by Anne Tibbets
It felt good to be sitting.
Ric shifted his feet underneath him and grunted again.
The soldier across from me looked to another. “Go ahead.”
The second soldier propped his goggles up off his eyes and onto his helmet and smiled at the other soldier with obvious excitement. He was young and light-skinned, with dark eyes, and no older than me. He stood, reached under his metal bench and pulled a square box from underneath. He slid it across the floor with his boot so it landed at our feet, then he stood and crouched before it.
It was a first aid kit, but none like I’d seen before.
He started with Ric.
First he slipped on rubber gloves, then he used a pen laser to cut off the leg of Ric’s pants. Flicking a switch on the laser, he used it again to cauterize the wound.
Ric flinched but said nothing. I took his hands in both of mine, and the dark-skinned soldier across from me raised an eyebrow.
The medical officer tapped another button on the laser with his thumb, and he ran it lengthwise across Ric’s wound. As he did, the flesh closed shut, leaving the tiniest scar. The leg looked unscathed.
I gasped.
The soldier across from me chuckled.
I wanted to glare at him for laughing at me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Ric’s leg. By the time the medical soldier flicked another switch, then pressed it into Ric’s leg, Ric had stopped squeezing my hands and let go, reaching down to touch the skin where his wound had been not moments before.
“How did you do that? What is that thing?” Ric gasped.
The medical officer smiled but didn’t answer. He gathered up the first aid kit and moved over to my arm. He performed the same procedure on me, on both the entrance and exit wounds, then when he pressed my arm with the end of the laser and it hissed, every ounce of pain my body had been feeling vanished.
In an instant, I felt refreshed, awake and ready to run a mile without stopping. I was no longer thirsty, or hungry, and my arm felt as if I’d never been shot at all.
I pointed at the laser. “Let me see that.”
The officer shook his head. “Sorry. No can do, ma’am.” He put away the first aid kit, snapped off his gloves and slid the box back under his bench.
The soldier across from me extended his hand, and I shook it. “The name’s Trev. It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
“Thank you. I’m Natalia Grey, and this is Ben—”
Trev pursed his lips and interrupted me. “No need for that. We’ll save the Q and A for your debriefing.”
Debriefing? I didn’t like the sound of that. “You said before there were others,” I said. “How many people have you found? Were there a lot? Did you find any children?”
Trev’s grin faded. “Can’t tell you that, either, I’m afraid.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. The last thing I wanted was to give away personal information. I didn’t know if we were in good hands or not. But at the thought of my little girls out in that forest, alone with Shirel, I couldn’t keep the tears from flooding my eyes. I bit my lip and looked out the window, trying to hide my face. Although I was fairly sure Trev had seen the whole thing.
“Where are you taking us?” Ric asked, cutting to the chase.
“To Flora City,” Trev said.
“Where’s that?”
Trev threw a thumb over his shoulder. “That way.”
Not much of an answer.
What was Flora City? Was it walled like Auberge? Before I had the opportunity to ask, a beeping noise erupted from the medical officer to my left.
He clicked a switch on his helmet. “Go for Jem.”
The speaker on his helmet responded with that same gruff voice from before. “Confirm blood samples from last two subjects.”
Jem and Trev exchanged glances, then the medical officer pulled out the laser from the first aid kit and snapped a few buttons on its side.
His helmet beeped again. “Stand by,” it squawked.
“What’s that about?” I asked.
Jem didn’t answer me but kept his face down in the laser, watching the blinking sensors.
Trev cleared his throat. “Seems you two are flagged.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s an issue with your blood.”
I felt my face drain of color.
The inoculation. I exchanged looks with Ric, but his expression told me to keep quiet.
Trev watched the exchange. “Something you want to tell me?”
“Tell you?” I squeaked.
“No,” Ric answered at the same time.
Trev raised an eyebrow.
The medical officer’s helmet beeped again, he clicked the switch. “Go for Jem.”
“Please confirm identities of last two medical subjects,” the helmet said.
Jem and Trev and the other two soldiers all turned to stare at us.
“What did you say your names were again?” Trev asked.
“Natalia Grey and Ben Davenport,” I answered, giving him our fake names.
Jem repeated the names into his helmet.
“Stand by,” the speaker answered. After a minute or two, which felt an eternity, the speaker beeped again. “Negative identity confirmation. Escort subjects to Prison Block Oak for questioning.”
“No!” Ric blurted.
The medical officer touched the speaker on his helmet. “Roger that.”
“You sure there isn’t something you want to tell me?” Trev asked again, this time without a trace of humor on his dark face.
I exchanged looks with Ric, and he shrugged.
He didn’t know any better than I what would happen if we told them our true identities. I wasn’t even sure how they’d figured out they were fake, but I also wasn’t sure that it mattered. Inside Auberge, we were wanted fugitives and yet again, even on the outside, we were still headed to prison.
“My name is Naya,” I confessed.
Trev’s eyes shot wide.
“And this is Ric Bennett.”
I looked over at the medical officer and saw Jem’s eyes were large, as well. It filled me with dread. He appeared genuinely floored.
This had to be bad. They looked as if they recognized the names, but how could they?
“Jem,” Trev said carefully, “screen their blood sample.”
Jem nodded, pushing a couple of buttons on the medical laser. After a few clicks, the tip glowed red. Every last one of the soldiers in the van dropped their mouths open.
“Confirmation,” Jem said in awe.
“Holy shit,” one of the other guards breathed, staring at Ric and me as though we were a foreign species.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Call it in,” Trev ordered Jem.
The medical officer reached up onto his helmet and with shaking fingers clicked the speaker. “Home base, we have living samples aboard.”
The speaker squealed to life. Even the gruff voice over the intercom sounded shocked. “Say again?”
“We have living samples aboard,” Jem repeated.
“Confirm identities Ben Davenport and Natalia Grey?” the speaker asked.
“Negative,” Jem answered. “Identities Ric Bennett and Naya.”
There was a pause. Everyone in the vehicle waited in complete silence.
“Alone?” the speaker finally asked.
“Yes.”
For some strange reason, Trev, Jem and the two other guards were smiling, large and toothy. They beamed with happiness.
The speaker on Jem’s helmet spoke again. “Cancel previous travel orders. Bring them to base. Congratulations, boys.”
With an eruption of cheering, the soldiers
inside the vehicle jumped to their feet and slapped each other’s palms, whooping and hollering as if they’d just found a treasure trove.
Ric and I sat on the bench in complete confusion.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked him.
Ric shook his head. “You got me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Once the soldiers had stopped their celebration, they each took a turn shaking our hands and slapping us on the back as though we were old pals.
Weird.
Finally, after the uproar had died down, they assumed their positions back on the benches and sat there with idiot grins on their faces.
“Does someone want to explain to me what just happened?” I asked.
Trev smiled at me. “You’re the ones who burned down the server room a year and a half ago, right?”
My face fell. “How do you know about that?”
“And you blasted through the wall yesterday, too, right?”
“What if we did?” Ric asked.
Trev’s smile never faltered. “Oh, we know all about you two.”
I hesitated. So did Ric. In fact, we’d both stiffened to the point that I felt my shoulders almost touching my ears.
“Don’t look so worried,” Trev said. “We think it’s great.”
“Who’s w-we?” I stammered.
Trev nodded vigorously, seeming to understand our confusion. “Military Command did this huge breakdown about you guys at the watch meeting after the server fire. Gave you code names and everything. We’ve been after you two for a while now. Can’t believe we finally got you.”
My mind hitched on the term “got you,” instead of “found you.” I still wasn’t sure we weren’t prisoners.
“What’s our code names?” Ric asked.
Trev smiled. “She’s Alpha, and you’re Omega.” His face softened suddenly. “I’m assuming since Delta isn’t with you she fell at the wall?”
“Delta?”
“You would have known her as Sonya.”
I felt my throat tighten so quickly I had to look away.
“Yes. Sonya fell at the wall,” Ric said softly.
“That’s too bad. I would have liked to meet her,” Trev said, his smile falling a touch. “I saw her once when I was in Basic, but never got the chance to talk to her.”
“Wait. What?” I asked.
The medical officer on the bench to the left coughed, but Trev gave him a crusty look and continued. “You’re about to meet the admiral. He’s the head of the Military Command, just under Premier. What’s going to happen afterward will happen really fast, so I think it’s better if I brief you now. Understand?”
“No, we don’t understand,” Ric said. “What did you mean about Sonya?”
“Delta was one of us,” Trev said. “She’s a Floran.”
I could have sworn the floor rotated under my feet. “She’s a what?”
“A member of Flora, the territory surrounding Auberge. We sent her inside Auberge a few years ago to locate a living sample of the inoculation to Bio-Tox 6364, and she brought us you.”
I didn’t believe it. Not for a minute. “I don’t— No,” I fumbled. “She was from the Line. She was—” I hesitated, then added, “—just like me.” I stopped talking because I knew she’d been much more than “just like me.” She’d been my savior. She was proof I could survive life after the Line. If they took that away from me, I didn’t know what to think anymore.
Trev shook his head. “She thought that maybe she could use herself as the carrier, so when she went in, she volunteered to be on the Line. But after a while it became clear they weren’t going to select her, so she escaped and helped other girls get out, trying to find a carrier—with help from Omega and Gamma. You would have known Gamma as Tym.”
Ric gawked. “This is impossible.”
“You’re lying,” I said, my mouth going dry. I gripped my hands together and knotted my fingers.
Trev raised his eyebrows. “God’s honest truth, ma’am.”
All I could do was gape at him. This was the most absurd thing I had heard in my life. I refused to believe it. But my heart still raced as if I’d known it all along.
“I don’t believe you,” Ric said, vigorously shaking his head and looking pale again.
Trev shrugged. “Several of the other girls you saved and wiped from Auberge’s servers, the ones who disappeared? They were also carriers, but all of Delta’s attempts to get them through the wall failed. Most of them never made it out of Central. That is, until Alpha came along.”
“This is ludicrous,” I sputtered. “You’re saying that Sonya was a, was a spy?”
Trev nodded. “Affirmative, ma’am. And a thumping good one too. It’s just too bad how it played out. She would have received full honors.”
“She wasn’t a spy,” I insisted. “She couldn’t have been. She and I were friends. The reason she wanted to get through the wall was to shut down Auberge, to save all the girls on the Line, and everyone.”
“And to make it look like an inside job,” Trev confirmed. “Exactly.”
I blinked rapidly so many times I could hear my lids clicking. I sat for a moment and thought about what he’d said. Was it possible? I found it difficult to comprehend how he could be telling the truth. I thought I’d known Sonya better than anyone.
But did I? Did I really?
She’d told me she’d been on the Line for six years. Had that been a lie? Come to think of it, I’d never seen where she lived. I’d never known about her family, her history, any of that. I’d always assumed her past was too painful to discuss, like mine.
Had she had a secret agenda the whole time?
No. That was ridiculous.
It simply wasn’t true.
The soldier had to be lying. But I couldn’t think why he would. Why would he tell us Sonya was a spy? To earn our loyalty? To turn us against Auberge? We were already turned! We were the ones who’d pierced the wall, after a hundred years. There was no reason for them to tell us this lie.
He had to be lying for another reason. But just then, inside that vehicle, gliding along the road toward somebody named the admiral, I couldn’t think of a reason.
Maybe because it was the truth?
No.
I refused to accept it.
She meant too much to me for it all to be a lie.
I looked at Ric and he just kept shaking his head as he stared at the floor. It didn’t seem he believed it either. “Why did it matter if it was an inside job?” he asked.
“We have a treaty with Auberge. If we breach, they release the bio-toxin.”
“But you have breached the wall. The newsfeeds said so. The attacks on the scientific laboratories and such,” I pointed out.
Trev shook his head. “Wasn’t us.”
“So who attacked the labs?”
Trev shrugged. “Not sure.”
“Do you think Auberge staged the attacks?” I asked Ric.
He pursed his lips. “Maybe. Who knows? Who knows anything at this point? Maybe they were insiders.”
“This is crazy,” I spat. “They caught the insurgents who attacked the labs. They were from outside. They executed them on a live feed!”
Trev shook his head. “Don’t know who they executed. But they weren’t ours. Our only goal was to obtain a living sample of the inoculation. Think about it, if we blew up the labs before we had the immunity, we’d risk releasing the toxin. Why would we do that?”
“How did you even know about the inoculation?”
Trev squinted at us as if the answer was obvious. “From Delta.”
Ric sighed with resignation, but I was unwilling to waver.
“No way,” I growled. “No way! I don’t know what the
hell you’re trying to pull here. But it’s not going to work. Sonya was not a spy.”
Trev pressed his lips together and frowned. “The admiral will explain it better. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I realize it’s a lot to take in after all you’ve been through.”
“You have no fucking idea what I’ve been through,” I snapped at him.
Trev’s frown deepened.
Ric took my hand in his, and I fought to get control of myself. But no sooner had I steadied my breathing than the vehicle jerked to a stop and the soldiers stood in unison.
Trev reached his hand out to help me to my feet, but again, I refused and got up on my own.
“Alpha and Omega are on the premises,” Trev said.
His helmet answered him in that same harsh voice. “Bring them to my office.”
* * *
I had been so busy denying Trev’s claims regarding Sonya that I’d missed our entrance into the city. If you could call it a city, but that word seemed wholly inadequate.
When the van door opened, and Trev stepped out, Ric followed him, then me. The three other guards came up the rear.
As my boots hit the top step and I moved out into the dark of night, I looked around, above and below. Then I stopped cold.
It seemed fake.
There were buildings, thousands and thousands of them, stacked neatly in lines of even rows, down street after street after street, in every direction. They were pure buildings, unblemished and gleaming black, made of that same shiny metal as the van. All of them were the same size, and shape, and color. On the fronts and sides of each building, rectangular windows lit up and down in meticulous columns. Each window gleamed brightly from the inside with yellow light that blanketed the city with enough illumination to make it as bright as day.
Below, the roads and sidewalks were made of light gray paving stones, each the same size, shape—a perfect rectangle—and the same smooth, shiny texture. The sidewalks and streets lacked any fault on their sleek, straight lines. There was not a single piece of trash, not an abandoned car, or any vehicle for that matter, parked at the curbs. There was nothing but straight lines, shininess, vans driving at the same speed down each street and people walking the sidewalks.
