Infraction (26 page)

“
Keep going!” he hisses, and we fly
down the side yard, through a pile of boxes that tumbles to the
ground with the shattering of dishes. Loud, much too loud. If we
keep this up, we'll never lose them. I just hope that in their
formations they'll be too slow to pursue us down the side yards and
they'll have to stick to the open streets. Please, oh please, I
whisper to myself as I fumble across an overturned wheelbarrow
buried in the grass. Please let them all stay together. Don't get
orders to separate and hunt us down.

There's no time to stop and catch our breaths. We
race to the back of the house. There's no fence separating this
yard from the next. I look west, and there are no fences for
several houses. I cut a course that way, heading toward the ocean
where we were supposed to head in the first place. The weird sense
of direction kicking in. Small miracles, I guess.

The grass whips and tangles around my legs, but my
legs tear through it, and I plunge on, leading us west, away from
boots and guns. All I hear is blood pounding in my ears and my
heart racing up my throat. Lily gasps, and I want to stop for her.
I want to stop for Kai, but there's no stopping. Only the race away
from death.

Then the thudding is louder and more insistent in my
ears. I know that sound. I haven't heard it in months, but it's
been etched into my brain and it will never leave.

A helicopter.

The rest of them hear it, too, and Dave yells,
“Down!”

We flatten ourselves into the grass and weeds, and
there's a prickly plant next to me that scrapes into my cheeks and
palms, but I can't move. I just freeze with the prickers in my
flesh. Around me is nothing but panting and fear. Above us, the
helicopter comes, and I see the searchlight before I see the huge
metal bird. I pull the grass around me, closing the opening that
exposes me to the sky. There are too many human-sized depressions
all around me. There's no way they'll miss us. I only hope when the
helicopter flies over, the long grass will billow and hide us well
enough. I can pray.

The beating becomes unbearably loud, and I want to
scream just to be heard above the noise. All I see are stars and
grass and the flash of the searchlight. I wish I knew where Jack
was. He could be two feet away or he could be miles. The grass
shivers and then waves frantically as the helicopter gets closer,
and I don't know if I can keep it in my palms. My fingers ache with
clenching.

The helicopter flies over me. I can barely make out
the shape of one or two soldiers with their heads out, looking.
Their guns are silent and for now, that means we're safe. As the
light and the helicopter passes, I finally urge the panic down and
convince my body to twist around and look where the helicopter is
going. It flies to what must be the edge of the town, and then it
begins a sweeping arc around the perimeter. They definitely know
we're here. They wouldn't spend so many resources otherwise. I
stand up just enough to see over the grass. When my head pops up,
so does Dave's, Mary's, and Jack's.

I point west, and Dave nods.

“
Let's move before it comes back
this way.”

We half-walk, half-crawl through the yards. I see no
more than the disembodied heads poking up over the grass. We skirt
around playgrounds, old cars, sheds. We've gone five houses down
when I see a dark silhouette making its way toward us, a gun
cradled in the crook of its arm. I hiss and drop, and the bodies
thump to the ground around me as the others do the same.

“
What is it?” Jack
whispers.

Soldier
, I mouth.

“
How many?”

I hold up a finger.

Jack rolls over to face Dave. “Soldier. Just
one.”

Through the weaving of the grass, Dave gets up to a
squat, one hand planted on the ground, his whole body tense and
quivering. The soldier is close now. He'll be here in a few
seconds. “You grab his legs. I'll tackle him.”

Jack nods. I can't see his face, but I can imagine
the deadly serious expression—the way his eyebrows furrow and his
mouth turns down in a slight pucker. I hold my breath. If they
don't take the soldier out quickly, then everyone will know exactly
where we are.

His boots crunch on dried grass. I hold my breath.
He'll be here in five more second. Five, four, three,
two . . .

I haven't finished my count when his boots appear
between Jack and Dave. Jack wraps his arms around his legs, and
Dave springs from the grass, hurtling into the soldier's stomach
and throwing him to the ground. If he weren't caught by surprise, I
know he could have done a lot more damage to us. But Dave is
already on top of him, ripping off the mask and helmet and
pummeling his face.

I turn away and listen to his fists
thump into the man's head again and again, and I have to close my
eyes and cover my ears. I know this must be done, but it's so much
like what
they
do. Then there's a
soft moan, and even though I'm not watching, there's a release of
tension in the air and I feel the soldier go limp. I finally turn
back, and Dave is threading the gun strap off the man's arm and
fitting it over his own. Dave's left eye is already swelling shut,
and Jack has a nasty gash in one arm.

Madge creeps up from behind. “We need to kill him.
He'll tell the others we attacked him.”

Dave cocks his head, considering, but Jack sizes me
up in a glance and then shakes his head. “No. He's out for a while.
It'll be too late by the time he wakes up.”

I'm grateful to him for that. I can't watch another
person die.

Dave frowns but turns and motions us forward. He
leads now, the gun always ready as we hunch through the yards. In a
few hundred feet, though, the grass runs out. There's a chain-link
fence with a sign on it, but I can't read what it says yet. This
must be where the helicopter turned and started its sweep around
the town. What do we do when we come to the fence? If we climb,
we'll be up high for all to see.

Madge slips in next to me and grins. “Don't stress
about it, Terra. I have my cutters, remember?”

I didn't remember. It feels like a lifetime since we
cut open the fence at the camp. Has it really only been—what? An
hour? A little more? I smile, but I feel how wrong it looks on my
face. Madge tries to look encouraging, but I probably look so
messed-up there's no hope for me.

The grass runs right up to the fence and fades into
weed-pocked gravel on the other side. The sign on the fence is
scraped and dirty with age, but I can still read the faded red
letters.

Warning. Low-flying and departing aircraft blast can
cause physical injury.

The airport. Madge kneels down and grunts as she
tears through each bend of wire with the cutters. Dave stands just
above the grass, sweeping the gun side-to-side, watching for more
soldiers; Mary is just behind him. She hasn't moved more than three
feet from his side since we met up with Dave and Jack just outside
of the camp. Jane creeps next to me and squeezes my hand. Lily's
bright eyes crinkle at the edges, and even though I can't see her
mouth, I know she's smiling. Kai sits with her back against the
fence. We're all here; we've made it so far.

I look back toward the town, and the helicopter's
searchlight swoops west as it turns on its circuit, coming back
toward us. It will be on us in a matter of seconds. I wave
frantically, and we drop into the grass and scurry a few feet from
the fence. Madge curses loudly, squeezes the cutters through one
last wire, and then flops on her belly next to me.

“
Just a few more seconds. Can't they
just leave us alone for a few seconds?”

“
When did they ever leave you
alone?” Mary says.

One corner of Madge's mouth turns up. “True. Should
be used to it now, I guess.”

Then our lips are drawn up tight with silence. I
breathe into the ground, the smell of dried grass filling my
nostrils. I remember lying in the corn field in Pod #3, raking my
fingers through the dirt just to feel what it was like to be alive
for a few miniscule minutes. The best minutes I ever spent in the
colony. The heat from the solar lamps warmed my body until I was
wet with sweat. It's so much the same, yet so different now. I was
a prisoner there; I'm a prisoner here. Sure I wasn't locked in a
cell, but I didn't have my freedom. Not what I'd call freedom,
anyway. And now here I am, face-down in the dirt, my fingernails
crusted under with so many layers of grime I don't know if I'll be
clean again, and I'm trapped under the watchful gaze of a flying
machine and soldiers who don't even know my name.

The helicopter veers closer, and the shadows cast by
its searchlight waver through the grass, sneaking through all the
crevices, casting snakes of dark and light across my arms and
hands. My breath comes out in puffs, and for the first time since
we left, I shiver from cold and fear. We're so close. I can feel
it. We'll cross over the airport, and then we'll be to the water.
The sub will be there.

Then Madge says, “Ten minutes,” more loudly than she
should because we can't hear anything over the helicopter.

What?
I mouth.

“
The sub comes in the ten
minutes!”

There's no time to wait for the helicopter. I risk
the movement and roll over and peer into the sky. The tail of the
helicopter glides over us, and I jump to my feet. Jack grabs at my
ankle, trying to keep me down and keep me safe, but I shake him
off. There's no time. Madge senses it too. She rises with me and
flies to the fence, cutting through the remaining wire to pry it
open wide enough for us.

Jack bends down and holds up the chain link, and I
get Lily and Kai through first. As the rest file through, I look at
the open expanse before us. The avian shapes of a few old aircraft
and the hulk of a few buildings are the only cover until the ocean.
My heart sinks. We'll have to run for it.

I slip through the opening, and Jack shimmies
through behind me, letting the metal fall, fitting it as best he
can to the existing fence, trying to make it look to the casual
observer that it hasn't been tampered with. But as he does, the
helicopter's light swings back one last time, and Jack's hands
illuminate, pale and pink with cold, in a blaze of light. The
helicopter freezes in midair.

“
Run!” Jack hollers.

Horror is etched on all our faces as we turn and run
as fast as we can. The brilliant look on Lily's face is gone,
replaced by the haggard realization that solitary might be closer
than she thinks. No. I won't let it happen. I race to her, wrap her
arm over my shoulder and my arm around her waist, and practically
heft her up onto my hip as I'm running. She's thin enough, but so
am I after so many weeks at the camp. I can't keep it up for more
than a few yards before Jack is next to me and takes her other
side. Lily hop, skips, and jumps to keep up with our churning legs,
and suddenly I'm back in the forest with Jack before all of this
madness began, and I'm loping alongside him, easy and even, the way
we did so often. Our strides match and lengthen, and though the
sweat pours down my face and soaks my shirt and the goosebumps rise
and my breath comes in short gasps from Lily's extra weight, I'm
back where I belong, running alongside Jack.

I smile. But even as I do, I hear the gunfire
start.

We dive behind a small airplane, and before I can
even blink, it's pockmarked with so many bullet holes I can't count
them. Kai sinks next to me, grabbing her belly. Her face is twisted
into a grimace.

Jane kneels beside her. “Are you shot?”

Kai shakes her head, but what she says next almost
sends me into a panic. “I'm having contractions. I think I'm in
labor.”

Jack crawls over. “It's all the stress—it might not
be real labor. Kai, take a deep breath. You've got to get oxygen to
your baby. Try to breathe normally while you can.” Then his eyes
find mine. “We need to get to that sub.”

Kai lets out a small moan, trying her best to be
quiet. Jane clasps her hand.

The helicopter hovers over the runway, its light
sweeping side-to-side, trying to figure out where we've gone. The
soldiers in the side hang out, tethered to the bird, and as I look
back, more shapes bob through the grass on the other side of the
fence.

I point, and Dave nods. “They're all coming now.
We've got to move. When that light swings the opposite way, we run.
Everyone ready?”

Madge and Jane help Kai to her feet. The light
swoops away from us, and Dave shouts, “Go!”

We race down the length of the runway, and the ocean
swells in the distance, and I can barely see white foam tossed on
the waves. The smell is strong now, the smell of salt and water and
gunfire in the air. We're just to a pair of hangars when another
burst of gunfire erupts, and we dive in the narrow space between
them. Kai has her eyes closed and breathes deeply as Madge whispers
in her ear. It's Mary's face that's carved into a grimace. Dave
faces away from her, pointing the gun out, and it's Jack that
notices her first.

“
Mary?” he says softly.

Her hand clutches her side, just under her ribs, and
blood oozes between her fingers. Jack drops beside her, pulls his
shirt off, and ties it tightly around her torso.

“
Dave!” he calls, and Dave looks
back. He sees the blood, and even in the darkness, I see how white
his face becomes.

“
Mary?” his voice is more uncertain
than I've ever heard it in my life. There's no touch of confidence,
and he looks like a little boy. She reaches out her other hand and
touches his face.

“
I'll be fine,” she says. There's
such determination in her eyes that I don't doubt her, but she
twists up her face when she tries to stand.