Goodhouse (27 page)

I instinctively shifted my weight forward. I expected him to lunge, but he just continued standing there. Somewhere nearby, I heard the clang of metal against metal. And the music I'd imagined was still playing, the performance progressing inside me—the baritone telling me that the people who walked in darkness had seen a light, a great light.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked, even though I knew. And when the lights did cut out, I felt the man launching forward. I felt the churn of air a fraction of a second before impact. My hands closed around the fabric of his shirt, and I used his own momentum to roll him over and past me. I kicked him hard and then ran for the door. A memory of the room was still bright in my mind, still functional, but I struck a cold metal slab. The door was closed.

I heard commotion on the other side, the collision of bodies. Something had gone wrong. Our room hadn't opened. I felt for a knob, but there was none. And it was just as the man grabbed me and spun me around that I remembered the print reader. I didn't know if it was still in my pocket—but I heard something fall to the floor, or I thought I did.

The man was trying to use his weight to drive me down, so I kept moving, making myself a difficult target. Even with my hands bound, I managed to break his hold on my shirt. Blackness had sucked close and my breath was coming too fast. I no longer knew where I was. I no longer saw the room in my mind. The man clipped me a few times—they weren't direct blows but enough to show me how unsustainable this was. I was off-balance and slowing down. It was just a matter of time before I was overwhelmed. And then, one of us must have stepped on the print reader, because it activated—a sudden green glow in the dark, a reference point. I resisted the urge to reach for it, and I was rewarded by seeing the light lifted off the ground, held in his hand. That was all the information I needed.

I lunged at the man and kicked him hard in the groin. It was the kind of shot that he would've blocked if he'd been able to see it coming. A warbling shriek told me that he had not. The reader clattered to the ground. I almost kicked him again. I felt the strength inside me, the certainty that I had several long seconds to do what I wanted—freedom and access. But I managed to shut that impulse down.

I grabbed the reader, and when my hand closed around it, the screen glowed in my palm. The last print—the doctor's thumbprint—was illuminated with a greenish light, a tiny hurricane seen from above. I heard the man groaning and then the scuffle of him moving on the floor. I ran my hands over the wall, following it until I found the doorframe, hoping to locate the familiar shape of a reader embedded there. I was trying to hurry without losing control. The roles were reversed—he could see me now, he had all the information.

I found what I was looking for. I pressed the doctor's thumbprint to the screen and the door opened. I was braced for the fight, ready for it—crouched low—but the hallway had emptied; the tumult was farther down. The inmates were being driven toward the room with the guards. I heard the sounds of their struggles: the growling, the cursing, the occasional higher-pitched cries of those in trouble. And then I was back in the hallways at La Pine and the smoke was overhead, a lowering ceiling, and my friends were alive, but they were also dead and they were following me and I knew where to go. I felt the building stepping out of my way, the hallway peeling back its walls. I held the thumbprint aloft. It made a star in the darkness.

“Follow me,” I called. “We're supposed to go this way,” I shouted. “This way.” And though I couldn't see individuals, I sensed a shift in the atmosphere, a drawing closer, the instinctive moving toward the light. I felt as if the men were one man, as if they were all joined, and I sensed their pursuit as I ran. I stumbled over people on the ground. I careened off walls and slid into a still-locked door, the first of many that secured the passageway.

This is how they had corralled us, I realized. They'd sealed these doors sequentially, ensuring our one-way progress. Now I was blowing them open. And though I got faster, more practiced at unlocking them—at knowing, in the dark, exactly where the print reader would be—the men, the one man that was behind me, drew closer and closer, and the margin between us shrank away until I felt him almost on me, reaching, disturbing the air at the back of my neck. I opened one last door and found myself in a brightly lit room—the place where Davis had turned me over to the Mule Creek guards, a little lobby of sorts, a staging area.

Two uniformed guards were on their feet immediately. A third was frantically tapping at a wallscreen.

“I don't know,” he was shouting and then: “Dear God.”

One of the guards rushed me. He had a baton in his hand, and I thought that I'd have to fight him alone. But then all the men boiled through the doorway and I seemed to ride forward on their wave—it pushed me toward and through the outer door. We poured into the night, scattering into the strip of land that divided the two institutions. Immediately, the Mule Creek guardhouses clicked on their lights. A siren started to throb, but the sound was quickly cut short. No one wanted to acknowledge the escape. I was aware of the men around me. Some had stopped just outside the entrance, but most had kept moving, kept traveling. And I felt only exhilaration as I ran hard for the perimeter fence. I had rescued us from each other. I had pulled us from chaos into more chaos, but still—I hadn't left anyone behind. I hadn't left them there in the dark to die.

 

SIXTEEN

I slipped back onto campus—dodging through the two inactive fence posts, my hands still tied. I smelled the electricity in the air. It put a metallic taste in my mouth, and it tugged at the little hairs on the backs of my arms. I glanced over my shoulder and was surprised to see several Goodhouse boys crossing the boundary behind me. I hadn't been the only one. “Wait,” a voice called. It was a student. “Wait!” But I kept going. I was headed east, toward the infirmary. I didn't know for sure that Dr. Cleveland was waiting there, but I assumed he'd be watching the results in his office. I picked up my pace. My lungs ached with the effort.

To the north, on the slope in front of Vargas, I saw numerous T-4s streaming down the pathways. Running lights outlined their domed roofs, and from a distance, the cluster of vehicles looked like the glowing spores of some dandelion head, drifting apart, dissipating in the wind. The sudden beauty of the school distracted me—the lights, the cool night air, the way I seemed to be floating inside myself, flying forward.

Without warning, a car pulled around a corner and stopped directly in front of me, bisecting my path. It was a sleek silver sedan with wide wheels and graceful curving fenders. I tried to reverse my course, but I couldn't. I stumbled and then collided with the car's hood. The driver's-side door popped open and there—there was Bethany.

“Oh my God,” she said, “they tied your hands.” I was heaving, unable to catch my breath. “Get in,” she said. “Hurry.”

I just stood there, saying nothing. The T-4s drifted closer. Someone nearby was shouting, not the authoritative rhythm of a proctor, but a more agitated staccato. It was almost painful to stop moving; there was some mechanism inside me that was still sprinting, still struggling.

“James,” Bethany said, “get in.”

I skirted the hood and opened the passenger door. The car lurched forward before I was fully inside. The motion sent me sliding across the leather seat.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

I had no idea. I looked down at myself. Everything seemed intact.

“Is this your car?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “It's Tanner's. I stole it. Well, not yet. We're still on campus, so I should say that I'm thinking of stealing it.” She was wearing black pants with red polka dots on them and a matching tank top. It took me a moment to realize that these were girl's pajamas.

“You stole Tanner's car,” I repeated. It occurred to me that maybe I'd passed out somewhere and that this was a vivid dream.

“Okay, focus,” Bethany said. “What happened? Tell me relevant things.” The engine was nearly silent and the headlights were turned off, but a screen on the dash displayed a clear picture of the road ahead. Below the screen, several components had been ripped out of the dashboard and were lying on the floor—black boxes with sprays of wires jutting from their backs.

“I don't know what's relevant anymore,” I said. “Where are we going?”

“We're leaving,” she said. We drove past the last building in the infirmary complex, and then we turned down a small access road that was marked
STAFF ONLY.
The path was edged with little solar lights, and I had the sense that Bethany was going way too fast. “How do you feel about Canada?” she asked.

“Sounds good,” I said. I thought she was joking. “But you aren't wearing any shoes.”

“We weren't supposed to leave tonight,” she said. “I mean, you were in Confinement and so I was thinking Friday at the earliest.” She shook her head. “Didn't I tell you to take it easy? To not get into trouble?”

“I don't think so,” I said. “You didn't say that.” The car bucked slightly as one wheel drifted off the path. I gripped the armrest.

“Is anything broken?” she continued. “I can't believe this is happening. I'm having a small crisis.”

“You?” I said. “You're having a crisis.”

“I didn't know what to do,” she said. “I programmed everything so that you'd be alone and your door would remain closed, and then, at the last minute, Dad reassigned you. I think he knew I'd hacked his system.”

“Wait,” I said. “You programmed the door?”

“And he gave you a roommate,” she said. “A real asshole from the looks of his record, and I wasn't sure if it was worse to lock you in or let you out, and I was totally panicking, and then suddenly you were outside, I mean, really outside.” Her long hair was snarled in the back, as if she hadn't had time to brush it.

“You know about the Exclusion Zone,” I said.

“Can you forgive me?” she asked. “I locked you in a room with a psychopath.”

And I must have been in shock, because I almost laughed. “He wasn't so bad,” I said.

We passed a restricted area, some warehouse-style building encircled with concertina wire. A T-4 was coming toward us and Bethany slowed way down. I ducked low in the seat. “They can't see through the windshield,” she said, and the other vehicle actually pulled off the road to let us pass. “And that,” she said, “is why it pays to be the headmaster.”

I didn't know where she thought we were going, but we must have been approaching the edge of campus. Our time was almost up. I stared at her, trying to memorize every detail. She wasn't wearing a bra. A panel of black lace ran along the edge of her pajama top. Silver hoop earrings tangled with her hair. She had the driver's seat scooted all the way forward, and despite this, she had to sit up straight to see out the windshield.

“Even though we won't make it to Canada,” I said, “I think this was a great idea.”

*   *   *

Bethany swung the car left and we pulled into a parking lot with a dozen T-4s in various states of disrepair. There were also a number of actual cars. Three of them looked beyond help—one was missing an engine, another lacked a front end. Behind the cars was a three-bay garage, but the bays were closed and the lights were out. We eased into a parking space and stopped. Bethany turned toward me.

“I looked into everything,” she said, “everything you told me about, and well, it's bad news.” She leaned forward to grab something off the floor and sat up with a small kitchen knife in one hand. It had a serrated blade and a wicked, tapering point. I must have looked surprised, because she said, “Here. I was pressed for time.” She handed it to me. “Cut yourself free. I'll be right back.”

I'd never held a real knife. I could see my reflection in the blade, just a blurry smear, but still, it was me—and this was an extension of my arm, some forbidden and ancient symbol of power. I felt arrested just having it in my hand. Before I could start cutting, though, Bethany had returned. She was carrying two gray backpacks. She tossed one onto the seat behind me.

“I've had those packed for a week,” she said. “Okay, get in the back and lie on the floor.” But her command only made me feel more confused. She stood beside the open door, shaking out a pair of green coveralls. “I'm going to pretend that I'm fixing Tanner's car,” she said. “Working on some software, testing it out. There's a service exit just ahead. They might buy it.”

“Have you worked on Tanner's car before?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

I cut the wire binding my hands—funny how easy it was with the right tool, the right blade. “But they've let you take out other cars?”

“Once,” she said. “Sort of.”

“During a security breach?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she said.

She attempted to zip her coveralls, and the edge of her pajama top snagged in the metal teeth of the zipper. She yanked at the fabric, only jamming it further.

“And won't Tanner notice,” I asked, “that his car is gone?”

“You mean his limited edition Maybach Excelsior Roadster?” she said. “Fully solar-powered? Only twenty-three in the United States?”

I looked at the console. I could see the marks where she'd hacked out whole sections of electronics.

“They actually aren't great vehicles.” She gave up on the zipper, got in the front seat, and closed the door. The engine started as she touched the wheel. “Hard to repair,” she said. “Lots of nonstandard parts. I wouldn't buy one myself.”

“This isn't going to work,” I said.

“Let's just say, it's not optimal.”

“I have a chip,” I said. “It's not going to work.”