For a second I think they’re coming right at me, and panic rushes through my body. But they turn a corner, and I breathe out in relief.
I count ten seconds. I wait to make sure the corridor’s empty. My heart hammers in my chest.
Nine, Ten.
I stumble out of the stairwell. Blue lights dot the ceiling, along with blurry white dots, though those might be in my head.
I don’t know where I’m going, so I just keep moving.
I pass a few branches into other corridors—glancing quickly to make sure they’re empty—and reach the end of one. The hall breaks off and turns to my left and to my right. In front of me stands a pair of double doors. They’re black, each with a dark blue X over circles of white that could be window holes. But they’re not windows; there’s no way to see inside. Somewhere beyond them, the Developers reside in safety and comfort. Beyond these doors, they control everything.
About five feet down the corridor to my left, another door leads into the same side of the wall. There’s no X on that door, but there’s small red lettering: RESTRICTED PERSONNEL ONLY.
KIMO must be somewhere near here. This division is the only place no one’s allowed to go without Commander Charlie’s permission.
Possibly I could trick the security system and get in. I could find KIMO and its blueprints and see if I recognize any of the mechanisms. It sounds impossible—I don’t have much skill with mechanics, after all—but they’re going to catch me soon anyway. I can’t hide down here forever.
What else do I have to lose? I might as well discover what I can.
My heart beats fast. I pull my arm back into the sleeve of my suit, as if I’m taking it off, and cover my thumb with the fabric. I touch the lock-pad in the wall—
All the lights in the hallway turn red.
“Unidentified human,” a voice blares from the walls. “Unidentified human.”
I stumble back.
“Unidentified human.”
A metal door clangs shut. Shouts and footsteps come from the corridor behind me. The officials must’ve realized I went all the way down the stairwell.
“Unidentified human.”
I run down the left-hand corridor.
“Unidentified human.”
There’s a drain hole in the floor that might be big enough for me, but there’s a metal cover over it.
“Unidentified human.”
I grit my teeth, grab the bars, and tear the drain cover loose. It loosens easily. I stumble back and nearly hit the wall.
“Unidentified human.”
The officials are close now, too close. I check that the drain hole will work—there’s a horizontal passageway a few feet down, which will be wet but should hide me. I drop down until my feet hit the floor, slick with water, dragging the cover with me and securing it in place. The fever makes me disoriented and clumsy.
“Unidentified human.”
Crouching to fit, I crawl farther into the passageway so I’m no longer visible through the drain cover. The scent of rusty metal tickles my nose. I plug it to keep myself from sneezing.
“Uniden—”
The alarm stops blaring.
“Where’d she go?” someone yells.
“Check everywhere,” I can hear Beechy say.
Even Beechy is subdued. Even he abandoned me.
Please don’t look in here, I beg.
“She can’t have disappeared.”
“I don’t think she’s down here,” Beechy says. “I think she set up a divergence.”
“How the vrux—”
“She’s smart,” he says. “She’s the smartest girl you’ll find here. Trust me on that. Come on, let’s check somewhere else.”
The clunking boots fade away, along with the voices. Part of me wonders if he knew I was still down here, and pretended I’m not because he’s still trying to protect me.
It’s a nice thought, but I don’t think it’s true. I’m sure they’ll come back if they don’t find me elsewhere. They’ll check the security cameras and realize I crawled inside here.
If I want to do anything about KIMO, I’ll have to find out where it is tonight.
But I can’t fight sleep anymore, so I let my body slump on the wet ground. If I close my eyes, I can pretend I’m not in a hole in the floor or even in the Core. Not stuck underground, while Logan and all the other people far above me unknowingly await destruction. I can pretend I’m safe and they are too.
I shiver as the sweat of fever overtakes me. I stop fighting.
26
I wake to a drop of water hitting my nose. The darkness disorients me. I have to blink many times before I have some sense of where I am.
This isn’t the first time I’ve woken this way. When I was younger, some bullies threw me into the muck of a sewer one night. I woke the next morning and wandered until I found my way into the sunlight.
Wincing, I rise until I’m sitting as best I can, with the walls narrow and close over my head. My head feels clearer, but my body aches with every movement. I try to ignore it. I set my palms on the wet steel of the drain floor and crawl to the opening.
Through the bars, I don’t see anyone or hear anything. It feels late at night, or very early in the morning, though of course I have no way of knowing. There must still be people looking for me.
I’ll pretend they don’t exist. That’ll make this easier.
Still, I’m slow and careful as I remove the drain cover. I start to climb out, then stop, thinking better of it. I untie my laces and tuck my shoes and socks behind me in the passageway. I flex my toes and sigh in relief. I missed the freedom of bare feet.
The corridor lights flicker overhead as I climb out of the drain and replace the cover. I stand and take soft, shaky steps, and peer around the corner to the elevators. The place is empty.
There’s a creak. I slam back against the wall. Out of the corner of my eye I see the lone silver door to the left of the main Restricted Division entrance.
It’s open.
I stare, my heart thrumming in every part of my body. A door like that could only be open on purpose. This must be a trap.
If I were smart, I’d run. I’d find somewhere to hide. But this might be my only chance to get inside and find KIMO’s blueprints. I might be crazy, but I have to take it, even though it’s dangerous. They’re going to catch me, anyway. There’s nowhere to hide.
The door’s metal edge is cold as ice. There’s only darkness beyond it. I pull the door open another inch and take a step.
A spotlight turns on.
Instinct screams at me to run. There are security cameras in here. Someone must’ve heard that or seen it.
But I won’t be a coward.
I clench my fists at my sides and step into the room. Thick smoke shrouds the place, full of darker spots the light doesn’t hit. It smells clean and crisp, like wet metal, or the fog that collects over the Surface camp when the clouds are low. I step through the haze, and it parts for me, giving me passage to what the spotlight shines on. My eyes widen.
It’s a spaceship. It’s massive, even bigger than the hovercrafts I used to travel in on the Surface. It’s shaped like an oblong disk. The cockpit window faces me. Above the cockpit, farther back on the roof of the craft, sits an enormous steel ball. It looks like an escape pod that could be jettisoned.
I walk slowly forward, squinting so I can see the pod better. There are blue letters on the side of the escape pod. They spell out K-I-M-O.
This is the transport ship. The bomb must be on it.
I take a step back.
This was way too easy to find. Someone’s here. Someone’s watching.
I want to turn and run and get the vrux out of here before they come for me, but I can’t. I found their bomb. I have to see if there’s anything I can do to slow it down or disable it.
Pale lights flicker off to my left through the fog. I catch sight of an edge where the floor drops away between me and the lights. It looks like the Pipeline, or
a passage connected to it for launching. As soon as the Core can survive without the other sectors, all the Developers have to do to set off the bomb is fly this transport ship to the gap between Lower and Core and start the countdown.
A simple click of a few buttons, and they will destroy most of the world.
There are footsteps through the door behind me. Voices too.
I tense, looking wildly around for a hiding place. I don’t have many options. Stumbling forward, I hurry around the ship to a luggage bin against the far wall. I squeeze into the space behind it and crouch low, wrapping my arms around my legs. My heart beats so fast, I’m sure whoever’s coming will be able to hear it.
The footsteps stop abruptly. “Who left that door open?” a man says.
“My apologies, sir,” says a voice I recognize. Sam. “That may have been me. I was just in there checking that the bomb is still secure.”
My brows furrow. Sam left the door open?
The first man sighs. “Lieutenant, please be more careful next time.”
The lights turn off in the room, drowning me in darkness. Sam’s response fades away as the door closes.
I’m too frightened to move for a long time. This could still be a setup.
Finally, I slip out from behind the luggage bin and take careful steps toward where the ship was before. I can barely see a thing. The only lights left on are tiny blue ones dotting the ship’s rim.
I feel my way to a set of ladder rungs on this side of the ship. I squint to see where they lead. I’m pretty sure it’s to the roof, and the escape pod. I might as well learn what’s up there, since the pod is the part of the ship with K-I-M-O on its side.
I find a foothold and pull myself off the ground, then reach for the first rung.
If I had the bomb blueprints, I could study them and figure out exactly where the missile is being kept on the ship. I could find the right wires to switch off the system, but there’s no time for that. Instead, I run on pure adrenaline, hoping luck is on my side for once. It’s a horrible, helpless feeling when I think about it too hard.
So, I don’t think. I climb.
When I reach the sloping roof, the ladder continues up a few more rungs, close to the steel ball. It’s clearly attached to the ship by a short tunnel rising from the bridge, so it must be an escape pod. A tiny red light blinks on the pod’s control panel, through the window.
The K-I-M-O imprint is on the other side of the pod. There’s something odd on this side of it, jutting out of a circular space in the hull: the tip of a rounded cylinder, like a torpedo.
I suck in my breath. The tip is even bigger than I expected; at least half the size of my whole body. It does look a lot like the missile heads I’ve seen pictures of before. But could this really be it? It seems like a strange choice to embed a missile this size in an escape pod. Unless the pod plays a key role in the detonation. Unless the pod was designed specifically for this mission.
I adjust my hold on the last ladder rung, breathing hard. There might be a disabling key on the pod’s control panel. I need to get inside the escape pod, but how? There’s no exterior door. I’d have to enter the bigger transport ship first, but I have no idea how. It seems like a surefire way to get caught.
I don’t feel the official’s fingers touch my ankle until they squeeze and drag me down. My hand slips from the ladder. A scream escapes my throat.
I grab hold of a rung and kick as hard as I can at my attacker. It must be an official—someone who knew I’d come in here, who was waiting for me.
His fingers squeeze my ankle again. His nails dig into my skin and wrench my leg. My palms grasp at nothing, and I fall.
The ground slams into me, and my body slumps.
I come to, coughing. The boy drops beside me and reaches for my face. Snarling, I aim a kick at his abdomen, but of course he is too tall. I still can’t make out his face.
He kneels on top of me, pinning me. He shoves a gag into my mouth.
Tears of weariness gather in the creases of my eyes, and my chest heaves as I draw a breath. My attacker slams his fist into my neck, and forces me onto my stomach. I cough and cry. The gag wedges firmly between my teeth.
The spotlight in the room comes back on, and my attacker forces my head back. I see the knee-high boots of another official marching toward me. I see legs, a torso, arms, and a face.
27
It’s Sam. Of course it’s Sam.
A grin is etched into his face, and I want to rip it off with my nails. My attacker pushes me harder into the ground, pressing my lungs against the floor.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
“Thank you for your help, Justin,” Sam says. He makes a clicking noise with his tongue and shakes his head at me, crouching with his hands on his knees. “Did you really think I left that door open by accident? You should’ve listened. You should’ve treated me well yesterday, like Ariadne treated me well earlier tonight. What good has this act of rebellion done you? Did you break the machine? Will your boyfriend be safe and happy on the Surface now?” The smirk folds easily into Sam’s face. “Funny, it doesn’t look like that to me. It looks like you are in some deep krite.”
I want to know what he did before he came here, when he lived in a work camp in an outer sector. I want to know why Charlie would Extract him early and give him a special rank in the military.
I want to know before he kills me.
He laughs and prods my jaw with a finger. “I could do you a favor, I guess, and help you get your scar back.” He stands and bounces on the balls of his feet.
I choke through my gag and thrash against the boy holding me. Let me go—let me go—
Sam grins. “Good, good, nice to see you’ve still got some fight in you.”
“What’s going on?” Cadet Waller’s voice comes from somewhere in the fog.
“Get her up,” Sam snaps.
The pressure lifts off my body, and a hand drags me to my feet. I try to break free of its grip so I can run.
Sam slaps my face, and his nails cut my skin.
Raw, raw, raw, and stinging.
Cadet Waller freezes when she sees us. Two officials flank her. She purses her lips, straightening. “Hello, Clementine. Sam, did you find her here?”
“Yes, ma’am. She was trying to mess with KIMO, but I stopped her,” Sam says.
She gives me a small, rueful smile.
“You caused quite a mess today. But it won’t happen again.”
She turns. “Sam, bring her along. I hate to rouse Commander Charlie at such an hour, but this is necessary.”
Sam and one of Cadet Waller’s officials grab my shoulders.
*
In the main corridor of Restricted Division, I keep my eyes on the ground and try to control my breathing. My heart pounds in my chest, in my throat, and in my ears. But I won’t give Sam or Cadet Waller or anyone the satisfaction of knowing my fear.
We stop outside the pair of double doors with dark blue Xs over circles of white. Cadet Waller taps a command into a security pad in the wall. There’s a snap, and a voice comes on: “Who is it?”
“Waller. I have the girl.”
The door slides open. “Enter,” the voice says.
A hand clamps over my eyes. Sam shoves me forward, and my feet stumble. Pain shoots up my side and through my temple.
I’m disoriented when the hand and gag fall away. A bright white light blinds my eyes. I start to raise my hands to shield my face, but they’re still tied. Blinking doesn’t clear the sparkles of light and distorted shapes.
A figure steps into the light. The silhouette of someone with the power to kill me or let me go.
I don’t think Commander Charlie will let me go.
“Hello, Clementine.” He says it like I’m an old friend instead of a traitor. Like we’re meeting for a chat instead of an exile sentence.
“Just shoot me and get it over with,” I say, half choking the words. “I know you have others to kill.”
The white light dims. “I have no intention of shooting you,” Charlie says. “Not tonight.”
“Then what—”
“Your survival is very important to me,” he says. “Why do you think I’ve overlooked your mishaps thus far? As you were one of the last transfers from the outer sectors, we picked you carefully, with a certain career position already in mind. I’d intended you to become one of our intelligence agents for the military. Sam here even suggested you’d make an excellent lieutenant.”
I gape at him. “Sam suggested that? Why?”
“You have excellent skills in the sciences, and you’ve already passed CODA. You would make an excellent addition to the leadership of the Core security team, there’s no denying that. However”—Charlie’s frown deepens—“you caused an inordinate amount of trouble tonight, and I can’t have that. Obedience is the one area where your skills are not up to par. Is there a particular reason you won’t respect me, Clementine?”
“Why should I? You lie about everything.”
“Do I? Please, enlighten me.”
My whole body is shaking, and I’m seeing stars when I blink again. “That speech you gave tonight. You said people on the Surface are dying from the acid. But that video footage you showed was from the riot the other day.”
His eyes study me with mild amusement. “I assure you, I didn’t lie about the acid.”
“Yes, you did.” My voice rises in panic. He’s lying again. He has to be. “I was up there last week. There weren’t forty-two deaths from acid. You think no one would notice?”
“We do have the ability to keep things quiet.”
“I’m not stupid.” My head throbs harder from my anger. “And I’m not subdued, either.”
His face stirs with some emotion I can’t read.
“Yes, I know you subdue everyone,” I say. “I know that’s what the monthly injections are for.”
“I can see that,” Charlie says. He looks over to Sam or someone else behind me, then back to me. “Care to explain why yours didn’t work?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if I knew.”
“No matter. It can take time for the injections to work properly on new Core citizens. We have time.”
I shake my head. “It won’t work. I’ll fight you every time.”
Extraction Page 24
