Breathe

by Sarah Crossan

  “Location number one!” Maude finally shrieks over the drumming of the wind.

  “You sure?” Silas hollers back. He pushes past me and stands next to Maude. We look up at the building, an immense structure made entirely from rusting metal posts and splintered glass.

  “If that thing collapses, we’ll be sliced open,” Dorian says.

  “You sure this is it?” Silas asks again.

  “I’m not senile.” Maude shuffles forward through the front doors and we follow, glad to be out of the wind. “Bruce?” she calls out. “You here, Bruce? It’s old Maddie Blue come to have a talk with you. Bruce?” she sings into the intricately designed crystalline dome of the building. Only Maude’s voice and the sound of our boots squeaking against the tiled floor echo in the atrium. “Bruce?” she shouts, her voice betraying some impatience.

  “A shopping city?” Dorian whispers, gaping at the long-ago looted shop fronts. “It looks like a cathedral.” He bends down to pick up a watch. “Would it be stealing if I kept this?” he asks. Without waiting for any of us to respond, he drops the watch into the pocket of his coat. The floor is strewn with shiny objects, and I’m tempted to take something myself. As I stoop to retrieve a silver hair clip from the tiles, a noise travels down from a floor above and we all scramble up the stairs to find its owner.

  “Bruce! We wanna talk, that’s all. We ain’t gonna do nothing bad to you. It’s your old pal Maddie. Let’s get a look at ya!”

  “Come any closer and I’ll shoot!” a voice calls. We stop climbing the stairs and look up again to see a bearded man clothed in a rainbow of color leaning over the railing and pointing a rifle. He’s filthy, the grime making his skin dark and grainy.

  “You ain’t got no bullets in that thing,” Maude cackles, and keeps walking.

  “Don’t move, Blue. I swear I’ll let this thing go.”

  “You needn’t try and fool me, Bruce. Even if you had bullets, you ain’t got your glasses on. You can’t see a blasted thing.”

  “Last warning!” he bellows.

  “Maude, maybe you should stop,” I say. I try to grab her but she’s already too far ahead.

  “If you can see, tell me how many people I got with me,” she says.

  “That’s it,” he calls. He looks through the scope, aims the rifle in our direction, and as his finger is about to engage the trigger, he bolts from the railing and disappears. Maude howls with laughter.

  “He’s off to plug himself in.” She’s right: he wasn’t wearing an airtank, so he must have been holding his breath, unless he’s somehow figured out how to withstand the atmosphere.

  On the top floor, Maude leads us directly into a shop with wooden boxes and silver tubes covering the shelves. Bruce is in there, sitting on a grubby velvet armchair, the sides leaking stuffing. The rifle on his lap is pointing in our direction. His air is coming from a solar respirator much like the one Maude had. No sooner has he pressed the mask to his face than he removes it again, and with his other hand puts a brown, oblong object between his lips. He inhales deeply, holding the mask up to it and allowing oxygen to envelop it, so it stays alight. The tip smolders and then smoke is billowing from Bruce’s nose and mouth. He looks like he’s on fire.

  “You’re still on those things?” Maude says. “One lung takes in the air and the other one takes in the dirty smoke, does it? They’ll kill you, you twerp. And what a waste of bloody oxygen.”

  Bruce takes another slurp of air followed by a puff of the fiery cigar. “If I’m dying, I’m gonna die smoking,” he announces. “No air in the atmosphere. But there’s plenty in this thing,” he says, and kicks the solar respirator. “I ain’t brainless. Got me ways,” he says.

  We don’t know much about Bruce except that he’s a drifter and that he has a bilious hatred of the Ministry ever since they abandoned him. He’s also the reason all the drifters live apart. In his view, they’re safer alone, not so prone to being exterminated in one fell swoop. He coughs and Maude, like an awful echo, coughs, too. “Well, look at you, Maddie Blue. You turned out all right.” He pats his knee and winks. “Here, take the weight off those pegs.”

  “You should be so lucky,” she says.

  “Oh, too good for me, now you’ve teamed up with Breathe again are you, Blue?” he asks.

  “Oh, do shut up, Bruce. These here are kids of the Resistance.”

  “Resistance? Planting a few weeds and sitting around chanting all day? Don’t make me laugh.”

  Silas steps forward and shakes Bruce’s hand. “Not anymore. They’re after us and we’re building an army. We need all the men and women we can find to fight. We want you to be the first. Come fight with us. Help us gather up the rest and come with us.” I have to say I expected more of a sales pitch. Why would Bruce join us if there’s nothing in it for him?

  “The Resistance thinks we’re scum,” he says, still alternating between air and smoke.

  “The Resistance has plenty of reasons to hate you. We also need you. Simple as that,” Silas says.

  Bruce smiles and nestles himself into the armchair. “I’d say you’re desperate coming out in a storm like that.”

  “Eager,” Dorian corrects. He’s carrying the backpack of airtanks, which he finally drops. “We know you can fight. And you know how they fight.”

  “What’s in it for me?” Bruce looks at Maude, raises his eyebrows, and smacks his lips together. The thought of it is too much. Silas ignores him.

  “Dorian, show him,” he says. Dorian unbuckles his airtank, takes off his facemask, and puts the whole apparatus on the floor. He stands watching Bruce, breathing without any difficulty whatsoever. He’s only been wearing a mask because of the strenuous walking we’ve been doing and even then, his oxygen level has been very low.

  “Well, I can do that. You saw me. No big deal,” Bruce says. Dorian takes a piece of red apple from his pocket and offers it to Bruce. The old man takes the food in his filthy hand and marvels for a moment before stubbing out the smoldering cigar and shoving it into his mouth. “Fruit. Well, that’s nice. You lot managed to grow something. Fine. What difference does that make to me?” Several minutes pass and Dorian continues to watch Bruce, as alert as he was when he first removed the mask. No one speaks except Bruce. “So what? He can hold his breath. Big deal.”

  After ten minutes Bruce finally stops berating Dorian and says, “You’ll wanna put that mask on again, sonny. It’s bad for the brain.” He turns to Silas. “Is he holding his breath?”

  “I’m breathing, and if I can, you can. We all can. Come fight with us and we’ll train you to do it.” Dorian leans down and retrieves a small airtank from his backpack. “You’ll need this.”

  Bruce looks up at Maude. “Not even a kiss?” he asks. Maude steps forward and kisses his cheek.

  “Happy now?” she says with a smile.

  “I’m convinced! That’s what love will do to you, I suppose,” he says pinching Maude’s behind as he stands up.

  The storm rages as Maude and Bruce lead us to an old school where a whole family of drifters live: a mother, father, son, and daughter. Even with Bruce and Maude calling out as we enter the building, an arrow scarcely misses my head and strikes the wall behind me. The parents are old. The journey will be hard. The Grove has a doctor, though, and that’s what convinces the children to unplug their parents from the solar boxes and get them ready for the journey.

  Next we swoop in on a church where we hear the drifter before we see her—a high soprano voice sings out some aria to rows and rows of empty pews. She is tall with pin-straight hair. She doesn’t notice us filing in and, thinking it would be impolite to interrupt her in the middle of a performance, we slide into the back pews. When she finishes, we all clap. The shock of seeing us standing and applauding causes the poor woman to lose her balance and almost knock herself unconscious on the marble altar.

  All night long we slog and search, looking for our new army. Every hideout is different and every encounter dangerous. The drifter
s have only managed to survive by viciously attacking unsuspecting tourists or, at the very least, defending themselves from them. And they are so distrustful it isn’t easy to convince them. Dorian has to perform for many of them and Maude and Bruce have to threaten others. Even so, some still refuse either because they are afraid of us or afraid of the storm. Many won’t give up their solar respirators, or, in the saddest cases, are simply waiting for death and not willing to try to outsmart it.

  As dawn begins to blush, we turn around and head back to The Grove, followed now by a mass of hawkish drifters. We’ve managed to round up almost twenty of them and get guarantees from fifty more that if we come back with airtanks, they’ll join us. And they’ll recruit their friends. So this will be Roxanne and Levi’s job: to arrange a team to collect the remaining drifters now that we have a complete map pinpointing all their locations. And then we must train them, improve their breathing, and prepare them for battle.

  “Is this going to be enough?” I ask Silas as we trudge back along the icy roads.

  “I hope so,” he says. “Because we’ve got nothing else.”

  43

  QUINN

  I sit there, silent, as my father explains to Lennon and Keane that I was kidnapped and almost killed by a band of bloodthirsty terrorists. I have no idea whether or not he believes the story he��s telling, but the twins stare at him and then back at me with their mouths open, chewed up dinner on display. “Were you scared?” Lennon asks.

  “Yes,” I say. My father squints at me, daring me to contradict him, so I try to retell the story; I have to make everyone believe we really were held captive. “They stuffed rags in our mouths and tied our hands. If we spoke to each other they punched us here.” I put my hands against my upper body, which still thrums. Lennon stares and Keane rubs his hands along his own ribcage. My mother puts down her fork and rolls her eyes as though I’m talking about some gory film I’ve seen and not my own life.

  “No need for the details,” she says.

  “If I met a terrorist I’d use my spear to stab him in the eye. He wouldn’t get away from me,” Keane says.

  “Yes he would. It’s a plastic spear,” Lennon reminds him.

  They spend the rest of the meal devising ways to torture and kill the so-called terrorists. My father nods approvingly, encourages us all to be hungry for revenge.

  I didn’t want to come home. When I burst out of the Justice Building earlier on, I was thinking about hiding out somewhere else. But I couldn’t exactly live on the streets. I’d have been picked up the second I shut my eyes. And I couldn’t go to Bea. It would’ve been the first place they’d have looked. So I dragged myself home, if I could even call it a home now that I know my parents don’t care whether I live or die.

  When I came through the front door, my parents were standing in the hallway hanging up their coats. They could hardly look at me.

  I slink into my bedroom after dinner, and my father follows me. He sits on the edge of my bed looking at the pile of dirty clothes in the middle of the room. “I can’t say I’m not disappointed,” he says.

  “Sorry,” I say, as though I have something to be sorry about. “I shouldn’t have trusted Alina. I shouldn’t have bundled her through Border Control. I know that.”

  “Yes, well, generally you need to start showing more discretion.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your friendships are suspect. You’re too old to be palling around with auxiliaries, so it’s about time you and Bea cut ties. People will start to talk.” My heart jumps and my hands begin to sweat.

  “She’s my best friend,” I say.

  “Not anymore. Keep away from her. Your mother and I have bigger plans for your life than an auxiliary wedding. Cain Knavery’s daughter is a year older than you. Pretty girl. Sharp.” I know Niamh Knavery. When he says she’s sharp, he means she’s cruel. And she’s had a stack of boyfriends since the beginning of the school year. Even if Bea weren’t in the picture, I wouldn’t touch Niamh Knavery with rubber gloves on.

  “I understand, sir,” I say. If I’m going to help the Resistance, I have to play the game, and if that means nodding a bit and pretending to agree with what he says, I’ll do it. I have to.

  “By the way,” he says, standing up, “I don’t know what the terrorists told you about my job, but whatever you heard, keep it to yourself. Your mother is fragile and the twins are young.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. I take on the face of the Quinn who lived here only days ago and my father eats it right up.

  “Well, that’s fine,” he says. Without saying good night he turns and leaves the room, pulling the door tight on his way out.

  I retrieve an airtank from under the bed. I need to start training to exist with lower oxygen levels. I have no intention of living in this pod, or this house, one minute longer than I have to.

  44

  BEA

  We are back in the pod for two weeks before we have lunch together. It’s important we avoid each other in public now that Quinn’s dad has vetoed our friendship. We have to meet in secret, in the caretaker’s closet with brooms and mops or in hidden corners of the tech room. Quinn comes to my place sometimes, but only at night and not too often. We both have the same free period today, so we’re using it to meet in the canteen with the freshmen, most of whom we don’t know. The canteen is a muddle of clanking plates and hungry voices.

  “Cain Knavery was over again last night,” Quinn says.

  “What did he want?” I’m not sitting in the seat right next to him, which is where I want to be, but two seats away. We’re facing the same direction and talking without looking at each other. Quinn is wearing a cap that hides his face.

  “Blood. He’s sick of scouring the coastline. He wanted to know if I could remember anything else that could help them pinpoint the location. He’s not happy.”

  “So he’s afraid?”

  “He didn’t seem afraid exactly. He was irritated. He got so wasted he almost broke my wrist urging me to tell him more. He spent the evening laughing at nothing. Ha! Ha! He gives me the creeps. Niamh and Ronan had to come with a driver to pick him up once he keeled over. Ronan basically had to carry him out of the house.” Quinn raps his fingers against the table. I wish I could touch him.

  “Imagine having a dad like that. I feel sorry for them.”

  “For Ronan, maybe; he’s all right. But his sister? Ugh.”

  “So what did you tell Cain before he passed out?” I ask, as my art teacher, Ms. Kechroud, comes into the canteen. Quinn pulls his cap down a little farther.

  “The same thing I always tell him: ‘South, that’s all I know, Pod Minister.’”

  “We’re running out of time.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that. I don’t know how much longer they’ll keep searching before they figure out that we lied. I wish there was a way we could step up our training.”

  Whenever Quinn comes over to my place, Mom sits in the living room, happily convinced we’re making out, while really we exercise and practice breathing with reduced air. Quinn stole a couple of tanks from the cellar in his house and so we’ve been gradually tightening the valves and learning how to live on less and less oxygen, just in case. We are also practicing meditation and the relaxation positions Alina gave me a glimpse of. We aren’t much good. We need more time, and really, we need a teacher.

  When Quinn can’t come over, I practice alone. But despite all the hours I’m putting in, it’s always hard to breathe on reduced air when most of the day I’m breathing in more than I need. Quinn thought about buying Premium Pure Air so we could use it all day, gradually tightening the valves as we got stronger, but we’d just be drawing attention to ourselves. People would notice me especially. They’d know Quinn bought the air, and we aren’t supposed to be seeing each other anymore.

  “Have you figured out a way to get across the border?” I ask.

  “I’m working on it,” he says. He stops eating and start
s to massage his temples.

  “What is it?” He looks at me quickly, opens his mouth to speak, then bites his bottom lip. “Tell me, Quinn. What is it?” Ms. Kechroud has her lunch and is looking for a place to sit. She scans the room without spotting me and luckily chooses a place by the door, away from us.

  “We shouldn’t have met here,” Quinn says.

  “Don’t change the subject.” I throw down my fork in frustration. Quinn puts his head in his hands. It’s the first time since our return to the pod that we’re bickering and there’s no need for it. “Quinn, please,” I say more gently.

  “The Pod Minister is impatient. He talked a lot about you. I think he was threatening me. I think he knows we’re together. He might be having me followed. It’s not unthinkable.”

  Before I get a chance to respond, a shadow appears over us and when we look up, Riley and Ferris are standing there. Ferris has had a new set of veneers fitted that are too big for his mouth.

  “Guess who made team captain?” Ferris asks, picking at a large mole on his chin. He leans in close, and I have to cup my hand over my nose because the smell of his aftershave is so strong.

  “The coach is blind. Can you believe he chose Ferris over me? When have you ever heard of a defender being captain? It’s ridiculous. We ought to have Coach replaced. I’m gonna tell people he watches us in the showers. Damn auxiliary,” Riley complains.

  “Not now,” Quinn says.

  “I thought you two weren’t friends anymore,” Ferris says to Quinn, looking at me.

  “She borrowed something. I was getting it back,” Quinn says, patting a notebook on the table. Riley reaches for the notebook, but Quinn snatches it first and stuffs it into his backpack.

  “So, Bea, when are you going to let me take you out?” Ferris has managed to pick a hair out of his mole and is examining it in his hand. “Maybe we could double date,” Ferris says to Quinn. Suddenly Quinn’s smile vanishes and he glares at Ferris.