Burn

by Sarah Fine

  I have to find another way. Huddled over her, I stroke her hair away from her face. I can’t see any obvious injuries, but the smoke has done its work. She’s barely conscious. Sooty tears streak out of the corners of her eyes. I start to rip the mask off my face to put it on her, but Manuel grabs my hand.

  “Keep it on,” he says hoarsely, still bent over and bracing his hands on his thighs. “You’re our only chance to get out.”

  And if I don’t move quickly, if I don’t think smart and fast, we’re all going down. Still holding Christina against my chest, I look around. Beyond the shelving are more combat vehicles, but none of them are fueled—which is lucky, since they’d be exploding if they were. And none of them have live ammunition, but . . .

  “Are any of these vehicles armed?” I say loudly, just as an explosion shakes the factory floor and causes boxes of equipment to land heavily around us. If we don’t move, the shelves are going to collapse and bury us here.

  “Only with dummy rounds,” says Manuel between coughs. “You can fire the cannons on the roof from a console in the back or the hood-mounted cannon from the driver’s seat.”

  “That’s our way out.” I tug his arm. “Which one can I use?”

  He peers at me, looking confused, and I realize his brain is probably a tainted stew of delirium-inducing chemicals that he’s inhaled from the smoke. He’s not exactly at his best.

  “Manuel, which one is armed?” I shout.

  He blinks and squints at the combat vehicles around us, then shoves off the scaffolding and staggers down the aisle, which is now completely closed in by the leaning shelving above it. It’s a miracle we’re not crushed as I scoop Christina into my arms and carry her, following Manuel along the aisle littered with debris.

  We emerge on the other side to see more collapsed shelving against the back wall, but one small area is reasonably open, a set of combat vehicles sitting peacefully while the smoke swirls in lazy tendrils above them. “There.” Manuel points to the three vehicles in a row near the wall to our left. “We were testing the cannons on the roofs of the vehicles. Christina’s really good at . . .” The rest of his sentence is in Spanish. He closes his eyes and takes his head in his hands.

  I heave Christina over my shoulder, curling one hand around her thigh as her arms hang down my back. With my other hand, I grab at Manuel’s sleeve to lurch him into motion. We make our way over to the first vehicle, a looming SUV with the gaping hole in the top. All these eight-wheeled fighting vehicles have two cannons on either side of the hole in the roof, but they’re not the usual stationary turret you’d see on an armored personnel carrier. These are each on rails that enable them to slide and rotate three hundred sixty degrees, allowing the gunners to operate both cannons at once. It must take mad skills, and I’m hoping I’ve got them. I gently lay Christina on the ground, and Manuel sinks to his knees next to her, coughing and heaving. I climb onto the combat vehicle and drop through the hole in the roof, landing awkwardly in a chair surrounded by a circular console.

  In the tiny metal-encased world of the combat vehicle, I peer through the hazy air at the targeting system, which is giving off a dim green glow that tells me it’s connected to a stable power source, probably a battery. I’ve never seen anything like this, the three-hundred-sixty-degree video display, the odd things that look like blood pressure cuffs on either side of the seat, the two metal sticks jutting up from the floor like double helicopter controls. Wishing I’d studied my father’s blueprints a little more closely, I flip the safety off one of the control sticks and flinch as the thing kicks in my hand. Above me, one of the roof cannons slides along its rails, whizzing past the circular hole above my head, a dark shadow in the fog.

  Now that I know how to move the cannons, I lean close to the video monitor.

  What I need is wall space. To my immediate right, the area is blocked by those massive shelves. Right in front of me, one of them has toppled over and is blocking the rear doors. But to my left, there’s some space. I grip both control sticks and feel the jolt of movement above me as the roof cannons slide back and forth along their rails. The vehicle wobbles in its metal carriage that suspends it above the ground so that people can work on its underbelly.

  I’m aiming when an explosion rips through the air, shaking me with the percussion and the wave of heat. I shoot to my feet and nearly clip my head on the metal edge of the hole in the roof, thinking of going out and bringing Christina and Manuel in here, but then I realize—I need to focus, and I need to save them.

  I sit back down. My thumb hovers over the red button at the side of the control stick, and as the cannon swings into position, I push it all the way down. With a heavy thunk and a muffled boom, a projectile flies out of the cannon and slams into the wall to my left. On the monitors, I wait for the cloud of dust to clear.

  As it does, no daylight greets me. I fire again, both cannons this time. The heavy dummy artillery collides with the wall in almost exactly the same place. But it doesn’t penetrate. As the smoke grows thicker around us, I grab two more dummy missiles from the stack inside the vehicle’s cabin and load them into the cannons, then fire again. And then I do it again. And again. On the fourth try, a section of the wall collapses outward with a loud crunch, and smoke is sucked out of the hole. The flames will follow, so I load up again and fire twice more, trying to make the opening larger. It’s about six feet off the ground, jagged and gaping, when I let go of the control stick. The lingering vibrations tingle through my bones as I climb out of the combat vehicle and jump to the ground.

  Both Manuel and Christina are unconscious. I don’t check their vitals. I don’t want to know. I yank Christina up by the arm and stagger toward the smoky hole through which I can see daylight. I make it to the wall as the three-story-high shelving near the fire starts to collapse. If I don’t make it back to Manuel, he’s going to be crushed. Already I can see the shifting of the metal monster behind him as it buckles and tangles with the shelving next to it. Boxes and paneling crash to the ground, raining destruction onto the fire and the space around it. Flames and cinders shoot into the air. My grip on Christina is so tight that I’m leaving red marks on her pale, clammy skin. Panting, I lift her, planning to let her slide out of the opening and onto the ground—

  Leo’s head appears in the opening. He’s wearing a gas mask. Kellan appears next to him, his arms outstretched. “I knew it was you!” Leo shouts as I hand Christina to Kellan, who must be standing on something outside. He wraps his arms around her slender body and pulls her into the open air.

  “I have to get Manuel!” I yell, and turn back to the carnage without waiting for a response. But before I make it more than a few steps, Leo is next to me, matching my strides as I weave my way toward Manuel—and the collapsing shelving. We reach him as the unit nearest us begins to come our way. I don’t need to tell Leo what we have to do. I grab Manuel’s right arm and Leo hooks his arm under Manuel’s left, and we drag him as fast as we can, his long legs sliding across the floor as we scoot toward the hole in the wall, where Kellan is climbing through to help.

  A rush of air and a roaring sound make me look over my shoulder to see the combat vehicle I was sitting in buried and crushed beneath the heavy metal shelving. Leo and I lug Manuel to his feet, and Kellan helps us pass him to some Black Box employees outside. With one last look at the flames and all the destroyed combat vehicles, I give myself up to the arms reaching for me, the voices shouting my name. The gas mask is torn from my face, and I suck in a burning lungful of toxic air before an oxygen mask is clamped over my nose and mouth.

  People swarm all around me, putting victims on gurneys in the courtyard and helping others into the atrium of the main building. Two massive fire trucks are only a few yards from the factory, one aiming its foam cannon into the hole we escaped from. I let two guards drag me away, my thoughts buzzing, my mind drenched in dread. I have no idea how many people have been killed. I
have no idea if Christina is one of them. But I do know one thing: Our chances of winning a ground battle against those Sicarii scout ships have just gone up in flames.

  FIFTEEN

  THE ATRIUM OF BLACK BOX IS A SEA OF PAIN AND misery. I lean against one of the big columns at the edge of the room, forcing myself to down a granola bar as I stare. People lie shoulder to shoulder on the floor, some on gurneys, some in the arms of a relative. Manuel Santiago is two gurneys away, his hands fluttering at his sides as he sucks down purified oxygen and tries to clear his head. Dr. Ackerman zips from person to person, taking vitals, barking orders, having his staff whisk the burn victims up to the infirmary and commanding them to bring more oxygen tanks down in order to meet the needs of those who will remain here while we take stock.

  We don’t know exactly what caused the fire. I’ve heard whispers of everything from a bomb to a hydrogen leak ignited by a spark. It wouldn’t even be clear it was a deliberate act—except that the sprinkler system was disabled sometime last night or early this morning, as was the automatic system that was supposed to raise the massive cargo bay doors. We need to find out, but we’ve got other priorities at the moment. Even before the fire was out, Congers and Race had dashed off to warn the guards in the perimeter defense posts to look out for signs of sabotage. If the stations are disabled, we’re dead.

  My mother is here. She came rushing up from the lab in the basement and gave me a fierce hug as I walked into the atrium. Now she’s helping Dr. Ackerman care for patients. She’s shed the sling for her left arm, but her mouth is tense with discomfort every time she moves the limb. Her eyes keep darting over to me with concern and frustration. I’m wondering if she’s discovered something in the autopsies, but I’ve only got half a mind for it. Christina lies on a stretcher next to me with a mask strapped to her face. Her cheeks are streaked with grime, beneath which her skin is pink like she’s been sunburned. Dr. Ackerman said her vitals were strong, and her eyelids are twitching like she’s waking from a long sleep, but I still feel sick and shaky. My mind keeps replaying the moment I realized I was looking at her unconscious body. That image lingers in my brain, along with the seconds I spent in the same situation after a Core agent’s bullet tore along the side of her head. Too many close calls. She’s been lucky. But somehow I know: Our luck is running out, and I’m terrified that, sooner or later, one of us might not get up and walk away from the carnage. I’m not sure I’d ever recover, knowing that my actions had resulted in her death. I’m already carrying the burden of my father’s death on my shoulders. I’m not strong enough to manage the weight of another life snuffed out because I got us all into this.

  I’m leaning down to kiss her hand as a dark shape rolls into my periphery. Rufus Bishop is a few feet away, also tethered to an oxygen tank and sitting in a wheelchair. His belly sits like a beach ball on his lap, and he rests his hands over it while he watches what’s happening with narrowed eyes.

  His steely gaze lands on me. For a moment, we stare at each other. I wait for him to go off on me, to accuse me of murdering his son, to threaten me. But instead, as the seconds pass, his face creases with hard, desolate grief. And I remember looking down at Aaron, Rufus’s oldest son, and watching him take his last breaths. I remember how scared he looked.

  “I’m sorry about Aaron,” I finally say. Because I am. I wish he hadn’t chased me. I wish he’d been more aware that other members of his family had brought their deadly defense system back online. He shouldn’t have been so damn determined to get back the scanner.

  Rufus’s nostrils flare. His face turns red beneath his Santa beard. He pulls the oxygen mask away from his face with a trembling hand. I brace for his rage.

  “Did he suffer?” he finally says, his voice rough.

  I blink at him. “N-no. Not for long.” I honestly don’t know. When I sprinted away, he was still alive. But if Rufus is asking me this, it means Aaron was dead by the time he was found. “He went pretty quickly.”

  He nods and bows his head. “He was trying to get the device for me,” he says in a strangled voice. “He’d heard me say we needed it. Stupid boy was loyal to a fault.” He stares at his knees as he lets out a sad, raspy chuckle, and my chest hurts. I expected him to tear in to me, to blame me, but somehow, his raw sadness is worse.

  His head jerks up as someone shouts from the back of the atrium, and Ellie Alexander bursts through in a puff of smoke, leading four factory workers using a tarp as a kind of sling, within which is a body. She screams for Dr. Ackerman as they lay their burden down on the stone tiles. Her light blond hair is plastered in wisps against her forehead and cheeks. “Medic,” she shrieks.

  On the tarp, Brayton Alexander lies as still as a corpse. His pale blond hair is gray with soot, and his cheeks are sunken. My mom comes rushing over and kneels next to him, feeling for a pulse but drawing her hand back in surprise. “How close was he to the fire?” she asks Ellie. “His body temperature is very high.”

  Ellie joins my mom on the floor. “He never got that close to the flames. He just . . . I don’t know. Fainted?” A tear slips from her eye and carves a pink path through the grime on her face. “Was it the smoke? Or a heart attack?”

  My mother pulls a pulse oximeter from the pocket of her lab coat and slips it onto one of Brayton’s limp fingers. He winces and tries to pull away, but she holds his hand firmly, then shakes her head. “His pulse and oxygen saturation are in the normal range.” She lays his hand back on the tarp. “But his temperature is 103.5. The fever may be why he collapsed. We’ll have to consult Dr. Ackerman, but since Brayton appears stable, it may be a few minutes.” Dr. Ackerman is presiding over the transport of a badly burned factory worker at the moment.

  Ellie strokes her dad’s arm and glares at Rufus, then at me. “Constantly having his loyalty questioned has taken a huge toll on his health.”

  Rufus gives Brayton a pitiless sneer, all his grief submerged beneath his decades-long hatred for the former CEO of Black Box. “If he hadn’t gone off the reservation in an attempt to acquire the scanner, no one would question him,” he says in a low, gravelly voice.

  Ellie clenches her teeth. “I’ve heard stories about how you tried the same thing, Mr. Bishop.”

  Rufus’s chubby fingers curl over the armrests of his wheelchair. “I was trying to protect the human race from annihilation. He was trying to make a profit.”

  “At least he’s not a paranoid maniac.”

  “I’d rather be a paranoid maniac than a traitor!” Rufus says in a hoarse shout.

  “Leave her alone,” whispers Brayton, opening his eyes. His cheeks look like he’s been smacked over and over again. Crimson. He lifts his head, but it falls back just as quickly. “This is my fault. Not hers.”

  His voice is raspy and soft, but Rufus hears him. He grunts. “For once, I know you’re telling the truth.”

  Brayton doesn’t respond. He lies there as Ellie strokes his sweaty hair, and I guess this isn’t the right moment to start questioning him about why he’s saying he’s to blame. Rufus apparently disagrees. He leans forward, his shoes squeaking on the footrests of his wheelchair. “Did you hear what he said, Ellie? It’s his fault. Ask him why.” He wheels himself a little closer. “What are you up to, Brayton? Did you and your H2 buddies sabotage the factory? Are you and the Core working together? Are you planning to sell them our technology like you have in the past?”

  Brayton swallows painfully. “What are you talking about? You said it yourself—I didn’t upgrade the vent system. The smoke—”

  “How dare you accuse my dad of sabotage!” Ellie blurts out, tears shining in her eyes. “Do you have one shred of evidence, or is this your paranoid psychosis leaking out?”

  Mom turns to Rufus and snaps, “This is a ridiculous time to carelessly toss around accusations, Rufus—and a dangerous one. If you are truly concerned about the welfare of the inhabitants of this compound, try not to sow
needless suspicion and discord.”

  He arches a furry eyebrow at her, but backs off. Brayton’s chest shudders. He’s red-cheeked and drawn-looking, his breaths coming fast. Despite my mistrust, I have a hard time understanding why Brayton would do something so utterly destructive as destroying the factory, especially since he said he wanted to earn back people’s trust. What would he gain from that kind of sabotage, apart from petty revenge for being removed as CEO? He seems more motivated by profit than vengeance. And I don’t buy for a minute that the Core would work with him to do something like that, not after I’ve witnessed their desperation to stop the Sicarii.

  In fact, what would anyone gain from the factory fire . . . except the Sicarii?

  The frustration of that thought makes me tense. We’ve scanned everyone repeatedly, and no one flashes that violent orange that indicates the presence of a Sicarii. So why can’t I shake the idea that we’ve got one somewhere on the compound?

  Christina’s fingers brush my hand, and I look down to see her blue eyes gazing into mine. Her lips curl upward beneath the oxygen mask, and I lean over her. “How are you?”

  She nods but points to her throat and grimaces. I smooth her hair off her forehead and kiss her brow. “You don’t have to talk. I know it hurts. I’m just so, so happy you’re alive.” My voice gets more unsteady with every word.

  God, I want to tell her I love her. The words are right there on my tongue.

  I nearly lost her again today, and we may not have much time left, and I don’t want to leave things unsaid. My heart pounds within my chest. “Christina,” I say, touching her forehead with mine. “I—”

  The lights go out, and two loud popping noises make both of us flinch. Despite the billowing black smoke outside, there’s still plenty of daylight to illuminate the atrium through its glass walls. Heads swivel in the direction of the hallway where the noise came from. Angus, on his knees next to a red-haired young man who is probably a family member, looks over at me, and I can read his thoughts easily.