“Hello, Ian,” I finally said. Around us, the images on the walls began to wash into grays.
“Jag,” Ian said, his voice scraping against my eardrums. “No cache, I see.” He tsked, as if I were a naughty boy who’d taken his feed out early.
“We just want Thane and Raine,” I said. “No one gets hurt.”
Van’s laugh was maniacal. It echoed off the silver in the cavernous room and actually made Vi whimper. Zenn squeezed her arm, then quickly set to work helping a very weak Raine onto one of the spare hoverboards.
Please go, I begged Vi again, but she didn’t look at me.
“Take them,” Ian said, waving his hand dismissively. “We got what we wanted.”
What? Or who? I thought, my hands tightening into fists. A distant, barely audible pinging echoed in my head. Thane’s drain couldn’t have been completed; we hadn’t been late.
“Everything you wanted?” I asked, molding my voice into coolness. If I could keep Van and Ian talking long enough, maybe the no-one-getting-hurt thing would actually happen.
“Except you,” Ian said.
You, you, you, echoed in my mind. I forced him out, the anger burning through my body with enormous heat. I took a breath to quench the fire inside.
“How’d you get in my building?” Van asked.
“Your city is not as secure as you think it is.” I’d deliberately left River and her team down in the lobby. No need to compromise their identities if I didn’t have to.
Van’s eyes narrowed. His chest rose in self-importance. “I’ve destroyed all the Insider hideouts.”
I crossed my arms and shrugged with one shoulder. “That you know of.”
Rage transfigured his features, and I took a step backward at the change in him.
“You will not leave here alive,” he growled.
“Oh, I think I will,” I said, but my heart jumped as if it might be on its last beats. Just like in the capsule.
I schooled my thoughts, shoving the disturbing reminder of imprisonment to the back of my mind.
Ian snapped his fingers, and a door in the back of the lab clicked. “I’ve heard you have no stomach for confined spaces.”
My breath wisped against my dry throat. I raised my chin in a gesture to Gunn to get the hell out of there. He’d secured an unconscious Thane to a hoverboard. Zenn mounted his board, and the tethered trio started to rise toward the air duct at the back of the lab, as per our plan. We’d assumed Officers would be arriving on scene via the hallway before we could exit that way.
Gunn held Raine’s hand, his eyes never leaving her face. Vi followed Zenn, a heavy dose of worry coming from her. At least she’d gone with him. I didn’t want to think about what would happen to her if she got caught.
As I remained alone, I logged the direction Zenn steered his board. The ceiling loomed three stories above me. Every wall except the one behind me glared back with metal surfaces. The single door in the back of the lab now bulged with white-coated technicians waiting for the code to be entered so they could swarm inside.
From her position near the ceiling, Vi threw me one last look over her shoulder before the glass wall behind me exploded.
I landed on top of Van, his hot breath searing my face. I scrambled away from him as a team of silver-suited Enforcement Officers entered the room from the hallway. One of them handed Ian, then Van, a pair of sound-canceling headphones while I wiped blood from my forehead and felt an ocean of pain coming from my back.
Trapped, trapped, trapped, I thought. No way out. Can’t get out.
I stumbled toward the back of the lab, pulling my folded hoverboard from my pocket.
Trapped, trapped, trappedtrappedtrapped.
“Expand,” I croaked. The board did nothing, as it didn’t recognize my voice when it was filled with particles of glass, dust—and fear.
I jabbed at the buttons and leapt on the board as the first electro-spheres dropped at my feet.
“Up!” My board shot toward the ceiling, which I rammed with my skull. My back arced when the techtricity hit me, and my board faltered.
Go, I said in my head. Go.
Maybe I said it out loud. Maybe I didn’t. But my board went. I’d fallen to my stomach, and that suited me just fine as my board careened only six inches from the ceiling. There was so much pain in my back, it felt like it had caught fire.
Out, I pleaded, the edges of my vision turning dull. My head felt heavy and soft. Voices shouted below me. Electronics sparked, sending bright bits of techtricity into my path.
Blood dripped from my chin, pooling on my board. I felt so, so tired.
Trapped, I thought as a very solid wall loomed closer. My mind looped on that thought. Trapped, trapped, trapped.
Through it all, I heard Ian’s voice. “You’ll never get out of here alive.”
Was he right? Maybe. But he didn’t have to be so arrogant about it.
Out, I thought. “Please,” I said aloud.
I managed to maneuver the board along the perimeter of the room. Below me, smoke curled, men shouted, and electro-spheres continued to discharge. No escape presented itself in the next corner, so I made another right turn. Soon I’d be back where I started, and I knew what waited for me there.
Up ahead I spotted the air duct. Zenn had already removed the vent. Two feet from the opening, my board bucked. A new pain radiated from my thigh. I lifted my body enough to peer over the edge. A grappling spider spread its legs, hooking itself to my craft.
Ian would then reel me in like a bloated fish. Cage me in that capsule again. Death would be better. My breath clogged my lungs. I couldn’t think clearly; I’d lost so much blood.
“Deactivate,” I said, brushing at the spider with my hand. “Dislodge.”
The spider obeyed my voice, retracting its legs before the green lights of its eyes winked into darkness.
A small—possibly pointless—victory. My board now vibrated because of the damage, my thigh was bleeding, and I’d passed the air duct.
I looped back around and positioned myself below the opening. An electro-sphere landed on the board next to my head. I snatched it up, intending to launch it right back to the floor.
Instead I held it. Felt the humming tech beneath the ball’s aluminum surface. If I timed it just right . . .
I checked my position again. Straight up to freedom.
I dropped the e-sphere. Said, “Up.”
My board obeyed, and the sphere detonated about five feet below me, sending a shock wave of techtricity in all directions.
Including up.
I rode the wave through the duct system as far as I could. After that I twisted and turned and doubled back inside the ventilation system until it spat me out into the too-bright sunshine.
Oxygen greeted me, and I couldn’t suck it in fast enough. I expected EOs to be hovering, but a commotion on the ground had drawn them all away.
I recognized River’s tangled hair in the fray before I nosed my board toward the ocean. Clever girl.
I did not have the strength to sit up. Or speak. For now, breathing was enough.
The soothing sound of the ocean called at me to sleep. What can it hurt? I thought. I closed my eyes against the malicious sunrays bouncing off water.
I thought, I’ll just rest for a minute.
I thought, It’s a twenty-minute flight anyway.
I thought . . .