Free Divided Worlds Trilogy 01 - Disconnect by Imran Siddiq Page A

she?”
    Zachary increased his distance from the recruit. “I can’t say. I’ll meet you at the rusty track. I won’t be long.” He turned and ran.
    Overlapping sheets of metal jangled underneath his feet until he hit a level filled with sludgy mounds. He sighted a dry sewer pipe that would make for a resting spot. Crouched inside, he waited. Why hadn’t she called again?
    The Intercom vibrated.
    Zachary’s fingers snapped to the device’s ridges first. He pushed the blue face, then the green circle. Lights sprinkled above the Raptor to form an image. He sucked his breath back into his lungs.
    Lying on her front, on a bed or a sofa, Rosa smiled. The pointed tips of her ears showed beneath tied-back hair, as did her slender neckline. “Let me guess, you were busy,” she said. “And, obviously, you didn’t wipe the memory. What am I going to do with you?”
    “Where were you?”
    “When?” Rosa drew her head back. “Were you waiting for me?”
    Zachary frowned. “Course I wasn’t waiting. I thought it was odd that you hadn’t checked that I’d carried out your order.”
    Rosa snorted, giving her head a hasty shake. “My order. Ha! Well, okay then, why didn’t you follow my order and wipe the memory?”
    Zachary ignored her comment. “You didn’t answer me. Where were you?”
    “Are we going to go through this charade again? Your question, my question; never-ending questions. Can’t we just talk like normal people without having to check boxes with one another?” She gazed beyond the Intercom to her upper right. “Fine, I’ll tell you. There was a shortage two nights ago. I got scared, thinking it was another attack, and Mother was hysterical. Apparently, it started in Assayer and spread all the way to our home. Not had one of those for a while.”
    “A shortage, like when your energy resources run out?”
    “Kind of. It’s when all communication goes haywire. Every teenager’s nightmare. Broadcasts, music-streaming, solar-web, everything, even the Intercoms go down. Blip. Totally off the grid.”
    The MOSD, two nights ago, thought Zachary.
    Somebody had initiated a shortage to knock out every device to prevent anybody from noticing that the deletion took place. Possibilities flooded his mind of who might have instigated this. Jordan Kade? General Sokolov? Protesters? And it had happened on the day of the paper drop.
    He blinked at Rosa’s image. She must have seen his finger fidget along his mouth. Did she know about the paper drop?
    “Now, time for my question. Were you waiting for me?” she asked.
    “I wasn’t waiting for you. Like I said, you hadn’t checked up on me. That’s what I’d have done.”
    “Hmm. And the reason for not wiping the memory?”
    “Damage limitation. The wipe could’ve ruined the inner components. The value of a broken Intercom would be as good as a bag of rust-proof nails.”
    Rosa cradled her chin. “So, you didn’t do it because of the value? Not for me?”
    Stomach fluttering, Zachary felt the nape of his neck tingle. “What?”
    “I’ve been thinking about everything you told me.” Rosa’s twist to her left gave him a second to reflect on her words.
    What ‘everything’ had he told her?
    “Phew.” Rosa sighed with relief. “I thought that was Alice sneaking up on me. Best tell you that she’s unhappy about me calling you. She’s an android, and she’ll never understand emotions. The closest Alice’s ever come to emotion is when I threatened to cut the sockets to her charging-chamber.”
    The blue tint of the image glistened across her large laugh.
    “Like I was saying, you found my first Raptor, then your dad gets a job to come and repair my home. Next thing, we meet. Now what are the chances of that? Isn’t it all more than a coincidence?”
    Zachary’s brow tensed. It could’ve happened to anyone.
    “Well?” probed Rosa. “Did you keep the Raptor for me?”
    The Intercom felt light in his numb fingers. Her searching eyes froze