Breathe

  After another mile or so, Bea begins to slow down. “We’re resting,” I announce. This isn’t a request. I stop walking and grab Bea’s arm to make her stop, too.

  “Five minutes. Then we move on,” Alina says.

  “Yeah, five or ten minutes should be good,” I say. Alina frowns at me. I look away.

  Mountains of rubble are everywhere now, and the buildings still standing on either side of the road are twice the height of those we passed before we found Maude. If any of these buildings spontaneously crumble, we’ll all be dead for sure, buried beneath tons of concrete blocks and steel rods. Alina takes out an old-fashioned compass and starts to turn it this way and that. “Where are we?” Bea asks.

  “Blackhorse Road,” Alina says.

  “And where exactly are we going?”

  “The Grove. It’s an old stadium.”

  “A soccer stadium from before? Where is it?” I ask. I take out my pad again, to show them pictures of our school soccer team, when I remember there’s no battery in the thing. “By some fluke, my team won the league last year.”

  “How wonderful for you,” Alina says.

  Bea and Maude are sitting on a red plastic bench beneath a transparent structure. It looks like a miniature tram stop although there is no evidence of tracks on the road or tram lines overhead. Next to it is a tall sign with faded numbers printed on it: 123, 230, 158, N73. Maude sees me examining the sign. “Bus stop,” she wheezes. “Brum-brum. Like a big buggy.” Bea reaches into her backpack and pulls out her water flask, which she holds to Maude’s lips while the old woman keeps the facemask in place over her nose. I’m not thirsty, but I’ve been bursting to pee for over an hour. I’ve only managed to keep my mind off it by, well, looking at things I shouldn’t.

  “I’m off to take care of some business,” I say.

  “What kind of business?” Alina asks.

  “Private business,” I say slowly, so she gets the point and I don’t have to say I’m going to pull my trooper out and take a piss.

  “Oh. I actually need to go, too,” Alina says.

  Bea is still watering Maude but looks at me, then back at Alina, and she must be thinking what I’m thinking: Is Alina planning on coming with me? I like her, I do, but I don’t think I’d manage to go at all with her watching me, even with her just listening. I’m one of those people who need complete peace to go. Like in school, I can’t bear it when I’m standing there, about to pee, and another guy comes in and stands next to me. Especially when he starts talking. Who wants to have a conversation when you’re trying to avoid peeing on yourself?

  “Maybe I’ll go first and you afterwards?” I say.

  “Oh, Quinn,” Bea sighs.

  “You thought I wanted to go with you? How was that going to work?” Alina asks. The two girls look at each other and grin. I try to explain myself, but everything I say makes them smile even more. By the time I manage to slink away, even Maude Blue is tittering.

  “Sure you don’t need no one to hold your hand? Or was it something else you needed help holding?” Maude calls after me.

  I give Bea a look, one that says you’re supposed to be my friend, or something like that. She stifles a laugh. Maude starts blowing me kisses and that sets Alina off. I turn and march back in the direction we’ve come from. I’m looking for a large car or a wall—anything I can hide behind.

  Once I’ve taken a piss, I don’t feel like going straight back, so I take a look around. The farther into the city we walk, the more wretched everything is because every inch of space is piled high with crap. Any standing walls are smothered in blanched graffiti: SUFFOCATION IN HELL TO ALL WHO DO NOT BELIEVE, THE DEVIL AWAITS THE UNREPENTANT. In the years and months leading up to The Switch, people went crazy for God. What did God have to do with anything, that’s what I want to know. People destroyed the forests. People poisoned the seas. And in the end, people saved themselves. No matter what Alina thinks of Breathe, no one would be alive now without them.

  I hear a low rumbling and look up. The clouds are definitely gearing up for a downpour, and if we don’t find a shelter, we’re going to get another drenching.

  As I walk back, I can hear the sky again. This time it’s less of a low rumble and more of a tremor that I can actually feel through the ground. But the tremor doesn’t stop like normal thunder does—it’s more of a continuous quake, like some kind of drill. It can’t be coming from the sky. I look up to be sure. And then I look back over my shoulder and I see it, a black tank pointing its gun in my direction.

  A soldier is waving at me from the tank’s turret and I have no idea what to do. Should I run? He’s obviously seen me, and that would only make me seem suspect. Was he looking for me? He was probably after Alina and she’s only around the corner. I stay where I am and put my hands up. The waving figure now has a megaphone in front of his face. “Stay precisely where you are,” he commands. I do as he says. “We are Ministry Officials. Stay where you are. We will dismount the vehicle. Stay where you are.” I haven’t moved a muscle, but he keeps repeating himself as though I’m ignoring the simplest of instructions. I hope Bea and Alina have heard and taken off already.

  The tank stops and two soldiers clamber out of the hatch. They stretch their arms and look around like they’re glad of the freedom. They amble toward me. They’re a lot more frightening-looking than the stewards in the pod, even the ones on Border Control. These guys have heavy black helmets covering their faces, which must have built-in air, and as they walk, they swing steel batons. They also have guns tucked into their belts.

  “You’re very far from home,” one of them says.

  “I’m lost,” I say, and I shrug.

  “You’re Premium?” the other asks.

  “Yep” I say.

  “Let me see your ear,” he says, and moves closer. He pushes back my hair and clears his throat. “Fine. We also need to scan your pad. It’s not all that difficult to get a counterfeit tattoo,” he adds.

  “Yeah, I get it. My pad? Ah …” I scratch my head. “I have no idea what happened to it,” I say, hoping they don’t search me and find it in my coat.

  “If we can’t identify you, we’ll have to take you in. Ministry orders are to sweep the area.”

  “Sure, sure. I’m glad you found me, to be honest, I was running out of air.” I tug on my tank, not showing them the gauge, which would reveal that the tank is far from being empty.

  “Who you traveling with?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m alone. I’m kind of a loner, you know. Not many friends. Alone a lot …”

  “Really.”

  “Really.” I’m sure they know I’m lying. But they don’t seem that interested in me.

  “Let’s go,” they say.

  “Can I grab my stuff? I left everything in there,” I say, looking at a ramshackle building that might once have been a store. They look at each other, and though I have no idea how they can communicate with their faces covered, they turn to me simultaneously and nod. “Great. Wicked. Awesome,” I say, probably overdoing it; I’m not exactly what you’d call a trained anarchist.

  I turn away from the soldiers, making my way toward the old store. “Get a move on, mate,” one of them growls.

  When I’m inside, I see it was never a store at all; it must have been a barbershop. A whole wall is covered in cracked mirrors and in front of them is a row of black swivel chairs. The pictures on the walls are peeling, but each one is a headshot of a slick model. I look out at the soldiers. One is nonchalantly leaning up against the tank. The other one has decided to follow me. I could sacrifice myself and go with them—Alina can protect herself—but I can’t leave Bea; she wouldn’t be able to run if she had to. Plus, I have no idea what those goons will do with me once they get me back to the pod and find out I was the one who helped a fugitive cross the border.

  I bolt to the back of the barbershop and an open door leads me outside into a narrow alleyway. Left would take me back toward the others, and if the soldiers caught me,
they might catch them, too, so I hurtle right instead.

  I run past doors leading into the backs of stores and dash through one of them. This one is piled high with old screens and computers. I go to the windows and peek out. Both soldiers are clambering up the tank and through the hatch. One of them pops his head back up and hollers through the megaphone.

  “If you do not come out, we will fire. Come out with your hands up. NOW!” I run out the back door and, trapped by stores on one side and a towering brick wall on the other, I decide I only have one choice, and that’s to climb. The wall looks ready to crumble, but I find a few grooves to slip my fingers into and start scrambling up to the top.

  I can see three small figures, Bea, Alina and Maude, shuffling along, covering their heads with their hands. And I’m not sure why they’re doing this until I hear a violent explosion and feel rocks and glass shattering against my back. I cover my head, too. Before I can jump, the wall sways, throwing me back to the ground. I stare at it, unable to move as it finally cracks and comes crashing down on top of me.

  16

  ALINA

  I’m not sure whether or not we were spotted. But we keep moving. There’s nothing else we can do. The buildings around us are exploding and showering us in concrete. If we stay where we are, we’ll be killed.

  There’s an underground station up ahead, its entrance yawning like a hungry animal. The entrance is cordoned off by a flimsy wire fence that was ripped apart a long time ago. As we approach it Maude stops, and even when I move forward and yank her mask from her face, she stays where she is. The tank is still firing and the sky is a mosaic of rubble. Bea grabs Maude’s arm, half drags her toward me, picks up the facemask from the ground and reattaches it so the old woman can breathe. “Not in there,” Maude screeches above the explosions, jabbing her knotted finger in the direction of the station. “Never in the ground.”

  “Let’s go, Bea,” I yell.

  “Not without her,” she says, trying to pull Maude into the station. The old woman is strong—I know this. I run back and help Bea drag Maude in with us.

  “No!” Maude screams, as though we’re trying to kill her.

  “We have to go down. They could bomb the entrance,” I tell them.

  “Quinn’s still out there,” Bea says.

  “When the firing stops, we’ll come up and find him. We can’t help him now. We have to go.” Bea hesitates for a moment then starts down the motionless escalator. Maude is frozen in place and staring into the pit of the station.

  “You dunno what’s d-down there,” she stutters.

  “Well, there isn’t any sun down there, so at least I know it’ll be free of drifters,” I say, and follow Bea.

  It’s pitch-black at the bottom. I hear Bea rummaging around in her backpack and eventually she produces a flashlight and shines it into the darkness. The underground station has escaped a lot of destruction: the walls are dirty but perfectly intact and the floor tiles are even. Bea balances the flashlight on the escalator handrail.

  “We’ll give it a while and then we’ll go back up,” I say, knowing she’s worried. And I feel a bit worried, too. And guilty. We shouldn’t have teased him so much. We made him look silly and of course he went off to sulk.

  “He isn’t very worldly,” Bea tells me, as though I hadn’t figured it out already.

  “No,” I say.

  “But he’s a good person,” she goes on.

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t.”

  “Just because he’s Premium doesn’t mean he’s like all the others. He doesn’t ever act like he’s better than me.”

  “That’s because he isn’t,” I tell her. She goes quiet and when she does, we hear a thundering aboveground. They must know Quinn isn’t alone. Did he tell them we were with him? Did he tell them about me?

  Bea is crouching on the ground next to Maude. The old woman is whining like a broken alarm. “Get her up,” I snap. I’m starting to feel mildly sorry for Maude, who is so old and obviously sick and unhappy, but I won’t let her know it.

  “Come on, Maude,” Bea soothes, lifting her up and setting her on the last step of the escalator. Then, without speaking, without asking me if it’s okay, she comes to me, unties Maude’s airtank, and hands it to the old woman. I think about snatching it back, reminding Bea of the deal we struck: we let Maude live, but we give her a reason not to run or attack any of us. I think about this and realize there isn’t anywhere for Maude to go.

  “If she’s getting the tank, you’ll need to tie her hands. She could still attack us.”

  “She won’t,” Bea says.

  “She might. Tie her hands.” Bea shakes her head, refusing, and I don’t argue. Maude groans and points in the direction of the platform.

  “You can’t make me,” she wheezes. I stand up and move toward the platform. “Don’t!” she shouts.

  “What’s gotten into you? People walk through the tunnels all the time.” The underground has always provided our safest passage into and out of the city, mainly because there are no drifters.

  “What about the bodies?” she asks.

  “The bodies rotted a long time ago,” I tell her. I don’t say that the smell remains; she can probably smell it herself.

  “This is a Death Station,” she whispers. Bea stands up and holds out the flashlight as though she expects something to attack her.

  The station shudders as it takes another hit aboveground. “It’s getting worse,” Bea says, looking up. I nod. She’s thinking of Quinn. I am, too.

  “I were a nurse,” Maude tells us. “I were a young nurse. Well, actually, I were a student. I were a student-nurse, you know. I hadn’t passed all me exams when the universities shut down. But people needed nurses and there weren’t enough, see, so even the students had to work. People needed us. We was needed. We did our best.”

  “But what could you do? You couldn’t save anyone,” Bea says.

  “Nope. So we did the opposite. Right down ’ere.”

  “What do you mean?” Bea whispers.

  “People came and waited on the platforms and the doctors and nurses walked through the tunnels from station to station doing what they could.”

  Bea is frowning and casting her eyes about looking for answers. “You killed people,” I say. Maude hugs her knees into her chest.

  “We put ’em out of their misery. No one else would. It were illegal.”

  “Death Stations,” Bea says.

  “It were the only way out in the end. And they came to us. All different types, they was, though usually they was poor. They knew they hadn’t a chance of buying themselves a place in the pod.”

  “Death Stations,” Bea repeats. She shudders as another blast rocks the station.

  “I helped deliver a baby down here,” Maude continues, “and the first thing the mother said when I told her she’d had a boy was ‘do it.’ I knew what she meant. We all knew. But how could I?” Maude is speaking quickly now, more to herself than to us.

  Bea is watching her, hypnotized. “What happened to the baby?” she asks. She has tears in her eyes.

  “I freed the mother. Freed—that’s what we called it, freedom. I took the baby and left it on the doorstep of the biggest house I could find.”

  “And after all your mercy you went and took a job with Breathe?” I’m not buying her remorse.

  “They recruited us. They promised us places in the pods. They found out what we was doing here and chose us because they thought we was merciless. And maybe we was. Anyway, killing the last of the trees was better than killing people.”

  “You sicken me,” I tell Maude, and I mean it. I should never have listened to Bea’s bleeding heart. I should have left her back in the house to rot. Maude mumbles something I don’t hear. “What did you say?” My voice reverberates and comes back at me, bitterly hollow.

  “I said, I—sicken—myself.” And what can I say to that? It shuts me up at least. Bea nods and moves closer to Maude. She doesn’t hug her, perhaps because t
he old woman is so filthy and decayed, but pats her hand gently. I don’t know where she finds the compassion.

  Suddenly the ground quakes, and a noise like thousands of boulders being hurled at the station from the sky reminds us where we are.

  As quickly as it began, the pounding stops and we hear what must be the tank rumble away. We stand in stunned silence for a moment. If Quinn hasn’t been captured, he is probably hurt. “Leave her here and bring the flashlight,” I tell Bea.

  “Don’t leave me down here in the bloody dark,” Maude mewls as I bound back up the escalator two steps at a time.

  “We won’t be long,” Bea says over her shoulder as she follows me.

  For some reason the light doesn’t change and the only reason I can see is because Bea is behind me with the flashlight. When I get to the top, I stop and look around.

  “Did we come down two levels?” I ask Bea when she catches up.

  “No, the exit should be right there.” She directs her light at a pile of bricks.

  She looks at me horrified.

  “Quinn’s out there. We have to help him,” she cries. She runs toward the exit and frantically starts to throw rocks in all directions. But it’s pointless: the whole roof has caved in. It would take twenty of us days to safely move everything and forge a way through. I let her attack the bricks for a while. Then I go to her.

  “We won’t get out this way. We’ll have to walk through the tunnels,” I say.

  She isn’t listening. “I think I can hear him. What if he’s under here? Help me, will you? Help me!” I rest a hand on her shoulder while she tries to dislodge a metal pole from the pile.

  “Bea,” I say softly.

  “Quinn could be dead,” she says. “Quinn,” she repeats his name quietly. She loves him, that much is obvious. But he’s so oblivious he can’t see it. And maybe now he’ll never know how she feels. Does she even know how she feels?