by J B Cantwell
Those were the words that had incited the rebellion at the Burn. The words that had started it all.
And now those words had been broadcast all over the city. Beyond? How far? And by whom?
It had to be Chambers. There was no other explanation. Maybe some of those hackers really had survived the attack on the Stilts. Maybe they’d been able to cut through the alert system, to broadcast their own message. It was the only thing that made sense. Our faces were already posted all over everyone’s lenses.
We would be hunted.
But, if there was a group of surviving hackers, why hadn’t Chambers connected our group with his? And where were they now?
“Has anyone been talking about it?” I asked. “What are their reactions like?”
“A lot of ‘em want to help. A lot more want the money. Fifty-thousand credits ain’t nothin’ to scoff at. Not me, though. I want out just like you two do.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
He furrowed his brows.
“Well, I can always turn you guys in if you really don’t believe me. A guy like me could really use fifty grand.”
I sighed.
Stuck.
“So, you say you want to help us?” I asked.
“Sure. Where you wanna go?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re out on the road safe,” I said. “But don’t try anything, you got it?” I raised the gun again, pointing it right at his head.
He snorted. “If you think I’m gonna try anything with a pistol pointing at me, you’re more nuts than they make you out to be on the news.”
“Okay, I want you two to trade places. I don’t know what your deal is …”
“Jackson. Name’s Jackson.”
“Alright, Jackson. Get yourself into that seat and get us out of here.”
With some difficulty, he and Alex traded spaces. Alex sat on the cot, hunched over in what looked like a very uncomfortable position. I sunk down in front of the passenger seat, keeping my gun trained on Jackson, who started up the engine, roaring loudly.
There were no checkpoints. No searches. No guards. He simply put the truck into gear and drove away.
“Okay, then,” he said once we were at a freeway on-ramp. “Which way?”
“South,” Alex said. “Anyplace south.”
“Man, you’re a big dude,” Jackson said. “What they do to you anyway? Some sort of growth hormone? You’re huge.”
Alex kept his mouth shut, clearly irritated and unwilling to answer his questions. I did, instead. It was a risk, but who knew what they’d said on the news the day before?
“We were both in the Service,” I said.
“Were in the Service?”
“Yeah. He was in special operations, and I was at the Burn.”
Jackson made a hissing sound through his teeth.
“Don’t envy ya there,” he said. “You look pretty good for being at the Burn. Most people come out real sick.”
“I was only there for a short time.”
“Long enough to make some noise, though.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“So, where are we headed?”
I paused, unsure of whether or not we should tell him. Between the two of us and the gun, we could certainly take him down if he showed signs of turning us in. But when I looked at Alex, who looked exhausted, he nodded.
“We’re headed for the server buildings,” he said.
“Server buildings? Why?”
“I don’t think we should tell you too much more,” I said “I don’t want to get you into trouble, too.”
This wasn’t a lie. I didn’t want anyone else captured, tortured, or killed for a mandate I was taking on.
He shrugged.
“Well, I know the way,” he said.
“You do?” I asked.
“Sure. Been there plenty of times. Locked down pretty tight, but they have lots of deliveries. Weird stuff that I don’t understand. Anyway, what do I care? Boxes are boxes. Doesn’t matter what’s inside most of the time.”
I raised my eyebrows at Alex.
“No,” he said. “Not most of the time.”
“So, if you’re telling us the truth, and you’ve been there before, how hard is it to get in?”
“Well, we’ll need a manifest. Some sort of list that shows what cargo we’ve got.”
“And where do we get that?”
“From them,” he said. “They would’ve sent over the request to my rig owner, then given us directions about how to load up. It would be pretty hard to fake.”
I cursed under my breath.
“It’ll be okay,” Alex said. “We can get close enough and then go in on our own.”
“How?” I asked.
“I don’t know. How were we going to do it before? This guy can get us there in a matter of hours, not days. He can drop us off. Right?” He turned toward Jackson.
“True,” Jackson said. “I’ll drop ya a few miles out. It’s not any trouble. And listen, little lady, I’d sure appreciate it if you’d take your gun off me. You’re giving me the shakes.”
I shook my head, partly in frustration, partly in amusement. I lowered the gun.
“It’s not at your head anymore,” I said. “Just your knee. Got it?”
“Sure. I got it.”
We drove on for several miles before he spoke again.
“You know, I could probably even get you guys in there. If that’s what you’re aiming to do. What are you doing, anyway?”
“How would you get us in?” Alex asked.
“I could ram the guards’ station easy enough.”
“You mean, you’d be open to taking a bullet, to dying, to help us get inside?” I asked.
He didn’t speak for several long moments, simply pulled out a piece of cloth and wiped his brow with it.
“Ain’t nobody got much life worth living, now, do we.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I drive this rig all over the States, and it’s all I can do to feed myself. And I’m lucky. No wife. No kids. I only gotta worry about me. But that’s enough. My belly goes empty as often as anyone else’s. I wasn’t surprised at the images we saw of you all revolting. And then the guards shooting at ya. Well, it was disgusting. So I guess that’s why. Don’t know if it’ll make ya trust me, but it’s the truth.”
“Alright, then,” Alex said. “Let’s just get there for now.”
He tried to lean back onto the cot, but he still barely fit.
“Ah, man,” Jackson said. “I didn’t wanna say anything, but you two stink. What on Earth you been doing? Rolling around in the garbage?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.
“Yeah, actually. That’s exactly what we’ve been doing.”
I recounted the story for him, and I was surprised that I was able to find humor in it, even though the stakes were so high.
“You guys are serious business, then,” he said.
“Yeah, we are,” Alex said, clearly irritated by the turn of the conversation.
“Ah, sorry,” Jackson said. “I wasn’t trying to upset you.”
“Just drive,” Alex said.
“You got it, man. You got it.”
Chapter Eleven
We rode in near silence for hours. It turned out that Jackson had a water storage tank beneath the rig, so Alex and I were able to drink our fill. Jackson didn’t ask any more questions, and neither Alex nor I were ready to start up the conversation again.
Slowly, the morning became afternoon, and the afternoon became dusk. Jackson finally spoke again.
“We ain’t far now,” he said. “You guys decide yet what you wanna do? Should I drop you off or ram through the gates? I gotta warn you, though; the place is surrounded in razor wire. I don’t know what they’re hiding in there, but they don’t want anybody just sauntering in, if you follow me.”
It was a kind offer, an enormous offer.
“You know, you might not get anything out of
it at all if you ram those gates,” I said. “Maybe a bullet, but that’s about it.”
“That ain’t true. You two might make it. Then I’ll be right at the center of the revolution. I stick with you, things might turn around for me. Don’t you think?”
I smiled.
“How about this. Take us within a mile and stay parked. If we succeed, we’ll come back for you, and you can be at the center of the whole operation.”
This made his face light up.
“You got it, sister. But how do you plan to get over that wire?”
“Well, I am a big dude,” Alex said, cracking a smile of his own.
“Maybe. But razors are razors no matter how big you are. Maybe you could take out the fence some other way.”
“I think we can make it over,” Alex said. He looked around the cabin and felt the fabric the curtain was made of. It was thicker than most types.
“But, just in case, how about this?” he asked.
Jackson glanced back.
“Sure,” he said. “Don’t know if that’s thick enough to counter razor wire, but you can try.”
Alex reached up and unhooked the fabric from the ceiling of the cab. He wrapped it around his neck like a shawl.
“Okay,” I said. “When do we get there?”
“Anytime now. We’re just a few miles out. The place is inside a sort of bowl. I think they built up the land that way to hide it from folks. Anyway, you see that up over there?”
He pointed up the road toward a hill, and the faint glow of lights lit up the sky in that direction. The road up ahead, however, was curved away from it.
“Yes, I see it,” I said.
“That’s it. There’s an exit coming up here that the trucks would normally take to get there. I can pull off there and let you out. Then, I can just sit tight and pretend I’m sleeping. It’s not unusual for folks like me to sleep in their cab. If they give me trouble, I’ll just move on and then come back once an hour to look for ya. Sound like a plan?”
Alex and I shared a glance. Should we trust him?
He shrugged, shaking his head.
He doesn’t know any better than you do.
But you’re in charge, remember?
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said.
It was a risk. A huge risk. But so was everything else in this life. Torture, murder, starvation; these were the things all of us faced if we didn’t stay in line with the government.
I wondered about that lens transmission, about who it really was that had set that up. For the first time, I felt grateful to the man I suspected had been pulling all the strings on this crazy journey of mine. Chambers. It had to be. And while I didn’t much care for the man, I knew I’d see him again on the other side of this. One way or another.
We took the gun with us when we left Jackson. It would weigh us down, make it harder to run, encourage the guards to shoot us. But I wasn’t willing to leave it behind. And we would need it more than Jackson would.
It only took twenty minutes for us to make it up to the top of the hill, and I rode on Alex’s back like usual.
I’m going to need a saddle.
The idea made me laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m just being stupid. I’m nervous.”
And terrified. And excited. And worried.
As we came to the top of the hill, he let me down from his back. We both fell to the ground and crawled the last hundred feet on our bellies.
At the very top, we could see everything. The place was glowing with overhead lights. I don’t know what I’d been expecting. A darkened yard with a pair of guards, maybe. But this place would make it nearly impossible for us to infiltrate without being seen. Guards encircled the buildings, at least six of them that I could see. I suddenly wished we’d taken Jackson up on his offer to ram the barricades.
Either way, we were in trouble.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked. I didn’t have an answer, myself.
“I’m not sure,” he said, looking around. “There’s a small group of trees down there. We might be able to hide there.”
“Maybe. But how do we get there?”
“I have an idea. Give me the gun.”
“What for?” I asked as I handed it over.
“I’m going to target some of the lights. Nothing they’ll notice. Or, at least, I hope not.”
My heart leapt into my throat. Getting caught now would be the end of everything. But if he took out the lights and they realized what we were doing, we’d be able to see them coming. On the dark side of the hill, where we’d climbed up, we could hide in the trees, climb them, even.
“Okay,” I said. “Do it.”
He took careful aim.
“Here goes nothing,” he said.
He pulled the trigger, and two hundred feet away, the glass bulb exploded.
We both froze.
Down below, a guard at the entrance station looked out of his booth toward the busted light. I saw him hold up a radio to his mouth, and a few moments later, another guard changed direction and walked toward the post where the light had been attached.
I saw his boots find glass, and he leaned down and picked up a piece, staring up at the broken fixture. He held up his own radio, but then turned and walked away, leaving a darkened swath of land behind him.
We waited.
“That’s all we’re going to get,” Alex said.
“I think you’re right.”
“How long should we wait?”
“Just a few minutes,” I said.
As we stayed in place, we saw the guard at the booth return to it and slide the glass door shut behind him. A car had arrived at the gate, distracting him.
“Now,” I said.
We both crept toward the fence, chain link with razor wire curled around the top. What I hadn’t expected was the height of it. It was over twenty feet high, and the chain link finely woven. There was no way that Alex’s boots would allow him to climb it.
He threw down the curtain we’d taken from the rig, frustrated.
“What now?” I asked.
He paused, thinking. But then the answer became clear, because down below at the booth, shots rang out. The guard who’d been stationed there was clearly shot, his blood spattering up against the windowed door.
“Who is that?” I asked, looking at the car that’d distracted the guard. But I thought I already knew.
“Champions. Move!”
We got to our feet and ran toward the fence.
“We can’t climb it,” I said.
“I know.”
Alex laced his fingers into the tiny chains at the bottom where the metal met the land and pulled. Instantly, alarms sounded, blaring over the loudspeakers that surrounded the place. Nobody ran our way, though. They’d seen the car, and that was their target.
Alex ripped that fence apart, bloodying his fingers, but effectively destroying it. He held it up for me to crawl under, and I dropped to the ground and shimmied my way beneath it.
“What about you?” I asked as he released the fence.
He hit the ground, breathing hard.
“You need to go,” he said.
He stood up and threw the gun over the top of the fence.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, suddenly panicked.
“I can’t make it under here without another Prime to hold it for me.”
“No way. I’m not leaving you here.”
I stood up and pushed against the lower part of the fence, but it was so reinforced that I could barely budge it.
“How are you going to get in?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. But you need to go to Bay Two. You’ll find the truck there, and the EMP is inside. When you get to it, find the numerical panel, open it and punch in the code: 569470. That will arm it. Then, you’ll need to enter it a second time before you’ll be able to detonate. Then take the plunger and press to detonate. It
’s got two charges in it. Chances are they have backup generators, so be ready to do it twice. Go!”
I was breathing hard, staring at him through the fence, scared that this would be the last time our eyes would meet.
More gunshots rang out in the distance.
“Riley, go!”
“569470.”
I turned and grabbed the gun, holding it out straight in front of me, ready. Then, with one last look at him, I turned and ran down the hill as fast as my legs would take me.
Chapter Twelve
All of the attention was on the booth, and I watched as several guards fired on another approaching car. It didn’t stop, though, just kept on driving, even when the bullets reached the tires, popping them.
Theirs was a suicide mission, then.
And, all of a sudden, I realized that mine was, too, that I was willing to pay the ultimate price for my freedom. For everyone’s.
I watched as the car stopped at Bay Four on the fake intel Alex had given to the Champions. They unloaded the car when they reached the bay, two of them facing outward, aiming their guns at the oncoming guards.
They thought a nuke was hidden in the truck there. They were really ready to blow us all sky-high.
I sprinted across the yard, everyone’s attention on the Champions. Bay Two was to the left in the second building, well away from the current firefight.
But that wasn’t enough to make me invisible. I might’ve not shown up on their lenses, but nothing could keep me from showing up on their radar. I was still hundreds of feet away from the bay when a hail of bullets began exploding around me.
I ran faster, remembering my own single phasing, the strength it had brought forth within me. I thought faster, too. I remembered every lesson I’d learned over the last two years in the Service, every instinct, every movement.
I ran full-out.
Then, game over.
My knee exploded.
I fell to the ground mid-stride, screaming.
Tears of frustration and fury slid down my face as I rolled over onto my back. My leg was backward, not following this change in my position.
It didn’t hurt. Not really. So much adrenaline coursed through me that I wasn’t even aware of the pain. That would come later. If there was a later.
