I toss Rika my gun. “You need this.”
She catches it.
“We better go,” Gadya says.
Rika nods. “Yes, go!”
I want to ask her so many questions. How did she end up back here in the UNA? What happened to her along the way? But there’s no time for anything right now but taking action. I tell myself that maybe she’ll survive. As long as she doesn’t try to run, then that metal creature won’t burst out of her. Perhaps the soldiers won’t kill her.
“We’ll come back for you,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “Don’t. Find Liam. Keep fighting. My struggle is almost over. Yours is just beginning!”
Under a fresh hail of gunfire, Gadya and I start racing toward the trees, in the direction that Rika pointed. Only luck keeps us from being hit. I know it’s just a matter of time before one of us takes a bullet.
Then Rika unleashes a torrent of firepower from her rifle. I glance back and see her standing there shooting at the uniformed guards. Bullets plow into them, sending some of them straight down to the grass. But more guards keep coming.
“We can’t leave her like this!” I yell at Gadya, my heart aching.
“We don’t have a choice!” she yells right back. “Keep running unless you want to die and never see Liam again!”
But I keep looking back at Rika as I run. Everything is going so fast. I can’t strand a friend like her. Maybe there’s a way to get that awful thing out of her stomach.
Rika is firing fast and hard at the guards, drawing them away from us just like she promised. And so far she hasn’t been hit. But suddenly, two bullets find her at once, plunging straight into her abdomen.
Rika gasps.
Her arms jerk upward and she fires into the air, as the force of the bullets knocks her off her feet.
“No!” I scream, staggering in my tracks. “Rika!”
My mind goes blank.
She falls down to the grass, dropping the gun and clutching her stomach with both hands. Her face is contorted into an agonized mask of pain.
“Rika!” I scream again. Everything sounds muffled. My vision starts sparkling like I’m getting a head rush. I can’t catch my breath.
Gadya clutches my arm and drags me forward. She’s seen what has happened. “Don’t look,” she tells me firmly. “Keep moving.”
But I can barely move. I feel numb. I look back anyway. Rika is sprawled out in the dirt as soldiers approach her, firing their assault rifles in a barrage.
She turns her head, and her eyes find mine. I see surprise in them. And a world of pain.
“Go,” she mouths at me and Gadya.
“Rika . . . ,” I say one last time.
She blinks, and then more bullets find her, cutting into her chest and neck.
Her head arches back as her body goes into a convulsion.
And then she is at peace.
The life has gone from her body.
I feel like I’m going to collapse onto the dirt. Rika died trying to help save us. There is probably more we could have done. In fact, if we hadn’t turned up, she would still be alive—stuck in the box in the sun, but alive. We are directly responsible for her death.
“Come on!” Gadya screams into my ear. “Don’t think about it now! Or we’ll end up the same way!”
I’m trying not to cry.
“You’re a warrior!” Gadya yells at me. “You’ve seen kids die before. Keep going no matter what!”
“But it’s Rika!” I yell.
“I know! But if you or I got shot instead of her, she’d keep on going. You can’t give up! You can’t stop!”
Gadya is hurting just as much as I am—probably more. Rika was one of her best friends. If Gadya can pull herself together, then so can I. There will be time to mourn later.
Together, Gadya and I rush forward and into the trees, plunging down the path leading to the boys’ camp.
“She’s dead,” I say numbly as we run. I can hear the soldiers in pursuit. “Do you realize that?”
“Of course!” Gadya snaps. Her voice breaks suddenly and I realize that she’s close to tears too. “They shot her like an animal. They didn’t even care. How can they act that way? They’re worse than drones on the wheel.”
I have no answers. “We need to find Liam before the same thing happens to him.”
“Agreed.” She swipes at her eyes angrily.
Gadya and I keep running down the path, pursued by guards. We must go fast or soon the guards will find us, or more flying machines will be dispatched to gun us down. Over and over in my head I see images of Rika’s pointless, violent death.
If it weren’t for her, we would be the ones lying there dead in the grass. She didn’t need to sacrifice herself like that. Just like David did at the specimen archive, she risked everything to help our cause. Now it’s up to me and Gadya to not screw up. We need to find Liam.
I wonder if I will be called to make the same sacrifice that she made. And if that happens, will I be ready? Will I be capable of giving my own life for our greater cause?
Gadya and I continue to race down the winding path. The forest is thick and tangled here. It’s nearly as wild as the wheel. Huge trees are everywhere, with vines hanging between them.
We finally come to a crossroads in the forest, where another path intersects with ours. We pause for a second for breath.
“Which way?” Gadya yells.
“Left,” I yell back.
“Are you sure?”
“No! But we have to decide right now!” I’m running on pure instinct.
“Then left it is!”
I can faintly hear soldiers yelling to one another in the distance. They are probably fanning out in the forest to search for us. It won’t be long until they track us down on this trail.
We make a sharp turn and run down the new path. It’s narrower, and branches rip at my clothes. I knock the branches away. My boots crunch down on the leaves and twigs.
We only have one gun now. One gun and two knives. I don’t even know how many bullets we have left, but it can’t be very many. How are we ever going to rescue Liam with such a limited supply of weapons?
I keep running forward anyway. Even if I get killed, I want to see him one last time. That thought gives me strength and motivation as I barge through the forest with Gadya.
“C’mon!” I yell at her.
If we don’t move faster, then we’re going to lose our only opportunity for survival. We race through the forest, heading toward Liam.
13 LIAM
GADYA AND I EXPLODE out of the trees. The trail ends at a large series of steel-and-red-brick buildings. Another work camp. Rika was right. This is where the boys are being kept. I see lines of them in chains, plowing the fields with primitive machinery.
We have very little time before the soldiers find us. I clutch the two knives. Gadya holds the gun.
We blaze out of the forest and toward the prisoners. They all have shaved heads. But these are not the drones of Island Alpha. These are normal boys who have been captured and enslaved. I wonder who these boys are. This must be where the UNA started sending kids who failed the GPPT once the rebels took over Island Alpha. And somewhere—at least if my heart is correct—Liam is among them.
There are lots of guards somewhere in the forest behind us, but only a handful down here, watching these shackled prisoners. They have obviously already been alerted to our presence, because their guns are raised and they are turning around, looking for intruders.
They notice us as soon as Gadya lets out a war whoop and begins firing.
They fire back in our direction, but they are no match for Gadya’s aim. She cuts them down as the bullets whip past us.
A guard’s gun misfires and I run straight toward him, screaming like a crazy person. He seems shocked. My knives are out and my teeth are bared. I plunge a blade straight into his heart, and then yank it out with my full strength. He topples to the ground, gagging and choking for air.
I leave him for dead, without another thought. After what the UNA did to Rika, there can be no mercy.
Then I’m back up and running again, searching the prisoners for Liam. The boys are already trying to escape, but they’re chained together, so it’s difficult. A group of them makes a run for the forest. Another group surrounds an injured guard and begins kicking and beating him, trying to get his gun.
“Liam!” I start yelling, as I desperately stare at their faces. The boys here look the same—muscular, but exhausted and covered with dirt. “Liam, where are you?” I yell.
Gadya is calling out his name too.
I feel rising panic. He’s not here. I search face after face. “Liam!” I keep screaming, as I run past the lines of boys with both of my knives out. “Liam Bernal!”
I hear gunshots behind us. I spin around. The guards from the farm where we found Rika have located us. They are firing at Gadya across the field, and she is firing back. We have to get out of here soon or we will be shot. I’m stunned it hasn’t happened already.
A hand suddenly grabs my arm. I yank my arm back, ready to stab whoever touched me. But the hand doesn’t belong to a guard. Instead, it belongs to a shackled boy with haunted green eyes. His face is scarred from old battle wounds. His body is stooped and nearly broken.
“I know who you’re looking for,” he says.
“Liam Bernal,” I say, startled. “You know him?”
“Yes. He’s here with us. He said people would come to find him, and that he’d lead a rebellion. No one believed him. We all thought he was crazy.”
“Where is he now?” I ask urgently, staring into the boy’s eyes.
“Inside,” the boy says, gesturing to the huge building that looks like a laboratory, sitting behind us in the field. “They took him away to experiment on, just yesterday.”
“Thank you,” I tell the boy. I’m about to move on and find Gadya, when he grabs at me again. “Is this the start of the revolution? Was Liam right all along?”
“Yes!” I say. “This is the revolution. It starts today!”
Then I hear Gadya scream in frustration.
“Are you hit?” I yell over to her.
“Worse!” she yells back. She races over to me. “I’m almost out of bullets,” she says softly. “Only ten or twenty left!”
I pass her one of the knives. “Use this.”
She grabs it.
Right then, I hear the pop of automatic gunfire and feel a burning sensation in my left upper arm. I cry out in pain. I look down at my arm and see a red spot blooming on my shirt.
“I’ve been shot,” I say dully.
“Let me look,” Gadya says, sounding worried. She tears part of my shirt away.
My arm feels cold. I crouch on the ground. More gunfire sounds nearby. But the boys are now taking care of most of the guards, by attacking them viciously and encircling them with their chains.
Gadya quickly inspects my wound. “You’ll be okay. It looks like the bullet passed through the fleshy part of your arm and didn’t hit bone. Try to flex your fingers.”
I do what she says. My fingers move.
“Good,” Gadya says. “Now try not to get hit again, and let’s go find Liam!”
I stand up, clutching the knife in my right hand. My left arm hurts but I ignore the pain.
We rush over to another group of boys. Gadya uses the gun to shoot the shackles chaining them together. Some of these boys are in terrible shape—bruised and with broken bones. Others look relatively healthy.
We go from one group to another, freeing all of them. Guards keep firing at us. Many of the boys get hit.
But the boys here are clearly ready to fight. They know that this is their one chance at liberation. As a group we begin charging toward the building.
The boys fan out to make themselves harder to hit. Gadya is still shooting with her gun, although I know she probably only has a couple bullets left by now. I see a guard take a bullet in the throat and go down spinning.
Some guards start racing inside, like they’re preparing to close up the front doors and bulwark themselves inside until reinforcements can get here.
I see a lanky boy fashion part of the long metal chain that once bound him into a whip. He lashes it out at the back of a retreating guard, striking him so hard that the guard instantly falls down to the grass, unconscious. The boy then stands over him, whipping the guard again and again with the chain. Gadya and I run past him. All that is on my mind is finding Liam in this place before it’s too late.
The guards are trying to close the gates at the front of the building but they are overrun by an army of boys, along with me and Gadya.
I see one guard fall, and then another. Boys leap onto their bodies, punching and kicking them. They take guns away from the guards and use them to shoot their way into the building.
Everything has turned into chaos, but for once, chaos is on our side. Gadya and I keep moving. We get inside the building.
“He better be here!” Gadya yells out to me.
“He is. A boy told me!”
Alarms are ringing throughout the building. A scientist in a lab coat with a red logo on the breast pocket steps out in front of us. The logo is that strange reenvisioning of the UNA emblem—a globe surrounded by five eyes. The scientist is bleeding from a cut on his face. “Don’t hurt me!” he says, as I raise my knife and Gadya aims the gun at him. Boys are rushing past on either side of him, pursuing the guards.
“Then help us!” I yell at him. “Or you’re going to die like everyone else who works for the UNA.”
“Coward!” Gadya spits at him. “No real scientist would work for these monsters. You’re a traitor.”
“No, please! I’ll help you,” he bleats as Gadya and I advance on him.
“Give me an excuse to pull this trigger,” she hisses, pointing the barrel of the rifle right at his head.
“We’re looking for someone,” I tell the scientist. “Liam Bernal. He’s a captive here. We need to find him. Can you take us to him?”
“Yes,” the man begins, as he digs into his pocket to take something out.
It could be a weapon.
I lash out with the knife, slicing his arm like I’m filleting a fish. He cries out in pain.
“Keep your hands where we can see them!” Gadya screams at him.
The object clatters to the ground as the scientist nurses his bleeding arm. It’s not a weapon. It’s a digital reader.
“It has the list of inmates—I mean, boys on it,” he says.
“Go on. Pick it up,” I tell him.
He crouches down and picks it up with shaking hands. Blood is running freely onto his fingers. He starts scrolling through the digital reader as chaos reigns all around us. The noise is almost unbearable as boys whoop and holler. They attack the guards and begin tearing the place apart.
“Yes! Here he is,” the scientist says. “Liam Bernal. He’s a new arrival. I can take you to him.”
I nod. “Do it fast.”
We push and prod him along. He leads us down a narrow corridor. I can hear screams of guards and kids alike, as well as loud gunfire.
“Faster!” Gadya yells at the scientist, slamming the gun against the back of his head.
I think about the scientists on Island Alpha, including my own parents, who got snatched because they refused to work for the corrupt UNA. Yet this man wearing a lab coat clearly has no qualms about working for a government that chooses to enslave and experiment on its own people. I don’t feel any pity for him. I only feel anger and disgust.
The scientist keeps walking and we follow, down endless hallways in this strange, ominous laboratory.
Boys rush past us. One of them is about to strike the scientist with his fist, but we stop him, telling him that the scientist is our prisoner. They listen to me and Gadya because we are the ones who rescued them. They probably think we know a lot more than we actually do.
The scientist finally reaches a door and pau
ses, breathing hard. He’s starting to look pale from blood loss. “He’s in here.”
“Open the door,” I say.
He hesitates for a moment.
“Do it!” Gadya adds, raising the gun. I’m pretty sure she’s out of bullets, but the scientist doesn’t know that.
The scientist taps a code into the door. Then he presses his thumb against a fingerprint reader. I hear a whirring sound and then the click of a lock being opened. My heart is in my throat. I don’t know what condition Liam is going to be in.
The door starts to slide open.
Right then, the scientist swings around and slams a fist into Gadya’s face. Gadya yells and stumbles, firing off a round into the ceiling. The sound is deafening. For a moment, I’m stunned. The scientist grapples with Gadya, trying to get the gun. He’s taken her off guard, and she’s having trouble recovering her balance.
I snap into action. I raise the knife in a fluid motion and slide it straight into the scientist’s stomach. The blade goes in cleanly, right to the hilt.
The scientist yelps and falls back, as blood cascades out of him, down his white lab coat. Gadya gets her balance again and aims the gun at his chest.
He stares at us, eyes burning with fury. “You girls don’t know what—”
“Sweet dreams,” Gadya mutters as she pulls the trigger. The bullet blasts a hole in his chest and he staggers against the wall.
I lean down and wipe my knife clean on his white lab coat.
“That was my last bullet,” Gadya mutters, pulling the trigger and hearing an empty click. “At least I didn’t waste it.”
Then Gadya and I turn and walk into the room where Liam is being held.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting. Maybe something weird and creepy, like when I found him encased in that fluid-filled pod in the specimen archive. Or something even worse. After seeing what happened to David, I realize anything is possible. Not that it would matter—I would love Liam no matter what the UNA has done to him.
What I don’t expect is that Liam is sitting there on a hospital bed in a stark white room, staring right at the door. He has an IV line running directly into his right arm, dripping some mysterious clear fluid from a bag hanging on a pole. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
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