by Kyle Andrews
He moved as quickly as he could through the streets, trying not to shake Amanda too roughly. He could feel her shivering in his arms. Her feet were bare. In the darkness of night, they looked blue. He hoped that it was a trick of light or his mind playing games with him. But he knew that she wasn't healthy either way.
A school lesson ran through his mind. It was from one of his boating classes, when the teacher was explaining the ins and outs of a water rescue. Each student was supposed to know what to do in case of an emergency.
The teacher told the class that in a situation where you are trying to save an unconscious classmate from drowning, your first responsibility must be to yourself. Protect the life of the rescuer or else both parties are lost.
The line repeated in Justin's head as he set Amanda down on the ground and took a seat on the front steps of a building. He shoved the lesson aside as he took off his shoes and socks and put them on her feet. Maybe it was a futile attempt at helping her feel better. She was already too sick to notice one way or the other, but he couldn't stand feeling her shivering.
As he bent down to pick her up again, Justin noticed a doodle drawn on the steps beside him, drawn in chalk and faded. It was the dog head symbol that Freedom had used to mark safe houses a month earlier. The symbol in use at the moment was different, but there was no doubt that someone in that building was Freedom. Or at least, a member of Freedom had lived there a month earlier, when Collin Powers was all over the news and every member of Freedom who could possibly provide shelter for him drew that symbol on their front steps.
That was a special occurrence. Normally, there would be designated safe houses on any given night, for a specific person's use. The fact that there wasn't a more recent symbol drawn didn't necessarily mean that this member of Freedom was gone, but there was a chance that they had been arrested during the lockdown, when HAND pulled people out of their apartments and searched every building. A lot of people went missing that day.
He looked up to the windows, to see if there were any other signs of Freedom. A shoe on the windowsill, or one of the other signs. He could barely keep track of what the current codes and symbols were, and he didn't even know what he would do with them if he did find a member living in that building. Would he just barge in and demand help for a woman who wasn't even one of them?
He couldn't. He couldn't expect someone else to put themselves on the line like that. He had to deal with this outside of the Freedom system.
Justin picked Amanda up again and started to walk. He was a little bit slower now, with his cold feet vulnerable to every pebble and piece of broken glass in his path. Perhaps he would have failed his boating class because he refused to put himself before the person he was trying to save, but he couldn't tolerate it any other way. It wasn't in his nature.
There was no way for him to keep track of how long he had walked. It could have been a mile or it could have been three. Truth was, it didn't really matter. He was getting closer to his apartment, but still had a long way to go. His legs and back were aching. He was out of breath, which reminded him that he was still not entirely over the flu.
Rest was not an option. He couldn't stop until Amanda was safe and warm inside, with broth in her belly. Unfortunately, his body didn't seem to agree. He had to fight against collapsing at every moment. He had to ignore the pains in his arms and the dryness of his mouth.
At first, he walked in silence. He focused on the task at hand and he pushed himself beyond his limits. In his head, he kept telling himself to keep pushing and move faster, but the more he wore himself down, the more he began to talk to Amanda.
“She's fine,” were the first words he said to her.
After speaking those words, he realized that he hadn't even tried to speak to her since discovering her in the home. Conscious or not, it seemed wrong to ignore her.
“She's safe, I mean. After everything that happened, I know you must have worried. But she's strong. You know that. You know that she'd never allow herself to be taken down by all of this. When the world starts pushing, Libby shoves it right back.”
Amanda didn't respond, of course. The most she could offer was the occasional groan or sigh. Justin was grateful for that much. It let him know that she was still alive and that he was fighting for something. It made him push harder.
“You're going to be okay too, you know?” he said to her, stopping for just a moment to reaffirm his grip on her. “You'll be up on your feet in no time. You'll be able to see Libby then. I promise. I can't really tell you where she is, but... I'd like to think you'd be proud.”
It was easy to say these things to an unconscious person. If Amanda were awake, she would demand answers. She would want to know where Libby was, and if Justin told her what he was telling her now, she would probably figure out that Libby was hiding out with Freedom. Would she be proud then? Who knew. The world was never quite that predictable.
“God, help me. Please,” Justin said under his breath. It was barely a sigh, but it was enough to remind him of the way Uly always slapped his arm or shot him a disapproving glance whenever Justin allowed his faith to slip through in public.
Uly was right, of course. Allowing anyone to realize that he was a theist was like reciting the old pledge of allegiance. He might as well stand in the middle of the street and declare his right to free speech or something.
Of course, he didn't know the real words of the Constitution. He knew bits and pieces, which were handed down over the generations, and the same was true of the Bible. Somehow, the gist of something was never quite the same as the real thing. The words were hollow now. They didn't carry any more weight than if he made up his own. The lessons were still valid, if people were willing to listen. But winning over the hearts and minds of people who were already willing to listen was never really the challenge.
People were staring at him as they passed him on the sidewalk. A few looked as though they were wondering why he was carrying an unconscious woman. Others didn't seem to care at all. Either way, their actions were the same. They did nothing. They asked no questions.
On the one hand, that worked out great for Justin. He couldn't afford to answer questions, or explain to people why he didn't call an ambulance. On the other hand, their silence spoke volumes. Nobody was concerned for Amanda. Nobody was concerned for him. Nobody really seemed to care about anything.
Moments like that made Justin question the entire world. It brought down his hopes for the future, because the future would depend on those people caring and taking action.
“A little bit farther,” he told Amanda, keeping his eye on the sidewalk ahead. “A little bit farther,” he told himself this time.
He was maybe halfway home. It was a lot farther, but he couldn't think of it in those terms. He had to see it as halfway done and try to fool himself into thinking that it was all downhill from there.
A horn honked beside him, but Justin didn't stop or look toward it. There was no way that it was meant for him, unless it was a cop. And he'd rather ignore the cops at the moment.
“Hey! Kid!” came the voice of a man.
Justin looked over and saw a plumber's van riding next to the curb, keeping pace with him. The driver was a heavy-set man in his mid-forties. He had curly hair poking out from beneath a baseball cap with some sort of logo on it. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't seem threatening either. Justin stopped walking.
“You look like you could use a ride,” the man said.
Was there still humanity in the world? Was there hope for the people of this city? Or was this man simply trying to lure Justin and Amanda into his van so that he could feed his family for the winter?
As much as he probably should have doubted humanity, Justin's failing in life was his willingness to believe in people. Most people, anyway. He believed that most of the people in the city were good. They'd simply been fooled. They were misguided. They were brainwashed. But deep down, they were good.
“Thank you, sir,” Justin said, mo
ving toward the van. “I really could.”
“Put her up front. You'll have to ride in back with the tools,” the man behind the wheel said. “Going to the hospital?”
“We've been. They say she needs to let it pass, so I'm trying to get her home.”
“Your mother?”
“A friend.”
As Justin strapped Amanda into the van, the driver was looking at him as though he was a mythical creature, straight out of a children's story.
“You're walking a friend across town at night, in bare feet?” the man joked. “At least tell me she's putting out.”
Okay, so humanity wasn't entirely pure, but that didn't mean that it was beyond salvation.
12
She didn't think as she ran. She didn't care about where she was going or what she was going to do. All she knew was that she had to put one foot in front of the other as quickly as possible.
Remaining hidden by the shadows for as long as possible allowed Libby to build speed before the HAND officers realized where she was. It was a small advantage, but an advantage nonetheless.
As she stepped into the light, she heard a raised voice, coming from one of the officers. Seconds later, a light shined on her, and she knew that it was only a matter of seconds before she died. Just like Uly.
But the joke would be on them. Somewhere in that building, Simon was downloading information onto his flash drive... she hoped. If he succeeded and got that information back to Freedom, maybe something useful could come from her death. Maybe her life could have meant something after all. Maybe there would have been a point to Collin Powers' death.
A shot rang out, startling Libby so much that her feet left the ground. She lifted her arms around her head, as though that would stop a bullet from killing her.
If she was shot, she didn't feel it. Nor did she hear the bullet ricochet off of anything near her. She didn't know anything, except that she needed to keep moving.
Another shot, this time from another direction. And another. Soon, there were flurries of shots being fired, and she was sure that it was only a matter of time before she was struck down.
Then she saw it. A moving truck, speeding toward her. Its driver was holding a gun out the window, firing shots at the HAND officers as the truck moved past them, toward Libby. The reason they hadn't killed her yet was because not all of the bullets were aimed at her. Thankfully, someone had distracted some of those officers.
The truck came to a screeching stop next to Libby and she heard a voice yell, “Get in!”
There was no hesitation. She was already climbing into the truck before he finished yelling those words, because there was nowhere else for her to turn.
The driver of the truck was the same man who had driven Libby, Simon and Leo to the hospital earlier. If she'd ever been told his name, she didn't remember it.
“Stay down,” he told her as he fired off a few more shots and slammed his foot on the gas. The truck began to move again. Bullets were striking it nonstop. HAND officers were undoubtedly getting their own vehicles and speeding after them. Libby could see nothing that was happening around them. Instead, she was curled up on the floor in front of the passenger seat, keeping her head ducked low and her arms wrapped around her knees.
“Sorry I'm late. I had to get a new ride,” the man told her, smiling. It was as though he enjoyed this sort of thing, but he didn't seem crazy to her.
“Leo's dead,” she told him. “He saved me.”
“I gathered,” the man nodded. “Was it worth it?”
As he drove, he glanced down at Libby, waiting for her to answer. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to judge whether or not the data stored inside of her was worth the life of one—possibly two—men. Plus Collin Powers. Every time she questioned her life anymore, the sacrifice of Powers crept up on her.
The bodies were stacking up because of her. Everything she did from this point on had to count for something.
“Oh, come on! Tell me it was worth it!” the man yelled, with what sounded like humor in his voice. He had a kind face, and he was trying to keep her from panicking, but Libby could see the worry in his eyes.
“It was worth it,” Libby relented, though she didn't sound very convinced of the statement, even to her own ear.
“There's a hat and jacket on the floor by your feet. Put them on,” he said to her, changing subjects and becoming slightly more serious. “My name is Paul, by the way.”
As he said it, Libby felt the truck strike something. A gate, perhaps. It shook the truck and slammed against the hood so loudly that for a second, Libby thought someone had fired another shot at her from close by. Then, they were on the road.
Paul glanced in his mirror and said, “They're going to catch us. I can outrun them for a while, but their cars are a lot faster than this thing.”
“What do we do?”
“If I drop you off somewhere, do you think you can get back to the Garden?”
Libby wasn't sure. She knew where Marti's building was and she kinda remembered the way Rose had driven before dropping her and Justin off. After that, she was locked in the place for a month. Her memory wasn't perfect.
Still, she wasn't going to bring the night to a halt based on her doubts. She would either get herself back to the Garden, or she would find someplace to hide until she could communicate with them. It didn't matter. All that mattered was escaping the officers who were chasing her.
“I can do it,” she said, still with that unsure tone that was starting to annoy her. “I'll find a way.”
“If you get lost, just look for a safe house. A game of tic-tac-toe in front of a building, with O's winning both left side and diagonally from top left to bottom right. That means that there's an ally in the building. Look for a window that has a glass of water on the sill. That's the apartment you head for. Do you understand?”
“I guess,” she replied, though it all sounded incredibly strange to her.
“You'll do great. You're a strong an empowered woman of today. A role model for girls everywhere... Or whatever they say on TV,” Paul joked before turning the wheel hard and sending Libby slamming into the passenger door. She struck her head, but didn't care.
He turned the truck the other way and she had to catch herself before she broke her nose on his knee.
Libby hurried to put on the jacket. She took off the glasses that Rose had given her and she pulled her hair up, stuffing it beneath the hat as she put it on.
“Don't look toward any cameras,” Paul reminded her. “Don't run. Look casual. Blend in. Just pretend you're one of the mindless many, out for a nice stroll.”
He looked into the mirrors again and slammed his hand on the wheel, “What do I have to do to lose these people?”
The side view mirror attached to Paul's door shattered. Libby jumped, but Paul barely seemed to notice.
Libby was glad that she was ducking down and not looking at the road. Paul was swerving left and right so often that she would have undoubtedly had to shut her eyes anyway. She could hear the screeching of tires as he cut off other drivers, and the sound of the HAND vehicles slamming into other cars as they tried to keep up. It was only a matter of time before they caught up with the truck.
“Can you swim?” Paul asked her, almost as an afterthought. He quickly shook his head and said, “Never mind. The bridge is too far.”
“You have no idea where we're going, do you?”
“What fun would that be?” Paul grinned. He then added, “Don't worry. I was trained for this. Oddly enough, I was taught by the same guy who probably trained the people behind us. That has to mean that our odds of escape are at least as good as their odds of catching us, right?”
He kept that grin on his face as he looked into his remaining mirrors. She would have thought he was insane if she couldn't see the focus in his eyes. He was looking at the street ahead and planning out his moves long in advance.
As she watched him, she couldn't help but think that he l
ooked too young to be doing any of this. He was in his mid-twenties at most, with a few freckles on his pale skin that made him look even younger. Somehow, she always imagined rebels as being old and worn down.
“The first thing I tell people when I'm teaching them to drive is to enjoy it,” Paul told Libby. His tone was like that of a teacher; calm and smooth. “Right now, we're defying the system. Openly. Proudly. We're not hiding in a broken down building, growing corn in the basement. They know what we are, just like we know what they are. That's freedom.”
He then jerked the wheel to the right and cut off another car, which Libby could hear screeching to a stop behind them. She heard a horn and a crash. Then, Paul laughed.
“That should buy us a second,” he said to her. “I'm going to have to ditch the truck and find shelter for the night. They'll follow me. You hit the street. Find someone and walk close behind them, like you know them. Hopefully, the HANDy-men will pass you by.”
He took another sharp turn, followed quickly by another. He floored the gas for a few seconds, slammed on the breaks, took another left and then came to a stop.
“Go!” he demanded.
Libby didn't waste any time before she opened the passenger door and hopped out. She didn't make a fool of herself by saying anything to Paul on her way out and delaying the process, and she was strangely proud of that fact. It made her feel as though she had some understanding of her situation.
Once she hit the sidewalk, Libby turned away from the truck and started walking as though she didn't even know it was there. Calmly. Slowly.
Though her back was turned to the truck, she could hear the engine roar as Paul tore off down the street. She was alone. Survival depended on her now. Adrenaline was pumping through her so strongly that she was shaking. She felt cold and her mind was racing, but she kept walking as though everything were perfectly normal.