Gameboard of the Gods aox-1 Read online

  “Mae was telling the truth about me,” she murmured to Justin, once they’d stepped inside the plane.

  “About what?” he asked.

  “About being glad to meet me.”

  “Show-off.”

  The rest of the Gemman delegation responded with varying degrees of politeness and directed her and Justin toward the back of the jet. Along with the soldiers and Internal Security officials, there was a young woman named Candace who appeared to be some type of assistant. She jumped whenever any of her higher-ups spoke to her. When she looked at Justin, however, Candace would flush and smile.

  Tessa had seen women behave that way near him before and couldn’t understand being stupid around a guy, even handsome ones. Her mother had had plenty to say about Justin’s appearance. Too good-looking, she’d said. Make sure you marry a plain man, Tessa. They won’t stray, and they’ll never have power over you. Tessa wondered what that said about her father.

  No matter how much Justin kept poetically painting it as “soaring off into a new life,” she found flying absolutely terrifying from the instant they left the ground. The jet’s interior felt too small and the sky too big. As the plane bounced along air currents, it seemed impossible that the engines would keep them up. Tessa expected to come crashing to the ground at any moment. She wished now that she’d worn her rosary but had packed it at the last minute. Gemman attitudes toward religion were no secret, and she hadn’t wanted to attract attention.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and felt Justin put his hand over hers. “Breathe, sweetie. You’re okay. This is completely safe.”

  Tessa forced her eyes open, seeing rare compassion on his face. “How long is this going to take?”

  “Nine hours. We’ll probably stop to refuel once we’re back in RUNA airspace. This is a small plane for a trip like this.” He grinned. “I guess I wasn’t worth first class.” His eyes drifted forward, focusing on Mae as she spoke to the orange-haired woman from Internal Security.

  Tessa closed her eyes again and tried to distract herself from her imminent death. “Why are you obsessed with her?”

  “She’s my boss. My life is in her hands.”

  “Not her. Mae.”

  “I suppose there’s an argument that my life’s in her hands too. But I’m not obsessed. I don’t even know her.” His tone was too casual, even for him, and his eyes constantly strayed to her when he thought no one saw. Mae never looked at Justin, and it seemed to Tessa that the avoidance was too adamant to be a coincidence.

  Tessa eventually tried to sleep, with no luck. She wasn’t sure how much time passed before she heard Mae join them. Each minute felt like a lifetime. The plane had steadied a little, and with a great effort, Tessa opened her eyes. Mae was watching her, her face kind.

  “Do you need anything?”

  “I could use a drink,” Justin said.

  Mae turned toward him with an exasperated look. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  She called for some water, and Candace came scurrying back with a glass. “Thank you,” Justin told her. It was only two words, but the way he smiled completely bedazzled Candace. She tripped as she returned to her seat.

  Mae shot Candace a look of contempt and turned back to Tessa with concern, making Tessa feel even more backward than when she’d first boarded. She’d been an idiot to think she could slip off to this glittering world that her father dreamed about and Justin embodied. Her mother had been right, and this plane ride was probably some sort of divine punishment.

  “Do you want something to watch or read?” Mae asked her.

  Tessa shook her head. “I’ve got a reader.”

  “You do?” Even Justin seemed surprised at that.

  Tessa leaned over to her suitcase, welcoming the small distraction. She pulled out the beloved reader and handed it to Justin.

  “EA tech,” Justin said, examining it. Even Mae leaned in for a closer look. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Someone gave it to Papa,” said Tessa.

  Mae sat back in her seat, no longer interested. “It’s out-of-date. Very out-of-date. They fold up now without hurting the screen. Can probably hold about three times as many books.”

  Justin looked up from the device. “Voice commands?”

  “On the newer models. About as good as the egos.”

  “I don’t even think they bothered with voice on these.” He handed it back to Tessa, his expression as dismissive as Mae’s.

  Tessa snatched it back, surprised at how irritated she suddenly felt. “You make it sound like it’s a stone tablet.”

  “Not far off,” said Justin. He patted her arm. “We’ll get you a new one, a better one. You don’t need an EA castoff.”

  “I like this one,” she insisted. She slipped it back in the suitcase, half-afraid Justin would throw it away right then.

  “Because you don’t know any better,” he said.

  A spot of turbulence suddenly made the plane lurch. It soon righted itself, but Tessa gasped and forgot all about readers. Justin nudged her arm. “Here, take this.”

  When Tessa looked down, she saw he was holding out a tiny white pill to her in one hand. “What is it?”

  “Something that’ll make you feel better. Just let it dissolve.” He shook a second pill out of the bottle. “Might as well take two. I won’t be able to bring them through customs anyway.”

  Tessa took them without question. Mae looked disapproving, but it seemed to be more over Justin’s offering them, not Tessa’s accepting them. Mae tossed her long hair over one shoulder and returned to the front of the plane.

  “Did you see that?” Justin grumbled. “That hair flip? Pretty sure castal girls have to learn that in school.”

  “You’re obsessed.” It was the last thing Tessa managed to say before the pills suddenly seized hold and black curtains closed across her vision….

  * * *

  Someone was shaking her and saying her name. “Time to wake up. Come on, sweetie.”

  Tessa blinked the world into focus, which was hard since it felt like someone had scraped her eyes with sandpaper. The wheels of her mind turned sluggishly, and for a few moments, she had no idea where she was. Slowly, she recalled the godforsaken airplane and saw that it was Justin who was waking her up.

  “Is it time to refuel?” she asked. Her own voice sounded husky and far away.

  “Been there, done that. You slept through it. Vancouver’s right outside your window.”

  Tessa felt the plane tilt, and when she looked out, she could see that they were slowly circling over a body of blue-gray water. The sun was low, the sky dotted with a few stray clouds. A cluster of tall, shining buildings clung to the coast, like sentries of the water. They were pretty but not that different from some of the skyscrapers in Panama City—except for the fact that most of those Panamanian buildings had been abandoned and fallen into disrepair in the Decline.

  From the way Justin stared at the city’s skyline, you would’ve thought they were flying to some golden city in the clouds that was populated by angels and unicorns. There was an emotion she’d never seen in his eyes, an ache that was radically different from the cynical air that usually followed him around.

  Her teeth rattled when the plane landed, but it didn’t matter. She was on the ground again, back where she belonged. She’d never fly again if she could help it—unless, of course, she returned home. Maybe she could take a boat.

  “Civilian airport,” Justin observed.

  Mae heard him as she waited for them near the plane’s exit. “You need to go here to get your visa straightened out—and to get her authorized for chipping.”

  Tessa jerked her head toward Justin. “I don’t want a chip.”

  She knew about Gemman chipping, of course. It was one of their laws. Citizens were all tagged in their hands, allowing their government to keep track of their every move. Her mother said it was the mark of the beast and a sign of their pact with hell. It had never occurred to Tessa that she would have t
o get one too. Seeing her panic, Justin told her to worry about it later.

  “You have plenty of other things to deal with first,” he said when they were disembarking down the Jetway that led inside the airport. Windows in the tunnel showed a constant flurry of planes landing and taking off. “What’s the biggest number of people you’ve ever been around?”

  “I don’t know,” she asked, a little taken aback. “Why do you want to—”

  They emerged into the airport, and Tessa came to a halt and even tried to back up. She’d never seen a crowd like the one that faced her now, not even when her family had traveled downtown. She was adrift in a sea of bodies. Men, women, and children of all ages, all of them in motion. And everything was bright. Huge lights in the ceiling bathed everything in a cold, white glow that reflected off the abundance of metal in the room. There were monitors everywhere, thinner and crisper than anything she had ever seen before, with information constantly flashing and scrolling. All those people and machines created a roar of noise that beeped and buzzed so loudly, she could barely hear herself think. The room began to sway, and she couldn’t breathe.

  Justin tightened his hold. “Need to sit down?”

  Tessa swallowed and shook her head. She could do this. She’d be okay as long as she stayed close to Justin. He wouldn’t let her get lost. She clung to his hand, barely aware as Cornelia Kimora and Francis Kyle made their farewells, with promises to be in touch later. They and the uniformed soldiers soon walked off toward a line with an overhead monitor that read MILITARY/GOVERNMENT. Tessa noticed now that although the room felt chaotic, most of the people were arranged into several similar lines filtering through checkpoints. Each one had a monitor. Directly above her, Tessa saw a sign hanging from the ceiling that read REPUBLIC OF UNITED NORTH AMERICA—CUSTOMS AND IMMIGRATION.

  “Well,” said Mae, glancing at her ego, “you’re in my hands now. I’ll get you guys settled in.” She gave Tessa a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Hang in there. I know there’s a lot of new stuff to get used to. You’ll be home soon.”

  No, Tessa thought. Home was a very long ways away.

  “I think she can deal with the tech better than she can the crowd,” Justin said. “I used to make a lot of jokes about pampered castal girls before I left. Never again. You should see the way the Old Money sequester their women.”

  Mae nodded in understanding and pointed. “We’re just going right to that line, Tessa. Straight ahead. Easy.”

  Tessa nodded obediently, using Justin for support. They reached a line labeled CITIZENS and came to a halt to wait their turn. Despite standing in the thick of the mob, Tessa felt a little better. The line offered order, and she had Justin and Mae flanking her, creating a sort of protective barrier. She calmed down enough that she was able to study a little of her surroundings. Most of the people she saw had the same plebeian features Justin had, tanned skin and dark hair and eyes. Some of their faces showed a nondescript heritage. Others leaned slightly toward a more dominant gene pool—African, Caucasian, or Asian—but nothing too pronounced. Scattered among them were those who displayed a much more distinct lineage. There were fair-skinned people like Mae and others whose skin was nearly black. Almond eyes, round eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes. And yet, with more study, she could see it wasn’t all so cut-and-dried. She saw tanned skin paired with red or blond hair. Some of it was obviously dyed, but others were harder to deduce. She knew recessive genes could still pop up, even after a few generations of aggressive mixing, but wasn’t sure how to identify whether something was natural or not.

  “How can you tell the difference between plebeians and cast—” She caught herself, remembering enough of Gemman history to know the slang terms Justin used weren’t polite in front of someone like Mae. “Er, between plebeians and patricians?”

  “The attitude,” said Justin promptly.

  Tessa looked back at the crowd, trying to figure out what he meant. All of them seemed purposeful and confident, men and women alike, no matter their physical appearance. No one openly carried weapons, which felt strange, but then, no one appeared as though they were about to start a fight either. Women who looked to be affluent moved around without chaperones, dressed in pants like Mae or short skirts, with hair worn down or up or even cut astonishingly short.

  Justin didn’t say anything more about plebeians and patricians, but as they moved forward, he whispered to Tessa, “Pay attention to the screen. You can learn a lot about a person.”

  She didn’t know what he meant until they reached the customs agent. Mae immediately set her hand, palm down, on a rectangular glass box. Beside the agent, a large screen suddenly flared to life. There was a head shot of Mae staring straight ahead, with a cool and calm look in her eyes. Beside the picture, in large letters, was her name: Koskinen, Mae Eris. Underneath it, in smaller print, was: Koskinen, Maj Erja (Nordic Patriarchy). Other lines of info detailed Mae’s citizenship, profession, address, age, and more. Tessa couldn’t quite follow it all. There was also a section for general notes. Hers read: Authorization to carry arms.

  The agent looked surprised at what popped up and shot her a quick, nervous look. He had a smaller screen in front of him that they couldn’t see, which he began to tap notes on. After a few more seconds, the agent looked back up at Mae. “Do you have weapons to declare?”

  Mae removed a gun from her purse and laid it on a nearby table. Then she took out a smaller gun that had been at her waist, hidden by the knee-length jacket she’d put on in the plane. Lastly, she pulled out a knife from her boot.

  “Really?” asked Justin. “Who keeps a knife in their boot?”

  “No one ever expects the knife,” she said.

  The table had a glass cover shielding it. The agent flipped a switch, and a light came on for a few seconds. He nodded and told Mae she could take the weapons back. He started to wave her through, but she said, “I have visas for them.”

  Justin rested his hand on the scanner, and once more, it filled with a flood of data. The first thing Tessa saw was that his citizenship space read: None. She also saw something she hadn’t paid attention to on Mae’s, a field marked “Genetic Resistance.” The number nine was filled in beside it. Perhaps the most striking part of his screen was the notes section, which was written in flashing red letters: No authorization to enter RUNA territories. Detain immediately and contact authorities.

  “Some homecoming,” he said.

  The agent looked as though he was indeed about to call authorities, and Mae quickly handed over her ego, that device that Justin had been enthralled with on the trip here. The agent ran the ego over the palm scanner, and a shimmering, holographic image of the RUNA’s seal appeared briefly in the air. A few seconds later, the red-lettered warning went away, replaced by a much more subdued Provisional Visa, Ministry of Internal Security. The agent scanned Justin’s small bag and then cleared him for entry.

  When Mae showed him Tessa’s documentation, the agent issued her a thin, plastic card and told her to keep it until she was chipped. It displayed the RUNA’s seal shining on the surface, along with her name, citizenship, a long string of numbers, and Provisional Visa, Student.

  “One more scan,” Justin told Tessa once the agent waved them on.

  “It’s not easy getting in,” she said, starting to feel dazed again.

  “No,” he agreed. “A lot easier getting out.”

  They crossed that last checkpoint and finally entered the airport’s crowded lobby. There were no lines here. People moved in every direction, all going their own ways. A wall of glass doors shone before them, lit by the early-evening sun. Hanging over them was the RUNA’s flag, half maroon and half dark purple, with a golden circle of laurel leaves in the center. Written under the circle, also in gold, was Gemma mundi. The jewel of the world. The motto that had eventually given name to its citizens, the Gemmans.

  Tessa felt Justin come to a halt beside her. His eyes were fixed on the flag, his expression reminding her of when their plane ha
d descended into the city. She saw that ache and longing again—and more. There was joy in his eyes. And relief. And awe. And disbelief.

  Until this moment, he never actually thought he’d make it back, she thought.

  Mae had stopped as well and watched as Justin gazed at the flag. For the first time today, Mae didn’t regard him with exasperation. There was a softness in her expression, something fleetingly affectionate, that took Tessa totally by surprise.

  “Welcome home,” Mae said.

  CHAPTER 8

  NOT COOL

  He didn’t believe in Huan’s hell, but as Justin stepped into the RUNA, he could almost believe in a heaven.

  It was everything he remembered. Bright. Orderly. Efficient. Clean. And advanced. No armed thugs or dilapidated buildings. The lack in provincial technology had always been apparent in his exile, but it didn’t really hit him until he was surrounded by modernity again. The chip readers. The monitors. The egos. Here was the world as it should be, the country that had survived the Decline to emerge more brilliantly than it had started. His homeland. Where he belonged.

  Stop drooling, snapped Horatio. The girl’s going to pass out.

  Justin glanced over at Tessa and saw that the raven wasn’t that far off from the truth. She was still pale and anxious. He squeezed her hand.

  “You’re okay. Stay with me here.”

  She was having a hard time, but Justin stood by his decision to bring Tessa here. She was capable, and she deserved this. Sergio had taken Justin in without question when he’d shown up penniless in Panama. Marta Cruz had always believed Justin was a freeloader, but he had strong convictions about paying his debts. Choosing where to go in exile had been the biggest gamble Justin had ever made, with his life as the wager. Gemman authorities had escorted him from his office straight to the nearest airport, telling him he could go “anywhere but here.” He’d had only minutes to make a decision. Central and South America were the obvious options. Their populations had been diverse enough to help them weather the Decline better than other places, and they were more stable than most provinces.