by J B Cantwell
Goodbye.
Reality started to set in. We were headed back. Back to our dictatorship, our puppet president. Back to the control and harshness of the Service. Back home.
I had forgotten what it felt like, just for a night and a day, to be free. They could track us to Canada, sure. They could even send an assassin. Or trade prisoners with the Canadian government, though I had a hard time imagining why anyone would want to immigrate to the States. The other way around was the most likely.
I wondered if they were watching us now. I wondered if we would have time to talk and plan before they sent reinforcements, transport.
“We should talk,” I said, teeth chattering. Maybe it would distract me from the cold.
“We should swim,” he said.
“We might not have time once we arrive. What if they’re there waiting for us? What if we get separated, or—”
“Fine. I get it. Talk.”
“We need to have a plan to meet when we’re on our break in September. That’s the only time we’ll be free from the Service. I say third day of break.” I paused, pulling up the calendar on my lens. “September 21. Do you know where the buildings are?”
“No.”
“They’re just outside the city, north of the Bronx. We’ll have to pull up a map once we’re on break. But it can only be that day, that third day.”
“Have you seen these buildings before?”
“No. Only on the maps that the Volunteers showed me. They had schematics of the buildings, too, but it’s too late for that.”
“So, what exactly are we planning to do? Steal the explosives?”
I paused, thinking. Everything was becoming more difficult to imagine, and nearly impossible for us to do on our own.
“We’ll have to. We can take it, a scrape of C4 each day we’re working with it. We can build it up as the year goes on. Then, we can pack it up and hope we don’t explode the bus on our way back home.”
I might’ve laughed if I hadn’t been so cold. I continued to tread water, trying desperately to keep myself afloat.
“That sounds … iffy at best,” he said. “What about the EMP idea? It seems like it would be safer to do that instead.”
“It would be, but no dice,” I said. “I thought we’d be able to build one once we got the schematics downloaded into our lenses, but we won’t have the battery power to make it work. And they’re advanced. Too advanced. Maybe if we could steal one, we could make it work, but it won’t be possible. They’ll be guarded. Heavily.”
“I don’t know. You didn’t say anything about blowing up the buildings.” His tone was worried now. “I don’t want to kill people.”
I looked around us. We were about a quarter of the way across the river. “Maybe we can lure them away or something. We’ll have to think about it. We have time.”
I wondered if every single Volunteer was really gone, if there was any hope at all of us getting more outside help. They might think I was dead, too. It wasn’t too far-fetched to imagine. Maybe in my absence there was somebody else out there who knew the plan. Maybe they were plotting, too. But without their own chips, they would have no way of contacting me. No way to coordinate. No way to know I was still alive.
“How are we going to get in to place the explosives? What if the servers are protected? Fortified?”
I tried to imagine the insides of those two buildings. Were the servers stuffed in there from floor to ceiling? Would it be as simple as that?
“We’ll have to deal with that when we get there. Maybe the C4 can make it through the barriers. We might be able to do enough damage if we focus on just one building, too. They must be connected.”
“That sounds more reasonable,” he said. “Though the whole plan sounds insane. Maybe we should rethink things.”
He stopped swimming and floated next to me. I was starting to struggle in the water. I wasn’t experienced enough to be tackling a swim like this.
“We could go back,” he said. “Like Paul said. We could ask for asylum. He did, and look at the life he has now. It’s way better than anything you or I have ever had. We could do it.”
“Alex,” I said. “I’m … having … trouble …”
“What?” Then he saw what I was talking about. “Quick, roll onto your back,” he said. “Take a breather. Remember how to float?”
“Yeah,” I gasped.
I did as he said, and frightening as it was to give myself over to the water, I felt safer with him right beside me. His sheer strength was enough to keep him afloat for ages. Me, not so much.
My breath turned into vapor in the cold winter air. I rested on my back for a couple minutes, but then the cold started in on me, and I felt a need to move my body again. I righted myself, my ears stinging from the frigid water. Everything sounded muffled.
“Better?” he asked.
“Better,” I said, having finally caught my breath.
Slowly, we began our swim again.
“Believe me,” I said once I’d settled into a comfortable pace. “When it comes to leaving the States, I’ve thought about it. I always imagined I would escape to Canada when all of this was through. But there’s something in my gut that tells me I have to do this. Being in the Service has ruined my life. Being branded an Orange or Red or Black has ruined countless others’ lives.”
“But what if he’s right? What if nobody wants the change? Everyone is so used to being plugged in all the time. Everyone’s lives will be upended. And not just a little bit.”
“I know,” I said. “But we have to try. I don’t believe that people want things to stay the same.”
He didn’t agree, but he didn’t say no, either.
“The third day,” he said. “North Bronx. At the old zoo.”
There weren’t any animals at the zoo. Hadn’t been for years and years, longer than I’d been alive. I wondered how many of those species had died out over the decades. The States certainly didn’t have any means to keep them, to feed them when we could barely feed ourselves.
“Where?”
“The entrance. It’s blocked off, but there are places to hide. 2300 hours.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“We’ll look at the maps then. We’ll have to plan on the fly. They’ll be after us as soon as they see what we’re looking at through our lenses. They’ll be waiting for us at the buildings. We’ll need to be fast. I’ll steal a car. I can learn about that without too much trouble. I can just say I needed to know how to jump a vehicle when in battle. That’ll give us speed.”
But I wasn’t worried about speed. I imagined what it would be like trying to set explosives inside a guarded building. Nearly impossible.
What waited for us at home, though, was worse. There was no knowing if we would even make it to our third year alive, if we would make it to that Wednesday. To tomorrow, even.
“I’ll spend Monday and Tuesday searching for Volunteers. If there are any left, they might be waiting for me. We might be able to get some help.”
“We can’t count on that, but I agree. You search for them. I’ll search for explosives. Anything I can find. Even a few pipe bombs will be better than nothing.”
I imagined the police force who would be the receivers of our homemade explosives. They would be horrifically burned.
“We should try to find some guns,” I said. “If we can take them out from far away, we might have a chance at getting in.” And nobody would get burned. Dead, but quickly.
Alex sighed.
“This whole thing is insane,” he said, halting his breast stroke. “We need to talk about what Paul said. What will we do after? Lead the country?”
“No. Hide.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet. If there are any Volunteers left after, we can get our chips removed, or at least modified.”
“And what about all those people? The ones who will be lost without their lenses?”
“We’ll do what we can.” A picture of
myself working behind a counter distributing food to the masses flashed through my mind. “I need some time. I don’t have every detail figured out. Not yet. But I need you to help me. I can’t do it all on my own. I can only plan so much until my head starts to spin.” My teeth were chattering again.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “We’ll talk when we can, only when we can’t be recorded or heard.”
But we could think on our own, in the security of our minds. It was the only place we could retreat to, the only place that was truly safe.
I started swimming again, and not back toward Canada. I was going home.
Chapter Nine
I was glad we had talked in the water, because we weren’t alone for much longer. A boat with a searchlight sped away from the American side, finding us quickly.
What great service.
“Taylor?” A man yelled from behind the blinding light. “Williams?”
“Yes, Sir!” I replied as loudly as my voice would let me.
“Glad to see you alive,” he said.
They pulled the boat up beside us and lowered a rope ladder with wooden footholds into the water. I looked at Alex.
“Ladies first,” he said, but there was no smile in his eyes.
I grabbed for the rope and started to climb. Once I was almost up, a soldier grabbed me by the back of my wetsuit and helped me aboard.
Jeremy.
“Hey!” I said, smiling. “It’s good to see a familiar face.”
He didn’t smile back, and instead went to help Alex on board as well.
Then, with both of us standing there, dripping in the frigid winter air, he did something I did not expect.
“Turn around,” he said. A flash of silver caught my eye, and I realized he was holding two pairs of handcuffs in his hands.
“Why?” I asked. “What are you doing? Arresting us?”
“Yes. Now turn around.”
I was perplexed, not so much by the arrest, but by Jeremy’s change in personality. Had so much happened after just a couple weeks away from the barracks?
I stared at him, confused, and then a wave of anger overcame me.
“I helped you. I talked you up when you were low. And this is how you repay me?”
“Come on, Taylor,” he said. “You know I’m under orders.” His eyes flashed from side to side, indicating the others in the boat with him.
“She knows.” A woman walked up behind him, someone I didn’t recognize. A Prime.
A female Prime.
Ariana Gold
Designation: Prime
I gaped at her. I had never seen a woman Prime before. She was huge. Bigger, even, than Alex.
She put her giant, muscled hands on my shoulders and turned me around. Then, she grabbed my wrists and began to cuff me from behind my back.
“Get your hands off her,” Alex growled, shoving her away.
This was a mistake. The woman had my wrists cuffed in a flash, and she turned toward Alex before he had another chance to push her.
I thought for a moment that Alex would take a swing, but the Prime was bigger than him, and all she needed to do was flip him around as she'd done to me.
There was no right to remain silent. There was nothing formal at all.
"Jeremy what's going on?" I asked.
"You're both arrested. You know what you did."
"What are you talking about? All we did was try to escape. We completed the mission successfully. There's no reason for you to arrest us."
My heart was racing. How much did they know?
Alex was still fighting the Prime, and I wondered what would become of us now. And Jeremy. Had he been watching us all along?
"We saw you take shelter. We know what you’re doing now. Paul Jacobs has been on our radar for a long time. He’s always been a sympathizer to the Volunteers. You know, he defected from the United States years ago. And what a surprise; you just happened to meet up with him on your way back. You call your mission successful, but nearly everybody died. Except, of course, for you two. Now that leaves me wondering just how you managed to get in touch with Jacobs. The one person along your route who might help you make plans against the Service."
What?
“Why would we make plans against the Service?” I lied. "All we've been doing since yesterday is trying to get back home. Us meeting up with Paul was an accident. We were trying to hide inside his house when we saw him leave this morning. But when he returned, he found us."
It was true. The last thing we had expected was to find someone else from the States. I was doubly glad that we hadn't viewed any maps from our lenses. If they were watching us this closely, watching me …
I shivered. The wind was whipping up around us, and I was grateful when the boat turned and started heading back to shore. I hoped a blanket awaited us. Or at least the warmth of a bus.
"This is ridiculous," Alex said. "All we were doing was trying to finish our mission. It was only by chance that we—"
The Prime hit him then, her giant fist connecting with Alex's left eye. He hadn't been expecting it, and he nearly fell over from the force.
Suddenly, I remembered Pierce, still tied up back in that cabin. I had completely forgotten that we had promised him we would call, that someone would be coming to rescue him. But we hadn’t called, and we wouldn’t be able to now. Would he freeze? Or would somebody realize that he was gone longer than he had said he would be? Then I realized that he might have been the one to turn us in. Part of me hoped that that was true, that he was safe after all. That I wasn’t to blame for the death of yet another person.
Jeremy's face was contorted, and it looked like he was trying to resist spitting on us. He could've done so, of course, but it would have made him look weak. It would have made him look as if our actions had affected him personally.
Maybe they had.
He must’ve been playing me from the start.
I decided to keep my mouth shut. I could only make things worse for myself, and I didn't want a similar black eye to come my way.
That didn't stop Alex, though.
“You're making a mistake," he said.
I saw that Ariana was behind him, getting ready for a second punch, and my resolve to stay quiet was immediately broken.
“No! Stop! Just leave him alone. We’ll explain when we get back to base."
"You do that,” she said.
I looked over at Alex, and we locked eyes for a moment. He knew that I was right. We were suddenly in big trouble, though we had barely done anything wrong, at least not in the past twenty-four hours. We could make our story as simple as possible. We were just two soldiers on enemy land searching for a way to get back home. Paul had been an accident, a mistake. A lucky one. I wondered what would have happened if we had simply kept walking. Would that have been better? Would an arrest by the Canadians be preferable over an arrest by our own government?
Yes. Definitely.
But here we were. Arrested by our own, instead.
We both sat silently for the rest of the boat ride, both shivering in the wind. It didn’t take us long to make it back to shore, just a half-mile away. Arrest or no, I was glad for a break from the freezing water.
As the boat glided toward the dock, Jeremy pulled a pistol from his belt.
“Don’t even think about trying to run,” he said.
As if we would get anywhere if we did.
Ariana jumped forward and secured the boat to the dock with two thick ropes.
“Taylor,” Jeremy said. “You first.”
I stood up, looking at him, shaking my head slightly.
He was nothing like I had thought. A traitor to me from the very beginning.
The Service was making a mistake, though. If they were smart, they would wait for me to make a move, to do something illegal to move my plans forward. Instead, they had sent this … this rat to bring me in for something I didn’t have a choice about.
Trusting Paul.
How I regretted our
decision to leave him. We should have stayed with him when we’d had the chance. We could be on our way to citizenship right now, not stuck in an impossible situation.
“Get moving,” Jeremy said, shoving me forward.
I turned away from him and made my way up the three steps leading out of the gently swaying boat. The dock was lit up, a beacon in the night to guide patrolling boats into American territory. I turned to watch Alex climb out behind me. Jeremy held the gun at his side, safety off.
“Let’s go,” Ariana said.
She led the way, and as I walked behind her, I couldn’t help but wonder about her. I, myself had gone through one phasing, which had been enough to heal my long-injured leg and leave me with more energy than I’d ever felt before.
But Ariana. She was huge. Bigger than any Prime I’d ever seen. I wondered how long she’d been with the Service, how many months of phasings she’d gone through. Clearly more than Alex had.
An armored vehicle awaited us at the end of the dock, and Ariana opened the back door, tossing her shorn head to indicate that we should get inside. I could already feel the heat wafting out of the warmed vehicle, and as nervous and angry as I was about being arrested, I eagerly climbed into the rear seat.
She led Alex around the back and opened his door. He sat down next to me. He leaned over, whispering before Ariana and Jeremy had a chance to sit down.
“Don’t say a word.”
Ariana climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Jeremy didn’t stow his gun, and instead trained it on us as soon as he entered the vehicle.
“That’s not necessary,” Alex said. “We can’t exactly escape a moving vehicle with our hands behind our backs.”
I tried not to smirk.
Of course we could try.
But we wouldn’t. We would fail if we did. Maybe that would be better than what awaited us. I imagined us both, dead in the street from hitting the pavement at sixty miles an hour. It wasn’t a pretty daydream.
But would they torture us? What would become of us once we got back to the silo?
