snaps. “Whatever it takes.”

My mind is struggling to keep up, but then it clicks, andI have to cover my mouth with my free hand to hold back the noise.

Henderson. The CEO whose yacht was attacked. I remember, with a wave of nausea, the photo of the redheaded children.

The Machs were responsible for that.

I watch, horrified, as Hux navigates through a series of maps, crisscrossed with the loops of flight paths, scrolling numbers of itineraries and passenger logs.A target, the man had said. Because they’ve recruited Hux as a Mach. Hux hurts people. Hux kills people.

I back up, forgetting that I’m caged by a maze of hard drives. The metal sears against the bare skin of my upper arm and I flinch away instinctively, losing my grip on the poker chip.

It clatters to the ground, rolling down the aisle before tilting and spinning along its inner edges.

“What was that?” the blond asks. He looks toward the door, and the older man does the same.