Forced detox? “Seriously?” Omar thought about it. He was hungry, but it was all in his stomach. He didn’t feel that ache for brown sugar. “Why don’t they do that in the Highlands?”
Mason shrugged. “Forced detox isn’t very fun, I suppose? You’re lucky you were in a coma for it. Now, listen. I need you to try and stay here as long as you can.”
“Why?” If Omar had been in bed for two months, he probably needed to learn to walk again.
“Remember Lonn’s escape plan?” Mason asked.
“Yeah. The turnstile thing.”
“Well, it didn’t work. Two rebels are in the RC. And not only that, but they’ve reapplied SimTags to all Lowlanders. In the back of the neck, right along the spine and deep enough that I wouldn’t even try to cut one out of anyone.”
“Walls.” No more walking around off grid. No more Owl.
“Yeah, walls. Anyway, the good news is, because you’ve been here, you haven’t gotten the new tag yet. They gave them to us at the car wash.”
“Okay . . .” His brother was working up to something, Omar could tell by his agitated tone.
“You remember my special project? Your idea.”
“The balloon? You got it to work?”
“Just about. Mom says there’s a little sewing left. I’ve made friends with Medic Cadell, and he says that when you’re ready, he’ll help you leave at the right time.”
“At night.”
“Yeah. So, no hurry or anything, but with the new neck tags, there isn’t anyone else who can go over. You’re it. Everything depends on you. So, I know you wanted to die, but we need you to live a little longer. Think of all the people stuck in the Lowlands. Think of Shaylinn and your future kids stuck underground somewhere. Get better, Omar, and help us.”
“Yeah.” For Shay. For his kids. “Okay, brother. I’ll do it.”
Four days later, Mason was ready. And so was Omar. Medic Cadell came to his room after dark that night, moved Omar to a chair under the room’s security camera, and cut out the SimTag in his hand.
“I guess this officially makes me a rebel now,” the medic said, applying a bandage to the small cut. He wrapped Omar’s SimTag in a cotton ball and used some medical tape to stick it on the backside of the chair. “I brought a set of clothes for you. They’re on the chair by the door. Change into them and I’ll take you out.”
Omar changed into a black shirt, black pants, and black shoes, then came back out into the main room. “Won’t I look suspicious dressed like this?”
“Oh, right. There’s the coat.” He pointed at a brown coat hanging on a hook beside the door. “There’s a pair of leather gloves in the pocket. You’ll need those.”
Omar put on the coat, and Medic Cadell walked him down to the front entrance of the building that let out into the tram station.
“So where am I going?”
“To the bottom level of sector one, though I don’t recommend you take the tram. At this hour, it would be only you on it, and if an enforcer should try to ID you and find no reading, he might ask questions. Take Circle Drive. It’s about seven blocks to Sigland Street. Your mother lives in the Borderland Building. You should be able to tap her through the gate outside. She lives in apartment 212. That’s all I know.”
“Thank you.” Omar held out his hand to the medic, who grasped it tightly.
“You just come back for the rest of us, you hear?”
“I’ll do everything I can. I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Omar headed down the street at a brisk pace. It felt good to walk again. His legs were stiff and his muscles sore from so many days in bed. It was freezing outside. His breath puffed out before him, and soon his cheeks and ears were hurting from the cold. He wondered if there was snow aboveground.
He’d never walked in this part of Cibelo. Sector one was a lot cleaner than sector six. He didn’t see any strikers’ residences, either. Maybe they didn’t have strikers in sector one.
He spotted Sigland Street up ahead on his left. Halfway down the street, he came to the Borderland Building. He punched the numbers 2, 1, 2 into the gate.
“Hello?”
“It’s Omar.”
“We’ll be right out.”
A few minutes later his mother exited the gate, followed by Lonn, Mason, and some old guy who walked funny. Mason was carrying a thick blanket under one arm. Lonn was wearing a backpack that hung low on his back.
His mother kissed him. “You look well. How are you feeling?”
“Good. Where are we going?” Omar asked.
“Sector three,” Mason said. “Steel factory.”
“Steel?” What was Mason talking about?
“It will be better to walk to sector three underground. There’s more people for us to blend in with,” Mason said.
And so they walked through Cibelo, and Omar’s stomach growled at the smell of food as they passed various restaurants and clubs.
At the sector three tram station, they took the escalator up to the surface. An icy wind clapped around him as they stepped outside into the dark night. A soft layer of fresh snow blanketed everything, though it wasn’t snowing now.
He supposed he had been out for two months. “Is it December?”
“Yes, the twentieth,” Mason said.
Months of his life gone, given to too much brown sugar. Well, never again. It was time to make things right.
He followed Mason and Lonn. Their steps left shallow footprints in the fresh show. Omar squinted into the distance and could just see the red lights that edged the Lowland-Midland wall. “Shouldn’t we launch closer to the middle wall?”
“Nope,” Mason said. “We need the steel factory. Plus the wind will help us tonight.”
Omar didn’t know what the wind had to do with anything. They walked down a narrow street that cut between a row of buildings that Mother said were where they wove fabrics. Apparently Grandma Sarah tasked in one of them. At the end of the street they turned, walked another two blocks, then turned again, approaching a big building with multiple chimneys on the top that were pouring white smoke into the dark sky.
They passed under a streetlamp, and Omar caught sight of a yellow camera on the front of the building. “Aren’t they going to see us?” Omar asked.
“They might,” Mason said. “But we hope they won’t pay too close attention since it’s before curfew and we’re just walking. And there are no cameras in the back alley, believe it or not. That’s why I chose this building. That and the chimneys.”
Again Omar wanted to ask why they needed a chimney, but Lonn said, “Quiet now,” and Omar said no more.
Mason led them around to the back of the building. There they turned into a narrow alley that separated this building from the back of the one behind it. The snow was deeper here where there was no reason to shovel a path. They trudged through it for about fifty yards until Mason stopped at a metal ladder that ran up the side of the wall.
“Up we go,” he said, then started to climb awkwardly with the blanket pinched under his arm.
Omar watched him, then looked to Lonn. “Is he kidding?”
“Shh.” Lonn motioned for Omar to go next, so Omar started climbing. He wished Mason would have bothered to clue him in on the plan. None of this made sense.
Once they were all on the roof, Lonn slipped off his pack and Mason unfurled the blanket, which Omar saw wasn’t a blanket at all, but an oblong shape.
The balloon. “Why’s it so big?”
“It has to be big enough to lift you,” Mason said.
“Are you sure it will work?” Omar asked.
“Mostly,” Mason said. “I did test it. And tonight the wind is blowing the right way.” He crouched and held out a harness for Omar. “Put this on. Legs in the smaller holes.”
Omar stepped into it, then took it from Mason and pulled it up his legs. It was orange. Looked to have been made of a striker’s jumpsuit.
Lonn, along with the old guy
who walked funny and their mother, spread the balloon out beside a smoking chimney. Mason tied a bunch of knots on Omar’s harness and held up a long rope. “This is for us to hold, to keep the balloon from going too high and to pull it back to us once you’re on the wall.” He hooked a coil of fine rope to the back of Omar’s belt. “This is for you to use to rappel down the wall into the Midlands. These two here . . .” He grabbed a wide strip of orange that was part of Omar’s harness and raised it until it was up near Omar’s eyes. “There’s one on each side of you. See the black X?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s where you’re going to have to cut it. On both sides.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Mason crouched back by the pack and pulled out a knife. “I got it from the diner. The knife goes here.” He slid it into a sheath on Omar’s leg. “When you are about to crest the wall, catch the railing if you can. Then cut yourself free. If you go too high, we’ll try and pull you back. But you’ll need to either take off the harness completely, or cut it. Whichever is easiest.”
“Easiest. Right.”
Mason removed a folded piece of paper from his pocket and held it out. “This is for Ciddah. Would you mind?”
“Not at all.” Omar took the paper, which was actually a card, and stuffed it into his pocket.
“Now put on the gloves,” Mason said. “You’re going to need them to rappel down the wall. The rope will burn your hands otherwise.”
Omar dug the leather gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on. Mason went to Lonn’s pack and dug out a coil of wire. He started to unfold it, like he’d already shaped it into something once, but it had gotten squished. “The wire will get hot, so try not to touch it. It shouldn’t be anywhere near you, really.” He carried his wire sculpture to the balloon and began attaching it to the narrow end, which tugged at Omar’s harness. Whatever he was doing slowly added a third dimension to the fabric, but it didn’t look like a balloon to Omar. It looked more like the floppy hat of a giant.
Mason picked up the base of the floppy hat. “Follow me, Omar.” He walked over to the chimney. “Sit now, close to the pipe, but don’t touch it. It’s hot and will burn you.
“Gee, really? I wouldn’t have guessed.” Omar sat cross-legged near the pipe, which warmed his right arm and cheek. Mason was holding the balloon behind Omar, opposite where the pipe was. “Why am I sitting here?”
“Because we need to fill the balloon with hot air, and it will help to have you out of the way. Lonn, Mother, Hobbles? Come and hold the ties.”
The old guy’s name was Hobbles?
The four of them each took hold of a different long strip of fabric, each evenly spaced around the sides of the balloon. The way they held it, spread out between them, Omar could actually see that there was indeed a balloon there. Mason’s wire had put a round shape in the narrow bottom of the balloon, making a stiff circle. Another piece of wire stuck up inside the balloon, holding the fabric up and away from the bottom hole.
“Okay, let’s move it over the chimney on the count of three,” Mason said. “One, two, three!”
They moved at once until the hole was over the smoke pipe. The chimney smoke started going up inside the balloon.
His brother was filling the thing with chimney smoke? Huh. Omar wasn’t at all convinced that it would work, but to his surprise, the fabric started to swell and take shape.
Mother giggled. “It’s working!”
“It’s huge,” Lonn said.
It was. As the balloon started to fill out, Omar could see that the thing was easily twenty feet wide at the center. And the fabric was white.
“They’re going to see that,” Omar said.
“They’re not going to be looking for it,” Mason said.
“But on the wall. The patrols will see it.”
“We’re just going to have to hope they don’t,” Mason said.
Omar wanted to argue, to say, “Really? That’s your plan?” But it would serve no purpose at this point.
The first tug took him by surprise. It wasn’t until then that he realized he didn’t really think Mason’s plan would work. But the force of that tug . . . He was really going to do this. Like it or not, the Owl was going to fly.
The balloon was huge now, a lightless moon over his head. It suddenly lifted Omar off the ground. Just a little bounce. He put down his hands to steady himself. “It picked me up.”
“Lonn, grab the tether,” Mason said.
Lonn left his post on the side of the balloon and studied the pile of rope. “Where’s the end? I don’t want to tangle this.”
Mason left his post as well and grabbed the coil. “It’s on the bottom. It should unwind as he rises. Just hold this end and don’t let go.”
Any second now and the Owl would take flight. “How much longer?”
“When you’re floating up the wall, you’ll know,” Mason said.
And then Omar rose off the ground. Another bounce, but this time he bounced again and didn’t land. He put down his feet and stood on the air.
Mason took hold of the tether rope and Omar’s waist and ran a few yards of it through his hands. “Mother, Hobbles, let go of the balloon. Let’s see what happens. I’ve got the tether, so he won’t go far.”
Mother and Hobbles let go. The balloon rose slowly until the cords attached to Omar’s harness pulled taut and his feet left the ground. His stomach flipped, and he grabbed the harness cords for lack of anything else to hold on to. But he stopped a few feet off the ground, held by Mason’s tether.
“Okay, I’m going to let go,” Mason said. “The wind should take you right up over the wall. We’re going to hold the tether and try and keep you low until you get there so you can unhook yourself. Once you’re off, we’ll pull the balloon back.”
“I’m ready,” Omar said.
A hand touched his leg, then foot. Mother. “I love you, son. I’ll be praying for you.”
“Thanks.” Omar wanted to say he loved her too, but he was trying to look brave and too many words would reveal the quaver in his voice.
Mason let go, and Omar rose up in the darkness, much slower than he’d imagined. The wall stood about ten stories high. The factory roof was two stories, so they’d gotten a head start. Omar was already about four stories up. He looked down and could see nothing at all, his companion’s faces obstructed by the darkness and distance that separated them. All around, sparse lights of the Lowlands were divided by acres of black fields. Maybe no one would see him.
He looked up, but all he could see was the balloon overhead. The queasiness left. He was flying. He was the Owl, and the Owl was coming back.
Back to save the people.
CHAPTER
22
Omar continued to rise, but in the darkness it was impossible to know how high he was. He decided to look for the red lights that were spaced along the top of the wall. Once he located them, he had his bearings. He wasn’t far from the top now, and he was really close. The balloon was actually taking him the right way. Mason was a genius.
A set of headlights swept past him as a patrol turned around at the northernmost corner of the wall. He watched the vehicle, surprised that the wall didn’t go all the way around. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but this was a problem. The wall that separated the Midlands from the Lowlands ran across the road too, so that patrols from the Highlands and Midlands couldn’t drive into the Lowlands and vice versa.
So how was he going to get over that?
He was headed to the side wall, but maybe if he let himself drift a little farther, he’d get over both, and when Mason started to pull him back, he could catch himself on that inner wall.
He didn’t see any other way.
He swung his legs and even tried swimming with his arms, but it didn’t seem to help his trajectory. So he waited and drifted higher until he sailed right over the side wall. Sure enough, he felt a tug on the tether rope. They were trying to pull him back, but the rope must have been s
agging, because he was well out over the forest before he stopped.
If only he knew how to make the thing sink a little.
He’d started to move back toward the wall again, from Mason and whoever’s pull. He needed to cut a hole in the balloon somehow. That should make him sink.
He dug the knife out of the sheath and pulled at the harness that was attached to the balloon. He stuck the knife in his teeth and pulled with both hands until the balloon’s opening was within arm’s reach. One of the safety holds from the side of the balloon slid past his face, and he grabbed it and let the harness go. The sudden rise of the balloon made him jerk to the side. Once he was steady, he pulled the safety hold, hand over hand until the side of the balloon was within arm’s reach.
He held tight with one hand, grabbed the knife with the other, and stabbed it into the side. He had to really push to get the knife to pierce the fabric, but when it did, he sawed down about a foot then released the safety hold.
Again his body jerked as the balloon rose up. He looked around. The balloon was still being pulled back, but it was falling too. And the inner roadway wall was coming at him. He was just slightly lower than it — and on the Midlands side too.
He struck the wall much harder than he’d expected. But then started to rise. No, stop! They were still pulling him. He had to cut himself free before they pulled him back to the Lowlands side, but he was a good twenty feet above the roadway. Too high to fall. He needed the balloon to let him down slowly.
Maybe he could cut the tether.
But then Mason would lose his balloon.
Omar getting to the rebels was more important than the balloon, right?
No time. He started sawing at the tether rope. Mason’s pulling lifted him to the top of the wall that crossed the roadway. He grabbed it with one arm, trying to hold himself there long enough to cut the tether.
Just a little bit more.
The tether pulled him to the very top of the wall. He scissored his legs over the top, one on either side and squeezed with his knees. He sawed frantically.
And the knife severed the rope.
The tether fell away. Overhead, the wind blew the balloon, pulling him with it. He found a way to keep his hold on the wall. He couldn’t afford to have it blow him over the side now.
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