“Be at the soda bar by four,” Tuck’s message said. “Leave the pad with Fred.”

  Owen did, and he sat at the round table in a private room with the terrorists. A half-full pitcher of SUMMER RUSH ORANGE sat on the table surrounded by glass cups. Tom picked his teeth with one long fingernail. Ed had an archaic notebook and scribbled something on the pages. Vicky played with her plastic cube.

  “Where’s Tuck?” Tom asked. “New guy got here on time.” He took a big gulp of his soda. “Drink up, new guy. That’s the expensive stuff.” Tom nodded at Owen’s untouched cup.

  “I’ve never had name brand,” Owen said. He sipped the soda and immediately noticed how strong and rich the flavor was. It was a far cry from the Mega Mart SODA DRINK he spent most of his life drinking. “It’s good.” He took another sip, savoring the taste. “Really good!”

  “Cost enough,” Vicky said. The cube clacked in her hands as she shuffled the faded colors. “Shit. How did you do this?”

  “Give it a rest, Vic,” Ed said. “Brad wouldn’t want you driving yourself crazy over a toy.”

  “The fuck do you know?” Vicky sneered. She shuffled the colors aggressively. “Write your shitty poems and fuck off!”

  “That was mean. I’ll let it go.” Ed took a breath. “But I don’t want to see you going insane. You’re wearing Brad’s jacket and hat every day,” Ed said gently. “You’re playing with that fucking cube he couldn’t keep his hands off. It’s not healthy.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Vicky said dryly as she rotated the top layer. “Fuck.”

  “Who’s Brad?” Owen asked.

  “He’s dead,” Vicky said without taking her eyes off the cube. She blew hair away from her face and rotated the top layer.

  “You’re the replacement,” Tom said. He scratched his thick neck. “Ed said you did real good. Chopped that pad apart like a surgeon. Not like Brad though. Brad was a savant. If it had electricity coursing through it he could take it apart and put it back together like a, well, a surgeon.” Tom scratched his head. “You know what I mean. Good to have you on the team. We had a couple other guys lined up, but I don’t think we could’ve trusted them.”

  “He’s not part of the team,” Vicky said. “Brad was a soldier.”

  “We’re all soldiers now,” Ed said. He closed his notebook and put it in his pocket. “Owen pulled his weight. No one here can dispute that and Tuck saw fit to invite him back. You pay off your fines?” Owen nodded. “That’s good. If you don’t give the peacekeepers a reason to look at you they won’t.” Ed shrugged. “Most of the time.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Tuck said as he slipped inside the room and locked the door. “Had to finish something up down in New Asia.” He pulled a pair of folders out of his bag and tossed them on the table. Inside were printed maps and time schedules. “We got what we needed off Hartley’s pad and then some. Owen, take a look at that one.” Tuck slid a piece of paper across the table.

  “Is that a lock?” Owen asked. He recognized the basic design, but this wasn’t made to hold a locker shut.

  “A Break Tech INNKEEPER. Top of the line. Supposedly unbreakable. You need a specialized key running twenty different codes to get it open.” Tuck clicked his tongue. “That specific lock is what holds the doors on a certain prison transport shut.”

  “You found them?” Vicky looked up from her cube.

  “Yeah.” Tuck grinned. “All of them.”

  “Prison transport?” Owen asked. The lock on the paper was complicated. Reinforced steel meant to resist all forms of exterior tampering. What did they want him to do with this? Why?

  “Time to bring you into the fold, Owen. That little stunt at the coliseum was a test. An important test for us, the most important test of your life for you. Understand?” Owen nodded without understanding. “Good. My name is Bryan Tucker, formerly Captain Ryota Ozawa of the City Seven Armor and Recon division. Decorated and honorably discharged for my duty to City Seven. I used to be a loyal servant of our beautiful city. I pledged, I fought, I bled. All for the city. All for this beautiful lie.”

  “He’s getting poetic,” Tom whispered to Ed. Tuck shot him a hard look and he shut up.

  “And it is a lie, Owen,” Tuck continued. “The Callahan’s built this city after the collapse. It was fucking anarchy. Mass starvation, murder, rape. All the worst things people could do to each other they were doing and they were doing it hard. So the rich and powerful built the cities to save the world.”

  “I know,” Owen said. They taught it in every education center. The Ten City project. The Callahan’s and a dozen other wealthy families selflessly used their fortunes to build City Seven and its walls. Everything within was a result of the Callahan family spearheading the initiative and they ruled the city since its founding because they were the only ones who could.

  “We all know.” Tuck grinned. “We all got the same compulsory education. They put that shit in a bowl and we ate it up like dogs. Until one by one we woke up. It took me losing my entire team in the field.” Tuck snorted. “We were fighting City Six over a stretch of farmland. Armor, infantry, artillery. Nasty stuff. When it was over City Seven won and we retained the land. But the families of my dead men didn’t get anything. It was a technicality in their contract.”

  “See,” Tuck said. “The war officially ended a day before, but we didn’t get the message until the bombs already dropped. A soldier only receives coverage during active war time. That’s ten casualty payments the city didn’t need to make because of a technicality. Ten families that lost their loved ones for nothing and what did they do with the farmland we died for?”

  “Did they grow more food?” Tuck shook his head. “Fuck no! They built an energy plant and put up a little plaque for the soldiers. That’s it. All those deaths for another power plant. Not food. Not even another base to help future operations, not housing. But another power plant to keep the concrete beast alive. Two months later the war was back on.”

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  “That’s not the worst of it,” Ed said. “I was a ranger with the third. I traveled up and down the coast and further. Saw the other cities from time to time. Not one of them is like our City Seven. From what I’ve seen and heard we have the closest thing resembling society prior to the collapse. But we are missing some key components.”

  “Our rights,” Tuck said. “It used to be the people had rights to protect them from their government. Peacekeepers had rules they needed to follow. Now we obey and hope for the best. But it wasn’t always like that. It used to be that a citizen had the right to protect themselves. A citizen could own a gun. Can you imagine that?”

  “No.” Owen couldn’t imagine owning any kind of weapon. It felt wrong to even imagine holding a gun. Even throwing a punch had him shaking. Guns were for the military divisions alone. Guns were made to protect the city. A citizen with a weapon got years in Black Hill, he didn’t know if they’d ever get out if they had a gun.

  “Supposedly everyone had the right to protect themselves and their family, but it started going bad before the collapse. The government started stripping away the rights of their citizens one by one. Stand here, say this. Shut up. Don’t do anything we don’t like. Small infractions were fined, bigger infractions resulted in imprisonment.”

  “Slavery,” Tom said. “Work to pay off your fine. I did it four times.” Tom held up four thick fingers. “I’d be in Black Hill right now if not for Tuck.”

  “When the collapse happened it came for everyone,” Tuck said. “Half the world got bombed to hell, the other half starved. The lucky metropolitan populations grew into the Ten City Project. Out of those cities, City Seven was the most successful.”

  “City Seven is the apex predator of our world,” Ed said. “Our armed forces are second to none and our means of production far outstrip anyone else. Hell, across the Atlantic they’re living in feudal societies again. We’re not much better here.” Ed shrugged. “Our overlords just wear nicer suits.”

  “We’re telling you this so you understand that no one is coming to help us,” Tuck said. “We need to be our own saviors. Our mission is to bring down the City Seven kings and restore natural rights to the citizens of City Seven. Real rights that government can’t infringe on. We’ll bring back the American dream. And we want you to help us Owen. Half our team got snagged during our last mission. But I found them because of you.”

  “Me?” Owen shook his head. It was too much information at once. Tuck couldn’t be telling the truth. No. Owen knew the truth because the News Network told him the truth every night. Aimee Reynolds wouldn’t lie to him, would she? His brain cooked in his skull and he swallowed as he tried to understand what Tuck was saying.

  “Does he only talk in one word sentences?” Vicky asked. She set the cube down and crossed her arms.

  “It’s a lot to take in,” Tuck said. “I know. But trust me. Hartley, the owner of that pad you tapped, he’s married to Janis Hartley, the current warden of the Black Hill Penitentiary.”

  “A real cold bitch,” Tom said with a grin.

  “Voted City Seven’s woman of the year,” Vicky added.

  “Right,” Tuck said. “Mr. Hartley always has dinner with Mrs. Hartley and their two kids. Honestly they seem like decent people all things considered. Just cogs in the machine playing their part wrong or right. Using Hartley’s scratchpad got us onto their family network where we got Janis’s login information. What was her password, Ed?”

  “Hotdiggitydogfourfourthree,” Ed said with a click of his tongue. “Exclamation point.”

  “Hot diggity dog,” Tuck said. “We’re going to get our team back because of you, Owen.” He tousled Owen’s hair, making him realize he still needed a haircut.

  “One day on the job and he’s already more useful than Tom,” Ed said. He slapped Tom’s chest and the big man chuckled.

  “I need you to study that lock,” Tuck said. He tapped the paper. “There’s a manual override under all that steel. You have a light touch so you won’t fuck it up. We’ll handle the cutting and breaking, but you’ll get the doors open. Can you do that?”

  “I think so,” Owen said. It didn’t look too complex. He imagined the manual override was put in place in case of emergency. “I can do it.” It wasn’t like he had much of a choice. Break the lock or get a knife to the ribs. Choice made itself.

  “That’s what I like to hear.” Tuck slapped Owen’s shoulder. He slid another piece of paper across the table, this one a map drawn with colorful markers. “This is the Flamingo tunnel.” Tuck tapped the paper. “The transport will head north on its journey to Black Hill where we will intercept it.” He pulled a handful of plastic chess pieces and a toy car out of his jacket pocket. “I’m the king, Ed is the bishop.” He set the pieces out.

  “Tom’s the pawn, Vicky’s the rook.” He set their pieces to the side. “Owen is the knight.”

  “Why can’t I be the horsey?” Tom asked.

  “Shut up,” Tuck continued. “We’ve got six lanes of north bound traffic and six lanes of southbound traffic that does not stop. There’s a service tunnel on the southbound side.” He marked it on the map. “We’ll stop the van midway through the tunnel.” Tuck pulled out a second toy car. “Me, Ed, and Tom will handle the guards.” He slid the pieces around. “We’ll cover Owen while he gets the doors open.” He nodded at Owen.

  “What about the shackles,” Vicky asked.

  “That’ll be you. You’ll be on the cutter. Vicky will cut the armor off the lock. Owen will get the door open. Vicky will cut the shackles. Once we get our people out we’ll high tail it to the service tunnel.”

  “Through twelve lanes of traffic,” Ed said.

  “Depending on where the transport stops.” Tuck nodded. Once we reach the service tunnel we’ll split into two groups. I’ll lead one, Ed will lead the other. We’ll make it to our designated safe houses and go dark for a while. Any questions?”

  “What happens to the van?” Tom asked.

  “We leave it behind with a timed explosive. Still got a couple from our last job. Any other questions?”

  “You sure this is a good idea?” Ed asked. “What if they’ve already flipped someone? Be an awfully big risk breaking them out if even one of them is compromised.”

  “No one gets left behind,” Tuck said. Vicky scoffed and he ignored her. “I’d do the same for any of you. We aren’t the Callahans. We aren’t the Yamadas. We don’t use people and throw them away. If getting our people out gets me killed, then I get killed.”

  “Spoken like a true warrior,” Sensei Dan said. He appeared suddenly and Owen flinched. “Sorry, ‘bout that. Looks like we got a good old fashioned prison break coming up.”

  “They’re moving them from general processing to Black Hill in a week,” Tuck said. “We’ll make the necessary prep. Owen, you study that lock like it’s the city aptitude test. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Owen said.

  “Then get going. I’ll send everyone a message when we need to meet up.” And just like that the clandestine meeting was over. Owen had the lock diagram folded and tucked in his sweater pocket.

  Owen knew they were doing the wrong thing. He could’ve gone to the peacekeepers at any time, yet there he was again. It wasn’t just fear alone driving him forward. No. He actually wanted to help the group because he knew deep down something was wrong with the city. He wanted to be a part of fixing it if fixing it was even possible.

  “A week,” Sensei Dan said as they hit the street. “We can get a lot of training done in a week.”