Extraction (26 page)

They’re men, I see now. They wear the black armor of Surface officials, and each of them holds a thin staff with a sharp, curved blade at its end. They move toward us, closing the distance at a much quicker pace than I reckoned.

They must be the danger.

“Come on, let’s go.” I take Logan by the hand, but he pulls away.

“Go where?”

Rain drips on me and wind tugs at my hair as I take in the desert again. There’s nothing for miles and miles but tumbleweeds, cacti, and the chain-link fence.

The fence. On the other side of it, we wouldn’t be completely safe, but I’d feel safer. That’s better than nothing.

“Clem,” Logan says.

I turn to see the men break into a run. Their boots pound, leaving a trail of dust. The distance between them and us is closing fast. When they reach us, they’re going to slice those blades through our necks—they’re going to kill us. Cadet Waller said we could die in here.

I shove Logan toward the fence.

“Don’t climb the fence.” Commander Charlie’s hoarse voice rings through the dome, echoing off walls I can’t see.

Thunder roars, and rain lashes against my face.

I want to scream and punch something and cower all at once. The officials are close now, so close. And I won’t stop moving, but I hear the voice and can’t move an inch.

This is a test, and I have to follow orders.

But the men will kill me.

But I have to pass this.

But Logan will die.

But Sandy said to trust and
obey
.

“Don’t climb the fence,” Commander Charlie repeats.

The men come closer.

“Logan, climb it!” I ram into him.

His brows furrow. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything.

What’s
wrong
with him?

“Use your friend,” Commander Charlie says. I swear I can hear the smile in his voice.

“What?”

“Use your friend as a shield.”

Logan’s lips part, and even though he doesn’t touch me, I feel his fingers brush my skin again, in their perfect way.

Still, he says nothing. The real Logan would say something. He would help me figure out what to do instead of just standing there, not doing anything.

I shake my head and blink rain out of my eyes. “No.”

“Do it.”

“Logan, climb the fence.”

“Do it, or you fail.”

I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything, but I have to do something. The men are mere feet away now—mere
feet
and they’re going to beat me, they’re going to kill me if I don’t follow orders.

Whoever this fake Logan is connected to, it’s not the real Logan, so I can do what Commander Charlie wants—

But what if he’s real?

He’s
not
real—

What if I’m wrong?

He stands beside me and does nothing. His eyes don’t even water.

Boots splash in mud. Blades glint in the torrent as the men raise their staffs over their heads to slice through my skin. To end my life.

A strangled cry bursts from my throat. Logan is
not real.

I grab him, and he doesn’t fight me. He lets me grab hold of him. I want to keep holding on to him and never let go, but I don’t. I throw him into the path of the men and their weapons. The slice and crunch and crack echo through the dome. They don’t slice his neck—they slice into his arms and legs and hands, reducing him to bloody limbs.

Logan screams, and my heart shatters. Glass fragments in the dirt and dust.

Rain pelts my body, making puddles in the dirt at my feet. I shove my fingers into my ears and squeeze my eyes shut, but it does no good. I can’t stop hearing him. I can’t stop seeing him collapsing in his blood. The tears won’t stop streaming down my cheeks.

It’s not him—not really—no way—they’re just pretending—they won’t hurt him—

It’s only a test, only a simulation, and he’s fake—I
hope—
but I can’t stop sobbing. Because all of this could be real as life, real as moonshine, and I might have killed the boy I love.

*   *   *

When I open my eyes, I’m ready to scream and claw my nails into Commander Charlie’s face, or maybe collapse and never get up, but it’s not over.

I stand on the edge of a cliff, and night has fallen. The rain has stopped, but I’m drenched in water. Far below me, so small I have to squint to see them, waves froth on a sandy shore. The moon hangs over me in the sky, giant and terrible, shimmering pink through the shield.

My hands tremble as I run them along my arms. My teeth chatter from the cold. I wonder what they’re going to make me do next.

pew-pew

p-p-p-p-p

Black and white lines flicker across the sky.

I stop breathing.

ZAP

A flash, and the acid shield wipes out across the sky. There’s no barrier between me and the moon’s poison.

There’s no way. There’s no way.

I want to turn and run as far as I can, and I’d do it right this second if my legs weren’t shaking so badly. They said I could die in here. That acid can really kill me. So why include it in this test, unless they want me dead?

My heart pounds so fast I can’t think straight.

This is still a test. Sandy said to follow orders.

“What should I do?” I try to steady my voice. It doesn’t work at all.

“Do nothing,” Commander Charlie says, calm and collected.

Adrenaline pumps through my veins. I’m angry and I will not stand here and
do nothing.
The second the acid reaches me, I’m done for. It’ll take me ten minutes to die. Ten minutes of heart palpitations and screaming and lungs constricting and my skin charring black.

The acid will reach me soon.

I turn my head around wildly. A rock would do the trick. I could bash my head in, quick and painless. At least more painless than acid corrosion.

But there aren’t any rocks. I’m standing on a cliff, yet all the rocks are either too big or too small. I snatch a jagged one from the ground that’d leave a bloody scratch in my head, but that’s not good enough.

With a snarl, I launch it into the air. It cascades in a high arc before dropping over the side of the cliff, careening toward the ocean.

The ocean.

I take a step and set my feet upon the cliff’s edge. Loose rocks slide beneath my feet. They tumble to the waves below. No doubt there are rocks down there too. Jumping into that water would feel like slamming into a brick wall, and the boulders would smash me to bits. But it’d be less painful than moonshine.

My uneven heartbeat pounds through my ears, the last reminder of my mortality. My limbs still shake, and
Logan, Logan, Logan
is all I’m thinking. I shouldn’t have let Commander Charlie hurt him. I shouldn’t have done it.

“Don’t jump,” Commander Charlie’s voice softens and echoes through the simulation. “Stay where you are.”

I grab another rock from the ground and fling it into the sky, screaming. “You’re supposed to protect me!”

“Trust me.”

I drop to my knees and jam my face into my palms. Choking sounds bubble up from my throat. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.

Please don’t let me die.

I lift my head and stare at the sky, where moonshine rushes toward me in a cloud of pink mist. Tears fill my eyes.

If I don’t follow his orders, Charlie will kill me even if I get out alive—

But I’ll die in here—

But it’s not real—

But Cadet Waller said I will—

A sob shakes out of my throat and I wrap my arms around my body, squeezing myself and closing my eyes. I breathe in and out again, trying to forget where I am and what I’ve done. Trying to ready myself for the sting of the moonshine and the horrible wrenching feeling I know is coming.

It is the feeling of death.

22

“Great job, Clementine. You will make a fine citizen.”

When I open my eyes, the midnight moon and moonshine are gone. I’m alone in the darkness of the dome.

The door slides open to my left, letting a fierce stream of light in. Sandy moves through the door and then she is beside me, pulling me to my feet, into the warmth of her arms.

“Sweetie, you did it.”

“They … you mean…” I try to say the words, but they don’t get out.

“Your Promise is eighty-two.”

When I breathe, it’s so shaky it’s more like a sob.

I’m safe. I’m not going to die.

But my temple throbs, and I touch a hand to it. I still hear Logan’s scream in my head.

“Please tell me he’s okay,” I whisper.

Sandy’s brows furrow. “Who?”

“My friend. Th-the one they made me use as a shield.”

When she speaks, her words are careful and slow. “Clementine, no one in there was real. It was a simulation.”

“But Cadet Waller said—”

“I promise, it wasn’t real. They just wanted you to believe it was.”

She gives my arm a light tug, and I make my feet move. Through a doorway, I enter a steam-clean capsule that dries the rainwater from my suit and body. Outside the capsule, Sandy guides me through another door into a back area of Recreation Division, and then into a hallway.

“You … you mean it?” I say.

“I promise,” she says again, and squeezes my arm tighter.

I close my eyes and take a shuddering breath.

Logan isn’t dead. I didn’t kill him.

Beechy waits for me at the end of the corridor. He must’ve been in the crowd on the main deck. Sandy waves to him from a distance, but I go the rest of the way to him alone because she has to hurry back inside Phantom to guide the next Extraction. My heart still beats too fast in my chest, and I breathe deeply to try to slow it down.

“Congratulations.” Beechy’s eyes are warm, deep, and golden brown. “They announced that you passed.”

“Thank you,” I say, and run a palm over my arm.

“Rough time in there?”

I give him a tight nod and lean against the wall.

“Come on.” He holds out his hand. A smile tugs at his mouth. “I want to show you something.”

*   *   *

In a corridor in Invention Division, Beechy presses his thumb into a lock-pad in the wall. A black door slides open, and we step onto a metal ramp.

To my left and to my right, beyond the railing and far below, fog clouds a deck where lights flash on dark shapes I can’t make out.

“What are they?” I ask.

“Spaceships.”

I touch the railing to peer over it better. That must be the flight port.

“They’re not why I brought you.” Beechy tugs on my hand to pull me along. His palm is strong and warm in mine.

Up the ramp, a flight pod sits shrouded in shadow, close to the ceiling. I frown and wonder what it’s doing here. Beechy uses his thumbprint again, and yellow bulbs light up one by one along the pod’s silver rim. The door slides open, revealing a comfy space with two pilot seats, a control panel, and a visor over a screen like a window.

“This is our flight simulator,” Beechy says, leading me inside. “I’ve spent quite a lot of time here, what with the learning how to fly and then the teaching.”

He settles into one of the seats and flips switches on the ceiling. The door slides shut behind me. I slip into the other seat and pull my legs onto the chair, scanning the dash with its levers and buttons and screens. “Why’d you bring me here?”

Beechy looks at me and smiles. “For this.” He fiddles with something on a monitor, and the silver visor slides down, revealing starlight.

My lips part. This is
real
starlight. Real yellows and purples and greens and blues through the moonshine shield. A billion stars in front of me, spreading vast to the farthest reaches of the universe, where maybe there’s someplace safer than here. Someplace better.

Beechy fiddles with a knob, and the image slides to the left even though the pod isn’t moving. A sliver of the moon appears. A quarter moon, much of it in black shadow, but it’s still giant. It looks so real, so easy to reach if only this pod could really fly, that I can’t speak.

It’s been mere days since I left. But now that I’m trapped a million miles underground, the sky means freedom.

“It’s an image of the real sky.” Beechy’s voice is a soft breath. “What it looks like over the Surface tonight. We keep a running video feed for observation purposes and flight practice.”

My heart flutters. This is Logan’s sky. I wonder if he’s up there seeing it now. If he pulled himself onto a roof, if he’s lying there watching clouds and stars drift by.

I wonder if he’s forgotten me already, or if he thinks I’ve forgotten him. If he knows I killed a fake version of him tonight, even though I didn’t want to.

An ache fills my lungs, burning my throat. I hug my knees to my chest.

Beechy watches me out of the corner of his eye. “Which friend did you meet in Phantom?” he asks.

I bite hard on my lip. So hard, I taste blood.

“Someone I still have to save,” I whisper.

“How long does he have?”

I play with my bootlaces. “Three years, if he’s lucky.”

He taps something into a monitor. “Three years is a long time.”

I shake my head. “Not long enough. And with the moon and everything … he might have less than that.”

“You don’t think I know?” Beechy stares straight ahead at something I can’t see, or maybe at nothing. “Mantle is just as bad as the Surface.”

I watch him, curious. I saw the main production facility for that sector on our way down here. I know Mantle is the place responsible for manufacturing weapons and other machinery. I know it lies underground, between Lower and Crust. I know children die there as often as they do anywhere, but I don’t know much more than that.

“Could you tell me about it?” I ask, then hesitate. “I understand if you don’t want to.…”

“It’s a smoke-filled cage,” Beechy says bitterly. “The factories take up so much of the sector, the work camp isn’t much of anything at all. It’s just two skinny rooms with compartments in the steel walls, sort of like bunk beds except they’re smaller and completely enclosed. Officials lock you inside at night. You’re stuck in a box all by yourself, and you can’t breathe. You can’t sleep. If you cry too loud, they open the box and make you run the furnaces all night instead. You’re always covered in soot and grease, and they never let you wash. They give you three cups of water per day and one bowl of this disgusting meal mixed with protein. Kids try to get their bodies caught in the machines to kill themselves. Half the time, it doesn’t work or someone catches them.”