The major draws my attention to Morth’s dialogue box. I smell them. I smell them. I will eat human. I will eat well now. “The second rule: if a dragon gets out of line, make an example of it for the others. Cut off transmission.”
The soldier monitoring Seventeen’s CENSIR inhibits him.
“Activate Morth’s fire,” the major says.
My throat tightens. “What are you doing?”
“He’s beyond control and would undoubtedly be at full flame by now.”
Morth unleashes his inferno toward the meal he can smell but cannot see, for all the black buildings that blind his view. Through the fire and smoke clouding his screen, a skyscraper rushes into view. He crashes through the top story in a rush of flames, glass, and office equipment.
He tumbles out, regains speed, and immediately plows into another high-rise. I bite hard into my lip. Five long counts later, the building about to crumble atop him, the Green emerges from the other side, staggering on the edge, glow gone dim, fire down to weak plumes, one wing shredded. Major Alderson orders another collar decapitation. The video signal dies with Morth.
“Why didn’t you do that earlier? There could be people in there!”
“Plausible deniability—”
“That’s bullshit. Greens don’t fly in packs. They don’t fly in formation.”
“They do if they’re Diocletians.”
So they’re the scapegoats in this. I wonder what else they’ll take the blame—
Suddenly it all seems so familiar.
My stomach lurches.
My chest hitches.
I forget how to breathe.
“Arlington?” I croak.
“What?” Major Alderson says, his gaze locked on the satellite image to our left.
“Arlington?”
“We are in attack range of the target, Major.”
“Mom?” I find a breath. Not much of one, but enough. “Did you kill my mother?”
“Arlington was a mistake,” Alderson says. “That Green went wild. We’ve taken measures to ensure that will not happen again.”
“How big of you.” I fight back tears, focus on the rage. “Now your killing’s intentional.”
“Control yourself, Twenty-Five, or we’ll do it for you.”
The dragons drop through the smoke and glide several stories above the streets. I can see the people now. Sprinting, looking over their shoulders, stumbling . . . often over each other. It’s a stampede. And the dragons haven’t even done anything—
“Activate Five, Nine, and Fifteen. Open fire,” Major Alderson says.
Flames appear on each screen, growing funnels that blast into the crowds. The video cameras don’t have audio, probably because it would make everyone’s job harder, but you can see the people screaming, almost feel it through the silence broken only by All-Black commands and talker voices.
“They’re innocent people. Please stop,” I say. “You can’t do this.”
“Control yourself, Twenty-Five,” Major Alderson says. “This is what it costs to keep your family and mine safe.”
I think of actions.
I think of consequences.
I think of Mom. And I make my choice.
On my CENSIR screen, the Current synaptic state blinks bright red, and the text beside it shifts from angry, sad to violent, dangerous to others.
As the major reaches for the handcuffs on his belt, I slam my heel into his shin. He doubles over, grabs for me, but not fast enough. I tap the incapacitate buttons for Nine and Fifteen before someone cracks the butt of a machine gun against my skull.
26
I killed Claire.
Nine remains unconscious in the infirmary. Evidently, going from transmit to incapacitate causes serious injury, or worse in some cases.
After a nurse bandages my head, Major Alderson takes me to view the body. Claire looks monstrous in death, her eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream, upper lip snarled.
“You know, all you’ve done is delay our timetable,” the major says. “More will die now because we’ll have to come in over the main district. Good job, Twenty-Five.”
It takes me a while to speak. “Go to hell.”
He gestures at Claire. “Looks like that’s where you sent her.”
“Do whatever you’re going to do to me and get it over with.”
He sighs. “Not my call.” He grasps me by the shoulders, regards me with a paternal expression that sickens me. “You’ve got spirit . . . and talent. But you need to channel it in the right direction. We don’t want you to end up like this one. We really don’t.”
When we return to the barracks, most of the girls are gathered in excited conversation around Five and Seven. Major Alderson clears his throat. They notice us; the chatter dominoes to silence. Five and Seven glare at me. Evelyn wears a tight smile. “Welcome back, Twenty-Five. We weren’t expecting you so soon.”
“Today was not one of our finest, ladies,” Alderson says. “Unfortunately, until Nine recovers, shifts will be lengthened by two hours. Good night.”
The moment he’s out the door, the hateful whispers begin.
“Thanks a lot, Twenty-Five.”
“Should have reconditioned your ass.”
“Who you gonna murder next?”
I want to shrink into the corner and disappear, but before I’ve gone two steps, Evelyn raises her hands. “Now, now, everyone, let’s calm down. In fact, I think we owe Twenty-Five a round of applause.”
“What?” Five says.
“Yeah, that stupid bitch could have killed us,” Seven adds.
Evelyn raises her hand, but Seven waves her off. “No, she needs to get a goddamn—”
“Do not profane the—” Pam starts.
“Shut it, Thirteen,” Seven says. “Twenty-Five, maybe you don’t like us, but you better start caring about us, because we’re the only ones who have your back. We’re your family now. Even Fifteen. You should have seen her flopping on the floor. They say she choked on her own tongue.”
I bite into my cheeks, clench my stomach, desperate to keep from crying.
“Submit yourself to God, Melissa,” Pam says. “And the devil will flee from you.”
“Leave her alone,” Lorena says, grabbing my hand. I squeeze it like a lifeline.
Evelyn nods. “I’m sure Twenty-Five has learned her lesson. Let’s not dwell on the loss of our sister or the punishment she’s inflicted on us with this unfortunate occurrence. Let’s find the silver lining, girls.”
“Silver lining?” Seven hisses.
“Yes, think about it. We won’t have to worry about Fifteen bothering us with her incessant pounding, getting the screen bloody, or sitting all retarded in the restroom.”
“And I’ll get more chocolate now!” Twenty-One says from the corner.
It’s too much. I race into the bathroom and collapse against the wall.
Lorena enters soon after, an Almond Joy in hand.
“I can’t . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill . . .” It hurts too much to say her name. “I’m sorry.”
“You did her a favor.”
I shake my head, unable to speak.
“You know how many times I considered interfering?” Lorena says. “I couldn’t, though. I was scared. Terrified. We all are. I know it feels like they’re against you now—”
“The entire world.”
She laughs. “Yeah, them, too. They’ll hate you for a while, but deep in that buried part of them, from the time when they were names, not numbers, they know what you did was right. That goodness you showed today will give them something to hold on to.”
“Bullshit.”
“Know the difference between fairy-tale heroes and real heroes?”
I think of Mom. “In fairy tales they don’t die. Why did she have to die? Why did she leave me alone?”
She hugs me. I sob into her shoulder.
I compose myself, push away. “For the record, you suck at pep talks.”
S
he laughs. “I can only be so perfect. Now eat up. . . . Take it, Melissa. Allie will be annoyed with both of us if she finds out you rejected her donation to the Make Melissa Feel Better Fund.”
I bite into the candy bar. Close my eyes, pretend I’m on Twenty-One’s tropical island . . . no All-Blacks, no dragons, no battle rooms or CENSIRs—
A beep sounds. I stop chewing. It’s not a news clip this time, but the premiere of Kissing Dragons: The Other Side.
I watch in numb silence as they transform me from an all-American girl to a delusional insurgent suffering from what a famous psychiatrist calls “dragon exposure.” Watch farmboys lie and smile and lie some more. Watch Sam go from confused to enraged to repulsed all over again.
“This is what becomes of traitors,” Simon says. “They don’t just ruin their own lives, they ruin the lives of those closest to them. But is Melissa truly the one to blame? Maybe her transformation didn’t begin after her mother’s death. Maybe it began much earlier. . . .”
Unveil Mom’s treachery.
Starts with a montage of her on various salvage missions.
Fast forward to protest rallies.
End with the photo taken at Shadow Mountain Lookout, where she’s standing beside Oren White, the Diocletian leader responsible for the recent terrorist attacks on day-care centers.
Simon interviews a stern-faced general who looks familiar, though I don’t know why until they show a picture of him handing Dad a folded-up American flag at Mom’s funeral.
“What do you know about the relationship between Olivia Callahan and Oren White, General?” Simon asks.
“Major Callahan and Sergeant White worked together at several points in their careers,” the general says. “After the sergeant’s wife died, he snapped and joined the other side. We believe he recruited Major Callahan. It’s unclear when exactly this occurred, but we do know it was well before the attack on Arlington.”
“Why does that matter?” Simon prompts.
“We believe she and Sergeant White used their specialized background in military intelligence to hijack the national defense system.”
“So you’re saying that Olivia Callahan, a decorated war hero, instigated the attack on Arlington, an attack that killed more than twelve hundred people?” Simon says.
Play cell-phone video of the Green roasting victims on the Wilson Bridge.
“We believe their actual intent was an attack on Congress or the president.”
“With a dragon? There was nobody flying it. It couldn’t know where it was going.”
“It knew exactly where it was going. When we examined the creature’s corpse, we found a high-resolution camera attached to a high-tech collar.”
Switch to a “live” shot of Simon, brow pinched. “General Sparks allowed me to see some of the footage recovered from the camera. Though much of it remains classified, he has given us permission to share a sample. Please be warned . . . what you are about to see is not for the faint of heart.”
Show Wilson Bridge massacre from the dragon’s perspective.
Back to the general. “Originally we thought they wanted to record their efforts for propaganda, but when we investigated the collar, we discovered a remote sonic communicator—an advanced dog whistle for dragons. With video and acoustics, they could tell the dragon where to go.”
“It went the wrong way,” Simon notes.
“Either it got confused, or, as we believe, it decided not to listen.”
“But if they initiated this murderous strike, why would Major Callahan have sacrificed herself to divert the creature she was supposedly in league with?”
Run clips of Mom steering the Green away from the suburbs toward the river, first from a drone’s perspective, then from the dragon’s.
“Her family lived two blocks from the dragon’s fire path,” the general says. Show snapshot of burning suburbs, highlight our house in neon green. “You do the math.”
“What do you think of the general’s claims, Ms. Callahan?” Simon asks.
“My mother was a hero.” He never asked me that question, but those are my words, spoken with absolute certainty.
“In some ways, she was,” Simon says. Back to the Shadow Mountain Lookout photo. Flames appear at the edges and slowly consume it. “A hero for the dragons. Now she’s dead and her daughter’s in a mental institution. This is what happens when you join the other side.”
The credits roll.
“I didn’t realize your mother knew my father,” Lorena says, the first words either of us have spoken since the episode started.
“Honestly, I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
She squeezes my hand. “Your mom was a good person, Melissa. Nobody will believe that stuff about her attacking Arlington. That’s crazy.”
I want to believe her, but I know it’s not true. We’re no different from dragons to them.
Villains.
No.
Monsters.
I pull Lorena into the blind corner of the bathroom, employ a tactic I’ve seen a couple other girls use. Since we’re not allowed any writing utensils—Eleven was reconditioned because he stabbed one of the ER Mengeles in the eye with a pen—they converse by finger drawing words on their blankets or body parts. Slow going, but safer.
I trace out the word on my arm. Escape.
She shakes her head.
I have a plan.
It takes a few tries before she deciphers my words. She taps her CENSIR. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I have to try.”
“Others have tried.”
“I have to.”
“What if . . .” She writes the number 15 on my forearm.
I can’t wait to die here.
27
Two nights later, Big Brother Billy has a midnight date with Lorena. Lantern in hand, he beelines it toward the back. Lorena intercepts him. She runs one hand along his pants, grabs the lantern with the other, and sets it on the floor. Several girls start humming. Kissing him, Lorena strips him from his winter clothes. He kicks off his boots. She grabs his hand and pulls him toward the bathroom.
“Hold up,” he says. He grabs the lantern. In its light, his grin is wicked. “I want to see you.”
As she enters the bathroom, Lorena looks back at me and gives a little wave. Then the door shuts and darkness returns.
Hands extended in front of me, I look for Twenty-One. She’s not in her bed, nor in the corner where she sometimes sleeps. “Twenty-One? Allie?” I whisper several times. No response.
Billy’s quieter than the others, and I can’t hear him or Lorena over the humming. He’s only visited once before. Lorena said she’d delay him, but for how long?
Something rustles beneath my bed. “Twenty-One? Allie?”
She doesn’t respond. Asleep?
I lower myself to the ground, reach for her. Our hands meet. Hers is cold and soft. So small. She opens my fingers, places the dragon brooch in my palm.
“Keep it safe for me.” I give her the brooch back, curl her fingers around it. I hear her sniffle, then retreat. “We’ll get to that island.”
I scramble to my feet before my resolve fails me.
I find Billy’s pile of clothes. As I change into his jacket, the humming intensifies. Are the other girls actually covering for me, or am I just imagining it? Billy’s boots swallow my feet. His gloves come past my wrist. I search for keys in his pocket, have a moment of panic before remembering that most military vehicles don’t use keys.
I feel my way to the door, enter the key code, the one I’ve seen Lester use every time we return from dinner. Locked.
“Reverse it,” Evelyn says from the nearby bed.
It works.
I glance over my shoulder. In the haze of sunlight, Evelyn’s expression is distant, unreadable. Has she tried this before?
I squeeze out the door, squinting against the brilliance of blue sky. Other than the whip of sharp wind, the world is silent. I slip into the Humvee, teeth chattering, and
almost crush a pair of sunglasses on the seat in my rush to get out of the cold.
Dad once let me drive one of these behemoths down Reservation Road. I don’t remember much about the controls, but I remember enough to get it started. I max out the heater, put on the sunglasses, and accelerate toward the glow of caged dragons in the distance.
I need a long-range radio or a sat phone, something that will allow me to contact the outside world. Antennae sprout through dragons skulls from several of the buildings near the cafeteria. One of them must be a communication station, but it’s undoubtedly manned 24/7. My best bet is the hangar.
The speedometer needle hits fifty-five, doesn’t want to go much higher. The engine whines and whirs, the Humvee trembles. As I race through the dragon skeletons that mark the entrance to Georgetown, a gust of wind crashes into me, sends the Humvee sideways several feet before I regain control. Thankfully, the road’s deserted except for the caged dragons.
Their choked roars follow me, a rumble of angry noise that cannot keep up with my heartbeat.
Tick-thump, tick-thump, tick-thump.
Any moment now, Billy will find his clothes missing, the Humvee gone.
I swerve onto the runway. The hangars are too far away. The Humvee’s too slow. If I actually do contact somebody, what do I tell them? I’m in Antarctica. Where? An entire continent of tundra and ice. No visible landmarks.
Tick-thump-tick-thump-tick-thump.
Major Alderson was right. I’m a needle in a frozen haystack. This was a mistake. I should turn around. Maybe I can make it back in time.
But I don’t slow, I don’t change course, and I reach the first hangar.
The code doesn’t open the door. Nor the reverse code.
Tickthump-tickthump-tickthump.
I push another four numbers. Then another four . . . my fingertips go numb. Breathing hurts. My vision blurs. I steady myself against the wall, manage another four numbers. No, I already did those. A tear freezes on my cheek, makes me laugh, which stings my lungs. I laugh some more, slam my palm into the keypad. Pain sizzles up my arm.
The door opens. A man in a flight suit and bomber jacket stands there. He holds a wrench in his left hand.
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