“Lara?” Jasmine is smirking at me.
It takes me a moment to realize that Jasmine is speaking to me. “Sorry. What?”
“I said, do you know Clarice Euston?”
“Who?”
She smirks again. “She goes to Astor. She would’ve been in your year.”
“Oh. Probably. I . . . I tended to keep to myself.” I feel my face go hot. “Why is Astor funny to you?”
“No reason,” she says, and smiles. “It’s just that Astor’s known as a big party school, is all. And you, uh, don’t seem like the type.” She shrugs. “By the way, where did you get that dress? I love it.”
Is this what I can expect over the next four years? I need a cigarette. I don’t say anything to Jasmine or Clancy, who don’t look up as I walk past. I sit on the stoop of the Scholars Club and light up, staring at the Latin motto carved into the ground.
Sitting outside in the fresh air, I watch the college boys and girls walk across the lawns, laughing, talking, happy. I think about Ma. All that work she did for the Corp—so many days, weeks, years of terrible labor. All the children she had for them. All her psychological and physical pain. Would Ma blow up the Scholars Club, their collections and their college kids, all tucked up in their residential halls? All those kids with dreams of their own? I feel the answer in my gut: Ma would do everything, anything, for the person she loved.
I go back inside and work on the forms again. Then, when Jasmine and Clancy are absorbed in their work, I go to the bathroom and lock myself in a stall and take all the bomb components out. My hands shaking, I line them up on top of the cistern—three bombs, three sets of ten components. I’m so anxious I could be sick, because I’ve never built a bomb before, but I know how things work—at the plant, I was often working with new machines, and my hands just seemed to know what to do. I pick up the first set of components, one by one, and get them to interlock easily. The hardest part to place is the timer: a little battery-powered pack with wires. It takes me a number of goes but finally I work out how it fits with the other parts. Then I hear the bathroom door open.
“Lara?” It’s Jasmine. She’s outside my stall.
“Yeah?” My throat is hoarse. I clear my throat and try again. “Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. Just . . . ah, you know. Stomach issues.”
“Oh. Okay.” I can almost hear what she’s thinking in response: how abject.
I wait to hear the outside door close, and then I flick the switch to activate the timer so I can program it.
Nothing happens. I turn the device around and around in my hand, trying to work out the problem. Then I take it apart and try assembling the bomb all over again. Still not working. I put it aside and assemble the second and third units. Their timers won’t work either, the electronics just aren’t animating. I take the lid off the cistern, take out a wire from the top of the toilet mechanism, and use it to open the back of the first battery pack. It’s empty. I open the second and third. They’re all empty. I feel a chill from my toes to my head. Cate. Cate took the batteries out. I’m sure of it. She wants my bombing mission to fail so that she can tell the Responders that Alex has to become a Body. So I’ll spend the rest of my days living with the guilt of that, knowing it’s my fault. She hates me that much.
There’s a firm knock on the stall door. “Lara? It’s Dr. Ellis. Jasmine said you’ve been in here half an hour.” Her tone is angry, rather than concerned. Fuck.
“Yes, Doctor. Just feeling a little sick. I’ll be right out.”
“I need you out here right now,” she says, firmly.
I sweep the components into the tampon disposal unit. Then I flush the toilet, open the stall door to see Dr. Ellis’s stern face, and follow her out.
My only hope of protecting Alex is the possibility of Luke deciding to take up my offer, and then Rob helping me out the rest of the way. Which, to be honest, doesn’t feel like much hope at all.
•
I get into the back of Luke’s car. The air is icy. Luke says nothing.
We drive for ten minutes and then Luke suddenly pulls the car over and hands me his phone.
“Call Rob on video,” he says. He watches me type in Rob’s number—after all these months, I still know it by heart. Then we wait.
A video call opens up.
“Will?” It’s Rob. He now looks middle-aged. He’s thin and balding and there are wrinkles in his neck but he’s dressed well, in a beautiful linen suit. He shows no reaction to my transformed appearance. He’s not a good guy, but I’m so relieved to see him.
I know I have to work quickly. “Yeah, it’s me. I’m here with Luke Stone, a Tier—” Luke holds up six of his fingers. “Tier 6 Gray Corps affiliate. I’ve . . . I’ve been in the Incubator and now I’m part of a contract between the dean of Excelsior, the chief surgeon who runs the Incubator, and the Gray Corps,” I tell him. “I’m genetically Corp and am a super-producer,” I say, my face burning. I explain the rest of my history to him and the deal I want between the Gray Corps and the dean. “If you’re brought in, we could cut the surgeon out, and you could arrange better terms for the Gray Corps. You and Luke could have the surgeon’s cut, less a sweetener to the dean.”
“I’m listening,” he says. “What are the total numbers?”
“It was one hundred thousand units upfront and then twenty thousand each per live birth, estimated at two hundred forty per year. That’s almost five million a year each. But the dean and surgeon cut another deal—they cut out Luke and the Gray Corps altogether. Say they’ll handle the laundering of the babies into the Corp themselves. We would need to give the dean a much better total. He already knows the Gray Corps is involved.”
Rob shows no reaction. “What’s your side of it?”
“The surgeon promised me a Zone B profesh life, a house, with an initial payment of ten thousand units, out of her cut, then fifty thousand at the end of the contract. I want at least that in the new deal.”
“And the dean’s loyalty to the surgeon?”
“They seem friendly, but I couldn’t sense any long-standing personal connection. So long as he’s not exposed, of course.”
“Of course. And Luke?”
Luke stiffens. I smile at him. “Luke’s solid.”
“I’ll look into this. If it’s the case that they’ve undersold the Gray Corps, they’ll need to be punished. We’ll cut out the surgeon, of course. We’ll deal with the dean. Luke and I will split the Gray Corps’s share,” Rob says, and I give Luke the thumbs up. “And if all goes well, there may be future deals,” Rob adds.
I see the greed in Luke’s eyes.
“Do you want me to approach another college to see if I can raise the purchase price?”
“No,” I say, thinking of the genetic collection in the Scholars Club. “I want Excelsior.” I need to raise the question of Alex. I take a breath. “I also need you to run someone out of the Incubator. Can you do that?”
He hesitates. “Probably,” he says. “For a price.”
Luke’s expression changes. He looks angry because I didn’t mention this. I press on.
“We’ll need contact with the Response to get her out.”
Now Luke looks at me in alarm.
“Okay,” Rob says, unfazed as ever. “That would be between you and me. First I need to do some background checks.”
“We don’t have long.” I look at Luke. Any remaining loyalty he has to the surgeon is about to be cut by Rob’s call, so I press ahead. “My girlfriend has to be taken out before midnight tonight. The Response is planning an attack.” Luke’s face goes blank.
“I’ll be in touch soon,” Rob says.
“Just a minute,” Luke says, and he signals for me to get out of the car so he can talk to Rob himself. I hesitate, wondering if he’s going to sell me out and negotiate his own cont
ract with Rob. But it’s out of my hands at this point. I’ve done all I can do. As I close the door, I can hear Rob soothing him, using his best negotiator voice.
•
Luke gets out of the car and starts smoking a cigarette—offering me the pack. We stand there waiting, leaning against the car doors.
“Thanks for vouching for me with Rob,” he says.
I’m surprised. It’s just business. “No problem,” I say.
“Were you really a Breeder runner?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“So you were a Crystal boy?”
“Yeah. You were a Breeder runner too?”
He nods. “For a long time I was. I moved into logistics a couple of years ago. It’s not as lucrative, but I wanted to get ahead.”
Logistics means general, low-level, shit-kicking Gray Corps stuff.
“So this deal with the surgeon—it’s your first time out on your own?”
“My uncle works as a driver for the surgeon—and, knowing his family ties to the Gray Corps, she asked if he knew of anyone who might help broker the deal. Just luck, really.”
I nod.
We’ve gone through about four cigs each by the time Rob calls back.
“Everything you said checks out,” he says. “And you were right about the deal between the surgeon and the dean: they agreed to cut Luke out. I’m going to offer the dean ten thousand units, going forward.”
“And the surgeon?”
“The surgeon gets nothing. In return, I won’t tell the Gray Corps about her betrayal.” Meaning—she won’t get her legs hacked off on the way home from the opera. “So, Luke. That means twenty-five thousand each live birth for you and me,” he says. “With the dean to contact us for future deals. And Luke—the surgeon’s one hundred thousand sign-up fee will go to you.”
Luke nods. I can see his face light up beneath the cool exterior.
“We need to talk terms for your Breeder run, Will,” Rob says to me.
“In exchange for me bringing this deal to you, I want you to run a person—Alex Winterson—from the Incubator to the Gray Zone,“ I tell him, “and I want half of my initial ten thousand units to be given to Alex; the other half held for me, for after my college term.”
“Will, I won’t see those egg retrieval units for a year. For a rescue and contact with Responders in the Gray Zone—I need an extra five thousand units upfront. There will be still be five thousand units for Alex, if you want, or you could have two thousand five hundred each. And the Gray Corps will honor the fifty thousand unit payment the surgeon promised you, and the house in Zone B, but that’s not until the end of your contract.”
“Give it all to Alex.” Fuck. He and Luke are making so much off me, it kills me that my upfront amounts are so small. But fuck it.
“I’ll lock it all in and then send people to get Alex out tonight.”
•
When we get back to the Incubator, security checks our IDs thoroughly, and for the first time they give us not only a pat-down, but make us go through the screens. As we go up to my cell, everything is dead quiet. Eerily quiet.
When we reach my cell, we sit down without saying a word. Luke breaks the silence.
“Do you know how to use these?” Luke asks, pointing to the Taser and a semiautomatic clipped into his belt.
“No.”
He takes them out one at a time and shows me—in case something goes wrong.
“When it’s time—when Rob’s people arrive, or the Night of Fires starts, whichever happens first—I’ll give you the Taser. Okay?”
“Thanks.”
“And if anything happens to me—take my gun.”
“Okay. What time is it?”
“It’s just after nine p.m.”
The next three hours are going to feel like the longest in history.
•
Midnight comes and goes, but there’s no sign from Rob.
One a.m. comes and goes, and there’s still no sign.
Two a.m. comes and goes, and nothing. Luke and I are quiet, keeping ourselves calm but I’m sure we’re thinking the same thing: What if Rob made a deal with the dean and is fucking off with everyone’s units? I mean, he’ll still need to come and get me out, but both Luke and Alex are disposable.
Then: the walls are shaking. The sprinklers open and cold water is pouring down on me. The sliding doors open and two orange suits come in.
“Out! Out! Out!” they scream at me. I can tell they’re afraid, which makes me afraid too.
I’m stunned, and Luke drags me into the corridor. Outside my cell is absolute chaos—orange suits shooting each other with their pistols and Tasers, and beating each other with their batons, and I can’t tell which orange suits are the Responders, and which are Corp. Around the southern curve of the Circle, the Breeders, bellies different sizes, are lined up, interspersed by more orange suits. They’re being led outside—by the Responders? The Corp? I can’t tell and I can’t see anyone’s faces.
Then there’s a deep blast that feels like it’s coming through the walls, and everyone screams. I am thrown against a wall and when I stand up, I see fire roaring down the Circle corridor opposite me. The electronics in the security system must have failed because all the sliding doors are shuddering open. When the lights go out, the screaming gets louder.
“Change of plan,” Luke says, and takes the semiautomatic from his belt and gives it to me, leaving him with just the Taser. I put the gun under the elastic still wrapped around my body.
Two orange suits herd the Breeders from my corridor to the fire escape. Luke is next to me, pushing me down the hall. I don’t know where the rest of the orange suits are running. I look into the faces of the Breeders in the crowd. I haven’t seen any of them before.
“What time is it?” I ask the Breeder next to me.
“It must be two thirty,” she says.
“Do you know what’s happened?”
“The east wing of the Incubator was bombed,” she says. She makes a sign across her lips, and then across her heart. She looks scared and defiant. “There were twenty-four Breeder deaths already. Goodspeed to them all.”
Out of the smoke emerge two orange Shadow suits—Responders—heading toward me. Luke sees them too, and he reaches for his Taser, but one of them hits him in the head with her baton and he crumples to the floor. Before I can grab my pistol, I’m taken out of the line and shoved down the corridor, ahead of the others. I hear more blasts and I’m shoved along the corridor and down the fire escape into the bright night, where amongst the chaos and the spot fires, Cate is standing with three orange suits. One of them is Alex.
Alex turns away from me.
Cate nods and the three of them get to work, placing devices around me.
“No bombs went off, Will,” she says. “You know what that means.” I look at Alex, who won’t meet my eye. She’s fixing a device to my arm while Cate points a semiautomatic at me.
Then Cate opens her phone.
“What’s the surgeon’s number?” she asks me. I look at Alex, hesitate, and then tell Cate.
Then I see the surgeon’s face on video.
“Hi!” Cate beams at the surgeon.
“Where’s Will?”
“Look who I’ve got here!” She points the camera at me.
“Will? Don’t worry—security’s on its way.”
“Right, but will they make it before your precious Corp princess explodes?” Cate asks. “Tell you what. I’ll keep her alive if you open the gates of the Incubator immediately.”
We all look instinctively at the huge iron gates that are two hundred feet away.
From where I’m standing, I can see the surgeon’s face flicker. She’s not going to risk her life for a Breeder.
Cate smiles. “In that case, I’ll let you watch!” she says, and l
aughs. The orange suits finish attaching the wires onto me. Alex approaches Cate with a little device—the detonator.
Then Alex meets my gaze, I see something cross her face, and she turns and runs, holding the detonator out to her side.
Cate raises the semiautomatic and aims it at Alex. I throw my entire weight at Cate, knocking us both to the ground. Cate is shooting at the air, trying to shoot me. I manage to land a solid punch in her stomach and another to her face, sending blood pouring out of her nose. I get up and run. I can hear Cate getting to her feet, stumbling, and then I hear the bullets fly out—she’s firing at me, at us. I’m running toward Alex, zig-zagging. An orange suit appears out of nowhere and Tasers me in the back, at my shoulder. I tumble to the ground from the impact; see the orange suits approach. I get up, take the pistol out from beneath my tracksuit, and start shooting. I’ve never shot a gun before. I see a bloom of blood on the thigh of the first suit. Then Cate is in front of me; I close my eyes and fire, and Cate groans and falls. I’ve shot her in the heart. I get up, and I keep running, until I reach the fire escape. Alex is waiting for me.
•
I follow Alex back up the fire-exit stairs, then past rows and rows of empty cells. I keep shouting her name, but in the roar of voices and the flames, it’s hopeless. Then I see her stop. Small and wiry, she stares right into me, and her face screws up. She looks like she might cry.
“Alex!”
She comes forward as if to hug me, hesitates, and steps back. The detonator is still in her hand.
“Alex—come with me! I can take you to the Gray Zone tonight.”
She looks at me, and it’s as though she’s come back.
“We can do it, Alex. You deserve to have a life.”
I can see that in this moment, she wants to do it, and I can imagine it all: getting her back to the Gray Zone, being in contact with her while I’m at the college. And then eventually, both of us living together in Zone B.
Then her eyes change.
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