The Kidnapped Army

by Shiloh White

  Behind me, Woodstock took a moment to catch his breath.

  I tried to get used to not being dough by taking in my surroundings. Chug hadn't shown up yet, but he must have been right behind us. Beneath me was dark, upturned soil, like the kind you might see before a farmer plants things in it. Above me, the night sky reached far past what I could see.

  Which was saying something, because even though it was dark, the tents in front of us made it easy to see. And I don't mean your run-of-the-mill, every-day camping tents. These things looked like desert nomads and Bill Gates got together and designed a super-tent. And they stretched on for what looked like forever.

  These things were huge, and wide enough to easily fit a family of nine. And each one looked tall enough for someone like Chug to stand on my shoulders with room to spare. Instead of tarp, they were made out of a strange black material. The way it hung made it looked draped like a normal tent cloth, but installed in the top and the entrance of each tent were harsh white fluorescent lights, shining bright enough to make it feel almost like daytime. The tent sheets had to be manufactured out of metal or something. Something that could conduct electricity well enough for all these lights.

  “My granddaughter has...evolved with the times,” Lionel had told us. “If things don't quite click right with you, it's cause her zone is all future-y now. At the center is what she called a power core. Disconnect it, and kaput goes the whole thing."

  “Lionel wasn't kidding,” Chug said, appearing next to me, “This place does look pretty futuristic. And dark. It's like all your movies right now. You have a word for it, too...Post-aposomething."

  “Post-apocalyptic,” I offered.

  “Nah, that can't be right.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from losing it on him. Thankfully, his mention of movies was enough to distract me.

  “You know,” I said, “I haven't seen or heard of any movie theaters in the Dust."

  “S'cause we don't have 'em.”

  “So—"

  “How do I know what they are?” he finished. I nodded.

  “I was getting Topside info for Mr. Reggie and..."—he chuckled mischievously—“I had to take a break sometime. Movies seemed cool.”

  “You snuck into movie theaters? Without paying?"

  Chug tried to keep it together, just shrugging at me again. But the ridiculous smile on his face said it all.

  “If you two are done shooting the breeze, we have a Zone to shut down.” Woodstock called out. He looked out at the endless rows of tents, a grim expression on his face.

  “Where were we supposed to get to?” Chug asked. He took the smile off his face and caught up to Woodstock. I followed him over.

  “You forgot?” I asked.

  “I might have been a little distracted,” Chug said, puffing out his chest like it was something to be proud of. “I couldn't get the image of punching Takao in the nose out of my head."

  “We got those instructions like, two seconds ago, ese.” Woodstock said impatiently. Then he sighed, letting his anger out along with his breath. “Lionel cut a hole in one of the tents. That's the one we need to get to.”

  “Right,” Chug said slowly, in the same mischievous tone. “What do we do if we find it?"

  He asked Lionel the same question back at his house, and the old man just said, “Don't get caught like I did.”

  “How about just call out that you found it?” Woodstock said, his impatience quickly growing.

  “Should we split up, then?"

  Woodstock nodded. “Start in the middle. Lucy and I will fan out left and right. If Lionel's warning was accurate, we'd better hurry before his granddaughter realizes we're here."

  “You don't have to tell me twice,” I told them. “This place is a thirteen on my spooky chart. I don't like the white lights.”

  I didn't wait for them to start searching for the torn tent when I took off to the right. I didn't want to tell them, but it wasn't the spooky Zone that got me running.

  Between Lionel's granddaughter and the Depression Force—and more directly fatal, Stark—I knew we needed to hurry before we were surrounded on all ends. Lionel tried to explain to us that the reason he got caught so quick was because she found a way to be alerted of intruders faster than a normal Zone Holder could.

  “She had to. After all, the Zone wasn't hers, and she couldn't have anyone—” he chuckled—"me, I mean, comin' in and taking it back. I'd barely been in there three minutes before she kicked me out."

  Three minutes.

  I ran past row after row of tents, none of them having a tear in the glossy black material. Before I knew it, I'd developed a routine: run to tent, check all sides, keep running, stop and look over my shoulder, then run to the next tent.

  The scariest part was hearing nothing but my own feet, and the occasional echo of another pair of feet off to my left. I knew it was one of the boys, but it didn't stop me from looking back after each tent.

  I was pretty sure we'd been in here much longer than three minutes. I didn't pull out my phone to check. I didn't want to. I knew the second I pulled my phone out, that would be it. The Agent would have me. And I didn't expect her to be merciful enough to kick me out. I wasn't her dear old traitor of a grandpa, or any other relative.

  I was a stranger invading her home.

  But what would I do if I did run into her? Run? Would it make a difference at that point? What about fighting? Lionel didn't want us to hurt her if we didn't have to. But I might. The only question was if I would be able to draw my Handle. Or if I would hesitate like Stark made me when he swat my whip aside.

  The only other option that came to mind would be to scream for help. I stopped running between two tents to catch my breath, and looked around in every direction. I didn't see the boys anywhere. Would they even hear me if I called out?

  I couldn't stop myself from letting out a small chuckle. No Lionel's granddaughter—no Depression Agent yet, and I already felt like a deer in headlights. All that came to mind were the words off those warning signs people put on their chain link fences: “Trespassers will be shot on sight.” There was no use stressing over it right now. I wouldn't know how to react until I was in the situation anyway.

  Which didn't take long at all.

  I ran to the next tent and an arm stretched out from around the corner of it. I ducked to avoid slamming into it with my neck. Unfortunately, I didn't duck low enough. I collided with the arm at eye-level and fell to the ground hard.

  The force sent me into a daze, so all I could make out was a dark silhouette standing above me. Their identity was hidden underneath the tent's light, but I could make out a thin, sharp object in one hand.

  “Intruder detected! Intruder detected!” It yelled in a female voice, but it sounded...automatic. Like she was rehearsing lines she'd said a billion times. “Intruder detected! Intruder detected!”

  She raised the sharp object high above her head, and I realized exactly what I would do in that moment.

  ✽✽✽

  I wasn't the biggest fan of running being the plan, but right now, it felt like the safest one.

  Lionel's granddaughter—or at least, that's who I assumed it was—tried to stab me, so I rolled out of the way as fast as I could. I heard her bury her weapon in the dirt next to me. While she pulled it out, I scrambled to my feet and took off. She shot off after me, and she was fast. I could hear her “Intruder detected!” chant right behind me.

  I tried to lose her around the side of a tent, but she was too fast to shake. I was barely able to keep enough distance between us to keep from getting stabbed in the back.

  “Guys!” I shouted. “Help! Where are you?”

  No answer.

  I veered left, towards where Chug went, in hopes that I would reach them soon. But I was definitely not a track star. My stamina was running out, which meant soon, I'd run out of time. I was going to have to fight.

  I reached into my bag for a paintbrush at random, and my hand met with a hard
and cold glass screen. My stupid phone was sitting on top of my back, right in the way of my paintbrushes. I reached further in and grabbed it to pull out of the way, when it started vibrating.

  I pulled it out of the bag, which was kind of hard while running from a girl trying to stab me, and looked at it. It was ringing, and the caller ID read “Anna."

  “Are you kidding?!” I screamed. Right now?

  “Intruder alert!” Lionel's granddaughter screamed back, from right behind me. She made me jump and I poured on a fresh burst of speed to keep from getting stabbed.

  “Hello? Lucy, are you there?"

  “What?” I looked down at the phone and saw that Anna had reached me. I must have hit the button to pick up when I jumped.

  “You're alive!” she exclaimed through the phone. “Lucy, it's Anna! You haven't answered my phone calls in two days! Can you let me in? The door's locked again."

  “Uhh...” I glanced back at the girl chasing me, and then up ahead, hoping to see one of the boys. No such luck. “Now's not a great time. Wait, what do you mean the door's locked again?"

  There was a pause for a second too long before I heard Anna respond.

  “Wow...” her voice wavered. “You must be really sick not to have realized.”

  Realized what? You tell me. I wanted to tell her I had no clue what she was talking about, that all I knew was that she'd had been in that locked room since I “left", and I hadn't been there since to lock it again. I also wasn't sure if I should've been freaking out over that, since it was perfectly normal for someone sick to leave their hotel room at some point, right? Unless she came in late at night and I was missing.

  “You know what,” I said, “I'm sorry. I should've realized.”

  It might have just been the fact that I was still running while trying to have a normal conversation, but I could feel my body starting to hyperventilate. My breath quickened, going in and out in short puffs that urged my body to escape the stabbing crazy girl behind me, all the while trying to appear calm on the phone.

  “It's okay. I just—” she sighed. “I wanted to see if you're alright and...I was hoping to talk to you. Zeke’s been—"

  “Intruder alert!” Lionel's granddaughter called out again. I turned and saw she was almost on top of me. I'd been running for my life for a few minutes, and gotten no closer to saving it. In fact, I was getting further away. I wondered if I got stabbed right now, if Anna would even know.

  “What was that?” Anna asked.

  “I..uhm, I'm watching a movie. It's loud.”

  “Pretty loud movie for me not to hear it from outside the door.” Wow. Forget if she'd know. Would she care? That was the quickest I'd ever heard someone define passive-aggressive. It threw me off guard so much that I didn't even try just hanging up the phone.

  “Well,” I stammered, “I just realized how loud it was, so I turned it down. Anna, I'm sorry, but I—"

  “GUYS! I FOUND THE TENT!” Chug's voice yelled somewhere not far from my right. Leave it to Chug to save me and make things infinitely worse at the same time.

  “Turned it down, huh?” Anna asked. Things were gonna get a whole lot worse very quick, and I knew I wouldn't be able to untangle that situation and save my life.

  “Anna, we'll talk later, I promise. But I need to go—I mean, I need to sleep. Bye!"

  I threw the phone back in my paint bag and poured on speed.

  “Follow the sound of my voice, guys!” Chug said.

  He didn't have to tell me twice.

  His voice grew nearer with each step I took, and man, it was a lot easier to take bigger steps when you weren't on the phone. He was standing with his back to me, at a tent just like any other. Except for the side I was facing had two gashes cut over one another like an 'X'. Despite that, the tent material hadn't been unraveled. A small blue current passed through each line of the cuts, making it look no more than a distant scar. I would have missed it if the cuts any smaller. Chug must have been paying good attention to notice it.

  Or just didn't have a crazy security guard with a sharp weapon chasing him while he looked.

  “Chug, help!” I shouted. He turned around and pulled out a gun.

  “Is that her?"

  “I don't know! Just stop her!”

  “Okay, then duck!”

  It took everything in me to stop myself from running—which was the only thing between me and getting stabbed—but I hit the dirt and the blast of Chug's gun sounded. The gust of air shot past me and the girl cried out in pain. I got up and ran over to Chug, looking back at the girl.

  “I got her in the leg,” Chug said. “She tripped and hit her head."

  “Is she gonna be okay?” I asked.

  “Why do you care? She was ready to kill you."

  “Lionel said not to hurt her, remember?”

  And yet, it was easier just to say it. Chug was right. This girl didn't sound like she had any remorse about the intruder alerting her it was time to commit a stabbing. I looked down at her. She was doubled over in a ball, clutching her knee, her head twitching.

  Wait.

  “What I want to know is, is it even her?” Chug asked. “Lionel said her defenses found him in three minutes. Was it really just her?"

  “No, it's definitely not.” A deep voice said behind us. I yelped and turned around. Chug almost shot the source of the voice, but Woodstock grabbed his arm before he could pull the trigger.

  “Don't scare us like that, man!” Chug said. Only it came out more like a bunch of voice cracks and squeaking. Still riding adrenaline, I wheeled back around to the girl. She was still on the ground clutching her knee, right where I just saw her.

  “There's more on my tail.” Woodstock pushed Chug's gun back into his hands. I turned to look past Woodstock, squinting at the beaming fluorescent white lights. Then I saw them. A bunch of black blurs, moving too fast for me to identify them with the fluorescent white lights. Woodstock had done a much better job of outrunning them, but they were closing that gap quickly. “We need to hurry. This is the tent?” he asked. I hadn't noticed it at first, but his face was beaded with sweat.

  Chug nodded. “Yeah. There's a cut on the side and everything. Wanna see?"

  Woodstock shook his head. “Let's just go in before she catches up. Something's not right about all this."

  “INTRUDER ALERT!” the voices behind Woodstock screamed as they ran at us. Only, the sound didn't just come from their direction.

  The girl Chug shot in the knee screamed the words too. Then she jumped off the ground, making a last-ditch lunge at us with her weapon.

  23. “Attack of the Clones” in Ninety Seconds

  “Look out!” I put an arm on both of the boys and shoved them into the tent. Well, it was more like I shoved Chug in, and just nudged Woodstock to dodge, because he rolled into the tent on his own.

  Together, we plowed through the entrance and fell into the middle of the tent. I landed on dirt, and rolled my head onto something very hard. I stared up at the rest of the room with stars in my vision. It looked even crazier than the outside.

  The same fluorescent lights covered the space from top to bottom. What with getting my noggin rocked, my eyes were still adjusting to everything, but I could make out a few essential living requirements. There was a shelf by one of the tent walls for food rations, a bed by the middle tent wall, and a couple bags off to the right. Full of clothes, maybe?

  “You guys okay?” I groaned. I noticed Woodstock kept his momentum rolling and dashed from piece to piece of the room, checking behind the food shelf and under the bed. “I should be asking you that, mija.” He ran over and pulled me to my feet.

  “I'm fine,” I said, brushing off the dirt. I took another look around the room and noticed something very wrong. “Where's Chug?"

  Just then, he rushed through the entrance of the tent with his gun in hand.

  “That one outside's taken care of,” he said. “Shot to the head knocked her out. For real this time."

&nb
sp; “Good.” Woodstock said. He went back to ransacking the room trying to find the entrance. “We still need to hurry. She's still coming."

  “She?” I repeated. “You said that outside the tent, too. I saw at least five different shapes."

  “Me too,” Chug rose to his feet, rubbing the back of his head. “Sounds like 'they,' not 'she.'“

  Woodstock stopped shuffling around the room and looked right at us with eyes that saw something. Something impossible. I saw it in the way he tried to give me absolute focus, but his vision kept tilting towards the entrance of the tent, like whatever was out there was seconds away. And it was.

  “I can't explain it,” Woodstock said, fixing his wide eyes on me. He was growing flustered very quickly. His hair was drenched with sweat. “It wasn't a 'they.' It was like—"

  CLANG! CLANG, CLANG!

  “Did you guys hear that?” Chug asked.

  “How could we miss it, ese?” Woodstock jabbed. The sound reverberated through the entire tent, bouncing off the metal walls.

  “But did you feel that?” I asked.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked. But he lowered his voice, as if expecting the sound again.

  “It felt like...” I looked down. Under my feet laid a circle rug. Dirt, everywhere else in the room. So what did I hit my head on?

  I picked the rug up and tossed it aside. Underneath was a large manhole covering.

  CLANG! CLANG, CLANG! came the sound again, right under my feet.

  “You mean something's down there, too?” Chug asked.

  “I'd rather worry about one something than dealing with all the ones out there,” Woodstock said, going to work on picking up the cover off. It had a small twist valve on the top. Woodstock gripped it and began to turn. Chug ran over and tried to help him.

  CLANG! CLANG, CLANG! CLANG! CLANG, CLANG!

  “Why won't it stop?” Woodstock asked.

  “Maybe it wants us to hurry up.” I said. That thought was enough to make me want to try our chances outside. But neither Woodstock nor Chug budged from their spots, so instead, I grabbed an open piece of the valve and pulled with them. It took all his strength and a bit of Chug's and mine to unfasten it. The second we pulled it off, the clanging stopped.