Free No Return (The Internal Defense Series) by Zoe Cannon Page A

got to work.
    It took her less than a minute to get into Vivian’s files. Investigation used practically the same file system as Processing—and since Vivian was already logged in, Becca didn’t even need to worry about the password.
    All the information about the spy program was right here in front of her.
    She had no way to tell which files had the information she needed. And she couldn’t copy them—if she tried, it would send up a red flag with Surveillance, and when she got home, Enforcement would be waiting for her. Jameson had given her that lecture at their very first meeting, when she had told him with giddy enthusiasm that she could bring the resistance copies of all her mom’s files. Her cheeks still burned at the memory.
    No way to copy the files—and a couple of minutes at most until Vivian came back.
    She would just have to hope she guessed right.
    She clicked on a file at random.
    A cheerful little box popped up asking her for a password.
    No. She had come this far. She wouldn’t let this stop her. Not now.
    She closed the box and tried the next file.
    The box reappeared.
    She tried the next one. The same thing happened.
    And the next. Same thing.
    None of them would let her in.
    She scanned the desk for any clues to the password, even though she knew she wouldn’t find anything—no Internal division would allow a lapse in security like that. She opened every desk drawer. One held only a couple of pens; the rest were empty.
    So close. She was so close.
    She slammed her hand down on the desk in frustration.
    “Are you okay?”
    Becca jerked up. Vivian stood in the doorway, a bottle of water in each hand.
    Becca closed the files before Vivian could see what she had been doing. “I’m fine. I went to check something online, and I saw that the resistance set off another bomb last night. They killed five people.” She had seen it on the news this morning—Internal’s latest victory in their propaganda war. A couple of months ago Internal had started blaming them for random attacks downtown—attacks that no doubt originated from inside Internal itself. Innocent people, sacrificed to make good citizens a little more afraid. To make them aware of the magnitude of the threat, her mother would have said.
    “It’ll be over soon.” Vivian’s voice came out too loud, too confident. Like she was trying to convince herself. “I’m going to stop them.”
    “You’ll stop them,” Becca agreed.
    Scenes flashed through her mind. Enforcers dragging her people away—Meri, Peter, all the informants whose names she didn’t know. Locking them away on the underground levels. Taking them into a little room, one by one, and shooting them in the head. A hundred shots. A hundred lives.
    Vivian, moments from execution, tearfully explaining how she had sabotaged Investigation’s plan from the start, her confession televised for everyone in the country to see.
    It would be one or the other.
    One life for a hundred.
    An easy decision.
    Her sight cleared. Now all she could see was Vivian—the real Vivian this time.
    Easy.
    She couldn’t get into the files. It didn’t matter. She would find another way.
    I don’t have a choice.
     
    * * *
     
    “Pink,” Heather decreed. She picked the bottle up off Becca’s coffee table and waved it in the air. “Red will make people think of blood, and that’s the last thing you need. You already look too much like your mother.” She made a come-here motion. “Come on, give me your hand.”
    Becca eyed the nail polish. “It’s very…” She took another look at Heather’s face. She knew that look. Heather wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
    She gave an inward sigh. “It’s perfect.” She held out her hand, and made a mental note to scrub off the polish before the next resistance meeting.
    Becca had forgotten this from high school—the way Heather would move Becca’s hand around like it belonged to a doll, spacing each finger out perfectly on the cloth she had