“What now?” I ask, hoping he knows how to save himself.
He coughs. “You seem capable, Ronan. You tell me.”
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57
QUINN
The blasts outside have covered the pod in a film of dust, so it’s pretty much impossible to see what’s going on. And Zone One is a mess. Alarms are ringing in every Premium building as auxiliaries loot them. There are bodies everywhere. No one’s safe, and the Ministry is visibly absent.
You’ve got to wonder if this is a bit like The Switch—people so hungry for air they’d do anything to hang on a bit longer. And in the end, they all died anyway.
I have Jazz on my back, and Bea is holding Lennon and Keane’s hands. We are on our way to the border. A figure rushes at me, and I hold tightly to my tank. I’m about to lash out, when I realize it’s Gideon. And he’s carrying a massive backpack. “I broke into the biosphere. Got bulbs, seeds, and a few cuttings: everything we need,” he says. He eyes Lennon and Keane.
“My brothers,” I say. “Where’s everyone else?”
“They went on ahead.”
We turn into Border Boulevard and stop short. A group of men with air tanks and broken bottles sees us and charges. “Keep back!” Gideon says, waving a kitchen knife. The men come to an abrupt halt a few feet from us.
“We could leave via the garbage shoots?” Bea says, backing away from the men.
One of them points at me. “You’re the Premium who spoke at the press conference. They said you were dead.”
“I’m not.”
“You said we could breathe outside,” the man continues. The rest of the gang listens. A larger group—kids my age wearing balaclavas—stop and watch.
“It’s that guy from the screen,” one of them says. “Oi, everyone, it’s that Premium guy!” Within seconds we’re surrounded.
“So can we breathe out there?” the man repeats. Looking at their faces—afraid and guarded—I realize that they don’t want to attack us; they want to be shown the way out of their miserable lives.
“It’s complicated,” I say.
The crowd presses in. “What do we do?” someone demands. “You’re the one who started this.” A couple of months ago I didn’t believe I could start anything, and even now I’m not sure I can lead.
“Tell them what to do,” Jazz fizzles in my ear.
“It takes dedication,” I say. “But you can train your body to exist outside. And we can help you do it.”
“Stuff that. I’m getting out of here and joining the Resistance. They’ll know what to do,” someone says.
“We’re all that’s left,” Bea says. “The Ministry killed the others.”
“You think we’ve been growing avocadoes and beets just in case you ever found the guts to leave? Get real. You need air but you need food, too. Nonperishable food. Everything you can find. We’ll wait for you at The Cenotaph,” Gideon says.
“And be ready for it to get tough out there,” I warn them.
“Right,” the man says, and the crowd disperses. They’ll probably loot for food, but if anyone can afford to have some stuff nicked, it’s the Premiums. It’s no use worrying about them, when the poor can’t even breathe.
Harriet, Old Watson, and the rest of the Resistance are at the border waiting for us. They’re loaded down with tanks, food, and weapons. No one’s guarding the border. “It’s a war out there,” Harriet says, as we trudge down the glass tunnel. She opens her backpack and hands out a slew of guns.
“And in a couple months when we’re out of air and food?” Bea asks, speaking to me from the side of her mouth so no one else hears.
I point at the bag of clippings and seeds Gideon’s carrying. “We’ll grow it,” I say, pushing on the revolving doors at the end of the tunnel and leading everyone out into the warzone.
A solider is standing by the exit. When he sees me he gawps. “Quinn Caffrey? General Caffrey’s son?” He lets the empty stretcher he’s holding on his back fall to the ground and pulls up the visor on his helmet, so he can look me in the eye. “Your father’s been shot.” I am silent. Bea seizes my hand. “I was about to bring the stretcher. Come with me,” the soldier says.
Surely I should stay with Bea and help the Resistance escape. But when I look at her, she shakes her head. “Go,” she says.
I grab one end of the stretcher and follow the solider into the battlefield. I have to find my dad.
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58
ALINA
Silas and I lie on the ground. Dust swirls around us. “Where are they?” I say, eyeing the south station for Sequoian troops.
Silas rubs the mirrored surface on the scope of his rifle and looks through it. “If they know this controls the supply for the other stations, they’ll be back,” he says. So we make for the tower, expecting to be met by defending Ministry soldiers on the other side of the sandbags. The area’s deserted.
The gunfire lulls to almost nothing.
It’s weird because Vanya didn’t strike me as a quitter. “Something’s not right,” I say. They must be planning an attack, and if they are, Silas and I won’t be able to hold them off alone. And then it dawns on me. “Oh no,” I say.
Silas realizes it as I do. “We’re cornered,” he says. “Let’s try to get into the station.”
And it’s then that Vanya’s voice rings out like she’s talking through the clouds. “I wouldn’t go near the tower, if I were you,” she says.
“The west tower,” Silas says, and points. Recycling Station West had its tubing cut long ago, and Vanya must have taken control of it. I peer through the scope. She’s standing on its balcony, a megaphone to her face.
“It’s going to blow,” she says.
“Don’t bombs need oxygen?” I ask Silas, not that he’d know.
But he does. “They only need fuel and an oxidizer. I’m sure someone in Sequoia thought of that.”
“She really means to blow everything up?” I wonder aloud. The biosphere is located at the south side of the pod. Could the blast be so bad it destroys that, too? And what would we be left with? A smattering of people, no trees, and no pod? It would be worse than The Switch. I can’t let it happen. I dart toward the door, Silas behind me.
Without a valid thumbprint to get inside, we have to shoot at the locks. A bullet whispers past my head and sears through the door.
Vanya’s shooting at us.
The door jiggles in the frame, but still won’t open. I lie on the ground and kick with every ounce of strength left in me. Silas rams it with his body.
“Troopers!” Vanya calls out, and within seconds a band of Sequoians is pounding toward us.
But finally the door moans and falls open. I jump up as Vanya’s troopers come at us in one angry herd. Silas pulls me into the tower. “Find the bomb and do what you can. I’ll . . .”
He doesn’t finish because what can he do against almost thirty of them? He peers around the doorframe and starts to shoot.
The winch squalls its way to the top, where the door to the control room is open, but it’s empty. I rush onto the balcony where four snipers are lying dead, their blood dripping over the ledge, and next to them is a solar respirator.
I lean over the railing.
The Sequoians are almost at the sandbags. I shoot wildly, unable to take a steady shot. And then I spot them—a gang in plain clothes who are following Vanya’s troopers.
I squint and can’t help punching the air—it’s Uncle Gideon, Aunt Harriet, and the Resistance, shooting and almost in line with the Sequoians.
They need my help, and I’m about to take the winch back to the ground when I glance at the respirator and see what I missed before—a box wrapped in
yellow plastic with a panel of digital numbers on it has been taped to the back. Vanya’s bomb.
The numbers flash: two hundred and nineteen, two hundred and eighteen. Seconds? How many minutes is that? I haven’t time to do the math, and I’ve no idea how to disarm it. I’m not Song.
Two hundred and fourteen, two hundred and thirteen, two hundred and twelve . . .
I could leave the bomb and make a run for it, but if I survive and nothing else does, what’s the point? If I can’t defuse the bomb, I’ll have to take it with me and get it as far from here as possible. It’s too big to carry except on my back, but I can’t do that with my own air tank tied to my belt. I unbuckle it, pull off my face mask, and put the solar respirator’s filthy apparatus over my mouth. It stinks. And it’s so heavy, it’s like carrying a boulder.
The digital screen and numbers on it are now out of sight, which is probably for the best.
I scrape my way to the winch and take it to the ground. Silas has gone. When I look outside, he is restraining a trooper on the ground. My aunt and uncle aren’t far away, warding off troopers with their guns. The Sequoians are strong, but they weren’t expecting the Resistance to reinforce the Ministry soldiers.
I sprint around the back of the tower and stumble into the open land.
The air coming from the solar-powered respirator is damp, and the mask scratches my face. I’d be better off without it, so I pull it off and throw it aside. The oxygen in the atmosphere is thin, but it’s enough after my training.
A voice cries out. “Put it down, Alina! Put it down.”
But I can’t. Not until I know everyone will be safe. I don’t care how heavy this thing is, or how scorched my throat feels.
When I eventually look behind, the pod is lit by the setting sun. I think I’m far enough away to save it, so I shrug off the respirator and, without looking at how much time I have left, jump away from it. I just run. I run as fast as my lungs and legs will carry me.
The voice comes at me again. It’s Silas. “Run, Alina! ALINA!” But he doesn’t need to worry. “ALINA!” he shouts.
And I smile.
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59
QUINN
A blast throws me forward and onto the ground, where I smash my face against stones and scrape the skin from my hands. The air is suddenly graey. I stand up, but the steward doesn’t, so I roll him over onto his back. He groans. “You alright?”
“My leg,” he says. But I can’t help him, be with my father, and go back and deal with whatever caused that explosion.
I have to make a choice.
“Stay there,” I tell the steward, and run to my father and Ronan, who are sitting in the open by one of the stations. Ronan’s hand is against my father’s neck.
“Is he alive?” I ask.
“He’s slipping in and out of consciousness,” Ronan says. The gunfire in the distance stops. Ronan and I look at each other. Can it be over?
“Dad,” I say. “Dad?”
He pulls off his face mask and coughs blood all over himself. “Quinn?”
“It’s me.” I use the sleeve of my jacket to wipe the blood from his face. I try to move his mask back into place, but he rolls his head from side to side to stop me. Ronan lets go of the fabric he’s pressing into my father’s neck, revealing a sinewy wound.
“He was shot,” Ronan says, like I can’t figure that out for myself.
My father moans and coughs a jellied blood clot into his hand. This time he doesn’t resist when I try to refit the face mask. “The stations have faucets in them for filling tanks,” he wheezes. “Even if they manage to . . .”
“Don’t talk,” I say, seeing how the effort hurts him. “Let’s try to get you inside.”
“Quinn . . .” Ronan begins, and puts a hand on my arm.
“Help me!” I tell him, and together we lift my father onto the stretcher. On the ground beneath him is a dark puddle, dry at the edges. I’ve never seen my father bleed, and in some childish way I thought he couldn’t.
Blood pools on the stretcher, and it’s too hard to carry him because he’s struggling so much. We put it back down and I kneel next to him.
“The twins. Your mother,” he says.
“They’re fine,” I say, or at least I hope they will be. “Mom had the baby.”
My father squeezes his eyes shut and when he opens them, they’re wet. He raises a finger and gestures for me to move closer. I put my ear to the blowout valve in his mask. “I’m not the best father,” he says.
It’s true; he’s been an awful father at times. But it kind of felt as if he just didn’t know how else to be. I pull back and meet my father’s eyes. “Ronan told me you sent him to find me. Thank you.”
A shot breaks the stillness and Ronan lifts his rifle. “We’re sitting ducks,” he says. He tries to lift the stretcher. I don’t help him. There’s no point.
“You said once that in another world we could have been friends.” I pause and wait for him to show he’s heard me. I have to know he’s listening.
“Stop,” he whispers.
“And I think you were right.” He rips the mask from his face and this time flings it several feet away. Blood trickles from his nose. His eyes are vacant.
Ronan jumps up to get the mask. But my father won’t need it.
I place a hand on his chest. He looks at the sky and then at me. “Quinn,” he says. His breath is short and soft. “Quinn,” he repeats, and closes his eyes.
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60
BEA
Sequoians, Resistance, and Ministry stare at the black vapor filling the sky. I’m behind a bombed-out buggy, scrabbling to stop Jazz from joining the fray. Lennon and Keane sit on her to hold her down, and we watch Silas sprint toward the explosion. Gideon and Harriet are close behind. Alina is nowhere to be seen.
“The tower!” Vanya blares into the megaphone, reminding her troopers of their mission. And then she vanishes from the balcony of the station. She wants them to storm it, but there are too few of them to do anything. I peer over the hood of the buggy. Only four Sequoians are still standing, their backs to the tower, their hands in the air. The others are supine, Ministry soldiers and Resistance members pinning them down with their boots. If Vanya thinks she still has a fight on her hands, she’s delusional. She’s already lost.
“Charge!” Vanya screams, rising out of the dust and storming our way.
Before I can stop her, Jazz has my gun and is aiming it at Vanya. If what Quinn said is true, she’s about to shoot her own mother. No matter how crazy and dangerous Vanya is, I can’t let Jazz do it. I knock the gun from her hands and it lands next to Lennon. He looks down at it, horrified.
“The pod is mine!” Vanya screams. She has no gun, only the megaphone. Two members of the Resistance who lived in Ronan’s attic with me march toward her.
“Shoot her,” Jazz tells Lennon, reaching for the gun.
“No,” I say, and stand on it. Maybe I should tell Jazz why, but I don’t. That can wait for another day.
The Resistance members pull Vanya to the ground and stomp on her megaphone. She kicks and claws at them.
Silas, Gideon, and Harriet are specks. And I still can’t see Alina. “Stay here,” I say.
Jazz holds on to my leg. “Take me with you.”
I shake my head. “I’ll be back. Keep an eye on Lennon and Keane.” She looks at the twins, who are sniffling, and rolls her eyes.
“Fine,” she says.
I take off as fast as I can, repeating the words Alina is alive, Alina is alive in my head over and over. She is the toughest of us, and when the time comes, she’ll be the last to go.
As I reach Gideon and Harriet, a strong chemical sme
ll penetrates my mask. The ground is covered in confetti pieces of metal. They are crouching beside Alina. Silas is standing over them. They look up at me as though I’m a ghost.
“Alina?” I say. Her face is blackened, her hair charred at the ends. I wait for her to open her eyes and say something cutting. “Alina.”
“The blast . . .” Silas says, and stops. He can’t speak for choking.
“But she’s okay, isn’t she?” I kneel next to her and touch her hand. It’s warm. There’s a nasty gash above one of her eyebrows.
“She’s gone,” Silas says.
“No, she isn’t. . . . Give her some air.” I put my hands over her chest and begin compressions, pushing hard on her heart like I did with Old Watson. It has to work—Alina’s always survived.
I lean over to blow into her mouth when Harriet lays her hand on my arm. “Stop,” she says. “Please.”
And I do. Because Alina no longer looks like herself. She’s completely serene.
She’s dead.
Gideon takes off his face mask and kisses Alina’s forehead, then uses the heels of his hands to wipe away tears.
It’s too much for Silas; he walks away and bellows into the sky.
I brush Alina’s face with the back of my fingers. Her skin is soft. The last time I saw her was at The Grove. It was the briefest good-bye. It wasn’t enough.
Tears trickle over my face mask into the earth.
I’ve felt this before, like someone was ripping out my heart, but it doesn’t make it any less painful.
I am crying so hard now, I can barely see. I squeeze Alina’s hand.
I want to tell her what’s happened. I want to tell her who she is and what she’s done. For me. For all of us.
But there’s only one thing that would matter to Alina.
So I lift my face mask and press my lips to her ear.
“I think we won,” I say.
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