Analeigh and I stepped into the dining hall for lunch, a larger space than most of the rooms at the Academy, but just as cold and perfunctory. No pictures hung on the white walls, and no carpets spanned the tiled floor. Round glass tables and steel chairs dotted the room, to the entire effect of making the space feel empty even when we were all in here at once. My mom said the sparseness was a Historian thing, and that the Agriculture Academy had walls made out of vines and flowers.
There were ten tables, one for each class and two extras for any Historians or Elders that wanted to join us, even though they rarely dined in our company. Our class, like most older classes, had split into two distinct groups, but we were no different from the rest of the System and were required to get along. Even the dissension between Jess and me wasn’t much to write home about—nothing like the epic high school battles waged in old movies or the electronic books I’d devoured as a child. No one had been pushed in front of a bus, no pig’s blood had been spilled. Perhaps because we had no buses. Or pigs.
We didn’t all love each other, but we were polite and avoided confrontation.
Jess, Peyton, and Levi were seated and chatting when I made it to the table, but fell silent at my approach. Oz shoveled asparagus stalks into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten for a week, avoiding my gaze, but Sarah looked up at the sudden pause, guilt darkening her light-blue gaze. I dropped my plate next to hers, my apple rolling toward the center of the table. By the time I’d retrieved it Analeigh had settled next to me, but no one had resumed talking.
“You guys are making it totally obvious that you were either talking about me or Analeigh, and you know Sarah’s going to spill, so you might as well share.”
Peyton and Levi glanced toward Jess, who shrugged. Sarah stuffed a huge bite of bread in her mouth, obviously keen on waiting for privacy before divulging the contents of the conversation.
“What’s going on?” Analeigh asked, folding her arms across her chest.
Oz mopped up the last of the vegetable juice on his plate with a final bite of bread, then sighed. “Kaia’s brother and his merry band of thieves and rebels are in the news again.”
My heart sped up. Not due to mortification, as Jess had likely hoped, but because news of my brother and his crew had been in short supply for months. The lack of information worried me. The System wasn’t big, and although there were places to hide, they couldn’t stay away from civilization forever. Since the moons and outer planets weren’t terraformed, eventually the … well, pirates, for lack of a better term, had to return for oxygen, proper attire, and sustenance. They pillaged those things, along with money and food and whatever else struck their fancy.
It was hard to reconcile the reports of their crimes with my playful, quick-to-smile, handsome older brother. No one knew why he’d left. If my parents or any of his friends had suspicions, they had never shared them with me. My anguish over missing him was rivaled only by my anger at being left behind without a word of explanation.
“What happened?” I asked after a bite, trying not to sound too eager.
“They hit the armory on Roma. Took a bunch of weapons and oxygen tanks.” Levi glanced around as though there were Elders peering over his shoulders, even though talking about subversives like Jonah was taboo at worst, not forbidden.
An idea formed in the back of my mind, tiny but growing into something substantial by the moment. “When?”
Levi frowned, then leaned forward and dropped his voice even further. “Why are you so interested all of a sudden?”
It was true that I preferred to avoid gossip about my brother. I didn’t hate him the way the Elders thought we all should, and even though I was angry with him, I wanted him to be safe. Jonah wasn’t idle gossip. He was my brother. I loved him even though his actions put more pressure on me to walk the line, a line I’d rather keep just in sight, so our parents could be proud of at least one of their children.
So my grandfather’s legacy wasn’t completely tarnished.
My failure to answer turned all six pairs of eyes toward me. Jess and Pey both looked bored with the conversation, like they wished I would get over myself so we could talk about something more interesting. Levi’s dark features spoke of idle curiosity, as usual. He was kind of the gossip king of the Academy. Sarah’s face was pinched with concern, Analeigh’s eyes crowded with a million questions.
Oz’s steady gray gaze brimmed with suspicion and annoyance, narrowed and so focused on my face that it made me start to sweat.
I concentrated on not squirming. “I … I like to know he’s okay.”
“It was this morning around six,” Oz supplied, his voice softer. “They weren’t hurt.”
Sarah slid a sidelong glance at him. The hitch in her body language told me I wasn’t imagining his odd behavior, the gentle thread to his reassurance.
When I didn’t respond, the conversation around the table shifted. Jess changed the subject, blabbering about what decade of clothing she planned to wear for the sixth year’s upcoming certification party. Oz finished his food in three huge bites, then he and Sarah left the table. Pey and Analeigh stayed quiet, and my jumbled thoughts didn’t allow me to inflate the conversation.
Analeigh’s silence unnerved me; she would want to know why Jonah’s latest antics had interested me so much, and why I’d said anything at the table when I typically hated people talking about my brother. I’d have to think of something other than the real reason for my change of heart. Because admitting to my rule-following friend that finding Jonah’s cuff had opened a world of possibilities to me, if I had the guts to grasp them, wouldn’t play well. And now that I knew where Jonah had been, I could travel back and corner him.
Get some freaking answers.
Chapter Nine
New York, New York, United States, Earth Before–March 25, 1911 CE (Common Era)