They each acknowledge my words in their own way. I turn to Rao and he helps the little ones up through the ceiling vent.
He pauses before going up. “If anything goes wrong . . . with your sister, Synch. They’ll probably be taken into the testing room together . . .”
“It’ll work, Rao. No matter how it turns out,” I say.
I hug him and he leaves without me.
I go through the steps again in my head, the ones Ashiva and I decided. Rao delivers the message to containment, that we’ll take the children and hide them. Separate those who can’t fight from those who are able. I’ll set the charge myself. I kept that part from Ashiva; she still thinks of me as someone to protect, and I can’t risk her keeping me from doing what needs to be done. I won’t break. Not this time. Never again.
It’s late, or at least, it feels late. I haven’t slept in days, aside from micro-naps when my eyes can’t stay open. But I am ready. Now that Ashiva is here, our clock has sped up and we have to move faster.
The halls are less busy, but a few medi-staff are moving about as I make my rounds. I steal the key from the first assistant I come in contact with, a bump and snag. The first thing Ashiva taught me how to do.
With the key, I slip easily into the control room. There are three of us in the room; the others are working with medi-staff, listening to instructions. Dr. Qasim is here.
I nod to him.
He nods back.
Dr. Qasim says, “Okay, I need assistance with handling the less receptive patients right now. It’s crucial we get their new samples or else a large part of our study will be lost. I need everyone to come with me, now.” The guardian backs up, and follows him and his group.
I am alone. But only for a moment. The guardian is in the hall and could return any minute.
I put the key into the reader. It takes forever for it to accept it, but finally: green.
When the screen turns on, I find the containment prison door system control. I look at the clock. We’ve coordinated our clocks to work together. In five seconds, four, three, two, one. I submit my request to unlock the system.
Before I can stand up from the station, a light flashes silently. That’s how I know it works. That’s how I know I just unlocked all the clear plastic walls inside Containment where they keep all of us.
All of us working together only have a few minutes before guardians descend.
With the key in my pocket, I run as fast as I can back into the hall, and go down, down, down, into my position in our ventilation system, and wait.
44 //
Kid Synch
When the boy with the unruly hair enters my room, after the medi-staff is done with me, I wonder what new devilry they’ll try this time. They’ve already injected me with god knows what, sequenced my DNA, tested me for the Fever, and didn’t bother to tell me the results. Not that I’ll believe them anyway—but it’s becoming clear this is a ruse. Do they think I’m an Uplander? Or maybe they know I am not who I say I am. The doctor is easy to read. He triple-checked results.
Calls me an anomaly. And I don’t say a word.
The boy, however, is tiny, tough, skeptical. He has the Narrows written all over his expression.
I say, “They probably are feeding you and keeping you from the testing. But don’t work for them. It’s not worth it.”
The boy, no more than seven years old, closes the door behind him and ignores my words. He says, “Synch, is that your name?”
His voice is small. I nod.
“I have orders from Taru to get you to the nearest uplink location in containment. Please follow my instructions quickly.”
“What? How? Who?”
“Hush, brother, we only have sixty seconds before the cleaners come. See, they think they’ve just offed ya.” The kid flashes an inject. “I’m taking you to do your job. The strong one, the Red Hand lieutenant, Ashiva,” he leans in very close and whispers directly into my ear, “says you’ll know what to do once you get to an uplink.”
“Say no more.”
The boy says, “Hurry, and be quiet. Also, I’m sorry about this.”
“About what?”
He lifts a body bag up onto the bed and signals for me to get inside. Once I’m in, he closes the sides with snaps and darkness surrounds me. I want to close my eyes, but fear won’t let me. I try to take measured breaths, but my heart is racing out of control.
“Just stay still as you can and try not to breathe,” he whispers.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Shh,” he rolls me out of the room.
I think we are in a hall. I can hear shuffling feet and the air is acidic and cold, maybe ammonia. A few minutes pass and I fill with doubt. We roll over a couple doorways. Then, finally, we stop moving. He unsnaps the bag and I sit up. The room is pitch black, so my eyes have no contrast to which they can adjust.
He flicks on a small flashlight and slides it into my hand.
“This is an old workstation. We just temporarily connected it to an uplink, off of Solace’s radar.”
“Impressive.” I flash the light across the console. The old machinery is definitely hacked to work. Old wires connect and splice to new modifiers. It is dangerously overloaded. “Did you have to optimize the—”
“No, since it’s the old system, we made it slow and quiet. Might take a while to connect and send. Probably something you’re not used to.”
I pat the kid on the back. “This is brilliant work. Thank you.”
He beams. “I’m going to leave you to it. Cut the line when you’re done.”
“Achcha.”
He turns to exit. “I almost forgot.” He slips a chip into my hand. “The data. All that you’ll need.”
“You guys are really organized.”
“Been here for a while. Taru, Ashiva’s sister, is the leader we needed.”
Taru. I wonder how Ashiva is doing in all of this. I hope we make it out of here, but I don’t have time for silly, self-defeating thoughts. Not today.
“Oh, and bhai? Ashiva said to meet in the bay. That she’d have the transport ready.”
I slide the chip into the reader and connect to the link. He is right. It takes forever. But it loads. I hear someone pass by the door and flick off the light. But soon as I am alone again, I enter the code that will run the info comms through the Space Colony. The line my Father used to contact me—I figured out how to use that as a bridge to the powerful satellites on the Space Colony and reroute it back into the global comms. Sure, some of the information will be lost, dropped packets and all, but even with that data loss, it’ll be easy to patch the information together and redistribute it Earth-side once it’s in the hands of the Red Hand’s allies around the world.
I watch it load.
And load. I imagine how the data moves through air across wireless networks, through bursts of energy.
And load . . . I pray it makes the leap to the satellite and doesn’t get blocked.
The file must be huge because the system is stuttering.
Doubts pour in. I push them out. What if I can’t load this? What if Ashiva can’t get a transport? What if we all die here? No. No. No. Useless thoughts. Everything in me stills suddenly: my heart, my breath, my thoughts, as I watch it load.
And.
Finally.
It does.
I want to scream. To celebrate with someone, but being completely alone, I just clench my fist, then cut the wires. The records of what’s happening here in containment will be in the hands of the GHO and External Hand in seconds.
If we don’t survive this, at least the world will know about the testing and Central’s lies. At least, maybe, we can save others.
The hall is dark as I make my way through to the end with a tiny, flickering light. Suddenly, a voice rings through my body, soul, and mind.
The voice says, “We need to calibrate. Or else it’ll all be for nothing.”
I peer through the doorway into the main ha
ll. There a woman stands. Perfectly outfitted, fashionable amongst all this death. Like the queen of all this horror in her maroon sari. Beautiful. Terrifying.
Familiar.
Or is she? Outside her natural environment of pristine Central, she wanes, a bit. Less colorful, less perfect. Smaller too. And yet, so much power in such a petite form.
Sweat covers my skin. What I wouldn’t give to just beg and cry, and yell at this woman. And collapse at her feet and be held by her. The one who brought me into this world. The one who decided to erase me from it.
Mother.
45 //
Ashiva
My long hair braids easily, and I leave the sick wing of containment. I pocket a few injectors, just in case they come in handy. My mantra: Get the transport. Taru will get the people, Synch will get the evidence. We’ll all get out.
Yeah, I’m not naïve enough to believe we can walk out of here without a snag. This is their house, not ours. So, I’ll have to go hard. I’ll have to fight. But I am ready.
The first doctor I run into gets an injector in the neck and goes to sleep. Doesn’t see it coming. The second one I have to hit in the head with my chrome arm, but it only takes one hit. The third one is a kid, so I let her go. Tell her to stay clear of the bay until she hears the signal, but she already seems to know what I am talking about. Taru did her job and got the word out. She began emptying the cubes in the back first, the ones that aren’t as closely monitored by guards. Maybe this will work. Maybe some will get out without getting caught in the inevitable fight.
Containment isn’t as big as I first thought. Where they keep the people is the largest space. The mediports they built around, like a circle, were poorly constructed, half-assed, like they had to rush this whole massacre. Pretty quickly I find the route Taru told me about, the one the cleaners take, the one for the dead. And I stick to it. It’s grim. The worst. Death, death and death. But also quieter than hell.
All the devils work in Central.
The last row of doors lay in front of me like a test. I almost hesitate, but shake off that feeling. If I can just get to the transport bay, Taru will bring the others, and Synch will get the evidence sent to the GHO and our allies around the world. It has to work, I remind myself.
When I push open the last doors and feel the spray of real, unfiltered saltwater air, I smile. We’re on an island. Ocean waves curl and crest and roll around me like an impassable slick-backed creature. But when I look again, I know we aren’t even on an island—it’s a barge floating in the middle of the Arabian Sea. There, below me, sits a series of amphibious hover-transports that look as though they can traverse the seas and air. We will stuff each and every living person into the transports, leaving not a soul behind aside from the Central scum.
The wall offers a little cover, so I hide behind it and survey the surroundings. We’ll have to make sure everyone gets outside and into the hover-transports pretty quickly. Moving that many people will be tough enough, but while we load them up, we’ll take on some fire from guardians, surely.
Which reminds me: the guardians, where are they? There have to be a few out here protecting their most precious connection to the world . . .
“Stop, girl.” The voice is metallic, inhuman, and echoes through the salty air. Only when I turn, I know why.
A mecha.
A goddamn C.O.R.E soldier.
I back up as its shadow stretches across and past me. It stands at least twice my height and is every inch a wonder of mechanics. I’m tough, but this? I tremble as I scan its form for an inch of vulnerability. I search desperately for any corner, any surface that might be less than structurally perfect. If I wasn’t so terrified, I’d be in awe.
Synch built you.
And I’m going to take you down.
“I’ll only say it once, girl.” The guardian inside the suit is a woman with bright red hair that has been through too much henna. It stands out straight and spiked. Her scowl shows she means what she says.
I pause. But only long enough to understand her weapons. Suddenly, she levels her giant fist with the electro-pulse cannon at the end in my direction. I know what is coming and run as fast as I can.
BAM!
The C.O.R.E’s cannon unleashes a fury of electricity at me. I get away by mere centimeters; the heat rushes against my arm and burns a hole on my skin. The mecha-suit is big, but being small has its advantages. I run against the rail that loops around the containment. The suit can’t follow because the path is too narrow. I feel it watch me, waiting for me to slip into the depths of the ocean.
Around the corner, I climb the structure and wait.
“That was my last warning, Downlander,” the guardian says.
“I’m counting on it,” I wipe my sweat from my face with my flesh hand and focus.
Its footsteps fall, metal on metal, shaking the structure. It must weigh a ton or more. I remember what the C.O.R.E did to the Narrows and tighten my grip on the rail, and let my rage fuel me.
When it turns the corner around the other side of the structure, I fall on her shoulders and dig my replacement hand deep into the soft metal joint on her neck, tearing the only flexible part of the suit. It rips, and I hold on tight as she spins around, trying to get a grip on me.
She thrashes like a beast, but I hold on. That is until her robot hand takes my foot and pulls me off of her, and tosses me into the sea. I dive deep and swim under the edge of the platform, knowing she will come for me to make sure I am gone for good. The shadow of the mecha-suit comes close and its reflection shadows the surface. I’m like a fish; I can hold my breath forever, so I wait. Not a single bubble rises to the surface.
The shadow crouches and she’s going fishing. When her hand comes into view I lift my head and shoulders out of the water and yell, “Over here!”
She faces me and I thrust my replacement arm up and into her neck, through the suit. The inject slides into the gash I opened previously, and I give her every bit of the paralytic medicine. She staggers backwards. I climb out of the water and watch.
Her expression is strangely annoyed. She doesn’t have a clue what’s coming.
“Go down,” I say through clenched teeth as I back up out of the way.
The beast stumbles and turns, and suddenly her form careens toward me. The guardian looks dizzy now, and momentum propels her toward me. I feel her grab my replacement arm as the suit spills toward the water.
The mecha holds tight and twists.
One ton of metal tears at mine.
“No!” I scream.
As the guardian’s eyes close, and she dies in the suit, my arm is still in her grip. She falls into the ocean and I brace myself against the decking, as my replacement arm is ripped from my body.
My hand slides over my empty shoulder. I cry out to the ocean. The pain is lightning, shooting through my nervous system, but I am alive. I still have a job to do. I steady myself, making sure I don’t faint and count. Focus. One, two, three. Breathe.
Pick yourself up, Ashiva.
Blood meshes with wires, and bone. Most nerves in my joint had died long ago, before I even had the replacement surgery. I know what shock is and I’m not in it. I take deep breaths. Steady girl. I wrap my torn shirt around my shoulder and compress it.
The transport isn’t far. The door opens with ease.
Once in, I pull up a comm, and speak to my brothers and sisters inside containment.
“Downlanders, this is Chrome Tiger of the Red Hand. It’s time. We’ve unlocked your cages and we will not be taken. Your oppressors aren’t immune. We are. It’s time to fight. Your lives depend on it.”
I slide down against the controls and watch the blood pool around the ground beneath me.
Then I feel a gust of wind like a hurricane and look through sweat and salt-stung eyes, and see the most glorious transport I’ve ever seen. It descends like a massive pelican. The four tilt rotors let it rise and fall vertically, but the upturned wings mean it can go long dist
ances. The underbelly has water skis that hover just above the water and then it lands clumsily on the surface of the water, making a huge wave. I look for a weapon and pick up a gnarled piece of metal in my flesh hand.
Then I hear the voices as clear as water cascading in my ears, “Aye, Lieutenant Tiger!”
“Ghaazi! Suri!”
My body falls to the platform with agony and relief.
46 //
Taru
I hear my sister’s voice on the all-comms and I know she’s not well. In fact, she’s very injured and needs my medical assistance. But first I need to do my job and get these people out of here, so I hurry.
“Come on!” I pull myself out of the vent and run to the blocks of containment, guiding the free survivors outside to the transport.
Guardians rush the prisoners in containment with their electro-pulse rifles drawn, ready to put us all down. I watch as my friends and neighbors tackle guardians together, beat them and rip their weapons from their belts and hands, then redistribute the weapons to each other. A little girl, no older than seven, manages to get an electro-pulse baton and uses it to shock a guardian, then runs up the walkway toward the transport dock. I watch as some win and others get shot with an electro-pulse to their little bodies, shake with agony and fall to the ground. I ignore my hot tears and don’t hide my face behind my hands, even when the life leaves a boy’s eyes. I scream, a ferocious growl that comes from deep inside my heart and my chest. From a room where I’ve locked away every single moment of frustration, anger, hunger, fear, for every single child here who deserves to live, to be free. I duck and dodge, and try to stay upright as I move into the fray and don’t stop until I’ve stolen an electro-pulse rifle and lift it over my shoulder. When I pull the trigger, I’m surprised by the flash of fire that pours into a guardian’s body just as he’s about to punch Rao. The guardian’s body falls to the ground. I help up my friend, and we stand back to back and attack, just as Masiji and Mrs. Zinaat and Daadaji and Poonam Auntie, and all of our teachers showed us. Don’t stop, their words echo in my mind. Don’t stop until you’re safe, until you all are safe.
Rise of the Red Hand Page 28
