Page 16 of Last Chance to Save the World (Chaotic Orbits #3)

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B runa meets me on the platform. “Did they see you?” she asks, already leading me around to the back, away from the public, tourist-facing area to where the workers gather.

“I don’t think so,” I gasp.

Above us, all the lift lights illuminate. Whether Rian saw me get in the elevator or not, he sent people down here.

“Quick.” Bruna shoves a helmet at me. The front is clear, and it seals around my face. The back is a breather unit. As soon as I’ve got the helmet on, a digital display in the top of my vision informs me that I have an hour of oxygen.

“And this,” Bruna adds.

“How did you get my jetpack?” Because this is my jetpack—the jaxon jet that burns cold and never fails me, except when I design it to fail.

Bruna gives me a look I recognize from our college days, a look that tells me to shut the fuck up and just accept the help I’m given. She’s the port boss, and she got me the jets. “Thanks,” I tell her, and she grunts in a way I know means, You’re welcome but also hurry the fuck up.

I shrug my jetpack onto my shoulders and strap the stabilizer around my waist. The unit is designed to work with my LifePack; it’s designed to work in space. But as soon as I secure the gear, Bruna shoves me into the Mediterranean Sea.

Blue darkness washes over me as my body sinks underwater. Panic sweeps into my lungs, but the helmet Bruna gave me keeps placidly pumping air. I gulp at it, my heart hammering, and I am able to refocus enough to kick down, not up. Down and out. Away from the boats and the platforms under the city.

Away from Rian.

“Ada?” a voice says in my helmet.

“Mom?”

“Hey, honey.” Relief threads through my mother’s voice. “You have the coordinates?”

Even before she has the sentence out, I notice a dial at the top of the helmet’s screen, a little radial that blinks when I veer too far off course.

“It’ll take you to the landing strip, but try not to surface before then,” Mom says. “And don’t use the jets until you’re at least half a kilometer from the island.”

If I surface now, there’s a chance Rian will have scouters watching the water. I’ll be caught. Using my jetpack to propel through the ocean might also be spotted; I’m not that deep underwater, and Rian isn’t going to exactly give up easily.

That thought—of him scanning the waves, of him searching for me—shouldn’t excite me quite the way it does.

I focus on swimming, avoiding the bits of trash and trying not to think about how gross the water is. Even now, some of the nanobots have to be here, replicating themselves, isolating the pollutants to form globules that can easily be removed and recycled into cleaner components.

“Hey, Mom,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Always.” Her word is a whisper, and I can barely hear it as I continue swimming, my breath increasingly ragged from effort. But it still fills me with warmth. Maybe the only reason I am willing to take the risks I do is because Mom’s always been there to catch me when I fall. It’s easier to walk a tightrope when you know there’s a safety net beneath your wobbly feet.

Her love gives me courage. It always does, even when I know she’s lightyears away. And maybe if I wasn’t hauling ass through the sea, I’d find the words to tell her that. I hope she knows anyway. I suspect she does.

She always knows more than I give her credit for. Like how she knew not to rely on regular communication systems for this. Rian had to have had people monitoring all the networks.

Can’t monitor birds and whispers, though.

I wait until my helmet flashes green to use the jetpack. The swim goes much quicker with that little aid.

“I’m almost there,” I tell Mom as I approach the dock. “Where are you?”

“Safe.” That’s the only answer I’m going to get from her. She and I have both learned to never really trust any comm sys.

We’ll find each other again. We always do.

I breach the surface of the water and spot the ladder going up to the platform. My skin stinks with the sticky-salty water that comes off me in sheets as I lug my body, weighed down with the jetpack, up onto the station platform.

There’s no one here to help me, but that’s fine. Bruna’s the port boss, and while she set me up with my escape route, either she’s told the other workers on the dock to ignore me or they’re sympathetic enough to turn a blind eye as I trudge over to Glory .

I don’t risk anything—I get into my pilot seat still dripping wet, not bothering to take the time to change clothes. I swipe my damp hair out of my face and drop the breathing helmet in the seat Rian occupied when we came to Earth.

In minutes, I’m in the air, soaring north to avoid the lingering holo-casts that paint the sky with colorful light.

Ships are supposed to be grounded now. If Rian is look ing in my direction, he’ll know that the streak of light escaping Earth’s gravity is me.

He’ll know I got away.

Not because I’m clever—at least not this time.

But because the people of Earth are tired—have been tired, for generations—of being trod upon, ignored, and used. Because when there was a chance to exact some level of justice, all they needed was a sign to rise up.