Breathe (7 page)

“Quinn Caffrey,” he says, shaking hands with Quinn, who is staring, stunned, at my father. “Every time I see you, you look more like a man.” He pats Quinn’s cheek. If I’d tried to imagine the most embarrassing situation possible, I don’t think I’d have put my dad in a pair of old orange underpants. I love my mom and dad, but this is too much. They are outdoing themselves.

“And a handsome man at that. He’s taking Bea out of the pod for a day or two. What a treat,” Mom says.

Dad frowns. “An overnight?”

“Oh, goodness, Cooper, I
told
you.”

“I’ll take care of her, Mr. Whitcraft. I promise,” Quinn says.

“You better,” Dad says.

We take the tram to Zone One, and when we disembark, Quinn lugs our bags through the station and down onto the packed street. Everyone is loaded up, as we are, with tents and sleeping bags, airtanks hanging from their backpacks. We’re hounded every few steps by children selling cookies, old-fashioned compasses, paper maps, and airtanks. “Can you believe how many people buy oxygen from street sellers,” Quinn scoffs. “They mess with the gauge, so you can’t tell how much oxygen they really have in them. Usually they’re empty.” He pats the airtanks he’s brought from home.

At the border there are five lines: four short ones devoted to Premiums, and one for auxiliaries, which is about ten times longer than the others. “Where are you going? I got you a Premium pass,” Quinn says as I edge toward the auxiliary gate.

“Save the pass. I can wait there.” I don’t want to be even more indebted; I want us to be equals.

“Oh please, there’s no need to get all principled—I didn’t buy the pass for you; I bought it for me. I want to get out of here
now
,” he says, pulling me by the arm toward a Premium line. This is something I love about Quinn: he always knows how to do something nice yet make it seem like really he’s being completely selfish, so it never feels like charity.

As we join the line, a girl with long tangled hair rushes up to Quinn and throws her arms around him. She’s disheveled and out of breath. I check her earlobes: no tattoo. I glance around to see if a steward has spotted her rushing, but they’re all up at the border trying to manage the exodus. I’ve never met this girl before, though I do recognize her from school, from my advanced biology class last year. Apart from me, she was the only person I knew who had skipped a year. I haven’t seen her much since.

“It’s you,” she tells Quinn, who doesn’t seem to know what to do. He stares at me, his arms by his sides, while she squeezes him. I shrug and he mouths the word
Sorry
. Then he gently unties himself from her hold.

“Alina?” he says.

Alina.

“You remember.” She glances at me, but I look away. Quinn’s latest crush is the last person I want to see. “I need your help,” she says.

We step out of line and thread our way through the crowd to a bench. “What’s happened?” Quinn asks. He sits down next to her, and I sit on her other side. The smell of breakfast loaf from a food cart opposite drifts over. Alina looks at it and swallows.

“I have to get across,” she says, nodding at the border.

“Are you hurt?” Quinn asks. He is frowning, concerned, but secretly he must be delighted; what better way to win this girl’s favor than to save her?

“I’m in trouble. I can’t explain. If I go through with the auxiliaries, I’ll be stopped for certain.”

“What have you done?” he asks.

“Would you believe me if I said I’ve been saving the world?” Quinn shakes his head at the absurdity of it. “Can you help? Will you?”

“Are you a terrorist?” I ask. Quinn glares at me, but we’ve got a right to know. Alina turns away from Quinn and, taking my hands, draws me toward her. Quinn wasn’t wrong about her looks—she’s beautiful, even with all the sweat and panic.

“You don’t know me. You have no reason to trust me. But if you help me cross the border, you’ll never see me again. I promise.” Even though there are alarm bells ringing and my gut is telling me to steer clear of her, she is so earnest I don’t know how to refuse. Besides, if we help her do this one thing, she’ll disappear; it will be Quinn and me alone again, and he won’t have any reason to resent me.

I only have one Premium pass and it would take days to apply for another, so Bea’s standing in the auxiliary line after all. Alina is next to me. “We should try to look like a couple,” she whispers, holding my hand. This is fine by me.

I know I should be worried about Alina and a bit afraid for myself, too, but even though this is dangerous, it’s also the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in ages. It isn’t every day the girl of your dreams asks you to rescue her.

Alina looks like any other tourist making her way out of the pod. She’s even smiling a bit. I probably look more nervous than she does. I push back my shoulders and stand tall as the line narrows.

When we finally step up to the first gate, the official looks at my ear and nods, then down at the pass I hand him. He eyeballs Alina, then waves us reluctantly through the giant, metal gate to the scanning station.

I take out my pad and am about to scan when Alina touches my wrist. “Oh God, I’ve completely forgotten my pad,” she says. Of course. If she’s on the run, there’s no way she can scan her pad. She’ll be pulled aside and God-knows-what.

“Seriously?” I shout, attracting the attention of the stewards nearest us. “Well, there’s no way we’re going back. No way!” I’m not exactly keeping things low key. I just don’t know how else to play it, so I do my best impression of Ferris.

A male steward approaches and stands before us with a hand on his baton. “Is there a problem here?” he asks.

“Yes, there is a problem, actually. My halfwit girlfriend has gone and forgotten her pad!” I glance at Alina, hoping I’m on the right track. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffles. “I mean, how hard can it be? Look at the size of her bag and look at mine. I’ve got everything and all she needed to remember was her ID. Typical.” I throw up my arms in frustration and the steward grins. It’s at that moment I notice his wedding ring. “We’re meant to be getting engaged out there. All planned. And now … well, you can say good-bye to any kind of proposal, love.” The steward stops smiling and takes me by the elbow.

“There’s no need for that, sir,” he soothes.

“No need at all,” a lady behind us mutters.

“So you’ll let us out?”

“I’m sorry, but if your girlfriend has forgotten her pad, she’ll have to step out of the line. She can’t leave unless we can identify her.”

“Do you know who my father is?” I say. I’ve heard other people use this, but when it comes out of my mouth it doesn’t sound real. “If I’m not through this gate within five minutes I’ll be calling my father and then the Pod Minister. I’d like you to explain to
him
why you’ve stopped us.”

“The Pod Minister?” the steward says, and takes a step back.

“Exactly! I’ll let
you
speak to Cain Knavery and explain why you’ve stopped his protégé at the border for no good reason!” I’m shouting so loudly that six or seven stewards come forward and surround us. One steward pulls out his baton and waves it in our direction. Alina gives me a look that says
I hope you know what you’re doing
. I don’t, of course.

My pad vibrates as the stewards huddle together to discuss the situation. It’s a message from Bea. With all the commotion I’m causing, I’m not surprised they’re able to hear us way over in the auxiliary line. I open the message and it reads
Is she worth it?
Alina is standing by the scanner, her hands hugging her own body. Her hair falls in untidy ripples down her face. I remember the first time I saw her, angry and zealous in the vaccination line. Back then all I wanted to do was kiss her. And now I look at her, blotchy and red-eyed, and I want to help her. She is doing something. And she must believe in it to put up with all this, and me. I look again at Bea’s message and I think
Yes! Yes, this girl is definitely worth it!

A steward steps forward. He has a long mustache covering his top lip and his eyebrows join in the middle, making his face look like it’s been driven over by a buggy. “Give me your pad,” he says. I quickly flip to the ID display. The steward looks down at the pad then back at me. Down at the pad. Back at me. He scans the pad. A digital voice responds:
“Quinn Bartleby Caffrey—authorized.”
“Your dad a director for Breathe?” he asks.

“Can’t you read?” I sound arrogant and impatient, a lot like my father.

“Doesn’t say anything about the Pod Minister. What relation did you say you was?” I glare as though I’m really getting tired of their nonsense and grab my pad from him.

“That’s it. I’m calling Cain.” I bang around on my pad for no more than a couple of seconds when the steward tips his baton against my hand.

“No need for that. I have an idea. We let you and your girl through, you do something for us.”
Anything
, I want to say.
I’ll do anything
.

“You must be mad. If you think you’re going to bribe a Premium’s son. A friend of the Ministry—”

“Air,” the steward interrupts. His hands are joined so he looks like he’s praying. He no longer looks threatening at all, but sad and desperate. “Can you get us tanks?” He is keeping his voice low so the crowd of tourists filing through the other lanes and queuing behind can’t hear him. “Not a bribe. A gift.” The other stewards are watching intently and their faces are no longer clenched. Each one has his eyebrows raised in expectation.

“My wife and I haven’t … danced together in years,” he says. We stare at each other for a long time. It’s quite possible he knows I’m lying.

“I can get you five tanks,” I say, looking at each of the stewards in turn.

“Ten tanks to be delivered here within seventy-two hours.”

“Eight. And you’ll get them in a week.” I won’t be a pushover.

“Open the gate!” the steward hollers.

And that’s it.

Alina and I are through the second steel gate and making our way along a glass tunnel. Other tourists saunter alongside us. We lean against the curved glass to wait for Bea.

“Do you have oxygen?” I ask Alina. Shaking a little, she pulls an airtank from her backpack, then attaches the cylinder to her hip using the belt. Once she pulls the transparent silicone mask over her mouth and nose, she tightens the straps at the back to ensure it is airtight. I take out my own tank and do the same.

When Bea gets through, she runs to us, though she shouldn’t, and before I get a chance to speak, she throws herself at me. She presses into me so tightly it pinches. “Don’t break my ribs!” I say. I know she was worried. I don’t want to dwell on it. “I’ll help you with your mask,” I say. “We have to get going.”

We walk down the sun-drenched glass tunnel—Bea, Alina, and me. We push open the revolving doors at the end. And we step, as one, into the airless planet.

Without speaking or even looking at each other, we’ve somehow agreed to stick with Alina for a while longer; it would seem too strange if she wandered off alone. And we’ve also decided to get as far away from the pod and day tourists as we can. Most of the other tourists are as silent as we are—focused on breathing, avoiding panic as they move farther and farther from guaranteed air.

We could talk if we wanted to—it’s easy to be heard through the holes in our blowoff valves; it’s just that we aren’t used to having our faces covered. The masks keep us alive, but mine is also keeping my nose warm. I gave Alina my scarf. What else could I do? Watch her shivering and ignore it? Quinn gave her a spare sweater and tried to give her his green gloves, too, but she refused. They finally agreed to one glove each. And so now they look a little like two parts of the same person.

I had hoped that once rigged out in her mask, Alina wouldn’t look so pretty, but her round eyes and sharp eyebrows stand out even more. And she was smart enough to fit the straps under her hair so that it falls down over them at the sides. I stupidly pulled mine tight over my black bob, so my head must be the shape of a mushroom.

The only other time I visited The Outlands was for a school trip when I was around seven. We were all being offered a chance to try breathing without a mask, taking turns as the teacher slowly drew it from our faces and cheerfully told us to inhale. It was like drinking fire. The teacher watched as I gasped. She smiled, nodded, kept the facemask away from my nose and mouth, and then, when I began to stagger, she snapped the mask back into place and tightened the straps. “Wasn’t that an experience?” was all she said. I always wondered what the purpose of that trip was. Were we being taught how desperately we needed the pod? It was certainly a way to ensure I never tried to defect. So I have to wonder what is happening to Alina to make her flee like this.

Behind us, the sunrise is pink. The light hits the pod in such a way that it could be a beautiful glimmering mountain if it weren’t for the four recycling stations steaming next to it. There is nothing else close to the pod. All debris was cleared a long time ago. It’s only now that we are at a distance that we come upon the rubble of the world as it was before The Switch. There are rows of tumbledown houses along cracked, warped roads, and everywhere the remains of old vehicles covered in what looks like ivy. Even though it’s winter and the frost is probably freezing the roots off everything, the earth is not as barren as I imagined. Besides the ivy, tufts of wild grasses and moss eat away at the ruins. I carefully sidestep anything living, anything growing, though now and again I bend down to brush the greenery with my hand.