by Tarah Benner
Finally, we reached a cluster of old buildings — a factory. The broken windows along the front looked dark, but as we pulled off and drove around the back, I began to see the flicker of firelight coming through the squares of glass.
Shriver parked, and we got out. As we climbed the crumbled old steps to the back door, I stayed right between Greyson and Amory. A strange wariness had come over me. This was nothing like any rebel camp I’d ever been to.
But then a pair of familiar eyes appeared in the tiny window in the door. The door swung open, and there was Ida, beaming down at us.
“Oh my god!”
She threw an arm around Logan, who was closest, and crushed her against her chest. “I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know if any of you survived.” Ida pulled away, patting her eyes with the back of her lumpy sweater. “When they told me about the attack, I thought for sure . . .”
“We made it,” I said.
“All of you?”
“Not quite all of us,” said Roman in a low voice. He staggered up behind us, looking ashen. “Godfrey’s gone.”
The light disappeared from Ida’s eyes, and the warm, motherly lines around her mouth sagged.
“No,” she breathed.
I prayed she wouldn’t ask how it happened. A lump was forming in the back of my throat, and I looked away. Now that I’d seen her face, I knew Godfrey had been wrong about Ida sending us back to the states. She had never meant to sacrifice us.
“Of course . . . that’s how he would have wanted to go,” said Ida. “In service to the cause.”
Those words almost made me lose my tenuous grasp on my emotions. “The cause” sounded so pitiful now, when our numbers were diminished and we were retreating back to the north. World Corp had taken the states, and Aryus wouldn’t surrender it.
Ida’s watery eyes flitted from one of us to the next, as though she was hoping someone would contradict Roman’s words. When her eyes landed on him again, they widened in shock.
“Oh my . . . oh my dear. You’re not . . .?”
Roman nodded.
“How long?”
“I was bitten a few days ago.”
Ida’s eyes quivered again, threatening to spill fresh tears, but she swallowed them down.
“He’s doing well so far,” said Shriver gruffly, which I took to mean that Roman was hanging in there despite his inevitable death. In her own way, Shriver’s brand of kindness was the best.
Ida nodded. “Well, you’re here, and we’re still fighting. With any luck, we’ll be able to get our hands on the cure again.”
I smiled weakly because it seemed like the right response, but my heart wasn’t really in it. Judging by the note of defeat in her voice, Ida thought it just as unlikely as I did that we would be able to get the cure in time for Roman.
“And . . . and the farm?” she asked. “Is it really gone?”
“We’re not sure,” admitted Logan. “The barn and the guest house burned. It’s possible the house is still standing.”
The corners of Ida’s mouth twitched, as though she was trying to smile but not quite managing it. “That farm has been in my family for over one hundred years.”
“I’m sorry, Ida,” said Greyson.
“Don’t be silly, dear. I should be the one to apologize. It was wrong of me to send you and Godfrey there without any real strategy. Taking it back from the PMC when World Corp had every intention of using the land was foolish. Godfrey said I let my sentiment get in the way of the cause, and he was right.”
With a shaky deep breath and a fortifying nod, Ida ushered us inside. The building was freezing and smelled of smoke and mildew. I preferred the rebel camps with their blazing campfires and the shelter of the trees around a city of tents.
“It isn’t ideal,” called Ida as she led us up the stairs. Her voice echoed off the filthy cinderblock walls and damp floor, making me feel a bit claustrophobic. “But the woods have become too dangerous.”
“PMC?” Amory asked.
She shook her head. “Carriers.”
“How bad is it?”
“Bad,” said Ida grimly. “We thought at first it was all Rulon’s doing, but there are too many for that. The hordes have been tremendous. We listened in on the PMC frequency and discovered that a huge portion of the fence was still down. It took them nearly a week to repair because they were losing so many officers to attacks.”
“Why are the carriers swarming the north?”
“We don’t know. But when they first came, there was a glut of stage threes.”
“The carriers are fighting back while they still can,” I whispered.
Ida sighed. “That’s what we think, too.”
As we reached the top of the stairs, the sound of voices bouncing off the walls grew louder. The flicker of light told me they had lit a few small fires for warmth inside, and in the dim light, I could discern the outline of hundreds of rebels. Some were huddled together shoulder to shoulder, while others were wrapped up in their sleeping bags against the chill in the air.
“We’ve got room for you down at the far end,” said Ida, motioning with her flashlight. “And Shriver, I hate to ask after your long drive, but I could really use your help. We’ve got a few cases of walking pneumonia, I’m afraid.”
“Just lead the way.”
We shuffled down the narrow aisle toward the tall, broken windows at the end of the factory floor, Ida’s flashlight throwing tall shadows of old machinery and sleeping bodies against the blackened walls. The smoke from the campfires itched my throat, and I heard a few hacking coughs as I passed sleeping rebels. When they shifted away from the light, I caught glimpses of their ragged, unshaven faces.
Ida pointed out the rebels who were sick, and Shriver fell in to check on them.
It hit me that these rebels had probably been holed up in the factory since we had left camp. Seeing the misery of the cold, cramped conditions, I began to think I would rather rough it outside with the carriers.
“They’re not accustomed to fighting carriers,” said Ida, as though she had read my mind. “Or the outdoors, really. Most of these people came from the communes, so they’re still . . . acclimating.”
“Oh,” I said, only because I didn’t know how to respond to that. If they were commune dwellers, it meant that they were mostly inexperienced and terrified of the PMC.
“After the disaster at camp, I couldn’t expose them to that kind of danger again. Even if it meant we had to stay here.”
“Then how will they fight?” asked Roman a little harshly.
“We’ll fight with what we’ve got,” she said.
We had reached the end of the factory floor, where half a dozen pallets and sleeping bags were stacked neatly in the corner.
“I’ll have someone bring you some food. You must be hungry.”
I nodded, wanting to throw my arms around her. I was so glad to see Ida. She was like the mother of our little group.
“Get some sleep. Tomorrow we strategize. Everyone must know their role. Then we attack.”
“What about the others?” I asked, thinking of all the rebels from the west who had been following us in the caravan.
“I’ll put them in the basement,” she said carefully. “I’m not sure they will . . . mix well with the others.”
I felt a little pang of guilt when I caught her meaning. She thought the westerners would regard the commune dwellers with contempt for fleeing to the north, since the rebels out west had managed to find safety and abundance through sheer determination. I realized I was no better in my own quick judgment of the commune dwellers. But then, none of them had faced what we had.
Ida placed the palm of her hand against Roman’s cheek — a gesture I was sure he wouldn’t allow from anyone else. Her lips pursed together in concern, and she shot us all one last warm smile before scurrying away.
Amory grabbed two pallets and unrolled them side by side. I smiled and sat down on the one next to his. Logan and Greyson flopped down acro
ss from us, and Roman hunkered down a few feet away.
“Bit of a downgrade from Murphy’s camp, isn’t it?” murmured Greyson.
Roman snorted. “It’s a hellhole.”
“Is it really this bad?” Logan wrinkled her nose. “The carriers, I mean. So bad they’d have to retreat closer to the city and camp out in here?”
“You were there,” I said, feeling as though I should defend Ida. “You remember the carrier attack. It was a bloodbath.”
I caught the four of them exchange a glance. I knew they usually avoided mentioning that time. It had been horrible for all of us.
“We remember it,” said Roman darkly. “But I’m surprised you do.”
Logan’s face lost its color, but a small laugh burst from my lips.
The feeling was infectious. Amory’s shoulders began to shake, and he started laughing, too. Even Roman managed a shifty grin, and he made a weird rumbling sound that hummed in his chest. Pretty soon, Logan was laughing so hard she was crying, and Greyson was sprawled out on his back trying to recover.
The rebels around us took notice, some shooting us irritated looks, but we ignored them. It felt good to laugh, and it had been too long since we had all shared an easy moment.
“So do you think we even stand a chance?” asked Greyson. “Against World Corp . . . with a bunch of commune dwellers?”
“We have the rebels from the west.”
Roman snorted.
“That won’t be nearly enough,” said Logan.
“Ida’s smarter than that,” said Amory. “If we’re here, that probably means she’s called in everyone. This is the last uprising.”
“What do you think they’ll do with all of us if we lose?” asked Logan.
Amory’s brows lifted. “Kill us, if we’re lucky.”
We all fell silent. Killing us would be the merciful choice, but we all knew Aryus better than that.
One of Ida’s men came over with a warm pot of thick stew, a loaf of bread, and bottled water. We all ate quickly and fell back onto our pallets to stare at the cold metal ceiling.
Even with warm food in my stomach, the misery of the huddled rebels and the dying revolution hit me. Never in a million years would I have imagined I would be sleeping on the floor of an abandoned factory in the New Northern Territory. I was homeless, with nothing but the clothes on my back, and I was about to fight to the death to overthrow World Corp.
Then Amory’s warm fingers laced through mine, and slowly, the heavy weight of sadness lifted. I snuggled into him, wishing we weren’t surrounded by hundreds of other people. More than anything, I wanted to feel him all around me again, with nothing between us. That was the only thing that would take my mind off what we were about to do.
As if he could sense what I was feeling, Amory tugged me closer. I settled into the crook of his arm and rested my head over his heart, savoring his warmth. The steady beat, accompanied by the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, was the most soothing sound in the world.
“Whatever happens,” he whispered, “at least we have this.”
“This is all I want,” I said.
His arms tightened around me momentarily, and then the exhaustion overtook me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The next morning, I awoke pinned to Amory’s side. I heard movement all around us, but I didn’t want to get up. I knew we had to face all the commune dwellers and hear what our role in the coup would be.
There was a long line for oatmeal and bread, and I used the time we were waiting to get a feel for the situation we’d walked into.
In the dark, all the rebels had looked scruffy, unwashed, and rugged, but in the light of day, I could see that there was a stark difference between the commune dwellers and the rest of Ida’s forces.
In fact, it was easy to tell all the different groups apart. The commune dwellers were pale, dirty, and skinny. If anything, they looked scruffier than Ida’s rebels, who had more meat on their bones and a controlled grunge about them. Rebels who had been roughing it in the wilderness for months were accustomed to shaving with their own knife next to a frozen creek, and the rebel women had learned how to conceal their greasy, unwashed hair in tight braids and ponytails.
The commune dwellers’ hair hung in matted tangles, and they wore their rebel blacks with a certain self-conscious distain. After eating perfectly portioned meals complete with out-of-season fruit from World Corp’s supercrops, I was sure the rebels’ offering of runny oatmeal and stale bread paled in comparison.
I could even tell Ida’s rebels apart from the rebels who’d come with us. While the westerners looked easygoing and capable, Ida’s rebels were watching Roman warily with a tightness to their faces that told me they knew he was infected.
But it didn’t matter where we had come from or the hardships we’d experienced. Tomorrow, we would all have our roles to play. If we failed, we would all be killed or imprisoned.
Once we’d eaten, Ida gathered everyone on the first floor of the building. I noticed that the different groups sat together, Ida’s rebels peering over at us with distrust. Everyone ignored the commune dwellers.
“With our numbers,” said Ida, “we should have over a thousand fighting in rebel black tomorrow.”
I looked around. Hundreds certainly, but I doubted very much if there were even near a thousand.
“We do not outnumber the PMC, but we have the element of surprise. We strike first to gain the upper hand. That is our only choice.”
Ida pointed to the map she had duct-taped to the wall and explained how she planned to attack the different bases throughout the city. She knew the routes the officers would take when they called in backup, and she planned to ambush them.
Once the moving parts were explained, Ida chose three leaders who would select their teams and lead each strike. I noticed she picked a commune dweller, a rebel from the west, and one of her own men to head up the groups. Ida was a terrific leader with a knack for bringing people together, but she wasn’t subtle.
“Once we’ve crippled most of their forces, we need to take out Aryus Edric in the Infinity Building.”
At Ida’s words, my chest seized up. A murmur of outrage whipped through the crowd. I’d been to the Infinity Building. It was the last thing I remembered before all my memories were taken.
“We must kill Aryus,” Ida continued. “Without him, their leadership will crumble. He has the vision. He symbolizes everything World Corp stands for.”
“It’s a suicide mission,” said a burly rebel from the back of the room.
I recognized that voice. It was Switch. Through the jungle of limbs between us, I could see the tense muscles in Switch’s neck working. His carrier scars stood out sharply in the bright light streaming in through the factory windows. “No one will ever get in and out of there alive.”
Logan and I exchanged an angry look. I couldn’t believe Switch was talking back to Ida like this. I knew Ida well enough to know she would ask for anyone with objections to come forward later, but he was just being rude.
“With all due respect, Switch,” said Ida, “there are those among us who have been inside the Infinity Building and lived to tell. They infiltrated the building to get their hands on the cure and spoke to Aryus themselves. They will guide the unit through what they know of the building and its security.”
Ida’s gaze flickered over Logan, Roman, and me, and my cheeks flamed as a few rebels looked curiously in our direction.
“It is my assessment that whoever goes into the Infinity Building will have to take down every officer on the way in before getting to Aryus. That’s the only way they can reach him and get out safely.”
“And who do you suppose is willing to take that on?” drawled Switch.
I wanted to hit him. Carrier survivor or not, he was being disrespectful. And at the moment, he was being a coward.
“I was going to open the floor to volunteers,” said Ida brightly, unruffled by his distain.
There was a h
ush of silence. Nobody moved.
Then two arms shot up in my peripheral vision. I looked over.
Amory was leaning back on his elbows, his arm in the air. There was a look of determination in his eyes. On his other side, Roman had thrown up his beefy arm.
A flash of anger rolled through me. I understood why Roman wanted to be the one to assassinate Aryus. He was the one who had started the virus. He had created the monsters that had slaughtered his family. He was the reason Roman was dying.
But Amory? I didn’t understand why he was undertaking such a dangerous task. He knew there was a strong possibility he would never even reach Aryus and a very slim chance he would come out of that building alive.
As I stared at him dumbfounded, his gaze fell to the side. He would not meet my eyes.
Without thinking, I raised my arm, too.
Now it was Amory’s turn to look shocked and angry.
On my other side, Logan put her hand up, and Greyson’s followed. A tight coil of dread settled in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like this. The more of my friends who went inside the Infinity Building, the more I would lose. There was no chance we would all make it out unscathed.
I shook my head at Greyson, but he just grinned at me, as though we were going for pizza instead of assassinating a crazed corporate visionary who had overthrown the U.S. government, started an epidemic, and taken over two countries.
Ida looked surprised but pleased by our willingness. None of the other rebels had volunteered, but I couldn’t imagine she was thrilled at the prospect of us being responsible for taking out Aryus. This called for a team of Navy SEALs, not a handful of twenty-somethings whose training consisted of shooting at coffee cans and target practice on carriers.
“Right,” said Ida. “That’s about the gist of it. Of course, once we overtake the city, our work won’t be done. Other PMC units will come. Once we have the city stabilized and the civilians to safety, I am happy to simply imprison the rest of the officers.”
“What about the PMC leadership?” asked Amory.
The realization hit me in the gut like a sucker punch. Amory’s father was a captain. I could only imagine how he felt.