Stronger (18 page)

“Do you know what I would have done to you if my sister had died trying to go after you?” Ty demands of his best friend when he storms into the room. The door bangs against the wall, scaring me half to death.

My dad follows my brother, his expression just as dark as Ty’s. I’m not sure if they heard my conversation with Bryant, how I failed to convince him of the truth.

Bryant opens his mouth but then closes it and glances away.

My dad takes a deep breath and shoves his hands in his pockets. “You raided our supplies, knocked out two guards and escaped so you could destroy us.”

Ty growls. “You were going to tell them where we were.”

“I was. I think you’re all crazy.” Bryant exhales slowly. “What are you going to do to me?”

“We aren’t going to kill you or torture you,” Dad says. “But we’ll have to keep you under constant guard. You’re a liability.” He gives Bryant a level stare. “You already put my daughter in jeopardy. But you did return her to us of your own free will. You could have handed her over to the Orions. You’re lucky she wasn’t seriously hurt.”

Bryant sits up straight and throws his shoulders back, like he’s bracing himself for something. “She was shot, sir. And stabbed.”

“What?” My dad’s voice is a dangerous whisper.

I want to smack my forehead and groan. Why did Bryant admit that?

My dad spins toward me, his eyes searching me for wounds. “How bad is it?”

I’m glad I showered and changed. “Dad, I’m fine. I healed.”

“From a gunshot wound, in less than twenty four hours?”

“Bryant stitched me up.” I turn and lift the bottom of my shirt, pointing to where the bullet hole was. “Not even a scar.”

My dad blinks, the warrior, scientist, and father in him all fighting. Finally he smiles. “You aren’t making that up?”

I smile. “Nope.”

He pulls me into a hug and kisses my forehead. I snuggle into his embrace. It seems a lifetime ago that I was held like this.

Ty is finally in motion. He slugs Bryant’s jaw, sending his friend against the wall. Hard. Bryant doesn’t straighten; instead he rubs his chin, a red mark already spreading across it.

Ty shakes out his fist. “She may have healed, but you almost cost me my sister. Again! Don’t talk to me for a while.” My brother takes a deep breath before turning toward me.

I take a step back and put my hands in the air.

“And you! Don’t ever do that again!” Ty pauses, then grins. “You were shot and stabbed and don’t have a scar to show for it?” He ruffles my hair. “You might come in handy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m awesome. We already knew this.”

“You need food.” Ty grabs me around the waist and throws me over his shoulder, carrying me toward the dining area. “You’ve got to be starved after a heal like that.”

Bryant is staring down at his still-chained hands when we leave him in his temporary prison. He looks like he’s lost his best friend and found out the woman he loves was using him. Which sadly, he did, even if he still can’t accept it.

I’m still eating when Ty and my dad hurry to the meeting. When I’m done I head down the hallway they pointed out earlier. The voices grow louder as I move down the dimly lit corridor.

I find myself at the back of a large room, an old movie theater I think. Hundreds of people are seated inside. My dad is in the front speaking; my mom and a few others sit in a row behind him. I walk down several stepped rows past the glowing wall murals of galaxies and nebulae and take a seat near the front next to a Val I’ve never met before.

I give him a nod of greeting. “I’m Lexie.”

He turns to me, giving me his full attention. “Spencer.” He holds out his hand for me to shake. It gives me pause. I’m not used to any Vals being so cordial. “You’re his daughter, right?”

I raise my eyebrow. “You know that how?”

He slaps me on the shoulder like we’re old buddies. “Everyone knows who you are. You’re the girl who has the Orions in a tizzy. It also helps your popularity being the niece of our leader and the daughter of his second in command.”

My dad was second in command? I had no idea.

“Are we really going to abandon all the people we left behind?” someone shouts. My dad holds up his hand, a large blueprint of a round building still on the screen.

“We will go back for more when we can. The emergency doors came down faster than we planned and we weren’t able to get everyone we wanted. But we will only be able to get out about fifty at a time. Friends, family and the strongest warriors first.”

“Why so few?” a man asks.

“Because they are most likely back under the control of the Orions’ voices.”

“I thought the shock of the truth would disrupt that,” Spencer says.

“It did.” My dad taps his fingers against the table in front of him. “But it won’t be permanent. And some people still won’t believe it.”

“Then why show the video at all?” A man in the back asks.

“Because the Orions can’t erase what the people saw.” My dad paces the stage. “And their control is never as strong after someone starts questioning them. It’s why they try to kill us when we start asking questions and resisting orders.”

“It’s true,” my mom says. “The science has shown that the fissures in their grasp on our brains never regain full strength once shaken.”

“So, what’s the plan of attack? Where do we strike?”

“The Sacred Square.” Dad points to the diagram behind him. “More precisely, the idols inside the dome.”

“What is that going to do?”

My dad folds his arms behind his back, looking every inch the war hero he is. “For years, we’ve been trying to understand the Orions, where they get their strength, how they live so long. We’ve just recently discovered that their strength comes from the idols inside the dome.”

A flurry of whispered conversations flows through the crowd. When it dies down, my dad continues. “As you know, the radiation inside the dome is deadly to us. We finally understand why.” He turns to my mom, who stands.

“The statues they worship are actually emitters. The radiation they produce restructures genes. In the case of the Orions, it makes them strong, rebuilding their bodies and keeping their DNA young. It does the opposite for us, aging our bodies and breaking down our DNA.”

“Then why haven’t we destroyed them already?” a voice near the front yells.

“It’s not that easy. The outer shell of the idols is made of a super dense material that’s practically indestructible. Watch.” Mom pushes a button on the podium and a video plays on the screen behind her. The date labels it the night of the explosion. The one that changed me. The feed is from near the Square, looking toward the dome. The idols are clearly visible through the glass, as a man wearing a bulky pack runs up and presses himself against the dome. The feed shakes for a moment, and dust fills the shot, obscuring the view completely. When the air clears, half the dome is broken out, the ground littered with glass, metal, and stone. I realize that the man with the pack was the one who blew himself up.

Mom toggles between two still images, one right before the blast, one after the dust has cleared. “Look at the statues,” she says. “Only this one,” she points to the one nearest the center of the blast, “even shifted. The other three are completely unchanged. But that one does move and we’re guessing something inside it was affected. Whatever it was, it seems to have hurt the Orions.” She calls up another clip. It shows Galaxy, one of the younger Orions, outside the dome before the blast, giving order to a group of Vals. When the explosion goes off, Galaxy staggers back, blood trailing down his nose, his wing listing to the side. “And this.” She switches to a video from a different camera; the time stamp shows it’s seconds before the blast. Silvercloud and Sunflare are on the opposite side of the Square praying, their arms outstretched in reverence. The blast is barely visible from this angle, but Silvercloud bends over, her mouth twisted while Sunflare falls to his knees. Blood is trailing from both of their nostrils.

“And here is footage at the same time of Starburst,” my mom says. Starburst is fluttering around near campus and then suddenly her wings curl into themselves and she drops several feet, almost crashing onto the ground. “She was more than half a mile away.”

The whole room inhales at the same time.

“And you think it was the damage to the idol?” a voice calls out.

“It’s a theory, but the strongest one we have at the moment.” My dad replays the incidents, and a burst of excited chatter erupts.

“Here’s the Orions’ reaction afterwards.” Mom steps forward and pushes play. None of the Orions even glance toward the dying Vals or the rubble, but they all look at each other before rushing over to move the wreckage off the statue. “You’ll notice they never talk aloud to each other. But you can tell by facial cues that they’re commutating. And watch this.”

She hits play. The Square is soon flooded with the Orions, each of them moving slower than normal.

My mom pauses the video and uses a laser pointer to highlight each head of the Orions. “All of them came. All of them hurt and bleeding. They recover quickly, but it clearly affected them.”

“So, your entire theory is based on those clips?” Spencer asks.

My mom shakes her head. “No. Years of study, and some new information we just acquired. We know the bomb in the Square spooked them. If anything has them that frightened, it tells us we’re on to something. We’d already noticed that they are always almost gray when they enter the dome and then when they leave they’re practically glowing. What happens inside that dome is more than worship.”

“I say we destroy their idols,” Ty says, rising to his feet. “Nothing else we’ve done has ever done them the least bit of harm. We’re like an annoying bug they simply swat away.”

“So what do we do?” someone asks. “Bomb the Square again and hope to destroy the images of their gods?”

“Since the explosion they have been guarding the Square every hour.” Uncle Charlie says. “Orions and Vals.”

“So we drop a bomb instead of plant one.” A scientist suggests.

“That’s probably what they’re expecting.” Charlie clasps his hands behind his back and paces the stage while he talks. “The night before the explosion, they chased one of our planes returning from a mission. That really got their attention, and afterwards, they sabotaged the hangar full of planes. They wanted to get rid of any nonessential aircraft, making sure their own force outnumbered ours.”

“And it gave them a great propaganda story to make the rest of the people frightened about terrorists.” My dad says. He moves back to the podium and pulls up a picture of the statues again. “Our best hope will be to send an assault team inside the dome and attack the idols directly.”

My dad puts up pictures of some of the Vals who’ve spent time tending the Square. I already saw Marks this way, with his pallid skin and open sores. It’s gruesome. “Whoever goes in there will have to deal with the radiation exposure. Our goal will be to break open the idols, and we don’t know what that might do to the radiation levels. It might kill them before they’re done.”

A muscular Val near the middle of the auditorium stands. It’s Zac. “I would gladly risk it. I think most of us would. But the dome’s entrance is locked, and after the explosion, every Val who knew the code was executed, as punishment for their failure. They’ve also been reinforcing the dome itself. I don’t think even an explosion would breach it anymore. How do you propose we get inside?”

My dad nods. “We had a spy inside the dome. He knew the code and revealed it to us the night he died. We had no idea how valuable this information would be until after the others were executed.” My dad turns to a woman seated on the front row. “Your son’s sacrifice will not be in vain, Dr. Marks.” The woman wipes away a tear, but she’s smiling, as my mom stands.

“As you know, we’ve made an alliance with a group of Musks,” my mom says. “They gave us some additional information about the idols,” my mom says. “According to their information, inside each idol is an electro-chemical emitter array. They’ve already told us how to destroy these cores; the outer layer is the hard part. It’s made of thorocium, a super hard, super dense metal that’s stronger than anything else we’ve ever seen. We don’t have anything right now that can penetrate it. But we are working on something.” She turns to my dad, who changes the screen to a schematic of what looks like a large drill or a jackhammer.

He clears his throat. “We’ve designed a pneumatic ram that should be able to break open the idols and expose the cores. The trick is, we’ll make the impacting head out of hardened thorocium.”

A murmur runs through the audience, mostly through the area where the scientists have gathered, but most are nodding their heads. Dad continues. “Once we crack them open, we’ll flood the dome with a substance that will destroy the chemicals in the core.”

“What substance?”

My parents exchange an uncomfortable look. “Oxygen.”

The general outcry is so loud that I have to cover my ears.

“Are we sure we can trust the Musks?”

“What if it’s a Musk trap? A plan to reveal our rebellion to the Orions?” Spencer asks.

“And where are we going to get oxygen and thorocium?”

My dad waits until the questions stop being thrown out. “We feel confident the Musks are acting in good faith. But we are taking their information and double-checking it as much as we can. We already have the oxygen. We’ve stolen several containment cylinders from the greenhouses, and we’re designing a time-bomb that will release it after we’ve left the dome.”

“What about the thorocium?” a scientist asks. “I used to work in the lab where the Orions refine it. The place is a heavily guarded with metal detectors at every exit. Stealing it would be impossible.”

“Are you suggesting we break into the lab?” Spencer asks.

“No,” Uncle Charlie says with a smile. “The warehouse where they store the thorocium.”

“Even more impossible,” the scientist says with a laugh. “The warehouse is a fortress, and everyone who works there is searched thoroughly before they’re allowed to leave.”

“Not everyone,” Uncle Charlie says, standing from his seat on the stage. “There are several Debs who help with inventory who don’t pass through any scanners and security barely notices them.”

“Debs?” The scientist laughs. “Do you have any idea how heavy thorocium is? I worked with it. A piece the size of a deck of playing cards weighs close to a hundred pounds. No Deb could lift that, let alone carry it out.”

My dad’s eyes find mine. “I know one who could.”

I smile. “Me?” I mouth. He nods.

The scientist talks right over him. “And how much of it is this pneumatic ram going to need. It looks like you’ll need three or four pieces at least.”

“Four,” my dad says.

The scientist shakes her head. “A Deb could never lift that, or pull off what you have planned.”

I grip the sides of my chair and stand on wobbly knees. “I can do it.”

“We know you’re strong for a Deb,” the woman says, “but there’s no way you’ll be able to do it.”

My dad grins. “I believe she can. No, I know she can. She’s as strong as any of you. Stronger. Or at least she will be.”

Will be? Ugh. It sounds like I have a lot of strength training coming up.

A thick-armed Val stands. “I won’t allow it. We can’t leave the fate of our rebellion in the hands of a Deb.”

Everyone’ yelling over each other, shouting their complaints until Uncle Charlie claps his hands, drawing their attention. “You don’t think we can rely on a Deb? Everyone who we rescued from a termination list, please stand.” Chairs squeak as almost a hundred people stand. “Each and every one of you is alive because that Deb, my niece, risked her life to steal a list. She’s done more for the rebellion than the most of you here. And now she’s no longer just a Deb, but something altogether new, as strong and brave as any Val. But even if that hadn’t happened, I would have entrusted a job of this importance to her.”

Zac stands up again. “I have faith in her, too. She saved my life when Eclipse was trying to force me to end it.”

There’s a moment of silence before a few people start to clap. Soon the whole room is on their feet, cheering my name.