Rebellion (20 page)

“On the count of three?” I ask.

“One…” Nellie clutches the side of the handle.

“Two…”

“Three.”

We both pull the handle at the same time, straining until the door gives way. We push it all the way open. The room below us is dark and silent. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of guards.

Nellie picks up the light and shines it down. The beam trails over the room’s contents—metal boxes of various sizes, each with a small moon and the word
EXPLOSIVES
painted on the side. The highest tower of boxes sits only a few feet below the ceiling, by my guess, but not close enough to reach. One of us will have to climb down without disturbing the explosives, and then get back up.

I glance at Nellie, who’s staring at the boxes and biting her lip. She isn’t a strong enough climber. It’ll have to be me. If an explosive goes off by accident, at least I won’t have her death on my conscience.

I sit down and carefully swing my legs through the hole. “Keep the light on for me. And be ready. You’re gonna have to pull me back up.”

“You sure about this?” Nellie asks. “I bet there are cameras.”

“I’m sure there are.”

I don’t know how I’m going to keep my face away from them, but maybe it doesn’t matter. If we manage to blow up the security hub’s control panel, we’ll destroy all the camera records, and hopefully whichever technicians might’ve seen me.

If this doesn’t work, at least I’ll have gone down fighting.

I push off the ledge, bracing myself for the impact of the explosives. I land on a big box in a crouch, relatively stable, but a shudder runs through the pile underneath me. One wrong step and this whole room could blow apart.

Out of the corner of my eye, a tiny red light blinks in the upper corner of the room, near the door. As long as I don’t face it, hopefully no one will be able to identify me. But I have to assume someone has already spotted me on the monitor, and will communicate to the guards outside to check if anyone’s in here. They could walk in any second.

I need to do this fast.

Straightening—carefully, carefully, so as not to disturb anything—I look around at the nearest crates. The size must designate the model of the explosive inside, but I have no way of knowing which kind are easier to use, or better for what we’re trying to do. I can’t take more than one or two boxes, if I have to carry them while I climb back up through the trapdoor. I glance at Nellie, who’s shining the light down on me.

“Do you think you could catch a box, if I throw it?” I ask in a fast, hushed voice.

“I can try,” she says. “Do you think it’ll explode if I drop it?”

“None of them should be that unstable, but I can’t promise anything,” I say, climbing to reach the smaller boxes. I pick up the first one I see, trying my best not to bump the others. The box is about the size of both my hands placed side by side. I notice the number three painted on its underside. The other crates must be numbered too. Not that a three means anything to me.

“You ready?” I ask, holding up the box so I can throw it to Nellie.

“Yeah,” she says. Her voice is muffled by the light stick, which she’s holding between her teeth. She lowers her hands through the hole, about five feet above me. As long as she isn’t a clumsy catcher, this should be easy.

I toss up the box. Her hands fumble, and she lets out a squeal. But she doesn’t drop it. She lifts it all the way up through the hole and sets it aside.

“How many more?” she asks with the light stick still in her mouth.

“Just a couple. We need to get out of here.”

Maybe it’s only my imagination, but I’m pretty sure I can hear voices through the door. Guards talking. If I make any loud noise, they’ll be able to hear me too.

I reach for another small box and toss it up to Nellie. Then two more. The security camera’s light blinks at the edge of my vision. My palms grow sweaty. My whole body is tense, waiting for one of the guards to bust the door open. Surely they will any minute now. I’ve been in this room too long.

“Last one,” I say, tossing Nellie another box. She catches it easily.

“Okay, get back up here,” she says. “I’m getting the feeling we should really hurry.”

I don’t mention I’ve had that feeling for some time. Glancing at the room’s exit door, I climb back over so I’m on the highest pile below the hole in the ceiling. I’m still at least three feet below where Nellie’s hands can reach. For the millionth time, I curse how short I am. Hector or Beechy could probably jump and grab the ledge.

Hissing through my teeth, I look at the other crates all around the room. I’m going to have to make this pile higher, so I can reach.

I scramble off the pile and gather similar-sized boxes, and stack them on top of the others. I’ve managed to make the stack grow a good foot and a half when a small
whir
reaches my ears, and I pause. It’s coming from the security camera in the corner. I turn my head just as the camera stops turning. It points directly at me, making my face clear and bright for whoever’s watching the monitor screen.

Vrux.

After turning away, I pack two more crates on top of the pile and climb to the top of it again. It’s not as steady as I’d like it to be, but it’ll have to do. I straighten slowly at the top of it, and lift my eyes to the hole above me. Nellie stretches a hand down.

“Hurry,” she says.

There’s a loud shout from the other side of the wall.

I lift onto my tiptoes and grasp her hand. The explosive crate I’m balancing on slips out from under my foot as she heaves me up. She uses her other hand to pull me up the rest of the way, until only my legs are dangling.

The storage room door opens as I pull my legs into the corridor. Nellie and I slam the trapdoor shut.

“The guards know where we went—they can follow us,” she says.

“We won’t let them.” I grab one of the boxes with explosives and find the place to open it—a keypad on the bottom side with only numbers one, two, and three. I’m guessing it’s a three-digit code, so there are twenty-seven possible combinations. Easy if we had time, but we don’t have time. The guards are taller; they just have to climb onto the pile I made and bust the trapdoor open.

My fingers fly through the codes:

1-2-3, 1-1-1, 1-1-2, 1-1-3, 1-2-1, 1-2-2, 2-1-1

2-1-1 works. The crate unlocks and I lift it open. Inside are three cylinder-shaped explosives in silver packaging, with black and blue wires connecting them, beside a small black object that looks like a comm box, which must be the detonator.

“Take the other crates and run,” I tell Nellie.

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’ll be right behind you.
Go.
”

She doesn’t argue. She leaves the light stick behind. I arrange the three explosives on top of the trapdoor, grab the light and detonator, and get to my feet. The shouts from the guards in the storage room are loud; they sound like they’re right below the door.

“Are you coming?” Nellie asks from down the corridor.

“Yes.” I turn and run after her with my hand hovering over the detonation button. I don’t know how far the range of the explosives will be. I don’t know when I should set them off.

There’s a banging sound behind me, and faint light streams into the corridor. Over my shoulder, I see a guard stick his head up through the trapdoor.

Faster, faster. I have to go faster.

“Hey!” he shouts.

There’s no way to know if I’m far enough away yet, but there’s no more time to wait.

I press the detonation button and wait for the fire to swallow me whole.

18

BOOM!

I duck my head as fire bursts through the tunnel behind me, ripping the floor and ceiling apart. It sends a ripple of heat through my body. I must’ve made it out of range, since I’m still on my feet. But my ears are ringing. Nellie’s up ahead, running with the boxes over her head like they’ll protect her.

BOOM!

The second explosion is even louder. The entire tunnel quakes, sending me crashing into the wall to catch my balance. There’s a popping sound in my left ear. Pain sears through my head, and I scream. I can’t help it.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The explosives in the storage room must be setting each other off. I can’t hear anything out of my left ear—the eardrum must’ve ruptured—and I’m blinking fast to keep from crying.

I have to keep moving. I need to get far, far away before this whole tunnel blows to smithereens.

As I run, one hand pressed against the wetness of blood on my ear, I realize, faintly, what a horrible plan this was. We were never going to get explosives out of that room without raising an alarm—not without disabling the security cameras. But we didn’t disable them, and now my face is on the feed. Sam will know soon that I’m responsible for this mess, if he doesn’t already.

Ahead of me, Nellie slows down. We’ve reached the door to our side of the camp. I didn’t realize we were running so fast.

“What now?” she asks. “Someone knows we’re up here, even if those guards are dead.”

“I know.” I touch the wall to steady myself, trying to focus on anything except the pain in my ear. I can still feel warm liquid leaking out of it, flowing onto my fingers. My other ear echoes with endless ringing.

We have minutes, maybe, before someone pieces the clues together and discovers this tunnel. Not enough time to reach the security hub, set off the explosives, and make it back here in time to slip into the camp without anyone noticing. If we have any intention of hiding, we need to give up what we set out to do and hurry down the ladder right this second.

Angry tears leak from my eyes when I open them again. I can’t hide anymore. Sam is going to catch me, whether it’s in a few minutes or a couple of hours. He must know I’m in the camp now; all he has to do is come looking.

There’s no point in running anymore. But maybe I can still pull off one more stunt, even if it’s crazy. Only, I have to do it alone. Nellie doesn’t need to take the fall.

I wipe the tears from my eyes, push off the wall, and move to the trapdoor. “You have to get out of here,” I say, kneeling beside the door and shoving it open. “No one saw your face. If you climb down and slip back in with everyone else, no one ever has to know you were up here.”

A quick glance at the latrine station tells me the stalls are empty. No one has found this entrance to the tunnel yet. I stand up and push the ladder down for Nellie.

“What about you?” she asks. One of her hands is clenched at her side. The other still clutches the explosives I asked her to carry.

I step forward and take them from her, keeping my left ear pointed away from her, so she won’t notice the blood. “I’ll be fine,” I say. “It’ll be easier for me to sneak back into the camp after I blow up the security hub if I’m on my own.” I’m sure Nellie can see the lie in my face, but I keep my jaw firm anyway. She chews her lip. The selfish part of me hopes she’s going to insist on coming with me even if it means she’ll be caught.

Instead, she doesn’t say anything at all. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and climbs down the ladder.

I was right; she cares more for her own life than for anyone else’s. Logan would say she’s smarter than me. I’m not sure I disagree.

She hops down into the latrine stall, landing with a squish in the mud. She wipes her hands on her pants before pushing through the stall door and glancing around.

As I pull the ladder back into the corridor, Nellie looks up at me. I can’t see her eyes clearly from here, but I can tell she’s saying her good-bye with them. She knows the chances of me sneaking back into the camp after I finish my mission are almost none. She knows I’ll likely be in Charlie’s custody by morning, if I don’t die in the hub explosion.

Lowering her eyes, she moves out of the latrine stall and out of sight.

I shut the trapdoor as securely as I can, grab the light stick, and make sure the explosive packages are secure under my arm. A third hand would be useful to keep pressure on my bleeding ear, but I don’t have one.

The corridor seems darker now that I’m alone. I shine the light ahead of me as I half limp, half run. My ear aches so badly I’m afraid it’s going to burst, but I won’t let anything slow me down.

As long as I’m free, I will keep fighting.

*   *   *

Down the stairway with twelve steps, I duck under the gap in the ceiling and pause in front of the corridor. Wires poke out of the damaged walls on either side of me, electricity still running along them.

When I was here last night, Hector said we’d reached the security hub already. I can’t see what’s on the other side of these walls, but these wires remind me of the kind that run from the back of circuit boards. And circuit boards of this size mean they’re running important machinery—maybe even the main power plant for the entire sector. Even if I’m wrong, setting off the explosives this close to the hub control room is bound to cause some damage. Hopefully it will be enough.

The cases holding the explosives each require a different code to unlock them. It takes a couple minutes for me to guess them all. But instead of growing more and more anxious, as the seconds pass, I feel calmer. I’m finally doing something with my hands, something that feels like it will make a difference. I want to make sure I do it right.

I pull the explosives out of the cases in their silver wrapping and place them in groups of three along the wire-filled wall of the corridor, spaced evenly. The fourth set, I place beneath the ladder at the end of the corridor. I don’t bother to pick up the empty cases.

With four detonators in hand and the light stick under my elbow, I walk back up the stairs to the main corridor. I’ve placed the detonators in order, so I know which one will set off each set of explosives.

At the top of the steps, I press the button for the set below the ladder.

BOOM!

I drop the detonator I used and continue walking, slowly counting to ten in my head. I press the next button.

BOOM!

Drop the detonator. Count to ten. I press the last two detonators at the same time, and drop them as I start to run.