by Zales, Dima
I attempt to pull it back with both hands, but it’s as though the stick became part of the Guard. My shoulders scream in pain. Before I can even think of something else to try, the Guard rips the weapon from my hands, leaving my palms torn and stinging.
Without saying a word, the Guard breaks the thick piece of wood over his knee and throws the pieces into the nearby bushes.
My heart jumps into my throat, and I back up a few steps.
He follows.
I back away some more, hoping to at least lure him away from Liam.
“Run, Liam,” I yell at my friend—who would have a good head start if he were to run.
Except he doesn’t run. He doesn’t react at all.
I hear that mechanical noise again, and it distracts me for a moment.
When I focus back on the Guard, I see the white-gloved hand flying toward my face—and my world explodes.
13
Owen’s punches were like the brush of a bird’s wing compared to this. This is mind-crushingly painful.
I spit out the tooth that Owen loosened when he hit me. The metallic taste in my mouth is overpowering, and I have difficulty breathing.
My ears are ringing—or is it that noise again?
For some reason, the rage that came over me during my fight with Owen hasn’t returned. All I want to do is double over and fall to the ground, but I know if I do, the Guard will lead Liam away, and that just isn’t happening.
The thought of Liam getting hurt brings colder, more rational anger to the surface.
I straighten, gritting my remaining teeth. Audibly inhaling, I focus on the Guard.
He’s reaching for me with both hands.
I only understand his intent once his hands are locked around my neck, and then I’m suffocating, his fingers cruelly cutting into my windpipe.
I grab at his wrists, trying to pry them away, but they’re as unmovable as oak tree branches.
An unintelligible croak tries to escape my throat but doesn’t make it past the barrier of the fingers choking me. Desperate, I kick at the Guard, but all I get is a burst of pain in my toes.
My vision starts going black, and my struggles grow more frantic.
Suddenly, I hear that mechanical noise again. It’s getting louder—and then, over the Guard’s shoulder, I see a giant lumbering machine.
A mechanical tractor is heading for us, its insect-like headlights seemingly ready to swallow us whole.
Given that I’m about to suffocate to death, getting killed in this novel way shouldn’t matter. It should even seem preferable since it’s a more interesting way to die that will have the added bonus of killing my attacker. But my fight-or-flight response violently disagrees with this logic. My guess is it has something to do with our fear of giant, loud, fast-moving things—a fear that might be programmed into our DNA.
Hearing the same sound, the Guard turns.
White flecks dot my vision as my brain grows increasingly oxygen-deprived. This is my last chance. If I’m right that this fear is universal, the tractor should serve as a sizable distraction.
Gathering every bit of my remaining strength, I kick the Guard in the groin.
I’m not sure if it’s because of my kick or his fear of the oncoming tractor, but he lets go of my neck and jumps aside.
Wheezing, I leap in the opposite direction, toward Liam’s immobile figure.
The tractor swerves toward the Guard and rams into him. I hear a dull thud, followed by a short-lived yelp.
Horrified, I watch as the machine drags him toward the wall of the nearest house. My heart slams against my ribcage as I gulp down frantic breaths to re-oxygenate my brain.
The tractor crashes into the wall with an eardrum-shattering bang.
Dazed, I stare at the site of the collision. It’s hard to tell the extent of the damage. The tractor backs out, and I see the Guard’s legs sticking out from under the rubble.
Is he dead? Bile rises in my throat.
“No, he’s fine.” Phoe’s speaking in my head. “Come on. Get on.”
I turn to look at the tractor and see its rotund driver—Instructor Filomena.
“Who else did you think it was?” Phoe’s tone is snarky.
“I don’t know, Phoe,” I think, unable to bring myself to call her Instructor Filomena. “Thinking was at the bottom of my agenda.”
The tractor door opens, and Instructor Filomena climbs down with surprising agility. “I told you this was a bad idea,” she says in her own voice.
“What, attacking a Guard was a bad idea?” I say out loud. “You don’t say.”
“It’s over now,” she says, glancing at the Guard’s still-pinned legs. “And we really have to hurry.”
Nodding, I take a few steps toward Liam.
Throughout all the commotion, my friend never even turned around.
“Liam,” I say when I reach him. “Liam, what’s wrong with you?”
Instructor Filomena approaches us and waves her hand in front of Liam’s eyes.
“He’s on cloud nine,” she says to me, then turns her attention to him. “Liam, follow me.” She makes a strange gesture, and Liam looks at her with glazed-over eyes.
Apparently satisfied, Instructor Filomena heads toward the tractor.
In a stupor, I watch her get in and help Liam into the cabin.
“What are you waiting for?” she says as Phoe’s voice in my head. “Let’s go.”
“You want me to get into that?” I think.
The tractor door opens again, and Instructor Filomena pokes her head out. “No. I want you to slowly walk to the tower, even after all this,” she says, her nasally voice making Phoe’s usually friendly sarcasm sound kind of mean.
As if to help the Instructor make her point, I see a group of people heading toward us. They must be wondering what all the noise was about.
Self-preservation kicks in, and I hurry toward the tractor, deciding we can always continue our conversation en route.
“Genius,” Phoe says mentally.
Unsure whether she’s being sarcastic, I simply climb into the tractor. Knowing she might read my mind, I try my best to suppress my relief about having Liam between us.
She starts the contraption, and we slowly pull away. She isn’t even trying to stay on a road of any kind. We drive through farmland, destroying fences and gardens, and we gain a funny tail of ropes with dry clothes attached to them.
The people who were walking our way are chasing after us, shouting as they run. I feel anxious just looking at them, so I turn my attention to my friend.
“Liam, dude, snap out of it,” I say, waving my hand in front of his face.
He looks as responsive as a drunk-on-brains zombie.
“I’ve undone what the Guard did to him.” Instructor Filomena briefly looks away from the windshield to glance at me. “Still, Liam needs a few minutes to get back to normal.”
We drive in silence until I see something that makes my pulse jump.
“What are we going to do about that?” I point at a large group of Adults/farmers in our way.
Instructor Filomena doesn’t answer, but her face gets very focused, and she floors the gas pedal like a racecar driver in an ancient movie.
The tractor engine complains loudly, but we begin moving noticeably faster.
To distract myself from my anxiety, I examine Liam. Maybe it’s my adrenaline-infused imagination, but I think there’s more recognition in his gaze than there was even a minute ago.
We get closer to the crowd.
Instructor Filomena presses the middle of her wheel, and the most annoying sound escapes the tractor’s maw.
The crowd ignores the honk.
Instructor Filomena grips the wheel.
“Phoe, err, Instructor Filomena? You’re going to run them over.”
She doesn’t respond, but her knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.
The crowd probably realizes she means business, because they disperse, and not a moment t
oo soon. I swear she would’ve run them over if they hadn’t moved. What was she thinking?
She doesn’t respond to my thought, and I decide against asking the question out loud. My hands are still shaking from the near miss.
We’re halfway to the tower when I see telltale shiny objects in the distance.
I squint, and as we get closer, I know for sure that my eyes aren’t deceiving me. There are at least fifty Guards waiting for us. I didn’t realize we even had that many in Oasis. Until this moment, the most I’d seen in one place was three.
Will Instructor Filomena try to go through them the same way she did with the farmers?
She doesn’t.
She turns the wheel all the way left.
I expect us to violently spin out, but we simply lumber to the left. Perhaps swerving out of control isn’t something tractors can do.
The Guards must’ve registered our change of course, because a couple of them jump into a vehicle that looks like a metallic cube. As they close the distance, I get the eerie impression that a miniature version of the Administrative Building is chasing after us.
On the bright side, we’re getting progressively closer to the tower. On the not-so-bright side, so is the Guards’ cube-shaped car.
Something whizzes past us with a high-pitched whine. A second later, the mirror on my side shatters, peppering the tractor’s window with shards of glass.
“Are they shooting at us?” I’m glad Phoe can’t see me as I ask this, because I’m certain my lips are trembling.
“Liam,” she says, ignoring my question. “Liam, can you hear me?”
Liam gives a half-hearted shrug.
“Liam, sweetie, I need you to run when I say ‘run,’ okay?” Instructor Filomena’s body tenses as she says this.
“Okay,” Liam says in a robotic voice, but he looks as if he isn’t done talking. After an eternity of a pause, he adds, “I’ll run when you say so.”
Another projectile whizzes by.
“It would be such a shame to get shot so close to the tower.” Instructor Filomena bites her puffy lower lip.
She’s right. The tower is close enough that we could sprint for it.
As though she read my mind, Instructor Filomena stops the tractor.
“Nothing ‘as though’ about it,” Phoe’s voice says. “Go,” she adds in Instructor Filomena’s voice.
I blink at her. “Wait a minute—”
“Run,” she shouts at us. “Run now.”
14
My pulse spiking, I swing the door open and jump out, dragging Liam out with me.
Something whooshes by my head.
On instinct, I look back.
The tractor’s engine is roaring once again, and the car with the Guards is approaching fast.
I start running, pulling Liam behind me. Another projectile whines by my ear, and I duck, accidentally letting go of Liam’s arm.
He stumbles but keeps running.
Relieved, I pick up my pace, and after another moment, I sneak another look back.
My heart rate threatens to reach superluminal speeds.
The Guards’ car is no longer heading for us. It turned. They’re following the tractor, which means Phoe’s plan of us separating worked—assuming she actually had a plan. Maybe her plan was to distract the Guards by using us as bait?
“You think so poorly of me.” Phoe’s voice is mock-hurt. “My plan has always been to get you to this tower to disable the Barriers.”
“Why can’t you disable them yourself?” I reach the first metallic staircase of the tower and look back. Liam is a few steps behind me. Though he’s technically running, his gait is so leisurely that it can barely be labeled as a jog.
We’re lucky the Guards aren’t on our heels.
“Disabling the Barriers requires a two-person confirmation sequence,” Phoe says in my mind, “and there isn’t another Adult I can trust with this.”
“Theo?” Liam says, sounding slightly less dazed as he catches up to me.
“Yeah, dude, it’s me,” I say. To Phoe, I say mentally, “Where to now?”
“Go to the first floor and take the elevator,” Phoe says. “Make sure Liam goes with you.”
“Right,” I say as I usher my friend up the stairs to the first floor.
Once we reach the platform, I press the elevator button.
Liam observes me dully and then, with the flattest tone, asks, “So what are we up to?”
“Doing something that could get us into a boatload of trouble,” I say and watch his expression.
His gaze wanders. Had I told him that today is Monday, I would’ve gotten a similar level of excitement. Then again, he’s getting more engaged by the minute.
Closing his eyes, he mumbles, “Oh, okay.”
Okay, relatively more engaged. At least he’s talking.
A ding announces the elevator’s arrival. My eyes widen as the door opens. I’ve only read about these contraptions.
We walk into the elevator. The back of the thing is made of glass. The door slides closed, and I press the only available button.
The elevator begins to rise.
With each foot we ascend, my heart climbs higher in my chest. Through the glass wall, I get an extremely unwelcome view of Oasis shrinking below me.
I hadn’t realized this, but when you don’t like heights, an elevator is a very creative form of torture.
Beginning to feel sick, I tear my gaze away from the glass wall and look at my friend.
Liam is staring at me emotionlessly. I think there’s a spark of something resembling interest again, but maybe it’s my adrenaline making me see what I want to see.
The elevator stops with a loud ding. I scurry out of it, my stomach churning, but find no relief.
If anything, my situation’s worse.
I have a bird’s eye view of the Adult section.
Far below is a small tractor carrying Instructor Filomena. The Guards’ car is much closer to her than it was minutes ago.
“Quick, you two need to begin your task,” Phoe says. “Bring Liam through that corridor.”
Her words snap me out of my height-induced nausea. Glancing at Liam, I say as calmly as I can, “Hey, dude, walk with me.”
“Okay,” he says. He’s noticeably more animated as he follows me. “Where are we?”
As we head down the corridor, I do my best to explain to him what happened, though I leave out the stuff about Phoe. I talk quickly, hitting the most pertinent points. He’s not nearly as shocked by my tale as I would’ve been had our roles been reversed. Clearly, he’s still under the effects of the pacifying crap. And speaking of calm, talking to him has been distracting me from looking through the windows.
“Okay,” he says, his voice almost as chipper as it was earlier this morning. “So what do we have to do?”
“Getting to that part,” I tell him. “I have to learn that myself.”
The corridor ends in a staircase that’s next to a huge window with a stomach-knotting view.
“Open the window,” Phoe says urgently. “I’m running out of time.”
I make an ‘open’ gesture at the window, but nothing happens.
“It’s manual,” Phoe explains. “There should be latches, like they had in ancient times.”
Trying to steady my hands, I flick the latches into the ‘up’ position and pull the window open.
If I hadn’t glimpsed the ground below, the breeze coming from this window would’ve actually felt pleasant. But since I did look down, all I can think about is not embarrassing myself in front of Liam by throwing up or worse; he might be cognizant enough to remember and never let me live it down.
“Do you see that large ledge in front of the window?” Phoe sounds out of breath for some reason.
“Yes.”
“Walk onto it.”
I back away from the window, whispering, “What?”
Phoe lets out an exasperated breath. “It’s a large freaking platform. You’d ha
ve to go out of your way to fall.”
I look at the platform and decide to just go for it. Face my fear and all that. Pressing my elbows to my sides as though I’m trying to make myself smaller, I attempt to climb out.
I say ‘attempt’ because, in reality, I take another step back.
Suddenly, I hear a loud bang come from below. I look down and see that the tractor and the Guards’ car have stopped. There’s smoke coming from the tractor.
“I don’t have much time.” Phoe sounds desperate.
“Tell me what to do once I get up there,” I subvocalize urgently. If I get up there, I think for my own benefit.
“It’s exactly like what you did in the Zoo.” Phoe’s ragged voice sounds like it’s coming from behind Liam. “Do this and they will all see the errors of their ways—” A bang is followed by a hiss, followed by silence.
“Phoe?” I think in panic.
Nothing.
“Phoe, are you okay?” I subvocalize.
Still no response.
“Phoe, what happened?” I whisper desperately.
Another loud bang comes from below. My heart hammering, I glance down.
Darker, more sinister-looking smoke is coming from the tractor, which looks tiny from this distance.
What happened? Did the Guards just blow Phoe up? I can’t think about that right now, not when her last concern was about this task that I have yet to do. I take a step toward the window, take in a breath… and freeze as I see the gaping emptiness below.
“Dude, are you planning to jump?” Liam’s voice startles me. I glance back and see that he’s looking me up and down. “’Cause, please, don’t.”
“Thanks, Liam. You saved my life. I was totally going to jump.” I turn away from him and focus on the platform, staring at it as though I’m trying to hypnotize it.
“No need to be snide,” Liam says, my sarcasm seemingly helping him clear his head. “If you’re not jumping, then what are you doing?”
“I need to get onto this ledge and do a couple of gestures,” I say, turning my attention from the ledge to him.
He bobs his head. “Okay. If that’s all you need to do, then why are you standing there all intense like that?”
