As he talks, I piece together his story. I have to ask him to repeat the details when I don’t catch enough from the movement of his lips and the context to work it out. The fire burns low as he describes a desperate situation. Having to leave his daughter holed up in their home to get his terminally ill wife medical attention and then learning his daughter died while he was gone. He tells of their pain and his debt. Working for the Company in return for them keeping his wife alive.
By the end of his tale, he’s wiping at his eyes, and he’s asking me what else he could have done.
I have no answers.
When the tea is done and the fire stoked with wood, I rest my head on my arms. I only mean to close my eyes briefly but I wake some time later. It’s still dark and raining outside the single small window. Megs hasn’t moved from her spot near the fire and Cyril is watching me from the seat opposite.
“How long was I asleep?” I ask.
“A couple of hours. Feel better?”
“A little,” I say. And I mean it. It’s taken this long but my body is at last dry and warm, and the chills are gone. The rest and food were exactly what I needed. Trying to listen to Cyril earlier has helped to keep thoughts of my injuries and the task ahead at bay.
Cyril stands and gestures me to follow him into the adjoining room at the back of the small shack.
“But what about Megs?”
“I’ll hear her,” he promises.
I hesitate, but not for long. He might be Company but before that he was a father and a husband and without him, Megs and I would have spent the night by that rock fall and might not have seen morning. I check that Megs is comfortable and make sure there’s water nearby if she wakes to cross the room.
There’s a small mirror hanging next to the door. It’s small, but perfect. There’s not a single crack or dent. Not even a finger mark. I lift my head, and Cyril must read the question in my face. Why is this mirror pristine when everything else in here is second-hand at best?
He opens his mouth and then hesitates, grabbing a pencil from his pocket and scrawling something on a piece of paper in loopy script.
“I need to be able to look myself in the eye at the end of each day.”
The wide doorway opens into a workshop with dented and scratched wooden benches and metal open shelves piled high with different machine parts. I wonder whether it’s Company stock or if he’s some kind of collector. I move closer to the nearest shelf, reach out my hand, and shoot him a questioning glance.
He nods.
With his permission, I pick up the rusted metal tube, feel the weight of it in my hand.
Cyril touches my shoulder. “From a car,” he says.
There’s more like this one and alongside them are other vehicle parts I couldn’t begin to guess what from or what to call them. And all of a sudden I don’t care. A stab of pain in my skull behind my ear reminds me of the wound hidden beneath Cyril’s old bandage. The dressing was rudimentary at best. How much blood did I lose in the trek along the trail? My knees tremble, and the flicker of the fire in the other room calls to me.
Lie down … rest … you deserve it …
“This is all very interesting but …” I yawn.
His mouth curves, showing yellow teeth against dark lips. He points to the bench against the far wall, his chest puffed out in pride. I follow the line of his finger. There’s a motor bike resting there. Not just any bike, but the one I last saw half buried beneath rocks and dirt, with only the handlebars and front wheel poking out like a gravestone marking its final resting place.
“How?” I ask.
I cross the room, not waiting for an explanation I won’t hear anyway. He must have gone back for it while I slept. I run my fingers over the body, brushing away dirt and dust. It’s not as bad as I thought. The front frame is cracked and the tire slashed, but the body is largely intact. Our packs lie next to the bike; its contents complete as best I can tell.
“Thank you,” I say, gesturing to his haul. “You must have got soaked.”
He shrugs away my thanks.
“Can it be fixed?” I ask.
He shrugs again but I decide to interpret the movement positively.
“Help,” he says.
The single word is easy enough to pick out when combined with the way he’s looking between me and the pile of metal parts, expectation brightening his eyes.
We need the bike if we’re going to find the other ship, but I don’t know a thing about mechanics. I shake my head, ignoring the way the room wobbles at the edges. “I’ll watch.”
He pokes me in the chest with something suspiciously like a spoon. “You help.”
I rub at the spot. “That hurt.”
He grabs my wrist and presses the object into my palm.
It is a spoon. “What am I gonna do with this? Eat it?”
He doesn’t bother to reply. Instead he crosses to the metal workbench and waits, front wheel in hand.
I sigh. “I won’t hear any of your instructions.”
He knows capitulation when he hears it. He points to his eyes, crinkled with amusement. “Watch.”
I do.
He removes the wheel, and we work together on the tire, the spoon proving more useful than I would have imagined. Cyril finds a replacement tire tube from one of the top shelves. Welding the frame back together takes longer, but eventually it’s one solid piece. Then we work on the engine. I don’t try to understand his names for things but I copy his movements and help take it apart and then put it back together. I remember doing puzzle contests with the other children back on the ship, racing to put things back together. Inevitably Davyd and I would come to blows over who’d won.
This is the same, only different.
I find the arrangement of the parts has a kind of logic to it. Once I find it, I can see the whole picture, like the games at the bar when I was Blank. This is the part of me not even the Company could wipe. And for a while, my hands black with grease and my brain occupied with the puzzle in front of me, I forget the thing growing in my head and that the man beside me works for those responsible.
The warmth from the fire next door has taken the edge off the chill in the room, and there’s nothing but the smell of the oil and the comforting clangs of metal on metal. I hear like I’m at a great distance, and the thuds, I feel through the vibrations of the tools in my hands. Despite telling me to watch for instruction, Cyril talks the whole time we work. He explains everything in a lilting detail I can’t begin to make out.
I like the sound and the clap of his hand on my shoulder when I guess the next step before he can show me.
I’d forgotten what it feels like to build something. I’ve spent so long searching for a way to destroy—the Company and then whatever it is the green robes have planned. But with every tool I handle, some of the anger in me leaks away. Until I’m guessing several hours have passed and I’m smiling as I rock back onto my heels and survey our progress.
“We’ve done it,” I say and I can almost, almost hear the excitement in my voice.
Cyril isn’t so sure. “Maybe.”
I trace the welded frame and air-filled tires and feel the vibration near the rumbling engine that worked on first go. “It’s brilliant.”
“Test first,” he warns. There’s caution in his eyes.
“Now?” My weariness is forgotten. I want to see if the bike will go out on the road.
He shakes his head. “You must wait until morning.”
For the first time since the rock fall, I let myself really think about the day ahead. With the bike working, there’s nothing to stop us reaching the ship. By tomorrow night, I’ll know whether the Pelican was the Company’s only experiment.
Chapter Seventeen
[Asher]
Davyd steps through the open door. His eyes flick over the vial of calming serum raised over my head and amusement curves his mouth. “Were you planning on pacifying me to death?”
“Don’t push me; I could still test it out.”
He tosses a small bag at my feet. “One of those might do better unless you want an officer to die laughing.”
I pick it up. There’s a Q and one of the knives he had in the van inside it. I swap the vials for the weapons, making sure the precious serum is secure before placing the pack onto my back.
“Come on, Princess,” he says. “Time to get out of here.”
“Not yet, I have to get back, Rael …” My plea fades into silence as the girl in question peeks out from behind Davyd. I open my arms and she flies into them. “You came with him willingly?”
She looks up at me and frowns. “You told me to trust him.”
“When?”
“Not in words, exactly. You said we couldn’t talk in there because of the cameras. In action. When you trusted him. Over and over again. Why do you think I was able to remain in the medical rooms and not the cells?”
“I don’t know. I figured they wanted to keep us together.”
“He visited one of the times you were out. Under the cover of restraining me, he showed me how to make the wound in my arm stay open and bloody.” She grimaces. “Without it hurting too much.”
“He did what?”
She glares at Davyd. “You said she knew.”
He shrugs. “I had to say something so you’d do as you were told.”
I tighten my arms around Rael, worried she’s going to launch at him again. While I don’t want to protect Davyd, now isn’t the time for a fight.
But she chuckles instead. “I should’ve known.”
I blink. The hate that once shone in her eyes when she looked at Davyd is now closer to adoration. I want to tell her she’s making a mistake because Davyd is every bit the cold-blooded killer she pegged him as, but right now, I need her to trust that he can get us out of here.
There’ll be time to open her eyes to his true nature later. I hope.
A new wail splits the night. The white strip lights glow green, and there’s the thud of doors closing and locking into place. I know those sounds. I heard something similar in fire drills on the Pelican. There is nothing more terrifying when you’re contained than fire. Knowing it’s burning somewhere nearby, but with nowhere to go … There’s no better way to create panic and chaos. My suspicion is confirmed.
“You used my plan?” I have to shout at Davyd to be heard.
He nods. “Now, enough talking, we have to hurry.”
Holding Rael’s hand in mine, I run after Davyd. We go back down the hallway toward the center space. Smoke tinges the air, becoming thicker as we approach, creating a green mist because of the lighting. I expect shouts, but we move through unnoticed thanks to the thick fog in the air as officers scream at each other about drills and practice. They move past us like gray ghosts, but instead of drifting they run in panic, at times bouncing off each other and the walls.
Their screams of orders and processes are futile. They struggle to hear each other over the now-piercing alarm. Here, thick clouds of white stream out of air vents along the intersection of wall and ceiling. We stay low and close to the walls where visibility is best, but it’s hard to see much ahead through the smoke. So much smoke. It sticks to my mouth and coats my tongue, strangling each breath and bringing tears to my eyes. We pause while a group of men and women in gray march across the hallway ahead.
I lean close to Davyd’s ear. “What did you do?”
I think he’s going to ignore me, but then he glances back. “Like you said. I didn’t just start it, I fuelled it and made sure it would spread.”
In my head I see the kind of destruction that could have been created by a fire on the farm level of the Pelican. My belly tightens, and I fight regret. This whole place could become one huge Company coffin.
On the move again, we turn a corner, and the smoke in the air thins out. There’s a Company officer ahead. He approaches at a run.
“Stay behind me,” Davyd mutters. I expect Davyd to attack the man, but instead he smiles. “Thank goodness I found you,” he says.
The officer blinks in confusion. I don’t think he’s realized that Rael and I are free, let alone armed. His focus is on Davyd, whose presence in front of us is every inch the commander.
“We need to move the prisoners to the upper levels,” Davyd continues. “They’re valuable to Doctor.”
The officer salutes. “Yes, sir.”
“How does it look ahead?”
The officer looks down and touches the black band circling his wrist. “The fire started on farm level but it’s spreading fast.” He reports in a monotone. “It’s believed to have been triggered by a mechanical malfunction, and the white smoke is from the feed stores.”
“Excellent work, Batcher’s your name, isn’t it?”
The officer salutes again, pride at being recognized shining in his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“Now, I need you to go ahead and clear a path to the surface.”
He turns without question and does as he’s told.
We follow.
As we hurry along the hallway, Rael and I share a look of amazement. At every step I expect the officer to realize that Davyd’s helping us but he doesn’t look back, trusting his commander completely.
At the next corner, Davyd stops him. “I’ll take it from here, Batcher. They could use a man like you at the fire front.”
I want to gag at the sugary admiration in Davyd’s tone but the officer buys every word.
“Yes, sir.” Batcher salutes a final time and heads back into the bowels of the facility.
I don’t wait around to see whether he’s going to come to his senses. As I run through the smoky hallway, I try to get my bearings, but we’ve twisted and turned too many times. This place is much bigger than the Pelican. I’m completely lost.
“What about that way?” I ask Davyd as we pass a long, deserted hallway.
“We can’t go that way; it will take us back to the labs. We have to go up to get out.”
I think I can hear the raised voices of confrontation from that direction. I cross my fingers that Penny got there in time for her cover story to work. I don’t want to add her injury or death to my conscience. I hold on to Rael’s hand a little tighter.
I follow Davyd but can’t help looking out for another way. Will I ever be completely sure he can be trusted?
We reach a door, this one marked across the top with a slash of green. Emergency exit?
I expect a swish like all the other doors in this place but Davyd pushes on it instead, the muscles in his arms bunching with effort. The heavy door eases back with a grating squeal of its hinges. It opens up onto a narrow stairwell.
“Won’t everyone be using the fire escape?” I ask.
“Not this one,” he explains. “It’s the smallest in the facility, and it’s blocked from below.”
Heavy booted steps announce we have company a second before a hurrying officer appears at the next landing.
This time Davyd doesn’t attempt a cover story. The Q fires and the officer falls. We don’t stop, and I try not to look at the man’s empty eyes as we go past.
“Why haven’t they built Q-resistance into their own people?” I ask Davyd.
I don’t really expect him to know, but he looks back long enough to answer. “They want to make sure there are no side effects first.”
We’re another two floors up when, at my side, Rael stumble and nearly falls. I’ve been half dragging her the last few minutes and she’s breathing in sobs. Davyd stops and waits for us to catch up.
“Give her to me.”
“I can help her. I’m as strong as you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve taken a battering. Do you want to slow us down and get us caught?”
Rael tugs free. “He’s right.”
He is. And I hate it.
We move faster with Rael on Davyd’s back. He takes the stairs two at
a time, and I’m puffing trying to keep up. While nothing like the hallways we left behind, smoke fills the air. I do my best not to show my struggles as the steps and walls blur into a concrete mountain that I refuse to let beat me.
When we reach the last door, Davyd sets Rael back on her feet. The slight delay gives me time to climb the last few steps.
“What now?” I’m pleased not to squeak the question, although my lungs burn.
He flashes a cocky grin. “Now we walk right out the front door.”
“That’s the plan?”
“You have a better one?”
Rael steps between us. “Stop it.” She folds her skinny arms and frowns at Davyd. “That does sound pretty stupid.”
He chuckles and the sound’s almost genuine. “Everyone will have been evacuated out the main fire escapes or be involved in the effort to control the disaster. There will be a minimum of security on this main entrance and …” His grin widens. “I know who the lucky officer on duty is here tonight.”
“A friend of yours?”
“Something like that.”
Having answered our questions as much as he’s going to, he pulls at the heavy-looking fire door. It swings open without a sound. Considering the door we came through, we’re either lucky or he oiled the hinges in preparation. Both make sense.
He steps through ahead, and he’s right about the security levels. The domed room is deserted except for a lone company officer at the entrance. His back is to us as he stares out into the darkness and he doesn’t turn.
I try to piece together the huge area below with this tiny room. Davyd mentioned something about other exits from the facility. Each exit must have a separate domed cover building to disguise what lies beneath the ground of New City.
But there’s no time for thinking.
Davyd’s striding ahead. “Morning,” he calls brightly.
The officer swivels at the sound. His red-hair glows orange in the light. I recognize him the moment he recognizes me. The redhead from the van.
Hate claws at my throat, and I can’t help but be glad at the swelling of his nose and the bruising around his eye. He deserved what I gave him and more.
Temper Page 20