“Sweepers,” I whisper.
Lipsy steps forward. “We kn-kn-know.”
I throw her a grateful look and carefully lay Rummy’s gun down on the counter. “Rummy dropped this.” I steal a glance in Blade’s direction. He knows better than to trust me. He cracks his knuckles, eyes boring into me. My skin crawls. If he’s in charge now that Rummy’s gone, my luck just ran out. “I tried to save him,” I say.
A dark look flickers across his face.
I rub my arms nervously. “So you’re the new alpha dog?”
He frowns distractedly over my shoulder.
“Blade answers to me now.”
An electric volt pulses through me at the familiar voice. I spin around as Mason strides into the foyer. He places his assault rifle on the counter beside Rummy’s, and folds his tightly muscled arms across his chest.
“How … did … ?” I look at Mason in bewilderment, unsure what I’m even asking.
“You mean how’d I inherit these clowns?” Mason laughs. “I saved them from the tube, that’s how. They were about to get suctioned up for science.”
He gestures at a scowling Blade. “We’ve come to an understanding. They’ve agreed to help us infiltrate the Craniopolis. And now that the Sweepers have Rummy, everyone has skin in the game.”
Blade sniffs, eyes dark as thunderclouds.
My mind reels. We lead them to the research facility. Let them do what they do best.
“Jakob's running out of time,” I say. “We need to go.”
“Not with Sweepers on the prowl.” Mason reaches for his gun. “Big Ed and Owen will have to stay put until tonight. In the meantime, we'll go over our plan to reach the Hovermedes.”
“What happened to Diesel?” I ask.
“Unconfirmed.” Mason turns abruptly to Blade. “Make yourself useful and drum us up some food.”
Blade scowls and turns on his heel. He’s following orders, but only just. He’s plotting something. I’m sure of it.
Seated around a large trestle table in the lodge’s dining hall, we devour platefuls of scrambled eggs and fried fish.
“Cats can cook.” Mason smacks his lips together.
“That would be Lipsy.” Blade sneers. “She can fry up most anything, but that’s about all she’s good for, that right homies?”
The room erupts in laughter.
Lipsy raises her head and glances skittishly around.
“Likes to keep on the down low, now she ain’t calling the shots no more, ain’t that so, Lipsy?” Blade prods.
Lipsy clears her throat, her eyes twitching in my direction like a rabbit in a trap. She opens her mouth as if to say something, but then changes her mind and looks back down at her plate.
“Yup,” Blade says. “Lipsy liked to lay down the law at the reeducation center, but we’ve been showing her who’s boss ever since.”
My blood chills. Lipsy must have been a reeducation center guard. I feel sick at the delight they take in torturing her now that she’s under their control. Maybe I can talk Mason and Big Ed into bringing her with us when we leave the Craniopolis.
“All right, listen up everyone.” Mason pushes his plate aside. “We’ll leave here at dark. It would take the best part of two nights to hike to the Hovermedes, but if we raft the river back, Big Ed can get us there in a few hours.”
Blade scowls. “How do we know the ol’ geezer can even see to raft at night?”
“Maybe you’re forgetting who the ol’ geezer ambushed on the trail yesterday,” I interject. “You’re not exactly Hawkeye, are you?”
Blade bolts out of his seat and lunges toward me, but Mason thrusts out an arm like a steel rod and bars his way. “Big Ed’s run that river forty years, day and night. There’s no one more fit to man a raft down it. You got a problem with that, you can stay here and wait for the Sweepers to suck on your marrow.”
Blade’s eyes glower from narrowed slits. The other Rogues shift uneasily. Lipsy reaches for the plates and starts stacking them.
Mason pushes his chair out from the table. “Get the boats inflated and loaded up. We’ll need enough supplies for a couple of days. Food and water, shovels, medical necessities, camping gear, guns and ammo.”
I stand and turn to follow the Rogues out of the dining hall. Mason grabs my arm. “Leave them to it. We need to talk.”
I slump back down at the table. “Did you kill Diesel?”
He throws a discreet glance behind him, and then rubs his hand over his jaw. “He got away. Either legged it into the forest or the Sweepers extracted him.”
I groan. “I’m rooting for extraction. I don’t want to have to think that he’s still out there somewhere.” I prop my elbows on the table. “Are you sure about taking the Rogues with us?”
“We need mercenaries.” Mason perches on the edge of the table beside me.
“It’s risky,” I say. “We can’t trust them, but we can’t watch our backs every second either. And there’s more of them.”
“They won’t be a problem until they get their hands on the Hovermedes.” Mason gestures at his M16 leaning up against the table. “We’re in charge of the weapons now. That levels the playing field.”
“Do they know … that you’re a clone?”
Mason raises amused brows, then shakes his head. “The Rogues are hired thugs. The less they know the better.”
He reaches for some leftover scrambled egg and swallows it in one gulp. “We’ll stick with the Marine story for now. Once we’re safely on the Hovermedes, we can decide how much to tell them.” He stands and stretches. “Let’s go check on those rafts. We have to get to the Hovermedes before someone else finds it.”
“Who? No one else knows about it.”
“The Rogues do.” His eyes meet mine. “And they’re not all accounted for.”
I stare at his retreating back, puzzling over his words for a moment.
Diesel!
Under a pall of darkness, I shove open the door of the cabin I marched Rummy out of twelve hours earlier. Big Ed looms in my face, knife raised in his right hand. He exhales loudly and sinks back against the wall. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
My jaw trembles with relief. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again either. There were Sweepers on the far side of town.”
He folds my switchblade and hands it back to me. “I almost used this.”
I slip it into my jacket pocket. “I’m grateful you didn’t.”
I hurry across the room and kneel at Owen's side.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod, my throat too tight to speak.
Big Ed walks over, mopping his forehead with the back of his hand.
“What about Mason?” Owen asks.
“He’s fine. The Sweepers got Rummy though.”
Owen's good eye widens ever so slightly. “Good riddance. They can harvest his organs for all I care.”
I squeeze his shoulder gently. “You can’t think like that. We’re not savages.”
Owen's eyes flash between me and Big Ed. “That’s all that’s left of any of us.”
Big Ed grimaces. “No, there’s always something more.”
Shortly after eleven o’clock, we cast off our ropes and glide into the river at Black Canyon. The moon is full, flushing the forest on either side with silver light. Towering mountains of angry granite fringe the sky in sinister formation. I shake off a foreboding feeling and remind myself it’s too dark out for Sweepers.
The inky water seethes beneath our rafts as we drift downriver. Owen is wedged between the seats behind Mason and me, supply bags packed tightly around him to keep him from slipping out. Lipsy and Blade are parked in the middle section, awkwardly clutching their oars.
No one speaks as we skim forward. Big Ed huddles in a half-crouch at the back of the raft, a steady shine in his eyes as he scours the dark current and directs our paddle strokes, backward and forward. Behind us, the other Rogues mimic our maneuvers as they cut through the water in the second
raft loaded with more supplies.
The Rogues don’t know it, but Big Ed hasn’t run this river at night in years. I hate it when people call him “old man,” but he is old, after all, and I’m only just beginning to realize what that means out here when our survival is at stake. He’s pitted his skill as an oarsman against this river for decades, but tonight the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. I only hope he's up for the challenge.
Before long, I hear something like the rumble of thunder. Big Ed’s instructions become increasingly terse and we paddle with a growing sense of unease. Boulders and shrubs zip by as we accelerate. I can feel the power of the water beneath me throbbing like a jet engine about to take off.
One missed stroke is all it will take for the rocky jaws of the rapids to grind our rafts into ribbons. My muscles expand and contract as we race ever closer to the crashing cauldron of water. I paddle like a woman possessed, but we still splash back and forth like a discarded piece of plastic.
“Get ready!” Big Ed yells as he signals to the raft behind us. He maneuvers fiercely with his arms and shoulders to keep the raft parallel with the current, his knuckles gripping the rudder so tightly they look like sausages about to burst their skins. The roar of the rapids is deafening, like a sonic booming against a giant drum.
We round a bend in the river, and for a brief moment we’re poised at the top of a liquid rollercoaster, half the length of our raft suspended in mid-air. My stomach rockets up into my throat. I picture Jakob one last time, and then we plummet. I gasp as a shivering sheet of aluminum, the size of the sky, breaks over the boat, plunging us into darkness. I slide forward and claw at the safety rope, my life vest tight around my chest in a crushing bear hug. My lungs fill with panic at the sudden downward thrust.
“Owen!” I cry out, my voice muted by the watery avalanche pounding me from every direction.
We freewheel through the icy spray. My limbs lose all sensation, numbed by a deadly concoction of fear and cold. I can’t tell if I’m in the raft or free falling in my life vest. My eardrums vibrate with a deafening sound, like clouds bursting apart around me. Or is it my lungs imploding?
My fingers burn, as though the flesh has long since been ripped from them and I’m clinging to the rope by bone alone. I brace for the violence of impact, praying the end will be brief and painless.
Seconds later, the boat shudders, as if absorbing some tremendous force. My spine compresses. My fingers, still melded to the rope, scream in raw protest. Without warning, the raft pops up like a foaming, half-drowned wildcat, water streaming from it in every direction.
I heave several shaky breaths. It takes a moment to register that we’re at the bottom of the falls, and I’m alive.
Blade lets out a string of expletives. Gasping, I look with trepidation over my shoulder to see who else survived. Lipsy stares at me, wide-eyed, like she’s seen the ghost of Neptune. By some miracle, Owen's still wedged in the bottom of the raft, draped like a sopping clump of seaweed over what’s left of our supplies. Mason clutches his paddle, pokerfaced at the prow of the ship.
A rough jolt startles me back into action. I clench my paddle, blinking to get my bearings. The raft shoots forward over the froth.
“Left back,” Big Ed yells. The exhilaration in his voice is all the confirmation I need that somehow we’ve survived the death plunge.
I paddle hard, half-sobbing with relief when we pop out of the whirlpool and back into the current. I keep up steady strokes, not daring to look downstream yet. After a few minutes, we float into a pool of deep, calm water. A startled beaver does a flip turn and disappears beneath the surface.
We look around, stunned into silence as we contemplate what just happened. I rest my paddle on the edge of the raft, but before I can take a breath, three or four rapid cracks cut across the water.
“Gunfire!” Big Ed turns and scans the cliff tops.
I look up in time to see the second raft toboggan down the rapids. I hold my breath until it leaps out from behind the veil of water and rights itself. It swirls for a few seconds in the stew at the bottom of the rapids before merging with the current. A foreboding feeling grips me as I watch it glide awkwardly toward us, sagging on one side like a punctured tire running on a rim.
Chapter 18
The deflated raft slips into the pool and drifts toward us. Mason waves his flashlight over it.
A spasm of fear goes through me. There’s no mistaking the bullet holes in the rear compartment. Blade shoves me aside and reaches for the safety rope. He yanks the punctured raft toward him and peers inside. His face settles in a stiff grimace. “Empty. Even the supplies are gone.” He pushes it out of our way and snatches up his paddle.
“Whoa!” Mason reaches for Blade’s shoulder. “We’re not going to find them alive now, not if they’re in the river. And whose to say they didn’t ditch us before the rapids?”
“You d-d-don’t … know that,” Lipsy protests. I throw her a frustrated look. If she’s trying to keep Blade calm, it isn’t working.
Blade raises his paddle to take a swing at Mason, but he blocks it with ease and Blade stumbles backward into Owen. Big Ed dives to shield him and throws me a harrowed look. Blade’s about to blow a gasket. If I don’t defuse the situation, we could all end up in the river.
I whack my paddle across the center seat and gesture at the deflated raft. “Right now, we’re someone’s target practice. We don’t have time for search and rescue. We can look for bodies along the way, but we’re not going back. We keep going to the landing point.”
Mason rubs the back of his hand across his jaw. “Diesel’s gotta be behind this. No one else knows we’re out here.”
“Ain’t Diesel shootin’ at us.” Blade scowls. “This here’s Undergrounders. Hunting us down like they’re on safari.”
“Whoever it is, we need to get off the river as quickly as possible.” I grab my paddle and take my seat at the front of the raft. Blade and Mason exchange festering looks, before resuming their positions.
Within minutes, we’ve maneuvered out of the pool and back into the current. It’s slow going, but no one has the energy left to propel the raft any faster through the water. Instead, we scan the shadows for bodies, randomly poking and slapping at the weeds along the edge of the river with our paddles. A shiver runs across my shoulders. If Diesel’s out there, we’re sitting ducks in this raft.
My aching arms, limp as noodles, make ever-dwindling paddling motions. Now that my heartbeat has slowed, and the last dregs of adrenaline have leaked from my veins, the cold is creeping into my bones.
Other than an occasional command from Big Ed, no one speaks. We paddle like disembodied rafters, each in his own world. I grimly visualize the next stroke, barely able to raise my arms, let alone think a coherent thought.
“You all right?” Owen asks.
“Yeah, just cold,” I lie.
“Me too,” Mason interjects. “Time we picked up speed.”
I glance over at him, sensing a note of resignation in his voice. “There are no bodies, are there?”
He tightens his jaw. “Not yet, there aren’t.”
Flushed smudges of dawn are already permeating the darkness by the time we reach the North Fork landing point. We ground the raft in a gravel outwash and reach for our weapons. I’m soaked and cold, but inwardly glowing from the thrill of licking the rapids. At least I feel alive, a gift the bunkers never gave me. But, it’s a bitter thrill without Jakob by my side.
Mason slings his gun over his shoulder. “I’ll do a quick scout around.”
He clambers out and disappears into the forest. I clutch the barrel of my gun and pan the perimeter of trees from the refuge of our raft. Apart from the usual owl tweets and cricket clicks nothing moves or makes a sound.
After a few tense minutes, Mason reappears and gives the all clear. “I’ll get Owen. The rest of you can unload.”
We wade in silence through the sludge at the river’s edge to the gravely shore, and
then hand off the backpacks and supplies in a chain up the bank. My heart pounds in my chest. We’re almost at the Hovermedes. One step closer to finding Jakob. I’ve tried not to think too much about him in the past few days. I don't know if he's dead or alive, and it’s too painful to imagine a future without him.
I watch as Mason hoists Owen over his shoulder. He ploughs easily through the mud toward the shore on legs of steel. I toss my backpack down and take a quick steadying breath. We’re about to cross from what’s left of my world into Mason’s. I pull my soggy, knotted braid over my shoulder and finger it hesitantly. I have no choice from here on out but to trust my life to a clone. Even Jakob's life is in Mason’s hands now, and that disturbs me. But, Mason’s the only one who can take me to the Sweepers. I wish I believed in him as much as Owen does.
“Let’s move.” Mason strides by me without breaking pace.
Big Ed falls in behind him. I gesture with my rifle to Blade and Lipsy to get going, and then cast one last glance around before I hurry after them.
A few feet from the shore, a familiar dense foliage wraps its tentacles around us, lending a greenish hue to the peachy dawn. I duck to avoid a low-hanging limb, crunching over a thick bed of fallen twigs on anemic legs still in recovery mode from our brush with a watery grave. Out front, Mason slashes his way through everything in his path like an excavator. His strength is beyond natural, but I still marvel that he survived the fall from the pole bridge.
We barely cover a quarter mile before Mason pulls up abruptly. He slides Owen down from his shoulders and props him up at the base of a tree. “This is the spot.”
Immurement: The Undergrounders Series Book One (A Young Adult Science Fiction Dystopian Novel) Page 10
