Glass Cage

by Emmy Chandler

  Finally, she nods, and I exhale in relief. I’ll throw her over my shoulder and physically haul her onto the shuttle, if that’s what it takes to get her off this planet, but I’d rather she not hate me for that. For making her leave her friends behind.

  “Okay. Let’s get out of here and back to the stairwell.” Kat stands, and I can practically see her push back her own trauma to focus on the problem at hand. “Surely there’s a back exit downstairs. Like, a delivery entrance, or something.”

  I take her hand, and we follow Jack to the door, where he peeks out. “All clear,” he says, closing the door softly. “There’re some anxious voices coming from down the hall, but it’s pretty quiet up here. They’re not going to want to upset the recipients over this.”

  Though surely they’ll have no choice, soon. With all the donors dead, they’ll have nothing to transplant into all the wealthy patients who flew halfway across the galaxy.

  We follow Jack into the hallway, where he turns left, guiding us back toward the stairwell and the elevators. But before we make it to the stairwell door, one of the elevators dings. The arrow over it lights up, indicating that the lift is coming up to our floor.

  “Back this way!” Kat whispers as she tugs me around the corner from the elevator and into hallway we’ve just left. Jack follows us just as we hear the elevator door slide open.

  “You go left, I’ll go right,” a deep male voice says. “Pistols set to stun, but do not shoot the girl. Dr. Borden will have all of our asses if you lay a hand on her.”

  “Fuck,” I breathe. It sounds like there are only two of them, but they’re going to search the whole floor. We could go back into the recovery suite, but that would only be delaying the inevitable.

  Kat is breathing too hard. Her eyes are wide, her hand damp in mine. The stakes have changed for her, with the results of her blood test. With the knowledge that she stands to lose more than just her freedom, if we get caught.

  I can’t let that happen.

  I grab the back of Jack’s bicep to get his attention. “I’ll distract them. You get her to the stairwell, then get her the hell out of here,” I whisper, hoping he understands the grim look in my eye. Be ready to leave without me. “Do you understand?”

  “What—?” Kat asks softly, but Jack is already shoving us back into the recovery suite. There’s a reckless look in his eyes. A bold determination.

  “Take care of her,” he whispers. And suddenly I understand what he’s doing.

  “What—” Kat asks again, and I slap one hand over her mouth as I pin her to my chest, letting the door close between us and Jack. He’s made his decision. I will honor his sacrifice.

  “Shhh,” I whisper into her ear. “He’s trying to help us.” He’s trying to help her, anyway. And that’s good enough for me.

  She struggles, trying to protest as understanding dawns, but I hold her tight, careful not to cover her nose. I’m determined to save her, even if that means saving her from her own selflessness.

  “Hey! Over here!” Jack calls out from the hallway.

  Shouting and footsteps thunder toward our room from around the corner as the guards—both of them, presumably—follow Jack down the hall past the rest of the recovery suites, toward the operating rooms.

  When the footsteps have faded, I lean down to whisper into Kat’s ear. “Be. Quiet.” Then I let her go.

  “What—?”

  I shush her again as I pull the door open and carefully peek around it. The hallway is clear, so I grab Kat’s hand and tug her into the hall, then around the corner. The elevator is standing empty, and I’m about to pass it and pull her into the stairwell when she gives my arm a vicious tug, and I lose my grip.

  “Look!” She points at a door on the opposite side of the hall. “That’s our way out!”

  My pulse racing, I glance through the window in the door. “Is that a…tunnel?”

  “It’s a sky bridge,” she says. “And I’d bet you what’s left of your liver that it leads to the recipient ward. It’s a short-cut for families to get to the recovery rooms. Come on!” Kat pulls open the door, and I follow her into a long metal tunnel, the top half of which is transparent, like the interior walls of the observation suites where Penny and the other pregnant women are being kept.

  “Let’s go! Can you run?” Kat asks as she tugs me forward. I force my feet into gear, and to my relief, I’m able to keep up with her, even though my lungs burn as if they’re being abused, after a month spent on my back.

  As we race toward the door at the end of the tunnel, I glance out at what we can see of zone twelve, though there isn’t actually much to be seen. It’s mostly empty fields surrounding the two buildings this elevated walkway stretches between. But I can also see a landing lot half-filled with medical transports.

  “There they are.” I point, and Kat’s eyes light up as she follows my aim.

  “I’ve never flown anything that big, but I can probably figure it out. I have some experience with short-range shuttles.”

  I squeeze her hand, trying not to pant, though my lungs feel like they’re going to explode. “That’s good to hear, because I’ve never been in the pilot’s seat.”

  “I knew I should have picked the donor in bed thirty-four!” she breathes, still running, and for a second, my insides go cold. Then she grins at me, and I realize she’s joking.

  I’m so relieved to see her smile.

  But then a shimmer overhead catches my attention. “What is that?” I point up, and she follows my aim again. “Something’s wrong with the sky.”

  “That’s the pyro-shield,” Kat says. “It’s an energy field surrounding the planet that will incinerate anything that touches it. Jack says the medical transports have authorization to use one of the hatches,” she explains. “As long as the guard stations in orbit don’t figure out there’s a prisoner piloting one of them.”

  Finally, we stumble to a stop at the end of the elevated tunnel, and I carefully open the door and peek out into the recipient ward. It’s just a hallway lined in doors. Probably the family apartments. “I don’t see anyone, which means this probably isn’t the main route between buildings. Maybe they use the skybridge more in bad weather.”

  “Okay then, let’s go,” Kat breathes. “There has to be a stairwell around here somewhere.”

  We sneak out of the tunnel into the hall, and I really wish we’d had some way to steal a lab coat, or something. Anything, really, that would keep us from looking like prisoners, now that we’re in a building full of civilians and medical personnel.

  “There!” Kat’s hand tightens on mine as she points at a heavy-duty swing-out door with a stylized sketch of a staircase laser-etched into it. “By the elevators.” We race for the door, and I’m relieved to see that there are no cameras in the stairwell. Not that that matters, since the only way to go is down, and there were probably cameras in the recipient ward hallway and on the skywalk. If anyone was watching them, they’ve no doubt figured out where we’re going.

  But then, if that were the case, surely there would’ve been guards pounding after us on the skywalk.

  “Beau,” Kat says as we head down the first half-flight, toward the U-shaped landing, and the anxiety in her voice resonates deep in my chest. “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet, if we get out of here. About the baby, I mean. But… You’re under no obligation to me.”

  “Yes. I am.” I grab her hand again and pull her to a stop on the landing. “You’re the only reason I’m up and walking. But that’s not why I’m in this with you now, and it’s not why I’m going to stay in this with you, even after this fucked up rock is nothing more than a distant red speck in the sky. I knew you were meant for me from the second I first heard your voice. From the moment I realized you were trying to make that hell better for me, for no reason other than that you cared.”

  There are tears in her eyes as she stares up at me.

  “But the baby—”

  “I love babies. And I like k
ids even better than I like babies. Which is good, because they don’t stay babies very long.”

  “You’re serious?” Her tears fall, and I wipe them from her cheeks with both thumbs. “You really don’t have to—”

  I cut off her protest with a kiss. “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. And I’ll prove it to you once we get through that shield.”

  Kat gives me a shaky nod, then we’re running down the steps again.

  At the bottom of the stairwell, we find two doors. The first leads into the building, where we can hear both voices and footsteps. They don’t sound anxious, which leads me to believe that the civilians staying in the recipient’s ward haven’t been notified of the convicts on the loose. Which is no big surprise. I can’t imagine UA would want to advertise their own failure, unless they had reason to believe we were armed and dangerous.

  I’m neither—unless someone threatens Kat.

  Still clutching her hand, I open the other door and am relieved when daylight pours into the stairwell. “Come on!”

  We blink against the assault of the sun—neither of us has been outside in weeks—while I try to orient myself. Where was that landing lot…?

  Finally, my vision adjusts, and I see the corner of the lot, peeking around the edge of the building. “That way!” I whisper, tugging her in the right direction. We stick close to the building, to reduce the chances of being seen, and at the corner we stop, so I can assess our options.

  “There are…eight of them,” I tell her, while Kat keeps her back pressed against the building. Out of sight. “But none of them are open. The controls probably aren’t restricted—I agree with Jack on that—but they’re likely all locked up tigh—” My mouth snaps shut as movement catches my gaze. “There’s a pilot.”

  Kat leans around me to look at the black-uniformed man reading from a tablet as he marches across the lot. I’m not sure whether he’s doing a pre-flight check, in preparation to take an organ recipient home, or just making rounds to check on his equipment. But all we really need is his handprint, either way.

  “Follow me, and try to walk quietly,” I say.

  Kat rolls her eyes. “I know how sneaking works, Beau.”

  I give her a chagrined smile, then we take off after the pilot. To my relief, he seems to have ear buds in, and the sun is casting our shadows behind us. He doesn’t realize we’re there until he approaches the third shuttle on the left, and I wrap one arm around his neck while I slap my opposite hand over his mouth.

  In seconds he’s out cold from the pressure on his carotid artery—those anatomy classes come in handy, even for a dropout. “Lift his hand,” I say, but Kat’s already pocketed his tablet and pulled his right glove off. I haul the unconscious body closer to the shuttle, and she presses his palm to the panel next to the fold-down ramp.

  It lights up as it recognizes his print, and the ramp begins to lower.

  Kat races on board while I haul the unconscious man behind a row of bushes on the edge of the lot, then I follow her into the ship and settle into the co-pilot’s seat while she closes the ramp.

  “Are you familiar with the system?” I ask.

  “With something similar. You?”

  “No, but I can follow instructions,” I assure her.

  “Great. Buckle up,” she orders. I click my seatbelt home while she begins pressing buttons to turn on the engine and check all the systems. For a couple of minutes, I stare out the windshield and watch the perimeter sensors, on alert for anyone approaching. But there’s no one. The guards still evidently believe we’re in the main building, and no one has found the unconscious pilot yet. But our luck can’t hold out for much longer. “Ready?” Kat says at last.

  “Yes. Get us out of here.”

  She smiles as she pulls back on the main lever, and the ship rises smoothly into the air. She’s at home in that chair. That much is clear.

  I am the luckiest man alive. That much is also clear.

  “Cross your fingers,” she breathes as the shuttle rocks around us, then lurches upward, speeding toward the shimmering barrier surrounding Devil’s Eye. “The real test is yet to come.”

  “Medical 214, this is Station Gamma,” a voice calls over the radio. “You’re not scheduled to depart for another hour. Is there a problem?”

  Kat presses a button, then holds one finger against her pursed lips to shush me. “No problem, Station Gamma. We’re just more efficient than we expected to be, and my passengers are ready to go home. Are we all clear?”

  “One moment please.”

  We sit in tense silence for nearly a minute before the voice responds again. “All clear. Have a safe trip, Medical 214.”

  “Roger, Station Gamma, and thank you.”

  A square appears in the shimmering barrier ahead, and the space inside it stops shining, as the hatch opens. We sail through it with no problem.

  I exhale in relief. Then that voice speaks over the radio again.

  “Medical 214, we’ve had a request for you to dock at Station Gamma for a quick fuel check.”

  Kat turns to me, her eyes wide beneath a deeply furrowed brow. “They know.”

  “Sounds like it. But we’re past the shield.”

  “Medical 214, acknowledge.”

  Kat maintains our silence over the radio as she begins flipping switches and tapping her way through menus on a screen full of green gauges and lights. “We’re going to have to run.”

  “I’m ready. Give ‘em hell.”

  She presses one more button and turns to me with a mischievous smile. Then she pushes the main lever forward as far as it will go, and the ship lurches, already approaching warp.

  As we race away from Devil’s Eye, Kat waves her middle finger at the space station in the distance, through the windshield. “Fuck you, Universal Authority!” she shouts.

  That goes for both of us, I think as I watch the smile grow on her face.

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for reading Glass Cage! If you’ve enjoyed my writing and this little glimpse into the Prison Planet universe, I hope you’ll read the rest of the series!

  Also now available is Escape, the first book in the Project Vetus series, a spinoff of the Prison Planet books, which is about a squad of soldiers falsely convicted of war crimes, who agreed to genetic experimentation as an alternative to the death penalty. After a series of procedures, they wake up as super-soldier prototypes, determined to escape confinement and seek revenge on the corrupt corporation that made them into monsters. Along the way, they will each find love, but their new mission will threaten the safety of anyone who stands alongside them in their fight for vengeance…

  If you’d like more information about me or my books, you can find me in my FB group, my Facebook page, Goodreads, BookBub, and at www.emmychandler.com.

  Emmy

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to the amazing Bex McLynn for naming our hero Beau! Because he’s sleeping beauty!

  Get it? (Hahahahahaha!)

  Also by Emmy Chandler

  The Prison Planet series

  Guardian

  Hunter

  Champion

  Dirty Lies

  Hostage

  Traitor

  The Project Vetus series

  Escape

  About Emmy

  Emmy Chandler likes tee-shirts and lattes. She firmly believes every woman deserves an armchair in front of the window, near an outlet close enough to charge an e-reader and power a mug warmer. Her perfect afternoon includes cold weather, thick blankets, warm soup, and a good book.

  Emmy has another career under another name.

  For more information about Emmy Chandler’s books…

  www.EmmyChandler.com

 

 

 
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