“’Fraid I can’t do it, An,” said Adam. “We all know what happens next. I am, however, willing to extend my previous offer.”
I looked at him, wondering what horrible thing he’d demanded from her.
“I will never surrender my weapons, Adam.”
“Then we will never colonize Eirenea. Are you hearing this, Char?”
I looked at him, unsure of what he meant.
“Yeah, that’s right!” he said. “They can’t engineer a radiation shield.” He made a baby voice, mocking her. “They don’t have the technology without Ark Five. And Ark Five is never coming back.”
I gave Adam a blank look. If he turned back to An, I could pull out my gun and shoot him. Couldn’t I?
“You will not live to see Eirenea colonized,” An said. “I give you my word that you will die before that.”
“Tell Char what I told you! Tell her, An!” Adam said. He grabbed a gun from the nearest puppeted soldier and aimed it at Shan’s forehead. “Tell her.”
A flash of worry crossed her face, and she spoke. “Adam claims to be able to solve the problem of the atmosphere. He believes me fool enough to give him all my warheads.”
“I don’t take you for a fool, An, but clearly you needed some convincing.” Adam waved the gun around, giddy. “I did solve the problem. What do you think I spent the last five years doing? No offense, Char, but you’re not the best company when you’re drugged.” His voice was the only sound in the room. My fingers inched closer to the gun, and I folded my body down, hiding them. “I can engineer the poles. I can build an atmosphere. I can terraform Eirenea. All I need is her nukes. Tell her about the clouds, Char! Tell her about the twister!”
I looked at An. She laughed, but the sound was split with sorrow. I was sure the sorrow was the stronger part. “What my mother knew at once was hidden from me until the meteor struck, and my childishness vanished along with everything else.” She paused, frozen, still staring at Shan. He gave her a look of stone. “It is a hard thing to be a queen. It consumes me.” Her gray eyes met mine. “I have no other purpose.”
For a moment, she sounded like a different person, and I searched her face, wondering why she suddenly set me off-balance, and it hit me that Adam had made a huge mistake.
“Oh, don’t sound so sad,” Adam continued, oblivious. “I’ll give him right back as soon as you make the delivery.” I shook my head, my eyes locked on the Imperial. Her head was half-bowed, and she was staring at Shan as though memorizing him. She seemed smaller than before.
Adam didn’t know it yet, but the game was over. He’d gambled and lost.
“We can still have peace, An,” I said. “Together.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Perhaps you are as naïve as my father, all those years ago. I hadn’t thought it. Farewell, Captain Hui.”
He jerked to the side, biting into the collar of his robe, and turned his face away from the Imperial. “Stop him!” Adam shouted, understanding his mistake at last. He pulled Shan’s jaw apart, but we were too late. My fingers found the gun, for all the good it would do me.
Shan began to shake, then watered at the mouth. His drool turned from clear to white, foaming, and he began to choke. Time slowed to a sickening pace, as though we were treading water in a vat of glue. “Oh, oh,” said Adam. He looked confused. “Now that’s a surprise.”
Shan twitched again and was still.
I turned back to An, my mouth open in horror.
If her voice was like steel before, now it was a raging fire. It consumed the air in the room, calling us to its flames. “Cursed be your head, for his death is on it.”
“An! Don’t do it, An,” I said. “Please!”
“The European Ark has enough missiles to defend itself for a little while.” She blazed through the holo like a vengeful ghost, and I felt my breath shorten. “But you can’t stop them all.”
“Give us a chance!” I screamed. “An, please.”
Adam stepped on the disc, smashing it, and the holo blipped out. “You, come with me. We’re leaving. You,” he said to the soldier. “Bring the others. What’s left of them. May as well leave that one,” he said, pointing at Eren. “He’s not long for this world. Of course, neither is anything else on this Ark.”
I moved, whimpering, as Adam grabbed my arm. He dragged me through the door of the cabin. From the porch, in the absence of the trees, I could see all the way to the white walls of the biome. “Please, Adam, please,” I heard myself saying. “Let them go. I’ll stay with you. I’ll—”
He stopped suddenly, and shook me by the shoulders so hard my teeth rattled. The gun slipped down a notch, and I pressed my stomach out, trying to trap it against my waistband. “Shut up. Shut up,” he was saying. “Just—just shut up, Char. I have a backup plan.”
He moved faster, dragging me with him, and we reached the edge of the biome. When he shoved me through the door, I drew a breath.
The hall was full of soldiers.
For an instant, I felt a spring of hope, but it didn’t last. Halfway down the hall, Adam stopped, and I realized that they were all drugged. “Ta-da!” he said as we rounded a corner. The ones nearest us had Mars by both arms. She was alive, but only just. Her face dripped with blood and dirt. “Door number four. Blah, blah. Meant for that to go differently,” Adam muttered. “Keep moving.”
I shuffled forward, rubbing the tears from my eyes. I needed to be able to see straight.
“Char, Char, Char,” Adam was talking faster now, fairly shoving me down the hall. “You don’t need to cry about it. I’m not going to kill them unless you make me.”
I hiccupped, feeling the gun shift in my pants. My brother’s face floated forward in my mind. I didn’t think I could shoot Adam, even though I had no choice. I thought of all those people on my own Ark. I thought of Eren.
I didn’t think I could do it.
“Open up!” he shouted. I snapped back to my senses as Adam muscled me through a nondescript door at the end of the hallway. “Leave her; bring him,” he called back to a soldier, waving at Mars and West. Mars was pulled away from West and dragged down the hall. There was murder in her eyes. West remained half-curled. He was still making a sound like a slight moaning whine, deep in the grip of the Lightness.
A soldier-puppet took hold of both my arms, securing me into a standing position, and I gathered what wits I could. The room inside was a perfect circle, with a ring of recessed lights. The walls were black and undecorated. The room was mostly occupied by a massive round table placed precisely in its center. It was plain enough to look at, but it buzzed with importance. Power.
I took in the demisphere in the center of the table and the six enormous, yellow, cushioned chairs around it and blinked. This was the control room. We were standing at the seat of Europe’s High Council.
The chairs were empty, and I was shoved into the nearest one. As I hit the cushion, I caught the eye of a Council-member. They were bound and gagged and huddled pitifully along one wall. They were also unguarded, so they must have been drugged as well.
West was flung through the door beside me. He hit the table, then recoiled pitifully. A puppet grabbed him and forced him to stand. My anger flared, but I couldn’t afford to lose my temper just yet. I breathed out through my nose. Seeing me, Adam smiled.
“So,” he said, flinging himself into a chair, hands behind his head. “Where are the kids?”
At this, West raised his head. The moaning stopped.
“Yeah, I know about them,” said Adam. “I’ll make you a deal. Tell me where they are, and I’ll let you bring them with us.”
“No!” I began, but the puppet holding me up wrenched my arms painfully, cutting me off.
Seeing me wince, Adam frowned. “Careful, Joe.” He gave an exasperated sigh and turned back to West. “An’s going to blow this Ark to smithereens,” he said menacingly, putting special emphasis on the last word, “and I am offering you the chance to save your children.”
The bla
nk fear drained from my brother’s face, and he met Adam’s eye with a look that would level a tractor. “You will never have my children,” he said simply.
Adam stood. “Is that so?” He produced a stick and held it to West’s face. “We’ll see about that.”
The stick ignited, sending a jolt through West, whose involuntary scream filled the room. I shrieked, but a gloved hand covered my mouth immediately, silencing me.
The screaming stopped, and Adam stood over my brother’s body. A cold laugh filled the room, and I held my breath.
But the laugh didn’t belong to Adam. West pushed himself to a sitting position and grabbed the stunner, holding it to his own neck. “Come on, Adam. I’d always heard you were smarter than that.”
Adam took in my brother’s face, bruised and bleeding, and stepped back. “Fine,” he said, returning the stunner to his jacket. “Suit yourself.” He flopped back into the chair and produced the long, thin wand from his sleeve. “Joe,” he called. “Where are we on prep?”
“Nearly there, sir—” Joe began. The door behind him sucked open. Adam tensed, then relaxed as Charles Eiffel entered the room, escorted by yet another soldier-puppet. I frowned. Charles was moving as though underwater, his face perfectly blank. He sure didn’t seem like he needed an escort.
“Just the man I need to see!” Adam said. “Mr. Eiffel, I’m having some trouble with your control panel. I wonder if you’d be willing to assist me in breaking in?”
Charles stepped forward and placed a hand on the mound in the center of the round table. He gazed at it as it glowed yellow around his hand, allowing it to scan his retinas.
“And, pulse scan—and we’re in!” said Adam. “Have a seat, will you?” Charles sat. “Now that you’re here,” Adam continued, “you might as well make yourself useful. How many missiles are we down?”
A few taps later, and Charles spoke. His voice was monotone, and he looked straight ahead. “None.”
Adam frowned. “And how many has she fired?”
“None.”
“No one has fired? At all?” He gave a frustrated grunt. “Show me.”
Charles leaned back, giving Adam plenty of space to see the display on the surface of the table in front of his chair.
“Ah. She lacks the nerve. I can fix that. The launch codes, Mr. Eiffel.”
“Charles!” I said, realizing what Adam was about to do. “Wake up!”
“It’s no use, Char,” Adam said. He gave a little snicker. “No one’s immune but me. You should hear yourself. If anyone knows it’s no use, it should be you.”
“First key: K-two-eight-nine-H,” said Charles, utterly without inflection. “Second—”
“Somebody should really be writing this down,” said Adam. “Joe. Get over here.”
Adam pushed back the puppet’s sleeve and pulled out a pocketknife. Joe flinched slightly as the blade cut into his forearm. “Nine, H,” Adam said slowly. “Hold still, Joe. Honestly. Please continue, Mr. Eiffel.”
“Second key: B-six-four-Q,” Charles droned. Adam completed his carving in Joe’s arm, making a show of sticking out his tongue to focus on his work, and dabbed away the blood with his sleeve. Joe looked pale, but he did not react. I felt nauseated.
“Well, that should do it,” Adam said. “You stay close to me.”
There was a knock on the door, and another puppet entered. “Your jet is ready, sir,” said the soldier.
Adam looked at me brightly. “That’s our cue!” He pulled his wand in tight and pressed a few buttons on the panel in front of Charles, then looked at the ceiling expectantly.
A burst of water broke through an overhead pipe, then another.
And then the control room was flooding.
“Now, don’t worry about that. It’s just that I hacked into the water main and gave it my special treatment. Let me just sync the controls to my screen, launch the first strike, and we can get moving!”
“Adam, please—”
“Ugh, do you ever get tired of saying that? Don’t worry. You’re safe. Even West is safe, as long as you cooperate. The two of you will never be separated again. That’s what you wanted, right? I have a plan, Char. To the jet!” he said. “Let’s show that Lieutenant what she’s missing, shall we?”
He shoved me forward, and the blue hallway was streaming with water. As we stepped out into the flood, the speakers crackled to life around us.
“ATTENTION, ALL PERSONNEL, YOU ARE INSTRUCTED TO AVOID THE WATER. STAY IN YOUR HOMES AND TAKE COVER. THE MILITARY IS WORKING TO NEUTRALIZE THE THREAT.”
He shoved me down the hall. I focused on the bright yellow rings on the floor beneath me, trying to keep my balance. West was pressing forward, angling against his captors to get closer to me. The message repeated itself. “ATTENTION, ALL PERSONNEL—”
Adam laughed. “Yeah, good luck with that.” We turned a corner, and Adam stopped short, holding out a hand. West drew in a breath. I suppressed a cheer.
There, in the center of the corridor, was Mars, but she was no longer restrained. She was flanked by armed soldiers, and their weapons were aimed at Adam.
“Oh, I don’t think we need the luck,” she said.
Adam paused for a brief moment, then tightened his grip on my arm. A puck hit the floor. Its effects were immediate: a flash of lightning, accompanied by a jolt straight through the hallway. I screamed, feeling like I’d been hit by a stunner, and Adam laughed again. The smoke had a familiar taste, and it occurred to me that it was probably laced with his drug. The blue walls ran white with rushing water, and the smoke concealed everything else. “You people have no idea what you’re fighting for,” he said. “I’m the only one who can save you. But I guess that doesn’t make a difference right now. Attack!” He threw another puck, and it fizzed and began to smoke, obscuring the fight.
Adam pulled me down a new hallway and deeper into his army, hurling me over the micrograv spaces and flipping me onto my side as the change in gravity caught me. Walls became floors, and smoke was everywhere. Water poured down all around us, gathering forcefully into churning spheres in the places without gravity.
I made a fist and jerked away from his grip. “You can’t fight it, Char,” Adam said, as though annoyed. “The water is drugged. The smoke is drugged. Knock it off.”
I tripped, trying to watch the scene behind us through the smoke as he dragged me along. My brain wanted to pull away. Mars was running through the crowd, shoving a needle into the thigh of every soldier she could get to. Her aim was precise, like a rattlesnake. The soldiers fell, recovering from the drugs. She was magnificent.
“Aah,” Adam muttered to himself. “Don’t let it scare you. We’re gonna have to stop that.” He reached into his jacket, and I lunged at him.
I was too late. He threw the puck around a corner, and it changed direction with the gravity. The puck hit Mars square in the chest and began to fizz. Her face went blank, and she fell.
The walls of the hall were an avalanche of rain, and she collapsed onto the floor between them. A pool of water splashed out from around her head as she hit the ground, framing the delicate swirls of smoke that stretched out from the hole in her chest.
“NO!” I screamed. “NO!”
I lunged for her, but Adam caught me. “It’s too late for her, Char. Keep moving, or your brother’s next.”
I kept right on screaming, and heavy hands grabbed me, dragging me with Adam. The smell of the drug was all around.
“They can’t catch me,” Adam was saying. “I have more men than they can count.”
I looked at him, eyes wide, barely able to think.
“Yeah,” he said. “And An will fire any second now, if she hasn’t already. Believe me, we cannot hold her for long.”
He took hold of my arm and pulled me along like a doll. I pressed my lips together and wiped the rain from my face with my bad arm. He had to let go of my good arm at some point. Was I strong enough to shoot him?
Was strong the right word, anyway?
I thought of Mars.
I thought of Maxx and Cecelia.
I had to kill him. I had to.
After a lifetime of running, we reached our destination: a hangar at the end of a spike. Soldiers lined the halls, standing at attention as we approached the door. They dripped with poisoned water. My pulse quickened. For some reason, the water wasn’t affecting me. It had to be me. I had to kill Adam.
“Now, you’re gonna like this, Char. I got the best jet ever. Way better than a hopper. It holds more than one passenger, but it retains all the maneuverability of a hopper. And it’s armed. Obviously.”
The door sucked open, revealing a small private hangar. It was completely black, with a suspended catwalk that extended straight to the outer seal.
It was also completely empty.
Adam turned around slowly.
“Where is my jet?” he asked. I felt myself swallow. He was like a nightmare I couldn’t stop dreaming. He was a monster, uncontrollable and unpredictable.
And he was angry. At last, he released my arm and put his face directly into the face of the nearest soldier. “Where,” he repeated dangerously, “is my jet?” The soldier stared at him blankly. “Get me Charles!” Adam shrieked.
Charles was dragged to the front lines, and Adam thrust a screen in his hands. “How many has she fired?” he shouted.
Charles glanced down at the screen. “None, sir,” he said quietly.
“Let’s see how she feels about this,” Adam said. He grabbed Joe’s arm and, reading the bloody code carved in skin, launched another missile. Halfway through the process, he looked up, suddenly understanding, and grabbed his wand.
The soldier smiled.
“You’re not drugged,” Adam said softly.
The soldier shook his head.
“Neither are you,” he said to Charles.
Charles shook his head. “I’m afraid not,” he replied.
Adam pointed the wand at his face. “The codes, Mr. Eiffel, or you die. The real ones.”
I pulled my gun. It was hard and heavy in my hands.
Adam shoved me out of the hangar and back into the corridor, taking in my gun at the same time.
The Fall Page 18