Extraction (7 page)

Her face disappears on the CorpoBot screen, replaced by the Core symbol again. The names and faces of the chosen will appear one by one in a moment, as this ceremony proceeds like last year’s.

Logan lets go of my hand. Panic creeps over me again, until he slides his arm around my waist and some of my tension eases. But not all of it.

They should have picked him last year. He should have already gone to the Core, because I want to leave, but not without him.

“Citizen T67352: Andy.”

On the CorpoBot screen, Andy’s name and number appear along with his unsmiling face. His hair is black and messy, and his cheeks are caved in from lack of nutrients. They take pictures of all of us once a year, to keep a record.

“Citizen S98344: Hazel.”

A girl’s face replaces the first boy’s.

Another face appears, and another. My chances get slimmer, and my heart rate doubles in speed. Soft rain patters on the glass ceiling.

Soon there are only four spots left.

“Citizen W12837: Flora.”

My brows furrow as her face appears. I know Flora; she and I had Sector History together. She’s a bully and a ditz, in the same crowd as Nellie, Carter, and Larry. She’s not the least bit smart.

“Citizen X38197: Ernest.”

I know him, too. He’s gotten in trouble for stealing from the nutrition stockpiles before. Never serious trouble, but still, the instructors must know about it. What are they playing at, letting him get away with stealing and picking him?

I don’t get it. Maybe these individuals were obedient during their tests, and maybe they’re stronger than some, but they aren’t intelligent. They aren’t children I would assume have the highest Promise out of all of us.

“Citizen U43716: Samuel.”

There’s one spot left. I swallow, but it’s more like gulping. Logan’s arms pull me closer to him. His lips brush the side of my forehead.

Cadet Waller is taking too long to say the name. She won’t say my name. I’m going to lose, and I’m going to die in four years. But that’s okay because I won’t have to leave Logan. I won’t have to abandon him. I won’t lose him until he dies.

Only,
I don’t want him to die.

Through the glass, Cadet Waller lifts her head, about to say the last number and name. My heart pounds so fast, it might explode in my chest.

I don’t want Logan to die, and I don’t want to die. I hate it here. I hate fear and officials and moonlight and muddy fields and teenagers in bloody pods being dragged to quarantine. I hate death. If there is any way to escape death, I’ll take it no matter the price because I don’t want to die.

But I don’t want to lose Logan.

But I have to get out of here.

“Citizen S68477,” Cadet Waller says.

I stop thinking. I stop breathing. I stop being.

My face appears on the CorpoBot screen.

6

There’s a memory I always think of when good things happen, or bad things, or scary things. It’s the first good thing I can remember.

It begins in a dark place, where I lie shivering. Dirt and dust clog my throat, my forehead throbs, and my chest tightens in pain. Cold blood dribbles down my temple.

“Help,” I whisper.

I don’t know where I am or how I ended up here, but I know the cold, reeking sludge around my body is mud mingled with disposed produce. When the ceiling scrapes open and pink light appears overhead, I know it’s the moon.

And when a small, lanky figure with dark hair climbs into the trash bin beside me, I know it’s a boy.

“Thought I heard something,” he says. “Trash scraps don’t usually talk.”

“It hurts.” I whimper.

He grasps my hand and eases me out of the trash bin into tall grass and moonlight. Above me, purple clouds fill the sky. Thunder rumbles, and lightning flashes.

“They got you good around your eye.” The boy touches a hand to my throbbing temple.

I flinch away from him a little. I don’t even know who he is. “Who did?”

“Those boys at school, right? I heard them talking about messing with you earlier. I tried to find you, but I guess I got here too late.”

I scrunch up my face. There are boys at school who laugh at me and call me things like “Shorty.” And they were mad earlier when I solved a math equation intended for someone twice our age in forty-seven seconds, but I can’t remember them attacking me and throwing me in here.

The boy frowns at me. “You don’t remember?”

I shake my head.

His forehead creases with worry. “You must’ve hit your head pretty hard.”

I just stare at him. He stares back, his eyes wide and round, the color of a dark sky brimming with stars.

“I’m Logan, by the way,” he says.

I realize I’ve been holding my breath, and let it out. “I’m Clementine.”

“I know.” He smiles. “They talk about you at school.” His gaze shifts to my left ear, to the curls clumping beneath it. He sighs, reaches out, and touches them. I flinch again, but when his fingers pull away, they have blood on them.

My eyes widen. I touch the same spot with my own two fingers and feel a warm wetness.

“Here, I’ll walk you home,” Logan says softly. “Think you can walk fast enough that we can avoid the cam-bots?”

I swallow hard. “My legs are all right. Just my head hurts.”

He nods, his forehead creasing with concern. He pulls me to my feet. “I’ll help you clean off that blood too. Don’t want those boys thinking they won their fight, eh?”

I shake my head. His hand squeezes mine into his grasp, and we step away from the garbage bin toward the street. “Thanks, by the way,” I say.

His smile is crooked.

*   *   *

Moving through the door into the room with the podium is like stepping into a dream. Claps and cheers echo in my ears from the small audience. They’re all standing, watching us Extractions enter.

My face warms and my palms grow sweaty. Bright yellow light flashes in my eyes. I blink to make the dots go away, and bump into the Extraction girl in front of me by accident.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

Governor Preston steps forward to greet me. “Congratulations,” he says with a kind smile. His gloved hand closes around mine in a firm grip.

“Thank you.” I manage not to stutter the words.

He smiles wider. Another flash of yellow comes from behind him, from one of the cam-bots documenting the ceremony.

He moves on, but it isn’t over yet. Bodies jostle me from every direction. It seems all the people in the audience want to shake my hand. Instructors, doctors, nurses, and officials too. People I’ve never spoken to or even seen before smile at me like we’ve been friends since birth.

I smile as best I can. But the walls close in tighter with every passing moment, and my heart rate quickens and my throat tightens.

I don’t want to be here. I want to be outside where Logan’s waiting. These people are stealing too much time away from me.

I notice Cadet Waller near the podium, looking as impatient as I feel. She speaks fast into an ear-comm, though I can’t hear what she’s saying.

Behind her, a small CorpoBot screen in the back corner of the room plays through the portraits of the new Extractions again. It shows not only our pictures, but the pictures of those chosen tonight in the ceremonies in Crust, Mantle, and Lower. Fourteen from each outer sector.

I stare at their faces and wonder who they are. I wonder why the Developers picked them.

I wonder why they picked me too, but didn’t choose Laila. Or Grady. Or Logan.

*   *   *

Rain smacks the pavement outside. I move through the exit doors with the rest of the group, led by Cadet Waller and an entourage of guards. Cadet Waller said a transport will arrive any minute to take us to the departure bay.

My heart knocks against my rib cage. I swallow hard. I need to find Logan before the transport gets here. I need to say good-bye to him.

He’s supposed to be waiting outside the door, but he isn’t.

There’s a big, loud crowd ahead, separated from us by a security rope and a line of officials. All the kids from the camp who came to watch the ceremony on the CorpoBots are still here, waiting to catch a glimpse of us. To say good-bye.

But something’s not right. People are shoving against the security line. People are shouting—shouting at
us
. Like they think we’re the ones who stole their spots away. Which I guess is true, but I can’t believe they’d act like this with so many guards around.

The officials amplify their voices with their helmets so everyone can hear their orders over the noise: “Everyone, stay back. Do not touch the rope. Do not fight us or you will be sent to quarantine. You will be replaced.”

“Let’s stay close to the building, Extractions,” Cadet Waller shouts over the noise.

Our escort guards push us away from the security line. I’m knocked back with the others.

The panic starts to rise, churning to a boil in my stomach. This shouldn’t be happening. People have been angry after the ceremony before, but never this bad.

I need to see into the crowd. I have to find Logan. He can’t disappear like this, with no warning.

The
whir
of an engine reaches my ears. My stomach flips as I turn toward the sound. The hovercraft speeds toward us from down the street, arriving much too soon. I need more minutes. I need more hours.

I turn back to the crowd again, fear and adrenaline coursing through my veins. I won’t get on the transport yet. Not until I find him.

There’s a smack in the crowd a few feet away from me. A scream pierces the air.

A guard steps out of my way, and I see an official beating a girl’s head in with the butt of his pulse rifle.

She crumples in the gravel with blood pooling in her hair.

I’m gaping and shaking and screaming
no no no no no no
inside my head.

Everything falls apart. All the kids rush forward, slamming into the officials and knocking over the security rope. There are gunshots. Cadet Waller yells something. Guards scramble in front of me to block the kids from reaching me and the other Extractions.

I think they might want me dead, even though the Developers picked me and the official beat that girl’s head in. I think they might kill me if they get close enough.

Someone knocks into me and I fall, my knees scraping the asphalt. I need a second to recover, but I don’t have a second. Everyone’s going to trample me if I don’t get up.

I push off the asphalt, blinking fast to see what’s happening through the rain. The guards are trying to create a new security perimeter. Cadet Waller’s trying to steer the Extractions toward the hovercraft, which can’t reach us anymore because there are too many people blocking its path.

My eyes water, blending with the rain. I can’t get on the hovercraft yet. I can’t. I can’t. I need Logan. I can’t leave without saying good-bye because I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, or when.

Cadet Waller’s voice reaches my ears—a shout of “Get on board. Hurry!”

Instinct pulls me in one direction. My legs carry me in another.

I slip under a guard’s arm and into the crowd, letting it swallow me whole. Hopefully, I’ll blend in. Hopefully, no one will recognize me. This is reckless and stupid and maybe it means the ship to the Core will leave without me, and I’ll lose my spot on it, but this is too important.

Logan is too important.

Rain lashes against my face. More gunshots go off somewhere behind me. I don’t look to see who went down.

I reach the part of the crowd where kids aren’t trying to fight anyone. They’re terrified instead. They’re running away, tripping over each other.

I duck under people’s arms and look frantically around for Logan’s face. I blink tears out of my eyes and pretend they’re part of the storm.

Where are you, where are you?

I’m almost to the other side of the crowd when I think I hear someone call my name. But there’s too much screaming for me to tell where it came from. And I can’t see anyone but the people right near me. I hate how short I am.

Thunder roars in the background. I count three seconds, and look up as lightning fills the sky. There’s so much acid above the atmospheric shield, the bits of the moon I glimpse through the rain clouds look like they’re on fire.

I’m always afraid when I look at the shield that I’m going to see some of the acid getting through, because it does sometimes. Scientists built the shield with strong ion particles to deflect the acid, since our ozone layer stopped doing that. But over time, the shield particles weaken and have to be replaced. I’ve heard of cases where some adult died from acid corrosion before the shield was fixed, their skin burned away by small amounts of gas that got through the shield. The adults try to keep it quiet, but word gets around.

It’s one more reason we all want to escape the Surface.

I keep pushing forward, toward the road perpendicular to this one, where the crowd isn’t so thick.

“Clementine!” someone yells.

I spin around, and Logan’s there, shoving past two people to reach me. I fall into his arms. He’s trembling.

“You have to go back,” he says. “You have to get on that shuttle.”

“I can’t yet. I can’t leave you.”

“You have to.”

“It’s not safe, though.” Officials are shooting kids over by the security rope. I might end up in the crossfire.

“Clementine…”

“Please. We can hide somewhere until the street clears out. The group won’t leave without me,” I say, ignoring how my heartbeat trips over the last sentence. Silently, I plead that I’m right. That they won’t leave me behind.

Logan sighs, but his body relaxes a little. I’m pretty sure that means he’s giving in.

I grab his hand. There’s an alleyway nearby. We hurry over to it and slip inside, splashing in puddles in the dirt.

We wait until we’re far down, around a corner and out of sight of the crowd before we stop. The other end of the alley is just ahead.

Logan lets go of my hand to lean against the wall and catch his breath. I run my shaky hands over the goose bumps on my arms. I look back in the direction we came from, toward where the Extractions were boarding the hovercraft.