by Dima Zales
“We’re heading to room 405,” Grace says. She also sounds out of breath.
“We’re trying to save some kids there,” I say to spare Grace from speaking. “What are you doing here? Why are you not wearing your helmet? What’s going on?”
The Guard just shakes his head. “No time,” he wheezes out. “I had to take off the helmet because all the Guards’ visors went berserk—”
Albert stops because the girl behind him starts sobbing loudly, tears dripping down her cheeks. Albert sucks in another breath and says to us firmly, “You’re not going anywhere. Here”—he hands me the boy—“take him. And you”—he gives Grace the hand of the girl—“take her. I’ll go check that room. 405, right?”
I cradle the little boy in my arms and in a single breath rattle out, “Yes, it’s the second door on the right if you take this staircase to the top.”
“Go,” Albert orders, and I dash down the hallway, Grace and her charge on my heels.
As we run, I try to feel for the kid’s pulse but have a hard time detecting it. He’s not breathing either. Even worse, the little girl’s breathing is growing more labored with each second.
Half a corridor away from the building’s entrance, the girl stumbles and clutches at her throat, wheezing audibly.
“Grab her legs,” I command Grace as I secure the boy in my right arm, mimicking Albert’s earlier hold. With my left hand, I grab the girl under her armpit.
All I hear in response is Grace’s shallow panting, but she grabs the girl by the legs, and we carry her the rest of the way outside.
The moment we come out of the building, we lower the girl to the ground and Grace looks around. “You there.” She motions at a lanky girl who looks to be around nine or ten. “Watch me and learn what I’m doing.” She then checks the girl’s vitals. “She’s breathing. You can’t do CPR on someone who’s already breathing,” she tells her designated helper. “You might stop their heart.”
The recruited little nurse-to-be looks like a bunny in the jaws of a rabid wolf, but manages a small nod, showing Grace she understands.
I’m still holding the little boy, so I put him down, and Grace swoops in, performing CPR while her student observes her.
“Anyone else have friends unaccounted for?” I yell over the frightened little voices. “Please speak up if you know of anyone who’s still in the building.”
A boy of about seven years of age raises his hand, and I make my way through the crowd to speak with him.
“Jason is still there,” the boy says in a shaky voice as I stop next to him. He hugs himself and begins crying, mumbling, “I should’ve woken him up. He’s my friend. I’m sorry.”
“Where’s his room?” I ask, trying to sound as authoritative as possible without frightening the kid.
“On the second floor,” he says and hiccups. “On the side of the western staircase. Room 204.”
“Thank you,” I say and hurry back to Grace.
“He’s stable, but I need you to stay here and watch over him,” I overhear Grace tell her newest assistant. “Theo and I are going—”
“I can do this on my own, Grace.” The fact that she didn’t hear about Jason might improve my chances of her complying.
Her blue eyes gleam in the red light, and I know my hope was futile.
“Stop wasting time, Theo,” she says. “I’m going. You might need my help.”
“Fine,” I say and hurry toward the building.
Before we walk in, I tell Grace where we’re heading, and once inside the building, I don’t speak. I don’t want to pull Grace into a conversation that would cause her to run out of oxygen faster.
I see the outline of a Guard as we turn toward the western staircase. It must be Albert with the kids from room 405, unless he already brought them out through another exit and is saving someone else.
I ascend the staircase in a single breath. Grace starts to drag slightly behind. Pushing the door open, I exit the staircase, and in two leaps, I make my way to room 204.
“Jason,” I shout as I nudge the door open. “Are you in here?”
No one responds, but I see a tiny body lying by the farthest bed.
Like his friend, the unconscious boy looks around seven. I reach out to check his pulse, but then I hear Grace walk into the room. I look up, noticing how quickly her chest is rising and falling under her nightgown, and how much the veins on her slender neck stand out.
“Grace, I can carry him,” I say, starting to pick up the boy. “He probably only weighs—”
Without wasting oxygen uttering a single word, she walks up to the boy and grabs his legs. Unwilling to delay her exit by arguing for even a second, I grab the boy by the shoulders and lift him.
Grace was probably right to insist on helping me. Together, we’re moving a lot faster than I would have on my own, which is good for the boy. The problem is that Grace’s breathing is getting more ragged with every step.
We make our way down to the first floor and turn into the first corridor. The sound of someone crying reaches my ears.
Grace and I exchange a glance and pick up the pace.
When we turn the corner, we see a body lying on the floor with a very small girl standing next to it, half-crying and half-panting for air.
The body is Owen’s. It looks as though he lost consciousness while trying to save the crying girl.
“Let go of Jason’s legs,” I tell Grace.
She complies gingerly, her breathing rocket fast.
I grab Jason by his waist and put him over my left shoulder like a sack of potatoes. As soon as I have the boy secured, I carefully bend down and weave my right arm under Owen’s shoulders. My muscles are already beyond tired, and as I strain to lift him off the ground, I wish I took more of an interest in sports—especially deadlifting.
“You take her,” I order Grace, nodding at the little girl.
Grace grabs the now-quiet girl by the hand, and with her free arm, she snakes her arm under Owen’s knees, helping me lift him.
With monumental effort, I take a step, then another. It feels like my muscles are tearing.
A thousand mighty efforts of will later, we’re almost at the exit. In the silence between the announcements, I can hear Grace’s shallow wheezing. To suppress the fear gnawing at me, I picture us succeeding in leaving this building. I picture the air tasting less stale and the red Dome above my head.
The full weight of Owen’s body plunging into my arms rips me out of my fantasies.
The little girl is wheezing-crying again, and Grace is on the floor, clutching at her throat.
5
“No,” I yell. “No, Grace, you can’t do this to me!”
Grace’s convulsions begin to subside.
I’m faced with a terrible choice. There’s no way I can carry the boy, the girl, Owen, and Grace. It’s physically impossible. I’ll have to tell the girl to walk on her own and choose between Owen and Grace.
In ancient times, rescue workers, such as firemen, probably had to make choices like this all the time. I don’t know how they managed it, because I’m paralyzed with indecision. I know inaction will result in an even worse outcome, but I can’t make myself move.
This is what those moral dilemmas in the Test must’ve felt like.
“Phoe,” I shout in desperation. “I really need your help.”
Nanoseconds pass at the speed of thought, and I make a decision. Only I’m afraid my bias, rather than logic, is influencing my choice. Would logic even help in this situation?
The little girl stops crying and looks over my shoulder.
“Dude,” Liam says, startling me. His voice is the most welcome sound I’ve ever heard. “Why are you just standing there?”
I don’t have time to berate him for putting himself in danger again, so I say to the little girl, “Can you walk?”
She looks at me like I’m a creature from her worst nightmare but nods, almost imperceptibly.
I take that as a yes, and say
to Liam, “Hold her hand. If she has trouble walking, put her over your shoulder like I did with the boy. Now grab Grace by her shoulders. Hurry.”
Liam grabs the girl’s hand. I expect her to cry out, but she keeps quiet. With a grunt that makes me cringe, Liam puts his arm under Grace’s armpits and starts dragging her around the corner of the last corridor.
I lead the way. If I thought my burden was heavy before, I was wrong. Owen’s full weight feels like a sack of bricks, and Jason seems to have been secretly replaced by a human-shaped ice sculpture. My back feels like it’s about to break, and my heart threatens to jump out of my ribcage with every step I take. Despite the Respirocytes, the stress is turning my breathing fast and shallow, and even my vision is blurring.
Step after step, I try to focus on anything but the enormous strain in my muscles. I think of music and art, but even that doesn’t help. The music in my head is heavy metal, and the art that comes to mind is a piece by a famous ancient Russian painter that depicts eleven men struggling to haul a barge through a river.
“We’re almost there,” Liam wheezes from behind me. “Just a little farther.”
Hope renews my strength, and I pick up my pace, walking at a whopping speed of a step per second for the remaining length of the corridor. When I’m a few feet away from the entrance, I manage to speed up more, dragging my charges the remaining distance.
As soon as I’m outside, I kneel down, lowering Owen to the ground and carefully place Jason next to him. Then, sucking in gulps of air, I look for Grace’s CPR trainee.
Our gazes meet, and I wave at her. “Come help!”
The girl and a couple of other Youths rush over.
I jump up to go back for Liam, but at that moment, he comes out of the building.
I run over to him and help him lower Grace to the ground. As soon as she’s on her back, I crouch and prepare to perform CPR.
Under any other circumstances, putting my hand so close to Grace’s breasts and touching my mouth to hers would be awkward, but right now, it’s clinical. I finish my presses and breathe air into her lungs. All my thoughts are concentrated on helping her breathe again.
“Please, Grace,” I think desperately. “Breathe.”
As though she heard my mental plea, Grace gasps. Her long eyelashes flutter open, and she stares at me, her blue eyes bloodshot but alert.
“Owen,” she gasps out. “Did he make it?”
My pulse lurches. I’ve been so focused on saving her, I’ve all but forgotten about Owen’s equally dire circumstances.
I jump to my feet and am about to rush over to Owen when I see Grace trying to get up. Bending down, I offer her my hand, and she takes it, her palm cold and clammy in my grasp.
Together, we hurry over to the girl I left in charge of Owen. She’s frantically breathing into Owen’s mouth as Liam waits to resume the compressions.
Grace kneels down next to Owen and touches her hand to his neck as I stand, watching helplessly. A visible shudder ripples through her; then she says in a choked voice, “Move over, both of you.”
Grace proceeds to feel for pulse in Owen’s wrist, then his chest.
When she looks up, her eyes are brimming with tears.
“No,” I say numbly. “No, he can’t be…”
Grace starts performing CPR on Owen, her expression grimly determined.
“Phoe,” I scream in my mind. “Phoe, come on! He can’t be dead.”
There’s no response. In a haze, I watch Grace perform several rounds of CPR. By the time she stops and looks up, she’s shaking and tears are streaking down her cheeks.
“I think it’s too late,” she says, her lips tinged blue, but I barely hear her through the cold numbness paralyzing me in place.
Next to me, Liam stares at her wide-eyed, and the helper girl looks as if she’s about to sprint for the edge of Oasis.
In theory, facing death should be easier for me than for the others. After all, I’ve faced it repeatedly in the last few days. Yet my insides are burning up despite the cold, and the back of my throat spasms uncontrollably.
I’m brought out of my anguished daze by the realization that Grace is maniacally pacing around me, muttering something morbid. Liam is rubbing his arms, and Grace’s helper is hugging her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth.
I search for something soothing to tell them, but before I can come up with the words, Grace shakes her head violently and darts off toward the building. As she runs by, I catch her mumbling, “I have to make sure no one else dies…”
The surrounding Youths go silent, wary of Grace’s shouting and erratic behavior, and in the resulting quiet, I hear a new warning: “Habitat’s oxygen levels abnormal. Habitat’s nitrogen levels abnormal. Life support functions out of balance—”
The kids all start talking and crying at once, preventing me from hearing whatever else the ship-wide intercom system is saying. On some level, I know the message is troubling, but I’m too dumbfounded by Owen’s death and Grace’s reaction to process it fully. I can’t think about anything but the fact that she’s going back into that deadly building.
My legs are wooden as I stumble after her. “Wait, Grace.”
She either doesn’t hear me or ignores me as she disappears through the doors.
Cursing under my breath, I start to give chase, but someone grabs me in a bear hug from behind with sweaty, trembling hands.
“Don’t go in there,” Liam mutters into my ear. “You’ll die.”
“Dude, I’ll be okay,” I say, pushing him away. “More okay than her.”
“Then I’m—”
“Don’t you dare finish that thought.” I spin around to glare at him. “If you go anywhere near that stupid building, I will knock you the fuck out.”
Liam blinks at me, his face contorting as though he’s bracing against my threat.
I don’t wait for him to recover and run inside the building. Grace is nowhere in sight.
The corridors zigzag and the red light blurs my vision as I hurry from hallway to hallway, searching for Grace.
“Grace,” I scream over Phoe’s mechanical voice. “Grace, where are you?”
I enter a room and instinctively gesture to dismiss the abandoned beds. When the gesture fails, I bend to check under each bed. The room is empty. Then I enter another room and another—all empty.
Adrenaline is messing with my sense of time. I have no clue how long I’ve been searching the building, but I’m confident I’ve looked inside every room on the first floor.
I go up the nearest staircase toward the second floor. A door slams shut somewhere above me.
“Grace!” I shout and take the stairs three at a time. “Is that you?”
Albert is walking down the stairs toward me. He’s straining under the heavy weight of his burden. Over his right shoulder, he’s carrying a boy, and over his left, he has Grace.
“Let me help.” I hurry to his side.
“No,” Albert wheezes. “Get out of here.”
I step in front of him. “You can barely walk. Don’t waste oxygen arguing. Give me one of them and let’s go.”
Albert hesitates for a split second, but then practicality appears to win out. He knows it’ll take him twice as long to carry Grace and the boy outside on his own, assuming he doesn’t pass out on the way. Carefully, he gives me the boy. With a grunt, I position the kid over my shoulder. His body feels lifeless, and Grace doesn’t look much better.
“Go,” Albert rasps out.
Realizing I’m costing the man precious air, I quickly descend the stairs.
My breathing is frantic, but it’s impossible to tell whether I’m suffocating or experiencing side effects from the adrenaline.
Albert’s wheezing intensifies; he’s running out of air. I’m amazed at his stamina. Older people are usually frail, but then, for an Elderly, he’s not that old. Also, he must’ve gone through extensive training to become a Guard—not that the training will be of any help if he can’t breath
e. He looks like he’s barely holding on.
I open the door to the first floor and hold it for Albert. He grunts gratefully as he exits, and I hurry after him.
Either I’m numb from exhaustion or I’ve developed something like a runner’s second wind, because I’m rushing through the corridors with the boy on my shoulder and I don’t feel the cold or the strain in my muscles. I don’t even hear the alarms.
When Albert’s steps falter, I prop him up with my shoulder. He leans on me, hesitantly at first, then more fully as oxygen deprivation takes its toll on him. The numbness blanketing me starts to dissipate, and one corridor later, I realize I might’ve pushed my body too far.
Every step feels like an ordeal now. If the alarms weren’t coloring the world red, I’d be seeing white spots, and even through the deafening noise, I’m pretty sure there’s a dull ringing in my ears.
Rationally, I know it’s me who crosses the last half of the corridor to the entrance, but it feels like it’s happening to someone else.
I regain my wits when I see the Youths outside—though I can’t help but notice that unlike before, the air doesn’t feel much fresher than inside the building.
Albert lays Grace on the ground, and I do the same with the boy on my shoulder, and we begin performing CPR.
I compress the boy’s chest, then breathe into his mouth at least a dozen times before I think to check for his pulse. I can’t find a heartbeat. I look over at Albert, and my hopes shatter at the expression on his face.
Albert catches my glance, wipes the moisture from his face with his white sleeve, and shakes his head.
“No.” Frantically, I resume pushing on the boy’s chest. “No, no, no.”
Albert kneels next to me, pushes me away, and checks his vitals.
“I’m sorry,” he says, lifting his head. The look on his face echoes the horror gnawing at my chest. “We did our best.”
Ignoring him, I jump up and rush over to Grace, where she’s lying still and lifeless.
Frantically, I check for her heartbeat.