“We could leave via the trash chutes?” Bea says, backing away from the men.
One of them points at me. “You’re the Premium who spoke at the press conference. They said you were dead.”
“I’m not.”
“You said we could breathe outside,” the man continues. The rest of the gang listens. A larger group—kids my age wearing balaclavas—stop and watch.
“It’s that guy from the screen,” one of them says. “Oi, everyone, it’s that Premium guy!” Within seconds we’re surrounded.
“So can we breathe out there?” the man repeats. Looking at their faces—afraid and guarded—I realize that they don’t want to attack us; they want to be shown the way out of their miserable lives.
“It’s complicated,” I say.
The crowd presses in. “What do we do?” someone demands. “You’re the one who started this.” A couple of months ago I didn’t believe I could start anything, and even now I’m not sure I can lead.
“Tell them what to do,” Jazz murmurs in my ear.
“It takes dedication,” I say. “But you can train your body to exist outside. And we can help you do it.”
“Stuff that. I’m getting out of here and joining the Resistance. They’ll know what to do,” someone says.
“We’re all that’s left,” Bea says. “The Ministry killed the others.”
“You think we’ve been growing avocadoes and beets just in case you ever found the guts to leave? Get real. You need air but you need food, too. Nonperishable food. Everything you can find. We’ll wait for you at The Cenotaph,” Gideon says.
“And be ready for it to get tough out there,” I warn them.
“Right,” the man says, and the crowd disperses. They’ll probably loot for food, but if anyone can afford to have some stuff nicked, it’s the Premiums. It’s no use worrying about them, when the poor can’t even breathe.
Harriet, Old Watson, and the rest of the Resistance are at the border waiting for us. They’re loaded down with tanks, food, and weapons. No one’s guarding the border. “It’s a war out there,” Harriet says, as we trudge down the glass tunnel. She opens her backpack and hands out a slew of guns.
“And in a couple months when we’re out of air and food?” Bea asks, speaking to me from the side of her mouth so no one else hears.
I point at the bag of clippings and seeds Gideon’s carrying. “We’ll grow it,” I say, pushing on the revolving doors at the end of the tunnel and leading everyone out into the war zone.
A solider is standing by the exit. When he sees me he gawps. “Quinn Caffrey? General Caffrey’s son?” He lets the empty stretcher he’s holding on his back fall to the ground and pulls up the visor on his helmet, so he can look me in the eye. “Your father’s been shot.” I am silent. Bea seizes my hand. “I was about to bring the stretcher. Come with me,” the soldier says.
Surely I should stay with Bea and help the Resistance escape. But when I look at her, she shakes her head. “Go,” she says.
I grab one end of the stretcher and follow the solider into the battlefield. I have to find my dad.
58
ALINA
Silas and I lie on the ground. Dust swirls around us. “Where are they?” I say, eyeing the south station for Sequoian troops.
Silas rubs the mirrored surface on the scope of his rifle and looks through it. “If they know this controls the supply for the other stations, they’ll be back,” he says. So we make for the tower, expecting to be met by defending Ministry soldiers on the other side of the sandbags. The area’s deserted.
The gunfire lulls to almost nothing.
It’s weird because Vanya didn’t strike me as a quitter. “Something’s not right,” I say. They must be planning an attack, and if they are, Silas and I won’t be able to hold them off alone. And then it dawns on me. “Oh no,” I say.
Silas realizes it as I do. “We’re cornered,” he says. “Let’s try to get into the station.”
And it’s then that Vanya’s voice rings out like she’s talking through the clouds. “I wouldn’t go near the tower, if I were you,” she says.
“The west tower,” Silas says, and points. Recycling Station West had its tubing cut long ago, and Vanya must have taken control of it. I peer through the scope. She’s standing on its balcony, a megaphone to her face.
“It’s going to blow,” she says.
“Don’t bombs need oxygen?” I ask Silas, not that he’d know.
But he does. “They only need fuel and an oxidizer. I’m sure someone in Sequoia would have thought of that.”
“She really means to blow everything up?” I wonder aloud. The biosphere is located at the south side of the pod. Could the blast be so bad it destroys that, too? And what would we be left with? A smattering of people, no trees, and no pod? It would be worse than The Switch. I can’t let it happen. I dart toward the door, Silas behind me.
Without a valid thumbprint to get inside, we have to shoot at the locks. A bullet whispers past my head and sears through the door.
Vanya’s shooting at us.
The door jiggles in the frame but still won’t open. I lie on the ground and kick with every ounce of strength left in me. Silas rams it with his body.
“Troopers!” Vanya calls out, and within seconds a band of Sequoians is pounding toward us.
But finally the door moans and falls open. I jump up as Vanya’s troopers come at us in one angry herd. Silas pulls me into the tower. “Find the bomb and do what you can. I’ll . . .”
He doesn’t finish because what can he do against almost thirty of them? He peers around the door frame and starts to shoot.
The winch squalls its way to the top, where the door to the control room is open, but it’s empty. I rush onto the balcony where four snipers are lying dead, their blood dripping over the ledge, and next to them is a solar respirator.
I lean over the railing.
The Sequoians are almost at the sandbags. I shoot wildly, unable to take a steady shot. And then I spot them—a gang in plain clothes who are following Vanya’s troopers.
I squint and can’t help punching the air—it’s Uncle Gideon, Aunt Harriet, and the Resistance, shooting and almost in line with the Sequoians.
They need my help, and I’m about to take the winch back to the ground when I glance at the respirator and see what I missed before—a box wrapped in yellow plastic with a panel of digital numbers on it has been taped to the back. Vanya’s bomb.
The numbers flash: two hundred and nineteen, two hundred and eighteen. Seconds? How many minutes is that? I haven’t time to do the math, and I’ve no idea how to disarm it. I’m not Song.
Two hundred and fourteen, two hundred and thirteen, two hundred and twelve . . .
I could leave the bomb and make a run for it, but if I survive and nothing else does, what’s the point? If I can’t defuse the bomb, I’ll have to take it with me and get it as far from here as possible. It’s too big to carry except on my back, but I can’t do that with my own airtank tied to my belt. I unbuckle it, pull off my facemask, and put the solar respirator’s filthy apparatus over my mouth. It stinks. And it’s so heavy, it’s like carrying a boulder.
The digital screen and numbers on it are now out of sight, which is probably for the best.
I scrape my way to the winch and take it to the ground. Silas has gone. When I look outside, he is restraining a trooper on the ground. My aunt and uncle aren’t far away, warding off troopers with their guns. The Sequoians are strong, but they weren’t expecting the Resistance to reinforce the Ministry soldiers.
I sprint around the back of the tower and stumble into the open land.