Surrender Read Online Free

me a second time, and I winced as the tech burned my wrists. Two pairs of advanced tech cuffs would cause blisters and a severe rash if I wore them for very long. My flesh was already tingling with techtricity.
    “There’s your evidence,” the middle Greenie said. “We’ll give you one week.” He snapped his projection screen closed and stood. The other Greenies mimicked him, and as one, they marched out of the room.
    One week for what?
I glanced at Jag, my chest heavingin anger. He held my eyes, studying me like I was a difficult projection puzzle he couldn’t figure out. Refusing to look away, I stared at him until the guards yanked me backward.
    Just as they pulled me through a door, a man asked, “What are we going to do with you, Mr. Barque?” The voice dripped with disdain, but somehow it sounded . . . familiar.
    As I was escorted down the hall, I made the connection: The real-life voice speaking to Jag matched the one that had been talking in my head.

3.
    My sister, Tyson, is the talented one, but she’s been gone for years. So my mother never expected me to make it to sixteen, the age when I could really help her with the bills. I’d almost made it. A few more weeks and I could’ve landed a lame job with the loser algae department in the City of Water.
    My only consolation for living that life had been Zenn. My mother allowed our friendship because Zenn’s dad—a government official in the teleportation department—had called us a “smart match.”
    Which meant she thought he could keep me in line. Too bad she didn’t know that Zenn planned most of our rule-breaking expeditions. Or that he was more than who the Thinkers had matched me with.
    “I’d choose you anyway, Vi,” he’d said that day as we lounged next to the lake. “So it’s perfect that we’ll be . . . that They matched us.” He trailed his fingers through my hair. It was still long back then.
    “I’d choose you,” he repeated.
    I smiled and kept my eyes closed, memorizing his words. Because in that moment, it felt like Zenn and I had the world in our hands.
    Then he was chosen for the Special Forces. Everything changed. But not how I felt about him. And not how he felt about me.
    After the painful removal of the silencer and the tech-cuffs, I fingered my already-raw wrists.
    They’d stripped me of my ID card and taken my purse, so all I had were the clothes I wore—a beige long-sleeved shirt, standard blue jeans, my soft sneakers, and . . . yeah, that’s it.
    I kicked the Mech escorting me, but the silver casings made damage impossible. In fact, my right foot felt like I’d cracked a couple of bones.
    The stupid robot babbled in its monotone voice about how empty the place was. “Apparently there aren’t too many Baddies in trouble right now,” it said, followed by a weird hacking sound. Mech laughter.
Creepy robot-people,
I thought.
    Mechs have unlimited power. They can talk and talk and talk. They can run and run and run. Which is why no one ever escapes. How do you beat a robot?
    They don’t need to eat. They don’t need to sleep. And they can sense body heat and bar codes and who knows what else.
    I hate Mechs—more than I hate Thinkers. More than the idiotic rules.
    I wished this stupid tin can would shut up already. And, miraculously, it did.
    The Mech remained silent as we stepped out of the ascender ring and into Ward D. It led me down a row of cells with bars along the front—no privacy up here. It stopped in front of the only occupied cell.
    “Oh, hell no. No way!” I yelled, fumbling under the Mech’s silver casing for the power button that was surely there.
    My fingers found the switch, clicking it off. An alarm wailed. I clapped my hands over my ears just as Jag Barque rolled off the bed, pulling his pillow over his head.
    Four human guards appeared. One of them turned on the Mech while another slid the bars open. Several hands shoved me into the cell. Human and Mech laughter mingled together in a