Many of the rebels fall backward down the stairs, their limp bodies cracking against the floor. It’s hard to tell in the dimly lit tower which of them are dead and which injured, but they’re all young. They’re as young as I am.
Silas and Alina go to the pile of groaning bodies to collect the guns. One boy lying on a low step clings to his rifle, and as I make a grab for it, he tries to kick me with both feet. I dodge him and use my own rifle to jab one of his legs. He howls and releases his gun. I seize it and jump over him to get to two others, but they’re quite still, their eyes glinting. I look away; the last thing I want is to see their eyes.
“Ronan!” Alina calls. I join her and Silas at the door. The enemy has overpowered our inexperienced army and charge toward the door to Recycling Station East. Our soldiers are either lying dead or with their hands behind their heads, their faces in the dirt. Now I know Jude was right; you can’t train an army in weeks.
What now?
Before I can decide, Silas and Alina are gone, sprinting toward the station. I try to catch them, but they’re too quick. They leap over the station’s sandbags, use them for cover, and begin firing. I drop next to them and do the same.
Half the rebels trying to get through the door collapse under our gunfire. The rest turn their car door shields around trying to protect themselves. But the doors aren’t bulletproof and within a minute we’ve taken down all but a few. It’s easier than it should be.
Those still alive abandon the tower and make a run for it. I watch them through my scope, but I can’t get a good shot, and they escape.
“They’re heading for the south station,” Silas says. “Caffrey said it was the control tower.”
“Damn!” I say. “If that goes down . . .” I don’t need to finish. Alina and Silas zoom away again. Anyone would think they’d been training with the Special Forces. I follow, but no sooner are we away than a rebel with a thick neck and tattoos down each arm is barring our route. He isn’t wearing a helmet nor carrying any kind of shield. And he has an assault rifle trained at us. The others all had simple rifles. We stop running. We haven’t got a choice.
“Drop the guns,” he growls.
“Maks?” Alina says. Her voice quivers. But the only thing that scares me is the fact that he’s stopping us getting to the south station.
“Guns down, hands up,” he repeats, and we throw our guns to the ground and put our hands in the air. “On your knees.”
“Get on with it,” Alina says. I can feel her shaking. I’d grip her hand, but I have a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate it. And neither would this thug.
“Where are the others?” Maks asks. I look at Silas, not sure who he means.
“They’re safe,” he says.
“They won’t be when I find them,” Maks says.
“I should’ve killed you in your sleep,” Alina says, acting more like herself. She spits into the dirt. Maks laughs.
The zip fires and showers us in small rocks and shards of metal. We shrink from the shrapnel and Maks is thrown to his knees, his gun knocked from his hands. It gives me just enough time to retrieve my own and aim it at him. He puts his hands up and grins. Silas and Alina snatch up their guns, too, but they don’t shoot him, so neither do I, though one bullet is all it would take.
“You’d rather fight alongside the Ministry than fellow rebels,” he sneers at Silas and Alina.
“Thousands of innocent people live in the pod. You’re lunatics,” I tell him.
Alina approaches Maks and his chest puffs out. She rams her gun against it. She pauses, and I think she’s about to say something, but without warning, she pulls the trigger.
Maks stares at Alina in disbelief and falls forward. His face hits the clay and his green jacket darkens where the blood soaks through.
Alina looks at me. “He would have killed us.” She doesn’t have to explain; I should have done it for her.
“The south station,” I remind them, and we take off, leaving Maks to bleed into the earth.
We squat behind the sandbags again, scanning the battlefield teeming with bodies and soldiers for a safe way into the station. “Straight through,” Silas says. Alina nods in agreement as one of our tanks grinds past.
It fires and hits the zip. Shrapnel showers down and both Sequoians and Ministry soldiers are injured.
Everything stops, giving Silas, Alina, and me a chance to get to the tank. The hatch opens and a figure appears, lifting the visor on his helmet. It’s Jude. He shouts, but over the thunder of engines and distant gunfire, it’s impossible to tell what he wants.
And then a round of gunfire rattles the air and Jude reels like a spinning top. He falls from the tank. I turn to see Maks on his elbows holding his gun, smiling. Silas and Alina flog him with bullets. This time he stays down.
But Jude is down, too. A soldier is next to him. “Medic!” he shouts, and I run to them. I pull Jude’s radio from his inside pocket. “General Caffrey has been shot. Send a stretcher.” No one responds. Just static.
Silas and Alina are next to me. Neither of them tries to help, and I don’t bother appealing to them. I wrench off my jacket, and place it beneath Jude’s head.
“Is he dead?” Alina asks.
“He’s got a pulse,” the soldier says.
Jude opens his eyes, and I take a relieved breath. “It’s too late,” he croaks. “They’re at the south station. Get the people out of the pod. Get them all out.” He pulls at his collar. He’s been hit in the only unprotected place—his neck. I rip the arm from my shirt, scrunch it into a ball and press it against the wound. He can’t die. We need him.
“There’s no time to evacuate so many people,” I tell him.
“The south station,” Silas says coldly. He isn’t looking at Jude. He doesn’t know what Jude has become or that he’s spent these last few weeks protecting the Resistance.
“Go,” I say, and they are gone, as is the soldier who clambers through the tank’s hatch and rolls away. Sequoia’s zip aims for the tank, barely missing it.
Within a minute the piece of my shirt against Jude’s neck is soaked through with blood. My stomach clenches. I try appealing to whoever is on the other end of the radio again. But I may as well be talking to myself.
Jude fingers his facemask. I increase the density of oxygen, for all the good it will do.
“What now?” I ask, hoping he knows how to save himself.
He coughs. “You seem capable, Ronan. You tell me.”
57
QUINN
The blasts outside have covered the pod in a film of dust, so it’s pretty much impossible to see what’s going on. And Zone One is a mess. Alarms are ringing in every Premium building as auxiliaries loot them. There are bodies everywhere. No one’s safe, and the Ministry is visibly absent.
You’ve got to wonder if this is a bit like The Switch—people so hungry for air they’d do anything to hang on a bit longer. And in the end, they all died anyway.
I have Jazz on my back, and Bea is holding Lennon and Keane’s hands. We are on our way to the border. A figure rushes at me, and I hold tightly to my tank. I’m about to lash out, when I realize it’s Gideon. And he’s carrying a massive backpack. “I broke into the biosphere. Got bulbs, seeds, and a few cuttings: everything we need,” he says. He eyes Lennon and Keane.
“My brothers,” I say. “Where’s everyone else?”
“They went on ahead.”
We turn into Border Boulevard and stop short. A group of men with airtanks and broken bottles sees us and charges. “Keep back!” Gideon says, waving a kitchen knife. The men come to an abrupt halt a few feet from us.