Resist

  But I cough and my throat is so dry it comes out like a sandy wheeze. I’ve also managed to dribble down my own face. I try to yank my hands free but just tear another layer of flesh from my red-raw wrists. I stop struggling at the sound of scraping as a guard opens the cell door.

  He holds it open for Niamh Knavery, who stalks in and looks at me as though I’m something someone’s puked up. “It reeks in here,” she says. “Did you piss yourself?” I’d sit straighter in the chair if my limbs didn’t burn, to show her I’m not embarrassed. They’re responsible for the smell in here, not me.

  After a brief pause, Lance Vine appears. He covers his nose with his arm. How ironic that he finds me disgusting. “Give us five minutes,” he tells the guard, who nods, the keys tied to his belt jangling as he retreats down the hallway.

  “I haven’t done anything,” I say.

  “Don’t give me that,” Niamh says, bristling with contempt.

  “Your father killed my parents. I have every reason to hate you,” I tell her, though then I’d hate Ronan, too, which I don’t. Neither of them is to blame for who Cain Knavery was.

  Vine stands next to Niamh and rubs his nose between his thumb and index finger. “If you ask me, there isn’t any point in delaying things. I’ve heard from Jude Caffrey that it’s getting worse. Time to act.” He steps in front of Niamh and grabs my face, his sweaty hand over my mouth. “We thought we hacked most of you down when we destroyed The Grove. So who’s attacking us?”

  “Is there another riot in the pod?” I ask. And is Quinn a part of it? Could he be here? Hope trickles its way back into my body. “If you’re so tough, why aren’t you out there battling the bad guys yourself?”

  He smacks me hard across the face. The chair teeters on its back legs and crashes to the floor. I land on my hands tied to the back of the chair and clench my jaw to stop myself from whimpering. I roll to the side and try moving my wrists.

  Niamh presses her lips together. “Was Wendy behind all this?”

  “Or was it Ronan?” Vine adds.

  Niamh shudders. “And Wendy’s helped these new terrorists attack us, I suppose,” she says, not giving me time to answer his question. “Let’s just shut off the air to the cell and let her choke,” she says. Vine stands over me and shrugs. He couldn’t care less what happens to me.

  A noise in the hallway makes me tense and another steward bumbles in. He looks at me and gulps. “They’re waiting to start the chamber meeting, sir,” he says.

  Vine turns to Niamh. “Tell them I’ll be there shortly.”

  “Yes, Pod Minister,” she says. She pokes me with her foot.

  “I’m no different than you, Niamh,” I say. I don’t beg or plead with her to help me, I simply give her a chance to do the right thing.

  “No, Bea,” she says. “We’re innately different, and that’s part of the problem: you and your RATS think we aren’t.” She leaves the cell, slamming the door shut on her way out.

  Vine crouches down and strokes my face with the back of his hand. I try to bite him. He pulls his hand away and laughs. I’m like prey, and it feels far too familiar. I scream as loudly as I can, to startle him if nothing else, and only stop when an alarm blares from the speakers in the wall and a red light on the ceiling flashes and spins. “It can’t be,” he says.

  “What can’t it be?”

  He looks down at me. “You know very well, it’s the air siren. The Resistance must have damaged the tubing. You’ll pay for your involvement in this.”

  “The tubing?”

  “They should have remembered that the first places air is siphoned from is the Penal Block and auxiliary apartments.” He heads for the door.

  “You’re leaving me here?” I ask. I’m not scared of dying—I’ve been faced with the prospect so many times I know it’s inevitable, and suffocating is the most inevitable thing of all—but I don’t want to die alone. Someone should witness my last moment. I deserve that, at least, don’t I?

  Vine sneers and presses a bell on the intercom. He waits several moments, then pulls on the door handle, but it doesn’t budge. He clears his throat and tries the intercom again. “I’m ready to leave now,” he says into the mouthpiece, furrowing his brow.

  I cough because the air in the cell has already thinned. “What if no one comes?” I ask, goading. “If there’s trouble, wouldn’t everyone be recruited to fight? Wouldn’t the stewards run scared if they thought the air was being siphoned?”

  He puts his hand to his chest then thumps the cell door with his fists. “Let me out!” he bawls. He clutches his chest and thumps that too. I focus on stretching out my exhalations. My breath sounds like the ocean. Vine kneels on the floor next to me and puts his ear to my mouth. “What kind of trick is that?” he asks. His breathing is rapid.

  “No trick,” I say. “I have all the air I need.”

  “Get me out of here!” He blanches, going back to the door where he cranes his neck and opens his mouth wide to catch all the air he can. “It burns,” he croaks and starts hacking.

  He tries his finger against the button one last time before sliding to the floor panting and then kicking the door and yowling incomprehensibly. And soon he is on his knees hyperventilating, and with very little warning, passes out. I watch his chest rise and fall. He’ll live a while longer. But only a while.

  And I stay as still as I can on the floor preserving my oxygen. The air is very thin, but it’s enough to live on. For me at least.

  For now.

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  50

  ALINA

  Whole regiments are surrounding the three recycling stations that have their tubing intact and snipers are positioned in their towers. “We can shoot,” I tell Jude Caffrey. He dips his head, as if to say, of course you can, and points to Recycling Station North. “Go with Ronan,” he says.

  We bolt toward the station and hurdle hastily erected sandbags. A soldier on the door recognizes Ronan, lets him through, and we take the winch to the top. My heart thrums so loudly in my ears I can almost hear it over the gunfire. All I can think about are my aunt and uncle, and Bea and Jazz, who’ll suffocate if we don’t stop Sequoia’s troopers from blowing up the pod’s tubes. It’s what the ministry always feared, what they told people terrorists might do, and at The Grove we laughed at their fearmongering.

  At the top, we dash from the winch and onto a balcony, where we throw ourselves onto our stomachs and inspect the ground below through the scopes of our rifles. Vanya’s troopers have appeared from the west and are advancing on the stations. Only their helmets and shields, fashioned from old car doors, protect them. Occasionally one of them falls to the ground, but the dead and injured are trodden over and the troop continues. Ministry soldiers are taking cover behind the sandbags and firing continuous rounds of ammo; the Sequoians are undaunted.

  The clunking zip appears to my right as it loops the pod. It fires again at our station and for a few seconds the building buckles. Silas, Ronan, and I gape at one another wondering, for one horrifying moment, if the whole thing will topple to the ground and us with it. But the damage is superficial and the building quickly stops shuddering.

  Ronan elbows me. “What are you waiting for?” he says. He has eyes the color of steel and the bearing of someone used to war.

  I look through the scope again. To avoid the debris from the station the ministry soldiers have broken ranks, giving Vanya’s troopers time to dart forward and leap over the sandbags. Guns are fired, but all the soldiers are suddenly forced to use knives and the butts of their rifles to protect themselves. One of the Sequoians throws a ministry soldier to the ground and repeatedly pounds his head against the ground. My stomach heaves. I take aim and fire. The trooper lets the soldier go and clutches his side. He pulls off his helmet. It isn’t a he at all. I’ve shot Wren. She falls, like a heavy lead pipe, into t
he dirt. Within minutes other troopers have trampled over her and if she was alive after being shot, she isn’t now.

  “I’ve killed Wren,” I tell Silas.

  He squints. “It’s her or my parents.” I hate the truth of this. I hate all the killing and the weighing one life against another. When will it be over? I need it to be over. I can’t live in a world like this anymore.

  “They’re too close to the tower. I can’t get a good shot,” Ronan says, standing up. “And if they break in at the bottom they could use the emergency staircase to get to the control room. We’ll never hold them off from here.”

  We jump up and follow him. Was Ronan one of the soldiers I was shooting at a few weeks ago when the ministry destroyed The Grove? I am a turncoat, I realize, fighting side by side with an enemy. But today we fight together to protect the pod and the people we love.

  And that seems the right thing to do.

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  51

  QUINN

  The rationing alarm is whirring like mad through Zone One and probably all across the pod. The streets are empty. All the Premiums must have taken cover at home or in a Ministry building. How long will it be before even these places get the air cut? The death toll doesn’t bear thinking about.

  In houses along the street, faces are pressed to windows. They’re all too afraid to come outside.

  I check the gauge on my air tank. It’s running low, but it’ll be enough, I hope.

  I sprint along the wide boulevard toward the Justice Building because that’s where Bea is.

  And she’s okay.

  She is.

  I know it.

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  52

  BEA

  Lance Vine has turned from pink to blue. It won’t be long before I look like that myself. I close my eyes and block out the thought. I block out every thought and focus on my exhalations. I count them out, only inhaling a little when I get to ten, so I can ration the remnants of oxygen lingering in the cell. The air is so fine, every breath hurts. And I have a searing headache.

  I open my eyes and look at the red light flashing on the ceiling, when Niamh bursts into the cell.

  “Don’t close the door!” I wheeze over the siren blasting through the speakers. She doesn’t hear me, and the door closes behind her.

  “Oh no.” Niamh gapes at Vine sprawled on the floor. She nudges him with her foot. “What have you done?” She puts a hand to her chest. “The air,” she says. “I can’t . . .” She starts to cough so hard, she’s unable to finish her sentence.

  She looks like she wants to hurt me, but she also looks afraid. I’m alive and Lance Vine is dead. “The guards have all gone AWOL, but we’ll fix them . . . just as soon as everything gets back to normal,” she says. She goes to the intercom panel and is about to press her finger to the button when she realizes no one’s stationed outside to hear it buzz. She looks at me and gasps, and I sigh, expecting to have to watch Niamh die, too, but as she pulls on the handle, it opens. She cries out. And so do I.

  It’s Quinn.

  “Oh, Bea.” He pushes Niamh aside and rushes to me. He holds my face in his hands and looks at the dead man and then at my chafed wrists. “Are you okay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He uses a knife to free me, pulls up his mask, and kisses the palms of my hands. “I knew you were alive. Alive and kicking everyone’s asses,” he says.

  “You’re here,” I say. I throw my arms around his neck and squeeze him so tight, I’m afraid I might hurt him. He kisses me on the mouth, the forehead, the neck, then puts his mask over my mouth and nose. For a moment I forget how filthy I am. “We need to find Ronan and your dad. They’ll help us,” I say.

  “Leave my brother out of this,” Niamh says. She’s holding open the door and a little air from the hallway is filtering into the cell. If she leaves, we’ll both be dead. I have to keep her talking.

  “Ronan’s on our side, Niamh. You know that.” I get to my feet.

  “You poisoned him against us,” she says.

  “No we didn’t. He joined of his own free will, and you could, too.” The alarm is still blaring.

  Niamh’s neck reddens. “And become like you?” I don’t do any more to convince her. I rush forward, knocking her to floor, and lie on top of her in the doorway to keep it from swinging shut. She scratches my face, but I don’t retaliate. I raise my hand and Quinn lifts me up and into the hallway, dark apart from the red lights.

  Niamh scrabbles to her feet. “You’re going to be sorry.”

  “No, I don’t think I am,” I say.

  She looks like she is about to say more, but instead runs away along the hallway, shouting for a guard who will never appear.

  “The pod’s under attack,” Quinn says.

  “Then we better hurry up.” I grab his keys and open the cell door opposite. Old Watson is slumped in a corner. I didn’t even know he’d been caught. “Watson!” I drop to the floor and shake him. He doesn’t respond. I put my ear to his face, but I can’t hear breathing. Am I responsible for his capture, or was it his plants?

  I rip the face mask Quinn gave me away from my own face, press it to Old Watson’s, and pull his legs from under him so he’s lying flat. I pump his chest, leaning hard on my hands, and Quinn tilts back the old man’s head and breathes into him.

  Once. Twice.

  But nothing happens.

  “Breathe, dammit,” I say, and try compressions again.

  Quinn stands up. “It’s not working, Bea. We have to get out of here.” He doesn’t understand: Old Watson saved me when I had no interest in saving myself. I won’t leave him here.

  “I’m trying again,” I say, and lay my hands over his heart. I count out the compressions, one to thirty, and Quinn kneels back down and blows into his mouth, filling him up with air.

  And it works! Old Watson gasps. I push the few strands of hair he still has away from his eyes and he opens them. “Don’t try to speak,” I say, and help him sit.

  I throw Quinn’s keys back at him. “The other cells,” I say.

  “You’ll be okay?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “Of course, I will.”

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  53

  QUINN

  Bea, Old Watson, about thirty Resistance members, and I flee the Justice Building. Auxiliaries crowd the streets, frantically darting this way and that, and most of them are carrying a weapon of some sort. I stop a boy about my age as he gallops by. “What’s going on?”

  “The bastards have cut off the air to Zone Three apartments.” He pulls himself loose from me and runs away as best he can. A humanoid voice comes over the loudspeaker. “Air rationing stage three in operation. Premiums must return to their homes. Air rationing stage three in operation. Premiums must return to their homes.”

  We look at one another anxiously and then Gideon, Silas’s father, turns to me. “We need air tanks.”

  “This way,” I say.

  “Where are we going?” he asks, racing alongside me.

  “Research Labs.”

  We careen along a street, which is quickly clearing as auxiliaries jump over gates and high walls to get to Premium homes. It’s complete chaos: windows are smashed and gunshots fired. I slow down. “My brothers,” I say.

  Gideon shakes his head. “We haven’t time.”

  “I’m getting them,” I tell him.

  “Fine. We’ll meet you at the border in an hour. Give me the keys and we’ll find the tanks,” Gideon says. I throw the keys at him.

  “What about Jazz?” Old Watson asks. He’s right next to me, but h
is voice sounds far away. He’s way paler and more hunched than he was when I last saw him. He isn’t cut out for all this. Then again, who is?

  “The infirmary isn’t far. I’ll get her,” Bea says, stepping forward, her chin high.

  I seize her by the shoulders. “We keep bloody leaving each other,” I say, which wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was to find Bea and never let her go.

  She smiles. “Some things are more important than us,” she says, and I kiss her. There might be a million things more important than us, but I can’t think of anything more important than her. “The border in an hour,” she repeats.

  The auxiliaries are pressing in on my street with broken bottles and pipes. I gallop past them and up to my house. My brothers and mother are watching the news on the screen—explosions and rising dust.

  Lennon glances at me and waves. Keane does the same. Then, simultaneously realizing I shouldn’t be here, they jump up and throw their arms around me. “Quinn, is it you?” Keane asks. He jabs me in the ribs. My mother turns like a mechanical doll, and her mouth drops open.

  “I told you he wasn’t dead,” Lennon says. I kiss the top of his head and hold Keane close. Man, I missed them.

  My mother totters toward me using the back of the couch for support. Whoa—she’s so big, she looks she’s going to pop out my new brother any minute. “We’re leaving,” I tell her.

  “Oh, Quinn, my darling.” She clutches my arm and looks like she really wants to feel something. But her eyes are empty.

  “We have two minutes before auxiliaries come crashing in here,” I say. Something booms in the street and my mother jumps. Maybe we have one minute. “Come on.”

  My mother smiles condescendingly. “We’re safe here. Don’t worry about us.” She tries to coax the twins away from me, but they cling even tighter. It isn’t right that they’d rather be with me than her. But if they leave, at least I’ll be able to save them.