by Harper North
Up ahead, a female op waits. “Clean clothes.” She hands me a folded shirt, pants, and a towel, then points toward a room across the hall. “You get five minutes to shower.”
Shower?
I head into the small room and close the door. An automatic light flicks on overhead. There’s no window or chance of escape here, so I peel off my grimy old clothes and kick them into the corner. I flick on the nozzle and wait for warm water, but it never comes. A cold shower it is. I jump in and scrub my hair and body with the soap from a dispenser on the wall. Probably from the shock of the freezing water on my skin, my mind is suddenly jolted full of energy and thoughts. I want to figure a way out, but a part of me knows if I do, I’ll only interfere with Emma’s plans.
I twist the nozzle off and towel off. After, I change into the fitted dark pants and a basic blue tank top.
My breath hitches as the door flies open.
“Time’s up,” the same guard who gave me the clothes orders. She grabs the towel from my hand.
With my hair still dripping wet, I’m led down another hall and into a room with stark, white light. I squint and hold my hand to my eyes to block it. As my vision adjusts, I can see Emma, Elias, and Drape in fresh clothes on a long bench set against a wall. I quickly find a seat next to them. Wet spots soak through the fabric of their similar, plain clothing. Emma’s wet hair is pulled back into a bun. Elias runs his fingers through his. Drape sits there staring into space, making me wonder if he’s feeling any better. Before I can ask, a tray of food is dropped in front of each of us.
My eyes widen. My mouth waters. My stomach wakens. It’s been too long since our last meal. I reach down and grab the food, devouring fresh vegetables and fruit, as well as some sort of dark protein that is the most savory thing I’ve ever tried. We eat in silence, desperately refueling our malnourished bodies. Elias and Emma eat steadily. Drape is slower but manages to take small bites from his food. A part of me wonders if these guards even know how bad we had it underground. A shower and fresh food like this is a luxury.
And they call this prison.
“One minute,” the guard shouts out as we chow down on the last of what’s offered. Before I can finish the last bite, I’m dragged to my feet again.
“What’s the rush?” I ask. “It’s not like we’re getting out of here anytime soon.”
The stone-faced guard doesn’t respond to my question. Instead, he marches me down the hallway toward a room filled with glass holding cells. That has to be the prison wing. Up ahead, I can make out the silhouette of someone inside one of the small cells, but I can’t make out their features.
I gulp back worry. What if there are real criminals locked up here?
As we get closer, my heart picks up speed as a familiar outline begins to take shape. My eyes lock with Sky’s. His lips form a tentative smile, and I’m nearly knocking down the guards to get closer, but my awareness of their Tenant class strength keeps me in place—for now.
“Hold still,” one of them orders. He unlocks a cell next to Sky’s and shoves me inside. Thick glass walls surround me, and a stark white wall is at my back.
Sky’s eyes fill with life, but his body is thinner than I remember. He quickly moves to the glass surface and places a hand on the wall between us. He doesn’t say a word.
I press up to the glass in my cell. “Are you alright?” I ask.
He taps on the glass and shakes his head. I realize sound is not able to escape the thick walls. All this time of being unsure how he is, and with him now just feet away, I can’t even speak to him.
The guard leads Emma, Elias, and Drape inside their own personal cells. Elias nods to Sky. Drape manages a grin and Sky returns the gesture, concern filling his face.
I gnaw on my lip and scan my surroundings. A basic bench jutting from the bright white backing is all that we have. I feel like I’m an animal on display.
Sky presses both palms on the glass beside me. I do the same. Seeing that Sky is alive brings me some comfort, and my mind is flooded with the memories of when I saw him last. Our conversation. The kiss. If only we had more time. If only the ops didn’t descend on Emma’s camp and destroy everything.
I try to examine Sky more closely, hoping he wasn’t tortured. I want to signal to him in some way, try to form some kind of communication system. I clench my fists and spin around, frustrated. It’s so unfair.
On the other side of my glass prison, Elias is sitting on his own white bench. His eyes are focused on me and his lips are pressed together as if he’s reading my mind about Sky.
I pace back and forth in my tiny cell. I have to figure a way to get out of here. Waiting for Talen or Emma’s plan is taking too much time. My chest tightens as if fifty percent of the oxygen were sucked from my cell. I yank at my tank top and gasp for a deep breath. I need more air into my lungs.
My mind relives the path we used to get here. Past the dining area, showers, and changing rooms, processing, down a long walkway, and back through the first building toward the exit. I can do it. I can get out of here. There are eight guards surrounding us, another dozen or so on the way out, a security camera at every corner and doorway…
No, it’s a low chance of all of us escaping. I run the calculations again. Five percent bounces back to me, and that’s only because of unpredictable EHC op factors I’m not aware of.
I drop down onto the bench and lean my head against the glass. Five percent isn’t enough. Reinhart was right—their advancements are more sophisticated, more evolved, than what I have.
But I still have my enhancement. I can still try.
I stand, go to the door, and use all of my strength, hoping to force it open. Sweat trickles down my forehead, rolling to my cheeks and chin. I blow out a sharp breath. The door won’t budge. Figures they got a door to hold Noble class people. I glance back to Sky and then Elias. Both are sitting on their benches now. Guess the odds have been calculated. None of us are leaving.
Emma gives me a reassuring look. Drape smiles. Something in his expression makes me feel hopeful.
I return to the bench and try to figure out how I’m going to make it over the next few days when the trial begins to take shape. The crowds will hear of our rebellion. They will form their opinions and we’ll be whisked away to face death. It won’t even bother the citizens of Ethos that the judgment could be wrong. They’ll say, Even if it’s wrong, why would we question the EHC? To them, life is perfect. They know little of the underground struggle, and if they do, they probably put it out of their minds most of the time. Our broadcast has most likely been twisted so many ways that it’s just irrelevant noise. Technology improves every day. The world is full of opportunity, but they don’t know what’s coming. The citizens don’t know they’re only moments away from catastrophe. Their way of life is so fragile.
Beyond my cell, three armed ops enter the main area connecting our joined cells. Just as they walk toward the center of the room, they violently stiffen before dropping to the ground, their faces filled with agony.
I know an Aura attack when I see one.
Talen.
I jump up and press my forehead against the glass. Elias, Emma, Drape, and Sky do the same.
“Hurry,” I whisper, desperate to get out of here.
Talen rushes in with his hand raised and a determined glare on his face.
The guards’ faces contort, and they tear at their throats. Their mouths hang open, and I can only imagine hearing the gut-wrenching screams that are echoing off the prison walls. A second later, all three ops stop convulsing and become lifeless.
Beside me, Elias nods and mouths, It’s time.
CHAPTER 5
I POUND MY fists against the cell wall, but only a dull echo comes back to me.
I dart my eyes to the door, and then back to the lifeless bodies of the three guards. The lights flicker overhead. A door off to the side automatically swings open, then shuts. This is our only chance to escape. I press my forehead to the glass, watching
as the whole room seems to be malfunctioning.
In one swift move, Talen moves toward one of the dead bodies and rifles through the man’s pocket, pulling out a key device. I swallow back my nerves as Talen presses a few buttons on the small device. Suddenly, all of the cell doors open with a pop. I release a long-held breath and rush from my cell to Sky.
“Are you all right?” I ask, throwing my arms around him. I pull back and search his eyes for an honest answer.
“I’m fine,” he says. His gaze is fixed on Talen. “What was that?”
“He’s an Aura op,” I say. “Well, he was.”
Sky takes a step back from the door. His shoulders stiffen. “A what op?”
“Don’t worry. He’s with us. I’ll explain later.” I inch closer and reach out my hand to him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
A wry smile spreads across his face as his eyes go to my hand. He reaches out and grabs hold of it. “I should have known once you guys arrived I’d be a free man again.”
“Did you ever doubt us?”
He steps closer. “Not for a moment.”
“Talen!” Emma calls.
I turn in time to see Elias shaking Talen’s hand and Emma smiling. It’s by far the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on her face.
“Come on,” I say to Sky and start toward the others. In the cell beside us, Drape stands in the doorway. I wave for him to follow, stepping carefully over one of the guard’s bodies. The man’s twisted, red face reminds me of what an Aura op is truly capable of. A horrible death. I shiver and force myself to look away, trying not to remember my own near-death experience.
“Sky!” Elias slaps his shoulder. “Good to see you again.”
“A friend of yours?” Talen asks.
“Talen,” I say, “this is Sky. He was captured at Emma’s camp. He’s been helping us since the beginning.”
Talen nods hello, but Sky is fixed to his spot. He opens his mouth to say something—
“We don’t have much time,” Emma interrupts. “Someone needs to get Drape out of his cell.”
What?
I spin around to find Drape now sitting on the bench inside his cell, clearly in a daze.
“What’s wrong with him?” Sky asks.
There isn’t time to fill him in on how our supposed friend Lacy pummeled Drape in the desert, nearly killing him.
“He’s hurt,” I say instead. “Come on. Let’s get him out of there.”
The moment I step inside Drape’s cell, my insides feel like they might come unglued. Nothing could be worse than getting locked in again. “Drape,” I urge, “we have to leave.”
He doesn’t respond, so I step closer to where he sits on the bench. His knees are drawn to his chin.
I reach out a hand and place it on his shoulder. Still, Drape doesn’t budge. Soft, muffled sobs come from him as I sit beside him. “We don’t have much time,” I whisper. “If we don’t go now, we may not get another chance.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Drape moans. “No matter what we do, nothing will change.”
“That’s not true,” Sky says.
Drape raises his head. Tears spill down his cheeks. My chest tightens at the sight of his brokenness. I lock eyes with him. “You don’t have to be strong right now. You just have to come.”
He nods and wipes his face, then turns his gaze to Sky. “You finally decide to join us again?”
Sky stares, baffled. I choke back a laugh. One minute tears, the next jokes.
“So?” Drape asks.
“EHC interrogation and solitary confinement,” Sky says. “I guess it helped that we didn’t have a plan before I was taken. I didn’t have anything new to tell them. They brought me up here yesterday.” He looks around the cell. “I can’t even tell you how good it is to see your faces again.”
My heart pounds at his words. A small glint of hope in Sky’s eyes reflects back to me.
“Let’s get out of here,” Drape says, standing and disrupting whatever connection is slowly rebuilding between Sky and me.
We head outside the cell to where Emma and Elias are collecting the guards’ pulse weapons.
“My programming worked,” Emma says, holstering one of the guns.
Elias shoves a pistol into his waistband and swivels back to face Emma. “How’d you do it?”
“I hid a little virus that would shut down the reprogramming process and disable their network.”
“The whole network?” I ask, realizing the genius in Emma’s work.
She nods and goes to a desk station beside the cells and rummages through the drawers.
“Like a charm,” Talen says. “Sent the whole reprogramming Center into chaos mode. Once that happened, I easily broke free and—”
“We have to go,” Elias interrupts. “There may be chaos, but they’ll be here soon.”
Emma slams one of the drawers shut. She tosses me a gun and waves for us to follow.
“What’s our plan?” I ask as Elias kicks open the double doors ahead of us.
“Survive,” Emma replies.
I glance back to Drape. “Stay close.”
He nods. His face is flushed, and there’s a weakness to each one of his steps, but he keeps up as we head back through the long corridors toward Building One. Whatever Lacy did to him must have temporarily weakened his modification.
The moment we cross over the walkway, several ops take aim at our group. Talen raises a hand, easily taking out two of the men at the end of the hallway. Several Ethos citizens scream and duck beneath tables or hide behind chairs. With a few sharp hits from my elbow and an uppercut from Elias, we manage to subdue several ops who rush toward us. They’re down before they even have time to fire their weapons.
“Down this way!” I shout to Sky and Drape, remembering the long spiraling staircases and the exits from when we were first brought in.
I descend the staircase with the others following. A few more ops race up the stairs toward me. I raise my gun and fire a few rounds. They back away, but that won’t last long. I glance over the railing and calculate the chance of survival if I drop down to the ground. It’s not an easy jump, but it’s doable, so before the ops have a chance to return fire, I turn to Sky and Drape and wave for them to follow. Then I leap the twelve or so feet to the ground, landing with a thud, but staying on my feet.
Seeing me crouched in front of them sends several more people screaming and rushing out the front door of the building. A moment later, Sky lands at my side. I glance up just in time to see Drape take a leap and tumble to the ground, rolling to soften the blow. Elias, Emma, and Talen blast their way through the ops on the staircase, taking them out and racing down.
My heart pounds as adrenaline pumps through my veins. We’re out the doors a few seconds later. It’s night—the sky above is dark, but the city is alive with light and people. Breathing heavily, I try to take it all in, absorb my surroundings in case we’re ever back here again, but there’s little time. A high-pitched, blaring sound blasts throughout the city streets. Sides of buildings that only seconds before were glass windows are now showing our faces.
My profile is plastered on a street sign. Drape’s appears on a shop display. Elias’ face is blown up to a twelve-foot hologram only feet away from where we stand. The words, “Terrorist. Escape. Armed. Dangerous.” flash beneath each one of our images. A few people scream out as they spot us and rush from the street into the safety of the nearby shops.
“There’s a back alley over there!” Talen shouts.
I swallow and chase after him, heading into the dark, narrow passage.
“I know a place where we can hide,” Emma says between breaths, but how in the world are we ever going to be able to hide with our face being broadcast everywhere?
My feet pound the pavement. My lungs feel strong, but my head is a jumbled maze of calculations and possibility as I try to determine who or what might jump out in front of us. I need to figure out if this is the best way to go, or if we’re just head
ing straight toward another trap.
At the end of the alley is another group of fancily-dressed people. They’re all reading handheld devices and talking until one of them looks up and sees our group running straight toward them. The woman holding her device quickly presses several buttons. My mind jumps to what she’s probably typing.
“They know where we are!” I shout.
“We can’t worry about that,” Elias says.
Emma steers us toward another alley and then through a series of winding corridors until we’re far away from any main area where people might see us. She cranes her neck in all directions.
“Up there,” she says, looking up at a towering structure. “My cousin lives in this apartment complex.”
“Are you sure?” I ask as we stop in front of a glass door that leads into the building.
Emma takes a deep breath. “I’ve kept in contact with him for years. I never wanted to put him in danger, but what choice do we have?”
“You sure we can trust him?” Elias asks, running a hand through his hair.
Nodding, Emma says, “He’s a low-level Transportation officer. He won’t raise any red flags with the EHC.”
Elias shoves the door open and we go inside. We follow him into a stairwell, and Emma leads us up three flights to a long hall with steel grey doors lining the wall, each spaced apart by a few yards. Pointing up, she counts down the numbers above the doors until she stops at the one labeled ‘311’. She raps on the door. A moment later, it opens.
A man that looks like he could be Emma’s twin stands there wide-eyed for a moment, then quickly ushers our group inside.
“I’m sorry, Karim,” Emma says to her cousin once we’re all in.
He leads us toward a sitting area. “I haven’t seen you in years, Emma.” He wraps his arms around her shoulders. She returns the embrace.