by Harper North
“Okay,” I shout to everyone. “We don’t know what’ll happen for sure, but stay here and board whatever vehicle happens to come out from under this floor. Enhanced, with us. The rest of you, wait. We’ll do our best to make sure we get out of here alive.”
To my shock, cheers rise from around the chamber. They’re weak, tired, but they’re cheers all the same, perhaps the first I’ve heard in a long time.
Beside me, Sky grins.
The enhanced gather near one of the doors, and I watch as Dwellers and EHC ops ready weapons beside each other. Back in the chamber, Cal lifts an eyebrow at me like he can’t believe we’re leaving him to sit here, but a smile also teases his lips.
“Fin, that was my speech you stole,” Elias says, jabbing me in the ribs.
It’s a move only a friend would do. I jab him back. “Are you growing a sense of humor?”
“Glad to have you back,” Sky tells him, which shocks me.
Elias leads, waving us out of the room. Emma walks by his side, and Sky and I take up positions right behind her. Cia joins us. We emerge into the round hallway as Lacy, huffing and puffing, drags Talen into the hall from the direction of the facility entrance.
Uh oh.
“Cho,” Lacy pants. “He’s at the entrance to the caves. Forty people. And he already knows how to get here.”
Elias curses. “You weren’t able to stop any of them?”
Lacy lets go of Talen and grasps the wall, shaking. She’s just as weakened as the rest of us, maybe even more so, and Talen doesn’t seem to have the strength to shake his head. He leans against the opposite wall, bracing against one of the pictures. It’s taken all they had just to run back.
“Go eat and drink,” Elias orders. “You’re no good without any strength.”
Lacy glares at him, but she gives in and stumbles into the main chamber.
“Come up behind us when you’re stronger,” he orders.
Talen peels himself from the wall and follows Lacy. They vanish inside. It was lunacy to send them out in this state, but my tired mind hadn’t realized.
“Come on,” Emma says, sounding alive again.
She and Elias lead us through the round hallway as we leave the others behind. At least Lacy and Talen will help guard those who can’t fight if Cho reaches them first. I see what Elias did there. Emma guides him and a bunch of questions rise on his face as he eyes the faded pictures on the walls, but he says nothing. Instead, Elias works his jaw once we reach the stairwell to the basement.
I’ve forgotten how far down it goes. We descend, single-file, and I smell the bodies still down here long before we reach the basement. Cho’s presents. No one was left to clean them up, and by the time people got here, it was too late for any sane person to want to try.
“We need to do this as fast as we can,” I say.
“Agreed,” Sky replies.
“And Cho will want to kill us stronger people first,” I add.
An EHC op gags behind me. Pulling my shirt over my nose, I reach the bottom and pray we don’t have to go through too much of the basement. I try not to look at the black box still lying on the floor, but when I see it, my heart races as tension rises into my chest. That came from the big storage room where Edward Nejem kept his dangerous experiments.
But we don’t have time to worry about it now.
Thankfully, Emma leads us to the very corner of the basement, which doesn’t have any hanging, bloated forms, and leans down, pulling at a nearly invisible handle I’ve never seen before.
“Help,” she says, voice high and weak.
Elias gets beside her and waves me over. The door’s stuck, probably sealed or airtight, and as the two of us pull, arms pressing together, another quake rattles the entire facility. This one feels as if a giant has grabbed the world and started shaking it.
As the door pops free and swings open with a hiss, I fall back into Sky and send us both down to the floor. The quake rises to a roar. Bodies sway on nooses. The stench threatens to invade me. I hold my breath and press my face into the floor. Things fall. The black box slides past me and crashes into the wall beside the stairwell. The whole basement feels like it’s collapsing around us. Dust joins the decay and creates a horrific stench I’ll never forget. Sky shouts my name and throws himself over me, but before I know it, it’s over.
I take a breath and lift my head.
The basement… half if it is gone. Jagged pipes have buried bodies and concrete that’s a foot thick lies everywhere in pieces. Our corner and the stairwell are still clear, but the creaking and tapping noises of debris settling tells me that won’t be true for long. This quake was the strongest yet.
My mind calculates we won’t make it another hour in this facility. It’s not going to hold with the world’s crust falling apart. The people upstairs could already be dead if that lid came down.
“Emma, we need to put in the code,” I say, pushing myself off the floor.
She’s already climbing down the ladder. Humming rises from the pit we’ve opened, and faint red lights glow inside, betraying some emergency power source. I peek down, making sure Emma doesn’t stumble on the ladder, but she’s at the bottom already, a glowing control panel spread out in front of her. “The sequence,” she mutters, pressing key after key.
I don’t expect it to work, but when Emma presses the last button, she looks up at us and smiles as another loud humming, this one filling the entire facility, follows.
“The Elevator should be rising,” she says, grasping the ladder.
Sky grasps my hand. “Come on. Let’s leave Cho.”
My heart races. The humming turns into a low groan throughout the facility. Some old power source has awakened, thrumming through the Exodus Facility like a pulse.
Emma climbs out of the pit and leaves the door open. Another faint quake, an aftershock, adds to the low sound. Elias waves us to the stairwell, which has bent in places, making it hard to climb. Parts of the wall have caved in, making the going slow.
Sky stays silent beside me. We’re all thinking of the others upstairs. I crane my neck, trying to see over Elias’ shoulders and to the hallway at the top. It’s intact. His flashlight reveals a wall and another faded picture.
Elias, in a hurry, reaches the top and starts to run.
I bolt after him. He lowers the flashlight for a second, casting everything ahead in pure darkness, before raising it again.
And then he stops.
I do, too.
Cho stands in the middle of the hall, holding a remote with his finger depressed on the black button. Behind him stands two lines of armed Naturals, who, in unison, raise their rifles and point them at us.
CHAPTER 15
I’VE SEEN A remote like this before, just with a red button, and I know this one means serious business. It might even be connected to the black box downstairs.
Cho’s eyes are stony. Lifeless. Like someone who knows he’s dead but happens to still have a beating heart. And that’s somehow more terrifying than the monster I faced during the torture session.
Elias stares him down, frozen. Sky also pauses beside me while Emma manages to make it up the rest of the stairs. And the worst part is, most of the enhanced are still trying to shuffle up the stairwell. There’s no room for them to emerge. It’s me, Sky, Elias, and Emma against Cho and at least two dozen Naturals lined up behind him.
“What is that?” Elias nods to the device. “Drop it.”
Cho shakes his head. He’s not smiling, and he’s not frowning. “It’s all done, isn’t it? Remember the present I left?”
Panic explodes in my chest. Back during the torture session, he didn’t just mean the bodies. He meant the box that no doubt contains another deadly Nejem experiment. One we overlooked until it was too late.
“Are you here to mess things up even more? And don’t try to blame me for what you did.” I hope my anger masks my panic.
“What’s going on?” Emma once again leans against the wall. She clo
ses her eyes, picking at her bandage. It still makes no sense unless she’s pulling a ruse. If she has an idea, I’ll take it. Without knowing what that black button will do, I don’t have one.
Cho won’t look at her. He fixes his dead gaze on me instead. “It’s all done. My utopia. Gone.”
“You did this yourself,” I say. “You and your people who can’t think for themselves. What happens if you release that button?”
Cho chuckles, but there’s no joy in it. He backs into two of his people, who shift away with discomfort. All his troops have bags under their eyes. They’re exhausted and some sway on their feet. “We planted a deadly virus in the basement of this place. It’s highly contagious and airborne. Better to leave the world empty than to leave it to Impures such as yourselves.”
Emma gasps.
She mentioned deadly viruses that kill within minutes. Of course her grandfather would have stored them with the Destabilizer, and releasing them wouldn’t require a Noble class enhancement.
“Please… you’re going to kill us all.” A Natural behind Cho raises a hand as if Cho were pointing a weapon at him. “That virus will make us bleed from the inside out. There has to be an easier way.”
It’s real, then. I shift closer to Sky and we stare Cho down.
“What do you want?” Elias asks.
Cho drops his smile. “When I release this button, I end all of this. All of us.”
Why doesn’t he then?
He must want something out of us or thinks this place is actually safe. Another rumble shakes the floor and some of the Naturals sway side to side, grasping for the walls. Or maybe Cho’s just losing his sanity. The virus box is at the bottom of the stairwell. He can infect us all within a minute. Then the disease can spread to the people in the main chamber.
My hands tremble, and Sky links his fingers through mine. He’s ready to die.
In the stairwell, the EHC ops and the enhanced Dwellers have stilled and silenced.
“Go ahead. Kill me.” Cho steps forward, remote still in hand. His thumb rubs the button he’s already depressed. Once he dies, he releases it, and death for all.
A few Naturals back away. Apparently they want no part of this. Others remain at their posts, blocking the dissidents from moving.
“There’s an escape,” Elias says, voice shaking. “All of us could leave right now. The Elevator. In the main room. None of us have to die.”
“No!” I shout.
Cho shakes his head. “This world was meant for Naturals. And if we cannot have it, then no one else will.”
I raise my pistol. If Cho’s going to end us, then he’s not going to experience the satisfaction. I could charge him, but all he has to do is drop that remote and we’re all dead. There’s no way to succeed.
And then the screaming starts.
Rippling through the back of the Naturals, it grows louder. Shrieks of agony rip through the curved corridor, and though I can’t see the back of Cho’s group, I know what’s happening.
Lacy. Talen. They’ve gotten enough strength back to fight.
Cho whirls as several Naturals near the back of the group fall, writhing.
I see my chance.
But Elias is first to it. He tackles Cho, throwing him to the ground and clamping his hand over Cho’s, pressing his fingers to the button. Cho grimaces as his eyes widen. He spits in Elias’s face and tries to throw him off.
“Duck!” Sky shouts, raising his pistol at the Naturals.
Emma presses against the wall, looking small. I crouch, making myself a low target, and Sky fires his pistol over my head at the Naturals just behind Elias and Cho. One jolts, blood spreading over the front of his white shirt, and two others go down as a couple ops behind me open fire. Naturals duck and whirl, not sure who to attack first, and the back half of the group have all gone down, writhing and going still.
The quake continues. Pieces of the hallway crumble at the edges, raining plaster on the fight. Elias keeps his hand clamped over Cho’s as he looks up at Sky, and then me. There’s something I don’t like in his eyes.
“Go!” he shouts. “Get out of here! I’ll stay behind.”
He’s going to sacrifice himself.
My chest hurts. I fire another shot into the Naturals, but they’re done. The rest fall and begin screaming, and Lacy appears in the middle of the human river, now collapsed around her feet and writhing. She faces Cho, but Elias blocks her way. Lacy looks up at me, and for the first time her face holds helplessness. She can’t get through Elias to kill Cho.
And then Cho grunts, red-faced, as Elias shifts and wraps his free hand around Cho’s throat.
“Don’t kill him!” I shout.
A picture falls from the wall, glass shattering.
Lacy reaches out for me. Cia joins her, having squeezed through the others, and takes her hand. Talen appears at her side, waving us over the dying with huge eyes. “We have to board now!”
A piece of the wall caves in and the ceiling starts a slanted, downward slide. He’s right. If the virus doesn’t kill us, the quakes will. But Elias won’t let go of Cho. If he does, then we’re all going to die.
Cho knees Elias where it hurts. Elias’s face crumples into pain and he loosens his grasp on Cho’s hand, falling back. Even Noble class strength can’t guard against that.
“No!” I shout as Cho smiles and rises. He’s still got the remote. I can’t reach him in time, but I run anyway. “Lacy, don’t kill him!”
But then a figure charges Cho from the wall, drawing a long and wicked-looking knife.
Emma plows the blade into Cho’s abdomen. The bandage can’t hide her very alive, very determined eyes. With a growl, she slams Cho into the crumbling wall, driving the blade in harder. The air smells of dust and blood. Cho’s eyes widen in shock. He overlooked her, and now he’s paying for it.
Emma looks at us all in turn as she closes her hand around Cho’s fist and the remote. “Get on the Elevator.”
She’s going to sacrifice herself; to the quakes or Edward’s virus, I don’t know.
“No!” I shout, throat closing.
Cho gags. Blood flows from his mouth as he tries to release the button. Emma shakes as she holds him in place, as his breaths gurgle. Emma’s struck his lungs. Soon he’ll die, and Emma will be the only thing keeping the rest of us from death.
“Get out of here!” Emma shouts. “The Elevator. I think it goes to—”
The quake goes from a low rumble to a roar, and the hallway crumbles inward. We can’t wait any longer, but Emma can’t move.
“Get out!” Elias shouts, charging over the bodies littering the hall.
Sky places a hand on my back, encouraging me to move, while Lacy, Talen, and Cia run ahead. They open a door to the main chamber, and instantly the scared cries of people float out. I look at Emma one last time, and our gazes meet.
The pain’s gone from her face, leaving peace.
It gives me the strength to turn away from her and follow Elias.
Ops shout at each other to go. The quake intensifies, turning the floor to liquid, and the walls split as Sky and I squeeze through the door into the main chamber.
Red lights blink all around the chamber. A massive cylinder has risen in the center, now level with the railing. Fifty feet high, it’s made of thick metal painted white on the outside, and is riding on the powerful cables. Doors have opened on all sides, meant for hordes of people, more extended railings leading them inside. A shrill alarm fills the chamber as steam rises from below the Elevator. It’s like no vehicle I’ve ever seen.
A mixture of Dwellers, homeless, and Originals run into the mystery vehicle, and Sky pushes me down the catwalk, which sways and groans under my feet. People scream everywhere. Rocks rain from the sides of the chamber.
A low scraping sound follows, and deadly, hazy sunlight spills down into the cave from the surface, a greenish glow filling the space. My skin burns. The radiation. We’re unshielded. The Elevator’s taking us to the surfac
e.
But we have to try.
“Come on!” Elias shouts.
“Cia!” Starla shouts from a doorway.
Cia, Lacy, and Talen join her. I grab Sky’s hand and bolt to my friends as the EHC ops run into the Elevator’s next door. The main chamber empties. Behind me, a massive boulder crashes into the railing, pulling it into darkness below. Had I waited two more seconds, I’d be dead.
“In!” Sky shouts.
Emma’s back there, holding back the virus.
And we’re not dead yet.
The inside of the Elevator is lit. There are no windows. The walls are made of rows of beds—which look more like pods. Glass lids are raised, ready to close around anyone who dares lie in the beds. People stand around, staring, like they’re not sure what to do. Only a few have gotten in, waiting for the lids to come down.
Cal whirls on Elias. “I don’t like the looks of this.”
“We have no choice. Get in.” Elias motions to the cave outside. “There’s a virus being released by Cho right now!”
Cal’s face goes red. “You’re not the leader!”
The Originals stand together, shouting. My skin still burns from the sun. Even our Dwellers hesitate, but a few get into the beds. Starla helps Cia climb into hers. They exchange low words.
“Now’s not the time for fighting!” I yell.
“I can’t do this,” an Original man shouts, bolting toward the exit.
Another quake rocks the area, and the entire vehicle shakes, throwing people to the floor and making others grasp their beds. I grab onto the nearest pod, staring down into foamy fabric meant to mold around a body. These things are our only chance. If they’re meant to knock us out, at least we won’t be awake for the dying part.
The man scrambles to his feet again and runs outside. A massive shape, a boulder twice his size, crashes down from above, sweeping him and the railing into the abyss. A horrific screech fills the air and stabs at my eardrums.
People shout, curse, and scream. Cal hesitates, but Steven pulls him toward a pod. Lacy and Talen are already lying down. Elias takes one in the center of the room. Others take his lead, even some of the EHC ops.
