Zack pushed me along. “Used to have workers twenty-four-seven.”
“What happened?”
“Slave population is decreasing.”
“Why?”
“Vie are thirsty bastards. Let’s get the uniforms and get out of here,” Martin said. We raided the clean uniforms, each selecting a gray-blue jumpsuit. Zack held up several to his body. All of them were way too long.
I slipped a leg into the uniform, leaning against the wall to stick the other foot in. “You’ll have to get yours tailored,” I joked.
Martin opened his backpack and shoved his and Zack’s uniforms inside. “Let’s change outside.”
“Why? We have until noon.” I shrugged the suit off, crumpled it up into a ball, and stuffed it in the sack with the others.
Martin pointed above our heads at a black box with a red blinking light. “We tripped the silent alarm.”
“So the master key isn’t really a master.”
“The key gets us in. It doesn’t disarm the security system. Especially when they upgrade, which they must have.”
Blazes.
“Why do they need upgrades? Can’t trust their tranced slaves?”
“Let’s walk and talk, guys.” Zack yanked open the door, pointing outside like an usher.
Sirens woo-wooed in the distance.
Anna dodged out of Zack’s way before he collided with her at the bottom of the stairs. “What happened? Are the sirens for us?” she asked.
“Yes,” Martin replied, pushing me along.
“Guys, we can hide in one of the trucks,” I said. With the uniforms we could sneak in for sure.
“There’s no time. Come on.” Martin kept shoving.
Martin and I darted down another alley that nosedived into a different street. Zack and Anna followed close behind, shoes slapping on the pavement.
Cruisers’ horns blared behind and in front of us. They’d flanked us on both sides.
“We’re surrounded,” I yelled, skidding to a halt next to a Dumpster. Lifting the lid, I said, “Get in!”
Martin and Zack hoisted themselves inside. Both their heads popped up a second later. They stretched their arms out to Anna and me, wiggling their fingers.
I landed head first in a heap of garbage. A small mercy: the bags didn’t bust open. Still, the sour odor brought bile to my mouth.
Anna slammed the lid shut. A vehicle whizzed past seconds later, its siren oddly muffled through the Dumpster’s metal casing.
“I’m never doing this again,” I wheezed, covering my mouth.
“I can’t be in here, I can’t be in here,” Zack chanted.
“Be thankful Vie aren’t chasing us,” Martin hissed.
Excellent point. We had a chance with the guards—they couldn’t hear our heartbeats ricocheting off the rusting metal.
ozens of bags surrounded me, pressing against my body and face. Greasy plastic adhered to my mouth. I gagged and nearly inhaled a loose piece of trash—rotten lettuce or something. While food pellets were a major staple for Anemies thanks to the NCAAR, human slaves still ate real food. The consolation prize for serving their immortal masters.
New City’s goal of installing incinerators stopped months ago, soon after the NCAAR accused Abarron of wanting to incinerate Anemies rather than garbage. He pulled project funding and funneled it into the biodome. The old, pre-Arrival system—dump trucks and landfills—remained.
Martin tossed something. It bounced off the side of the Dumpster with a thud. “Gross.”
“I can’t be here.” Zack threw up.
“Eww!” Anna squealed.
I slapped a hand across her mouth. The move was so much like what I’d do with Sammie that it brought a well of tears to the surface. “Shh. They’ll hear us.”
Random shouts from the guards mixed with heavy footsteps marching past. Hopefully no one checked our hideout.
Anna pried my fingers away from her face. “I’m okay.”
Empty hands wigged me out. I clutched the backpack full of uniforms to my chest for something to do. It helped to push down the panic clawing its way upward.
As the minutes ticked on, I kept reminding myself I’d been in worse situations before. Couldn’t think of any that had smelled this bad, though. Each breath intensified the sour odor of rotting vegetables and decaying meat. The stench lodged in my throat until I tasted it every time I inhaled.
When the sounds outside died down, Martin carefully lifted the Dumpster’s lid. We all peeked through the crack.
The alley was empty.
I exhaled with relief.
Martin pushed the lid higher.
“What if it’s a trap?” Anna asked.
Martin lowered the lid, and again we were enveloped by pure darkness. A heavy, humid, putrid darkness. “Let’s wait a while longer.”
“How long?” Zack whined.
“I say we go,” I said. “If they thought we were in here, they’d have busted open the Dumpster by now.” I rose, opening the lid using my back. Standing on top of the garbage, I threw my leg over the side and then hopped down.
No one rushed down the alley to catch me.
“It’s clear. Come on,” I said.
Once everybody escaped the Dumpster’s swirling stench, we hurried out of there and didn’t stop until we cleared the mid-town line, panting, covered in grime and garbage juice, and no closer to Sammie.
“We almost got caught. I thought you said it’d be easy.” I glared at Martin.
Zack groaned. “Oh man, I feel sick.”
“You’ve got nothing left to puke,” Anna snapped.
“Anna, calm down,” Martin said. To me, he added, “You’re an ungrateful shit, you know that?”
Anna did a double take.
Careful, Martin, your veneer is cracking.
“I’m risking a lot for you,” he sneered.
“Thought it was worth it,” I retorted, stepping face to face.
“Haven’t seen the pay off yet.”
We stood nose to nose… er, well, nose to forehead. He was taller. A lot taller.
I caught Anna’s gaping mouth out of the corner of my eye. She never expected this, I bet.
“I thought you knew how to get stuff. Do you almost get caught every time?” I dropped my backpack to the ground and flexed my sweaty palms.
“Easy for you to say. I don’t see you with a keycard, or blood, or Antinocio.” He started counting off his fingers. “Or food, or shelter, or friends, or brains.” He shoved me with his chest.
I stumbled backward a couple of steps. Heart pounding, I yanked a blue uniform from my bag, then tossed the bag to him. “I’m out of here.”
Martin’s mouth formed a thin line.
“Don’t go.” Zack’s eyes, reddened with tears, begged me. Stay, they said.
Anna just stared.
I tucked the uniform under my arm, balling it up like the feeling that Zack reminded me so much like Sammie. The feeling wasn’t real. I couldn’t let him become a substitute for her. Or a distraction. “Dude, you were fine before we met. I don’t have anything to offer. I’m not the Bringer of Death so just forget it.”
I turned away from him because if I didn’t, I’d have to stare down his disappointment straight on, and I just didn’t have the strength left.
I stalked off, cursing Martin and his grandiosity, cursing myself for leaving Zack behind, and cursing the pain in Anna’s voice as she said, “What he said isn’t true, is it, Martin?”
The final curse plaguing me as I walked: how much time I’d wasted with Martin. To his credit, he didn’t chase me or try to coerce me to stay or even force me to return.
The rotten, oily, prickly stench of garbage clung to me like the growing guilt of every mistake I’d made during and since the raid. The few slaves I encountered gave me a wide berth, pinching their noses as we crossed paths. They glared at me, repulsed, like I stank on purpose. A natural slave-repellant—I should patent it.
Zack caught up to m
e as I closed in on the Elite District. “Hey, Justin! Wait up,” he called.
I clenched my jaw. Told myself to keep walking. Screamed at myself to stop. My stomach knotted at the war raging inside. Finally, I halted. I slowly turned around to face him.
He jogged toward me, a silly grin on his face. The kid’s optimism eclipsed logic. He had no reason to be happy, yet he smiled.
“Why’d you follow me?”
“I wanted to,” he said.
I smirked.
“Anna’s underground and Martin’s taking care of something. He wants to talk to you.” His smile faltered. The simple genuineness of it made me listen.
“About what?”
“It’s a surprise.” He kicked at some loose stones on the sidewalk then grinned again, refusing to give in to a straight face for more than a few seconds.
“If it has to do with any Bringer of Death crap—”
“No, you got it all wrong. He’s getting us something that will help us gain access to the lab. You still want to go, right?”
“Because things worked so well the last time. The last time being a few minutes ago.”
“No, this is legit.” He drew a horizontal line in the air with his hand as if to underline his words. They hung between us clunky, the underline fading from our hot breaths.
“Why is he bothering?” This should be interesting.
“Martin lost his cool back there, but he still believes in you.”
Nope, not interesting. Not even a little surprising. “You mean, he believes he can use me.”
A flash of something flitted across his face. Pain maybe. “I know you don’t like him, but he saved me. He saved you. He is a good guy.”
“Do good guys lie? Do they steal, break into places…”
“None of us is innocent, Justin.” This time, his smile faded, and it stayed mute.
“All right. I’ll talk with him. But that’s all I’ll promise.”
He clapped my shoulder. “It’s a start.”
As we walked, Zack ducked his head toward me. “Hey, man, don’t give up hope yet.”
I halted, fingers finding their most common posture—fists. It took everything in me not to haul off and punch the kid square in the face. I thought about punching people a lot. Maybe I had anger issues.
“Don’t give up? Are you serious? And what does hope do for us, Zack, huh? Can you tell me that? Name one thing that hope has done for you.” I spit the words out as if spewing venom. It burned my tongue, stained the air.
He didn’t flinch. “It keeps me alive to fight another day.”
I scoffed, this close to walking away for good.
He furrowed his brow, the opposite of his usual goofy smile. Huh, I’d pissed him off.
“Oh, come on, drop it. Hope keeps you alive, too. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself,” he said.
“Oh yeah? How?”
He snorted. “Don’t even try to deny that you still hope Sammie’s alive.”
My jaw dropped.
“Yeah, that’s right. I said it.”
I swallowed my pride with a gulp. All smiles and all ears, Zack had listened, paid attention. He was smarter than I gave him credit for. So why did he follow Martin?
He went on. “Okay, so you can’t see it, or pick it up, or hold it. But it’s real.”
I nodded, agreeing.
He missed it as he rambled on, a speeding tram coming close to jumping off track. “We believe in you, Justin. Martin does most of all. You give us all hope. He trusts you. I trust you. Are you going to let him down? Are you going to let all of us down?”
I smiled. “I hope not.”
He sucked in a breath, maybe to lob another speech at me, then paused. Slowly, his grin returned. Then he slugged me in the arm. Hard. “Dude.”
We laughed.
Martin’s meeting his friend.” He didn’t need to add the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, but he did. “And he’ll help us find a way into the lab. I promise.”
I squinted at him. “What friend is this?”
He whispered in my ear. “You have to swear not to let anyone know I told you, got it?”
“Zack…”
“Swear it.”
I crossed my heart with an index finger. “Fine.”
“The NCAAR is doing more than you may think. One of them wants to help us Anemies so much that he actually meets with us.”
A sharp laugh burst from my throat. “You can’t believe it’s not a trap.”
“He and Martin work together to get us supplies and stuff. They’ve been doing it for a while.”
Drop offs, I got. Distributions carried out by human slaves made sense. All the while, I’d figured that’s how Martin had “communicated” with NCAAR Vie. To think: they met, Vie to human, and regularly by the sound of it.
“You’re okay with this? Even after you survived a raid?” I asked.
Zack chewed his lip then said, “I trust Martin, like I said. I have faith.”
“Martin could be tranced. He could be a slave posing as an Anemie. He might lead Vie to you guys at any moment. Aren’t you even a little freaked out by this?”
“If NCAAR Vie wanted to kill us, they’d have done it already.”
“You of all people should know better.” I fought the urge to brush past him.
“How else are you going to find Sammie unless you have Martin’s help?”
One other thing hope did: it made you a fool. A fool willing to do anything, no matter how stupid, to get what you wanted.
Consider me Specimen A: Fool.
We met Martin at the corner of Main and Thirty-Fifth Street. He nodded at me when he caught sight of us. I jerked my head in return. Dudespeak for, “Yo, let’s start fresh. PS: I don’t have to like you, but I’ll work with you.”
“I’m sorry about the whole Dumpster thing,” Martin said.
I didn’t respond, still fuming from Zack’s confession, still trying to figure out if I could tolerate standing next to Martin without slugging him. He deserved it for snowing so many people. And for manipulating me into giving him what he wanted because he knew he could by dangling Sammie over my head.
“You can’t get in the building and find your sister alone.”
Duh. “So you’re willing to risk your life for me?” I asked.
“The others believe in you, whether you do or not.”
“The others.” Did he, like Zack said?
He tugged me aside. “If we do this thing, it changes the whole world. Regardless of whether you trust me or not, this could benefit both of us. We all need to survive here, right? So we help each other. Deal?”
Deal or no deal? That was the question. Hand one: I needed the help, and he had the means whether I wanted to acknowledge it or not.
Hand two: “What about your Vie friend? He knows we’re doing this, right? Will he open the door himself?”
Martin’s jaw squared, and his eyes darkened. A simple glance at Zack was all it took for the kid to blanch.
“You promised not to tell,” Zack whispered at me.
My gut twisted with guilt. But only a little. Yeah, okay, in the worst move to date, I broke Zack’s trust. One of the few major backstabbings in the history of backstabbing. Why? Martin deserved to know that I’d learned some of his secrets. That’s why.
Martin ran a hand across his closely shaven skull. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
Our truce crumbled like a sandcastle eroded by the tide.
“Answer the question.”
His nostrils flared with a deep breath. “He—the NCAAR Vie—wants the Bringer of Death to take down Abarron too.”
I laughed. The bonkers-crazy kind, not the oh-that’s-funny kind. “If Abarron goes down, the whole city collapses. Then what would Vie do, NCAAR members or not?”
“Not every Vie is happy with this society.”
“They made their society when they took over.”
Martin tossed his backpack to Zack. “We’re wasting ti
me. I offered to help you. Do you want in the lab or not?”
I did. I also didn’t trust Martin’s “friend.” Hope hadn’t blinded me totally.
“Justin?” Zack’s forehead wrinkled.
I gestured toward the buildings behind us. “So, we’re just going to walk right in, ushered by your Vie pal, no problems?”
“Not ushered, but close enough.” Martin reached into his rear pocket and drew out three E-shaped metal pins. “These babies are equipped with a microchip that’ll get us through the lab’s security point.”
“Whoa.” Zack squinted at the pins, mouth hanging open.
“Your Vie friend gave you these? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
If my head could explode from shock, it would. For all I knew, Martin could be taking part in some new form of reality vidscreen show. A band of Anemies “befriended” a Vie only to be trapped and executed at the big reveal. And I was being a giant sludge brain for not thinking of it before. It could be called Sludgepunked.
“They’d be useless without the uniforms. Had you stuck around long enough, you would’ve found out. I thought this is what you wanted.” Martin’s eyes were so dark I couldn’t read them.
Strike that. I totally picked up on the message nestled deep in his pupils.
“I do, but—”
“Then let us help you. Once you believe we all help each other, the more you’ll come to realize what a family we are.” He arched a brow. Question: Was he saying this for Zack’s benefit or mine?
Zack nodded. “We all need a family, Justin. Sammie’s welcome too.”
Answer: Zack’s benefit.
I chewed the inside of my cheek. As soon as I rescued Sammie, both of us would be gone. I’d find some way to get out of the city. “I don’t know.”
“So, don’t want your sister back?”
“You know I do.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Martin wore confidence with ease like Dad had the day he met with a group of Vie to discuss a peace treaty. If he hadn’t trusted Vie, we wouldn’t have been banished from the forest, we wouldn’t have had to come to New City, Dad wouldn’t have died fighting, Sammie wouldn’t have been taken, and I wouldn’t be trying to break into the most guarded building in the city with two Anemies and a deceptively simple plan.
Dawn of the Vie (Immortal Aliens Book 1) Page 9
