There’s a split second of silence.
Then David sits up and his fingers fly across the surface of the black box, flipping switches, activating programmed codes, and unleashing the feeler. He points the box’s antenna at the feeler and then aims it right at the Monk.
“Take that!” I scream.
The Monk notices what’s happening. “Guards!” he cries out.
Drones flood around him.
But the feeler flies forward, moving at full speed. David has somehow managed to get it locked directly on to the Monk.
The Monk is caught up in his platform. He’s trying to move backward, but this was clearly not what he expected. He’s yelling at his drones angrily. They start moving him back. But they’re not fast enough for the feeler.
I’m trying to watch the drones and the feeler at the same time, and also help David manipulate the box. The feeler is zooming in, aimed right at the Monk.
“Attack!” the Monk suddenly cries out to his drones. “Make these heathens pay!”
The army of drones instantly starts rushing straight toward us, throwing spears and firing arrows. But some of them are also busy attacking the feeler—pointlessly, because their weapons are no use against it.
I fling myself to the concrete. Liam shelters me as well as David. But then Liam cries out in pain. He’s been hit. I feel panicked.
“Liam, are you okay?” I scream.
“Yes!” he yells back. “David, keep control of that feeler!”
And then I glance up to see that the feeler has found the Monk.
Tentacles coil around the flailing robed figure, as David flicks another sequence of switches. Tangled up in his robes, the Monk can’t get away quickly enough. The tentacles contract, and pull the Monk right out of his gilded platform. The feeler sails high into the sky, carrying the Monk with it.
Then a spear flies through the air at my face. I duck, but the tip plows into the concrete surface of the road. The shaft smacks David across the side of his head. All of us are screaming.
Liam spins off me and David. The drones are firing arrows, but most of them saw what happened to their leader. They are stunned. Dazed. Gazing up at the feeler with slack mouths.
“Off the highway!” Liam yells at me. “Go!”
But David is slumped over onto the concrete. He’s been knocked out again by the blow.
Liam bends down to pick him up, but then flinches in sudden pain. He’s been struck in the back by another arrow.
“No!” I yell, scrambling to my feet.
Cass and Emma have pressed themselves flat on the concrete near Gadya, not far away. Cass is trying to shield Emma from the arrows.
“Liam!” I gasp, as he shuts his eyes for a second, in pain.
“It’s okay,” he says, between gritted teeth.
But he doesn’t look okay. He’s bleeding everywhere, although I can’t see the arrow from here.
More arrows fly at us, preventing anyone from grabbing David. There’s no way we’re going to be able to get him off the highway. I reach down and yell at him, trying to rouse him. But nothing happens.
“We have to run or we’ll get killed,” Liam says into my ear, trying to drag me along.
He’s right. There’s no other way. We’ve obviously disrupted the drones’ entire hierarchy, but they’re still willing to fight us. Violence is like an automatic response for them.
I reach down and snatch the box from David’s fingers. I call out for Cass and Emma, but I’m not sure that they can hear me. If David survives this attack, then somehow we’ll come back for him. Traitor or not, at least he did the right thing in the end when it came to helping us catch the Monk. We can’t abandon him.
Liam and I race to the side of the highway. I’m clutching the box in my hand. We reach the low concrete wall at the edge. I glance down over it. Far below us is brush and low, dense trees. This is going to break some bones. Maybe even kill us. But we have to do it. I can’t be afraid anymore.
I grab Liam’s hand. We scramble onto the low wall.
“I love you!” I say to him quickly.
And then I let go of his hand and jump.
I sail through the air, moving faster than I thought possible. The drop feels like it lasts for forever. A million thoughts and images race through my mind, spanning my first day on the wheel to the present moment. It’s like watching a movie—I see the village, Gadya, Veidman, Meira, Rika, the drones, the feelers, and everything else flicking past in my memory. Then I’m slamming through trees limbs, feeling them tear viciously at my skin.
And then I hit the underbrush.
Everything spins and goes dark for a second.
Slowly, my senses return. The trees and brush cushioned my fall, but I can barely move. My legs throb. I try to get to my feet, but I just fall over.
Liam is right next to me, already helping me up. He must have jumped a second after I did. “We did it!” he says, sounding jubilant. “C’mon!”
The black box is still in my hand. And it seems to be working. From down here, I can see the feeler in the sky. The Monk remains in its clutches.
I look back up at the highway. There’s no sign of Emma, Cass, or Gadya following us. Or David. It’s just me and Liam now.
“What do we do?” I ask Liam in pain.
“We try to bring the Monk down here to the forest. We’ll rescue the others later if we can. Including Dr. Barrett.”
“There’s no ‘if’! We can’t leave them behind.”
He stares up and yells at the road. “Gadya! C’mon!” There’s no response. “Cass! Emma!”
Then I catch a glimpse of something lodged in his back. “Turn around!” I say.
“What?” He turns.
My hand goes to my mouth. Now I see the thick, broken shaft of the arrow protruding from right below his left shoulder blade. It’s worse than I thought. The wound is bleeding heavily. “You’re hurt!”
“As long as you’re okay, I’ll be fine.” His hand goes up to the broken arrow. He winces as he contorts his body to touch the shaft. He lowers his hand. “I’ve been hit worse.” He looks at me. “The others have a chance at survival too, if the drones are distracted enough. We just need to focus on the Monk.”
“I’ll help you get the arrow out later.” I touch his arm. I know he must be in agony, but pretending that he’s not. I can’t tell how deep the arrow has penetrated his flesh. It looks pretty bad.
I hear pinging noises in the foliage around us. I glance up and see a row of drones at the edge of the highway, firing arrows down at us. They’ve appeared unexpectedly.
“Run!” I yell, although neither Liam nor I am in any shape to run anywhere. My legs throb from my shins to my hips. We stagger forward anyway, into the cover of the trees, helping each other along as we look for shelter.
I grip the box. The feeler moves farther overhead into the forest as I keep pressing the one switch that I understand—the one that moves the feeler along with us somehow. The metal tentacles are keeping the Monk locked in place in the sky. I catch glimpses of his mask staring outward.
“We’ll bring him down in the trees if we can figure out how,” I say. “Far away from his drones.”
Liam nods. I see that his shirt is becoming slick with blood. I want to pull the arrow out of him, but I know it could make the wound bleed more. My heart races faster. Liam is badly hurt. David is unconscious. And our other friends are stranded on the highway—probably getting attacked by drones.
We never should have come back to the wheel. Just like the travelers said. If we hadn’t, then Liam and I might still be safe. And Gadya would be safe too, with the travelers. Nothing has turned out like I hoped it would.
Liam and I keep moving, heading into the dense jungle where the arrows won’t find us. We just need to reach a clearing that’s large enough for the feeler to descend. I stare around us, searching as we run.
Out here, we will finally have the Monk to ourselves. And if we can bring him down to the grou
nd, we can begin to unravel the mysteries that have plagued us since our return to the wheel.
22THE UNMASKING
AS WE RUN, THERE’S a distant crash behind us. For a moment, I think it’s a drone. Maybe a brave one is giving chase after all.
But then I glance back and see that it’s Gadya. She stands up unsteadily in the thick underbrush, as arrows rain down around her.
“Gadya!” I scream, racing back toward her.
She stumbles through the brush and into the trees. She’s headed our way, limping badly and dodging arrows. I don’t know how she’s managed to make it without being hit.
When she gets close enough to us, I race forward and grab her. She nearly collapses into my arms. I hold her. Liam rushes over too.
“Are you okay?” I ask, helping her stand.
She nods, looking dazed. “I messed up my ankle again.”
“Let me look,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I don’t even wanna see it.”
“What’s going on up there?” Liam asks her.
“Some of the drones are fighting,” she replies. “It’s like they don’t know what else to do! Cass and Emma are stuck—I couldn’t get to them. And the drones have surrounded David. I couldn’t reach him either.”
I feel sick. “We need to keep moving,” I tell her. Above us, the Monk hangs in the sky, at the mercy of the feeler. “Liam’s hurt.”
Gadya sees the arrow sticking out of his back, and her eyes widen. But she doesn’t say anything. We just start hiking into the jungle as fast as we can on our wounded limbs.
“So, we’ve got the Monk,” Gadya says, as she glances up through the branches at the feeler. She’s using a tree branch as a staff to help her walk. “I can’t wait to be alone with that bastard.”
“Remember, we can’t kill him,” I say. “At least not right away. We need answers. And we need to figure out what codes to use on the box. Or else he’s gonna be stuck in the sky forever.”
We keep hiking, pressing even deeper into the forest, stumbling forward. I try not to think of Cass and Emma back on the road, fighting for their lives. Or David. Or even Dr. Barrett, who looked so close to death.
We reach a small clearing, strewn with leaves and dead branches. Above it is a circle of blue sky. My chest is heaving for air. Liam sits down, looking pale. He’s losing way too much blood.
“Let’s try to bring the Monk down right here,” I say.
“Okay,” he agrees.
Gadya comes over to my side.
“How does this thing work?” she asks, gesturing at the box.
“No clue,” I tell her.
She leans in and starts flicking random switches.
“Careful,” I warn her.
“Look!” she yells, glancing up. The feeler is moving back over to the highway.
“That’s the wrong way!” I tell her, grabbing at the box. I flick the switch to bring him back over to us again.
“Trial and error,” Liam calls out to us. “There has to be some code to bring the feeler down to the ground. Just keep working on it. . . .”
• • •
Fifteen minutes later, after struggling to understand the box, we finally manage to get the feeler to start descending from the sky by toggling one of the central switches downward. Now that the Monk is closer, I can see him struggling against the tight, unyielding grasp of the metal tentacles.
I feel no pity or remorse. This charlatan deserves his fate. We are about to expose the source of so much evil on the wheel. The Monk has been outwitted. There are no drones to protect him now. And the UNA drugs that he relies on to keep his followers in line do not affect us.
The feeler drifts lower.
“I’m going to cut your throat!” Gadya yells up at the Monk.
The feeler is now about fifteen feet above the ground, its rotors dangerously close to hitting tree branches. The Monk keeps writhing, but he remains curiously silent.
“It’s time,” I tell Gadya. I stop toggling the switch. The feeler stops moving. It just hovers there like a mechanical hummingbird. “Now comes the hard part.”
It takes another few minutes of playing with switches until we get the feeler to uncoil its tentacles and release the Monk.
When it happens, the Monk is taken by surprise, and so are we. He plummets straight down to the earth, landing in a heap in front of us with a thud. Dirt and leaves scatter everywhere.
Despite his wounds, Liam is already back on his feet. The three of us stand there, watching the wretched figure lying on the ground. I toggle the switch upward, and the feeler drifts back into the sky, to hover loudly in the air again.
The Monk lies there for a moment, shrouded in his black robes. None of us say a word.
Then the Monk begins to move, drawing himself inward. As we watch, he smoothly pulls himself upward to his feet. He seems uninjured by his fall. Then he stands, facing the three of us.
His wooden mask is tightly locked on to his face, completely obscuring his features. Blue eyes burn out from behind the eyeholes. The whites of these eyes aren’t mottled and red like Minister Harka’s were, but I can see raging fury in them. The Monk remains silent.
“Now it’s our turn to ruin your day!” Gadya taunts. She tosses her tree branch to one side and takes her short knife out of her ankle sheath. “Bet you didn’t think you’d end up here with us.”
The Monk still doesn’t reply. He just keeps watching us.
“Take off your mask,” Liam commands. “Slowly.”
The Monk doesn’t move. He just keeps staring at us with eyes filled with raw hatred and contempt.
Gadya holds out her knife. “I can make you take it off. Even if I have to carve up your face in the process.”
The Monk just glares back at her.
“Say something!” I yell. “You had so much to say to us before. Why not now? Why won’t you speak?”
The Monk’s blue eyes find mine.
A moment passes.
And then the Monk speaks.
“You think you’ve accomplished something?” the Monk hisses. “You’ve done nothing but seal your own fate!”
I step back, startled despite myself.
The voice coming from behind the mask is distinctly female.
Liam and Gadya look equally surprised.
It never crossed my mind that the Monk could be a girl. I realize then that we’ve never heard the Monk’s voice unamplified before now. It must have been run through some kind of electronic alteration to lower its pitch, as well as to increase its volume.
“Who are you?” I breathe.
As I gaze at the masked figure, she raises her hands and unclasps the mask from her head. She reveals light-blond hair pulled back in a bun, and a pale, sweaty face. Her full lips are curled into a feral snarl, distorting her natural beauty.
I recognize her instantly. It feels like the air has been sucked out of my lungs. I stand there, stunned.
She tosses the wooden mask to the ground disdainfully.
It rolls, and lands at my feet.
The Monk is Meira.
“Traitor!” Gadya screams. She rushes right at Meira with her knife raised, ready to slit her throat. Liam steps between them, holding Gadya back.
“No!” he yells. “Don’t!”
Meira just stands there. She reaches up a hand and lets down her hair. It isn’t pristine and sleek like I remembered. Now it’s dirty and unkempt. And her face is marked with red pressure lines from where the mask has rested on it. She looks deranged.
“How could you do this to us?” I ask her angrily.
“Do what?” she retorts.
“Betray everything that you stood for!” Liam says, still struggling to keep Gadya from killing her.
Meira ignores him.
“The scientists said you were a spy when we got to Destiny Station,” I tell her. “You and Veidman both. But I didn’t really believe them.”
Meira sticks out her tongue. To my shock, I see that it’s b
een cleaved in two. She smiles when she sees me recoil in disgust. Her teeth have also been filed into sharp points. Just like so many of the other drones.
“Do you believe the scientists now?” she asks.
Liam gets Gadya under control, at least for the moment. We stand there facing Meira. Her life is in our hands, although she doesn’t seem to care about that.
“Explain yourself!” I tell her. “Have you gone crazy? Why did you do this?”
“Why?” she spits back like she’s possessed. “I don’t need to tell you. You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“You owe it to us,” Liam says. “I fought for our village. All of us did. We would have given our lives for you and Veidman. What would Veidman think of you now, or was he in on it too?”
“Of course he was,” she sneers. “We both were. We were sent from the UNA to control things in the blue sector, and make sure the villagers never succeeded in anything they did. We sabotaged many missions. We were nothing like you.” She pauses, her crazed eyes darting back and forth. “I was never a villager. No more than I am a drone. I am whatever the situation requires of me to stay alive. And in control.”
“You’re not in control now, and I doubt you’re going to stay alive much longer,” I tell her calmly. I notice that she doesn’t have any trace of a Canadian accent, like she did in the village. That must have been an act too.
“Just tell us why,” Liam says. “That’s what we want to know. Why did you do this to us?”
“Because the GPPT actually works!” Meira cries out. “Because you are scum. You are disruptors who have no place in the golden society of the United Northern Alliance!” Her eyes are burning with savage glee. “It took everything I had to hide my true feelings back at our village.”
“Then why did you get sent to the wheel?” Gadya snaps. “I mean, if you love the UNA so much.” I know she’s dying to lunge at Meira again. Liam and I are too. But our desire for answers prevents us from doing anything.
“I didn’t get sent here, you moron!” Meira says to Gadya. “Veidman and I volunteered. To serve our nation.” She pauses. “You really don’t get it, do you? The GPPT tests for genetic mutations—like the kind all of you have—that make you less susceptible to mind-control drugs. But it also tests for perfect psychological subjects like me and Veidman. Kids who would make the ideal double agents. Diamonds among the coals. Kids that the UNA can train to work for the good of the nation and—”
The Uprising: The Forsaken Trilogy Page 27