After Destiny

by Tanya Lisle

  She closed the door and Brady blinked at it, trying to figure out what she was talking about. He knew there was something he had to do, but the last thing he remembered was the feeling of being a tiny, insignificant part of a vast universe. He knew that before, but feeling how vast the universe was left him a little…

  He couldn’t move.

  He pulled at his arms and tried to move his legs, but they wouldn’t budge. He could hear the movement of heavy fabric rubbing with every attempt and knew full well what was happening. It had been a while, but the covers did nothing to hide the memory of the papoose board his mother used to employ when she wanted to make sure he stayed grounded.

  With a board under him and heavy fabric holding his arms and legs in place, he knew there was no point in struggling. He’d been here before and he knew well enough that his mother would determine when he was finished with his punishment.

  The evacuation sounded and he hoped that Snow managed to warn everyone about the plane. His mother mentioned it, so she must have warned everyone else, even if he didn’t get to. It was strange that they still sounded the evacuation here, though, if people were being herded back to their homes for the fight. This section didn’t even have a seal on the door in case the fighting bled over and someone tried to get in.

  The room rocked around him and he knew the fighting had begun somewhere. If he were physically seventeen, he might even be caught up in the middle of it all. He finished school before some of the people currently out there, after all. He supposed that was one advantage to the Greenberg’s. He didn’t really want to deal with that unless he absolutely had to.

  Brady didn’t know how long the alert went for when it finally stopped. They probably thought they had everyone now and were sealing off the doors. That or their intruders breached the walls. It wasn’t good letting the raiders know where they were keeping all the potential hostages, after all. Not that they would be hard to find in their own homes.

  That part still bothered him. There was absolutely no reason for them to be left here. They should be evacuated to somewhere secure. One of the other sections — any of them — would be better suited than one with outside windows that could see the raiders as they approached.

  The silence was broken by heavy footsteps out in the hall. Footsteps that clattered and with voices yelling back and forth at one another. Through the walls, Brady could make out pieces of what they were talking about.

  “Is that everyone?”

  “Hey!” Brady yelled as loudly as he could. “Hey! I’m still here! Someone! Hey!”

  Brady tried to move again, pulling at the restraints and trying to wiggle the board close enough to the wall to bang on it, but he was stuck in the middle of the bed. He kept yelling and trying to pull himself free, but his mother had taken it upon herself to ensure he absolutely didn’t get out this time. He didn’t even have his sweater on under this, meaning he had no pockets to check for something to help him.

  “I’m in here!” he called when someone cracked open the front door. Mom wasn’t going to like it, but there was no way it was safe here. He needed to get to wherever they evacuated to. “Second door on the left!”

  The door opened and Clyde came in, stopping at in the entrance and looking around. “Why the hell are you in bed?” he asked. “We’re getting attacked right the fuck now.”

  Brady felt the blood rush to his head. He was desperate, but he didn’t realize how embarrassing this would be. “Clyde, please just get me out. I can’t move.”

  Confusion crossed Clyde’s face and he took the covers off. He took a step back, his eyes wide as he looked down at the restraints keeping Brady in place and the extra strap that kept the restraints from moving on the bed. “What the fuck is this?” he asked, immediately taking out his knife and working through the straps.

  “It’s called a papoose,” Brady said.

  “Your mom’s insane. I thought you finally got out of here.” He cut him out of the rest.

  Brady rubbed his arms and legs, trying to massage the feeling back into them. “I had to come back. Snow’s not good on her own.”

  “Apparently not. I heard she was getting taken to the Medical Wing.”

  “What?” Brady shook his head and jumped to his feet, grabbing his sweater off the floor and patting the pockets to make sure everything was still in there. “No, you know what? I already know. No one asked, so she never got around to telling anyone.”

  Clyde followed Brady out. “What’s going on?” he asked, “I’ve got to take you to the Medical Wing. We’re evacuating.”

  “There’s a plane,” Brady said. “It’s going to land on the Medical Wing. Everyone needs to get out of there before that happens.”

  “What do you mean a plane? There’s no planes anymore.”

  “I talked to a guy from Argentina,” Brady told him. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s not supposed to exist anymore that still does.”

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “I went Downstairs,” Brady said. “Took the way through Section Q. Snow was down there and I was helping her try to figure out what was coming.”

  “And?”

  If nothing else, Brady appreciated that Clyde stayed with him. It might have just been because it was his job to escort him to safety, but at least he wasn’t trying to pick him up or talk to him like a kid or talk to him like he was imagining things. What he needed right now was someone to just believe him, because he was certain that he would run into a wall with that soon.

  “And the mountain is supposed to be back,” Brady said. “You know, that one she came off of? It’s got a bunch of people from all over who want her dead and they’ll all be coming here. Plus, someone’s sending a plane into the place. There’s also probably going to be one other thing, but she didn’t figure that one out yet.”

  “And Argentina?”

  “There was a guy that was sent Downstairs. He said he was from Argentina and Snow destroyed his city.”

  “I don’t even know what’s going on anymore,” Clyde said. “Are you sure about all this?”

  Brady nodded. “How do you convince everyone to move out of the Medical Wing, though? They won’t listen to me. Can you tell them? Maybe tell them Ms. Ed sent you?”

  “I don’t have the authority for that. Unless I can show them the plane crashing into the building, they aren’t moving from there. Are you sure you want me to take you there? You might be better off if you can find some place to lie low until the fighting’s over.”

  “I gotta do it.”

  “Good luck,” Clyde said. They were almost at the Medical Wing and his phone went off. “I dunno what you need to do to get it done, but you’ll figure something out. Maybe check in on Snow. She might know something.”

  Clyde frowned at his phone.

  “What happened?”

  “Being called,” he said. “Looks like it’s about to get started. Look, after this is all over, we have to catch up, okay?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Clyde said, smiling. “Give me something to look forward to.”

  “You have a boyfriend to go back to. You have plenty to look forward to.”

  “Then one more thing.”

  Brady watched him go, shaking his head. Clyde was going to get himself killed on top of everything else if Brady didn’t do anything about it. Luckily, he knew just what he should be doing.

  The Medical Wing bustled and he walked in with barely a nod in his direction. The front desk was abandoned in favour of people running around, trying to take attendance of who was there and what needed to be done about them. Down the hall, he could see someone being brought off into surgery already.

  With so many adults standing around and yelling at one another, no one gave him a second glance as he lifted a tablet from behind the desk and made his way down the halls. Snow’s room was easy enough to find, though he worried about the names on the list of people who had been checked in and who needed rooms prepared.
>
  David Kimball was listed for surgery already and Katima Grace had a myriad of issues with a note saying she refused further treatment.

  He went for Snow’s room first. There were too many people who needed to be moved and he didn’t know where to even start with convincing them that they needed to go. He didn’t even know when the plane was going to land. He needed to talk to Snow.

  Her room wasn’t locked and he let himself in, finding her lying on the bed and not moving. The bruises on her arms and across her chest were already fading away. The white on her dress had grown so large that Brady no longer saw a speck of black or any sign of stars remaining on it. .

  “Snow!” he said, shaking her lightly and slapping her face to get her to come around. “Come on, I need you conscious for just one more thing. Come on.”

  Her eyes opened and settled on Brady. He got out of her way and let her sit up on her own, his mind going through all the things he wanted to ask and needed to ask. He needed to get the new information out of her before he made any requests, he knew, so he tried to get the jumble of questions in order in his head as she looked at him.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Unwell.”

  “Do you know anything else?”

  “I do.”

  “What is it?”

  “Tavorian is going to wake the winds,” she said. “Regardless of how the battle goes today, she will destroy the Janus Complex and those inside it. Downstairs will remain safe, but trapped. There will be no survivors Upstairs.”

  “We’ll deal with that later,” he said.

  “I’ll deal with it,” Snow said, getting to her feet. “She won’t succeed.”

  Brady grabbed her hand to keep her from going any further. “Before you do that, I...”

  He couldn’t think of anything. There were so many things he needed, but they were all out of reach as the idea of the entire complex being destroyed flooded his mind. Regardless of anything that happened today, Janus would be destroyed. Everyone could still be alive after today and they would still be dead in the end. Everyone could get to safety and they would still die. And even if Downstairs lived after this, they were trapped and doomed to death in a few years without Upstairs.

  Snow brushed his cheek and he realized they were getting wet. He pulled back, wiping his tears away on his sleeve. “I’m fine,” he said, forcing himself to come back together. Snow could deal with whatever the winds were going to do to kill them. He had to concentrate on right now. “I need to get everyone out of here. How do I do that?”

  “You press buttons on a computer and show them the plane,” she said. “You make it appear on all of the screens. You tell them about the door and they follow.”

  “Okay,” Brady said. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. “Okay. And you’re going to stop the winds.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you do one more thing?” he asked. “Clyde. Can you make sure he stays alive?”

  A smile crept across Snow’s lips, gentle and hopeful. She said nothing and she faded away, leaving Brady alone.

  ***

  While there were computers hidden throughout the base in most of the rooms, Brady knew of only one that would be as unguarded as he needed it to be in the Medical Wing. In a crisis, they locked the kids in one room and left them there with a single volunteer and hoped they wouldn’t get out to add to the chaos.

  Mr. Devenish sat by the door this time with a sealed bottle of water at his side. He nodded at Brady as he came in, giving him a warning look and returning his attention to surveying the room and looking generally uncomfortable about being around such a large group of children. Brady noted the pistol at his side, but didn’t have time to think on it for long.

  “What’re you doing back here?” Isaiah asked, crossing his arms and shaking his head at Brady. “I thought you ran away.”

  “Where?” Olivia asked. She put herself between the two of them, looking defiantly up at Isaiah. “You said there’s nowhere to go!”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Brady said, walking around both of them.

  Isaiah grabbed him by the shoulder, turning him back around. “You look like you’ve been crying.”

  “I’m fine,” Brady said, pulling his shoulder away. “Leave me alone. I’m busy.”

  Isaiah grabbed him again and pulled hard enough to spin Brady back around. “Doing what?” he demanded, getting much too close to Brady’s face for his comfort. “We’re stuck in here! And you’re stuck in the kids’ room with the rest of us. You can’t break out this time. Mr. Devenish knows you’re the one who’s been putting stuff in his drinks now, so what else you got to do?”

  Isaiah fell backwards as Olivia pulled him away. He fell back on top of her, Olivia kicking and screaming for him to get off of her, taking a few chances to get her hits in. They looked accidental, but Brady knew her better than that and knew he’d have to thank her if this worked.

  As Mr. Devenish came over to break up the fight, Brady made for the panel on the opposite wall. He pulled everything off, sliding out the keyboard and turning on the monitor. If he was going to get all of the screens to show the plane, he knew he’d have to get into Iris somehow. Once he was in, he could figure out the rest.

  As soon as he got into Iris, he needed a username and password. Ed’s username was easy enough, but the password was tricky. He went through everything he knew about Ed, putting in any word that seemed to fit. There were stories about her that Liah told him, stories that he got from Shavir and from others Downstairs, but none of them worked and a counter appeared. Seven more tries before he would be locked out and probably lock Ed out of the system as well.

  Brady slammed his hands down on the keyboard in frustration and hit enter. Iris went to the next screen.

  He kept his tongue still and started combing through the program for what he needed. Behind him, Olivia screamed and Isaiah sounded like he was losing, so Brady wasn’t about to waste time. He found the cameras, each with a location for the camera listed in the bottom right. He turned on a few more until he found one pointing outside. Better, he found one already pointing at something in the sky coming toward them.

  His fingers continued to fly across the keyboard, using the touchpad to navigate through the rest of the options until he found something for broadcasting. It opened up into a tree with far more options than he needed, but he was already on a roll. It was split by sections, devices and individual people, that list adjusting as the seconds ticked away. He checked everything for a section labeled MED and hoped it worked.

  “Brady!” Mr. Devenish snapped behind him. The fighting sounds had finally dissolved into crying fits from both sides and they were sent into separate corners of the room. Mr. Devenish set his eyes on the screen as he stormed over. “What are you — what is that? How did you get that?

  “Found it,” Brady said, his eyes going wide as he looked up at Mr. Devenish. It was an automatic reaction, but it had the right effect.

  Mr. Devenish looked at the screen, then down at his vibrating phone. Brady caught the screen, showing exactly the same image as well as the location of the camera on the lower right of the screen.

  “It looks like that plane’s heading right for us,” Brady said. “We should probably get out of the way.”

  Outside the room, he could hear the panic begin. Other people were seeing the footage as well, conferring with one another and trying to figure out if it was true. The heavy boots of Security had all been called away and the panic outside had only just started.

  “You’re going to start a riot doing it this way,” Mr. Devenish told him, bending down to his level. “You are old enough to know better. If you knew something-”

  “No one believes a child, Mr. Devenish,” Brady told him. “No matter how old he is. Everyone has to get out of here now and we don’t have time for me to try and convince you to let me convince them.”

  Mr. Devenish held his eyes for a long moment before he let out an irritat
ed groan. “Fine. Point made. What do you propose we do about it?”

  “Downstairs,” Brady said. “We can go Downstairs. I found out how to get down there without using the elevator. There’s a door in Section Q.”

  “Will it even open?”

  “Hey!” Brady called around him to the room of children. “Hands up! Who here remembers that big door in Section Q? The one that goes Downstairs?”

  Most of the hands in the room went up.

  “Can we open it?”

  The quiet nods turned into more enthusiastic ones as they grew more sure that they weren’t going to get in trouble for admitting they went there. They grew louder, saying what they’d done the last time they were out there and who they went with. They said things about items lost down the path and how they played hide and seek in there before and they weren’t afraid of the dark.

  “We don’t have much time,” Brady told him. “Everyone with their hands up knows the way to the door. We go there lots. We can show everyone how to get there, but we gotta hurry. Please.”

  Mr. Devenish shook his head and rose back to his feet. He didn’t like it, but Brady could tell from how he looked at him that he couldn’t see any other way. He looked down at the screen, seeing something get closer and the size of the plane coming at them becoming more horrifyingly clear.

  The feed cut and Mr. Devenish’s screen went black. He took one last look at Brady before he barked at the children to get in single file. Outside, there were screams and panic and Mr. Devenish plunged out into them, his voice booming over the rest and demanding order. He told them the plan and Brady felt a wave of relief wash over him. He just hoped Liah would be okay with it if they could get all the way down.

  Chapter 21

  “I have to, Mac,” Ed said, her breathing already laboured as it crackled through the phone. “Iris is running on auxiliary, which means she’s cutting out any minute now. I’ll get her back up as soon as I get to the servers.”

  “You could’ve at least waited for me to send someone with you!” he snapped back at her. “There’s too many unaccounted for out there right now.”