by Ramona Finn
“What was that?” I called out against the echo in my head.
“It sounded like a bomb,” Syeth said.
I turned around and saw that the hospital was still intact. The Unpaired who had guarded the lobby were rushing out to see what had happened.
Syeth walked over to them, already detailing what we had experienced.
A crackling sound appeared next to me, and I wondered if there was more damage to my ears than I’d thought. But it was the radio on Syeth’s and the other guards’ belts. Syeth unclipped it and held it up to his ear as a female voice shouted orders for all available and able Unpaired to convene in the center of the residential district.
We were several blocks away from there. Citizens poured from the buildings and houses into the streets, staring at the sky and questioning what had just happened even as they moved to respond.
An alarm blared in the air, and then the popping sounds of artillery joined it.
“We need all available soldiers at the front!” the commander’s voice screamed over the radio.
Whirring helicopters thrummed closer, and I spotted several of them coming from the direction of the city to our right.
Syeth cradled the radio as if it were another bomb about to detonate. His wide eyes locked with mine. “Lora, you and John need to get to safety.”
I pulled him to me, embracing him as tightly as possible—as if I could convey words in the gesture. “Be safe.”
“I will. Go.”
And, with that, Syeth and the other guards took off ahead of us toward the shots.
I turned to John, but his stare was locked over my shoulder. “We need to get to safety. We’re no use out here if we get hurt.”
The helicopters came closer and John grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the overhang shading the front door. The helicopters turned toward the residential area.
“What are they doing here?” Had BioPure discovered our location? Was Mia at the helm, ready to bulldoze my family tree?
“They must be after something. Most of those helicopters aren’t transport ones. They’re here to destroy something.”
“Destroy what?” The rebel bunker was deep underground, and we had more numbers than the amount of security personnel they had on the six helicopters, which screamed over the horizon.
The doors opened behind us and two more Unpaired came out. The commander’s voice crackled from the radio at their sides, and I noticed they had their rifles at the ready. “…the lab. Our warehouse, too.”
They were gone before I could get more information out of the conversation on the radio.
“They’re headed for the lab,” I said, realizing the commander had been conveying targets.
John’s face paled. “They must have found out we were creating more of the cure. Lora, I have to retrieve it. It’s the only way we can save them.”
“We can’t go there! It’s not safe.”
“It’s not safe if we don’t have any cure to work with,” he said.
Now that we knew where the helicopters were headed, it was easier to notice their direction as they moved closer to the other side of town and toward the lab. “What do we do?” I whispered.
Movement caught my attention right before two of the helicopters exploded in the air. John grabbed onto me as we watched the wreckage fall from the sky.
“The antiaircraft rockets aren’t going to be able to take them all down,” John said. “If one of them touches down, that’s all they need to destroy my work.”
He started forward, and I kept on his heels. Citizens of the town raced in our direction, and I stuck close to John to avoid the onslaught. A few of them knocked into me as they raced to protect themselves and get to cover.
Another rocket launched into the air from the roof of the armory, but the group of remaining BioPure helicopters veered away from it before it could hit.
A group of four soldiers shouted at passersby to remain calm and get to the hospital.
“Get into the bunker!” one of them shouted in our direction. It was hard not to listen. My instincts told me to run away from the fray, but I couldn’t leave John.
Several dozen rebels of all ages bolted from ahead of us, heading toward the hospital. A few of them stumbled over their feet on the way as they tried to peer over their shoulders to see what was happening.
“Lora, you don’t have to come,” John said.
“Of course, I do.”
“I need Elsie to come back to me,” he said, his words coming in short bursts as we headed for the lab.
It was everything I wanted, too. I wasn’t about to idly sit by and wait for others to risk their lives while I hid in a bunker. “We should get there, then.”
“Lora, are you sure?”
“Not at all,” I said, wondering what Syeth would think if he knew I was following them into the line of fire. Though, if he knew, then he would try to stop me. It was better this way. I wasn’t looking for a fight, but instead had a mission to prevent the destruction of what we had left of the cure and help any of the rebels inside the lab.
Two rebel soldiers stood under a covered porch of a house. They looked young, closer to my age and wearing Unpaired uniforms. If they weren’t going to help, I thought, they could at least share their weapons. I was better at handling them now, but I didn’t carry a gun wherever I went. Although, after this, I might.
I veered off in their direction. “Hey! Do you have other firearms?”
The youngest guy furrowed his eyebrows at me.
“If you’re not going to fight, we could use them,” I said. “We’re going to get the cure before they do.”
The timid one perked up. “Both of my parents are in the hospital for New Zero.”
“We all have a stake in this,” John said from behind me.
The other reached to his belt and pulled out a pistol, checking the safety and the magazine. “We’re going.” He bumped his friend’s arm, and the boy jumped down before offering his sidearm to John. His hand shook as he passed it over, but John’s firm grip stopped the boy’s trembling. From all the rebel camps I’d seen, I had learned that a lot of the citizens were interested in helping the cause, but some were forced into uncomfortable situations when it came to choosing sides. These guys might have been okay with staying back and waiting for others to fight, but I wasn’t. Not anymore.
While Lora from a year ago might have passively walked away, I waved for them to follow me. We needed the bodies to fight against BioPure. Simply put, we needed the cure, and I wasn’t going to allow anything to get in the way of that.
The four of us raced away from the porch and headed toward the lab. The streets were filled with rebels heading toward the isolation hospital while soldiers beelined their way toward the fight.
We were two blocks away when we added to our number with a few more armed rebels who’d seemed unsure of where to go. Once they heard that we were protecting the cure, they wanted to help. The radios had gone silent, which was a tactic expected during attacks like this. The Unpaired were unwilling to allow BioPure security forces to know our locations at any point. It made sense, but not knowing how Syeth and the rest of the Unpaired were doing wasn’t helping my nerves.
As we neared the building, there were more explosions, and these blasts were much louder, but I didn’t see anyone fighting on our side of the building. The Unpaired were meeting in the center of the residential district, so they must not have been deployed to the lab quite yet—or else they were already inside.
We slowed behind the one-story schoolhouse across the street from the facility. The windows and doors of the clinic were still intact.
I glanced at John. His narrowed eyes were equally suspicious of the lack of security and rebel forces outside.
“Up there,” I said, spotting the edges of a moving propeller on the roof. My body temperature spiked at how close we were. I crossed my fingers, praying that the Unpaired were already inside, too.
Two other helicopters hove
red over the warehouse one street over. Pops of firearms sounded out from that direction.
“Where is the cure?” one of the male rebels asked. I didn’t even know his name, but it wasn’t the right time for introductions.
“Lora and I will get the cure,” John said. “You all will need to cover us. Four of you stay outside, and I’ll need at least that many to come with us.”
A memory flashed in my mind from when we’d raided the BioPure headquarters in Denver. Barely any of our team had made it out of that mission alive. Since we had arrived in Chicago, we hadn’t personally seen a loss of rebels from firefights since John and I were stuck in the lab most of the time, but there was always an opportunity in a situation like this.
I crossed my fingers, hoping BioPure hadn’t retrieved our research. At the very least, we needed the only vial of the cure which remained to us. If the research was gone, we could replicate it. But if the cure was gone, I had no idea what would happen next.
The four rebels who were assigned to stay outside led the way toward the building. They aimed their guns at every angle, covering the area surrounding us. One of the soldiers scanned his palm against the reader next to the door as soon as we reached it. He opened it up and John pushed inside. Two soldiers rushed in after him before I could.
Alarms blared and red lights blinked from the sensors on the walls. I gripped my gun and held it pointed at the floor in front of me. My fingers cramped, but I didn’t move their positioning. I couldn’t. Our mission was too critical for me to screw up.
“We’re taking the stairs,” John said. “We might be able to miss them if they’re traveling on the elevator.”
“Or are monitoring it,” one of the rebel women said.
The laboratory was on the third sub-level. Three floors worth of opportunities for the security forces to capture us. John, Mom, and I were still prime targets for BioPure. No doubt, they wanted to take what was left of Mom’s mind, John’s intelligence, and my memory for their own cause.
I followed John down the rest of the stairs, the world blurring around me as the focus of the mission came nearer. The serum was the only thing on my mind as I walked around two fallen security officers. In the six months since we’d arrived, this was the first time I’d come across another dead one.
Fighting back the tightening in my throat, I pushed on. The hallway into the lab was otherwise empty, which didn’t sit right with me. If they had attacked the building, then where were they?
John seemed equally worried, which was why, when he took my hand in his and squeezed it, I pressed harder before releasing it. We were in this together, and we had to get the serum to safety before security found out we had it.
We came across the door to the lab. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but there weren’t any windows leading into the room. My heart thundered in my ears, blocking out the shuffling sounds of our feet against the floor.
One of the rebels pressed his ear against the door and closed his eyes. I wasn’t sure what he thought he’d be able to hear. That door was thick, though I wasn’t sure if it was soundproof. But if security was inside, wouldn’t they have left at least one of their force outside as a look-out?
I wasn’t sure of their exact target, but if they weren’t there yet, we had a good chance of obtaining the serum and getting out of there.
“Let me inside,” John said. “I’m the only one who can properly pack up the serum.”
The rebel moved aside and John typed in his code on the keypad outside the door. The light blinked green before John pushed inside.
“Stop!” someone shouted from beyond the door.
It was Marisha’s voice. She was okay!
I went inside next, right behind John.
Marisha’s eyes were wide as she lowered a gun to her side. I rushed over to her while John headed for the back of the room, toward the refrigerators where we stored our supplies.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She swallowed and nodded, her eyes darting toward the other rebels who had come inside with us. “When we heard the explosions, I wasn’t sure what to do. We figured the building would go into lockdown. How did you get inside?”
“We walked through the back door.”
Marisha frowned. “That’s not protocol. There must be something wrong—”
A barrage of tiny explosions filled my ears. I barely had time to duck before security wearing full tactical gear flooded the room. Marisha grabbed my shoulders and shoved me to the ground. We were behind the same desk that John had stood behind earlier during my scan. The only thing I saw of security were the pairs of feet appearing to move in fast-forward into the space. There had to be at least ten of them.
The firing continued, and two of our rebel soldiers fell to the floor and didn’t get up again. Security stepped over them with the same ease and disregard as we had shown their soldiers in the stairwell. That was a big dose of karma. Even though the lab wasn’t the smallest room I’d ever been inside, the gunshots were deafening.
Marisha crawled on the floor next to me, heading toward another tech, Khalil, who sat on the floor holding his arm. Blood poured from the spaces between his fingers.
“Lora!” someone whispered behind me.
It was the young Unpaired boy who clearly hadn’t wanted to come with us. He was on the ground, his hands trembling around his gun. Blood spattered his face, but it wasn’t his own. His bottom lip quivered, and streaks of tears flowed down his cheeks, smearing the blood. The soldiers headed to the back of the room, fanning out among the equipment.
I crossed my fingers, praying they wouldn’t damage any of it.
I wanted to stand up and fight, but Syeth’s face flashed in my vision. I had to be smart. Protecting the serum was the most important thing. Tearing myself away from the desk, I crawled toward the kid.
As I moved toward the Unpaired boy, staying hidden from view, shouts rang out. We were in a small alcove near the only bathroom in the lab. The boy led me into the bathroom and closed the door, leaving it open a crack. I hated not fighting, but BioPure wanted John and me. My brain scans were the only way we could replicate the cure. Still, it took all of my strength to stay hidden.
Though, I couldn’t imagine what they were going to do to John if they caught him. My mind whirred with all of the possibilities that entailed neither of us making it out of the lab alive.
A series of gunshots rang out, and I clamped my hands over my ears.
“Call for back-up!” I mouthed to the Unpaired boy.
He pulled out his radio and cupped his hand over the speaker. “We need back-up in the lab. Over.”
We waited. Then, someone screamed, and another single gunshot. The sound ricocheted through me and I rushed for the door. Marisha!
The Unpaired kid blocked me as he tried to keep me shut into the bathroom, holding me away from the door.
“Open it,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I-I’m not going out there.”
“You don’t have to.”
Hiding was a mistake. I shoved him aside and burst out into the lab again.
I expected to come face to face with the security forces, but I only saw Khalil laying on the ground along with the other rebels. The security forces were gone.
Khalil rolled over, now holding his middle. There was so much blood pooling around him.
“Khalil!” I rushed over and pressed my hands against the wound on his stomach, trying to stop the bleeding.
“Kid!” I called back to the rebel boy. “Get out here.”
“They took them,” Khalil said before coughing.
“Took who?” I asked.
“John and Marisha.” He coughed again.
“What? Where?”
“They said something about a helicopter.”
The Unpaired boy came to my side. “Keep calling for back-up,” I told him. “I have to go.”
“Where?”
“To save them. Tell any rebels who can help to meet m
e on the roof.”
I sprinted toward the door and grabbed a fallen rifle from the floor. I checked the ammunition before heading into the hallway. There was only one way out of the building if they wanted to reach those helicopters they’d ridden in on, and I wasn’t going to let them take John and Marisha out of rebel territory. I couldn’t.
I shoved through the doors to the stairwell and raced upward, taking them two at a time.
When I reached the ground level, voices rang out from above me. The door to the outside opened, and I whipped my gun around toward the person standing there.
“Whoa!” I’d come face to face with a rebel.
“Lora,” he said. “The others are on their way. I came to check on you. To help.”
“Security has John and one of the other lab techs. They’re headed for the roof and the others went after them. We need air support—something to stop that helicopter.”
He grabbed his radio and called for the commanders.
Leaving him to it, I raced toward the stairs again. My breathing echoed in my ears as shouting voices neared. Two gunshots rang out, but that didn’t stop me from racing toward John and Marisha. At least with the others ahead of me, we had a better chance of stopping security from taking them.
I followed the rebels to the top floor and didn’t hesitate by the roof doors. My jacket was adequate for being on the ground level, but the thundering wind the helicopter emitted pricked at my cheeks once I got outside. My hair flew around my face, and I tried to shove it back as best I could as I took in everything around me. The helicopter was at the far end of the roof. Muted voices shouted while four rebels stood in front of me, targeting their weapons toward the security forces moving around the helicopter. Two security personnel aimed their guns at us, but didn’t fire. Helmets masked their faces. The sun glinted off the surfaces so that I couldn’t see—and memorize—their faces. How I wanted to.
I wanted to know who’d tossed Marisha and John’s unconscious bodies on the helicopter and scooted them inside before closing the doors. I wanted to see their faces crumple as I took them down.