I peer out into the hall. It’s lit only by red emergency lights on the walls, spaced twenty feet apart. Cass’s face appears from the darkness, looking ghostly in the crimson shadows. “You ready, Alenna?” she whispers.
I look behind her and see a group of eight other kids, including Alun and Emma. I didn’t think there would be so many of them.
I swallow hard and nod.
“Then c’mon,” Cass whispers. She glances down. “But take off your boots first, or you’ll make too much noise.”
I notice that all of them are barefoot, so I do what she says.
Then I open the door a bit more and slide through the opening. I step out into the hall. The station seems colder now without the bright lights on, and without any people around. The tiles are icy on my feet, even with my socks on.
I gently close the door behind me. “Lead the way,” I tell Cass, peering around the dim hallways.
“Hey there,” Emma whispers, coming over to my side. “Is this spooky enough for you, or what?”
I smile a bit. “It’s better than the wheel at nighttime,” I whisper back. “You sure we won’t get caught?”
“Don’t worry,” Alun says, overhearing. “Cass knows what she’s doing.”
“I hope so,” I reply. “Or we’re all gonna get locked up.” I can’t imagine what the punishment is at Southern Arc for breaking into a locked communication center. I’m guessing it’s pretty harsh. Dr. Barrett seems like the kind of person who would relish running a maximum security prison as much as a rebel base.
We start walking quickly down the hall. Everything is bathed in the red glow.
“Let me do the talking if we run into any guards,” Cass says to the group. “But hopefully, we won’t. We just have to move fast.”
We keep walking, rounding the corner and heading into another hallway. Every sound is magnified—the rustling of our clothing, the sound of our feet on the tiles, and even our breathing.
“Check it out,” Emma whispers, holding up a small white object as we walk. In the dim light, it resembles some sort of remote control.
“What is that?”
“A key to the communication center. Cass took it off a guard earlier today. He obviously hasn’t noticed it’s missing yet.”
Cass holds up a hand. Everyone immediately stops walking. I almost stumble into Alun, but I stop just in time.
“What?” one of the other boys hisses at Cass.
“Shhh,” she says back. “Listen.”
I listen closely, but I don’t hear anything. Only the silence of the station at night.
“I think we’re okay,” I finally say.
“Just being careful,” Cass murmurs in response. We start moving again, more cautiously than before.
A few minutes later we reach our destination. It’s a section of the base that I haven’t seen yet—a newer wing built underground. Shiny tiles gleam in the red light. We stop in front of a thick metal door, huddling around it. The door is painted black, and it looks like the entrance to a bank vault.
“We’re right under the satellite arrays here,” Emma explains to me. “This is the communication wing.”
“And no one guards this place at night?” I ask, incredulous.
“They should, but they’re on a secret smoke break between shifts. Dr. Barrett doesn’t know about it, but it’s common knowledge among the refugees here. We asked around. But we have to move fast. The guards will be back in ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” I’m surprised. “That’s how long we have?”
Emma nods. “Probably less. I thought Cass told you.”
“It’s an in-and-out job,” Cass mutters. “We don’t need long. Emma, get the door.”
Emma presses the button on the remote control, and the black door unlatches automatically and glides open, revealing a dark space within. The door is about a foot thick. We quickly slip inside the opening. The door slides shut behind us with a dull clank.
We move past a bank of computer screens, heading into the heart of a technological wonderland. Everywhere I look are computers and cables, and glowing plasma screens displaying colorful streams of data. I follow after Cass, sliding past Emma and the boys so that I’m right behind her. If we only have ten minutes at most, I need to make them count.
Cass goes over to a touch-screen pad near a computer and starts rapidly entering numbers. She catches my gaze and says, “I memorized the code they use to contact him. I watched when they punched it in at Destiny Station.”
Emma is behind me. “This code will send a signal over the satellite, hopefully straight to David.”
“I’m confused. What device will he pick up the signal on?” I ask. “He doesn’t have a computer with him.”
Cass and Emma look at each other. Finally Cass speaks, as she returns her gaze to the screen: “Maybe he had more than matches hidden on him when he got to the wheel. I’m not sure.”
I freeze, startled.
“Wait— How can you know about that?” When David showed his hidden matches to me, that first day on the wheel, we were completely alone together. No one was watching us. And I certainly never told anyone about it.
“Perhaps we have our own reasons for wanting to contact David,” Cass says.
I realize then that Cass and the others must definitely know David somehow. Maybe from his resistance cell back in New Providence. Or from some other place entirely. I half-suspected this. I’m just surprised that they didn’t tell me earlier.
Just as I’m about to ask them what’s really going on, a loud beeping noise starts coming from the computer.
“Turn that off!” one of the boys hisses.
“I’m trying!” Cass replies, tapping the keys even faster.
The beeping stops. We stand there without moving.
“You think anyone heard?” Emma whispers. Everyone is silent except for Cass. She starts typing in numbers again.
“The door’s shut, and this room is soundproofed,” she explains.
Right then, the screen nearest to us flares to life.
“Look,” I say.
Cass nods. “We’re in.”
I stare at the screen. The black-and-white image is slightly pixilated, as though the satellite feed is malfunctioning. But it’s good enough that I can tell what I’m looking at.
It’s David’s face.
He’s lying sideways on the ground, curled up under a handwoven blanket. For a moment, I’m sure that he’s dead and we’re watching his corpse. His angular face is battered, cut and bruised. But then I see his chest rise and fall. He’s sleeping.
“David?” Cass asks, speaking into a microphone in front of the computer.
“It’s me, Alenna!” I add, leaning in before anyone can stop me. “Can you hear me? Liam and I got off the wheel!”
I see movement. David opens his almond-shaped brown eyes, and stares blearily into the camera lens.
“David,” I say again, as the others crowd around the computer, their voices chiming in as well.
“Alenna?” David asks, sounding dazed. His voice reaches me as a distorted crackle. He grabs for the camera and holds it closer to his face. I have no idea how we’re talking to each other right now.
David smiles. It feels like he’s looking straight at me through the screen. “You made it,” he says. “I thought you would.” He pauses. “I wasn’t so lucky.”
“We’re here too,” Cass adds.
David nods. “I know—I can hear you.”
“Someone tell me what’s going on,” I say, frustrated. “How do you guys know each other? And David, how did you get away from the feeler? I don’t understand anything that’s happening right now.”
“Alenna, we don’t have time for—” Cass begins.
“No. I need to know. It’s important.”
“I got the feeler to drop me,” David says, sounding tired. His voice is barely audible. “When we brought that other one down on the lake, I thought I saw a battery latch on its underb
elly, hidden beneath the eye in the UNA logo. It matched some schematics I’d seen before in New Providence in my resistance cell. So when the feelers grabbed me, I climbed up the tentacles and held on to the battery. I managed to rip it out when it flew lower to the ground. The feeler crashed back down onto the pipes.”
I listen in stunned silence. Is that even possible? Is David telling the truth?
“I hit my head and blacked out,” he continues. “When I woke up, I hid before another feeler could find me. Then I found a different way out of the city on the shore, around the lake, and back into the forest. By accident, I found a tunnel that went underneath the barrier—one we didn’t know about. I’ve been running ever since.” He pauses. “Cass probably already told you, but I know her from my resistance cell back home.”
“She didn’t tell me,” I say, shooting her a glance. “But I guessed as much.”
“David, we don’t have long,” Cass says. “How are you talking to the scientists? Did you find some sort of communication device on the wheel?”
“I discovered that every feeler has a camera, a microphone, and speakers on it, mounted in a bracket at the front. I took that stuff from the one that dropped me and crashed on the pipes. I started trying to broadcast distress signals. I knew the UNA would pick them up, of course. But I also hoped that some rebels had managed to hijack the feed and were monitoring it. Turns out I was right.” He pauses for breath. “The scientists at Destiny Station picked up on it and routed me to a different frequency, one that the UNA can’t trace. That’s how I got in touch with them. So now I can talk to you guys, and you can see me, but I can only hear you.”
“Amazing,” Alun murmurs, adjusting his eye patch.
“Alenna, what about the others?” David asks me. “The ones who made it to the gray zone with us?”
“Rika and Markus got taken by feelers too. So did James, the Monk’s drone. They’re inside the specimen archive. Gadya is stuck there too, if she’s even alive—”
Cass interrupts: “What are things like on the wheel right now? Give us your coordinates and we’ll try to find you as soon as we land there.”
“I can’t stay in one place. The feelers and the drones keep me on the run.” His image flickers and dims.
One of the boys moves in to adjust the screen. Other boys are scrambling to grab data off hard drives, and collect it on portable readers they’ve scavenged.
“So were you ever really a drone?” I whisper to Cass. “If you were in a resistance cell in the UNA, doesn’t that make you a rebel?” All these different allegiances and secrets make me feel like I’m standing on shifting sand.
“I was both,” she says.
We look back at the screen again as David’s image reappears. “Where are you, roughly?” I ask David. “What sector?”
“I don’t know. By the sun, I think I’ve made it into the purple sector. The scientists have my data logged for the past two weeks, though. Just get it off the computers if you can.”
“We will,” Cass says. “We’ve already tapped into the system. They’re asking you to give them reports on the wheel, right?”
David nods. “I’m doing surveillance and sending them geographic coordinates. So they know where it’s safe to land when they get here.”
One of the boys behind us speaks up: “Only three more minutes left.”
“We’ll get your data, and we’ll find out where you are,” I tell David. “Just try to stay in the same sector.”
The image flickers and rolls on the screen again. I’m afraid that we’re going to lose contact with him for good.
“David, the signal’s breaking up,” I say.
“Alenna, I don’t think what the scientists and Dr. Barrett are telling everyone is completely true,” he says, his voice crackling in an abrupt burst of static.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know if they plan on freeing the kids in the specimen archive. At least not for a very long time.”
“Why not?” Cass asks urgently.
“They think the kids are safe there in stasis, and won’t cause them any problems. They don’t think they need to deal with them for years. They’re just telling us they’re going to save them first, so we’ll do what they want. At least that’s what I think.”
I lean forward, worried about what other lies Dr. Barrett and the scientists might have told us. “David, Liam’s gone to find his dad, Octavio. They’re stranded on a hydrofoil a thousand miles from here. Have any of the scientists talked about that?”
“No. At least not in front of me. They’re just using me to give them data.”
“Two more minutes,” the boy behind us warns. “We gotta leave soon.”
Cass turns away from the screen, looking toward Emma, Alun, and the other boys. “Grab all the data you can,” she hisses. “And then let’s get the hell out of here.” She turns back to David. “We’ll try to contact you again. But next time we see you might be on the wheel.”
“I hope so.”
“Ninety seconds!” one of the boys says, sounding panicked.
I press my hand against the screen. David’s image flickers there, in ghostly black and white. “David, we’re coming for you,” I tell him. “Just hang on, okay?”
He smiles tiredly. “Just get here soon, Alenna.” He gives the camera a small wave and a rueful smile.
And then the screen flares and goes black. David is gone. Time is nearly up.
“Let’s go!” I whisper.
We start racing back through the room, heading toward the black sliding door. Alun has Emma’s remote control in his hand. He’s already pushing the button with his wide fingers. But the door doesn’t move.
“C’mon!” Cass says.
“It’s not working!” Alun replies, pounding on the button harder. “Maybe it only works from the outside!”
We reach the door and stand there. There’s no doorknob or latch. Just an electronic key-swipe. And we don’t have a key. We’re trapped inside.
“We’re gonna get caught!” another boy yelps. “Sixty seconds left until the guard comes back!”
Suddenly, I see something: a red emergency alert button near the door. I lunge forward and slam it with my palm.
The door instantly slides open with a hiss. But at the same time, warning alarms start blaring at maximum volume. I’m not sure whether I’ve saved us or doomed us.
“Run!” I yell, darting out of the room.
We barge into the hallway. Alun turns back and hits the button on the remote, making the door slide shut behind us. But the alarms keep wailing. Louder than the ones in Destiny Station. The red lights that line the hallway begin flashing, too. Everyone’s movements look strange and jagged, like we’re caught in strobe lights. The footsteps of nearby guards rush in our direction.
We start running down the hall as fast as we can. As we get farther along, I see one door pop open, and then another one opens too. People step out, scared and confused. I freeze for a second, but then see that these are just other refugees, not guards. Some of the refugees must have been given rooms on this wing. The alarm is now waking the whole station up.
I feel Cass’s hand grip my arm. “Nice work,” she whispers. “I think we’re safe.” We start walking again.
More refugees wander into the halls around us, calling out and asking questions. The guards are here now, guns drawn, trying to determine what’s going on and attempting to restore order. But the crowd gets in their way. We deliberately blend in with them, pretending that we just woke up. The sirens cut off.
“Won’t they have us on surveillance tape?” I ask Cass, suddenly paranoid. I’m afraid that if they catch us, they won’t let us go back to the wheel. And then I won’t get to see Liam again. I can’t let anything jeopardize that.
Cass smiles, her eyes glinting in the flashing red lights. “The surveillance data for the entire station is recorded in that one communication center.” She opens her palm and shows me a small data dri
ve. “Guess it’s gone missing . . .”
“Hey, you there!” a guard calls out to us, as our group starts to disperse. “You guys!” The drive disappears from Cass’s hand like magic as she slips it back into her pocket. I still don’t know how she had time to grab it in the first place.
“Yes?” I ask the guard, trying to sound as innocent as possible.
“Back to your rooms!” The guard looks around, then calls out, louder, “Back to your rooms, everyone! False alarm.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Cass and I start heading in the same direction, just the two of us. The others have scattered.
“So you were in David’s resistance cell?” I ask softly as we walk. “Tell me everything.”
“I wasn’t in his cell. Not technically. I’m not from New Providence. I’m from Dayton, Ohio.” She pauses. “I mean, the place that used to be called Dayton before Minister Harka and the UNA ruined everything. But sometimes the different cells would work together. I met David more than a year and a half ago on an encrypted online connection. A group of cells scattered across the country were trying to learn more about how the GPPT actually works. They trained me how to get into secret places, and how to snatch things without being caught. They also taught me and David how to subvert certain UNA technologies.”
“You’ve never met David in person, then? Back in the UNA or on the wheel?”
She shakes her head. “No, just online. But I trust him more than I’d trust members of my own family. I was already frozen in the specimen archive by the time you and David got to the wheel. He probably didn’t even know that I was there. I mean, he knew I’d failed the GPPT the year before. But he couldn’t have known I’d get taken by a feeler.”
We keep walking. “How come I didn’t know about these resistance cells when I was living in New Providence?” I ask.
Cass squints at me. “Would you really have joined one if you did? Before you failed the GPPT?”
After a moment’s thought, I tell her, “No, probably not. But back then I didn’t know what was really going on in the UNA.”
“I wouldn’t have known about the cells either, except my older brother Vincent failed the GPPT, too. My parents believed the UNA’s lies. That he must have been harboring subversive tendencies, and was some kind of latent psycho. They took his photos down off the walls, and pretended he didn’t exist. But I knew the truth. He never did anything wrong. Nothing. My parents wouldn’t listen to me, and none of my other relatives would listen either. That’s what made me stop trusting adults—and made me start questioning everything around me. I got really depressed. Angry. Eventually I got contacted by a local cell.” She shrugs. “Not that we really accomplished much. We just got sent to the wheel.”
The Uprising: The Forsaken Trilogy Page 11