by Gates, J.
When I rejoin Ethan, his expression is as dark as obsidian. “We need your help,” he says. “We can’t figure a way out of this. There are no underground tunnels leading out of this building. The sats will be scanning for us, and I’m sure we’re surrounded, so we can’t sneak out. And if we stay here, the drones will eventually bomb this place and kill us all,” he pauses, regarding me darkly. “So?”
“So . . . what?”
“What have you come up with?”
I think for a second. What’s left? We’re surrounded. The forces arrayed against us are too great. The Company’s technology has us wrapped up in a cocoon of death. And without Randal to help us. . . .
“What’s left,” I say, thinking aloud, “but to rush them?”
From somewhere, the low cough of a bomb comes, vibrating the air around us. Ethan glances at his watch.
“Glorious death,” says McCann, smiling with weary irony. “What a warrior she is. I’ll see you in Valhalla!”
“Actually,” says Ethan, “that’s not a terrible idea.”
I think to myself, Of course it’s a terrible idea! Even with the best of luck, three-quarters of us will be mowed down before we reach the squad trucks; that’s if we aren’t caught up in a swarm of Ravers and completely decimated the minute we step out the door.
But Ethan seems to be thinking the same thing I am: What other choice do we have?
“It is the last thing they’d expect,” McCann agrees grudgingly.
“They’re positioned on the other side of the road,” Ethan says, thinking through the problem. “There’s a lot of open space between us and them, but we should have smoke to cover us for part of the distance.”
“What about the Ravers?” asks McCann.
“You gotta go somehow,” I joke.
There is another option, I think to myself. We could surrender. The thought sends a shiver up my spine as I imagine things magically reverted back to what they once were: sitting in my office, eating frozen dinners alone in my apartment, daydreaming about the next big product, sustained only by one thought: of becoming a Blackie.
No, even if there were a magic pill I could pop that would take me back in time, I would never, never take it. Even the final loss of Kali can’t change that. The only way for me is forward.
Ethan nods to himself. “If we can make it to their lines and hijack some of their trucks, some of us might make it out.”
McCann looks at Ethan. “You ready to die, brother?”
Ethan nods. “If you’re ready to follow me.”
Another explosion rattles the building. Again, Ethan glances at his watch. He takes a deep breath and turns to our restless comrades.
“Alright, everyone,” he says. “We’re charging the squadmen line. Anyone who stays behind will likely be captured or killed. For those of you who come with us, I’m afraid odds look bleak, but there is a chance some of us will make it through. So decide now, are you going or staying?”
There is hesitation, a collective sigh of resignation, of hardening resolve, and one by one, the remaining members of the Protectorate rise to their feet. Despite all the horror, I think to myself that this moment is beautiful. Everyone is standing.
“Good,” Ethan says. “We all go together.”
~~~
Through a dim, musty-carpeted hall we walk, three or four abreast. Our pace is neither quickened with urgency nor slowed by fear. Ethan, McCann, and I are at the head of the column. I glance over my shoulder and see a hundred pairs of eyes looking back at me out of the darkness, as hardened as steel-shuttered windows. Glancing down, I see Michel. The expression on his face is outwardly calm, if a little sad, but beneath its surface lies a deeper feeling, which simply can’t be translated into words. McCann slows to walk at his side.
“Hey, small man,” he says, “are you sure you want to come with us? It’s going to be dangerous.”
The kid nods. “Ethan said it’s dangerous either way. And I don’t want to stay back alone.”
He’s right, I think. What difference does it make? Either way . . . I can’t finish the thought.
“Do you know what this means?” McCann says. “Where we’re going?”
“We’re going to maybe die,” he says, matter of factly. “For freedom.”
“Praise God, boy,” says McCann, squeezing his son’s shoulder. “You make me proud.”
There’s no resisting it. I speak. “You aren’t afraid?”
“A little,” Michel says. “But like my father says, if we fight today, maybe somebody else won’t have to fight tomorrow.”
I suck my teeth, willing the tears to stay out of my eyes.
“You’re a brave kid,” I say. “Maybe a lot of other kids will get to be happy because of what you do today.”
“You think so?” he asks.
I sigh, trying to ponder his question. With all the terrible losses we’ve suffered in the last few hours, it’s hard to hang on to any remnants of hope. The chances that we will survive this battle seem slim. We’ve lost Clair, Randal, Grace, and countless others already; if the rest of us die in the next few minutes, who will be left to carry on the fight? Who will even remember the Protectorate? What meaning will any of our efforts have when the last of us is gunned down and forgotten? But even in the face of such bleak thoughts, I can’t help thinking that there still might be a way. . . .
“I think you’re very brave,” I tell Michel. And in his smile, I find the hope I was looking for.
Ahead, Ethan has reached an emergency exit. Everyone checks their weapons, says their prayers. I look over the machine gun in my hand, check the clip.
“God bless you, Michel,” I say.
“God bless you, too,” he says, “and God bless America.” Then, by way of explanation, he adds: “Dad taught me to say that.”
McCann kisses his son on the forehead; then we turn to the doorway as Ethan prepares to lead us into the mouth of hell.
~~~
For the last five minutes, we’ve stood tensely in the doorway of the shopping center, waiting to make our charge. With each passing second, my nerves grow more frayed—but still, Ethan does not lead us out. He merely stares out the tiny crack at the edge of the door, still as a statue.
Another explosion thunders close by. Dust rains down on us from the ceiling tiles above. Ethan glances at his watch. It’s the third time he’s looked at it. I’m starting to think he’s lost his nerve.
“What’s with the watch?” I ask.
“The drones are on an automated loop,” he explains, his eyes still trained on his watch face. “The bombing runs are forty-six seconds apart, which means they’ve locked onto us. We’re going to take advantage of it.”
Someone, one of the Order members in the back of the column, has attached a tattered American flag to an old piece of steel tubing—probably a curtain rod—and passes it up to us. I go to hand it to Ethan, but he waves me off.
“You hold it,” he says, and he calls back to everyone. “Alright, soldiers. During the charge, I want you to fire on my signal, not before. We need the element of surprise. Listen, this is very important: when we reach the squadmen line, dive and take cover under the squad trucks immediately. That’s an order.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder and surveys his troops. “It might be hard to see the way through the smoke. Follow the flag.” Everyone nods. Then, to me, he says, “Hold it high, May, so they can see it.”
Now his hand is on the door knob. We all breathe one last breath together, listening to the brittle crackle of gunfire calling us from without.
“Go!”
Ethan throws the door open, and suddenly we’re all charging through the smoke.
At first, all is quiet. Then, through the haze comes the crackle of gunshots and the flashbulb blinks of muzzle fl
ares. We run faster. The ground trembles under our feet with the concussion of explosions. The sky melts with the shrieks of streaking drones. My shoulders already ache, but I hold the flag high and it snaps in the wind as I bear it forward.
“Fire!” Ethan shouts, and the air around me sounds as if it will split in two as our guns report as one.
Bullets whistle everywhere, death like swarming locusts. Our calls cut the air, sharp, fierce, piercing. We do not hold back. We run as fast as our legs will go, fire until our clips are empty.
I think, This is the longest two hundred yards imaginable.
Then, things get worse. There’s a succession of explosions behind us, one, two, three, four, five, six of them, each one closer than the last. The ground beneath us bucks with each detonation. I look over my shoulder and am horrified to see a squadron of low-flying drones racing toward us, their bombs coming closer and closer.
I look forward again and run even faster.
Now, through the grayness, black hulks of the squad trucks grow larger, and in the next instant, we are upon them. Several squadmen lay dead beside their vehicles. I watch two more get shot to pieces as we approach.
“Dive!” Ethan calls as we reach the trucks, and without slowing, I throw myself headfirst under the nearest squad truck.
Instantly, I explode. My eardrums shatter. My eyelids melt. My lungs burn.
Then, all is silence.
Slowly, I open my eyes and peer out from my hiding place. A few yards away, a squad member’s body lies sizzling on the pavement. There’s another, and another and another. The smell of burning explosives stings my nose. Slowly, with trembling arms, I pull myself out from under the squad truck, and am amazed by what I see. The pavement all around is littered with dead squadmen—hundreds of them. The truck I just dove beneath is a charred, burning shell, but somehow I’m unharmed.
The bombing drones, having locked on to us, must’ve followed us to their own line and wiped out their own men. Ethan is a genius.
McCann, Michel, and two other rebels emerge from beneath one squad truck. Ethan crawls out from beneath another.
I tilt my head back and scream in triumph. We’ve taken the squadmen line! We did it! But when I turn back, looking for someone to celebrate with, looking for the one hundred Order members who followed us, I see no one.
Ethan steps toward me as I look around, confused.
“Where are the others?” I ask.
Ethan is silent. I glance at McCann. No one answers me.
“Didn’t they follow us?” For a second, I’m flooded with a wave of bitterness, thinking they were too cowardly to come. Then, I glance back at the parking lot just as the wind shifts, lifting the veil of smoke. And there lies the Protectorate.
Their shredded bodies lie in various postures, some facedown and alone, others in jumbled piles of tangled limbs. Some lie in twos, as close to one another as lovers.
“Oh, God,” I whisper.
Michel clings to McCann, his little face buried in his father’s chest.
The other two survivors, both young men, look around with flickering, frightened glances. The afternoon has grown quiet, a silence that holds greater horror than the preceding din. Ethan climbs down from the seat of one of the few intact squad trucks.
“Ignition is coded. You have to have a cross to use it, and without Randal to tweak the coding, our pocket transmitters are worthless. We’ll have to go on foot.”
“What about the others?” says one of the young men. “There might still be some alive back there.” He glances at the still-rolling wall of black smoke.
Ethan shakes his head. “If anyone’s alive, they’ll find their way. We have to find ours.”
McCann takes the nearly shredded flag from my hands (I discover I’m still stupidly holding it). He pulls it from its pole, and drapes it over my shoulders. “Don’t lose it,” he says.
“Yeah,” I reply, failing at my intended smile.
“Let’s move,” Ethan says, and we take off on foot.
~~~
Five minutes later we’re running through a rundown neighborhood. The houses are all abandoned, of course, but somehow the colors of the paint cracking and peeling from the walls are still vivid, beautiful. Dandelions and other flowering weeds poke up from brown grasses in overgrown yards. The flag around my shoulders smells musty and strangely sweet, old and good. Death might come from anywhere, and I guess part of me wants to soak up the last ounces of beauty I can, before it’s too late. Even now, after all these years of strangling it, the romantic in me won’t quite die.
As we run, I keep glancing at the sky, half expecting a lightning bolt like the one that struck Randal to blast from the heavens and fry us all. Maybe without crosses in our cheeks they can’t target us, I tell myself, but I’m terrified anyway.
“When we reach the next block,” Ethan says breathlessly, “look for a good building to hole up in. We have to get out of the open.”
No sooner have the words left his lips than the jittering, chugging sound of a chopper grows from nothing to a blasting roar. Seconds later, the helicopter appears above one of the buildings behind us. McCann scoops Michel up into his arms and quickens his pace, sprinting a step behind Ethan and me. From behind us I hear the two young rebels firing on the chopper, trying to cover our retreat. After a second, the sound of their gunshots is punctuated with a low, hollow-sounding explosion. Without breaking stride, I glance back.
Behind me, a curtain of green smoke rises, ghostlike, and swoops toward us. I drop my gun, letting it hang from its strap, and run my hardest. Instinctively, I am terrified of the rising gas. A moment later, when I glance over my shoulder again, I can see only one of the guys covering our retreat. He’s still running, but unsteadily, weaving first left, then right, then finally going limp and falling like a rag doll, skidding across the pavement face first. Behind him, the other rebel is already sprawled out in the street, twitching violently. And the poison gas is coming closer.
“Don’t look back,” Ethan wheezes in front of me. “Just run.”
I follow Ethan. We sprint hard for one more block before taking cover behind a row of old, burned-out cars.
Only then do we look back and see that the unthinkable has happened.
There, in the middle of the street, stands McCann. With one hand, he holds Michel’s little body clasped to his chest. Oh, God, Michel! I think. Could he have inhaled some of the poison gas? Did a bullet intended for McCann strike him?
Either way, he’s gone, his limbs hanging limply from his father’s embrace. And McCann is getting revenge. His white machine gun blazes, unleashing an unrelenting hail of lead at the helicopter. Even from here, the sound of McCann’s scream is piercing. Slowly, the chopper turns its massive machine gun toward him.
“Stay here!” Ethan growls to me, and he’s gone, dashing across the pavement, firing on the chopper. McCann’s and Ethan’s bullets clatter off the helicopter’s armored body, with no effect.
“McCann!” Ethan screams. “Retreat!”
But I know already, McCann isn’t going anywhere.
From my position behind the car, I watch as the chopper’s side door slides open. I watch as a squad member takes position at that door. I see the muzzle flare from his gun, and I see Ethan fall mid stride.
Now, it’s my turn to dash down the street, screaming, “Ethan!”
But he is already back on his feet, rushing toward McCann, toward the chopper.
The helicopter finishes rotating and faces them now. The African warrior stands, his son clasped to his chest, his feet planted wide, tears streaming down his cheeks, his gun rattling away at its target.
The helicopter’s huge machine gun opens fire. Instantly, McCann falls.
Ethan screams in fury and skids to a halt. He sets his feet and shoulders his gun, fi
ring mercilessly. I come up next to him, firing too.
It must be my imagination, but I think I can hear the laughter of the squadmen inside even over the roar of the chopper. But our relentless barrage is too much for the helicopter’s armor, and we manage to damage the back rotor. The squad chopper spins around once, buzzing like an injured fly, then slams into a large office building. Dust belches toward us as the wall crumbles and the roof of the place caves in.
I want to go to McCann and little Michel, but Ethan is already dragging me onward. I want to weep, but there are no tears left in me.
There’s an explosion where the helicopter crashed, and bits of shattered rotor skitter across the road toward us. Dodging, ducking, leaping over flying debris, we run two more blocks before finally coming to a gray, stone office building with a marquis on the front that says: Fox Theatre. Ethan leads me inside.
—Chapter Ø23—
The drones pass over again, rattling the front doors of the theater.
I’m staring out the dirt-streaked glass while Ethan sits with his back to the door of an old ticket booth, gazing in at the darkened theater. The lobby of the place is like an art deco palace, arrayed with columns, ornate plaster work and beautiful (though dusty) marble floors—but we aren’t here for the décor.
“How long was that?” I ask.
Ethan glances at his watch. “Sixty-five seconds,” he says. “They’re homing in again. The satellites must’ve picked up on our body heat.”
With each blink, the day’s horrific events flash through my mind: Grace stewing in her own blood, Randal fried by lightning, McCann and poor Michel cut down by the chopper’s gun—and of course, Kali. But I fight to push these images from my thoughts. In a day, the Company has reduced the glorious rebellion to two solitary people. And if we’re not smart, there will be no one left.
I glance at Ethan and notice for the first time that he sits with one hand pressed to his side. In the dim light, I can see no blood, but his teeth are on edge.
“You okay?” I ask. “It looked like you were hit going after McCann.”