by Tarah Benner
“Come on, Lark,” Bernie called softly.
But Lark barely heard her. Blood was pounding in her ears, and her lungs were burning from the effort. She was stuck about eight feet up the wall, and her arms had already given up.
No, she thought. She couldn’t give up. Giving up meant falling to the ground and being stuck inside San Judas forever.
She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
A sudden animalistic groan burst out of Lark’s mouth. She forced her feet to move just a couple of inches, and miraculously, her arms followed suit.
To her left, she could just make out a small shadowy figure moving in her periphery. Simjay must have reached the top, and Finn was about to beat her.
“No,” she growled, too low for anyone else to hear.
Gritting her teeth, she unstuck one hand and moved her death grip six inches up the rope.
Her palms were on fire, and she could hardly feel her arms. Her heart was pounding in her throat, and it hurt too much to breathe.
Finn passed her easily, and she heard movement up above her as the others started climbing down the other side. Soren and Bernie were still waiting above her, and she knew they wouldn’t leave.
That was the thought that kept Lark moving — foot, foot, hand, another hand, foot. She counted each movement, starting over each time she moved her left foot up.
Just when she thought her shoulder might burst from the effort, she felt strong hands under her arms as Soren helped her up.
The second she cleared the wall, every dismal thought seemed to evaporate at once. She was perched on top of the world, staring out at the endless night sky.
Beyond the prison lay a vast, empty wilderness. Lark couldn’t make out any roads or buildings, but she could see the black outline of mountains against the star-studded sky.
“You did it,” Soren breathed, cupping her face in his palm and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“Yeah,” she breathed in disbelief.
Bernie punched her lightly on the arm. Lark caught her eye and grinned.
As Soren pulled the grappling hook off the wall and positioned it for their descent, Lark almost screamed in protest. She’d come all this way, and her body was shot. She didn’t think she could do the same thing in reverse.
Luckily, there was no time to protest. Bernie was already sliding down the other side, and Soren insisted that Lark go next.
Somehow, her shoulders stayed put in their sockets, and her arms didn’t give out under her weight. She lowered herself to the ground within minutes and released Denali from his harness.
A small shadow moved toward her in the dark, and she was immediately engulfed in Bernie’s hair. Lark hugged her tightly, swaying a little on the spot, as they both drank in the wide-open spaces.
When they broke apart, Denali was pacing and wagging his tail. He seemed surprised and delighted to discover an entire world beyond the prison walls, and Lark felt a sudden pang of sadness. Denali had been born in San Judas, which meant he probably had no idea that the rest of the world existed.
Soren’s feet hit the ground with a soft thud, and Lark looked around to make sure everyone was with them.
She couldn’t believe it. They’d made it over the wall.
“Come on,” said Soren, slapping Finn on the back and starting to move.
But as soon as he spoke, a piercing alarm shattered the silence. It ricocheted off the tall adobe wall, causing Denali to tuck his tail and let out a loud, aggressive bark.
Lark’s heart seized, and every nerve in her body ignited with fear.
“Shit!” yelled one of the guys.
Lark didn’t see who’d spoken. The others were flitting around her in an agitated cluster, unsure which direction to run.
“Drones!” yelled another guy.
Lark let out an involuntary gasp and started to move, reaching behind her for Bernie’s arm. She tilted her head back, frantic and shell-shocked, searching the sky for a miniature aircraft.
The moon had moved behind a cloud, making it impossible to see anything. But then, out of nowhere, she heard a soft whirring, and a pinprick of light appeared.
Someone tackled her from behind, and Lark plowed headlong into the earth. A second later, a blast of fire shot from the sky, incinerating a sage bush inches from where she’d stood.
Lark gasped, frozen with shock, trying to absorb what she’d just witnessed.
People were moving and yelling all around her, and someone yanked her to her feet.
“Run!” choked Soren.
Lark’s body began to move without consulting her brain, and she tripped away from the wall as fast as she could.
Those weren’t just drones circling overhead. They were killing machines armed with explosives, and they were the drones’ targets.
twenty
Soren
Despite the shrill wail of the alarm and the frantic scuffling behind him, the only thing Soren could hear was his own ragged breathing. His sweaty hand was locked on Lark’s wrist, and his mind was spinning.
He thought he’d planned for every eventuality. He’d thought through what it would take to disable the electric fence, how they would get over the outer wall, and how they would escape the grounds once they were free.
He’d planned for everything except killer drones.
Fixing his eyes toward the sky, he saw at least four or five blinking red lights. The drones were circling overhead like robotic birds of prey, scanning the darkness for any sign of movement.
As the alarm reverberated all around them, Soren pushed his legs harder, yanking Lark along behind him. He turned to look over his shoulder for the others, but it was too dark to see anything except a jumble of shadows and the imprint of mountains against the night sky.
Soren’s thighs were burning, and the lower half of his legs felt like floppy sandbags, but he pressed on with the single goal of reaching the administrative campus. Getting their hands on one of the prison-owned vehicles was their only shot at escaping. They’d never outrun the drones on foot, and they’d have twenty minutes at most before the police set up a perimeter.
“Watch out!” yelled Bernie from somewhere behind Soren.
He didn’t look up, and he didn’t stop running. The drones were still circling overhead. He could not stop.
But two seconds later, a great ball of fire shot out of the sky and shook the ground with the force of an earthquake.
“Get down!” Soren yelled, throwing himself into the dirt and pulling Lark down with him.
They hit the ground with a painful skid, and Soren felt a surge of heat as another missile exploded. A flash of light expanded a few yards away, bathing them all in blinding white light.
Dirt, rock, and debris rained down over their heads. Soren dug his bloody fingers into his skull, wincing as white-hot chunks of metal bounced off his hands and arms.
He lay as still as a corpse as the light faded and the drones circled above them. He could hear Lark’s sharp, ragged breaths coming from beside him, but he didn’t know who else was alive.
Finally the whirring faded, and the little pinpricks of light disappeared into the darkness. Soren didn’t know if the attack was over or if the drones had simply zoomed off to report their whereabouts to the prison administrators.
This was all his fault. Soren had never considered that the prison might have drones patrolling the perimeter. Such a thing had never crossed his mind. But he’d led his friends into an ambush, and because of his foolishness, all of them could be dead.
Shaking and panting, Soren forced himself into a standing position and helped Lark to her feet. Most of her face was hidden in darkness, but he could read the terror in her eyes.
“B-Bernie?” she squeaked.
He heard her moving around, desperately searching the darkness for her friend.
“H-here,” came a tiny voice.
Lark let out a noise somewhere between a choke and a sob.
“Axel?” Soren called, shocked by his o
wn scratchy voice.
“Yeah?” Axel sounded as irritated as ever.
Soren’s chest swelled in relief. He and Axel weren’t exactly friends, but at that moment, he’d never been so grateful to hear another person’s voice.
“Simjay?”
There was a heavy sound like a body being dragged from a pit, and Simjay’s feeble voice answered. “I’m okay.”
Soren’s stomach clenched. There was only one person left to call. “F-Finn?”
Nothing.
“Finn?” he repeated, unable to stop his voice from shaking.
Only silence met his call.
“Finn!” Soren yelled, not caring how loud he was being.
Still nothing.
“He’s over here!” called Simjay.
Soren’s stomach did a funny little flop, fear lapping at his insides. Stumbling over a stray rock, he followed the sound of Simjay’s voice until he was sure they were going to collide.
Despite his frenzied state, he couldn’t help but notice that Simjay was making some horrible noises. It sounded as if he were choking on his own tongue.
“Here,” said Soren, his hands shaking as he fiddled with the matches. He knew it wasn’t wise to light a lantern, but he couldn’t help Finn until he saw what they were dealing with.
His fingers felt numb and useless as he tried to light the match. It abruptly went out, so he lit another, but his hands were shaking so badly that he extinguished that one, too.
“No,” said Simjay, sounding very unlike his usual cocky self. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Soren wanted to yell at him to shut up, but he had his hands full dealing with the lantern. Finally a match ignited, and Soren managed to get the flame to the wick.
Light spilled out over the cracked, dusty earth and illuminated Simjay’s dirty, twisted face. He was staring down at Finn with an expression of horror, and as Soren followed his gaze, he felt a stream of vomit burn the back of his throat.
He couldn’t save Finn. Finn was beyond help.
He was lying flat on his back — what was left of it, anyway — staring up at the stars with a slightly glum expression. His chest lay wide open, having been flayed by the missile. His insides were tangled on the outside of his body, and one of his arms had been blown off completely.
Soren swallowed down another surge of vomit.
He couldn’t believe it. Finn was dead — viciously slaughtered with such little effort. It didn’t make sense.
“How did they find us so fast?” Axel rumbled.
Soren didn’t answer. He felt completely numb with shock. Hands shaking, he forced Finn’s eyes closed and snuffed out the lantern.
“Let’s go,” he said in a flat voice.
He couldn’t think about how the drones had found them. He couldn’t think about Finn. If he allowed himself to go down that road, he would get lost in a spiral of guilt that would make the mission seem impossible.
He couldn’t let that happen. He had to carry on. He had to. The others were depending on him, and if they stayed where they were, more drones would come.
They set off toward the administrative building, running as fast as their stiff legs would carry them. Nobody spoke. All they could hear was the shrill wail of the alarm.
After a few minutes, Soren’s eyes detected a ring of blindingly bright light. It lit up the night sky like a football stadium, reducing everything around it to total darkness.
As they drew closer, a stark tan building came into view. From where they stood, it seemed to be constructed from great slabs of sandstone, and Soren knew they had reached the main administrative building.
Judging by the landscaping, the builders had tried to incorporate local desert plants, but the entire complex was situated on a large rectangle of perfectly manicured grass. Little black sprinkler heads protruded every ten yards, and beyond the patch of lawn, the ground was brown and barren.
The sign out in front of the building read “GreenSeed Global Research Division,” and along the back, Soren could see more than a dozen official-looking vehicles. Why the sign read “research division” instead of “correctional facility” was beyond him, but it didn’t really matter.
Finn was dead. Soren had led them into a trap, and he’d probably never see Shep again.
Any minute, the place would be swarming with police. Their best bet would be to hot-wire one of the vehicles, but Soren wasn’t confident that he’d be able to in his current state. He’d only ever gotten a verbal tutorial from Hugo, and his hands were shaking so badly he didn’t think he could tie his shoes.
“I’m going in there,” he said.
Lark shook her head. “That place is huge. You’ll never find them in time.”
Soren shrugged. He couldn’t think about what he would or wouldn’t be able to do. He just had to act. “I need to find the keys to one of these cars so we can get out of here,” he said.
“What we need is to figure out how the hell they were tracking us,” grumbled Axel.
Soren swallowed. Axel was right. For all he knew, the prison administrators could be tracking them at that moment — five little green dots on a map.
“They could have thermal-imaging cameras like they use for border security,” said Simjay.
Soren shook his head. “Can’t be. This place is too close to the highway. They’d be in deep shit if one of their drones shot down a hitchhiker.”
They all fell silent, racking their brains. Then, after a moment, Lark spoke. “It’s the sensors,” she said.
“What?”
“The health sensors they implanted in our arms when we were processed,” she said. “They don’t just track our health . . . They track us.”
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. It made perfect sense.
Simjay let out a noise that sounded like “ah-ha.” Bernie’s eyes grew wide.
Axel turned around, grabbed one of the oversized brick pavers from the landscaping, and hurled it through a first-floor window.
“Jesus!” Soren yelled. “What are you —”
But he didn’t have long to wonder. Axel was knocking away the shards of glass protruding from the window sill. He plucked a particularly sharp-looking sliver from the corner of the frame and dragged it slowly along the inside of his forearm.
Lark, Bernie, and Simjay all sucked in loud hisses of disgust, but Soren watched in silence as a clean line of blood appeared. Axel hadn’t hit a vein, but there still seemed to be a lot of blood as he sliced through his arm and dug a dirty index finger into his flesh.
Axel screwed up his face in concentration as he felt around for the sensor. Bernie looked as though she was about to faint, but a second later, he withdrew his fingers from the bloody mess and held up a small piece of metal.
Bernie let out an audible gag, but Axel paid her no mind as he tossed the sensor onto the window sill and crushed it with the brick paver.
The sensor shattered into a million pieces, and Axel turned to the group. “Who’s next?”
Soren was sure Axel must have triggered a silent alarm when he broke the window, but it hardly mattered now. The police could arrive at any moment. They needed those car keys.
As a very ashen Simjay secured a makeshift bandage around his incision, Soren climbed through the broken window and landed in a hallway lined with charcoal carpeting.
A second later, he heard a thud, and Lark tumbled in through the window behind him.
“We’ll help you look,” she panted, heaving Denali through the window and helping Bernie inside. “It’ll go faster that way.”
Behind the girls, Soren could see Axel and Simjay waiting to climb through the window. He couldn’t believe they were still following him after he’d gotten Finn killed, but he needed the help. Dozens of polished birch doors wound around the hallway, and he had no idea where to begin.
Bernie headed toward what appeared to be a bank of offices while Soren and Lark ducked into a room marked “Supplies.” Lark immediately started tearing through
drawers, and Soren threw open all the cabinets.
Every nook and cranny was filled with relics of another world — once-familiar items that seemed strangely foreign after two years in San Judas. He found dozens of spare printer cartridges, boxes of pens, and stacks of paper plates with the words “Happy Birthday” written on them in cheerful bubble letters.
Undeterred, Lark opened the door to an adjoining room, and Soren followed her inside.
The second he flipped on the light switch, he knew they were in the wrong place. This room was filled with battered file boxes, each labeled with an inmate’s name and number.
He expected Lark to turn around and move on to the next room, but she started pulling boxes off the shelves at random and rifling through them as if she were looking for something.
“Lark!” Soren hissed, jerking his head back toward the hallway.
She ignored him. She was still rummaging through the boxes — opening one, peering inside, and then shoving the box back onto the shelf.
While Lark continued her mystery search, Soren ducked into the adjacent room to look for the keys.
This room was crammed with filing cabinets and spare A/V equipment. To his right was a receiving window with a little desk and a sign-out sheet. Soren flipped on the light to search the area behind the desk, nearly groaning in relief.
Beyond the little window was a board full of keys hanging on tiny brass hooks. Each fob was dangling from a numbered keyring that showed the make and model of the car it belonged to.
Soren didn’t waste any time. He snatched two pairs of keys off the board — one pair belonging to a Toyota 4Runner, and another set that went to a Chevy Suburban.
By the time Soren emerged, Lark and Bernie were moving toward another room, and Axel and Simjay were arguing across the hall. He called out to them and started heading toward the nearest exit.
“You got ’em?” Simjay panted, catching up with Soren.
“Yep.”
Too beaten down to celebrate, they darted around the corner under the glowing green exit sign. The hallway dead-ended at a set of heavy double doors, and Soren heaved them open.
