The Uprising: The Forsaken Trilogy

by Lisa M. Stasse

  I now have a clear view of our surroundings, and I stare out across the ice in surprise.

  For several miles, I see an armada of gray dirigibles, lying deflated on the ice. Their soft hulls are collapsed over the passenger compartments. But guards move between them, with giant metal machines on sleds, rapidly filling their air compartments with whatever gas keeps these strange crafts aloft.

  “They’ve got ten of these things,” Alun explains. “Inflatable ships, with a skin made from synthetic fibers. Each one can carry almost a hundred people, plus supplies.”

  “And one simple bullet, or a firework, could take each one out of the sky,” I say.

  “She’s right,” Emma agrees. “They’re going to become fireballs.”

  “Naw, they’re using a new form of inert helium to fill them. I asked a guard. They’re not flammable,” Alun replies. “And each one has hundreds of individual compartments inside, with valves. If one compartment gets hit and leaks, the others instantly seal off from it. And the leaky compartment repairs itself—the synthetic fibers close up and heal. Plus, the machine guns will take care of any attack ships. These things are actually pretty hard to bring down. Cass got her hands on the technical specs a few hours ago and told me about them.”

  “This seems insane,” I murmur.

  “Does it really?” Cass’s voice says from behind me.

  By now I’m used to her sneaking up on us, catlike. I turn around. She has a thick black jacket on, and a black cap. They both look like they’ve been stolen from an unwitting guard.

  “These airships won’t show up on radar,” she continues. “No metal. Everything’s made from radar-absorbent fiberglass and polymers, even the guns. And they can fly really low to the ground. No one knows that these ships exist. Dr. Barrett’s men have been building them under the ice for the past eight years. There’s no other way to get so many of us across the ocean undetected.”

  “What about when we get to the wheel?” I ask. “People will see us then. Drones will inevitably try to fight us, and so will the feelers.”

  “That’s true,” she concedes. “But I think we’ll be landing in a desolate spot in the purple sector. It’s a safe place that David scouted for the scientists—based on what I can piece together from his dispatches.”

  “Isn’t the purple sector overrun by drones?” Emma asks.

  Cass nods. “Some of it. But maybe that’s the only large flat surface David could find. We need someplace like that to land.”

  I glance up at the airship swaying in the sky. The huge gas-filled cylinder still looks unwieldy and unsafe. I don’t know how it will fare in the cold temperatures. At least its guns are reassuring.

  The four of us stand there in the ice field as the wind blows through our clothes. People bustle around us, getting ready for our departure. I rub my hands together and stamp my feet, trying to stay warm.

  I have no doubt that the drones will come at us with everything in their arsenal. I wonder how Cass feels about fighting her former tribe when we get there. Or maybe Cass really never did think of herself as a drone. I can’t tell for sure.

  I overhear Emma asking Alun how long the journey back to the wheel is going to take. I lean in to hear the answer. I know that we’re thousands of miles away from the wheel right now. I can’t imagine that these airships travel very fast.

  “Probably a week,” Alun guesses, over the hubbub of the crowd and the noise of the wind.

  I try not to think about it. I shut my eyes for a moment, worrying about Liam. I just need to hear his voice and make sure that he’s okay. But the only way that’s going to happen is if we both make it to the wheel safely.

  “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s try to get on board.”

  • • •

  Less than an hour later, we’re boarding one of the inflated dirigibles. Almost everyone is leaving Southern Arc for good. Only a skeleton crew of guards will remain behind, to keep the station running and wait for the third vessel coming from Destiny Station. The vessel that my mom is on. If we fail, they will likely be the sole survivors of the rebellion against the UNA.

  As I step onto a shaky folding staircase, heading up into the passenger cabin of the airship, I see a guard standing at the top of the steps. He’s handing out a small white object to each person getting on board the craft. I see a man ahead of me pop the object into his mouth. It’s some kind of pill. I’m instantly on high alert.

  “What is that?” I ask Cass. She’s on the step ahead of me, clutching the railings. I figure that if anyone knows what the pill is, it’s her.

  She leans back. “An antidote to the new drugs in the air and water on the wheel. So that no one will turn back into a drone. Or get exposed to the Suffering. The pill inhibits the body from absorbing the UNA’s toxins, supposedly.”

  I nod. “You trust it?”

  She shakes her head. “Not really. But they won’t let us on board until we take one. The scientists at Destiny Station developed it, and brought the pills here on the submarine.”

  “Really.” I feel nervous. I wonder if this is a pill that my mother helped design.

  Cass nods. “The guards and scientists are taking the pills too. No one wants to get the Suffering.”

  We keep moving up the folding stairs until we reach the top. Cass grabs her pill, and then pops it into her mouth showily.

  Next, it’s my turn. The guard places the pill in my hand. This pill could be absolutely anything. I hesitate, holding it up to look at it more closely. It looks deceptively innocuous. It’s tiny, round, and white, and it doesn’t have any markings on it.

  I’m essentially trusting my life to the scientists and Dr. Barrett, but I don’t feel like I have a choice. Who knows what other kinds of drugs the UNA has been dumping on the wheel in our absence?

  “If you don’t take it, then you gotta stay behind,” the guard says to me wearily, hoisting his gun. “What’s it gonna be?”

  Without thinking about it any more, I put the pill into my mouth. For a second, I’m tempted to hide it under my tongue, but in the end I decide to take it. If I don’t, I won’t be able to get back to Liam. And I don’t want to risk getting the Suffering. There’s no water, so I choke the pill down dry. I just hope there aren’t any awful side effects.

  I open my mouth to show the guard that I’ve swallowed it. He gestures at me to board the craft.

  I keep moving until I’m fully inside the spacious passenger compartment, which hangs below the main body of the airship. Everything is made of hard plastic. I can feel it shifting slightly in the wind. The motion gives me a seasick feeling. It’s surprisingly warm in the space, like it’s heated.

  I peer out one of the slitlike windows, gazing down at the people below us as they move around on the ice. I see other ships nearby too, floating in the air like surreal gray clouds.

  I look around the compartment again. It’s one huge space, with cots built into the walls. In the back are some doors leading to narrow bathrooms. It’s clear that this airship has been designed to be as minimally functional as possible. It’s already half full with refugees, with more coming up the stairs.

  There are six separate gun stations. Two on each side of the compartment, plus one near the front and one at the back. Guards are at each of them, their eyes glued to electronic viewfinders. The guns are mounted outside, and operated by computer controls. This way, there’s no direct opening into the compartment for cold air to rush through.

  At the very front of the compartment, off to one side, is a separate glass control booth. Two men sit in it—our pilots. In front of them are levers and steering mechanisms. I also see arrays of switches and flashing digital displays. I can’t even imagine how much work went into building one of these crafts, let alone ten of them. I’m surprised Dr. Barrett didn’t use them to get out of Southern Arc sooner, but maybe he was waiting for the shipment of antidote pills from Destiny Station.

  Plastic seats line the center of the space. And I thought the submar
ine was bad. I can’t imagine spending an entire week in here, with almost no privacy, and a feeling of endless, grinding tension in my stomach.

  Cass and I find seats, and Emma and Alun join us. I wonder where the other two boys with shaved heads are, but I don’t see them. Across from us is a video screen on the wall. Like a large window, it displays images of the icy wilderness, broadcast from cameras attached to the exterior front of the airship.

  I lean forward, trying to see. In the corner of the frame, I can glimpse the edge of the massive concrete structure of Southern Arc.

  I turn to Cass. “You still have the data on David, right?” I ask softly.

  She nods, patting her coat pocket. “Everything’s in here, including a GPS I stole from a guard this morning. We can track David when we land—or at least I hope we can.”

  We both stare at the video screen, watching the other airships on the ice. I see one of the ships start to lift upward a bit. I think it’s an accident at first, but then I notice that the guards down below are cutting the ropes that bind it to the stakes. They’re about to release it.

  “Look,” I say, pointing at the screen. “It’ll be our turn soon.”

  We watch as another airship starts rising nearby, heading up above us and nearly out of view. The ships move slowly, drifting aimlessly into the sky. Their propellers aren’t moving because the pilots haven’t turned on the engines yet. They’re waiting until the ships drift up even higher, to avoid any dangerous air currents near the ground.

  “Okay, everyone!” a tall, wiry guard at the front calls out loudly, cutting through the din of voices. Our compartment is now full, and the door is closed. “Take your seats if you don’t already have them.”

  “Guess we’re ahead of the curve,” Cass mutters.

  Right then I feel gentle motion as we start to move upward. Our journey has begun.

  Everyone inside the compartment falls silent for a moment. I glance around at the worried faces of both kids and adults. We are all refugees, at the mercy of these airships and Dr. Barrett’s plans. Guards stand at their guns, peering down at their view screens, on constant alert.

  “Our voyage will take between five and eleven days,” the guard continues. “These dirigibles are designed to go at a top speed of ninety-five miles per hour, but that depends on the wind and other factors. Get prepared for a long, uncomfortable ride.”

  The crowd just stares back at him.

  “In addition,” the guard says, “you should know that Dr. Barrett has prohibited us from stopping and helping any other airship if there is an emergency. If one of our fleet falters, then we have to leave it behind, along with everyone on board. Making it to Island Alpha is our sole priority.”

  Feeling sick, I brush hair back from my eyes. The airship is swaying more now. “I feel like I’ve been on the run ever since the day I failed the GPPT,” I murmur to Cass. “Like I’m in some kind of nightmare loop, and it’s never going to stop. I just wish we were back on the wheel already.”

  “Me too,” Emma says, overhearing me.

  “Same,” Alun mutters.

  Cass is looking at the video screen like she’s hypnotized.

  “You okay?” I ask her.

  She nods.

  The ground is getting smaller beneath us. Southern Arc is now just a few feet in size. I can’t even make out the people down there anymore. The engines start up with a clanking noise, as the propellers in the back begin to turn.

  “The running stops when we get to the wheel,” I say, staring around at the others.

  “Agreed,” Cass says, glancing over at me.

  “We make our stand there together,” I continue. “And we don’t give up. No matter what happens. We find Liam and David and everyone else.”

  The others nod.

  The clank of the propellers becomes a roaring, buzzing hum. Our ship begins moving forward through the air. Slowly at first, but then faster. I stare at the video screen as Southern Arc fades into the distance, and we move toward whatever future awaits us on the wheel.

  11THE RETURN

  THE SIX DAYS ON board the airship pass more slowly than any other days in my entire life. On the one hand, there’s a constant feeling of terror that we’re going to be attacked and torn from the skies. But on the other hand, there’s also the relentless boredom of sailing above a monotonous ocean, trapped inside a space with a bunch of other people, most of whom are strangers.

  My thoughts constantly turn to Liam. I was hoping we would get another dispatch from Dr. Barrett, but so far there has been no news. I try not to obsess about it, although this seems like a bad sign. I just tell myself that it’s going to be fine. That it has to be. Liam is going to meet me as soon as we land in the purple sector. I can’t bear to think of any other possibility.

  I also wonder if my mom has made it to Southern Arc yet. I’m hoping there’ll be some way to contact her once we reach the wheel.

  Here, trapped on the airship, Cass can’t hack into the computer system to find out more details about anything. We no longer have access to any of David’s new dispatches either. Although, at night, hiding in the bathroom, I’ve watched the old ones on Cass’s stolen folding screen.

  What I’ve seen has been incredibly disturbing. David looks bruised and battered, and he’s constantly on the move. Trying to stay ahead of the feelers and the drones. He seems frightened and exhausted. But it’s the images behind him that provide the true horrors. Things on the wheel look like they’re getting much worse, at least from the pixilated glimpses I catch on the screen.

  Occasionally, I see massive forest fires burning out of control. Or teeming feelers descending from the sky, slamming their tentacles down at the trees. David is adept at hiding himself, but I know he can’t survive this onslaught forever.

  I tell myself that at least our airships haven’t been attacked on the journey. The guards have maintained their positions at the guns twenty-four hours per day, in rotation, but they haven’t had to fire a single shot. We haven’t even run into much bad weather, other than some bumpy air pressure transitions when we moved away from the cold of the Antarctic and over the open ocean.

  During our journey, the guards have briefed us on the plan, and held a series of meetings. The plan is simple. The ten airships are going to land in a cleared area in the purple sector, where we will meet up with Dr. Barrett and his men. We will then establish a perimeter and make that area our fortified base camp. After that, we will push outward each day, armed with weapons. There are numerous handguns and bullets on board each airship.

  However, we are only supposed to use force if we have to. The guards and the scientists are hoping that we can convince the villagers and drones that we are there to rescue them. That we are not some hostile, invading force sent from the UNA. I know that the villagers will understand this instantly—but the drones will be much harder to deal with.

  The plan is to keep pressing onward until our base in the purple sector becomes a new hub for the island, a safe haven. And slowly we can restore order, shoot down the feelers, give out the antidote pills, and stop the warring of the tribes.

  I’m worried that the UNA will try to bomb us once they realize that we’ve overtaken the island, but the scientists believe the UNA would never risk destroying their own prison colony. The scientists, thanks to Dr. Barrett, also have the means to jam radar systems and hopefully shoot down any missiles. The UNA’s military is stretched so thin, no one believes they will actually send a fleet of soldiers to the wheel.

  Only after the island is under our control are we supposedly going to free the inhabitants of the specimen archive. But of course that’s where our plans and the scientists’ plans differ slightly. I have my own hopes about getting to the archive much sooner than that, if possible, and figuring out how to free our friends. Cass and Emma feel the same way. I know we can get our friends out, even if we have to do it one by one, like I did with Liam.

  I’ve been reading more of The Myth of Sisyphus t
o pass the time, and take my mind off the stress. In a way it makes me feel closer to the memory of my dad. Inside the book, I find the line he always used to say to me about the importance of perseverance in tough times: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” It’s oddly comforting to see it in this book.

  But I also find passages that make me uneasy. According to Camus, both religious faith and science are equally inadequate at explaining the world. To Camus, the world seems like a frightening and absurd place. One where people can do terrible things to one another, but face no consequences.

  On the back cover of the book, a black-and-white photo of Camus stares out at me, looking vaguely ominous. In a brief biography of him on the back, it says that he was a French philosopher who became a member of the resistance against the Nazis in World War II. A rebel, just like us. He must know a thing or two about life during wartime. And how to fight fascism.

  Now, on the morning of the sixth day in the airship, we finally have the wheel in sight. It’s visible in the distance on the video screens.

  My heart feels like it stops for a beat when I see Island Alpha emerge from the water and clouds, under overcast skies.

  I’ve been lying on my narrow bunk, reading, with Cass above me. I put my book down and instantly leap up, rushing over to the screen when the wheel first appears.

  “We’re here!” I say. I intend to yell the words, but they come out more as a breathy gasp. Cass hears me anyway, as do some of the other passengers. They rush over, and we huddle around the screens.

  From this distance, the wheel looks desolate. But I know that is not the case. The island rises up from the water in isolated grandeur, with craggy tree-covered cliffs. Inhospitable and severe. This must be the coast of the purple sector. The airship rapidly moves closer, and more details come into view.