Less than half an hour later, we’ve made it to within a few hundred feet of the pod’s glass walls, where we hide behind a buggy that has its hood open and engine smoking. We haven’t been spotted because the stewards normally stationed around the pod in concentric circles are protecting the border in four rigid lines. Several gurgling tanks are idling next to them and a handful of stewards are tinkering with the innards of the zips. But no one’s bothering to guard the recycling stations.
“Are we too late?” Alina asks.
“I’m not sure,” Silas says, and the zip we saw earlier appears over the rim of the pod. Without warning it fires at the lines of stewards.
“It’s Maks,” Alina shouts over the propelling zip blades.
The tanks on the ground raise their guns and fire back. The stewards scatter. Loads of them have already fallen to the ground and one of the tanks is in pieces. The zip spins around and comes back, and this time it ignores the army on the ground and fires at one of the recycling stations. A hole appears at the bottom of the station, but the tubing remains intact. A figure appears from a tank not more than fifty feet away and, lifting the visor of his helmet, holds a megaphone to his face. He barks at the stewards. “Back in line!” The voice is my father’s. But why is he keeping the army at the border? Can’t he see what’s happening? The border isn’t under threat. The Ministry zips should be in the air. Their tanks should be attacking Vanya’s zip, so it doesn’t damage any of the recycling stations.
“That’s my dad,” I shout. “We have to tell him what they’re planning.” The zip disappears and everything goes quiet.
“We won’t get a better chance,” Silas says. He pulls a white shirt from his backpack. “Let’s go!” he says. He stands up and, in full view, hurtles toward my father waving the T-shirt above his head. The soldiers who have broken ranks raise their guns. They don’t shoot, but they run toward us.
I wave my arms manically and dash toward my father, who lifts his rifle and points the muzzle at me. “Father!” I shout. “Dad!”
But before I get to him, I’m jumped by two stewards and tackled to the ground. My face hits the dirt. I look up. Alina’s facemask is pulled from her and Silas is kicked to the ground and a foot jammed between his shoulder blades. Alina doesn’t struggle. Has she learned to breathe? But I see no more because a pair of feet in scuffed black boots blocks my view.
“Quinn?”
“Yes,” I croak.
“Release him,” my father tells the stewards. I scramble to my feet and dust myself off as the soldiers dart this way and that, howling at each other and loading their guns. It’s obvious they weren’t ready for this attack.
“They’re after the recycling stations,” I tell my father. “They plan to cut off the air supply.”
“Damn,” he growls as the zip returns, blowing the ground to pieces. I throw myself down and cover my head with my hands. The zip sinks and retreats like they’re playing a game. But they aren’t. They’re just trying to hit the right target.
My father’s lying next to me. He pulls himself to his feet and helps me up. “You need to get the zips in the air,” I tell him.
“They’ve been sabotaged,” he replies. He presses the megaphone against the blowoff valve in his facemask. “Unit Bravo, relocate to Recycling Station North. Juliet and Romeo South. Zulu East. Tango West. Delta, stay at the border. Double time, MARCH!” He looks at Alina and Silas still pinned to the ground. “They’re Resistance,” he tells the stewards, who look stunned and apologetically help Silas up and hand back Alina’s airtank. They must be two of the new recruits armed to help fight against the Ministry, not for it.
“Make us useful,” Alina says.
“This way,” my father says, and we leg it to the border. We slip through the revolving doors and into the tunnel. Someone rushes us from behind and reaches for my father.
“Jude?” It’s Ronan. When he sees me he claps me on the back. “You made it,” he says.
“They want to destroy the recycling stations,” my father tells Ronan, who pushes up the sleeves on his shirt.
“What can we do?” I ask.
“If there’s air rationing, auxiliary houses and the prison will get cut off first,” my father says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bunch of keys. “The Resistance has been imprisoned and that includes Bea. Security will be lax. And Jazz is at the infirmary. You know where that is?” I nod.
“Is there any way to fit everyone with a tank as a precaution?” Alina asks.
“And we need cuttings,” Silas adds. He can’t look at my father, and I don’t blame him. I can hardly look at him myself after what he’s done.
“We keep tanks at the Research Labs.” My father rubs his forehead. “Is it just a zip they have?”
Alina shrugs. “We didn’t stay long enough to find out. But their troops are strong.”
The ground shakes again. A soldier rushes toward us. “General, some of the units are breaking up. We’re awaiting orders.”
“Make sure the south station is covered. It’s the control tower,” my father tells her. He looks at us. “D-day,” he says.
“Shall I come with you?” Ronan asks me.
“He can handle it,” Alina says. “Can’t you?” she looks at me with steely eyes. “Give us guns,” she tells my father.
“Gladly,” he says, and hands his rifle to Silas, who looks at the gun, then at my father, and nods. My father takes the steward’s gun and gives it to Alina.
He holds out his hand to me. I take it and we shake, staring at each other. “However this ends . . .” He pauses. Silas walks away. Alina follows. “You’re a brave person, Quinn,” he says. It’s not an apology, but it’s as much as he can give.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I say, kind of joking. I pull my hand away and run into Zone One.
49
BEA
It must be at least a day since they threw me into this windowless, airtight cell. I’ve had nothing to eat or drink and my arms and legs are tied to a chair. I wet myself a couple of hours ago. The smell is odious, and I keep shifting in the chair to ease the discomfort of sitting in damp underwear and pants. I won’t snivel and give them the satisfaction of thinking they’ve broken me.
But I cough and my throat is so dry it comes out like a sandy wheeze. I’ve also managed to dribble down my own face. I try to yank my hands free but just tear another layer of skin from my red-raw wrists. I stop struggling at the sound of scraping as a guard opens the cell door.
He holds it open for Niamh Knavery, who stalks in and looks at me as though I’m something someone’s puked up. “It reeks in here,” she says. “Did you piss yourself?” I’d sit straighter in the chair if my limbs didn’t burn, to show her I’m not embarrassed. They’re responsible for the smell in here, not me.
After a brief pause, Lance Vine appears. He covers his nose with his arm. How ironic that he finds me disgusting. “Give us five minutes,” he tells the guard, who nods, the keys tied to his belt jangling as he retreats down the hallway.
“I haven’t done anything,” I say.
“Don’t give me that,” Niamh says, bristling with contempt.
“Your father killed my parents. I have every reason to hate you,” I tell her, though then I’d hate Ronan, too, which I don’t. Neither of them is to blame for who Cain Knavery was.
Vine stands next to Niamh and rubs his nose between his thumb and index finger. “If you ask me, there isn’t any point in delaying things. I’ve heard from Jude Caffrey that it’s getting worse. Time to act.” He steps in front of Niamh and grabs my face, his sweaty hand over my mouth. “We thought we hacked most of you down when we destroyed The Grove. So who’s attacking us?”
“Is there another riot in the pod?” I ask. And is Quinn a part of it? Could he be here? Hope trickles its way back into my body. “If you’re so tough, why aren’t you out there battling the bad guys yourself?”
He smacks me hard across the face. The chair teeters on it
s back legs and crashes to the floor. I land on my hands tied to the back of the chair and clench my jaw to stop myself from whimpering. I roll to the side and try moving my wrists.
Niamh presses her lips together. “Was Wendy behind all this?”
“Or was it Ronan?” Vine adds.
Niamh shudders. “And Wendy’s helped these new terrorists attack us, I suppose,” she says, not giving me time to answer his question. “Let’s just shut off the air to the cell and let her choke,” she says. Vine stands over me and shrugs. He couldn’t care less what happens to me.
A noise in the hallway makes me tense and another steward bumbles in. He looks at me and gulps. “They’re waiting to start the chamber meeting, sir,” he says.
Vine turns to Niamh. “Tell them I’ll be there shortly.”
“Yes, Pod Minister,” she says. She pokes me with her foot.
“I’m no different from you, Niamh,” I say. I don’t beg or plead with her to help me, I simply give her a chance to do the right thing.
“No, Bea,” she says. “We’re innately different, and that’s part of the problem: you and your RATS think we aren’t.” She leaves the cell, slamming the door shut on her way out.
Vine crouches down and strokes my face with the back of his hand. I try to bite him. He pulls his hand away and laughs. I’m like prey, and it feels far too familiar. I scream as loudly as I can, to startle him if nothing else, and only stop when an alarm blares from the speakers in the wall and a red light on the ceiling flashes and spins. “It can’t be,” he says.
“What can’t it be?”
He looks down at me. “You know very well, it’s the air siren. The Resistance must have damaged the tubing. You’ll pay for your involvement in this.”
“The tubing?”
“They should have remembered that the first places air is siphoned from is the Penal Block and auxiliary apartments.” He heads for the door.
“You’re leaving me here?” I ask. I’m not scared of dying—I’ve been faced with the prospect so many times I know it’s inevitable, and suffocating is the most inevitable thing of all—but I don’t want to die alone. Someone should witness my last moment. I deserve that, at least, don’t I?
Vine sneers and presses a bell on the intercom. He waits several moments, then pulls on the door handle, but it doesn’t budge. He clears his throat and tries the intercom again. “I’m ready to leave now,” he says into the mouthpiece, furrowing his brow.
I cough because the air in the cell has already thinned. “What if no one comes?” I ask, goading. “If there’s trouble, wouldn’t everyone be recruited to fight? Wouldn’t the stewards run scared if they thought the air was being siphoned?”
He puts his hand to his chest then thumps the cell door with his fists. “Let me out!” he bawls. He clutches his chest and thumps that too. I focus on stretching out my exhalations. My breath sounds like the ocean. Vine kneels on the floor next to me and puts his ear to my mouth. “What kind of trick is that?” he asks. His breathing is rapid.
“No trick,” I say. “I have all the air I need.”
“Get me out of here!” He blanches, going back to the door where he cranes his neck and opens his mouth wide to catch all the air he can. “It burns,” he croaks and starts hacking.
He tries his finger against the button one last time before sliding to the floor panting and then kicking the door and yowling incomprehensibly. And soon he is on his knees hyperventilating, and with very little warning, passes out. I watch his chest rise and fall. He’ll live a while longer. But only a while.
And I stay as still as I can on the floor preserving my oxygen. The air is very thin, but it’s enough to live on. For me at least.
For now.
50
ALINA
Whole regiments are surrounding the three recycling stations that have their tubing intact and snipers are positioned in their towers. “We can shoot,” I tell Jude Caffrey. He dips his head, as if to say, of course you can, and points to Recycling Station North. “Go with Ronan,” he says.
We bolt toward the station and hurdle hastily erected sandbags. A soldier on the door recognizes Ronan, lets him through, and we take the winch to the top. My heart thrums so loudly in my ears I can almost hear it over the gunfire. All I can think about are my aunt and uncle, and Bea and Jazz, who’ll suffocate if we don’t stop Sequoia’s troopers from blowing up the pod’s tubes. It’s what the Ministry always feared, what they told people terrorists might do, and at The Grove we laughed at their fearmongering.
At the top, we dash from the winch and onto a balcony, where we throw ourselves onto our stomachs and inspect the ground below through the scopes of our rifles. Vanya’s troopers have appeared from the west and are advancing on the stations. Only their helmets and shields, fashioned from old car doors, protect them. Occasionally one of them falls to the ground, but the dead and injured are trodden over and the troop continues. Ministry soldiers are taking cover behind the sandbags and firing continuous rounds of ammo; the Sequoians are undaunted.
The clunking zip appears to my right as it loops the pod. It fires again at our station and for a few seconds the building buckles. Silas, Ronan, and I gape at one another wondering, for one horrifying moment, if the whole thing will topple to the ground and us with it. But the damage is superficial and the building quickly stops shuddering.
Ronan elbows me. “What are you waiting for?” he says. He has eyes the color of steel and the bearing of someone used to war.
I look through the scope again. To avoid the debris from the station the Ministry soldiers have broken ranks, giving Vanya’s troopers time to dart forward and leap over the sandbags. Guns are fired, but all the soldiers are suddenly forced to use knives and the butts of their rifles to protect themselves. One of the Sequoians throws a Ministry soldier to the ground and repeatedly pounds his head against the ground. My stomach heaves. I take aim and fire. The trooper lets the soldier go and clutches his side. He pulls off his helmet. It isn’t a he at all. I’ve shot Wren. She falls, like a heavy lead pipe, into the dirt. Within minutes other troopers have trampled over her and if she was alive after being shot, she isn’t now.
“I’ve killed Wren,” I tell Silas.
He squints. “It’s her or my parents.” I hate the truth of this. I hate all the killing and the weighing of one life against another. When will it be over? I need it to be over. I can’t live in a world like this anymore.
“They’re too close to the tower. I can’t get a good shot,” Ronan says, standing up. “And if they break in at the bottom they could use the emergency staircase to get to the control room. We’ll never hold them off from here.”
We jump up and follow him. Was Ronan one of the soldiers I was shooting at a few weeks ago when the Ministry destroyed The Grove? I am a turncoat, I realize, fighting side by side with an enemy. But today we fight together to protect the pod and the people we love.
And that seems the right thing to do.
51
QUINN
The rationing alarm is whirring like mad through Zone One and probably all across the pod. The streets are empty. All the Premiums must have taken cover at home or in a Ministry building. How long will it be before even these places get the air cut? The death toll doesn’t bear thinking about.
In houses along the street, faces are pressed to windows. People are too afraid to come outside.
I check the gauge on my airtank. It’s running low, but it’ll be enough, I hope.
I sprint along the wide boulevard toward the Justice Building because that’s where Bea is.
And she’s okay.
She is.
I know it.
52
BEA
Lance Vine has turned blue. And it won’t be long before I look like that myself. I close my eyes and block out the thought. I block out every thought and focus on my exhalations. I count them out, only inhaling a little when I get to ten, so I can ration the remnants of oxygen lingering in
the cell. The air is so fine, every breath hurts. And I have a searing headache.
I open my eyes and look at the red light flashing on the ceiling, when Niamh bursts into the cell.
“Don’t close the door!” I wheeze over the siren blasting through the speakers. She doesn’t hear me, and the door closes behind her.
“Oh no.” Niamh gapes at Vine sprawled on the floor. She nudges him with her foot. “What have you done?” She puts a hand to her chest. “The air,” she says. “I can’t . . .” She starts to cough so hard, she’s unable to finish her sentence.
She looks like she wants to hurt me, but she also looks afraid. I’m alive and Lance Vine is dead. “The guards have all gone AWOL, but we’ll fix them . . . just as soon as everything gets back to normal,” she says. She goes to the intercom panel and is about to press her finger to the button when she realizes no one’s stationed outside to hear it buzz. She looks at me and gasps, and I sigh, expecting to have to watch Niamh die, too, but as she pulls on the handle, it opens. She cries out. And so do I.
It’s Quinn.
“Oh, Bea.” He pushes Niamh aside and rushes to me. He holds my face in his hands and looks at the dead man and then at my chafed wrists. “Are you okay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He uses a knife to free me, pulls up his mask, and kisses the palms of my hands. “I knew you were alive. Alive and kicking everyone’s asses,” he says.
“You’re here,” I say. I throw my arms around his neck and squeeze him so tight, I’m afraid I might hurt him. He kisses me on the mouth, the forehead, the neck, then puts his mask over my mouth and nose. For a moment I forget how filthy I am. “We need to find Ronan and your dad. They’ll help us,” I say.
“Leave my brother out of this,” Niamh says. She’s holding open the door and a little air from the hallway is filtering into the cell. If she leaves, we’ll both be dead. I have to keep her talking.
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