The last few people filed out. Shuska tried to go behind her, but Coryn grinned and gestured her ahead. “After you.”
Shuska hesitated, but she walked through the door before Coryn. Well, good.
Blessing stood at the top of the stairs, directing people to go down. They were leaving the way they’d come in, and bringing every single captive. It hardly seemed like a safe choice, but what other exits were there?
From the back of the line she couldn’t see anything except a mass of heads and shirts bobbing down the stairs in front of her. They filled the stairway with whispers and shuffling feet.
Partway down the second flight of stairs a clog developed, and people stopped going down. Coryn’s heart beat faster. What was happening?
“Up!”
“Up!”
Calls became screams, and Coryn turned, bounding back up the last few steps. She slammed into the door that led outside. She nearly fell through as it flew open.
A long flat roof stretched in front of her, complete with wooden picnic tables and round metal tables with perky red umbrellas. Low lighting threw shadows on the concrete floor. Three people sat at the far end, talking quietly. They barely looked up as Coryn, Shuska, Lou, and Matchiko poured through the door and crossed, making room for others to follow them out. Drones buzzed above them, watching without attacking, probably recording.
Coryn glanced around, frantic for an escape route.
She raced for one edge of the building, Shuska for another. The next roof on her side was too far away to jump to. The big woman called out, “Here.”
Coryn dashed to her. She was hoping for a different roof to get onto but there was no such thing, merely a rusted black metal staircase that looked like it had been meant for decoration. She wanted Lou in front of her, but she also wanted to test the slender steps first. She glanced behind her. The escapees were still filing onto the roof, clustered by the door. Blessing squeezed through the crowd like a seed popped from a grape.
She gestured him over and pointed down. “Does that look safe?”
“Safer than here,” he said. “I’ll test it.” He clambered over the side of the roof and took three or four steps. “I think it’s okay. One at a time, though. Only one at a time.”
A drone buzzed down close to them. A news-bot? “Hurry,” Matchiko spoke from behind her. “We can’t stay here.”
The roof was filling up, and the sky thickening with tiny drones.
Lou leaned over the roof beside Coryn and looked down with her. Clever outdoor lights illuminated a neat lawn below them, and a few smaller lights threw light on the metal stairs. Blessing stood at the bottom, frantically waving them down.
Coryn touched her shoulder. “You next. Go.”
Lou’s lips thinned. “You’re the little sister.”
“Go. I’ll be right behind you.”
Lou stared at her, a look of mild disbelief on her face. She still looked shell-shocked, so Coryn leaned into her and practically shouted. “Don’t waste time. Go. I’ll be right after Matchiko.”
Lou nodded and went, moving fast. She made a small jump at the end to land beside Blessing. Matchiko followed, coming down as fast but more gracefully.
Coryn glanced around. Some of the other escapees were on the other side of the roof, with Day and LeeAnne. Day noticed her and waved at her, gesturing for her to go over the side. Clearly he knew the ladder was there. He probably knew exactly where Blessing stood. She reached for the railing. The metal creaked and shivered under her hands, but it stayed stuck to the brick.
“Come on,” Blessing called.
She went, her heart pounding. The narrow stairs shuddered under her feet and the wall felt close and rough. She jumped off at the bottom and stumbled, the ground harder than she had expected. Blessing caught her, folded her in his arms, and whispered, “Good.”
She smiled. “What happened? Why did we have to go up?”
He shook his head. “I never got close enough to see. I think Day opened the door and didn’t like what he saw. He ordered us all back up but he didn’t tell me why. There was no time.”
“Are we safe here?”
“Probably not.”
She glanced up. Shuska was lowering her right leg carefully over the edge of the roof. “She’s too heavy,” Coryn whispered.
Blessing hugged her tight, looking up. “Maybe she should wait.”
“I’ve never seen her more than a few inches away from Lou and Matchiko.”
Shuska rested with both feet over the edge, most of her weight on the stair, her belly to the wall, and her long dark hair blowing in a slight wind.
Three news-bots swarmed her.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Coryn held her breath as Shuska hesitated at the top. In the near dark, it was hard to see her expression. If only she’d step back over, stay up there, and Coryn and Lou could go with Blessing. Now that there were news-bots, surely anyone on the roof would be safe enough. But Shuska pushed the rest of the way free from the roof and started down.
The metal staircase shivered and creaked, but it held.
Two drones flew at Shuska, buzzing her head. She swatted one and the other got away.
A news drone hung out of reach, and Shuska glanced at it from time to time as she minced carefully down, a big woman on a small stair, hugging the brick wall with her side and looking down at Lou with a fixed expression on her flat face.
A loud screech drew Coryn’s gaze up to the top. Drones pounded the roof. Two more came whipping down toward Shuska, who had made it to the midway point, partway down the middle story, fifteen or twenty feet above their heads. Shuska slapped at the closest drone, overbalancing. The stairs visibly separated from the wall.
The metal and Shuska both moaned.
One of the drones thudded into the big woman’s back and she stepped faster, faster.
The stair began to fall toward them. Shuska turned, staring down at them, eyes wide, tensing.
“Run!” Blessing screamed at Coryn.
She ducked her head and ran, Lou beside her, Blessing right behind, with Matchiko on his far side.
They turned as soon as they were clear. Shuska rolled across the grass toward them, clear of the stair. She must have jumped. Her cheek had a bleeding cut on it, but she moved well. “Go!” she called out.
Two drones followed her.
Coryn looked around. No one gave them immediate chase. She couldn’t see the street from here. “What about the other people? The ones on the roof?”
“Day and LeeAnne have it.” Blessing hissed. “Now we stay safe.” He pointed. “That way.”
He took off toward a hedge that delineated the property line, and she and Lou and Matchiko followed, Shuska behind them.
The hedge turned out to be juniper, or something equally prickly, the trunks close-set and the thin limbs tangled together. They squeezed through, branches grabbing at Coryn’s hair. At least the hedge forced the drones up and over.
They emerged on a narrow, quiet street. Blessing hesitated a moment and then shifted to a fast walk like he had a plan. He led them across the street, still dogged by three drones, then two, then one. “Why did they leave?” Coryn asked.
“Remember, our people are busy convincing them that we’re no threat.”
Lou interrupted. “Blessing? You convinced news-bots that we’re no threat while we’re cutting through hedges?”
Coryn had started taking the superpowers of the rich and famous for granted. And Lou didn’t know Blessing was more than he had seemed Outside. There hadn’t been any time to talk. Since there probably was no good answer to Lou’s question, she tapped Blessing’s shoulder. “Is Day okay?”
“Almost certainly.” He jerked a thumb behind them. It was almost completely dark, but the shapes she saw were intimately familiar from the trip up the PV bridge. Three of Julianna’s big drones that had provided cover then now hovered over the house. A hovercraft rose up between them.
“So we didn’t need to
climb down?”
He shrugged and grinned. “How was I to know? Besides, if they go one way, it will be easier for us to hide as we go another way.”
Shuska caught up with them. “Where are you taking us?”
“Back Outside, if we’re lucky,” Blessing told her.
“What about Aspen?” Coryn asked.
“It will be okay.”
She didn’t know whether or not to believe him. She dropped back to the end of the line and walked behind Lou. This was what mattered most. She realized she had fallen back into the habit of counting on Shuska to be an effective sweep.
Bright pops of rifle fire still startled her from time to time.
Blessing led them to a thin ribbon of park that ran beside the river. She could see the other side of Portland and, to the north, the graceful curve of the PV bridge. An old double-decker bridge crossed the river close to them. Blessing took a path that led them to the bottom deck, which was less than a full bridge and more like a wide path for walkers and bikes. The water below was inky-black, but low lights illuminated the bridge well enough for them to walk across it.
At the other end of the bridge, they followed Blessing down a thin staircase that descended in tight switchbacks. It ended at an empty dock that rocked quietly in the dark. So much had happened it seemed like it should be dawn, but the sky was still dark above them, the winking lights of drones brighter than the stars. The argument about whether or not Coryn had betrayed Lou still hung thick between them all.
“Now what?” Matchiko asked, her voice thin.
A streetlight let Coryn see the bright sparkle in Blessing’s eyes as he pointed. The river began a broad, slow curve, and, coming into view, the bright white lights of a boat slid silently toward them. The craft pulled up beside the dock, sloshing water over their feet as it stopped with a slight jerk.
A woman driver sat in the back, her face obscured by a cloth and a hood pulled up over her head. When she looked at them, Coryn recognized Eloise. Of course she was more than a kitchen servant. If Coryn wasn’t very careful, she was going to become something else herself. Or maybe that was already happened. She waved to Eloise and hurried to the side of the boat.
Blessing directed Shuska to the front seat, Coryn and Lou to the back two seats closest to Eloise, and put Matchiko and himself in the middle. He stood, his head almost scraping the low canvas roof. The seating separated her and Lou from Shuska. Shuska sat with her legs straight in front of her, her arms crossed over her chest, and glared at Coryn.
“Is Day all right?” Blessing asked Eloise. “LeeAnne?”
“Yes. One of the women you freed fell and twisted an ankle, and one took a drone shot in the shoulder. She’s already getting medical care. Everyone else is fine now. They’re sitting in a park, surrounded by news-bots.”
“Is anyone likely to follow us?” Matchiko asked.
“Not if we leave. The city rejects what it doesn’t want. But it would draw attention if we stayed.”
“Why are you helping us?” Shuska narrowed her eyes at Eloise. “Who do you work for?”
Eloise kept her composure in the face of the Shuska’s challenge. Her faint smile fit her willowy looks, and would have been natural at a garden party. “Someone who befriended your sister.”
Lou turned in her seat to stare at Coryn. “You didn’t tell me you had rich friends.”
Coryn stared at Lou, searching for words, looking from the boat to the bridge above them, and finally at Eloise. “I don’t think I really knew until this happened.” She glanced at Shuska. “I really can’t talk about it now.”
Eloise’s eyes narrowed, a sign that perhaps that wasn’t the best answer. Coryn glanced at Blessing, who had the same warning in his eyes. But then she’d always known not to talk about Julianna. Instinct like breath.
Maybe it was time for a new subject. They had gotten underway, and the boat rocked gently as it cut a sharp path through the nearly still water. Coryn was still groping for meaning. “What about the hackers? Isn’t the city under attack?”
“That’s why I’m taking you out of it.”
“What about Aspen?”
Eloise looked pained. “You’ll see him again.”
Maybe rich friends took away choices as well as gave them. She settled into her seat as they turned up the Columbia. The east side of Portland sped by on their right, Vancouver on their left, and in front of them just the wide, slow river.
She no longer had her robot. She might not ever see her dog again. But at least she had her sister.
For right now, it would do.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Eloise pulled the boat opposite the Camas gate, stopped at the side of an empty dock, and looped a single line around it to keep them fast. Across the river, the red and blue lights of emergency vehicles filled at least half a mile of road, and Coryn could make out figures darting in and out of the various bobbing and still lights. Ambulances left. Ambulances came. At least one ecobot still rested on its side, completely still.
People screamed from time to time, wails of anguish floating across the river and making Coryn shiver.
Lou leaned toward Eloise. “Can you drop us just on the other side of the dome? We’ll want to get our horses.”
Eloise ignored her question. “We need to talk.”
“We need our horses.”
Blessing’s position near the middle of the boat let him speak to everyone without raising his voice. “Your old job won’t be there anymore. You might not even get to keep your identities, or at least you might not want to.”
“You can’t hide me,” Shuska said. “Once people see me, they remember.”
Coryn couldn’t take her eyes off of the light show around the gate. “I was afraid it was going to be like this when we came in, that we’d be part of killing people. It almost made me sick. But we didn’t do this. I want to know who did.”
Shuska looked sad as she said, “Perhaps the city needs some pain. It needs to wake.”
Two more ambulances arrived and one more took off, the noise causing a delay in the conversation on the boat. Coryn stared at Shuska until the sound died down. “Do you know who is doing this?”
“Of course not.”
Coryn glanced back at Eloise, who seemed to be waiting for them to calm down. “Is it the foundations?”
Eloise whispered, her voice barely audible over the susurration of the waves against the boat and the sirens across the river. “I doubt it’s that simple. It appears that many previously disparate forces have chosen to work together.”
“Will the city be okay?” Coryn asked.
Eloise stared over all of their heads, watching the activity at the gate. “The city is always okay.”
Coryn wasn’t at all sure the look in her eyes matched her words. “What did you want to talk about?”
Eloise spoke quietly. “You have to make some choices. I can pull forward, through the dome, and let you all out. You’ll be on the wrong side of the river, but the Washington side’s not safe for you right now. You can cross back at one of the bridges, maybe near The Dalles, maybe the Bridge of the Gods. You can take your chances on your old jobs, but I agree with Blessing that your chances are not good.”
Shuska leaned in toward Eloise, putting physical pressure on Blessing and Matchiko, who sat just in front of her. “Who are you and why should we listen to you?”
Eloise leaned toward Shuska, smiling as if she were speaking to a child. “I’m Eloise, and I’m helping you right now. If you challenge me, I’ll make sure we don’t get through the dome, and you’ll end up back where you were, or someplace worse.”
“Where are the others?” Lou asked.
Eloise shrugged. “Other people are helping the ones who were held with you. I expect the distractions—” She nodded toward the Camas Gate “—will allow most of them to get away. But we’re wasting time. Either I let you off on the far side of the dome, and you can fend for yourselves, or I can get you to Seacouver, where y
ou can keep working on this and maybe expose the worst of the foundations from inside.”
Shuska turned her attention from Eloise to Coryn, glaring at her.
Coryn blinked, surprised. They’d get her back into the city? They could do that? As herself?
Did she want to go?
Blessing leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I’ll go with you.”
Coryn ignored him, watching Lou closely.
“What could we possibly do in the city?” Lou asked.
Eloise answered her. “We know a lot. There’s the analytics of the attack.” She pointed toward the Camas Gate. “There’s what we found on Coryn’s wristlet, and far better computing in the city to study it with. There are other people who might help us.”
Blessing grinned, using his usual quiet look that suggested it would all be okay. Then he shrugged. “What can we do Outside, anyway, especially now?”
Lou looked down at the ground, avoiding Shuska’s gaze, and Coryn’s as well.
This indecisive woman wasn’t like the sister Coryn had known in the city, and even less like the sister she had known Outside. Maybe Lou needed a PTSD pill, although it was unlikely they had such a thing handy here. Coryn took her hand, and Lou tilted her face sideways to look at her. “I want you to come with me,” Coryn said, realizing that she knew her own choice. “I want to help the wild. I see why you love it. Right now, I can do that from Inside more than Outside.”
Matchiko spoke up. “I’m not going Inside. Not ever. I want to go back to the ranch. If they won’t take us, one of the other ranches will. We have skills.”
Shuska grunted. “That’s right. Me, too.” She stared at the back of Lou’s head, since Lou still refused to look up at her.
Blessing grinned, perhaps having decided yet again that it might be a good day to die. At any rate, he waded right back in. “Look, it’s hard to get in. It’s not hard to get out. Let’s go in and see what we can do.”
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