I scramble off the table and make a hasty retreat. I’ve never seen Gemma act so curt before.
It’s almost time for our team to meet at the shelter’s exit. I head for the storage rooms beyond the kitchen. As I enter one of the rooms, I find Mardy zipping up a back pack.
“Hey,” she says, looking up. She got a makeover from Sloan too. Her hair is cut short into a bob that curls into her chin like a halo around her face. It makes her look younger than she really is, more vulnerable. She told me she cried when she saw her long blonde tresses on the floor.
“Hey.”
“I see Doc took your cast off. Does it feel better?”
I look for my own pack and find it across the room, next to Ryanne’s. It’s strange to have the use of my left hand again, and I move it gingerly. “I guess so.” I don’t want to be reminded of Gemma right now and her grouchy behavior.
Mardy sighs and swings her back over her shoulder. “I don’t think I’m ready for this, but I guess we’re committed now.”
We gather the rest of our gear and make our way to the topside exit. The heavy backpack I carry seems to weigh me down to the floor. I wish I could just sit down and sleep, but I force my body to keep moving.
Several of the team members soon join us, including those who are going with Lucio. There’s a large group of them, more than a hundred. They wear the yellow armor and helmets. I wonder what Coalition stores Lucio raided to gather such a large supply of them.
Those of us going to the Undercity put on radiation suits and the overclothes to disguise ourselves as scavs. We move through the preparations silently. It’s as though we sense the fragility of the mission we’re about to embark on, and we don’t want to jinx it with words. I keep catching Jate sneaking glances my way, but he doesn’t speak.
“Where’s Ryanne?” Mardy asks as we finish suiting up.
I peer down the tunnel in both directions. “She should show up here any minute.” I haven’t seen her since she left to get her makeover from Sloan.
I riffle through the backpack that we loaded the last PM, checking the contents one last time. There’s a gas mask, extra ammunition for the centric strapped to my waist, Undercity clothing that feels thin and useless, and several pills from Gemma to counteract any radiation we might receive.
Mardy is crouched on the floor beside her pack, staring at the gas mask. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispers.
Keldon is nearby. He crouches beside her and shoves the mask back into her pack, zipping it up. “Sure you can. You’re tough, remember?” He glances up at me. “Like your big sister.”
I give him a sour smile and go back to watching for Ryanne. I see Lucio coming toward us instead. He’s dressed in the same yellow armor as the rest of his team, carrying one of the larger centrics in the crook of one arm. “The sun’s down. It’s time,” he says to Jate. “I'll take my team up first. We’ll sweep the area, make sure there are no Coalition soldiers waiting to ambush us. Once it’s clear, we’ll give you the signal.”
Jate nods. Lucio and his team gather in a knot at the foot of the stairs. When Lucio waves his arm, they flow up and out into the PM. Their guns are held at the ready, their stance crouched and prepared to spring in any direction. I wonder just how possible it is that Coalition soldiers are waiting for us above.
Jate takes a quick head count of our team, then searches the tunnel in both directions. “Anybody seen Ryanne?” He turns to me.
“Not since last PM.”
He frowns, looking down the tunnel again.
The eight of us gather in a small bunch at the foot of the stairs. I can see the stars wink in and out of ash clouds in the sky far above. The expression of the woman painted on the wall of the stairwell seems to hide a secret.
I can't keep my head from turning frequently, looking behind us, hoping to see Ryanne appear. I notice that Jate and some of the others are acting the same way.
Then there’s a shout from above.
“That’s the all clear,” Jate says. He motions for us to mount the stairs.
I want to pull my gun out, but no one else does, so I refrain. My stomach is in knots, my breath coming shallow around it. My newly released arm throbs in time with the pounding of my heart.
I’m distracted enough by my own fears that I hardly notice the cool wind of topside tugging at the hood pulled up over my head.
Jate leads us from Dupont Shelter and across the circle above. We stride rapidly, headed for the safety of the buildings across the way. But then I see something that slows my steps. At the base of the crumbling fountain in the middle of the circle is a dark form huddled against the rock. It moves, and I walk toward it.
“Caelin, what are you—?” Now Jate has seen it too. He comes back, approaching with the rest of the team.
As I get closer, I can see that the figure is a person, chained by the wrists to the base of the fountain. My sight adjusts to the dim light of PM. I make out dark puffs of hair, skin that contrasts sharply with a creamy tank top and shorts, a build similar to my own. A freezing tingle washes through me from head to foot. It’s Ryanne.
She seems dazed, head lolling onto her chest. Her skin is dry and cracked, oozing blood in several places. Her body slumps against its bonds, as if she hasn’t the strength to keep herself upright. There’s a ragged wound in her chest above her heart where the implant used to be.
As soon as I realize what I’m looking at, I turn sharply and grab Mardy by the shoulders.
“Is that—?”
“Don't look!” I push her back, but she resists me. I watch horror fill her expression as her innocence is stripped away in a moment.
There are exclamations, grunts of surprise, gasps around me as the rest of the team realizes what we’re looking at. Jate falls to his knees beside Ryanne and tries to yank the chains off her. She doesn’t react.
Men and women in yellow armor emerge from the side streets, pulling back into the center. Their heads swivel this way and that, weapons trained on the streets beyond the circle, daring an enemy to attack.
A soldier walks casually around to us from the other side of the fountain. It’s Lucio. His expression behind the face mask is benign, unsurprised.
Jate glares up at him. “What happened to her?”
“Gemma discovered a gap in the record of her whereabouts,” Lucio replies. “It happened right before your meeting with Gage. It seems we found the traitor.”
“So you left her out here all AM to die?” Jate surges to his feet. His fists clench and unclench at his sides, as though he’s barely restraining himself from attacking Lucio.
“She put each and every one of you in danger.” Lucio squats next to Ryanne, grabs her hair, and yanks it back. I notice that Sloan never cut Ryanne's hair. It flies around her in the familiar cloud of curls. But her face is hardly recognizable. It’s covered in cuts and festering sores. A trickle of blood runs from her nose and off her chin. Her closed eyes are swollen and puffy.
“The oaths are clear.” A sneer breaks through the calm expression on Lucio’s face. “I don’t tolerate treason among Impartialists.”
In one smooth movement, Lucio stands and pulls his centric out, firing at Ryanne.
“No!” Jate yells.
Nolan grabs him and pulls him back. Ryanne's body jerks and yanks against the chains that strap her wrists to the fountain. The scene feels surreal in the wake of the gun’s silence. Her head bounces up and down on her neck. She doesn't even scream as the metal goes through her. The force leaves her hanging back away from the statue, hands still locked to it as though begging for mercy that didn’t come.
A ragged sob escapes my lips. I turn away sharply. Mardy's arm goes around me, and we cling to each other.
“Sloan will be your new second,” Lucio snaps. He glares around at us. “Well? What are you waiting for? We have a schedule to keep!”
I feel as though I may never breathe again, but Jate shakes off Nolan and barks an order. “You heard him! Mov
e out!” His voice is ragged with emotion. I can only imagine what must be going through his mind right now. Has Jate ever witnessed this punishment before?
Jate slaps his gloved hands together with a sharp crack, making the rest of the team jump. He starts jogging the rest of the way across the circle.
Mardy pushes me. “We have to go!” she hisses in my ear. “We can't disobey, especially not now.”
I feel hollow, but I realize she’s right. I made a vow to the Impartialists. I allowed them to inject me with that machine that tracks me everywhere I go. I’m trapped. There’s nowhere to run now, no way to go back on the promises I made. I suddenly understand why Jate tried so hard to get me to leave Dupont, why he was angry when I took the vows.
Lucio is not the man I thought he was. This betrayal sends cold shivers through me as I stumble out of the circle. Will Mardy and I end up just like Ryanne?
CHAPTER 24
Our race through the city passes by in a blur. I stumble frequently, and Mardy has to catch me. I’m not the only one who struggles to keep up with Jate’s swift pace. Keldon limps roughly behind, sometimes as much as a full block.
But no one calls for Jate to slow down. He’s running away—running from Ryanne’s death, from Lucio’s threats.
We weave in and out of streets, moving generally east with no attempt at concealment. Scavs stay out of our way—no one wants to mess with a gang moving purposefully through the city.
Tears blur my vision, fogging up the mask of the radiation suit. I can't get the image of Ryanne out of my mind—her swollen eyes closed, her perfect skin ripped and torn, that last moment when the bullet hit her body and left it grotesquely twisted.
I don’t know if the others are affected as deeply by Ryanne’s death as I am. Have they witnessed Lucio’s executions before? I’m glad for the hoods and the dark that hide their expressions. If they find this execution normal, I don't want to know it. That way, I can imagine they’re all as horror-stricken as I am.
I'm too distraught to follow our route through the city in my head. I feel lost. If it weren’t for the other team members egging me on, I’d be wandering the streets aimlessly. Every building looks the same in the shadowed PM—all crumbled and staring down at me with hollow eyes that match my insides.
With surprise, I suddenly realize that we’ve come to a stop outside the destroyed east entrance to the Undercity.
“Stay here,” Mardy says. “We have to make the opening bigger before everyone can get through.” It’s strange that she’s taking care of me now.
I hunch against the side of a building and watch the others scrabbling at the debris. Once the Coalition had the Undercity ready for habitation, they collapsed these outer entrances. It was easier to guard just one access, the old Metro Center. That’s where Lucio’s troops will engage the Coalition soldiers, distract them from watching the other entrances.
Mardy motions to me once they have an opening wide enough, and I take a deep breath. I push myself up with my left arm before I remember what Gemma said about being careful. Her anger makes sense to me now. She must have known about Ryanne. But was she angry because of what Lucio did, or because of Ryanne’s betrayal?
Olan helps me over the debris of the entrance. His grip is strong and sure, his expression dispassionate. Once I’m inside, Jate’s flashlight illuminates a large room with long metal stairs on the far side going down into blackness.
Valencia starts to unzip her radiation suit.
“Not yet,” Deice barks. “We’re not deep enough.”
As soon as Keldon passes through, he scurries to a box at the side of the room and pushes a door open to get inside. There are windows behind a counter along one side of the box, and I see him pulling cables out of a dusty old computer.
“Let me know when you have a bead on whether our implants scrambled the monitor,” Jate says.
Keldon’s voice is muffled. “Will do.”
“What’s the quickest route to the Green Avenue?” Jate shines the flashlight at the map Deice holds, and they study it together.
Mardy has just gotten through the hole and come up next to me when a high-pitched whine pierces our ears.
“Look out!” Keldon yells. “Don’t let it scan you!”
A small floating disk zips up from the dark pit below. Mardy shouts and shoves me out of the way. I hit the wall on my left side. Pain shoots up into my shoulder. Mardy whips her gun out and fires. The shot goes wide. I push off from the wall and grab for my own centric, planting my feet as I’ve practiced and aiming just down and off center from where I expect the disk to go. As soon as it comes into my sights, I squeeze the trigger.
This time, the blast finds its mark, and the disk drops out of the air with a clunk onto the dusty tile.
I rub my sore arm.
“Looks like we don’t need Ryanne around anymore,” Ax says.
I scowl at him. I’m not a replacement for Ryanne.
“Sorry about shoving you into the wall.” Mardy touches my shoulder.
“I'm okay,” I reassure her.
“Keldon, talk to me!” Jate’s voice is tense. He and the others have their guns out, watching for movement from the dark beyond the flashlight’s tiny pool of light.
“I’ve almost got it,” Keldon yells back.
The atmosphere hangs heavy over us as we watch for more droids to appear. What will we do if we lose the element of surprise? Jate said everything depended on it.
Finally, Keldon says, “Got it. Okay. Looks like that was a lone wolf parked out here eleven years ago when they first set up the system. It’s not wired into the general mainframe, so I think we’re good to proceed.”
“Are you sure?” Jate asks.
“Yeah. And I’ve got a feed on the monitors, too. The implants worked. Nothing but static transmitting right now. That’s not so unusual for these old things.”
“All the same, I’ll feel better when we get beyond this entrance. Deice?”
Deice points at the map. “We go down one level, then over to a station before going back up again.”
“Let’s move out!”
Jate leads the way down the metal stairs, and Deice takes up the rear. Keldon grabs his equipment and hobbles after us. Our boots make a ringing sound that echoes off the walls. I catch glimpses of pictures, advertisements, and tiles painted in fanciful patterns. The artwork isn’t nearly as dazzling as the paintings in Dupont, but it reminds me that people once walked through here in droves. Now it’s silent and abandoned.
“Won’t somebody hear us?” Nolan asks.
Deice scoffs. “Nobody lives this far out.”
We get off the stairs on a platform and follow the tunnels. They’re narrower here, the ceilings lower. At one point, we reach some concrete steps and go up. Jate’s flashlight seems feeble against the press of the silent darkness. The low light casts sinister shadows on everyone’s faces.
We come out onto a slab of concrete about three feet higher than the rest of the tunnel where there are metal tracks running into black shafts in both directions.
“I think we should camp out here,” Jate says. “Eat something, get some sleep. We have about five hours left of PM.” He pulls off his jacket and unzips his radiation suit. The rest of us follow his example. “We don’t have a way to wash the radiation off the outer clothing here, so we’ll just stash it in one of the restrooms. Change into your Undercity garb.”
“Can’t we wait until AM?” Valencia whines. “Those clothes make me feel ridiculous. Besides, I thought Deice said there’s nobody around here.”
“You never know.” Sloan sniffs. “And it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“We have to look like we belong,” Olan adds.
The air smells different here—not as stuffy as Dupont, but not as dry and open as topside. I can’t decide whether I like it.
I set my pack down beside an old metal machine and dig through it until I find the flimsy Undercity clothes Ryanne insisted I bring. Fingering
the slick cloth, I think about her until Mardy wakes me from my reverie.
“Caelin? There’s a restroom over here.”
She’s lit one of the candles from her pack and leads me around the corner and through a broken door. The restroom reminds me of the one in Lincoln Shelter except there is no running water. We’ll all carry canisters of water in our packs until we get to the Undercity proper, where water is plentiful.
The clothes are embarrassingly thin, almost see-through, and there are slits along the arms that gap open when I move, exposing the skin underneath.
“They’re not going to bite you,” Sloan says as she notices my hesitation. She throws back her head and smooths her hands over her hips. The slinky dress she’s wearing slithers around her frame with her movements. “It feels so good to be going home again!”
Valencia gives me a look, and I shrug.
My own outfit consists of a baggy turquoise shirt that comes almost to my knees. Pants cling to my legs. I feel practically naked as I come out of the restroom and return to my pack.
There’s a low whistle of appreciation. I spin around to find Deice staring at me. My face heats to about a thousand degrees. But attacking Deice would not be a good idea. I turn back around and ignore him.
The men’s clothes cover them better, with shiny shirts and tailored jackets over form-fitting pants. It seems the women are destined to freeze down here while the men remain comfortable. The Undercity clothes are bright and colorful, a strong contrast to the faded colors most scavs wear topside.
I get out one of the meals I packed and bite into a baked potato, going through the motions of eating even though I’m not hungry. Mardy eats beside Keldon, and they exchange some of the food they brought. Her laugh sounds hollow in this place. I wonder if I’ll ever laugh again.
By the time I finish eating, I’m shivering. It’s not as cold here as topside, but I can’t use my warm jacket to ward off the chill because of its exposure to radiation. I get up and wander to the far side of the platform, wishing someone had told me to bring a blanket.
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