“Oh, uh, I—” I stuttered, but considering that neither of them looked too terribly bashful, I surmised that they had only just arrived.
“I found out how to tie and place the knot so his neck wouldn’t break, and then we worked on strengthening his lungs so he could breathe in the coffin for a few hours. We had it all planned out.”
“Well, that was a pretty glutty thing to do,” I told him, but any rage I had felt earlier was now gone from my body.
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Well, if you mean he’s not dead, then yeah. I guess it did.”
But the hidden implications of my words hung in the air, and we all grew a little more serious. I was certain that they were thinking, as I was, about the frenzied battle we had instigated, raging just outside the clinic’s walls.
“Mata had something to show us?” Victor asked. His voice was as tense as I felt.
“Yes,” Gideon answered, slipping his fingers into mine and turning back the way he had originally come. “Or more like someone.”
Before I let him lead me away, I looked first at Meghan and then at Victor. Without a word, they took a step forward, and I too spun around, following Gideon into another wing.
“This way,” he said. “Follow me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“They couldn’t keep her at the jail, because this is too big,” Gideon said, leading us through another set of doors and down a hallway to an ordinary-looking exam room. “Mata is trying to pick the locks on her handcuffs but hasn’t had any luck yet.”
Grabbing the round handle, he turned it and stepped inside.
I don’t know what I had expected. Maybe an alien-type, barely-humanoid with green skin and two heads, but I was a little disappointed when I saw just a regular looking woman sitting on the floor, shackled to the wall. She had dark brown hair, pulled up in a short ponytail, green-brown eyes framed with thick lashes, and a thin mouth that was pulled down in a frown as she watched the four of us enter.
“Who are these people,” she asked through a heavy accent I had never heard before.
Mata, who was kneeling on the floor and fiddling with the chains around her ankles, said, “Victor, Meghan, Jade—this is Pilar. She’s not from here.”
Pilar’s somewhat large nostrils flared as she studied each of us. “Damn right I’m not from here. This was supposed to be a mapping mission, and I get practically shot down and mobbed by a crowd of crazy people!”
“Which colony are you from?” Meghan asked, dropping to a knee to help Mata with the chains.
“Colony? What are you taking about, I’m not from any colony. Ouch, be careful!”
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re trying to free you,” Mata said grumpily, but Meghan froze, turning around to stare at Victor with gargantuan eyes—a movement I only noticed as I turned my own head to gape at Gideon.
“I’m not from any colony.”
He pulled in a corner of his mouth, denting his dimple, and tilted his head slightly, as if to say, “I told you this was big.”
“What do you mean, you aren’t from a colony?” Victor asked.
“Like I told this lady”—Pilar was clearly agitated as she flicked a finger in Mata’s direction—“I’m from Spain, which is apparently a heinous crime around here.”
One of the shackles clinked to the ground as Mata finally managed to pick its lock. “Are you going to help me or not,” she snapped at Meghan, but the rest of us had only just begun to process this news. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”
“You’re from Spain?” I asked, feeling rather stupid. Was this some sort of joke? Though she spoke English, her words were completely foreign to me. Foreign and impossible. “As in, the Kingdom of Spain, a country on the Iberian Peninsula, the largest country in what used to be Southern Europe?”
“Oh, you know your history, good for you.” Pilar rolled her eyes as Mata freed her other ankle. “Yes, that Spain. Why is that so confusing to you people? You’re the ones who have been in hiding.”
“Hiding? We haven’t been in hiding,” Victor said. His eyes were narrowed and his voice was carefully measured. “This is the Ten Colonies. The only place left that is suitable for human life, after the End of All Things.”
“What the hell is that?”
I met Meghan’s gaze, and she shrugged in bemusement as Victor scoffed.
“What the hell is what?” he asked.
“The End of All Things.” Pilar bobbed her head back and forth to each word, clearly exasperated and annoyed. “I’ve heard the term a few times since I’ve been here.”
“The End of All Things!” Victor threw up his hands, losing his patience. “The war that destroyed the planet! After the End of All Things, the rest of humanity moved down here in order to survive. After the End of—”
“You mean the Last World War?” she asked and then got to her feet, rubbing her wrists as Mata fully set her free. “Look, I don’t know what kind of radiation you’ve been sucking, but the rest of the world wasn’t destroyed. There was no ‘End of All Things,’ and as far as the rest of humanity is concerned, this area of the Pacific has been uninhabitable for decades.”
My first reaction was to lunge at either Victor or Mata and strangle the life out of one of their lying, glutty bodies. But then my brain started to reason with my heart: they seemed as confused as I was, so it wasn’t likely that this was common Knowledge, even amongst the Doctors. Had anyone known about this? How was it possible that there was still such a place as Spain, and that a woman had travelled halfway across the supposedly-destroyed planet only to be as shocked by us as we were by her?
“How did you get here?” Meghan asked, her voice scratchy and quiet, almost as though it was painful for her to speak.
“Flew,” Pilar shrugged, pulling on her jacket. “I landed when I thought I saw signs of habitation, and they ambushed me and brought me here.”
The rest of us were frozen in place. Staring from astonished face to astonished face, she grunted and crossed to the door in four long strides.
“Wait, where are you going?” Mata sprung forward, reaching out to snag her sleeve.
“I’m getting out of this crazy place!”
“You can’t. You’re our only way out of here.”
“Wait, what?” Victor snapped.
Pilar laughed mirthlessly. “It looks like you have some things to talk about,” she said. Then with a sigh, she crossed her arms and stared at the ground. “Look, I’ll give you five minutes, and then I’ll take anyone who wants to get out of this madhouse back to the base. I’m going to go take a leak.”
I jumped when the door slammed shut behind her.
“What do you mean, ‘she’s the only way out of here’?” Meghan clambered to her feet, crossing her arms and glowering at Mata. “Where are you planning to go?”
“To Spain? Nova Scotia? Timbuktu? Who cares! Didn’t you hear? The rest of the world is still out there!”
“We can’t just leave!”
“Why not?”
It was Gideon that answered. “They’ll all kill each other,” he said quietly.
I thought of the orange sky, the burning buildings, the sounds of endless violence, death, and gun shots . . . This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for us. We had destroyed the peace that had for so long sheltered the Ten Colonies, no matter how twisted and unfair that peace had been. We had come with the intention of freeing people, but the world had to burn before we could build it up again. What kind of human beings did it make us if we burned but didn’t rebuild?
“Gideon’s right,” I agreed.
He gave me a sad smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“We have to finish what we started.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Mata’s voice was hard—very different from the fairy-like wisp I had grown to loathe in Erroris, but still just as repugnant. “You two hawked everything up, going live like that. What were you thinking? What was your plan?”
Gideon and Victor looked at each, apparently both slightly ashamed.
“Well, we needed everyone to know . . . to know the truth,” Gideon finished lamely.
“And then what?” she growled. “This was supposed to take time. Plant the seeds, come up with a viable alternative, turn our world into something better . . . But we don’t know how. The rebel violence—what was that supposed to do?” She turned her eyes on me, and I glowered back, unwilling to let her demonize me. “Set up some sort of martial law? Is that wise? We don’t even know, because so much of our history has been lost!”
I met Victor’s eyes, feeling stupider than I had ever felt before. Though the words tasted sour, even in my brain, I had to admit that Mata had a point. We had never had a long-term plan. After all, we were just a bunch of kids, really.
Her stupid face turned smug, and I could tell she thought she had us cornered.
And unfortunately, she almost did.
“What if the rest of the world can help us?” she continued. “We need to do some research. Find out what works and what doesn’t from a real study of a comprehensive history of the human race, and then we can come back with an alternative way of life to offer them.”
I could tell by the way Gideon chewed the inside of his cheek that he felt conflicted. Victor seemed convinced, and I had fallen out of practice of reading Meghan, so I had no idea what she was thinking. But Mata had a point. We had been painfully naive and unorganized since the bombing at Erroris, and maybe it was time to step back and realize that this was going to be a process. Probably a long one.
“But what do we do about them now?” Gideon asked, voicing the one question I had left.
“It’s a mess, that’s for sure,” Mata replied. “You should have never taken things into your own hands.”
“We didn’t trust you.”
“And for good reasons,” I added, the memory popping into my head again:
Slowly, she turned her hand around, revealing a dark green grenade, and drew back her arm to throw it. Her smile widened as she waved lightly and leisurely with her other hand, patting her fingers against her palm as she bid us a mocking farewell.
She waved her hand dismissively now. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.”
It was hers.
“But we can’t stay here. The Doctors will kill all of us if we stay. The Colonies survived this long. Liminis will find equilibrium again, and they will survive until we get back. Armed with more than just half-baked schemes and self-righteous ideology.”
The slight click of the door opening again made my heart jump into my throat.
“Time’s up,” Pilar said, poking her head in. “Who’s coming?”
Looking into each of our faces, Mata challenged us one last time. “There’s nothing more we can do for them right now.”
“I’m in,” Victor said, and Meghan grabbed his hand.
“Me, too,” she added.
Gideon’s eyes found mine. “What do you say, Ruby? I’ll go wherever you go.”
And with a deep breath that threatened to unleash an entire universe that I knew nothing about, I conceded. “We have to go. They’ll kill us if we don’t.”
Gideon nodded. “Let’s do it.”
“Alright, let’s get the hell out of this place,” Pilar said, opening the door wider and stepping aside so we could exit. “You’re damn lucky I’m willing to take any of you.”
That was true. She was the only way we were getting off this island alive.
And that was the only thing we could worry about right now.
---
We all piled into one of the vans that was used to shuttle Wissen Schule kids to and from their physicals with Victor at the wheel.
“Where am I headed?” he asked Pilar.
“South. I’m just on the outskirts.”
Avoiding all of the major thoroughfares, we were able to circumvent the pockets of conflict that dotted the city. But as sidetracked as the Doctors were (trying to get their colony under control), they had not failed to leave a couple of policemen standing guard at Liminis’s outlets.
“What are we going to do?” Meghan whispered as we neared the southern gates.
Victor coasted to a stop right in front of the two guards but didn’t offer a solution as to how to get by them.
“I’ll handle this,” Mata answered instead. She unbuckled her seatbelt and clambered out of the car. Louder, she added, “Hold on, Mr. Jones. This will only take a moment.”
Since the driver’s window of the battered van no longer functioned properly, there was a three inch gap at the top of the glass. I leaned forward, trying to hear the entire conversation from the back seat; I still wasn’t convinced that Mata wouldn’t betray us at the first possible opportunity.
“Maybe you should sit back, Ruby,” Gideon said, sinking lower and putting his hand on my thigh.
“They’re more likely to recognize you than me,” I responded, but I acquiesced begrudgingly, knowing I couldn’t do anything, even if she did hand us back over to the Docs.
Mata approached the two policemen.
“Excuse me, sir, but no one is allowed to leave the colony.” The older of the two policemen held up his hand to bar her way.
“My name is Dr. MacLeod.” Reaching into her pocket, she showed them her badge. “I have an injured First in here who needs immediate assistance, beyond what Liminis’s facilities can handle.”
The two police officers looked at each other, and even from this distance, I could tell they were both suspicious of her story.
“We’ll have to ring it in,” the other said.
I clenched my teeth together. Oh good. Alert the authorities.
But Mata remained calm. “Naturally,” she agreed. “But make it quick. A man’s life is at stake.”
“What do we do, Victor?” Meghan asked again.
Without really answering her, he said, “She needs to get back in the car. If I could just drive straight through, I’m sure they’d move—”
“Hang on,” the officer with the radio said, and the rest of Victor’s thought got choked down in an instant. “An emergency transmission is coming through. I can’t—”
A loud, authoritative voice exploded from the man’s receiver, causing us all to jump.
“THE REBELS MUST STEP DOWN. FORCES ARE MOVING TO LIMINIS. AN AIRSTRIKE IS IMMINENT. THE REBELS MUST STEP DOWN. FORCES ARE MOVING TO LIMINIS. AN AIRSTRIKE IS IMMINENT.”
“Get back to the station!” Mata barked. “Warn the others. You have to get out of here!”
For a millisecond, they both stood and stared at her with wide eyes and pale faces.
“Go!”
Jumping into action, they sprinted for their patrol vehicle, and Mata ran back to our van.
“Go! Just drive!” she yelled at Victor, though she was only halfway inside.
He slammed on the gas and we lurched forward, the back of my head banging into the headrest. The hiss to my side told me that the same thing had happened to Gideon.
“Be careful!” he yelled, but no one paid any attention to him.
Mata rummaged under the passenger seat as Victor urged the squealing wheels down the faint dirt road.
“Aha!” she said, pulling out an ancient radio with a long metal antenna just as he swerved to avoid a giant hole in the path.
“Hey, watch it!” Pilar snapped both anxiously and angrily from the middle seat.
“Does someone else want to drive?” he shot back, straightening out the vehicle and barreling down the path even faster than before.
Before anyone could respond, however, Mata shushed us harshly. “I’m trying to tap into their communications,” she said. “So why don’t you just shut up and—”
A new, panicked voice broke through the static with sudden, alarming clarity. “Listen to me. Listen! The Firsts have taken us hostage. We cannot get out. Do not attack the colony. Can anyone hear me? We can’t get out!”
I gaped at Gideon as we hit
another bumpy patch.
“Who was that?” Pilar asked.
“That sounded like Dr. French,” Victor responded.
“She must have regained consciousness.” Mata looked at Victor, but I couldn’t read her face in profile. “Does that mean the Firsts are actually winning? That they’ve taken the Doctors hostage?”
“Who cares!” Meghan yelled. “Are they going to bomb Liminis or aren’t they?”
Before I had a chance to comprehend this new information, I felt a light tap on my arm. Gideon silently offered me a seatbelt, and I took it with a roll of my eyes just as Pilar shouted and Victor turned sharply left.
“Turn here!”
I clicked the buckle into place as Gideon’s body slammed into my shoulder.
“For Adam’s sake, we can’t escape if we die in a fiery car crash,” Meghan said, sounding more like her brother than she ever had in her life.
“We’re fine,” Victor shot back.
He drove us through a relatively insignificant clump of trees, right into a large clearing, where a small white plane was crudely hidden by a smattering of downed branches.
“Oh hell.” Pilar stood the second that Victor shoved the van into park, throwing the door open and jogging to her aircraft. “Why?” She scoffed as she gestured toward the ineffective and obviously irritating pile of sticks that covered her airplane.
Mata joined her as the rest of us worked on getting out of the van. “Why does it have guns if you were only on a mapping expedition?”
“The apocalypse left people a little jumpy.” Pilar shrugged, agitatedly moving to clear off her plane.
Disproportionate to the rest of the craft, a pair of heavy weapons was attached to each wing. There were several windows, but they were too dark for me to see anything, and I had no idea what kind of trip we could expect.
“So it’s true,” Gideon breathed, leaning forward to stare at the plane as I waited for Meghan to step down. “She isn’t from around here.”
I hopped out next and offered him my hand, helping him squeeze out of the backseat. “I guess she could’ve flown from another colony, like Ross. But why would she lie about that?”
Fallen Firsts Page 21
