Breathe

“Take me wiv ya,” Maude whines. “I’ll die if you leave us here. Why do you think I wanted that airtank? I’m too old to be hauling this thing about.” She gives the respirator a weak kick. “How am I meant to scavenge for berries or search in old houses for cans of tasties when I can’t even get anywhere anymore? Don’t leave me ’ere. I’m too old for this life.”

  “We can’t trust her,” I say. “We have to leave her here.” Bea flinches but continues to bind the bandage.

  “You’re gonna let me waste away?” Maude says. Quinn rubs his temples and tries to attract Bea’s attention by nudging her with his foot. She doesn’t look up.

  Bea uses a safety pin to fix my bandage in place, stands up, and moves to the window. “She’s just an old lady,” she says. Her voice is calm but lined with indignation. “We can’t abandon her to die slowly of starvation.”

  I look at Maude, who stares back at me. Even if she hadn’t attacked me, I couldn’t help her escape this place. I need to move quickly and she’d slow me down. They all would. She has to stay here where we found her, but negotiating with Bea and Quinn won’t be easy; I need them to believe I’m merciless and that leaving Maude would be a gift. So I say, “It would be mean just to let her starve. Maybe … maybe it would be kinder to kill her.”

  14

  BEA

  They’re talking about murder as though they’re talking about the weather. Quinn can’t possibly agree with what Alina’s saying; he’s trying to be ruthless because he doesn’t want her to think he’s weak. But killing someone? She’s an old woman.

  They’ve spent the last ten minutes trying to decide what to do. Should they leave her here to die alone, take away her respirator and let her suffocate, or put her out of her misery by stabbing her? Stabbing her! Why doesn’t Quinn just use his mallet to bludgeon her to death? I stand by the window watching them. They’re doing an excellent job of pretending that they’re perfectly resolved to end this old woman’s life. Finally Quinn says, “What do you think, Bea?”

  “You know what I think,” I say, which he does. And this is the reason he hasn’t been able to look at me.

  “What?” Alina asks Quinn, as though I need an interpreter, as though she can’t speak to me directly.

  “Bea thinks we should help her,” he says. Alina laughs, and I hate the sound of it because it means it’s Alina and Quinn now, not Quinn and Bea.

  “Why are you in The Outlands anyway?” I say, looking at Maude.

  “Don’t talk to her,” Quinn says.

  “She’s helpless, Quinn, look at the state of her.” Maude is muttering uncontrollably. “What are you doing so far from the pod?” I ask again.

  “She’ll probably kill the next person who comes along. We should make sure that doesn’t happen,” Alina says.

  “Please stop talking like that,” I beg, and the old woman squawks. “It’s murder,” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m not screaming, urging them not to do this. And if they decide to go ahead anyway, then what will I do?

  “Back in the pod it may have been murder. Different laws apply here. My main concern is protecting the Resistance,” Alina says.

  “I don’t care about the law. I care about what’s right,” I say.

  “And how can you know what’s right? How can any of us know that what they taught us is true? Everything’s a lie. You don’t even know the half of it.”

  “It has nothing to do with what I’ve been taught. It has to do with how I feel,” I say. Alina stares at me.

  “How you gonna argue with that now, huh?” Maude mumbles.

  “Shut up!” Alina shouts. Quinn watches her closely, hoping, I know, that she’s changing her mind. Why doesn’t he say how he feels? Is he really prepared to let her stop him from saving a person’s life?

  “Maybe we should talk to her,” he says at last.

  Alina is rubbing her chin. When she looks at Quinn she stops, and they gaze at each other: Alina staring into Quinn’s eyes, Quinn looking into hers. And me, off to the side.

  “Okay, Maude Blue …” Alina advances on the old woman, who has curled herself tight into the corner of the room, where she is scratching her groin. “Tell us why you tried to hurt me. This better be good, for your sake.” Maude pulls her matted hair into her mouth and begins to chew. “Maude Blue, I’m talking to you!” Alina shouts, and I think she’s about to kick her, but she stomps on a cracked plate on the floor next to her instead.

  Maude raises her head. “I chose a house with large bay windows. I chose a room that gets the sun. First time I closed the curtains was when I saw yous coming along.” I don’t understand. She pats the respirator.

  “It’s solar powered,” Alina says, “I know that. So why steal my air? As long as you stay in the light, you’ll have enough in that thing to keep you going forever.”

  “I thought you wanted to kill me, you little brat.” Maude coughs into her hand, then wipes it on a dirty blanket.

  “I still might.”

  “The Ministry gives you a choice: Mental Sanitation Unit or The Outlands. Well, we all chose The Outlands thinking it’d be a lot better than some loony ward, until they handed us these things.” She taps the respirator again. “Solar powered and portable, all right, which is jolly when you’re a young’un, but look at me. I’m too worn out to be lugging that thing around looking for grub. So even if the air keeps tick-tick-ticking along, I’d not have lasted more than another week if yous lot hadn’t come in ’ere.”

  “Why did you get expelled?” Quinn asks. He squats down in front of Maude so he’s eye level with her. There’s a softness to his voice at last.

  “We know too much and that’s dangerous to ’em. We all gets expelled eventually, but they don’t tell you that when you sign up. Unless you’re a bigwig, you don’t never escape the cut. They thinks it’s a gift, letting us live. A gift for all the service we’ve given ’em.”

  “What do you mean, ‘they’?” Quinn asks.

  “You know exactly who I mean. And by the look of your sweet purple lobe, you’re one of ’em, too.” When I look closer at Maude, I see that she has a circular tattoo on her earlobe.

  “You were a Premium?” I ask. I thought drifters were lunatics and criminals. Surely Premiums could never be degraded like this.

  “The drifters are all ex-Breathe,” Alina says impatiently, as though I should know this already.

  The solar respirator clanks and Maude elbows it. “Tha’s right. But we was dubbed the Hope Hitmen back in the old days. If we found anything living, we sprayed it and whoosh—gone—jus’ like that. Trees means hope. So they’ve always wanted rid of ’em.”

  Alina doesn’t look surprised, and I try not to seem too shocked either, but I am. Breathe destroy trees? “The Switch was an accident and now the trees won’t grow back because there’s so much lightning,” I say, fearing I’ll be contradicted.

  Maude sniffs. “Yeah, The Switch were an accident. But everything else is a load of old poppycock. Lightnin’? Pah! I bet they’re still pretending they’re working on replanting the earth and cleaning up the seas.”

  “I know all this already,” Alina says. “You’re useless to me.”

  “But if there’s no clean-up, we’ll never get out of the pod,” I say.

  Alina moves toward the window and peers out at the drizzle. “I have to go,” she says.

  “I should come along with yous,” Maude suggests, ignoring me completely and looking sideways at Alina. “I know the whole area, dun’ I? There’s about a gazillion drifters and I know where they’re at and … and …” She runs out of ideas.

  “And you tried to kill me, you witch.” Alina rolls up her sleeves like she’s preparing to fight. I stand between her and Maude.

  “Why wouldn’t they replant the earth? They’re growing trees in the biosphere,” I whisper.

  “Tokens!” Maude barks, pointing a twisted finger at me.

  Alina sighs. “They pretend they’re the only ones who can grow anything. That the earth is so
scary, even the trees would rather be in the pod.”

  “Bring me along. I ain’t useless,” Maude whines.

  “And they kill the trees on purpose?” I keep my voice even, but inside I’m coming apart, and I realize suddenly that there was never any way I was going to make it into the Leadership Program, not after what I said in the debates about the trees and how much they matter.

  “They’ve capitalized on a very ugly reality,” Alina says.

  Quinn puts up a hand in protest. “Okay, but Breathe didn’t cause this.” He tugs on his facemask. Then he gives me a pleading look like there’s something I could do that would stop what they’re saying from being true.

  “They’re after you because you did something,” I say to Alina.

  “I need to keep moving,” she replies. “Stay here, if you like. I’m off.” She moves toward the door.

  Quinn’s face is pale. He jumps in front of the door, barring Alina’s way out. “What did you do?” he asks.

  “I stole cuttings from the biosphere. That’s what I did. And they’ll do anything to stop the Resistance from replanting the earth. That’s why I have to get out of here.” She pushes Quinn easily aside but doesn’t leave.

  “They don’t want the world to get better because then we’d be free,” I say.

  Alina nods sadly, like she’s full of pity for my lost innocence. “People are dying. People who try to grow things are being killed. If I’d stayed—” She pauses. “It’s a long story.” She reaches for the doorknob.

  “Maude will die if we leave her,” I say. “We need to get her somewhere safe, at least. Maybe find other drifters who can feed her.” Alina turns around, looks at the old woman and then at me. Her eyes have lost some of their fury.

  “Leave me ’ere and I’ll holler up a hurricane as soon as the first Breathe convoy rolls by,” Maude says. No one responds. It isn’t a serious threat.

  “She’ll attack us on the road. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Not if we’re with you,” Quinn suggests. “We want to help.” I have little interest in helping Alina, but how can I go back to the pod when there’s so much I don’t know? I need to know everything. About the pod. About the Ministry. And about what the alternatives are to it all.

  “We’re coming,” I tell Alina. “If you say no, we’ll simply follow you.” I keep my chin up, trying to look tougher than I feel. “And we’re bringing Maude Blue.”

  15

  QUINN

  We’ve been walking for more than two hours, and I think I’ve spent one hour looking at Alina’s ass and another hour trying not to look at it. I have to be careful though, when Alina glances around, not to let her see me staring. She’s the kind of girl who’d be likely to sock me if she caught me.

  Old Maude Blue with her stench and knotty hair is gasping in her mask, but Alina won’t slow down, and Maude has to keep up with her because the airtank she’s now wearing, my spare, is tied to Alina’s wrist. I was pretty impressed when Bea came up with the idea: there’s no way the old woman’s going to bolt and then turn up and attack us later when her air supply is attached to Alina. Compared to the soggy air she’s been breathing, the stuff in my airtank probably feels golden, but even so, she’s old and not used to walking. I feel sorry for her, in a way.

  But I feel more sorry for Bea because she’s not used to a lot of exercise either. I am because my father can afford it. “All right?” I ask, tapping her on the shoulder. She steps over a prostrate parking meter and nods. The rain has eased, but Bea still has the hood of her rain jacket up to protect her face from the scorching wind.

  Bea doesn’t seem to notice me and turns toward Alina. “We’re basically prisoners?” she asks. I should, if I want to get anywhere with her, give Alina a chance to answer. I don’t.

  “No way,” I say, even though I know firsthand about the corruption in the pod. There’s no guessing how far the Ministry would go to retain power. Yet I find myself defending them. “If my father knew, he’d do something to stop it. Maybe we should be going back to the pod to tell him. He knows the Pod Minister. You should be taking this to the top instead of running away.” Maude chuckles and Alina sniffs. Bea shrugs. They don’t buy it. And neither do I. “Why would they want to breathe in chemically manufactured air when they could breathe in the real stuff?” I try desperately.

  “Breathe would be ruined. Everyone would leave and rebuild their lives. What would the directors and politicians do with themselves?” Alina says. “Their way of life depends on you being unable to survive without them. And to make sure you can’t ever leave, they pump the pod with more oxygen than is needed.”

  “Well, that’s obviously not true. They charge for extra oxygen consumption. Oxygen is expensive,” I say.

  “That’s right. It is. But they give us enough for free to get us hooked. Before The Switch, the earth’s air was twenty-one percent oxygen. In the pod they give us almost thirty percent. Why? So that when we come outside and have to suck in only six percent, we won’t be able to cope. But we can cope. We would cope if they only taught us how.”

  “What about the other countries?” Bea asks. “Every country can’t be corrupt.”

  “Coastline Division,” Maude wheezes. “I had a pal who was a member of that unit for a couple of years. Yes. Yes. Nice little number, that was.” She pauses, puts her hands on her knees, coughs, and continues. “They don’t want no one coming and they don’t want no one going. They caught a few tourists in a makeshift boat once. Trying to make their way to France, they was.” She picks her nose with one of her long black fingernails.

  “They say Russia is managing to subsist on thin air,” Alina says. “They’ve trained many of their people to exist on lower levels so they can be free. The pods in Russia are almost empty.”

  “No they ain’t. They have pods. Everyone has pods. Pods, pods everywhere. Breathe sold the oxygen formula to the whole world,” Maude snarls. For a moment Alina looks unsure but quickly restores her composure.

  “The point is, it’s possible. Do you know why we keep having to be vaccinated? It has nothing to do with diseases. They’re lowering our levels of red blood cells, so we’ll need more oxygen. Everyone, even the poorest auxiliaries, will feel the need to buy more air. We have a nurse on the inside who injects people with a saline solution instead. I make sure I see her and no one else.”

  “So that’s why you were so mad when Riley and Ferris pushed in,” I say.

  “The nurse’s shift ended at one.”

  “It’s beyond belief. I mean, I do believe you … I can’t believe it,” I say.

  “They’ll have absolute control until the trees take it back. With a little help from the Resistance. Here’s hoping we survive long enough to make a difference.” Alina looks straight at me when she says this. I don’t know what else I have to do to prove to her I’m not like all the other Premiums she’s ever met. “And talking about survival, take the batteries out of your pads or they’ll use them to track you,” Alina says.

  Bea nods and pulls her pad from her backpack. She takes out the battery and hands it to Alina. I do the same thing. “You sure you’re all right?” I ask Bea. She nods. “Are you hungry? I’ve got snacks.” She shakes her head. I glance down at my watch. Almost four o’clock. It’ll be dark soon.

  “We’ll need to find a safe place to camp for the night,” I mutter, looking at Maude’s ass now because she’s stepped behind Alina. I could look at Bea’s instead, but that would be weird.

  “What?” Alina turns but keeps walking. Her bandage is coming loose and there’s blood seeping through it. Her cheeks are red from the cold.

  “It’s getting dark. We should find a place to sleep. And maybe Bea could fix up your arm again. Looks sore.”

  “I’m walking through the night. You do whatever you want,” she says, marching on so quickly she almost rips Maude’s mask off, and the old woman has to scurry after her. Bea has slowed and is next to me now.

  “You all right?” I t
ry one more time.

  “I’m fine,” she grumbles. I don’t blame her for being fed up. I mean, our trip hasn’t exactly turned out as planned. She whispers something so Alina won’t hear. But I can’t hear her either and move my ear next to the holes in the blowoff valve of her mask. “We’re in deep,” she whispers. Alina spins around.

  “I didn’t ask you to come,” she says, “and I’ll actually have a lot of explaining to do if you’re with me. I really don’t want to get you into something you aren’t ready for. Go home. I don’t want another death on my conscience.”

  “Another death?” we all respond in unison.

  “Who’s dead?” Bea asks.

  “You should go back,” she repeats. I’m starting to wonder whether we should. I took a fancy to a girl, so I helped her escape the pod. After that I saved her from a crazy drifter. Now I’m following her to God-knows-where to see God-knows-who, and all she can do is give me the evil eye and tell me to get lost when really she should be applauding my audacity. I’ve managed to make Bea hate me, and if Alina kind of despises me, despite my best efforts to impress her, why on earth am I using up my oxygen and vacation time to trek into the city with her? I think about saying this, but I don’t because the truth is, I like her.

  “We can’t go back while you have her tied to you,” I say, pointing at Maude, who grimaces. “You said yourself she’d attack you.”

  “Oh, don’t you fret about me. I’ll be as good as gold,” Maude cackles. I’m about to tell Alina that we won’t leave her unprotected when Bea speaks up.

  “It’s got nothing to do with protecting anyone, Quinn. I’m not going back to the pod to spend the rest of my life being an underling. Maybe if we go with Alina we can help change things. Or at least learn the truth.” She glares at me.

  “I still think we should take a rest,” I say. “What harm would a few minutes do?”

  “Not ’ere,” Maude says sharply, scurrying forward and signaling with her thumb to a building on our right with broken stained-glass windows and a tall, crooked spire. Up in the bell tower, I make out the shape of a person. A man whose face is covered in hair. He’s waving. “That there’s Larry,” she says. “He ain’t dangerous but he’s got scabies or somethin’ like that in his skin. Contagious for sure.” The man waves and waves. Maude doesn’t look up. We keep moving.