by Krista McGee
“Your science sounds very much like my God.” I put my hands in my pockets. “We’re both followers.”
Loudin lifts a corner of his mouth. “That is where you are wrong. I lead. I do not follow. And I want to give you the opportunity to lead too.”
“Because you care about me.” I step closer to Loudin.
“Because my tests show that you are incredibly advanced, capable of maintaining productivity here in the State.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“About you?” Loudin’s forehead creases.
“About everything. About science. About God. About emotions.”
“I am not wrong.”
“But you don’t know for certain.” I smile. “Even your science leaves room for doubt.”
“Not as much room as primitive thoughts do.” With that, Loudin waves his hand and turns back to his office. “We have delved into the realm of ideas and philosophy. While I have enjoyed the discussion, we must move on to what is important.”
“What is that?”
Loudin sits at his desk and pushes an image on the wall screen—a map of the world, with green dots scattered throughout. Dots that represent people, culture, families.
“The elimination of the unnecessary.”
CHAPTER 53
I pull my ear again and apparently jump into the middle of a conversation between the others on this transmitter.
“. . . still alive?” Alex says.
“I told you.” James is speaking slowly. “I am watching them. Rhen is in a medical chamber and Thalli is with Loudin.”
“Safe?” Berk asks.
“Yes.” I answer their question while also answering Loudin’s. He wants to know if I am willing to assist him as he prepares the nuclear bombs. “But are the bombs ready? When do you plan to launch them?”
Berk speaks at the same time as Loudin. I struggle to listen to both.
“They’re only partially ready.”
Berk is quiet, seeming to understand my need to hear Loudin as well.
“You still hope to stop me?” Loudin shakes his head, disappointment radiating off him.
“I still think there is a better solution. Innocent people do not need to die. They aren’t harming anyone.”
“First”—Loudin points to the wall screen—“they aren’t innocent, as we discussed before. And second, they are procreating. These few dots will multiply, generation after generation.”
“So let them.”
“And when they eventually develop technology and find us?” Loudin waves his hand. “When they want to infiltrate the State and turn it back into what the world was like before? They could undo all that we have worked toward here. They could reverse our progress.”
“Do you have a date in mind?”
“Soon.” Loudin eyes the wall screen. “Very soon.”
“The earth will be toxic again.” I try another argument, anything to stop him, or at least slow him enough to give us time to find a way to sabotage this plan. “You’ll never see the surface. You won’t live long enough.”
Loudin presses his lips together. “It is a small price to pay to save the world.”
“Save the world?” I know I should remain calm, but he is making that extremely difficult.
“There is a story in the mythology you love.” Loudin sits back at his desk. “I remember hearing it when I was child. God destroyed the earth in a flood because the people on the earth were wicked. He had no choice. They wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t change. So he started over with the only ones who would listen to him. Noah, I believe. Are you familiar with that story?”
There is no time to debate whether or not it is mythology. I simply nod, but my mind is working. A worldwide flood. God promised he would never flood the world again. Not the whole world but . . .
“That is what I am doing,” Loudin continues, unaware of the thoughts in my mind.
I try to listen, but a plan is coming. It is frightening and almost impossible. But if it is from God, then it will work.
“The world needs to be destroyed so it can be populated with better people.”
The door opens and Dr. Williams enters, a smile covering her face. “They have completed the warheads. We are ready.”
“Excellent.” Loudin walks to Dr. Williams and shakes her hand.
“Who is that?” Alex asks in my ear.
“Williams,” James whispers. “I have to go.”
“When can we launch?” Loudin pulls Dr. Williams’s communications pad from her hands.
“Twelve hours.”
Loudin tosses the image from the communications pad onto the wall screen. Red circles cover each location on the map where survivors live. The circles, I realize, are targets. In the corner of the screen is a clock. The countdown.
Eleven hours and forty-four minutes.
CHAPTER 54
I need to leave.” I put a hand on my head, not needing to pretend I am dizzy, but needing desperately to get out of here.
“Of course.” Loudin barely notices I am here. He is focused on destroying the world. Again.
I don’t think there is any way Dallas can bring enough people back in the next twelve hours to stop Loudin. It is up to us. To me.
I leave the room and take the elevator up to Level C, where I go down the hall and peer in each window, looking for Rhen. Loudin won’t be observing me right now. No Monitors follow me. The Communication Specialist beside the desk in the lobby didn’t stop me or ask me any questions.
What would she say—what would the others say—if they knew what was happening right now below their feet? I grunt as I pass yet another empty medical chamber. They wouldn’t think anything. They’d just keep doing what they were programmed to do. They wouldn’t find it appalling or terrible.
But maybe they would. Rhen was like them. Until she went above, spent time with the people in New Hope. Up there, she changed. They could change too.
If I could just get them there.
If there is a there to get them to.
Finally I find Rhen. She is sleeping, but I have no choice. We have to get out of here. An alarm sounds when I enter her room. I pull her out of the sleeping platform and force her into her shoes.
A Monitor opens the door and presses the panel on the wall. “You said to alert you if there was any change with the patient.”
Loudin’s profile is visible on the wall screen, but he does not even look up. “Let her go. She poses no danger anymore.”
We leave. Posing no danger. Of course not. Escape is futile if the earth is eleven and a half hours from becoming radioactive once again. Eleven and a half hours from destroying people in Athens and New Hope—people on continents all over the world. I imagine that blast of light followed by devastation and I move faster.
Rhen is struggling to walk so I wrap my arm underneath hers and half carry her to Pod A. I am out of breath and sweating by the time we arrive, but the effort kept me from having to think too much about what is happening, and I am grateful for the reprieve.
As soon as we step up to the door, Alex and Berk rush to meet us. I turned off my earpiece on the way to get Rhen—they didn’t know we were coming.
The four of us freeze for a moment. Berk and Alex stare at me in the same way. I cannot look at either of them. Rhen straightens and walks through the entry to the couch.
Pod A looks just like Pod C—same layout: living area, cooking chamber, long hallway leading to the cubes. Even the furniture is the same. But unlike Pod C, the former residents of Pod A are alive, in New Hope. At least for now.
“We have eleven hours.” Saying this out loud doesn’t make it any more real than it was before, but it does make it more frightening. Eleven hours.
“Until what?” Rhen pulls her hair back and fastens it with an elastic band.
I explain Loudin’s plan to her and her face pales.
“Where is Dallas?”
“He should be safe in New Hope right now.” I don’t need to tell
her that the army he may be assembling will not come in time to help us, nor that a bomb is pointed straight at him.
“You left him to do that by himself?” Rhen glares at Alex and Berk.
Alex waves his arms. “We had to.”
“How do you know he is in New Hope?” Rhen leans forward. “He doesn’t know how to fly that aircraft. He could have crashed. How dare you do that to him, just so you both could be here with Thalli.”
I have never seen Rhen angry. We are all stunned. But I break the silence, explaining that the aircraft has autopilot, that Dallas and the others will be fine. “We need to focus on these bombs right now. We have very little time.”
“We won’t let him do this.” Alex runs a hand through his blond hair. “Berk and I have been talking. We have to kill him. We can’t avoid it any longer.”
“The bombs are on a computerized countdown.” I pace the length of the room. “Even if Loudin is dead, his plan would still go on.”
“There has to be an Off button.” Alex leans on a chair.
“James would know,” Berk says. “But he turned off his transmitter. I don’t know where he went.”
I pull on my ear and call for James, but there is no response. “Berk, can’t you tap into the videos in the Scientists’ quarters?”
“It would take too long.” He shakes his head. “We’re better off going there and trying to see what’s happening.”
“But if we get caught, it’s all over.” I glance at the door. “We can’t take that risk.”
“What if we split up?” Alex says. “That way, if he catches some of us, the others can still act.”
“But we still don’t have a plan,” Berk says. “We need more information before we go storming in there.”
My earpiece crackles, and I hear Loudin screaming, “You did what?”
“I destroyed everything.” James’s voice is hard.
“What do you mean, you destroyed everything?”
“Just that. I cannot create a new generation. It is impossible.”
I hear a crash, like metal hitting the floor. “How dare you!”
“You are out of control, Joseph.”
“And you are finished, Dr. Turner. Get him out of here.”
“Turn off the bombs.” James is shouting.
“Fool.” Loudin sounds far away. “We can gather reproductive ingredients from those here below. You have done nothing but sign your own death warrant.”
James argues about genetic difficulties, just one generation to collect from, malformations, but Loudin obviously does not listen, does not bring him back. I can no longer hear Loudin. All I hear is James’s grunts, his straining against the guards.
“Do not let this happen.” James is speaking quietly—he is speaking to us. “You cannot let this happen. There will be no one left. It will mean the end of mankind.”
CHAPTER 55
We are running to the Scientists’ quarters. We have no more time to debate whether or not this will work or even how this will work. I am praying, praying for strength in our weakness, praying for protection from our enemies, praying for victory.
We stop just before we get to the entrance of the quarters.
“I don’t like this,” Rhen says. “We can’t just walk into the operations chamber.”
“We’ve run out of options.” Berk repeats the argument he made in Pod A. “We have to see if we can disable the countdown.”
My doubts echo Rhen’s, but Berk knows the computer system in the State better than almost anyone. Before we left for New Hope the first time, he was in training to be a Scientist, and he had lived in the Scientists’ quarters for five years.
Alex crouches down, then shoots off, faster than I have ever seen him go. We wait thirty seconds, as he instructed. When we enter the lobby, the Monitor behind the counter is unconscious, and Alex hands her communications pad to Berk.
“Well done.” Berk taps on the pad, and I keep my head down, praying Loudin is distracted enough not to look at the monitors.
“She doesn’t have access to the operations chamber.” Berk looks up from the pad. “But we can get right to the door. Alex, we’ll need you to help us move past the guards that are down there.”
“All right.”
We slip into an elevator and go to Level E. The doors slide open, and six guards greet us. We were not expecting so many. Loudin must have sent more down here. I press the panel to shut the elevator door, but one of the guards jams his foot against the opening. Another pulls me out and grips my wrists together behind my back in one large hand.
Within seconds, Rhen and Berk are trapped by guards. Alex is still fighting. He has managed to punch two guards and is grappling with a third, but there are too many.
I throw my head back against the guard holding me, and he releases my hands. I launch myself into the back of the guard holding Berk. But his back is like a rock and he doesn’t move. Meanwhile, my guard has recovered and he is pinching my shoulders in his hands.
I scream and Berk bends at the waist and kicks back between his guard’s legs. The guard drops to the ground, and Berk bends down to pull the communications pad from the man’s waist.
The door to the operations chamber opens, but another of the guards lunges toward Berk and lands on top of him, covering Berk’s body with his own. He’ll crush Berk.
I follow his example, leaving my guard on the ground, and I kick at the guard on Berk until he rolls over and Berk scrambles through the open door.
I race in the opposite direction. Rhen is still fighting against her captor. She has barely recovered from Loudin’s attack. I know she doesn’t have the strength to get away. But I can’t help her yet. I have to draw attention from Berk so he can get inside the chamber and to the operations center.
We turned our earpieces on as soon as we left Pod A, but there is so much noise—grunts and groans from each of us—that I can’t distinguish Berk’s voice. I keep running until I am at the end of the hallway, then I push through the door and go down the stairs. No one follows me. I stop to catch my breath.
“Berk.” I speak as loudly as I dare. “Did you make it?”
“I’m in. And I changed the code to unlock the door so the guards won’t be able to come in. Where are you?”
“The stairwell.” I look up—still no one has followed me. “Alex? Are you all right?”
“Run, Thalli,” Alex whispers. “The guards are calling Loudin. Berk, you don’t have much time. You better fix this fast.”
I race down the stairs. I can’t stay here. I need to get out of the Scientists’ quarters. I’ll be harder to track out there.
I make it to the lobby when shouting bursts in my earpiece. Loudin has found Alex and Rhen. I pray Berk can find a way to stop the countdown before Loudin enters the chamber.
Alex is shouting Rhen’s name, and I want to go back and help them. Rhen is weak. She is hurt. Even Alex sounds tired.
But I go on anyway. I run out the doors as fast as I can, and I keep running, running, to the spot in the State where the cameras won’t see me: the water reservoirs. I keep my head down, listening intently to the shouting, Loudin insisting someone open the door to the operations chamber. Guards’ voices are muffled, but I do not hear victory in their tone.
“Berk.” I am so winded I can barely speak. “Did you find it? Can you stop it?”
“Open the door, Berk.” I hear Loudin in my earpiece, but can Berk hear him through the glass? “Open the door or I will blow it open. And that won’t be pretty. Believe me.”
Blow it open? Images of an explosion, of Berk and Rhen being hurt as a result, fill my mind. I stop. “Berk, you have to let Loudin in.”
“This code is unbreakable,” Berk says. “Loudin made sure no one could override it.”
“You have thirty seconds.” Loudin’s voice fills my ear, and I relay his message to Berk, then I continue running.
I hear more shouting, metal clanging, tones sounding in a cacophony of minor keys. I am at
the water reservoirs now, my hands flat against the rough sides. I look up, again reminded how massive these are. I cannot see around them, can barely see to the top.
I hear a groan from Alex that freezes my blood. Rhen shouts, but then she is silenced.
“Bring. Berk. To. Me.” Loudin spits out each word.
I hear glass shatter and then I hear Berk. “I love you, Thalli.”
CHAPTER 56
Nothing. After Berk spoke, the earpieces stopped working. I have tugged on my ear, pulled the device out and examined it, hit it, placed it in the other ear, thrown it to the ground, yet it remains silent. I do not know what is happening or even how much time has passed since I left the Scientists’ quarters.
I want to go back to check on my friends. But I cannot. Part of me is too frightened to move, to see my worst fears realized—those I love, dead. Another part of me, one that has been praying, desperate for the Designer to perform a miracle, feels that I need to stay here. I must stay here. Why, I do not know. But I remain.
I turn back to the reservoir, walk around it. So much water is in this one, and this is not the only one. Because the water is from above, piped in from faraway oceans, it must go through years of purification before we can use it. Each reservoir has water in different stages of the purification process. Each holds the equivalent of the large lake in New Hope. An immense amount of water. If I could get the water in there out here . . . the State would flood. All of it. The computers would stop working, the bombs would not launch.
There are tubes at the top, but I cannot get up there, not without a transport. And even if I got a transport and I reached the tubes, how would I release the water?
I slump back to the ground. Impossible. This all seems impossible. My worst fear will come true—I alone will survive, trapped here like John was, with nothing but verses and memories to keep me from losing my mind.