—On it, Esta replied.
The guard saw them through the window in the doors and reached for his walkie-talkie. Before he could utter a word, he grabbed his head and slumped heavily on his desk. Esta had him. Anaya found the right key and pushed through the doors.
“Cuff him,” she told Charles, nodding at the incapacitated guard. “Take his Taser and walkie-talkie.”
“These guys are pushovers,” Darren said. “They can’t touch us!”
Anaya wished she felt Darren’s confidence. Every inch of her vibrated with fear.
“Now,” she said, “let’s get Seth.”
THERE WERE LOTS OF people in the room.
Seth heard them moving around, rolling equipment across the floor, arranging metallic things. Machines beeped. There were murmuring voices he didn’t recognize, and one he did: Ritter’s, calmly giving instructions.
He lay on a narrow bed, flat on his back, hands and ankles tied. Through the hood, he was aware of a circle of dim light that must have been an overhead lamp.
His heart raced, as much from rage as from fear. He hated being so powerless. He could actually hear his pulse, amplified on a monitor. He needed to breathe. He needed to think. If he could only get this hood off. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to control his rage then. His heart accelerated even more. Whatever they were planning to do to him, he didn’t want it.
There was an IV in his left hand, and he knew enough about operations to know that the anesthetic would flow through it and into his veins and knock him out. That would be the end of it.
Very quietly he tested the plastic fastener around his left wrist. He knew he’d never be able to pull his entire hand free. But there was a bit of wriggle room, and if he could get the plastic fastener over the IV needle, maybe he could drag it out of his vein.
“When do we shave his head?” someone said.
“Not till he’s out. The hood stays on till then.”
An electric rash of fear swept across Seth’s chest.
“Why’re you shaving my head?”
“I want to give you your life back, Seth,” Ritter said, chewing his words like he was enjoying a particularly fine meal. “I could simply remove all your feathers. And I see you’ve got more coming in on your lower legs. But they’d probably grow back. I want to see if I can do better. I’m wondering if that transmitter in your brain controls more than radio signals. It’s possible it also controls the changes to your body. We can’t alter your DNA, but if we remove the transmitter, we might prevent further changes. In effect, you’d go back to being normal. Don’t you want to be normal again, Seth?”
“No!” he shouted. “And you don’t even know if this’ll work!”
“True,” Ritter agreed. “That’s why we need to try it first.”
He heard things clinking close to him. He imagined bright silver instruments. Scissors. Knives with strange curves. A saw.
They were going to cut his head open. The horror burst over him with nightmare intensity.
“You can’t do this to me!”
—Esta! he cried silently.
He felt so terribly abandoned. Once again he tried to find that scintillating string of light inside his head. The one he could pluck to hurt Ritter. Nowhere to be found. The hood made him powerless.
“It should be fairly straightforward,” Ritter told him conversationally.
The last time he’d had surgery, when he was little, they’d taken his feathers. Now they wanted part of his brain—the thing that had given him the only pure joy he’d known his entire life: his dreams, the idea of home and flight. Without it, how was he supposed to find his way? When he was little, he’d had no fight, but he’d fight this time, as hard and as long as he could.
Seth bucked and kicked, wanting to draw attention away from his hand. He managed to slip the plastic fastener over the needle and was now trying to push it out of his vein.
“These aren’t easy decisions to make,” Ritter was saying—to him, or maybe to all the other people in the room. “In times of war, the rights of the individual have to take a back seat to the good of the many. Especially in cases where the individual in question does not even belong to the human race.”
“You think we’re monsters,” Seth shouted, “but you’re the monster!”
Working his hand, he felt the taped needle shift. He pushed harder. There. Was it out? He wasn’t absolutely sure. He was afraid to push more. He angled his hand to try to hide what he’d done.
“Let’s get started,” Ritter said. “Put him under.”
Seth tensed.
“Here we go,” someone said off to his left, and he felt a dribble of fluid down his hand and fingers.
Out. He’d done it!
Seth’s heart bleeped fast over the monitor, and he tried to slow his breathing. If he was supposed to be asleep, he couldn’t have his heart blasting away. Inhale. Exhale. Pause. Inhale. Exhale. Pause. He heard his pulse begin to slow.
“He’s out,” the voice on his left said. “You can shave now.”
He felt fingers curl under the hood and pull. Air and warm light against his face. He kept his eyes shut, then opened them to the tiniest slits. Enough to count the shapes moving around him. One, two, three, four, five. Behind him, someone started cutting his hair. That made six people.
“Hang on,” someone said. “His IV’s out.”
“What?” said Ritter.
“His IV! It’s not in!”
Seth snapped open his eyes. All around him stood people in green gowns and surgical caps and masks. Ritter’s sheer size made him easy to recognize. And you couldn’t mistake those dead eyes.
“Cut me loose,” Seth told him.
“Be very careful what you do,” Ritter said. “You can only hurt one of us at a time with sound, am I correct? And there are lots of people in this room. With lots of very sharp things.”
Seth couldn’t stop his eyes from darting to the tray near his head. It glittered with tools even more terrifying than he’d imagined. At that moment Ritter’s hand snatched up a scalpel and held it against his neck.
Seth stared into his eyes, not knowing what to do.
Ritter stared back. “Get that IV back in,” he told someone very calmly. “And put him out. Now.”
Chapter Twelve
PETRA SURGED DOWN THE corridor with the others. She felt so much safer and stronger in a pack. Look what they’d been able to do together, back in the cafeteria! They’d just taken out a dozen armed guards. All Esta and Vincent and Siena had to do was look at them, and they dropped.
And then there was what she herself had done. She couldn’t stop her mind from jumping back to it. She’d been so scared, and suddenly her tail had struck the guard and he’d collapsed. She was pretty sure his chest was still rising and falling. She’d almost thrown up afterward, she was so horrified. Over and over she’d told herself, I’m still me. I’m still me. But she couldn’t deny the sense of power she’d felt. Esta and the other flyers might be able to crumple people with sound, but she could paralyze them.
So far they hadn’t run into anyone else on Level 400. No alarms blared, and maybe this was going to be easier than she thought. Maybe all the guards were still down on Level 200. But that wouldn’t last for long. They’d come looking. And there’d be more of them.
Seth, Seth, Seth, she thought in time to her heartbeats. They must be almost there by now. Her eyes roved over the passing doors: DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES, DEPARTMENT OF PARKS, DEPARTMENT OF MORTGAGES. Mortgages? During a nuclear Armageddon?
Where was the surgical suite?
She blamed herself for all this. Maybe if she’d kept her mouth shut about Anaya and the cryptogen, maybe if she hadn’t told Paul about the telepathy, none of this would be happening to Seth. She needed to fix this; she needed to save him.
A squawk came from the walkie-talkie Charles had snatched.
“Level 400, check in, please. Any sign of the hybrids? Check in, Level 400.”
—Answer it, Petra said, s
hooting him a glance.
“All clear up here,” Charles said gruffly into the walkie-talkie.
Did guards even say stuff like that? After a few tense seconds there was no reply, and Petra could only hope they’d bought it.
They rounded a corner and there were people. Not guards. Maybe they were off-duty White Coats, or kitchen staff or electricians or accountants—who knew? But it was weird to see them. Like real people in a real world. And on their faces was pure terror. Petra almost looked behind her to see what was so scary—but then understood: it was them.
When Esta flared her wings, all the people ran, some rushing inside rooms and locking doors.
“We’re almost there,” Anaya said.
Rounding yet another corner, they nearly barreled into a guard. Petra heard the now-familiar pop of compressed air. Twin Taser barbs snagged in Charles’s jumpsuit. He pulled back, trying to break the connection, but too late. Voltage coursed through him, and with a loud cry he fell to the floor.
Petra rushed the guard. Her tail swung around and struck him in the arm. He shoved her away so hard she smacked the wall. But the guard didn’t collapse. Had she missed? Was she already out of venom? After only one strike?
Right away Esta stepped in and slashed the Taser wires with her feathers. Then she made the guard clutch his head in pain. Petra manacled his hands behind his back and shoved him inside a room.
“We’re running out of time,” said Esta.
Petra watched anxiously as Anaya looked all around, like everything was suddenly unfamiliar. Were they lost? No, no, no.
Finally, Anaya said, “This way.”
She and Darren helped Charles up and steadied him as he walked.
“That was terrible,” he muttered. “Feel like I’ve been struck by lightning.”
They passed a dental office, and then Anaya said, “We’re here,” and stopped outside a door that said SURGICAL SUITE. Through the window Petra saw a small room with shelves of medical supplies, then another set of doors with clouded glass. A blurry figure moved on the other side.
“Petra, wait!” she heard Anaya hiss, but she was already plunging into the first room. She reached the other doors and smashed them open. Six people in green scrubs whipped their heads around to look at her.
In the middle of the room, beneath a cluster of lights, was an operating table. She saw Seth’s gawky body on it. He was dressed in a hospital gown and arranged so she couldn’t see his face, only the back of his head. Some of his hair had been clumsily cut away.
Over him stood Ritter, with a scalpel to his throat.
“Get away from him!” she yelled.
Seth craned his neck to look around at them all.
He was awake! They hadn’t done anything to him yet!
—You okay? she asked, but got no reply—probably because he was already talking to Esta, who was beside her now, along with Anaya and Vincent and Siena.
Ritter beheld them all balefully, his scalpel pressing even closer against Seth’s neck. Petra could see the artery jumping beneath his pale skin.
“Leave this room immediately,” Ritter said. “Or he dies.”
—We’ve got this, Esta said.
By we, Petra assumed Esta meant the flyers. But that scalpel was so close to Seth’s neck.
—Wait, she said fearfully.
Ritter’s body jerked back in a terrible contraction. His hand clenched into a fist, the scalpel jutting out. He teetered back, then forward. For a horrible moment Petra thought he was going to fall onto Seth with the scalpel. Then, as though yanked by a string, Ritter rose onto his toes, slewed over to the side, and hit the floor. Curled into a ball, he made a whine of anguish.
Petra wasn’t sure who was attacking Ritter: Seth or Esta, maybe both. Near the wall, someone in scrubs pushed a red button, and Petra heard an alarm start bleating outside in the hallway. Another person in scrubs made a lunge for the sharp things on the tray, but before she could grab anything, she doubled over, begging for the pain to stop. Two members of the surgical team bolted out a back door. The remaining two crumpled to the floor, hands clamped over their ears.
Petra rushed to Seth. From the tray she grabbed a pair of clippers and snipped through all his restraints. He sat up, panting. She ripped the electrodes off his chest. He tore the IV out of his hand, then grabbed scissors and starting cutting off his casts.
On the floor, Ritter twitched. Petra looked worriedly over at Esta. The girl’s face was etched with fierce concentration and hatred.
“Don’t kill him,” Petra said.
Esta made no reply. Petra shot a glance at Anaya, who was using plastic fasteners to manacle the hands of the stunned surgical staff.
“Esta!” Anaya shouted. “Stop!”
The doctor gave one final kick and then was still. There was foam around his lips and blood dribbling from his nose.
“Is he dead?” Petra gasped.
“Let’s go,” said Seth, jumping off the bed.
BAREFOOT IN HIS HOSPITAL gown, Seth charged along with the others. The alarm’s throbbing followed them down the corridor. The air felt good against his feathers. He was light-headed. They hadn’t let him eat or drink anything in a while. When he thought of Ritter on the floor, his stomach felt sick, like he had an oil spill inside him.
Using the sound weapon was terrifying. The power and fury of it. Once you started, and had that vibration in your head, it was very hard to stop. It was difficult to tell if he had stopped, especially with Esta blasting Ritter at the same time. Was it he or Esta who’d delivered that final twisting blow? Maybe they’d done it together.
Murderers.
“We’re here,” Anaya said.
At the end of the corridor was the elevator. Seth’s heart jumped. He knew the plan. That elevator would take them to the antenna farm, and then there was only a chain-link fence to get through and they’d be free.
He watched Anaya yank a ring of keys from her pocket and hurriedly thumb through them. She frowned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Not sure which one it is . . .”
She tried to fit a small key into the elevator lock. It wouldn’t go. Anxiously, he looked back down the corridor, over the heads of all the waiting hybrids. No guards yet. But it couldn’t be much longer, not with that alarm going.
“It’s not here,” Anaya said.
“What’re we waiting for?” called out a swimmer named Letitia.
Anaya looked stricken. “It was silver with a round head. I thought all the guards would have one, but maybe only some of them do.” She swallowed. “Or just one of them.”
“Let me try,” said Darren, snatching the keys and jamming them one after another against the lock.
“Which guard had it last time?” Seth asked.
“Both times it was a guy with buggy eyes.”
“Was he in the cafeteria just now?” Petra asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. There were so many of them!”
“There can’t be just one freaking key!” Darren said furiously. “Someone else must have one!”
“We could go back and check the other guards,” Anaya said.
“No way,” said Petra.
“No time,” Seth agreed. The idea of going backward was terrible, especially when the guards would soon be surging forward. “You said you passed a room with vents. Where they were cutting back the vines.”
Anaya pointed two doors down the corridor. “There.”
“Come on, might be a way out,” he said, weaving through the kids clustered around the elevator.
“Hang on, what kind of vents?” Charles asked, catching up.
“I don’t know,” said Anaya. “Big enough for someone to stand up in.”
“That might be an escape shaft!” said Charles excitedly. “A lot of bunkers had one.”
Seth looked at him sharply. “How d’you know?”
“School project,” Anaya said.
Seth reached the door
and tried the handle. Locked.
“What’s going on?” asked Adam, the talkative new kid. “I thought we were taking the elevator!”
Seth turned to look at all the frightened faces. “There’s another way out.” To Anaya he said, “You have the key?”
“Don’t need one,” she said, and with a single kick blasted the door open, splinters flying.
He rushed inside. Set into the back wall was a red steel door. He hauled it open and ducked inside, flicking on a light switch.
It was like a giant fireplace. The floor was a metal grate over a dark pit. A current of gritty air lifted from the darkness below, and his nostrils flinched with a familiar smell—a terrible, cloying perfume. Vines.
Directly overhead was a large circular hatch.
“That’s definitely the escape shaft,” Charles said, leaning in. “Fifteen tons of gravel up there. To block the radiation. You need to pull that lever. See?” He pointed to the discolored metal sign that said PULL LEVER TO CLEAR HATCH. “It all pours down through the grate and then we can climb up.”
“It’ll make a ton of noise,” Anaya said, peering in.
“There’s vines, too,” Seth said.
“Just pull the freaking lever!” he heard Petra shout. “Let’s get out of here!”
“Move back.” Seth seized the lever. It wouldn’t budge. It hadn’t been moved in fifty years, if ever. “I need a hand.”
It was Darren who ducked in. Seth choked back his dislike. Together they pulled down on the lever with their combined weight. It shifted, then jerked down all the way.
Jumping aside, Seth felt his ears pop as a deafening torrent of gravel poured past, through the metal grate into the pit. Dust billowed up like a desert storm, blinding and choking him. He staggered back into the room with Darren, covering his face.
When the roar of the gravel stopped, everyone was still coughing. The room was thick with dust but slowly clearing. Seth saw three guards in the doorway. They held not Tasers but real guns.
“I want everyone to lie down on the floor!” shouted a guard with buggy eyes. “Right now!”
—That’s him, Anaya said in his head. He’s got the key!
Seth saw the ring of keys dangling from his belt.
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