by Joe Hart
Zoey stands, watching his body for movement as she sucks in air over and over, and it has never tasted so sweet. The hot wetness of Carter’s blood is cooling and the clamminess of it seeps through to her skin. She finds she’s still holding the pistol and that its front sight is hooked on her pants. She frees it and stares at the corpse for a long second as Vivian begins to moan.
Zoey moves forward and kneels by Carter’s side even as her head tries to float away in a swarm of dizziness. She pulls the dead man over so that he lies on his back and drags his arm out straight. Standing, she centers herself over his arm, brings her leg up, and smashes her foot down on his hand.
There is a soft crunch of bone. She resets herself and slams her heel down again.
And again.
The lump of Carter’s hand softens more each time. She stomps five, seven, nine times, and stops. She bends down and tries not to focus too much on the pulped, bleeding thing that used to be an appendage. Zoey grasps the bracelet around Carter’s wrist and works it down over the softened mess at the end of his arm. It comes off easily.
Vivian stirs again at the end of the cell. Some of Carter’s blood has run toward her in a dark pool and is soaking into her slacks. Zoey retrieves the prod and gives the waking doctor a final look before stepping into the hallway and slamming the door.
The corridor is still empty. Carter mustn’t have called anyone before finding them in the cell. The slick weight of her clothes stuck to her skin makes her gorge rise. She looks down and sees that the few steps she’s taken into the hallway are marked by bloody footprints. If someone happens upon the hallway now all they’ll need to do is follow her trail.
Zoey moves down the corridor, passing dozens of other cells, all of which are deathly quiet. She approaches the steel door at the end of the hall and stops, risking a quick look through the narrow pane of glass set in its side.
Beyond the barrier lies another short hall marked by only four doors. Past them is a set of wide stairs that rise to a landing before turning out of sight.
The way to the roof.
Zoey scans Assistant Carter’s bracelet and pulls the door open. The short hallway smells different than any other she’s been in. It’s a fresh scent, one of rain and outdoors as well as something else. A flowery odor mingled with cooked meat hangs in the air like someone has just prepared a delicious meal nearby.
She lets the door swing shut without a sound behind her and moves on to the first room. The door has a small, square window barely five inches across set in its center. Inside is a space slightly larger than the cell she left Vivian and Carter in. There is a narrow, plain bed as well as a toilet and a bedside table with a single drawer, but there is no occupant. She moves quickly across the hall, performing the same search of the next room, and freezes.
Terra lies on her side in the center of the bed within the cell.
Her long, blonde hair is ratty and unkempt, its shine long since departed. Large, dark bags hang beneath both her eyes, and she’s wearing a shapeless, teal smock that comes down to her ankles. Her feet are bare.
Zoey almost says her name out loud but catches herself. Instead she scans the bracelet and the door opens. She steps inside but Terra doesn’t so much as twitch.
“Terra,” Zoey whispers, her bruised vocal cords protesting their use. The older woman lies completely still, so still Zoey wonders if she’s dead. She shoots a look into the quiet hall before hurrying to the bed’s side. “Terra, look at me,” she croaks, shaking her shoulder. Terra jostles with the movement, and slowly her eyes drift to Zoey’s face. They are unfocused and dim—the dark, flashing intelligence Zoey knows so well, gone.
“Zoey?” Terra says. She speaks as if in a dream, and Zoey realizes in a heartbeat what’s wrong.
“They drugged you, didn’t they?”
“What are you d-doing here?”
“I’m getting you out. You have to get up.”
“Can’t, too tired.”
“Come on.” Zoey conceals the pistol in the pocket of her blood-soaked pants, grasps Terra’s limp arm, and pulls her upright on the bed. “We don’t have much time. We have to go.”
“There’s nowhere to go,” Terra mumbles, but her voice sounds steadier, more there. Zoey hauls the other woman to her feet and stabilizes her until her balance takes over.
“Can you walk?”
“I—I think so.”
“Let’s go then.”
“Why are you all bloody?”
“Terra, we don’t have time for this. We need to leave.”
“We can’t get out. It doesn’t matter anyway. You were right, Zoey, right all along. Our parents aren’t here. They never were.”
The poisonous suspicion had always stalked at the edge of her thoughts, and seeing the empty cells in the prior hallway only strengthened her wariness. But hearing the certainty in Terra’s voice brings the horrible doubt into reality. And beyond that the implications are too immense to fathom. If NOA was lying all this time about their parents, what else was being kept from them?
Zoey nods numbly. “Okay. Okay, we need to keep moving.”
Terra shakes her head as if trying to clear it. “Don’t you get it? We’re alone, Zoey. We’ve always been alone. They lied to us.”
“I know. But we can change things now. You and I.” She grabs the other woman’s arm and tries to guide her into the hall, but Terra pulls away, swaying in place.
Terra blinks and swallows, her gaze going hazy again. “There’s no safe zone. The woman doctor told me. There’s only this. They’re using us. Trying to find the keystone.”
A chill courses down Zoey’s back. “What do you mean?”
“We’re just experiments, Zoey. They’re trying to breed a female baby. That’s all we’re here for. They raise us up and lie to us about a safe haven, then they bring us here when we’re old enough and . . .” She loses her voice for a moment. “. . . experiment to see if we can have girls or not.”
The creeping horror of Terra’s words tears Zoey’s breath away. No safe zone. Just test animals. Being used.
“If there’s no safe zone, where are all the other women?” But she already knows the answer. She can feel it deep in the marrow of her bones. It is the black whisper that has been there for years, telling her the acidic truth.
“They’re dead. They’re all dead. They kill them if they can’t have a girl. They need the keystone.” Terra’s voice drifts again as she says the last words.
“What’s the keystone?” Zoey hears herself say.
“I don’t know. I’ve heard them say it over and over. They’re looking for it. They need it.”
Zoey comes out of the daze and bites down hard on her lower lip. The pain clarifies everything around her. “Come on. We’re going.” She hands Terra the prod after turning the setting back to full power. “You know how to use this, right?” Terra stares at the weapon as if she’s never seen one before but finally nods. “Good. We see anyone, you use that, okay? Let’s go.”
Zoey leads the way out and hurries down the hall, pausing every few steps to make sure Terra is following. Her friend wobbles as she walks, but with each stride she becomes more sure-footed.
They come even with the last door before the stairs, and Zoey pauses. There is something different about the door. It is wider for one, and for another there is a keypad below the scanning device to the side of the jamb. She moves to it, placing her hand against the cold steel.
“The Director’s quarters,” Terra murmurs. “I saw him go inside one day when they were bringing me back to my room.” Zoey scans Carter’s bracelet, and the number pad glows bright. She pushes four random numbers, and the display above the pad turns red and emits a quick buzz before quieting. “What are you doing?” Terra hisses.
“I’m going to kill him,” Zoey says.
“You need a code.”
“I know.” She punches in another set of numbers, and the pad’s crimson tone brightens. “It’s going to trigger an alarm,�
�� she says almost to herself. So close. She can see the Director’s handsome face just beyond the sights of the gun, feel the trigger squeezing beneath her finger.
She steps away from the door and motions to the stairs. “Come on.”
They climb the stairwell and stop on the landing to peer around the corner. There are another four stairs and a door blocking the way, all lit by a glowing alarm handle set in the wall. A large window is mounted in the upper half of the door and stars blaze in countless clusters of light beyond the glass, their glow almost too beautiful to look at. Zoey jogs up the last set of stairs and waits for Terra to join her.
Beyond the window is the roof. Several lights affixed to steel poles illuminate the ARC’s top. Its expanse is flat save for the occasional bulk of unidentifiable equipment. Fifty yards away the two black helicopters wait like silent birds of prey. Beyond the aircraft the bridge ascends to the outer wall that rises above the ARC’s roof by at least forty feet. She spots a single sniper in his perch with his back facing the roof, a dozen paces from where the bridge meets the wall.
They will have to be fast.
Zoey unlocks the door before turning to Terra, the other woman just an outline beside her in the shadowy stairway. “Okay. This is what we’re going to do.” She explains the plan without stopping as Terra’s eyes widen. When she’s finished, Terra drops her gaze, turning the prod with delicate fingers.
“I can’t go with you,” Terra says.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you they tested on me to try to make a girl baby. They’re keeping me until they know if it worked.”
Zoey shakes her head. “I don’t get it. That’s all the more reason to come. We’re going to escape, Terra. When we’re free they can’t hurt you or your baby.”
“You don’t understand,” Terra says, and now Zoey can see tears glistening in the corners of her eyes.
“What—” Zoey begins to say, before she can finish the question, Terra turns and pulls the alarm lever, sending a shrilling electronic shriek out of every speaker in the ARC.
“Go!” Terra yells, shoving Zoey out the door. She says something else, but Zoey can’t hear it over the alarm, she only sees Terra’s mouth form the words before she spins away and rushes in the direction of the bridge. They play on an endless loop in her mind as she runs.
You were always the strong one.
16
Yells fill the night and blend with the keening of alarms.
Flashes of high-powered lights sweep the darkness away, though it rushes in again as soon as they pass. Zoey tastes metal, the tang of fear mixed with adrenaline. She smells old grease and dried sweat. Her heart slams inside her chest and she regrips the gun, terrified that she’ll drop it. After what seems like an eternity, the alarms stop and she can hear a familiar voice yelling something. The voice is punctuated with sobs. It’s repeating the same thing, and she can just make out the words over the low hum of wind that buffets the ARC.
“She jumped over the side! She jumped over the side!”
Zoey closes her eyes, waiting for what she knows will come now that Terra has done her part. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But nothing has gone how she planned. She tries to calm herself, empty her mind of everything save for what she must do.
Other yells now, echoing off the walls. Men calling out to one another.
“Can you see her?”
“No, nothing!”
“How did she get past you?”
“She didn’t, couldn’t have.”
“Then where the hell is she?”
“Shut the auto-guns off, they’ll tear her apart if they track her movement!”
Zoey listens, the talk doing nothing to soothe her anxiety. The fear is a solid tumor inside her. She is beyond reckoning now, beyond punishment. She has disobeyed, maimed, killed. There is only one direction for her, and that is forward, no matter the cost.
Heavy boot steps hammer the ground closer and closer. They’re going to see her, they’re going to drag her, kicking and screaming, back inside the ARC. They’ll put her in the box for a week before they execute her. The footfalls stop only feet away, and a voice begins to speak. Her bladder nearly releases.
“Use infrared and the tranqs,” Reaper says. “She can’t have gotten far. Go downstream. Radio contact the whole way. Do not injure her if at all possible.”
“Yes, sir!”
There is the creak of metal, and then two slams that vibrate through her palms. She risks a glance to her right and sees polished boots three feet away. They shift and step out of view. Something heavy bangs down near her, and she bites hard on her first knuckle to keep from crying out. There are several snaps and clicks before a high, whining sound begins to fill the air. Steel pulses beneath her body and she readjusts herself, trying to rotate farther onto her side. The whining increases to a pitched scream that punishes her eardrums. She resists the urge to plug her ears and brings the handgun close to her face. She can smell the cordite and oil of the weapon and focuses on it as a deep howl rises above the whine.
Wait. I have to wait until the perfect moment.
There is a shudder all around her, and her stomach lurches as the helicopter leaves the roof and becomes airborne.
Zoey slides to the farthest end of the steel bench she’s hiding under, inching along because there is barely any room to crawl, even for someone her size. A garble of conversation erupts in the cockpit but no words are clear over the chuff of the rotors. Night air courses through the helicopter and she realizes they’ve left one of the large sliding doors open. She slides another foot and stops, her head and shoulders protruding from beneath the bench.
She is near the very rear of the helicopter beside several locked panels and a medical gurney that is strapped to the sidewall. The entire aircraft rattles and pitches as the pilot makes a turn. There is one Redeye standing at the open doorway, gazing out into the night. Another sits opposite him in a foldout seat, a rifle propped across his thighs. The pilot guides the helicopter alone, the chair beside him empty. She is about to wriggle completely free of her hiding place when the sight outside the open door freezes her.
They have risen high above the walls and she sees past them for the first time in her life.
An enormous concrete structure sits a quarter mile from the ARC, its wall-like appearance in contrast with the compound’s round shape. It is slanted upward at an angle, its ends built into the surrounding landscape. A bridge runs its entire length that she judges must be at least a mile long, and water sheets down its front in milky translucence fueled by the moon’s light. It is a dam, she realizes, one so much larger than those she’s read about in the NOA textbook that she can barely conceive it. The rushing sound they always thought was wind wasn’t air at all, but water cascading over the spillway.
The helicopter banks, and she receives another angle of the ARC, surrounded by a wide river flowing below the dam. Suggestions of buildings stud the banks, their forms only darker shadows on the land. Rough hills grow above the shores and continue to rise into rounded peaks in the distance, but the sight beyond the dam is what makes her temporarily forget where she is.
A body of water extends out in a massive sprawl that defies her idea of space. The amount of it is staggering and her eyesight shimmers simply from looking at it. The moon reflects in a broad channel of light on its surface, which fades to an inky darkness near the banks of the reservoir.
She isn’t prepared for the sight. She reels with it. The hugeness of the world is blinding.
The helicopter turns a last time, giving her a final look at the ARC hundreds of feet below, its bowl shape lit by countless lights, the figures gathered on the roof like slow-moving insects.
The aircraft drops in a pocket of air, and the thud of the rotors consumes all else in the cabin. Zoey comes back to herself, realigning with what she must do. She slides soundlessly out from beneath the bench, keeping tight to the wall and floor. The Redeyes’ focus is outside the
cabin, their goggles centered on the passing river and land beneath.
Zoey crouches low, gathering strength in her legs though they feel distinctly separate from her.
She aims the pistol at the Redeye leaning out of the open door.
Slowly squeezes the trigger.
Squeezes.
The Redeye turns his head toward her in the instant that she fires, his goggles flaring with bloody light in the muzzle flash.
The recoil surprises her and she blinks at the noise. The shot takes the soldier in the center of the chest as he struggles to draw his sidearm from its holster. He topples sideways into open air as the helicopter slews, and a cable attached to a harness around his torso snaps tight, leading to a ring in the ceiling, as he disappears with a short cry.
Yells erupt in a cacophony of sound, the motors screaming to meet the pilot’s sudden demands.
Zoey stays low, managing to keep her balance, and turns the gun on the next Redeye, who is bringing up his rifle. He should have her dead to rights, but the angle at which he’s belted to his seat is wrong, and in the second that it takes him to readjust his position, Zoey fires again.
The bullet sings through his left shoulder and travels up his neck. Blood splashes the wall behind him, and he slackens against his restraints, his rifle spinning and sending off a chatter of bullets.
Ricochets blaze by her, their hot passage splitting the air beside her face. The pilot screams incoherently and the helicopter rips to one side. Zoey tumbles onto her shoulder, then to her belly as the aircraft stabilizes. She’s got to get to the pilot, force him to fly her far away.
She makes it to her feet and sees the pilot struggling within his seat by the light of the controls. The side of his jumpsuit that’s visible to her glistens with blood, and there is a patch of darkness above his right kneecap that is growing with each second. She rushes forward, grasping a protruding handle beside her as the pilot glances over his shoulder.
With a spastic jerk, he tips the helicopter hard to the left, and she feels herself thrown toward the open door and the ground a hundred feet below. Her grip on the handle tightens, the metal in her hand slick.
