Infraction (23 page)

Jane tenses next to me as the crescendo swells, and
we climb down to the floor. Madge should be here any minute. We
grab our extra set of clothes and a water bottle.

Then there's a click and the door swings open. Madge
peers in and waves us out. She's already collected Mary and Kai,
and we make our way down the dark halls. Madge leads us. She knows
these paths better than any of us. I'd be useless in the dark here,
but as soon as we're out in the woods, then I'll be the one leading
them along through the dark.

My heart hammers as a scream echoes down the
corridor. The lights flicker on and off. Someone must be trying to
get them on, trying to get rid of the shadows that just make things
worse. Madge raises one hand in the air and we freeze. She peers
around the corner into an intersection of hallways and then presses
herself flat against the wall. We all do the same.

The lights go out again, and in two seconds, a
soldier barrels around the corner, screaming and tearing off his
mask. He stares blindly past us, and now that his face is revealed,
I marvel at how young he is. He might be my age, maybe a year
older. How young do they start training the soldiers to kill us? He
pauses for a moment—maybe wondering why human faces peer back at
him from the wall—and then he races past us, and his screams fade
with him.

We start down the hall again, headed toward the
basement door. I don't think I could ever forget the way there. The
tile walls are pockmarked with bullet holes. I never heard a gun go
off, but sometime between the screams starting up and now, someone
took a gun to the wall. I just hope we don't figure into anyone's
hallucinations and no one pulls a gun on us. That's one thing we
didn't account for: sure it would be fun to get the soldiers and
agents drugged up, but no one talked about what would happen if we
came across them.

When we get to the basement door, an agent slumps
against it, blocking the way. Her eyes are closed and her breathing
is shallow. I don't know if she's unconscious, and I'm not sure if
we should move her. These people are dangerous if they have any
kind of weapon.

Before I can stop her, Madge shoves the woman out of
the way. The agent's eyes flash open, and they're bright with fear
and aggression. I see the pen in her hand only a moment before she
swings it and stabs Madge in the arm. There's no way she should be
strong enough to do that on her own, but with the serum burning its
way through her veins, there's no telling what she is capable
of.

Madge curses, shoves the agent away, and sags against
the wall. The woman falls to the floor and her tablet shatters into
pieces. She scurries from us like a crab, her heels scraping across
the linoleum. Madge clenches her teeth and pulls the pen out with a
gush of blood. I grab my extra shirt and wrap it tightly around the
wound, and Madge swears at me the whole time. There's still blood
on the floor, and when people wake up around here and the serum
wears off, they'll know exactly where we've gone.

“Hurry,” Mary says. “This is falling apart.”

I knot the shirt around Madge's arm one more time,
and then we fly through the basement door, not caring if it clangs
open. Everyone knows we're out; I just don't think they know
exactly who or what we are right now. I don't want to wait for them
to find out.

At the bottom of the stairs, I pause for a second,
listening if my neighbor is awake. I hear steady breathing, no
moaning. I knock on her door.

“You're not soldiers. Soldiers never knock.”

I laugh grimly.

“Who are you?”

I don't say anything, just knock twice more on her
door. Two eyes, wide and shining in the dim light, appear at the
small slot. I press my face closer so she can see me, see I'm not
an agent setting some cruel trap for her.

“You were down here before, weren't you?”

I nod.

“The silent one.”

“As touching as this reunion is,
we need to
go
.” Madge hisses her words through her teeth. Her hand is
clamped tightly around the t-shirt, but a spot of blood has already
appeared through the layer of fabric.

I motion for the keycard, and Madge hands it to me. I
slide it through the reader. Nothing happens.
No
. I had hoped—I think we all did—that
Dr. Benedict's card was some kind of skeleton key. I didn't
even think he might not have clearance everywhere in the camp. I
drop my head.

“It didn't work?” my neighbor asks.

I shake my head and hear her retreat to the other end
of the cell.

“You tried. Thank you.”

Jane puts a hand on my arm. “One more time.”

I shake my head. It's pointless, but I slide it
through the reader anyway, watching the red light blink at me.
Nothing. But after a moment, a faint beep, and then the light turns
to green.

“Always try again,” Jane says, as the door swings
open.

I would never forget the way to solitary, but I
repressed just how bad it smells. I cover my mouth and force myself
not to gag as my neighbor stands up. She's an older woman, hunched
a little bit, and the faint gleam of silver hair bounces back to
me. I wasn't expecting this; she sounds so young.

“Nell?” Mary whispers, thinking the same thing I did.
I know it's not Nell. I would have recognized her voice anywhere,
but still my thoughts drift to her.

“No, dear. My name's Lily.”

“Lily?” Madge whispers, recognizing her.

As she steps into the light from the corridor, I
realize I do know her: the woman from the cannery who spilled
sugar. She's been down here this whole time because of some wasted
sweetener. I think of that day on the Juice Deck with Brant and
Jessa and how I told them about smoothies on the Burn sweetened
with sugar. I almost bragged about it. I look at Lily, and I'll
never look at sugar the same way again.

I offer a hand to Lily, and she squints and covers
her eyes as she steps out from her cell. She wears the same yellow
shirt and gray pants that we do, but hers are so dirty they can
hardly be called clothes. The smell from them permeates over the
half-freshness of the damp hallway. Her hair hangs in matted
clumps.

“How long were you in there?” Kai asks.

“I don't know. Too long. Not long enough for them.”
She runs her gnarled fingers over each other, and her eyes flit
across each of our faces. “Where are we going?”

Madge barks a laugh and starts back down the hall.
“About time someone remembered we have somewhere to be.”

Lily steps in beside me. We made some kind of
connection for the twenty-four hours I was down here—even though I
couldn't say a thing to her—and she doesn't stray far from my side.
She hobbles, not used to being able to walk more than a few feet in
any one direction. Speed isn't something we can sacrifice, but I
slow down anyway. It annoys Madge, but I don't care. We're all
coming. Lily's legs loosen up after a few minutes, though, and she
moves in a quick shuffle.

We follow the hall to a door marked “Laundry,” and
Madge swipes the keycard and we all slip in. Enormous laundry
baskets on casters take over the room. They're filled with sheets,
shirts, pants, socks, and soldiers' uniforms. Not agents' suits
though. I wonder if they have a special laundry facility for those
expensive clothes. Two giant washers and three dryers stand along
the far wall. The smell of detergent and bleach stings my nose. The
room is humid and warm.

“So where's the chute?” Mary asks. She closes the
door behind us and blocks it with a few of the laundry baskets,
locking the casters.

Madge walks over to the wall to the left of the
washers. “Over here. It's for getting some fresh air in here,
getting rid of some of the humidity.”

There's a metal grate in the wall, maybe three feet
square. The chute goes back maybe three feet, then goes straight
up.

Climb?
I write to
Madge.

Madge nods. “It's narrow, so I figure we can brace
ourselves against the sides.” She sees the look on my face. “Don't
forget it was your idea to come this way.”

I know. Oh, I know. But I didn't think about
pregnant Kai having to shimmy up a chute or poor Lily having to do
it either.

Kai puts a hand on my arm. “Don't worry, Terra. I'll
do it.”

I run a hand over my head. She must see how hopeless
this looks.

“
If it means I can have my baby
somewhere other than here, where they might snatch her away from me
before I can even see her face, I'll do it. A hundred times
over.”

The fierce determination carved into her sweet
features startles me. She will do it. I turn to Lily, and she looks
offended.

“
Don't you worry about me, young
lady. I just need to shake the rust off these old joints. I'll be
fine.”

“
Now that's settled.” Madge squats
down and pries at the grate with her fingers. She only works at it
for a moment before she sags back and squeezes her arm over her
wound. The spot of blood on the t-shirt has spread to the size of a
lemon. Jane rushes forward and works on the grate with her nimble
fingers. I kneel by Madge.

You okay?

Her face is paler than usual, but there's color in
her cheeks. “I'll be fine.” She smiles, her lips tight over her
teeth. “Just can't stand the sight of blood. You mind the
others.”

She wouldn't tell me even if she were dying. Madge
grasps Mary's outstretched hand, and Mary hauls her to her feet
just as the grate falls to the floor with a crash.

“
We better hurry,” Madge says.
“Don't know how much time we have.”

She goes first, folding into the chute and shimmying
along it until she comes to the bend and she disappears. The thuds
of bending metal echo down to us.

“
We shouldn't go too close together
in case one of us falls,” Mary says.

I point to Kai. She'll take the longest, and she's
the one I care most about getting out of here.

She scoots along on her side, and I push her feet
with both hands, trying to give her some help in her awkward
position. She flips on her back to navigate the bend, then her feet
disappear. The sounds of her progress are painstakingly slow, and I
grow more worried with every second that someone will come and
batter down the laundry room door. Finally the sounds fade into
silence, and I motion Jane up the chute. She jumps in and slithers
up like a lizard. I send Mary next. Then Lily will go and I'll be
last.

Just as Lily nears the bend, the beep of a keycard
swipe pierces my ears, and the laundry room door rams into the
laundry baskets. My heart leaps up my throat, and I grab the grate.
I growl as one of the sharp metal corners cuts my finger, and a
drop of blood splashes on the floor. The laundry basket screeches
against the floor as the door opens a few more inches. The tip of a
gun and a gloved hand creep through the opening.

“
They must've come this
way.”

“
How can you even tell? There's
blood in front of every door!”

“
Don't trust your eyes.”

“
Then how do you know they're
here?”

“
Because none of the other doors
were blocked, idiot.”

I swipe at the blood on the floor with one of the
sheets in the laundry basket. There's a smear, but not as obvious
as the dark spot. It'll have to do. I back into the chute, pulling
the grate behind me. I try to pull it back into place. I can't get
it wedged in the way it was before, but at least it doesn't fall
back out. Then I slide back as quietly as I can.

The soldiers ram against the door a few more times,
and the laundry baskets give way. I'm to the bend and have just
climbed high enough so my feet aren't dangling down when the
soldiers fall silent. I freeze.

“
Did you hear that?”

“
Hear what?”

“
Metal bending somewhere. It sounds
like it came from the walls.”

“
I think you're hearing things,
man.”

“
I'm fine.”

“
Yeah right. Like the way you were
fine when you saw the dancing cows back down at the end of the
hall?”

“
No, I heard something.”

“
They're not here. I looked in the
washers and dryers. There's nowhere else to hide.”

“
What about there?”

“
That chute?”

I stop breathing when I hear their boots step toward
me. My muscles ache with keeping myself so still. One wrong move
and the metal of the chute will tell the whole world I'm here.
There's nothing but pale moonlight shining down from the hole about
twenty feet above me. At least there's no one else still in here. A
face appears at the edge of the hole above me. Please don't say
anything, I think. I'm pressed against the sides of the chute for
dear life.

Then the soldiers pull off the grate.

“
Is it supposed to come off so
easy?”

“
Don't ask me. I've never been in
here before.”

“
Think they could go through
there?”

The beam of a flashlight flickers below me.

“
Like that pregnant girl could fit.
I doubt we could even squeeze through there with all our gear. I
don't see anything in there anyway.”

“
Where does it lead?”

“
Dunno. Like those suits would
give
us
a blueprint of the
place.”

“
What do you want to do? Hey, are
you listening?”

“
Do those look like
rats?”

“
Where?”

“
Over there, by that laundry basket.
There's hundreds of 'em. Give me my gun back!”