Breathe

by Sarah Crossan

  We trudge up the last few steps, but rather than heading for what looks like the entrance, we stop at a concrete wall. Alina turns to check that no one is watching, that we haven’t been tailed, and gestures for us to follow. We make our way around the perimeter and along the concrete wall that is intermittently interrupted by steel doors. An old railroad comes into view, many of the train carriages windowless and lying on their sides.

  Alina stops, approaches a door, and knocks. Three knocks, a pause, two knocks, another pause, and a final knock. Nothing happens. Alina glances at me, then tries the code again: three knocks, a pause, two knocks, a pause, a final knock. Still nothing happens.

  I look down at the valve on my tank and take a liberal lungful of air. I only have a minute or two before it runs out. As though she’s read my mind, Alina reaches over and tightens the valve. Instantly I feel lightheaded and have to lean against the wall to stay on my feet. Alina tries knocking again.

  “Is there another way in? Maybe we’re at the wrong door,” I manage to say, finding my balance.

  “We’re at the right door.”

  “Maybe you should call out. Maybe you forgot the code.”

  “I didn’t forget the code. It’s an easy code.” Alina stands frowning with her hands on her hips.

  “Did they change the code?” I ask.

  “They never change it!” Alina glares at the handle as though it might turn and the door magically open simply because she wills it to.

  Maude eventually speaks up. “They’re hiding. And they could be hiding for hours. Do you have a bunker?”

  Alina looks at Maude and nods. I realize what it is they’re saying: the Resistance had to hide from the thermo-detectors when the zips flew overhead and that means no one is aboveground to hear us knocking.

  Alina leans her head against the sealed steel door and screams. Then she starts to pound on the door, first with her fists, but eventually with her head, too. She bangs her head again and again and again, until a thick streak of blood appears on her forehead. I grab her and pull her away. “It’s me! It’s Alina! If you don’t want us to die out here, open the door!”

  “They … can’t … hear … you!” Maude shouts. She slides down onto the walkway, picks at a festering scab on her neck, and laughs.

  “Open the door!” Alina hollers, my arms still wrapped around her. “OPEN THE DOOR!” Eventually she collapses against me. “I’m sorry I involved you in all this, Bea,” she whispers. “You didn’t want to be a part of it. You were a tourist. If I die, at least I’ll have died for something.”

  “You did what you could to save us,” I say, and squeeze Alina into me.

  “But what does your death mean? It has to mean something,” she says.

  I should have an answer. Because though I didn’t have to follow anyone, I did. So what was it for? Love? That was part of it. But it wasn’t just Quinn I followed in the end, it was Alina, too. And Maude. I could have turned around at any moment, slipped back through Border Control and taken the tram home to my parents who will now never know what really happened. I want to cry, not for myself, but for my parents and what I am about to make them suffer.

  I look into Alina’s green eyes and say, “I will die because I knew there had to be a better way to live.”

  “You didn’t find it,” Alina says. “I wish you could’ve found it. I’m sorry.”

  “I did, Alina. I breathed freely for two days.” This makes Alina hug me even tighter. Maude, who is staring at us, whispers something I can’t hear.

  “What did you say?” I want Maude to know that her last words are important, that she is important to someone. She pushes me away and starts to rub her scab again.

  Even though Alina’s fist is already rubbed raw, she tries again: three knocks, a pause, two knocks, a pause, one final knock. I try to take over, but she waves me away. “Save your energy,” she says. I am about to turn the valve on my tank again when I realize it’s too late; the air thins.

  I tap my tank, trying to release any dregs of oxygen remaining in it, and the sound is diluted by a hollow thrumming in my ears and Alina’s knocking.

  My chest tightens and a blazing heat makes my lungs shrivel up. I try not to inhale. I try to exist on whatever air is already in me. But I’m dizzy, everything around me dipping and diving as though I’ve just stepped off a merry-go-round. I think I’m going to pass out. Instead I feel a thick, sweet liquid in my throat and I let it dribble out of my mouth and onto the gray concrete.

  I pull off my facemask to breathe in again, fighting for whatever oxygen remains in the atmosphere. Flames lick at my throat and in my lungs there’s an explosion of fire.

  I can hardly see. Maude and Alina appear like ghosts. Completely silent.

  I hiss. I wheeze.

  And I am out.

  31

  QUINN

  I lean out over the edge of the roof and make out Silas and Inger on the street below. From this distance, and with all the snow everywhere, it looks like they are holding hands, and I can’t quite tell them apart. One of them gestures wildly up the street in the direction we came from. Within a few seconds, they’ve set off, walking at a sharp pace without looking back. I want to call out, but what could I say? Don’t forget about me! And if there are soldiers around, making noise will simply draw attention to them and put them in danger.

  I slump down onto the wet rooftop, not caring that I’m sitting in a puddle of snow. Scattered around me are snow-coated chairs and upended tables and loads of buckets, most of them within reach. The tube connecting my facemask to the solar respirator is about four feet long, in no way long enough to allow me to take any leisurely strolls around the rooftop.

  How did this happen? I’ve gone from rarely thinking about the air I breathe to spending most of my waking moments worrying about whether or not I’ll have enough. This is how auxiliaries must feel all the time. This is how Bea feels. Until today I’ve never really understood what it must be like to crave air so desperately. I understand now, though.

  “Keep calm, Quinn,” I say aloud. “Chill out.” But talking to myself doesn’t help. It only makes me freak out even more. Doesn’t talking to myself prove I’m on the road to madness?

  The worst-case scenario is that Silas and Inger get killed before they ever have a chance to tell anyone where I am, and I die slowly and painfully of exposure, starvation, and dehydration. Or maybe not. The actual worst-case scenario is that Bea dies this way—alone and afraid. No. She’s too clever to let something like this happen to her, and even if she were in my shoes, she’d stay calm and come up with a plan.

  I pull a nutrient bar from my backpack and tear off the wrapping. Then I stuff the entire thing into my mouth and start chewing. It’s the last one I’ve got, and maybe I should’ve taken a small nibble from it, but if I’m going to figure out a way to escape, I need to feed my brain.

  I stand and take a look out across the city again. A convoy of about twenty armored tanks is rolling down the buckled roads from the east—from the pod—in pairs. The tanks advance at some speed through the snow and rubble, crushing any obstacle along the road. I can see there are foot soldiers as well, hundreds of them. And they aren’t marching in a troop but dividing, fanning out in small groups. They’re looking for something. Or someone.

  I can still see the tiny figures of Silas and Inger, heading straight for the soldiers. “Silas! Inger! Silas!” I holler. For a moment one of them stops and holds the other back. But then they are off again. “The Ministry’s coming!” I shout. “SILAS! INGER!” Both of them seem to hear something this time and look in my direction. “It isn’t safe! They’re coming! SILAS!”

  The soldiers are closing in on Silas and Inger, who have remained where they are, facing each other. “RUN!” I scream, not caring who else hears me. “RUN!” And they do. In opposite directions. Inger is coming my way, back toward this building. The soldiers must have heard or seen something because they are running now, too, darting down roads and
alleyways. Inger is sprinting, weaving his way between buildings and leaping over mounds of rubble.

  He slips in the snow and falls. He struggles to stand and starts to limp forward. The soldiers are very close to him and they aren’t slowing down. I hold my breath. I don’t call out. He is right beneath me. He is so close I can see him rub his leg. He limps and limps and, just as the soldiers round the corner, he ducks into the building across the street for cover. Too late.

  The soldiers stop outside the building. One of them pulls out a radio. Within a minute all the tanks and soldiers are speeding this way. The soldiers on foot merge into one troop again, and before long the entire unit is positioned below me. The tank engines shut down and instantly it is silent.

  When Silas discarded my portable airtank, there was still a shred of oxygen left. I retrieve it from the ground, wipe away the snow, and refit it. Then I’m on my way downstairs. At the bottom, I crouch behind an old filing cabinet near a broken window where I can hear and see everything. If it looks like they plan to hurt him, I’ll show myself. I’m a Premium. I must have some power. Surely they wouldn’t hurt me.

  Another soldier, tall and with perfect composure, emerges from a tank and climbs down. He is wearing the same hefty black helmet as the rest of them, but a different uniform. “Go in there and get him,” he says, waving his hand casually as though retrieving Inger from the building is nothing but an inconvenience. “And bring him out alive,” he adds. A team of twenty soldiers file into the building. I can hear their boots.

  He approaches a soldier standing frighteningly close to the window I’m peering through. “How many did you see, Captain?” the general asks. His voice is chilling and flat.

  “Two, General. Two men, we think, sir,” the captain responds.

  “And are these the same men responsible for stealing our tank?”

  “I doubt it, sir. The tank went missing five miles from here. We have zips looking for it, sir.”

  “I want that tank found, Captain. And the culprits, too.”

  “I understand, sir. We are going to find them.”

  “You’d better,” the general says, moving away from the captain and talking into a radio. The general’s voice, muffled though it is, is strangely familiar. My father is always bringing high-ranking ministers and officials to the house. Is it possible I’ve met this man before?

  Inger is dragged from the building and made to kneel in front of the general, who kicks him in the chest. Inger shouts and falls backward. A soldier pulls him up again, and this time the general kicks him in the back of the head. I look away.

  “That’s me being kind,” the general tells Inger. “If you want to know what I can do when I’m angry, you should lie to me. If you want to live, tell me where the other one is.”

  “What other one?” There is blood running down Inger’s face and neck.

  “I want to know who you were with and where he went. Does your family live in the pod? How about your friends? What have you been doing out here? Planting? Cultivating the earth?” The general laughs. “You people don’t seem to realize that what you’re doing is pointless. Do you know how long it would take to re-oxygenate the planet? A millennium. And by that time you’ll be long dead.”

  “Then why are you chasing us?” Inger shouts. The general grabs a clump of Inger’s hair in his hand and pulls his face toward him. That’s when I spot the Breathe insignia on the general’s jacket.

  “Tell us where the Resistance is located or I will rip off your head, you sniveling little bastard.” His voice is ice, and I have no doubt he means to do as he says.

  “This war is on. We have Premiums on our side. And you’re finished,” Inger says. He spits into the general’s face. The general releases Inger and knees him hard in the throat. Inger rolls and groans. The general climbs a pile of rubble and holds a loudspeaker to his face. “We have your friend. If you come out, we won’t hurt him,” he announces, though he’s already beaten him to a pulp. “I repeat. We have your friend.” I definitely recognize that voice, especially through the loudspeaker.

  “Forget it,” Inger says, “he’s long gone by now.”

  “Captain, get the juice,” the general demands. The captain scurries to a tank nearby and comes back with a monster weapon that he points at a scrub of vegetation covered in snow. Black foam bursts from the nozzle, and the feeble grassy area is a withered mess by the time the captain has finished. “Even if you manage to grow anything,” the general says, “well, I think the captain has illustrated what would happen.”

  “So it’s true. Herbicide. What’s the next formula you’re working on? Toxic water?”

  “Don’t be dramatic, son,” the general says, and laughs.

  And that’s when I know. There’s no mistaking it. All my limbs twitch. It can’t be. But it is. I wait for him to say something else, anything else to prove I’m wrong. Instead, he takes his helmet off and pulls a facemask and some tubing from his uniform, and when he turns around I go cold because the general is my father.

  For a moment I can’t breathe. I look at my tank and though the oxygen level is fatally low, it’s not completely drained. I stare at my father and then press my fists into my eye sockets, taking shallow, even breaths. I stand up, about to run outside and save Inger, when a hand pulls me back down.

  It’s Silas. “What the hell are you doing? They’ll kill you.”

  “That’s my father,” I croak. Silas doesn’t understand.

  “Shut up and stay down.”

  “That’s my father,” I say again. Silas stares at me. That’s my father, I think. The man out there in charge. That’s my father. I thought he pushed paper around a desk. I thought he did something useful but boring.

  “What about Inger?” I whisper. Silas hunkers down next to me and he’s so close I think I can feel him shaking. We peer over the lip of an old filing cabinet. Outside my father is pacing back and forth. This is what he does when he deliberates; I see it all the time. He stops and scratches his head, looking at Inger as if his prisoner might tell him what to do. Usually I’m frightened of my father when he has this look because it means bad news for me. Now I am terrified because I know it must mean terrible news for Inger.

  “The Pod Minister made his instructions very clear,” my father says in a low voice. “I can’t save you. I doubt I could help you even if you were my own son.” Silas looks at me in horror.

  My father turns and climbs onto the turret of the tank. “Captain,” he says, clicking his fingers, “take care of him.” Then he vanishes.

  The captain nods at the soldiers next to Inger, who pull him to his feet, remove his airtank, and throw it aside. Inger doesn’t struggle. Even when his tank has been removed he stands rigid.

  “Your last moments are free ones,” the captain tells Inger, and the soldiers step aside so he can walk away, or run, or do whatever he pleases. Inger takes a few breathless steps and I expect him to run toward the building we are in, where he knows there is a solar respirator, but instead he turns and hobbles into the building they dragged him from not long ago.

  “Attention!” the captain cries, and every soldier salutes before taking his place in line. Within a few minutes every tank and soldier is out of sight.

  Silas jumps up and hurtles across the street. On his way he grabs Inger’s tank. I’ve never seen a person run so fast and without thinking, I bolt after him.

  We find Inger lying across the foyer. He is completely still. Silas pushes the mask into his face and opens the valve wide so Inger gets a high dose of oxygen. Inger doesn’t move. Silas tries blowing air into his mouth. Then he shakes him. “Inger. Inger, you’re safe now,” he says. “Wake up.” Inger is so still and looks so peaceful there can be no mistaking it: he is dead.

  Silas hangs his head and presses his hands into Inger’s chest. He sniffs and I look away. When I turn around again, Silas wipes the blood from Inger’s face with the cuff of his sleeve. Then he buttons up Inger’s coat and rearranges his limbs so
that Inger is lying as straight as he would in a coffin. “Was that really your dad?” he asks.

  I nod. I’m too numb to do anything else.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I shrug. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what my options are.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. We both look at Inger, and I don’t have a desire to fill the silence with noise. Not even remotely. Maybe I’ll never want to say anything pointless ever again. I just want to walk, to get out of here. Silas hands me Inger’s airtank. “He doesn’t need it. And I think you’ll only be safe if you come with me. Did you leave anything on the roof?”

  I shake my head. We both take one long, last look at Inger before venturing out into the dusk. I have no idea where we’re heading, and I no longer care.

  32

  BEA

  When I come around, I am breathing normally and being dragged along the ground. Maude is looking down at me, grinning. Alina is there, too.

  “She’s alive,” a young man says, bolting the steel door. I try to sit up, but a lightheadedness rocks me back again. “Don’t let her up for a minute,” the young man continues. “Her brain’s all out of whack. This’ll be the worst hangover she’s ever had.” He crouches down and peers at me with stone-gray eyes. I smile. He pulls a few strands of hair from my mask. “There’s plenty of air in that new cylinder I gave you. Are you feeling all right?” I nod and glance around; although we are inside, the cold is still piercing and I can hear the wind.

  “Thank God you came to the door when you did, Dorian,” Alina says. He turns to Alina and they embrace. “I wasn’t sure if my technique was working. I thought she was dead,” she says.

  “What technique?” I manage.

  “One breath for you, one breath for me,” she says, pointing to her own tank. She reaches into an open metal locker and takes two tanks from it. After Alina and Maude have been fitted with a fresh air supply, Dorian pulls me to my feet and helps me move along a wide walkway with them.