Breathe

  “Over here,” comes a crackling voice. Silas and I turn with a start to see Old Watson leaning on the railings of his balcony, gazing at us. I turn to Silas. I don’t know that we can trust him, but what choice do we have? Either I jump and fall to my death, or I climb over his balcony and risk betrayal. Old Watson sees us hesitate. “You didn’t really believe the story about why I water my plants, did you? Pass them over here,” he says. Inside the apartment, Aunt Harriet and Uncle Gideon are trying to stall the stewards who are banging on the door. “Get a move on,” Old Watson clucks.

  I glance up at the apartment buildings and balconies crowding in on us, but to check for people watching is ridiculous when so many probably are. I throw my small backpack onto his balcony and climb over myself. When I get to his side, I look down at his plants and see he wasn’t lying: everything is real—some of them are even flowering.

  “Pass the boxes,” I tell Silas, and he does, heaving them up and laying them in my open arms as carefully as a person might hand over a baby. As I put the final box safely on Old Watson’s balcony, we hear a scream.

  “They’re in,” Silas says. A glance I can’t read passes between Old Watson and Silas. Then Silas is gone, the balcony doors beeping as they shut firmly behind him.

  Old Watson leads me into his apartment and I gasp. His entire living room is filled with plants. “Magnificent, aren’t they,” Old Watson says. “You steal from them, I steal from you,” he confesses.

  “I have to escape,” I tell him. “If I stay in the pod, they’ll find me.”

  “Yes,” he says. Something crashing in my apartment causes the wall to vibrate. I shudder and consider climbing back across the balcony. If I surrender, they might leave my family alone. Old Watson leads me to the front doors. “Go while they’re busy,” he says. With a beep we step onto the porch. Old Watson looks through the peephole in the outer door. “It’s clear. Now, is there anything you need?”

  “Where do I go?” I ask.

  “Get to the Border. Find a group of Premiums and cross with them. They always get through.” He’s right. My only chance is with a Premium. “Quickly,” he whispers. He pushes me into the empty corridor. Muffled noises, like someone is being strangled, filter through my own front doors. “Get out of here, you stupid girl,” Old Watson snaps. “Go on! Go!”

  I push open the emergency door to the stairwell and scamper down ten flights of stairs, following the routine Silas and I have when we train. I come out in the alleyway between our apartment building and the monstrous construction next door. It is silent and dark. I pause to get my breath and plan a route. I need to run and I can’t do that in the open. I know all the alleyways in Zone Three, but I haven’t explored the ones in Zones One and Two. I’ll have to do my best when I get there.

  As I turn the first corner, I come upon a couple panting and pulling at each other. I start for a moment but then relax. It isn’t unusual to see this kind of thing; it takes a lot of oxygen to be in love, and if they stay at home they’ll get taxed for the excess air. I keep running and the half-naked couple doesn’t even notice me.

  I think of Abel as I run. I knew he wasn’t quite ready for the mission. I wanted him with me because I wanted an excuse to be alone with him. And now he is dead and I will never get the chance to be alone with him ever again. Abel is dead because I liked him.

  I can’t allow myself time to grieve because up ahead I spot a lone man with long thin hair standing in the shadows. Illegal exercise and sex aren’t the only reasons people dwell in alleyways; this is where criminals hide, too. I pause, and when the man in the shadows hears me, he looks up and licks his lips. He drags himself toward me pulling a bad leg behind him. Screaming would be too dangerous. And he seems to know it. He snickers and pulls out a short, sharp blade. I’ve run almost twenty blocks and hate to turn back, but he’ll cut me for sure. So I turn around and run. Behind me he calls out, “I wasn’t going to hurt a delicious thing like you. Come back, my tasty.”

  Natural dawn light from outside starts to fill up the pod. The night has been so long. I haven’t slept or stopped. At least I’ve made it safely to Zone One. I walk up the main street toward the border. The air is burbling with excitement. Packs of giddy travelers check their backpacks one last time.

  I have nothing. A few scraps of food, some water, and an airtank. I didn’t even bring warm clothes.

  I have no idea how I’m going to get across. And even if I do, how will I survive out there?

  8

  BEA

  Mom taps on my bedroom door before popping her head into the room. “Quinn’s here, love. Shall I send him in?” I shake my head and follow her into the hall, where Quinn is standing holding not only his own backpack but the bag with the tent in it and both our sleeping bags. His hair has fallen over one of his clay-colored eyes. When he sees me, he smiles.

  “Let me carry some of that,” I say.

  “You can’t.” He peers at the floor. He’s right; I haven’t the strength, or a permit for carrying heavy loads. Mom is standing between us smirking.

  “I saw the things you bought for my Bea, Quinn. That was very kind of you.” She touches him gently on the arm.

  “It’s nothing,” he says, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Bea, are we going?”

  “Stay for breakfast,” Mom says.

  Quinn shakes his head. “Thanks, Mrs. Whitcraft, but we want to get to the border before the crowds.” He always does that, addresses my mom as Mrs. Whitcraft even though he’s a Premium and within his rights to use her first name. My mom blushes.

  “It must be nice to have a father who works for Breathe. All those airtanks,” she says. She looks at me, at Quinn, then back at me. I have to get out of this house and away from my mother’s suggestive smile. I kiss her on the cheek and move to the front doors just as Dad strolls out of the bedroom toward the kitchen wearing only a pair of baggy orange underpants. When he sees us in the hall he shuffles over, rubbing his hairy belly. He yawns. I’m close enough to be able to smell that he hasn’t brushed his teeth.

  “Quinn Caffrey,” he says, shaking hands with Quinn, who is staring, stunned, at my father. “Every time I see you, you look more like a man.” He pats Quinn’s cheek. If I’d tried to imagine the most embarrassing situation possible, I don’t think I’d have put my dad in a pair of old orange underpants. I love my mom and dad, but this is too much. They are outdoing themselves.

  “And a handsome man at that. He’s taking Bea out of the pod for a day or two. What a treat,” Mom says.

  Dad frowns. “An overnight?”

  “Oh, goodness, Cooper, I told you.”

  “I’ll take care of her, Mr. Whitcraft. I promise,” Quinn says.

  “You better,” Dad says.

  We take the tram to Zone One, and when we disembark, Quinn lugs our bags through the station and down onto the packed street. Everyone is loaded up, as we are, with tents and sleeping bags, airtanks hanging from their backpacks. We’re hounded every few steps by children selling cookies, old-fashioned compasses, paper maps, and airtanks. “Can you believe how many people buy oxygen from street sellers,” Quinn scoffs. “They mess with the gauge, so you can’t tell how much oxygen they really have in them. Usually they’re empty.” He pats the airtanks he’s brought from home.

  At the border there are five lines: four short ones devoted to Premiums, and one for auxiliaries, which is about ten times longer than the others. “Where are you going? I got you a Premium pass,” Quinn says as I edge toward the auxiliary gate.

  “Save the pass. I can wait there.” I don’t want to be even more indebted; I want us to be equals.

  “Oh please, there’s no need to get all principled—I didn’t buy the pass for you; I bought it for me. I want to get out of here now,” he says, pulling me by the arm toward a Premium line. This is something I love about Quinn: he always knows how to do something nice yet make it seem like really he’s being completely selfish, so it never feels like charity.

&
nbsp; As we join the line, a girl with long tangled hair rushes up to Quinn and throws her arms around him. She’s disheveled and out of breath. I check her earlobes: no tattoo. I glance around to see if a steward has spotted her rushing, but they’re all up at the border trying to manage the exodus. I’ve never met this girl before, though I do recognize her from school, from my advanced biology class last year. Apart from me, she was the only person I knew who had skipped a year. I haven’t seen her much since.

  “It’s you,” she tells Quinn, who doesn’t seem to know what to do. He stares at me, his arms by his sides, while she squeezes him. I shrug and he mouths the word Sorry. Then he gently unties himself from her hold.

  “Alina?” he says.

  Alina.

  “You remember.” She glances at me, but I look away. Quinn’s latest crush is the last person I want to see. “I need your help,” she says.

  We step out of line and thread our way through the crowd to a bench. “What’s happened?” Quinn asks. He sits down next to her, and I sit on her other side. The smell of breakfast loaf from a food cart opposite drifts over. Alina looks at it and swallows.

  “I have to get across,” she says, nodding at the border.

  “Are you hurt?” Quinn asks. He is frowning, concerned, but secretly he must be delighted; what better way to win this girl’s favor than to save her?

  “I’m in trouble. I can’t explain. If I go through with the auxiliaries, I’ll be stopped for certain.”

  “What have you done?” he asks.

  “Would you believe me if I said I’ve been saving the world?” Quinn shakes his head at the absurdity of it. “Can you help? Will you?”

  “Are you a terrorist?” I ask. Quinn glares at me, but we’ve got a right to know. Alina turns away from Quinn and, taking my hands, draws me toward her. Quinn wasn’t wrong about her looks—she’s beautiful, even with all the sweat and panic.

  “You don’t know me. You have no reason to trust me. But if you help me cross the border, you’ll never see me again. I promise.” Even though there are alarm bells ringing and my gut is telling me to steer clear of her, she is so earnest I don’t know how to refuse. Besides, if we help her do this one thing, she’ll disappear; it will be Quinn and me alone again, and he won’t have any reason to resent me.

  9

  QUINN

  I only have one Premium pass and it would take days to apply for another, so Bea’s standing in the auxiliary line after all. Alina is next to me. “We should try to look like a couple,” she whispers, holding my hand. This is fine by me.

  I know I should be worried about Alina and a bit afraid for myself, too, but even though this is dangerous, it’s also the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in ages. It isn’t every day the girl of your dreams asks you to rescue her.

  Alina looks like any other tourist making her way out of the pod. She’s even smiling a bit. I probably look more nervous than she does. I push back my shoulders and stand tall as the line narrows.

  When we finally step up to the first gate, the official looks at my ear and nods, then down at the pass I hand him. He eyeballs Alina, then waves us reluctantly through the giant, metal gate to the scanning station.

  I take out my pad and am about to scan when Alina touches my wrist. “Oh God, I’ve completely forgotten my pad,” she says. Of course. If she’s on the run, there’s no way she can scan her pad. She’ll be pulled aside and God-knows-what.

  “Seriously?” I shout, attracting the attention of the stewards nearest us. “Well, there’s no way we’re going back. No way!” I’m not exactly keeping things low key. I just don’t know how else to play it, so I do my best impression of Ferris.

  A male steward approaches and stands before us with a hand on his baton. “Is there a problem here?” he asks.

  “Yes, there is a problem, actually. My halfwit girlfriend has gone and forgotten her pad!” I glance at Alina, hoping I’m on the right track. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffles. “I mean, how hard can it be? Look at the size of her bag and look at mine. I’ve got everything and all she needed to remember was her ID. Typical.” I throw up my arms in frustration and the steward grins. It’s at that moment I notice his wedding ring. “We’re meant to be getting engaged out there. All planned. And now … well, you can say good-bye to any kind of proposal, love.” The steward stops smiling and takes me by the elbow.

  “There’s no need for that, sir,” he soothes.

  “No need at all,” a lady behind us mutters.

  “So you’ll let us out?”

  “I’m sorry, but if your girlfriend has forgotten her pad, she’ll have to step out of the line. She can’t leave unless we can identify her.”

  “Do you know who my father is?” I say. I’ve heard other people use this, but when it comes out of my mouth it doesn’t sound real. “If I’m not through this gate within five minutes I’ll be calling my father and then the Pod Minister. I’d like you to explain to him why you’ve stopped us.”

  “The Pod Minister?” the steward says, and takes a step back.

  “Exactly! I’ll let you speak to Cain Knavery and explain why you’ve stopped his protégé at the border for no good reason!” I’m shouting so loudly that six or seven stewards come forward and surround us. One steward pulls out his baton and waves it in our direction. Alina gives me a look that says I hope you know what you’re doing. I don’t, of course.

  My pad vibrates as the stewards huddle together to discuss the situation. It’s a message from Bea. With all the commotion I’m causing, I’m not surprised they’re able to hear us way over in the auxiliary line. I open the message and it reads Is she worth it? Alina is standing by the scanner, her hands hugging her own body. Her hair falls in untidy ripples down her face. I remember the first time I saw her, angry and zealous in the vaccination line. Back then all I wanted to do was kiss her. And now I look at her, blotchy and red-eyed, and I want to help her. She is doing something. And she must believe in it to put up with all this, and me. I look again at Bea’s message and I think Yes! Yes, this girl is definitely worth it!

  A steward steps forward. He has a long mustache covering his top lip and his eyebrows join in the middle, making his face look like it’s been driven over by a buggy. “Give me your pad,” he says. I quickly flip to the ID display. The steward looks down at the pad then back at me. Down at the pad. Back at me. He scans the pad. A digital voice responds: “Quinn Bartleby Caffrey—authorized.” “Your dad a director for Breathe?” he asks.

  “Can’t you read?” I sound arrogant and impatient, a lot like my father.

  “Doesn’t say anything about the Pod Minister. What relation did you say you was?” I glare as though I’m really getting tired of their nonsense and grab my pad from him.

  “That’s it. I’m calling Cain.” I bang around on my pad for no more than a couple of seconds when the steward tips his baton against my hand.

  “No need for that. I have an idea. We let you and your girl through, you do something for us.” Anything, I want to say. I’ll do anything.

  “You must be mad. If you think you’re going to bribe a Premium’s son. A friend of the Ministry—”

  “Air,” the steward interrupts. His hands are joined so he looks like he’s praying. He no longer looks threatening at all, but sad and desperate. “Can you get us tanks?” He is keeping his voice low so the crowd of tourists filing through the other lanes and queuing behind can’t hear him. “Not a bribe. A gift.” The other stewards are watching intently and their faces are no longer clenched. Each one has his eyebrows raised in expectation.

  “My wife and I haven’t … danced together in years,” he says. We stare at each other for a long time. It’s quite possible he knows I’m lying.

  “I can get you five tanks,” I say, looking at each of the stewards in turn.

  “Ten tanks to be delivered here within seventy-two hours.”

  “Eight. And you’ll get them in a week.” I won’t b
e a pushover.

  “Open the gate!” the steward hollers.

  And that’s it.

  Alina and I are through the second steel gate and making our way along a glass tunnel. Other tourists saunter alongside us. We lean against the curved glass to wait for Bea.

  “Do you have oxygen?” I ask Alina. Shaking a little, she pulls an airtank from her backpack, then attaches the cylinder to her hip using the belt. Once she pulls the transparent silicone mask over her mouth and nose, she tightens the straps at the back to ensure it is airtight. I take out my own tank and do the same.

  When Bea gets through, she runs to us, though she shouldn’t, and before I get a chance to speak, she throws herself at me. She presses into me so tightly it pinches. “Don’t break my ribs!” I say. I know she was worried. I don’t want to dwell on it. “I’ll help you with your mask,” I say. “We have to get going.”

  We walk down the sun-drenched glass tunnel—Bea, Alina, and me. We push open the revolving doors at the end. And we step, as one, into the airless planet.

  PART II

  THE OUTLANDS

  10

  BEA

  Without speaking or even looking at each other, we’ve somehow agreed to stick with Alina for a while longer; it would seem too strange if she wandered off alone. And we’ve also decided to get as far away from the pod and day tourists as we can. Most of the other tourists are as silent as we are—focused on breathing, avoiding panic as they move farther and farther from guaranteed air.

  We could talk if we wanted to—it’s easy to be heard through the holes in our blowoff valves; it’s just that we aren’t used to having our faces covered. The masks keep us alive, but mine is also keeping my nose warm. I gave Alina my scarf. What else could I do? Watch her shivering and ignore it? Quinn gave her a spare sweater and tried to give her his green gloves, too, but she refused. They finally agreed to one glove each. And so now they look a little like two parts of the same person.