Fox Forever (Jenna Fox Chronicles 3)

I don’t have much more to lose, and I walk to the clearing so I’m in plain view if she would only look down. She finally does, like she sense

s she’s being watched.

She looks at me, and even from nine stories below and in the dark, I can see enough of her face to know the old Raine has returned. She has nothing for me. The blanket slips from her shoulders, forgotten, and she walks away, disappearing back into her father’s domain.

Wreckage

There are still no knocks on my door. No fires to burn me out.

She didn’t tell him. Yet.

But even not telling won’t save me for long. It doesn’t matter that I’m out of the Collective, and his daughter’s life. I have no doubt the Secretary’s still digging and has probably doubled his efforts to search my past. He spent far too long scrutinizing the injuries on my face, perhaps trying to match it up with the injuries a half-human might inflict. What throws him off, maybe even makes him lazy, is my age, my stature, my education, and my supposedly rich parents. I don’t fit his profile of a Non-pact with an ulterior motive. In that respect, the Network knew exactly what they were doing in choosing me and creating my background. In the Secretary’s mind I’m too much like the other kids in the Collective to be one of those animals he despises.

I’m out of the apartment early, taking the PAT to Cambridge. My three hours of sleep were short but determined. With the deadline looming and Carver itching to go to Plan B, there’s no time to waste.

I didn’t spend much time in Cambridge when I used to live here. I remember going to some bookshops with Jenna and Kara, looking for old volumes of poetry, and then hanging out at some outdoor cafés, sipping lattes and trying to outquote one another, but we never really ventured past the main streets.

Percel walks me through a maze of alleys and streets. He has no information about 1407 Bridgemont. No visuals, no history, only directions, but with privacy laws he says there’s an opt-out provision so it’s not unusual for this information to be unavailable. I remember Jenna telling me about the privacy laws … the beginning of the personal privacy era … other than public space IDs, all personal tracking information and devices were outlawed.

That must have really put a damper on the Secretary’s extracurricular activities.

“Left at the next corner,” Percel tells me.

The street I’m on is like one from another time. My time. Quiet, lined with trees that are beginning to drop yellow leaves on streets that are cobbled. A market on the corner doesn’t look that much different from the one my mother used to work at, small, with specials handwritten on placards in the window and silver pails filled with bunches of flowers near the entrance. I pause before I turn left, looking at the various bunches. Mums. Roses. Lilies. Lots of others I don’t even know the names for. I wonder what kind Raine—

Roses maybe. But I’ll probably never know.

“Left here,” Percel reminds me.

I turn onto a long narrow street, one residence butted up to the next with an occasional business wedged between. There’s nothing remarkable about the street other than it’s quiet and pleasant. I begin to look at numbers from force of habit even though Percel has already informed me I have another twenty meters to go.

1401, 1403, 1405, and then nothing.

Between a two-story brownstone at 1405 and a one-story haberdashery at 1409 is an empty lot. Nothing more than gravel and a few weeds. I look down to the corner to make sure we’re on the right street but Percel assures me that the empty lot is 1407 Bridgemont.

I walk up the porch steps to the haberdashery next door and go inside, a bell on the door alerting them to my presence. They’ve really gone for the full quaint effect. A Bot who is cleverly made up as an old wicker dress form brings me back to the reality of where I am. I ask her about the lot next door.

“Not for sale as far as I know. It’s been empty for years now.”

“You mean it used to have something on it?”

She pulls back the black netting on her felt hat. “Yes. A home. It burned to the ground sixteen years ago during a raid. Two humans died.” She tries to interest me in fabrics that would complement my eyes, but I’m already walking out, the tinkling bell and slamming door echoing with all the other thoughts swirling through my head.

Miesha and Karden’s home. The Secretary had their address and has saved it all these years. It didn’t come through an intelligence report, or through other official avenues. He got their address by way of a small handwritten note. A note that had no other identifying information on it. An anonymous note.

* * *

I’m just turning down the street to the apartment when Xavier intercepts me. I can’t tell if he’s angry or relieved but his expression is wild. “Where have you been?”

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“It’s Livvy. She’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

He steps closer, lowering his voice. “There was a Security sweep last night. Carver tried to call you but couldn’t get through. Security Forces went through Livvy’s neighborhood grabbing anyone on the street. They got her and six others.”

“But why? She wasn’t even in public space.”