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Authors: Robison Wells
“Drop the shovel and we won’t kill you,” she said. It was hard to hear over the purr of the ATV behind her.
I did a quick count as they advanced on me. Two trucks and three four-wheelers. I’d killed one android, and one had left with Becky. Two were in front of me. One was still missing.
Becky got him.
I smiled. She’d kept the Taser with her. He probably opened that hole to the Basement and she’d blasted him in the face.
“What are you so happy about?”
I let the shovel answer for me, swinging it toward the wounded one in a feint, pulling up at the last second and then bringing it down like an ax onto the head of the new one. She dropped like a rock, her metal head split open around the heavy steel blade.
The wounded robot staggered, staring in surprise at her dead clone.
I yanked the shovel out of the destroyed android and turned to the other—the weakened, wounded one.
“You heard her make fun of me for not killing her when I had the chance?”
Four down. Three by me and one by Becky.
I didn’t know how soon backup would come, but I made my presence known. Despite searching every android for keys, I couldn’t find any for the truck, so instead I unscrewed the gas cap, stuffed in a rag soaked in lantern oil, and lit it.
I wanted to do the same to the four-wheelers, but I didn’t know how much time I had. I messed with them for a minute, but eventually decided to leave.
None of the immobilized kids were waking up, which meant more androids were on the way.
I ran.
I wasn’t ready for anything—to defend myself or to escape. I needed food, and I needed the weapons, and I needed a plan.
Just as I was passing the washroom, movement by the barn caught my eye. A deer.
I dropped, pretending to be another paralyzed student.
The deer didn’t look at me. It trotted down the road, coming in my direction, though it was scanning its head to the left and right. I tightened my grip on the handle of the shovel. But before the deer reached me, it turned between two of the dorms and disappeared.
I needed to hide. The Basement was compromised, I didn’t want to lead anyone to the tunnel, and the forest would likely be filled with deer and raccoons soon, all robot spies.
I lifted into a crouch and ran across the road toward the ruins of the commissary. The cinder block and cement had collapsed, and the steel trusses that held up the ceiling were drooping down into the debris pile. I peered between the cracks into the dark spaces. On the far side, very near to where the elevator had been, I found what I was looking for—a cave about the size of a refrigerator. I stashed my shovel in another hole, and then squeezed into the gap. It was tight, the rough cinder block scraping my arms and face as I slid inside, and there was a danger of it collapsing further and killing me. But no one could see me, and I could wait until dark.
I wondered what was happening to Becky, what horrors she was facing. Brain surgery was the best outcome. I had to force myself to stop thinking of what else could be going on.
I didn’t know what was out in the forest. There’d be more androids, certainly. More four-wheelers. Cameras, animals, sensors. I’d have to walk lightly.
No. If I went for help, then who knew what would happen to the others—to Becky. I wasn’t going to go for help. I
was
the help.
A full-frontal assault. It wouldn’t be subtle, but it’d be surprising.
I was going back to the school.
I
didn’t see anything the rest of the day—the crack in the rubble was too narrow, and it faced away from the road. There had been voices—the kids weren’t paralyzed anymore—mostly hushed and nervous, and all of them too quiet to really understand. When darkness came and it felt late enough, I emerged from the hole and crept across the field to the barn.
It had snowed about two inches, and I was leaving tracks. There was nothing I could do about that. Snow here seemed to melt fast; I hoped for a warm day tomorrow.
I wore my Steelers sweatshirt now, turned inside out so the white-and-yellow logo wouldn’t catch the light. In the pocket were both Tasers—the one Becky had carried so long, and the one Ms. Vaughn had dropped this morning. I knew there was another in the fort—the one Becky had used to stop Iceman—but I hadn’t dared go back in for it.
I needed to get to the weapons in the tunnel.
The chickens were asleep, and hardly made any noise as I entered the coop and lifted the filth-encrusted plywood to see the ladder.
There were plenty of supplies down here, everything Shelly had stockpiled for years—food, water, weapons—enough for the whole camp to make an escape—but no backpack.
I loaded up the best I could. I held a powerhead in each hand. I didn’t want to use them yet—I wanted to save them for when I’d really need them—but I just didn’t trust putting them in the front pocket of the sweatshirt. I wanted them aimed away from me.
As for the rest of the stockpile, I took a roll of thick wire, a box cutter, and a homemade weapon that looked something like an awl, but with three spikes that fit between my fingers. Just fitting it in my hand made me look forward to punching an Iceman with it.
I stood in the door of the coop, darkness and quiet all around me, and stared at the trees. I’d crossed that field not long before, carrying Becky in my arms and hoping that this town was going to be the end of my problems.
I hoisted a tarp over one shoulder, and my square-ended shovel over the other.
There had to be guards here somewhere. I peered in the windows of one of the barracks, looking for a friendly face. No one was awake. They all lay still in their beds. I wondered whether they were paralyzed tonight, so they couldn’t help me.
That didn’t matter. In fact, maybe it was better for me.
I crept into one of the barracks, walking down the row of beds and looking at faces in the dark.
Lily. She was here.
I searched for a pen or pencil, but found nothing. Finally, I took a piece of charcoal from the cold fireplace and scrawled a note on a T-shirt. I pulled back Lily’s blanket and wrapped her fist around the shirt. She’d get the message. Whether she could do anything with it, I had no idea.
I sneaked out of the barrack, down the stairs, and then moved from shadow to shadow until I hit the tree line.
I looked back toward the town. It was too dark to see anyone, and if I was lucky no one knew I was still here, or that I was leaving. Anyone in their right mind would assume that I was running for help.
Was I in my right mind? It didn’t matter. I was going anyway.
I took a breath and ran, my feet crunching against the frosted snow as I darted for the trees. There wasn’t much safety there, either, but it was more than I had right now. Out there I could hide, could blend in. I could use the trees as defense and shelter. The field was a killing zone.
But no one attacked. I made it to the woods and inside, pausing and ducking only briefly to look back and see whether I was being followed. No one. No deer, no sound of engines.
They had to be watching for me. They’d found Becky. Would they torture her to get her to talk? To tell them where I’d be hiding? The thought made me cringe—not because I was scared for myself, but because I knew her. She wouldn’t give in. They’d escalate the torture, worse and worse and more and more, and she wouldn’t budge. She was stronger than that, and they were going to tear her apart.
I couldn’t let myself think about that. I was going to the school to stop it. I was doing all I could do.
I’d been running for at least forty-five minutes when I ducked down into a thicket and rested. I tried to listen for anyone following me, but could hardly hear the soft sounds of the forest over my own breathing.
There was nothing in these woods. It was too cold for bugs, and too dark for much else. There was hardly any wind, and I should have been able to hear the footsteps of a deer or the rustling of a raccoon. There were certainly no four-wheelers nearby. It was virtually silent.
The snow wasn’t proving to be a huge problem. The pines blocked much of it, leaving only a dusting here and there, so I was able to pick a path from bare spot to bare spot.
I left the protection of the thicket and walked slower now. I guessed I was going in the right direction. I shouldn’t have far to go. It had taken Becky and me all night to get from the fence to the town, but she’d been stumbling and slow, and we’d mostly been walking parallel to the wall, not directly away from it. Back at the school I’d been able to see the town’s smoke from the upper floors, and it couldn’t have been more than two or three miles.
But in the forest I couldn’t see any landmarks—just dark trees and narrow glimpses of sky. I tried to pick out a faraway location, so I could watch it and walk toward it and stay on a somewhat straight course, but I couldn’t really identify anything more than forty or fifty yards ahead.
I thought of what a tracker following me might think of my path, and smiled. Maybe I was throwing Maxfield off course without even trying.
And then I suddenly and unexpectedly felt alone—more alone than I’d ever experienced—and I had to stop. I’d always been a loner, always relied on myself, but this was different. There was no one around me—at least, I
hoped
there was no one around me now—and I could probably walk a mile or more in any direction without finding anyone. Worse, no one knew where I was. Not the school or the other kids or Becky or anyone. No one had any idea.
But that wasn’t the real problem. After all, I’d spent my entire life with no one knowing where I was. I’d been in a city, surrounded by people on every street corner and alley, but they’d never
cared
where I was—that was the whole reason I’d been brought to Maxfield Academy in the first place. Everyone in the school was picked because no one would miss them.
And that was the difference: someone was wondering where I was, wishing I was there and relying on me. Becky was somewhere, probably in pain, or on an operating table getting an implant in her brain, and she wanted me there.
I was alone, and someone missed me. And that hurt worse than just being alone.
I hurried off, jogging again, avoiding any brush or loose rock that might make a sound. I couldn’t go fast—it was too dark, and my goal was too important to risk a sprained ankle—but I moved as quickly as I could.
Back and forth, fifty yards forward, twenty yards to the side, ten yards back at a diagonal, and then fifty yards forward again. I had to hurry, but I wasn’t going to get caught.
It was still dark when I got to the fence. I wouldn’t have seen it—it was almost invisible in the darkness—but the wide swaths of cleared ground on both sides gave it away. As I approached I could almost hear the hum of the electricity running through the steel.
I didn’t want to cut anything—I didn’t know how the fence worked, and cutting the wrong thing and breaking the circuit could alert the school that someone was there. Or it could kill me. Instead, I was going to climb.
Twenty minutes of searching produced a perfect log: dead and dry, about fifteen feet long and lined with broken branches like thorns on the stem of a rose—essentially a ready-made ladder. I couldn’t find another like it, but all I needed now was something to stabilize it, and two shorter logs did the trick. I leaned the long one up and over the fence, pressing down into the mass of razor wire, and then braced it with the others.
I climbed the log, inching up from one dead branch to the next. It wobbled, and the fence shook, the chain link ringing against the steel posts. Up close now, the fence only inches from me, I could feel the electricity in the air, hear it hissing.
The farther up I got, the more the log bowed and creaked.
I paused and checked my balance so I could stand securely without hands. Then, carefully and slowly, I pulled the tarp from my shoulder. It was heavy canvas, and coated with something to waterproof it. I hoped it was as tough as it looked.
I let it unroll, hanging down from my precarious perch. I’d been carrying it for hours, but the weight now seemed daunting. I wanted to throw it over the razor wire like a blanket over a bed, but it was heavy and awkward. I had to pull it back, fold it roughly in half, and then push it over the coils of sharp metal. It wasn’t pretty, and it was liable to slide off, but I didn’t need much time.
As I put my weight on it, the razor wire flexed and bounced beneath me. There was no substance there, and I worried I’d fall into the center of the spool instead of climb over it. But a moment later my hand felt the steel crossbar of the fence under the tarp.
I crawled over, and in an instant the springy coils flexed apart and I tumbled down through a mess of shredded canvas. I hit the ground on the other side with a thud, in a splash of snow, and my old injuries flared in pain. But I was over.
The tarp was hanging on the wire, and a few tugs proved it wasn’t going anywhere. It was snagged in a dozen places, sharp razors poking through new holes.
The whole scene left a lot to be desired. If anyone monitored this fence they couldn’t miss this huge mess. It was obvious what had happened here.
That made time all the more important.
I’d done the rest of this before. I knew the wall was close, and I knew how to cross it. There’d be cameras there, and I knew I would have to be more watchful for the school’s animals, but my chest swelled with confidence. I’d made it this far. I was going to make it the rest of the way.
T
he snow was falling heavier when I got to the wall, sticking to my sweatshirt in big white flakes the size of cotton balls. There were cameras here, as I’d expected, and I stayed in the cover of the forest as I looked for a flaw in the security. There was a camera about every hundred feet, aimed at the top of the wall, not at the ground.
It wasn’t like it mattered too much. My entire goal was to get sent to detention. But that was just it: I needed to get inside the school and go down into the underground complex through the detention elevator. All of the maps were created by people who went that way, and if I got caught out here then I might be hauled off somewhere else—to whatever entrance they used to get to the trucks.