Renegade

by J. A. Souders

  That reminds me of the wound on my shoulder. I glance over and see more blood has seeped through the still sopping-wet bandage.

  I wish I could shower the blood off again and change the bandage, but there isn’t time. Unsure what to do, I bite my lip. If I leave the wet bandage, the wound could get infected. If I take the time to change it, we could miss our chance to get to the trains and to the other side undetected.

  Gavin walks back in with my bag slung over his shoulder. His face is hard, and I wonder if this is what he looks like when he’s hunting. It’s sexy and scary at the same time.

  His gaze follows mine and lands on the bandage, before flickering away and resting just a few inches above my head. That’s when I remember, again, I’m not wearing any clothes. I cross an arm over my chest.

  “We’ll fix it when we get to this other Sector. We have plenty of bandages. But we should hurry,” he says.

  I nod. Of course that’s what we should do. I knew that. So I toss on the new dress, hissing at the soreness and tightness of my shoulder, before following him out of the apartment to the wall-door that will get us back to the Square and eventually to the Tube station. It surprises me no one is guarding the Sector, but then, the Enforcer was quite certain I wasn’t there. And it had been several hours. If there was anyone waiting, they probably were removed—or got bored and left. The Guards can have an annoyingly short memory if there’s no one around to supervise them.

  “Evie, wait.” Gavin places a hand on my shoulder, stopping me from bolting out the opening. “If Mother was able to see that you fixed Macie’s coupling thing, wouldn’t she have just removed us from the computer again?”

  I give him a thin smile. “No. I made it ‘read-only.’”

  He stares at me for a minute, before he barks out a laugh. “That had to burn her ass. We’d better hurry anyway.”

  We hurry through the opening, and I run to the left only to be stopped again by Gavin who frowns at me.

  “The Tube’s this way, right?” He points to the right.

  I stare that way for a few seconds, blinking.

  “Yes. Of course. Sorry, got turned around.”

  He continues to watch me for a second, then shrugs and we dive back into the crowd, ducking our heads and hoping no one will notice us. Thankfully my dress strap covers the bloody bandage.

  But it seems we have nothing to worry about. Everyone is too busy talking about the murders in hushed tones. They don’t even look at anyone. It’s as if they’re afraid they’ll find us and don’t really want to.

  We follow the crowd making its way to the Residential Sector, then break off and follow the much smaller group heading to the Tube station, where we slip into an empty car of the train that’s heading to Sector Three.

  I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing about the leak in Sector Three. But then, I suppose it doesn’t matter either way. If Mother is watching through the cameras, she’ll react anyway, whether there are innocents around or not. The bloodstain on the floor of the Tube station is proof of that.

  We hold our breath until the doors slide closed and the train leaves the station with an automated announcement about holding on to the handrails set throughout the car. At first the tunnel is dark, but it lightens up when we leave Sector Two and head into the open water between Sectors Two and Three.

  The water glows with an orange color from the lava tubes. Gavin gets up and touches a hand to the glass of the windows.

  “Why is the water orange?”

  I sit on the floor and lean back against the wall, letting my eyes close. “Lava flows.”

  “Lava flows?”

  “It’s amazing, really, that such a deadly thing is the only reason we’re able to live down here. The geothermic energy it produces is used to heat the boiler, which in turn creates steam, which turns the turbines to create electricity and provide heat throughout the facility. We use the steam engines to power everything, from the lights to the Tube and everything in between. How Mother got this city to function like that … well. I guess it really wasn’t her. It was her father.”

  He’s quiet for a moment, then asks, “How does the train work when we’re underwater?”

  I open my eyes to look at him. “The train is in a tube, hence the name, which is made of reinforced glass. The tracks use magnetism to keep the train moving in the right direction.”

  “Magnets?” He whistles softly and turns back to watch the water out the window. Without warning, the train stops, sending him crashing into the wall on the other side of the car. I rush over to him and help him to a sitting position.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, looking for injuries.

  He rubs the side of his head. “Yeah. I think so. Ugh. What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I help him stand. Then a holograph flickers to life in the center of the car and Mother stands in front of us. Gavin immediately pushes me behind him. I know it’s useless—she’s not really there—but I let him try to protect me. I peer over his shoulder.

  Mother laughs. “Well, well, what is this? So the hunter is a protector, too? Very interesting.” She shakes her head and gives me a disappointed look. “I thought you were smarter than this, Evelyn. What a shame it has come to this. You know, I don’t have to wait. I can just press the button now, if I want to.” She focuses her attention back on Gavin. “It’s useless to protect her. You have nowhere to go.”

  “What are you talking about, Mother?” I make a show out of examining my nails. Inside, though, I’m getting nervous. What is she planning?

  Turns out I don’t have to wait long to find out.

  “Why don’t I just show you?” she says with a wide smile. The hologram shuts off and the doors open, revealing the tunnel.

  Gavin turns to frown at me. “What’s going on?” he asks as my veins turn to ice.

  I don’t need to hear the screams from the passengers in the cars up ahead to realize what’s happened.

  “She’s flooded the tube,” I manage to say before a wave of freezing water rushes into the car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Caution: For your safety, Sector Three is under quarantine until further notice. There is a possible biohazard situation due to leaks in labs and mechanical areas. Failure to follow instructions could result in injury or death.

  —SIGN LOCATED IN TUBE STATION, SECTOR TWO

  It takes no time at all for the freezing water to fill the car. The saltwater sears my eyes and the wound in my arm, but I bite the inside of my cheeks to prevent myself from screaming out. I need to get to the rebreathers. I know they’re around here somewhere. It’s not like I haven’t done countless emergency drills for just this occasion, but I can’t remember where they are.

  The cold water has made not only my limbs and body cold, but seems to have frozen my brain, too. I spin around in circles, little bubbles of air foaming around me as I look for anything that resembles storage. I refuse to even look at Gavin and see the panic and fear in his eyes. It won’t help me find the rebreathers, and will only remind me how hopeless things are.

  Finally I see it: a little door on the floor. I swim down and start tugging on the silver handle. Gavin quickly realizes what I’m doing and swims next to me to help me pry open the door. Finally the whole door pops off and he tosses it to the side, where it slowly drifts back to the floor.

  Inside are several rebreathers. They look like black vests, but there’s a tube that juts off to one side and has a mouthpiece attached to it. There’s a large red button on top of the mouthpiece.

  Lungs screaming, I grab one and shove the mouthpiece into Gavin’s mouth, pressing the red button. Instantly, I doubt myself. It was the red button, right? But what’s that gray one? Red and black spots form in front of my eyes and I can hardly see to grab my own rebreather.

  I have to breathe. Just one little breath. That’s all I need.

  As I open my mouth to do just that, something is pushed past my teeth. I taste rubber
and saltwater and only instinct prevents me from choking by shoving my tongue into the mouth piece when Gavin presses the purge button and a rush of saltwater tries pushing into my mouth, but when I inhale through my mouth, sweet, sweet oxygen pours into my lungs.

  I greedily gulp in air, gently kicking my legs to keep me buoyant. When the spots recede, I see Gavin is watching me. He gives me a questioning look and a thumbs-up. I return it and he hugs me, his strong arms pinning me to his chest.

  That’s when I remember the other people in the other cars. I yank on his arm and swim down the tube outside the train as fast as I can. My arm screams with the movement, but I don’t stop. If those Citizens didn’t get to the rebreathers, we may still have enough time to help them. With a mixture of relief and horror, I see there is only one car with people in it, and even then it’s only a handful. Unfortunately, none of them got to the rebreathers in time. They’re all just floating at the top of the train, their eyes glassy with death, the rebreathers floating next to them.

  I share a horrified look with Gavin. How could she do that? How could she just kill people without a thought? These people had done nothing except get on the wrong train at the wrong time.

  Gavin pulls me out of the car toward the end of the tube. I’m relieved for his help. My arm protests each time I try to use it to swim. When we get to it, the huge metal doors are locked tight. I don’t know how to open them.

  I signal for Gavin to look for some sort of release on the left side, while I swim to the right, but it doesn’t really matter, I don’t know how Mother flooded the tunnels. Water could still be pouring in. And if it is, what happens if we do open the doors? Will we flood the Sector, killing more innocent people? And if we can’t open the doors, what happens? The rebreathers won’t last forever.

  After a few minutes of swimming up the side of the main door, my fingers find some kind of lever. It shows a picture of a filled tube on the top of the lever and an empty tube if I pull the lever down. I yank the lever. And even though fire erupts in my shoulder, the lever doesn’t budge. Not so much as a millimeter. Then I notice the scanner on the side of the lever. Hoping Mother hasn’t gotten past the new security I placed in her computer and I’m still in the system, I place my hand on it. The pad blinks red as it scans my palm, then green.

  I try pulling the lever again and this time it slides easily. The water slowly drains until I’m no longer able to swim and am standing on the tracks next to Gavin.

  He pulls the mouthpiece out. “What’s going on?”

  “I think we’re waiting for the tube to drain completely. Then the doors should open.”

  As if to prove me right, the doors stutter open with the sound of grinding gears and clinking metal. Using the tracks as leverage, we climb up the slight embankment toward Sector Three’s Tube station.

  When we get to the station, I collapse onto the platform. No one is around. Probably already in their new quarters, ushered there by Guards and Enforcers. My eyes and arm are on fire. I just want to curl into a ball until the pain goes away, but Gavin has other ideas.

  “We should refill the tunnel,” he says, staring into it as if expecting monsters to crawl out at any moment.

  Then again, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was something crawling through the tube. When Mother figures out we escaped without dying, she’ll send people to finish the job.

  “Right. Mother won’t be too happy when she realizes we outsmarted her, which won’t take long. So, this will at least buy us a little time.” Though I’m pretty sure she already knows we’re out of the tube anyway. Something doesn’t feel right about how easy this has been, but we don’t have any choice but to keep going. We’ll just have to deal with whatever Mother’s planning when we get to it.

  He holds out a hand to help me up and at first I reach for it. But then a wave of anger pours over me and I yank my hand away.

  “Don’t touch me,” I say with clenched teeth.

  He raises his eyebrows and slowly withdraws his hand. “Sorry,” he mumbles, hurt and anger pooling in his eyes.

  I close mine as the anger fades. Where in the world did that come from? “No,” I say, holding out my hand to him. “I’m sorry. I … I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It’s okay. We’re both under a lot of stress.” There’s something in his eyes when he says it, but he helps me up and into the booth, where I study the control panel.

  Since I know what I’m looking for this time, it doesn’t take long. I press my hand to the glass plate and wait for it to do its thing. Then press the lever up. The doors close with a clang, and then there’s a silence that’s almost as deafening.

  Exhausted from the pain and everything else, I lower myself back to the ground and Gavin kneels next to me. “You okay?” he asks.

  “Yes. There’s a manual lock on the doors. It’s a red switch. It’s there in case of a Surface Dweller attack.” I laugh at the irony. “Just press the button. It’ll ensure Mother can’t send anyone through the tunnels.”

  When I hear him step away, I glance at my shoulder. For some reason, it hurts even worse when I see the blood soaking the bandage. Turning my head away, I close my eyes again.

  Gavin returns and kneels next to me.

  I keep my eyes closed. “I don’t think we need to clean the wound now.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks. I can hear the frown in his voice.

  “The saltwater,” I say.

  “Oh, shit!”

  He yanks off my rebreather, pushes the dress strap down my shoulder, then slowly removes the soaked bandages. Even though he’s being gentle, I wince and have to bite back a scream.

  He grabs the antiseptic bottle from the first-aid kit on the wall, then pours it over the wound. This time I can’t hold the scream back. I look over to make sure I still have a shoulder—it feels like the lava flowing over it dissolved it. The wound bubbles with pinkish-white froth.

  Gavin watches the wound and pours more antiseptic over it when the froth turns dark red.

  “Why is it still bleeding?” he mutters. “It should have stopped by now. It’s been almost twelve hours.”

  “Well,” I say with a forced smile, “it’s not like we’ve given it time to heal.”

  After what feels like forever, but is probably only a few minutes, the pain ebbs until it’s only a dull ache.

  He studies the wound carefully before rebandaging it. “You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Let’s get going. I want to get the hell out of this living nightmare.”

  He helps me to my feet and I bristle, nearly snapping at him that at least it’s better than the Surface, but I swallow the words and the irrational anger.

  Knowing it doesn’t matter what we do to hide from this point forward, since we’re soaking wet and they’ll find us by our trail, we stay in the open and make our way through Sector Three’s vestibule. This Sector has several floors and there are several stories above and below us, so there is no view of the ocean in the ceiling. We have to settle for floor-to-ceiling windows.

  But something is wrong. Everything is deserted. We should have run into somebody. Even with the leak and even if everyone was evacuated, there should still be Enforcers and Guards to make sure no one comes back here until the leak is fixed. And what happened to the workers fixing the leak?

  We turn the corner that will take us to the elevators. And stop in our tracks.

  Littering the ground are bodies. Women, men, children. About fifteen or so.

  Slowly walking forward, I examine each body we pass. There’s a bullet hole dead center in each of their foreheads. Each and every one.

  A memory flashes in my head: Me, aiming a gun. Pulling the trigger.

  “Enforcers,” I whisper.

  “What? How can you tell?” Gavin asks, kneeling beside a woman who’s holding a child to her chest. Her eyes are open and staring. He closes them before gently touching the downy hair of the toddler.

  It breaks my heart
to watch him. How careful he is with them. And they aren’t even his people. It was their own people who did this to them. It’s obvious now Mother was wrong about Surface Dwellers.

  “One shot to the forehead. This is an assassination. They were ordered to kill and do it quickly.”

  It was quick. For that much, at least, I can be grateful. Most of them probably had no idea what was going on. No time for fear or pain.

  We continue walking through the pile. Gavin insists, in case there are any survivors. It doesn’t take long to figure out there aren’t any.

  Suddenly, there’s laughter from my left, and I whirl around to see the holograph of Mother standing there. I didn’t even know Sector Three had holographic capabilities. I do a quick scan for the cameras and holograph projection unit and sigh when I see the shine of lenses in the upper right corner.

  There it is.

  Mother claps her hands in that slow way people do when they’re mocking you. One side of her mouth is twisted into a smile. It makes me shiver.

  “Smart girl. Getting out of that tube alive. Not that I had any doubt you would.” She spreads her hands out. “Like your welcome gift, honey?” she says, with a little tinkling laugh that makes me want to shudder.

  “What do you want, Mother?” I ask. I make sure my voice doesn’t reflect any of the outrage, guilt, or disgust I’m feeling. I keep it as emotionless as ice.

  “Long life, beauty, power. A daughter that listens to me. You know. The basics,” she says.

  Gavin snorts, but it’s filled with derision. Mother doesn’t even spare him a glance.

  I glare at her. “Well, it appears you’ve got three of the four. Isn’t that enough?”

  Mother lifts one of her shoulders. “In normal circumstances, I suppose. But I cannot let you leave with the Surface Dweller.”