Gadya glances at me. “Oh, I will.”
Liam gets out of the car and opens the gas tank. He puts the nozzle in it.
Gadya swings out of the car with her rifle in her hand.
She strides toward the old woman in the gas station, ready for action.
I sit in the car, prepared to gun the engine and get us out of here once the car is full of gas and Liam and Gadya are back inside.
“Tell her to let us fill it up for free,” I call out.
Gadya kicks open the door to the gas station and holds up the gun. I can see her through the glass. The old woman looks shocked and afraid. Is this what the UNA is making us do? Attack and scare innocent people? Citizens who have probably been brutalized and lied to by the government just like us. Or is this woman going to turn out to be like the man in the suit? Someone on the UNA’s side. Someone who wants us dead.
It makes me feel sick, but right now there is no option other than violence. The UNA is turning us into criminals. I don’t know whether this woman at the gas station sees us as monsters or potential liberators. But after what happened with the man and the briefcase, we can’t afford to trust anyone.
Gadya holds the rifle up and points it at the woman. Gadya starts yelling. I can’t hear it; I can only see it. The woman presses some buttons on the register.
“It’s working!” Liam calls out, as gas begins to flow. He starts filling our car, keeping a lookout for any signs of danger.
I continue watching Gadya.
The woman at the gas station isn’t making any abrupt moves. She’s just sitting there. She looks emotional, like she’s about to cry. Gadya has lowered her gun a little so that it’s not pointing directly at the woman. The two of them are talking.
“Almost done!” Liam calls out loudly.
Gadya glances our way.
He signals to her. Right then I hear the click as the gas stops pumping. We’re ready to go again. Gadya is already rushing out of the station toward us. I keep expecting that the woman is going to unleash an alarm. But nothing happens. She just watches as Gadya hops back into the passenger side of the car and I gun the engine.
Within seconds, we are back on the road, and the gas station is receding in my rearview mirror.
“That woman is going to call the police on us,” I say nervously. “She looked terrified.”
Gadya turns to me, as she hides her gun on the floor of the car.
“She’s not calling anyone. Her son got taken and sent to Island Alpha two years ago. That’s what we were talking about in there. I told her we were rebels, trying to fight the UNA.”
“What did she think about that?” I ask.
“She wished us good luck.”
“Did you see any signs of government surveillance in there?” Liam asks. “Or anything else weird?”
Gadya shakes her head. “No. She told me there’s a security system but no one has monitored it for the past few weeks. Apparently the UNA doesn’t have the time for civilian robberies anymore. They only care about protecting the government, and hunting rebels. She thought we’d get away with it. And she promised not to tell anyone.”
“Nice,” Liam says.
“I hope she’s telling the truth,” I say.
“I think she was,” Gadya replies. “She told me she keeps a dartboard with Minister Harka’s face on it hidden in a closet at home.”
We keep driving.
We don’t sleep that night. There is no time for anything but travel. We just stay on the roads. Certain stretches now have very low speed limits. Our journey takes much longer than it should. I watch the sunrise through the windshield. Unlike when we arrived in New Texas, there are no soldiers on the roads, and no police.
We drive the rest of that morning. Finally, around noon, we reach the exit for New Dayton. I feel relieved. We have made it here in time.
A large metal sign saying WELCOME TO NEW DAYTON has been vandalized—tagged with unidentifiable marks of graffiti. The graffiti looks fresh. Before I got sent to the wheel, graffiti would have been cleaned up instantly, and the perpetrators thrown in jail for life. The presence of the graffiti is reassuring to me. It means that people are finally starting to take a stand.
I turn off the road and onto a smaller one. There are more cars here. The sky is an oppressive shade of dark gray. We continue to drive.
Suburban houses line the roadway. Most of them look like they’re in decent shape. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in one of these homes, instead of in a tower block and then an orphanage.
“Looks pretty nice,” Gadya murmurs. “Who would have thought it?”
“Probably homes of government workers,” Liam adds. “People who sold out. People in league with the UNA.”
These could also be the homes of regular people. It’s hard to tell. I don’t sense a strong government presence here, at least not yet.
“How far are we?” I ask.
“Let me look,” Liam says. He consults the map on the car’s display screen. “Not far. Ten minutes.”
“Do you think Dr. Urbancic—whoever he is—knows that we’re coming?” Gadya asks, sounding oddly thoughtful.
“Anything’s possible,” I tell her. “But I hope not. Element of surprise, remember?”
Gadya smiles. “It’s certainly worked for us before. At least some of the time.”
After a few more minutes of driving on winding asphalt roads, we reach Woodbourne Trail. Moments later, at the bottom of a gentle curve, we find the house. The house number is visible in bronze on the side of the wooden mailbox.
A lot of the houses look the same here. This one is a large two-story brick home with a blue door and an awning covering a side patio. Ivy grows up one wall of the building. It’s the kind of place that only rich people live in.
We drive past it and park several doors down, under the shade of a large tree. The neighborhood seems deserted. People are probably at work.
“I’ll handle this one,” Liam says, looking at me and Gadya. Any lingering sign of the chemicals have finally worn off completely during the drive, and he’s back to his usual self. “Stay here in the car in case there’s trouble. We might need to make a quick getaway.”
I nod. I remain behind the wheel, and Gadya covers him with the gun through the partially open window.
Liam gets out of the car. He jogs across the street toward the house. When he reaches it, he pauses for a second. Then he raises his hand and presses the doorbell. He stands there waiting.
Gadya is next to me with her eye pressed to the sight of the rifle. I feel nervous. Anything could happen next. Seconds tick past.
Liam rings the doorbell again. But nobody answers. He looks back at us again and shrugs.
“Looks like Dr. Urbancic isn’t in,” Gadya says, relaxing her finger on the trigger a little bit.
Liam presses the doorbell again and knocks on the door a couple of times.
Still nothing.
“We’re gonna have to break in and wait for him,” Gadya says.
“Maybe,” I tell her. “Give it one more second.”
Liam hovers at the door for a moment longer. He’s just about to jog back to the car when I see the door open slightly. Just a crack.
Liam hears it too. He spins back to the door. It starts swinging open. Gadya’s finger tightens on the trigger again. The door keeps opening as Liam moves back, ready to fight whoever is in the house if he has to.
I catch a glimpse of an old man standing there at the door. He takes a shuffling step forward so that the sun catches his face. He has a thick salt-and-pepper beard, glasses, and he’s wearing a blue bathrobe. He is bone-thin—nearly skeletal. He is also unarmed. Both his hands are empty. He says something to Liam, but I can’t hear it. This must be Dr. Urbancic.
I see Liam start talking back to him. I can’t hear what he’s saying either.
Gadya’s finger remains tight on the trigger, in case Dr. Urbancic makes any sudden moves. But he doesn’t. He just looks
in our direction slowly. Then back at Liam.
Liam gestures toward us, motioning for us to join him.
“It’s safe,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Gadya opens the car door, and I open mine a second later. She keeps her gun up and pointed at the doorway.
We dart across the road toward the house. I know that leaving the car here is a risk, but I’m hoping it will go unnoticed for now. It’s partially hidden by the oak trees. And there are other cars parked on the street too, so it doesn’t seem out of place. Gadya has her gun aimed at the man, and I have my knife in my hand.
We make it across the street and reach the doorway where Liam is waiting for us.
“You okay?” I ask him, just to make sure.
He nods. “Fine.”
Dr. Urbancic has already stepped back inside his house. Liam quickly ushers us through the doorway and into the vestibule. Then he closes the door behind us and locks it.
We stand there for a second. The air inside is cool and clean. The house is spacious, with green tile floors, wood-paneled walls, and plush black leather furniture. This is not a world that I am familiar with. I see Gadya looking around too.
“So the rebels have arrived,” Dr. Urbancic says to us. His voice is thin and reedy. His thinning hair is disheveled. I’m guessing he’s in his late sixties, or perhaps older. He looks at each of us in turn. “Not what I expected, but good enough.”
“David Aberley sent us here,” I say.
Dr. Urbancic nods. “I already know that.” He motions for us to follow him. “Come down to the basement with me.” He begins heading down a hallway. I notice that he’s wearing ratty old comfortable slippers. “No need for guns in this house,” he calls out behind him. “You can put that rifle away.”
Liam and I exchange glances and then we follow. Gadya still holds her gun on him. We’ve been through way too much to trust anyone—especially someone we just met.
“This way,” he calls out again, as we keep walking down a hallway. His house is large and lavish. To get a house like this in the UNA, you usually have to be working for the government, in some capacity or another. That thought doesn’t exactly put me at ease.
We keep following him until we reach a steel door. He punches in a combination and it opens up. He looks back at us. “I told you to put down that gun,” he says to Gadya, more firmly this time.
“Make me,” Gadya says.
He chuckles dryly. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from a rebel, I suppose. No matter. You won’t be needing it either way.”
He starts heading jauntily down the stairs. For an old man being held at gunpoint, he seems remarkably spry. The three of us follow him cautiously.
“Close the door behind you,” he calls out.
Liam swings it shut.
As we get closer to the bottom of the stairs, I see that the basement is much less lavish than the house. It’s large, but it’s not finished, and it looks like a homemade machine workshop, combined with a science lab.
“This is where I spend most of my time these days.” Dr. Urbancic says, gesturing around. “Come, have a seat.”
A few minutes later, we’re sitting around a folding card table in Dr. Urbancic’s basement. Electrical equipment surrounds us, along with mysterious, half-constructed machines.
He sees me looking at everything and says, “My real job. Ways to defeat government technology. I always try to stay one step ahead.”
“Are they weapons?” Liam asks.
“No. Communication devices. Designed to intercept satellite signals and then disrupt—”
“We don’t have time for small talk,” Gadya interrupts. “We’re here because David gave us a key, and we’re on a deadline.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Dr. Urbancic says.
I hold the key up for Dr. Urbancic to see. “We’re here because we need your help. At four p.m. today, we’re supposed to set off a controlled nuclear device in the atmosphere—” I begin.
Dr. Urbancic raises his hands. “Let me stop you right there,” he says. “I’m afraid that whatever David might have told you—and no matter how deep my involvement with the rebels runs—I can’t be involved in such business.” He shakes his head in dismay. “A controlled nuclear explosion is madness.”
“At least tell us what this key is for,” I say.
“The key opens a box,” Dr. Urbancic replies. “A box that contains a device that sends a signal to a nuclear bomb hidden on a satellite.”
I nod. “Okay. And from what we understand, the resulting electromagnetic pulse will bring a halt to the UNA’s technological supremacy without irradiating us. Then we can have a chance at fighting them.”
“Exactly,” Gadya adds.
“No, no, think about what you’re doing,” Dr. Urbancic says to us, looking agitated. “You don’t realize what a high-altitude nuclear blast might do to the planet.”
“It could save everyone from tyranny,” Liam says. “In hand-to-hand combat with primitive weapons, I’m betting the rebels would be more than a match for the UNA soldiers.”
“A HANE could destroy the planet!” Dr. Urbancic says, slapping his hand down hard on the table. “You don’t understand. You are children.”
“We might be young, but we’re not children,” I tell him. “You don’t know what we’ve seen or been through.”
At the same time, his words strike fear in my heart. Could he be right? I trust David’s calculations and knowledge, and the other rebels, but there’s a chance that Dr. Urbancic knows more than they do. I don’t want to die.
“I feel sorry that you came all this way,” Dr. Urbancic says. “But this plan to detonate nuclear devices at high altitudes is not—and cannot—be the answer. The rebel scientists floated this by me once before, years ago, and I explained that it wouldn’t work. It is a desperate plan. It’s too risky.”
“It’s our only plan,” I tell him.
“I can’t believe David would resort to this,” Dr. Urbancic says.
“How well do you know him?” I ask.
“I knew David’s father,” he replies. “David has a genius IQ—nearly off the charts. It’s been that way since he was a little boy. His parents were radicals and they taught him revolutionary tactics and extreme ways of thinking. David is one of our true hopes for the future. I always thought he would grow up to be a great leader, and perhaps one of the few people who could take down the UNA, and replace its corrupt madness with something positive for humankind. That’s why I’m so puzzled by his current plan.”
“Maybe there’s no other choice,” Gadya points out.
Liam nods. “The UNA has staked everything on technological supremacy. This might be the only way to take them down. I don’t even like David much, but I can’t think of a better, faster solution.”
Dr. Urbancic leans forward, pressing his fingertips together. “Do you know what will happen if this plan goes wrong? You will destroy the earth’s atmosphere. The planet will begin to die. Any discussion about whether the UNA is wrong or not will be a moot point. There will be no more countries and no more governments. There will just be radiation poisoning on a massive scale, and the death of every living thing. Your plan is worse than anything the UNA has done so far.” He pauses. “You must cease advocating for this plan. You must change directions, and find a new course. Your impulse to deconstruct the government is a good one, but this is not the right path.”
“What do you propose?” I ask Dr. Urbancic.
“I propose that you wait. Look around. You can see that the UNA doesn’t have the strength that it once had. Eventually, perhaps just in a year or two, it may well find itself getting challenged from within. Like every other corrupt empire before it, such as Rome or Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, it will ultimately fall as a victim of its own twisted agendas.”
“We don’t have a year or two,” Liam says. “Think how many people will die before then. And the government is doing genetic experiments on kids and tryi
ng to create mutants.”
“Think how many people will die if your plan goes awry,” Dr. Urbancic counters. You must weigh the good of the few against the good of the many. Besides, if the UNA is destroyed, another country will come and take it over, and enslave the populace.”
“That won’t happen,” Gadya says. “The rebels have a plan to work with the European Coalition.”
“You trust them?” Dr. Urbancic asks. “I’ve often felt there are hidden agendas within some of the rebels’ plans. . . .”
“Maybe,” I tell him. “But the world is sick of the UNA. They view it like a global cancer.”
“A cancer needs to be cut out. But your plan essentially involves killing the patient,” Dr. Urbancic says.
“How do we know you’re not in league with the government?” I ask. “You obviously work for them as a scientist, am I right? You could be saying this stuff now to stop us from taking action, but it might not be true.”
He nods. “Indeed. It might not be true. Perhaps the plan will work, and the electromagnetic pulse will serve your purposes without excessive radiation or atmospheric contamination. But there is less than a fifty percent chance of that. I can assure you that I am not in league with the UNA—I have spent my years working for them, but spying for, and advising, the rebels.”
“We need to talk about this in private,” I tell him. “Just the three of us.” Dr. Urbancic has certainly shaken my faith in David’s plan a bit. And he’s right—there’s no point in bringing down the UNA if the cost is a nuclear holocaust.
On the other hand, I’ve doubted David so many times in the past, and he’s always turned out to be right. He might know more than this scientist does.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Gadya says. “We proceed with the plan. There’s no time. We have to prepare.”
Liam and I look at her.
“Gadya, we need to talk,” Liam says.
She shakes her head. “No. We stick to the plan no matter what. That’s the only way.”
The Defiant Page 21