[Contributor 02] - Infiltrator (2013) (24 page)

The park was eerie at night, the statues looming in the semi-darkness, their features distorted by shadows. Dara clutched Letizia as they wove an irregular path, glancing back at regular intervals to try to find the Authorities. Their numbers diminished from three to two and then to one, and Dara knew they were trying to close the net, just as she’d feared.

Letizia must have noticed too. She freed herself from Dara’s grasp and seized Dara’s upper arm, grabbing her with bruising force.

So what? They’ll blend in with all the wounds the Authorities will inflict on me
, she thought, and she had to choke down the hysterical laugh that rose in her throat.

Yanking Dara behind a statue, Letizia paused for a second, her breathing remarkably silent, given how her chest was heaving. “We have to split up.”

“No!” But Letizia was right. However much she hated the thought, it was their best chance.

“I’ll distract them. Get the bag out.”

“No!” Fumbling with the bag, Dara tried to open it. “I’ll take half of what’s here and you—”

Letizia squeezed her arm so hard Dara gasped in pain, the words dying. “Go now.” The expression in Letizia’s eyes made Dara frantic, and they grappled for a few seconds.

She can’t ask this of me! She can’t tell me to leave her behind!

“We’re out of time. Go!” Dara stumbled as Letizia released her arm, then Letizia planted a hand in the middle of Dara’s back, giving her a hard shove that almost sent her to her knees.

A nearby scrape told Dara the Authorities were circling around them. If she didn’t move, she’d get them both caught. The bag had to make it to Mal, or all of this would have been for nothing. Worse even than the thought of leaving Letizia behind was the thought of both of them being captured, sent down into the bowels of the dome, along with all the information they’d stolen.

Tough choices. They had told her she would have to make tough choices, and she had thought she understood, but she’d been an idiot.

Pulling in a shuddering breath that was half sob, Dara sprinted away from Letizia, zigzagging around the park, desperation making her feel as if she was flying. She heard Letizia shout, but she couldn’t pause, couldn’t look back.

She’ll make it. Separating was smart. Separating gives us both a chance to get away, because it forces them to run in two directions instead of one.

The words played through her head over and over, an endless refrain of hope and terror. She wanted to cry, but tears would blur her vision, and she had to focus. The three Authorities who had followed them into the park wouldn’t be alone.

She ran and ran, ignoring her burning lungs, her cramping legs. She hadn’t known she could run like that. Her vision narrowed, her eyes fixed on the path ahead of her, searching for obstacles. Her brain operated on autopilot, commanding her to turn this way and that without her giving it any conscious thought. Breaking away from the park, she strained her ears but heard nothing. She kept moving, kept running, all the while listening for signs of pursuit.

Her father. She couldn’t lead them to her father. Once again, panic erupted, and she ducked around a corner, pressing her back to the wall as her head swiveled from side to side. Somewhere in the distance she could hear someone murmuring into a radio. More Authorities, but they weren’t close to her—yet. She didn’t see anyone. Her heart pounded with such force it was like a homing beacon, and she had the insane thought that the Authorities could use it to track her. Forcing herself to take several deep, silent breaths, she shifted the bag so that it was strapped securely across her body, then she began skulking down the corridor.

Letizia is fine. She got away. She’s fine. She’ll beat me to the rendezvous point. We’ll get away from the Authorities. She’s fine.

Running was out of the question. She had to creep along slowly, keep herself hidden in the shadows. It was a good thing they’d done this during second shift, when the Creators kept the lights low. She wasn’t far from the edge of the dome, and it seemed like the darkness of the wasteland was slinking toward her, a black hole that would engulf her.

She didn’t take a direct route. Though she saw and heard no signs of anyone else, other than the faint noises of Authorities in the distance, she was terrified they were tailing her. Time seemed to slow and race at the same time. She felt as if she’d been creeping forever, as if she’d keep creeping forever. All the while she was aware that time was ticking away, that if she didn’t get to the rendezvous point soon, Raj would be forced to leave with her father and she’d never get out.

Sick with fear, she inched closer to her destination. Her breath came so fast she was almost hyperventilating, and no matter how much she tried to regulate it, she couldn’t make it slow. It didn’t matter. Keeping quiet was more important, so she concentrated on taking her quick, gasping breaths as noiselessly as possible.

At last she saw it, so close. Letizia was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean a thing. She could be inside already. Even now she was staring at her watch, her foot tapping as she waited for Dara to get to them. Attempting to hold back her tears required a heroic amount of effort, and a couple slipped free, tracing frigid paths down her overheated cheeks.

She stumbled to the access panel, dimly noticing that it was open a crack. The crack widened at her approach, and Raj stood gesturing to her, urging her to hurry.

“There you are!” he whispered, his voice a mixture of relief and terror. He pulled her inside, and she let herself be moved like a doll, let him prop her against the wall as the fear in his eyes grew. “Where’s Letizia?”

“I don’t know.” A sob ripped through her throat, and she gave herself over to it, burying her face in her hands.

Raj spoke, but she couldn’t hear the words. She had worked so hard, for so long, to hold herself together that she simply didn’t have the strength for it anymore. A small spark of hope still burned within her, waiting for Letizia to come barreling through the access panel, but she knew it was a fruitless hope. Letizia was gone. In her heart, she knew Letizia was gone.

“Dara,” he said, his voice sharp. He put his hands on her shoulders, gave her a gentle shake, and it was enough to make her focus on him. “We have to move now. We can’t wait any longer.” She wanted to scream at him, but there was such agony on his face that it killed the desire.

She tried, she did, but her legs weren’t much use, and he let out a frustrated noise as he tugged her arm around his shoulders and hauled her away. They wound through the access corridor, and she could swear she heard everything that was happening on the other side of the steel wall, as if it was as thin and insubstantial as paper. Her thoughts looped and swirled, and she stumbled over her own feet. The bag still dangling from her shoulder became so heavy she thought it would drag her down through the floor, into the secret chambers of the dome, where she’d find Letizia. It amazed her that Raj could still move, that the bag didn’t make his knees buckle, make him sprawl to the ground.

They weren’t safe yet, she understood that. He was sweating, the exertion of supporting her weight taking its toll, but it was more than that. He was afraid too. She could sense it as surely as if it was her own emotion. If she wasn’t so burned out, so overloaded, she would probably be afraid too, but she couldn’t muster the energy for it.

“Is she hurt?” a frantic voice asked as they emerged into the transport bay.

“It’s shock,” Raj said with a grunt, transferring her weight from himself to her father. Joshua was the one who had spoken, his voice so high with fear she hadn’t recognized it.

“Dara, can you hear me? Are you all right?” he asked, taking her face in both of his hands, staring at her with frenzied eyes.

“Dad,” she somehow managed to mumble.

“Where’s Letizia?” a third voice asked. Ricky. It was Ricky, and she sucked in a quick breath as a memory surfaced, Ricky teasing Letizia about how he’d marry her if Ballasts and Cores were allowed to get married. From the look on his face, it hadn’t entirely been a joke.

“Diversion,” Dara said, exerting herself. It hurt to talk, hurt to move, hurt to think, hurt to be conscious. She would have liked nothing more than to close her eyes and forget everything, but she couldn’t leave her father, Ricky, and Raj hanging like that. They deserved to know what had happened. Raj cared about Letizia, maybe even more than Dara did, considering he’d known her longer.

“The Authorities chased us. I had the bag. She created a diversion.” Pushing the words from her lips was an almost insurmountable challenge, and she was exhausted when she finished.

A million unasked questions hung in the air, but her explanation had been sufficient for the time being. All three men had gone pale, their eyes so wide the whites stood out clearly in the transport bay’s gloom.

“We have to go. They’ll go to lockdown any second,” Ricky said, grabbing Raj’s shoulder.

Exchanging a glance with Joshua, Raj grabbed Dara’s right arm, looping it around his shoulder, while Joshua took her left. Together they pulled her into Ricky’s transport while Ricky jumped into the driver’s seat, flicking switches so rapidly his fingers were a blur.

Dumping her in the back, Raj ran to the passenger side, diving in beside Ricky. Joshua threw himself into the seat next to Dara, pulling her close and holding her crushed up against him. She could feel him shaking, and he was murmuring something under his breath. It took her a moment to realize he was repeating her name and her mother’s over and over, as if reminding himself that they were both safe, for the moment.

“Keep an eye out. I need you to watch for tails,” Ricky said, his voice taut with tension.

He didn’t need to remind Raj, who was already scanning every direction. “Do you have—”

“Under the seat.”

Joshua took in a breath as if about to ask a question, but then he seemed to think the better of it. Dara didn’t say anything.

The only conversation during the ride consisted of Ricky asking Raj every so often if he’d spotted anything, to which Raj responded that he hadn’t. It seemed they were going to make it away without incident, but then Raj let out a shout, and she glanced over her shoulder to see a patrol on the horizon.

“They’ll catch us,” Joshua whispered, clutching her more tightly.

“No, they won’t,” Raj said, his voice steely. He conferred with Ricky in low tones, then the transport suddenly jerked to the right, sending her flying into her father, who grunted as he hit the wall.

“Hang on,” Ricky called back to them.

Whipping his head around, Raj looked at Dara and Joshua. “We’re going to abandon the transport, go the rest of the way on foot.”

“What if they see us?” Joshua asked.

“Then we’ll lie low until we can move again. We have emergency supplies. We can’t risk them finding another bunker.”

“It was me, wasn’t it?” she whispered. “I tipped them off somehow.”

“No, it wasn’t you.” His face softening, Raj fixed his gaze on her. “I don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t you.”

“I left her.” The words fell from Dara’s lips like shards of broken glass, shredding her from the inside out.

“No, you didn’t.” His voice fierce, Raj reached over the seat and grabbed one of her hands. “
They
took her from us.” Something in his tone made her shiver. His words should have offered some consolation, but they didn’t.

Another sharp swerve almost sent Raj over the seat, and he gripped Dara’s hand for one last second before he turned around, ducking to rummage under the seat. Ricky swerved a few more times, and they lost sight of the Magnum patrol.

“Jump!” he shouted, throwing open his door. The transport slowed slightly, just enough so that they could jump out without killing themselves, but not enough to prevent her from slamming into the ground. She cried out as she rolled, the jagged terrain biting into her, ripping through her sleeve, the side of her shirt, the knee of her pants.

“Run!” Raj yelled, grabbing her arm and yanking her up from the ground. Ricky and her father were hot on their heels, the four of them dashing into the ruins, hiding behind the steel beams. She peeked around the corner and saw their transport careening away, its lights growing fainter. A few seconds later the Magnum transport followed; it seemed their decoy had worked. Her knees incapable of supporting her weight any longer, Dara crumpled to the ground, barely able to feel the cold, rusty steel of the collapsed beam jabbing into her back.

Time was a blank, Dara staring dully into space, leaning against the beam as Raj dug through a kit and dressed her injuries, then her father’s and Ricky’s, before seeing to his own. He tried talking to her, and her father tried too, but it was as if she was on the other side of a glass wall. She could see them, watch their lips move, and could hear them speaking, but the words were faint, distorted, and she couldn’t make them out. As gently as if she was a child, Raj shifted her body so that he could wrap her in a blanket. It was metallic, like the one that had been in the emergency kit when she and Letizia had been stranded last year, but this one was dark, so as not to reflect the light and give their position away.

At the thought of Letizia, her senses came roaring back to life. Letizia was gone. Letizia couldn’t be gone. She scrambled up from the ground, standing and peering over the beam, even though her eyes couldn’t possibly penetrate the murky darkness. Still, she was compelled to make the futile gesture of searching for any sign of her former master. A chill, dry wind blew across the desolate terrain, kicking up particles of dust and debris that scoured her face and lodged in her eyes, making them stream. Or were those tears?

“Dara, get down,” Raj said, his voice urgent but soft. He took her hand and gave it a careful tug, and she turned her attention to him.

“She’s gone.”

“I know.”

Collapsing to her knees, she allowed herself to fall forward, her forehead banging painfully into Raj’s shoulder. He let out a small grunt at the impact, but didn’t protest. His arms came up around her, steadying her, holding her, and she choked on a sob.