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  The NonCon

  Storming out of the elport, I raced into the apartment. Gran was on the couch, her arm around Dee, the two of them wet-faced and sniffling. Harriet was next to Gran, murmuring sympathy. The apartment had been torn apart, things everywhere, but one thing was obviously missing.

  My voice trembled. “Pops?”

  “B.O.S.S. took him.” Dee’s voice cracked, fresh tears streaming down her face.

  “The scrambler ran out of time. That silly old fool kept on talking. It’s my fault. I should have stayed in here with him. Kept an eye on him.” Gran twisted her hanky, her voice shaking. “He’s so sick. He won’t survive reassimilation.”

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  XVI Julia Karr

  TRUTH

  Julia Karr

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2012

  Copyright © Julia Karr, 2012

  All rights reserved

  CIP Data Is Available

  ISBN 978-1-101-56689-3

  Text set in Bulmer MT

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume

  any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  This book is dedicated to Amy, because . . .

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  EPILOGUE

  Special Excerpt

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are a lot of people who helped to make this book happen, but two in particular who should be named. My awesome editor, Jen Bonnell, who made sure that there was no sophomore slump for me. And Justin Vollmar, without whom I would’ve starved. Thank you both!

  I

  I was contemplating what would happen to me if anyone discovered that I’d killed Ed when Mr. Haldewick’s voice broke through my brooding. “Miss Oberon, if you please!”

  “Yes, sir?” Hopefully my expression and manner were sufficiently contrite to reach Mr. H’s soft side, which he did have—no matter what most of the other students thought.

  His forehead wrinkled in a frown, but he repeated the question. “What is the importance of the XVI tattoo? And you should know this, since I see you now have yours.”

  I twisted my right hand around my inked wrist, glancing across the aisle at my best friend, Wei. Thistles encircled her XVI, snaking around her hand and up her fingers, completely overshadowing the obligatory government brand. She was a Creative, and her ultra tat was legal. I reminded myself that I’d recently gotten my Creative designation and I could get something similar, if I ever got enough credits to afford—

  “This century, Miss Oberon?”

  Snapping back to reality, I opened my mouth to give the rote text-chip answer, but what came out was, “The XVI tattoo is a government-mandated brand designed for easy identification of females who are sixteen and legally old enough to be sexually active. Even though it fades away in about six years, when girls get it they become immediately vulnerable to unwanted sexual advances and easy targets for rape. A crime that is rarely, if ever, prosecuted because—”

  Mr. H’s mouth dropped open; his glasses flew off his pointy nose and dangled from their silver chain. Slamming his pointer on the desk, he roared, “That is NOT an acceptable answer, Miss Oberon!” Even from my seat in the back, I could see little beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

  Skivs! I clapped my hand over my mouth. What was I thinking? Actually, I wasn’t thinking. Because of everything that had happened to me in the past few months, my real feelings were finding their voice—which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Wei grinning. Various titters erupted around the room.

  No sooner had I started to breathe again, figuring my outburst had gone unnoticed outside the classroom, than Hal, the robotic hall access limiter, marched into the room with a request for my presence in Mrs. Marchant’s office. Caught! Mr. H waved me out with one hand, mopping his brow with the hanky in his other. Wei squeezed my arm as I headed for my self-made disaster.

  ***

  Hal ushered me into the principal’s office and withdrew into the corner, silent as death, which might have been preferable to the unknown that awaited me. I’d never been in trouble at school, ever. A sick feeling burbled in my stomach, and I swallowed, attempting to keep my fears down.

  Mrs. Marchant sat behind a gleaming acrylamite desk. Its transparency allowed a full view of her—transchair and all. Like everyone else at Daley High, I knew her story. She and her husband had been low-tier college students. There had been a horrible multitrans accident: her husband had been killed outright, and she had been partially paralyzed. Expensive restoration surgery had not been an option. Rumor was that she preferred the aluminoid shell encasing her from the waist down, even though she could now easily afford a reconstructed spine and bionic legs. I averted my eyes, focusing on her face instead.

  “You are aware that classes are observed, Miss Oberon?” Mrs. Marchant pointed to a bank of AV screens mounted on the wall like pictures, one for each classroom.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Hands clasped in front of me, I shifted my weight from one leg to the other, until I became ultra-aware of the fact that
I was standing and she couldn’t. I froze.

  “Those feeds are periodically reviewed by the government.” She raised one eyebrow, giving me a sharp look. “Understand?”

  “Yes.” Prickles of fear raised goose bumps on my arms.

  “Based on your outburst, it would appear you have an inclination toward the ideas of your father.” Her fingers wrapped around the edge of the desk, and she pushed, the transchair gliding backward. “I know all about Alan Oberon.”

  There was a subtle but distinct whirr as she skimmed across the floor, then stopped in front of me. Even though the chair placed her a good foot shorter than me, the intensity of her gaze made me feel as if we were eye to eye. “Should you plan on spouting any more antigovernment rhetoric,” she said, “join the debate club. That’s what he did.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She was right. My father had won several citywide debates. Media had even wanted to make him a star broadcaster, that is, until he began actively speaking out against the Governing Council beyond the safety of sanctioned debating. Eventually, he had faked his own death. A fact I’d discovered only when my mother lay dying in an Infinity machine after a brutal attack. Now I knew for sure he was alive. We’d even talked once. We just hadn’t met, yet.

  Mrs. Marchant grasped my arm, her slender fingers warm and surprisingly strong. She turned my wrist over to reveal the XVI tattoo. Our eyes met. Something in her expression made me pretty sure she didn’t approve of the government’s branding either.

  “Your permanent records indicate you’re no longer a candidate for FeLS.” She let go of my wrist.

  An odd statement. “My contract was bought out.” My mom had saved for ages to be able to buy my contract back from the government so I wouldn’t have to be a part of the Female Liaison Specialist program. They said FeLS was diplomatic service: a good way, practically the only way, for low-tier girls to work themselves up a few tiers. But only a few knew the truth. Was one of them Mrs. Marchant? I studied her face.

  No, she couldn’t know. Really, no one who wasn’t in the Governing Council knew the truth—the horrible things they really did. No one except for a few of my friends and me. But now the proof of its nefarious dealings—which had cost my mother her life—was safely in the hands of my father, and the Resistance. I’d risked my own life to get it from Ed, and Wei’s father had delivered it, along with my little sister Dee’s baby book, to my dad just a few weeks ago. He’d know when and how to reveal it to the world.

  “You were recently awarded your Creative designation, and you’ve taken a part-time job at the Art Institute. Correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She maneuvered her chair in a circle around me, before skimming back behind her desk. “I suppose you’ll get a fancy tattoo like Miss Jenkins did. Perfectly understandable. I’ve heard you are quite the artist.” She waved her fingers toward Hal. “Escort Miss Oberon back to class. Miss Oberon, keep that contract safe. I’d prefer you remained a student here. I’m sure your grandparents would, too.”

  I followed Hal, puzzling over Mrs. Marchant’s veiled warning to watch my back. I wasn’t planning on causing any trouble, at least not me personally. If my father’s revelations about FeLS caused an uproar . . . well, that would be a good thing. It couldn’t be traced back to me. Could it?

  Maybe she was concerned that I’d quit school to work full-time at the Institute. A lot of kids in my tier didn’t make it to graduation. And even with the survivor benefits from my mother’s death, Gran and Pops were struggling to support Dee and me on their meager retirement credits. That must be it. Or maybe she was worried that I’d mouth off about the Governing Council again and that B.O.S.S., the Bureau of Safety and Security, would come and take me away from the only family I had left.

  Bile crept up my throat. B.O.S.S. The GC’s security force scared me—galactically. People who were arrested by B.O.S.S. were either never heard of again, or were reassimilated—turned into shells of their former selves. B.O.S.S. did whatever it wanted, and no one could stop it. No one.

  My worrisome contemplations were diverted by a slight catch in Hal’s step every time his left foot made contact with the ground. Step, hitch, step, hitch, step, hitch . . . It was hypnotic. A little Lube-All in the hip socket would fix that, I thought. My ruminations on robot maintenance came to a halt when Hal stopped, abruptly, in front of my classroom. Several students cast furtive glances at me as I took my seat, probably wondering what tortures I’d been subjected to.

  For the remainder of the period, Mr. H divided us into small discussion groups on gender-specific roles in society and, more specifically, in tiers. I kept quiet, surreptitiously doodling tattoo ideas for my wrist.

  II

  Derek, Mike, and I headed to Mickey’s for lunch. The nanosec they were out the door, kids whipped out their Personal Audio/Video receivers to check messages and watch broadcasts. A barrage of verts about everything from the latest tunes to the best acne meds filled the half block between school and café. The noise was overwhelming, so I switched on my PAV to block them out. Once inside Mickey’s, we managed to muscle our way into a window booth.

  “Heard you got to visit Marchant’s,” Derek said.

  “Yeah, I got carried away with my views on tattooing and the government. I suppose I should watch my mouth.” I glanced around. You never knew when or where the Bureau of Safety and Security had surveillance turned on. There were some dead zones in the city, but Mickey’s wasn’t one.

  “You and Sal coming to Soma on Saturday?” Derek asked. “Riley and I are playing again. It’s going to be a steady gig, if we’re lucky. Wei’s coming.” He beamed.

  I was thrilled that two of my best friends liked each other—a lot. As a matter of fact, Derek and Wei had been dating since my sixteenth birthday, and from what I’d noticed, I thought they were getting serious. “As far as I know we’ll be there.” I fingered the half-of-a-heart charm dangling from my necklace. Sal had given it to me for my birthday. My half said “I LO”; his half said “VE YOU.” Absentmindedly glancing out the window, I saw Sal and Wei walking by with a girl I didn’t know. My shoulders tensed. I’d seen her before, hanging on Sal in the hallway at school. She was definitely upper tier, like Wei, but unlike Wei, she had all the attitude of privilege. “Who’s that?”

  “I dunno.” Mike shrugged and went back to eating.

  “Oh, I know that girl. She moved here earlier this year from New York,” Derek said. “Her father’s some big-shot Media consultant. Wonder what she’s doing with Sal and Wei?”

  I was wondering the same thing when I saw her grab Sal’s arm. A twinge of jealousy pricked me. I shook it off. Maybe I’d ask him about her later. Maybe not. I loved Sal, and he said he loved me. And he’d shown it by being there for me these past few weeks. Hard weeks. But the one thing I’d been able to do after my mom Ginnie’s murder was count on Sal to be my bright spot.

  ***

  After school, Sal was waiting for me on the front steps. “You working this afternoon?” he asked.

  “Nuh-uh. You?” He worked with his brother on personal transits, retrofitting them with Resistance-friendly security devices, like antisurveillance covers and such for NonCons, a covert arm of the Resistance. I’d gotten to ride in one. It was ultra.

  “Nope. John’s got an appointment with the big trannie dealership in Evanston, so I have the afternoon free.”

  Tucking my arm in his, I smiled. At least he wasn’t off on any NonCon business for the rest of the day. Sal usually disguised himself as a homeless person and helped with vert interruptions, when the NonCons would silence all of the verts and broadcast short messages of the Resistance. The NonCons were like foot soldiers for the Resistance, and it was public and dangerous work. I had to admit, sometimes, when I didn’t know what he was off doing, I worried about his getting caught. I guessed that was the price one paid for attempting to uncover all that was wrong with the government.

  We headed out to meet Dee at the trans stop closest to Di
ckens Elementary. Snow was falling, and I stuffed my hands in my pockets, having left my gloves at home, again.

  “You need those clips like little kids have,” Sal said. “The ones that fasten their gloves to their coats.”

  I stifled a giggle. I’d been trying to keep a good upset on about the girl I’d seen him with earlier, but it wasn’t working.

  “And,” he added, “a hood on your coat, because you never ever remember your hat.” He put his stocking hat on my head, pulling it all the way down over my eyes.

  “Hey!” I tossed it back at him.

  One thing led to another, and we’d thoroughly pelted each other with snowballs before he pulled me close and kissed me. Nothing was cold after that. I swear, when his lips are on mine, summer runs through my veins.

  “We’d better hurry. Dee will be waiting, and it’s getting colder.” As if to punctuate my statement, a frigid gust shrieked down the street, stabbing right through me. Sal put his arm around me. “Who was that girl you and Wei were with at lunch?” I asked.

  “Paulette Gold. Why?”

  “Oh. I saw you with her a few weeks ago, in the hallway. Remember? When we were fighting? She stuck something in your pocket.” I refrained from mentioning how she’d looked like she was trying to crawl inside his skin. I hated thinking about that time, when we’d just started kind of dating. Right after my mom died, everything was such a mess. I was a mess. And then I met Sal, a NonCon. He’d told me things I didn’t want to hear, like about the Media controlling our society. About the GC and their oppressing the people. About my family—my mom and my dad. And he had been right about everything. We’d made up, but it still hurt to relive that.

  After a long moment, he said, “Oh, yeah, that. It was the security code for her dad’s Janji. John had it in the shop for some repairs.” He took hold of my shoulders, bringing us face-to-face. “Hey, Nina. She’s just some girl. You, however, are my girl.” And he kissed me again.