Temper (23 page)

But not every time.

The late night visitor is Penny.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” I say softly.

Her mouth doesn’t even twitch. I guess being a prisoner isn’t making me a laugh a minute.

“You have to come with me.”

“Haven’t we already done this tonight? Does Davyd need to accost more people in the shower?”

“This isn’t a game.” Her eyes narrow, highlighting the shadowed, sagging skin beneath them. I don’t think she’s slept since I last saw her when she returned me to my room.

I drag myself to my feet. This situation isn’t Penny’s fault, and she does appear to be an ally, but she’s wearing Company gray and I’m tired of being powerless. “I’m sorry. What’s happening?”

“We’re going to the labs. Now. This might be our only chance.”

“But Davyd said we were waiting.” I scan the ceiling. “There are cameras. Why are you talking about it here?”

“They’ve been disabled. Hurry.”

Either something has happened to change the plan, or Davyd intended this all along and he was messing with me earlier. My excitement at having come up with a plan to escape fades. Was he simply humoring me?

It’s going to the Control Room on the ship all over again, but this time I’ve experienced the enemy and their merciless power. Where once I feared death more than anything, now I know the harm the reconfigured Device can do, and it freezes me in the middle of the Company hospital room. I relive the sensation of my body being out of my control, and the pain. The terrible pain.

Now I know the punishment, can I risk the crime?

“Now, Asher.” The edge in Penny’s voice shocks me back to the present.

My legs can move again, but I detour on my way to the door.

“I have to tell Rael I’m going,” I say when Penny frowns. A faint snore from the neighboring bed punctuates my plea. “It won’t take long.”

“There’s no time.”

I ignore her, leaning over the tiny body, sleeping so peacefully. “Rael.” And then a little louder, with my hand on her shoulder. “Rael.”

“No,” she cries softly. Her hands scramble to fight my hold. “Don’t touch me.” Beads of sweat form on her upper lip. “Don’t.” This last catches on a sob.

I let go, but don’t move away. “It’s me,” I whisper. “It’s Asher.”

Her big eyes blink a few times as she wakes. Recognition sweeps across her features, wiping the panic from them. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure, but I have to go with Penny. I didn’t want you to wake up and find me gone.”

“Gone?” Her hand clutches at mine. “Take me with you.”

I look to Penny. “No.”

“But I’ll have time to come back for her, won’t I?”

“I’m here to take you to the labs,” Penny says. “No more.”

I should have spent less time marveling at the softness of Davyd’s touch and more time grilling him on specifics of when we’d escape. I’d like to pretend it was the aftermath of the interrogation and the shock of discovering I have a tracking band embedded in my wrist, but I can’t lie to myself. I simply wasn’t thinking straight.

I let myself be distracted because he said I’d have days before it was time to escape. I wanted the respite.

“I won’t try to escape without you,” I say to Rael. I take a breath and do what I haven’t dared to before now. “I promise.”

Rael turns away, but not before I see the hurt on her face. “Whatever.”

I linger for a moment, but Penny’s huffing by the door decides me. Getting the serum I came here for has to be my priority. I’ll make it up to Rael when we’re out of here, but right now I need to move.

The hallway is empty. We walk without interruption in the opposite direction to where we went before. The fear I expected is missing. Instead excitement fizzes through my veins. At last I’m doing something to achieve my goal. The waiting and the fearing and the terror of more interrogation are in the past. Now, I get the serum and get out of here or die trying.

Simple.

I guess we pass only eleven rooms before Penny stops.

“We’re here already?”

She ignores my question and reads something off the back of her hand. I look up and down the empty hallway. We’ve been so close to the labs all this time.

I glance back at Penny and she’s staring at me, her hand hovering over a small control panel revealed in the wall. Her eyes are assessing.

What does she see? A tall girl in a singlet and jeans, or a genetically modified freak who actually believed she was on a spaceship? I stand straighter as though slouching might somehow affect her decision.

She sighs and types in a code on a small panel.

“I thought the labs would require some fancy DNA scanner to gain access,” I whisper.

Her finger presses the last digit with an air of finality. “It does.”

It takes a second but then it makes sense. Her hesitation, her resignation. “Then they’ll know it was you.”

“They will.”

She turns away before I can ask more questions and leads the way into a darkened room without turning on the overhead light. Despite the low light, she weaves easily between benches filled with glassware and computer screens. Along the wall are silent instruments, their function impossible to guess from their non-descript beige carcasses. These must be what Doctor used to run the tests on the samples he took from me. We’ve walked into a room full of sleeping monsters, and I don’t dare breathe in case one wakes.

I follow a few feet behind Penny, trying to avoid knocking anything that might smash at my feet and raise the alarm. There’s a low flame still burning below a closed glass container. Inside a thick, brown fluid leaps and bubbles. As I stare, it changes color, to a murky rainbow of orange and then green. The whole thing vibrates gently. Each splash is like a liquid hand begging escape from a glass prison.

“If you touch it, it will explode.”

Penny’s matter-of-fact voice stops the hand I didn’t consciously decide to extend.

I drop my hand to my side and move to where she’s waiting next to a tall, black cupboard. I’m so focused on the cupboard and Penny and my stupidity of almost touching the glass that I don’t pay enough attention to my elbow.

It’s only a fraction out from my body, but as I pass a tower of glass beakers, it’s sticking out far enough. Clunk. It bumps a beaker, which wobbles, then teeters. I try to catch it, but there’s a chain reaction and I’m too slow to get them all. The very top one tumbles, hits the edge of the bench and falls. My lips part in a silent cry. Cold sweat drenches my skin. I brace for impact.

And … it bounces. I grab it from mid-air with damp, shaking hands, place it back on the bench and look to Penny.

Now she’s smiling. “There have been some modifications to lab ware since the Upheaval.”

“You think that’s funny?”

“I think you should stop throwing beakers around the lab and get over here.”

There’s no fancy panel to get into the cupboard. The doors unlock with a key she pulls from a hidden pocket and open to reveal shelf after shelf of vials, all perfectly stacked, all perfectly full.

She reaches in and takes a few. “This is all I can give you.”

The small vials are both weighty and far too small in my palm. “That’s it?”

“Be grateful for that much,” she snaps. “I’m risking everything to help you.”

It’s like I’m here within reach of the promised land and she’s refusing to let me enter. “Why help at all?”

Her gaze meets mine. “Why does it matter?”

“Unlike me, you’re not a prisoner here. If this is about Toby, you could go to him. There would be danger, certainly, but you have the run of the facility. It couldn’t be that hard to plan an escape.”

I hope. Because if she can’t get out, I don’t have a prayer of doing so.

Her eyes dart around the room, checking we’re truly alone. Although, if Davyd hadn’t neutralized the security systems I don’t think I’d be holding the treatment for the Lifer and Fishie rage problems in my hand. There would be alarms and officers rather than the quiet of the darkened laboratory.

“There are different kinds of captives,” she says eventually, her voice raw. “Not every prison is made of bars.”

I almost push harder for her story, but the torment pinching her features stops me. She’s helping my cause and the reasons are none of my business. Besides, time is short, and I am so, so close to having what I came here for.

The black metal cupboard might as well be a treasure chest with its array of clear vials all filled with the drug we need.

I change tack. “You have already helped so much and I’m grateful, I am, but please, can we have a few more? There are children in the camp.”

In truth there are not many and when I left I hadn’t heard of any of them showing unusual violence, but I’ll do anything to get my hands on as much of this stuff as I can.

Penny’s lips part and she exhales like my fist found her belly. She closes her eyes for a second and then reaches in and grabs more. “Take them,” she says, shoving them into my hands.

I have more than double the original amount. “Are you sure?”

She doesn’t meet my gaze, instead turning to lock the double doors with the key which she then tucks back into her top. “Take them.”

I do.

We go out the same way went in, but don’t head back toward the room. Only the throb of the air circulation systems breaks the silence. It’s as though nothing has happened. My nerves are humming, waiting for the shout of discovery or some kind of alarm, but we move along the hallways without seeing a single person.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

But my question is to Penny’s stiff back and she walks on without bothering to answer.

I should have realized we wouldn’t go back to the room. It’s not like I can slip these under the sheet and hope no one notices. There’s only one option now: escape.

The distant sound of an alarm shatters the pretense that everything is normal.

Running now, we round a bend and reach a dead end. I scan the walls, my breath coming in gasps, looking for any sign of a door. There’s none.

“Wait here,” Penny says. “Davyd will come.”

“What do I do until then? I can’t stand here in the open waiting to be discovered.”

“Sorry.” Regret strains her voice. “This is all I can do for you. Don’t ask me for more.” Then she’s turning away.

“Penny?”

She hesitates and glances back.

I mean to ask about when Davyd will come and his plans for escape and what is happening in the rest of the facility. It’s my priority. It has to be, considering I have my hands full of the serum. But when I open my mouth it’s a completely different question I find myself asking.

“What will happen to you now?”

Her eyes widen. I don’t blame her for her surprise. I haven’t exactly been friendly or showed concern for her up until now.

“Davyd said he’d try to scramble the lab entry records but he couldn’t be sure it could be done. I’ll go there now as though I suspect the alarm is part of a diversion to take the serum and hope my earlier entry is lost in the confusion.”

“It’s not much of a plan.”

“It’s enough. Don’t worry, I knew what I was doing when I let you into the lab.”

Her sacrifice adds to the weight of the vials in my hand. “You could come with me, to camp … to Toby.”

She blinks and I wonder if the sheen in her eyes is tears or a trick of the strip lighting. Her fingers cover her mouth. “I … I can’t, but if you see him, tell him …”

“Tell him what?”

She shakes her head. “Tell him nothing.”

Then she’s striding down along the hallway, and I’m calling thank you to her back, and she shows no sign of having heard.

When she’s out of sight, I lean against the wall, thinking if I press hard enough in my singlet and jeans, I can somehow blend into the unbroken white surface. For long seconds I’m alone and exposed.

Is it my imagination or is the air growing hazy? I sniff. Is that smoke?

Pride washes over me. He used my plan. My heart beats so loud I’m sure the sound of it alone is enough to bring Company officers running even over the muted alarm.

A door swishes open a few feet away. I grip one of the vials and lift it over my head, preparing to defend what I’ve sacrificed so much to gain. I don’t want to lose any of the serum, but it’s the only weapon I have.

I will fight.

[Samuai]

I stare at the spot where I thought I saw gray. Everything blurs, and I rub at my eyes to clear my vision. Did I imagine it?

No.

There it is again. Recognition snatches my breath; it’s a Company officer. He’s moving slowly through the rubble, stopping every few feet to make notes. Like someone checking on the outcome of a plan.

In my head, I replay the first rock fall, ignoring the road and the stone walls on either side. There was something gray against the skyline, camouflaged by the murky clouds beyond. Was there someone up on the top of the cliff?

An invisible fist wraps around my chest and squeezes. Did one of them start this? Did he start this?

A scream rips from my throat.

I don’t hear it, but the officer does. His head comes up, and his hand moves toward his hip.

Really? He’s picking through his handiwork, not even holding his weapon?

He deserves to die for that stupidity alone. I leave the pain of my body behind, close the distance between us, springing forward.

“You did this.” I’m shouting at him, although I can’t hear a word. Blaming him for Megs, for my ears, and for the constant pain in my head. “You did this.” I draw my lips back showing teeth.

His hands come up in front of his face and his jaw slackens. There’s fear in his eyes. Once I would have hesitated at the sight. Not today. Today, it drives me on.

“See what you have made, and weep,” I shriek, my throat clogging up.

I’m not crying, but I taste hot, salty tears on my cheeks. I’m close enough now to smell his panic. And it smells good. I throw myself, feel the bunch and stretch of muscles battered in the rock fall as I launch into the air, thick with rain and dust. He staggers back. His hand comes up. He’s found his weapon.

I don’t care. I register the truth of it, even as his finger moves on the trigger. I don’t care.