by Lu, Marie
Sure enough, the sound of their pounding boots soon follows. No way would these soldiers dare risk disobeying their commander, even if it means leaving the station momentarily unguarded. Sometimes you gotta love the Republic’s iron discipline.
I keep running.
When I’ve led the soldiers four or five blocks down, past the dust cloud and several warehouses, I suddenly veer off down a narrow corridor. Before they can turn the corner, I run straight at one of the alley’s walls—and when I’m several feet away I jump up and kick off against the brick. My hands shoot out. I grab on to the second floor’s ledge and it’s only the work of the moment to spring up to it. My feet land solidly on the ledge.
By the time the soldiers have rushed into the same alley, I’ve melted into the shadowed crevice of a second-floor window. I hear the first ones pause, then their bewildered exclamations. Now’s as good a time as any, I think. I reach up and pull my cap off, letting my white-blond hair tumble loose. One of the soldiers turns his head up fast enough to see me dart out of the window crevice and turn the corner from the second-floor ledge. “Did you see that?” someone shouts incredulously. “Was that Day?” As I jam my feet into the spaces of old bricks and pull myself up to the third floor, the soldiers’ tones go from confused to angry. Someone shouts at the others to shoot me down. I just grit my teeth and leap up to the third floor.
The first bullets ricochet off the wall. One hits inches away from my hand. I don’t stop—instead I lunge up toward the top floor and swing up onto the slanted rooftop in one move. More sparks light up the bricks below me. Off in the distance I see the station—the train’s arrived, half hidden behind steam, and parked unattended except for several soldiers who have stepped off the train itself.
I scamper up the roof and slide down its other half, then take another flying leap to the next roof. Down below, some of the soldiers have started rushing back toward the train. Maybe they’ve finally realized that this is all a diversion. My eyes leave the station only when I go flying onto another rooftop.
Two blocks away.
Then, an explosion. A bright, furious cloud rolls up from farther down the railroad tracks, and even my rooftop vantage point shudders. The impact makes me lose my balance and fall to my knees. There’s the blast Pascao had mentioned. I take in the inferno for a moment, pondering. A lot of soldiers are going to be heading over there—it’s dangerous, but if my job is to let the Republic know I’m alive, I better make sure I’m seen by as many people as possible. I push myself back onto my feet and run faster, stuffing my hair back up into my cap as I go. The soldiers below have split into two groups—one dashing toward the explosion, the other continuing to trail me.
Suddenly I skid to a stop. The soldiers rush right past the building I’m on. Without wasting another second, I slide down the roof and swing down from the edge of the gutter. Boot into foothold. One after another. I jump down to the pavement. The soldiers probably just realized they’d lost me, but I’m already blending into the shadows on the ground. Now I’m running steadily along the street as if I’m just another soldier. I head for the train.
The sleet’s coming down harder. The blaze left over from the explosion lights up the night sky, and I’m close enough to the train to hear shouts and pounding feet. Did Pascao and the others get out safely? I quicken my steps. Other soldiers materialize through the sleet, and I fall smoothly into line with them as we jog alongside the train. They’re rushing toward the fire.
“What happened?” one of them shouts at another.
“Don’t know—I heard some spark set off the cargo.”
“That’s impossible! The railcars are all covered—”
“Somebody get ahold of Commander DeSoto. The Patriots made their move—send word to the Elector—they’re—”
They continue on; I miss the last half of the sentence. I gradually slow until I’m at the back of the line, then I dart away into the tiny slit between two railcars. All the soldiers I can see are still headed for the blaze. Others are in the area where I’d set off the dust bomb, and the ones who’d been chasing me are probably still bewildered, combing the streets I was running. I wait until I’m certain there’s no one else near me. Then I slide out from between the railcars and run along the opposite side of the tracks that the other soldiers were on. I let my hair loose again. Now I just need to choose the right moment to make my grand appearance.
There are small markings on each railcar that I pass. Coal. Tracked guns. Ammunition. Food. I’m tempted to stop at the last one, but that’s just the Lake part of me talking. I remind myself that I’m not scavenging on the streets anymore and that the Patriots have a full pantry in their headquarters. I force myself to keep going. More markings. More warfront supplies.
Then I pass a marking that forces me to stop. A shiver runs down my arms and legs. I quickly jog back to see the marked railcar again, just in case I’d imagined it.
Nope. There it is, embossed into the metal. The one I’d recognize anywhere.
The three-lined X. My mind whirls—I see the red spray-painted symbol scarring my mother’s door, the plague patrols making their way from house to house in Lake, Eden being taken away. There’s no way this symbol could mean anything other than the fact that my brother, or something related to him, is on this train. All my interest in the Patriots’ plan goes right out of my head. Eden might be in here.
I can tell the two sliding car doors are locked, so I take a few steps back, then run at it. When I’m close enough, I jump, take three fast steps against the car’s side, grab the top edge of the car, and pull myself up.
There’s a circular metal seal in the middle of this railcar’s roof that they’re probably using to access the interior. I crawl over to it, run my fingers along the edges, and find four latches holding the seal down. Feverishly I pry them loose. The soldiers should be coming back any second now. I push against the seal with all the strength I’ve got. It slides open a crack, just enough for me to jump in.
I land with a soft thud. It’s dark enough so I can’t see anything at first. I reach out my hands and touch what feels like a round glass surface. Slowly I begin to make out my surroundings.
I’m standing in front of a glass cylinder almost as tall and wide as the railcar, with smooth metal casing on top and bottom. It emits a very faint blue glow. A small figure is lying on the floor inside, with tubes poking out of one of his arms. I know right away that it’s a boy. His hair is short and clean and a mess of soft waves, and he’s dressed in a white jumpsuit that makes him stand out against the darkness.
A loud buzzing in my ears blocks out anything and everything. It’s Eden. It’s Eden. It must be him. I’ve hit the jackpot—I can’t believe my luck. He’s right here, I’ve found him in the middle of nowhere, in all the vastness of the Republic, in a stroke of insane coincidence. I can get him out. We can escape into the Colonies sooner than I ever thought possible. We can escape tonight.
I rush over to the cylinder and pound my fist on the glass, half hoping it shatters even though I can tell that it’s at least a foot thick and almost certainly bulletproof. For an instant I don’t know if he can hear it. But then his eyes open. They dart around in a weird, unfocused way before attempting to settle on me.
It takes me a long moment to process the fact that this boy is not Eden.
The bitter taste of disappointment stings my tongue. He’s so small, so close in age to my brother, that I can’t stop the image of Eden’s face from overwhelming me. Others exist who were also marked with unusual strains of plague? Well, of course there would be. Why would Eden be the only one in the entire country?
The boy and I just face each other for a while. I think he can see me, but he can’t seem to fix his gaze; he keeps squinting in a way that reminds me of Tess’s nearsightedness. Eden. I think back to the way his irises had bled from the plague . . . from the way this boy’s trying to gauge me, I can tell that he
’s almost entirely blind. A symptom my brother probably has too.
He suddenly snaps out of his trance and crawls over to me as fast as he can. He presses both his hands against the glass. His eyes are a pale, opaque brown, not the creepy black that Eden’s had been when I last saw him, but the bottom halves of both irises are dark purple with blood. Does that mean this boy—that Eden—is getting better, because the blood is draining away, or worse, because the blood is draining in? Eden’s irises had been completely filled with blood the last time I saw him.
“Who’s there?” he says. The glass muffles his voice. He still can’t focus on me even at this close range.
I snap out of my trance too. “A friend,” I reply hoarsely. “I’m going to get you out.” At that, his eyes pop open—hope instantly blossoms on his small face. My hands run along the glass and search for something, anything, that can open this goddy cylinder. “How do you operate this thing? Is it safe?”
The boy pounds frantically against the glass. He’s terrified. “Help me, please!” he exclaims, his voice trembling. “Get me out—please get me out of here!”
His words break my heart. Is this what Eden’s doing, terrified and blind, waiting in some dark railcar for me to save him? I have to get this boy out. I steady myself against the cylinder. “You have to stay calm, kid. All right? Don’t panic. What’s your name? What city is your family from?”
Tears have started to run down the boy’s face. “My name’s Sam Vatanchi—my family’s in Helena, Montana.” He shakes his head vigorously. “They don’t know where I went. Can you tell them I want to come home? Can you—”
No, I can’t. I’m so goddy helpless. I want to punch straight through the railcar’s metal sides. “I’ll do what I can. How do you open this cylinder?” I ask again. “Is it safe to open?”
The boy points frantically to the cylinder’s other side. I can tell he’s trying hard to contain his fright. “Okay—okay.” He pauses in an attempt to think. “Um, it’s safe. I think. There’s something over there that they type into,” he replies. “I can hear the beeps and then it makes the tube open.”
I rush to where he’s pointing. Is it my imagination, or do I hear the faint sounds of boots pounding against pavement? “It’s some sort of glass screen,” I say. The word LOCKED stretches across it in red type. I turn back to the boy and knock on the glass. His eyes swivel toward the sound. “Is there a password? How do they type it in?”
“I don’t know!” The boy throws his hands up; his words contort with a sob. “Please, just—”
Damn it, he reminds me so much of Eden. His tears are making my own eyes water. “Come on,” I coax, fighting to keep my words strong. Gotta stay in control. “Think. Any other way this thing opens, aside from the keypad?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know!”
I can already imagine what Eden would say, if he was this boy. He’d say something technical, thinking like the little engineer that he is. Something like, “Do you have a sharp edge? Try finding a manual trigger!”
Steel yourself. I pull out the knife that’s always at my belt. I’d seen Eden take gadgets apart before and reconfigure all the inner wires and circuit boards. Maybe I should try the same thing.
I place the blade against the tiny slit running along the keypad’s edge and carefully apply some pressure. When nothing happens, I push harder until the blade bends. Doesn’t help at all. “It’s too tight,” I mutter. If only June were here. She’d probably figure out how this thing works in half a second. The boy and I share a brief moment of silence. His chin drops to his chest and his eyes close; he knows there’s no way to open it.
I need to rescue him. I need to save Eden. It makes me want to scream.
It’s not my imagination—I do hear the soldiers getting closer. They must be checking the compartments. “Talk to me, Sam,” I say. “Are you still sick? What are they doing to you?”
The boy wipes his nose. The light of hope has already faded from his face. “Who are you?”
“Someone who wants to help,” I whisper. “The more you tell me, the easier it will be for me to fix this.”
“I’m not sick anymore,” Sam replies in a rush, like he knows we’re running out of time, “but they say I’ve got something in my blood. They call it a dormant virus.” He stops to think. “They give me medicine to keep me from getting sick again.” He rubs at his blind eyes, wordlessly begging me to save him. “Every time the train stops, they take a blood sample from me.”
“Any idea what cities you’ve already been to?”
“Dunno . . . I heard the name Bismarck once . . .” The boy trails off as he thinks. “And Yankton?”
Both are warfront cities up in Dakota. I think about the transport they’re using for him. It probably maintains a sterile environment, so people can go in and take a blood sample, then mix them with whatever activates the dormant virus. The tubes in his arms might just be for feeding.
My best guess is that they’re using him as a bioweapon against the Colonies. He’s been turned into a lab rat. Just like Eden. The thought of my brother being shipped around like this threatens to drown me. “Where are they taking you next?” I demand.
“I don’t know! I just . . . I want to go home!”
Somewhere along the warfront. I can only imagine how many others are being paraded up and down the warfront line. I picture Eden huddled in one of these trains. The boy has started to wail again, but I force myself to cut him off. “Listen to me—do you know of a boy named Eden? Have you heard that name mentioned anywhere?”
His cries grow louder. “No—I don’t—know who—!”
I can’t linger anymore. Somehow I manage to tear my eyes away from the boy’s and run to the railcar’s sliding doors. The soldiers’ footsteps are louder now—they can’t be more than five or six cars away. I take one last glance back at the boy. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” It kills me to say these words.
The boy starts to cry again. His hands pound against the cylinder’s thick glass. “No!” His voice breaks. “I told you everything I know—please don’t leave me here!”
I can’t bear to listen anymore. I force myself to step up the side latches of one sliding door and get close enough to the railcar’s ceiling to grab the edge of the top circular seal. I pull myself out into the night air again, back into the sleet that stings my eyes and whips ice against my face, and struggle to regain my composure. I’m so ashamed of myself. This boy had given me whatever help he could, and this is how I repay him? By running for my life?
Soldiers are inspecting the cars some fifty feet away. I slide the seal back into place and shimmy flat against the roof until I’ve reached the edge. I swing down and land on the ground.
Pascao materializes out of the shadows, his pale gray eyes flashing in the dark. He must’ve been looking for me. “Why the hell are you here?” he whispers. “You were supposed to make a scene near the explosion, yeah? Where were you?”
I’m in no mood to play nice. “Not now,” I snap as I start running alongside Pascao. Time to head back to our underground tunnel. Everything whizzes past us in a surreal fog.
Pascao opens his mouth to say something else, hesitates when he sees my face, and decides to drop it. “Er . . . ,” he starts again, this time more quietly, “well, you did good enough. Probably got the word out that you’re alive, even without all the extra fireworks. Your run up there on the roofs was pretty amazing. We’ll see tomorrow morning how the public reacts to your appearance here.” When I don’t reply, he bites his lip and leaves it at that.
I have no choice but to wait until Razor’s finished with the assassination before they help me rescue Eden. A tide of rage against the young Elector swells up in me. I hate you. I hate you with everything I’ve got, and I swear I’m going to put a bullet in you the first chance I get. For the first time since I joined the Patriots, I actu
ally find myself excited for the assassination. I’m going to do everything to make sure the Republic can never touch my brother again.
In the chaos of the burning fire and shouting of troops, we slip away down the other side of the town and back into the night.
LESS THAN TWO DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTOR’S ACTUAL assassination. Thirty hours for me to stop it.
The sun has just set when the Elector, along with six Senators and at least four guard patrols (forty-eight soldiers), boards a train headed for the warfront city of Pierra. I’m riding with them too. This is the first time I’m traveling as a passenger instead of a prisoner, so tonight I’m dressed in warm winter tights and soft leather boots (no heels or steel toes, so I can’t use them as weapons) and a hooded duffle cape that’s deep scarlet with silver trim. No more shackles. Anden even makes sure I have gloves (soft leather, black and red), and for the first time since arriving in Denver, my fingers don’t feel cold. My hair is the way it’s always been, clean and dry, pulled back into a high ponytail. In spite of all this, my head feels warm and my muscles ache. All the lamps along the station platform are off, and no one besides the Elector’s ensemble is in sight. We board the train in complete silence. Anden’s sudden detour from Lamar to Pierra is probably something most of the Senators don’t even know about.
My guards lead me into my own private railcar, a car so luxurious that I know I’m in here only because Anden insisted on it. It’s twice as long as the standard railcars (a good nine hundred square feet, with six velvet curtains and Anden’s ever-present portrait hanging against the right wall). The guards lead me to the center table of the car, then pull out a seat for me. I feel a strange detachment from it all, like none of it is quite real—it’s as if I were exactly where I used to be, a wealthy girl taking her rightful place amongst the Republic’s elite.
“If you need anything, let us know,” one of them says. He sounds polite, but the tightness of his jaw gives away how nervous he is around me.