“I’ll keep it quick,” Cass replies. Then she turns to me and lowers her voice. “It’s about David Aberley.”
“I figured as much. Tell me everything you know.”
“Better yet, I’ll show you.” She slides an object out of her back pocket. It’s a digital device as thin as a sheet of paper, with moving images on it.
“Where did you get that?” I ask, startled.
“I swiped it from one of the scientists when he wasn’t looking.”
I glance down the hall and see Liam. He’s looking at the video screens, pretending to be distracted. Pressing various buttons to get different views of the ice fields outside the station. He’s acting like he can’t hear Cass, but I’m pretty sure that he can.
“Your friend David is in real trouble,” Cass whispers.
I glance down at the digital image in Cass’s hands. At first I can barely make out what I’m seeing. It’s just a gray, distorted mass of moving pixels. And there’s no audio. Then I see a pale face emerge from the darkness.
David.
The breath catches in my chest. This is the first proof I’ve seen that he might be alive. I feel a surge of relief that makes my legs weak for a second. Since the moment that David and I arrived on the wheel together, our fates have taken such different paths.
I keep staring down at the moving image. Behind David, I see a mass of squirming metal tentacles. A feeler. David is racing away from it, running through the trees. The camera appears to be attached to his body somehow, filming his face and whatever is directly behind him.
“How is this possible?” I breathe, horrified by what I’m seeing. “When is this even from?”
The image breaks apart for a second, and then I see David’s face again. The feeler has pulled away, back into the sky, and David is churning through thick underbrush. His glasses are askew, and he looks desperate.
“Two days ago.” Cass swipes her hand across the image and it transforms into a list of data, including dates. “This is a log of his dispatches from the wheel. One every couple days.” She presses a button. “But the data is corrupted. I think someone tried to wipe it from this reader, and only partially succeeded. There’s no sound, and most of these video files are full of glitches, and only a few seconds long. The one I showed you is the most recent one listed on here.”
I keep watching. The image judders and then the sequence restarts again, like it’s playing on an infinite loop. It doesn’t look like David is in the gray zone anymore, and I wonder how he escaped from it. I feel an ache in the pit of my stomach. David is alone on the wheel, battling feelers by himself. His situation is worse than being frozen in the specimen archive.
“Why are you showing me this?” I ask Cass. “I mean, I’m grateful. But I don’t understand. Why do you care about David so much?” I stare at her closely, trying to figure it out. “It’s more than just because you heard I’m friends with him. Am I right?”
She doesn’t answer. Just rolls up the digital display in silence.
I look down the hallway at Liam. He glances over at me.
“Don’t tell him what I showed you,” Cass says softly. “I know he doesn’t trust me, and he probably doesn’t trust David either.”
“Liam and I share everything,” I tell her. “And any enemy of the UNA is a friend of his, believe me.”
She shrugs. “Fine, then. But I’m afraid he’ll start a fight with the boys—or vice versa.” She slides the folding display back into her pocket. “Look, if you really want, you two can come eat with us tonight. We need to start planning how to reach our friends when we get to the wheel.” She starts walking away. “Just tell Liam not to pick any fights, and I’ll tell the boys to control themselves too.”
“Wait,” I call out softly. She stops. “Is there any way for us to contact David directly from Southern Arc?”
“I’m working on that.” She starts walking again, disappearing around the bend of the hallway, her boots clicking on the tiles.
I turn back to Liam, heading toward him.
“What was that about?” he asks when I reach him. “I heard some of it, but not everything. David’s alive, huh?”
“Cass has actual footage of him from the wheel,” I reply. “New footage, from after we escaped the island. The feelers were after him.”
“Are you sure the footage is real?”
“Pretty sure. Cass thinks there’s a way for us to contact him.”
“I hope so.” Liam glances back at the video screens on the wall. “Check this out.” He presses a series of arrows, and the image shifts. Now we’re looking at an overhead view of the station. It resembles a massive rectangular box in the center of a field of ice. “We can see this place from almost any angle. There must be cameras mounted everywhere outside. At least sixty of them. It’s good security.”
The stark image makes me understand just how truly alone we are out here. Unlike at Destiny Station, or even in our village on the wheel, we are probably the only inhabitants on this entire landmass.
“It wouldn’t be that hard to nuke this place,” I mutter, feeling a sudden chill of fear.
“Southern Arc’s got pretty good defenses,” Liam says. “I think some of those antennas outside are used to control old war satellites. That’s how Dr. Barrett has the capability to shoot incoming weapons out of the sky.”
I look over at Liam. “Cass wants us to have dinner with her and her friends tonight. They need our help.”
Liam nods. “I’ll have dinner with them, but I don’t really want to help them. They’ll take our help now, but as soon as we’re back on the wheel, they’ll turn on us. Drones can’t help how they act. It’s in their DNA. We should use them to get information but nothing more.”
“Not all drones are bad people—” I begin to say.
But then I hear a loud noise coming down the hallway toward us. It sounds like an army of footsteps echoing on the tiles. Liam and I turn in the direction of the sound.
A group of twelve uniformed guards comes into view. They are carrying guns. At the front, leading the group, is a tall, thin, bearded figure dressed in white robes.
It’s Dr. Barrett.
Liam and I move aside, pressing ourselves against the wall. I assume that Dr. Barrett and his men are just passing through, on their way to somewhere important. But his eyes are fixed on us. And he’s headed directly our way.
Dr. Barrett and his men slow down as they reach us. They come to a stop just a few feet away. I stare back at them, not sure what to do or say.
“Alenna Shawcross and Liam Bernal,” Dr. Barrett says. His voice is simultaneously hard and raspy. “Correct?”
I nod. Up close, his face looks even older. More ravaged by time and weather than it looked in the photograph. The bones nearly poke out of his damaged skin. Only his gray eyes look curiously youthful.
“Alenna, I wanted to tell you that your mother is safe,” he says. “She boarded a third submersible vessel. A smaller one, meant for the top scientists. She’s on her way here with a few other survivors.”
I feel a flood of emotion. “I knew there had to be another way out of the station!”
Liam puts his arm around my shoulders.
Dr. Barrett nods. “Indeed.” He turns his intense gaze to Liam. “But it’s you I need to talk to most of all.”
“About what?”
“About your father. Octavio.”
Liam looks startled. He lowers his arm. I take his hand in mine in case it’s bad news. “Is he alive?” Liam asks. “Is he at one of the other bases, like Vargas-Ruiz said?”
“He’s alive, but he’s not at another base. Right now, he’s stranded in a craft in the Indian Ocean with fifty other survivors. He’s halfway between Southern Arc and the tip of South Africa.”
I feel Liam’s hand tighten in mine. “But he’s alive?” Liam sounds stunned, even though I can tell he’s trying to hide it. I know exactly how he’s feeling. I went through the same thing when I learned my own mother wa
s alive, years after I’d given up hope.
“He won’t be alive for long,” Dr. Barrett continues flatly. “Not unless we do something right away. Base Lerato, in the Highveld of South Africa, was attacked by the same type of machines that decimated Destiny Station. The survivors, including your father, escaped in a reconditioned hydrofoil. But they didn’t have enough fuel to make the journey all the way here—and of course the ice fields would have prevented them from reaching us anyway.” He pauses. “They’re now a thousand miles away, floating adrift. They will soon get picked up by some government or another. Or a storm will hit and sink their craft.”
“What can I do? I’ll do anything,” Liam says, the words tumbling out in an urgent rush.
“Your father has a reputation as a fierce fighter and rebel leader,” Dr. Barrett says. “So we’re planning a rescue mission for him and his men.” He pauses again. “But we need volunteers.”
“I’ll go,” Liam says. “If that’s what you mean.”
“So will I,” I say without a second thought.
Dr. Barrett turns his unblinking gaze toward me. “It’s not as simple as that. The group that travels out to rescue the survivors from Base Lerato will not be returning to Southern Arc. They will continue directly to Island Alpha. They will meet up with everyone else there, as part of our coordinated assault.” His gray eyes look like steel. “This is a dangerous mission. I know you must want to rescue your friends from the specimen archive. Perhaps it is better for them if the two of you travel separately . . .”
He doesn’t finish his thought, but I know what he means. There’s a chance that whoever goes to rescue Octavio won’t make it back to the wheel alive.
“Can’t you just send some of your men?” I ask, gesturing at the armed guards that surround him. “Why do you need volunteers like us? Just send a hundred guards to make sure everything goes well!”
“Some of my men will be coming too. But more must stay here. I cannot force people to sacrifice their lives, or I would be no better than the UNA. I can only ask that they volunteer.” He looks at Liam again. “Besides, I know that Liam is an accomplished warrior, like his father. I could use someone young like him on the journey fighting by my side.”
“You’re going as well?” I ask Dr. Barrett, surprised.
“Yes. My second lieutenant will be in charge until we regroup on the wheel.”
Liam and I look at each other. I’m not sure what to say.
“You have time to think it over,” Dr. Barrett tells us in his strange, hoarse voice. “Two hours. Make your decisions and let one of my men know—but do not tell anyone else. I don’t want the others refugees to know about the mission, in case there are spies in our midst. We leave today, in secret, to rescue Octavio and the other survivors.” He steps back, gathering his white robes. His men cluster around him with their weapons. “Victory is within our grasp,” he says to us. “So we must claim it.” Then his group walks off rapidly down the tunnel, shouldering their guns. Liam and I are left standing there alone.
“My dad is alive,” Liam murmurs, sounding like he’s still in shock. “Vargas-Ruiz said there was a possibility . . .” He turns to me. “But I didn’t really believe her.”
“I know.”
“So what should we do?”
“What do you mean? We have to go after him!”
Liam looks into my eyes. “I can’t ask you to do that. If something bad happens, then I’d risk losing the most important person in the world to me.”
“You’re not asking me to go. I want to go.”
He shakes his head. “But I don’t want you to. It’s going to be way too dangerous.”
“Like it isn’t dangerous here?”
“You’re safer here than out on the open ocean.”
“Are you sure about that? Look at what happened to Destiny Station.” I realize that we’re about to start arguing. “Why are you being so stubborn right now?”
“Because I can’t let you risk your life when you don’t need to! Besides, you heard what Dr. Barrett said. If we both went, and didn’t make it, what would happen to Gadya and everyone in the archive?”
“Liam, I can make my own choices.”
“So can I.”
There’s a moment of tense silence.
If it weren’t for Gadya and the other kids on the wheel who need our help, I would go with Liam—no matter what he wanted. I am a warrior now too. But as the shock of Dr. Barrett’s words starts to wear off, I think that maybe Liam is right after all. We can’t let our friends down. If we both go to rescue Octavio and we get hurt or captured—or worse—then the others might never get rescued.
“Let’s make the right choice,” I say. “You have to go alone. I’ll stay here after all.”
It hurts me so much to say those words, like a knife is twisting into my heart. If I’m not going, then I want to beg Liam to stay too. But I know this is the right thing to do. If Liam’s father died because of me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. And it would inevitably come between us. “It’s your dad. You need to be there for him.”
“Do I?” I can see the torture written on Liam’s face. He looks surprised by my words. “I can’t leave you here alone,” he says. “We have to stick together. We’ll both stay, then. That’s the answer.”
I take his face in my hands, trying not to cry. “Liam, come on. I’m going to be okay here without you. We’ll meet back up on the wheel, like Dr. Barrett said.”
“I can’t do it,” he murmurs. “I just can’t leave you. Not even for my dad.”
I lean back and gaze into his warm eyes. I can’t bear the thought of him leaving either. But I also know that he must. “I love you, but you have to take the risk.” My voice cracks, and I swipe at my eyes. “And then we’ll go save Gadya, Rika, and all our other friends on the wheel.”
He nods. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
“I feel the same way—so you better stay safe out there.” I pull back from him, wiping my eyes a final time. “Two hours isn’t long,” I say. “We better let Dr. Barrett know that you’re going with him, so he can get you ready for the journey. Maybe he’ll give you some real weapons.”
He smiles. “It’s going to be okay,” he says. “You know that, right?”
“I know,” I reply. And in that moment, I feel hopeful that things are going to work out. That Liam is going to save his dad, and then we’re going to liberate the wheel together.
Liam leans down and kisses me. I fall into his embrace. We can’t afford to fail—everyone is depending on us. And everything is happening so fast. I vow that no matter what comes my way, I will fight and overcome it, until I am safe and reunited with Liam again.
8DEPARTURE
TWO HOURS LATER, LIAM is ready to go. He’s been stocked with a gun and a black and green uniform, just like the ones that Dr. Barrett’s guards wear. Both of us stand there in a small tiled antechamber. Waiting for one of the guards to come and get us.
Liam glances at himself in a mirror and frowns. “This makes me look like a UNA soldier.”
“No, you look good—sort of.”
I straighten his collar. We both laugh a little. But the laughter is barely disguising my nervousness and fear.
Liam picks up a bulky fur-lined jacket that one of the guards gave him. He sticks it under his arm.
I don’t even know what vessel they’re going to use to reach Octavio’s hydrofoil. Maybe one of the submarines that we traveled here on? But I’m guessing Southern Arc must have its own ships. I just haven’t seen any of them yet, mainly because Dr. Barrett is so secretive, and he’s keeping the whole place tightly locked down.
At least Dr. Barrett will be leading the expedition. Despite his gruff personality, if he’s survived for four decades in the freezing wilderness—since before there even was a UNA—then he must be doing something right.
I
still can’t believe that I encouraged Liam to go on the expedition. I try to find any positives in the bleak situation. I guess that with Dr. Barrett gone, maybe there will be more of an opportunity to move around the base, and to try to find a way to interface with David. Assuming David is still alive.
I’ll need to work with Cass. For whatever reason, she seems interested in helping David too. And although I don’t fully trust her yet, or her friends, she definitely has information that I need.
The door to our chamber abruptly opens, without a knock. I turn around. A grim-faced guard is standing there. He looks Liam up and down, barely glancing at me.
“It’s time,” the guard says to Liam. “Dr. Barrett is waiting for you.”
Liam and I follow the guard out of the room and into the tiled hallway. We walk quickly past the other people. Some of them glance our way, no doubt wondering why Liam is dressed in a uniform and holding a gun.
“Who’s going to run things here with Dr. Barrett gone?” Liam asks the guard as we walk. “He mentioned his second lieutenant? Where is he?”
“I’m sure you’ll meet him at some point. Dr. Barrett will be monitoring everything remotely.”
“Why is he even going himself?” I ask the guard. “I mean, I’m glad that he is, but why exactly?”
“Dr. Barrett would never ask any man to do something that he himself isn’t willing to do,” the guard intones. “That’s the reason we follow him.” He pauses for a moment. We stop walking as well. He turns to look at us. “Dr. Barrett has stared into many an abyss. Each time, he has conquered it. There is no person on earth I would rather follow than Neil Barrett.” The guard turns around again and keeps walking.
I nod, but I’m disconcerted by his cult-like devotion. It reminds me too much of the drones following the Monk. Liam has noticed it too. He looks at me and raises an eyebrow.
We keep walking in silence until we reach a tiled door. The guard unlocks it, swinging the door open to reveal a long tunnel, sloping upward. I start walking forward with Liam, but the guard blocks my path.
The Uprising: The Forsaken Trilogy Page 9