by Jenny Moyer
0 Hours. 21 Minutes.
Twenty-one minutes to finalize our plan.
Twenty-one minutes until we walk out of here and face King and his crew.
Twenty.
Nineteen.
“You’re staring at the clock again, Rye,” Dram says.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “Tell me again about the hovers.”
“Our best bet is to stay close,” he says. “Wait for a hover to come for the flash dust deposit. Otherwise, we go after the ones lowering cages into the cordon. The cages are electrified, but not the hover’s tow cable. If we can reach the cable without touching the cage, it might be a way out.”
“Assuming we can ride it across the barrier to Cordon One.”
“Yes.”
“And assuming our electric collars only work at ground level.”
“Yes.”
“And assuming the dusters don’t get us first.”
Dram narrows his eyes.
“See? I was listening.” My eyes dart to the clock. “Seventeen minutes.”
He sighs and looks over at Reeves. We’ve lost him to whatever world he inhabits in his mind—the dark memories of tunnel four that draw him deep, even now.
“Do you want to shower, Reeves?” I ask. He’s still wearing someone else’s dried blood. It’s the same color as his Radband.
He just looks at me. I wonder if the radiation is starting to take his mind.
“At least eat.” I tear open a nutri-pac and wrap his fingers around it. He stares down at the orange foil.
“Len skipped meals for me,” he says, so quiet I almost miss the words.
My eyes meet Dram’s.
“She never told me,” Reeves whispers, staring at the packet, “but I knew it was her. All those years.”
The timer over the door clicks. Fifteen minutes.
“She’s the only reason I came for that bell. I thought if I could…” He rakes a hand through his snarled hair. It comes away in clumps. “She made me want to—” His voice chokes off. He opens his hand, and the blond strands slip through his fingers.
I look at Dram. He’s staring at the timer. Thirteen minutes. He turns and grasps Reeves’s arm. “We’re getting out of this cordon. We’re getting free of all this.”
Twelve minutes.
“Dram,” I say. He nods.
We stand and check each other’s suits, like we’re going down the tunnels instead of into a battle with a maniac Conjuror. We’ve made a few adjustments to the suits Congress issued us. The buckles came in handy, after all. They make great places to store all our new knives and blades.
I meet Dram’s eyes as he examines the long piece on the inside of my forearm.
“I hope you don’t get close enough to use this,” he says.
I hope I do. Somewhere between the shock and shower of the first day, and the remaining hours of planning, stripping Sanctuary of anything useful, and carving shivs from pieces of cirium, my fear of King hardened into rage.
I’m eager to see how well he conjures with my jagged pieces of cirium sticking out of his body.
Two minutes.
“Remember our deal,” Dram says. His lips lift on one side.
“Step in my steps,” I murmur.
“This time, ore scout, I’m going to be right at your side.”
Our collars chime, and the bolt slides free.
0 Hours. 0 Minutes.
I grasp my knives and lunge through the door.
* * *
I stumble straight into the cage and nearly touch the bars in my confusion.
“Reeves, come on!” Dram shouts. He’s apparently less disconcerted that we walked from Sanctuary directly into our cell.
Reeves’s collar emits a chime, and he stares at us from the doorway of Sanctuary.
“You can’t stay there,” Dram says. “Time’s up. Your collar’s going to—”
Reeves jolts forward, his body a riot of twisted limbs.
“Reeves!” I grasp one of his arms and Dram the other, and we haul him into our cage. He stops kicking, but his muscles spasm as the door clicks shut.
Our cage skims above the ground, the metal arm guiding us closer to the curtain. I feel like the glassblower’s pipe being moved toward the furnace. “How do we make it stop?”
Dram crawls to the edge of the cage and studies the other cells. “We mine. When it stops, we sift as much flash dust as we can and put it in that deposit.” He points to a cylinder attached to the cage bars.
Our cage drops suddenly and the door opens.
The sands are hot on my feet, even through my boots. Everything burns this close to the curtain. Sulfur clouds suffocate the air in other cordons, but they’re a barrier against the curtain. Out here, there is nothing to absorb its intensity.
My hands blister beneath my gloves. Someone should tell the Congress their newest suits need improvement. I try not to focus on the fact that they didn’t provide us with sifters—as if successful mining isn’t really the goal here. Maybe they are observing us, even now. Perhaps a tech is watching me on my knees beside Dram, lifting the sands, again and again, for every particle of dust.
Our collars chime.
I grip my pouch and lurch into our cage, a step behind Dram. We run for the cylinder, and he pours his flash dust in.
“Help me pour mine!” My hands hurt so badly I can barely get the pouch open. The deposit box glows red.
“No!” Dram punches the box.
Our collars chime, and the door seals shut. The cage jolts forward.
“We didn’t get enough,” I murmur. The winds blow my hair from my face. It feels like the start of a flash storm. “We’re going too close to the curtain!”
Dram whirls toward Reeves, where he sits in a corner of the cage. “Snap out of it!” He grasps him by the front of his suit. “I loved Len, too. She’s dead. And I’m sorry you’re sick. It’s not fair. None of this is fair!”
A scream rends the air—the woman from the cage on the arm beside us. She’s a few cage lengths ahead, but her cries carry like we’re standing beside her. I clasp my hands over my ears, but the sounds reverberate through me.
Silence descends, and her cage moves backward. Empty. It passes slowly enough that I catch the glowing indicator on the deposit box. Green. A full deposit.
The Congress gets its flash dust one way or another.
I fall to my knees and heave, gasping for breath.
“Reeves.” Dram’s tone holds a warning. “We have one more chance here.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Reeves says.
Dram shakes him. “My life matters. Her life matters.” He knocks him across the jaw. “Fight! We are going to be dust in this cage if you don’t stand up and help us!”
Our cage clicks to a stop, and the door slides open. I crawl out on my hands and knees. My legs shake too hard to support me, but it doesn’t matter. The closer I am to the ground, the faster I can sift the sand. At least there’s more here, this close to the curtain. It’s possible we’ll mine enough.
It’s possible.
Particle dust stings my throat, and I reach for a neck cloth that isn’t there. The curtain is starting to sing its song inside my head again.
Reeves attacks the sand like a demon, throwing his bare hands into the cordon as if it’s not searing his skin. He shouts, crying out from pain that I think is only partly from the sand.
My collar chimes, a soft warning.
“We’re out of time.” I pull myself into the cage and run to the deposit, sifting every last particle of dust into the box.
Red light.
Dram guides his in with shaking hands and stares at the light. It doesn’t change.
Our collars chime, and the cage door begins to close. Sand streams from Reeves as he vaults inside and throws himself in front of the deposit. Blood trickles from his ears and nose, but his hands hold steady as he lifts his fistfuls of dust.
The box chimes just as the cage door latches shut.
Green
light.
I collapse on the floor, telling myself to breathe, but my lungs aren’t cooperating. I gasp like I’m at the bottom of nine without a tank.
The metal arm tows our cage backward over the cordon, until we hang suspended in the place we started from. Along the way, we see three more empty cages with green deposit lights.
The full horror of this place settles in. For the first time, I begin to feel some sympathy for the dusters. If not for Dram and Reeves, I would have been an empty cage with a green light.
Or, a darker place inside me admits, I’d have agreed to King’s terms.
We take turns sleeping, so that one of us always has eyes glued on the cage door. The minute it opens, we’re going to put our escape plan into action.
And do our best to avoid King’s crew.
* * *
“Dram. Orion.” Reeves stands. “It’s time.”
With my heart pounding, I double-check the knife on the inside of my arm. The door opens, and we run toward Sanctuary. We’re going to climb onto the roof, so we’re on higher ground when they attack.
“Watch for hovers,” Dram says. “If one lowers a cable, we get on it.” We race past the other cages. No sign of King yet.
“Tell me how this saves us,” Reeves says. “When the hover heads through the curtain, we’re dust.”
He was sick though the night, but the guy can still outrun me. I count the cages to Sanctuary. Ten more. My eyes scan for a pack of half-mad dusters.
“When it raises the tow cable,” Dram answers, “we climb in through the bottom of the hover and stow away in the hold.”
Three more cages, two more, almost there.
A niggling doubt breaks through my focus.
Last cage.
Something’s wrong. If Sanctuary’s walls could be breached, everyone with a collar would be hammering their way inside. That means …
“The walls are electrified!” I shout.
Reeves connects with the cirium walls. His collar screeches above the sound of the energy blast as it rips through his body.
“Reeves!”
He lies still, a crumpled heap beside Sanctuary.
Dram rolls him over, even while we scan for movement. No way King and his crew haven’t seen us by now.
Reeves pulls in air like his body’s resisting it. My hands hover above him. What would Dad do?
“I have to tell you … the forfeit,” Reeves gasps. “They’re not all dead. I lied to Cranny to protect them.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“We found a way out of four.”
“Where are they?” I try to wrap my mind around the fact that Subpars could have left Outpost Five.
“Cordon Five.”
“It’s a closed cordon, nothing lives there.”
“Exactly.” And then I realize what he’s telling me. They escaped through the prison tunnel where Cranny assumed they’d die.
“We can’t stay here,” Dram says. We haul Reeves to his feet, but his legs won’t hold him. Dram props him up beside the wall of the incinerator.
“Well, this will be convenient for them,” Reeves mutters.
“Fire,” Dram curses, dragging a hand through his hair.
“We need to get inside again,” I say. “We could break through the ceiling, climb our way up.”
Dram nods. “Then we wait here. First one to attack us will be our ticket in.”
“And if they all attack at once?” Reeves asks.
Neither of us answers.
“I’ll watch the north and east sides,” Dram says. “Rye, you keep an eye out south and west.”
I turn my blade in my hand and stare toward the opening cages.
“When the other forfeit walked free, why didn’t you go with them?” I glance at Reeves. “Why did you stay in four?”
“If you were forfeit,” he whispers, “and Dram was on the other side of the bars, risking his life for you—wouldn’t you stay?”
I open my mouth, but I have no words.
Reeves smiles in a way that reminds me of the boy he once was. “I don’t think I’m the only one of us who’s loved like that.”
He pulls himself to the ledge of the incinerator.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m dead already. Let it count for something.”
“No!”
He pulls Foss’s memorial pendant from around his neck. “Dram, take this. I need you to help me keep a promise.” He struggles to drag in breath. Blood seeps from his mouth and nose.
Dram grips the black glass.
“When you bury that in free soil,” Reeves says, “you’re doing it for me and Len, too.”
Tears fill Dram’s eyes. He nods.
“I’m glad I stayed in four,” Reeves says, his eyes finding mine. “Glad I heard that bell.” He grasps Lenore’s gold glass and tips his body over the edge.
A wailing cry pierces the air. Dram catches me against his chest, and I realize the sound is coming from me. Smoke plumes from the incinerator, and the flash dust depository emits a soft chime. Dram holds me tighter, like he can pull me into himself—as if we’re clinging to each other at the top of the air cave. It’s so hard to breathe, and it hurts. It hurts too much.
But there’s no help coming this time. We’re on our own, and we have only this one chance Reeves has given us.
“He is free,” I choke.
Dram knots his fist around the black glass. “Not yet.”
We stare at the numbers scrolling above the red door. Dram’s got his longest blade held at the ready. I’m holding my steel-lined boot like a club. We don’t have to look to know that King’s crew has almost reached us. Their snarls rend the air like wild beasts.
“You’re mine, Subpars!” King shouts.
24 Hours. 0 Minutes.
The bolt clicks, and the door opens.
“Get inside!” Dram shoves me toward the door.
No way I’m leaving Dram to face them alone, so I wedge my other boot in the door. An alarm beeps as it tries to slide shut against my boot.
King grabs me. I whirl and slam my boot into the side of his head. He staggers back.
Bone Guy lunges for Dram, and I swing at his face. The open buckles rake across him and he roars. He turns on me.
“Marker!” I shout.
Dram slams his knife into my attacker’s back, and it pushes out through the man’s chest, impaling him like a flash bat. Two more convicts are on him before he can pull his blade free.
“Get into Sanctuary!” he shouts.
The door alarm beeps, and over its persistent chirp, I hear a new sound—the approach of a hover.
I look up. The distraction costs me.
King slams me to the ground and jams his knee into my stomach. “Let’s carve up the rest of your pretty face.” He leans over me, knife flashing.
I lunge up and wrap my arms around his neck, dragging him toward me, his head pinned to my chest. He struggles, and I wrap my legs around him, holding him immobilized.
“DRAM!”
Beside me, Dram grunts and there’s a shuffling of feet. A man snarls; another gasps. King’s knife shifts, the metal warms, and I know he’s using his conjuring ability. The metal shoots up between us and clamps around my neck, pinning me to the dirt like a shackle. My hold on him loosens.
“MARKER!” I scream as the metal tightens around my throat.
“Mark!” Dram rips King off and drives his blade into his chest. He pulls another blade from his boot and slams it into King’s arm. My metal shackle loosens, and I lurch toward Sanctuary.
“The door’s closing!” It’s finally forced my boot aside. I leap into the gap, wedging my body into the space. It feels like I’m holding up a cavern wall. “Hurry!”
Across the sands, the rest of the dusters see me and start running. I am the only thing barring their way to Sanctuary. “Shut the door!” Dram yells.
King slams his palms against Dram’s legs. The metal buckles on his boo
ts morph and encircle Dram’s legs like twin snakes.
I pull a blade and throw it spinning, end over end, toward the nearest duster. It sinks into the man’s chest.
Dram yanks King to his feet. “So you can conjure metal,” he mutters. “How are you with fire?” He thrusts King’s arm over the incinerator and slams his hand on the button.
King screams, and Dram dives through the door, which seals behind us.
“Hover,” he gasps. “We need to get to the roof!”
“Lift me!” I scramble onto the table. Above the crazed shouting outside, I hear the metallic whirring of a tow cable. Dram leaps up and hauls me onto his shoulders, maneuvering me toward a vent in the ceiling.
“On three,” he says. “One, two, three!” He thrusts me toward the ceiling, and I catch hold of the vent grate.
“Got it.” I tear it free, grateful for all the times I climbed the Range—for the strength to hold myself suspended and pull myself up. I slide into the space and brace myself. Dram and I have done this hundreds of times down the tunnels. I reach down for him, and he climbs up beside me.
Congress electrified the walls of Sanctuary, but not the roof. They never imagined anyone would try to escape the only safe place in Cordon Two. We push through the vent and flatten ourselves onto the roof. We have no way of knowing if anyone’s observing us—or if the hover pilot can see us.
“There,” Dram says. “It’s locked onto the flash dust deposit.”
A few moments later, the hover begins its ascent. The deposit is half the size of our cage. Sand streams from the metal as it lifts from the cordon.
It’s just close enough to reach—with a really good jump.
“We have to assume the deposit roof’s electrified,” Dram calls. “Jump for the cable.”
We stand and edge our way to the side. I study the distance, once more cursing my short legs. I am strong, but it’s a narrow, swaying target at least three meters from where I crouch.
Beneath us, the dusters yell. They’ve caught sight of us.
“Now, Rye!” Dram shouts.
I run for the edge and leap. The cable collides with my body, and I grasp it, my arms shaking. It sways as Dram catches hold beneath me.
“Hold on!” he calls.
The ground below drops away as the hover lifts. We sway with the cable, the flash dust collection sweeping above the ground like a pendulum.