Immurement: The Undergrounders Series Book One (A Young Adult Science Fiction Dystopian Novel) (12 page)

Rummy shifts his attention to him. “You wanna piece of me, ol’ timer?”

My muscles tense. “I killed the last man called him that.” The steel tip of the blade in my hand glints enticingly.

Rummy turns his head slowly toward me, his thin lips twisted. In a lightning move, he lashes out and knocks the knife from my hand. It clatters across the floor and slams to an abrupt halt in the corner. In the instant his eyes flick to it, I grab the gun from Big Ed and take aim at Rummy’s chest.

He takes a couple of unsteady steps backward. “Ea—sy, Butterface.”

I gesture with the gun at a bench on the back wall. “Shut up and sit down.”

Hands raised, Rummy treads cautiously across the cabin. “Now what? You gonna blaze a trail outta here with Santa Claus and the cripple?”

“Did you kill Diesel?”

“You ain’t gonna pull that trigger.” He parks himself on a bench and taps one knee up and down.

I blow a strand of damp hair out of my face. “I’ll do what I have to.”

Rummy lets out a snort. “You ain’t got what it takes. Killing’s an intimate thing.” He sniffs as if to let the impact of his words settle with me. “Knife to the neck, gun to the chest. Gets real close and personal when you hear a man suckin’ for air.” His mouth splits in a sneer. “How many bleedin’ hearts you watched wallow in their own blood, beggin’ for their lives?”

“Ask me another question and I’ll blow your kneecap out.” I blink, jarred at the sound of my own voice carrying across the room in a way it never has before.

Rummy’s tight mustache twitches a couple of times.

I glower at him over the sight on the gun. “You’re going to take me over to the lodge and tell your men to surrender.”

Rummy laughs. “My homeboys will die before that happens.”

“No,
you’ll
die.” I take a step backward and flick the coat off the dead Rogue with the toe of my boot. “Like that sucker before you.”

Rummy’s eyes bulge. The sneer washes from his face.

“Now move it.” I motion with the barrel of the gun in the direction of the door. “Keep your hands in the air.”

“Stay with Owen,” I say to Big Ed. “I’ll bring the stretcher back with me.”

He grabs my jacket and leans in close. “Watch your back. Remember, you can hear in all directions.”

I pick up my knife and pass it to him. “Just in case.”

He nods, and pockets it.

I march Rummy out into the early morning chill. My heartbeat ratchets up a level. I’ve no idea how many Rogues survived the gunfight, or if any of Diesel’s men are still alive. If they spot Rummy, they’ll shoot to kill and likely take us both out. It’s a risk I’ll have to take.

I follow Rummy around the side of the cabin and into the street. Gravel crunches beneath our feet, broadcasting our every step. My throat constricts with fear. “Keep moving,” I say, leveling the muzzle at the back of his head. “If they shoot, you die with me.”

I scout left and right, checking the rooftops for a hooded figure. No sign of Mason anywhere, dead or alive.

When we reach the far side of town, Rummy turns to me. “You’re making a big mistake.”

“I told you to keep moving.” I prod him in the back with the barrel of the gun.

He scowls, hands held high above his head, and then stomps heavily up the front steps of the lodge. I follow a few feet behind, keeping an eye out over my shoulder.

“Homeboys! It’s Rummy!” He reaches for the handle, then drops to the ground in front of me. “Shoot!” he bellows.

I drop too, my skin prickling, but no one fires. My heartbeat clatters in my chest. I should have known he’d try something once we reached the lodge. I breathe hard, trying to gauge the situation. Either his men aren’t here, or they’re afraid to show their faces. I grit my teeth and scramble to my feet.

The hairs in my ears tingle. A barely perceptible whooshing.

Remember, you can hear in all directions.

In my mind I’m already running, but instead my limbs go slack with fear. The Sweeper tube lashes out like an articulated whip. Rummy crashes to the floor, his body vacuumed tight to the scaly pipe that slithers out of sight before I can reach him.

I jump up and stagger backward, shooting savagely in every direction. The blasts echo inside my skull until my magazine clicks empty.

My ears are blocked and ringing, but in the background I hear muffled sounds. A moment later, strapping hands grip my shoulder and haul me up the front steps and into the lodge. I trip forward and steady myself on the roughhewn reception counter. Heart pounding, I peer warily out from under the slick hair plastered over my face. Five pairs of eyes in shaved skulls flicker back at me. With a jolt, I recognize Blade’s icy stare beneath his half-missing brow. Instinctively, my fingers reach inside my jacket for my knife. My stomach plummets when I remember I’ve left it with Big Ed.

“Sweepers,” I whisper.

Lipsy steps forward. “We kn-kn-know.”

I throw her a grateful look and carefully lay Rummy’s gun down on the counter. “Rummy dropped this.” I steal a glance in Blade’s direction. He knows better than to trust me. He cracks his knuckles, eyes boring into me. My skin crawls. If he’s in charge now that Rummy’s gone, my luck just ran out. “I tried to save him,” I say.

A dark look flickers across his face.

I rub my arms nervously. “So you’re the new alpha dog?”

He frowns distractedly over my shoulder.

“Blade answers to me now.”

An electric volt pulses through me at the familiar voice. I spin around as Mason strides into the foyer. He places his assault rifle on the counter beside Rummy’s, and folds his tightly muscled arms across his chest.

“How … did … ?” I look at Mason in bewilderment, unsure what I’m even asking.

“You mean how’d I inherit these clowns?” Mason laughs. “I saved them from the tube, that’s how. They were about to get suctioned up for science.”

He gestures at a scowling Blade. “We’ve come to an understanding. They’ve agreed to help us infiltrate the Craniopolis. And now that the Sweepers have Rummy, everyone has skin in the game.”

Blade sniffs, eyes dark as thunderclouds.

My mind reels.
We lead them to the research facility. Let them do what they do best.

“Jakob's running out of time,” I say. “We need to go.”

“Not with Sweepers on the prowl.” Mason reaches for his gun. “Big Ed and Owen will have to stay put until tonight. In the meantime, we'll go over our plan to reach the Hovermedes.”

“What happened to Diesel?” I ask.

“Unconfirmed.” Mason turns abruptly to Blade. “Make yourself useful and drum us up some food.”

Blade scowls and turns on his heel. He’s following orders, but only just. He’s plotting something. I’m sure of it.

Seated around a large trestle table in the lodge’s dining hall, we devour platefuls of scrambled eggs and fried fish.

“Cats can cook.” Mason smacks his lips together.

“That would be Lipsy.” Blade sneers. “She can fry up most anything, but that’s about all she’s good for, that right homies?”

The room erupts in laughter.

Lipsy raises her head and glances skittishly around.

“Likes to keep on the down low, now she ain’t calling the shots no more, ain’t that so, Lipsy?” Blade prods.

Lipsy clears her throat, her eyes twitching in my direction like a rabbit in a trap. She opens her mouth as if to say something, but then changes her mind and looks back down at her plate.

“Yup,” Blade says. “Lipsy liked to lay down the law at the reeducation center, but we’ve been showing her who’s boss ever since.”

My blood chills. Lipsy must have been a reeducation center guard. I feel sick at the delight they take in torturing her now that she’s under their control. Maybe I can talk Mason and Big Ed into bringing her with us when we leave the Craniopolis.

“All right, listen up everyone.” Mason pushes his plate aside. “We’ll leave here at dark. It would take the best part of two nights to hike to the Hovermedes, but if we raft the river back, Big Ed can get us there in a few hours.”

Blade scowls. “How do we know the ol’ geezer can even see to raft at night?”

“Maybe you’re forgetting who
the ol’ geezer
ambushed on the trail yesterday,” I interject. “You’re not exactly Hawkeye, are you?”

Blade bolts out of his seat and lunges toward me, but Mason thrusts out an arm like a steel rod and bars his way. “Big Ed’s run that river forty years, day and night. There’s no one more fit to man a raft down it. You got a problem with that, you can stay here and wait for the Sweepers to suck on your marrow.”

Blade’s eyes glower from narrowed slits. The other Rogues shift uneasily. Lipsy reaches for the plates and starts stacking them.

Mason pushes his chair out from the table. “Get the boats inflated and loaded up. We’ll need enough supplies for a couple of days. Food and water, shovels, medical necessities, camping gear, guns and ammo.”

I stand and turn to follow the Rogues out of the dining hall. Mason grabs my arm. “Leave them to it. We need to talk.”

I slump back down at the table. “Did you kill Diesel?”

He throws a discreet glance behind him, and then rubs his hand over his jaw. “He got away. Either legged it into the forest or the Sweepers extracted him.”

I groan. “I’m rooting for extraction. I don’t want to have to think that he’s still out there somewhere.” I prop my elbows on the table. “Are you sure about taking the Rogues with us?”

“We need mercenaries.” Mason perches on the edge of the table beside me.

“It’s risky,” I say. “We can’t trust them, but we can’t watch our backs every second either. And there’s more of them.”

“They won’t be a problem until they get their hands on the Hovermedes.” Mason gestures at his M16 leaning up against the table. “We’re in charge of the weapons now. That levels the playing field.”

“Do they know … that you’re a clone?”

Mason raises amused brows, then shakes his head. “The Rogues are hired thugs. The less they know the better.”

He reaches for some leftover scrambled egg and swallows it in one gulp. “We’ll stick with the Marine story for now. Once we’re safely on the Hovermedes, we can decide how much to tell them.” He stands and stretches. “Let’s go check on those rafts. We have to get to the Hovermedes before someone else finds it.”

“Who? No one else knows about it.”

“The Rogues do.” His eyes meet mine. “And they’re not all accounted for.”

I stare at his retreating back, puzzling over his words for a moment.

Diesel!

Under a pall of darkness, I shove open the door of the cabin I marched Rummy out of twelve hours earlier. Big Ed looms in my face, knife raised in his right hand. He exhales loudly and sinks back against the wall. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

My jaw trembles with relief. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again either. There were Sweepers on the far side of town.”

He folds my switchblade and hands it back to me. “I almost used this.”

I slip it into my jacket pocket. “I’m grateful you didn’t.”

I hurry across the room and kneel at Owen's side.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod, my throat too tight to speak.

Big Ed walks over, mopping his forehead with the back of his hand.

“What about Mason?” Owen asks.

“He’s fine. The Sweepers got Rummy though.”

Owen's good eye widens ever so slightly. “Good riddance. They can harvest his organs for all I care.”

I squeeze his shoulder gently. “You can’t think like that. We’re not savages.”

Owen's eyes flash between me and Big Ed. “That’s all that’s left of any of us.”

Big Ed grimaces. “No, there’s always something more.”

Shortly after eleven o’clock, we cast off our ropes and glide into the river at Black Canyon. The moon is full, flushing the forest on either side with silver light. Towering mountains of angry granite fringe the sky in sinister formation. I shake off a foreboding feeling and remind myself it’s too dark out for Sweepers.

The inky water seethes beneath our rafts as we drift downriver. Owen is wedged between the seats behind Mason and me, supply bags packed tightly around him to keep him from slipping out. Lipsy and Blade are parked in the middle section, awkwardly clutching their oars.

No one speaks as we skim forward. Big Ed huddles in a half-crouch at the back of the raft, a steady shine in his eyes as he scours the dark current and directs our paddle strokes, backward and forward. Behind us, the other Rogues mimic our maneuvers as they cut through the water in the second raft loaded with more supplies.

The Rogues don’t know it, but Big Ed hasn’t run this river at night in years. I hate it when people call him “old man,” but he is old, after all, and I’m only just beginning to realize what that means out here when our survival is at stake. He’s pitted his skill as an oarsman against this river for decades, but tonight the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. I only hope he's up for the challenge.

Before long, I hear something like the rumble of thunder. Big Ed’s instructions become increasingly terse and we paddle with a growing sense of unease. Boulders and shrubs zip by as we accelerate. I can feel the power of the water beneath me throbbing like a jet engine about to take off.

One missed stroke is all it will take for the rocky jaws of the rapids to grind our rafts into ribbons. My muscles expand and contract as we race ever closer to the crashing cauldron of water. I paddle like a woman possessed, but we still splash back and forth like a discarded piece of plastic.

“Get ready!” Big Ed yells as he signals to the raft behind us. He maneuvers fiercely with his arms and shoulders to keep the raft parallel with the current, his knuckles gripping the rudder so tightly they look like sausages about to burst their skins. The roar of the rapids is deafening, like a sonic booming against a giant drum.

We round a bend in the river, and for a brief moment we’re poised at the top of a liquid rollercoaster, half the length of our raft suspended in mid-air. My stomach rockets up into my throat. I picture Jakob one last time, and then we plummet. I gasp as a shivering sheet of aluminum, the size of the sky, breaks over the boat, plunging us into darkness. I slide forward and claw at the safety rope, my life vest tight around my chest in a crushing bear hug. My lungs fill with panic at the sudden downward thrust.