“I’ll tell you all about it in a week or so’s time, Lord willing. Now…” I hesitated. We’d barely discussed what needed discussing yet. “D’you think if you get down in the bottom of that ditch, we’ll still be able to hear each other?”
“Hmm,” said Bane, but perhaps he also suspected the guards might be unusually alert, for all he said was, “Let’s try it, then.” He disappeared from sight and there were a few tiny scuffling noises. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We’d better get down to business; I’m sorry I went on for so long.”
“Don’t apologize, Bane, or you’ll make me mad. Now, let’s make sure we don’t forget anything.”
“Right. We don’t need to waste time going into the ins and outs of each other’s plans, we’ve just got to arrange the timings. I have got one question, though. If you’re going to get hold of some real nonLees, can’t you get uniforms at the same time and just walk across the exercise yards to the towers? Why do you need the diversion so desperately?”
Was Bane not quite so comfortable with the source of the diversion as he had been? Good. Unfortunately…
“If it was that simple, everyone would escape. Look, it didn’t take me any time at all to realize the only way to get out was to take a couple of towers out of commission. Well, if I can think of that, so can a lot of other reAssignees and certainly so can the EGD. Jon and I have worked this out very carefully.
“To get into a tower you have to get to the base of it without being shot—easy enough in the daytime, during exercise, and with a uniform, simple at night too. But a card isn’t enough to get you in once you’re there, that’s the problem. There’s a camera as well and the guards in the tower have to recognize you before they’ll unlock the door.
“Hence the diversion. The uniforms will get a pair safely across the yard to each tower—though the internal guards have slightly different ones, you know, but it’ll be close enough, especially with a bit of chaos for good measure.
“We’ll swipe a card and claim to be reinforcements, keeping too close to the camera to be identified, and with the tower under attack the chances are extremely high the guards will let us in without thinking to insist on a normal ID. The first person to the top of the stairs will take the guards out and the second one will be there for… backup.”
“You mean if the first person gets shot,” said Bane grimly, clearly thinking of those machine guns.
“It’s a precaution only. The person going in will have a nonLee drawn in their hand. No way will they turn those big guns in time.”
“And will one of the first people be you?”
“Of course it will, Bane,” I said impatiently. “You’ve made me do target shooting with you often enough. I may be the only person in the dorm who’s ever even fired a gun. I really don’t know who to trust with the other tower. I think I’ll have to instigate a very noisy game and hold trials with the air gun, actually. If they can’t hit a barn door, all the surprise in the world won’t help.”
“Try Jon.”
“Jon? He can’t see.”
“No, and he can’t hit an inanimate object to save his life. But he can nail a breathing target every time. You know my laser shooter game? He was less high-minded than you about it—or a lot more bored, I think that was it. We used to play that and he’d get me almost as often as I got him, in the end. I reckon he could do it.”
“Hmm. Well, I still need two backups who won’t shoot themselves by accident.”
“Make sure they’re smart enough to overrule their subconscious and pull the trigger,” said Bane bluntly. “Because nonLees are so new, I’ve heard people find it almost as hard to actually shoot people with them as with an ordinary gun. ‘Cause we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of years of conditioning telling us that if we point that thing and go bang, we kill someone.”
“Point taken.”
“There’s something else,” said Bane. “If you fail to gain access to the tower, they won’t be able to get their machine guns trained on you down there, but if you run back across the yard, they’ll have you. So stay put. And fire this straight up over the tower.” He slid back up into a sitting position and passed another package through.
I eased the wrappings off and found a pair of squat, fat barrelled pistols.
“What are these?”
“Signal guns. If you can’t take the tower, fire one of those and we’ll… deal with it.”
“Deal with it,” I said flatly.
“Yes.”
“Do I want to know?”
“I doubt it. It’s just a contingency plan, anyway.”
“If you’ve got the means to ‘deal with’ the towers from outside, I’m surprised you’re not all for it,” I couldn’t help remarking.
I saw his wince.
“Couple of weeks ago, I was, as it happens,” he said quietly. “Save putting you at risk and everything. But… it’s not as simple as that, is it?”
“And your friends are happy to let us have all the fun?”
“They’re not my friends!” snapped Bane, then went on more calmly, “Dealing with the towers from the forestline means using extremely expensive and hard to obtain resources. They’re quite happy to leave it to you.”
A pair of bazookas, in other words. Two dead guards in each tower. I weighed the flare gun in my hand. Could I really point this thing at the sky and fire it, knowing what would happen?
“Father Mark asked me to tell you something when I gave you those,” said Bane. “He said to remind you every right comes with a corresponding duty. He seemed to think you’d know what that meant.”
I bit my lip. The right to life. My right to life. Which meant the right to self defense. The use of reasonable force against an aggressor. But our faith called us to love everyone and defined real love as considering the other person more important than ourselves. So many Believers would forfeit their right to self defense rather than harm the other.
But with the right to life came the duty to protect life. Especially that of the innocent, and those who couldn’t defend themselves. If it was only me escaping, I could refuse to use the flare gun and accept the consequences—though in my current predicament, it might require more strength than I possessed. But I couldn’t make that choice for the seventy others whose lives I’d a duty to save if I could.
“How do I use this thing?”
I heard Bane let out a relieved breath.
“There’s a button to press to open the breech, like a shotgun…” I held one of the guns inside the hatch so he could see what I was doing. “That’s right. You put the shells in rimless end first; it only takes one at a time. Then snap it shut, take off the safety, point and fire. Don’t point it at anyone—well, you can if they’re bothering you. And if you have to fire it, stay in the doorway at the base of the tower until… until things stop flying around.”
“Right. I think that’s all we need to say about the towers. Let’s sort out the timings. Could you get back in that ditch?”
Bane slithered back down and I breathed a little easier.
“So when’s it all happening?” I asked.
“Well, the book’s being published next Tuesday. That you wrote the book will be a much bigger story if lots of people have already read it. So my… friend… the reporter will give the story to one person in each major paper, but not until late on Thursday, giving them just a few hours to write their pieces before the midnight deadline for the Friday papers. Leaving the minimum amount of time for tongues to flap,” he said darkly.
“My friend’s getting an exclusive on the escape out of it, in case you were wondering. Anyway, we’re thinking evening of the Friday for the escape. Working on the assumption that the EuroGov may not be very quick deciding what to do. They’ve got to read the newspapers, read the book, look at the evidence and only then worry what to do about you. And it won’t occur to them that you could possibly be going be going anywhere.”
But my stomach turned ov
er at the thought of sitting here for a whole day once the EuroGov knew the truth.
“What if…” My voice squeaked slightly and I cleared my throat. “What if someone in one of the papers talks? After the deadline, loads of workers will see what’s being printed. The EuroGov make sneaking worth people’s while. That would give them a lot of extra time to decide what to do with me. And… it’s really not going to take them very long!”
“No, I don’t think it will take them very long either,” he sighed. “I was all for getting you out on the Thursday night and having you safe before the headlines break. But everyone else thinks the headlines will be better if you’re still in there. I said, well, Margo’ll be in there when the headlines were written, but they think they’ll look better mounting a daring and generous rescue of the beleaguered heroine after she finds herself in peril. I said no one will believe they put together a plan to empty a Facility in one day after reading the headlines and realizing your danger, but they said…”
“Bane, I’m not going anywhere with the Resistance. You know that, right?”
“Relax, no one’s going anywhere with the Resistance but the Resistance. We’ll be heading off a different way. Anyway… Oh, hell, I said a lot and they said a lot, but I couldn’t argue too hard, ‘cause I’d presented the whole thing primarily as a propaganda exercise—embarrass the EuroBloc and get them some good press for once, y’see? To keep them from leveling the place and killing everyone. Which it turns out, you’ll be glad to hear, would be so expensive in terms of resources, both live and inanimate, that they’re not up for it.
“Well, anyway, we’re waiting until Friday night if we can, zero hour at eleven o’clock. But we’ll be in position as soon as the newspaper deadline has passed and I want you to have everything ready as well. If they come for you, if you have any reason to think you can’t wait, just get started. Wave this out the dorm window so we know to start the clock.”
His hand reached up and pushed a large red silk handkerchief into the hatch. I tucked it inside my jumpsuit with the three guns.
“Now, timings?” he said. “You know how long it takes to get around in there. I don’t.”
“Okay. One minute after zero hour—or the red handkerchief—start the attack. On all the towers, I think, but the east ones most, to draw all the spare guards over there. If it’s nighttime, wait ten more minutes, then intensify the attack, making sure you hit the two west towers a bit harder—they’re the ones we’ll be taking, so they need to be panicking about then. But not too hard, because the last thing we want is a load of reinforcements actually running over there!”
“I wouldn’t worry,” put in Bane, “at least nine out of ten of those guards will never have heard a gun go off outside a shooting range. I reckon they’ll panic way before their officers see the need to send reinforcements. Before I forget, how many are there?”
I’d made this addition already.
“There are fourteen internal guards and twenty-eight external. There’s just the two officers, Major Everington and Captain Wallis.”
“How many other people are inside?”
“Two dismantlers and three minions—that is, lab assistants. A nurse. The minions come and go in six-month shifts like the guards, but the others are permanent staff, like the Captain and Major.”
“Some life,” sniffed Bane. “Well, we’d got as far as a ten-minute delay at night…?”
“Yes. But if it’s daytime, wait twenty minutes instead, because we’ll have to deal with the camera room. So please Lord we can wait until night, because that’s just one more thing to go wrong? We’ll wave white pillow cases from the west towers to show they’re neutralized, intensify the attack on the east towers then, to keep them distracted. But carry on firing into the forest or something on the west side, so they don’t suspect.
“While the towers are being taken, someone will be freeing the boys. The girls will head straight across the west exercise yard once it’s safe and out the little gate and leg it up to the forestline—they should be pretty organized. The boys shouldn’t be far behind, but they’ll probably be all over the place. Getting everyone away after that is over to you.”
“That’s all planned. We’re going first to the glade in the Fellest below Rayle’s Pass—you remember those caves there? Well, if things go to plan, no one will be looking for us in the Fellest, but if things don’t, they’ll be a good place to hide until the initial search passes. Then we’ll… well, never mind now, let’s just say I’ve figured out what to do with seventy reAssignees. Now,” Bane added, “do you remember what I told you about ‘nonLethal’ being something of a misnomer?”
“Yeah, one shot puts someone out for a few minutes, two shots for hours, three shots for about a week—or forever if they have a health problem—and the fourth shot is fatal.”
“You got it.”
“I’ll make sure everyone else knows. Right. Newspaper deadline, midnight on Thursday night. Red handkerchief any time after that means start the escape. What if it’s dark?”
“Have you got a flashlight in the dorm?”
“Several.”
“Shine a flashlight through the handkerchief, then. That’ll show up clearly enough.”
“Okay. Otherwise, zero hour at eleven o’clock Friday night. And if we fail to get into the towers, fire the flare gun. I think I’ve got my half.”
“One minute after zero hour or red handkerchief, start attack. All towers but concentrating on east towers. Ten minutes later at night or twenty minutes later in daytime, intensify attack on west towers. At the white pillow case, intensify on east towers again to keep attention there. Girls coming out first, then boys. Okay?”
“I think that’s it. My parents, Jon’s parents? Is everything arranged?”
“They’re all sorted, Margo. They’ll have quietly disappeared well before the truth comes out.”
“Good. I thought that was what they were telling me and so did Jon, but… good. Well…” My brain wanted him gone to safety, but my heart wanted to hang onto him, in case something went wrong and this was the last time I saw him in this life. But with a certain effort, common sense took control.
“You’d better go.”
“Yes.”
He sounded as reluctant as I felt. He sat up and took my hands again and we remained a few minutes in silence. The moon had finally gone behind a cloud so he didn’t seem quite so exposed.
“We’ve got a good plan,” he said at last, giving my hands an encouraging squeeze. “And I know you don’t like it and I don’t like it as much as I did, but we’ve got expert help. It’s going to be all right. And…” he hesitated, then went on bleakly, “if by some chance it doesn’t work, you could always let yourself out the gate during exercise and run for the forestline.”
It was my turn to squeeze his hands gently.
“You know I can’t do that, Bane.”
“You might make it.”
“You know I wouldn’t. Let’s not think about that. Let’s just think about a week on Friday, being together, free.”
“I can think about that.” He kissed my hands and for once it was he who decided it was time to go. “I’m off, Margo. ‘Cause if I get shot just now, it will be a bit of a nuisance.”
“Bye, then. Take care.” I kissed my fingertips and pressed them to his lips and he did likewise, then he slithered back into the ditch and was gone.
I shifted the arsenal inside my jumpsuit round to the small of my back, so I’d be able to crawl under the cars—though it was all going to slide right back around, wasn’t it? Checking the door card in my jumpsuit pocket, I settled down to wait, peering through the grille and running over the plan in my mind. The moon had come out again.
SNAP
The sound came from the forestline and almost instantly a search light sliced whitely through the modest amber glow of the flood lights. I caught a momentary glint of wide eyes and a flash of white tail as the deer bounded away.
The guards see
med to have missed it, because the search light began to travel along the forest, probing the shadows under the trees. It reached the end of the forest covered by the south west tower and, swooping back to the middle, began to run down the drainage ditch, illuminating everything so clearly I could see the individual lumps of mud in the bottom.
Bane!
***+***
25
WAITING
One frozen moment of panic—Lord-what-do-I-do?—then I leapt to my feet, reaching the wall in one bound. I grabbed the power lever and yanked it down. All the lights outside went out. Oh no, now what? How to get away with this? And they mustn’t get the lights back on in time to catch Bane…
By the light of the moon I’d so ungratefully labeled inconvenient, I found the fuse box for the south west tower. I yanked the SEARCH circuit breaker out of its socket, licked a finger, ran it over the circuit breaker’s contacts and jammed it back into place. Lunged back to the power switch and yanked it on. Switch and dampened circuit breaker both snapped off again in unison. Bingo. Just a little forest damp, quite natural…
I was already at the door. I paused only a second to look and listen, slipped out and closed the door silently behind me. Footsteps and a distant voice came from the west exercise yard and I literally dived underneath the first car. The guns swung straight round under me, digging into my ribs and abdomen as I landed on them. Wriggling until certain no limbs were sticking out, I lay motionless, smothering my gasps of pain.
“It was a deer.” The speaker was coming through the gate from the exercise yard. “Of course it doesn’t hurt to check. But I saw it, right? And see, now the blinkin’ fuse has gone again. Right, circuit breaker, whatever. Damn mist. Yes, clear today, but it was the usual yesterday. If you’d been working here as long as I have, you’d know that’s what’s done it. Keep your hair on, I’m there now…”
The guard disappeared into the guardroom, still grumbling into his wristCell, and I waited, hardly breathing. Before long I saw the dim glow in the sky over the battlements as the flood lights came on again. Bane would be at the treeline by now, though. He’d probably started crawling flat out the moment the lights went off.
I Am Margaret Page 25