“Why don’t we talk to David?” Dr. Urbancic cuts in.
We fall silent for a second, in surprise.
“You can talk to him?” I ask.
He nods. “Over an encrypted satellite signal. But the connection doesn’t always work.”
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Liam asks.
Dr. Urbancic looks at him. “You didn’t ask.” He gets up and wanders off to a corner of the basement and returns with a transmitter. It has a small video screen attached to it. He begins fiddling with it.
“Hurry up,” Gadya says, impatient as always.
He ignores her. Finally, the box comes to life. Electrical, crackling noises emanate from it. He turns a few dials, searching for a signal. The ancient video screen flashes with static and rolling lines.
Then he leans forward and says, “David? It’s me. Are you there?”
Only static greets him. He keeps turning the dial.
“David?” I call out. The others chime in. But there’s no response.
Then I hear a faint, distorted voice.
I can’t understand the words, but I know that this is David.
“Got him!” Dr. Urbancic says. He spins another dial until the volume increases and the signal gets crisper.
“Hello, Doctor. I read you,” David’s voice says, tinged with static.
I hear Gadya gasp. I don’t understand for a second, until I realize that David’s image has appeared on the screen. It’s dimly lit, but his ravaged face is clear to see.
“What the hell happened to you . . . ,” I hear Gadya breathe.
Liam doesn’t say anything, but I know that he must be surprised too.
David’s electronic eye stares out at us, and even on the low-quality video screen, I can see the scars on his face.
“David, I have the rebels here,” Dr. Urbancic says. “Three of them. Alenna, Gadya, and Liam.”
“Hey, everyone,” David says to us.
“Hey,” I say back.
Liam echoes my greeting as well.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Gadya asks, leaning forward and squinting at the image. “And your eye? Are you okay?”
David smiles. His image is fading in and out. He’s harder to see now, but we can still hear him. “War wounds. Don’t worry about it.” He pauses. “I wish I could be there myself, but I can’t move very quickly anymore.”
Dr. Urbancic turns to us. “We don’t have long. We can’t risk transmitting the signal for more than a minute or two, or it might be traced. It’s encrypted, so they can’t discern the content, but they might be able to track our location. So let’s wrap this up fast, shall we?”
I nod.
Dr. Urbancic says into the microphone, “David, these kids have a key to nuclear device thirteen on satellite 9B. I recognize it. And they say that you’ve instructed them to detonate it by four p.m. today, as a means of creating an EMP? Is this true?”
“Yes.”
“You realize I can’t do that, correct? The risk is far too great. I put it at forty percent likelihood for success, not in our favor. You need to come up with another plan.”
“I knew that you’d say that, Doctor,” David’s voice replies. His image reappears faintly on the screen. He’s not smiling anymore. “That’s exactly why I sent Alenna, Gadya, and Liam to you, instead of just asking you to do it.”
“So far they’ve been unable to convince me to change my mind,” Dr. Urbancic says. “Perhaps their mission was in vain?”
David shakes his head. “No.” He looks past Dr. Urbancic. “You have the key, Alenna. You will tie Dr. Urbancic up—without hurting him—and you will then unlock the box that contains the trigger for the bomb. The box is sitting behind him on the bookshelf. It’s black, and the size of a brick. Should be easy to spot. The device inside is simple to operate. It will send a signal up to the satellite. At four p.m. you will press the red button on it, which will begin the detonation process. Stay in the basement for shelter in case—”
“David, you can’t be serious!” says Dr. Urbancic, interrupting him angrily. “Even if you trigger an electromagnetic pulse successfully, without dumping radiation onto our heads, think of everyone who will die—people in hospitals. People reliant on technology to live. You, yourself, David, might die.”
“Do it,” David says to us, ignoring him completely. “I’m in a safe zone. Do it before he runs off or tries to hide the box.”
I’ve been through enough with David to know that I should trust him. It seems like Gadya feels the same way.
“Got it,” Gadya says, swinging her rifle around. “I have my gun out.”
Dr. Urbancic stands up. “David, this is a terrible mistake—”
“Shoot the transmitter,” David’s voice says. “Or else the UNA will be able to trace this signal. After you detonate the bomb, Dr. Urbancic will help you meet up with more rebels tomorrow, to begin the ground assault. Good luck. Now shoot!”
Gadya aims at the transmitter.
“No, please—” Dr. Urbancic begins.
But Gadya fires anyway.
The blast is devastatingly loud in the basement. The transmitter is blown off the table and against the wall. It falls into a broken heap of crumpled metal. My ears ring.
Dr. Urbancic looks at us. “I can’t let you do this.”
“You can’t stop us,” I tell him. “Everything David has told us so far has turned out to be true. If he thinks this is the only way to stop more deaths, then we need to take the risk—as crazy and awful as it sounds. I don’t want to die or destroy the planet any more than you do. But if we don’t take action, the UNA is going to accomplish those things anyway.”
“Exactly,” Gadya says, brandishing her rifle at the doctor. “Now move aside.”
“I’m not afraid of your gun,” he says.
And then, faster than I thought possible, he stands up and grabs the end of the weapon, yanking it forward as hard as he can. Gadya is caught off balance, and she struggles to keep her hands on the weapon. Liam and I move back, both afraid that she’s going to accidentally shoot him.
“Get off me!” Gadya yells. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
We only have a few seconds until something terrible happens. I move around behind Dr. Urbancic with my knife raised. If I have to stab him, I will. Just to make him let go of the gun.
Liam steps in and punches him in the back of his head, absolving me of having to do anything. Dr. Urbancic falls straight to the concrete floor, unconscious.
We stand there for a moment.
Gadya is panting, holding her weapon.
“I tried not to hit him too hard,” Liam says. “It sounds like we need him alive to give us directions to the rebel cells.”
I feel slightly sick, like we’ve crossed some kind of ethical line. We are becoming just as bad as the violent UNA thugs that we’re trying to remove from power.
“Let’s tie him up,” I say, scanning the room for anything we can use as rope. I don’t see any rope, but I see some bales of coated electrical wire. I go over to them and start cutting off pieces with my knife. Liam joins me. Gadya crouches down and checks Dr. Urbancic’s body.
“He’ll be out for a while,” she says. “But I think he’ll wake up. Maybe with a concussion.”
Liam nods.
“What about the things he said?” I ask. “Think he’s right?”
“I don’t know,” Gadya replies. “What choice do we have? If we do nothing, then the UNA wins.”
“Liam?” I ask.
He looks at me. “I don’t know either. We’ve come this far. It’s hard to tell what’s right or wrong anymore.”
I nod. “Either way, I guess we need to tie up the doctor.”
A few minutes later, we have Dr. Urbancic sitting upright in an old wooden chair, with his arms and legs bound tightly with electrical wire. There is no way for him to escape. He remains unconscious, his head lolling down to his chest.
We walk over to the books
helf. As David said, the black metal box is easy to find. I take it from the bookshelf and place it on the table.
We stand around it.
I take the key out and insert it into the lock. The key turns, and the box opens up. I pull back its lid.
Inside the box, on a velvet base, sits a silver, palm-size object, with a lone red circular button on it covered with a snap-down glass top. We all gaze at it for a moment.
Then I pick it up and flick the top open. It’s hard to imagine that this button controls something so powerful and devastating. The UNA must really trust Dr. Urbancic to give him access to such a device. Either he’s fooling them, or he’s fooling us.
“Be careful with that,” Gadya warns.
I flip the top back down, so that the piece of glass covers the button again.
There is something oddly alluring about the button. All this time, the UNA has used their technology to subjugate us and make us victims of their fascistic madness. The idea of shutting them down and getting revenge has great appeal.
I wonder if the other four teams will be able to detonate their devices at the same time. If even one team fails, then perhaps we won’t get complete coverage of the electromagnetic pulse, and some UNA war machinery might be able to survive and conquer us. There’s nothing we can do about the other rebels. We just have to make sure that we succeed.
We sit there waiting for four p.m., talking about what we’ll do if our plan actually succeeds. The EMP should bring everything with electronic components to a halt. No more guns, planes, cars, feelers, computers, tanks, or satellites. It will be like what happened on Island Alpha when David broke the cooling core and everything suddenly stopped working. But this will be on a far bigger scale.
When four o’clock approaches, we stand around the button. Dr. Urbancic is still passed out, which is probably for the best. I’ve checked his breathing, and it’s slow but steady. He will live.
“Ready?” I ask the others, watching an old digital clock hanging on the wall of the basement. It displays the time down to the nearest second.
“Which one of us is going to push it?” Gadya asks. She flicks back the glass top with feigned nonchalance.
“I will,” I say. “I trust David.” I pause. “And I’m not afraid.”
“Me neither,” she replies.
“Liam?” I ask, turning to him. “Any reservations?”
“No, but David better be right,” he says. “Let’s do this together. The three of us. That way, we can all take responsibility if something goes wrong. And if it goes right, we can share the victory.”
“Deal,” I say. I place my finger on one corner of the button. Liam puts a finger on the other corner, touching mine. I look at him and smile. Then Gadya puts a finger on top of ours. I know that this button either has the potential to help destroy the planet, or to bring down the government that has ruined so many lives.
Or maybe it will just do nothing.
There’s no guarantee that Dr. Urbancic hasn’t disabled it in some way as a fail-safe, so that no one could operate it except him.
We just keep watching the clock as it ticks inexorably toward four p.m. The seconds seem to speed up as we get closer.
“Are you sure this is the right decision?” Gadya suddenly says, startling me with her words.
“No, of course not,” I tell her. “But it’s the one that we’re making. Right?” I look over at Liam.
He nods. “It’s going to take something massive to disrupt the UNA. We need to take the risk.”
“Are you having second thoughts?” I ask Gadya. Her question has unnerved me. Usually I can rely on her to be the most warlike and eager for action. I’m not sure what to make of her hesitation.
“I just want to be sure.”
“There’s no way to be certain,” Liam tells her. “You know that.”
I’m watching the clock. We only have a minute left. “Almost time,” I say. “It has to be exactly four p.m., or we won’t be synchronized with the other teams. Are we ready?”
“More than ready,” Liam says.
“I’m ready too,” Gadya agrees.
I nod. “Then here we go.”
The clock rushes toward four p.m.
“It’s time,” Liam says, in the second before the clock hits four.
And then as one, we push the red button down with a loud click. The sound echoes off the walls of the basement. I can’t believe that this is it. I expected it to be much more complicated. But I realize it’s like pulling the trigger on a gun. One simple action can have massive consequences. I just hope we’ve made the right choice. I hold my breath, ready for whatever happens next.
16 THE BLAST
I REALIZE THAT I’M expecting something major to happen right away. That we’ll hear explosions high up in the sky, or some kind of massive blast wave will hit us. But nothing happens. There’s just total silence.
“Did it work?” Gadya asks, sounding as puzzled as I feel. She pushes the button down again and again.
“I can’t tell,” I reply. “Maybe not?”
“Listen,” Liam says.
“What?” Then I think I hear something faint. Very distant and quiet. Like the muffled sound of rolling thunder. Barely audible. I can’t tell if it’s related to the button or not.
But the lights flicker and dim.
“This must be it,” I hear Liam say. The noise is getting louder outside. He puts an arm around me. We hold on to each other tightly. Gadya grabs us too. I’m both terrified at what we’ve unleashed, and also relieved that the button worked.
The lights flicker and buzz again, suddenly flashing bright white, as though there has been a massive electrical surge. It’s like a lightning strike. I see Gadya’s startled face in the bright white light, and Liam’s too.
The whole basement gets lit up for a millisecond. I hear the wires in the walls sizzling and hissing. The clock stops. And then I hear distant explosions rumbling away outside, making the earth shake.
Everything abruptly cuts out. All lights. All electricity. The house goes totally silent and dark. I smell smoke.
I steady myself in the darkness. I realize that we have deliberately plunged the entire country back into the dark ages—or at least back into the nineteenth century. And that’s assuming it went as planned, and we’re not going to die of radiation poisoning.
“I think we did it,” I say nervously. I don’t know what comes next.
“I hope so,” Gadya replies.
It’s so dark in the basement, I can barely see. “We should have set up candles or something.”
“Let’s get out of here and start fighting,” Gadya responds.
“No,” Liam says. “David told us to stay. It might not be safe out there yet.”
“From what David said, the blast is so high up, it won’t affect us like a regular nuclear bomb,” I reply.
“That’s if everything worked,” Liam says. “We have to wait. Just to be careful.” His hand finds mine in the darkness. I know he wants to take care of me. Liam on his own would already be out that door and trying to figure out his next move.
I’m about to tell him he doesn’t have to worry about me anymore. That I’ve proven myself. That I’m his equal. But then the smell of smoke gets stronger, and I see an orange curl of flames licking at the edge of a wooden cabinet. The orange flames also illuminate a gust of smoke puffing down the stairs to the basement, coming from underneath the steel door.
“I think the house is on fire,” I say, sounding surprisingly calm. “So I don’t think staying is really an option.”
Gadya is already moving toward the stairs.
Liam grabs my hand harder and says, “Let’s go.”
“Wait—” I say, suddenly remembering. “The doctor. We have to take him with us!”
We rush over to him. He’s still unconscious from Liam’s blow. And he’s tied down with the electrical wiring.
“I’ll carry him,” Liam says. We quickly untie him in the dim ligh
t, the wire lacerating our fingers. Liam picks him up and slings the old man over his shoulders with a grunt. Then we head to the stairs.
Gadya and I race up the stairs in the darkness. Liam is a few steps behind with Dr. Urbancic. Our only light comes from the flames that are trying to devour us. We reach the steel door and Gadya tries to turn the doorknob.
She yanks her hand away. “It’s hot!”
Liam puts Dr. Urbancic down on the stairs. He grabs the knob and tries to turn it too. The knob is not only hot, but it also won’t budge. The door is locked. Dr. Urbancic must have locked us inside.
“We’re trapped in here!” Gadya yells. She kicks at the door furiously, but nothing happens.
There’s an electronic keypad by the door, but of course now it no longer works. Maybe Dr. Urbancic didn’t lock us in here. Maybe the circuitry controlling the door just got melted, and our own actions ended up trapping us. But I’m sure there’s a way to circumvent it and get this door open. There has to be.
I lean down to Dr. Urbancic. “Wake up!” I scream at him. His eyes stay closed. “Wake up and tell us how to get out of here!” I yell again, slapping him hard across the face. He remains completely unconscious.
“He won’t wake up!” I yell to the others.
“Move back,” Liam tells me and Gadya.
Gadya and I step out of the way as Liam rears back and slams his body against the unforgiving metal door. The door rattles, but it doesn’t open.
He hits the door again with his shoulder, nearly slipping and falling down the stairs. But he catches himself on the railing just in time. He’s breathing hard. He rubs his shoulder from the blow.
“We can’t get out, can we?” Gadya says flatly.
I feel a rising sensation of panic. The basement is filling with smoke faster than I thought possible. There are no windows and there’s no other way to escape. It’s just a large, solid concrete box under the earth. A box that could very well become our grave. We need to get through this door somehow, before we pass out and die from smoke inhalation.
“I need more room,” Liam says to us, gearing up to try again. He takes a deep breath.
Gadya and I move farther down the stairs, dragging Dr. Urbancic’s body with us.
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