Rebel Bound

by Shauna E. Black

  I can tell that we’re moving on a parallel course with the train tunnel we just left. We go farther than the barrier that stopped the train before we come to a door with a metal disk hovering above it, like the one I shot when we first entered the Undercity. My fingers itch to dig out the centric rifle in my pack, but the droid doesn’t make any hostile moves except to speak.

  “Halt,” a voice comes from the disk. “This is a restricted area. Authorized personnel only.”

  “Authorization code eight nine seven three,” Jate says in a firm voice.

  “Jate Colbeck,” the machine replies. “Welcome back. It has been a long time since you entered the facility.”

  “Thank you.” There’s an audible click, and Jate opens the door. “Please authorize my companions.”

  “Yes, sir.” The machine says each of our names as we pass under it. “Olan Roberts. Sloan Imlay. Keldon Belize. Caelin Morris.” It’s the first time I’ve heard my last name in over five years. I wonder briefly how Keldon knew it, then realize Mardy must have told him.

  Jate ushers us all through the door. It closes with a bang that echoes off concrete walls. We’re in a train tunnel, the same one where we got off the train, but beyond the blockade. The lights are dimmer here, but not so dark that Jate has to use his flashlight. We walk down the middle of the tracks again.

  “Was it wise to use our real names?” Sloan asks Keldon with a critical stare. “Won’t the Coalition know we’re here?”

  Keldon reddens. “Jate said it wouldn’t matter. Besides, they’d have to unscramble Ehris’s tangled codes.”

  After we’ve walked for several yards, Jate stops beside an alcove in the wall with a number painted above it. He swings his backpack off his shoulder.

  “This is where it gets dicey,” he whispers, pulling his centric from the pack. “There’s a live guard at the entrance to the Coalition tunnels.”

  “Just one?” Sloan asks sarcastically.

  He tosses his weapon to her, and she catches it with surprise. “He’s going to search us the old-fashioned way. That means we have to stash anything incriminating here.”

  “And just how are we supposed to finish our assignment without guns?” Sloan hisses.

  “We’ll come back for them. As soon as Olan takes the guard out.”

  Olan gives Jate a nod. He pulls a sonic handgun from his pack, a smaller weapon than Coalition soldiers or sentries carry. It’s fat and compact with a funnel on one end. I wonder where the Impartialists found such a rare weapon.

  “Wait for him to unlock the door,” Jate says to Olan, “then only stun him. I’m not going to give the Coalition an excuse to shoot us on sight if this whole thing goes south.”

  “No worries,” Olan says.

  “What if somebody else comes?” Sloan peers back along the tunnel.

  “This entrance is seldom used,” Jate says. “That’s why I chose it.”

  We cram our bags into the alcove, then proceed down the tunnel. Olan lags behind until the tunnel curves to the right, and I lose sight of him completely.

  “Act natural.” Jate grabs my hand and gives it a quick squeeze before letting go. “You’re a Coalition officer. You belong here.”

  I nod and work on slowing my breathing back to a normal level.

  I can see a wide door ahead in the side of the tunnel. There’s a sentry standing next to it, dressed like those who guarded Lincoln, with a sonic rifle. He moves it in front of his body as we approach.

  “Jate Colbeck and team reporting for duty,” Jate says as he approaches and gives the man a quick salute.

  The sentry imitates the motion. “Stand still for a pat down.”

  Jate spreads his arms and legs, and the sentry moves his hands all around Jate’s body, confirming that nothing is concealed in his clothing. Each of us submits to the same treatment, then the guard pulls out a flat square of glass or plastic. It’s clear except where colors flash across it.

  “I’ll need to scan your IDs,” he says, holding it up to Jate’s face.

  Jate blanches. “Now!” he says loudly.

  The guard frowns. “Yes, now.” Orange lights begin to pulse across his screen. “Jate Colbeck? But you went topside—”

  The pop that echoes faintly through the tunnel before quickly dying away is barely recognizable as a sonic blast. The glass plate shatters and the guard’s eyes roll back in his head. He crumples to the ground.

  Jate drops to one knee, riffling through the man’s pockets.

  Olan comes trotting up to us. “I thought you said to wait until he unlocked the door?”

  “He had access to my records,” Jate grumbles. “I wasn’t expecting that. Sloan, go fetch the packs. We don’t have much time before this guard is discovered.”

  Sloan takes off at a dead run as Jate pulls a flat card from the guard’s pocket. “We can still get through, but it might set off an alarm. We’ll have to hurry.” He stands up and waves it over a box next to the door. There’s a click, and Jate pulls the door open. Once Sloan comes back, she passes out the packs, and we slip inside.

  The tunnels are different here. The floors are not bare concrete, but covered in tile with colored lines running between each piece. They’re narrow, made to accommodate people rather than trains. The air feels warmer, and doesn’t smell as stale. Strips of light run continuously along the tops of the walls on both sides of the corridor.

  “Keep the guns out of sight,” Jate says when Sloan reaches for the opening of her pack. She frowns at him. “We’re still undercover, at least until they find the guard.”

  Jate leads us rapidly along the hallway, down steps, around turns, past closed doors. I'm uncomfortable moving through these hallways with so much light. There are no shadows to hide in. I strain my ears, listening for the sound of footsteps besides our own.

  Pictures similar to those in Dupont Shelter’s hotel hang on the walls, but there are also portraits here of stately looking people I don't recognize staring as though accusing us of trespassing. I wonder what Jate did in the Undercity, to know these tunnels and the Coalition’s procedures so well. He must have been an important official. It stings just a little that he’s never told me.

  We don’t pass anyone for a long time, but when we do Jate slows his steps. They nod curtly in greeting and pass by, sometimes giving us curious looks. I wonder how much longer we can keep up the charade.

  Finally, Jate comes to a deserted corridor with a double door. There’s nothing beyond size to set it apart from the others. He pulls out the card he took from the guard and waves it over a box on the wall next to the door. Very carefully, he opens the door and peeks inside. It’s dark.

  “Through here,” he whispers, motioning for us to follow him.

  We move from the tile floor of the hallway into a carpeted room. It’s pitch black, and I wait for Jate to pull out his flashlight. But as soon as the door closes behind us with an audible click, lights flare up all around the room, brighter than anything I’ve seen before, even in the AM topside. I’m momentarily blinded, and raise one hand instinctively to shield my eyes.

  “Drop your weapons!” a voice shouts.

  “Hands in the air!” says another.

  I blink, confused. As my vision clears, I realize that we’re surrounded. Coalition soldiers train their rifles on us, moving in tighter to trap us inside their ring. My heart jumps into my throat. I follow the rest of the group in lowering my pack to the floor and raising my arms.

  Some of the soldiers come all the way forward, kicking our bags away from us and grabbing our hands, yanking them behind our backs. I bite off a groan as the soldier behind me twists my sore arm. Handcuffs are snapped on our wrists. The metal feels cold and hard.

  “It took you long enough,” one of the soldiers says to Jate.

  I realize suddenly that he is not handcuffing Jate, but handing him one of the glass squares.

  Jate’s fingers fly across the flat surface, touching lightly and moving almost faster than I can fol
low. “You try traveling from the abandoned stations and see how fast you get here.”

  My head is reeling. I don’t understand what’s happening.

  Suddenly, Sloan bucks and jerks against her restraints. “You traitor!” she screams.

  Several soldiers surround her, holding her down. Inspired by Sloan, Olan starts to fight too.

  Jate glances up with a mild expression. It’s as though I’m looking at someone I don’t know. “Separate them. Get them under lock and key,” he commands.

  The soldiers drag us away. I’m too stunned to fight like Sloan and Olan. Keldon stumbles on the way to another door at the far side of the room. His expression mirrors my feelings.

  Was everything Jate said last PM a lie? Was our kiss a lie? I feel cold and small, betrayed and alone. First Lucio, now Jate. No one is who they say they are.

  Sloan and Olan are wrestled out the door. Sloan’s screams echo off the tiled corridor outside. Keldon gives me a mournful look before he disappears, and I’m about to step through the door when Jate speaks.

  “Not that one.”

  The woman holding me pauses and looks back. Jate walks up to me. My anger swells up suddenly, threatening to choke me. I spit in his face. He jerks back, calmly wiping the moisture away. “I'll take care of this one,” he tells the soldier.

  “Yes, sir,” the woman says. She lets go of me and leaves the room.

  I’m left alone with Jate.

  As soon as the door closes, he comes around my back, fumbling with a key to unlock the handcuffs. When my hands are free, I spin and throw a punch with my right arm. He catches it in his palm.

  “We have to hurry.” His expression is frantic, haunted.

  “You’re a traitor!” I yell. “It wasn’t Ryanne! It was you all along!”

  I swing with my left hand, and he catches that too, yanking my arm and spinning me around so I’m gasping with pain. He throws his arms around my torso from the back, pinning me to him. Something cold presses against the implant below my collar bone and I realize he’s holding his flashlight to it.

  “This will scramble your tracking device,” he growls in my ear, “so that we can get to Mardy before she sets off that bomb and kills hundreds of people.”

  I’m jerking in his arms, trying to break free, but his words slowly penetrate my brain. Mardy?

  “Stop fighting me and listen!” I force myself to grow quiet. “The weapon we retrieved from Gage isn’t a sleeping gas. It’s a nerve gas.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “Because I recognized it. I can’t give you my whole pedigree right now, but just trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about!”

  “And how is Mardy going to set it off?”

  “Lucio chose her specifically for this mission. He’s been grooming her to carry it out for weeks.”

  A cold rock forms in the pit of my stomach.

  “Caelin.”

  I squirm out of his grasp, spinning to face him. I’m panting, struggling to keep a lid on my emotions. “Was it all a lie?”

  His face crumples into pain. “Not my feelings for you, not my determination to save you, to save your sister. I got you into this mess, and I'm going to get you out of it.”

  “Save us from what?”

  “Lucio is a monster. You saw what he did to Ryanne.”

  My anger surges. “How could you let that happen?” I yell.

  His voice is quiet. “She knew the risks. I did my best to protect her, but in the end, Lucio outsmarted me. I’m not going to let him do it again. Pull yourself together. We have to leave, now, or Mardy and hundreds of others will die.”

  “How am I supposed to believe you?”

  “Caelin, you can trust me.”

  I growl in frustration. “But how do I know that?”

  “Would you rather trust a man that kills your best friend right in front of you?”

  I crumple to the floor, covering my face with my hands. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  He crouches down beside me, touches my chin with his hand and lifts it up until our eyes meet. “Believe in me,” he says.

  And then, in spite of Ryanne’s death, in spite of Jate’s betrayal, in spite of everything I’ve believed to be true over the last few weeks and the logical argument that I shouldn’t let myself be duped again, my heart turns over, and I trust him.

  CHAPTER 27

  We exit the door through which Sloan and the other Impartialists were taken. The hall outside is buzzing with sound. The murmur of voices blends with a steady alarm going off somewhere. People pop in and out of doorways, scuttling past us in a frazzle.

  Jate ducks into one of the rooms with a red light flashing over the door. The other lights here are dim, coming from a wall completely filled with electronic screens displaying black-and-white images that are constantly changing. I’m shocked at the many locations I recognize from topside, though they look different in the AM. One screen displays Lincoln Shelter, looking quiet and abandoned with the scavs sleeping in the basement.

  The handful of people in the room speak into headsets and brush their fingers through images hovering over a long counter in front of them. One man with thin hair and sallow skin hops up from his seat and starts for the door, then stops when he sees us.

  “Jate!” he exclaims. “You’re back.”

  “What’s going on?” Jate folds his arms over his chest and thrusts his chin at the monitors.

  “It seems your rebel leader made a change of plans. They followed you in through the east entrance and launched an attack on the Gray Quarter. We’re sending all available troops in now.”

  In studying the screens, I realize that many of them display scenes from what must be the Undercity. I catch glimpses of Coalition soldiers running swiftly through tunnels.

  Jate massages one temple. “He was supposed to wait for my signal.” He claps the other man on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t get this intel to you sooner, Soren. Lucio’s watched me like a hawk ever since the Kennedy Theater. But I have more urgent business now. The Impartialists found the grenade after all. They’re setting it off in one of the parks in the city. I need to know where.”

  Soren’s complexion pales. Without another word, he scuttles back to his seat, fingers flying through the hovering figures. The images on the screens flicker and change in time with Soren’s movements. Jate leans on the back of Soren’s chair, studying the screens.

  I hesitate. “Deice said he was going to the North Park.”

  Jate glances back at me, raising his thin dark brows. “But I doubt that’s really where he intended to go, especially after I tried to get Mardy away from him. Still . . .” He turns back to Soren. “Check North Park first.”

  They both frown as they zoom in on one screen and study it intently. Though the colors are not green, like in Mardy’s mosaics, I recognize the trees and plants bursting with leaves, the streams of sunlight slanting down through the branches. There are paths winding through the vegetation, families walking together, couples cuddling on benches, and children running through it all, laughing. Where is this place?

  I scan the other monitors, looking for more parks like this one, and my eyes snag on a familiar face. It’s only there for a moment before it’s replaced by a picture of a train pulling away from a platform.

  “That one!” I leap forward, pointing.

  Soren and Jate turn their attention to the screen where I’m pointing.

  “What did you see?” Jate asks urgently.

  “Mardy. She was right there just a second ago.”

  Soren makes motions with his fingers, and the long metal stairway reappears on the screen.

  “That’s it! But she’s gone now.”

  “That’s the central level change,” Jate says grimly, “by the Smithsonian Park. It’s the most densely populated area.” He spins around, already halfway out the door before I can catch up. “Send a swat team to the Smithsonian. I’ll meet them there. I’m taking the hyperlo
op.”

  “You got it,” Soren says.

  Halfway down the hall, Jate turns and holds out his hand to stop me. “Caelin, I want you to stay here, where you'll be safe.”

  “Not likely!” I snap. “My sister is out there. I'm not going to stand here and watch monitors when she's in danger.”

  He stares at me for several long moments, but I can see the pressure of the clock ticking behind his eyes. “Fine. I don’t have time to argue. Come on.”

  He grabs my hand and leads me through the maze of Coalition tunnels. At one point, we board a train that’s smaller and less crowded than the big one we used before. I find it hard to reconcile all the twists and turns underground with my knowledge of the streets topside, and I’m soon hopelessly lost. But Jate has enough confidence for the both of us.

  I feel like an idiot for not realizing sooner what kind of person Lucio really is. This betrayal is much worse than what Torres and his partner did to me. Lucio killed my friend. He’s put Mardy’s life in danger. I’m determined to save my sister, no matter what it takes.

  At one point, we leave the sleek tiled halls of the Coalition complex and re-enter the old metro passages. The soaring ceilings of the concrete tunnels seem huge by comparison. We move through crowded stations and stretches of housing. Jate weaves in and through the crowds like a snake. I follow him as best as I can.

  We run up another long metal staircase like the one we used to get into the Undercity and enter a tunnel on the right. People are everywhere—mothers with babies, groups of teenagers. My throat tightens when I think of Mardy setting off some type of gas that will hurt these people.

  The air smells fresher here, more like topside, but also different. There’s a fragrance I can’t identify.

  Then, as we turn a corner, I stumble to a halt. Everything is green. Brickwork makes neat little paths winding around and through a vast room full of trees and shrubs bursting with leaves and real, colorful flowers. The scent is intoxicating. I can feel a breeze on my cheeks and look up to see a fan distributing fresh air through the room.