The Child Thief 6: Zero Hour

by Forrest, Bella

  22

  The air was thickly scented with fine perfume as I walked through it. Women were made up heavily, their hair piled on their heads in elaborate up-dos or spilling down their backs in ribbon-tied braids. The men were smoking cigars and laughing boisterously. Quite a few revelers had brought their servants with them to pour their libations and hold their parasols to shield them from the sun.

  And I hated them. All of them. Being in Chanley reminded me of being back around my parents and their friends, people who were pompous and shallow and cared only about appearances. People who would adopt dozens of children that they never truly cared for, just because it made them look richer than their neighbors. These were people who had come here to watch a young woman die. So I hated them.

  I thought back to my conversation with Zion in the car. Maybe some of these people had been swayed by the broadcast and just weren’t able to show it in a Burchard stronghold like Chanley. After all, there were Authority agents everywhere. It wasn’t feasible for people to walk around holding up anti-Burchard protest signs here, at least not without risking their social statuses and freedom. But everyone I passed looked happy and carefree in the warm afternoon sun, which made me wonder if maybe I was wrong. There was a good chance that these people were too content and removed from the plight of the poor to even care.

  Maybe these people couldn’t see reason or feel empathy anymore. Maybe all of the money had buried their souls.

  “Surely you don’t believe any of that,” I heard a man say very close to me as I approached the platform. I tried to push their conversation out of my head . . . until I heard his friend respond.

  “They showed that guy’s scanned ID,” the friend replied. “It was completely wiped. Who else would’ve done that?”

  My heart stopped. Were these people discussing Little John? I lingered where I stood, trying to keep my eavesdropping from looking too obvious.

  “Maybe he was born that way,” the first man said.

  “You just don’t want to admit it,” his friend shot back.

  “Even if you believe that Nathan guy,” the first man said, “then what can you do? You want to wind up like this girl?”

  The first man who spoke turned to look at me, spurring me to keep walking.

  So maybe some of these people were more conflicted than they appeared, like I had thought.

  I reached the front of the crowd and looked back at the square’s entrances. I couldn’t see any of my team members, but I could see the large gatherings of agents. I took a deep breath. This was madness. Was rescuing Aurora worth this risk?

  I thought back to the work that she had done to keep Little John team members safe on their missions. Even Team Hood had benefited from those things. And Nathan obviously cared for her on a personal level.

  In that sense, I wanted to help. I wanted to pay Aurora back for all the risks she had taken to help us before. Still, I was afraid. And how would Nathan feel if he lost Aurora and his rescue team?

  Was it worth it?

  A wild cheer rose from the crowd, and I turned back to the platform to see that three people were walking toward us: a man and two women. One of those women was an attractive, dark-haired young lady, dressed in prison garb, with her hands bound in front of her. Aurora. Her eyes were red from crying, and she had a bloody lip that, even from far away, appeared to be quivering. Her steps were slow and timid, and her shoulders occasionally convulsed with sobs as she approached the crowd. She was a woman slowly walking to her own death. My heart ached for her.

  The man’s role was also obvious. He was very large and intimidating, wearing all black and carrying a device that would’ve been familiar to anyone who had watched a public execution before. It was called the electric gallows, and it was basically airship tech thrust upon an old-fashioned execution technique: a powerful hovering mechanism that attached around the neck like a collar and had the capacity to drag people into the air, hanging them. So he was undoubtedly the executioner. But then who was the other woman?

  She was short and plump and had black hair streaked with gray. She was wearing a pleasant smile, but because of the setting, that made me instantly dislike her. Who could smile so sweetly with a crying and terrified girl behind her?

  As they reached the edge of the platform, the unknown woman pulled out a microphone to address the crowd.

  “Citizens of Chanley,” she began, to raucous applause. She paused and waved for a few seconds, obviously enjoying the attention. “We bring before you today a confessed traitor,” she continued, pausing occasionally for effect, “and we sentence her to death by hanging. As your head of public relations, employed by the glorious Burchards, I am here to charge this woman with treason and explain to you, our good people, why we cannot tolerate this type of treachery.”

  More applause and cheers rang out. The head of public relations? I sneered at the thought. What kind of person would think that this was good PR?

  “This woman was found consorting with the traitor who interrupted our state broadcasts with lies and slander. We caught her speaking to the dangerous terrorist, Nathan, himself,” the woman continued, “and she has likely been sneaking him information for years. She has endangered you, and your children, and your legacies.”

  It was hard to mask my contempt for the hateful woman who was speaking. And her speech only got worse.

  “The legacies that you have built up and intend to pass on to your children, and their children, in perpetuity. She has risked your names and your power, and if she had her way, all of Chanley would be torn down to allow slums to be built. She would have the poor move in here and steal food from your tables and threaten your children as they walk to school!”

  I couldn’t understand how people could believe that. How was wanting the poor to have opportunities in life and be treated like humans equal to advocating for theft and intimidation tactics against the rich? No wonder the rich had been so poisoned against the poor.

  “This woman has endangered how our society must run in order for it to thrive,” the woman went on. Then she paused for dramatic effect before delivering her final statement. “And for this, she must die.”

  The executioner stepped forward as the crowd roared, and I turned to look around me. These people looked like they were out for blood. Were they going to run when they heard the sound of gunshots, or were they going to turn on us in a patriotic fervor? Fear began to grip me.

  Furthermore, the volume of the crowd was making it hard to hear anything. I didn’t know whether I should be waiting for a signal to take my shot. Would the rest of them begin shooting all at once? Would I be able to hear it? And who was supposed to shoot first? The rest of the ground team, or me? I cursed myself for not thinking to ask this important question before I had dived into this crowd.

  The executioner wrapped the electric gallows around Aurora’s neck, latching it in the front. Aurora bravely stared straight ahead, but tears were streaming down her cheeks as the collar weighed heavily down on her collarbones. It was obvious that she was preparing herself to die. The anxiety was settling into my very bones as I whipped around in the crowd again. Had the rest of the team started shooting yet? Was I supposed to shoot now? It was so loud in the square that I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to hear gunfire. But the agents were all still standing at their posts.

  The executioner stepped away from Aurora and grabbed a remote to switch the collar on. It began to glow blue around Aurora’s neck, and her brave tears turned into terrified sobs. The crowd fed off her fear and only got louder and more bloodthirsty. Even if some of these people were swayed by Nathan’s broadcast, it was obvious to me now that some of them would never come around. They were too entrenched in the money and power that had been afforded them.

  And they would only respond to more violence.

  I fingered my weapon at my side, hidden in the folds of my fluffy pink dress. I felt lost. Should I shoot now? Were Alexy and Jace over the scaffolding like they were supposed
to be? Were the ground team members behind me ready to start shooting?

  I closed my eyes tightly and tried to steady my nerves. Aurora was depending on me, and I had to get my head straight if I was going to succeed. The executioner was fiddling with his remote, and I knew that he was about to begin the execution. Then we would all have to watch poor Aurora kicking and turning blue as the collar lifted her into the air by her neck.

  Unless we could stop it.

  I drew my weapon and kept it hidden by my side. I wasn’t going to watch Aurora die. If I needed to shoot first, then so be it.

  But Aurora was going to live.

  “For the good of the regime!” the short woman suddenly yelled.

  The crowd screamed and clapped. The executioner began to maneuver the remote control, and, as I watched in horror, Aurora’s feet began to lift off of the platform.

  That was my cue.

  I dug my heels into the ground to steady myself, whipped the gun from my side and up in front of me, and aimed. One eye closed, and my breathing stopped. It all happened so quick that I didn’t even have time to see if anyone around me had noticed. Then I squeezed the trigger.

  Aurora’s feet dropped back down to the platform, thudding against the wood. But everything else was silent. The executioner looked at Aurora, who was staring back at him in confusion, and then he looked down at his device. It was an exploded, tangled mess of metal and cords. Then the executioner looked out into the still, silent crowd. The people around me had stepped back, leaving me in an open circle, still standing there with my gun drawn. The executioner locked eyes with me. Fire burned in his glare, hot and red with rage. But then the flames went out and he fell over. I had shot right through the device and into his chest. And still everything was silent.

  Then pandemonium set in.

  Quick pops of gunfire began to go off all around me, and I whirled to look at the groups of agents. Some of them were falling, and others were shooting indiscriminately into the crowd. Then thousands of people were screaming and running all at once.

  Aurora looked down at me from the platform, her eyes wide with shock. The square was emptying out quickly, but gunfire still rang out behind me. We needed to escape now, we needed . . .

  The airship appeared silently over Aurora’s head like magic, and a hook was lowered. Without asking questions, Aurora slipped her bound hands over the hook, and then she was being raised into the airship.

  “No!”

  I looked over at the other woman on the platform. She was red-faced and screaming furiously.

  “Stop them! Get them! They’re terrorists!” she screeched.

  People were still running wildly through the square, but the crowd had thinned out considerably. I could see Luka, Zion, and Bridge engaged in a shootout behind me. The second-skin suits were deflecting bullets, but the remaining agents were gaining on the ground team. And more agents were streaming into the square.

  “Let’s go!” I screamed.

  Aurora had made it into the airship safely. But what about the rest of us? Bullets were raining down all around us, and we were all still in the precarious position of being traitors in a government stronghold.

  If we didn’t get out almost immediately, we were all going to be captured or killed.

  And I didn’t know which was worse.

  Suddenly the airship flew toward me and lowered another line. I fumbled under my petticoats, looking anxiously for the rappelling hook that was hidden somewhere inside, my heart pumping wildly. Curse this dress! Where was that hook?

  Finally, I grabbed hold of it.

  A bullet hit me high in the side of my chest before I could even latch the hook onto the rope. The force of the shot knocked the wind out of me, doubling me over in pain. I let go of the hook, and it disappeared back into the frilly maze of petticoats beneath my skirt.

  “Robin!” Jace’s voice screamed from inside the ship. I looked up to see him in the hatch. “Hurry!”

  I struggled to suck in air. I could barely breathe, much less think. Black-and-red fireworks seemed to be going off in my brain as my lungs struggled to get oxygen in. But slowly my senses returned. If I didn’t get this hook out and onto the rope, I was going to die here. And it might doom all of my friends, too. So I took in a deep, painful breath and managed to find my hook again. Slowly, achingly, I attached myself to the rope.

  The airship lifted me up off of my feet and moved quickly toward the rest of the ground team while I hung limply like a rag doll. I knew I needed to get up into the safety of the cabin, but I was still in so much pain that I could barely hold on, much less begin climbing up. Bullets were striking the hull of the airship, though, and I held my hand up over my face to deflect the sparks.

  I felt the airship stop moving as we hovered over the rest of the ground crew. I kept my eyes closed against the bullets and sparks and tried to take deep breaths. I had to find the strength to start climbing soon, or I would just be shot again, perhaps lethally this time. But every ragged breath caused fiery pain to shoot through my chest where I had been struck.

  When I opened my eyes again briefly, more rappelling ropes were dropping down around me for the other ground team members. I could hear them shouting and shooting down below me. I closed my eyes again and reached one hand up higher on my rope to begin moving up to the ship. I shuddered with pain as I pulled myself upward and looked up at the airship miserably. It was still so far away. There was no way I’d be able to get to the cabin in my state. Which meant I’d either have to hang on for dear life, a sitting duck for agents to fire upon, or someone would have to hoist me up.

  I could hear Luka, Zion, and Bridge attaching their hooks beneath me. Maybe if they worked together, they could help me get into the cabin for our escape.

  But suddenly I could also hear dozens, maybe hundreds, of agents streaming into the square. The gunfire sounded like an unending roar.

  “Come on! Hurry!” Alexy was screaming from inside the cabin.

  “There’s no time!” Zion screamed back. “We’re all on! Just go!”

  My heart lurched into my throat. Just go? Without getting us into the cabin?

  And then the gunfire was drowned out by the sound of roaring wind. The mini-airship was flying at high speed through the air, towing the four of us on our ropes behind it. I held on to the rope as tightly as I could. There had been no time to pull any of us up before the ship took off. So we were all holding on for our lives, bracing ourselves against the rush of wind.

  The airship was moving so fast and getting so high in the air that we weren’t at much risk of being shot anymore. Now we were at risk of falling to our deaths if the ropes or hooks malfunctioned.

  The flight felt like a terrifying eternity of hoping and praying that we would be able to stay connected to our ropes. I didn’t open my eyes the whole way back to the escape ship. I was tired and overwhelmed, not to mention wounded from gunfire, and I didn’t want to see the ground rushing by beneath me. I knew we were high up in the air at this point. But as nervous as I was, I was willing to bet that Alexy and Jace were even more nervous in the hull of the mini-airship. If they slipped up, all of us would fall to our deaths.

  I was just ready to be back in Brightbirch and preparing for the next step. I didn’t want to be flying through the air anymore.

  I was so relieved when the airship began to slow down and then lower to the ground. Not only did that mean that we were finally going to get off of these ropes, but we also must’ve reached our main airship safely. But we wouldn’t be out of the woods yet. We still needed to escape.

  The airship lowered us slowly, and Luka, Bridge, and Zion all quickly hit the ground and began to unhook themselves. But when my feet touched solid earth, I almost couldn’t stand on my own. I fumbled to get the hook unattached, feeling weak and dizzy.

  “Robin, are you hurt?” Zion asked as he helped me unhook myself. “Bridge!”

  Bridge rushed over to us. I was shaking my head.

  “I’
m fine,” I said. The voice sounded far away, and my vision was starting to blur. “I’m fine.”

  “Robin!” Jace called from the mini-airship.

  I couldn’t answer. I was feeling like I might faint.

  “I need to sit,” I said weakly.

  Bridge and Zion helped me lower myself to the grass.

  “We don’t have time to sit here,” Bridge said. “We’ve got to get you into the airship so I can look at your wound.”

  “Are you all right?” Nathan asked as he rushed over to me. I looked to see Sy’s face fraught with concern in the hatch of the larger airship.

  “She’s been shot,” Bridge said.

  “It hit the second-skin suit,” I said weakly. “I’m fine.”

  But I wasn’t feeling well at all. The combination of the gunshot, the anxiety, and the flight had done a number on me.

  “Get her into the ship,” Nathan ordered. “We’ll fly the mini-airship in after you guys are all inside.”

  Bridge and Zion lifted me up and quickly carried me into the escape ship. Once inside, they laid me on a row of seats, and then Zion went back to assist the other teams.

  Bridge fetched me a bottle of water and held it to my lips. “You’re weak,” he said. “Drink.”

  I took a deep drink of the cold water and then lay back. I heard the mini-airship being flown into the hull but didn’t open my eyes.

  “Where is she?” I heard Jace’s voice shout out. Then I heard his footsteps pounding toward me. “Robin!” he shouted as he reached me.

  “I’m just faint,” I replied. “I’m fine.”

  I opened my eyes to look at Jace. He was tense and nervous, which I could see even though he was still wearing a different face.

  He looked over at Bridge, and Bridge nodded.

  “She’ll be all right,” he told Jace. “Taking a bullet in those suits pushes all the breath out of you. And then she was flying through the air hundreds of feet up. Makes for a loss of blood to the brain. But she’s fine now.”

  Jace looked back at me in relief. Then he grabbed me up in a tight hug.