by Thomas Locke
Kevin halted for the three gawping mentats. As the trio clambered on board, the alarm by the gatehouse started clanging.
44
Caleb leapt into the first vehicle’s cab while the others piled into the rears of both vehicles. Pablo shouted something through the second cab’s open window, his words mangled by the hooting alarm, but his message still clear. Hurry!
Kevin flashed Caleb a swift grin, as though it was all great fun, then reached over and helped Irene cram herself into the seat next to Caleb. Gradually the gatehouse alarm faded as they drove.
Kevin asked, “Where to?”
“Straight! Straight!” Caleb’s racing heart and the grinding motor and the faint shouts from militia guards and the alarm all made it difficult to think. But the map contained in Maddie’s last image was still clear before his eyes.
Kevin raced down the street, scattering pedestrians and cyclists alike. Then a trio of militia ran out from one building, waving their arms and shouting. Kevin gave the horn a cheery beep and took aim. They leapt aside at the very last minute, as though unable to believe someone would actually defy their authority. Kevin and Irene both laughed out loud.
“Left!” Caleb shouted. “Turn left!”
The truck shot around the corner so fast it reared up on two wheels, then bounced down hard. The steering wheel skittered beneath Kevin’s hands like the reins of a nervous horse. He fought for control, slapped the gearshift, and accelerated.
Caleb could not believe his ears. The man was actually humming. “What has gotten into you?”
“I always get like this before going into action.”
Caleb wanted to tell him how insane that sounded, but Irene chose that moment to say, “Maddie says to tell you she’s ready.”
The woman’s calm was as jarring as Kevin’s bouncy tune. “She knows?”
“We’ve been talking since the alarm started.” Irene clutched for a handhold as the truck swept around a sharp bend. “There’s no longer any need for secrecy.”
“But . . . Those buildings!” Caleb pointed down a long, empty road to a trio of structures standing by themselves. “That’s them!”
A trench had been started, and massive earth-moving machinery glistened in the dank grey light. The unfinished boundary fence formed an arc around the left-hand building, stretching back to where it met with the taller city wall. The buildings themselves were smallish, only two stories, with no windows on the ground floor. They appeared as blankly hostile as the militia barracks.
The earth gleamed a rich red where it had been dug up and reshaped into a curved mound, almost as tall as a man. Atop this rose a series of metal staves, thick as young trees. Bales of barbed wire lay in the grass in front of the mound. There were no vehicles along this road, or cyclists or idling groups of students. Nor was there any need of warning signs. The unfinished barricade said it all.
As Kevin raced down the empty lane, the door to the central building opened and a mass of troops spilled out. Forrest leaned through the rear window and shouted, “Suits! Suits!”
“I see them.” Kevin slowed only slightly, then turned the wheel and steered the truck through a wide arc until it faced the road. He yelled, “Mentats!”
Caleb was fearful of how exposed they all were. Relying on untrained mentats seemed ludicrous, but he had no better idea. He opened the truck door and spilled onto the pavement because he refused to take his eyes off the militia clambering up the embankment, settling into protected positions, and taking aim . . .
“Guns!” Forrest’s voice had risen to that of a young girl’s. “They’re taking aim at—”
The dismal, overcast day was shattered by a scream.
It was unlike anything Caleb had ever known or even thought might exist. The scream was in fact made from no sound at all. Instead, it emanated from every surface. The grass shimmered in time to the high-pitched shriek. The air crystallized and reknit and blasted apart. Over and over and over, until Caleb was certain his brain would shatter as well.
Then silence.
He found himself curled into a tight little ball on the wet asphalt. He lifted his head to find Kevin sprawled half inside and half outside the truck. Irene lay beside him, her hands clamped to either side of her head. From the truck’s rear cabin came the sound of wails and weeping.
Kevin groaned, “What . . .”
Between the two trucks and the barricade, Pablo walked alone. His arms were extended slightly to either side of his body. He moved very slowly, approaching the barricade like he was offering himself as a sacrifice. Only there was no one to accept his surrender. The troopers and suits writhed on the muddy bank.
Caleb forced himself to stand, and in that instant he realized that Pablo was causing the strident scream. The mental noise was pointed forward. As Pablo passed, so too did the chaotic din.
Caleb shouted, “Everybody come with me!” He did not recognize his own voice. His throat felt constricted from the impact of Pablo’s attack. His limbs rebelled against the need to carry his weight forward. Still he moved. “Kevin!”
“Here.” The man gasped and staggered, but he came.
“Everyone! Help us!”
Caleb did not turn to see who came. He heard footsteps. How many, he had no idea. He accelerated until he moved just behind Pablo. The silence here was exquisite. He was sheltered behind the man’s horrible aim, while ahead of him dozens upon dozens of the enemy writhed in torment. “Gather their weapons!”
Pablo continued to walk forward, which meant the first line of the enemy was now behind them. They had been impacted by the assault far longer than Caleb, and none of them could focus or bring their limbs under control. Yet.
The barricade hill was a mass of slippery mud. Caleb found it easier to reach up and grab an ankle or arm and haul the groaning, weeping soldiers and suits down to where he could strip away their guns. He searched them as quickly as he could, tossing everything into a growing pile on the lawn behind them. More and more of his team joined in until the weaponry was waist high and still growing.
Caleb reached the end of the gathering just as Pablo turned around. Their gazes met across the expanse of mud and moat and groaning men. Pablo offered him a fierce grin. For the first time in his life, Caleb understood what it meant to be a warrior on attack, the adrenaline rush that overcame all fear.
He yelled, “Mentats!”
A young voice turned younger still by everything that was happening called back, “Here!”
“Tell the enemy to run for their lives!”
The suits and militia staggered to their feet and fled. Then the door to the left-hand building burst open. Six suits and twice as many militia poured out, their faces stretched taut in terror. Still more stumbled from the central building. They were joined by another group from the third structure, a veritable flood of panic-stricken troopers. Two of them passed so close to Caleb he heard their wheezing gasps for breath they could not find. Their eyes were glazed with tears. They clawed the air as they stumbled and crawled and wept and fled.
Far in the distance, the alarm continued to wail.
Then they were alone, just a clutch of mud-streaked and bedraggled adepts, staring wondrously at the fleeing mob.
“Caleb!”
He whirled about as Maddie stepped through the portal, leapt down the stairs, and flew into his arms.
45
Caleb found it wrenchingly hard to let go of Maddie’s hand. They only had time for one long, strong embrace and a few words spoken in such a rush he did not actually remember what he said. Or how she responded. They stood between the truck and the middle building’s entrance and held hands for just a few short moments. Then Pablo called to him, and he had to let go.
Even so, their bond remained after their hands parted and she was no longer standing next to him. The sensation of her closeness was that intense.
There were a hundred things that required his urgent attention. Maddie’s group totaled thirty-seven adepts plus twice
that many family members. About half those adepts were under ten years of age. They would never fit everyone into the two trucks.
Just as the families started pouring from the middle building, two truckloads of militia careened around the far corner and entered the otherwise empty lane.
Kevin shouted, “Pablo!”
Pablo had already stepped forward. The first truck slammed into the curb and then was struck from behind by the second vehicle. None of the occupants appeared to notice, however. They were too busy yelling and shrieking and spilling from every opening.
Pablo stopped and turned and waved to Kevin, who yelled a second time, “Mentats! Tell them to flee!”
The enemy did as they were told.
Caleb was grateful for how the others seemed to know what to do. Carla and Irene and Forrest served as a calming influence upon the tearful reunions that now filled the front lawn. Families were given a moment to embrace, to cry, to call to friends, and then were sent back indoors to pack. Only what they could carry, Caleb repeated over and over, his words carried by a dozen more voices.
Then Zeke stepped through the left-hand building. He offered Caleb a single wave before rushing over and embracing Hester. The young man’s reserve was gone now, stripped away by whatever had happened to them. The two made room for Enya when she appeared, then the trio walked over together.
Zeke said, “Sorry to have let you down.”
Caleb shook his head. He wanted to say something, offer assurance that this was the absolute last thing he felt. But Carla and Hank and three others asked if there was time to fashion a quick meal. He scanned the perimeter, saw how Forrest had three of his fellow adepts guarding the empty lane, and said, “Hurry.”
Hester then told Caleb, “We were arrested.”
Enya said, “The suits made a sweep of the plaza just after you left. They picked up Zeke.”
“I wanted to fight,” Zeke said. “I started to. But . . .”
“I told him not to,” Hester said. “There were militia by the university gates not twenty paces away. There was too much risk of harming others.”
“First thing they did was separate us,” Zeke said. “I knew you were coming. So I waited.”
Caleb struggled to fashion a decent reply but was halted from speaking at all by Maddie walking up, nodding a solemn hello to Zeke, and saying, “There’s my father.”
Caleb heard the sorrow and resignation in more than just her words. Maddie made no move to hold his hand again. Nor did she step toward the tousled man who peered confusedly about him. When he spotted Maddie, he hesitated a long moment. It seemed to Caleb that he started toward them with genuine reluctance.
At a nudge from Hester, the trio stepped away.
To Caleb’s eyes, Professor Frederick Constance appeared to have aged twenty years in the weeks since they had last met. He asked his daughter, “You arranged this escape?”
“Yes, Father. We all did.”
“You said you would.” He peered at Caleb. “I know you. You’re . . .”
“Caleb,” Maddie said. “He came for me. For all of us.”
The professor tried to straighten from his weary stoop, but failed. He was leaning over so far the spectacles tied about his neck with a piece of string dangled like a loose necktie. “You can’t possibly expect to break free.”
“You don’t need to come with us. I wish you would, but . . .” Maddie sounded sorrowfully resigned. “But if you’re staying, you should probably be leaving now.”
The professor looked askance at them both. “They will destroy you!”
“I will not be imprisoned,” Maddie said. The way she spoke, Caleb was certain she had said the words many times before. “I will not be manipulated. I will not be used as an instrument of someone else’s civil war.”
Professor Constance glared at Caleb, or tried to, but even his gaze lacked sufficient heat. “You’re one of them too. One of those—”
“Adepts,” Caleb supplied. “Yes. I am.”
The man dismissed Caleb with a boneless wave. He turned back to his daughter. “Maddie, it’s utterly futile to even think—”
“Goodbye, Father. I will send word when I can.”
The rest of his protest died unspoken. The professor sighed and shuffled away, headed down the empty lane.
Maddie did not watch him go. She wiped her face, took a hard breath, and dismissed the episode by saying to Caleb, “I knew you’d come. And I knew he’d stay. He would never accept me as one of the . . .”
“Adepts,” he repeated.
Maddie nodded, taking the word in deep. “Perhaps if Mother were still alive. But Father has always been . . .”
She went quiet again because Kevin came rushing over and said, “You’re Maddie.”
“This is my friend Kevin,” Caleb said.
“Thank you for being here,” Maddie said.
Kevin showed her the same feral grin he had displayed in the truck. He said to Caleb, “We’re ready to start loading. Pablo wants a word.”
He nodded, accepting the fact that they were looking to him as their leader. Waiting for him to direct, point their way to safety.
It was Maddie who finally said, “I’ll help with the little ones.”
Caleb watched her walk away, then said to Kevin, “I’m worried they haven’t counterattacked.”
Kevin’s grin only broadened. “You took the words right out of Pablo’s mouth.”
They walked over to where Pablo stood with Forrest and two mentats. Thunder growled in the east. Caleb watched a dark sheet of rain march toward them, flanked by lightning. Behind him, several voices called for the families to move faster.
A bolt smashed them all with noise and light. At that same moment, Caleb was impacted by yet another mental onslaught. Two images, both so brief they came and went in the span of a single heartbeat. They left him stunned in their aftermath, as if his vision was impaired by an overbright flash of light.
“Caleb?”
“I know what they’re going to do.” He also knew there was not time to explain. For even now the enemy was preparing to invade. Overwhelm. Imprison. And kill those responsible. He knew it so intensely he could feel the noose being fitted around his neck.
The rain began, a drenching downpour that blanketed those still outside the trucks.
Caleb said, “They’ve been waiting for us to collect in one space.”
Forrest’s unruly hair was plastered to his face like scraggly wires. “I don’t detect—”
“They’re here. They’ve been preparing for this.” Caleb halted further discussion by stabbing one finger into Pablo’s chest. “Take the ones who can attack. Climb to the roof of the farthest building.” When Pablo hesitated, Caleb shoved him hard. “Go now!”
Pablo’s entire demeanor underwent a drastic shift. He became a military subaltern who had just been handed an urgent order. He shouted for Barry, grabbed a young woman’s arm, and disappeared into the veiled half-light.
Kevin demanded, “What do we do?”
Caleb shook his head. There was no protection. No time for explaining. “The one you told me about. He pushed away the highway barricade—”
Kevin turned and bellowed, “Dale!”
“Here!”
The young man looked impossibly young to entrust with seventy-odd lives. He shivered in the chilling rain and winced at each stab of lightning.
Caleb gripped his arms and moved in so close that Dale had no choice but to focus entirely on him. Caleb yelled a few terse sentences, then demanded, “Can you do that?”
To his vast relief, Dale grinned and replied, “No problem.”
Caleb turned to Kevin. “Take him over to the boundary fence. Hurry!”
Kevin grabbed Dale where Caleb’s hand had been and plucked the younger man away. As he passed Forrest, Kevin reached out his free hand and hauled him away as well.
Caleb searched in all directions. The one thing he could think of, the only action that made sense now, was .
. .
“Maddie!”
“Here!”
She stood by the lead truck, handing in a sack of food. Caleb rushed up, spun her about, and embraced her with all the strength he had in his body. “I need you to know—”
But he was too late.
The counterattack began as a moan.
There was no sound, or rather, nothing that anyone actually heard. Not that it mattered. To Caleb it felt as though the entire world groaned aloud.
The power was as unrelenting as it was massive. The moan gathered force, magnifying in strength until it rendered Caleb and all the others completely helpless. He collapsed onto the road, where the rain was so heavy he could have drowned in the wash beside the truck. He felt his nostrils fill and coughed feebly and managed to turn his head slightly up into the rain. Then his strength left him entirely.
The silent lament grew stronger still.
The mental attack was a cry of utter hopelessness. Caleb’s every thought was futile. He lay there with no space for anything save defeat. The easiest thing in the world was to give up entirely. Stop breathing. And perish.
Then the sound vanished.
Fast as it had arrived, it was gone. Caleb coughed and lifted his head and realized Maddie had fallen across his chest. Or perhaps her strength of will was more potent than his and she had managed to reach him before being overwhelmed. Caleb helped her rise to a seated position, then grabbed the truck’s rear gate and hauled himself to his feet.
He looked back behind him and knew Pablo had reached the roof in time.
Caleb helped Maddie to her feet, gripped her in a one-armed embrace, and watched as their own assault silenced the enemy.
Lightning fell in savage force. Caleb recalled Kevin describing how they had stolen the first truck using Barry’s ability to control electromagnetic force. Here was the next phase, turned into an awesome display of natural fireworks.
Though it was vital to their survival, still Caleb was held by the sheer wonder of what he witnessed. The lightning blasts were intensely brilliant, the sound deafening. And yet as the others gradually slipped from the trucks and witnessed it, none of the faces Caleb saw showed any fear.